Gil Gershoni on Creativity, Dyslexic Design Thinking and Tapping into the Hyperabilities of Dyslexic People

Debbie:

Well, Hank, you’re welcome to the podcast.

Gil Gershoni:

Thank you so much for having me.

Debbie:

Yeah, I have been wanting to have you on the show for a while. I think it was someone in my community who first turned me on to your work. I watched a talk that you gave for, I don’t know, a summit or an event with someone about your work in dyslexia and your advocacy and just all the incredible things that you’re doing. And I thought it would be great to just bring you on the show and learn more about you. I think you’re so inspiring, especially for parents raising kids with learning disabilities do that. It’s so important reframe. So let’s kind of start by introducing you to people. I’ve already read your formal bio, but would you give us a little bit of your story and maybe kind of growing up dyslexic and how that kind of shaped who you are today?

Gil Gershoni:

Absolutely. So I always love to start by explaining that I was born with dyslexia. It’s not something I’m working to get over because I’m dyslexic through and through. It’s also important to know that there’s many different types of dyslexia and I’m very comfortable with my view but maybe somebody that’s listening is slightly different. So like anything, like any other modality, it’s a spectrum. So I’ll come from my perspective.

I was born and raised in my early years in Israel and at the time dyslexia was not a big diagnosis people didn’t know. So until my fifth grade in Israel, I used to get a lot of comments from the teacher that he’s the sweetest boy but he’s not going to mount for much. He’s slow, he’s lazy, he’s stupid and things like that. And it was always done with a lot of compassion but how did that? That doesn’t usually work well. But I really struggled with learning because learning in a traditional kind of way was not the way my brain works. And I’ve tried so hard, my mom and my dad, you know, were so supportive and he says he’s not lazy and stupid. I mean, he worked so hard after school, on the weekends, doing holidays, tutoring, trying every angle. So I definitely was very driven to try to be average. That was kind of my goal in life. You know, and until we switched schools right around that time, and there was a new teacher that was really more aware of some learning differences and says, wait a second, I have a feeling that he’s dyslexic. And within a year, they just started teaching me differently, using my whole body, using all my senses, teaching me how to be present and grounded, how to learn to orient when I was so bored with the way they were teaching or so uninterested. So how to find ways to be engaged.

And as you can imagine, that’s really transformed my understanding of my learning differences and my dyslexia. And I moved to the US when I was in my early teens, and I had to start again with a new language. But at that time, they already were very much aware about what dyslexia was, and were able to give me a lot of support around that. I think it’s also something that my parents were very aware of is that even though reading and writing wasn’t my strength, I had a tremendous amount of curiosity and talents and interest in other types of things. So we take music lessons, art lessons, dancing lessons, swimming, sports. So I was always really engaged with a lot of other things. And I think that what it taught me from a very early age is to first and foremost focus on my strengths. And that strength based approach was what allowed me then to deal and tackle and overcome and have the confidence to deal with things that maybe didn’t come as easily to me. And I only got that kind of language later on in life, but as I look back, I thought that was very transformative to where I am today. I ended up going to university in New York and I actually got kind of obsessed with learning in many ways. So moving away from just a sort of very traditional linear one sentence at a time, but I would, you know, audio and video and physical and making and doing and participating and volunteering. So I just got so excited about that. And there’s a lot of dyslexics, you know, they say that over 35% of entrepreneurs in the US are dyslexics. And I think it came very naturally to me as well. My second year in university, I already brought three or four of my classmates and we started to do projects for clients, volunteered, did a lot of nonprofit work, and very quickly I had a little sort of team that starts to produce stuff and that was the beginning of my agency. And from there I graduated with multiple degrees and really continued to work on my agency in New York and eventually moved it to California and Dallas and in some sense the rest is history. But that’s kind of a little bit about my early background.

Debbie:

Thank you for sharing that. It’s, I think, again, so inspiring for parents who have kids who might be really struggling. I think about the low self-esteem that we know so many kids with learning disabilities struggle with because they are so misunderstood. And I love that you had this teacher who really stepped up to the plate when you were in Israel and kind of shifted things. How old were you when that happened? Because I’m wondering how much of your, you know, how many messages did you have to kind of overcome and reframe from before that shift happened?

Gil Gershoni:

Yeah, I think it was about nine or 10, I would think. And really before I went to school, I was awesome. My parents, we just, because I didn’t have to learn that way and I made things and was so interested in so many different theater and I was interested in the idea of magic and illusion and perception and that. I of course, you know, I was dyslexic, but that was not something that was really so the contrast was really drastic as soon as I went to school. But it was around nine or 10. And you know, I think that it the thing that really is transformative as I’ve worked with so many parents and students of all ages over the last 20 plus years is to have the support, to have that guardian, the parents, the teacher, that person in your life that sees that child with their brightness, their gift, their abilities. Because even though you have to get over or work through your dyslexia and learn how to, what it is, how you compute, how to regulate, how to read and write, so important and so challenging in the early years, if you have somebody in your corner that looks at you, and sees the potential, sees where you’re going to be, then you have that confidence. And that’s such a big difference than if you have somebody that sort of has the sadness in their eyes and the pity in their eyes and their body language and just, you know, don’t have that because then you have to really get over that. And often as you were saying, Amanda, I think that is often the biggest thing to get over.

I mean, these days, of course you have to read and write, but the gift of dyslexia is that you tell me a story, I can tell you the story behind the story, because that’s how my mind works. You give me a problem, I’ll give you a hundred solutions, all different because I can see through and above, I can connect things that are not linear. And I always find that when we focus and we almost train our children, coach our children, maybe it’s a better way to lean into their dyslexia, not to try to overcome it, to understand it and to feed it, then they can use that gift then to learn how to read. Now, reading and writing is so important, but it’s just a medium. It’s really what is the lesson within those words? What is the story? What is the construct that we’re trying to understand? So, you know, yeah. I think that that’s definitely, I think that was a big, big, very lucky on my end to have that kind of support so earlier on, you know.

Debbie:

Yeah, I love what you said too, that sometimes it’s just even that one person. And as you’re sharing that, I think of conversation we have with David Flink, conversation we have with Jonathan Mooney, and they both had similar situations where it was one teacher, one person who saw them, who really saw the potential in them and helped them kind of rewrite the story, the narrative that they had about their limitations or just ideas they had about how smart they were, how capable they were. So that’s such a good reminder. And I just want to go back to something you said at the very beginning. You said there are different types of dyslexia. Can you say more about that? What do you mean by that?

Gil Gershoni:

So like everything, you know, I mean, I think we all have our strengths and differences. You don’t have to be dyslexic to be a human. As long as you’re human, there’s things that you are very good at and you embrace and things that maybe you don’t come so easily and maybe there is some stigma or some feeling from earlier on that sort of set the tone about how you see and how you experience the world around you and how you participate and relate to one another. So I think that that’s basically a human. Within that, we all have our spectrum of diversity. I think the same thing applies to dyslexia. Some of us are very, very strong with math, spatial, creativity, visualization, reasoning, empathy. And I think that with that, our brain processes differently. So I often say that I’m not an expert in dyslexia, I’m just dyslexic. And I just spent the last 30 years verbalizing it. So I have a lot of understanding for myself how to put clarity to my experiences, nuanced clarity.

What are my experiences and how do I codify it, how I label it so I know what’s happening. And if I know what’s happening, then I’m moving toward having a relationship with it. And then I can have choices. Sometimes I wanna turn my dyslexia to 11. Sometimes I want to bring it to three. Sometimes I wanna be all over the place all at once. And sometimes I wanna create room and quiet for others but I had to practice that and understand how to work with that. So to your questions about the different kinds of dyslexia, I think that some people are very, very strong with math. They can see it. Einstein was dyslexic. He can see it. I can’t speak for him, but I would imagine not like a traditional mathematician. He can see the relativity and relationships and universes of how it works. I’ve talked to some dyslexic that are authors and writers. Agatha Christie was dyslexic. She can write the stories and put in the mystery right in front of your nose and you don’t even know it. And that’s why she was a phenomenal writer. So Steve Jobs dyslexic. You know, he can see relationships and how to relate to technologies in ways that change our realities, our humanity, you know. So every one of these examples, and there’s so many more of them in every industry, uses their own dyslexia, their own experience, their own way, and you know, I think over time they embrace their dyslexia. And that’s where the transformation from a disability to what I love to sort of call hyperability, that it’s not either or, it’s both, but it’s the relationship to the whole person that we’re talking about.

Debbie:

Yeah, yeah, that’s great. And I love how you talked about leaning into and kind of like leveraging one’s dyslexia in a way that works for them. So you just mentioned hyper abilities. I know that that’s part of your dyslexic design thinking methodology. And I would love to go into that as soon as we get back from a quick break. So when I first discovered your work and really dove into your website and your podcasts and all the incredible resources you have, one of the kind of foundational things that you’ve shared with the world is your dyslexic design thinking methodology. Could you tell us about that?

Gil Gershoni:

Absolutely. It starts with, I’ll kind of build on a few steps to it because I think that there are certain paradigms that I really embrace that I think are part of the story. So the first thing is jumping off your comment about the hyper ability. This lexicon is a hyperability, that it offers insight to the way we think, the way we create and the way we relate to one another. And that’s where that sort of first shift of transformation occurs. At Gershoni Creative, my agency, it’s design, branding, and strategy agency, it’s so important to me to embrace both the dyslexic part, but also the non-dyslexic. Because I think that none of it is in isolation. So it’s really how do we work together with others as early as six and as senior as eighties. But how do we find a way to relate to one another with our differences? So dyslexia design thinking has really become integrated to the way we work at our agency, with our clients, and with our greater community. And it’s really some of the way we codify some of the learnings we have in order to be able to bring it to our neurodiverse team and find a way to relate to one another.

I guess about 15 or so years, you know, I started dyslexic design thinking. It was based on the idea that dyslexia is the hyperability that offers advantages and helping people in all those kinds of things. The first thing I did is we put together a talk that was at South by Southwest. And from there it grew through some talks, salons, articles, podcasts, art exhibitions and beyond. So it’s definitely. I definitely was leaning into my dyslexia and I was feeding it aggressively. So as dyslexic, I often say that if I have one thing to do, I get stressed out. But if I have a hundred things to do, then I’m in my happy space. I think it’s important to know that it’s based around the idea that it’s about divergent thinking and nonlinear ideation that can help us generate unexpected ideas. And ideas both in the sense of the commercial work I do in branding, identity, graphic, strategy, but also generate ideas with others, relate to one another, learn about people, you know? And it’s really about incorporating all mindsets, you know, neurotypical and neurodivergent, you know? But it’s not really about a contest between the two. There’s no, it’s not about a competition, it’s about co-creating. It’s about realizing that, you know, each one of us bring a different insight and by listening with our whole body to each other and jumping off of each other’s idea, and playing together, it drives that exchange. And often the outcome is the last part. And most people say like, oh, we’re doing it for a certain goal. But really the goal is the co-creation and the play. Because you end up coming to the outcome with a lot more mutuality and insight, than if you didn’t do that. And if you slow down, it’s something that I think it’s such an important part to relating to your dyslexia is, Slow it down because you’re still going to see a universe of possibilities, but you’re going to be in the blink of an eye. You’re going to be able to see so much more than if you just drive your energy right through it, you know, and that’s, um, allow us then to manifest original ideas, you know, and often because we’re slowing down, we actually arrive quicker. And it’s such an interesting thing. Most people are like, wait a minute, if we slow down, how are we going to get there quicker? Because we’re going to understand what it is that we’re trying to do much sooner and then our creative effort will be really hyper-focused about what we truly agree is the problem we’re trying to address. And therefore together we arrive. One of the metaphors that I love to experience or at least for me is when I was younger, I always felt as a dyslexic. My mind goes so fast that I always had to slow down for everybody else. And it was such a sense of frustration because, oh, and my wife always used to get me on this, I would ask her a question, by the time the question came out of my mouth, I already knew the answer, because my fast mind looked at all the possibilities, and I had to wait for her to think about it in a very brilliant but different way, and she always like, you setting me up, and then eventually I realized that actually, if I make room for me and her, our insights are so insightful and so different in mind that together is better, you know, and…

It’s so much nicer to arrive at that viewpoint with your community versus alone. So that’s kind of like the foundations of how we got there, but really dyslexic design thinking is based on two different ideas. The first one is design thinking. And design thinking is a problem solving approach that’s based on roughly around five steps. One is empathy, really putting yourself first and foremost in the shoes of the other and then be able to kind of define and then ideate and then prototype and then test. And I’ve talked to different organizations in different sectors that says, but we’re not designers. Design thinking it’s actually a methodology that can apply to anyone. If you are a doctor, it’s really putting yourself in the patient’s shoes and understanding some of the challenges, what are the experiences and how can you be more compassionate and more empathize with their experience so you can be better at what you do, related them as a human, understand how to bring more health to their experience. And then dyslexia thinking, and this is some, I think it’s common for a lot of dyslexic is we’re very, very good in visualization. What it means to me is that I can actually see it completely in my mind. I don’t have to draw it or sketch it or model it. So if I have an idea, in the blink of an eye, I can close my eyes and actually see it in its full manifestation. Imagination is a very, very strong skill that I have. I can imagine worlds, again, with ease. Because written writing was in my strong medium of communication, I’ve learned to, in some sense, almost over invest in verbal communication. 

So communication became a very strong thing and a lot of dyslexic have it is that we just sort of how do we, you know, how do we develop a different skill set or a different sense because some of the other senses are maybe not as keen as others. I think a lot of dyslexic are very good in reasoning, you know, really finding ways to explain and tell the story or market or invent or find a solution that’s not apparent to the eye because they can see. connections between different modalities. They can see how they affect one side of a business or an idea or of a brand or communication that would then have ripple effects in other parts of the organization. And I think the last thing is this idea of curiosity and exploration. I am, because I see language and letters as negotiable symbols, it’s very difficult to read. But I always explore those as shapes, as symbols, as I move them around, I can see through them, above them, I can change them in the blink of an eye. And of course that can be viewed as a disability when you’re trying to read. But you take the same idea everywhere else, that’s innovation. That’s exploration. That is looking at the world for the first time every time. And as you get older, you have life experiences, but you still have that sort of childlike astonishment and curiosity that when we feed our dyslexia, it gives us, as some like to call it, a superpower. You know, I often say that it’s very difficult for me to do things linearly, i.e. going from one letter to the next to read the sentence, because my mind leaps. Dyslexics can fly. And as parents, if we help our children feel the confidence and they know that we’re there to catch them if they fall. They will spread their wings quicker than you can imagine. And I think that those are sort of the two sides of the dyslexic design thinking methodology that then we apply often to our commercial work, but to pretty much everything I do.

Debbie:

Mm hmm. I love the way you just described that for us. I think it’s something we talk a lot about in this community is there are so many strengths with all different ways of being neurodivergent, these hidden strengths and how do we kind of let leverage them and show up. And I just was really wonderful to kind of see inside your mind a little bit about what you do how you experience things, how you’re able to manipulate things in your mind and come at it from that kind of really visual creative point of view. So thank you for that. I want to talk about the parenting experience and we’ll take a quick break and then let’s get into that a little bit. So right before we went to break, you talked about as parents that we can really help our kids in kind of leaning into and understanding their strengths and feeling that support. So many of us as parents end up having to be advocates, whether we wanted to or not, that is just a role that we find ourselves in. And I’m wondering if you could talk a little bit about that in the way that you kind of work with or connect with families who have dyslexic kids and how do you support parents in being empowered to show up for an advocate for their kids?

Gil Gershoni:

It’s such a good question, but it’s one of those questions that it’s really a case-by-case scenario, but I think there’s a lot of commonalities to that. You know, when a child, when I tried to read when I was younger, you know, for me, I didn’t realize that as I was saying before the break, that everything was negotiable. I didn’t understand what did that really mean? And what I know is that my teachers and, you know, and my tutors and so forth really try to teach me how not to make it negotiable. And that was a sense of frustration because that’s the way I’m throwing through. Like, Tell me it can’t be done. I’m the first one to find a solution to get it done. Tell me we can’t afford it. I’ll get the budget. Tell me we can’t, you know, like to me, that is where the fun begins. But I had to learn that. So as we talking about how to guide our children is first see what gives them joy. What do they love to do? For the only reason that is the most important thing, how they’re gonna make a living doesn’t matter at that moment in time, because it’s not where they’re at and we’re projecting too far into the future, they will show you how. Trust that they will find a way to be the shiny, beautiful children that they are, but our responsibility as parents is to make sure that they stay shiny as long as possible and teach them to choose and see and lean into those behavior that makes them the best selves. So often what I do is I try to find those things. My son now is almost 16.

And for me, it’s like I try to, he’s gonna raise himself, I’m just guiding him. It’s gonna happen regardless. We think that we, but no, they’re gonna do that on their own. So my responsibility as a parent is how do I guide him in a way that he can have these incremental lessons so when I’m no longer there, he can make the right choices for himself, regardless what they are. And you don’t have to be dyslexic to do that. And that’s my approach. And everybody raises their children in their own way. And I respect that. So again, this is just the way I embraces it. You know, when it comes to reading and writing, it’s really challenging. It’s challenging because it’s really hard to do. It’s hard to get from the beginning of the sentence to the end of it and even know what the sentence is about. It’s hard to do it with your friends and classmates where they do it with such ease that it’s so obvious that you’re so different. Some of us, you know, can’t even hold one sentence together, one letter together, you know? So, and then trying to force to do it, trying to break that, then it’s only reinforced the fact that that’s a challenging things to do. So, you know, what I’ve learned is to, you know, if it’s hard for me to read the letters, what can I do around me that gives me joy, that allows me to move the whole alphabet upside down and swim in it? Like, make a sculpture of the letters and make them no longer letters, make them beautiful circles and triangles and straight lines and crooked lines that sort of are something else. How do I fall in love with the alphabet as a different way? Can I sculpt those letters? I can feel them with my hands as three-dimensional objects. I can move in the way my mind moves.Can you as a parent see your child doing it and let them teach you how to think like a dyslexic? You know, what else around, and I play this a lot with adults, children, my own son is let’s play the game of everything is negotiable. First and foremost as a parent, what are your assumptions? You can start there, you know, can you go negotiate your assumptions? Can you be content as a parent if it’s not exactly the way you assume it should be? Not that meaning that it won’t get there. But at least it softens the boundaries and allows all of us to sit in this uncertainty at the same time. Because dyslexic often are in the world of abstract. Like, and we get over time comfortable with the idea of failure because we have to try so many times and not exactly make those marks. And over time as we get older, we learn how to be, take risks because that’s what it’s about, you know, and kind of beyond the edge of that idea. And if we don’t, then don’t take risks. Don’t be on the edge, don’t innovate. So it’s like, I think it’s a lot of it is to work together and to figure out, let the child lead and feed it and put some lights on where they feel good and build on those emotions and play with that. So yeah, there’s a lot more I can say about it, but I’ll pause here to see where you’re at with it.

Debbie:

No, it’s so good. I mean, the theme I keep hearing is this idea of not fighting this. And that’s something we talk a lot about in the TILT community is, as you said from the very beginning, you’re dyslexic through and through. That’s who you are. And I think for parents to really lean into embrace and not fight this and I love this visual of swimming with the alphabet and sculpting and being playful with it and I think that is when things can really shift if parents can kind of make that pivot in their own mind and not be parenting from a place of fear but rather that curiosity and playfulness. I’m wondering if you could tell us a little bit about your initiative that you have this wonderful thing called Dear Dyslexia, the postcard project, because you’re very committed to helping kids embrace these hyper abilities, these super powers. So how do you do that? And why is that so important?

Gil Gershoni:

Yeah, so I should maybe start a little bit around the idea that about, let’s think, about a year ago, I started to work on. I started to work with children of all ages around the idea of dyslexia and identity. And I asked them, what is dyslexia to you? And we started to talk about the idea that dyslexia is more than your disability. It’s really what gives you joy? What do you love to do? Because you see everything around you through the mind of a dyslexic. So if you love sports, that’s also your dyslexia. If you love art, dancing, whatever it is, that’s also your dyslexia because we’re looking at the whole person and we’re looking at idea that my identity is not my learning differences or my learning disability. It’s everything I do, you know, to create more of a balance about it. So out of that idea of dyslexia and identity, we start to think about the postcard project and Dear Dyslexia. And it was really around the idea of celebrating the power of dyslexia thinking and allowing individuals to start to feel and understand the way they think, create and relate. I wanted to create an opportunity to showcase that diversity of the dyslexia experience to others. And the goal was to activate a global community around the world, to show the unique strength and perspectives that dyslexia offers. And as I said earlier, what I call the hyper ability.

So we had an exhibition about a year ago, so almost to date, was called Dyslexia Dictionary. And this was in California, and it brought about nine artists, politicians, mathematicians, designers, fashion designers, and I asked them to redefine dyslexia. They’re all kind of in their height in their career. If you had to put a new definition in the dictionary, so they all chose a word and wrote it up like the dictionary definition, and then each one of them created within their own discipline and medium and expressions of it. So the fashion designer did these phenomenal garments. And Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, who is dyslexic, he wrote a book about his experiences through sports and how he embraces dyslexia. His word was superpower. And the 10th artist of the show, I invited kids to create a postcard and the prompt on top was dyslexia is to me and you had to put a single word in it. And then use the rest of the space to express that word for yourself. And I have to tell you, I mean, the kids stole the show. I mean, not that every postcard was, you know, sunshine and rainbows. Some of them were really heartfalls and moving and challenging and just like, oh, heartbreaking. But to seeing hundreds of these children from all over at the time the world, expressing it together was really transformative. And after the show closed, the postcard kept arriving. And I decided to sort it so like, you know, sometimes you do things that they start to become its own entity and they start telling you where they need to go. So we decided to turn the postcard to its own exhibition. And we renamed it Dear Dyslexia. And right now we are just launched it yesterday, October, early October for Dyslexia Awareness Month here in the US. And I have to tell you we have over a thousand postcards arrived. And every day more and more are coming. The participants are from age six to 82, so kids of all ages. We have over 30 schools around the US from New York, Texas, Washington, California and beyond. We have been some events in New York, in Washington DC and in California, both physical and online events. And every postcard that we receive, we scan it, we put it on our online gallery, as well as the physical exhibitions. And yeah, it’s been a tremendous exhibition and just so moving. It’s been so successful. I just, I’m in awe at the magic of all of it and the transformation for all of us, you know. I created a postcard as well, of course, but it’s really a people’s art project and it’s nice to be in such an amazing community of individuals that embraces their identity and write themselves a letter and commit to the positivity or to wherever they are with it. But at least they are part of a much larger story, and that’s really beautiful.

Debbie:

Yeah, that’s wonderful. Listeners, I’ll have a link in the show notes to the online gallery. Definitely check that out and I am just feeling so inspired by this conversation. I just so appreciate the way that you show up and the way that you are. You’re just impacting so many different areas of society, kids, parents, the workspace, your design work. It’s really inspiring to see and to hear about. And I know that it’s something. So many listeners are going to be so grateful if they’re not already familiar with you to know what you’re doing in the world. Before we wrap up, any kind of last thought for a parent who has a kid who is dyslexic who might be struggling or might be feeling bad about them, they may not see it as a superpower. I mean, you’ve already shared so many wonderful ideas about how parents can kind of lean in and go where their kids’ strength and joy space is but any kind of last word of advice for how that parent can help to really shift their child into unlocking their own potential.

Gil Gershoni:

Yeah, I think it’s such a, you know, when you’re having, I mean, it’s one of those things that we have feelings for a reason. They guide us toward, you know, what feels good, you move toward it and what doesn’t, you hopefully don’t. And you learn to sort of trust, you got and you learn to sort of develop a relationship with your own guiding system, you know. At the end of the day for me, you know, it’s just to make space for it and love them, you know, and let them know that dyslexia is a gift and that challenges are challenges and the challenges are not the only part of you. There’s a thousand other things that you are amazing with and make space for it and know that the only constant is change. So this too will pass and evolve and transform. So what kind of environment do you create for yourself as a parent, for your child, for your family? So it’s a thriving environment at good times and challenging times. And those are the lessons that who doesn’t want to get at an early age. So I think that there’s a lot of, at the moment when you’re young, it seems so challenging, but those challenges do page in spades later on in life. And find what you love to do. Because Is it Dyslexic? You know, Dyslexic invented the light bulb, the automobile, the iPhone. I mean, you’re an amazing company of people. I mean, it’s like, wow, you know, I remember when my son was born and we tested him and he wasn’t dyslexic. I was so disappointed. I was like, Oh no. You know, like, I really wanted him to get that gift, you know, but he’s so gifted in so many other ways. But I think that’s sort of the some of the I think those are some of the advice that I would share. The other thing I would say, you know, and just maybe in closing is that it’s when you hear stories of other dyslexics in any age, it really helps. It’s helped to understand how do I go from really struggling to changing economics like Schwab, Charles Schwab, dyslexic by the way, Stanford graduate. How do I go from where I’m at there? And if you hear the stories, you realize that a lot of them, as you said, and with your podcast with others, that we all have those same, very similar stories of struggle, finding support, being seen, and overcoming and finding our way. So when you hear those stories, I think that it really helps you understand that you’re not alone. You’re in a great community of folks that experiences before you and with you the same in similar ways. You know, check out my podcast, which we do a lot of conversations with folks in different industries around exactly how they overcame some of their challenges, some of their tools to cope and some of their amazing successes. So those are the few things I would leave you with and that I know was really meaningful to me as I was finding my way.

Debbie:

Thank you. Thank you so much for that, Gil. And I will have links, again, listeners to all the places you can connect, including, yeah, your podcast is also, it’s called Dyslexic Design Thinking podcast, correct? Yeah, I’ve been listening to a bunch of episodes. It’s great. So I’ll have links to all of that in the show notes page. And again, I just want to thank you so much for everything you shared today, for everything you’re doing for parents raising these complex, fascinating humans and everything you shared today.

Gil Gershoni:

Thank you so much.