Allen Weinstein Interview Published on: 17, Mar 2017

I grew up in Long Beach, NY a small beach area on the south shore of Long Island. Small was good in that everyone knew each other, it was also bad – because everyone knew each other and their problems. Needless to say, I stood out. I am 81 years old, I am dyslexic, and have a serious learning disability. Back in the 40’s and 50’s no one knew about these disabilities. Consequently I stood out since I could not read until I was thirteen years old and I had a hard time absorbing things. The teachers told my mother and I, that something was wrong with my brain and will most certainly have serious problems achieving in life. This reputation followed me through my youth. I wasn’t very pleased but I never allowed the opinions of others to penetrate and always believed I will be a success. Through years of struggling experiencing many setbacks, roadblocks and a barrage of negativity I fooled the naysayers. I taught myself alternative ways of learning and today at 81 years old I hold a degree from the University of Kansas and retired from one of the most successful real estate companies on Long Island, a company I built from nothing having no money to back me. How I accomplished all my success, learned how to deal with my handy caps, and became one of the most successful graduates from a high school that predicted doom and gloom is explained in my book “Memoirs Of A Learning Disabled Dyslexic Multi-Millionaire”

Writing is one of my many passions. It gives me the opportunity to express my inner feelings, my struggles and most important help other people with handicaps. I try to instill into people that your handicap is not who you are it’s only what you have, and what you have can always be dealt with.

I have been writing for about 10 years, however it wasn’t until recently that I have been sharing my work with the outside world. What inspired me to write “Memoirs of a Learning Disabled Dyslexic Multi-Millionaire” were my two daughters. After they were diagnosed with Dyslexia and Learning Disabilities I taught them how to adopt, deal with, and become successful in spite of their handicaps. With their success they insisted I had a message that must be shared with others in need.

The idea behind this book is to instill in all people that whatever their situation is, that “handicaps are not synonymous with failure”.

I don’t know about other authors and where they get their inspirations from. In my case however I don’t really think of myself as an author. I write about my own experiences and what I had to do to achieve, and I hope others can benefit from reading about my accomplishments and realize they too can follow in my footsteps.

The stories I tell are chosen from my own life experiences. It is not a case of having to choose a particular subject because eventually I will be sharing all my experiences with my readers and listeners so it just depends which ones I feel like writing about at the time.

Since I am only documenting my experiences in life and dealing with reality, writers block is never a problem. I would imagine writers block would be more prevalent with authors who write fiction and are faced with using their imaginations to please their readers.

I write to those readers who are suffering from any overdose of negativity fed to them by others who put limits on their abilities to succeed and unfortunately have allowed the negativity to penetrate their subconscious mind. I try to teach them that like a computer, which is fed info from humans, so to is their brain fed negativity by humans. If we don’t like what the computer is putting out we change the input, which will change the output. Same for the brain, if we don’t like what was or is being fed to us, reprogram the brain. In my book I teach how I did that and how you too can achieve the same.

Besides my two daughters, a high school friend of mine. There was this one high school reunion and I caught up with a schoolmate who I hadn’t seen in 49 years. He heard of my enormous success (as I said Long Beach is a small town and news travels even today) and he was very moved and shocked. He was amongst the top students in school and was presently an English professor at Stony Brook University on Long Island. At that point I asked if he would do me a favor and read what I wrote. He did and was so impressed that he asked me to speak to his students, which I did and that’s what started me off on this journey

I get reviews from friends, from facebook, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and on my website allenweinstein.com. The best review was from my high school friend since he had no axe to grind and was a professor teaching English and creative writing at a prestigious college.

I think that authors are people who are unusually blessed with the abilities to be diversified. However, there are those authors who are specific to source and in those situations should stay within their genre. On the other hand writing is a passion and as such I truly believe any author has the right to express their feelings in any genre they feel to.

I am working on getting my message to as many people as possible. I mentor many young people; I speak at different functions, do interviews on radio and podcasts. If one was to visit my website allenweinstein.com they could listen to my radio shows which I hosted on WOR radio (a large radio station here in the northeast). My mission in life is to give back to others all that I received from the universe.

I am still old school and I write by hand not computer. I enjoy sitting on a beach, which is probably my favorite place to write. However, I have other areas in my home surrounded by all my artwork which makes me feel very comfortable being surrounded by my creations.

I promote my book through my website allenweinstein.com, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter , soundcloud and youtube. It can be purchased on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iTunes, and my website. QuotesRain has been great at helping me promote my book via their social networks and their excellent website. I really don’t have any author friends, but I would definitely recommend QuotesRain to all authors in general.

I would like to share my experiences and my accomplishments with my readers, fans, and anyone else needing help in changing their insecurities. My main goal is to convince others that no matter what your situation is you can always better yourself. Nothing is easy, and change is difficult. However, one must decide which is more difficult; live with your situation and be lost in life, or change your situation and be a success in life.