Dyslexic Thinking Advantages: Entrepreneurship and the Business World

Have you ever noticed that the dyslexic person in your life has entrepreneurial traits? And there may be some famous entrepreneurs that you didn't realize were dyslexic. Today we're going to talk about one of the benefits of being dyslexic that revolves around entrepreneurial traits.

Hey everyone, we're Nick and Sonja and this is Dyslexia Journey where we help you support the dyslexic kid in your life. Too often we only talk about the supposed negative sides of dyslexia, the difficulties in reading and writing and how it makes school more challenging for our dyslexic kids. But here on Dyslexia Journey, we think it's important to discuss the positive aspects as well, which are much less known and much less, really much less in the conversation.

And so today we're going to continue our series on the benefits of dyslexia. Our first episode in this series covered the visual-spatial skills that are associated with dyslexia. Today we're going to talk about a set of skills that revolve around entrepreneurship in the business world. So, are we ready to jump in? Yes. So we're going to start with just talking about a few famous entrepreneurs that you may or may not know are dyslexic.

So the first one is Richard Branson. He originally founded Virgin Records and then Virgin Atlantic, which is an aviation company, and then Virgin Galactic, which is doing space travel. And so you may have heard of him. He is also, I think, one of the richest people in the world. And he is dyslexic. He's spoken openly about it. And he has highlighted how it affected his, you know, education and his early business ventures in particular.

Yeah, he has shared how he really struggled in school. But he has also shared how it has helped him in the business world in various ways. Our second entrepreneur, who you may not know has dyslexia, is Charles Schwab. He is the founder of the Charles Schwab Corporation, which is a financial investment company. And he actually, in addition to having dyslexia and speaking about it, he's actually started a foundation to help with education around dyslexia.

Our next dyslexic entrepreneur is Ingvar Kamprad, who was the founder of IKEA. And he, you know, really influenced a lot of the unique aspects of the company. We're sort of just used to it now, if you're familiar with IKEA, but he had these creative names for the products. Another thing that he did, I know, was he really, like, conceptualized the flat shipping and, like, putting, you know, we all know we have to put the things together, the furniture and whatnot that we buy.

And it was really, like, effective, though, for shipping and, like, and keeping the cost down. And so that was really an interesting outside the box kind of thinking that he had there. And perhaps a way of incorporating Earth, a use of his visual spatial skills as well. Yeah, potentially. I also think it's not a coincidence that the instructions for putting the IKEA furniture together are completely picture-based. And there's no words there at all.

Yeah. Okay, our next dyslexic entrepreneur is Paul Orphilea. He founded Kinkos, which is now part of FedEx. His dyslexia definitely affected him in school. But he was able to use some of those entrepreneurial skills that really we feel are associated with dyslexia that we're going to get into more in the second half of this episode. But he was able to start and build this successful business. And another famous CEO who is dyslexic is John Chambers, who was CEO of Cisco.

And then I don't know if any of you have seen Shark Tank, a very popular show where, you know, different individuals or groups come on and present their business ideas for funding. But Barbara Corcoran, who has been on that show and is a real estate mogul and entrepreneur, is dyslexic and has spoken a lot about her own struggles and successes with dyslexia. And the last entrepreneur that we're going to talk about today, he's our youngest and sort of newest entrepreneur on the block that we're going to discuss today is Cliff Weitzman.

He's the founder and CEO of Speechify. We actually interviewed him recently, and we're going to share those interviews really soon. So maybe by the time you're watching this, you can search for those interviews on our channel. And he talks about how dyslexia is really what has driven him his whole life and how he believes that that some of the sort of resilience, especially that he has learned as a dyslexic individual has really driven his success in the business world.

So let's go a little more into what are some of these traits, these things that we associate with entrepreneurship and that are also associated with being dyslexic. Yeah, it's interesting to think about because we don't always think about entrepreneurship as a sort of goal that there are a specific set of traits that contribute to. And I think it's really fascinating to kind of dig in to the sort of business world, entrepreneurship world and try to figure out what traits actually do make people successful in that world.

And so as we start to dig in, it really is clear that a lot of the traits that generally make people successful in that world are traits that dyslexic individuals often have. And so the first one that comes to mind is something that we've talked about before on this show, both in some of the episodes that we've done on our own and also it's come up in some of the interviews recently.

It's outside the box thinking, which I think is very similar or maybe the same thing as divergent thinking. And this is really just problem solving, approaching problems in maybe different ways that aren't the sort of standard linear thinking approach that we're generally taught in school and that people are generally sort of shunted into thinking about approaching problems in a specific way. So in school generally people are taught how to find answers in a specific way and then on tests it's almost expected that you sort of approach things exactly that way.

And so really our school system and then our world at large does kind of contribute to this kind of uniform thinking and approaching problems in the sort of the same way. And it's very clear, at least anecdotally, that dyslexic people are very good at outside the box thinking and divergent thinking. And so just to put maybe more of a specific example on this, I want to quote something that Ed Thompson, the founder of Optimize, told us in a recent interview.

He said that the best way to illustrate divergent thinking is if you come to the front door and the door is locked, instead of just sort of continuing to pound on the door until someone opens it or like breaking down the door, maybe you go around to the back of the house and you find a door unlocked in the back. That's sort of a vivid example of a way to approach problems differently.

It's kind of nonspecific, but I think we can sort of intuitively grasp that being able to think outside the box would be helpful in entrepreneurship because there's often unexpected challenges that crop up, for example. And so having lots of creative ideas and solutions, I mean, that makes me think of the IKEA founder again and, you know, like putting the items flat and thinking of that solution for shipping, right? I mean, so there's so many ways it could crop up, but I think we can see that that could be really, really helpful when you're trying to start a business and compete and also just face challenges that you can't anticipate necessarily ahead of time.

Yeah. And even the sort of fundamental aspects of entrepreneurship, I mean, when we sort of think about the best and most famous entrepreneurs, I mean, these are people who did things that we maybe didn't even know were possible or that we didn't know were a valid, potentially lucrative business that, you know, other people might have said, oh, that'll never work kind of thing. Right. And then, so our second trait that is entrepreneurial and that often dyslexics share, it sort of feels related to me a little bit.

But I guess they cross over a little bit is big picture or holistic thinking, maybe also called global thinking. But it's really about being able to not necessarily always get bogged down in details and really see the bigger picture, the bigger structure. And so that could be helpful with systems in the business. It could be helpful with sort of having a feel for market trends and seeing interest, sort of being able to see them as they have the data come in and getting the, you know, the big picture out of that data.

and so I think that's pretty obvious in terms of both structurally and organizationally, how that would be helpful in entrepreneurship. And then also, like I said, with market trends and sort of seeing the big picture, the big wider picture in society for placement of the company. And it's interesting. I want to add a little note there that this big picture thinking is something that, often causes problems in school where, subjects are taught from kind of a bottom up approach.

and, and, and people, don't understand that dyslexic people really, really learn better when they can see the big picture of what they're trying to do from the beginning. Right. Yeah. So we've definitely observed that, you know, in our own experiences with dyslexic people in our lives, but, yeah, I mean, it really comes down to just to sort of emphasize that again and say it a different way. It's like, sometimes we'll say, well, let's take it down right from like step-by-step from the very beginning.

And sometimes for often for dyslexic people, yeah, it's like, they need to see, well, where are we going with this? Like, or an example, so you can sort of get the feel for the whole thing first. Yeah. And that's why I think it's, it's really important to reframe this almost as, like this dyslexic trait, which is, perhaps, treated as a negative. Often in schools. And, if you're sort of an employee maybe, but is, is a real benefit in lots of areas like entrepreneurship.

Definitely. the third, dyslexic trait that contributes to success in entrepreneurship is a preference for practical or hands-on work. we've discussed in previous episodes how, dyslexic individuals are often very good at, at hands-on work. Things like, ranging from, from things like performing surgery to, to, building things to interior design. this is, a real benefit in the business world as well, because especially in entrepreneurship, I think success is really dependent on people's willingness and ability to just jump in and get stuff done.

and so, I think dyslexic individuals, you know, as, as we've observed and read about and, and so on, are often, very good at just jumping in and, and doing things and solving problems. when challenges come up, this is, again, probably related to the outside the box thinking and the big picture thinking as well. I mean, it's all intertwined, but when challenges come up, not, not being sort of stuck, like being able to shift and, and say, okay, we're just going to, you know, okay, that's a challenge.

We're just going to work around it by doing this other thing. and, and really being able to move fast, as well, and not, not sitting there, you know, overly thinking, and, and just sort of be getting stuck on specific areas. Right. So it's kind of a different way than hands-on than we might think of in terms of, you know, creating or building something, although it can come across that way too, right?

If someone's more of an inventor type of an entrepreneur, but, but this is sort of almost like that attitude of getting right in there and getting your hands dirty. Right. yeah, exactly. I think that's a really good way to say it. Yeah. So our fourth entrepreneurial trait that is often, often found in dyslexic individuals is independence. So this is kind of a broad one. but I think we can see how it's important for entrepreneurs because often, you know, if they're, they're leading their own company, if they are coming up with a new idea or new ways of doing things, which again relates back to the, to those other things like the outside the box thinking, the independent spirit will, will really help with that.

And with being able to also like, actually do it, right? Like if you have an outside the box idea, but you're not independent enough, will you ever do it? and so, you know, it's interesting to think about where this might come from, you know, are there some actual linked traits that are more personality traits? Maybe, maybe not. But, it also could be potentially related to just needing to be more independent in terms of how to approach school and life in a world that isn't set up for dyslexic individuals.

Yeah, it's really interesting to think about, I, I'm not sure, we know sort of the cause of it, but it, it, it does really seem like just anecdotally, I mean, all the dyslexic people that we've interviewed and dyslexic people that we know, it seems like they would just much rather work for themselves than work for other people. Right. So of course, one caveat here is that everyone's experience is going to be different.

Sometimes people, you know, thrive on challenges and sometimes it's more something that affects them negatively and it's harder for them, you know, in life because they've, they are still struggling in that way. So of course this is going to show up differently in everybody. Yeah. And I think that's a good caution, for us as parents and caregivers of dyslexic children, is to try to nurture that independence. I think our society, especially our school system tends to squelch independence.

And so, it's important again, to reframe this and to, to really think about these characteristics in their positive aspects and how we can really, you know, recognize and support. Independence and our dyslexic kids. Okay. So our final, point, our fifth, dyslexic trait that we believe contributes to success in the business world and entrepreneurship is, strong resilience, resilience and determination really. And similar to the independence, it may be that this derives from, from the experience of being dyslexic, that it's not, a biological or genetic, trait that's associated with dyslexic.

But more because being dyslexic in this world is difficult that dyslexic children often, kind of have to develop, a stronger resilience than, than kids without dyslexia. but wherever it comes from, this is, obviously super useful in, almost any field, but, really in entrepreneurship where, you know, almost nobody sort of succeeds the first time. there's, there's roadblocks, there's all sorts of problems and people have to be really persistent, and, and resilient to failure in order to succeed in that world.

So now we wanted to move on to how this might look in your dyslexic kid. It could, you know, start to look in some of, some of these ways already. but let's talk about it kind of specifically, you know, with like what you might be on the lookout for. So our first one we want to talk about is that maybe you'll notice that your dyslexic kid innovatively uses materials. Like maybe they use found materials for their art.

Maybe they, use a toy in a different way than it was in, you know, it's intended use. So that's definitely something that you might see. Yeah. That's an example of maybe early, early outside the box thinking. you know, this can show up even in super young kids, toddlers, preschoolers. that might be the sort of the first, the first indication here. and then as your child gets older, you'll, you'll be able to identify, I think, more, specifically innovative problem solving.

and so this, this might look like, a teacher telling you, oh, well, they, you know, they often get the right answer. but they never do it the way that I taught them how to do it. or, or you might notice, as you're talking about, you know, it could be a school related problem. It could be a practical real world problem, that your, your child, I mean, maybe your eight year old child is going to come up with a solution.

to some problem in your life that you hadn't thought of. we definitely noticed that with our daughter that, you know, she'll, she, even when she was pretty young, would, would sometimes propose kind of different ways of thinking about, you know, even if it's just a practical, like, how do we, how do we, you know, arrange our schedule today or, or whatever. it doesn't have to be school related. you might be surprised that if, if you really sort of, listen to your dyslexic kids, suggestions as to, you know, even if they're not at all what you were expecting, if you really consider it, you can see how they're approaching problems sometimes from a completely different way.

But reaching, really useful conclusions. And, you know, occasionally this can be tricky again. So it's important to recognize that I think is a positive trait and to understand it a little bit, because especially in school, sometimes, you know, if they themselves can't articulate how they got to the problem. And that often happens with holistic thinking, it feels more intuitive, like it almost is impossible to put into words or put into steps.

sometimes, you know, that isn't valued or it is like considered like, well, do you really, did you really understand it? And that kind of thing. And so it's important to realize that that is a valid way, that there are other valid ways of arriving at a conclusion other than sort of step-by-step logical and sort of the way things have, have been done already. Yeah, that's a really good point. So our third way that these entrepreneurial type of sort of skills and traits might show up in a dyslexic kid, we have four of them for you, but then this is our third, is a preference for hands-on.

And so, and we sort of have talked about this in various ways, but this might, for example, look like not reading instructions and just jumping into playing with something or putting it together. Some of that can be, of course, because there's a tendency just to sort of skip reading naturally. So there's that mixed in there too. But a lot of it is also about the fact that often dyslexic people would prefer just to get in and start doing the thing rather than, you know, because of more the wanting to think holistically about the process of how to use it and all of those traits.

Yeah, and it also ties in with the previous point about innovative problem solving is that, especially if it's something a little bit more complicated, they might actually prefer to do it their own way rather than in the order that the directions tell them to. Right, exactly. Okay, our last sort of, I guess, entrepreneurial trait that might manifest in your dyslexic kids is actually the most straightforward. It's just as they get older into kind of preteen and teenagerhood, they might actually start their own business.

So this might look like a traditional business that you're thinking of, like, you know, doing yard work for the neighbors or pet sitting or babysitting, something like that. It might also look a little bit different. Maybe they want to do their own thing. Maybe they want to start a YouTube channel or start an organization that is set up around an advocacy or an issue that they're really passionate about. Or an Etsy store, who knows?

Right, there's a number of different ways this can manifest. I think the key is that it's going to be something that they're going to really kind of just feel almost a need to do, just to sort of come up with on their own. It's not something they're going to necessarily be pushed into. You know, I'm realizing as we say this, of course, that what we didn't state as a caveat, but it's probably obvious to you by now, is that, of course, this all overlaps, right?

You're going to have people who aren't dyslexic, who start businesses as teenagers and all of that. It's really just more like the traits come up a bit more. It's that kind of thing where everything overlaps. Yeah. So there's also a lot of individuality involved as well. Yeah. So we're really curious to hear from you, you know, if you want to share your stories with us. Have you noticed both dyslexic adults and dyslexic kids in your life?

Have you noticed these entrepreneurial tendencies? Do you have any anecdotes about dyslexic entrepreneurs, maybe in your family, people you know? Do you have any stories about your kids? Let us know in the comments. And also, if you like this content, we would really appreciate if you could like this video on YouTube and give us a rating in the store wherever you get your podcasts from. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. Music.