Don't Judge A Fish
How a stupid kid became the world's best storyteller
There was a kid in school who dreaded every single day.
Not because of bullies in the hallway. Not because of cafeteria food. But because of something that seemed simple to everyone else: reading out loud in class.
While other kids breezed through their assigned paragraphs, this boy would stumble over words, mix up letters, and feel his face burn with shame as classmates snickered. He was two years behind everyone else in reading.
Two entire years.
Teachers assumed he wasn’t trying hard enough. Kids called him stupid. He felt like there was something fundamentally broken inside his brain.
He would sit in class, watching letters swim and flip on the page, feeling smaller with each passing day.
When Everyone Else Makes It Look Easy
Imagine spending your entire childhood being measured by the one thing you absolutely cannot do.
Every day, the same message: “You’re not good enough. You’re not as smart as the other kids. Why can’t you just read like everyone else?”
This boy wasn’t lazy. He wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t defiant.
He had dyslexia - a learning disorder that makes reading and processing written language incredibly difficult. But in the 1960s, nobody knew what dyslexia was. There was no diagnosis, no understanding, no accommodation.
There was just a kid who felt broken.
He later said: “I was embarrassed to stand up in front of the class and read. The teasing led to a lot of other problems I was having in school.”
School was supposed to teach him. Instead, it taught him that he was less than everyone else.
But He Found Something That Made Sense
This boy discovered movies.
When words on a page felt like impossible puzzles, moving images told him stories he could understand instantly. When reading out loud made him feel stupid, creating visual scenes made him feel brilliant.
He started making little films with his dad’s camera. He’d spend hours setting up shots, creating narratives, bringing his imagination to life in ways that had nothing to do with spelling or reading comprehension.
The school system was asking him to be someone he wasn’t. Movies let him be exactly who he was.
The Diagnosis That Came Six Decades Late
That boy grew up to become Steven Spielberg.
He wasn’t diagnosed with dyslexia until he was 60 years old - six decades of not knowing why reading had been such torture.
By then, he’d already directed Jaws, E.T., Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, and Indiana Jones. He’d won three Academy Awards. He’d created some of the most iconic films in cinematic history.
He later reflected: “Movies kind of saved me from shame...from putting it on myself, from making it my burden.”
The thing that made school impossible was exactly what made him a visionary filmmaker.
While other people thought in words and sentences, Spielberg thought in images and sequences. His brain’s difficulty with linear, text-based processing made him naturally think in visual storytelling.
The disability that made him feel stupid in school became his superpower in Hollywood.
You’re Being Measured Wrong
Here’s what nobody tells you when you’re struggling: the world is designed for certain types of abilities, and when you don’t have those specific abilities, you start believing there’s something wrong with you.
You can’t sit through a three-hour meeting without your mind wandering. Clearly, you’re lazy.
You dread networking events and leave early. Obviously, you’re antisocial.
You never could memorize information the way teachers wanted. Must mean you’re stupid.
We spend our lives trying to master skills we were never meant to have, and when we fail, we internalize it as personal deficiency.
Spielberg could have spent his whole life feeling inadequate because reading was hard. He could have believed what school taught him - that his struggles meant he was less capable, less intelligent, less worthy than his peers.
Instead, he found the medium where his brain’s unique wiring became an advantage.
The Question You’re Not Asking
When you’re struggling, when your self-esteem is in the gutter, when you feel like everyone else has it figured out except you, ask yourself this:
Am I actually failing, or am I just being measured by standards that have nothing to do with my actual strengths?
Spielberg spent years feeling stupid because he couldn’t do what the education system valued. But the system wasn’t measuring what actually mattered - his ability to tell stories that would move millions of people. His capacity to create worlds that didn’t exist. His talent for visual communication that would define modern cinema.
How many people are living that story right now? How many people feel inadequate because they’re being judged by measures that miss their actual brilliance?
Your Struggle Might Be Your Compass
Spielberg’s dyslexia wasn’t separate from his genius - it was very much connected to it.
His brain’s difficulty with linear, text-based processing made him naturally think in visual sequences. The struggle that made reading hard made visual storytelling intuitive.
The person who can’t sit still in an office job might be someone who needs movement and hands-on work to thrive.
The person who finds small talk exhausting might be someone whose strength is in deep, meaningful one-on-one connection.
The person who struggles with “normal” career paths might be someone whose creativity needs a completely different outlet.
Listen, this is deep, if you get it…
Your inability to do what everyone else does easily might be pointing toward what you’re actually supposed to be doing.
What If You Stopped Trying to Fix Yourself?
Spielberg didn’t cure his dyslexia. He didn’t force himself to become a great reader. He didn’t spend his life trying to fix what the school system said was broken.
He found a different path. One where his brain’s unique wiring was an asset, not a liability.
What if you stopped trying to force yourself into molds you were never meant to fit?
What if the thing you’ve been trying to fix about yourself is actually what makes you extraordinary - you just haven’t found the right context for it yet?
The Real Loss
You know what gets me about this story? Spielberg carried the weight of feeling “stupid” for sixty years. Even after becoming one of the most successful directors in history, somewhere in him was still that boy who couldn’t read in front of the class.
The tragedy isn’t that he had dyslexia. The tragedy is that the school system made him feel worthless for struggling with something his brain wasn’t wired to do easily.
How many people are walking around right now carrying that same weight? Believing they’re fundamentally flawed because they can’t do what everyone else seems to do easily?
Stop Judging the Fish
There’s a saying: don’t judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree.
You’re not broken. You’re not deficient. You’re not less than anyone or anything.
You’re just being measured by the wrong standards.
Maybe the thing you think is wrong with you is actually pointing toward what’s right with you. You just haven’t found the context where it makes sense yet.
The world needs what you’re actually good at, not what you’re supposed to be good at.
Could You Do Me a Favour?
If this story made you reconsider what you think is “wrong” with you, would you share it?
My mission is to reach 1 million people and help them see themselves differently.
Germinate isn’t just a publication - it’s a movement toward recognizing that you’re not broken, just measured by the wrong standards.
Be part of this movement. Share this story with someone who needs to hear it.
About me
I’m an NLP-trained Mental Health Coach. My goal is to prevent you from hitting your rock bottom before things escalate.
I help high-achievers escape Anxiety, Addiction, and Low Self-worth before therapy or clinical intervention.
Email: guru@daivi.ca
@Stephanie Clemons appreciate the restack! Thanks!
This was really powerful. Thank you.