"Hi there, loved your last post but thought I'd give you a heads up there's a spelling mistake in it. Best"

When that DM landed, my first reaction was mild embarrassment. A small spelling mistake. Fixed in seconds. No big deal.

And yet… the feeling it triggered was much bigger than the mistake itself.

It took me straight back to my 10-year-old dyslexic self in classrooms where my hand would hover over the paper, trying to hide the spelling I wasn’t sure of.
To red pen marks on essays that otherwise shone.
To the mental gymnastics of avoiding certain words entirely because I couldn’t be sure how to spell them.

Back then, spelling wasn’t just a technical skill.
It was a marker, to some teachers, classmates, my parents, even to me, of whether you were “smart” or “capable.”

I knew I was capable. But the narrative in the room didn’t always match that.

Over time, technology took the edge off. Spellcheck became my silent ally. I built a career where ideas, strategy, tenacity, and leadership mattered more than flawless orthography.
My dyslexia receded into the background, something I “had” but didn’t really think about.

Until this week.

One tiny, well-meaning message and the old story surfaced. Not in a crushing way, but enough to remind me: some experiences leave deep echoes.
You don’t hear them every day, but they reverberate beneath the surface, ready to be stirred by the right note.

And that’s not always a bad thing.

Because in my work with founders and leaders, I see these echoes all the time.
They show up in the way someone struggles to delegate because early praise came from “doing it all themselves.”
Or in a leader who avoids confrontation because childhood conflict was always explosive.
Or in the perfectionist who can’t launch until it’s flawless because mistakes once came with shame, not learning.

These echoes shape how we respond under pressure, how we relate to others, and how we see ourselves. They can be quiet drivers of both our strengths and our blind spots.

The work isn’t about erasing the echoes.  You can’t. It’s about recognising them. Asking:

·       Is this echo helping me, or holding me back?

·       Is it still true, or just still loud?

·       What new sound do I want to send into the world?

So here’s my question for you:
What’s an early experience that still echoes in the way you lead, decide, or show up today even if you don’t notice it most days?