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How to manage your struggles like Charles Schwab

Last Updated:

March 17, 2025

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Welcome to Edition #96 of Gorick's newsletter, where Harvard career advisor and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Gorick Ng shares what they don't teach you in school about how to succeed in your career.

→ Read time: 6 min

STORY

How to manage your struggles to focus on your strengths like Charles Schwab

If you have a retirement or pension account in the U.S. or the U.K., you’ve probably heard of Charles Schwab. It’s the 13th-largest financial institution in the U.S.

But did you know that Charles Schwab—the company’s founder—has dyslexia (a “language-related learning disability” that makes reading and writing “unusually difficult”)?

Schwab grew up attending Catholic school in the 1950s—and felt humiliated every day by the nuns who “just thought he was slow” and the language classes that felt “like medieval torture.”

Having dyslexia is hard enough. Having undiagnosed and unassisted dyslexia back when “they didn't have a name for it” made life even harder.

*Charles Schwab was part of the Santa Barbara High School Golf Team in 1952.*

Whereas many kids who struggle with dyslexia simply dropped out of school (which is still unfortunately true to this day!), Schwab took a different path: He uncovered his superpower (math) and managed his struggles (reading and writing).

First, he doubled down on his strengths in math, science, and sports (so much so that the Stanford University admissions office overlooked his low reading and writing scores)—and walked away with a BA and MBA.

Second, once he arrived on campus and realized that his dyslexia never left him, he took action. In his own words, “To sit down with a blank piece of paper and write was the most traumatic thing that had ever faced me in life.” In response, he asked for class notes from his roommates and redirected his energy towards “quantitative and technical subjects” like economics.

And third, by the time he launched Charles Schwab & Co (ironically a finance newsletter business at first) in San Francisco in 1971, he stopped writing—and instead used his computer’s dictation feature.

Before long, Schwab once again redirected his energy towards what he was good at: “imagining things much faster than some other people” which “helped [him] in solving complicated business problems.”

4 years later, after founding his startup, Schwab spotted an opportunity. It was 1975 and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had just deregulated brokerage fees for stock trading, which led to financial institutions creating sky-high commissions that kept individual investors from participating in the stock market.

Seeing an opportunity to make stock investing accessible to the masses, Schwab transformed his newsletter business into a brokerage firm that offered low-cost trades and direct access to the financial markets.

In 1981, 10 years after he first launched the company, the annual revenue of Schwab’s discount brokerage model reached $42 million.

In 1996, another 15 years later, the Internet era arrived. Knowing that “if you’re on time, you’re late”, Charles Schwab used his superpower, saw the opportunity before anyone else, and launched one of the earliest and largest online trading platforms.

Today, Charles Schwab & Co. is one of the largest brokerage firms in the world with $10.28 trillion USD under management.

Charles Schwab has been credited with “democratizing” investments.

Beyond his mission of making the financial markets accessible, Schwab has another mission: Helping children who struggle with dyslexia as he—and his son—did by donating millions toward dyslexia research and education through the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation and the Schwab Learning Center at Children’s Health Council.

What does this mean for you?

The next time you put money towards your retirement account or make a stock trade, remember that the brokerage industry may not exist in its current form had a dyslexic kid not found his superpower.

UNSPOKEN RULE

Harness your superpower

As we’ve discussed before, career success comes down to a single formula: Skill x Drive x Luck.

No doubt Schwab had the luck of being alive and in the financial industry just as the regulatory environment was shifting.

And no doubt Schwab had the drive to not just stay in school, but to build something big.

But what separated Schwab from other lucky and driven people was the ability to manage his struggles and to harness his superpower.

Schwab…

Knew that his strengths weren’t in reading and writing—as important as they were—so found people and tools to help him do at least a good enough job to stay in the game.
Knew that his strengths were in analyzing the present and predicting the future—so redirected his energy towards what gave him an edge.

Like Schwab, you may face challenges that feel out of your own control. Some can be worked around, while others may be opportunities for you to learn and improve. Either way, your stumbles don’t have to define you. You just have to manage them.

The next time you find yourself struggling with a task or skill in school or work, ask yourself: Do I struggle with this skill / task...

a) Because I don't understand it yet, but I can with practice?

If so, consider improving by researching (and asking others to teach you) the right technique—and then spending your time practicing, getting feedback, and getting better. (Need this for the workplace? Check out Fast Lane to Leadership, my course.)

b) Because I don't understand it as quickly as others because of a structural barrier (e.g., dyslexia)?

If so, consider adapting by finding tools to help you get more done, faster. (SpeechCentral.net, for example, reads articles out loud for you while whisprflow.ai helps you dictate for 3x faster writing.)

c) Because I’m not interested in it and don't feel motivated to improve?

If so, consider sidestepping by asking yourself: “Is this skill critical to the career I want?” If you answered yes, then think long and hard about whether you’d actually be happy and fulfilled in this career long-term. If you answered no, then find a way to delegate, automate, or otherwise sidestep the work.

Sometimes there will be goals that are simply out of reach, like if you’re as short as I am but want to play in the NBA.

Other times, your goals are, in fact, within reach. You might just need more time (just ask Denis Villeneuve who took an 8-year career break to get better at writing screenplays).

Improve, adapt, or sidestep!

Gorick

What’s an “unspoken rule”? They’re the things that separate those who get ahead from those who stumble—and don’t know why. You can learn more about these rules in the workplace in my Wall Street Journal bestselling book called—you guessed it—The Unspoken Rules.

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