5.1 Visualising

The first reason why dyslexics make unstoppable sports stars is we are brilliant visualisers. The dyslexic thinking skill of Visualising. While dyslexics struggle to memorise facts like times tables, spelling, punctuation or grammar rules, they have incredibly strong visual memory which can give them the edge on the sports field.

Formula One racing champion, Sir Jackie Stewart, can visualise each twist and turn on every racetrack. He says, “The old Nürburgring had 187 corners per lap, and I can still give you every gear change, every braking distance on each of the 187 corners. But I can't say the alphabet”. Some describe this as being part of our spiky profile, where we index highly in some skills, often outperforming our peers, but struggle greatly with other tasks people find easy.

Jackie Stewart also puts his success down to picking up on small details others might easily overlook and being able to communicate with his mechanics more clearly, which builds a stronger team. Let's hear from Jackie now.

My greatest skill is attention to detail. I'm good at attention to detail. And when your attention to detail is good, you're picking up things that other people don't think are important, but these are the things, the little things that suddenly stops a racing car.

I learned how to communicate. I learned how to explain, when I became a racing driver, why a car was doing this instead of this. I could talk to the mechanics and engineers of how the car was behaving itself. It took me longer to explain it, perhaps, than most people but it was probably more vivid because I was seeing it as the problem that was stopping me from getting pole position or a better starting position at least or winning a race.

It's a skill shared by former England and Premier League footballer, Joleon Lescott, who has won every major honour in English football, including two Premier League titles, an FA Cup and the League Cup with Manchester City. He says his incredible visual memory allows him to spot details others might miss.

Like if you used to say to me there was a certain game, I'd be confident I could memorise an element of it, a detail of it that probably would go unnoticed to most people.

If you're dyslexic, learning how you learn best is key to turbocharging your success and unlocking your peak performance. Former England rugby captain, Chris Robshaw, explains how he learns best visually and by getting hands on.

For me, I'm a very visual person. I see stuff. I need to go through bits whereas other people like to read, they like to listen to stuff. I could sit in a meeting room, and we could talk about our plays and our line outs, whatever it be in terms of our structure of our rugby and a lot of that won't go in but, however, if I go out on a pitch and run through it once it will all go in and I'll be completely fine.

Similarly, Tim Tebow, champion NFL quarterback, taught himself game plays by using flashcards before big games, while the rest of the team would memorise complicated playbooks. Let's hear again from Joleon Lescott.

The way I learned was perfect for the career I had. It was audio, and it was visual, and it was obviously doing. That isn't always the case at school. It was a different method and it was like, I'm not absorbing the information that way. And there was no other way, there wasn't an audio version. It was cheating if you were listening to stuff. So again, as I got older, I realised that isn't the case, it's just the way I absorb the information.

And if you're someone who manages a dyslexic at work, teaches them in the classroom, or coaches them on the sports pitch, here's one important tip. It's vital to share information in a way that's easiest for a dyslexic to absorb and remember if you want to create a winning team.

The phenomenal basketball player, A’ja Wilson, who became one of the most successful female players of all time, was lucky to have a coach in her early career who understood how her dyslexic mind worked. Her coach, Dawn Staley, says, “If I'm writing something on the board, sometimes I'll go over and over stuff. – make sure she has it. And if she doesn't, she'll let you know”.

Dyslexic coaches like NFL legend, Joe Whitt Jr, instinctively know that each player learns differently and adapts his coaching to it. He says, “I think that's one thing that dyslexia gives me. It gives me the ability to think outside the box. I think that's one reason why my players play so well. I give them the traditional teachings of football, but I then say, ‘Let's learn it in a different way’”.

But it's not just visual memory that enhances performance, elite athletes are incredible at imagining or visualising what they want to become real. They can see themselves at the event they're preparing for, becoming champions, winning gold medals and giving a peak performance. They visualise how their body will move and perform before they make it happen.

From neuroscience, we have learned that by visualising doing an action, you're stimulating the same part of the brain as when you're performing the skill. It's possible to practise and improve a skill just by thinking and visualising that you're doing it. The more you do it, the better you become. In fact, research has shown that visualisation can improve performance by as much as 45%. Here's Chris Robshaw to explain more.

Wherever I'm playing whether a club or country, I'll sit down the night before and just take fifteen minutes going through the plays and I'll actually picture myself where I need to be at this play, where am I going next, so you actually see it all, and for me that's my best way of learning.

Lindsey Vonn, who was named America's best woman skier ever by Sports Illustrated, says, “I always visualise the run before I do it. By the time I get to the start gate, I've run that race a hundred times already in my head, picturing how I'm going to take the turns”. One of the world's greatest sportspeople of all time use this skill to best effect. The three times World Heavyweight Boxing Champion and humanitarian force for good, Muhammad Ali. Let's hear from his wife, Lonnie Ali, on how Muhammad used his Dyslexic Thinking to visualise his success.

Muhammad, not only was he determined, he could visualise in his mind, in his brain, what he was going to accomplish and probably what he looked like. I have been told by classmates, former classmates of his in high school that when he was training for the Olympics, going through winning the Golden Gloves, winning these trophies and things, that his ambition was always to become the Light Heavyweight Champion, because he was smaller then so heavyweight, he probably thought he wouldn't get to be big like a heavyweight, but the Light Heavyweight Championship, and then eventually the Heavyweight Championship, he even drew out on paper, probably when he should have been paying attention in class, the jacket he was going to wear, he was going to design and wear once he became that champion.

And he could see it in his mind. I think he saw the grandeur, the glory and the accolades and what it would be like to be that person, to be the Light Heavyweight Champion of the world, and then first to win the Olympics and to be an Olympic Champion. But yes, that was that perseverance, that grit, that determination that propelled him and um laid the foundation of everything he achieved in life.

My favourite Muhammad Ali quote is, “If my mind can conceive it, if my heart can believe it, then I can achieve it”. So that's the power of visualisation. While it's a skill set that dyslexics are hardwired to have, and Muhammad Ali used to brilliant effect, it's a technique we can all use to unlock our greatness. So, when it comes to visualising, here are three key takeaways from this section.

1. Dyslexics have a strong visual memory.

2. They use their Dyslexic Thinking skill of visualisation to memorise plays and spot things other people miss, which helps tactically.

3. They visualise success and use their grit and determination to make it happen.