What do Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad, Sir Richard Branson, Billionaire investor Charles Schwab, Walt Disney, and Henry Ford have in common? All are or were successful entrepreneurs with dyslexia — a learning disorder that makes it very difficult to read, write, and spell. People with dyslexia have trouble connecting the letters they see to the sounds they make and as a result, often struggle in school.

But in the real world, they make great achievements. They’re behind some of the most successful companies on Earth.

Richard Branson is one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time. He created numerous businesses under the Virgin umbrella and has a net worth of $5 billion. Branson once admitted that Virgin which now employs 90,000 people would not have been successful had he not been dyslexic. Branson had a hard time keeping up with his peers because of his dyslexia and dropped out at the age of 16. Yet he transformed his weakness into an advantage. He understood the importance of communicating well. And his dyslexia also forced him to delegate tasks to those who excelled in the areas where he was weak.

Research has found people with dyslexia are more likely to delegate authority and also twice as likely to own two or more businesses. A study out of Cass Business School in London found more than a third of American entrepreneurs surveyed showed signs of dyslexia. Another commissioned by the BBC found 40% of that country’s self-made millionaires showed some signs of the learning disability. That’s significantly higher than the estimated 5% to 10% of the general population with some degree of dyslexia.

The question is: Are their entrepreneurial strengths a result of nature or nurture? A dyslexia expert believes they are naturally better at certain things, like picking up social cues. In an article in The Sacramento Bee about California governor Gavin Newsom who has dyslexia, Dr. Marilu Gorno-Tempini of UC San Francisco said, “He can understand what people need and their emotions more than others. I don’t think that’s a compensation. I think that’s the superpower of his dyslexic brain.” She and other scientists at UC San Francisco recently discovered children with the disorder had greater changes in heart rate and facial behavior when they viewed video clips of others experiencing emotions compared to children without dyslexia.

Eleanor Palser, one of the researchers who conducted the study, concluded to Newsthink, “This tells us that dyslexia might be associated with biological differences in empathy(移情)...”

If English means endless new words, difficult grammar and sometimes strange pronunciation, you are wrong. Haven’t you noticed that you have become smarter since you started to learn a language?

According to a new study by a British university, learning a second language can lead to an increase in your brain power. Researchers found that learning other languages changes grey matter. This is the area of the brain which processes information. It is similar to the way that exercise builds muscles.

The study also found the effect is greater when the younger people learn a second language.   A team led by Dr. Andrea Mechelli, from London University, took a group of Britain people who only spoke English. They were compared with a group of “early bilinguals” who had learnt a second language before the age of five, as well as a number of later learners.

Scans showed that grey matter density in the brain was greater in bilinguals than in people without a second language. But the longer a person waited before mastering a new language, the smaller the difference was.

“Our findings suggest that the structure of the brain is changed by the experience of learning a second language,” said the scientists. It means that the change itself increases the ability to learn.

Professor Dylan Vaughan Jones of the University of Wales has researched the link between bilingualism and math skill. “Having two languages gives you two windows on the world and makes the brain more flexible,” he said. “You are actually going beyond language and have a better understanding of different ideas.”

The findings were matched in a study of native Italian speakers who had learned English as a second language between the ages of 2 and 34. Reading, writing and comprehension were all tested. The results showed that the younger they started to learn, the better. “Studying a language means you get an entrance to another world,” explained the scientists.

A recent story in the Wall Street Journal newspaper looked at students who went to celebrated universities such as Columbia and New York University, for advanced degrees in subjects like art, film and even social work. Many of the students said they learned a lot. However, when they graduated, they were deep in debt and did not think they would find work that would let them pay back their loans.

Students said they spoke with Columbia about the high cost of advanced arts degrees but never received a reasonable answer. Education experts say the school is very wealthy, with large funds. The University, however, prefers to ask the students to pay the full cost.

Kevin Carey is a higher education expert for New America, a public policy research center. He called master’s degrees “a scam” in a conversation. “Charging people a ton of money to go into any artistic career is often super problematic,” he said.

Castillo is an actor in New York City. He earned an MFA from The Actors Studio in New York City. Was his MFA worth the cost? “I do think it was worth it. I don’t put a price tag on my education or my experience. I think it’s sort of unfortunate that so many people take education for granted.” Castillo said students who are thinking about an advanced degree in art should be sure they are doing it because they value the education, not because they want money or to be famous.

Plazinska is a filmmaker in New York City. She attended graduate school both at Baylor University in Texas and at the University of low a. Arts graduate programs can help students meet and make friends with fellow artists with whom they can work throughout their careers. For school to be of value, students need to remember why they started making art in the beginning. “It’s just for the pure pleasure of creating and fulfilling myself this way.”