Dyslexia can teach you to shrink yourself fast. You learn to stay quiet, double-check everything, and assume you are the problem. Coach Willie Blake joins me for a candid, hope-filled talk about what it feels like to grow up neurodivergent, carry shame into adulthood, and still find a way to lead, serve, and build a life you are proud of.
We rewind to the early school moments that planted the belief of “I’m broken,” then follow the ripple effects: isolation, hesitation, and the constant fear of being misunderstood. From there, we shift into the breakthrough that changed Willie’s trajectory. Instead of chasing perfection, he chooses progress and sets a small, doable goal that starts rebuilding his confidence. That one decision opens the door to personal growth, mindset, entrepreneurship, and eventually coaching dyslexic adults who want to stop getting in their own way.
We also dig into the strengths inside neurodiversity: creativity, big picture problem solving, empathy, and resilience. Willie shares his guiding word, LIGHT, and the acronym behind it: love, inspire, gratitude, hope, and time.
If you have ever felt labeled, sidelined, or stuck in doubt, this conversation offers practical encouragement and a faith-grounded reminder that pain can turn into purpose.
Subscribe, share this with someone who needs hope, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What part of your story are you ready to reframe today?
To connect or work with Coach Willie Blake, visit https://coachwillieblake.com/
To download a free chapter of host Sylvia Worsham’s bestselling book, In Faith, I Thrive: Finding Joy Through God’s Masterplan, purchase any of her products, or book a call with her, visit her website at www.sylviaworsham.com
Transcript:
If you’ve ever struggled with fear, doubt, or worry and wondering what your true purpose was all about, then this podcast is for you. In this show, your host, Sylvia Warsham, will interview elite experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here’s your host, Sylvia Warsham.
I’ve still got a lot of fun left.
Hey Bringers, it’s Sylvia Warsham. Welcome to Released Out Review Purpose. And today is Coach Willie Blake. He is here to talk to us about being dyslexic and how he felt so broken for so long. And then came the pivotal moment. And now he’s this super successful coach, high performance coach, actually, that teaches people how to get out of their own way because really who you are is not what we currently like how we grew up, you know. I grew up with ADHD and anxiety and all sorts of mental health uh issues. And at one point I thought they define me. The truth is they don’t. They don’t define who I am, they just are part of my journey. And what God has used is pain to purpose now. And so who who do I help? Who I’m most qualified to help. He’s most qualified to help people with dyslexia because he has been in that seat before. He knows what it feels like. He’s been a student of that, and that’s how we approach his life now. So without further ado, Coach Willie Blake, thank you so much for joining us on Really Stout Review Purpose.
Yeah, I’m excited for this. And you’re right. The things that we have, it’s just the chapter in our life. And if we see it that way, we realize that we get to control what’s in the whole book.
Yes, yes, absolutely. And I do want us you to kind of share that paint or purpose story that you have to share on the show today from that space of dyslexia, like how you grew up, how broken you felt. Because I think there’s people on the other side, they’re really need to hear what you have to say about that so that they can relate, number one, and two, that they know that they’re not alone in this world, that other people know and can relate to their journeys and can actually help them with the reason you’re going to share on the show.
Yeah, sounds good. So do you want me to start with the story right now? Yes. Awesome. Yeah, so come back with me. Seven, eight years old, little curious, running around, willy kid doing whatever he’s doing, first grade. And he went to this classroom with his classmates one day, and they had him read from this sheet of paper. And at least when I read it, I I stumbled through those words. And like the big word, I was sounding every word out, and by the end of it, all my other friends and classmates were already out to recess after doing it. I was one of the last ones in there. And lo and behold, from that little thing was the indication that I had this thing called dyslexia. And dyslexia in the simplest of form is the way we process information. Now it comes like the root of dys and lexia, which is difficult, and then reading, because there’s a lot of things that go under that umbrella, like dysgraphia, which is right difficulty with writing, just calcula and such like that. But all under that umbrella of just like difficulty with processing information, of whether it’s reading it and then taking it in, internalizing it and how to think about it, or the way we communicated outwards, of that sometimes uh stutter when at least when I was in grade school when I spoke. And so growing up with that, I remembered two quick specific events, which was the first one in first grade, and I was running around playing tag with my friends, and I was it, and there was this cute little first grader. I remember her name was Hannah, and I’m like, oh, she’s she’s fun to play with, so I was gonna go tag her. She climbed up on the playground, and as I went to go tag her, I slipped and my hand swiped down, and I accidentally pulled down her pants. And obviously, she’s like she was so embarrassed, pulled them up, she went inside with a friend to go get a teacher. And I just sat on the ground thinking, no, no problem here. Like I said, I’m sorry, and I’ll say sorry again. I didn’t mean to. It was a total accident. The teacher came out and asked me a question. She said, Did you pull down her pants? I said, Yeah. And without being able to explain any further, my teacher said, Okay, you’re done with recess for the week. So then we headed back inside, and that was like the first little seed of, okay, why didn’t I get to explain my side of the story? Which then a couple of years later, fast forward, goes to in fourth grade where we’re doing like this recital for our parents, and we were practicing. And while we’re we were standing there finishing up the song, song finished, the teacher said, Who wants to sing one last time to rehearse? I look up at the clock, and it was about a minute before the bell rang. And I’m thinking, we still have to go back to class, clean up, get my backpack, and then go out to be able to get on the bus. Because if I’m not out there within the few minutes after the bell rings and the bus is there, it’s gonna leave without me, and I’m gonna have to call my mom. So I’m like, no. But at the exact same time, all the other fourth graders around me said yes. I’m like, I felt like the spotlight was on me.
And I’m like, no.
And the other one’s like, yes. And then the teacher pointed at me and said, You come down and sit down here until we’re done. And that mixed with the times where my friends all of a sudden I was going to these special classes for my dyslexia, and all that combined together, saying, Well, nobody’s gonna listen to me, so I guess I’m just not gonna raise my voice again. And I’m gonna have to think before I answer anything. And obviously, as a kid, like, how hard is that?
It’s horrible.
It’s hard. My daughter, my daughter talks about this with her ADHD because ADHD is and I’m ADHD. We blurt sometimes. We can’t our mind is so fast that we don’t we don’t consciously like think sometimes prior. It’s a tri it’s almost like a automatic response, and it’s because our brains don’t have that that ability to be able to stop ourselves, right? So then what has happened with her? She has stayed quiet, she has retreated into her books because it’s safer.
Yeah.
Books don’t talk back to you, right?
No, books don’t tell you you’re wrong, books don’t point out that you are different. They accept you.
You know, they you can go into their world, you’re invited into their world. Sometimes when you have these things, I don’t know about you, but I’m sure you can speak into this, Coach Willie, is you feel so alone.
Aside from feeling broken, you feel so different and so alone.
Can you speak to that? Like to that real rawness of those feelings?
Yeah. Like Sylvia, you’re right on the money because you feel like you didn’t do anything wrong.
All you were doing was sharing. All you’re doing was sh like like sharing the love in your heart as you are a kid and just talking, then all of a sudden something happens. Whether it’s like the teacher who’s just like, You come down and sit here, and I felt like I had the dunce cap on me and felt stupid. Or if it’s a friend being like, Yeah, we don’t care what you have to say, then they walk off. And whether it’s physically or just inside your head, you feel alone and you ask yourself, What did I do?
Am I the broken one?
Am I the one that’s like messing up here? What if I did something wrong, and especially those of us who have big hearts, we’re just like, what did I do to harm them? To to make them feel that they they have to have a bad day around me. And so we internalize that, and it makes us put up that filter, that blockade, that wall, that all of a sudden, well, now, you know, when I’m sitting in class, and even if I have the answer on my sheet of paper, or if I’m like as an adult, if I’m working and about to send that email, I’m gonna make sure I run it through grammarly. I’m gonna make sure I AI it so I don’t make a mistake. With a kid who has the answer but doesn’t raise their hand and five, ten, twenty seconds go by. And then another student raises their hand and gives the exact same answer that you had on your piece of paper. And the teacher says, Yeah, that’s right. And as they continue the lesson, you start beating yourself up in your head, being like, Man, why didn’t I just say it? It was right the whole entire time.
Well, you’re sitting down yourself, right? Like you’re sitting there, I I had the answer. I remember an incident, and I want to share it right now if that’s okay with you.
Please.
I was in college, I went to Austin College in Sherman, Texas. So for those that don’t know, our our mascot is Kangaroo in Texas. So don’t ask. But that’s cool. That’s really cool. That’s a cool one.
Um, it was history class. I was a freshman.
The teacher’s pet was a senior in college, and we’re in the same class. And I had had this brilliant idea for to do a paper on the Vietnam War. But when I heard her theory on it, when I shared it with her, um, she kind of said, Oh, that would be a bad idea, or whatever. But when I shared it with the professor, he said, Why didn’t you go with your gut instinct? That would have been a phenomenal paper.
The reason why I’m sharing that is neurodivergency, which is where dyslexia, ADHD, autism, all of that kind of falls into the same umbrella.
The reason why we’re neurodivergent is because we are different but not different in a bad way, different in a very brilliant way.
We see things that are not easily seen with the human eye. We see beyond. Yet you doubted yourself, right?
And you did it because of the experiences you had with that teacher first when she wouldn’t even let you say your piece about why. Like it was an accident about pulling that girl’s pants down, one, and then the burning out of no, because it was a very logical reasoning that was going on in your head. But of course, they don’t see that, do they? They see the no, that’s what they experience. And I want to point that out for those listening on the other side of this interview, that you are brilliant in that neurodivergency. There’s a reason, a very powerful reason, purpose why you were born this way. And I want you to share with us, uh, Willie, if you can, that journey from that broken space into what you’re doing right now, because you gained a great deal of wisdom, didn’t you, along your journey? And I do want you to share that wisdom with us in this next piece.
Yeah, I’d love to. And here’s the cool thing is that I I I never judge people based on their age anymore. Because it’s not about how old you are, it’s about the miles that you’ve taken while you’ve lived. And some so I I know I know this one kid who they’re they’re 14 years old, and they have lived through a lot. I’ll just say that. Lived through a lot, and they are very mature for their age, and they know a lot about how the world works. And I know some 40 and 50-year-olds who still are kids inside and haven’t really lived their life, right? It doesn’t matter the age, it’s about the experience. And so growing up through middle and high school, um, all those things that we’ve talked about, like I felt. And it it there were times where it really sucked where my friends would go to honors classes, and I just have to watch them and then go down three doors down to then walk into the regular English class to where nobody wanted to work, they didn’t want to do anything, and I felt like that smart kid out of his environment. But because I had this thing called dyslexia that I made my excuse, I’m just like, forget it. And it was about fast forward several years, about halfway through college, where I started to I found this statistic, and it wasn’t motivational or anything, but it said 95% of CEOs read 50 or more books a year. And this was smack dab in the middle of I started my accounting degree, and then the year and a half in when I found the statistic was when I was actually switching to business management. I thought it’d be really cool. It’d be really cool to be a CEO. No way I’m reading 50 books. For a dyslexic who maybe read an average of one book a year at that time, ain’t no way. But 12 didn’t seem that hard. A book a month, I think I could do that. Especially if it’s the small book that I went to to grab for the very first book I read, which was a small purple book called Rich Dad Poor Dad. And I started to read. And I learned about this thing called personal growth. I learned about this thing called mindset and business and finance and what this thing of coaching and entrepreneurship was. And I’m like, wow, these are some really cool things. And I started getting into this world that was blind to me simply because I didn’t know it was there. I never tapped into it before. And as I started to learn, I started to see that things weren’t as black and white as I thought. There was a lot of gray through everything, like business and personal growth, but also like uh politics and religion, and like all these different topics started coming up. I’m like, okay, there’s a lot of different opinions here. So when I applied that to then my dyslexia and the other neurodivergent uh things that I had, I’m like, so what are the good things? I hear about all the bad. Oh, I s I stink at reading, and when I stand up and try to speak out loud, I kind of I try to find the perfect way to end a sentence. So I’m like circling the plane over and over and over again, trying to find the way to land, but can never be able to find that perfect thing. And I realize that with dyslexia, creativity is so much more abundant, like we’re so much more creative. We are great at problem solving because we think we see the bigger picture. Out-of-the-box thinking, we’re great with um communication when it comes to like empathy and sympathy because we’ve had to go through so much, we know what it’s like to go through a challenge, and all these advantages started coming up, and by the end of it, it came up to this simple thing of I get to choose. Do I choose to believe what I used to believe, which it didn’t really serve me, or should I try this new thing of maybe I focus on the advantages of it? And I chose to focus on the advantages, and man, from there, it it’s been it’s been great. Like I’ve married my wonderful wife, we’ve been married for almost nine years now, we have four beautiful girls with each other. Um, going from struggling with reading to reading 60 plus books a year consistently now, to then starting my own business helping dyslexics to being uh Amazon best-selling author. And like all these things started coming. And I’m like, this is really cool. I thought dyslexia harmed me, but it was actually the one thing that helped me connect the most with the people who felt like they were hurting the most.
Yes, it’s your superpower, and that’s what I want to convey on the other side of this because I used to be ashamed. I used to be, I used to feel not worthy because of the anxiety I carried inside of me and my OCD and my ADHD, and then I started to really embrace it and say, you know what?
It beautifully is who I am.
You know, this is a major superpower because I can relate and connect to people, especially in this day and age, with the young people currently in the world, how much anxiety is really driving a lot of the suicides attempts. Um, I was a kid that was bullied in high school because I was different. I thought differently, I said things differently. I would say no, and everybody else was saying yes. And I felt like a fish out of water, completely out of my element. And it wasn’t until years later that I really understood, just recently understood why I was who I was. Like I be like you, I was a student. I I sat in the same chair, I have sat in the same chair that I coach from. When I when I share with people of like coming out of the dark into into joy and into full surrender to God’s master plan, I’ve been in that journey. I know how hard it is to stay obedient to those promptings, to actually act on those promptings and to move. Like you had a prompting of this can’t be that bad to read a book, you know, a book a month. You started small, which I loved about your story. I will I will emphasize that because when we start make making change in our life, when we allow the transformation to occur in us, we have to give ourselves a ton of grace because we are we’re in conflict always with the way we’ve always been, you know, that old identity that that stops us from really stepping into our life. And so I love that you said, okay, I want to be like that CEO, and I that feels cool to be that CEO, but I’m not gonna jump into that space of reading how many 50 books a year you said. Instead, I’m going to start out instead I’m gonna I’m gonna focus on a smaller goal, but a goal that I know that I can achieve, and then you’re gonna build momentum that way. And once you build momentum and you create that identity, because that takes time to create a new identity, to really embody that identity, not just create it, embody it. It’s it’s an everyday consistency intentionality on your part. Like for us to be authors, I’m an author like you. My best-selling book on Amazon is called In Faith I Thrive, Finding Joy Through God’s Master Plan. And in it, I kind of guide people through that spiritual journey that I guide them through the podcast. First, we need to remove the layers of fear, which is the first act of yours, like removing this brokenness. From once we remove that brokenness, now we can step into our joy. And sometimes we struggle being in joy because we don’t know how to be. We know how to do really well, because that’s what we we’ve been taught in the United States how to do and achieve and be successful, but we don’t know how to embody joy, how to be in joy, how to rest, how to receive. We know how to give a lot, and then from that space is where the real leveling up occurs, the surrender to that identity, to that purpose, to that being, that light being. You know how at the beginning I said, hey light bringers. I don’t know if you caught that or not, Willie. But I believe that we’re all here to share a light. And you’ve shared your light today, and I do want you to share the biggest lesson you learned in that journey.
What a profound question. Like I have so many thoughts, but I’ll answer this question when it comes down to it, it would be off of what you said. Share your light with people. If I were to take my why and shrink it down into a single word, my word is light.
And I came up with that from back uh during those college days to where I read a book by uh Evan Carmichael, one of my favorite authors, called Your One Word. And it’s he helped me figure out like What is what’s Willie’s one word? And I came up with light because it was the opposite of darkness. And I I hate darkness. I hate the challenges, the obstacles that people face. And it’s fast forward five years later, I finally was able to put an acronym to it after all the experiences I’ve had.
And so light for me is love, inspire, gratitude, hope, and time. That’s truly all we have. As we go out and love, as we go out and love, not only other people, but ourselves as well, we’re able to share.
As we inspire other people and inspire and serve, we are built to serve. As we go out and do that, as we feel gratitude, anxiety and gratitude cannot sit in the same place. When we’re truly grateful, we live. If you want to change your attitude, change your gratitude. We live with hope. Hope for the future. Hope that things are gonna work out. And we see the possibilities. Even if it’s so small, we just we know it’s a possibility, and that is the seed that we can plant to start to grow. And then time. We have we have time on this planet, we don’t know how fine how finite that is, we don’t know when it’s gonna come to an end for us individually, but with what we have right now, we can use it in the way we want to, rather than what life throws at us.
And so that message would be share that light. Your challenge can be your advantage, it can be that superpower. Whether you believe you can or you can’t, you’re right. So believe and share your light. So good.
Oh my goodness, I almost have to end it here, I swear. Because it’s so good. It is such a profound wisdom that you’re sharing with the world right now, with whoever’s listening on the other side of this interview. And we’ll be listening soon, by the way, because this is when I hear interviews that really need to be heard right away, they get put in a faster track, if you will, because well, right now we’re in a space where there’s a lot of darkness, there’s just too much darkness, not enough light warriors out there. There’s I’m one of them, you’re one of them, but we need more. We need to recruit more light warriors out that can share these wisdom these wisdom and and share that the brokenness is simply an invitation to share your pain to purpose. It turns from pain to purpose, always. If you’re willing and open to receive that, you know, and you had a willing heart. If your heart weren’t willing and open, you would have never stepped into this space, but it was. You always you never lost hope. I hope you know that, Willie. You never lost hope, even in your darkest moments. You didn’t lose hope. That’s why you were chosen to be in this space, helping dislike sick students who feel like you once felt broken, dark. You know, these are words that are coming from your own heart space as you were in the interview. And you’re right about grateful um and like gratitude and anxiety not being able to um exist in the same space. It’s actually a biblical concept, it comes from Philippians um 6, 7, I believe. And it’s something that Paul wrote in the New Testament, and he’s talking about how you you know release your anxiousness to God Himself, and through prayer and petition and thanksgiving. That’s part of the scripture. So here it is like release all your anxiety, but through prayer, petition, and thanksgiving, give your request to God, and the and the peace of God will wash over you.
It’s a very powerful verse because this was written over 2,000 years ago.
Ancient, like through time. They’ve been passed on generation to generation, and now it’s up to us to resurface it and to share with the world, hey, this has been around for a long time. There’s a reason why this has been true, you know, this is the truth. For those Christians, we’re about to embark on the biggest um weekend of our faith.
And in that, in that weekend, it’s it’s it’s knowing that you have a purpose, you belong to a bigger plan.
You impact people’s lives by being kind, by being hopeful, by being grateful, loving, by stepping into your light and embodying it, like really living it out. Because you see, that’s when people see that about you, really, and I see your light, your light is bright, it is bright, it shines so beautifully, and you glorify him in your in your being. I hope you know that you show up for God in a very powerful way, and you’re sharing with his kids that feel broken that there is a way out. That there is a way through, forget out. You went right through it, you know how obedient that was. I hope you know how powerful that was for you to like a dyslexic kid giving himself the goal of reading 12 books a year.
That’s powerful, and then you built from that.
It wasn’t that you stayed there because that’s not who you are, really. You’ve been this kid for a long time, like you were born this way, you were born to really empower people that are in this space, and I’ve known quite a few kids that have felt me included, broken, and we shut our light off for a while until pivotal moments came to play. And mine came in 2012, and believe me when I tell you that when you see and feel the love that I felt in those moments, you can’t unsee or unlove, you like you cannot undo it in your life. That’s why I have embodied this identity so well now, and I look forward to whatever’s on my horizon because it’s we’re always leveling up, Lily. I know you know that, but people on the other side sometimes they don’t realize that. This is simply like how they show up every day, how we embody joy, peace, love, kindness, gentleness.
It’s it’s really a light to follow out of that darkness.
And we can be that light for other people, and you’ve been that light, I’m sure, for those dyslexic kids and and parents too, that feel so lost, like with their kids that they don’t even know how to guide them. Um, so who works with you and how can they find you if they want to work with you, Willie?
Yeah, so specifically I work with uh dyslexic professionals, those who are adults. And the way to work with me is you can go to my website, coachwillieblake.com, and there you’ll be able to find those places. And even if you’re not a dyslexic professional, go to my website. I have resources that are from a more strategy-based of dyslexic blueprint for achievers. But even my breakfree ebook that’s very short for people to read about the 12 chains that hold us down, our limitations, and how to break them. So that’s where they can find me, coachwillyblake.com.
Any last words of encouragement you want to leave us with prior to this very powerful weekend ahead of us?
Yes. As you were as you were sharing about uh about that Bible verse, another one came to my mind. It’s in the book of Ephesians. Either it’s chapter four, chapter five, verse eight. It’s right before the talks about the armor of God.
And it says, Ye were once darkness, but now you are light. Walk as children of light. It has been such an honor to have you really on the show. I I’m getting emotional. Just bear with me for a second while I get my bearings. I’m honored. Thank you for being on the show. Thank you for sharing your story from darkness, brokenness to light.
Be the light like Willie’s been like, be that light for someone today, especially young people, and they need you to be the light.
They need you to show up so brightly so we can embody that purpose, you know, that pain to purpose, the that everything we go through, all the trials and the tribulations we go through in life, there’s so much joy on the other side of them. We must go through them. Just like Billy went through them and I went through them. And it’s not you will gain so much when you do.
And you know who’s waiting on the other side of that? It’s God. He’s been there all along. Sometimes our fear, our doubt, it blocks our light so dramatically. We believe the lies that people tell us about ourselves and their lies that we’ve been carrying around for years and years, believing in our heart space that there that that there is truth. But the truth is in your present moment, and if you cannot come up with evidence in your present moment that that the lie is true, then it is a lie. And it’s time, it’s time to release that doubt. Release it to God, he will take it from you, and he will show you, he will reveal to you your light, your purpose here on earth, and how you fit in to his master plan. We’re all here for a very powerful reason. We all have a unique set of skills. Our life has not been in vain, our pain has not been in vain. He uses everything, everything for his purpose and for his plan.
And I want you to know that how loved you are. You’re very loved. He loves you so much, and he’s always there for you.
Have a beautiful and wonderful Easter week and love y’all. Bye now.
So that’s it for today’s episode of Release Doubt Reveal Purpose. Head on over to iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review on iTunes will win a chance in the grand prize drawing to win a twenty-five thousand dollar private VIP day with Sylvia Worsham herself. Be sure to head on over to sylviaworsham.com and pick up a free copy of Sylvia’s gift and join us on the next episode.