S1E26: Falling in Love with Yourself First: The Key to Confidence and Conquering Fears

Uncover the surprising truth about dyslexia and its profound impact on self-esteem. You won't believe how a simple shift in understanding can transform a child's well-being. This emotional journey will leave you with a new perspective on the power of empathy and knowledge. Stay tuned for the eye-opening revelations that could change everything you thought you knew about dyslexia.

In this episode, you will be able to:

• Boosting self-esteem: Unlock the secrets to building confidence and self-worth in dyslexic individuals.
• Empowering understanding: Discover how to provide the right support and encouragement for dyslexic individuals to thrive.
• Teacher impact: Learn about the pivotal role teachers play in the success of dyslexic children and how to maximize their positive influence.
• Raising awareness: Explore the critical need for education and awareness about dyslexia in schools and communities.
• Early intervention: Explore the power of early detection and intervention in helping dyslexic children reach their full potential.

Empowering understanding
Understanding is a powerful tool that can significantly change the trajectory of a dyslexic individual's life. It stems from a deep-seated acknowledgment of the unique learning abilities associated with dyslexia and an empathetic approach towards managing it. Empowering understanding acts as a buffering agent against negative experiences such as stress, anxiety, and shame often prevalent in dyslexic individuals, thereby fostering an environment conducive for their growth and learning.

Transcript:

00:00:01
Welcome to word blindness. Dyslexia exposed. I am Juliet Hahn. I'm here with my co host, Brent Sopel, and we are here to change the narrative. We want to educate, but we also want you guys to understand what it is like to be dyslexic and how things can change.

00:00:20
So join us every week for word blindness. Dyslexia exposed.

00:00:26
Welcome back to word blindness. This is Juliet Hahn, here with my co host, Brent Sopol. Good morning. How are you? I'm good.

00:00:33
How are you? I'm good. I have to say, I love Mondays. I really love Mondays for many different reasons. I used to not like Mondays.

00:00:39
Yeah, because you're not hungover. But I love, well, now that I'm not hungover 100%, I like Mondays better because I used to hit it hard on the weekends, and then I hated Mondays because it was so hard to get back into routine. But we've talked about this so many times when we know when we're meant to be doing what we're doing. I cannot wait to continue. I mean, I worked all weekend, really.

00:01:00
We can talk about distracted and all the things that were funny this weekend, but then it's really when you're meant to be doing what you're meant to be doing, it's like, exciting. I'm excited to jump on and see you and talk and really dive in and share what we're going through to help more people. And it's the best feeling. What do they say? Find a job that doesn't feel like you're going to work every day.

00:01:28
Yeah. And when people say, what are you going to do when you retire? I know I'm not retiring. I'm doing the work that I'm doing. You with dyslexia and the stuff that I'm doing at Fettech, I know.

00:01:37
And like the podcast, I know that I will be doing that until the day. You know, it's obviously the foundation is my purpose.

00:01:48
Some people don't find that. A lot of people don't, because as we were talking earlier, we all have trauma. And if you don't go back to fix your trauma, heal your trauma, clean out the closets. Sometimes you won't find that purpose because those closets are too full. Is it easy?

00:02:11
No. Does it suck? Yeah, but it's something that we all have to do myself to stay sober, to be a better person to be around. But my closets were emptied, so I was able to find and see places that I shouldn't be in hockey rink and the places I should be here in the dyslexic world. And it came pretty clearly once I cleaned all that stuff out, but it wasn't easy.

00:02:40
And the thing is, a lot of times we talk about the trauma and all the levels. We probably touch on that every episode. So if you're like an avid listener and you're like, there you go, trauma again. However, the thing that's really interesting is you can have. Again, we talk about the small trauma, the big trauma.

00:02:58
Sometimes we don't realize something is trauma until there's a trigger. And just stay with me for a second. You might not realize, okay, that was an experience that was really hard. It was something that you went through. You feel like you dealt with it and then you went on.

00:03:15
A lot of times it's like a band aid that we put on when we think that we really dealt with it. But this is when we talk about the introspective. Again, we talk about this on every podcast, but it is so important. And as you said, there's so many people that are stuck out there, so many people that are not in their purpose, so many people that are just going through life because they're like, well, this is as good as it gets. And it's not.

00:03:41
You can be excited and happy and ready to tackle the world when you're doing what you're meant to be doing and to be able to clean those closets. So there's going to be people like, okay, well, how do you do that? And that is really, again, to me, it's going back and thinking of experiences going back. And I'm not someone, I don't live in the past. I don't sit there and live in the past.

00:04:00
I am not someone that lives in the past. I live in the now, really. Sometimes I live too much in the now that I didn't have clothes for going to the Super bowl. And I'm like, on camera and I'm like, fuck, I didn't get what I'm wearing. I live too much in the now sometimes.

00:04:14
So sometimes I have to be like, just pause and sometimes look back at something or pause and look forward a little bit. But it is important to live in the now, because that is, you don't want to be living in the past or the future, but to do the work in the past is just going to make your now better and then your future where you're supposed to be. I would love to give a little toolkit, because we talk about that all the time. For someone that's listening, they're like, well, how the fuck do you do that? We've heard you guys talk about this.

00:04:43
We have give toolkits. So I would love you to jump in on this.

00:04:48
On Friday, had lunch with a guy. The hard part is that it's not like a chapter book. Okay, now we're on chapter one. Now we're on chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, to see that progress. Oh, I can see.

00:05:03
I'm in four chapters, so I'm doing the work. That's not how it works. It's having conversations. I met a guy for lunch to talk, and I don't know how many times. That makes sense.

00:05:21
That's why I always talk about that connection, relatability. Knowledge is powerful because if you don't have the knowledge, you'll never see what's there because you don't know what you're looking for. And it's finding somebody to talk to that understands. Again, it's somebody who's kind of lived in. That's why I always say they've got to have a couple of your traumas to make that relatability and know that they're talking through experiences, not through the book, because it's very different.

00:05:58
I call counseling out of a book is gaslighting, but it's having these conversations and being okay to have these conversations. Sometimes it takes a long time. You go to AA. The first step is the hardest, admitting you had a problem. It's hard to get going.

00:06:20
Right. Nobody wants to go back. But to grow and to understand who you are, you have to go back and you have to look at the whole picture. There's a lot of my past I don't remember. I can't say it's blocked out.

00:06:35
My brain is protecting me. But you start having conversations with somebody who has the relatability and the same traumas as we call it, the rabbit hole. You go down the rabbit hole and you find things that are just amazing. You didn't know those there. Yeah, go ahead.

00:07:00
It's like a root of a tree. A million different places. Yeah, we love that. A root of a tree. Look at you.

00:07:09
And again, we talk about this often, and the reason why we talk about it often is because it's really important. And sometimes, just for all you listeners to think about this, you could hear something once kind of goes over your head. You can hear it twice, you can hear it three. What is it like? You have to hear something sometimes eight or nine times for it to be able to sink in, because a lot of times when were listening to podcasts or doing things, you're doing other things.

00:07:32
And it's like you could listen to the same episode four or five times and you're going to pick little things out, just like watching a movie a number of times you're like, oh, my God, I missed that. How did I miss that? You might have been distracted that time. So the reason why we do talk about this often is because it's really important. And a lot of times we take different angles.

00:07:48
So if you go back and listen, the way we brought this up this time is different than the way we brought it up last time. And when Brent talks about the chapters, what I used to do when I was in the storytelling consultant space is I actually broke it down in those chapters. So I would say, but what Brent's doing, so if you listen back to what he says, this is different, but it's getting to the same result. So when people would say, okay, but I don't really know if I want to talk to people. I don't know if I want to do this, how do I kind of get it out?

00:08:18
And that's where I say, we all have iPhones or not iPhones. You could be a green texter, so you get the other phone. But we all have ability to record ourselves. If you're someone that likes to write it down, you can write it down. But going back and really laying out kind of your life, like, I grew up here.

00:08:38
I have this many siblings. My parents did this. This is what we used to do on Christmas. This is where I went to elementary school. This is what I like to do as a kid, going through those little parts and talking it through.

00:08:51
And you can even write those down, literally, that's how. And I would say, that's like, chapter one. And then you go into the next chapter, like, when you're in middle school, high school, teen years, then college, but taking out little pieces that you kind of remember. And again, as Brent said, there's going to be people that have the trauma that they don't want to remember stuff. And so then if you have deep, deep, deep, deep, deep trauma, go to a professional.

00:09:16
Like, don't just be sitting in a room and doing this yourself if you need someone or have a friend around, but going through those little things sometimes can spark something. That's how I got my third grade story. Every time I would talk about third grade or elementary school or the one teacher who I really liked, but every time I would get this pit in my stomach and I was like, what the fuck is that? What happened in third grade, and I didn't really remember until I was having conversations. And gifted and talented came up and special reading came up, and I was like, wait a second.

00:09:48
Oh, my God. And that triggered that kind of experience where I went to special reading and the entire rest of the class went to give to talented. And then it just opened up, as Brent says, this entire box of worms. And I was like, oh, my gosh. Okay.

00:10:02
That's when I gave myself the narrative that I wasn't creative. I didn't realize it was that I always thought, like, maybe a teacher said to me, stick with sports. You suck at drawing. And that could have happened as well, right? That could have happened as well.

00:10:13
But there's so many different things. And then as you kind of go around that you can sit with those experiences and then see where you can grow. And I know you have 1000 things to say, so I'm going to let you jump in there. Yeah.

00:10:28
It's these conversations that are key to somebody who's lived that path, that relatability, because there's feelings and things happen that you don't even know could be there. Because it is very different. As a dyslexic, our brains are very different. So if you're trying to talk to a nondislexic, they're going to, what are you talking about? And you're not going to find that correlation.

00:10:58
Or how many times I come back, I'm like, no, this means this, this and this. I never thought about that. Right? So it's to have that person to talk to that's kind of had some of those traumas to start peeling back that onion and connecting the dots as you and yo. With your ex boyfriends and why you picked them.

00:11:22
We did. My poor husband's like, what are we talking about? And I was like, wait, I've had some revelations. He's like, oh, for fuck's sake. Also is everything happens when it's supposed to happen.

00:11:35
You're supposed to get that information when you're ready to, but you have to keep yourself opened. That's the thing. You can't close it off and be like, oh, I don't like that feeling. And then brush it because it's coming out. It's coming out somewhere, somehow.

00:11:50
So the more you stuff it, I know it always makes you laugher. And that's where the people that stuff end up getting stuck because you don't want to take a left or right or go straight because you're afraid what's going to come unstuck so you just live in that. And that's sad. Again, we've all gone through shit. Everybody's shit is the most important because it's theirs.

00:12:17
But you're not alone. It's finding that courage to take that leap, to dig down there and figure that out. Because a day you can fall in love with yourself is a day your life changes forever. And how many people since we started this podcast have reached out to us and been like, okay, my kid's struggling. I think I'm actually the one who has dyslexia or ADHD, and I don't know.

00:12:42
And I don't really want to go back because I blocked those times. And the other thing is, when we talk about memories, there's memory feelings and then memories. And as I just said in that third grade, I had memory feelings. I couldn't get to the memory, but I had a feeling. And so those are the things to be really kind of.

00:13:02
And this is not easy, right? Some people are really not. Like. They don't like to go, but even good stuff. I know, but even good stuff, some people are just not as good as being in touch with their feelings, being able to express their feelings.

00:13:16
We all are different. And some people are just like, that's not one of their strengths, right? So you have to kind of really sit and be in that moment. I call it the daydreaming moment, where you can kind of just have a little bit of peace, where you're not thinking of laundry or what you have to do next or what you have to do at work. In yoga, it's, like, one of my favorite things now.

00:13:37
It's like, don't think about what you have to do after. And it's really hard. It's hard to be in that quiet spot where you're not thinking about 10,000 things, especially when you're busy. Okay, I got to do this next. I got to do this next.

00:13:48
That's why yoga has been so instrumental to me right now in my life, because it's allowing me to pause. I can't not pause, even though I'm pretty good at when I walk the dogs and stuff. But I'll be doing 10,000 things when I'm like, okay, I'm daydreaming, but I'm also, like, texting and listening and talking. And in yoga, I'm not. I'm literally completely in my own kind of being.

00:14:13
And that's a really important place to be because you can kind of feel. And I know the days that I'm like, okay, I need to fucking take a breath because I am wound a little tight. Well, that's understanding yourself, being okay. I always say you can't change the past, can't change the future. Only the now.

00:14:32
The hardest place in the world is to live is the now. And go go means you're not living in the now. Right. And that yoga is for you. It could be anything for anybody, whatever that does work.

00:14:52
Going to the gym, is that going for the walk? Is that meditating? Whatever that is. But it's to find that time and be nice to yourself.

00:15:06
The Bell to get there and stay there. Yeah. So I have a question for you. Do you think sometimes people. Because I've had this conversation with people, they're like, okay, well, when people have been telling me forever, you really should try yoga, I think you need to take a breath, because I do.

00:15:24
And I don't want to say I'm not type a. I'm not a type a personality, but I can be intense at times, and I do have a lot of energy. So I understood when people, like, when I worked out, it was like I always wanted to do the hardest workout. I wanted to lift the heaviest, and I wasn't being gentle on my own body because my brain really enjoyed that competitive, hard workout. But then there was a point where I really needed to slow down.

00:15:47
And I tried to do yoga a couple of times, and it wasn't comfortable for me. I was like, I fucking hate this. I hate slowing down. And it's probably because I just didn't want to slow down. Right.

00:15:58
And it was just uncomfortable because it was like, oh, my brain. Now. It's like my brain wasn't slowing down. My body needed to slow down. So I have a question for you in this.

00:16:06
I feel like at the time that my hormones were going crazy, I was like, you know what? I need to try something else. I'm going to try hot yoga, people. I had done it for a little bit in the past, like, four or five classes, and I did really like it. It just didn't fit in my years, like, five years ago.

00:16:24
So I was like, I'm going to do it, and I don't care if I'm not. I really don't know yoga. I can't say the words, but I don't care. And so I think a lot of times people get hung up. So this is a question for you.

00:16:38
They get hung up because of fear of failure. It's the same as starting something new or putting themselves out and doing something new. Even though it is what they need, they're scared of. I don't know how to do it because they don't want to fail. Fear of failure obviously controls us every walk of life.

00:16:59
Change is always the hardest, but usually is the best. And for yourself. Again, you weren't ready for yoga when you started it five years ago. Right now you are now. So it kind of waved its hand to you, said hello.

00:17:17
You weren't ready for it. You were still living fight or flight mode at a high intensity, and it wasn't for you yet. So you'll find that spot when you're supposed to find that spot.

00:17:32
But you said something. People that go. Go 100 miles an hour, all day long, all night long, they're afraid of being alone with themselves. And that's something that you have or being bored.

00:17:50
Being bored is nobody wants to go back, right. And look in the past. And being bored is fear of going back there into that closet and having that conversation. We truly all should self reflect every day, because no matter what, you can heal a trauma. Then there's going to be a new one the next day.

00:18:13
The world's a crazy place. Things go on. If you don't, it piles up quickly. But the people that go 100 miles an hour, they're afraid to be with themselves. And that's just self inflicting wounds by doing that.

00:18:29
Yeah. Okay. So I want to take it a little bit further. So, the fear of failure, because we've talked about this on the podcast, but I've also talked about it on your next stop, and I am not afraid of failure. And I really think it's because of all the failure that I've had in my life that I don't even think about it.

00:18:48
I mean, how many times I failed in school, how many times I maybe started a business, and it didn't go because. And I don't even sometimes look at it as failure, because I know we have a different view on this, and I don't know that we've ever actually dove down this rabbit hole. So this could be fun. And people will say to me, you are not nervous about failure. And I'm like, no, because I'm going to learn something.

00:19:12
If I fail, I actually know that there's something on the other side that's either a learning moment, or I just need to pivot a little bit. And it's all about, again, going down that self deflective path and being like, okay, where am I supposed to be? And I'll give you, for instance, when I started the podcast, I had so many people, they're like, you don't even know how to do it. What if this goes wrong? I'm like, what do you mean?

00:19:35
I'll figure it out. And I'm going to give myself a year if I don't love it. And I'm like, a year. That was great. I learned this, but I'm not going to do it.

00:19:45
I put that timeline on myself, but I did that on my own just because I wanted to see what happened. I love kind of that unknown, like, where are things going to go? Is that a personality thing? Is that a kind of. Again, when we talk about that innate confidence that I'm just a little cuckoo, I said my mom sometimes would be like, okay, no, you should be a little bit self conscious right now.

00:20:13
And it just wasn't. So where do you think? I would love to hear your kind of insights on that. First off, it all comes to the fact that you're okay with who you are and you believe that is right. You believe in yourself.

00:20:27
So the people that have fear and failure is they don't believe in themselves. That's where that self doubt talks comes in. That's when the what if games come in, that negative thought process. Glasses half empty rather than half full. So you've got to have that.

00:20:49
As we talked about, there aren't any confidence. People do have that. But even you've come a long ways. You're okay with who you are.

00:21:01
Good and my bad, right? Because you know, you got pros and cons, and you know that you can succeed at whatever that you're diving into, because you have that self love yourself. And that's why I always say, falling in love with yourself, looking in the mirror and saying, I love you, know it, feel it, and believe it, that's when your life changes. Then you don't live in fear of failure. You don't live in past tense, right?

00:21:28
Because you're okay with what you are. No matter what that path has been, wherever you've gone, you're not worrying about where you're going. You're just worrying where you are now. And to be able to do that, it's not easy to be there, to get there, it's the hardest thing ever. But it's yourself.

00:21:50
There's nobody else that spends more time with you than yourself, right? As you said, you have to have. And I hear what you're saying, and yes, I think the work I've done through the years, but I also know, and when we say that board when people will say, what's your biggest fear? To be stagnant in life. And then my kids are like, what about us dying?

00:22:11
And I'm like, okay, well, yes, that is a big fear of mine, too, but being stagnant in life. But I know that for myself, I know that I'm never going to do that because I follow passion, I follow purpose. I follow what? Because you love you. People can't follow them if they don't love themselves, right?

00:22:40
You can maybe go down that path for a little bit and you're going to fall off the bike because it's not there, then that self doubt, whatever one thing happens. But that's why you're not worried about being stagnant, is because you have that. You have that confidence, what if this happens? Or I can't do this, or I'm not smart. Because you don't love who?

00:23:08
You, all of you, whatever that means. Each person is different. You love yourself. You don't question yourself if you love yourself. Right?

00:23:17
And I also do feel like a lot of work, it's a lot of work we talk about work is every time you have a conversation or every time you write, you're talking about census or whatever, down, that's doing the work. Yeah, right? And I have done over the years, not even sometimes realizing it. Like, as a kid, I probably did the work, but not knowing that's what I was doing, because again, I really believe everything's figureoutable. That's worse.

00:23:48
The hell word was that? I think I made it up. Spell that for me, please. No, I cannot figure outable. I think it's a word.

00:24:00
Everything's figureoutable. I can figure everything out. Sharing, finding out.

00:24:07
No, do not do that. And I always kind of have come at things in that, and I shouldn't say always because that is not true. I have not always. And I will bring it to anatomy and physiology when I was in college, and I was like, oh, shit, I need to change my major because I will fail this. Now.

00:24:24
I look back and I'm like, I could have figured it out, but it would have been so much effort. So I changed that wording, and that is what I. In my years. And I really believe it. I'm like, okay, that stumped me.

00:24:37
But then I went into communications, and that's where I was meant to be. So again, it's all of those paths. It's like, okay, that dot is connected. Okay. Whether you believe in God, the universe, it's like, okay, but if there's something that's thrown at me through what we're doing, through the stuff I'm doing at Fettech.

00:24:56
Is it hard? Yes, but I know I can figure it out because I'm resourceful. But I also am not afraid to ask questions anymore. In the past, maybe I would have been like, I don't want to ask that because I'm going to look stupid. But now I'm like, you know what?

00:25:10
I don't care. I can figure it out and I'm going to need to. And sometimes I'll preference like, this might be a really dumb question to you, but I don't understand it, so I need direction. But that's exactly what you're saying is because I don't care if that person on the other side is like, you're dumb. Because I'm like, well, I'm not.

00:25:26
Right? And that's why I always talk about fall in love with yourself and being okay with yourselves and knowing what those strengths and weaknesses for all those reasons you don't care because you're good with you, whatever way that path goes, a lot of people aren't and that's why they stay stagnant. They don't want to change their stuff and they're afraid to make a move, that something's going to pop out out of that closet. So you've grown that. You've done the work and that's the thing is doing the work on Friday, how do I know I'm doing the work?

00:26:06
I'm like, we're talking, we're talking about it. You're doing the work. There's no script. That's the hard part. There's no script, there's no chapters.

00:26:13
I'm like, you'd be doing the work. You're starting to understand things. You're starting to connect dots. That's doing the work.

00:26:24
Again, it's not a conversation. That's easy. But if you don't, I know so many people. That stuff, I always call it the dragon always rears its head some point in time, and every time it rears its head, it's louder, stronger, deeper and harder. It hurts a hell of a lot more.

00:26:43
So it's taking that dragon out of the box, out of the closet and let him go on his merry little way again. I'm going to tie this together. That is one of the reasons why you started the foundation and why we're doing the work now. Because of kids in school getting, when you're dyslexic, adhd, dyscalcula, whatever, getting kicked and kicked and kicked and kicked and being told you're stupid, being told you're stupid. I mean, it is true when people say if you're being told something all the time, it doesn't matter how strong you are, you are going to take some of it and believe it.

00:27:19
Right? Like you're lazy. You're not trying. We've talked about this through all of our guests. You and I have talked about this.

00:27:25
There's periods in our lives, yeah. That we really felt dumb. You still go through it a lot. I mean, I'll go through times where I still am. Like that was really, but again, then I bounce back because of the work that we've done.

00:27:38
And so that's why what we are doing, getting, talking about it. But then also the big blueprint plan that we have, which is really exciting, which stay tuned because, you guys, this is going to blow up. I mean, we have so many steps. We have so much stuff working behind the scenes that you can see Brent's face. It is so exciting, the work that we're doing that you guys don't even realize because of what the change that we're going to be bringing.

00:28:03
And can I talk about on not Wednesday, but the website that's going to get a whole new facelift. So stay tuned because you guys can check out the brentsopalfoundation.org that has a whole new facelift. That's really awesome. That's kind of stage. I don't even know what stage because there's again, a lot of stuff happening behind the scenes.

00:28:22
So it's a little reveal. It's two steps forward, one step back. Everything takes time. But the self esteem, that's why I focus on that so much. That's why I think I'm the only one that I've ever see take that.

00:28:44
Everybody's always talking about reading and writing and I don't care. And that's why that self esteem is the most important thing for me. And that's why I take that angle. So that you're never stagnant, so you're okay with your strengths and weaknesses and your gas tank is at least half full or full with that self esteem to be able to tackle anything most of us aren't. That's why dyslexia, what I call is no self esteem.

00:29:12
So that's why it's the number one focus for me. Because if I can get you to love yourself again, whatever you want to do, it's endless. But if you hate yourself, you've got nothing. You're going to struggle. You're not going to succeed in anything because you're not able to take the information you're not about to put in the right place.

00:29:35
And that's why I always approach it with that self esteem, with the angle of falling in love with the shelf and another thing and talking about the self esteem. So, Ange, I want to take it to her daughter, Ava, moving, like, can you take us through that a little bit? Because the message I got this weekend, I was, like, almost in tears. I, like, left her a voice text, and I was like, oh, my God. Slight changes for a kid because of the understanding.

00:30:07
Go, slight change. Slight changes for a dyslexic can save their life. I always say hard love for dyslexic is hard death. When we struggle and we get laughed at and the teacher makes you feel but one of dumb, stupid, lazy things, and then all of a sudden, your kid starts having tummy aches. No, I don't feel good.

00:30:37
That's anxiety. And you talk about Ava. She had that for all of grade five the first four months. Hated going to school, miserable stomach aches, make herself throw up. It was bad.

00:30:57
Switched schools. Went to a school with beginning of January. So it's been a month. Text messages. How was your day?

00:31:08
Awesome. There has been one stomach ache in the month. So it's that knowledge, it's that understanding. It's that relatability. It's those little things.

00:31:21
So if your son or daughter is having a lot of tummy problems, there's something there. There's anxiety there. Now you have to dig into it. They're not faking it. They're not faking it because it happens repeatedly.

00:31:39
There's something there. And I always say, for me, going to the school for 8 hours might as well sat in electric chair because it was the worst place ever. But for Ava, that teacher has now made it a great place, which is amazing because that teacher understands. But not only that, this is what I want you guys to listen. Whoever you are, whether you're a parent, whether you're a teacher, whether you're just a person with no identity, I don't know.

00:32:12
I don't know where my attention devastator talks about is a little fiery today. Whoever you are, wherever you land in life, you can make a difference in someone's life, good or bad. And the teacher that Ava had, literally was making her life absolutely miserable. And this is a child. She's in fifth grade, a child.

00:32:30
And Ange went repeatedly like, okay, she is dysgraphic she's dyslexic. She needs you to help her, not shame her. And this teacher just kept doing it. And his thing was, I need her to work harder. I need her to do.

00:32:45
He had no understanding of dyslexia, and it didn't matter how much Ange expressed it. And she was banging her head against the wall. And I've been in the situation where it's like your kid, you could see your kid just changing in front of you, and not in a good way. And it's like, how do you save this little person that is like the world to you? And when you internalize, especially when you're an empath, especially when you feel most parents want most, I would say, unless there's something wrong, but want the best for their child and for her to be able to listen to you and say, okay, I'm going to.

00:33:19
Because this is the thing. It's really hard. She moved. She moved schools, but it was like, I see that this could. She didn't 100% even know, but she took a leap of faith because it was so bad, and she had someone to talk to that knew her, and she trusted.

00:33:35
You're like, just do it. You need to do this. She moved schools. And again, the message I got, I think she said she's been more at peace than she has been in a decade to see her kid finally happy. And it's literally been two months, and it's just a teacher understanding, and maybe not understanding the whole dyslexia world, but understanding and wanting to help Ava because of the heart that this new teacher has.

00:33:59
And that's the thing. You, as a person out there, can either make or break someone's life with little things. Like, you need to think about how you approach and how you. And especially with children, they're so impressionable, and you can literally fuck them up, and it's not okay. And that's why talking about this, doing the understanding, us, doing the work that we've done on our own selves, and why we're so passionate about helping others, because we've been through the roller coasters and see others gone through the roller coasters, and that's why I started the foundation is a lot of people.

00:34:41
I always say less than 20% of the world understands dyslexia. It's not just flipping your b's and D's. So we have to teach this teacher, for instance. He doesn't believe there's another way to think, and he doesn't really care. Fucker.

00:35:02
He doesn't really care.

00:35:06
He's got his own problems, right? He's got his own mental problems. But that's why the podcast, that's why he started. The foundation is to educate each one of these normal people, because they don't believe that there's another way to think, because it's so different to them. So it's learning what your kid needs, being their advocate.

00:35:32
We talked about the binder and really knowing what that means. And each teacher, it's going to be a new bridge to cross, but to be able to advocate them and know what that they need. And again, that's why the foundation exists. That's why what I do is to make sure that parents have the information and the understanding to advocate for their kids. Yeah.

00:36:00
Because, again, it's very daunting. It's very scary. I mean, we get messages all the time. Okay, my kid was just diagnosed with dyslexia. What are the first steps?

00:36:07
What do I do? I'm drowning. And again, you just want the little person to be okay, and we all are going to go. And this is one of the things, as we talk about the early detection, the early intervention is so important for so many reasons. The self esteem, also being able to.

00:36:30
Okay, you get it early, the kid is going to be more fluent reading. I watched Montgomery not being able to read at all, then to be choppy, then to, all of a sudden, I remember the day he read something off the tv, and I was like, in my head, like, oh, wow. That flowed way more than it ever has. Right. But this, again, was when he was older.

00:36:52
This is a work that he's had to do for the whole time. But it's because of the intervention that we were able to give because of the background, because of the knowledge, because of the resources. We're very fortunate. But this is why it needs to be talked about so much. Because, again, we have said, I mean, how many calls have we have been on where someone's like, and we've talked about our mission and where we're going and what we need and all these different things?

00:37:17
We've talked to some really incredible people that are excited to partner with us on this, but have said, I just thought dyslexia was flipping your B's and D's. Nondislex. Yeah, there's ranges. Right. Like, you didn't ever hear about dyslexia until you were 32.

00:37:38
Right? So in Canada, where you grew up, it wasn't talked about. I had knowledge of it, obviously, because of family and whatever. There's people that have knowledge, we've had friend. We've had people say, oh, right.

00:37:50
I thought it was just fibonal bees and D's. I didn't think it was that big of a deal because you can't see it. And this is what we talk about all the time. You can't see dyslexia and it has nothing to do with your iq. A lot of times our iqs are.

00:38:02
I got it in are higher than most, but we really fucking struggle. And you look at an IEP and sometimes it doesn't match to the kid in school because the teacher doesn't have the knowledge. If you're in a certain state where it just says ld, I mean, we've gone through this so many times. And then you meet the kid and you're like, okay, this kid seems totally normal. I don't know what they're ld.

00:38:23
So I'm not going to switch how I learn. I'm not going to understand. I think they're fucking around. And because they seem like they can do. No one we talk about all the time, no one would understand that my left and rights.

00:38:36
But also when we were just doing that presentation and Elizabeth, I read the word, like wrong three times and she corrected me. And I was, you know, and not corrected me, but she was, no, no, I think it's this. And I was like, oh, fuck, right? Oh, my. Like, sometimes we can't read certain words.

00:38:50
There's words when we're going through this and I'm reading something to you, I'm choppy, I'm slow. I'm not as slow as maybe someone else, but there's words that I come across that I literally, I have to put into Google and say, how do you say this and what does it mean? Because I cannot pronounce it, I cannot spell it out. And you would never think that talking to, you know, people take for granted a lot of things in life and honestly, just think how many times a day you read, not try struggling every time. Yeah, I'm going to leave it at that mic drop.

00:39:29
Exactly. You guys, we say this also all the time. You don't know who needs to hear this. We are doing this again for a way bigger. Cause we're not just coming on here so we can hear ourselves speaks to speak.

00:39:43
I mean, I enjoy. You might be playback. I sound real good today. I do that. Okay.

00:39:52
Well, yes. However, I could talk about a lot of other things, too. This is so important because of the impact and what our conversations, what our stories can do, what someone you don't know is struggling with their kid right now, struggling themselves, maybe in a workplace. They're like, why is this tough for me? Because they don't even realize that they are dyslexic, and they don't have the understanding of it.

00:40:15
There's someone in your life that needs to hear this. So don't forget to rate, review, and share. And we will see you for another episode of word blindness. Dyslexia exposed.