Did You Know?

The mental function that causes dyslexia is a gift in the truest sense of the word: a natural ability, a talent. It is something special that enhances the individual.

Dyslexics don’t all develop the same gifts, but they do have certain mental functions in common. Here are the basic abilities all dyslexics share:

They can utilize the brain’s ability to alter and create perceptions (the primary ability).
They are highly aware of the environment.
They are more curious than average.
They think mainly in pictures instead of words.
They are highly intuitive and insightful.
They think and perceive multi-dimensionally (using all the senses).
They can experience thought as reality.
They have vivid imaginations.

The following is just a small sampling of great achievers with dyslexia.

Authors

Athletes

Mohammed Ali

Nolan Ryan

Magic Johnson

Meryl Davis

Jackie Stewart

Tim Tebow

Jovan Haye

Ann Bancroft

Jewell Loyd

Entertainers

Whoopi Goldberg - actress

Robin Williams - comedian and actor

Tom Cruise - actor

Will Smith - actor

Harry Belafonte - singer

Cher - actress and singer

Danny Glover - actor

Salma Hayek - actress

Octavia Spencer - actress, author

Jennifer Aniston - actress

Gwen Stefani - singer, No Doubt

John Lennon - singer, song writer, The Beatles

Stewart Copeland - musician, The Police

Steve McQueen - director, Oscar winner for 12 Years a Slave

Scientists

Galileo Galilei - philosopher, astronomer, mathematician, inventor

"We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves."

Carolyn Widney Greider - molecular biology, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize

"Perhaps my ability to pull more information out of context and put together difficult ideas may have been affected by what I learned to do from dyslexia. "

Thomas Alva Edison - scientist and businessman

"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. "

Alexander Graham Bell - inventor

"We so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us."

Jocques Dubocet - biophysicist, winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize

Albert Einstein - physicist

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

Political Leaders

Benjamin Franklin - one of the founding fathers of the United States

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”

Sir Winston Churchill - Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

"Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. Courage is what counts."

George Washington - first President of the United States

“It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.”

“99% of failures come from people who make excuses.”

Carol Moseley Braun - US Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa

"I really think that's the key, part of the spiritual renewal that America needs to have, the notion that we really can have confidence in a better tomorrow."

Eleanor Roosevelt - First Lady, diplomat, activist

"You must do the very thing you think you cannot do."

John F. Kennedy - 35th President of the United States

"Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try."

Business Leaders

Barbara Corcoran - entrepreneur: Shark Tank

Daymond John - entrepreneur: Shark Tank

Kevin O'Leary - entrepreneur: Shark Tank

Henry Ford - founder of the Ford Motor Company

Ingvar Kamprad - founder of IKEA

Steve Jobs - chairman, CEO, and co-founder of Apple Inc

Richard Branson - business magnate, founder of Virgin Group (airline Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Records, Virgin Mobile)

Walt Disney - animator, film producer, co-founder of The Walt Disney Company

Bill Gates - software developer, co-founder of Microsoft Corporation

Artists

The Mona Lisa

The Last Supper

Leonardo Da Vinci

Pablo Picasso

Jackson Pollock

Chuck Close

Andy Warhol

Robert Rauschenberg

Ansel Adams

Eric Staib

Jacob Meders

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