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- [00:00]
A
Hope you've been enjoying all the big picture content and it is coming back next week. But this week we want to talk about understanding dyslexia and understanding the impact that it's having with you, particularly at work. Because the reality is is that most people do not understand their dyslexia and do not really understand how to manage it, what the challenges really look like. And that can have real detrimental impacts on work and our career path, but also our day to day and how much things are harder because don't know what to do for our brain and how to manage things. And also one of the things that I've noticed is that because we don't understand really the challenge and we definitely don't understand the solution, it can chip away even further at our confidence, which again has an even bigger knock on effect to work and the impact that it has.
- [00:53]
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Welcome to Dyslexia in Adults, the podcast that helps you reach your potential because of dyslexia, not in spite of it. I'm Natalie, the founder of Dyslexia in Adults and the HIVE Membership, a company I created due to my own struggles with dyslexia because I wanted a space to specifically discuss the challenges of dyslexia in the workplace. Now, Dyslexia in adults reaches over 100,000 people and the hive has helped thousands transform their systems to successfully manage dyslexia. I am now on a mission to help anyone who is struggling with dyslexia at work to realize there is a simple and easy way to manage your dyslexia. In this podcast, we help you change your perspective on dyslexia, learn systems that work, and figure out your dyslexic strengths.
- [01:39]
A
Now, if you've been listening for a long time and you have been around for a while, you will know that from time to time, we hold live events where we break down in one hour a particular topic and go into a lot of detail. We are finally, after six months of stopping, bringing back a new one and we have entitled it three sneaky ways Dyslexia is holding you back at work and the secrets to help you excel, where we're going to be breaking down specific challenges and specific solutions so that you can actually feel in control of your brain and not feel like you're on this constant hamster wheel of challenges and frustration and confidence issues. Now, with that in mind, I wanted to take a little bit of time and think about exactly what it is that can often really impact dyslexic people that we don't really think about. We know, but they are so under the surface and there's so few people that we can really discuss dyslexia about that. The reality is, is that it kind of stays under the carpet, hidden behind closed doors. And that first one is the raging imposter syndrome that can come from being dyslexic and not really feeling like you have a control over your brain. And the example I wanted to pull through here from my life is what. And many of you will know that one of the jobs I had towards the end of my career was I was working at Amazon. And if you don't know, you might be sitting there thinking, well, Natalie, I thought you said, like, dyslexia was a big impact for you. It was, but it was majority on imposter syndrome because I went through seven rounds of interview, each one being like 45 minutes. One round of interviews was five hours, one time. And I still every single day thought that they were going to catch me out and realize that I wasn't really meant to be here, that I was a kind of secret imposter, just snuck through and doing my best to be able to kind of fit in with the rest of them. But if they really knew how hard things were, what exactly was going on, that they would realize that they don't want me then. The second example I wanted to talk through is the reality that for many dyslexic people, standard tasks are taking significantly longer. And that is not just because of the way that our brain works. It's because we don't have good systems to manage our challenges. That all we are left with because we've never been taught about dyslexia and about how to manage it is hard work. That is what we have been taught from a young age, that resilience and hard work is the key to success with dyslexia. But there are strategies and simple ways to make life easier. And this feeling of everything taking you longer is just going to go back into that apostant syndrome, back into those confidence issues. Because ultimately you're embarrassed by this fact and you don't want to be different. We want to be the same as everyone else. And the funny thing is that I used to feel in my own life is that because I was so embarrassed about things taking me longer and I didn't want to admit them, the confidence would then make doing the work all the harder. I remember when I was working at one particular job, I used to have to write these long reports and have to send them over and they would get checked by a boss who was really meticulous. And that's fair enough. But it was very daunting sending her these very meticulous reports. And instead of saying to her, you know, I would really love it if you could check my work without any spelling mistakes to just make sure the content is in line and then I'll go back through and check all the spelling mistakes. I used to spend hours upon hours checking for all the grammar, checking for all the spelling. And then she would say, yeah, this report is good, but you need to change this, you need to edit this. And I'd have to go through the whole process all over again. So not only was it taking me longer, but I was adding in even more time because I didn't have the confidence to just say, hey, listen, I just want to have a content check. And then I will go through and be really, really careful with all the spelling. And then thirdly, and finally, the thing that used to really bother me when I was at work and feeling frustrated with dyslexia, it's just this feeling that I couldn't really ever trust my brain. Like I didn't know what it had processed, I didn't know what it really had understood. And then it was just these constant errors that left me feeling incapable or I just couldn't trust my brain. And it was so frustrating. And again, when you can't trust your brain and you feel like you have to check things, get other people to check things, or maybe a mistake has slipped through again, you just feel like this burden or that you're an imposter and not meant to be there and that nothing can help you and you just have to kind of stay small and keep out of the way and you know, not get involved in anything too important because God knows what might end up happening. And that's what I mean by these like sneaky challenges that leave you on this hamster wheel of frustration, confidence issues, hard work, tiredness, round and round and round, actually starting to have a significant impact on where you're at in your career, how hard your day to day is. You know, where you are going to be able to get to in terms of salary. The impact is really significant. I hope you're listening because you do not want to miss what I am about to share. Many of you might know that I have been working on the challenges of dyslexia and workplace for, for almost five years now. So honestly, I really get exactly what you are experiencing that feeling of like, oh yeah, like I'm dyslexic. And it's just some things are harder but I don't really know why and I don't really know what to say and I definitely don't have any solutions. And as a result of that confusion and that difficulty, your confidence is just chipping, chipping, chipping away. And the strengths, yeah, maybe there's the occasional good idea, but what's that got to do with anything? How is that going to help you, especially compared to the mountain that the challenges feel like. So we know that you're all time poor and that as dyslexic people processing information can not be the funnest thing to do. So we have tried to compile everything that we want you to know into one easy to digest live event. So on the 20th of June we are going to be hosting a totally free one hour event. You can find all the details in the show notes below. And obviously don't worry if you can't attend live or you're five minutes late because you're dyslexic, there's going to be the recording sent afterwards. And one final story that I wanted to share. I used to make so many little jokes about my dyslexia, so many little comments about how I wasn't capable or good enough or how embarrassed I was about to how hard things were. And at the end of a peer 360 feedback at one of the companies I worked for, I had 15 people say to me, Natalie should be kinder about herself. Natalie is actually really capable, but she's very hard on herself. Natalie is a huge critic of herself. She should be more polite to herself. And all these people saying that they could see that I was capable but I was so hard on myself. And it really just hammer home to me how this was these people's perspective of me and that was their perception of me because of what I had done, because of how I had felt. And this isn't the moment where I sit down and I ram down your throat, but dyslexia has so many great things. There's so many things to value about being dyslexic. Yeah, there are. But we do need real solutions to these challenges so we can feel in control of our brain. And that's what exactly dyslexia in adults was for me five years ago when I first started it, it was about me finding the solutions to these very real challenges. And so I could feel capable or be okay with being different or my work actually being done in a timely manner. So if all of that sounds like you, and you are excited to learn more about the sneaky ways that dyslexia might be holding you back at work, but more importantly, the secrets to actually help you excel, then make sure you don't miss our live event that is totally free and is on the 20th June at 6pm UK time. And don't worry if you are in the rest of the world or unable to make it live, then we will of course be sending out a recording straight after the event.
- [10:11]
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Here at Dyslexia and Adults, we're on a mission to do things differently. We're tired of hearing of people struggling with dyslexia and the constant frustrations that we live with as dyslexic people. If you're ready to create change and want to learn more about our approach to managing dyslexia, then make sure you download our free guide Decoding Dyslexia at Work.