The Secret Upside of Dyslexia Not a Disability but a Superpower

if there was something wrong with you

when you want to know it was june 2000

i was five years old and my parents had

just received my first

school report here’s how it went

people name ryan conlon

how other people is settling into school

excellent

willingness to talk to teachers and

other peoples excellent

general behavior very good

attendance very good

effort to learn fail

ryan is a very friendly and social child

he mixes well with his peers and he is

very polite

but in relation to his work ryan’s

concentration is poor

ryan will need extra help next year in

relation to his reading

and his phonetics from that day on

i would struggle with reading writing

spelling

and standardized testing all the way

through school

i was even the lowest classes in most of

my subjects

on the side i would attend supplementary

english class in order to prove my

reading

and comprehension but i didn’t fully

understand what was wrong with me

i tried hard i just thought i was a

little bit slow or a little bit stupid

then four thousand three hundred

and eighty days later it all finally

clicked

i officially found out what was wrong

with me and i was diagnosed

with dyslexia

so what is dyslexia you know i wanted

the same thing myself

well the word dyslexia comes from the

greek word dice

meaning bad or difficult and lexis

meaning word or language

therefore a very simple definition of

dyslexia is when someone is bad with

words

or has difficulty with language

but a more formal definition is that

it’s a specific learning disability

which makes it hard for people to learn

to read to write

or to spell correctly and the experts

may tell you it’s caused by a

phonological

processing problem don’t worry i didn’t

understand

it’s this cognitive issue that’s

neurological or neurobiological in

origin

don’t worry i still didn’t understand

essentially dyslexics don’t have a

problem with seeing language

they have a problem with manipulating it

or decoding it

for example when you see the word

advantage

dyslexics have to break it up into three

separate parts and read it as ad

van touch which means it takes me longer

to

read to write to spell or just to keep

up with other students in the classroom

and while some dyslexics have a mild

case of dyslexia

other dyslexics have a bad case of

dyslexia

it also runs in families however

what’s most important is in today’s

society

dyslexia has a stigma

and it’s almost always assumed to be an

obstacle

but what if dyslexia isn’t what if

dyslexia isn’t disability

what a superpower

according to the international dyslexia

association about 15 to 20

of the population has dyslexia that’s

about one in five people

one in five people in this room five

people in your classroom

ten people in your company or a hundred

people in your organization

but forty percent of self-made

millionaires are dyslexic

so it’s this really misunderstood topic

most people just think it’s a reading

and writing issue but i believe

it has a tremendous amount of benefits

so today

i’d like to share with you what i’ve

learned about the three secret upsides

to dyslexia

and why i believe it is not a disability

but a superpower

so the first secret upside that most

people don’t know about is many

dyslexics are

extremely creative or have this unique

artistic ability

if you want evidence look no further

than brilliant creatives such as orlando

bloom

kiera knightley pablo picasso

steven spielberg and whoopi goldberg who

are all claimed or alleged to have

dyslexia

now in saying that i’m certainly not

pablo picasso or steven spielberg

but my running with creativity started

at a young age

my poor academic performance in school

combined with my inability to beat

anyone on a spelling test

meant that i needed an escape one outlet

i played sports and loved music but i

still had this insatiable need for

creative expression

so on the side i thought it’d be a

wonderful idea to turn my creative

endeavors

towards graffiti i know

my poor parents first dyslexia now

vandalism

but to be fair they were always

extremely supportive

and still aren’t to this day i

distinctly remember at a time

where i thought it’d be a tremendous

idea to take markers and spray paint to

my entire bedroom

every wall mirror door and yes

even the ceiling i’d even asked some of

my mates to join in this adventure

when you walked upstairs you get this

immediate hit of fumes

and paint thankfully

today my room is back to normal but

during this adventure

i realized i wasn’t alone for this need

of creative expression

some of my mates in the supplement range

class would also be into graffiti

art making music or other creative

pursuits

turns out they also had dyslexia

so i wanted to understand why i did some

research

and turns out studies that link

creativity

and artistic talents with dyslexia span

the literature for four decades

one study discovered that junior high

school students who were diagnosed with

dyslexia

performed significantly better than the

non-dyslexia counterparts but why

well many authors believe that dyslexics

seem to lack efficiency on the left-hand

side of the brain

or they’ve decreased activation which is

ultimately responsible for fine detail

processing

like language logic math

and analytical ability but they

compensate

using the right hand side of the brain

which is responsible for creativity

imagination holistic thinking and

leading on to my second secret upside

problem solving and transporting

so as i got older i moved into secondary

school and i was in a new supplementary

english class

and i happened to notice that there were

some people in the class that had side

projects

and that made me realize that growing up

i actually had a number of random side

projects whether that was doing graffiti

on people’s shoes for money creating and

selling tie-dye t-shirts for friends and

families

or promoting and selling tickets to

student night clubs on facebook

i could go on but it won’t alas save

myself the embarrassment

nonetheless the dyslexic in me wanted to

understand why

why why did some students in the in the

supplementary english class

have cyber projects so again

i decided to do some research and turns

out

dyslexics have this unique superpower

for trend spotting

or creative problem solving

and what turns out all 35 percent of us

entrepreneurs are dyslexic

and 20 of uk entrepreneurs are dyslexic

and uk entrepreneurs are twice as more

likely to suffer from dyslexia than the

average uk citizen

and u.s entrepreneurs are three times

more likely to suffer from dyslexia

than the average uk citizen

but why well according to some

groundbreaking research in the book the

dyslexia advantage

the dyslexics have four main cognitive

advantages over the non-dyslexia

counterparts

two of these advantages include dynamic

reasoning

and interconnected reasoning let me

explain

dynamic reasoning is the ability to take

and identify information in the past

in order to identify future trends or

outcomes

for example this can really help people

in careers with ambiguous situations

or incomplete knowledge just like

entrepreneurship

finance and business and explains why

dyslexics are so good at transporting

and why some of the uk’s and world’s top

entrepreneurs including richard branson

lord sugar anita roddick jamie oliver

and henry ford who all are claimed or

alleged to have dyslexia

and the second reason interconnected

reasoning

is ability to take concepts informations

or point of view

that have no relation and dyslexics can

connect the dots

and this is why dyslexics are so good at

creative problem solving

and explains why they thrive in careers

such as entrepreneurship

science engineering computers and tech

and this brings me on to my last secret

upside that dyslexics have this unique

ability

for spatial knowledge or an ability to

think outside the box

i came to realize this when i was

transitioning from secondary school into

university

i had no clue what i wanted to do to be

honest i didn’t even know the best way

to study for my exams

i was in the study hall and looking

around and all i could see were these

robots

or wizkids who were excelling in

academics

i was convinced that they had natural

smarts

they had a talent for doing well in

exams and i had a talent

for not doing well on exams nonetheless

i knew that i loved our class i loved pe

class i loved construction studies

but i also knew i was pretty rubbish at

a lot of the subjects

but the process of design imagination

and innovation excited me

i ended up designing the cover of the

school’s annual that year but doing

pretty terrible

in my final year exams so again

the curious dyslexic in me wanted to

understand why

so i did some research and turns out

some of the world’s top fashion

designers architects

and inventors all suffer from dyslexia

these include

paul smith tommy hilfiger richard

rodgers

kathy kidston and thomas edison who were

all claimed or alleged to have dyslexia

let’s just take tommy hill for example

he performed pouring in school and was

even perceived as one of the dumb ones

he’d even pretend to be the class clan

he was embarrassed he didn’t want anyone

to know that he just didn’t get it

at the age of 18 tommy hilfiger quit

school

he decided to pursue his interest in

fashion

and 40 years later after many ups and

downs in the industry

tommy hilfiger sold his company for 1.6

billion dollars ironically

he still has trouble reading today

but dyslexia didn’t stop tommy hilfiger

from excelling in fashion design or

entrepreneurship

if anything it was the option

and again i wanted to understand why

if we go back to the book the dyslexia

advantage dyslexics thrive

using material reasoning which is the

ability to see something

and imagine what it would look like from

all different perspectives

which is associated with architects

inventors

builders surgeons and even engineers

for example dyslexics tend to be very

good at lego

they can see a set of blueprints and

imagine what an entire house or building

would look like

they could go into ikea see a couch

and visualize what that couch would look

like in their bedroom

or they could take a piece of clothing

and imagine what an entire outfit or

collection would look like

but in saying that each dyslexic person

is completely different

while some dyslexics may have this

ability to be creative

or they have this unique artistic

ability other dyslexics are great at

trend spotting and creative problem

solving

and some dyslexics have this unique

talent for spatial knowledge

or an ability to think outside the box

but why is it important for me to share

all the secret upsides with you

it’s because only three percent of the

population

believe that dyslexia is actually a

positive trait

this leaves many kids feeling

embarrassed

angry or stupid and these feelings don’t

leave when kids leave school

it actually follows them to the

workforce

as 73 of dyslexic people hide the

dyslexia from employers

and this is such a shame because most

people

include including dyslexics don’t

realize how important dyslexic thinking

is for the future of work

for decades dyslexics haven’t expected

to fit in to the education system

and the workforce but this is changing

the world is changing we are entering

into the fourth industrial revolution

and according to a report by ey and main

dyslexia in this revolution

the rise of automation is changing the

demand for certain skills and

capabilities

the need for processing and manual

capabilities like data entry

math reading writing and spelling are

all decreasing

meanwhile creative and social skills

such as creative problem solving

creativity reasoning

visualization are all increasing

this presents a big opportunity for

dyslexics

as all of these in demand skills are

typical dyslexic strengths

and in the future dyslexics will be able

to help organizations

bridge the skills gap that will occur

due to automation and technology

they can even help your company thrive

in the future of work

and with regard to schooling and

education 98

say teachers need more training in order

to learn how to identify

and support dyslexia

but before we go training teachers the

education system was recognized that

dyslexia is actually a valuable way of

thinking

just because dyslexics don’t perform

well under standardized testing with

reading writing and spelling

doesn’t mean they’re stupid everybody

has their defects

all of our brains have different

structures and functions

however with such brilliant and creative

people such as

albert einstein john lennon muhammad ali

cher and leonardo da vinci all claimed

or alleged to have dyslexia

i believe that dyslexia isn’t a

disability but a superpower

all that needs to be done is early

detection

let kids know that there’s nothing wrong

with them they’re not stupid

they just have a set of super powers

that haven’t been unlocked yet

and it’s to that exact reason that i

believe that dyslexia

is not a disability but a superpower

thank you