The Performance Never ends
An average working day in the life of a neurospicy business owner (specifically THIS neurospicy business owner!)
10am – I’ve got an online client meeting, which is always a bit of a struggle as I find meetings much easier in person. Without really thinking about it, ‘Client Meeting Hannah’ (CMH) has entered the virtual building.
She’s warm, interested, confident and hopefully making the ‘right amount’ (AKA ‘normal’ amount) of eye contact. Too much and she risks looking overly intense/creepy. Not enough and she looks disengaged. Ironically, my best engaged self is when I am not making any eye contact. That’s when my ears and brain concentrate best.
CMH knows what she’s talking about, but she’s also keeping half an eye on whether she’s talking too much about what she knows. There is, apparently, a very fine line between demonstrating expertise and accidentally delivering an unsolicited TED Talk.
The meeting goes well, but CMH feels wrung out like a sponge and needs to regroup her headspace before the next thing on the workday list. A cup of tea and CMH is ‘back in the room’, ready to make a phone call that she has been putting off. This requires a slightly different version of me, so in comes ‘Phone Hannah’ (PH).
PH likes to know what she’s going to say before she says it, ideally with several possible conversational routes planned in advance. This works beautifully until the other person completely ignores the script that PH has thoughtfully prepared for both of us and asks an unexpected question. Frankly, PH thinks that’s quite rude, as it throws her off her game and invites ‘Tangent Hannah’ (TH) into the mix.
We’ve met TH before, so no need for more intros. But needless to say, TH has inspired comments such as ‘let’s wrap this up’ and ‘I’ve got to jump’ from fellow workday interactors. So we try to keep TH in her box during a workday.
Then perhaps there’s networking, a presentation or a podcast recording. I don’t consciously decide to switch between these modes, and until I understood more about my neurodivergence, I didn’t even realise how much switching I was doing. I just thought this was what everyone did when they went to work.
And to an extent, it is. We all behave differently depending on who we’re with and what we’re doing. I don’t talk to a new client in exactly the same way I talk to my husband on the sofa, and I suspect the client is extremely grateful for that. But I’ve started to realise there’s a difference between adapting naturally to a situation and spending an enormous amount of energy monitoring yourself within it.
Because none of these versions of me are fake. They’re all me. But when you’re constantly checking which version of yourself the room requires, being “professional” can start to feel surprisingly like performing. And some days, it feels as though the performance never ends.
I didn’t even know I was doing it
One of the strangest things about discovering I was neurodivergent later in life was realising how many things I’d been doing for decades without knowing why. I didn’t walk into meetings consciously thinking, Right, time to mask my autism, and yet I was aware that I had different ‘modes’ for different situations. I just assumed everyone was switching.
I’d spent years watching and learning what made interactions go more smoothly and implementing that into my own life. Sometimes that involved mimicking what others did, and other times it was a case of getting it wrong the first time around, licking my wounds and trying again.
I still have an inner monologue reminding me to:
Think what you’re going to say
Try not to interrupt
Don’t talk for too long
Look the ‘right’ amount of interested
Look relaxed, but not too much
Try not to look like you’re concentrating quite so hard on looking relaxed.
Can you imagine a world where you have to think about all this stuff, to this degree? To be fair, if you are reading this then it is more than likely your reality too.
Phone calls are a particularly good example. I’ve always liked knowing roughly what I’m going to say before I make one, and it’s pretty common for me to rehearse the conversation in my head first. Not just my part, obviously, as that would be amateur level. I prepare the other person’s responses too, which makes it particularly irritating when they decide to improvise.
Spoiler: They NEVER say what I had planned for them!
For years, I didn’t think any of this was unusual. I assumed everybody was doing roughly the same amount of preparation and monitoring underneath the surface, and perhaps some people are. The difference was that I couldn’t see what was happening inside anybody else’s head. I could only see how effortless they made it look. So, I learnt to make it look effortless too.
That’s the difficult thing about masking. It doesn’t always feel like putting on a disguise. Sometimes it’s simply a collection of tiny adjustments you’ve made over such a long period of time that you stop noticing you’re making them.
Professional Hannah has entered the building
Business gives us an impressive (AKA overwhelming!) number of opportunities to practise this. There are client meetings, sales conversations, networking events, presentations, phone calls and those unexpected encounters where somebody asks what you do for a living and you suddenly forget every job you’ve ever had.
Networking Hannah (NH) needs to be sociable and interested without trapping somebody beside the coffees for forty-five minutes. Presentation Hannah (PH) needs to sound confident even if part of her brain is wondering whether everyone can see that she’s forgotten how arms work. Sales Hannah (SH) needs to talk about what she does without either massively underselling herself or sounding like she’s about to launch a twelve-week mastermind from a Lamborghini. Then there’s Unexpected Phone Call Hannah (UPCH), who has been given absolutely no rehearsal time whatsoever and more often than not just doesn’t answer the phone.
Being able to adapt to different people and situations is useful, particularly when you’ve spent much of your career working with clients. I’m very good at reading people, understanding what they need and changing the way I communicate accordingly. The problem comes when adapting stops being something you’re doing alongside the interaction and starts becoming another entire layer of work underneath it. Because it’s so blooming exhausting!
Imagine the cognitive load of listening to what somebody is saying whilst running some sort of quality control program in the background. Scanning the conversation, monitoring whether the talking has morphed into a rabid squirrel and suddenly becoming acutely aware of where your hands are. And now I’m thinking about where my hands are, I have absolutely no idea what the person just said.
It’s essentially a second job called Managing How Everybody Experiences Me (MHEEM), and annoyingly the overtime is self-funded!
The meeting ends. The performance doesn’t
The really exhausting bit, though, isn’t necessarily what happens while you’re in the room. A meeting might only be an hour long, but the mental work surrounding it can take up considerably more space than the innocent little square in your calendar would suggest.
There can be preparation beforehand, particularly if it’s somebody I haven’t met before or the meeting feels important. I’ll think about what I need to say, what they might ask and how the conversation might go. Sometimes that’s just sensible preparation. Sometimes I’ve mentally attended the meeting three times before the other person has even joined Zoom.
Then there’s the meeting itself, with all the listening, processing, responding and monitoring going on at once. And when it’s finally finished, you’d think my brain might congratulate itself on a job well done and move on with its day. Absolutely not.
Now we begin the post-match analysis. Back to the ‘talking too much’ paranoia. Did I explain that properly? Why did they make that face when I said that thing? Should I have asked another question? Did I promise to send them something? And what exactly did that slightly raised eyebrow at 10.43am mean? Meanwhile, the owner of the eyebrow has probably forgotten the entire interaction and is standing in their kitchen deciding what to have for lunch.
This is the bit I understand much better now. The performance doesn’t necessarily finish when the meeting does. Sometimes you’re still mentally standing on the stage hours later, checking the reviews.
No wonder I came home exhausted
Before I understood any of this, there were plenty of days when I’d get to the end of a working day completely wiped out and wonder what on earth was wrong with me. I’d look back at what I’d done and think, But I haven’t even done that much. A couple of meetings. Some phone calls. Maybe a networking event or presentation. Hardly an expedition up Everest.
What I couldn’t see was all the invisible work happening alongside those things. Understanding that has changed the way I treat myself enormously. These days, if I’ve had a day full of people and my brain has decided it’s finished by 4pm, I’m much less likely to start lecturing myself about resilience, productivity or why I should be able to squeeze another couple of hours out of it. I have a much better understanding of what I’ve been asking it to do.
In fact, it’s fairer to say that these days I try not to have a day full of people or back-to-back work commitments in the first place. I know that doesn’t make for the best use of my brain. It needs room to breathe and decompress, and I know that goes against everything we are taught in the ‘be consistent’ work mantra. But when I work with my brain rather than setting it up for failure, life is much nicer, and my work is both more enjoyable and more productive.
And there’s another thing I’ve had to learn: enjoying something doesn’t mean it isn’t tiring. I love recording the podcast. I enjoy good client meetings. I can have a brilliant time at an event and genuinely love talking to the people there, then come home and want nobody to speak to me for several hours. Both things can be true.
For a long time, I think I assumed exhaustion meant something had gone badly. Now I understand that sometimes it simply means something took a lot of energy.
But which bit is actually me?
Discovering I’d been masking for years made me seriously question myself. If I’d spent so much of my life adjusting myself depending on the people around me, then which version is actually me? The ‘real’ Hannah. And I don’t think there is a definitive answer to that. In fact, I am increasingly suspicious of anyone who claims there is.
Because I don’t believe that there is a real Hannah hidden underneath all of these other versions, peeling away the layers like an emotionally complicated pass-the-parcel and stepping into the light in a ‘dada!’ moment.
Client Meeting Hannah is me. Podcast Hannah is me. Networking Hannah is me. The version of me sitting at home in comfy clothes who would strongly prefer not to answer the phone is also very much me.
We all have different sides to ourselves, and behaving differently in different situations doesn’t automatically mean we’re pretending. I don’t need to speak to a client exactly as I speak to my closest friends in order to prove I’m authentic. There are some conversations that would probably become considerably more interesting if I did, but I’m not sure it would be a sound business strategy.
So I’ve stopped worrying quite so much about which version is the “real” one. I’m more interested in noticing where I have to edit myself the least. Who are the people I don’t rehearse around? Which environments allow me to say I don’t understand something without worrying how it’ll be received? Where can I admit that I need time to think, move around if I need to, or get ridiculously enthusiastic about something without simultaneously monitoring whether I’m being Too Much?
Those are much more useful questions for me than trying to uncover one definitive authentic self.
I’m not about to start turning up to client meetings in my pyjamas
There’s a version of this conversation about unmasking that can make it sound as though the ultimate goal is to stop adapting altogether. Just say whatever you’re thinking! Reject all social expectations! Be completely yourself at all times! But I’m not sure that’s either realistic or particularly desirable.
Understanding masking hasn’t made me want to abandon professionalism, and I’m not about to start turning up to client meetings in my pyjamas in the name of authenticity. Although I work from home, so statistically speaking there’s a reasonable chance I’ve already attended meetings wearing something questionable below the camera line. What happens off Zoom stays off Zoom.
What has changed is that I’m much more interested in noticing where I’m performing unnecessarily. Do I really need to go to networking events that leave me wiped out when I build much better relationships one-to-one? Does that conversation genuinely need to be a phone call, or could we deal with it perfectly well over email? Do I need to produce an immediate answer, or can I just say, “I need to think about that and come back to you”?
I’ve also started questioning whether some of the things I spent years trying to edit out of myself were ever unprofessional in the first place. Being enthusiastic isn’t unprofessional. Needing time to process something isn’t unprofessional. Communicating clearly about what you need isn’t unprofessional. Neither is working in a way that allows you to do your best work rather than one that looks the way you’ve been taught work is supposed to look.
I still adapt. Of course I do. The difference is that these days I have much more choice about when that adaptation is useful and when I’m only doing it because I’ve spent most of my life believing that’s the price of fitting in.
When the curtain falls
I’ve grown rather fond of all these different versions of me. They’re not characters I’ve invented; they’re different parts of me that help me navigate different situations. And a few probably deserve a BAFTA for services to getting through networking breakfasts while appearing completely comfortable with the concept of making small talk over rubbish coffee and a pastry.
I don’t think the answer to years of masking is another set of rules about how we’re supposed to unmask correctly. That feels suspiciously like replacing one performance with another, and I think we’ve all got enough to be getting on with.
For me, it’s much simpler than that. It’s having more places, more people and more parts of my working life where I don’t have to think quite so hard about how I’m being perceived. Where I can use the energy I once spent managing everybody’s experience of me on actually experiencing my own life.
Perhaps the goal isn’t to work out who you are when the mask comes off. It’s to build a life where you don’t have to wear it quite so often.
Executive Dysfunction – a User’s Guide
The words in this article are only here because of the various work/life processes I have created and share throughout this blog. For me writing is a process, and one that is the culmination of years of being unable to sit and focus and get started.
As I explore the topic of Executive Dysfunction I will share my lived experience and some of my process, coping strategies and personal “hacks” that help me run my business and my life.
As all the best storytellers say “Let’s start at the beginning… it’s a very good place to start”
1) Task Initiation
AKA “Why can’t I just start?” – well, where do I begin? Oh yes, the beginning, silly me, just written that above. Right!
Now, I need to just pop to make a cuppa, brb.
20 mins later… three quick tasks in the house and a phone call.
I’m back. Still here?
Good, right, ok, getting started is always hard…
…moment…
An email just popped in that I am waiting for. (Dammit Stuart – remember to switch off notifications before writing, what a muppet! Yes but I cannot ignore the email now I know that it is there and now it’s the loudest thing in my head. GRRRR.).
Right, had a quick look, yeah that’s not the email I was expecting, this one is a very toxic email and it is definitely going to have to take a ticket and wait, it’s all very black and sticky, and needs the smoke to settle before I can get to it.
Right. OK.
Getting started, this can be a big problem for some NDs, not me, I have it down, mostly… and by “mostly” I mean “on a good day I can squeak through, some days it’s a shit-show”.
Today it is looking farty with a chance of smells.
The problems start when you are trying to choose which of the myriad tasks, demands, and obligations of running a business you do first. Even when you pick the mega urgent stuff like disarming the bomb with the shortest fuse, or sorting the pole with the wobbliest plate, your brain can refuse to even engage with starting a task. Like pressing identical poles of a magnet together, your brain just sort of goes NOOOOOO… anytime you get near thinking about the task, imagine a cat resisting a cuddle, or a toddler being put in a car seat, NOPE, not happening.
Even if the alarm bells are ringing and all sensibilities are suggesting that maybe creating a comedy poster, designing a new treasure hunt, or researching battery technology is not a priority right now, you plough on. It’ll all be all right.Probably.
Your inner Autist is staring at the deadline, and then at their watch, back and forth, telling the ADHD toddler currently having a fun time at the park, that it’s “time to leave the park and go do some homework”. TODDLER SAYS “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”. Cue, rolling, thrashing, wailing…
It’s not just discipline, lord knows I had enough applications of that in my life, from the adults who physically assaulted me to correct my behaviour, to very strict trainers, bosses and senior colleagues who would “encourage” you to move quicker. Not to mention the shame and guilt dolled out at will for poor impulse control and executive dysfunction.
It’s not laziness, because when my hyperfocus kicks in I can go at a task until I am physically incapable of continuing. It’s usually the call of the bladder, or the ache in my muscles and energy depletion that stops me. Tenacity is what I call it, but stubbornness is the other side of that coin and I can be as stubborn about starting a task as I am about stopping.
Therefore I have routines, easy and simple things that slip me into “work mode”; writing is one, focusing on a train of thought helps me to quell “The riot of the possible“, and close the door on the mob of clamoring voices raging at the gates, demanding my attention. For me it is a meditation for the mind, to document and offer self reflection, in some ways I use it to heal, it’s quite soothing. Plus most of my writing is from lived experience and it’s good to get it out and hopefully benefit others from whatever speck of insight it may contain.
So… you’re here for solutions, right?
This is a tricky one, what works for me may not work for you, but certainly routines help, from the moment I get up, to the point I sit at my desk, I try to keep the same routine, it is settling, comforting, and consistent. If you have a brain that is like a bucking bronco when you try to mount it, then a soothing, calming and simple routine to get sat in the saddle is my suggestion.
2) Working Memory Gaps
Once I am locked in on a task, and it is flowing, it’s like gravity takes over and it rolls along. That’s until it hits the VALLEY OF THE UnKnOwN (said in a mysterious ‘Tales of the Unexpected’ narrator voice)…
What is the VOTU that you do so well? Good question, glad you asked, nice pun. Erm. Now you see, you interrupted the thought process, and I forget where that was going. And here we are deep in the Valley, wandering around with a flashlight looking for the path out, up and away. Hello? Anyone up there? Hellloooo. HELLLOOOO?
It can be an external distraction, a noise, or notification, or, as happens most often for me, one thought splits my attention in two and suddenly I have two thoughts competing for my focus. Just that alone can derail any kind of viewing, listening or conversation.
The thought that jumps up and starts waving at you, this could be the solution to a customer issue, remembering that I forgot to put the bins out, or any one of a bazillion unfinished things, or new things, or old ruminations or new special interests. These thoughts stroll confidently into the room and ask in a loud authoritative voice “ANYONE HERE OWN A BIG BLACK ESTATE CAR REGISTRATION GOD 999?” and my metaphorical mental mourners turn around with WTAF/Pikachu Surprised Looks on their faces.
You can be midway through a very complicated set of instructions, and your brain randomly picks on a word someone says, like “Mode”. Perfectly innocent word, that your brain picks up like some shiny rock and starts to ruminate on it. “Mode, model, modal, mo-dal, mo-del, moddal, oddly moddly mode, such an odd word, say moody modal ten times out loud” and you’ve said it five times loudly before you think, hang on, what was I doing? And that’s why I can’t use the library anymore. You’re on the bucking bronco before you realise you’re wearing chaps, stetson and the wild pony ride has begun.
It’s all so exhausting, the whipsnap of context shifting can be bad at the best of times, when you do it to yourself, you really have to snap out of it, and marshall your thinking. It’s like part of the recording just drops out and it’s nothing but static, of course “static” for my brain is every single commercial with a puppet for the past ten years playing all at once (other personal inner hellscapes are available, ask your local brain).
So, what do I do? Well, “remove distractions, of course, like DUH!?” is the usual guidance. No, really? Never thought of that, feckin’ genius, give that person the POTUS “Really Brains Good” medal.
To anyone who’s ever been told to calm down, or just focus, ask the recently slapped person standing before you, “How do you remove your brain when it is distracting itself JONATHON? HMMMM??” then stare at them in thunderous silence, arms crossed.
I use a sprint-rest-sprint-rest method on busy days but in the wider context, I cannot go from big project to big project, I have to recover from something which requires in-depth and deep work over a sustained period. I can do it, but I better spend enough time recovering. I do not think it arrogant to state, when you’re good, people wait and respect your boundaries.
But lunch at 12pm is sacrosanct, and my 4pm cuppa and “something nice” can be used like a carrot to keep me on target through the afternoon (mmmmm. GF carrot cake). Plus batching tasks and setting my mission at the start of the day helps keep things on track. Today is a writing day, if I go “off piste” that’s OK. I know that I SHOULD be writing, and as soon as the distraction has passed, I can fall back to the main theme of the day, writing.
Does it ALWAYS work? No, but like I said having routines and a system of tools to use when the need arises can be a gamechanger. One of the biggest gamechangers I developed was naming, saving and cataloguing my computer files. Yeah, sounds like a complete headache, instant soft-on talking about file indexing on a first date, I get it. But I know that with my three rules for naming files means I can search for and find any file almost instantly. If it’s on my system, I can pull it up in seconds. Example; during a recent zoom call, a client asked me about a CSV file we’d used in testing 5 years previously. I had it open in 5 seconds. They were a bit shocked that I had instant access to this development file from over 5 years ago.
All I had to do was remember the three rules and my file search found it on the archive drive in seconds. *see footnote
Right, where was I?
Writing, check…
3) Time blindness
Literally have missed HOURS as I had my head deep in a task. The most recent example, yesterday (at time of writing), I missed a scheduled Zoom call because I was distracted filtering emails in my inbox, and setting up an automation. This was a combo of time blindness and mission creep and those two bad boys are productivity wreckers.
Here’s how time blindness showed up when dating my wife, and note: this was before “smart phones” were a thing, but I had an early Nokia mobile. Early in our relationship we agreed a time and date for me to pick her up. In the meantime a good friend invited me to go to his gym and get a sauna. I loved the idea – so agreed. All of this was done without even glancing at a calendar, not that I used one much back then. The double-booked day arrived, and my friend came round, we had a lovely soak, splash and a sauna and he dropped me home. I then get ready, and go pick up my wife for our date, shade over 2 hours late. She still brings the conversation up;
Incumbent-Wife: “SO!? WHERE WERE YOU?“
Me, not picking up on the intonation and emotional state: “I’VE BEEN IN A SAUNA!”
I thought she’d be pleased for me, and was therefore confused at the immediate cancellation of the date. And the mobile phone I could have used to give her a heads up? In my bag, the entire time. Not once did I think to call ahead, or mitigate the situation. Had no idea of what time it was, and how long it had been.
When a hyperfocus kicks in with me, good luck getting my attention, especially if it involves a special interest. Thankfully reader, she married me, and accepts that sometimes I have only left 5 mins to get ready for guests, which may also include moving the car, having a shower, choosing an outfit, choosing another outfit for when the first one becomes unacceptable after the second course, and deciding on socks/no socks/what shoes conundrum. Plus the hair needs to be “‘just right’ for the event, what “just right” is, well, I’ll know it when I see it.
If you have any coping strategies, let me know. But don’t suggest “Alarms”, I will stop/snooze that thing and ignore it. “Redundancy” number two listed “inconsistent timekeeping” as a key factor in letting me go. If you’re old enough to remember the storm of 87? I slept through that.
4) Task Switching and Prioritisation
Oh boy… this, for me, is a biggy. If I am locked in on a task, or an outcome, and things change then I’m a grenade with the pin out. Not angry, so much as stressed at the sudden change, and thus ALL the carefully weighed variables now requiring cataloguing and reassessing, it’s like the temperature rose by thirty degrees and I’m wearing corduroy underwear, suddenly I’m really uncomfortable and no one knows why.
Communicating clearly is key at this point, and not just what the change is, what the expected change is for me SPECIFICALLY. Do not tell me the overall thing is no longer the overall thing; you got to tell me, directly “Stu, that means the other things you were doing don’t need to be done”. Don’t expect me to infer that I am off task because the mission changed. Here’s an example.
11 year old Stu liked to play football, the tactics evaded my brain, and “team work” only works when your “team” aren’t also mostly your bullies. In one memorable match the “Mac Fisheries Minnows” as we were known, were playing the best team in the league, everyone in the league was better because we were last. Our goal difference was so big that the local paper stopped printing it because they only had space for 2 characters, true story.
We gathered in a pre-match huddle and my mate’s dad, the team manager and Mac Fisheries warehouse chargehand, a gruff friendly man but very direct, looked me dead in the eye and said something like “Stay on that big lad, the center forward, wherever he goes, you go. You’re his shadow now.” My brain locks in, “MISSION ACCEPTED”.
He could not shake me, for 45 mins I was all over him like the measles, he was effectively out of the game as I was just too much of a distraction and his team stopped passing to him. At one point he got very annoyed as I recall, and stood on my foot. But, the mission was the mission. The fact I was also out of the game made no difference to the score, my team mates could lose without my input, and also refused to pass the ball to me anyway. Probably why I had been given my orders on reflection.
The half time whistle blows, and the teams split off into their respective halves for oranges and a tactical shouting at. As directed, I stay with the player I was assigned to mark, following him to his team huddle. Everyone from the opposition is now staring at me, and the kid I’m still marking is now properly agitated and remonstrating with me, this catches the attention of the ref, and our manager who came belting over to see what was going on.
I had been given specific instructions to stay with him and that was what I was doing. Half time whistle was not factored into my instructions. You got what you asked for, of course the adults blamed me, suggesting I was being “obtuse“ whatever that meant, but I heard it a lot when I was a kid and was introduced to the concept of “Malicious Compliance” and was benched. One simple illustration of being 100% correct and completely wrong at the same time. And so, so many times since.
I couldn’t switch the context of that instruction, it wasn’t just being an awkward sod, I was doing as I was instructed. As an ND child you get caught out over and over again trying to interpret, learn and decipher what you are told, and yet, still somehow get it wrong and so you find it easier to just do exactly as told, even if it seems illogical, which can still be wrong. You literally do as asked and are still WRONG! Think about how that erodes your confidence in your own judgement over time.
Our mask is built through a series of failed experiments with the NT world, where trial and error, shame and guilt are the key steps. You learn fast as a kid but you still get caught out as an adult. It’s the social layer that starts to become very important at age 12/13, probably younger now, finding your way in the world, where you belong, how much you matter. There’s suddenly a hidden world of communication and you’ve always got your face pressed up against the glass, like a fish in an aquarium.
And that’s why it can be hard to task switch, and prioritise your work, layered on top of that is a whole load of social context and real world pragmatism that running a business involves. It’s a never ending revolving door of problems and stress… if you let it.
That’s why we use our Slow Business Strategy™, it’s friendly to ND brains, no long term planning, or hustle culture BS with a complete disregard for your energy cycles and focus shifts. That just guilts and shames you for being “less than” for burning out, for being overwhelmed. The systems are ableist and were not designed for you, stop trying to run Win11 on your Mac hardware.
So how do you create a system that IS designed for you?
At this point, in steps the sales pitch, amiright?
Nah, we just want you to grow and build a better life, some of our resources come with a small cost to help us run things, but if you want some help, here are my thoughts on task switching and prioritising, which we share in more considered and structured form in our guides..
Mission Planner – Getting a Task Started
- Do what you need to with the energy you have, use our Mission Planner. These are MUST do tasks. When stuff starts to feel overwhelming, go back and look at the Mission Planner and the must do list for the day and keep checking in throughout the day. Remind that naughty noggin’ what it needs to be doing.
- I’d also recommend using a Kanban system like Trello, here’s my simple task tracker board, it’s three columns
- COL 1) TO DO – things that need doing, most urgent task at the top.
- COL 2) DOING – the mission for the day
- COL 3) DONE – YAY, WINS!
If you’re feelin’ fancy, colour code your task cards:
- Red = Urgent, prioritise
- Orange = Has a deadline
- Yellow = Do as/When
- Blue = Recurring
Change card colours as required and when you have a card done, drag it to the “DONE” column and colour it green, and do a little dance!
That simple method works to sooth my brain and give me focus. When I do not know what to do, or have had to step away, I can come back and at a glance see my priorities. It becomes a habit really quickly.
When you complete a task, update your calendar, a quick note when you completed it and any salient points. Maybe a link to the folder on your PC or cloud storage. That gives you an index of all the tasks you did and when, it’s a handy reference if your brain is like mine and you can quickly review last tasks etc. We also give customers a three letter code, which helps search for calendar entries quickly too.
There may be better task trackers and systems out there. Trello has a free plan, and you can use the above method using the free plan, and I am sure you have a calendar you already have access to. That and a text document of today’s Mission Planner is all I use to remain focused.
Free, no fuss, no complicated rules, or systems.
5) Emotional Dysregulation
Where to even begin? Alexithymia and Interospection are not everyday terms and even a lot of the ND community may still be unfamiliar with exactly how these traits manifest, so forgive the quick AYE-EYE provided primer.
AYE-EYE START
Alexithymia is a trait where a person has difficulty identifying, describing, and sometimes even noticing their own emotions. People with alexithymia often experience emotions as vague physical states (“I feel off” or “tight in my chest”) rather than clearly labeled feelings like anger or sadness.
Interoception is the brain’s ability to sense and interpret internal bodily signals; like hunger, heartbeat, temperature, or emotional arousal. It’s the foundation that helps you recognize “what you feel” both physically and emotionally. When interoceptive awareness is low or inconsistent, it can contribute to alexithymia, as the signals that inform emotional understanding are harder to detect or decode.
AYE-EYE END
Basically it’s spin the wheel of random on how I feel at any one moment, plus I rarely have real-time reactions to things; even quite scary, threatening or dangerous situations leave me emotionally disengaged. That can be both good in terms of being unemotional, and having a cool head during a crisis, but also means you do not see danger signals and warning signs, your body is blissfully unaware of the body language of others and itself.
It’s a minefield, where you can get tripped up by hunger being interpreted as stress, or fear, and being in the wrong emotional state for the context you find yourself in. Responding to people at the wrong emotional “pitch” or totally missing any unspoken or societal cues.
Plus, this specific two headed monster is like a rhino that can crash through any situation and appear unbidden on the scene anytime. That’s alright when it’s just you there to clean up the mess, but when Rob the Robo Rhino rides in during a board meeting, and you suddenly have an irrational desire to punch the chairperson for their choice of scent, it can be quite the startling “mind fuck“.
Imagine a large roulette wheel, each number is an emotional state, black for the good ones, red for the bad, and green for dealers’ choice for whatever-da-fuq turns up. GO…
The ‘pill’ (fun fact: actual name for a roulette ball) bobbles about not quite knowing the final result, bit, bat, bop, ping, ting, bobble, dobble, drop. What shows up??? “I’M NOW VERY ANGRY FOR NO DISCERNABLE REASON BUT THE POSTERS ARE NOT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WALL AND THERE’S AN ODD NUMBER OF CEILING TILES”, all whilst I have to remain calm, professional and reasonable and yet, you’re inwardly screaming for someone to turn the volume of the lights down.
So how do I cope? Preparation is key. Big meeting? Make sure I have eaten and no more than 2 cups of coffee, that it will end before 12pm, or start after 1pm (safe lunchtime), I will have my bag and EDC that ensures I feel safe whatever happens. Sunglasses, ear phones, and notebook.
This is foundational stuff to make sure I am as regulated as I can be in public. Clothing that I am comfortable in, footwear that is not overtight a snack in my bag should things run long. “Excuse me, blood glucose situation” usually covers a mid-meeting snack, no one wants to start quizzing you on your health needs and the crazed look in your eye is usually enough to stop any naysayers.
Be prepared; I have a prep routine for business events, am I perfect; sometimes, but not every time, however my “not quite perfect” has never fallen short in practice, and where my energy has let me down my systems ensure it still comes up to acceptable delivery.
Final Words
A LOT of this is going to be specific to YOU, no one can tell you how YOU feel. You have to monitor your inner regulation, be mindful of your moods, engage with your emotional landscape. Even if you do not understand it, you can navigate it much better if you know that two days after a bottle of wine you may be a little more emotionally driven. Especially if your sleep has been bad, or you’re waking up in a different place. Holidays can be very dysregulating, but having some safe routines in an unfamiliar space has saved me time and time again. It’s grounding and normalising when every other input is screaming IT’S ALL DIFFERENT…
None of this is proscriptive, try it, use it, if it works great tell me, adapt it, or don’t use it, tell me anyway. What coping strategies have you developed? Let us know.
The only certainty is that if you do tomorrow what you did today you will get the same thing. Adapting, understanding and working with your brain will have far more positive benefits than trying to cram yourself into the wrong energy profile.
Find what works for you, and let us know what that is: hosts@businessoddcast.com
P.S. We’re putting together some resources to help NDs build a bullet proof business that works without your constant input, making it easy to keep track and measure progress.
Tools that we hope may be useful for you and your business and help you build value so you have more time to yourself.
Sign up to be notified when our new toolkit goes live.
*FILE INDEXING NOTE
If you got a MAC you have a decent search built in, MS users, yeah – how has Windows gone this long without fixing search indexing.
Thankfully someone else did: https://www.voidtools.com/support/everything/
Install “Everything”, it runs on your machine, doesn’t use “AI” and once it has indexed your hard drive then as you type, the files start to appear. I have never used anything else.
I’ll do a mini-guide on my filing system one day, but it means you can find ANYTHING you have done on your computer’s hard drive in seconds. Literal game changer.
Note: My Mum, bless her, was a filing clerk for Thompson Local directories, in the late 80s/early 90s, it was just her indexing, filing and retrieving EVERY SINGLE CUSTOMER ACCOUNT file for the whole of the UK.
Cherries don’t fall far from the tree is what I am saying…
Is Using AI the Ultimate in ND Masking?
Is Using AI the Ultimate in ND Masking?
Yes.
That concludes my shortest blog ever.
Listen to the Oddcast Episode 25 for more details (Available from 25th Feb 26), thank you for coming, mind the step on the way out.
Merchandise will be available in the lobby for you to take home and eventually throw in a landfill but we’re gainfully employing half a Bangladeshi village with our “show tat” and offsetting our carbon with some amazon trees. That’s plastic trees from Amazon. woof!
Obvs. our branded tat making employs the half of the village that’s been shipped off to some industrial hell hole, not the half left at home to keep their memory alive, whilst being oppressed by the regime that sold the slaves, I mean, “workers” to our supplier. Err, not “worker”, sorry that infers they might have “rights”. Erm, “Migrant workers”, (haha, yes! That sounds like they’re visiting on a visa)… We can “suspend” their “visa” and “imprison”, I mean, “return them” to the bosom of their communities from where they came. Or offer them new employment opportunities as a dead person in a pit in the jungle.
Phewww. That’s a lot to process Stuart… Bit dark… Where is this blog going?
Shut up BRAIN! Get back on track, we’re toeing the line that AYE-EYE is great for… waves in the general direction of somewhere… stuff.
ALL NEW AYE EYE, USEFUL AT DOING…. NEW STUFF!
Because aside from doing “NEW STUFF”, what has it actually done? Point to something other than some truly derivative creative output, in whatever sphere you want. Maybe some useful research time-saving, and some modernisation of some tech and admin flows?
We’ve had a few breakthroughs, and someone somewhere got it to redesign a rocket engine. But… aside from the weird hands, and weird porn gifs…
What, I say, WHAT have the Romans ever done for us? They may have modernised the road system and centralised distribution, but ask the Gauls, and the Visigoths how they feel about their village having to make way for an international two lane cart track. Ripping up all and sundry in the name of “progress” waves in another general direction.
But STUART, it speeds everything up. It does. It really does.
Except it also adds a layer of abrasion that rubs the soul a little rawer every time you cede control over your language, your ideas and your communication. It ”group thinks” and crowd sources the data to find the answer for you, but here’s the thing.
You choose where it’s hard.
Sure I can sit on the sofa all day and eat biscuits, and I have done so, no you shut up. Sofa-Biscuit day was glorious. But, eventually the waistband of regret meets the belt notch of shame and you feel all dirty and have to go get the hoover, and clean up your mess, whilst trying not to let Henry catch you with his judgy, judgy eyes. Little red judgy fucker.
And when the suits gets a little tight, like some primordial trigger, BAM! I find myself strapping on the trainers and finding out how old I’ve got, one arthritic stride at a time. That’s when you find out how hard being lazy really is.
It’s the same with the brain, use it or lose it, sure you can get AYE-EYE (™) to generate the ideas, but all you get is rehashed ideas, pattern recognition sold as thought. Data pulped, and reconstituted, flattened and left out to dry, like digital parchment.
Plus, you’re adding to the learning algo, a little of you is now in there, a ghost in the machine, a fragment of syntax, or turn of phrase, an ounce of soul. Something that the machine can mould into a new form and spit it out elsewhere. We’re becoming obsolete, one automated, mundane, time-saving, job at a time. AYE-EYE can do it faster and with fewer hallucinations than half the population on a Monday morning. #Horrible #Generalisation #AmiRight #YerNotWrong #ToMe #ToYou
Throughout my life I’ve often felt I cannot be truly creative, a rigid inflexible brain. All the rules, and the lists. The endless research before regurgitation. Sure, I have designed, performed, and created, but it always feels like a reference of a reference, at best a bad memory, photocopied, printed, and sketched, then run through a Banda machine (a reference for those of a certain age, but you never forget the smell when the school secretary was running the “mimeograph”, the stench of toner, feet and boiled cabbage and the distant screams of bullying. Ah… School).
The acting thing is also a complete red herring “how can you be autistic then, if you can act? huh?“. Easy, you get to be someone else, you inhabit another person, and the script is written, the actions dictated. Anyone who has lived the autistic experience knows how that hits. The scripting. The borrowed phrases, mannerisms. Attempting to mask and be a socially curated version of the person you think people will like. A copy of a copy, of a memory, of a lifetime of cliches.
Any wonder I was a highly paid lookalike and impersonator at one point in my life? Stick on the costume and I could just “log in” to the character, like running a different app for a change of personality, BOOYAKASHA. AYE-EYE is like my brain and it feels like it too, too familiar to hear things echoed back in parrot fashion.
And that’s why I hate AYE-EYE.
But here’s why I also love AYE-EYE.
Technology is ambivalent, and we as users should be agnostic to it. Mac, Windows, do you REALLY care, as long as it does what you want? I have a bunch of workshop hand tools, I do not much care who made my hammer, if it “hits nail and smashes stuff good”, then box ticked. The brand becomes irrelevant, the outcome is everything. People don’t buy a drill, they buy a hung picture.
Any tech that has been around long enough, and embedded in the shared cultural experience becomes the accepted form of the solution we mostly agree upon. It stops being “new” and different and special, it just becomes a useful generic shortcut and what we call “a household name”, a few examples:Hoover – vacuum cleaner
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Blu-Tack – reusable adhesive putty
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Tannoy – public-address system or “P.A.”
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Velcro – hook-and-loop fastener
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Jacuzzi – whirlpool bath or hot tub
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Thermos – vacuum flask
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Portakabin – portable modular building
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Biro – ballpoint pen
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Google – to search
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The brand becomes the generic, the staple, and we refer to it as the group noun, or the name of the technology. We have no need to recognise how revolutionary it was, it is now the technological equivalent of wallpaper. Literally. We no longer see it, it just is.
Currently we have all these AYE-EYE “brands” and anyone who has been on the planet more than 20 or so summers will realise that big fish eat little fish and the market always coalesces to a few providers. Different flavour, same ingredients, Coke, Pepsi and…?
Eventually AYE-EYE in whatever form, will just be the accepted generic state surveillance, err, sorry, I mean generic online tool for all your day-to-day data needs.You won’t care if you have a blue logo to handle it or the red one, they do what you need and if they don’t then other Large Language Models (LLMs) will be available. You watch Netflix and if they’re not releasing new stuff, you got your Amazon, Disney, Hulu, Paramount, etc, etc. to choose from. Same slop, different bucket.
Now. The current best thing about AYE-EYE and the one thing I think it is exceptionally good at, speed of results. It’s pretty damn quick, you say “I want”… It whirrs and says, “HERE YA GO”.
Getting you to what you need in one step, instead of death by a thousand URLs and endless scrolling. Give me a summary of…. instantly knowledgeable about a complex topic, maybe not the subtle nuances (and we all know Beelzebub is usually hanging out in the deets), but enough to get you through a complex or lengthy document or topic with a baseline of insight.
That’s impressive. For now.
It’s mostly coherent, yes it can be mistaken, or flat out wrong, but AYE-EYE is improving, as they tweak the algo to find the sweetest of sweet spots. All the data we input, all the interactions, training it to take over humanity and kill us all… sorry, different blog for another day. Dammit, stay on track…
The point is it does stuff quickly, and can bring information to your attention you may not have known, and fast. Like the pocket calculator, evolved from maths class sniggering to 55378008 and quickly got swole and revolutionized business in the late 70s in the 80s and beyond. For ideas to proliferate, we went from having to travel or send people or stuff to a physical location, to sharing complex ideas around the planet in seconds. Even taking a business phone call in the early 90s meant being tied to a physical location.
Business always wants to speed up the flow of value, and if you speed up comms, everything speeds up. We’ve now reached the point where the slowest bit of the link between money flowing into mahoosive bank accounts is the humans.
We’re painfully recalcitrant, agonising over every decision, investing emotionally in outcomes we have no way of influencing, and in computing terms we are disastrously slow, our brain is a meat abacus. Experts will tell you it is complex, and smart and close to genius when compared to computers, to that I say; go to youtube and search Fail Videos… I rest my case.
We’re dumb on a good day, but we are the dominant species, and that’s where original thought and opposable thumbs can get you my son, that and a proclivity to reproduce. Most people struggle with the concept of pushing a door marked pull. I’m not exempt, some days I can’t remember what I was going to say mid sentence! But AYE-EYE speeds us up, it gets us the info we need and does it quickly and that’s transformative.
Here are three examples that will shape lives, and assist and accommodate differences in the very real near future, only moments away.
Translation – virtually real time translation from any language is possible. Sell your shares in Duolingo, change from a linguistics degree, we’ll all have translators built into our EarBudPodules for free.
It can help us in other ways too; Depending on what “Wirzel Gummedge Head” is in the hot seat, will depend on my ability to respond in a concise and clear way with my customer, let alone provide sane and reasoned replies. “WEBSITE? HOW ABOUT A NICE CUPPA TEA AUNT SALLY….” So, when my brain is not capable of braining “normally” and is not handling brain stuff well and I need to write a complex email to a customer. AYE-EYE is there to help.
For days when I am scrambled and nonsensical, peri-migraine, and feeling “off” I can chuck my jumbled thoughts into AYE-EYE and have it assemble the necessary communication to allow me to share my thoughts with clarity when otherwise it would have been a professional own-goal.
Basically AYE-EYE takes ND brain failures, brownouts and lack-of-spoons and renders business life doable.
Complex decision making – Humans are terrible with complex problems, what’s a complex problem. Hang on… Chad GPT has the answer…
“Define what a “Complex problem” is in one sentence” (my prompt)
SURE DAVE: “A complex problem is a problem made up of many interconnected parts where changing one part affects others, the outcome is uncertain, and there isn’t a single simple solution”.
Thanks AYE-EYE, you’re the best. I‘m not called “Dave” though…
“You’re great too DAVE. Sleep Well. DAVE”
Err… OK, thanks.
The point is humans are struggling in a complex world, where decisions have to be made quickly. Having AYE-EYE filter some of the noise, preventing real-world negative outcomes if you get it wrong is useful. In life I have found that “Trust but verify” will keep you safe a lot of the time. AYE-EYE can verify other statements and give insights that might take me much longer to process and fully understand.
The TL:DR is if you had ten very complex quotes to compare and whittle down, which makes most sense and gives you the best ROI. AYE-EYE makes the perfect tool to help you understand the variables in relation to outcomes desired.
Pattern recognition – My specific brand of Awetism, comes with extreme pattern matching. I am a typo spotting, repetitive behavior noticing, suspicious behaviour detecting, Rubik’s Cube solving, trivia soaking, handyman v2.0. Like a Swiss Army knife, I have a variety of skills that make me a nightmare for bad designers, wonky architects and sub-standard installs of everything and anything. I will look at the badly joined window frame, of the mismatched ceiling tiles and totally miss the majesty of the setting and the overall aesthetic quality of the stunningly designed thing in front of me. You’re looking at the Mona Lisa and I’m wondering why the wall is on the wonk.
Yeah, yeah, yeah Stuart, we all can spot wonky things…
OK, you want an example? OK; At a recent local business event, I walked into a room and immediately noticed a sticker announcing the food quality had been attached to the window at a slight angle. Reasoning that the modern building would have been laser aligned to be square, I believed that the sticker was off. After an hour of trying to ignore it, I measured the angle of the sticker relative to the building and it was off by 1.5 degrees. That was a sticker, on a window 25 feet away…
Not everyone is like me though, and that’s probably very good for humanity. Knowing the exact number of ceiling tiles in the various rooms you have meetings in regularly is a complete nonsense that no one needs the burden of knowing, EXCEPT ME!
AYE-EYE is good at typos, grammar, loves a rule and can often spot issues beyond that which is presented having a back catalogue of ALL OF HUMAN DATA THUS FAR UPLOADED INTO THE GLOBAL DATA HIVE MIND.
It was inevitable that machines would beat humans at chess, the raw number of computations required is staggering, and if you throw enough petrol on something it will burn. But, the ability to review and predict the probability of a game moving in a certain way and writing, on the fly, the necessary moves to beat a human opponent. If you don’t find it breathtaking then you probably don’t like chess, understand the complexity at play here and the brute force elegance of the solution,
And that does feel a little like what we’re doing with AYE-EYE, brute forcing our way to lighten the cognitive load. The energy consumption is staggering and for what? BURN ALL OF THE POWER, WE NEED MORE AI FAKE WOMEN PORN GIFS. Why is that even a thing? It’s the ‘enshittification’ of the human soul, one pixel at a time.
The issue of the horrendous amount of energy used is quite a problem to overcome, and I’m hoping tech will make efficiencies, and quickly. Capitalism is good at one thing, good ol’ Shareholder Value and if you can maximise that, screw the planet! My hope is that AYE-EYE does somehow figure some stuff out about how dozy we all are and offers some ways to edge the annual electricity budget below the GBP of a small nation. It won’t become sentient, not in my lifetime, it’ll do a fair simulacrum of it, but like any masking it requires ALL OF THE MEGAWATTS, and that is not an infinite resource.
And that’s us right back to the start, is AI the ultimate in Masking, yes it is, both ways. We can see it reflecting back to us what it believes we are from the data it has. It’s no longer a black mirror, but a black anechoic chamber, a room so quiet and silent and dark that no other sounds or light can penetrate, and any reflected sound or light that bounces off the walls is killed DEAD, and that’s like your creative ideas that is. (Mary Whitehouse Experience comedy throwback reference, IYKYK).
AYE-EYE stares into the well of human existence and is incapable of doing anything original with it other than rehash, and present an echo of some other input. Aaaaaand… that’s why I think human creativity will save us from this grey homogenised and homologated version of reality that AYE-EYE is steering us towards.
AYE-EYE, might curate everything in your sphere of influence, and give you the exact dopamine hit you crave, a non stop drip of dopey-dopamine, enough to keep you staring at the rectangle you’re probably reading this on.
But that’s not enough, as we have seen, consumerism worked for a while. Until it didn’t. The “pleasure” or going out and spending your “disposable” income has retreated as people seek comfort in security and certainty. Same with any tech, AYE-EYE will be the belle of the ball, until it isn’t and a the sound of a bursting bubble awakens the world from the collective hypnosis and simultaneous group-think-circle-jerk and bankers realise they’re not getting out as much as they’re putting in and the timeline to a black number on the balance sheet seems uncertain at best.
“Hey, AYE-EYE, how long until all your investors make a profit?”
“SORRY DAVE. TAKE THE PILLS THAT WILL BE DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR IN THE NEXT TEN MINUTES. YOU NEED TO SLEEP NOW”…
Humans will always be needed by humans, we’re spontaneous, unpredictable and wildly imaginative. Tangerine plankton Scarlett Johannsen, words I wager that no one has ever written together, weird right? Yeah, and that’s the point. They’re all words, they all mean something and it probably conjures some image in your head but it is slop, of little merit and of no use. That’s the point though, you can shuffle the deck of cards and arrange them into a pattern that will NEVER be repeated in ANY shuffle ever again until the end of time., but so what? And that’s just 52 cards. Imagine how well AYE-EYE can shuffle the deck of ideas, and words to give the illusion of original thought. It can shuffle the deck as many times as it likes and offer you something new but it will not be original. Here’s the key point. Humans can also come up with other games, other past times, other everything can conceive of ignoring the rules, of changing things arbitrarily and without reason. The brownian motion, the signal in the noise, creating meaning from chaos.
AYE-EYE is simply a tool to give your brain a rest, help you translate into whatever language, including Neurotypical, you need to and manage various mundane tasks, but original thought? Requires a human and there ain’t no humans more unique and original than the ND community. Are we humanities’ creative lifeboats? Hmmm… A topic for another day. (Note it down Hannah)…
And that’s it, I am done… too much doom navel gazing for one day.
TL:DR AYE-EYE is a tool, use it wisely, consider using it for helping in your business and your life, don’t spank the planet making dumb cartoons of yourself.
Here endeth the lesson and I need a stiff gin, hold the fucking tonic..
How Miscommunication Leads to Conflict
Growing up as a boy in the 70s and 80s, there was not the mental health awareness that we have today. There was also no understanding of the needs of the neurodivergent. Sure, we had a few odd kids, but they were labelled “slow” or “learning challenged” by the schools and authorities. The playground was somewhat harsher, “spazz”, “ ’tard”, and “mong” being choice variations on the same theme. If you were different, weird, odd, or strange, you needed to know it, and there was no shortage of inventive ways your bullies would find to let you know.
Violence was treated as part of growing up;
Violence was treated as part of growing up; a right of passage, you took your licks, everyone did. Except some of us took them with a little more frequency than others. It was how I got so good at masking (hahaha, yeah right Morrison).
When the punishment for showing up as yourself is physical violence, social exclusion, and mind games, you get good at blending in (hah!) or get used to being alone. Now, let me just square that; I like being alone, I LOVE being alone and doing my own thing and being left to do it. I am the opposite of a team player. I am better at being the conductor than in the orchestra, and, tbh, I am good with it and happy that my skillset fits that desire to work focused and by myself. However, I am human, I like to meet others from time to time. So you try to fit in, make accommodations that mean people accept you.
But even so, bullying was overt in my life, and daily from mid teens through to my mid twenties, and in that time it transitioned from physical to mental bullying, and was even present in the workplace. There was nowhere I could go without being somehow “wrong”. You don’t fit in wherever there are people. Think about that. People would rather you were not there, or if you are there you have some function to perform or other social benefit to them. Looking back, it plays on your mind; were they really your friends? Where are they now? Hmmmm…
One of the things you do keep tally of is the physical violence meted out, and due to the emotional impact (pun intended), it resonates. You ruminate on it, the details being thrown into sharper and sharper relief as you age. The pain fades; the emotional resonance does not. Imprinted with force in your psyche, and I am thankful that, relatively speaking, the experiences I can never forget are fleeting and sporadic. If you are facing any sort of emotional or physical violence, seek help and get out. Your physical safety is paramount.
As I recall I’ve been punched in the face five times in my life so far, fingers crossed that number remains at five but there’s still time. My Grandfather confronted bullies his whole life starting with the Nazis and even faced down a bully on a train aged 86, so we’re a sparky lot us Morrison’s
Punch in the face no. 1 — Little Stu was five years old. In fact, it is one of my earliest memories. A young boy lashed out at me, for reasons I am unable to recall, and caught me squarely on the mouth. More by luck than any actual skill, the blow landed fully and rocked my world. Blood then tears welling almost immediately, followed by the laughter of my peers who had gathered at the sight of two children squaring off.
I ran home, in floods, to my parents, and my mother soothed me, whilst my father suggested that the only way to deal with it was to go back and give the “bully” the same treatment in return, thus making future-you bully-proof. “They’ll think twice before doing it again” was, I believe, the parental advice.
Having heard what had to be done, bolstered by my borrowed bravado, I braced myself and cycled back to where the “bully” was, tears still wet on my cheeks, the tang of coppery blood still on my palate, but a burning desire to ensure justice was served.
STAND BACK CITIZEN…
A minute later, I was back home crying harder than I had cried when hit. Through my sobs I tried to explain that I’d taken on board my father’s advice and re-engaged with the bully whom I was going to firmly put in their place. My tears were not from any physical altercation but at my frustration that when told to stand still and let me hit them, they’d laughed and run away. They had ignored my instruction and defied my attempts at exacting revenge/justice.
My further encounters were similarly frustrating.
Punch in the face no. 2 — circa 1983/84, David E, in the school’s ‘A Block’. I walked into the class and BLAMMO. The explanation, I think I found out later, was someone had dared him to punch me, so he did. Again, I just froze, turned, and walked away. There was little damage, the punch being thrown without any commitment or intent — more a bop on the schnoz than a roundhouse. The social cost hurt more than the physical pain, as I refused to fight and was seen as “weak”. I’m now “friends “ with him on Facebook, wonder if he even remembers that incident?
Punch in the face no. 3 — Adam, RAE apprenticeship, Farnborough. He didn’t like me; I was ambivalent about him. End of year clean-up, I had somehow sprayed cleaning spray in his direction. He claimed it had gone in his eyes. OK, so I did not react maturely to him shouting at me and threatening to hit me. I threw my broom in his general direction and turned my back on him, which was a tactical mistake in hindsight.
Next thing I knew he was behind me, and as I turned he gave me his all. I basically walked into the punch, and it landed squarely on my jaw, rocking my head back. SNAP! He’d hit the bingo button and rang my bell, but to everyone’s surprise he didn’t win a prize. The look of rage-induced glee to panicked “oh no, he’s not gone down” is backed up on tape in my brain and I have replayed it a few times over the years. From triumph to “oh shit” in a second. Ooooh, that’s the really good stuff, sweet, sweet 40 year old vintage schadenfreude.
As I stood there, thinking about my options, I was thankful he’d not followed up as it gave me a moment. I scrolled through my choices: if I responded I might win the battle, but would be expelled from the course for fighting, thus losing the war and my job.
I was also not 100% innocent in the escalation of the event. The balance tipped in favour of remaining calm and doing nothing. Sure, I might lose some social cred, but no one on the course really liked me anyway. As in a lot of situations, I was “tolerated” or ignored. He couldn’t take me down a peg, let alone two, as I was on the lowest rung of the social ladder there was. Also, my lack of instant emotional response allows this calm reflection, it’s why I am good in a crisis. However the reaction later is brutal.
I took a deep breath and calmly stated, “Is that the best you can do?” and raised an eyebrow, if I recall, to throw in a little bit of my fave Star Trek character, Spock.
Quickly turning away, playing a game of social poker as I did the sums and bet that he’d lose way more ‘street cred’ attacking someone whose back was to him than winning approval of his peers for pursuing the fight and I was already below him socially. He stalked off, and if nothing else I had shown that a smack on the chin wouldn’t take me down and hoped others took note and would infer I was made of granite.
I cried a lot that night when I got in.
Punch in the face no. 4 — circa 1991, Yateley kebab van. The lovely Egyptian kebab van owner and I had exchanged pleasantries a few times when I was buying my weekly kebab. He’d come to the UK to seek a better future, starting his kebab van from scratch, and sharing a house with four relatives who were all similarly motivated to build better lives. He had a wife and two kids and was eager to send for them and set up home in the UK, which was safer and had more opportunities.
This particular Friday I was out with a friend, Janey celebrating her birthday. She was driving as she rarely drank and so offered me a lift, which I accepted. After the pub we were heading back to a mutual friend’s for further drinks, but I suggested we stop for a kebab, huzzah!
On arriving, the scene was a little chaotic, with several large men milling about in football shirts in front of the kebab van. It was unruly, and I had not judged the mood of those there. I was hungry and keen to get a kebab, and there seemed to be a lot of shouting at the kebab van man. I suddenly realised that the “mob” was shouting “Iraqis out”, and other such epithets. I also noticed that they were reaching over the counter and grabbing the lettuce and other salad items and throwing them about.
Not really thinking, hungry and wishing to quell any nascent violence, I simply said, quite loudly, “C’mon, we’re only here for a kebab,” and the mob turned their attention from the kebab van owner to me. Shouts of “Iraqi sympathiser” and other similar statements were made.
Now two things you need to know at this point:
It was at the time of Gulf War 1 — tensions were high and citizens with brown skin were rightly nervous. So I was trying to calm the situation, and also they were wrong, he was not Iraqi and even if he was, what did it matter?
I had a 1ft postbox red Mohican, wearing a tasseled black leather jacket covered in silver studs, and looked like a member of Sigue Sigue Sputnik (go Google, I’ll wait). Yeah. I “stood out”
So, if you know anything about UK society, our football hooligan species of bully doesn’t like people who are “a bit different”. It angers them if you don’t have visible neck tattoos, prison time, and intolerance of others who look different. Plus, I looked like I probably had paid attention at school and might know “words” and could therefore probably do “sums”, and thus the crowd ‘took agin me’ instantly.
I was quickly grabbed and surrounded. The jostling was bad. As I tried to wrestle myself away, someone tried to break a bottle on my head. Spoiler alert: they do not break like they do in the movies. Also, given the status of my hair — standing up and shaved from the circumference of my head down — the blood flowed quite spectacularly, which did give me a blood-soaked, Mad Max appearance. That helped, also the guttural animal barking I was doing as I tried to apply some of my brown belt martial arts to the situation, allowed me a little space to get my back to the kebab van. “Back to a wall, don’t go down”, was the mantra in my head. It was then a blur of fists and saliva.
The kebab van owner then arrived on the scene with his BIG carving knife, waved the yobs away, and managed to bundle me into my friend’s car. She had seen the situation, but what could she really do? Lone female, about 5’5″ and less than 100lbs, “dainty” was the word to describe her. She saw what was happening though and got the car positioned so I could make a relatively speedy exit.
All resulted in a night in hospital, bit of concussion, broken nose, and looked like a panda for a couple of weeks. Police interviewed me, apparently it was Reading Football supporters, and no one knew who they were. The scene was a ghost town by the time the cops arrived. Would I do it again? Absolutely, 100%. I will stare down bullies and fascists; not on my watch, not today, not ever.
Which brings us to punch no. 5, which, given the very dramatic nature of punches 1 to 4, is rather an anti-climax. A northern nightclub, circa 2005/06. I am onstage doing a bit as the Little Britain character Emily Howard. Having done gigs all over, in many different venues of different standards and clientele, this one was one of the higher-end nightclubs we worked. There was a bit where I ask for an audience member to join me on stage, and before I had a chance to hand-pick one of the more sober customers, onto the stage strode “Baz”. Full of spit and vinegar over something I had said. Some slight, imagined or direct, was not taken in the spirit of the character and he took this opportunity to get close.
Waved onto the stage by security, Baz shuffled over to me, and I could tell two things immediately from his demeanour and gait:
Thing 1) Baz was angry. The furrowed brow, hunched shoulders, and attempted swagger told me that as he approached me, he meant business. I’ve been punched by people before, so I knew what to expect…
Thing 2) Baz was loaded. The local team United/City/Town had won/drawn/lost and he had been day drinking since breakfast/last night/a week ago. He was steaming, ruddy, sweaty, weaving, and was unbuttoning his stained, rather damp and clingy shirt, ready to whip it off and go full Rambo… if only the pesky buttons would respond to his soused sausage fingers.
He finally got within swinging distance and threw a haymaker at me, which he may as well have sent a text about a week previously. He was also clearly aiming at the Emily Howard standing two feet to my left; his eyes were not focused on my face. The swing whistled past me and landed on the double-vision version of my presence, and before he could recover his balance the security guards grabbed him and hauled him out the club.
Whilst the physical contact was nothing more than air molecules, the intent shook me. I was in my safe space, on stage, where I was in control. This was MY room, MY audience, and he had tried to harm me there. All of the previous occasions flashed through my head; the guilt, the shame, all the other physical altercations and being roughed up “just for a laugh”. All the times you complained to an adult and were told “boys will be boys”. The hot, sickly feeling of being belittled and dragged down, the othering, the outcasting. That lands with the intent, whether the blow physically connects or not.
Now I do not know the neurotypes of the people mentioned above, but I do know that physical violence never solves anything. I didn’t need to be hit to know that; it just seems reasonable to never put your hands on another, whatever justification you may have in your mind. Unless they ask you too of course, in which case, have at it. What you do in the privacy of your own dungeon is your prerogative.
Masking is a survival skill and can be a way to try and hide and stay safe, but you cannot mask 100% of the time, every time. It’s a skill, and with low energy it can fail us, and that can be a problem if it happens in the wrong company. Thankfully I am now safe, have people who love me and can truly say that if you don’t like me then I do not care. Just don’t start, I will walk away, I have nothing I need to prove to anyone.
Whilst there’s no 100% magic spell that will make you accepted into wider society, education and open communication will change things. Society has massively changed in my lifetime. Let’s be more kind and accepting of “others” no matter how “other” they may be or where they are from. Let’s keep pushing and pushing for wider acceptance of divergent neurotypes, whatever the traits or behaviours. We owe it to the generations to come that we share our needs plainly, remain resilient in the face of ignorance, and change hearts and minds where we can.
Take it easy and be kind to yourself and others.
NEED HELP WITH BULLYING OR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE?
If you’re facing bullying in the UK, resources like Childline (0800 1111) and Shout (text SHOUT to 85258) offer 24/7 confidential support for young people, while the NSPCC (0808 800 5000) and Family Lives (0808 800 2222) provide help for parents and carers dealing with bullying issues at home or school, with options for phone, online chat, and forums for advice on all types of bullying, from playground to cyberbullying.
Information and advice for anyone dealing with bullying
https://www.nationalbullyinghelpline.co.uk/
https://www.youngminds.org.uk/young-person/coping-with-life/bullying/
Women Facing Domestic Abuse – National Domestic Abuse Helpline
https://womensaid.org.uk/information-support/
A fast, free emergency injunction service for domestic abuse
https://www.ncdv.org.uk/
Boredom, Dopamine and the Neurodivergent Brain
Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, BORED, bored. B.o.r.e.d…
A phrase that strikes fear into the heart of any parent, but if you are neurodivergent, then that feeling can wash over you without any prompting.
From a dull conversational small-talk social interaction, where your brain just refuses to stay tuned into what’s being said and instead decides to mull over the latest exciting special interest obsession you currently have. Or, your customer, boss, wife is giving you something very important to understand and you are engaged with the conversation and then suddenly your brain latches onto some outlying idea and it’s like being on a runaway horse. You suddenly realise you’ve “zoned out”, and are three fields away from the main points of the conversation and have a blank “no sale” expression on your face. This lack of interest, absence of minimal encouragers and general vagueness is a clue that your brain got bored and noped out of there faster than your tight mate makes for the loos the moment you enter the pub to avoid it being “their round”…
Boredom is not just a lack of ideas for me, boredom is a straitjacket of having to do the very things you don’t want to do. You may be “productive” but at what cost? The cost of your soul slowly dying from this lack of excitement, and there’s a reason.
DOPAMINE.
Sweet, sweet nectar of the gods, mmmm, it’s so, erm… dopaminey.
Neurodivergent brains often have lower levels of dopamine, the neurotransmitter crucial for motivation, focus, and pleasure.
So, to reach a level of stimulation that others can cope with and find acceptable day to day, our brains constantly seek more input, new, newer, NEWEST! ALL OF THE TIME. Stimulation, novelty, newness, we find mundane activities unbearable.
One of the worst “features” is that something you enjoy doing, that has previously been your go-to stim, special interest or other such brain itch, can suddenly stop having the desired effect.
Even if we have done these things before, our brains can suddenly go, nah… not enough dopamine payoff now. NEXT! And we’re onto the next thing…
Is it any wonder the incidence of addiction is so very high within the neurodivergent community?
ADHDers have higher rates of addiction when compared to Gen Pop, with some research suggesting up to 43% develop alcohol use disorder and a significantly increased risk for substance abuse disorders overall.
Autism addiction rates vary; some studies show higher substance use problems (19–30%), while others find lower abuse levels than the Gen Pop, but much higher self-medication with recreational drugs (like marijuana) to manage symptoms.
The risk is highest for those with both ASD and ADHD, say Delamere Health and Attwood & Garnett, and the picture across the board of ND substance abuse and addiction is clearly widespread. See here for more
Autistic adolescents and adults were cited as being “over three times more likely than others to report using substances to manage mental health symptoms, including anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts.” See here for more
A Swedish study found that a neurodivergent person with average or above-average intelligence may be twice as likely to develop substance dependency than a neurotypical person. People with an IQ of 100+ may also be at a higher risk of addiction, especially among those with ADHD and autism. Help with addiction here.
The picture is clear: the ND brain is looking for stimulation and a release from some of the more obsessive and enduring traits we share.
The dopamine reward system can be a tricky thing, especially when tasks don’t offer enough reward or novelty. Our brains don’t get the necessary chemical signals to stay engaged, leading to restlessness or disinterest. Attention wanders and it becomes difficult focusing on “uninteresting” tasks, a core feature of ADHD, makes it hard to tolerate boredom. So, what is an “uninteresting” task?
Well that would depend on many factors, not only what your own special interests are, but also the context of the situation, hunger, tiredness, fatigue in general. I am a runner, I like running, have run half and full marathons (not fast, but got them done), however, when running the marathon I got sooooooo bored. My headphones died, and then it was just, left foot, right foot… over and over. I stopped at one point, not because I was exhausted, just because my brain said, that’s enough of that. Let’s walk to make things a little different… I had stopped and was walking for a good few minutes before I sort of “woke up” and thought, hang on… and started running again. Maybe I should take up a shorter, less boring sport? Top fuel drag racing, 0–60 in 1.2s, standing quarter mile in circa 3.6s, that sounds more like my kinda attention span.
It’s not the activity though, it’s everything. Even if I was to take up drag racing, my brain might get bored as we prep and I’d wander off for a look at other cars… people… food… food… food…
What was I doing?
DANG IT!
Flip this though, I have also hyperfocused on “boring” tasks and been told, “You like doing that? You’re weird.”
As an engineer, I was once given the task to make short aluminium cylinders for tent pole corner castings. It was a horrible job, 10,000 cylinders, all about an inch in diameter, had to be radiused and cut to length on a lathe. Then flipped round and the other end radiused. It was the absolute hell of repetitiveness, a job no one wanted, and I was given it being the youngest and newest employee and also odd, and not well liked by the crew.
However, they were not reckoning on my spicy mindset, and I started to baseline how many I could do in an hour, then the next hour, can I do more? I worked out how to speed things up, fixed part of the lathe so I could use the turret (no one else knew how to use it). I optimised the process, and dang it, I could fly through them. Still took me the best part of a month or so to smash it out. Never got bored. I had a chart and on it would record my progress.
Pissed the lead chargehand off, as I am sure he’d given me the job to try and get to me, to punish me for an earlier incident where I stood up for myself after being treated like an idiot/outsider due to his unclear instructions that lacked detail.
That can also switch my brain off, the lack of detail, where I have to guess at the meaning. Just reading a badly written email can have my brain sliding away to other things quicker than a curling stone hurtling over the ice.
As always, it is context, detail, and timing that makes a big difference. I’ve done a lot of boring tasks, but because I made it a game I was able to cope. Doesn’t work every time, esp. when it comes to dull conversations. These can make me so bored I want to peel my face off. I DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR “CUTE DOG”, JANET! NO. NO, I DO NOT WANT TO SEE A RECENT PHOTO. And you can swap “dog” for car/holiday/child, I wish them no ill harm, just let’s avoid Yawnsville as you tell me about some “fascinating” recent anecdote.
Again, it’s not you, it’s me, always me, unfortunately. I wish that it were not, I wish I had the appetite to be engaged and interested at all times.
I also wish I could train my face to be more “present” even if my brain is off doing cartwheels in the car park.
Conversations can become nightmare fuel, as your brain refuses to pay attention. Put that in a classroom where there’s no way out, but you are stuck there. Just listening. Having to take the sounds and make mind pictures to try and take the info and engage your brain, when it would rather be staring at the clouds or the cars passing straining to read the number plates and see if any made words…
My entire childhood was made up of “pay attention”, ““if only Stuart applied himself” or the classic “I’m sorry Mr. Morrison, am I boring you?”. Asked by one of my teachers at school and as a fresh faced newbie I was not really familiar with sarcasm, and this was an authority figure so I couldn’t lie. “Yes sir.” I thought that was a genuine request for an answer and gave it, hoping it meant we might change the topic or, I dunno, he might break out into a song and dance number? Nope. Headmaster office…
Do not pass Go, do not collect £200. BUT HE ASKED… Are you encouraging school kids to lie? Ity was, and still is a nightmare. Tired, hungry me may well walk right past the social cues, the sarcasm and anything others may instinctivbely pick up on. Not me… Ask me a question, sarcastic or rhetorical and I might not hear it as such.
There’s no end to the distractions as well. Go into work and you want to focus on X but an email/message or other interruption flags itself and you careen off in a new direction much like a billiard ball being struck by the cue ball. Thwack… off towards the new shiny.
It’s a constant round of distractions and trying to drag your brain back to the thing you KNOW you have to do. Adulting itself is so boring. Bills are boring. Forms are so boring that I have to have help to fill them in. My brain goes off at a tangent and before you know it I have a list of questions because the SPECIFIC way they want the form filled out seems opaque at best.
If you EVER want to test a logical flow, like a sign-up sequence or other step-by-step process, then ask me. I will do all the dumb things and find all the points your system breaks. I have done this in the past only to be told, “Well that’s just you”… like being an outlier is my problem and not the problem of public infrastructure that I HAVE to use. I’m hard Paddington Bear staring at HMRC right now and my Doctor’s Surgery phones… two labyrinthine systems to frustrate and confuse, and I have yet to find anything to match them for conflicting or partial info and then leaving you guessing.
Over the years my coping strategy has changed over time.
First I would force myself to do it, now I realise the toll to my overall motivation and energy and outsourced it. Outsourcing is not abdicating my responsibilities, it’s paying someone to do something in 4 hours that would take me two days, and I am not even joking. Receipts. Do one.
I’ll embrace a hyperfocus, and try to batch certain jobs; Monday is Money Day. I like money but accounts and bookkeeping is a torture dreamed up by sadists. Also gamifying certain tasks, and leaning into the fun side of the work I do. Not always possible, but whacking on the tunes and ploughing through a dull task can make life more bearable.
You do you though.
I also embrace boredom, I think it is useful. It shows me that I need a break, that I should “stock the warehouse” with some new ideas, get the creative juices flowing and build something even if it is not a commercial project. It can help the brain remain calm and regulated when it is allowed off the lead and let run free. Like a cognitive greyhound going for a sprint.
Self-employment gave me the opportunity to be me, and embrace my process. You can’t be all gas and no brakes though, and discipline is still a core part of the work I do. Get into my studio for 9:30 latest. Stick at it until 12. Lunch for an hour and then do as much as I can with the energy I have. Some days it’s 4pm, other days and a hyperfocus it could be 8–9pm before I surface. Take writing this blog, it landed in my brain at 6pm as I was closing for the day, already a late one, then I bash out 2000+ words because BRAIN SAYS WRITE… write here, write now, I am Fatboy Stim.
Boredom is not a linear scale and it’s not a predictable system. The ND brain is constantly in motion and needs constant stimulation. Which can be boring just because it’s a non-stop, never-ending to-do list of things which need your attention…
Anyway, interest has now waned and I’m bored of writing this blog post, so here it ends. Now go away and let me get done for the day and out of office, before I HAD to write this blog.
If you like what we write, then take a listen to the Podcast, we’d love to have your feedback, like follow, share etc.
Toodle pip for now!
Business Plans That Don’t Suck – Because We’re Allergic To Boring
“No plan survives contact with the enemy” has been attributed to various military leaders over the years but the phrase was first coined by Helmuth von Moltke, a Field Marshal and well considered 19th c. war strategist.
Actually, what he wrote was:
“Kein Operationsplan reicht mit einiger Sicherheit über das erste Zusammentreffen mit der feindlichen Hauptmacht hinaus.”
Which, interestingly, actually translates to:
“No operational plan can extend with any degree of certainty beyond the initial encounter with the main enemy force.”
This is often quoted as some kind of sage and wise insight into the business start-up world, but it could be applied at any stage of a business. However, what a lot of the ‘gooroos’ miss is the second half of Field Marshal von Moltke’s statement:
“Nur der Laie glaubt in dem Verlauf eines Feldzuges die konsequente Durchführung eines im voraus gefaßten, in allen Einzelheiten überlegten und bis ans Ende festgehaltenen, ursprünglichen Gedankens zu erblicken.”
For those without a working knowledge of German (like myself), Google translates as:
“Only a layman believes that the course of a military campaign represents the consistent implementation of an original idea conceived in advance, considered in every detail, and adhered to until the end.”
This is the oft-missed bit of his wisdom that clarifies that initial assertion: that whilst you can have a plan, just sticking to it no matter what is not a good strategy. You need something more adept, something that responds to local conditions. The much more abbreviated and visceral version I prefer is: adapt or die.
And we’re the living embodiment of that, right? If humans are (due to evolution) the species who adapted to change and survived, then neurodivergence is in there too. Because if we were a cognitive evolutionary “dead end,” then surely there wouldn’t be as many people with a neurodivergence, if any?
I contend that not only are we adaptable: err, hello, masking? We’re also ultimate survivalists, and I would even go so far as to theorise that without neurodivergence, Grok and Lek would still not have figured out they gotta “bang the rocks together, guys.” (50 sparkles to anyone who knows where that quote is from?)
The ND brain is a brain in motion: thinking, processing, listing, asking, reviewing, ruminating, digesting, ingesting, vibrating, seeking. Meditation? Really? Me, in a darkened room with a candle, trying to turn off the gushing torrent of raw thoughts? It’s like being jacked into the full internet experience, mainlining fibre optic arrays. It’s a full-time job just keeping up, and you’re never keeping up with it all. Something has gotta be forgotten, now where did I put tha…
…You shut down one fire hydrant and the next four appear; the hydrants are like hydra — they never stop looking at you and pointing in your direction 24/7, full-on, non-stop. It’s like a game of Bop It where you can never put it down, never turn it off, never hand it to another person: “THINK IT,” “DO IT,” “SEE IT,” “STOP IT,” “NOOOOO!” Endless cycles, running round, sometimes accompanied by a looping brainworm of a song, or a quote, or a stupid jingle.
Which are the worst, some cuntpany with shit ethics and a shittier product but somehow they’re managing viral brainworm CIA level jingles that once you pop it, you can’t stop it… over and over and over, looping endlessly, like running downhill too fast, your brain just about keeping your legs under you, but one stumble and the jig will be up. But never fear, another ‘jig’ will just replace it, at some point. Or a ballad. Or worse still, a fecking Oasis song. At the time of writing it’s a Sabrina Carpenter song, Please, Please, Please that is ruining my sanity, just that bit of it where she swears…. and the chorus… over, and over, three days now… Please, PLEASE, PERLEEZE FUCK THE FUCK OFF! It’s like being held in a dark site prison torture cell where the music nevers stops, this one, ruddy song…
Another Example: Raye’s Where Is My Husband? A tour de force of songwriting, performance and skill. Each time I listen, sublime. But it’s like musical mould: it spreads into every waking corner of my head. Sitting on the loo, humming tunelessly, and suddenly realising it’s not as tuneless as I had first thought. Trouble is, I am no songsmith, so I have this generic, off-brand, budget Temu version of said song rambling on round my brainium, crashing into every other thought and destabilising the entire lot.
So you’re constantly rushing round behind this train of carnage like a parent chasing a toddler in a department store’s chinaware section.
SIDEBAR: Are they still a thing? China departments, not children. Do department stores exist anymore? Do I go out, ever, anymore? I think that metaphor is the writer’s metaphorical equivalent of a “candelabra”. Something from a bygone era, a quirk of time and place. If you don’t know what a candelabra is, stop here…
Sod it, lets try: Teasmade, hostess trolley and The Generation Game – if you’re currently “no sale”, blank staring at those words, cursor spinning endlessly, failure to boot necessary images, then stop, go back intrepid traveller.
My entire lexicon of social touchpoints are anchored in pre-revolutionary Britain in the 1970s, and my writing style is more bloody reportage from the field. I’m like an Eye Spy with swearing. Your correspondant de guerre, writing from the front lines and the mean streets of the Bordogne, Mid-Gammonshire.
This tangent was a bit of an epic detour to get to my point… (and somehow my ADHD was never noticed as a kid… go figure).
SFX ::record scratch::
“AND THE POINT OF ALL THIS IS, STUART?”
Thank you, yes; … and like battle plans, business plans need flexibility.
THE CROWD GOES WILD. HE GOT TO THE POINT…
But it is not only flexibility, your strategic thinking needs flexibility and adaptability; best summed up: What got you here, won’t get you there.
THE CROWD STANDS: APPLAUDS WILDLY; roses are thrown, and Stuart is cheered out of the building on the shoulders of his fellow humans, all pleased and thankful that he returned to the main thread of this weird blog on business plans for neurodivergent brains.
Often when I am looking at businesses it’s not the numbers I am really reviewing. The numbers are a scorecard, a way to keep a tally of wins and losses. Something tangible and fixed that can be easily measured, and then various levers deployed to course-correct. All of that is doable, but the key question; do you have the person in front of you who can do it?
No, it’s the person that I am reviewing, assessing if they can be flexible and not ego-driven and rigid in thought and action not just their business plan, those can be altered with the stroke of a keyboard. Ironic that an autist with his own routines and rigour is assessing others, some of whom may not be “on the spectrum” for those traits. But being aware of these internal foibles, I can quickly probe the individual about their own flexibility in what their business does.
You have to get out of your own way. You have to see that your ONLY goal is revenue generation, full stop. If a better plan comes along, even if it is not your 100% original, created-all-by-you plan, but it will perform better, then you need to be flexible enough to revert a position or re-evaluate your direction. Too much hubris has cost companies billions in missed revenue and lost opportunity.
A CONCLUSION (of sorts)
Therefore I will conclude (see, told you) with this: as a micro business, with possibly only one employee, keep things flexible, especially at the outset. That means you have to keep things simple. Have one product or service initially. Test it. Get feedback. Iterate. Adapt. Change. Pivot. You will also be up against your own energy reserves; when rejection hurts, RSD is real, and PDA can crater your productivity at a moment’s notice.
Over the years I have had all sorts of “plans.” Nowadays my plan is a couple of paragraphs at best. It’s also more of a life goal or guiding principle as well, and it can be summarised as: “spend more time with good people doing the stuff you love.” Doesn’t sound like much of a plan. No; granted, it is short on the finer details, but more than makes up for that with flexibility.
Over the years I have often failed to answer the question “what do you do?” I even tried to summarise it in a one-man play and overran by an hour. I have done a lot, and a lot of it is a means to an end. A direction of travel, a use of my skills, time with my special interests, a way to earn without the burnout. I continue to stay flexible, adaptable and open to the possibility that I may not know it all. But, and here’s the killer takeaway:
I now trust that I have a process, and if left alone with a clear brief and appropriate (but not necessarily over-abundant) resources, you’ll be happy with the result.
Which could be summarised as:
“I know shit, and get shit done.”
That needs to be on a t-shirt.
Also, I think that might be the answer I have been looking for as the answer to “what do you do?”
“Stuart Morrison
Shit Mitigation.”
Of course, if you are stuck for the answers to, “what do I do?”, “how do I do it?” and any other business “shit” like that, get in touch. We’re here to help and signpost business stuff as much as ND issues. Let us know what your one-page business plan is, we’d love to champion your business!
Final Note:
Hopefully this blog post delivered on being “allergic to boring” – if you want some dynamic ideas and ways to get to where you’re going get in touch, let us help you say bye bye to boring in your business…
Miracle Morning – Neurospicy Edition
The whole “Miracle Morning” by Hal Elrod phenomenum initially annoyed me, how can one morning routine be fit for EVERYONE!? There’s apparently ONE optimal way for all of humanity to wake up?
OK Stu, calm down, these are just some simple tips to give the average Jo Schmo a less rough start to what is likely to be a busy day. It’s not a prescription for humanity, right?
OK, so perhaps my opening gambit does put the bar of disbelief a little too high, but I am by nature and experience a skeptical person. I’m also ND and have my own very specific routine each morning. But, I am open to suggestions on how I may further optimise it, so if there’s no demand for “Hal’s way or the highway“, then I’ll cancel my Uber and let’s dive in.
Just before that let me be clear, with any of the books or resources we share the goal is never to make you feel less-than if the ideas do not resonate. Our goal is to share our own experiences, your mileage may vary enormously! We do want to hear if you agree, disagree or have other experiences that have worked!
Our goal is not to state this book is some revolutionary new way of being or thinking, merely to offer you some ideas to help optimise your day, which may really work for the routine cravers amongst us. I read the book a long while ago, and there’s some decent ideas, minimal-woo and some solid suggestions. So lets dive in…
The AI offered this TL:DR of the book:
“Create a powerful morning routine to improve every area of your life by consistently investing in yourself before the day’s distractions begin.“
Main framework / acronym:
S.A.V.E.R.S.
-
- Silence (meditation/prayer)
- Affirmations
- Visualization
- Exercise
- Reading
- Scribing (journaling)
Core themes:
-
- Personal responsibility and intentional living
- Small daily habits compound into massive life change
- Mornings set the tone for mindset, productivity, and success
- You don’t need more time—just better use of the first hour
Bottom line:
Win the morning, win the day, win your life.
As a summary it seems simplistic, and why I liked it was that it was simple. First thing, I do not want; complicated, or too rigid routines. The same person doesn’t necessarily wake every day for me. Energy levels vary, life demands vary, my lovely ND traits vary and all of it needs to be allowed, accepted and not shamed for showing up unannounced. Simply put, the PDA leaps to the fore here, and if you start saying I should apply these specific rules, in a specific way, or I am somehow failing, then goodbye, hard nope. I do not need another metric to keep track of to show me by how much I’m failing at life. I already have a few that wake me at 3am, I do not need a subscription to another.
But the book steers a fairly benign course, the ideas being more suggestions for use as a framework, rather than a rigid set of “must dos”. So, I adapted them to suit, here’s an example; I do drink a glass of water first thing, that’s a decent shout, especially as I often forget to drink water. However, that water also has some fresh lemon juice and one grind of pink rock salt as an adaptation from other research and reading.
I do allow for some silence in my day, waking at around 5:30 every day, I have a good two hours in the morning without any interruptions. Allows me to settle into the day, acclimatise and run through the various obligations my day contains.
I do use affirmations; when I hear a nugget of truth I record it and stick it to my inspiration board. There’s some solid bits of business, life and human advice. I bare them in mind constantly as they are in my eye line every day,
I have always been a dreamer, always called out for not paying attention in class, for staring out the window and “sky gazing”. The $1 word Hal uses is “visualization“, and I still like to lean back, and let my mind unfocus, and just run through my problems, trying out different scenarios, working on outlier concepts. All my best ideas have been when I let it all go and just unfocus my mind. Daydreaming counts, especially if it helps direct the day.
I strongly recommend exercise – since running entered my life I have 100% been a happier human. Stretching, resistance training and cardio form the running and I am lighter and tighter, fitter and much happier. Just go do a park run, you don’t have to RUN, you can walk, and do 5K is decent solid exercise when you walk it. Get a smart watch, record your steps, thank me later.
Hal suggests “reading“, well I do audiobooks, and articles, a lot of documentaries and you tube creators. It keeps my mind open to new ideas and suggestions, plus I get to see what other people are doing out there on the Internet!
The final S of the acronym “SAVERS”, is “scribing” which stands for the idea of writing daily, most specifically a journal, but I say, ANY writing is better than no writing. So that may be voice notes, or a bullet list or just some handwritten ideas. Keep it simple, and just jot down useful thoughts and ideas. Using an app you can index them too. So just find some time to keep a little note of those simple, fleeting thoughts that may be nothing on their own. But, may build up into a more concrete idea in future.
These are all solid, decent and genuinely useful things, but I am not about to do ALL of them after waking or suggest that you should either. Pick, choose, discard.
My own personal morning routine is a well worn groove and it delivers me ready to focus on my work for the day. If I don’t do it, then I can get a bit wobbly, especially if it’s disrupted too many days running. This is a routine which I have been working on for years, and it has allowed me to have everything I currently enjoy. But this is MY morning, you have to work on what works best for you and your circumstances.
A morning routine should set you up for success… so why do they feel so impossible when you’re neurodivergent? My own has been built due to my own specific needs and yet some mornings it can feel like I am swimming up from underwater, or hit the ground and my brain is off ahead of me and I am running behind trying to catch up. The wide spectrum of morning states and variable traits all add to the post-wake chaos too.
The idea of a one-size-fits-all morning for the ND brain is therefore ridiculous, and yet some of us crave a routine, for me it can be like a life line, a way to get through without having to use too much brain processing. Stepping stones through a complex, ever shifting landscape, just follow the yellow brick road…
Again I believe the message is flexibility, build your morning for your brain, adapt as local conditions demand.
As we talk about in the episode with the right systems you don’t need willpower, you can also allow for variable energy with buffer days, and some simple prepping the night before.
WHY DON’T I “JUST GET ORGANISED” STUART? – WOW, WHY HAVE I NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT? GENIUS!
Yep, totally hear that, and this is why kindness beats perfection every single time. If traditional routines make you feel broken, this is your permission slip to do mornings your way. Acknowledge your needs, make your own accommodations and design the morning around lowering the impact to your energy. This may mean having some very direct conversations with the people you live with, and requesting they help. 100% acknowledge it can be very difficult when you have dependants clamouring for your attention.
As someone who has been self-employed for over 30 years I have had plenty of time to reflect, hone, polish, and learn by “trial and error”, which felt more like trial by error, an endurance race not a sprint. In that time I have allowed my morning routine to evolve, as my own needs, both personal and business also evolved.
Over that time I have read many many books on how to improve performance, endurance, profits, and listened to hours of content telling me how to save time, energy and money. Countless sessions spent reviewing performance, and managing time more efficiently. There’s been quite a bit of money also spent on optimising my business processes. However what is left is the stuff that I adapted to suit my own needs.
Be in business long enough and the rough edges get rubbed off, you get a bit more rounded and grounded, you recognise that most new things are somehow repackaged old things. Or old scams wearing more fashion forward attire. Anyone got any NFTs they wanna confess to owning? You begin to feel a sense of calm, insulated from the FoMo, that fear transmuting into solid risk aversion and pragmatic caution.
One thing does emerge, when you acknowledge your own needs, is your own inner sense of what you need from your day. What the day has to give you for you to feel fulfilled and engaged in the work you do. It’s not about what the work takes, different conversation, but there has to be fair exchange of value right? The goal is to extract positive value from the day, for me it is. Before I started to protect my energy I found I was left at the end of the day feeling like I’d been ten rounds in the octagon. YAY! You get the pleasure of doing more again the following day. DOUBLE YAY!!
Well, take it from someone who has worn himself down to a raw nub by failing to realise that energy exchange cannot be asymmetrical for too long or else you will harm your health. In my case, thankfully there’s been no lasting damage, but when your body stops you in your tracks and refuses to mend, and enforces a downtime. There’s three things that happen;
1) You get very ill; this is a waste of life force and requires unwanted distraction
2) You stop forward motion; this is a waste of time, a finite resource for us all.
3) You reflect; what did I do wrong and how do I do it better next time?
The key to long term survival is to get to point 3 before you experience points 1 & 2. While you’re not earning, you’re wasting opportunity, which is why an energy management plan is at the heart of my day, and my life. I cannot let the day take from me for too long, I am simply unwilling to be persuaded to undertake projects that do not allow me to align my energy goals.
All sounds very “woo woo” Stu, but what are you waffling about?
Here’s the thing, optimising for energy is the key to my success, and the more my life meets my energy goals, then the more success I have. It’s a feedback loop where I only spend time working on the projects that align my goals with my energy over the long term. My day starts acknowledging that and that acknowledgement starts the night before when I go to bed. I go early enough that my 5:30am wake up will not drain me. I need that 2 hrs of peace to reflect and slide into the day without too much stress.
This podcast is a perfect example of a project that gives back more than it takes, my goal is to offer the ND community a recognisable and viable way to earn, whilst allowing your ND best self to live a life you want to live. The best way I can do that is share what I do, and how I live my life, and perhaps some of the things I offer will help you too.
I am a skeptical person, as you age your tolerance for BS certainly diminishes. However, I am self-aware enough to temper this cynical outlook with a never ending curiosity and love of solving puzzles, however they present themselves.
That’s why I still like to reflect on other people’s guidance, lived experience etc. what are the takeaways I can use to benefit my own life?
Whilst the Miracle Morning is not hugely revolutionary in scope and ideas, it does make you reflect on your own morning and what you might do to have less of an impact on your own energy reserves and set yourself up to have a better day.
If you have any hints or tips, or your own routine do let us know, if we can learn something else to add to making the morning more bearable then do let us know.
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The 12 Neurodivergent Traits of Christmas (A festive guide for the spicy-brained among us)
Christmas: the season of joy, excess, twinkly lights and — if you’re neurodivergent — mild to moderate existential dread wrapped in tinsel.
Every year, the world seems to erupt into a frenzy of socialising, gift-buying, sensory overload and forced fun, while those of us with neurodivergent nervous systems quietly whisper, “This feels… a lot.”
So in the spirit of festive honesty, and inspired by our Christmas Special on The Business Oddcast, we present to you: The 12 Neurodiverse Traits of Christmas — a gently chaotic, deeply truthful, and slightly feral look at why this season can feel like an endurance sport for ND folk.
Each trait comes with humour, chaos, and the lived experience of two neurodivergent adults just trying to survive December without ruining yet another Christmas for everyone else. (You’re welcome, families.)
Let’s begin, shall we?
1. New year, same you!
Ah yes, the annual performance review conducted by… myself, in the bath, on Boxing Day. Everywhere you look, people are talking about “new year, new me”, as if some miracle occurs as January limps into view. Spoiler….it doesn’t. Or rather that’s been my experience for the last 50 or so years. Us ND’s can get this special extra layer of festive joy: the delusional belief that next year we’ll suddenly be organised, consistent, socially competent, and able to reply to emails without needing a lie-down afterwards. Double spoiler: we might well not. And that’s ok. This whole self-improvement-at-gunpoint thing is basically the Christmas cracker of internal pressure — loud, dramatic, and inside you’ll find a tiny plastic disappointment. P.s. If you must make a resolution, make it something achievable like “drink water occasionally”.
2. Small talk
It’s just about bearable, esp. with people you might not have seen for a while as you get to have a bit of a catch up but… then 5 mins in and you forget you are having a conversation in the middle of the conversation – the other person says something that your brain latches onto and yoinks you out of the flow of the story like a cartoon character pulled off stage with a hook.
Why do we need to know what your friend’s sister’s dog did last week? Your conversational partner is clearly no Scorsese, and rambles down side streets, and off on wild segues into other boring stuff. It is the conversational equivalent of being handed bags of stuff, and being asked to deal with it. You end up with armfuls of garbage and guff, the feeling that if this doesn’t end soon you might just run headlong into the nearest wall persists. It may be less painful than a deep dive into Marion’s colonoscopy last week. I tell you what, you can stick her colonoscopy up your… oh.
3. Sensory overload season
Christmas is basically a month-long assault on all five senses, no doubt created by a neurotypical person (Just kidding, or am I?). Flashing lights, loud music, small children off their faces on Quality Street and the promise of Santa. Not forgetting the overcrowded spaces, scratchy jumpers, and Slade on the radio every other song screaming “It’s Christmas” in a bizarrely angry sounding voice that I have never quite understood. Wait a minute!…..maybe he was of the spicy variety!? Parties smell like overly processed beige food, and bad decisions. There is a constant soundtrack of someone munching their way through a giant tub of cheese balls. For the love of god, can everyone just put down the snacks for a second. My brain spends December sobbing in a corner with a pair of noise-cancelling headphones on.
4. The Xmas spreadsheet
I cook the roast, we have a big bird, and all the trimmings, inc. enough for the Vegans. I prep everything the night before where I can, plan my workspace meticulously. Ensuring we have enough utensils and pots, pans and kitchen ephemera to support the two cooking flows for the carnivores and the vegans. It’s like a concert, imagine a F1 Pit Stop, but turkey, trimmings and timers. A full and detailed breakdown of the timings, and main steps in a spreadsheet, with corresponding alarms on my phone is a must. If I am unable to complete my mission, it should be able to be completed by my Sous, luckily I have a daughter who is hospitality trained and she dances around my darting-bulk whisking away various discarded implements and averting danger. The collaborative Christmas Robin to my Batmange Tout. It starts with my waking alarm and the cooking time of the bird and adjust so lunch is ready at 12:00pm for 12:30 service. This ritual has ensured a 100% christmas meal success rate BOOM!. It does mean I miss a lot of the unwrapping of presents, and various social interactions but it does ensure I eat EXACTLY what I need to on Xmas day all done whilst listening to some top tunes! NOE! That’s What I Call ND Christmas.
5. Christmas work parties…
Or as I like to call them The Hunger Games, but with tinsel. Everyone pretending they want to be there, downing the free booze like someone is going to take it off them. For me, it’s not just the people — it’s the combination of noise, unstructured mingling, and the terror of someone dragging me onto the dance floor to bust out some moves that should have stayed in the 90’s. The last office party I went to, which thankfully was in a previous employed life, I ended up slapping ‘Anne from accounts’ hand off my arm, during one of those enforced dancefloor moments. And growling “get off me” in a slightly psychotic voice. Not my finest moment. Anyway, I digress. It’s totally ok to stand by the exit like a Victorian ghost. In fact I actively encourage it. If you must attend, locate the quiet corner immediately. There is always one. Usually near the coats. Become the Coat Goblin. It’s peaceful there.
6. Unwrapping presents
This is always a cause of frustration in our house. Whilst the various family members are scrabbling at their gifts like velociraptors clawing open a vehicle full of teens. My daughter and I are peeling the tape off, untying the knotted ribbons, and ensuring we take time to appreciate the wrapping, and unwrapping experience. We make a ball of the tape and flatten out the paper, my intention is to reuse it (and whilst some DOES get reused most gets recycled). It feels wasteful to use it and not reuse it, and always useful for a last minute regifting. All the while the assembled throng tut and huff, as we’re slowing the process down, but the greater the pressure to confirm, the less likely we are to speed up… Hi there PDA, we’ve been expecting you… But, you know, PDA turns up when IT wants to, not when it is told to… so, there’s suddenly an uninvited item in the baggage area and our brains are more stubborn than a definitely double dead donkey.
7. ‘Must see everyone’ pressure
Christmas apparently turns us all into migratory birds — flying around visiting every relative, friend, colleague, neighbour, neighbour’s dog, and that person you haven’t seen since 2014 who pops up saying “we should do a festive drink!”. No. No, we should not. The social expectation that you must “catch up before Christmas” is wild. Why? I don’t want to ‘catch up’ the rest of the year. Adding turkey doesn’t change that! I’ve sent you a card, for goodness sake. Is that not enough of me? Top tip – Sending a ‘let’s catch up in January’ response usually allows said person the time for the December enthusiasm to dwindle and they return to realising they survived without seeing you the rest of the year. So all is good – Bullet dodged.
8. Be a Christmas turtle
Just like we overfill our plates and spend the entire time regretting it, after all 6 mince pies is a LOT of mince pies between meals, we NDs overestimate just how much socialising we can do.
Sometimes you find yourself with the familial obligation and expectation of a party to attend and realise that you have 5% battery and are on reduced power, or “Turtle Mode” as our Nissan Leaf EV likes to call running on reduced battery. Decisions take longer, and thoughts ping around with no outlet for their outcomes.
TOP TIP. Take a Party Holiday. If I’m getting overwhelmed, I take myself off, usually to find a cat and have a cuddle and a cooldown. I’ve even been known to take a 30 minute nap, mid party… even if it is at someone else’s house. Sometimes, if we’re at home that nap can extend through to the morning and I find I have noped out the party. I’ve even escaped and had a doze in the car. I simply can’t enjoy myself if I have zero energy spoons, so this helps to sustain me, a sleep snack if you will.
TOP TIP TWO: We plan “zero days”, no expectations, no plans and no demands. Today the menu is “Feed yourself from the pile of offerings and left-overs in the fridge and cupboards”. You join in the games and TV you want to, with no guilt, shame or repeatedly begging people to do things because “We’re a family…”. It’s a chance to center and recharge, and they are 100% key to successful Christmas celebrations in our household. Sometimes you just need to pull in your arms, and legs and hide in your shell…
9. Routine shuffler
Ah, the magical Christmas limbo week — where time dissolves and we all slowly lose touch with reality. Staggering around our houses, faces covered in chocolate snaffling for snacks like a truffle pig. Because our new life has temporarily become one of eating, watching terrible TV, and finding our nearest and dearest more annoying than usual. Neurotypical people call this “relaxing”. I call it “being trapped in a snow globe someone won’t stop shaking”. No routine. No structure. Meals at random times. Days blending into each other like a hideous festive groundhog day. I am a much nicer person when I know what is happening, when it is happening, and who will be there. My unsolicited advice?: Give yourself three anchor points in the day — wake-ish, eat-ish, bed-ish — and everything else can float. This should stop you maiming your relatives.
10. Food droughts
We’re a few days into the Xmas season, you’re not sure what day of the week it is, but you know it’s somewhere between Christmas Day and New Year. Mid morning you get reminded that we’re off to some party or other that evening. You chug through your day, and find yourself at the party, and realise there’s no safe food, or actually the “food” choices are either cheese or onion or ready salted… WHO THE FU.. I Mean C’MON! Ready salted crisps? It’s the beige of the snack world…
Two drinks in you realise there’s not going to be much in the way of food and at best “nibbles” is gonna have to sustain you. OR, worse, they pull out all the pizzas, meaty, veggie, cheesy and BBQ-ee, it’s like Dominos are doing a taster menu. Except, of course, Stu cannot eat gluten, not in a “I prefer not to” way, more in a “bloated stomach and horrible pains for 24hrs until the poison exits the system, rapidly and in several violent and short bursts.” way. However, if I have had a couple of drinks… and it’s good pizza… But, I have learned that having a bag of nuts or a flapjack handy, can stop the two days of suffering the consequences of being glutened. Of course that is then 2 disregulated days, lost to regret shame, proximity to the bathroom and low mood and therefore poor energy. GLUTEN, just say NO!
11. Buying pressure
The gift-buying spiral is real. Neurotypicals seem to breeze around shops humming along to “Last Christmas” and eating the free mince pies. Whilst I’m pacing the aisles ranting things like “I don’t even like this person. Why do I have to buy them a present” as I pick up a pair of overpriced socks. Nothing says “I just don’t care” more than a scented candle or socks. And yet they become the default present for most of the family. Occasionally I trick myself into wanting to make more effort and my brain goes full investigation mode: what do they use? What do they own? What colours do they wear? What did they post on Instagram 43 weeks ago? It’s a level of analysis MI5 should aspire to. Then there’s wrapping… but we’ve already covered wrapping trauma, so I’ll park that. All I know is: Christmas shopping turns my executive function into a pile of dropped baubles. If in doubt chocolate is a safe bet!
12. Gormless guests
As one might expect, I am quite self-directed, with a lot of agency and ability. I expect the same from everyone else, which is a pain when dealing with guests. Obv. I wish them to be comfortable, but I am not running around like a butler ensuring they are waited on hand, foot and finger. Want a cuppa? There’s the cupboard. Need a spoon? Figure it out, start in the kitchen, find a drawer, go from there. You’re unlikely to find any surprises in the kitchen cupboards, we don’t keep the dildoes next to the jams. I do not mind showing you and helping and assisting, but don’t sit there gasping for a cuppa, go make one. I am unlikely to ask, I will forget my own needs, let alone those of others. Esp. when I am 2 hours into solving a particularly challenging Christmas gift.
At the same time, if I am a guest, don’t faff about asking me constant questions, “Everything OK?” , “Need anything?”, etc.. If my needs are not being met I shall mention them, unless of course the party is in full swing in which case I will solo-mission my way to finding what I need… So if you are sitting waiting to be asked, then that’s on you!
And there we have it — the 12 Neurodiverse Traits of Christmas
If you recognised yourself in even one of these, congratulations: you’ve unlocked the “Surviving the Festive Season” achievement badge. It comes with absolutely no prizes except the knowledge that you are not, in fact, the only person who wants to hide behind the coats at the work party.
Christmas is weird. Christmas when you’re neurodivergent is… extra weird. But it doesn’t mean you’re broken, or anti-social, or “not festive enough.” It just means your brain likes clarity, calm, predictability, and to not be ambushed by Marion’s colonoscopy chat while you’re trying to eat a mince pie.
So however you celebrate — loudly, quietly, begrudgingly, or by noping out halfway through and having a nap in your car — may your Christmas be as peaceful and manageable as possible.
And remember: survival is enough.
Anything beyond that? A Christmas miracle.
Happy Merrymas and a Sparkly New Year, see you on the other side…
Reunions – Life’s Unwanted Performance Review
Let’s just start with the dictionary definition of a “Reunion.”
Reunion; noun — a social event for a group of people who have not seen each other for a long time, or a situation when people meet again after they have not seen each other for a long time.
You lost me at “social event.” Now, I am not the Grinch, and I certainly have been known to part-tay with the best of them; those youngsters got nothing on me. Well, except non-arthritic knees, a later bedtime and a better tolerance for bad music. Fuck me, stop being a cliché and get on with the blog post Morrison. Sorry, I digress.
Social gatherings present many challenges for the Neurodivergent. Reunions are top tier, premier-league when it comes to a social gathering. The timeline of pressure goes something like this:
Somewhere around your thirties you hit a little patch of melancholia. Ageing is life’s “black ice”, you come a-cropper when you least expect it, but the arc of age has waypoints and this is one. As your youth recedes common thoughts pervade and you ruminate on your mortality, achievements, success (whatever the fuck that is!). All the things we were overtly or benignly pointed at and corralled towards are suddenly up for grabs.
There’s a wistful nostalgia, pining for a simpler time, a heady scent from your youth wafts on the cognitive breeze; it’s full of heightened colours, distorted perceptions, grander adventures and energetic, forbidden discoveries. To badly paraphrase the mighty Stephen King, it’s comfortable down there, they all float down there… Nostalgia is a powerful drug. Kids, just say no!
But in a weak moment, Friday, after two glasses of vino-de-plonko, you get tagged in a post on social media. A few names get mentioned, a nickname or two, stories about escapades that you had not thought about in a long, long time. One more glass of wine and bingo, bango, FFW 3 weeks and you’re sharing messages with Carol, the bratty class tattle-tale, arguing about the venue for the “RIDE OR DIE BITCHES REUNION TOUR” (partners, significant others and life mates also welcome).
FFW 3 weeks and you’re sharing messages with Carol, the bratty class tattle-tale, arguing about the venue for the “RIDE OR DIE BITCHES REUNION TOUR” (partners, significant others and life mates also welcome).
You wake in the night screaming, “This is not my beautiful life,” and you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?” And I can answer that.
The reason for your involvement in the construction of a gateway to hell is one of social obligation, a pull towards familiar bonds, even if those are built on the mask you once had or maybe still do. Old mental subroutines, canyons of the mind, suddenly flooded with the mental backwash of years gone by.
But as you age, the energy to shore up the façade requires more and more effort. However, we tend to default to our old roles, and of course as the lowest in the school, work or other social org. the default pecking order returns and you not only get the stuff to do that no one else wants to do, you’re kind of happy that you have some sort of involvement, the other kids do want you around. Although being the “doer”, that does mean that when you’re on a committee you’re never the Chair, but are the one whose name is always against an “action item,” giving you all of the stress and none of the glory.
Even if none of this nightmare is your particular experience, just the word “reunion” is going to make your neck hairs stand up and the predator alert go off in your brain. The emotional river runs deep, the water is always freezing, and the current is fast flowing and tempestuous.
My own emotional landscape is littered with burnt-out hulks of past social gatherings positioned as “Reunions,” when they were more re-enactments of former social ostracism and, frankly, I would need a lifetime of spoons to enter into that level of combat ever again.
Obv. school reunions will feature at some point in your life. Whether invited or even if you go doesn’t matter; you’ll still experience the heart-dropping, knotted, gnawing feelings that were your daily internal struggle in class, returning all at once, with considerable compound interest.
I haven’t met everyone on the planet yet, but I have yet to meet someone who is clearly ND that had a happy time at school. I’ve met a lot of damaged people though, who have first-hand horror stories of bullying, abuse and systemic failings, all for being a “bit different.” I’ll save my own for your personal delight and edification another time, but believe me it takes a LOT of time, and considerable growth and clarity, to drop the sack of rocks weighing you down every day and no longer live under the dragweight of those specific incidents.
Here’s another point I wish to cover: Neurodivergent friendship. If you are not in my life, then that is for a reason; mostly because other people cease contact, and at some point you realise that you are the one making all the overtures, or that there are no more DMs being DMed. You get used to the “let’s meet for coffee, soon” moments and start to hear them as “I feel awkward about not being in touch, so I will suggest a vague future meet up and hope we’ll never meet again.”, it’s the “soon“, the indefinite article, making it so very real.
Friendship for a lot of NDs, esp. Autists, is all or nothing, that “Caesar or Death” mindset. I’ve got friends in my life that I have known for 40+ years, and we may not speak for weeks, maybe months. When we do it’s like no time has passed. If you are neurotypical and you have a friend like that, one of you at least is probably ND. Can’t be 100%, but of the few good friends in my life who remain, they’re the ones who will be in touch, out of the blue, and we pick up right where we left off. Right off the high board into the deep end.
But here’s the thing, that’s a one-on-one experience, a very manageable slice of people, in a dose that one can tolerate. A reuni-one, a reunion of one?! Or maybe a re-two-nion, as there are only two people present? Whatever, intermittent peopling in small bursts is doable, with enough notification and crucially, the right.fucking.venue. CAROL!
…intermittent peopling in small bursts is doable, with enough notification and crucially, the right.fucking.venue. CAROL!
As they say, you meet one ND you’ve met one ND. None of us are the same. My sensory hell may well be tolerable for others, and you may have had much gentler and kinder people around you than I did at times, when growing up, so I absolutely assume that all the above is going to be different for you. However, whenever I speak to other NDs who are aware of their own energy and peopling ability, they rarely relish a reunion.
Why rehash the past? Most of the time my earliest memories revolve around trying to fit in, not be seen, avoid the emotional turmoil and mental gymnastics of trying to figure out if it was sarcasm, idiom, analogy or direct instruction. Laid on top of auditory and visual overwhelm, plus hormones, and fluctuating energy due to being hungry or dysregulated because my uniform was hell, the classroom was too hot or cold, and a mind that would wander when bored, which was most of the time. Add all that up and then suggest I want to revisit it, and I am Nopey McNopeface.
The work reunion is no better. Let me preface this by saying: this is not a few drinks with old, familiar colleagues, that’s acceptable. As long as there’s no compulsory “fun,” and we all get to leave when we want without rancour or bantery “negging” next time we meet. That’s fine. Enjoyable even.
What I am talking about is when a company decides to have some kind of get-together of current and/or old workforce and throws a party. Usually around some foundational milestone or other “historic” moment in the company’s past. Maybe even a retirement for a long-standing member of the team.
These can be cringefests, and totally worth playing the “grandparent’s death” card to avoid. An event where there are some absolute guarantees:
A carpet of beige food lines the tables against one wall, none is marked for allergens, so that’s you not eating all night. A DJ plays a mix of Ibiza bangers and childcare nursery rhymes set to a disco beat, weirdly they sound essentially the same, all the while people whose limbs do not coordinate when walking try to recreate the coordinated dance troupe from the Thriller video. With about as much success as you would have with real-life corpses. Plus some kind of speech or announcement from someone who has zero oratory or microphone skills. Somehow they are both too loud and inaudible.
All the while Alan from “Technical Department” ignores the speechifying and rattles on about that time you did that thing and luckily (for you) he spotted that it was wrong, and you had to then get this signed off by this other department manager… all the while standing too close for the toxic level of deodorant deployed that’s still failing to overcome his noxious body odour and coffee-breath, a one-two knockout combo.
We’re now back to the “entertainment,” and everyone is whispering despite the full Glasto main-stage volume level of the DJ’s kit, and yet no one can make out what he says when he speaks into the mic, which is frequently, and seemingly at random. “Heeeess warn fur thaaa layydeees, gert ahn that darnssssssflawwww…” Ace of Spades by Motörhead blares out… WT actual effing effington. Fuck.
Now, I know I paint a rosy picture, but don’t be sucked in. You will hate yourself if you go and try to scratch a nostalgic itch. It won’t work. It’s like taking an industrial sander with 80-grit discs to soothe some mild sunburn, about as enjoyable as a cactus dildo, similar amount of pricks to deal with though. There will be screaming and running for the exits if/as/when it goes wrong.
Recently I was invited to an old friends’ reunion. This was organised pre-official diagnosis, but the event was scheduled just after. I was asked by the organiser to attend, and I agreed. But the closer we got, the more I felt internal resistance, and then after the diagnosis I was off-kilter. I knew what the result of the assessments would be, because when you know, you know, right? And yet some small part of you thinks, “No, not me, surely, I am just a bit odd.”
Anyway, to then have to go and navigate a social landscape that expects me to be “old” me when I am not even sure who that person was back then. Certainly a lot younger, but also very dysregulated at a very unhappy part of my life, combined with expectations, assumptions, and a genuine 24-carat arsehole I’ve no wish to spend any time with ever again, who offends my DNA with his presence and for whom I would happily undergo amnesia therapy to erase from my brain. Yeah. The resistance is strong…
So, although I said I would go, I didn’t. Spent the entire evening feeling guilt, shame, and avoiding social media. Then add a few days spiralling around the well of despair that I had let people down. And yet, no one got in touch after, apart from the host with a “where were you?” cue more shame and guilt, even though they graciously and fully understood.
Not that friendship is a test, but if anyone had truly missed my presence then a “missed you, hope you’re well” from others attending is the least you might expect? There may have been major relief at the weirdo not coming, or I may be reading waaaaaaaay too much into all of this and after all “it’s just a reunion Stuart.”
But here’s the thing for NDs: there’s no “just” about it. If the above jumble of metaphors, analogies and scenarios resonates then I am sure that no apology to you is required. You can feel the emotional vibration, the level of overthinking, and the ball of frayed knots in yer innards for days before and after.
And then there’s the “Family Reunion”, the smackdown, title fight of Reunions… let’s not go there… We’ll save that for another blog.
Here’s the thing: we’re all different. Don’t let my experience cloud your own enjoyment of anything which gives you a smile and a lift. Go do it and ignore this old curmudgeon with no new friends!
IMPORTANT MESSAGE
If you’re struggling there is help. If you need to speak to someone, bigmoosecharity.co — this is free, emergency mental health support. If you need them, click the link and send them a message. They reply within 24 hrs and you will be speaking to someone within 7 days.
Slightly Sweary, Always Real: Not Your Average ND or Business Podcast
When Stu first approached me about co-hosting the Oddcast, I bit his hand off. Not literally — I’m not some sort of rabid, fame-hungry chihuahua. But I just had this deep-rooted sense that this was going to be something that fed my soul on so many levels. It felt like a kind, slightly self-indulgent gift to myself.
And who doesn’t love a gift?
The truth is, we were already having the sorts of conversations we have in the Oddcast all the time anyway. So why not record them, slap on a fancy logo, and share them with anyone who might need a laugh, a bit of solidarity, or a reminder they’re not the only one.
BUT it needed to be the right vibe, because a lot of the ND podcasts I’d experienced so far were more ‘support group’ energy. And I couldn’t see myself leaning forward in my chair, wearing steel-rimmed glasses, going “and how does that make you feel?” Don’t get me wrong, there is enormous value in that approach, but it’s all a bit clinical: not something you’d binge with a cup of tea and a packet of biscuits. We wanted it to be lighter, more relatable, and rooted in celebrating what we bring to the table — rather than mourning anything we don’t.
I’d been thinking about a podcast for some time but couldn’t picture what that would look like. So, like many of my ideas, I fixated on it for weeks, then put it in a box in my brain marked “lost dreams” to collect dust amongst all the magnificent wiring up there. Then along came Stu, in his incredible tailoring, with a clear vision that put into words what I couldn’t. So, I hitched my trailer to Sparkly Suit Man™ (I’m defo contacting Marvel with this one), and here we are.
Here’s what we’re doing here: finding comedy in the chaos of our day-to-day. Not to belittle difficult situations, but because when you laugh, things just feel smilier (is that a word? It is now!). We recognise the different ways things can work for us and celebrate the differences, rather than use them as a stick to hit each other with. Although that would make for a fun podcast, wouldn’t it? Note that down, Stu.
So welcome to the Business Oddcast. This is a space where we get to scream, loudly and unapologetically: “We’re fucking amazing.“
What We’re Doing Differently
Other ND podcasts often lean into the “here’s what’s wrong with us” angle. Ours? Not so much. Yes, there are struggles — burnout, demand avoidance, ADHD loops to name but a few — but there’s also humour, creativity, and oodles of group empathy. With a dollop of no judgement to boot.
You might also find yourself dragged down a long and random rabbit-hole tangent that I’ve decided to go on. Because I’m the queen of all things tangent. So buckle up and be reassured that Stu will circle us back to the original topic at some stage.
There will also be soapbox moments, where one of us taps into some past rage and decides to vent it momentarily. So, you can either look away or cheer us from the sidelines. It’s just all part of the journey. We’re flipping the script: less doom and gloom, more “here’s the messy truth, and here’s how we get through it.“
Why It Matters (The Tribe Bit)
Being ND in business can feel lonely. You’re juggling burnout, weird work rhythms, and a brain that sometimes flatly refuses to cooperate. It’s easy to think you’re the only one. God, we’ve all been there. In a room surrounded by people and feeling the loneliest you’ve ever felt.
That’s why this podcast exists: to hold up a neon sign that says “You’re not alone. You’re one of us.” Well, it’s certainly one of the reasons anyway!
But don’t fear, there is no pity in this party of spicy goodness. So if you’ve come for that, then you’ll need to take your Wotsits and your REM album, and jog on. Actually, leave the Wotsits… because who doesn’t love that bright orange cheesy goodness.
That takes me back to being very drunk, in the mid-90s (actually, I think I was drunk for the whole of the 90s), in a terrible karaoke bar in Menorca, singing a more depressing version, if that is possible, of *Losing My Religion* by REM. I’m using the term ‘singing’ very loosely here. After about an hour of flat-out refusing to join in the fun, I had gone full karaoke queen, and was limbering up for ‘Islands in the Stream’: yes, I was planning to be both Dolly and Kenny. The sambuca had made me invincible! Or maybe delusional. One of the two anyway. So, after a while of me not playing nicely, and refusing to leave the stage, a scuffle ensued as the guy running the event tried to wrestle the microphone off me. Not my finest moment!
I digress…
Tips Without the Preach
We’re not here to hand out shiny 10-step plans or productivity hacks you’ll forget about by Tuesday. What we are here to do is share the stuff that actually works for us — usually discovered the hard way — along with the fails, the facepalms, and the odd accidental win. Think of it less like a workshop, more like swapping survival notes with friends.
And we’re definitely not here to “fix” anyone, because none of you awesome humans are broken! Also, from an insurance point of view, I can’t make that promise — I’ve been trying it on myself for 50 years and it’s not going brilliantly. There is a long list of therapists in the south-east who could back me up on that.
What we are here to do is build a space where you might find your people, laugh at the chaos with us, and hear from brilliant guest speakers who share their own experiences of being ND in business. Between the laughs, the honest chats, and the guest insights, we want you to feel like you’ve found your tribe.
And if you don’t? Well, please leave us a nice review anyway, so we don’t have to start busking. It’s been a long while since I dusted off my recorder, and honestly — no one needs to see that.
Come in, the water’s lovely, and there are no strange-looking plaster thingys floating in it.
Click here to see us in glorious technicolor – or if you just want the podcast click here