Episode 203: Dyslexia Awareness Month - My Story

Join me in this solo episode as I expose the realities of dyslexia, sharing my personal journey and hopefully empowering you by challenging society’s perception of intelligence.

Remarkable Quote:

“There's so many times that I thank my dyslexia. There's other times when it's frustrating. But it's really cool to see where my grit from failing constantly has taken me in life, especially now.”

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Transcript:

00:00:03
Welcome back to your next stop. This is Juliet Hahn. This episode is going to be a little different. I want to kick off Dyslexia Awareness Month. And as you guys know, if you've been a longtime listener of Your Next Stop or any of my other podcasts, dyslexia is very close to my heart.

00:00:16
Not only do I have Dyslexia, I have a son, my father, my sister, many nieces and nephews, and a lot of people that I've interviewed on the Pod cast as well. And then I have started a new podcast called Word Blindness dyslexia Exposed. That my co host Brent Sopal and I, we get into our stories and a lot of different things of how to navigate the world of Dyslexia, from teachers to neuropsychs to getting lawyers, if you have to fight to get into a different school, so many different things. And then we also interview other people that have Dyslexia and their journey. So again, it's something that lights me up.

00:00:52
It's something that inspires me, but it also is something that sometimes hurts my heart. And so I want to remind you for Dyslexic Awareness Month about my story. My first memories are really when it was either 2nd, 3rd, 4th grade, kind of gets all garbled there. But I came from a town that was a very affluent town. Most families were intact, meaning they had both parents.

00:01:17
There was kids. Most kids were, in my eyes, good in school, good in sports. And so when you struggled, it was a parent, right? Because you had to get pulled out and go to a different classroom or something like that. And there was not a lot of it happening because of kind of the makeup of the school and the place where I grew up.

00:01:37
So when 2nd, 3rd, 4th grade, as I said around that time, the class was split into two and basically the majority of the class, all my friends, I was a really happy kid. So let me just preface that. I was a really happy kid, silly, really light hearted, lots of energy. And this is early school, so it really hadn't kicked me in the pants as much as it has. And as I will get you through my story how much it has, but it's still at this point, I was pretty kind of happy go lucky.

00:02:07
So all my friends were going somewhere else and I was going somewhere else with the troublemaker in the class, who was also I was friendly with, I didn't hang out with, but it was someone in class that we were put together a lot. He made me laugh, but he was also kind of the naughty kid that got in more trouble. I would be told to stop talking and fooling around and all those kind of things. But he was a good kid. But he used to do something where he used to flip his eyelids.

00:02:30
So he literally would flip his eyelids and he had really chocolate skin. So when he flipped his eyelids, they were bright, bright red. They looked like fire. And most times people would squeal. Usually the girls would squeal.

00:02:41
I would laugh. I thought it was the coolest thing. I wanted to try to do it, and I probably tried to do it a million times and never got the reaction that he would get. But so when the whole class was told they were going somewhere else, I had all my friends run up, where are you going? And I was like, I don't and they're like, okay, well, we'll see you later.

00:02:57
And I was taken with this teacher. She was actually a doctor. Now I know she was a reading specialist. And I was taken to a classroom with this young man, and we were told that we were going to be reading The Blue Dolphin. I think it's actually called The Island of the Blue Dolphin, but I really despise the book, so that's why I'm thinking it's more third 4th grade.

00:03:22
But reading was hard for me. It was not something that came easy, so I did not like that I was doing this. And everyone else seemed really happy, and the teacher was kind of telling them how much fun they were going to have. And I overheard it, and I can remember very vividly the hallway that we had to go down, and then we had to go into this dark, dingy room. And I know it sounds kind of creepy, but I don't remember a lot of windows.

00:03:44
I don't think there was any windows. And as we sat down, she said, okay, we're going to be meeting here every week, and we're going to be reading The Island of the Blue Dolphin. Now, she didn't say it in that voice, which would have been nicer, but she was the slowest talker, the slowest walker. She had the most interesting body shaped. And I'm going to take you through this because just think about a kid that's struggling, that doesn't love where they're going, and then there's a slow talker.

00:04:08
And I still actually slow talking. No offense, but it is something that tweaks me to this day. It makes me anxious. She basically had a very pear shaped body, and when she walked, it kind of swayed, and she had very saggy boobs that kind of flopped. And then she had this big head of hair.

00:04:27
Now, this was in the 80s, so she had this big head of football curls, really tight, and she was a slow talker, so I didn't love all of it. Like the walking slow. I was never slow. I walked fast. I did everything fast.

00:04:42
So it tweaked me to a little bit beyond where I was, and so I wasn't comfortable sit down myself and the other student, and he starts slipping his eyelids as she's reading. And I'm giggling, I'm laughing, I'm trying to do it. We're getting hollered at like, focus. This is the problem. If you two would focus, you wouldn't be struggling so much.

00:05:01
Now we talk about this in my Word Blindness podcast. Sometimes teachers, parents, adults try to say things to encourage children, and their encouragement is actually more of a stab in the heart. Try to focus, work harder. You wouldn't be in here if you didn't fool around. Those kind of things are not helpful.

00:05:23
Now that I'm adult, I see that as a kid, it just kind of made you shrink a little bit. And as I said, I was a confident, happy kid. I was a kid. I was actually the fastest in the entire class. I was faster than even all the boys, and so I really excelled.

00:05:38
Then it was at recess. Later, it was on the athletic field, but so I had my strengths, and it was something in our family that was talked about. As I said, my sister struggled, and so did my dad, but we didn't really know. There was no diagnosis back then. It was like, okay, they have a reading disorder, or they just are slow to start these different terms that were kind of said.

00:05:59
So that is my earliest memories. But the thing that's really interesting is when I went back to the classroom, all my friends came running up, and they're like, oh, my God, we get to leave school. We're going to be doing this maze. We're doing, like, night and shining armors. We get to create and do all this art stuff.

00:06:13
And I told myself that day I wasn't creative. I never told myself that I was dumb and that I couldn't read. Even though as I kind of grew in my educational world, I did think many times that I was not smart and it didn't feel great. It's one of those things that, as I said, I'm very confident, but there were certain situations that I would shrink because I didn't know what was going on. And now I know.

00:06:36
It's my dyslexia and my ADHD, but back then I didn't know. And so it's kind of one of those traumas that we talk about that everyone has their traumas. When you have learning disabilities, whatever it is, and you don't have the support in school, it's hard. I had the support at home. My parents were super supportive.

00:06:58
My mom was my biggest cheerleader, my biggest advocate, and she was in the education world. She actually was a teacher in our district, so that was really helpful. But I remember going home, and I don't know if I had said this when I was younger or it was around the same time, but my mom said there was a day that I came home, and after this situation, I said to her, why can't I go and do this? They get to miss school. And my mom said something that protected me.

00:07:26
She basically was like, don't worry, you couldn't do it because we were going to be away and it was going to mess up their schedule. So I said you couldn't do it. And I skipped off and I was fine. There was another time that I remember that I actually don't remember, but my mom really remembers. And if you're a parent and you have a child struggling, or if you have a child with learning disabilities, you're going to feel this, because this stabs me in the heart.

00:07:51
But one day I came home and my mom said I usually would be so excited to get into the house, get my play clothes on. Back in those days, we had to change from our school clothes to play clothes and go out and play with my friends. That was like what I did. I was, again so active. School was really hard.

00:08:07
Sitting still was not my thing, so I couldn't wait to go climb trees, run and play in the neighborhood and that. So I had a really great group of friends, and my sisters and my brother was younger, but we all kind of did things like this. And my mom said one day she came home. I came home and I was sitting on the stairs, and I seemed a little down, and she said, what's wrong? And I said to her, I'm really glad God made me just stupid on the inside and not the outside, and that hurts my heart beyond.

00:08:39
Because clearly school had gotten to me then, so I don't know exact age range, but I had already felt dumb, and my mom knew what that meant. And that's something that still makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit because I was, again, a happy, confident kid. I talk about in my podcasts, this innate confidence. I was definitely born with an innate confidence. I had not ego, not cockiness, but a lot of confidence because I had a lot of strengths.

00:09:12
I had a lot of weaknesses, but I also had a lot of strengths. You guys have probably heard this story many times, but I'm going to take you through some of the pivotal points of my story. And again, this is for Dyslexic Awareness Month. There's so many times that I thank my Dyslexia. There's other times that it's frustrating, but there's other times that it's really cool to see where and my grit from failing constantly, where it has taken me into my life, especially now.

00:09:41
So one of the things, as I continue to grow in school, I continue to get teachers being like, what's wrong with you? You have to sit in the front. Stop fooling around. I usually would try to find someone in class that I would be able to ask, like, what are we doing? Because there's so many times I'd be sitting in class and the teacher would be saying something, and the kids would be taking their notebooks out or their workbooks out, and I would be like, oh, my gosh, I'm listening.

00:10:07
But I clearly didn't hear what she said or he said. I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. So I would always ask my neighbor, and then I would get, stop talking. Why are you talking? Focus.

00:10:19
You're supposed to be doing this. See, if you weren't talking, you would know what the instructions were. But it wasn't that. It was that I was missing the instructions because I wasn't processing the instructions. And the more that happens, the more you miss and the more you don't learn.

00:10:32
So middle school, high school, again, I was very athletic. And the town that I grew up in, we used to win state champions in field hockey and lacrosse. Those are the sports that I played. And so we were like a powerhouse, and I was one of the top on the teams. So there I got a lot of praise.

00:10:51
A lot of praise. People knew me as the athlete, but they also knew me as the dumb jock, right? They knew me as a dumb jock that always needed help, was always failing tests, was always doing something to try to get out of things. And it was my kind of narrative, but I also was under the radar because not everyone knew because I was able to kind of get out of things. One of the things that I've learned now in my life is that I really strengthened my interpersonal communication skills because of my Dyslexia and my struggling and meaning.

00:11:26
I was able to read people really well, so I was able to figure out the teachers that I was able to get when I needed from. I knew the teachers that I needed to stay away from. I knew the kids in my class, friends, not friends that I could lean on for help. And again, I'm super intuitive and super empathetic. So all of those things come with Dyslexia and attention deficit, and a lot of people don't know that, but we have, like, an extra empathetic chip, and we also have an extra intuitive chip.

00:11:54
Now, not everyone this is a generalization, but for the most part, if you take kind of a cross section of people with Dyslexia and attention deficit and take the percentages, it is higher than if you take a percentage of someone that does not have these learning disorders. So I was able to really kind of hone in and sharpen those skills, which took me far because I was able to read people. I was able to be like, okay, I can ask that person a question here. I can learn about this. I also could hear everything.

00:12:22
So if a teacher was talking in the hall, I would be able to hear what they were talking about, even if something was happening here. Now, maybe I wasn't listening to the teacher so much here, but I could hear a ton of different conversations. A lot of times, I couldn't tune those conversations out, so I could hear people tapping their pens. I could hear other things, which kind of heightened me not being able to focus on what the teacher is saying. Coupled with having Dyslexia, it's basically a shitstorm.

00:12:49
And if you don't have the support, that's when kids fall through. So that's why it's so important to get that neuropsych. And again, I'm not going to get into that because I didn't have the neuropsych back then. It wasn't something that you did. I had the school that tested me.

00:13:01
You have a reading disorder. Visual something else, and you just went from there. You got a little extra help. Nowadays, it's really important to do that. But so some of my other memories and if you've been following the podcast, you have heard this.

00:13:15
When I was about a freshman, I had an English teacher that was really just a nasty woman. And if I had to be read out loud, I mean, I still to this day, I get sweaty. Like, I need to be able to see it. Even when I used to go into my kids schools, because I would read to my kids because it was important, we would listen to a lot of books and tape because I'm a curious person. I love to learn.

00:13:37
Even though learning is hard, I do love to learn. So I need to learn how I interpret things, and I've learned through the years of how I do that. But she would call on me first because she knew that I struggled, and I usually needed to be like, okay, I could read the paragraph, and then I would be like, okay, this is the one. If I would count how many okay, this is where I am. And I would practice, practice, practice.

00:14:00
And she would call on me first. So she called on me first, and I said pubic instead of public. And up until like, two months ago, I still thought they were spelled the same. So my friend said, you keep saying that, but they're not spelled the same. So that is one thing with Dyslexia, I cannot spell.

00:14:14
Like, I literally cannot spell anything. I probably spell worse than a kindergartner. It's something I deal with every day. It's something that I have to cope with. It is very frustrating, and I can take you through.

00:14:26
Like, I'm a chief communications officer now for a company called Fettech, and there's a lot of science words, but you cope. Those are the things that you do. So anyways, public and pubic are not the same, spelled the same way. But I said pubic instead of public, and the class kind of giggled, and she thought I was being a class clown. I was not.

00:14:49
But later in life, that is what I kind of in school reverted to. I made jokes about things because I was failing tests, and I'd be like, oh, okay, who cares? Kind of put that defense mechanism up but she basically said, what are you, retarded in front of the entire class to me now? Think about a freshman. Think about what the things that you're going through, your body, your mind.

00:15:13
You're in high school. It's new. I was mortified. I mean, mortified I can still remember. And there's times where I tell this story where I actually cry.

00:15:22
Not emotional today, but there have been times where I've told this story, and I totally cried because I remember so deeply that feeling and the feeling of shame and just terrible. But as I said, I was a confident, kind of spunky kid, and I didn't like to be made feel stupid. And I got up, and I said, what are you, a bitch? And I grabbed my bag, and I ran out hysterical crying, because I also was not someone that disrespected adults. I was not taught to like, you don't talk back to adults.

00:15:54
So I was like, oh, my gosh. I ran to the vice principal's office, who I knew because my mom had known him, had worked with him, and I couldn't even breathe. I was crying so hard. And he's like, what is going on? What is going on?

00:16:08
And I said, I called Mrs and I'm not going to say her name a bitch. And he's like, oh, my God. Why would you do that? And I was like, she called me Retarded. And he's like, oh, my God, why would she do know?

00:16:16
My mom had to get called. The teacher had to be brought in. The teacher wanted me to be in trouble for cursing at her. And one of the things that I'll never forget is I did not get in trouble. I had to apologize, obviously, but she had to apologize to me, too.

00:16:31
I think I was moved out of her class. My mom was a huge advocate, as I said, and my older sister struggled. So if there was a teacher that wasn't a match for us, my mom made sure the rest of the Williams did not get that teacher. I mean, that was one of the things that was awesome. Like, if my older sister got some and it was a terrible match, none of us got that teacher.

00:16:50
But I do remember her saying to me, I don't like that you curse. My mom still to this day, doesn't use curse words, and I bit of a potty mouth. She said, But I am really proud that you stood up for yourself. No one should ever speak to you that way. And that's how I was raised, to stand up for myself, but be respectful.

00:17:08
And so I think that gives me a lot in life. Both of my parents saw our strengths. They saw who we were, even though we struggled in certain aspects. But it was okay because we had these strengths, and the strengths were always talked about. The strengths were always like, this is what you're good at.

00:17:24
You might not be good at this, but that's okay because this is what you're good at. And so that was really important. But that still makes me want to cry and test taking tests and all these different things, and it's tough. And I had another English teacher. So one of the things that, again, I was really good at communicating.

00:17:44
So we would have to read a book. I would always do cliff Notes. Love Cliff. That was the most brilliant thing. And then I would ask my friends and I would get into conversations and because of the way my brain works and because I am smart and I'm creative, I could kind of come to conclusion what the book would be about.

00:18:01
And I would get into these great conversations. And I had this one English teacher that loved that I did it. And this was before we had to write. It was like we first read the book, so it was a couple of months into class, and she would always call on me and always build me up. And I just remember, I love this feeling.

00:18:16
I want this feeling. I don't want to do the test and the paper. I don't like that feeling. I want this feeling. So I would really work to impress her and she would like, I want to hear what Juliet has to say about this.

00:18:27
I love her pithiness. And it was such a great feeling. And then I had to write our first paper, and I remember working so hard because I wanted to impress her. And I turned the paper in and a couple of days later, she hands everyone's paper back and said, Juliet, I need to see you after class again. I shrunk because I knew it was coming.

00:18:47
And she said, I'm really disappointed in you. You didn't put effort into this. Like, were you out with your friends, being social? Were you on the sports field and you didn't have time? And it was, again, everything that everyone always said to me.

00:19:00
And I just said to her, no, I actually put a lot of work into it. It just was really hard for me. And one of the things is it's really hard. I can speak all day. I could speak all day and I can really have knowledge and have really in depth, really smart.

00:19:16
I don't like that word, but really conversations that can grab people. But if I had to put it on a piece of paper, that's where the disconnect is and that is where Dyslexia comes in. That's where it's really hard for me to then take what's in my mind and put it on paper. And so school imagine imagine that I can have a conversation with any science, this and this. And then it's like, okay, put it on paper.

00:19:39
And it's like, oh, I can't even because I can't spell, I can't get the words out that I want to say to write because my brain and hand weren't connected that way. So again, going through high school, these are all like little kicks in the pants. Again, lots of friends excelling on the sports field, winning states. I got a letter my 10th grade year from Harvard. They wanted to recruit me for field hockey.

00:20:05
I was failing classes, and I remember saying to my mom, oh, my God, this is amazing. But, oh, my God, I could never get into Harvard. And me talking to the coach, and I am not a really great student, and she's like, oh, just work harder. We really want you. We really want you.

00:20:20
And me knowing I was not going to be able to do that and think about as a kid, 1617 years old, knowing that you're not going to be able to do something because school is just not come. Like it's not connecting, and you don't really completely know why it's not connecting. Is it that I'm not smart? Is it I'm not being taught? Now, I know the teachers didn't know how to teach me because I can be taught.

00:20:41
I learned that in college. But then my junior year, my senior year, I was getting highly recruited for university in Maryland for lacrosse, which was a top D one program at the time. Still is, actually. And I had to take SATS. Now, that's the other thing, is test anxiety.

00:20:57
When you have Dyslexia and an ADHD, I can't tell you how many tests I fail. I can't tell you how many times I knew the material, but I could not get it on the test. Maybe they changed one word and I didn't comprehend how the question was asked, but I knew the material. That's so frustrating, and I can't even tell you how frustrating. If you've been there, you get it.

00:21:20
If you're not, you don't understand. But it is really frustrating. So I took the SATS, I want to say 35 times. I know it wasn't that much, but I was diagnosed. I did get some LD on my transcript, so I was able to get untimed stuff.

00:21:40
At this time, I had a little bit of services, but I was able to get a little bit more services, and I couldn't get an extra ten points. I was missing one question away from going Division One, getting money, having a huge scholarship. All my friends knew where they were going. And I'll never forget my senior year, every time my best friend and her boyfriend, I would bring the paper over, and they were like, okay, let's open it. Let's open it.

00:22:04
And it would be like, no, it didn't happen again. No, it didn't happen again. Now, through these three years, also, guidance counselor, I had a guidance counselor would tell me, you're not going to college. Stop thinking you're going to college. You don't have enough grades.

00:22:17
It doesn't matter about your sports. If you don't have the grades, you're not going she would constantly tell me that, and I would constantly be like, Stop. But I would also be like, I'm going to go because I want to tell her to go fuck herself. I can't tell you how many times. And my mom would say, oh, honey.

00:22:33
But I would say, Mom, I'm going, because Mrs. S is saying, I'm not. I don't care. I'm going to figure it a way out. She's not like, this is terrible.

00:22:39
But again, that's the kind of kid, if you think about a kid that doesn't have some sort of self confidence, they would just shrink and shrink and shrink and shrink. And that's where drug and alcohol and problems come in. And this is why teachers and parents and adults need to think about how they're speaking to their children and other children. Because if you see someone struggling, you see someone being a class cow, and you see someone being a bully, no one really wants to be those things. So there's something happening underneath, and it needs to be explored, and it needs to be asked.

00:23:09
There needs to be questions, and we need to be better as a society to help kids when they're younger so these things don't happen. I was, again, fortunate. I had a great support system, and I knew my worth. Even though there was times where I was ashamed of my learning disabilities, I was ashamed of being in the classroom. I was embarrassed because I knew I was going to fail.

00:23:31
And I still was like, okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. And that was my grit. That was like, I don't care if I fail, I'm going to do it. Because I failed so many times, and that actually served me well in life as my career grew and as where I am today.

00:23:47
So I did not go to University of Maryland. They were like, can you go to the community college? We'll get your grades up, and then we'll red shirt you and bring you into the program. And my mom was just like, I really want you to go to a four year school. I think if you go to a two year, you're not going to finish.

00:24:03
She was really worried about it. My dad never finished. And college now, college is not for everyone, and nowadays we talk about that more, right? College is not for everyone. But when I was young, it was like, if you didn't go to college, you didn't get those same jobs as other people.

00:24:18
So college was an important thing in my family.

00:24:25
I don't want to say it was expected, but it was wanted. It was like, something that was encouraged. So I ended up, I think I mean, it feels like it was, like, two weeks before I graduated, but it was very close to when I graduated. Now, again, everyone I knew knew where they were going. I was one of the only.

00:24:43
Ones that wanted to go to college and couldn't get in because I couldn't get my SATS up, and I had shit grades. But I knew I had so much to offer, and I also had so much to offer on the athletic field that it was like, a shame that this was all happening. And so it was a really tough time. But again, I would brush it off and be like, okay, something's going to happen. I'm going to figure this.

00:25:03
So then I did end up going to Rowan University. I didn't want to stay in New Jersey. It was a division three school, but I was able to play both sports, and that is where I learned that I was actually smart. I went in as a corporate fitness major because that's what I was good at. But then very quickly had to take anatomy and physiology and was like, no way.

00:25:24
Tried to drop out probably 50 times, and my mom was like, no, you can do this. I encourage you, encourage you. And I changed to communications, and then this world opened up where I actually became a really good student, and I got some more diagnosis, so I had some more support through school. I was only allowed to take four classes, and I went to school for five years, but I finished, and I was on the honor roll a number of times. I wrote a movie, did a screenplay.

00:25:52
I was a DJ. I actually stopped playing sports. The thing that gave me the most confidence, I realized I was done with and I could have another identity. And I think that's really important to have two identities. It's so important in life, because once that one identity is gone, because you've outgrown it, you need to have something else to continue to be confident.

00:26:14
And so I became this scholar, which was so crazy to me. Graduated, got a job even before I graduated. I had a job like, two months before I went to New York City. I knew I wanted to live in New York City, went there, took the train, and I could interview, because, again, I had those communication skills that I learned throughout my whole career and academic career. So I could interview for jobs that I had no business getting because I had no experience, but I could interview for them because I knew what to say, how to say, how to connect to people.

00:26:51
And I really do kind of attribute that to my struggling and my dyslexia and my ADHD. I always say I had the good ADHD because I was really intuitive. My whole family has the good ADHD because really back then, it was like the spazzy kid that was the close talker that couldn't control themselves. So it was like, oh, my God, I have this. I'm a girl.

00:27:12
What is that? And so there was a lot of shame behind that. But the more I learned about it, and the more I learned about myself, I was like, yes, this is powerful. I love this. I'm going to harness this, and I'm going to love it.

00:27:23
I'm going to use I'm not the person that's in the box. I'm the person that's outside the box. And I have so many ideas, and I can help so many companies. So that is where I went into advertising. Absolutely loved it.

00:27:34
Decided after I met my husband that I stayed home with the kids, but I reinvented myself a number of times. I started doing fitness things when the kids were older because I was like, okay, I want to contribute. I just don't want to sit at home anymore. I don't want to do the school kind of board stuff, class, mom anymore. My kids were a little bit older.

00:27:52
And that journey then took me into starting my podcast. It started me doing consulting people, helping them be able to tell their stories, connecting those dots, thinking about the experiences, and really helping small businesses take their story and go out on the media circuit, whether it's podcasts, whether it's writing articles, whatever it is, but really finding those things that are important, that connect with audiences. And that was amazing. And one of my first clients then hired me as their chief communications officer. So that is what I'm doing now.

00:28:24
I still have my three podcast. I have my YNS live with NFL Thread, where Cynthia Zordich is my co host, and we talk to the spouses and players as they pivot out, like, what does it look like? What does it look like when you're constantly moving? We do live events at the Super Bowl, the hall of Fame, and at the Draft, if you have a brand or anything, and you're like, hey, how do I get involved in that? Because we do some really cool things.

00:28:48
Just reach out to me, and we have a whole deck and all of that stuff. But that also is then I started word blindness. Because of my curiosity. I met Brent and I said, hey, you're doing stuff with your foundation, the Brent Sopal Foundation. I would love to give back by doing stories on podcasting.

00:29:04
I'm really good at it, and I know we can have great conversations and really help people. So that's how we did that. And so I still hold those. I do a little consulting, but not as much because I do have a full time job now. But I have my podcast.

00:29:17
Your next stop YNS live with NFL thread and word blindness dyslexia exposed So don't give yourself the scenarios. Like, if you struggle, if you're sitting here listening to this and be like, wait, maybe I'm Dyslexic or maybe my kid is or whatever, find out. Find out. Some people say you don't need the labels, but sometimes it is comforting to know, okay, this is why things happened like this. And it's important if your child is struggling.

00:29:43
Find out. Get that neuropsych. They're expensive, but there's people out there to help kind of get that done. But the school is going to do a regular school test. They're not going to give you the tools and the things that you need.

00:29:56
So it's really important to go outside. That is something that Dyslexia Awareness Month. I want people to hear this and be inspired, but I also want people to know that you can rise above your shortcomings. I don't like that word, but like, your weaknesses, your strengths, all of these different things. If you can look at yourself as a whole person, you're going to thrive.

00:30:18
And that's what I want for you guys. I want you to sit there and think, what am I good at? What do I like? Especially if you're someone that listening to this, or you have a kid that's ready to go to college, or they're in junior senior year right now. It's being thrown down their throats.

00:30:31
They need to know what they're going to major in college and what they're doing. No. No one should know what they want to do at 17 and 18. And I shouldn't say no one. There's people out there that do, but most of us don't.

00:30:40
We have to explore. We have to stay curious. We have to go out there and put ourselves out there. Network, talk to people, ask questions. I can't say it enough.

00:30:49
Be curious and you will find your path. And again, thank you for listening to your next stop. Check out my other podcast. And this is Dyslexic Awareness Month, so please rate review and share this podcast. I hope you liked this episode of your Next Stop.

00:31:06
Please subscribe to my channel, share with your friends, and join in each week.