Scott Sonnon was called difficult and easily dismissed as a child. Within that degradation of his worth he discovered where his true genius was waiting.
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To listen to Scott Sonnon talk is to get a rich taste of what challenge is, if you haven’t already faced it in life. Early on, his different ways of learning caused him to be singled out, bullied and tormented by his fellow classmates, as well as by the very adults in charge of educating him.
Tapping into what did work, instead of accepting himself as less than, he shaped himself into an award winning athlete, trainer, entrepreneur and accomplished educator. He furthermore went on to defy the label of “retard” he was taunted with and became a member of Mensa, the largest and oldest high IQ society in the world.
In this Tedx talk he reveals some deeply personal challenges he faced for simply not being the same as everyone around him in school. He summarizes some of it in one of his eloquent and descriptive shares on Facebook, always with the his signature humble signoff:
When you’re young, forced into a box, and cannot stop from thinking outside of it, it feels like you’re crazy. Mainstream mindsets reinforce this disparity. But it is a tragic illusion with dire consequences if we do not dispel it.
We may not know what to specifically do for each child, but we MUST assure them, that they’re not any more crazy than the geniuses who’ve come before them who were shoved into the same box – from Shakespeare to Da Vinci, from Einstein to Darwin, from Washington to Kennedy, all labelled as learning disabled… Because they didn’t fit the mainstream definition of how to be educated.
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Scott Sonnon
Watch his Tedx Bellingham talk here:
As some who also grew up with learning disabilities, Scott’s TEDx talk had me in tears.
Many of the men who find their way to our men’s groups and training are dyslexic. They all experienced trauma from not fitting in and not having that one learning style that is taught in school. Being seen by other men for who they really are is hugely healing and empowering. For the first time for many men they feel accepted.
I had the pleasure of spending a weekend at one of Scott’s workshops.
Watching him move and receiving his teaching was like a wave of grace.
He has the ability to take a complex movement, break it down into simple components, bring them into alignment and connect them together into a fluid whole.