Being dyslexic made me comfortable with failure

I remember the first time I sat for my exams in primary 1.

My parents always said: “if you don’t know the answer to that question, skip it and come back to it later.”

And there I was stuck at filling up my own name, just two words, Jeremy Foo. This feeling of being challenged to even write down my own name made me embarrassed and ashamed. But I could spell it clearly within my head just that I was not at all confident of writing it out.

That was my first obvious sign of dyslexia.

Back then in 1997, Dyslexia was still not well understood and there was a lot of assumption of what it was. Exams were extremely difficult and getting a double-digit on any paper seems impossible.

My parents could not figure out what was wrong with me, even after countless hours of studying, I was still struggling. They then decided to seek medical help at NUH (National University Hospital) and so at the age of 8, I was told I had dyslexia.

I still didn’t understand what was going on. I went to the worst class in school and all I knew was that I was just good at failing. My parents stopped expecting much from me and I was sent to DAS (Dyslexia Association of Singapore) a school for people with learning difficulties.

As time pass, I felt like I was born a failure. This was the result of the rigid Singapore Education System where grades are used as the benchmark of success. I was repeatedly told that I was just plain lazy or just too stupid to understand despite spending much more hours studying comparatively to my peers.

Then comes the acceptance, I grew comfortable with the constant negative feedback and accepted that I was a burden to society. When I saw others failed at something, they cried, they became sad and depressed but I didn’t. I was comfortable with failure.

One day, My dad’s car broke down while I was with him and he had called a couple of friends over to figure out what was wrong. For hours, they couldn’t fix it and I was annoyed by the heat of the blazing sun, walked up to a bunch of grown-ups and asked what was wrong. No one bothered to explain to a 10-year-old until one of them thought it was would be funny if I could figure it out so he explained and my brain saw all the images within my head and I managed to piece it together. True enough, I managed to help my dad fixed his car.

That when I started to realize that I processed information differently. This process helps me get around failing my exam but wasn’t helpful to help me score. I pretty much scrap by all my subjects and modules.

After the army, at age of 20, I started to realize that I was a memory bank, perhaps due to the countless hours of studying since childhood, I turn out this way. I was never stupid because I actually had all the information in my head just that I could not pen it out. I was teaching my peers verbally and they scored really well and I just scraped by but I was fine with it.

Fast Forward…

Age of 24, I landed a Trading job; no one thought I could given my school results.

Age of 26, I started my first F&B start-up, no one believes I could given that I had 0 background knowledge.

And now, I started DinoMao my first tech start-up…currently raising my first round of investment.

What I realized was, how I got to where I am was because I was comfortable with failure and rejection. Plus I build a really high tolerance level for stress due to the constant bullying I received in Secondary school due to dyslexia.

My journey has yet to end, I can’t connect the dots forward but all I know now was that failure got me to where I am. I hope anyone else who is going through a tough time as I did will one day find their inner strength and join me to path a way for all others just like us.

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