A Dyslexic Entrepreneur Explains What Finally Made Learning Click with Willie

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's episode of On the Spectrum with Sonia. Today we have a very special guest joining us, Willie Blake. Willie was diagnosed with dyslexia when he was in first grade. And he is here to discuss his journey with dyslexia and ways it impacted him to know how he gives back to other people with dyslexia, and he helps entrepreneurs with dyslexia. So here to share his story, please let's welcome Willie. Thank you so much for being here. I'm super excited about this conversation today.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Yes, me too. I'm excited for it. Thank you for having me on.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

No, no worries.

First Grade Diagnosis And Early Supports

SPEAKER_01 1:37

So, Willie, tell me a little bit about now you you discussed that you got diagnosed in first grade with dyslexia. What was happening for you around that time that you can recollect that made you feel like you were apart from other people?

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Yeah, that's that's the key thing. Recollect, right? Thinking back to childhood. Uh it was like I remember when I was diagnosed, and I would go to every Friday for an hour, I'd go to a classroom with, I assume, other dyslexics. And we'd have a fun time. We'd read, they'd show us like tricks to be able to hold a paper up to the sentence to put it down so that we can read the lines, and just had a lot of fun. I start seeing some of my friends be like, Why is Willie going to this other classroom? The last bit. That's kind of strange. And as a kid, you're just like, I don't want to hang out with strange people. So then I s they started to do their own stuff and not involve me. But even like dur during regular class, I would be called on to read something, and everyone else could read just as just fine. But I would take a really long time. Sometimes if it was a big word, and like we're talking six, seven plus letters, it would I would have to sound it out. And it was really embarrassing to, especially around kids who you want to impress. Well, you're you're six, seven years old. Of course, you want to try to impress your friends. And so just slowly reading, it was rough. Later in like fifth or sixth grade, uh, at the end of the day, you'd write a summary of what you learned that day. And I was always the last one to be able to put it out because it took me so long to read. Or so long to write it down.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

So you were going to another classroom to work on some reading skills, I take it.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Yeah. Yeah, it was just like a little extra extra class, extra teachers would be there to help improve uh the reading.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Okay, so you're going to that classroom, help improve your reading, help with um, you know, just the grammatics, I take it, with phonics, grammatical, like early, you know, just sentence structure, word formation.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yeah. Yeah, all the stuff you would learn throughout elementary school.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

And did people start saying something to you? Because man, kids are savages. So I I'm just curious to know, like, what were kids actually saying to you, anything at all?

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Again, it's like, what can I recollect from back then? I I don't I can't remember like any specific words they'd say, but they'd like a few of my best friends would be running off and play with each other, and I'd walk over and ask them to play, and they're just like, oh no, we're just doing this one thing, you can play with us next time, and then they'd run off to the next tree that's over there to go play, and I'd be at the other one just hanging out, being like, Okay, well, I guess I'll walk around the fence or whatever. So I don't I don't remember specifically any words, but it was just uh a little bit more of time by myself than usual.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

So it was like more alone time. It was more like you were kind of feeling isolated at that point.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Yeah. And as a kid, like just being by yourself, you're like, what's wrong with me? Why don't my why don't other kids want to hang out with me? And especially if they're your friends, why don't my other friends want to hang out with me? So it really messes with it really messes with you as a kid.

Isolation And The Confidence Spiral

SPEAKER_01 5:22

How do you feel like that impacted your self-esteem at that time? And do you feel like that also aggregated to already pre-existing challenges you had with the dyslexia?

SPEAKER_00 5:36

I know that confidence is a huge thing with dyslexia because whenever I talk to parents about their kids having dyslexia, usually the thing that comes up is how do I help my kid with dyslexia? And I when I talk uh and I mentioned to them one of the best things to do is what is it that they like? Do more of that. Because then they build the confidence in the things that they like. And when you have more confidence, the impact of dyslexia tends to lessen. So as a kid, when you do start getting isolated and start being around just yourself, well, then your confidence starts to get a little lower. And as your confidence gets lower, the opposite happens of, well, then the impact of dyslexia starts to increase to where now you're having to sound out the words even longer. And writing takes a little bit more time. And now that I'm reading, it takes me several minutes rather than just one or two to get through a page. And that's just, you know, that's just what happens as the of that impact. That confidence goes up, dyslexia impact goes down, and then well, as confidence goes down, and as a kid, that you start getting shy, you start feeling like you're overwhelmed, and then that impact negatively tends to increase.

Overcompensating To Feel Normal

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Did you ever find yourself having to overcompensate when you were a kid?

SPEAKER_00 7:09

All the time. All the time. And that's probably one of the major things that dyslexics do. Even as adults, we overcompensate because we feel like we haven't that the work that we put in has to be more in order to get the same threshold as that other people can do just normally. So we try to overcompensate. We try to, we have to put in more work when it comes to reading, or more work when it tries to, in an adult life, go through an email or write a memo or things that take usually quite a bit more time. And so, of course, we try to overcompensate, and that affects even our personality. I was a curious, adventurous kid. This Willy right here, and the Willie that started out before all that happened. We were out there and energetic, we were ready, we're running around like a kid should. But then after that diagnosis and kids started treating me different, and I was isolated, I became a lot more shy, a lot more held back. And so in those moments, I tried to be like, I want to be normal again. How do I be normal? And you do things to overcompensate for it.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

What were some things that you have done when you were younger to try to overcompensate for that feeling of I'm different from everyone else and I want to fit in so badly, but I can't.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

I don't know why my mind went to this. There's two different things. I'll share, I'll share the weird one first, and then I'll share the other one. The first thing was more of a weird persuasive, but more of like a manipulative tactic of if we're all hanging out with each other, like me and a group of friends, and I didn't feel a part of the conversation, I would go away to go sit like on a chair in the corner, or like uh I'm thinking of like my my friend's patio, they'd be sitting at a table, he had a playground, I'd go sit up on the monkey bars, and I would hope that one of my friends would notice and come over and include me and start talking to me. So that was one of the things that happened.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

I used to just get overwhelmed and melt down and start crying when I felt like I was in a situation where I was just ignored because it was too much for me. I was like, okay, then I felt like like I I'm not gonna have any friends, or um, something's wrong with me because people aren't talking to me, or you know what I mean? It made me even more anxious as a kid. So I can empathize to what you're saying, in that sense.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Yeah. And the other part is uh there were moments where I'd get very angry because I wanted that attention. I wanted people to notice. And so I I know my brother wouldn't mind me sharing this story, but I got really mad at my younger brother to where he ran upstairs, and the only thing around me was a nerf gun. And so I grabbed it, turned the corner of the stairs, and chucked it as hard as I could. He dodged like he got to the top of the stairs, turned at the last second, and the gun went forward right into the wall and made a big hole in the wall. I just think back to those moments of man, why was I so angry? And a good and and the one of the common things that continued to appear was I had to react out this way in order for me to be able to control the emotions that I felt inside. And sadly, sometimes that was through throwing a Nerf gun. I know my sister forgave me for pulling out a chunk of her hair at one time uh for doing it, but it's just like sometimes anger is a second emotion to the first one of just wanting to be heard.

Anger As A Second Emotion

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Yes, anger, yes, that is most often the case. And in psychology, it is looked at as a secondary emotion. And uh when I was in grad school, my professor, one of my professors, gave me this really great analogy of what anger is like. And it he used the analogy of going up a candlestick, right? So the waxy area on a candlestick is just surface level. That's where the anger is, right? That's one thing that people will notice is the surface area. But as you travel up a candlestick and see the scorch, right? That's where the pain is, right? A lot of times it's um just unresolved hurt at the end of the day, right? And that and it's so easy to turn hurt into anger. And I think especially when you get into the kid world, right? Because as children, we don't know how to regulate emotions very easily, right? We don't have the language a lot of times to even know I'm feeling really sad or I'm feeling really left out, or um, I feel really rejected by my peers, and I don't know any other way, right? So turning that hurt into anger makes complete sense and is very uh normal, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Yeah. And because of, I think we might be seeing this as we come into this technical age of not only are our kids trying to figure out how to regulate emotions, but the parents of the kids have not yet found the way to regulate their emotions because they're still trying to heal and recover. So now you got two individuals, regardless of age, who are trying to regulate their emotions, and now you have one who might act out in anger, the other one who might act out in uh sadness, or they might be in anger too. And really, it's can we all just take a deep breath? And I I do this with my kids because I know that it's rough when you're not able to be heard. But whenever I when I have a six-year-old daughter, anytime she feels angry or something happens to her, she like screams, but then she's learned to take a deep breath and let it go. And if I'm there, I always ask her, Kay, tell me what happened. She tells me what happened. I said, Kay, so what's that what's that feeling in here? And I touch, I touch her heart. Like, what's the feeling in there? She's like, Man, I'm so mad. Okay, so why are you mad? And you give them those couple seconds to just use the words that they have. And man, when when you're able to take an emotional breath, when you're able to just to feel hurt, all that anger just tends to slide away. But yeah, it's it's that second emotion that that comes to whenever people are trying there. It's one way in which people are trying to express what they truly want, but unfortunately isn't in the way in which most people can help the thing they're trying to express. I hope that came out in the right way.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

No, for sure. It it makes complete sense. And, you know, a lot of learning how to self-soothe and regulate emotions starts young, right? And it starts with socialization, right? And a lot of it is um how, and that there's a lot that we learn when we're young and we're socializing with peers. And a lot of that comes through in that sense.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

So turning so going back to your younger self, now you turned a lot of the ear hurt into anger.

No Therapy And Finding Safe Spaces

SPEAKER_01 15:21

You taking out taking it out on your family members. Um did you at some point start receiving any kind of therapy? Did your family ever put you in any therapy when you were younger, or were you kind of just white knuckling it through?

SPEAKER_00 15:41

Uh, pretty much just white knuckling it through. Like my mom, I love my mom. She is just a fantastic person. She got her master's degree in finance and chose to be a stay-at-home mom to take care of me and my four siblings. And just she she really was a good just person to help me. She was a she was in a way a therapist uh herself to me, because anytime I would be stressed of let's just say homework that I was to be doing in high school. Literally, I would walk back to her bedroom, sit at the end of the bed, and we didn't even have to say words. I just sat there because it was just a place in which I can be calm. But no, there wasn't any there wasn't any therapist. Um I I had tutoring to help with words, but other than that, nothing for like psychological side.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

So you had some tutoring that was helping you with words. Were there any kind of tricks and tips you learned along the way that helped you that you could share with us that other people might find also could be useful and helpful for them?

Build Confidence With One Small Step

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Yeah. Are you speaking specifically like for kids or as adults?

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Both. Any or both.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Yeah. Yeah, of course. Uh first thing would be what I shared before, which is if it feels like there is so much emphasis on trying to make dyslexia work and having a hard time reading and writing and speaking. Find something that you like. Give your brain time to decompress and do something that you love. Because again, that builds that confidence, it gives you time to breathe. And I found just on a business point, when you think about something else, usually a problem that you have in your business tends to then come up when you're doing this random other thing. You're like, oh, I just had this idea. So that's one thing. Another thing is break it down so simple. Break it simply so much down to where literally, if you're working on a goal, you break it down to what is just one thing, one single thing that I need to do today. No judgment, no expectation to do more than that. Just what is one thing that I can do today? Because I've seen it in the people that I've worked with and in myself, is that just picking one thing that we do each day then compounds over time. And you will eventually get there. But it's just being consistent with it.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

What about for those that are struggling yet with, you know, let's say they people have kids who are struggling with reading, writing, or and spelling, phonics, all of that, right? What is something that you learned to help it become somewhat more manageable? I'm not gonna say easier because it's not easy, but something more manageable. And what is something you found that could be helpful for others to know?

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Yes. Two things.

Matching Teaching To Learning Styles

SPEAKER_00 18:58

First thing is that kids are more likely to do something if they like the person who is telling them to do it. So I know like with my mom, she did a great job at me just like I love my mom. And she gave me so much empathy and sympathy for just the challenges I was going through. And that helped me to when I had a challenge, then I would ask her. And when she asked me to do something, then I would be more willing to do it. Now, that's not the answer to everything, because man, sometimes they get the makeup all over the counters and they cut their hair, and you're just like, man, I really am like trying to take a deep breath and be a good parent, but then sometimes there's that like explosion moment. I know all of us have been there, then it's it's it's just in the moments where you can be with your kid. Be with them. That'd be the first thing. Second thing is more on the learning side, which if you are a parent of multiple kids, you know that each kid is different. Each kid learns differently too. So being able to find a way in which the kid learns best helps out a lot. So, for an example, one kid might be really good about just opening a like a book or a textbook, reading it, and being able to memorize it. That's usually what like the traditional system is built for. Some others might be more on the visual side to where they want to see pictures or they want to see videos, something that really explains it in a visual context. That way the visuals connect in their mind. And a lot of dyslexics are visual-minded, so that works well. Another way is hands-on, hands-on experience, a way to be able to teach the concept that's right in front of you that they can do. So let I'll I'll pop up an example that's good for this. If you're trying to do a math problem and you're doing five plus five, you can write on a piece of paper, five plus five. Kid looks at it, it's ten. That works for that category of just like the text. For the visual, you might put up some pictures of five cupcakes and five donuts, and you're the kid's able to count all of them and okay, five plus five equals ten. There's a visual. Now, for the hands-on person, let's actually get some cupcakes and let's actually get some donuts to literally have it in front of them to where they can move them and say, okay, one, two, all the way up to ten. You say, okay, five plus five equals ten. And really, you're just you're just hitting the different parts of how they learn. So when it comes to entrepreneurs and adults, not just kids, and the ones that I work with as clients, it's what is the way that you learn best? Hands-on, text and memory, or is it visual? Or do you learn when you have like music in the background? Because having that music stimulates something to be able to make you learn. There's several different ways to do it. What works best for you, and then we go from there.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

As you were going through the process of you know getting the additional support you needed at school, was there a particular way of learning that worked best for you?

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Yes, I am a hands-on person.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Yeah, so the hands-on really helped you to actually have the actual things in front of you. So if you were learning to um do like a math problem, for instance, or do something. Or learn another concept, right? Just finding ways to have it like immersive almost.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Yeah. So like the putting a tire on a car, having someone with me hands-on with that, that that came so easy to me when it comes to learning. Or like woodworking shop when working with wood and doing those different things, that came very easy. That's because my style was hands-on. Now with other stuff that is like reading and writing, you just got to be a little bit more creative. But there's ways in which you can do it to be able to help with all the different learning aspects.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

So how in what ways were you creative then with your um with like things like reading and writing? Because I know like just recollecting from my school years at least, it was all about reading, writing, regurgitating information, taking tests where they would ask questions or in a way where you actually had to read the chapters to answer. So like what um so so just you know, if you could fill us in on some insight of what what you adopted to.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

Yeah.

Music And Audio For Reading Support

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Music is a big one for me. And so when I had music on the background, it helps me to focus. Literally, I would I'd go to YouTube, type eight hour study music, and it would be this one video that pops up, and just the whole meditative wow, wow, wow type thing of what it did really helped out to help me get focused. And so that was one thing. Uh, the other thing was having some type of audio of either uh if it was like uh if I was able to take that text and have it read it itself through like AI of that, then I would do that. Or I would have someone else read it for me because I can when I listen to something, it's easier for me to hear the question and interpret it. But if I have to read it, man, I'll read that question five or six times and still not understand it. So having someone else read it to me helped out a lot. And literally, I'll tell you this. My when I was in college, my girl, my now wife, but my girlfriend at the time, literally, as I was doing a history class for one of the generals, she was reading my textbook to me. And I thank her so much for it because I was reading that book and I just didn't understand. But when she was reading it, I understood it a lot more. So those are some things of just music in the background to help me focus, and then having other people read it out, because I can listen better than I can read.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Okay, so then so that's a way that worked for you, and I'm really happy to hear that you found a method and a system that worked for you. I think, you know, that you know, everybody, every person is different in how they learn, and you're a hundred percent correct. I know for me, I'm a very literal learner. So for me, because I'm you know, I'm spectrum, so you know, I know what helped me learn is just having a lot of visuals, right? Alongside like I'm more of also a see and hear kind of per uh of learner, if you will. Yeah. You know, and I mean don't get me wrong, if I read something, you know, but I'm definitely if I had the choice of actually seeing text and seeing visuals versus hearing it, I'd do better when I can actually see it. So I mean I guess Yeah, I get that.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

Because it doesn't negate all the other ways to learn. It just means one is the strongest, usually one is like the weakest, and then all the others fit in between. So we can do all of them. We just prefer to do one over the other.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Exactly. And I know I've noticed for me, I don't know if this happened to you or not, but like if there's a system in place, right? If there's like a system, a schedule, something right in place, I do better, right? And I feel like as long as I had that system available growing up and I had a method, you know, because for me it was always, you know, I always struggled with organization too, right? As part of being neurodivergent here, you know?

unknown 26:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

And I always struggled with, you know, having a system. And I think also part of this too, I also struggled when subjects were boring as heck, okay. It's like, oh my god, yeah. Really? You're gonna make me read about freaking treaties of from the Native Americans for the land of Indiana. Oh my god, okay, really? Yeah, this is boring as okay.

unknown 27:31

Bye.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

But I mean, I still did it. I just I don't know how I did it because I just didn't want to fail, so I just did it, but like, you know, did the work, but um Yeah, it's like how many, how many presidents do we actually have to memorize?

SPEAKER_00 27:44

How many times do we have to go over Columbus coming over the ocean? And yeah, there's just man, you get those boring topics, you'll you'll do it that one time, but that's pretty much it.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Oh my god, you know what? I would gladly l listen to Magellan and uh Columbus. I'd gladly, gladly hear all those stories all over than the ones we had to read about treaties being signed for the land in Indiana. Uh-uh.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Uh you see that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Put me in Magellan land any day. Put me in Columbus land any day. I will listen to it 10,000 times. I won't care.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

Yes, agreed. Agreed.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

Yes, but yes, um, yeah, so um so you so you figure out your

From College Choices To Entrepreneurship

SPEAKER_01 28:35

system. So tell me now then, what did you do, you know, after now you went to college, what was your field of study, and like what did you then go on to do after?

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Yeah, so I started with accounting, went that as a degree, and then a year and a half into it, I decided that even though I understood how to do the math, I didn't want to sit in a cubicle and behind a computer all day.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

And I really liked talking to people, and so I switched over to business management, and that's what I got my bachelor's in business management with a minor in marketing. And from there, uh at the time I was working produce at Walmart, and then once I graduated, me, my wife and I, and our soon-to-be ki first kid, came up to Idaho. And while I was up here, I was a property manager for a bunch of apartment complexes. And just as I was doing that and other jobs on the side, I was watching videos and I was reading self-help books, and I was starting to like come into this world of what was entrepreneurship? Like I've heard this word before, but what is entrepreneurship? What is this, what is public speaking? What does that actually mean? What is this coaching? Coaching seems so weird. What is it? And I started just to realize this world that wow, this is something I actually want to be a part of because it taps into a lot of the things that I love to do.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

And when you explored that other part of the world, so to speak, um, what really stood out for you?

SPEAKER_00 30:20

I the big yeah, the biggest thing that stood out was people would leave their jobs that they worked eight hours for to be able to do something for 12 hours or 16 hours a day. But they loved doing it. And I found that so interesting that they would stop something in which they said they want more time, and that's why they started a business, but then they would have to spend more time in the business for anyone who's grown a business. It's like 12, 16-hour days, right? And so they're adding almost double the time, but loving their life more. They're having healthier relationships with their spouse, and they were able to have time with their kids, that they talked with the neighbors across the street, that they were able to go to different events and earn money and income, and like all these areas of the they even got more physically fit, and like their relationship uh spiritually with themselves or with God started to increase. And I just found it so interesting that there's this thing of you work a job for 40 years and then you retire, and then you can be happy, and then you can go on vacations and do all that. And of course, you can do a little bit with your paid time off, but everything's afterwards. But that there were people out there who were already doing that all while they were still young and enjoying their life. And that was probably that was the biggest thing was that people were enjoying their life even though they were spending more time working.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

Right. And it, you know, there's more freedom that comes with entrepreneurship for sure, than there is when you're working a position where you're an employee. You know, it just that's just kind of name of the game. But the only difference is the financial stability, right? It's a trade-off, right? But it depends on, you know, so when you're in a salaried position, you're an employee, you have financial security, more financial security because you know that you're going to get your paycheck every two weeks or every month, whatever the structure is set up.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Entrepreneurship, your paycheck comes, but then also it may not, right? It's very, it fluctuates, right? So it really is. And it depends on also how are you scaling your business, how are you promoting yourself, how are you marketing, all this other stuff. There's so much that goes into opening your business. It's not just, okay, I'm gonna hang a shingle up and you know, tomorrow everything is gonna be hunky-dory, right? It's not, it's going to take a lot because you basically when you become an entrepreneur, you have to act like you're married to your job. That comes like front and center.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

Yeah. Yeah, you you it's yeah. Not more to say to that. You're you nailed it like right on the head. It's that that freedom to be able to choose that comes with it, that seems the most attractive, and that really is probably what makes a lot of entrepreneurs, even with hard financial times a lot of the time, and the un uh and the security not being there, being able to choose and that choice is what makes people feel more peace and joy in their life.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Absolutely. And so when you took up entrepreneurship and helping helping entrepreneurs rather, and doing the coaching and things, what was that journey like for you to go into that space?

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Yeah.

Coaching Dyslexic Adults Through Fear

SPEAKER_00 34:07

First it started with first when I started coaching, I was just a success coach. I would help anyone to become successful. Well, what the heck does that mean? Right? It's just like I'm speaking to everybody, so nobody is listening. So I had to niche down. And I as I niche down, I'm like, I don't want to just talk about things I learned in books. That's not that's not what people would pay someone for. They pay them for life experience. So I started to just get so much life experience from trying and becoming an author and trying to start a business and trying to get uh to lose weight, and I was a heavy kid back then, I was a heavy dude back then. And I'm still heavy, but I've lost weight, which is awesome. And so I was trying to lose weight and like each of these different areas of of just I have this goal or dream or northern star or finish line that I want. What do I have to do to get it? And so just for five, six years, I just nailed just dove into doing that. And then I niche down to, well, I have a lot of experience with dyslexia, done it for three decades now, so maybe I know a thing or two, or at least that works for me and can hopefully work for other people. And so then I started to talk with other people, and I found that people are so people are so smart. Entrepreneurs are like so smart and gifted that they get in their own way. Because they're trying to they're either they're they're trying to impress their clients and the board of advisors or investors so much that what got them there in the first place, that ability to try new things and make mistakes, they stopped doing that. They hold up this nice pedestal ego thing, and so they stopped trying new things. The I was on a podcast and we were talking about financial advisors, and this one advisor, they were wanting to start a podcast, and they started a couple episodes, but then it wasn't making it getting monetized, and people weren't watching it as much. They only got a few views, and so then they stopped doing it. And it's just like, no, you just gotta keep trying. You haven't tried it hard enough, you just gotta put in more reps. But on but entrepreneurs, they are so smart and so gifted, and they have this ego of I am in this position of where I'm at, I have to maintain it, and because of that, a common thing is they don't do things messy anymore, they don't make mistakes. And because of that, these new goals that they're trying to achieve, they can't do it. And just every year they set those New Year's resolutions, but then all of a sudden, after those couple weeks, it starts going into another thing on the to-do list to do, and something not completed.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Well, I feel like a lot of people also are just so afraid to fail, right? It's just like, you know, they're so afraid to fail that they don't even go out and try, right? And I feel that too, you know, and that's I think one of the biggest fears that many entrepreneurs have is that, well, what if it doesn't work out? What if it's a flop? What if I don't, what if I'm not successful, right? And the thing about it is that fear, even though, okay, having a little bit of that is healthy, right? A little bit of fear in a healthy dose is fine because what will it do? It'll push you to action, right? It'll push you to perhaps take more risks or try different things or continue educating yourself in that area. But too much of that fear that where it becomes debilitating is not healthy, right? So, I mean, it's also about finding that balance for sure.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

Yeah, a good a good amount of fear helps you to be able to not drop everything cold turkey and just like change your life and try everything new. It keeps you to where you stay, at least ability to take care of your needs. But then a lot of people go a little bit further than that and they're just like, Well, I fear public speaking, or I fear that I'm gonna make this mistake in front of investors, that they don't it they don't even start. They don't even make the plan. Or if they make the plan, they don't take their metaphorical car out of park and start driving. They don't put out the episode because, oh, what what happens if if people come back and just say this isn't interesting? And it stops them from achieving what they want.

Niching Down And Speaking To Pain

SPEAKER_01 39:05

So you scaled your business to reach a certain market. You have and what was it like for you in that process then when you scaled to reach a certain market? What was that target population like to work with then?

SPEAKER_00 39:20

Yeah, target population. It's it's funny that like the more you niche down, the less people are there, but the more people that can actually hear you. Because when you talk about pain, well, now you're more relatable because people who are you just talk about success and you talk to everybody, it's just like, well, you're not successful yet, and it hurts to not to always fail and have fear, so you should listen to my success tactics. It's like, okay, every coach and every public speaker out there like has their own thing, so why should I listen to you? But being able to find this community of people who are dyslexic, and not just dyslexic, but dyslexic adults, ones who don't have the resources like kids or teenagers do. The ones who once you hit 18 and go off to college or start your job at work and start your hopefully your career, it's like, well, man, there's not much resources for you. Corporations might say that they are they are inclusive and that they have those things, but like let's be honest, it's they don't get as implemented as they should. So being a resource for people, and I found this community of individuals who are just sick of feeling behind and are tired of having to do extra work for the same paycheck that someone else is, that it might be easy to them.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 40:53

All of that together just comes into like they just feel so frustrated about having to be the exception for a job that they know they're good at, but because the job has emails and memos and presentations and the way that we communicate sometimes struggle with speaking. It's like because of all that, you're seen as either behind, different, or the one who is just almost on the verge of getting fired. And we hate that feeling.

unknown 41:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

And I

Branding Through Vulnerability And Connection

SPEAKER_01 41:26

think that, you know, when you are authentic with your story, um, and you can use that as part of your branding. I think that is what's going to be the most attractive draw to people. Because, like you said, anybody can go out there and be like, oh yeah, you want to be successful, let me teach you some skills, right? Anybody can do that, you know, especially these days when information is at your fingertips, right? But when you have a personal touch to what you why you do what you do. And you know, and I was just thinking about this yesterday, funny enough. You know, I was thinking about like how how it's so important that you be vulnerable and you share your story, right? And recently I actually went to a conference that my friend Julie Logan put on. This is her third year doing this. It's called CreativeCon, and it was for creative entrepreneurs. And um every year it's in Chicago, here in Chicago. And um I, you know, and this is one of the things we talked about is adding branding to your personal touch, right? Even adding it to your pitch, right? Your elevator pitch, things like that. Um, adding those stories to your branding and making it so that people understand the purpose, right? And you encourage other people and touch their purpose in some ways with that, right? So like uh I just feel like it's so um, you know, it's so important, so useful. And I don't think a lot of people are talking about this enough.

SPEAKER_00 43:10

And there's so there's so many strategies out there that it's like which ones are the right ones? And when you're listening to people, usually how we connect isn't with the strategy, but it's with the person.

SPEAKER_01 43:25

Exactly. You connect with the person first. Absolutely. You're not connecting to the product, you connect with the person.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

Yeah. And it be here's a cool thing. And one thing that I love when I talk with my clients and other entrepreneurs is that the people who aren't neurodivergent, they have their toolbox. And we have that same toolbox. It's just hard for us. But then we also get this other toolbox that other people don't have. And it's even more tools that we can use. And when it comes down to it, it's like, what is it that works best for us? If we get the if we get this whole Walmart, well, I'll go with Home Depot because that's more tools. Uh this whole big Home Depot, which has everything that a man would need to build anything that he wants. Freaking love Home Depot. It's the you can go in and you don't buy everything at the same time. You go within for what you need and what works for you. If you're building the patio, I don't think you're going to the light bulbs first or the plants. I think you're going to the wood and the nails and the hammers and all that. And so it's just like that when it comes to what we're working on. Is that when we know what we're working on, well, then we can be like, okay, now we can figure out the strategies. But then back to your point, it's there's so many people out there saying, come to my light bulb. Section, come to the garden center, come to the wood, and we don't know what to listen to. But the way in which we connect with the person is the one who says, I have been through the pain, I have experienced this, this is what's worked for me and can hopefully work for you. When people talk to other people's pain and to find a solution for that pain specifically, that's when people listen.

SPEAKER_01 45:14

Yes. Yes, absolutely. It's connecting and well, that's what a good salesman in some ways does, right? They kind of push that pain point, right? So, you know, that's how I mean, and that's another way of connecting in some ways, right? Like that's people want to know that their pain's gonna get addressed. They want to know that certain things are going to be, you know, helped, right? And that's kind of one of the main things of just at, you know, putting yourself out there as being that person for them, for sure.

AI Tools And Workplace Accommodations

SPEAKER_01 45:51

So you talked about, you know, earlier when you're neurodivergent, you have an extra set of toolbox that you use. What would you say the extra set would be? And how would you describe it?

SPEAKER_00 46:05

Yeah, the extra set of tools. A big one is AI. AI is a really big tool that is really helping many dyslexic entrepreneurs because it is able to take the tasks of reading and writing and being able to come up with how to phrase the email in the right way to send to the coworker or send to your uh or to the client. It's just like it's taking away the weakness, taking away the struggle. And now you get a, you can delegate that off and focus on what really works for you. So that extra toolbox, one of those things is AI, and it's just like and it's those little grammarly, it's the chat GBT, it's the voice uh from text to audio. It's like these small little things that we might take for granted, but are really making it so that now we get to use them to not only help others, but be able to help ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 47:19

Absolutely. AI is huge. You know, and it, you know, and now even they talk about that with, you know, even promoting videos using AI, you know, and using that as part of branding these days.

SPEAKER_00 47:34

Yeah, yeah, AI is huge. And one one other one that is different toolbox than the one that people usually have is that corporations will incorporate different rules if they know that you're neurodivergent. One of the things is that if it comes to I keep mentioning emails and memos, just because that's what's on top of my head with this example. But if you need something read to you, then they have rules in place to be able to have someone help you with that. And that's not something the average person would go after. But because you're no divergent, you have that ability. So you don't have to read the email yourself or the the questions to an answer sheet, but someone else can read them to you. So there's rules in place that people can go to uh just become aware of them because they're there.

SPEAKER_01 48:28

Well, that's very interesting. I had no idea that, you know, that was available in corporations for somebody to come in and read an email. But you know what is also helping people is text-to-speech now, where you know you can use AI to read your emails out loud.

SPEAKER_00 48:44

Yeah. And that works that works well, especially if you're not as comfortable with dyslexia as I am and you're still kind of hiding it. It's just like I don't want other people to really know what's going on. Only maybe a few people in the business. And so voice the text. Really, really handy tool.

SPEAKER_01 49:05

Well, this has been great. Thank you so much for sharing all this information and sharing your experiences with us.

Where To Find Willie And Wrap

SPEAKER_01 49:13

Willie, where can people find you if they wanted to reach out to you?

SPEAKER_00 49:18

Yes. Best one-in-all place is you can go to my website, coachwillieblake.com, and they'll be able to have links to connect with me on all the socials I'm on, as well as if you're a dyslexic professional or entrepreneur who is looking for more clarity and confidence and more income, then you'll that is also a place to be able to work one-on-one with me. But all in all, my website has that place.

SPEAKER_01 49:44

Well, thank you so much for sharing that. Thank you for your time today. And so, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning into this episode. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please remember rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast. Share it with your family and friends. And I'm looking forward to giving you guys more episodes soon. Take care.