I wrote my husband a note this week while I was in the middle of a client call. It was supposed to say “Bike sold, pick up seven to eight tonight.” What actually came out was “Pick sale 7-8 pm tonight.” I tossed it on the hardwood floor so it would slide into the hallway and he would find it. He did. He picked it up, read it, and had no idea what I was trying to say.
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He stood there tapping the paper against his hand, hoping I would look up and explain. I was deep in coaching and could not stop, so I tuned him out. He gave up, set the note on the kitchen counter, and went back to the Seahawks and Patriots game. A while later I texted him, “Can you bring the bike out front and close the garage.” He still did not know I had sold anything. We have eight bikes in that garage, and this one had been for sale for months. He guessed, picked the right one, wheeled it into the driveway, and had the door down as the buyers pulled in. He was mildly annoyed, honestly confused, and still trying to help me.
What happened on the inside, and what I let him see
On the inside, I felt all of it. The old hit of disappointment, the flash that says you failed again. On the outside, I laughed and told him how amazing he was for cracking that code. I meant it, and I wanted him to hear it. Both things were true in the same moment, and the one I chose to hand him was the appreciation.
You never outgrow your neurology
My dyslexia did not disappear when I graduated high school. It is with me every day, and it does not care how many digits sit behind your paycheck. Six figures, seven, eight, nine, it comes with you. And I will tell you the truth: it has not limited my success, and it will not limit yours, unless you decide it does. The real skill is learning to work with the brain you have and finding the tools that carry you around it when it starts to get in your way.
I call these word farts, and they are just like a hiccup
There is nothing you can do about hiccups. They show up, they pass. Word farts are the same. That note is not a measure of my IQ, and I will stand my ground on that. My strength is not spelling. It is coaching and reading people, which is also why my brain keeps its own stubborn grip on exact words, something I have written about as the Right Word Vice Effect.
There was a long stretch when I hid all of this. I carried real shame and guilt about being a different communicator, and I pretended these moments were not happening. Pretending cost me far more than any typo. Once I got truly clear on how this plays out in my day to day life, that is when the change started, and my access to success right along with it. I do not have the genes to catch spelling and grammar. Someone else does. The sooner everyone around me knows that, the better it works for all of us.
Related: My brain was never the problem
Laughing at it is not the same as excusing it
The laugh is the first thing I reach for, and I reach for it on purpose. It defuses that first jolt of mean self-talk and reminds me this is not life or death and I am safe. From the outside, it is genuinely funny. “Oh man, that is a good one. I have not made one that good in a while.”
The laugh is not a free pass, though. Owning it means I also name the cost to the person on the other end. My dyslexia has meant legal documents refiled at real expense and other people’s hours spent fixing my errors. Once I flipped two numbers in a contract, the price jumped, and I nearly lost the deal before I caught it the next day, sent a corrected copy, and called to confirm they had it. That is not how I want to start a business relationship, and that kind of miscommunication is exactly what pulls teams apart. So I apologize, and then I fix the process. I moved my email and my late-night social comments to voice to text with Whisperflow, because roughly five of ten emails were going out missing the small words Grammarly never flags. On anything that matters, I add a second proofing pass, and I tell the person I have done it.
My process when it happens in front of someone
In the moment:
- Breathe out the old story. That first jolt of mean self-talk goes with it.
- Make the joke. It invites the other person in instead of leaving them stuck.
- Read how they take it, then choose:
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- Curious? I open it up and teach.
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- Owed an apology? I give it.
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- No compassion in the room? I step back. I am not anyone’s punching bag, and that conversation never goes anywhere good.
Once I have regrouped:
- Ask what I would do differently next time.
- Decide if it is even worth building a guardrail for. This note was not. My emails were.
The gift buried in all of it is this. When I show I am human first, the people around me let their own walls down. That is a good way to lead, and a better way to live.
I see you. You are not alone in this, and your neurology only limits you as much as you let it. So answer this today. The next time your brain does the thing it has always done, in front of someone who matters, do you know how to laugh first, and do the people closest to you know how to laugh with you? Pick the one relationship where that laugh is still missing, and decide what you will say the next time it happens. This one was with my husband. They are not all that gentle.
JoyGenea Schumer
Personal Development Expert To The Unconventional Leaders
Video Transcription:
Hi. I was reminded this week that you never outgrow your neurology. My dyslexia didn’t disappear after I graduated from high school. It’s with me all the time as an adult, and this week I was reminded, and I wanna share that with you because it doesn’t really matter how many digits are behind your paycheck and six figures, seven figures, eight figures, nine figures, all of that is incredible.
Your neurology is still your neurology, and it’s with you. So this week, I sent this sign, wrote this while I was on a conversation with a client. I needed to let my husband know that I had sold the bicycle on Facebook and that I needed his help, that somebody was going to be coming to pick it up, and when.
So I sent this sailing on the floor, our hardwood floors, out into the hallways. It did a really nice job, landed out there, and he came out, and he picked it up, and he read, “Pick sale seven, 8:00 PM tonight,” and had no idea. And all I hear while I’m coaching is this in the hallway, and I can’t stop, and I’m really tuning him out.
And so he just politely walks away and brought that downstairs and set it on the counter and waited. And then a little while later, I text him. By the way, it was supposed to say this: bike sold, pick up tonight seven to eight. This is what actually came out. This is what I was really trying to say.
And that’s common. That’s common. I call it communication breakdown in our household. It’s common. I can have a written communication breakdown, and it doesn’t always feel great. If you can’t tell on my face, don’t love it. Doesn’t feel great. I managed to text him, by the way. It gets funnier. We aren’t gonna leave off right there.
It gets funnier. I then texted him and said, “Can you bring the bike out front and close the garage?” Well, remember, he still doesn’t know exactly what’s going on and that I’ve sold this bike and that people are coming to get it. And we have eight bikes for him to pick from in the garage at the moment, and he luckily and graciously picked the right bike, brought it outside into the driveway, had the garage door down, and literally as the people were pulling in, I wrapped up with the client, I was running down the steps, and he came up the steps, left his Patriots-Seahawks game he was watching, and he was visibly frustrated and kind of annoyed and was like, “What do you want?”
He goes, “I didn’t understand that note. What do you want? And I’m trying to help.” And it came from such a genuine and loving spot, and I could tell. I took a deep breath. Just like that, I went thank you so much for somehow managing to translate that, because I went and got the note and looked at it and went, “Oh, wow, okay, I can see where this one broke down.”
And I thanked him. I gave him a big hug. I’m like, “Thank you so much for figuring that out for me and getting that all ready. I’m gonna go outside and handle the sale.” And I did. I went out and handled all that, and when I came back in, I thanked him again. My neurology doesn’t leave me, and for a lot of unconventional thinkers and leaders, that neurology doesn’t leave us, and at times it shows up in a variety of different ways.
And why I’m talking about it is, one, so you don’t feel so alone, and also to remind you that it doesn’t limit your success. I like to call these word farts. Just like hiccups, there’s nothing you can do about hiccups. They happen, they go away. I have word farts. I create things like that and go, “Wow.” This is not a judgment of my IQ, and I am very clear on that, and I will stand my ground on that very deeply. But it is definitely a hint of my neurology.
That’s all. My strength is not spelling and grammar. My strength is coaching. My strength is actual human communication and behavior. That’s my strength, not spelling. And I’m okay with that. I can own that. I can talk about that. There was a time in my life I couldn’t, and I will tell you, that created more messes than anything.
Legal documents that had to be rewritten and refiled at a large expense to multiple people. Multiple people’s time spent correcting those errors. When I wasn’t being clear about the magnitude of how this could affect other people and myself, that was when this was actually a problem. That is when I had a lot of shame and a lot of guilt about it.
Now, it’s more just an annoyance than anything else. But it’s so part of who I am. And luckily, majority of the people around me know that, and so we get to laugh about it. We get to say, “That’s one heck of a funny sign.” I just have to laugh at that, because that is what it is. It is a funny sign.
If you noticed in the story, one of the things I did right away was I laughed. I do that intentionally because when things like this happen, it does bring an instant flash of shame and guilt for me from my childhood. I instantly am like, “Wow, defective, not good enough.” And that breath, and then that laugh helped me re-anchor and helped me push that out.
I just breathe it out. And then I laugh it out. I’m like, “Oh, man. That’s a good one. I haven’t seen one that good in a while.” And when they’re like, “Oh, that is pretty good. You missed whole words there. You picked a different word for bike. You went with pick.” That shared laughter really helps in working through things. And then it’s just a matter of owning it. “Yeah, this is my neurology. I’m glad I could share it with you.”
I actually did that to someone once. We were working on a whiteboard, and I spelled some things wrong, and they looked at me. I said, “I prefer not to keep my gifts and all of me to myself. This is just me sharing my dyslexia. We all get to enjoy it.” And they chuckle, and they’re like, “Would you like me to write up there for you?” And I’m like, “I would love that.” And I handed off the marker.
So I kind of have a process I want to share with you. If you are working at owning and laughing and embracing your neurology and some of these spelling hiccups, I have a process. I laugh. I take a quick breath, and then I try to find some humor in that and enroll them in that. And then I look at them to see how they took that. If they’re curious, then I’ll have a greater conversation and open it up to them. If it looks like nothing more needs to happen, I’m moving on.
And every once in a while, I get somebody that looks at me with disdain. I step away quickly on that one. I’m not anybody’s punching bag, and they have the right to their opinion. We’re not going to have that conversation. That’s not an educational conversation. That’s them telling me how I’m not good enough for them. We’ll just end that quickly, and I’ll step away. And I also typically do a retrospect of it later on when I’ve regrouped. I will look at it and be like, “Okay, what do I need to do a little differently about this in the future? How important is this?”
This note, I’m not putting too many parameters in place to try and catch that. That happens. That’s my life. My emails, though, that go out probably five out of 10 emails with grammar and typing errors, I have a tendency right now to skip small words like it, is, and the. So I’m definitely using voice-to-text systems, particularly WhisperFlow, having great success with that. I also use that for commenting in social media.
I tend to look at social media and engage with it late at night for a little bit, and when I go back and review some of those comments, I’m missing those small is, its, ands, and it reads pretty funny quite often. So again, I’m learning to use the WhisperFlow to improve on that.
What I want to make sure I leave you with is just the reminder that I see you. I really do. My different thinker, my unconventional leaders, I see you, and your neurology only limits you as much as you decide it limits you, and I strongly encourage you, don’t allow it to limit you. Learn, grow, embrace, and recognize this is what the package looks like.
This is part of you. And how to communicate about that, and how to embrace it at times, and also how to have grace with yourself. And it allows you to have grace with other people more often. One of the gifts of it is it allows other people to let their walls down a little bit because I’ve just shown I’m human first, and there’s nothing wrong with that, because connecting to other humans is just a great way to live your life.
I’m JoyGenea, unconventional leadership coach and champion for those outside-of-the-box thinkers that are making the world incredible.