[Music] i see the world through colors shapes textures and volumes all this through my dyslexic mindset it's a story and a story i'm going to tell you and that story has to start with the beginning my beginning is on vacation with some family and friends we decided to play a pretty funny card game where you fill in voids of a phrase or a sentence you pass these cards around and everybody fills in their little sentences and their little voids and then you read them back to the group oftenly you pick the funniest and maybe the most offensive response but you got to guess which one made those responses going into this game i knew very well that i would use my tricks and methods to get through this seamlessly i picked the shortest questions i paraphrased instead of read word by word and put my wife next to me to make sure that i got through any opportunity for stumbles we played the game i thought it was seamless i thought it very well and so i thought because the end of the game one of the friends approached me and asked me a question he asked me a question that was like this my son also has dyslexia you've done well in life i think he would appreciate a chat with you um it'd be very important to him my inside voice was easy buddy cut off on the roman roman punch i don't have dyslexia i don't see words backwards voice of course i'll sit down with your child and we'll have chats great i left there here's why you asked me this question so i began to research do and it became very obvious at the age of 42 that i discovered i in fact had and have dyslexia but i don't like that word because it comes with outside factors that think of it as something that is lesser than or disability i don't see it that way i see it as a gift a gift that you think differently than everybody else not better not worse just different so going back to my childhood everything came rushing back as a student among students they saw testing as the only way to measure your smarts and your gifts i looked at testing as an unfair obstacle that did not properly measure my talents and my gifts but accepted them as a necessary component of my life that had to do twice as much work to be average at best other students saw the traditional schooling as only way to get you somewhere but when i questioned them where the place was they didn't know for me i knew i was going to go and i accepted that there was these things along the way that i needed to overcome that i needed to work harder and i needed to do better for me that's adapting always and forever these things aren't fearful these things aren't scary these are things that actually make you better that create character that make you do things that don't know what's going to do so i continue to do so and then now i stand on this red dot after countless testing exams multiple choice questions which i don't think anybody likes i got through those and now i'm an architect who has founded an architecture firm in three major cities in canada with a bunch of employees doing insanely amount of cool work every day all the time i'm here because of my dyslexic mindset not despite of it and i'm here because like the card game i recognize that others think very differently than i do and can achieve and accomplish things i can't but together it's the connection of the two without them with separated you cannot do it so now architecture it's been my passion it's what i am that's who i am i have the privilege of practicing architecture every day it has the ability to influence people's lives all the time and every day for me the way i look at architecture is like looking at verbs asking the basic questions what is it to be what is the eat what is the sleep and if you ask these questions properly and you listen you'll get amazing responses and those responses allows you the opportunity to design things through true character of the person in the place the character of the person could be a building it could be an office it could be a restaurant the result could be my meal is that much better because of the place my home could be that much safer because of the place my office could be much more high performing because of the place and it's an amazing thing to be on this journey of that place it all sounds pretty complex but a friend once told me the basic root of architecture can be grounded down the basic facts of just the b just be be creative be inspiring be innovative be high performer all these things are just about to be but it come down to how you define those things architecturally you have to ask listen and ask the right questions and if it's not verb based you will not get the result that you need in order to make sure that the place is about the character of the person and the place together the wind the sun the person you need all of it all of it needs to be respected thoughtfully and then you're in an amazing building so how about now since we're fast forwarding all these things of life we are in covet times and covet has disrupted the world it's also disrupted the architectural world i've been hearing of late it's time to think outside the box this is perfect because i've never been in the box i don't know what is in this box and i'm perfectly naturally happy being outside of it this is where i've been this is what i do so for me i look at these extremely difficult times with great optimism and opportunity to rethink and reshape everything to re-look at an office tower and maybe it's not just a place to work to relook a tech campus and maybe it's a little tiny town to relook at your home and understand that still be a place of comfort and work at the same time the real look at what used to be a strip mall is now your town center a place that you come to and talk to really look at it all so for an architect it's a strange time when you can be in this moment where it's the most exciting times of your career if you embrace change if you can embrace it being adaptable if you believe like i do that buildings need to respond to the new questions we need to ask the verb based questions again what is the work what is the eat what is the sleep where does it seek comfort was it to to heal to rest architecture must respond to those basic questions and i will guarantee you that the answer those questions now are very different than the answers two years ago and that's what's exciting as long as you're willing to keep adapting and keep changing and keep embracing what could be and ask yourself what if my friend his son if i had a chance to speak with him i would tell them you are given a gift a beautiful gift you think differently you see the world differently not better not worse but you have a gift you need to hone it you need to use it you need to do things with it that no one else can see if any time there's a time that the world needs more dyslexic mindset thinking is now because now is a time to reinvent it all to rethink about it all maybe just maybe we can make some real difference maybe we can look back and say that was okay that i need some adjustment and that was just wrong and it was just wrong all along and through the mindset that we can see it real things can happen but i do believe and it's it's the truth that we need to have the collective mindset thinking we can't do this on our own um those together is one powerful story and a powerful story that maybe started with but it's just something and a blip on my little radar that keeps going and like when i was a child there was a place i wanted to be and that place doesn't end i just keep continuing um and i'm looking forward to where it's all gonna go [Applause]