One in every five children in the U.S. has a learning and attention issue. Dyslexia is the most common of those issues, impacting as many as 8.5 million American school kids. I was one of them.

Looking back, I can say that dyslexia is one of the best things that ever happened to me.

I first learned I had dyslexia when I was about 7 or 8 years old.

I came to understand that having a learning and attention issue isn’t a sign of lacking intelligence. Rather, it’s a challenge. There wasn’t anything wrong with me or the way I learned. I just learned differently.

My dyslexia — which paved the way for the opportunity to strengthen other skills — has served me throughout my career as a politician and public speaker. Since I struggled with reading aloud, I overcompensated by learning to inhale information. I’ve only read a small handful of speeches in my life, but have sharpened my ability to memorize and think on my feet. Over the years, I’ve had to learn how to fail and have become less averse to taking risks and more entrepreneurial in the process.

Read the full article on finding strength through struggle by Gavin Newsom at Mashable