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AS I WRITE this, my palms are sweating, my stomach is jumping with nerves and my head has drawn a complete blank, just like it does every time I need to write something.
Does that ever go away? Not in my case – but I’ve certainly learned how to deal with it!
Let me ramble a little about my experiences of being dyslexic, good and not so good. There is a lot of negativity linked to being dyslexic and I’d like to turn that on its head.
It was discovered that I was dyslexic while in school in the early 90′s and my experience was just like most kids with what is incorrectly called a ‘learning difficulty’.
I was the centre of attention for all the wrong reasons. The complete focus was on my weaknesses – and none on my strengths. So naturally I left school completely deflated, feeling very insecure with no real understanding of what my strengths were.
To prove I could do it
Yet I had a fire in my belly that pushed me to prove to myself that I could do it. Deep down I knew I wasn’t as ‘stupid’ as I was made to feel in school. I secretly and subconsciously knew I was capable of more.
My first job was in a hotel not too far from where I live, where I stayed for nearly 6 years. Being an operational role, this gave me an opportunity to discover my strengths and little did I know how much that would benefit me in the future. It also helped me to discover and fine-tune the core skills that I was born with, such as creativity, intuitiveness, trouble-shooting, big picture thinking, and other skills typical of dyslexics.
I slowly started to realise that my experience of being dyslexic in school gave me additional skills I didn’t realise I had, such as problem solving. Being dyslexic in school you constantly need to figure out other ways of doing things, other ways to structure a sentence, other ways to learn your schoolwork and so on. This has led to my ability to think outside the box to find solutions – which is a great asset in business.
How to cope with difficult situations
Being dyslexic taught me to battle through, how to be resilient and how to cope with difficult situations. I also realised how much I relied on my memory. My memory was exercised the whole way through school and I didn’t realise it. Even now if I come across a word I haven’t seen before, I’m like a young child trying to read it for the first time. I know for sure I read from memory.
I recognise a word as a symbol and read it that way.
But I think the most important asset I developed is the ability to empathise with others and connect with them. As we all know, good relationships are critical in life and particularly in business.
Furthermore, I think as humans we all have a thirst for knowledge. Being dyslexic, that thirst wasn’t quite quenched in classic school methods. So I went on a mission to learn as much general knowledge elsewhere as I possibly could.
Doing this I discovered my own style of learning and suddenly realised I don’t have a learning difficultly – I just learn differently.
Skills gap
So with my additional new found skills and a skip in my step, I left the hotel trade and set up a distribution business in the housewares industry. After a further six years, I set up a second company measuring employee and customer satisfaction for organisations. I found my niche!
Of course it has been challenging. But I don’t believe it has been any more challenging for me being dyslexic. I simply learned how to deal with it. I use my strengths and outsource my weaknesses. Since setting up my own business, I’ve been able to completely work in a way that works for me. I try to conduct most of my business face to face or over the phone and avoid emails and letters if possible. But when needs must, my secret weapon is technology.
I use my computer/phone constantly for spell checker and my iPhone and Mac also read out words for me that I’m struggling to read. Does this happen often? Hundreds of times a day! Honestly! I don’t know where I’d be without it. It’s most certainly my trusted companion with me everywhere I go. I’ve been known to use the speak-to-text feature on my phone even while walking down a busy street. It’s what works for me.
Technology has helped so much
I truly believe that having the tech support has stopped dyslexia being an issue for me and has allowed me to get on with it and concentrate on my strengths. The skills that really will help me in everyday business. We all have our strengths and weaknesses.
I actually consider myself lucky that my weaknesses aren’t an issue thanks to technology. Not only that, I believe I’m extremely fortunate to be dyslexic. Despite the challenges that childhood and school presented – I wouldn’t trade my brain for any other.
My advice to any aspiring dyslexic entrepreneur out there is to embrace your difference. Focus on your strengths, forget your weaknesses and trust me when I tell you that being dyslexic won’t be a hazard – it will actually give you additional skills you might not know you have.
I’ve certainly found it enjoyable discovering what they are. For everything else – there’s tech!
Ross O’Neill is Managing Director of R-GON. Visit www.dyslexia.ie to learn more about dyslexia. October 5-11 is Dyslexia Awareness Week.
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It’s all well and good until Stevie starts humping the microwave during the night
@DarkHorse: That’s a silly comment . This is very serious but the article doesn’t tell us how to access , so its a useless article.
@rory conway: I mean not really, as they haven’t been on sale yet. They’re flying to the States later this month, where a care home will be trialing the beta version.
Can he make a good cup of tae though? Or boil an egg? Or put a few sods of turf on the fire?
As long as it’s used to complement human interaction and not replace it, it’s a good idea. Having spent summers at college working as a home help, i am aware that i was the only person many elderly people spoke to during the day. My being there for a chat was at times more important than my ability to light the fire
@Anne Marie Devlin:
Very good point.
May I be the first to welcome our new robot overlords.
Seriously though, cool bit of tech.
Japan, the US and other places are vastly more developed in the technologies required to implement practical autonomous robotic supports.
It’s a good idea but only if Trinity College collaborates with the best abroad.
As matters now stand, one small country does not have the embedded knowledge base, the centre of expertise, the resources and the funding required to make a massive project of this nature anything more than a prototype.
@Fiona deFreyne: Do you just put everything down? Ireland has produced leading technologies in the past beating those with more resources and been at it longer. They could easily develop key components for the future of all robot via software or hardware.
@Kal Ipers: it is a matter of scale, accumulated expertise, level of previous investment in R &D, historically, accumulated IPR, the legacy knowledge and expertise not to have to reinvent any wheels and the large numbers of highly quality researchers required to develop cutting edge technologies in areas off deep machine learning. The scale of investment required for success is truly huge.
We have talent here but it is fair to say that we have had a brain flow to the US and to Cambridge in the UK in relevant disciplines. There are many reasons for this.
Trinity can’t play a valuable role as an adjunct to leading research elsewhere.
Honda has already achieved much techological success in Japan with robots dedicated to health care for the elderly. I don’t know if there can be technology sharing and cooperation arrangements.
Knowing the scale of the problem is a first step. I would not select Ireland a a base for developing new generation rockets for outer space exploration or other areas of resource intensive projects. Robotics and autonomous intelligence devices is one of the mist resource intensive areas that could be selected.
@Fiona deFreyne: None of that has anything to do with your constant putting down everything. Again I reject your view and that is mostly because it is always negative.
@Fiona deFreyne: so you don’t know how to do it huh?
They should really get in touch with the Japanese on this subject. They have been pouring money on this subject for decades and a trip to them could shave years off the project.
Also, the arms are way too short and lack any function. Infact, the whole robot cannot do more than a smartphone. I feel like someone is laughing right now.
Ye it would be if the likes of rich politicians didn’t want to force the elderly out of their home
@WilhelminaMCallaghan: When was that ever suggested or done?
Sounds like a great idea. I thought they’d need to be a lot stronger though. And have a hoist, or arms, to help them in and out in the bathroom? But they’d never get bored listening to people, I suppose, there’s that.
All the wiley aul fellas will be figuring out how to bypass him so they can slip off to the pub and bookies
Can it make a good cup of tae though? Boil an egg or throw a few sods of turf on the fire?
I assume he meant Kryten from Red Dwarf not Croydon from Deep Space Nine lol
Fck that, sophia the robot destroys stevie
If you want to watch a creepy interview with a robot check this out.. http://uk.businessinsider.com/interview-with-sophia-ai-robot-hanson-said-it-would-destroy-humans-2017-11
@Patrick J. O’Rourke: True, it doesn’t have much to say for itself. It wouldn’t pass the Turing test; you can tell it’s a bot. But there’s always the ELIZA effect. Sure the robot carers are meant primarily for people with no one to listen to them all day. I think there’s a huge market for them considering that retired people are living so much longer.
@Patrick J. O’Rourke: scary stuff! I’d say cults will purchase loads of these and put them out there in homes and such like to brainwash everyone!!
Daughter got a Furbie one year for Christmas thing turned seriously nasty and using bad language and had to be re-set… A Furbie!!! Yup dangerous road ahead…
@Lydia McLoughlin: Maybe they’ll persuade a few people that bus fares aren’t tuppence any more. Mind you, the bad language can’t have been that bad if you understood it.
Petril?
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