My Dyslexia Became the Secret to My Clients’ Success | Terri Goldstein | TEDxBergenCommunityCollege

good afternoon we've all heard the struggles and the success stories of living with and overcoming dyslexia my story is one in which I am NOT alone many people have been diagnosed from Albert Einstein to Richard Branson to Steven Spielberg my story talks about how my gifted dyslexia has given me the lens in what you see my world in colors shapes and symbols Adventist strategy and apply that to marketing branding and design and create two successful brand packaging companies over my 25-year career now if you don't know me by name I'm confident that you may know me by some of these brands because these brands very often are part of your life and they come home to live with you in the most intimate rooms in your homes that can be your bedrooms your bathrooms in your kitchens so my firm does the package design for these brands and what's that everything from the colors the shapes the symbols and the logos and the names and the words we call this wayfinding very often when our clients come into New York City there's a way that I direct them that I have discovered helps them navigate a city with over eight million people in it and the way that I do that is that I recommend that they hop a yellow cab they look for the Empire State Building if they see the red star I always tell them you've gone too far because our firms at 35th and 7th now you may have noticed there was a particular sequence of cognition in which i way found them into the office and that's because i want them to see colors first shapes second symbols third because i know words are always last so this is what I call a shorthand to getting any we're in everywhere it applies to people places and things dice lexi is often thought to be where people actually see the words of the alphabet backwards and therefore it makes it really hard for them to read and write but when I was a young girl in school in the 1960s in public school I was diagnosed with dyslexia and it was very confusing because I could always read very well I was even a better writer but where my dyslexia hit me was in my auditory processing and that's because I hear differently than most so at times I can miss the syllables of a word or I can miss certain sounds you can imagine when I was in grade school in a spelling bee how embarrassing that would be when a teacher would ask me to spell a word now the teachers would often think that I was cheating because in order to answer I would literally look up into my visual mind and that's because I decode words that I hear into visual symbols so when I see something visually I have to decode it back into a word and that takes me a lot of time and sometimes when I say that word it can be without the syllables because I hear differently now you can imagine being a kid in school how I was teased and taunted terribly and this childhood cruelty has actually followed me into my adult life today where every now and then people tease me terribly or make fun of me for the way they pronounce a words or when I get excited perhaps that last word on a sentence comes first my friends and family lovingly referred to it as Terry talk but I want you to know that this childhood cruelty has followed me around has given me the thick skin and the confidence to persist in excel in the branding world today then early on in my career somewhere about my 30s I read a book called sing with the mind's eye written by a very well-known MD and it chained my life I thought it said that this book was actually written for me for the first time and explained to me why I feel colours why I see shapes and symbols before words and I realized I was not alone I took their findings I supplemented my own to their findings and from that I created a well-documented methodology to supermarket seduction which we call the shelf sight sequence this is a proven process that's been responsible for launching hundreds of Briony stages and new products this scientific knowledge actually allows us to assign ownable memorable colors shapes symbols and words in the same order that the mind is literally trained to retain visual information it's true a sequence of cognition always exists in everything we see and do so again we call this wayfinding let's go shopping together and see how we always find our brands when we walk into a retail environment the music is there to lola's into a subconscious own state of mind the first thing that we will see is the flowers and the produce so we will assume everything in the supermarket is extremely fresh Supermarket seduction dictates that we walk all the way back to the end of the retail environment to get our most frequently purchased item which is usually a carton of milk as we meander in the aisles we are searching for the cash register we just want to get out but what's happened to us is that we have fallen into sensory overload our emotions have literally become hijacked because our senses can no longer navigate the way that we're used to doing as a result of this we could no longer taste the food we can't feel the softness of the tissue we can't hear the crunch of the potato chips we can't actually smell the coughs syrup to see what the cherry smells like and what happens to us is our blink pattern actually slows down from 24 beats a minute down to 14 now this isn't necessarily bad just because we're seeing less doesn't mean that we're not feeling more and we are feeling more we're feeling with our associative emotional radar which is often referred to as our intuitive sixth sense as a result of this additional sense we will impulsively select brands 24 times quicker based on emotional response than a rational decision and how long do we spend only five seconds deciding what milk we're going to buy from another five seconds per category and that's why when we run in to the grocery store to get something very often we walk out with about 25 dollars worth of product because our emotions are being hijacked while shopping let's look at this again so when shopping color is always first I'm looking for the purple allergy medicine the red and white soup the black and copper batteries shape is - I'm looking for the blue chocolate chip cookies with a red triangle on it I'm looking for the dandruff mess and I know it has some squiggles on it and a red cap symbols are third I love to recycle cherries my favorite flavor I'm going to buy the band-aids with the medical seal on it and words are always last when shopping so a sequence of cognition exists when looking for everyday household brands I think this demonstrates it well no you're not having a dyslexic moment this is where the colors the shapes and the symbols are all the same but only the letter forms have changed but you instantaneously know what these brands are and that's what we call visual vocabulary that's a shorthand to decision making now the sequence of Nishan exists to a lot more than just shopping for everyday brands it takes place in everything that we do people places things a sequence of cognition helps us find things and as people it helps us to be found too so if you were looking for me I would suggest that you look for me probably wearing something green I always saw something green today I have on a green scarf that is my signature color so if you have a favorite color I recommend that you always wear it because people can find you by that color shape is number two if you happen to be in a room and you're standing like this and your smiles down turn that's not a very good stance shape and what should be seen and felt and understood this is a good stat shape it's like this and it's ready to shake somebody's hand and it's also an upturn smile so if you want to be seen quickly wear a signature color have a really good shape symbols are third are you a Mets fan or a Yankees fan was it what is it that you're telegraphing I usually have an iPhone on me it lets people know that I'm a Mac person I have a creative bent to me and guess what it can even start a conversation now that you've been seen and felt and understood you can attract people with like-minded values buy your colors your shapes your symbols and now you can start to have a conversation and when you do I highly recommend that you make it authentic and memorable as I got ready to do this TED talk a few months ago I really wanted to come out for a long time now about me being dyslexic but my business coach advised against it because she felt they could cast negativity on my firm or my clients maybe when Phil is confident but then I realized I have been programmed since birth to see in colors shapes and symbols and that is truly my success and my clients success to their brands is my dyslexia so today finally I'm ready to say hi I'm Terri and I'm proud to say that I am dyslexic thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 15,173

Rating: 4.9333334 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Humanities, Education, Success

Id: FfcDmxsYD4E

Length: 11min 16sec (676 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 19 2018