S5E8: Dear Dyslexia - Transforming Struggles into Strengths, with Gil Gershoni

As a dyslexic, I can see from the creative, to the manufacturing, to the economic, to the distribution, to the end result in a blink of an eye. And I can tell you where there is a discord. I might not be able to tell you right away why, but I can tell you for sure that's where it is. - Gil Gershoni

Discover the surprising journey of Gil Gershoni, a dyslexic entrepreneur who turned a childhood passion for magic tricks into a thriving creative agency. Embracing dyslexia as a superpower, Gil's radical collaboration approach has redefined the way we solve problems and foster inclusivity. But here's the unexpected twist: Gil's dyslexic design thinking has not only led to groundbreaking creative solutions but has also sparked a global movement through the "Dear Dyslexia" postcard project. Want to know how dyslexia can unlock creativity and resilience in the business world? Get ready to be inspired and join the conversation. Stay tuned for more insights and surprises.

In this episode, you will be able to:

• Unleash your passion and turn it into a thriving business.
• Harness the power of dyslexic design thinking for creative problem-solving.
• Overcome dyslexia-related challenges in education and thrive.
• Start and grow a successful creative agency from the ground up.
• Discover the meaningful impact of the "Dear Dyslexia" postcard project.

My special guest is Gil Gershoni.

For over 30 years, Gil Gershoni has been bringing together cutting edge ideas and keeping brands like Google, Apple, Spotify, and Nike ahead of the curve. After immigrating to the United States from Israel and supporting himself through a brief stint as a magician, Gershoni founded Gershoni Creative, a San Francisco-based creative agency, in 1996. 

As the agency expanded, Gil realized that his dyslexia had benefits within the creative process that helped his team and clients innovate and thrive. Through his work and advocacy, Gershoni is helping others discover something he’s long known: there’s a little bit of magic in dyslexic thinking. 

In 2017, Gil founded Dyslexic Design Thinking, a program that teaches people how to leverage strategies that come naturally to dyslexics to enhance how they work, think, create, and problem-solve. His mission is to educate people about dyslexia and move away from the traditional – and incomplete – perception of the condition as a debilitating limitation. For Gil, dyslexia is a hyper-ability, not just a disability. Dyslexics are often able to make surprising connections and find solutions in unexpected places – and Dyslexic Design Thinking can help linear thinkers unlock their creative potential. 

Dyslexic Design Thinking has grown to include the Dyslexic Design Thinking podcast and The Bigger Picture with Amazing Dyslexics, a virtual salon series that explores how dyslexics and non-dyslexics alike can use big-picture thinking to create and innovate across different fields.

In October of 2022, Gil executive produced Dyslexic Dictionary, an exhibit in San Francisco showcasing works by dyslexic artists and leaders, including California Governor Gavin Newsom and Twitter logo designer Martin Grasser. 

Transcript:

00:00:03
Welcome to your next stop podcast.

00:00:08
Welcome to your next stop. This is Juliet Hahn. I say it every single time. I'm so excited to bring you someone that has churned a passion into a business. And so welcome, Gil Gershoni.

00:00:20
How are you? Oh, I'm great. So happy to be here. Thank you for having me. I'm so happy.

00:00:24
And we're going to talk about how we connected, but I also wanted to give shout outs. So you are the co founder and creative director at Gershoni Creative. You also are behind dyslexic design thinking. And I know as my guest, my guest, as my listeners, they're going to laugh because they're like, jesus. She just really follows.

00:00:42
There's so many dyslexics that I put around because I, sorry, non dyslexics, but we are a little bit more fun and I love having conversations with us. I have, I can't wait to get into how you started all this, but I do want to start a little bit of kind of back where you grew up, and then I want to get into a little bit of like, you know, your dyslexia in school and stuff like that and then how you created your wonderful agency. But let's kind of start really where, where it all, like, started. Where did you grow up? And a little bit about that.

00:01:15
Yeah, absolutely. So half of my family is argentinian and half of my family is american. And I was born in the Middle east and in the early seventies, and until I went to first grade, I was awesome, I was talented, I was funny, I was happy, I was creative. And then I went to school. And back in the early seventies, they didn't know what learning disabilities are.

00:01:43
And I tried so hard for the first four or five years. I just struggled so much. It was so difficult, so painful, so much shame. I even remember one teacher said, he's so sweet, but all he needs is a pillow to fall asleep in class. Like he just doesn't show any interest.

00:02:01
And then we met a learning specialist and she right away realized that I was dyslexic. And she took me into her office and she did a couple different tests and she said, she came back out and says, I'm going to take this kid on and I'm going to show him how smart he is and that he just learns differently. And that really was the beginning of the shift. Of course, the next four or five years were very difficult because I had to catch up and learn differently. And then I moved to the US and I started all over again.

00:02:35
So that was a lot of fun. Not, but yeah, no, so that. Because I find that fascinating back and not. I mean, I feel like we're similar age. You know, it was just like, oh, you're just slow.

00:02:45
I was really. I was a great athlete, so I had my strengths, but it was like, okay, yeah, there's something there, but okay. And I grew up in a very, like, affluent town that everyone was really good, so it was very apparent that I wasn't as. And so the fact that they caught it, that person was pretty special because a lot of times it's just, like, brushed. But then moving to the US, I mean, was that like a struggle to say, no, we know that he's dyslexic.

00:03:10
Like, how did that translate? If you have any knowledge or memory over it? I mean, I know you said that there was difficult times, so you obviously can have those feelings. Absolutely. I mean, obviously we know.

00:03:20
We knew what dyslexia is at that point. It was, you know, the feel of learning differences in dyslexia wasn't as developed as it is today. There wasn't any digital tools. There wasn't a lot of agency for me, my parents, and sometimes the teacher to know what to do and how to address it, but they knew that it was a learning differences. I think that one of the things that really was so important in my early childhood is support of my family, because, and I know you have similar stories with that.

00:03:49
My mom and my dad and my grandparents and uncles and cousins, they just always saw how bright and shiny I was and how sweet and how smart I was. So, you know, from that perspective, that was really, really helped because it's, you know, they all sort of rallied behind me and gave me a lot of support to overcome any of the challenges. I mean, you know, when you're talking about a six years old, I mean, it's nothing of a little, a little thing, right? And I was a skinny, tiny little guy, so. But I learned through these years, and as I moved to the US how to really work hard, you know, and how to just apply myself, you know, and I tried so hard.

00:04:29
And my main goal originally was, I want to be average. If I can just be average, wouldn't that be great? And you know what happened when you wish for something like that and you work so hard, you overachieve across so many different skills. And by the time I got to high school, yes, we focus a lot about my learning differences. We focus about my English because I didn't speak English, so I had to learn a whole new language as a freshman in high school.

00:04:56
Not the easiest environment to do so, but we also. I focus a lot about the arts, and I focus a lot about Hahncing and music and theater and business and things that really gave me a lot of joy. And later on in life, I realized I was actually finding ways to feed my dyslexia self at the same time that I was actually working with some of my differences, you know? Yeah, I mean, that's. And people, I think, can't appreciate enough that you came to the US, and then you also had to learn a different language and the american language, which is so hard.

00:05:31
I still don't know how with dyslexia. Right. And that is where it. And my listeners know, you know, I have the podcast word blindness that I wanted to have you. Cause you fit both of those.

00:05:44
You know, I was like, oh, wait, what. What podcast should I have you on? I mean, you know, a problem that we all want, right? Where do I fit you? But I knew that this conversation, because of your entrepreneurship, I also wanted to really get into that and then be like, okay, now we can do word blindness at a different time.

00:05:59
But that is one of the things that a lot of people that don't have dyslexia don't really actually understand. The amount of work that we have to put in every day, every second. There's not, like, a time. I mean, it is the littlest things to be able to think in your head. I mean, it is.

00:06:18
It sometimes surprises me and then stops. Like, I. Yoga this morning, my left and right was really off today. I don't know what I. I have to pause and think.

00:06:27
I'm always one step behind, and it's fine because I know that. But, like, you think about that in an educational classroom where you're one step behind, you're missing, really key points, and then you're getting further and further and further behind. So you're coming now to the United States, learning, you know, and now learning a different language and having to, like, obtain this. And as you said, you're really smart and you're creative. So how do you, like, kind of maintain that kid without crushing him down so much?

00:06:52
And that's what, you know, the work, you and your world talking about dyslexia, what I do in my work, you know, Brent, with word blindness, what we talk about with. It's so important to be able to acknowledge, but then have the understanding of other people can understand. It's not just flipping our B's and D's. And not every billionaire, you know, not every. You know, there's a lot of shit that we go through that's hard, that's not good, and some of us don't, you know, break out.

00:07:19
So what were some of the key things that got you through those times where you really were like, ugh, this sucks? That's a great question. You know, I think one of the things that was maybe, you know, maybe the main thing is that because of my support from my family and few teachers throughout the process, that really saw my whole person, that through them seeing my whole person, they helped me not to erode my spirit, and through that, build my confidence, because, you know what? We're all not good at something, but we don't go around and saying, you were disabled in basketball because you can't make the hoop. I mean, so, you know, really, dyslexia is the way I think.

00:08:11
It's. Everything I do is dyslexia, and 99% of everything I do, I'm having a great time doing it. Right? So. But then we focusing on the fact that looking at things linearly, it's not my medium, but tell me a story, and I'll tell you the story behind the story, you know, or give me a problem, and I'll solve it in a way that, like, how did you think of that?

00:08:31
Because I'm dyslexic. Everything is. I flip everything around. You know, that's the thing with the letters, right? Like, to me, it's not that I can't read, because I learned to read, and it's so important.

00:08:40
The struggle earlier on is something that we all have to go through. But when I look at the letters in the beginning and I was flipping them around, and it was very hard to hold them together and to sort of spell the word, and I was wrestling with that, and when I was wrestling with that, I was really feeding the disability. I was sort of agreeing that what I'm doing is incorrect, and therefore I need to be fixed, and therefore I need to be labeled. I need to go to a special class. I need to have that stigma.

00:09:10
And often depends who's got, you know, who's. Who's supporting you. There is shame, there is disappointment. There is, you know, all that goes along. So, for me, it's so important to look at those letters when you flip them and say, when I'm reading, it's hard and it's not linear, but if I take the same thing that I can see through things above things below things all at the same time, we call that innovation, we call that creativity.

00:09:42
We call that communication. Who doesn't want to have a child that can look at the world from a new perspective? I've learned to lean toward learning these differences and understand that and then learn how to take the content in different ways and fall in love with learning, which is really what we're trying to teach our young ones. Be curious. Find a way to learn your way.

00:10:10
You know, if you can do math sitting, then dense doing math, like, whatever is your, whatever is your thing, find a way to move with it. So you kind of fall in love with the insights and opportunity. And through that, that kind of shifted over time and, you know, back to your original question around, you know, spirit and confidence. I think that when you start filling that cup, you know, you can overcome anything, you know, because you starting from a place of strength and of confidence. Yeah, well, and what you said is what I say all the time, you were seen as a whole person.

00:10:45
That's what. I had a family very similar that they, you know, again, when you said until first grade, I was the same. I loved kindergarten. I loved like, I was so curious. I loved learning.

00:10:56
And then all of a sudden I hated it. I remember vividly my son exactly the same thing. And it like piercing me in the heart being like, okay, how do I protect this kid that he doesn't have that same journey as I have? But I know that my journey actually made me stronger. So how do you have a little bit of it?

00:11:12
Because he's going to get these amazing things from struggling. Because sometimes our struggles be turned into our strengths. That's why I'm incredible communicator. That's why I can read people, I can talk to people, I can have conversations because of the struggles that I had early on. And so how do you maintain that?

00:11:28
And that is seeing that person as a whole child, as a whole person. So I want to ask you a question that is a little different, but it's something that keeps coming up and we keep talking about the word neurodiversity. I know that you're going to a conference, so you might not be able to speak, and maybe you can talk to me on the side of this, but I don't like the word. It actually makes me angry. And there's a reason why it makes me angry is because I think, and I'll take it back for a second, one of the reasons why I think it makes me really angry is going through the educational process.

00:11:59
There are certain states that when you have an IEP, which I know you understand, but for the listeners, it's an individual educational plan. So when you go to a neuropsych and you get a diagnosis of any kind of learning difference, any kind of, you know, whatever you want to call it, you have a label and you take it with you into school and the school sees it. There are certain states that won't allow you to put the word dyslexia on your IEP. So I've been going through this with my oldest son. He's now in college.

00:12:27
So certain states, New York state, you cannot do it. We came from Connecticut. His IEP said, dyslexic, dysgraphic, all of his ds, right? You hand that to a teacher. A teacher has understanding.

00:12:41
New York state, it says a specified learning disability. And that's what the teacher gets. How many learning, if we look, how many learning disabilities. So I feel, and there's a lot of states out there, and it's something that I am, you know, some of the stuff that we're doing, the Sobel foundation, like these are the changes that need to be made. These are the changes that you can't.

00:13:02
Like, how is a teacher getting this and then being able to. There's no blueprint for this child. They have no idea. That's not the teacher's fault. So neurodiversity to me is clumping everything together again, and it's not giving the people that maybe need to know the blueprint of how your child works.

00:13:21
So I have a feeling that they're going to try to take that word and put it into ieps. Oh, okay. You people that have been fighting about not being able to put dyslexia into your individual educational plan, we're going to use the word neurodivergent. Doesn't that make you feel better? No, because it's still not giving any understanding.

00:13:38
So what we call it. And so I would love for, if you can speak on it, but we call it the five ds. So the five ds are dyslexic, dysgraphic, dyscalculia, ADHD and dyspraxia. So when you have that, you can have an understanding because those are learning styles. So if I say I'm neurodivergent, if you look at the definition of neurodivergence, there's about 1000 things under them.

00:14:02
And I'm exaggerating, but there's a lot. There's trauma, there's, you know, anxiety. There's so many different things under there. They're not learning styles, they're not learning differences. So how are these teachers trying to make a difference in education?

00:14:14
How are they even able to do this if they don't know how these kids are learning? So I would love to hear a little bit on, you know, I like, if you can speak on the word neurodivergent and then kind of riffing off of what I said, do you agree with me? Do you disagree with me? Would just love to do that if you can. Yeah.

00:14:34
I will first start saying that my experience comes from my own dyslexia. And as we know that dyslexia is an umbrella of many different types of differences. I have a hard time with the idea of learning disability because it's not a disability. It's just that we are different. And if you look at the world around us, we all are narrow.

00:14:57
You know, individuals, we all think differently. Our brains are as unique as our fingerprints. And the fact that the learning educational system is structured for sort of the middle of the road leaves a lot of us behind from the way we learn and see the world and get to be our best selves. I know that some people like the idea of neurodiversity or idea of learning disability because, to your point, it sort of creates different opportunities from financial education support and things like that.

00:15:32
You know, I like the word narrow individual, you know, because I find that to be everybody. You know, we're all on the spectrum, and who doesn't want to be a rainbow? I mean, to me, that is really where our differences are. So I don't know if I can say a lot more about that particular word, because you have your experiences, and. And I haven't experienced that by Nintendo, but I think finding a way to not label, maybe the first thing is it's probably a good place to start, right?

00:16:06
As a person in branding, that's what I do. People hire me to label things, right? Or at least to tell them what is the label in that? What's the label on the jar that they're sitting inside of because they can't see it, right? So if the label doesn't fit the situation, then there's a discord there.

00:16:22
And usually we try to go to the heart of it. And really what we're talking about is no two humans are alike, and we look at the world differently, and how do we learn in a different way, and how do we create an environment that both the teachers, the students, and the parents know what they need and know how to ask for it, and they have the resource to support those different individuals to help them, like, find their way around educational systems. So I'm not sure I'm exactly answering your question. No, you totally answered it. And actually, it gives me, like, the best segue into the dear dyslexia postcards that you guys created.

00:16:56
And so I would. And then we're gonna get into the agency. But I know this is a part, and it's one of the things that's really cool. I mean, exactly what you just said, whether we disagree, agree. I mean, I think you have your opinion there, and I think there's no, I can't disagree with that, because I understand that.

00:17:11
Right. Like, we all are individuals, and so you've created something through your agency, which is these dear dyslexia postcards, which are so awesome. I've actually given. I sent one to the agency. Can you take us through a little bit of that and, like, where that came about and where you know what you're doing with that?

00:17:29
Yeah. So I'll back up for a minute, because I did, about a year and a half ago, I did a project called the Dyslexia Dictionary. And for your listeners, you can go to dyslexiadition.com and check it out. I wanted to sort of bring people in, sort of their height of their career, from different industries and different backgrounds that are dyslexic. And I wanted to.

00:17:49
I wanted them to sort of redefine what dyslexia mean to them in a single word and then explain that and create some sort of installation to go along with it. We had Governor Newsom from California participating. We had scientists and actors and musicians and all sorts of individuals. And it really turned to be a really inspiring show for me. And when I was putting it together, I was talking to a colleague, and she said, you know, I have a small.

00:18:19
I have a young student that would love to be part of the exhibition. And my first reactor is like, well, it's not exactly what we're doing, right? And all of a sudden, I caught myself as a dyslexic. What are you talking about? And I was like, give me.

00:18:32
Give me till the end of the day, and I'll get back to you. I sat down, like, what can we do? Inviting the students around the country and the world to be part of this exhibition, says, what if I just created a postcard, send it to them. They can print it out. They can put a stamp and mail it back.

00:18:47
So I called her back and I says, okay, the kids can participate. And I put together a quick postcard and I emailed it to her. And then I got a dozen postcards from them, and it blew me away. And before I knew it, as the show grew, we had hundreds of postcards, and the postcards were very simple. All the postcards said is dyslexia is to me, and you have to find a word to fill it.

00:19:10
And then the rest of it was express yourself in any way. You can do a mathematical equation. You can paint, you can draw, you can fingerprint, whatever you want. I gotta tell you, we put these postcards in the gallery in the mix of all these, you know, really successful individuals kind of just gluing it together. I think the kids stole the show, you know, because you saw the individual postcard, and you can see some of them were not the happiest.

00:19:37
Some of them were challenging and sad and difficult, but other was superpower and bright and creativity and all sorts of. So you can see the individual child's expression, but you also see the collective. And in the heart of that project, it was really a project about identity in the self. So as dyslexia dictionary closed, the postcard kept coming in. I still receive every day.

00:20:02
I'm like, you know, I received bags of postcards from all over the world. I think at this point, we have over 2000 postcards from, you know, schools from Florida to New York to Texas to, to California, of course, and everywhere in between. Many celebrities participated, supporting the cause. But in the heart of it, it's really the questions of who are you, really, and what gives you joy and what makes you your best self? And that's an easy thing for most children to answer.

00:20:32
I like soccer. I like Hahncing. I like to make roads in the mud and playing with my cards, you know, or with, you know, trucks or whatnot. So it kind of starts to sort of create the conversation is that dyslexia is everything you are not just your challenges. And when you see that and you can see it in the children's face, it's like, wait a second.

00:20:54
The fact that I'm good at sports is also my dyslexia, right? Absolutely. They walk out of. Because we had a lot of maker spaces and a lot of, you know, and this has been a traveling show now for a couple, for a year and a half around the country. We took it to Congress, and, which was a wonderful event.

00:21:10
But every event I'm doing, I'm also having children come and make more postcards and add it to the collective. It's a moment of transformation. It's so simple. It cost you a stamp. So there's no barrier of technology or anything.

00:21:24
I mean, it's just really, really democratic. Everybody can be part of it. And I take a picture with my team of every postcard that arrives. We post them all to our online gallery, you know, and, yeah, it's just so, so moving. I can't get enough of it, you know?

00:21:42
So we're continuing, and I invite all of your listeners to go to our website and download the template and mail it back to us, and we'll add you to the exhibition, both the online and the offline exhibition that's happening this year now. Very cool. And funny enough, that telephone call, I will acknowledge that because it was going to be in there because of our conversation, is from my dyslexic son from college. My phone for my three kids has a bypass, so even if it's on silent, it rings. And I usually don't ever get calls during the day.

00:22:17
But now that he's in college, we haven't sunk up our schedules of being like, wait, honey, sometimes I'm recording, and every time, like, this is now twice it's happened. So I apologize for that. But it is kind of wonderful timing because it is from my dyslexic son at university. I love it. I love it.

00:22:33
It's so exciting that he's going to university. What is hedehethere studying? He is studying sports management, and he's playing soccer. So super talented at athletics. And as you said, it's one of those things he never, you know, I don't want to go to college.

00:22:50
I hate college. I mean, I hate school. However, I love, I love soccer and I want to play at, you know, I mean, he's, and he's very talented, so it's, and now, as I said to him, college is different, and college is not for everyone. I will say that, you know, from the beginning, not for everyone. Not everyone.

00:23:09
Like, there's many people that don't go that are super successful. My dad, another dyslexic, chose not to go. I did go, but I went because I played sports as well. And so it was one of those things that it was just like, let's see how far. Then I became good at college because I started learning the way I was supposed to learn because you study things that, you know, are more kind of creative for your brain.

00:23:31
I studied real communications, radio, television and film. So that is one of the things I wanted for him. You know, he does better in school than I did. But I also said to him, like, you're going to take classes that you're going to be like, wait, what? This is so interesting.

00:23:46
I love it. Sports psychology. He is like, this is the coolest class. I'm like, it's everything you've been through. He's had a ton of injuries.

00:23:52
He's had overcome a lot because of his dyslexia and then injuries and his dreams. So it's one of those things as dyslexics, we have this grit that a lot of people don't have because we know what it's like to fail and get back up. We're not scared of failure because it's like, I've been doing it all the time. So we jump into things. We are willing to take risks.

00:24:15
We work so hard because we're working hard all the time. So it's these kind of beautiful things that you're also highlighting with the dear dyslexia postcard. It's making someone stop and think, wait, let me think. And thinking is so important. And I feel like nowadays people are just going at such speeds that they don't allow themselves to think.

00:24:35
And even though as dyslexic ADHD's, we go at very, you know, we're moving at fast, fast speeds. However, we also, our brain kind of keeps up with what we're doing. And sometimes we have these great reflections that come up with new things. So I love that you were like, wait a second. Give me a day.

00:24:51
I'm going to come back. And then you created this whole new thing because someone gave you an idea, someone gave you a thought that instead of you just shutting it down, you were like, let me think on it. And that's where the creative dyslexic thinking comes in. So how did you start the agency? I would love that.

00:25:07
Like, what was the path to that? Well, before I jumped into that, I love what your son is doing, and I love that he found a way to take his disability to an ability to hyper ability. And I think that as, as, as I, you know, I think the difference between going to lower school and going to choosing to go to university or higher education in any type, the difference is that you choose your interests and you choose something that gives you that joy. And of course, it's still going to be hard because you have to keep up with the curriculum, but you are leaning toward your gift, and whenever you do that, it just creates more of it. And I think that's a good segue to your question about how I started the gallery when I was six.

00:25:48
Years old, my uncle taught me how to do a little magic trick and it just blew me away. I was like, I was never interested in the deception of it or the trickery of it. I was interested in the psychology of perception. I didn't know it at six years old. By over the years, I really kind of invested a lot of time of thinking about what is consciousness, what is perception, what happened between a subject and an object, and how do we control that first impression?

00:26:14
Love it for sight. I just love doing that. I don't want to explain it to you even I just have that sort of, it just gives me that personal astonishment. So I spent a lot of time in my early years playing with visual perception, with language, with the arts, with the sciences, with business, and like, what is the art of the deal? Like, what is haggling?

00:26:37
Back in the day, my grandfather was an entrepreneur, but he was just a hustler. It was old school. He just relationship with people that lasted a lifetime and they made business and they were friends, you know. So I was really kind of grew up in that environment, that half of my family was entrepreneurs in business and the other half were artists, you know, painters. And my mom is a sculptor.

00:27:02
And so I was really kind of really seeing the two sides of my own brain because I had right in front of me, you know, as I got a little older in my teenager years, I started to sort of used my ability for entertainment and start getting gigs. And before I knew it, I was making hundreds of dollars because I was a hustler. I knew what it is to go pitch, you know, a summer camp and say, let's do an event and a craft show and a magic show. And I brought my cousin, and I remember the first summer camp I went to approach, he says, well, let's try one. And I says, no, no, no.

00:27:35
Either I do the all of the summer sessions or none. And he's like, I was probably twelve years old. And he's like, what the heck? Like, you know, just because I was like, you know, this little guy came on a bike, you know, with a little bit. I think I had one of my pigeons in my bag.

00:27:51
So I show him I had a bird and he just fell in love because he's like, you are the age of this. The kids are going to camp, you know, so which of course, I use it as my pitch. I was like, what parent doesn't want to see a kid the same age as their kids just being, you know, right. You know, whatever difference. So from there, you know, I just was really interested in all that.

00:28:13
And as I got to high school into the United States, you know, to my surprise, my art teachers submitted application for a couple art schools, and I got accepted to one of them, Pratt Institute in New York. And I. That really just sort of changed my life. I mean, as soon as I got to university, kind of similar to your, to your son, you know, I never thought I was going to go to higher education because, I mean, not. No, thank you.

00:28:44
But I love with the arts of communication, which I know that's. That's your direction. I fell in love with the idea of how do we do campaigns and how we do experiences that are large enough to include a lot of us. And if the messaging and if what we're trying to do is important, can we get to the truth and the heart of it? Like, can we really make you be like, oh, I want to be a part of this experience?

00:29:09
Right? And through that, walk away with something greater than an object. Maybe it's a memory. Maybe it's a feeling. Maybe it's an affinity toward an experience.

00:29:18
I remember my freshman year at Pratt, I went to the guiHahnce counselor's office and the phone range. This is before iPhones and, you know, early, early web. And the phone rang, and the person answered, and she says, put it on hold. Somebody in the phone that, looking for a designer to do the Miami grand Prix auto race. And I was like, oh, I'll take the phone call.

00:29:40
And she didn't know any better, and she gave it to me, and I didn't know any better. And I got the phone with the guy, and he's like, yeah, we need to. We need a designer, a group of designers to brand merchandising and the streets of Miami and work with Toyota and the city of Miami and working with us. And I was like, absolutely. Yeah, let's set up a meeting, and let's see how we can do make it happen.

00:30:00
And I hung up the phone, and I was like, I had no idea what I was. I was like, I don't. I mean, what did I just do? It turned into, like, many years of business with this organization because they supported a lot of sports, from tennis to car racing to golf to beyond. And.

00:30:17
And I just hustled. I brought a lot of my colleagues at the university. One was an illustrator, one was a copywriter. And we just faked it until we made it. And we made it right away because everybody's faking it, right?

00:30:31
Like, you know, we just didn't know any better, and we just took that leap. And I think that's very dyslexic. That was freshman year, so you can imagine by four years in, I was basically hiring half the class. Like I had business coming from every direction. I was starting to fly to California because it was 99 early nineties, early boom.

00:30:50
And I was like, let me go check out what's going on there. After a couple of trips to California, I was like, you know what, I'm moving to California and I'm going to fly to New York for the business. New York. While I'm developing this new thing called websites and social media and things as it start developing. I got to California and I got a chance to meet the folks at Nike and a similar story.

00:31:12
You know, we went there and at the time it was very, very early web and they were designing their website, but nobody can see it because at the time everybody had a 14 four modem and they were designing it with Nike brand experience, but you couldn't even download it. Everything took three minutes to see a photo or I'm sure you remember those days. So I really simply said, you know, I think with my experience doing this sort of sports earlier on in my career or in my college education part, I says, we need to combine both offline and online experiences. And we have to make sure that the online experiences is accessible to everyone because that would just makes it inclusive and we can reach more customers and we can make them part of it. And again, I just pitched an idea that just came from my dyslexia mind and that turned into almost ten years working with Nike.

00:32:05
As we start to codify their web experiences, we start to work with a lot of events around the country and the world. I remember we did the pen relay and we had all these Olympic stars. And at the same time, I've learned that they're sort of bringing inner city kids to learn to from these stars. I said, why don't we reverse the logic? Why don't we feature the kids and not the Olympic stars and treat the kids like they were the Olympic stars, right?

00:32:31
Focus about your best self, you know, start with your confidence. And we got a photographer and we took photographs of them and we had them write, you know, quotes and sign the thing and had their stats as they learned. And of course, they had a photograph with Gail Deaver and the rest of the, and then on the site, we just featured the kids. So the kids had to go and find their photograph or their sister photograph and see their quote and their age and their school. And it was just sort of turning the story upside down, but turning it, I think, in many ways, right side up is that was the point, you know, that was what, what really matters.

00:33:05
And it was true. You know, the kids figured out that they love to exercise, they love to run, they love to jump, they love to do what they gives them joy. And, you know, so, you know, from there, it was really just like, you know, we're coming on three decades, so we've been doing it for a minute, but working with clients, Spotify and patron tequila and Google, and because for us, it's not the industry that matters, it's the end user, which there are humans, and they're all using all the same things. So if you look at a humans a day in the life, you don't have any silos, you get up, you buy a coffee, you go to the bank, you go exercise, you know? So designing for those kind of experiences across many brands is really where we thrive.

00:33:56
I love that. Trying to find a story and the truth about it. And every, every challenge is new, and we always try to look at new. And you know what? As a dyslexic, I got that in spades.

00:34:06
Like, yeah, I think we talked about before we got on recording. Like, I never have a creative block because I always look through above, below everything, and I always see it for the first time again. And I'm always like, well, we did it this way that time. But what if we, now we know more? What if we pivot differently and do even more, or differently or new, or combine different ideas from different industries?

00:34:27
That makes it a whole new experience that goes to the heart of the brand and at the end of day, converts. But I, with heart and feeling and. Meaning, I love that. I love that so much. And you know what?

00:34:41
And this is what I think is so fascinating about the, the brain and dyslexia and just really humans in general, is when I was in third grade, I was put into special reading the entire class. We went to gifted and talented, except me and the troublemaker. And I was told, and I don't know if I told myself or a teacher or somewhere that it was the creative kids that went to this other thing. And I was struggling reading, so I had to go. So I gave myself the narrative that I wasn't creative because I couldn't draw.

00:35:11
I was really bad at drawing. Part of my dysgraphia, dyslexia, whatever, I just wasn't a drawer. My creative mind is very different, and it's in the communicating and the creating bigger picture stuff. But when you don't draw. So I always gave my narrative up until, like, five years ago, which is insane, because I'm a very confident person.

00:35:31
I just always was like, you know, I'm not creative. I'm nothing creative. So when I went to university, I played sports. As I said, I played two. Two sports, and I went into corporate fitness because I was like, corporate.

00:35:44
I'm great with people fitness. That's what I'm good at. That's what gave me the good feels all my life, right? I was the fastest one, even up until I can't even remember. Like, I used to beat the boys.

00:35:53
Like, it was like, that was known. Juliet Hahn, you know, she's. She's an athlete. She's a badass. Like, she can beat everyone.

00:35:59
She's stronger than ever. You know, it was. It was a very cool. But that's what gave me my good feels. So when I went and I started doing corporate fitness and I had to take anatomy and physiology, I was like, mom, I'm quitting.

00:36:10
Like, I'm not doing this. This is ridiculous. I can't do this. I can't do this. And somehow I went into communications.

00:36:18
I found it. I went. But there was the radio, television, film side, so I was on. I wrote scripts, I was screenplays. I was on the radio.

00:36:26
I actually just did a podcast for our university, for the alumni, and it was at WGLS, which was the radio station. Now, I was doing all of this laughing, being like, I'm not creative. This is not what I'm going to do. I'm going to go into advertising sales. Even though the advertising side of brands and the creative side always fascinated me, I would always see things different, but I always gave myself a narrative that, like, no, I don't.

00:36:51
I don't play in that sandbox. Right? I'm not. I'm good at the sales part. I'm good at the relationship part.

00:36:57
And so I love how very early on, you realized, okay, this is what you're good at. And then coming from your family, so, like, my family was more athletic. They were less artsy, you know, even though my dad used to do skin stained glass, my dad is dyslexic, and he used to do really cool stained glass. I do remember that. But we were more athletic.

00:37:17
And so your family, with the artist and the entrepreneur, it was like you had these two sides, like, building, building, building. And when it was your time, it was like this explosion, and you had the balls because of. That's what we do. Every job I got in New York City, I would laugh. I'd be like, I could.

00:37:34
I could interview to be the president of the United States. I would get in the role and I shouldn't say the president. So I'm not going to bring that. I could be the president of a company and I could get in that role and be like, okay, now I need to figure out who in the company is going to help me because I have no idea what I'm doing. Every job I got was higher than I ever should have got, but I could.

00:37:55
And it's not bullshit, because that's what people be like, oh, you're good. Bullshitter. No, it's. I know what I know. I know I'm going to be able to figure it out because I figure everything out.

00:38:02
And it might take me a little longer, but I will figure everything out, and I usually will do it better because there'll be that creative side. So I love what you've created, and I think it's so brilliant. And I love that path that you just told because that is really cool of seeing that you were just like, I can picture you in that office being like, no, I'm gonna get it. And then be like, oh, my God, right now. What?

00:38:23
Okay, I got it. Now what do I do? But you figure it out. You figure it out. And, you know, I think that a few things you said that I really resonate with me and for my own narrative, and everybody's different.

00:38:33
So with all the, you know, knowing that dyslexia is many things, right, for the audience, it's not one thing people say, oh, is dyslexic. They flip letters. No, no, no. What we do is we see through the boundaries. We don't color inside and outside the line.

00:38:49
We color new lines. Right? So. But when I learned that when I do that in a certain medium, that is just challenging for me, as I said earlier, if I do the same function, the same mental gymnastics on something else, I thrive. I learned that when it takes me time to figure it out, I actually arrive at a solution faster than if I was rushing to it, or, frankly, anybody else rushing to it, because often we start by solving the wrong problem.

00:39:22
So as a dyslexic, and I think massively fast, as I know you do as well, and I can see from the creative, to the manufacturing, to the economic, to the distribution, to the end, results in a blink of an eye. And I can tell you where there is a discord. And I might not be able to tell you right away why, but I can tell you for sure that's where it is. And I know because my job is to take problems and convert them into solutions, is that I go toward the problem. And I've learned that as a child.

00:39:48
So when I tell my clients or my team, everybody has to slow down. Like slow down. It's not because I can't compute it or understand it, is because I want all of us to dissect it until we know what we're trying to do, clearly, and then we can go double time. And then the efficiency of the solution, the ideas, the outcome, not only goes faster, but everybody's on the same page, everybody's aligned. You know, as a dyslexic, it was very hard for me earlier on in my career to slow down and wait for everybody else.

00:40:21
I remember when I first meet my wife and I would ask her a question, and then I had to wait for her to answer the question. But by the time the question came out of my mouth, I already knew the answer, because I was like, okay, I analyzed five different things. This is the one because of the positives and negatives, and we're going to do this. But so then she would always say, you're setting me up, man. Like, why you ask me a question if you know the answer?

00:40:45
I'm just computing differently. But I've learned that if I slow down and let her processes her way, she always comes up with a better insight than mine. And together it's better. Nobody wants to arrive, you know, at the summit alone. It's better to be together, to check out the outcome and the successes.

00:41:04
So that sort of co creation you're talking about, or the collaboration, because I'm good at this and not at that, and you good at the other thing and not that together we're able to solve what we're trying to do. I mean, at the agency, you know, some of our strategists, they can think the way I do. They need to hear the problem, go away quietly in a white room, which would freak me out, do some reading, do some research, do their thing, and come back with the answer. For me, it's like, ask me the question, I'll tell you right now, like, give me 2 seconds. Okay, that's what we're doing.

00:41:37
So. But I've learned that I need them as much as they need me. And I think that, as you were saying in your early career and beyond, and the way I started with my team is that I needed them as much as they needed me. And it's that sort of co creation. That really makes it so much better at the long run.

00:41:55
This sort of collaboration, I refer to it as sort of radical collaboration because the first part of radical collaboration is the ability to collaborate with yourself, to be coachable and to have compassion for yourself and to position yourself in a way to say, this is not my strength, but these are. And give yourself a break and see it for the first time for yourself as well. So you can evolve and change as young as you are or old as you are. And through that evolution, you can do the same with others. So then you make space for them.

00:42:27
You want to hear what they have to say because, you know, they might have a perspective that you don't. And that co creating is really what, at the end of the day, is all about. It's beautiful. And I think one of the things why companies are as successful as they are. I had one of the guys on our podcast, this guy Hahn.

00:42:47
He has a company called Signature Locker. And he was saying, he and his wife, he's dyslexic. And he is like, I'm great at the big picture, looking out to see where I want it. He's like, I need the integrators. I need the people that are going to actually then go do it.

00:43:00
I say this big thing, he's like, I'm terrible at that. So he's found the right people to hook up with. And that's one of the things. Knowing your own strengths and weaknesses for humans is so important. We all have strengths, but we all have weaknesses.

00:43:14
And it's okay. What makes us tick. And the more that you know what your weaknesses are and the more you surround people that can uplift those weaknesses, it's just going to make your strengths even stronger. And that's when you're going to soar. I love it.

00:43:27
Yeah, well, Gil. Okay. And so we can tell people again where to find you. So the Gershoni and then creative. C r E a t I v.

00:43:38
Right? I did that all. Yeah, the URL is just grishoni.com. Yep. And you can definitely check out all the great things we're doing with our agency.

00:43:46
And, you know, if something resonate with you, don't. Don't hesitate to reach out and talk to us. I, as you can tell with, you know, I'm a yes man. I'm like, you know, if there is something true there and we can help. I'm like, how can we help?

00:43:59
Let's talk about. And even if it's not directly, us always love to share the spread, the knowledge and the love. Wherever I can love that. And you're also on LinkedIn. People can find you there as well.

00:44:08
Absolutely. Yeah. Gil Gershoni on LinkedIn. Gil with one l. And then if you want to participate in our dear dyslexia postcard project, we would love for you to go to our website and download the postcard.

00:44:23
And that's dyslexiadesignthinking.com. you can find everything we do, our podcasts, our postcard project, our other exhibitions, and some books and things. So definitely check that out as well. And we would love to hear from all of you. Yeah.

00:44:39
So you guys go do that. And you know what to do, like, rate, review, and share. You don't know who needs to hear this conversation. You don't know where people are in their lives and what they need to be uplifted with. So don't forget to, like, rate, review, and share.

00:44:51
And we'll see you for another podcast. Not another podcast, another episode of your next stop podcast. Thank you so much, Gil. Again, I'm so glad that we're connected. It was a pleasure.