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[Auto-generated captions](upbeat music) - One might think that billionaire Richard Branson's success comes from his business smarts, and skills with numbers, but Branson credits his achievements to the creativity, fueled by his dyslexic thinking. Dyslexia thinking, a byproduct of organ disorder dyslexia, is a new term that brings together the type of problem solving and reasoning abilities that people with dyslexia excel at, and de-emphasizes skills like math or written communication, which dyslexics have more challenges with. Branson's latest mission is to raise awareness, and make dyslexic thinking a widely recognized skill. Here's how Richard Branson made dyslexia his superpower. (upbeat music) Can you talk a little bit about how dyslexia has had an impact on your career? - I think dyslexia was a blessing in disguise for myself. And I think actually, dyslexia is a blessing in disguise for all dyslexics, even if they don't realize it when they may be struggling at school. I didn't know that I was dyslexic, and dyslexia, I didn't even know it was invented as a name when I was at school. I would sit at the back of the class, I would not understand particularly what was going on on the blackboard. And therefore I spent the time plotting and planning a magazine at the back of the class, and started concentrating on things I was interested in, rather than the things that the school thought I should be interested in. And ended up leaving school as a 15, 16-year-old to fulfill my education by actually running a magazine, which is slightly strange for a dyslexic. - You make it sound like it was actually only beneficial. Anything where it held you back where you had to work around it? - There were plenty of things that it held me back on. I mean, you know, I had to watch my parents read my school reports, and they made uncomfortable reading. 'cause it just looked like I was a pretty hopeless case at school. In those days, you didn't have extra help if you was dyslexic. What I will say to anyone who is dyslexic or has dyslexic kids is get help to get some of the basic, you know, the basics, the particular thing you're struggling at, but don't, you know, don't fret too much about it. Look at what you are really interested in and concentrate on that. And you are likely to excel at the things that you're you're interested in. And I think we all in life, if we have difficulties in one area, we'll excel in another area. And dyslexics, I think more so than most. - Is that advice that you'd give to people is don't try to, you don't have to be able to be great at everything. - Absolutely, I'll give you one example. I mean, I built the sort of largest group of private companies in Europe and when I turned 50, we were having a board meeting, and I asked a question, "Is that good news or bad news?" And it was to do with some figures and one of the directors took me out of the room and said, "Richard, I've listened to you over the last few years. "I don't think you know the difference "between net and gross." And I said, "No, I don't "I have no idea the difference between net and gross." I just want to know whether, you know, whether we made money or lost money at the end of the year. My skill, I think is knowing what people want and creating the best and not having to worry about adding up the figures myself. - Over 20,000 LinkedIn members have recognized dyslexic thinking as a skill on their profiles, emphasizing their creativity and problem-solving abilities. But research by LinkedIn and charity organization, Made by Dyslexia show a disconnect in how the discussion about dyslexia is happening in the workplace. Only 22% of US professionals have had discussions with dyslexic colleagues about how the disorder impacts them. The research also shows that many dyslexic individuals are underutilized. Only 38% of respondents feel that their workplace truly understands what their hidden talents are. What should managers know about managing people with dyslexia? - I think it helps for managers to know that somebody is dyslexic or somebody has ADHD and I think managers will find that people who are dyslexic are likely to excel at certain things in the company. So they should seek out seek out people who are different and tap into their superpowers. - So you basically want to make sure that your employees are telling you if they are dyslexic. - It should either come naturally or they could have a discussion with their team. And I mean, but it ought to be fairly clear, fairly quickly that somebody, you know, somebody is particularly good in a particular area. - I've seen you talk about AI and AI's potential to be a great co-pilot for people with dyslexia. Can you explain what you mean by that? - Well, I think already with, you know, with Google, with LinkedIn, you can use tools, if you are dyslexic, on the internet, to help you. And I think with AI, even more so. It doesn't really matter whether you can spell or not, you've got AI devices which will spell for you. So dyslexics are perfect for the bigger picture thinking. I mean that's what our skills are. We can use AI as a machine, you know, giving us the facts and doing our spelling for us, and then we can use our dyslexic superpower, which is our thinking to create things. - There must be people who are just like, I'm not sure what I'm actually good at. I know I can't do this, but how do you discover what your superpower is? - So I think from a pretty young age, you're going to know what interests you or what doesn't interest you. And by and large, what interests people turn into their superpower. You know, school reports might give an indication of what somebody, you know, what somebody is interested in and what they should maybe concentrate on. And so I just, I'm a great believer in life, you should follow your passion. - Here's what jumped out at me, what Richard Branson is talking about, and what 20,000 people who have listed dyslexic thinking on their profile are doing is redefining what was once seen as a handicap. There are hidden skills everywhere and it's up to people to call them out and managers to figure out how to harness those skills and the skills they weren't good at, AI may be able to help there. As an example, 68% of US dyslexics think AI tools like ChatGPT could help support them in their career progression. Branson calls dyslexic thinking his superpower at work. So tell me, what's your superpower at work? (upbeat music)