founder of naked leader
“Dyslexic, with a very poor memory…”
Time to Read – 3 minutes
So read his school report
And so he was labelled
And so he believed it to be true
Until one day he was watching TV, and saw Creighton Carvello memorize a pack of 52 playing cards in less than 3 minutes.
‘That looks like fun’ he thought – and taught himself how to do the same
I will write that again:…
The boy with dyslexia and a very poor memory taught himself how to memorize a pack of 52 playing cards, and to do it in less than three minutes.
I am sure you will agree that is quite an achievement – in three ways – to overturn a negative label, to find such a passion by chance and to actually teach himself how to do it.
Dominic O’Brien then went on to win the world memory championships a staggering eight times, and was the guest of honour at the UK memory championships this past week.
Action – What was written in your school report, that you would like to prove wrong, or/and what label/opinion have you carried around, that it is time to remove?
Why not just peel off that label, right now?
With my thanks to Dominic for being such an inspiration to me over the years, and with my love and best wishes.
David
X
Love it!
My school reports were generally in the category “must work harder if he's ever going to succeed at anything” – and I'd not really thought about the significance of this it until last year when I did some life coaching. One of the questions I was asked was “Do you think you are successful?” – and without any hesitation I immediately replied “No, of course not”. At the time this never struck me as odd but slowly I kept coming back to it over and over again. I am happily married, have 2 great children, a nice house, nice car, I am a professional with a well paid job and a enjoy a really good lifestyle – surely this is the model of what “success” looks like; so why was I feeling the way I did? It took me a while longer to work out why the promotions, payrises and money in general were not making me happy – I have been using someone elses measurements of success – not mine. In our school and probably many others – it was the continual message that to succeed you had to get more qualifications, get a good career and climb the career ladder; anything short of that was not a good result. And for 20 years of bashing myself over the head with this message that I only now realise that this measurement of sucess is so wrong for me. I am now on the start of a journey trying to work out what really matters to me; but after 20 years of going down the wrong road I can tell you it is taking a lot of time and effort to undo the brainwashing I had not realised was even there : )
I too was a 'should do better' person at school and I never really did better because I wasn't that interested in academia. I have excelled in sport but then a lot of people do that.I find Toy's comments sad. He is a big success with what he achieved and has been judging himself too harshly IMO.
Great,really enjoyed that, it proves a real point.
Dominic O'Brien, and the story, should be told over again. That sort of message is a lovely one and is inspiring to say the least.To cut through adversity in such a way and to be touched by genius. Superb.
Some children have genius within them and they have to find it for themselves. Others have it and we must allow them to express it. And be themselves on what is a great joy of discovery.
Having that spark of brilliance is something that is often within most of us if we are willing to let go and explore ourselves.