Do what you can’t | Max Caddis | TEDxTruro

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hello my name is max Karras there’s a
Samson ad out at the moment it shows an
ostrich who dreams of flying of course
an ostrich can’t fly with oil out V our
flying lessons to me it is a metaphor
for breaking down the barriers which
exist within you for the ostrich who has
wings without the capacity to fly this
is a physical barrier for me doing what
I can’t is breaking down the barrier
within my brain to make connections and
pathways that are not easily accessible
what happens when you have to do what
you can’t
when I started school I was presented
for my first reading book my teacher
thought I was ready but I did not the
day I took that book home it took me
four hours to read four pages with every
single distraction tactic I knew crying
pretending I needed the toilets it was
not fun at school whenever there was
English instead of taking parts
I took cardboard boxes and built
something by the end of my reception
year I hadn’t learned to read but I had
engineered a fantastic ambulance
complete with yellow and green tissue
paper squares and a flashing lights
my teachers failed to notice my dyslexia
to be fair to them I now know that it is
very hard diagnose and tilt somebody
reaches the age of nine but when you are
seven year old and the expectation is
that the whole class can read that is a
fact that is not very helpful so when I
was seven and in year two I dreaded
being made to stand up in front of the
class and read something out it was my
idea of hell
whenever the teacher turned her back
everybody would snicker at me and one
day when she walked out of the classroom
everybody burst out laughing I couldn’t
read let alone out loud but they made me
do it anyway I moved schools a new
teacher noticed I was struggling and
referred me to an educational
psychologist who diagnosed me with
severe dyslexia when I was given the
diagnosis the relief was immense the
first words I said were thank goodness
now I know I’m not stupid
now I’m 12 I can of course read and
write as you’d expect for dyslexic my
spelling is atrocious and what they call
my processing speed is really slow
diagnosis is not a cure but at least it
opened the doors to understanding the
barriers within my own brain and I could
begin to find ways to overcome them and
I have to face the fact that although I
feel pretty comfortable speaking I also
need to read and write and do it well I
started to research dyslexia I am
fascinated by science and by ideas and I
discovered I was in great company a
whole plethora the world-renowned
figures from history including Albert
Einstein Winston Churchill Hans
Christian Andersen and possibly even
Leonardo da Vinci were dyslexic
entrepreneur Richard Branson is dyslexic
but this is not limited his ability to
be successful in life and if Einstein
whose name is practically synonymous
with genius has dyslexia surely it’s not
a limiting factor and intelligence
during the development of the brain it
is thoughts neurons compete with each
other for connections so it’s a sort of
race sometimes to sell
was good at reading connect better but
sometimes it’s the cells that are good
at spatial imagining that makes most of
the connections and after all da Vinci
Frandsen Einstein and Churchill turned
out to be pretty good at other stuff I
am encouraged to keep thinking outside
the box and to train my brain to go
beyond barriers and
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