During the month of October, I thought I would share a bit about myself to help raise awareness of dyslexia so here goes!

Dear friends, recently I conquered a fear. Fear is something that has become a more familiar feeling as I get older, I would have thought it would have become less of a feeling. Fear of failure, fear of upsetting people, fearful of making the wrong business decision, making a wrong board move, fear of making the right business decision and having to follow through with it! As people with dyslexia we are faced with different fears everyday, fears we might be found out at work that we have dyslexic, fears they may think we can’t do our job, or think we are dumb or stupid, fears we won’t be able to do a task like a peer or get a job in on time so we stay back late to make sure we do.

Well my latest fear was travelling to Europe on my own. I travel for work. I travel a lot. When I was younger I flow back and forth to the U.K but I had my ex-husband who was always waiting for me at the other end of at the airport. I flew through Dubai 18 years ago when they carried machine guns and the was no western toilet or westerners for that matter. I was fearless back then. I once hired a car and drove straight out of Heathrow airport down to St Ives in Cornwall to surprise my ex-husband early for my holidays. In not sure I would do that now. Maybe because we live in a different world we see horrible things happen more frequently in our own back yards or across the world. Or maybe because we are told constantly we can’t do things because of our age, gender, disability. But as someone with dyslexia who can’t read maps and even struggles with google maps. I find it hard to orientate myself in new places, I get me lefts and rights confused and definitely don't know which way, north, south, east and west are which doesn’t help when google maps say go south. It can be very draughting and scarey in a foreign country.

Jackie French once said on one of my podcast that she has to ask for help get out of a shopping centre car park. And yes we can ask for help and we do ask for help. I often ring my family and friends when getting lost in Melbourne my own city and I cry. I cry out of panicked because I’m now running late even though I factor in time for getting lost. But mostly I cry out of sheer frustration and anger that I can’t do such a basic day to day task. That task takes so much time out of my day and others to help me. So my family told me, gave me permission to get lost in Roma. To walk, enjoy, to lose myself in the beautiful city and that it would be ok and to call a taxi to take me home and that is what I did!

So I am proud to say that I conquered my fear of travelling on my own to another county and getting lost. Grant I chose a city I had been to many years ago, and one I speak a little bit of the language although I got it all mixed up and told the taxi driver I was a grandfather of Italian instead of I had a grandfather who was Italian! So my fellow dyslexic every day we face challenges whether at school, at work or at home or even in our downtime when we are trying to have a holiday! But we are strong and we use our strengths like our problem-solving skills to get out of these challenges. If we planning well we can conquer our fears!

So from one dyslexic to another be bold and be brave and we can accomplish, achieve and succeed!! Oh by the way when I check into my next destination I realised I was going to the wrong city. I was going to Split not Zagreb! Note from one dyslexic to another have someone check your itinerary so it can be cross checked that you are going to the right place!

Happy National Dyslexia Awareness Month!