The last year

2012 has been quite the year for me. One of a kind challenges have met me head-on. I am not the same person I was a year ago.  I know, I know, everyone says that, but this year changed me in more ways then I can count.

For me, a fine-line separates who I am professionally and privately.  Maybe that's because I have many of the same learning differences that my own clients face.

Maybe if you read a little about me over this past year you'll have a better understanding of where I'm coming from. 

As 2011 was coming to a close I was notified that my younger brother, Ted, was in the hospital in the intensive care ward.  Those words are never something we want to hear about anyone; but, my brother Ted has been handicapped his entire life.  Over his lifetime he's progressed from having severe physical challenges to being wheelchair or bed bound as an adult.  Intensive care nurses did not give him much hope for survival a year ago. He went into a coma that for someone in his condition seemed insurmountable.  Miraculously, it was not. 

The miracle is that Ted was not expected to survive even as a young child, and here he is years later overcoming life threatening challenges that I cannot imagine having to endure.  The smile on his face as we gathered around him when he awoke will cause tears to stream down my face, for the rest of my life. 

Perhaps it has been that as I've witnessed and looked on through the suffering and perseverance of the challenges of my younger brother's life that I've been given an opportunity to have my heart opened.  Perhaps. 

The next challenge came when my father suffered a heart attack.  My dad has been my cheerleader my entire life and the thought that he wouldn't be there was more than I could imagine.  But we were fortunate to have another miracle bless our family when the heart attack proved to be minor.  

In July my father celebrated his 80th birthday as friends and family gathered. Early in dad's career he was a high school basketball coach---and on July 27th, when former students sent letters, made phone calls and more it reminded me just how much one person can impact someone else's life.  In daily life when we're driven with passion to help others the impact can be far reaching. We heard story after story that day of how young men's lives had been changed, and how that influence has carried on throughout their lives.  For me, it means I have my own personal coach who cheers me on with his sagely advice and love still to this day! 

More challenges took place over 2012 but I'm going to stop here for today.  

Remember I said that because of the trials and difficulties of my own life I have a unique perspective toward others with learning challenges, so stay tuned for the next installment of my review of 2012 as I cover just how learning differences have impacted me.  

Just try harder?

Is it about trying hard enough?

You may recognize these five items I've listed as areas you or your child experiences difficult with from time to time.  It's a list I recently received from a business trainer.  You can see her response to these difficulties:

1) Is Listening a problem? Try harder.
2) Do you struggle remembering names? Try harder.
3) Staying focused too hard? Try harder.
4) Communicating difficult? Try harder.
5) Conversations are tough? Try harder. 

While "do your best" is her point let's take a little deeper look at what's happening here. Why are these things really so hard?

It's easy to let your feelings take over sometimes. But feeling like someone isn't trying hard enough has it's own downfalls. Truthfully, as dyslexics we are often trying harder than you could ever imagine. 

Listening
Let's look at the first item on the list. Listening.  

I recently read a blog about Auditory Reversal written by Matthew Turton.  He describes auditory reversal to mean the process of the long term auditory retrieval system being stronger than our auditory storage system.  Turton compares the hearing process to how magnets might work together. 

The amount of information it pulls out of auditory storage is determined by how strong the retrieval magnet is.  While storage is weak, retrieval is fairly strong... when remembering auditory information such as instructions or a conversation, (a child may) pull out additional pieces of information that were not part of the original conversation. 

These additional pieces of information are usually loosely related in some way and relevant to the conversation.

What this means in real life is that what we should hear (the sound or voice waves are coming towards us) and what we remember hearing or what we accurately hear (our auditory process and our brain is working in harmony) can be two different things. 

If you've ever tried to redirect a child who's engaged in his or her favorite activity, such as watching an entertaining television show, you know how difficult it can be to get your message across. Their focus is directed elsewhere. 

Real Life
I'll use an example with my five year old grandson. The two of us were doing the Davis Koosh ball activity the other day.  I made the mistake of beginning the activity when the television was on. When I tossed him a Koosh ball the first few times he haphazardly reached at it, missing every time.  Realizing my mistake I turned off the T.V., we both re-focused and he easily caught the Koosh balls the rest of the time. (And he was able to throw them back to me without causing them to whiz in all directions past my head or landing yards away from me!)

Here's one way Davis Dyslexia would explain the difficulty with listening and not being focused:   

The dyslexic or A.D.D. child uses disorientation for entertainment; he may be disoriented for hours on end creating the imaginary world he plays in. 

Difficulty with listening can be a dyslexic symptom that we may easily brush aside adamantly claiming the other person isn't paying attention; in truth, they may be trying harder then we can imagine. Remember to take into consideration factors such as the environment [T.V. on], the other person's emotional state [had a hard day at school], even how they're feeling that day [do they have a cold, allergies ..] before claiming someone isn't listening to you.

Remember!
Give everyone a little kindness because we're really trying harder than you might imagine!

Read more about Davis Dyslexia: http://www.dyslexia.com/library/add.htm#ixzz2EsZrI8rx

Matthew Turton://www.getyourbreakthrough.com/blog/bid/240423/You-Never-Said-That-Auditory-Memory-Dysfunction

The cost of Entrepreneurial-ship

Business launch
There's a whirl of thoughts going through my mind as I type this post. When I recently attended a Columbia Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting I thought it was just that...a ribbon cutting.  Ribbon cuttings are just normal events, right?   But it was more than I expected.

This ribbon cutting featured the lovely Caroline Leemis and her new business Caroline Leemis Design.  Make sure you check out her work! On top of this business launch, it was also the first ribbon cutting in the League of Innovators downtown space.

In the space of that new business incubator entrepreneurial-ism had a grand opening, too.

At the ribbon cutting, as I talked with my friends Karen Mickey of The Sensible Group and Heidi Fuhrman with The League of Innovators, another friend, Jan (someone I follow on Twitter) happened to be posting a link about the cost of not recognizing entrepreneurial-ism in our world.

Cost of our ignorance
By the term cost I'm not using a play on words, I'm talking about financial cost here. Furthermore, these costs depend on where you are in this world; numbers differ between Europe and the United States. But over all, we're talking about a loss of millions and millions of dollars for our economy when we fail to recognize and cultivate our talents.

There are estimates that one in three business entrepreneurs are dyslexic. Generally it's recognized that anywhere from 10 to 20 percent of the population is dyslexic, so why the increase when it comes to business?

Two things are happening
First-- a large number of people fail to recognize their own dyslexia. They discount their strengths and weaknesses, and do not recognize the actual reasons they have differences in the way they do things in life.

Secondly -- overall in the business world a large number of people are dyslexic.

So what does this mean? It means we have to be more aware.

In the UK it's estimated that 1 in 5 people in the business world are dyslexic. But the lack of recognition for dyslexia in the UK costs them over $1 billion a year.

Here in the United States the estimate for the number of dyslexic people in the business population is even greater: it's 1 in 3.  So what does that translate to in financial terms for the United States?

Let me know what do you think!

"You'll never amount to anything!" that's what he told me!

Things aren't always what they seem

By the time I was five years old I was planting a small garden behind our house, drawing simple landscape plans and making trips to the local nursery with my dad. No one had any idea that I was a dyslexic learner because of the things that came easily for me. Reading included. 

When it came time to move on to higher education I was confused at why anyone would pursue a degree in something that wasn't hands-on.  Things have changed; I've wised up a bit over the years, but back then a degree in horticulture just made sense to me. 

To get that diploma from Western Illinois University, an agriculture degree with an emphasis in horticulture, I had to complete some work in the Botany school. 

For horticulture exams our professor, Dr. Harold Schmalfeld, would line tables with small pieces of bark, leaves, berries, or written descriptions of tree characteristics and it was our job to identify the genus and species of the plant. 

Botany exams were no different. We were expected to identify a variety of plants but for that final exam we were expected to provide one of our own test questions. 

No problem, I thought! Identification tests are the easiest and we supply one question ourselves. What could be easier!?"

Back in the day

Back in those days the plant Euonymus alatus had not become the pest that it is today so when I found some growing in the wild I thought I had this bring-your-own-test-question thing down pat. I marched in for that final test like a proud peacock strutting my feathers, only to find out that the real excitement was soon to happen. 

I guess it was a few days later when our grades were posted for that final class in our final botany series when I marched in to discover the horrible truth.  I'd missed one question.  

The misdeed occurred, of all places, with my own sample. 

"Impossible! Has to be a huge mistake" I thought as I ventured down to the professor's office. "Should have this cleared up in a matter of minutes!"

Winged Wahoo

Minutes did go by as we discussed everything besides Euonymus alatus.  Why not take a little time to talk to the professor, I rationalized, thinking this was all but a done deal. But when the topic of identifying the plant finally arose all niceties slammed to a halt. 

"That plant is not a burning bush", the professor dug in, his demeanor changing.  "My wife is Hawaiian, in Hawaii that plant is called a winged wahoo."

"But, sir", I interjected, "Here in the mainland we call it a burning bush, wouldn't you agree?"

"No, it's a Winged Wahoo." 

In my mind 'who's the dean of this department' quickly popped up and 'maybe I can get a clear answer out of the dean.'  I said that out loud at one point...seems there was a minute detail I'd neglected to learn. Mr. Professor Winged Wahoo was the class instructor and the dean. 

How lucky for me!  Okay, maybe reading isn't so easy because how in the world did I miss that little detail? 

You'll never amount to anything

Without missing a beat the professor jumped on the chance to map out my life for me--

"You are never going to amount to anything in life," he threw out at me. 

"You'll never own a nice home, have children or amount to anything!" he concluded.  

And there it was, he was labeling me a loser! 

Winged Wahoos of life!

For some reason that experience came to mind this fall weekend when the temperatures outside were summer-like and it was a perfect for a little final yard work of the year.  

I have a new house and with this house I have inherited a few winged wahoos.  It's funny now---I've owned a few houses since then, managed to raise four children and have done a few other things along the way.  There are plenty of things I'd still like to accomplish in this lifetime but I think I can say I've been able to amount to at least something!

But this isn't really about me. What about the kid who hears over and over 'you'll never amount to anything'?  I think there's more for this old dyslexic horticulturalist to do out there in this world!  

"He was mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams."

A Moment to be Thankful
Thankfulness and gratitude is the theme for Thanksgiving.  Besides being a worthy topic, that topic is also along the same line of thinking that I began my year with -- positive thinking.

A great reminder came to me one evening while I was reading. The idea of how our faith supplies us with the simplest of needs struck me as a microscopic idea, simple and extremely meaningful.

Glimmer of Brilliance 
In the middle of my reading a glimmer of the western sky caught my eye.  Through the upper window in my study the crimson color of the sunset pulled my focus to the performance on the horizon right outside my window.  Brilliant gifts continued to spill forward as the earth rotated and maneuvered toward Missouri nighttime. There were more combinations of majestic beauty in those moments than I could have hoped to see in a week of time ... all glittering freely right before me.

The awe inspiring moments reminded me of Albert Einstein's work.  Einstein explained the color of the sky like this:

In the evening the sky turns orange and red.  This happens because the visible light rays are hitting the particles in the air at different angles and at different speeds [than during the day] so the sky color changes from blue, that we see in the daytime hours, to a nice red-orange color. 

Foolish Dreams 

Of course Einstein had some very deep thinking to go along with those simple thoughts written above but, did you know this was said about him, by a teacher, when he was young: 

"He was mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams."

'Adrift forever in foolish dreams' may not sound like a great physicist but his creative ability to imagine was all a part of Einstein's genius. 

As a young boy, Albert began to wonder what a light beam would look like if you could run alongside it, at the speed of light. [These thoughts were inspired by a book someone gave him.]  And from there his theories, such as the Theory of Relativity, sprung. 

I'm thankful for each evening that I have an opportunity to witness the majestic beauty of the sunset, that carries me into the next day with positive thoughts about all I've been blessed with in my life.  

This is really OUT OF THIS WORLD work!

My clients create amazing things right before my eyes. Daily.  But it struck me the other day just what a true gift my clients are; their creations, their ideas, and their absolutely ingenious skills.  So just to be clear, I'm not talking about the 'Gift of Dyslexia' as in Ron Davis' book, I'm talking about the unique potential of my clients themselves.

When the idea came to me how these gifts unfold before my eyes I have to admit that a few tears welled up in my eyes. For you see I have been privileged to be front and center stage to witness talented and out of this world creative people performing!

Out of this world. Yes, that leads me to what I found sitting before me the other day.

See this? May I explain this model a little :)










We were working on the uppercase letters of the alphabet and here's what they looked like:

My client, Jeremiah, is a 5 year old kindergartner who has known the letters of the alphabet for quite sometime; he created these clay letters independently, and now we're going to touch and say these letters that are right before us. We call that Alphabet Mastery

As he went from Z back to A, touching each letter, he called letter V a U [you].  Without hesitating or explaining his next move he picked up some extra clay and began earnestly creating clay balls...from there our Solar System came to life! [See photo on the top, left]

From the left side of the picture you see the planet Mercury (first clay ball). Next, though its a bit hard to see, is the planet Venus with a letter V around it, a  /_ of sorts.  So he'd taken that 'trigger' of letter V and connected it to something important and of interest to him.  Venus.

He went on to create the planets, adding a ring around the planet Jupiter. At the end of the Solar System (between the A and M in the right side of the top picture) you see a star. That's because I was explaining to Jeremiah how we used to call the smallest 'planet' Pluto, though it's no longer considered a planet.  He said then it was a star, and a star is what he added to the end of the Solar System.

So back to the alphabet.... The letters of his alphabet were still in the correct sequence from A to Z and we'd worked on them a bit. My young client touched each letter A-Z, then Z-A.  Then he processed the letters without touching them going from A-Z; then from Z-A. He named them as he visually tracked them... but as he tracked them from Z back to A, as he came to the letter J he called the letter U [you].

I allowed him to finish the alphabet mastery, to name all the letters back to A and asked, "Did you notice anything?"

"No," he replied.

I motioned over the right end of the upper row of letters and asked if he noticed anything there.  He said no, at first, but then, looked at L, then K and finally the J.  And here's what happened next:

It took all his energy to process through those letters and to hit upon the trigger in the letter J...J for Jeremiah.  Somehow there's a  connection between the letter U and letter V and J. It really doesn't matter where or what that trigger is because we're simply going to erase it.

He slept for over an hour, right there in the chair.  He's not a napper or a big sleeper, either!

Processing. So much energy.

One more tidbit. We were not alone in the room; there were two others with us because the Columbia Missourian newspaper had a reporter and a photographer following the work that Jeremiah was doing that day. So he slept before an audience!

How tough are you?

This summer, while a severe drought and record breaking high temperatures prevailed, I noted the kinds of trees that were surviving.  Almost everything that had once been green and growing in the great outdoors was on a burnt-out continuum; we didn't need thermometers we needed scorch-o-meters!

Not all 'wounds' from the summer drought can be healed by the cooler temperatures and rain storms that we've received over the past few weeks. But the plants that did survive, they've moved on.  Just like the calendar has, because here in North America it's autumn.

So what happened to all of those plants that were seemingly on their last leg? Some are no more - as in gone for good [dead]; others took a time-out [dormant] and some are thriving [beautiful].

So you're probably wondering what the survival rate for trees has to do with dyslexia? Give my dad a call.  He's wondered about my odd mixture of horticulture degree and dyslexia expertise for a long time, he'd love to talk to you!

But seriously, here's the scoop: We're like the trees. We survive the trials of living dyslexic [living through droughts that seem endless, that threaten to leave us wounded for life] in this world where some say: "There's no such thing as dyslexia!"

We can let them take us out with their endless drought of *we must do it the way things have always been done*.  Or we can continue on, surviving and ---> blooming!

Now, if you can find a beautiful tree outside your window, a tree that's showing some lovely fall foliage tell it: "There's no such thing as drought!"

I know, that doesn't really make sense! But it makes about as much sense as denying the fact that dyslexia exists.

Yes, the trees are turning lovely versions of bronze, yellow and red colors. Obviously, there wasn't a drought this summer. Right?

Drought or no drought sometimes we just continue on. Now, go forth and SHINE!