Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) talks about how he lives with dyslexia in an interview on “Next Up with Mark Halperin” to promote his new book, “Young Man in a Hurry.”

MARK HALPERIN: Can you read? Can you read a book? GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM: I can read, I just have to underline it. I can’t read spatially. That’s why I can’t read a speech, because spatially I’ll lose the line. So I’ll literally… I wish I had a book here, if you ever lend me a book – that’s why I don’t go to the library, because I can never return the book – I have to underline, and then what I’ll do is I’ll take what’s underlined, and then I’ll put it out, and this is literally an actual example. I’ll just put in pieces of paper everything I underlined, and then I’ll do that for hours and hours and hours, and then eventually, I’ll put it on a little yellow card, which we’ll have just quick notes, and then it’s in my head. But that’s the process. That’s why everything online I have to print out. So I take what’s online, print out… then underline it and put it in here [notepad]. MARK HALPERIN: So you can’t read on a phone or an iPad? GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM: I can, [but] I start daydreaming. I start drifting off. And so… the pen is the key. MARK HALPERIN: If you’re reading my book, you open it, and you just start underlining as you read? GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM: Yeah, 100%. I do circles, I make stars, and then I go back, and without exception, I’ll go back to every book I read, and then I will write it out. I have hundreds and hundreds of these pads. And this is the gift. This is the gift of dyslexia. I know people want to mock it. And mock people that didn’t do well academically, but the gift is a superpower. Because it allows you, with discipline, it’s hard work as the grit… It gives you the ability to be able to absorb a lot, but also allows you the ability to be much more flexible, [and] allows you the ability to, I think, to have strengths where others struggle and find weakness.

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