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