The Dyslexia Life Hacks Show

When Emily Gee became that student at school who was left behind and forgotten, it was hard to see where she fitted into the world. Always having that sense at school that something wasn’t quite right when struggling with common challenges of dyslexia, dyscalculia and dyspraxia. Emily always found comfort and confidence in the performing arts.

Being a talented performer, Emliy found her place in the world, and whilst she would always struggle with the challenges which come from dyslexia, dyscalculia and dyspraxia, performing not only brings her joy, but is also the area where she excels the most in.

Surrounded by the right support and encouragement from some great teachers and her parents, Emily learnt to lean into her strengths in performing arts, share her talent with everyone, and not to overthink and dwell on what she found a challenge.

The traditional school system would commonly ask students to stand up and read chapters of books and write on the blackboard (old school interactive white boards for those who didn’t go to school in the 1980s). But never do teachers ask students to stand up in front of the class and sing. In Emily’s experience, she had teachers which would celebrate her talents by welcoming her to sing at the front of class as opposed to reading.

These early days of building confidence in your strengths as opposed to focusing on weaknesses are incredibly formative for most people with dyslexia. For Emily, with the support and encouragement she received, she studied performing arts at university and is now pursuing a career in that field.

From Emily’s experience, support for dyslexia was plentiful. Most teachers are fully aware of the challenges people with dyslexia face, and how to support them. However, this was not (and still is not) the case for dyscalculia.

Very little is known about dyscalculia, how to identify it at school, and to support people with dyscalculia. It is the reason and through Emily’s experience that she is an ambassador for the Dyscalculia Network.

Emily is now on a mission to share her experience and help others get the support for dyscalculia that they need as early as possible.

If you are a parent with a child who has early signs of either dyslexia, dyspraxia, or dyscalculia, this episode is for you.

• https://dyscalculianetwork.com/dyscalculia-ambassador-emily-gee/
• https://dyscalculianetwork.com/

Key Topics:

• Surviving school with Dyscalculia, Dyslexia, and Dyspraxia.
• Leaning into her strengths through encouragement.
• Sharing experience to spread awareness.

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Proudly sponsored by neurobox. Working together with organisations and employees neurobox builds neuroinclusive workplaces. They do this by creating awareness, improving wellbeing, and breaking down barriers through their tailored end-to-end support programmes.

For more hacks tip and tricks for dyslexia and full show notes please visit Dyslexia Life Hacks.
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In this episode, we step beyond dyslexia and dive into the psychology of humans and how we’re born with characteristics and how experiences shape how we approach life.

You will remember that we spoke with Lee Povey in episode 58 as Lee discussed with host Matthew Head; Men's Mental Health, Dyslexia, Athletics, and the Journey to Self-Acceptance. In this episode, we discuss coaching and human psychology and how that shapes who we are and how we respond to situations.

When you layer dyslexia over human psychology, it is easy to see how experiences in younger life affects how adults with dyslexia perform in the workplace.

Lee’s background is in Sports and specifically cycling, but his life experiences and battle with his own mental health has grown Lee to a phenomenal coach for athletes and business leaders.

In this episode Lee explains how these past experiences and our learnt responses to them, is what is affecting our ability to success and often what Lee does with his clients is identify what is holding them back and show them how to take notice of the emotions, take a step back to evaluate the situation, and grow from a renewed perspective.

Lee tells us that, before you can help others you need to help yourself and understand yourself. For people with dyslexia, this is particularly important, as dyslexia is so unique and different for everyone from distinct challenges, to amazing strengths. And understanding our own dyslexia strengths and challenges is the first step to succeeding with and because of dyslexia!

If you want to understand yourself better and what you can do to be successful by changing your mindset, this is the episode you need to hear!
Key Topics:

• Coaching
• Human Psychology
• Understanding yourself more
• How to peel back the layers of past experience to understand your response to situations,
• How to notice your emotions, and adjust your response to deal with the context of the situation and not just the content.

Find Lee at:

• Lee's pervious episode
• LinkedIn
• Instagram

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Proudly sponsored by neurobox. Working together with organisations and employees neurobox builds neuroinclusive workplaces. They do this by creating awareness, improving wellbeing, and breaking down barriers through their tailored end-to-end support programmes

For more hacks tip and tricks for dyslexia and full show notes please visit Dyslexia Life Hacks.
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Having coached many of the fastest athletes to ever sit on a bike, our guest today Lee Povey built a reputation of being the best track cycling coach in the world.

Imagine finding out at 50 years old you have dyslexia! Well, that is exactly what happened to Lee

In this episode Lee shares his amazing story of how, growing up, he always excelled in areas such as Maths and Science but struggled to articulate that into written words.

Having always suspected that there was something underlying to this, Lee undertook tests after tests online all pointing to dyslexia.

Finally, Lee had the answer to this missing piece from his whole life and suddenly a lot of the challenges Lee had been faced with in life made sense.

It’s no surprise that Lee found sports and athletics as an outlet from an early age and later rose to high heights in sprint cycling competing in velodromes.

In this episode, Lee tells us how his big picture thinking and empathy enabled Lee to support fellow cyclists in their development and was always seen as the person everyone can rely upon for support. This is what ultimately led Lee into Sports Coaching and then eventually Life Coaching really leading into the strengths that came with his dyslexia.

However, this was also what led to his downfall. After suffering from a very serious velodrome accident Lee discovered that, being the dependable support for everyone else, Lee didn’t know how to ask for help for himself and how to accept help.

This accident led Lee to discover more about himself and ultimately find ways of showing when he needs more support and learning to accept help. Lee has now set-up support networks for men in similar scenarios to help one-another in talking about mental health.

Like many people with dyslexia, Lee had learnt on his own self coping strategies to navigate the challenges with dyslexia he didn’t know he had. This grit and determination that came from self-dependency meant that it brought Lee great success and also great challenges.

Lee is the guy you call in to transform growing companies into market leaders and world-beaters!

Find Lee at

www.linkedin.com/in/leepovey

www.mypcoaching.org

www.instagram.com/leepovey

You don’t want to miss this episode!

Key Topics:

• Find you have dyslexia later in life,
• Finding coping strategies to navigate dyslexic challenges,
• Cycling
• Learning to ask for, and accept, help.

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Proudly sponsored by neurobox (formerly Dyslexia Box). Working together with organisations and employees neurobox builds neuroinclusive workplaces. They do this by creating awareness, improving wellbeing, and breaking down barriers through their tailored end-to-end support programmes.

For more hacks tip and tricks for dyslexia and full show notes please visit Dyslexia Life Hacks.
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“I’ve been helped and supported so much through my life, I want to give and help as much as I can to give back.”

We’re going to share with you a story of a person who is so incredibly willing to want to help others with so much drive, enthusiasm, empathy and passion it is infectious.

This story is about Akua.

Akua is a Senior EUC Engineer at the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) and whilst she is a very accomplished Engineer, this is just one of the many things that Akua does and is involved in inside and outside of her professional work!

It was through researching methods of support for neurodiverse people in her organisation when she recognised some of the common dyslexia and ADHD traits in herself. The more she read about Dyslexia and ADHD, she decided to be tested to discover she does in fact have dyslexia and ADHD!

Now she shares her story with as many people as possible to help others find support for themselves.

Outside her primary role at LSEG, Akua is a keen Diversity & Inclusion advocate, LSEG WIN Network Head of External Partnerships, WIN Tech Network Community Lead, UK Accessibility Lead, Mental Health Champion and UK Coordinator for the outreach programmes/fundraising activities at LSEG. As a STEM ambassador, she is passionate about raising the profile of Women in STEM.

And if all that wasn't enough, Akua is also a Non-Executive Director, Neurodiversity advocate, Cajigo Technology Mentor, charity ambassador, fundraiser and a keen sports volunteer for Netball England and British Athletics.

This is an absolutely amazing story that you do not want to miss!

Key Topics:

• STEM
• Neurodiversity Advocate
• Engineering and IT
• Volunteering,
• Neurodiverse friendly theatre.

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Proudly sponsored by neurobox. Working together with organisations and employees neurobox builds neuroinclusive workplaces. They do this by creating awareness, improving wellbeing, and breaking down barriers through their tailored end-to-end support programmes.

For more hacks tip and tricks for dyslexia and full show notes please visit Dyslexia Life Hacks.
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Back in the 1990’s dyslexia was not seen in the same way it is today!

A lot has changed in the past 30 years (outside dial up internet, mobile phones, wide screen TVs, DVD’s, and interesting haircuts) the way dyslexia is seen in schools and workplace has changed significantly.

But there is still more to do!

This episode’s guest Donna Stevenson tells us how, today companies want to learn more about dyslexia and other neurodiversities and even appoint more into roles within their organisation. Donna tells us that this wasn’t quite the case in the 90’s when she started working with the British Dyslexia Association (BDA) after a short career break from teaching.

Donna Stevenson started her career as a Nursery Nurse and a Primary School teacher, where she developed a passion for supporting those learners with dyslexia. At this time, the training for teachers to all children with ‘specific learning difficulties’, which included dyslexia, was crammed into an afternoon. Feeling like it wasn’t enough and wanting to do more, Donna decided to pursue her passion to help people with dyslexia.

Over the years at the BDA she worked with children and adults with dyslexia; working within education and workplaces to raise awareness and champion the Dyslexia Friendly approach.

Her passion in the latter part of her career is now supporting adults in the workplace through delivering training and as a Workplace Needs Assessor. She has recently joined the Success With Dyslexia (SWD) team as Head of Training and Assessment, utilising her years of experience to create a global service.

In this episode Donna tells us how sharing lived experience is invaluable to better understanding dyslexia and educating people on how to succeed with dyslexia. Donna pulls for my own lived experience with her father having had dyslexia.

Key Topics:

• Seeing children with dyslexia as a ‘write off’ and wanting to do more to help people with dyslexia learn.
• Pursuing a passion to help dyslexic people at school and in the workplace.
• How dyslexia was seen in the 90s, but there is still more to do!

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Proudly sponsored by neurobox. Working together with organisations and employees neurobox builds neuroinclusive workplaces. They do this by creating awareness, improving wellbeing, and breaking down barriers through their tailored end-to-end support programmes

For more hacks tip and tricks for dyslexia and full show notes please visit Dyslexia Life Hacks.
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