Growing up, I was a happy kid, but not a great student. I was a C+ student, at best. In math, I earned D grades, even with a tutor. The only hint there might be potential was that my teachers uniformly told my parents I was brighter than my grades would suggest. Was that a compliment or simply a rationalization?
In tenth grade, my father was summoned to the guidance counselor’s office where he was told I should be removed from the academic college curriculum and placed in a curriculum for the trades. That would have been fine I guess, but I lacked any mechanical aptitude whatsoever. My father knew this. My father declined the counselor’s offer to place me elsewhere and insisted I remain on the college track simply saying, “I think George will figure it out. It may just take him a little longer.” My father only told me that story 12 years later when I completed my first doctoral training. Along the way, I had three different advisors tell me I would never finish graduate school (they were dismayed that I was even admitted). And two faculty told me I just didn’t have what it took to be a psychologist.
So, it turned out I’m dyslexic and have some variation on the theme of attention deficits and hyperactivity. The revelation was made when I was in graduate school. It was nice to know that I had a “thing” which helped explain some of uniqueness of my life. But I wasn’t about to let that “thing” define me. So how does a kid with dyslexia and attention deficit become a musician, college professor, researcher, and author of over 20 books? My dad was right. I figured out a way to compensate for what has been called a disability by recruiting supplemental brain pathways (the “how” of that is material for another post). Even today I read less than the average person in words per minute, but I can read!
I’m certainly not the first person to overcome dyslexia or attention and hyperactivity challenges. But in retrospect what I learned was the challenge is less the disability and more what you believe about the disability – and yourself. So in other words, your attitude really matters.
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