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Episode 68 -Dyslexia Questions and Answers with Podcast Host Matthew Head

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Last Episode of 2023!

To finish off this incredible year full of amazing insights from equally amazing guests, we’re changing from our usual format for a one-off episode with our host Matthew Head answering some of your burning questions! 

Join Matthew for a coffee (tea or other hot beverages also allowed) to discuss Matthew’s thoughts in an unscripted Q&A session!

Hear Matthew’s thoughts on hiring and retaining dyslexic people in the workplace, what dyslexic strengths Matthew has and uses in his work as a Engineer, what are employer’s most undervalued dyslexic strengths, and many more!

If you have enjoyed listening to Dyslexia Life Hacks throughout 2023, why not drop us a message on social media or our website and tells what episode you enjoyed most!

We hope you have enjoyed another year of dyslexia life hacks and we hope you have a great break over Christmas and New Year. We look forward to bringing you even more insights, perspectives, and dyslexia hacks in 2024! 

Key Topics:

  • Hiring and retaining dyslexic people in the workplace
  • Common Dyslexia strengths,
  • Hacks for improving your efficiency on work,
  • Common undervalued dyslexic strengths 
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Episode 67 – From hiding who you are to Being your Dyslexic Self with Kirsty Heap

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Show Notes:

Have you ever found yourself masking your dyslexia so much that you stop being You!?

In this episode we catch up with past guest on  the show, Kirsty Heap, as we find out how Kirsty has got on leaving her corporate job and going full time self-employed, and what’s that like for someone who is Dyslexic!

Kirsty shares that, in her corporate job which  she worked in for years and reached a very senior level, she never felt like she was able to be herself and found that the constant masking and hiding the real Kirsty was exhausting! 

Kirsty‘s move to self-employment made sense where she could be her real self and be happier at work than ever before!

In this episode you can discover helpful hacks if going it on your own is something you want to do but are worried your dyslexia will hold you back.

Key Topics:

  • Masking who you really are to fit in,
  • Finding yourself, and happiness in being yourself, and
  • Making the jump into self-employment!

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Episode 66 – Finding Belonging and Navigating Micro-traumas with Devon Lowndes

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1,500!

That’s the number of micro-traumas neurodivergent people experience just at primary school age (5yrs – 12yrs). This includes things like saying; “you’re not trying”, “you’re lazy”, “you don’t work hard. You need to work harder!”. When we hear words like this what is actually being heard is “you’re not good enough” “you’re not worthy”, “you’re not enough”. It’s an attack on your personhood. 

In this episode, our host Matt Head is joined by Devon Lowndes, Co-founder and Director of ‘Self Agency’ as they discuss the importance of finding belongingness and the impact of micro-traumas and how to navigate these challenges.

Devon has Dyslexia and ADHD and therefore has first hand experience of these micro-traumas that many neurodivergent people experience in a life-time. Devon tells us that these micro-traumas don’t leave physical scars, but we do hold them within our bodies which has a far reaching impact in all areas of our lives, be it at home, at work, or in education!

In this episode, Devon tells us how she found belongingness and how important this is to thrive with dyslexia. Because, when you’re expelling energy to masking, assimilating or pretending, you can focus that energy for your own success! Devon, like many other neurodivergent people, know what it’s like not to feel like you fit in anywhere and how much you crave feeling like you belong.

Self Agency was set-up to shine a light on neurodiversity and give everyone the tools to understand the challenges and enable organisations to evolve their cultures. Devon believes that, people with dyslexia, dyscalculic, dyspraxia, ADHD, autism, OCD, Tourette syndrome, mental health illnesses and acquired neurodiversity (such as trauma) have a wealth of strengths to bring to our society, and it’s time that they were recognised and valued.

Key Topics:

  • Not feeling like you fit in,
  • Finally finding belongingness,
  • Feeling like you can be 100% yourself, 
  • What are micro-traumas, and
  • How to navigate these challenges

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Episode 65 – How to Write a Book if you have Dyslexia with Matt Bird

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At school, Matt Bird was placed in remedial English classes  and left school education believing he was stupid. It wasn’t until he was in his 20’s when his mum suggested he may be dyslexic and should get tested. This was the first time Matt had even heard of the word ‘Dyslexia’ but the description started to make sense of the challenges he had faced when he was at school.

Since leaving school, with a little nudge from his friends, he started his book writing career and he has now authored 20 books, has won a book of the year prize and writes for publications such as The Times newspaper. 

Wanting to share with people how he writes books and help them to achieve others’ dream of writing a book, Matt now coaches 100+ people a year to become authors and publishes 50+ books a year. Matt believes that if he can write a book, then so can everyone!

Matt Bird is Founder CEO of ‘PublishU’ enabling over 100 people a year to write, publish and launch their books to a global audience.

As part of his giving back he is Founder of the global foundation NAYBA helping thousands of churches worldwide to better love their neighbours. 

In this episode, Matt Bird discusses with our Host Matthew Head about what growing up was like, and how it all changed when he found he had dyslexia. 

In this episode Matt will share some of what he does to write a book which might help you too!

Key Topics:

  • Growing up believing you are ‘Stupid’
  • Finding you have Dyslexia in your 20’s
  • Writing the first book with a little nudge from friends,
  • Helping 100’s of people write their own book!

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Episode 64 – Effective Reading and Writing and the Power of AI with Russell Van Brocklen

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Of course, we all know the common challenges of dyslexia in reading and writing, but few know how people with dyslexia can improve their reading and writing skills, and even excel neurotypical people in these two areas. 

Few know more about helping dyslexic people in this area than our guest for this episode Russell Van Brocklen.

Russell is the founder of Dyslexia Classes, an ed-tech startup focused on teaching-learning different students (especially students with Dyslexia) how best to overcome challenges with Reading, Writing, and Comprehension skills. 

With a background in Neurological Communications and from own experience with his own Dyslexia, Russell has developed a  unique system for teaching writing that not only significantly improves the writing skills of highly motivated students with dyslexia, but also builds their reading and organisational skills and their confidence for long-term success.

In this episode, our host Matthew Head explores the benefits of using AI to help bridge the gap between the skills of people with Dyslexia and their challenges. With AI now popping up everywhere it is difficult to see how the future jobs are going to sway more towards the skills which people with dyslexia excel most in.

Key Topics:

  • Understand what dyslexia is helps to identify ways to educate people to improve their reading and writing skills,
  • Ways to improve reading and writing, and
  • How to use AI to level the playing field.
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Episode 63 – Misdiagnosis for Autism and Becoming an Olympian with Caragh McMurtry

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Training in a competitive sport in any arena requires dedication, commitment, sacrifice and a lot of hard work. To reach the peak of your sport to compete in the olympics is an achievement not obtained by many. It is hard enough for anyone from most backgrounds to achieve. When a neurodiversity is thrown into the mix, it makes that achievement all the more impressive. No other success story compares to this episode’s guest, Olympic Rower for Team GB Caragh McMurtry. 

Starting out rowing from a young age, Caragh explains to our host Matthew Head, how sport for her was a way of communicating her world to others. 

Knowing that something was quite fitting from a young age, Caragh tells us how the immediate reaction was to be misdiagnosed and treated for Bipolar Disorder and various other mental health condition ignoring or missing the signs of Autism. The side effects from the medication worsened her ability to perform at the level she wanted so that she could succeed in internal rowing competitions. 

It wasn’t until 2019, 5 years after being misdiagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, that Caragh was finally diagnosed with High-functioning Autism and got the support she needed! “It gave me permission to be different and now I’m happier than I’ve ever been!”

After retiring from professional rowing after the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics Caragh set out to as her mission to make sure that no one goes through what she did and to help other people with neurodiversity through sport.

“I founded Neurodiverse Sport CIC in response to the current lack of understanding and support available for neurodivergent athletes, and intend it to be a platform for support, education, and advocacy. “It is my belief that no athlete should feel misunderstood, isolated or unable to reach their full potential because they do not conform to neurotypical standards of behaviour and communication.”

This is an incredible story which everyone needs to hear!

Key Topics:

  • Being misdiagnosed with Bipolar for Autism,
  • Being treated for mental health and ignoring signs of neurodiversity,
  • Training for the olympics
  • Learning about Autism and getting the correct diagnosis,
  • Building a charity to support those  with a neurodiversity  through sport ‘neurodiverse sport’.

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Episode 62 – The Inspiring Dyslexia Success Story of Elizabeth Takyi

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Starting her primary education in Ghana in West Africa, this episode’s guest Elizabeth Takyi was penalised in the class room for poor spelling and ready by the use of the cane.  This traumatic experience with education gave Elizabeth the feeling that ‘this is just the way it is. I must be stupid’. 

Moving to the UK for secondary education, Elizabeth became more disassociated with education and would regularly be ‘naughty’ and bunk off school. 

It wasn’t until leaving an abusive relationship and, in trying to prove everyone and herself wrong that she was in fact not stupid and could be just as successful as everyone, Elizabeth started a university course in HR. After completely failing the 1st year Elizabeth discovered that she had Dyslexia and Dyspraxia. Not knowing what this meant she struggled to know where to turn before the time of ‘Google’. 

It wasn’t until the support from college who supplied Elizabeth with assistive technology when Elizabeth started sore passing all of the subsequent years at university.

With this new found confidence Elizabeth started ‘Aspire2 Inspire’ providing support to business owners with dyslexia and helping others in the same way that Elizabeth was supported.

She now works in her dream job being an ambassador for neurobox where she continues to spread dyslexia and intersectionality awareness.

Doing all this and being a single mother of three is tough and inspiring.

Key Topics:

  • Childhood trauma from being caned for not being able to read or write,
  • Leaving an abusive relationship and aspiring to prove you’re not stupid!
  • Finding out that you have dyslexia, getting the right support, then flying,
  • Setting up support for business owners with dyslexia,
  • Being unemployed and trying to find a job whilst disclosing you have dyslexia, and
  • Finding the place where you belong! 
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Episode 61 – Entrepreneurship and Dyslexia, and the ability to Absorb Information Quickly with Stephen Martin

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One really under appreciated dyslexic strength is the ability to absorb information quickly and explain complex topics in a way that is engaging and easy to understand! 

It is the very specific dyslexia skill set which propelled our guest in this episode, Stephen Martin, to become a highly successful entrepreneur. 

Growing up in New Zealand, where the school system did not recognise dyslexia, Stephen’s dyslexia wasn’t picked up until his family moved to Saudi Arabia and continued his education in a British school. 

In this fascinating conversation with our host Matthew Head, Stephen tells us how he leveraged his ability to absorb information quickly and be able to teach it to others in the form of an engaging narrative, turning complex topics into an easy to understand format which started his entrepreneur journey.

Stephen also acknowledges the people in his life who have supported him. His biggest supporter being his mum who, upon finding out Stephen had dyslexia, became an overnight expert in dyslexia to make sure Stephen got all the support he would need in life. 

Stephen not only has his own marketing business, but also runs a dyslexia online community with its own podcast, Truth About Dyslexia. By Stephen’s own admission, he needs just a little too much to do to feel comfortable and motivated which he believes he owes to his dyslexia and ADHD!

This is a great episode not to be missed!

Key Topics:

  • Absorbing information quickly,
  • Leveraging narrative reasoning, 
  • Life as an entrepreneur, and
  • Being just a little bit too busy to feel comfortable and stay motivated,
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