Dyslexic Voices ft. Professional Coach and Realtor Pamela Cass

And you can leverage that because you've got my business partner that I work with. She does all the crap that I can't do. I can do it as a dyslexia. It just takes me longer. So she does all of that great stuff. I'm the person that comes up with those ideas, those innovative things and thinking outside the box. And it's a great partnership because of that.

It got me diagnosed when I was in third grade. And it was the most relieving day of my life because I finally had like kind of a place to hang my hat and say, see, I told you I'm not lazy. Definitely not stupid. I just learned differently. Like that's totally okay. We dyslexics, we were often, you know, just set up for failure because, you know, we were given books and tasks that really are not appropriate for the level that we were at.

So how do you expect anyone to be open to learning when their entire relationship with reading, with learning, is physical pain? I wish I had understood when I was younger that the fact that my brain worked differently than people meant that I would be good at things in ways that other kids were not going to be good at. I just assumed I can't be dyslexic because letters don't jump up and down for me.

Dyslexia is not a disorder. It is not a disease. Once you sort of own it and embrace it, then you can have the power to deal with it. It's sort of empowering and also enriching to the whole community. To those who don't understand what dyslexia is, that it's not a negative. It's not a problem. It's like we keep saying superpower.

Hey, everyone. I'm Nick and this is Dyslexia Journey. And my co-host, Sonja, couldn't make it today, unfortunately, but I do have a guest with us today. Her name is Pamela Kass. Welcome to the show, Pamela. Thank you. So let's jump in. So you are dyslexic. Tell me a little bit. Let's kind of start with your childhood. Do you remember what it was like before you were identified with dyslexia? Yeah, so I was really young and I just kept struggling in school.

So I was not keeping up with the other kids. And so I remember a lot of nights at the kitchen table with my dad saying, why are you not getting your work done? And then him sitting with me trying to help me get it done. And just frustration and all of those kind of feelings that happen when you're just not like the other kids. And I had an older brother and a younger sister.

And my older brother was super smart or is super smart. He's still he's still with us. So super smart. Like everything just came easy. And so my parents were like, you know, it was almost like, why are you not? Why are you lazy? Why are you not trying? And so a lot of that kind of feeling when I was super, super young. And it was when a teacher finally said something to my parents that maybe I should be tested for a learning disability.

And so we lived about 20 miles outside of Boston. And so I remember taking a day off of school, my mom driving into Boston and spending the whole day doing testing. And now that was when I was seven. So it may not have been a whole day. It may have just been a few hours. But when you're little, you get out of school for the day. You feel like it's an eternity.

So, yeah. So I got tested. And then they had the diagnosis finally that, okay, this wasn't just me being lazy. This was actually a disability that I had. And I wasn't able to keep up with the other kids. Yeah. Yeah. And do you remember, I mean, you know, obviously you were seven. So pretty, pretty young. But I mean, what do you remember feeling about that? Do you remember feeling any vindication or relief or?

No, I actually didn't. I think I could feel the relief in my parents that, okay, so now we have this answer. So now how can we help her? And, you know, this was in the 70s. They knew, obviously knew about dyslexia. They knew how to test for dyslexia. And there was some programs in some schools. But because we were in such a rural area, I mean, we didn't have a mall. We didn't have fast food restaurants.

We had still had town hall meetings. And so this was a small school that didn't have the resources for someone with a disability. And so what that meant was I got pulled out of class whenever they were doing any sort of reading or phonics or spelling. And unfortunately, the repercussions of that was that I was being pulled away from my peers. So I wasn't building the friendships like everyone else was. And then when I would come back to the classroom, it was kind of the whispers like, well, why does she get to leave and do other stuff and not have to do what we have to do?

And why doesn't she have to take the spelling test? And so there was a lot of shame kind of tied to it. And it made me really shrink and try to be invisible. I didn't want to be noticed or seen in the classroom. And that kind of carried me for quite a while. So it felt very, I guess, stigmatized. Yeah. Yeah. And did that kind of last all through school then? So I would say yes, because we ended up moving away from Massachusetts when I was 10.

So about three years later, and we moved to Colorado. And that school actually did have a little more programming for it. But again, I get airdropped into a brand new school. I didn't have any friends. I was from another state. And again, I'm being pulled out of class. And, you know, why is she going out of class? And so there was this feeling. And it was just a feeling. I don't know if the other kids even cared.

But in my mind, it was this, oh, she's different. She's not like everybody else. And so again, you wanted to kind of shrink and hide. And so it really wasn't until junior high that my dad, it was, I think I was in seventh grade, that my dad was taking a Dale Carnegie public speaking class. And he went through it. And then he decided to go back and teach it. And he decided to enroll me in it.

So here I was in 12 or 13. And I was, you know, awkward, braces, you know, how we all look terrible in junior high. And I walk into the first session with my dad. And it was at this big hotel down in Colorado Springs. And, you know, the big high ceilings and very fancy. And everyone in there was an adult in a suit. And thinking back a bit, I was like, oh, my gosh, they're so old.

Well, they're probably younger than I was now. But at the time, it was like, oh, my gosh. And we had to speak in front of the group every single week. And we had to talk about our life. Well, here I am. I'm 12 or 13. I don't have a life. Like, what am I going to talk about that anybody's going to care about? Because these were adults talking about divorce and death and illnesses and, you know, all that, in my mind, real stuff.

And so through that process of having to get up and then seeing the support that I got from this group of adults, it really helped me come out of my shell. I wish I could say that it was long-lived. It was just kind of the very first unraveling of this belief I had created. And it was so much more. My parents ended up getting a tutor for me. And this woman, I still remember her name, a mishipsh, and I remember showing up at her house.

And by then, I think I was in ninth grade, so I was about three years older. And I remember showing up at her door, and she was an older woman, again, probably how old I am now. And she was holding her arm, and she had a limp. So she was kind of dragging one of her legs. And we sat down at our table, and she starts asking me about things. And I was like, yeah, I can't do that.

No, I can't do that. And I'm not good at that. And she finally stopped me, and she's like, so when I was, I think she said she was 10, she contracted polio and was very, very sick. They didn't think she was going to live, and ended up in a wheelchair. And her parents were told that she would never walk. And she said that, I remember my mom telling me, the only person that's going to keep you from walking is you.

And so she said that to me. She goes, the only thing or only person that's going to keep you from doing anything you want to do is you. And I've never forgotten that, because that was kind of that moment where I'm like, okay, well, yeah, I can do it. And what happened was, is then I decided that, well, I'm going to cure myself of dyslexia. And so when I went to high school, I'm not going to be in any special classes.

I'm going to be with the other kids. When I went to college, I could have somebody go with me to my classes, take notes. I could do testing by myself with unlimited time. And I was like, nope, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to be like everybody else. And that was kind of this start of me kind of rewiring myself that, no, I'm just as good as everybody else. So how did you do that?

Like what, I mean, because back then there was no like text to speech. There was, so like what, how did you compensate? So I had to work harder than most people. And I'm not saying that people don't work hard, but I had to do things differently. So that meant I spent hours and hours preparing for a test. I learned very quickly that, you know, when you have three, you have three learning modalities, audio, visual, and kinesthetic, I was all three, which meant that if I had a textbook, I needed to read it out loud and I needed to touch the book and I needed to write, write note cards.

And so I would, if I, if somebody would give me all of the flashcards that I've written in my lifetime, it would probably fill a football stadium because I had to have flashcards. Today, I still do the same thing. If I get a book that I want to read, I will get the physical book. I will listen to it on audible and I will have a pen and I'll be taking notes and I'll be underlining things and I'll be, so I'm doing all three.

So to prepare for a test where some people in college can, you know, the night before cram for it or do a project and it's like they're doing it the night before, I was prepping for weeks and months to the point where I would figure out how many days I had. I would divide the amount of pages there were and then I would figure out what I needed to do every single day leading up to it.

And I still do that today. Yeah, I think that's one of the things that, one of the many misconceptions about dyslexia is that people assume, oh, you just, you just can't read, right? Or if, or if, or then if you sort of can read, then they, people just don't realize how much extra time and mental effort it takes. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Because I know with, with our dyslexic daughter, just, you know, she, she, she can do it, but then she's drained afterwards.

Right. Yeah. Did you find that as well? Well, it led to, for me, it led to burnout. You know, I was the vice president of a company and I was working seven days a week because I felt like I, one of the things with dyslexic people is we feel like we have to work harder than other people to prove ourselves. And in doing that, we can cause burnout because we're doing so much and oftentimes we have that shame about dyslexia because we, so we don't want to tell other people, Hey, I've got dyslexia.

And so because of that, we're not letting them know so that we can maybe say, you know what, I'm dyslexic. I can't do these things without having to spend like extra, extra time on it. Could I get some resources to help with this so that you can utilize the gifts that I do have, which is that creativity and thinking outside the box and that empathy that we can, because we can connect with people.

Well, because we've got this empathy because of what we've had to go through in our lives and we're super resilient. And, those are incredible gifts that we have as dyslexic. So. Yeah, that's great. I love to, I love that you're talking about the positive sides of it. that is something that is, again, often overlooked. Yeah. And, and that's my, my goal is to really help people that have dyslexia really understand that dyslexia is not a disability.

It really is a gift. And if you can focus on the things that you're really good at and really lean into those things, and then use the resources to help you with the other things, you're unstoppable. You can, you can literally do anything you want. And if you look at some of the people in history that have had dyslexia, they've done incredible things. And so the stigmatism that we have to be ashamed of this dyslexia, is crazy.

And that's the message I want to get out to people, so that people to, and, and, and leaders, because one in five people will have dyslexia. Now, most, there's a lot of people that know they have dyslexia. They've been diagnosed with dyslexia, but there's just as many people that have no idea they have it. They were never diagnosed with it because oftentimes people that are diagnosed with ADHD, 50% of those people also have dyslexia, but they were never diagnosed with it because they figured, oh, they got ADHD.

We're good. We know what's going on. And so if you're a leader, if you are a teacher, then chances are there's going to be one or more kids or people that work for you that have some sort of neurodivergence, whether it's ADHD, dyslexia, autism. And if you can channel into what their, their special gifts are, you can build an incredible team. But if you're trying to pigeonhole people into, we're going to all do it the exact same way, you're missing out on opportunities to really highlight those gifts that those people have.

And you can leverage that because you've got my business partner that I work with. She does all the crap that I can't do as a, well, I can do it as a dyslexia. It just takes me longer. So she does all of that great stuff. I'm the person that comes up with those ideas, those innovative things and thinking outside the box. And it's a great partnership because of that. Yeah. I love that way of, of, of rephrasing it sort of, because it's, if we think of it as just, if we think of dyslexia as just along the normal spectrum of human neurodiversity, then we realize that everyone has things that they are, have strengths and weaknesses.

And, people who we categorize as dyslexic have similar, generally strengths and weaknesses, but even every dyslexic person is, is unique too. And so, it's, it's just really important to not, not pigeonhole people, not, just leverage everyone's, what, what they're good at, what they like doing. And so, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. so tell me a little bit more about your career path. So, out of college, I originally wanted in college, I wanted to be a chef.

And so I wanted to go to the culinary art school and this was before there was food network or any of that stuff. And I started applying for schools and I'll never forget a call to a school down in Louisiana. I don't even remember the school. And I was talking to the woman and she said, Oh, sweetie, this, this career is for men, not for women. I wouldn't even bother applying. And it was kind of like this punch to the gut.

So I'm like, okay. And so my brother was already up at Colorado state university. And so, I just followed him. And so I ended up going to school up there. So I did graduate with a restaurant resort management degree. And so went into the restaurant industry and that's great until you have kids and because you are working crazy hours and all of that. And so I ended up going back to school and getting my master's, master's of science and management.

And once I got that, I got into kind of different jobs because I had young kids and then I settled in, I got my real estate license and in realist. And that was, and that was a great career for me because I could be home with my kids when I wanted to, and I made good money doing it. And I started volunteering, getting involved in our boards, which meant I got into leadership positions.

And then I was a president of our local board. I've sat on our state association on the leadership team. And then I found my love for teaching. So I, right now I coach people all over the world as owners and realtors and, all sorts of different business. So even outside of real estate, I also teach for the national associations of realtors. So I will teach classes, for people. And then I also do keynote talks.

So I'll do strategic planning with companies and I'll do, inspirational talks, for companies as well. I still do real estate cause I love it. I still have my clients. I don't market myself much anymore, but I don't have to, I get to have a, you know, a steady stream of past clients that come in. have a podcast that's kind of with my business partner. That's kind of my passion project. podcast is called reignite resilience.

And this kind of came from my dyslexia where I wanted to create a community for people that have gone through adversity or challenges in their lives that didn't have a community to support them. And so we're going on two and a half years and we've interviewed people all over the world and, that have gone through an unimaginable challenges in their lives. And the common thread between all of them is that they took the adversity, whether it was a disability, whether it was a death illness, whatever, fill in the blank.

We've interviewed lots of people. every one of them has taken it and done something with it to make the world a better place, which I absolutely love. and then I just launched, we just launched our first book and this book is my childhood story. So from when I was diagnosed with dyslexia through my journey through, through high school. So when you asked me what I do, what my career, I do a lot of things.

I've been the vice president of, of companies. I've been, I've run restaurants. and I love leading people. I love coaching people to, their excellence to help to find their superpowers. And so I do a lot, but I don't feel like I do a lot. They're like, I don't feel like I work very much, but I do a lot. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's exciting. is your coaching, is that executive coaching kind of, or how would you?

So I, I coach, I coach, realtors who are business owners and entrepreneurs. I coach, business owners. I coach managers. I coach, people in the medical field. I coach people in the insurance field. so it really anybody. And it's funny cause I would say, yes, I'm an executive coach cause I coach business owners cause realtors are business owners. but a lot of the coaching ends up being the personal stuff because oftentimes when we're in corporate America or business, we think that we've got to have silos, you know, Oh, my wife's here, business is here, but they are so intermeshed.

And if one of them is out of balance, then it's going to impact both of them. So it's really this holistic coaching where I, it's very client centered. So I really go wherever the client needs me to go. Yeah, that, that makes sense. And so, and I know we touched a little bit on this earlier, but I think it's, it's worth reiterating. What is it about being dyslexic? Do you think that helps you be a good coach?

I think people that are dyslexic, incredibly resilient. So you'll probably find people that have dyslexia have gone through many challenges in their lives and they've somehow done it with grace and like, it almost like, gosh, did that even really happen to them? they tend to be very empathetic. And so because they're empathetic, you can make a deep connection with your coaching clients, which a very big majority of the success of coaching is the relationship that you build.

Because if you don't have a connection and that trust, it's going to be really hard to coach somebody. we're able to see like outside of what some people get into that narrow, because we've had so many challenges as far as dyslexia and having to make adjustments to do things that are harder for harder for us and other people. And so it's easier for us to see that, Hey, there might be something here.

Is there a different way we can do it? So it allows us to see kind of outside the box. And that helps when you're coaching people, because sometimes they just get very tunnel visioned. Yeah, that makes sense. and then thinking about the real estate side of it, I know that a lot of dyslexics have very strong visual spatial skills. Have you found that that's true in yourself and does that have help in real estate or not so much?

I don't know that I've found that, as much as the connection I'm able to make with the real estate clients that really helps me understand how they're feeling and what's going on and be able to communicate to them in such a way that they feel like they're heard. So I think that's been more for me than the visual thing. I leave that to the professionals, the visual stuff. Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah. Yeah. let's see. Oh, what's the name of your book you mentioned? so it's called The Quiet Gift. -huh. And so it's on Amazon. I actually, because I'm dyslexic and I mostly do audio books, I have somebody recording it for me right now. So it will be on Audible. and that is a funny story. I published the book, was put it on Facebook and a girl that I went to high school with who I have not seen since high school.

and that was 89, reached out to me. I played soccer with her and she does audio books. She does voiceovers and so we reconnected this week and she's going to do the book for me. So she just gave me a snippet. She did one of the chapters and so we're going to have her do the audio book. And the reason I'm doing that is because I want, because it's, it could be written, read by a child because it's my story and it's, told from my perspective.

So when you read it, you could feel yourself in there. And so it's really for kids, parents, and it really would fit in the corporate world too, because there are a lot of people that have some sort of, I'm not going to call it disability, some sort of gift, that they're hiding because they're afraid that they're going to be labeled or treated differently or overlooked for promotions because of those things. And so this hopefully will, will help them kind of see that it actually is a gift and you need to shine.

Let that gift shine. Yeah. Yeah. that's, that's great actually. And, one question that I usually like to ask toward, toward the end as, as we're wrapping up is, what advice do you have for children with dyslexia? It sounds like that's a great piece of advice right there. but anything else you'd like to say? No, I just, I, my, my message to, to young kids, because I, I felt very invisible as a child is don't shrink.

Your dyslexia is your superpower and think of it like that. And if you can figure out how you can spotlight those superpowers, you're going to be unstoppable. You're going to be able to do anything you want to do. I never, as a child who used to hide in a closet, hoping that somebody would notice that I was missing, but they never did. to think of myself writing a book, being on stages, speaking to hundreds of people, I never would have thought I could have done that.

And so you can do anything and you're the only one that's keeping you from doing it. and then, kind of last, last thing is what, like we said, there's a lot of misconceptions out there about dyslexia. If you could tell the general public one thing that you think everyone should understand about dyslexia, what would it be? Gosh, one thing about dyslexia. I'm trying to think of what would be the thing that I wish people knew about it.

People with dyslexia are resilient. They are hard workers. They can think outside the box. They can find creative solutions. And that was more than one or two things, but there's so many gifts of being dyslexic. And as a leader, as a parent, if you can figure out what those, those superpowers are and really spotlight those and then give them the resources for the things that aren't in their wheelhouse, you're going to unleash something pretty powerful.

all right. So we'll, obviously put links to your book and your podcast, in the show notes. but if you could just tell people, like how can people reach you or find you online? Yeah, it's, it's easy. If you go to pamelacast.com, if you go there, everything's there. So you can, purchase a book, you can, purchase a, or you can click to do a free complimentary coaching call with me. You can book me to speak.

It has a link to our website or to our podcast. So all of the episodes are in there and you can sign up for our newsletter. We have do a weekly think letter that spotlights the guests that we spoke to that week. And so that's the easiest, that's the easiest place to find everything about what's going on in my world. Perfect. Well, Pamela, thank you for your time this morning coming on the show and thank you for all the, the, work you're doing around dyslexia with the book and everything.

Absolutely. It was my, my pleasure, my honor. I love what you guys are doing.