歡迎收聽「思維轉換力量」播客，這是一檔面向青少年及其相關成年人的節目，我們將在這裡進行坦誠而直接的對話。我是主持人法蒂瑪貝，思維轉換專家。歡迎大家收聽。今天我們邀請到了安·B·蒙哥馬利。她來自亞利桑那州鳳凰城，擁有多份職業經驗。

And that's exactly what we're gonna talk about today. She's also the author of several fictional books. She's a very fascinating woman. I'm sure you all will agree with me by the end of this conversation. She does not fit into any standard typical box, which is something I love about her.

安妮，你今天過得怎麼樣？我很好。很高興來到這裡。謝謝你邀請我。很高興我們見面。

We had such an amazing conversation off air. So tell us about the different career paths you have taken in life. I initially was a sports reporter and sportscaster, and that was very rare because it was back in the seventies that I announced I wanted to be a sportscaster, caster and everybody laughed at me. Because there's simply women didn't do that kind of thing back then. It's not like now.

So I did eventually become one. But my path there was kind of strange because I became a sports official. I officiated football, baseball, ice hockey, soccer, and basketball. And I would go into do that for forty years. The reason I did it was sports did you just name?

五項。五項主要的團體觀賞性運動。因為II是在《第九修正案》之前。我上高中的時候，那時候女孩還沒有平等的機會參與各種活動。所以我了解得不多。

I grew up I was an ice skater growing up, and I loved ice hockey. Like today, I would never have been an ice dancer, I would have played hockey. I would have really liked that. But they didn't let girls play hockey back then. So that was the one sport I knew really well.

But football, baseball, soccer, basketball, not so much. So I I sort of accidentally fell into ice hockey officiating, you know, little kids, amateur official. And I decided that if if I wanted to be a competent sportscaster, I needed to understand the rest of the games equally as well. So I went on a five year mission basically to officiate though those five main team spectator sports. And, I believe that some forward thinking news director would give me a shot, and that's exactly what happened.

Oh. I got a job in Columbus, Georgia that led to one in Rochester, New York, one here in Phoenix. And then I went to ESPN where I, anchored SportsCenter. And, then I What year was that? That was '90 to '92.

那時候，女性在 ESPN 工作還是件大事。這很重要。然而，這並不好玩。在其他電視台，我遇到的都是一些非常友善的男性同事。但在 ESPN，情況非常緊張。

They they had women because the law said they had to have women. Mhmm. But they treated they they treated us like crap. I mean, the few women in the newsroom, you know, we were kinda jokes to most of them. And that really frustrated me because, like, I know sports really well.

They hired me to know sports really well, and then they acted like I didn't I didn't know sports. I mentioned that because I we're we're talking to a teen audience who's growing up in a different world than you did. Yes. And they don't understand how, I think most of them don't really get how pioneering that was for you at the time. That was a really big freaking deal.

Well, there there were very few women. And if they we were scattered around the country, so none of us had any contact with each other. So I had there was not there wasn't any moral support. Mhmm. You know, the idea is you wanna be in this business.

You you you better not cry. You know, that kind of thing. And then I was I was pushing 40. I was about 36, like, 37 at that time. And, they released me, and I couldn't get a job anywhere in the country because I was pushing 40.

而運動和電視的目標客群是18到34歲的男性。所以，一旦到了35歲，你就不再漂亮到可以出現在鏡頭前了。我回到了菲尼克斯。我最終在菲尼克斯太陽隊擔任了兩年的演播室主持人，這很有趣，但只是兼職。而且只在NBA賽季期間做。

嗯。然後我在電視台找不到任何工作。我真的很自責。我不懂自己怎麼會在五家電視台工作，卻突然變得不再合格了。好吧，我明白了。

I mean, I didn't look like I did when I was 30. Yeah. So, and young ladies don't seem to get that either. They're like, Well, that's not fair. I'm like, Well, that's not fair.

It's never going to be fair. And as much as I wanted to cry about it, there was nothing I could do. And it's ironic that I came back to Phoenix, and I couldn't get a job doing anything. And I had to pull out my officiating equipment again, and I went from anchoring ESPN, the network, to, officiating Pop Warner, football, and Little League. And I was embarrassed.

我不想見任何我認識的人。我又一次為自己感到難過，可憐的我，我可憐的人生。而且，我當時已經結婚了。我先生是個酒鬼，這對我來說非常艱難。

And people kept telling me that I should be a teacher because I'd spent so many years officiating kids' sports. And, I kept saying, no. No. No. I don't wanna be a teacher.

And then when I was 42, I had no prospects, and I went back to college. And, I became a teacher and I ended up teaching in a title one school here in Phoenix, the most inner city school in our state. And I learned a lot from my students. I ended up teaching for twenty years. When I got there, I thought, oh, I'll just teach a year or two and I'll find another job in TV.

但我最後教了二十年書，我的學生絕大多數都生活在貧困中。他們面臨貧窮帶來的各種社會問題，你知道，吸毒酗酒、被忽視、被寄養、無家可歸。他們讓我知道我是個多麼頑皮的孩子，總是抱怨那些無關緊要的事。我從學生身上學到了很多。這並不容易，我得說，我曾經做過體育解說員，後來也做過一段時間的平面記者，還做過裁判，但教書是我做過的最難的工作。

Wow. Why is that? I can make me do anything. You know? I can say, get up this morning, and you're gonna spend four hours editing this this manuscript, which I just spent the last week editing a manuscript.

所以我必須每天起床，我必須，你知道，把這件事做完。我有七天的時間來完成它。所以我可以強迫自己去做。但要讓一群青少年去做這件事，告訴他們“這件事很重要，你必須做”，這很難，也很令人沮喪。然後我衝進了那所學校，彷彿我知道所有答案一樣。

I was in the business. I had kids who wanted to be journalists. I had kids who wanted to be in television. So I was a hard ass. Like, if you're late, you can't be late.

I said, they'd come in five minutes late to class. I go, you can't be late. Well, I'm only five minutes late. I said, look, when I was in TV, if I was one second late on the set, I'm gonna be fired. And one day, my whole class got up and walked out.

A little girl stood up and she said, we don't need you. And granted, I was giving them a hard time because they didn't do their show very well. They made a lot of mistakes. They didn't meet their deadline. So I was hammering them pretty hard, and they all left.

And I stood in the front of the room and I cried. And, I I'm not one to get upset publicly, but I did. And another teacher took me aside later, and she goes, have you ever considered being nicer? I said, nicer? The world is not nice.

Newsrooms are not nice. Football fields are not nice. You do your job, and you don't let them see you cry. And she said, these are children. You should be nicer.

我餘生都在努力變得更友善。真的。哇。聽起來你就是你自己，你經歷了一段最終讓你學到教訓的經歷。絕對沒錯。

And and the one day that sticks in my mind, there was a young man who was late every morning. And so I finally dragged him outside, and I said, you can't do this. You'll never have a job. You'll never hold a job. You have to be on time in the world.

And he looked at his feet shoes and they said, miss Montgomery, I'm so sorry, but I slept on my uncle's couch last night, and I I I didn't know how to get here on the bus. It was a different bus. And he said, I never know where I'm gonna sleep at night. And I this light bulb went off and went, this child is homeless. I'm yelling at a homeless kid for being a couple minutes late to class.

就在那一刻，我轉過身，說，好。我必須了解我的每個孩子。我必須努力了解他們在校外生活中經歷了什麼。因為說實話，如果他們餓了，他們會在乎考試嗎？對。

Do they care if they have a test if mom's being beaten up by dad? Yep. You know, do they care if they just got put in their foster home? Mhmm. So I had I had to do a lot of changing.

Being a hard ass wasn't cutting it. And not that I let them not that I let them slide all the time. I mean, I I still held high standards for them, but I tried to understand why sometimes, you know, school was not the most important thing in their life. And that's that's a powerful that's a powerful piece of your story right there. You know, a lot of people would be put in that situation and they would just be a hard ass on staying the same way for their own prideful reasons.

與其說我喜歡告訴你我瞬間改變了，不如說我沒有。我的意思是，答案是「沒有」。不過沒關係。不過沒關係，因為那很正常。我懷疑那些瞬間改變的人，因為大多數改變都不是瞬間的，尤其是真正的改變。

You know, you could fake it as a change. Yeah. I know. Surface change real instantly, but the real changes, they tend to go a little deeper and take a little longer. You know, because you have to unlearn things.

It did. And I I I wanted I I was I I kept telling myself it was for them that I was a hard ass, that I wanted them to be successful. I didn't want them to fail in life. And if they did, it was my fault. And I had to let that go a little bit.

Well, I also when you were talking, I was thinking, well, you came from a male dominated, arena that was very misogynistic. Yes. So you're used to the testosterone around you going be better or else. Right. Exactly.

沒錯。所以你把這些都帶到了身邊，因為你已經習慣了。嗯。然後你必須忘記這些，你知道，這對我們所有人來說都是終生的教訓。我從男性主導的新聞編輯室、男性主導的運動場，到女性主導的教學環境。

And I felt like a fish outboard. Complete flip flop. Yeah. Oh, I've never been around so many women. Yeah.

No. I get that. I get that. Yeah. I worked with women most of my life and then I ran a all male dorm.

Right. You were. And it complete flip around, but it was good experience. So it made me more balanced, I think. Now I wanna talk about something that we had talked about off air that I think is a very important part of your story.

And folks listening, we are not gonna talk about all of Anne's story because we'd be here for sixteen hours. So we're only narrowing down the parts that we could talk about today because this woman is extremely fascinating, has a wealth of experience and wisdom. But you had a hindrance growing up. I'm thinking you're talking about dyslexia. Right?

是的，是的。我小時候，你知道，就像生活一樣，沒人在乎給女人任何額外的機會，沒人知道「閱讀障礙」這個詞，或者就算知道，也沒人談論它。對。所以我不知道，我是家裡最笨的一個。

I had parent both my parents had college degrees, and, my brother and sister were both smart, and I wasn't. And they just told me I was stupid and lazy. And I got whipped for getting a d. And, I I didn't know it was wrong, but I hated to read. And everybody in my family loved to read.

My parents read two newspapers every day. My brothers and sis brother and sister loved to read novels and things. I wanted nothing to do with books. Wasn't until I was teaching, and I didn't have enough kids in my journalism classes. So my school said, look.

如果你還想繼續在這裡教書，就必須成為閱讀專家。我說，閱讀專家？我說，那我就是騙子。他們把我送回去了，我不得不回去修15個學分才能成為閱讀專家，因為我們大多數學生的閱讀程度都達不到年級程度。我還學到了「閱讀障礙」這個詞。

我當時就想，天哪！這就是我。太像我了。我還會犯以前犯的錯誤，但我現在知道是哪一條了。我的左右思維都有問題。

壓力大的時候，我有時會分不清哪隻腳適合哪隻鞋。就是這種怪事。閱讀障礙不僅僅是語言障礙。我簡直就是語言的惡夢。哦，我之前不知道。

Okay. Yeah. I because once I learned about it, I studied it because I went I knew this was me. But, you know, they didn't say those things. They didn't say you had a reading disability as a kid.

They just said you didn't try hard enough. So the day I stood in front of my reading class, I literally felt like a fraud. But here's what I learned. I I told them. I said, you know what?

I have dyslexia. Now granted, there's, like, levels one to 10. Some people will never read, and I clearly have worked my way through my issues. But I said, if I can learn to to read and enjoy reading, so can you. And some of those kids nodded and went, oh, okay.

有位老師說她一開始閱讀能力也不好。所以也許我還有機會。嗯，不只如此，你還得讀提詞器。你是電視主持人哦，天哪。我知道。

Center. You had to read a prompt every day. And the And so when you told me that, I'm like, wow. Yeah. Well, I had to read it, but I wrote what it said.

So I knew what it said. But the problem was the scores because I was a sports reporter. So when you had the the Phoenix Suns winning one twenty eight to to to one twenty six over the LA Lakers, I would screw them up. I would turn them around. And I didn't even know I did it till my news director called me and he goes, what are you doing?

Why do you keep screwing up the sport the scores? And then I went, ah. So then I had to type the scores out in words, then I wouldn't mess them up. But when you're on deadline, that's real hard to do, you know, to type them all out in in words. I wanna take a moment and break from talking to you to talk to the audience because I I just feel the need to say this.

現在有人正在聽，他有問題。問題可能不是閱讀障礙，可能是別的什麼，你理解事物的方式和你周圍的人不一樣，有人說你蠢。他們錯了，你不蠢。

You just need to figure out what it is and how to work with it just like Anne did. I really wanna make sure that we speak to to somebody out there who's totally identifying with everything you're saying and going, oh, maybe there's not something wrong with me. Because I I've seen it way too often where kids are told usually by family or close people to them, not usually by the schools, that they're stupid because they don't get things the same way everybody else around them gets. We don't all we're not all built the same. As much as people try to pull it be politically correct and teach that, that's bullshit.

We're not all built the same. We're not. And so if you're listening out there, just just know that try to find someone, seek out someone who can actually help you to figure out how to solve the problem instead of telling you that you're stupid because that's not a solution and you're probably not stupid. But And there are a lot here's the thing I learned when I became a reading specialist that there are a lot of reasons kids kids don't read well. Learning dis disabilities are certainly some of them, but sometimes it's that they don't have proper hearing or their vision is not good or their English as a language or they grew up in a home where there wasn't a pencil or a crayon or a newspaper or a book.

So all the kids had different issues, but but I I learned when when I was gonna go to college, my brother I'm packing to go to college freshman year. And, my brother stepped in the room. He goes, you won't make it till Christmas. He said, you'll flunk out your semester. You're too stupid to go to college.

他跟我賭20美元，說我那學期會大學休學。我能回到過去揍他一頓嗎？不行，我們得聽你的。這不可以嗎？

因為現在我牆上掛著更多學位證書了。別讓大家用暴力。我開玩笑的。我感覺，我又拿到學位證書了。它們是我的。

And there's, oh, you only have one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There. Yeah, I would have rather been hit by a truck than lose that bat. But what I learned at college, the semester of college is very difficult because you're on your own.

沒人會叫我晚上回家。也沒人會叫我別去參加那個派對。我學會了不能熬夜。我學會了，學習的時候必須完全安靜。我只能讀大概四十五分鐘，然後就忘了自己在做什麼了。

I had to eat right, and I never, I never cut class. I, well, actually I gave myself the right to miss one class, each class once a semester. But I had to have a really good reason. Okay. So I almost never cut class.

我整個大學生涯都堅持這樣做，因為我知道如果不這樣做，我就活不下去。如果我熬不了夜，我的大腦就無法運作。所以我認為，教孩子閱讀的關鍵在於找到適合他們的方法。每個人都有不同的策略。我甚至在知道自己患有閱讀障礙之前就找到了自己的方法，因為我太固執了，不願意失敗。

我喜歡你如此固執，不願意失敗，因為如果你是誠實的，我現在就不會跟你說話了。但是我想指出一點，我在這裡。這是我從你所說的每一句話中聽到的東西。而不是沉溺於閱讀障礙的標籤中，甚至在你知道我們有這個標籤之前，你也沒有沉溺於「哦，我有這個問題，所以我不會嘗試」的想法。你找到了解決問題的方法，而不是坐在那裡，因為有時人們會這樣做，他們會說，好吧，你是特殊教育的，所以，你知道，你太笨了，做不到其他任何事情。

甚至都別想。他們可能不會說這些話，不會用確切的措辭，但他們會說一種態度。我認為重要的是讓人們聽到，你成功的原因之一是你下定決心要找到解決問題的方法。即使你沒有完全理解問題，你也只是在原地盡力而為。這正是我們都應該做的。

I will say that I was very fortunate that, there were parts of my education, that they're trying to take away now, like art, theater, and, you know, drama and music and those kinds of things that I was really good at. So that even though I went to school and I I sucked at chemistry and math and languages, for some reason, languages are very difficult for dyslexic people, to learn a foreign language. And so I struggled in all those, but I was great in music. I was great in speech. I was great in theater.

So, those things gave me confidence. Those things made me realize I can do other things just because I'm not great in the classroom. I I can be successful at other things, and I was an ice skater. So I had other outlets, and that's why it so upsets me when when school districts go, we don't need sports. We don't need we don't need art.

We don't need all these other things. Kids just need the basics. That's not true. I had so many students who hated school, and I would sit them down and say, what do you where do you see yourself in ten years? How what do you and and the question is, you know, you ask kids, what do you wanna what do you wanna be when you grow up?

嗯，我會給他們三個問題來回答這個問題。你喜歡做什麼？你擅長什麼？別人會付錢讓你做什麼？對吧。

Because we spend far, far too much of our lives working to do jobs we don't like. Oh, yes. Yeah. I've had I was a maid. I cleaned other people's toilets.

I knew I didn't wanna do that for the rest of my life. Mhmm. Okay? So each kid, I would say they'd say, well, I really wanna play the guitar, and I would march them down to the the guitar teacher. I have a student who would like to play the guitar because of that one thing makes that kid come to school, just like football.

It's not just making them come to school. It's waking up a passion. When you wake up a passion in a person, it motivates other areas of their lives. They now have hope for themselves. They now have something to work towards.

但如果你只是把訊息塞進他們的喉嚨，強迫他們做事，他們就沒有激情，就像死了一樣。所以他們沒有理由。一整天都沒有什麼值得期待的事情，直到……沒錯。你必須給他們這些，即使是足球訓練、樂隊遊行，或者他們要參加辯論。明白嗎？所有這些事情都讓他們在場變得非常重要。

I never cut school because I didn't wanna miss the classes I really loved. So I am very grateful. I grew up in a time when music and theater and all those things were were expected to be in the curriculum. Now so many schools are trying to pull those away. I'm like, how are you gonna give kids hope for anything?

不，我同意。現在我想問一下你的書。你寫小說。我覺得很有趣的是，你從哪裡取得這些小說的素材。

Tell the audience because that that really is the that really brings this the whole conversation together and what this this this, episode is about. let me say that what what I don't write about is sports. And people are always shocked. You know? They're like, well, you must write sports books.

I'm like, nope. Not at all. I write about societal issues. I have books about post traumatic stress. I have I have children in cult religious cults.

I have, domestic violence, rape. And where did I get these ideas? I I had students who dealt with these kinds of issues all the time. I can't tell you how many young ladies I had who were raped by family members, And nobody cared. They protect the boys.

Way too common. Yeah. They protect the men and the girls are dispensable. And that broke my heart. So I wrote a story about a serial rapist.

And a woman trying you know, she doesn't know who he is. She and, she she's a rape survivor. But this all came from dealing with my students. My last couple years teaching, I ran a support group for kids that, you know, some had been abused, some had parents in prison, some were foster kids. And and, you know, many of these issues ended up being themes in my books.

That's fascinating. Now with that, the your experiences, You before you wrote your book, you had a lot of life experiences. Did you think that they had a lot of value before you start putting them into books? No. I didn't.

You know, I never wrong? And were you wrong? No. No. Because as I told you, I thought being a sportscaster was the most important thing on the planet.

I thought sports were the end all and be all. Now I barely pay attention to sports. Yeah. I do watch NFL on Sunday sometimes, but mostly, I don't care anymore about that. And maybe if I hadn't been a teacher, I wouldn't have shifted to things that seem to be more important.

And, you know, I I was with those kids every day, and it was very hard to weave the the problems they were dealing with at school. That's why I'm not there. I I would adopt every single child. They would I would be the old lady in the shoe with 95 kids, and I raise them all, and and they would all have great careers. I have I have four children, and they all they all were my former students, and and two of them were my legal foster kids.

And that would have certainly, I never would have been a mother if I hadn't become a teacher. I I couldn't have any children of my own. And I I despaired about that for a while. And then I got over it, and, then I got a call from a kid who was in foster care who's one of my students, and I ended up becoming a foster mom. And, so I have four, who are two were legal foster kids, two to call me mom.

And, I'm a grandma now. So I have a six year old grandson because my oldest boy has a a a son. And I think that I think that is awesome. It would be difficult for me not to adopt every child. Well, honestly, I I got to the point where I it just it's so overwhelming.

I I have a great deal of respect for the social workers that I worked with in my school. Mhmm. Because they what they dealt with every day, I don't know how they went home. I mean, how how how do you leave a kid? And often they didn't.

They'd be there late at night trying to help a kid who was homeless or battered or something. So, yeah, it it was very it was a it again, the most difficult job I've ever had. Now some of some of what you just discussed, including this, bits and pieces of that have ended up in your fictional stories. But I wanna I wanna round back to what I was asking before about before you started writing the books, you did not realize, you did not yet realize that all of your experiences actually had great value. I well, I some of them did.

I mean, I think my experiences made me a better teacher once I got nicer. You know, they because I have a, you know, I worked really hard to try to introduce my kids to the rest of the world. Meaning, I had 50 newspapers dropped off in my classroom every morning, and I had my kids pick up the newspaper every day and read stories that it could be the sports page. It could be whatever. And we would talk about what was happening in the world.

And I realized that my background, all the years I spent in a newsroom, I was helping to give the kids better idea of what's really out there. Yeah. Because when you live in a square mile of Blight, they they a lot of my students didn't think they'd live to be 20. So I was trying to show them that there's more than than they see every day. And I think if I hadn't been a reporter, maybe I wouldn't have been so adamant about adding that.

And I even did that with my reading students. It wasn't just my journalism students. I'm like, grab the newspapers, everybody. Let's talk about what's going on in the world. And we did.

Again, even what you just said goes back to there's value in experiences, and that's the point I'm trying to get to. Mhmm. There is there's and I'm saying that because there's teenagers and even some of the grown teenagers, which we call adults who are listening, who think that their experiences are not valuable. They think that their experiences don't mean anything. And you took your experiences and you created these stories, you know, based on the realities that you had dealt with and experiences.

And sometimes people are are listening and they think that they don't have value. They think that they don't matter. No. Yeah. I've been through some stuff in my life.

Yeah. But telling your story or taking that information or taking what you've gotten through your experiences and doing something with it may help other people. You know, you can in your case, you wrote books. In other cases, they'll start podcasts. In other cases, they will go do mentoring to to, you know, other kids.

在其他情況下，他們會開始教導他們曾經接觸過的某些科目和事物。無論是什麼，我們都可以汲取經驗，發現它們如何幫助他人或促進自身成長。我只是想確保聆聽的年輕人和成年年輕人能夠理解，你們生活中那些你們認為微不足道的經歷，實際上可能意義非凡。它們或許能在未來成就你們，為他人做出偉大的貢獻。我很高興你提到這一點，因為我的小兒子患有自閉症，他現在26歲了。

He's mildly autistic, just enough to be awkward socially and some physical awkwardness. And his biological family that just threw him into foster care when his his mother committed suicide and his grandmother had a heart attack, and and no one wanted him. And, I'll never forget, they came to me when I took him in, and they said, well, he needs to apply for disability. So because he'll never hold a job. I said, what are you talking about?

我說，他剛高中畢業。我們讓他回學校，高中畢業了。他們都對他高中畢業感到震驚。他的智力沒有任何問題。自閉症兒童不一定不聰明。

不。他們通常都很聰明。後來他去了亞利桑那州立大學。大約兩年前，他畢業了。現在他在退伍軍人管理局工作，負責處理病人必須吃的所有食物，以及這些食物和他們的藥物是否搭配？

And and he wants to be a diet he wants to be a dietitian. He's a nutritionist now, and he wants to be a dietitian and go go get his master's degree. And these this kid was written off by the world. He'll never be anything. So young people tend to think I'm not good enough.

I'm not, I've got this problem. Kids would always say, I can't do it. I'm ADHD. I'm like, the world doesn't care that you're ADHD. They care to figure out how to get it done.

And, my son, I couldn't be prouder of him. That's awesome. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

We the limits that we are only as limited as we tell ourselves. Yes. Because I have seen some people with some labels who were in special ed. I'm like, what are you talking about? Because I don't see special ed when I look at you.

I've seen an intelligent person who I need to teach a different way. Not the same thing as, oh, well, you're slow, so just stay in your slow lane. And I really hate it when when people push that narrative and then people will accept it. And when they don't Kids do it all the time. They think, well, that's that's that's a get out of jail card free if you know what I mean.

Yeah. My It becomes a problem. My my youngest son, I was teaching reading and he sat in front of me. I gave him the he took a reading computerized reading test, and it said he read at the college level. I'm like, go take that test again.

And he came back and he, he read the level of a college freshman when he was in a freshman in high school. I called the counselors and I said, this child does not belong in my class. They said, he's autistic. He's special ed. I said, he reads at the college level.

And, they refused to move him. I'm glad they didn't because he and I developed a relationship and eventually I became his mom. So, but still, that's the attitude. Well, he he's autistic, so he couldn't possibly read. I'm like, no.

So I don't care what label you have. I mean, if I'd grown up and known I was dyslexic, maybe that wouldn't have been good. Maybe I would have given myself an excuse to fail. Honestly, I think if you had known it, you would never have gotten into newscasting because you would have said, I can't do that. Maybe not.

You know? And and and but, you know, even if not you, other people would just say, well, I can't do that because I have this label. Don't believe the hype. As I like to say, don't believe the hype. Just because someone puts a label on you doesn't mean that you have the contents.

你不會理解標籤和內容之間的差異。閱讀障礙的另一個令人著迷之處是，你實際上並沒有失去任何東西。失去的是大腦中神經元的連結點。所以我沒有那些負責數學和方向的神經元。這不是一個普遍的解釋。

But those neurons go somewhere else. Mhmm. And some of the the most talented people in history, they believe were dyslexic, like Leonardo DiBiocchi. It's not the time I've heard that. Yeah.

Yeah. That that or or people that are brilliant artists, because those extra neurons might have missed math, but they went to art. So it's not that strange to be a creator that has dyslexia. So maybe it's a gift. I don't know.

Maybe. Well, Anne, it's been challenging to not talk about 20 other things with with you and I. Even in our conversation off air, it was like, okay. We gotta go. Oh, but more blah blah blah.

Because you're they're just, we've only honestly, people, we've only touched like a drop in the bucket of stuff that she knows, and could talk about. But it's been really fascinating having you on. And number one, thank you for being a woman entrepreneur. As a woman who's a younger generation than you, I thank you because it's women like you that have made a way for the rest of us. Well, thank you.

So thank you for that and putting up with all the male BS you put up with. And and I'm really grateful that that you got, that you got canned because you became an excellent teacher and obviously made a difference in the lives of some young men. So I'm glad you got fired. Me too. But and I wouldn't change a thing.

是的。你知道嗎？有時候，我們以為最悲慘的事情，其實是人生中最大的教訓。沒錯。你知道嗎？

I I I always told my students, monitor and adjust, get ready to pivot. It never goes the way you expect, but it might surprise you in a good way. And and and thank you for pointing out what people with labels yours was dyslexia. Other people's, it's special ed. It's whatever.

It's there's different ones out there. For proving that people with labels can still do a whole lot and you don't have to live under them. You can get over them if you decide that you want to. So thank you, Anne, for coming on today. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to the audience, and I hope we encourage some people today.

I believe we have. That's the goal anyways, to help build people up and and for people to hear themselves somewhere and know that they can too. Well, thank you. I really enjoyed it, and maybe we can do it again sometime. And now for a mind shifting moment.

As you heard in today's episode, Anne Montgomery is a well experienced woman with just a lot to say, and we only heard a tiny piece of it today. But with all of that experience, hopefully, the other thing that you heard was how she took bits and pieces of her experiences, the good and the bad, and used them to enhance the life of others to start a new career for herself. And I want you to know that you too can do the same for yourself. What you went through in middle school can help you in high school. What you went through in high school can help you in college.

That little job at McDonald's that you thought meant nothing actually taught you discipline. That other that other thing that you went through taught you how to be tough, taught you how to overcome. My point is there's nothing you can experience that can't be used to make a better future for yourself. There's nothing you can experience that can't be used to help others. I want to challenge you today to take a deeper dive into all the different parts of your life, especially the secret parts that you don't want anybody to know about.

And think about how that has shaped you. Think about how you can use it as fuel for your next level. Just think about it. Thank you for listening to Mindshift Power podcast. Please like and subscribe to my YouTube channel at the mind shifter.

If you have any comments, topic suggestions, or would like to be a guest on the show, please visit fatimabay.com/podcast. Remember, there's power in shifting your thinking. Tune in for next week.