The Gift of ADD and Dyslexia

“We should stop try­ing to get all chil­dren to think the same way. We should sup­port and cel­e­brate all types of neu­ro-diver­si­ty and encour­age children’s imag­i­na­tion, cre­ativ­i­ty and prob­lem solv­ing – the skills of the future.” — Richard Bran­son

It’s fas­ci­nat­ing how we like to decide that things are either good or bad. And, if we real­ly want to be accu­rate, almost every­thing is good or bad – it just depends how you see it.

Being an amaz­ing lis­ten­er is a great skill but not when it’s time to speak up. An aggres­sive per­son­al­i­ty can be a great when it’s time to take charge, but using it all the time can be a lia­bil­i­ty. So, whether it’s being fast or slow, dri­ven or relaxed, short or tall, there’s always a dif­fer­ent perspective.

We come across this a lot when it comes to how brains can func­tion dif­fer­ent­ly – like in peo­ple with dyslex­ia or ADD.

Learn­ing Differently

Over the years, I’ve had more expe­ri­ence than I expect­ed work­ing with lead­ers who have dyslex­ia or ADD — and their kids, which is quite com­mon. I’ve helped them through chal­lenges, gen­er­al­ly in school sys­tems, which are designed for peo­ple who are good at learn­ing math, Eng­lish, and sci­ence by sit­ting qui­et­ly all day in the classroom.

While that works well for some, if you had incred­i­ble ener­gy and a very active brain that works dif­fer­ent­ly, it’s a prob­lem. These peo­ple are often labeled as bad or bro­ken when, in real­i­ty, they just aren’t suit­ed to the classroom.

Anoth­er way to see it is that they just learn differently.

In fact, many of these kids actu­al­ly turn out to wild­ly suc­cess­ful lead­ers and entre­pre­neurs which is why, a few years ago, my good friend Nigel Ben­nett and I set up Gif­tADD.

We’re slow­ly gath­er­ing sto­ries of wild­ly suc­cess­ful peo­ple and how they’ve lever­aged their ADD or dyslex­ia into a mas­sive gift. A gift that allows them — because of their ener­gy, lead­er­ship skills and will­ing­ness to take risks — to do things that nor­mal peo­ple like­ly couldn’t.

It’s all about see­ing things differently.

Do you know a child or adult who’s strug­gling? There are resources to help them see that, in real­i­ty, they have a gift. And that gift can be chan­nelled resource­ful­ly into a wild­ly suc­cess­ful life.

Here’s a few resources to start with:

• A blog by Richard Bran­son, who talks open­ly about his dyslex­ia, that reminds me about the impor­tance of the mind­set around this
• A video of me and Nigel’s son Devon dis­cussing the gift of ADD.

Those with ADD often feel like tri­an­gles try­ing to oper­ate in a world of cir­cles, 
feel­ing crushed by the world around them. They are per­fect and we want them 
and the world to expe­ri­ence their per­fec­tion. These indi­vid­u­als have unique gifts to offer the world. — Gif­tADD