What I Learned After Spending Decades Thinking I Was Broken
I was told in third grade that I was dyslexic. That it wasn’t my fault.
That was supposed to make me feel better.
It didn’t
Because if it wasn’t my fault…
then it wasn’t something I could fix either.
At eight years old, that felt like a life sentence.
Not lazy.
Not trying hard enough.
Just… built broken.
Or so I thought.
Here’s what most people don’t talk about.
Roughly one in five people are dyslexic.
That’s not rare.
That’s everywhere.
But what is common is the shame that comes with it.
The fear of being found out.
The quiet adjustments you make so no one sees where you’re falling behind.
The way you shrink, just enough, to stay safe.
If you know, you know.
So I did what a lot of people do.
I accepted it.
I let it define the edges of what I thought I was capable of.
I stayed quiet.
I kept my head down.
I learned how to disappear.
And then something in me pushed back.
Not all at once.
Not clean.
But enough to start asking:
What if they’re wrong about how far this goes?
So I did both.
I carried the label…
and I spent decades trying to outrun it.
There wasn’t an “aha” moment.
No breakthrough.
No single turning point.
What there was… was a series of decisions.
Going back to high school after dropping out. Secretly.
Learning to read when I was already years behind, with people in my corner who refused to let me quit.
Taking extra time in trade school because “good enough” wasn’t going to carry me.
At 28, I applied to university.
I sat there filling out that application, crying, convinced they wouldn’t let me in.
Much to my surprise, they let me in.
Filled with fear, I walked into the classroom and committed to learning in a way I never thought I would be able to.
Not only did I finally make it to university… I thrived.
For most of my life, I lived with something I couldn’t explain.
Because of how my brain works, I see patterns differently.
Earlier. Faster. Sometimes before there are words for them.
If you’re wired like this, you know exactly what I mean.
You can see where things are going.
You can feel when something is off.
You can connect dots no one else even sees.
But when you try to explain it… it doesn’t land.
And that makes you question yourself.
Worse, you watch those same ideas show up later, carried out by someone else, like they were always obvious.
That does something to you.
So does being underestimated.
So does being misunderstood.
So does spending years trying to translate your own mind for other people.
For a long time, that turned into anger.
At 32, I burned out.
Not quietly. Not gracefully.
Completely.
I had been running at full speed since I was 15.
Trying to prove I wasn’t what people assumed I was.
So I stopped.
And that was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made.
What I did with that time changed everything.
I went to university full time.
I studied philosophy, anthropology, classical literature.
The things I used to stare at growing up and assume were out of reach.
And somewhere in that process, something shifted.
Not overnight.
But enough.
I realized I wasn’t broken.
I wasn’t stupid.
I wasn’t less.
I just learned differently.
And once I stopped fighting that… everything started to make sense.
Today, I don’t hide how I think.
I lead with it.
I see patterns early.
I move before things break.
I make decisions when others are still trying to make sense of what’s in front of them.
Because leadership isn’t about fitting a mold.
It’s about understanding how you’re wired… and using it on purpose.
If you’ve ever been told you were too much…
or not enough…
If you’ve spent years shrinking just to fit…
If you’ve carried more than you let people see…
You’re not broken.
You just haven’t been shown how to use it yet.
This is what I learned.
You cannot shrink to survive.
You cannot wait to be understood.
And you cannot build your life around someone else’s limitations.
You must stand tall in who you are.
You must lead forward, even when it’s not clear.
And you must build something that lasts.
Stand tall. Lead forward. Build to last.
