# 15: Gil — Dyslexia, Creativity, Design Thinking
You’re "sitting inside the jar," but you can’t read the label. Well, Gil sees the label — and then some.
Meet the secret agents of taste. Learn what lights them up, where they find inspiration, and what they think we should all be enjoying right now. This edition: Gil Gershoni, Co-founder and Creative Director of Gershoni Creative Agency.
Talking to Gil Gershoni, I can see how voraciously he absorbs, processes, and turns sensory input from his environment into creative output. It’s like what I imagine talking to Rick Rubin would be like. I found myself feeling more creative just from our conversation alone.
Gil is the co-founder and Creative Director of an agency with impressive clients — they helped to make Patrón a household name and work closely with Spotify, among others — but what I really admire about him is how he’s turned his dyslexia into a superpower. Gil is working hard to change the narrative around learning differences.
In this interview, you’ll see how Gil’s gifts come from refusing to let labels define him, embracing play and failure, and continually cultivating a beginner’s mindset.
Do you see yourself as it's a tastemaker?
Indirectly. I'm not driven by creating taste. I'm interested in exploring and playing and driving through positivity. Obviously, my whole career is around culture, branding, and tastemaking, but it's never been the point. It's almost a byproduct of everything we do and how we do it. If you are passionate and obsessive about anything, it's more about the obsession that gets me out of bed. I get inspired by people making things with beauty and honesty, with attention to quality, detail, and craftsmanship, and understanding the stories behind their actions.
What gets you out of bed?
That part of the creative process that’s inspiration — it’s not a destination, it's a practice. It's learning how to create room for new things to manifest. I spend a lot of time on mindfulness, meditation, and being right here right now. And then playing. Always play because when we tighten up, there's not a lot of room for innovation. We're fighting the flow and losing opportunities because we're so fixated on the outcome and we might not be seeing what’s right in front of us.
Can we dig into your practice of carving space for innovation?
It comes from my dyslexia background, but I look for empathy first. I spend a lot of time listening and asking questions and following threads. I might be at a restaurant bar and I’ll start talking to a 70-year-old man who starts to cry because he just lost his wife…at the end, he's so grateful that he was able to open up with me. I was just a vehicle for him to feel the truth.
I cultivate a beginner's mind. Because I don't think linearly, I always play. Sometimes my team is under deadline and everybody's so stressed. We stop and goof off for a minute. And then everybody's more relaxed. We solve it in half the time. A lot of the things I do with my clients, I have to practice myself.
I ask: “Where am I in my own way, and why?”
As a dyslexic thinker, I visualize a lot. I look for things that are not logically related but I find the connections. What is the cause and effect? How do we turn our weaknesses into our strengths? Points exactly to the block. As soon as you embrace it, you remove the charge, and you're able to transform it.
You've talked a lot about how dyslexia has impacted your thought process, but how has it impacted your taste?
Dyslexia gives me this heightened ability to have multi-dimensional awareness. The nonlinear visualization helps me find relationships between non-related things, energies, and the threads that connect them.
Also, I don't forget. If I see something, I can remember that moment. I can remember not just the way the sun hit the water, but how it made me feel. I can collect these moments: the way a guy in NYC was so carefree and everything was clashing as he catwalked on the streets. There was graffiti, and it was dirty, but the contrast of high fabric and fashion and his confidence I can remember to a T. Now, over 30 years into my career, I can almost emulate that somewhere else. When shooting a product or creating a campaign, I say, “How do I create that clash of cultures and bring that honest, whimsical light and human story to it?”
Often the individual is sitting on the answer but it's so close that they can’t see it. You’re sitting inside the jar, but you can’t read the label. I can see them, I can see what's inside, and I can see how the label does not match.
It seems like your brain is continually firing. How do you capture and catalog these ideas?
One is to really embrace failure. Having learning differences at a young age, I was only recognized for what I couldn't do. I was labeled lazy and stupid. So I started to embrace failure because I realized that the only failure is not to try. As soon as there's something new, I'm the first to adopt it. And as soon as I learn something, my first rule is to share it with somebody else. It's a way for me to embody the lesson and create a dialogue about where else it can go.
I make tons of lists. I do a lot of visualization, mood boards, and collaborative tools. I listen to a ton of content, even white papers.
I'm the first to say “I don't know.” We talk a lot at work about being coachable. If you're gonna resist coaching, you better explain it with clarity; otherwise, adapt and embrace change —the only thing that's constant.
OK, now let’s get to your picks! What would you recommend people consume to better understand dyslexia? What else lights you up?
📚 “The Bigger Picture Book of Amazing Dyslexics and the Jobs They Do”
It's a beautiful visual book of successful dyslexics in all different careers in life. Perusing these pages you'll see there's absolutely nothing dyslexic minds can't achieve, and we all do it with a smile on our face. It's a very inspiring book put together by my two brilliant friends from the UK, Kate Power and Kathy Forsyth, and I'm very grateful to be in such great company.
🎧 Fresh Finds and Pollen Spotify playlists
I love to use our dear client Spotify to help me find new songs that expand my taste in music. I'm always open to different sounds, artists, and genres, so this constant rotation of great new music keeps me inspired and aware of recent trends.
🚶🏻 Go for a walk
It's an incredible way to make connections in your brain and stimulate creativity. We started incentivizing that at Gershoni during quarantine as part of our project Creative Interventions and everyone on the team began to notice their surroundings with a new fresh approach, thanks to a sense of play.
🕺🏾 Paul Smith
Our fellow dyslexic is a great inspiration and always open to experimentation, which I can always relate to.
If you’d like to connect with Gil and dive into his work on changing the narrative around dyslexia, check out these links:
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More Mia’s Queue: Alison • Alexis • Storey • Meg • Sadia • Kel • Tracy • Theresa • Vasha • Eva • Sarah • James • Adi • Letitia
In case you haven’t noticed, I love people with good taste! In fact, I have a podcast about it for Flipboard. Season 4 includes conversations with The New Yorker’s
(author of “Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture”), photography curator Andy Adams of , and ’s own . Check it out!
We have dyslexia in our family and I have long appreciated Gil’s openness about his experiences and perspectives. You peel back yet another layer here, Mia (as always). ❤️ to you both!
Thanks for the shout, Mia!✌️📸