MADELEAD
offense because your inbox is
your defense and if you’re so
busy trying to just answer emails
instead of initiating something,
then you’re never going to get
to offense, so those are just a
couple of the tricks I learned
from creating this book and from
my past. dyslexia, I find the same correla-
tion with a lot of them.
MADE: What were some similar-
ities in the traits or habits you
saw in the people you talked
to in Rise And Grind? DJ: I share often with people
about my dyslexia and the fact
that 20 percent of the world has
it and it’s just a different way to
absorb information. It’s made
me who I am. They say about
45 percent of entrepreneurs are
dyslexic. I think out of the eleven
Sharks, eight of us are dyslex-
ic. Some of the ways it gave
me what I think is a competi-
tive advantage is when I would
read something, I would read it
several times because I knew I
wasn’t absorbing the information
the right way the first time. Also,
when I would read something,
I would always second guess if I
absorbed the information so if I
could try to do it, I would. I remem-
ber reading a book on building
things and I tried to build a bicycle
and I didn’t go to a store and buy
these specific parts and I went out
and found junk parts and put it
all together. In high school when
we had the opportunity to work
the co-op program. I didn’t want
to have to worry so much about
reading and social studies, so I got
into a program where I would work
one week, get credit for it and go
to school the alternative week. If I
were a good student, I would have
been in school all week, I wouldn’t
be working as a messenger and
being around so many great
entrepreneurs. So a lot of these
things have made me who I am
due to dyslexia.
DJ: I studied so many people in
this book and I was trying to find
the similarities. In the book, I
asked what they did the first 90
minutes of their day, their last
90 minutes of the day, what did
they did when they were 20 and
now that they’re maybe 40-45,
and don’t do anymore. A lot of
the traits that I find that people
are setting very smalls goals for
themselves they can celebrate
in unison. Also, they work really
early in the morning and concen-
trate on their health more than
anything else. They also set aside
very specific times to be with their
families. Earlier in their career they
realize that if they never set aside
a time and schedule it, they ac-
tually would never get to it. They
spend a lot of time thinking about
offense and what to do to get
ahead of everyone else and not
be a “me too” person. They fail
often and they make sure they’re
logging their failures so they can
see historically what paths they’ve
gone down and didn’t work and
what paths did work. Those are
just a couple of things but I find
that no matter if the subject was
an athlete, singer or someone who
was a businessperson or a mom
working with her kids who have
MADE: Speaking of dyslexia,
you’re very open and transpar-
ent about your experience with
dyslexia. How has having it and
overcoming it given you a com-
petitive advantage?
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