What it’s like to have dyslexia & ADD + Why I still love school
I’ve been dyslexic my whole life.
Just reading that sentence takes me the same amount of energy and brain power as most people take when solving a 4 digit long division math equation in their head.
I would pretend to read in elementary school.
I’d sit with the book open in front of me and pass my finger under the words so that people (my parents, teachers, friends, siblings) wouldn’t think I was dumb or lazy.
Can you imagine what they’d think of me if the realized that reading a single page took me 40 minutes?
Most kids could read a whole chapter in that time.
So, I would pretend. Reading was so hard, and it took so much energy and was so slow that whenever I’d actually try to read I’d fall asleep.
Reading circles were the worst. It was terrifying.
One by one kids would read. And it would get closer to me.
I’d start to sweat.
So I timed it just right. And right before it was my turn…
I’d go hide in the bathroom.
I did this every time.
People must have thought I had a bladder problem. Better than them thinking I’m an idiot.
I really did want to learn how to read though. I’d dream about it.
I use to walk everywhere with a book under my arm, and imagine that one day I’d be able to read well (Cliff in 4th & 5th grade).
The book I wanted to read the most was Harry Potter.
But after the 20th time a librarian woke me up because I’d fallen asleep with my face berried in the third page of the book I gave up.
Luckily my dad didn’t give up on me. He never gave up on me. Ever.
My dad worked really hard when we were young. He almost never had time to eat dinner with us.
But he would come home early for this.
He’d sit on my bed. And in a slow, deep voice. He would read Harry Potter to me.
My eyes would light up. I loved this so much that my dad started recording himself while reading.
When he would have to stay late at work, I would fall asleep listening to the recording of his voice reading Harry Potter.
We found an audiobook of Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone.
I listen to it 22 times in a row.
Those first three pages I would fall asleep on? I have them memorized. Along with the rest of the first chapter of the book. 13 years later.
I didn’t stop listening. I listen to every book in that series. Then Narnia, then Lord of the Rings, then Game of Thrones, Pillars of the Earth, Atlas Shrugged.
I never stopped listening.
I had a 20 ton boulder chained to my back. Every sentence I read took ages. Now I had wings.
I started pushing my listening speed, from 1x to 1.25x, 1.5x, 2x, then 2.5x speed. Because the change was gradual I grew with it, and retained every word.
I listened while biking to school. When waiting for my mom to pick me up from practice. Before I fell asleep every night. When cleaning my room or walking outside. On the toilet.
I started finishing 2 audiobooks every week. 100 books a year. I’ve been going at this rate for 12 years. It takes no effort, and in fact, it’s the best part of my day.
Through hard work (and convincing a lot teachers to give me exceptions) I got accepted to Brown.
One problem….I couldn’t read my summer reading book — there was no audiobook for this book.
In the same way, there are no audiobooks for most textbooks, most handouts, PDF’s, emails, and wikipedia pages one needs to read for school.
So, I sat next to my mom on her bed. And she read my college summer reading book. But my mom worked, and didn’t have time to read me the whole book.
The night before flying to Brown, to start college, I was only 2/3ths of the way through the book.
I had no other choice, I hacked an old text to speech computer system to read the remaining portion of the book over night into my iPhone and then listen to it on the plane.
It worked!
I spent the next 4 years in college perfecting this system. Instead of slaving over a textbook while chained to my desk — I’d take 15 quick photos and then listen while eating breakfast or Longboarding to class.
I’d listen to the 100+ pages of reading assigned per week for my classes while on the train or on the bus to hackathons. Often, it felt like I was the only one doing the readings in my classes.
I built 36 products in college, founded the Renewable Energy Engineering major, won Stanford Harvard and MIT’s startup competitions and was elected to Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Startups I’d founded.
When I graduated, I still didn’t know what to work on full time. But at every turn I felt that this problem was the most important one for me. If I didn’t do it, no one else would.
Today, hundreds of thousands of people have been able to function in school and society because of Speechify.
Remember, that above all else, your mission is to be who you needed most when you were growing up.
Much love ❤, Cliff
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