Everybody hates my classmate John.
When we first met I wanted to be his friend.
Then I saw he didn’t even bother trying to remember my name. The second time we met he called me Peter, then James.
He does this to everybody.
John doesn’t care about anyone but himself.
When we were kids, we were on the same basketball team.
If you throw him the ball he can’t catch it. I’ve never seen him make a basket.
It’s worse than that though — he just doesn’t care about the team or his teammates.
Once we were in the last minute of a game and one point down. John had the ball.
My friend David called out for him to pass. An easy pass. John just threw the ball wherever instead and it ended up with the other team who scored.
It’s not only that he’s uncoordinated and bad at sports because he doesn’t practice. He’s too lazy to even throw strait to a teammate when it’s important.
John also distracts other people in class all the time.
He’s never paying attention to the teacher, so it’s no wonder he is so bad at school.
Once our teacher asked him to read out from the board to the class.
He couldn’t even do that. Half the words he said were wrong.
I decided to stop trying to be John’s friend when I realized he never even smiles. Ever.
Even when I smile at him, he just I stares at me and squints his eyes like he just ate something sour like a lemon.
Then everything changed.
We started a new grade with a new teacher.
She was super nice and really organized. I remember thinking how flawless her handwriting was — super neat and compact on the board.
John was so rude to her and so disruptive in her class that no one could pay attention.
She finally kicked him out and told him she’d have a talk with him after school. Franky, it was what he deserved.
The next day he came back to school and I was shocked.
It’s the fire time I’ve ever seen John smile. Grinning from ear to ear like a cat.
“Hi Cliff! It’s so good to see you. Wow your hair looks so nice.” — what just happened?
For the entire day I saw John sit quietly and take furious notes of everything that was written on the board.
Basketball is where I was really amazed. John made a basket. He made a basket! We’d played together for 2 years and I don’t think I’ve seen him make a basket once.
So what happens in that meeting with that teacher? Turns out she just got him to talk and open up.
She listened and listened and listened.
Then she took him to the school nurse
and got him fitted with glasses.
Having dyslexia or ADD is like needing glasses.
When you don’t know you need glasses, life can be horrible, and you don’t realize that’s why.
People judge you for your actions but there’s underlying frustration and difficulty that is the reason why you act a certain way.
Sadly, with ADD and dyslexia you can’t just put two lenses in front of your face and the problem goes away.
It’s more complicated than that — we don’t understand the root of the problem well enough yet to build glasses. But we have things that are close.
The closest thing I know of to glasses for dyslexia is Speechify and Audiobooks.
For ADD it’s sports, Speechify, a dedicated meditation practice, and responsible use of medication.
When someone is suffering, they make the world around them suffer.
Not by choice, but because when all your resources are focused on your personal survival it’s difficult to have time or energy to lift other people up and make them feel good.
You need to focus that energy on staying afloat yourself.
So, when someone annoys you. Take a breath. Take a minute, think and practice empathy. See if you can get the person to open up to you and talk.
Start by asking them questions about their life: Where are you from? What do you like to do? Who are your best friends? What are your top 3 goals in life?
Try to smile as much as you can during this conversation and touch their shoulder (physical touch is amazing) make them feel loved and and accepted. Send positive energy from you into them.
Use the phrase “Can I ask you a personal question?” People almost always say yes and once they do, you have explicit permission to ask anything you want even things you’d normally be uncomfortable to ask — and they are expecting it.
Can I ask you a personal question? What’s your biggest struggle in life right now?
Can I ask you a personal question? How did you loose your hand?
Can I ask you a personal question? Why do you annoy your sister?
The biggest challenge I face when having these conversations is shutting up myself because when the other person is reluctant to talk I fill the silence with my voice.
Silence is uncomfortable. Both for you and for them. So it forces you both to want to fill it. Make the other person be the one to fill it.
Once you ask “Can I ask you a personal question?” And they say “yes” and you ask something like “what’s your biggest struggle in life right now?”
Say, “I’m just going to listen I’m not going to talk. For 2 minutes.”
Then take out your phone, set a 2 minute timer (show them the timer ticking) then put the phone face down. When they try to get you to talk refuse. Cover your mouth and point to the phone.
It’ll take them a minute or two to get going, but once they do they’ll keep going.
The phone is face down because they’ll over speak the timer if you get them going and they don’t realize the time is up.
Be the person that helps young John find his glasses.
Much love
Cliff Weitzman
Above all, your mission in life should be to be the person you needed most when you were young. At least, it’s mine.
This is a portion from the book I’m writing about Dyslexia and ADD. If you liked this please message me to tell me so I know to share more of these.
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If you want to post stories like this or to use Speechify yourself checkout the link on my bio.
Cliff
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**Next post, Post 11:
Soon to come!
Last post, Post 9 (Never Procrastinate: My Bullet Proof Way):
**New? Start here with post 1!
https://www.facebook.com/cweitzman/posts/10214735733279839
Speechify is FREE. I built it for you. Download it here (you can use it even if you don’t have dyslexia):
iPhone/iPad (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/speechify-text-to-speech/id1209815023?mt=8)
Mac (https://getspeechify.com/)
Android (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cliffweitzman.speechify)
Chrome (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/audiobookmaker/ljflmlehinmoeknoonhibbjpldiijjmm)
Table of Contents is here: https://www.facebook.com/cweitzman/posts/10214711438432483
(Originally Jan 19, 2019)