Who Are You Trying To Impress
I’ve always been pretty proud of my easy-going personality. I’m helpful, I don’t like making a fuss, and I’m generally pretty good at fitting around other people….generally. All excellent qualities, I feel. Five stars for Hannah. Lovely to work with. Would recommend!
Except recently I’ve started noticing how often “easy-going” Hannah says, “Yep, no problem!” when there is, in fact, a problem. Not a call-the-emergency-services problem, obviously. More a I don’t have time for this, don’t particularly want to do it and am now going to have to rearrange half my week kind of problem.
And the most annoying bit is that nobody has pressured me into anything. There are no guns against heads. Someone has just asked a completely reasonable question and given me every opportunity to say no. But before I’m given my brain the chance to engage, my mouth has already committed, and my head is nodding enthusiastically. Even though at that point my brain is in the corner with its arms crossed looking bemused.
Then, later, I’m annoyed. Partly with the person who asked me, even though I know they’ve not done anything wrong. But mainly with myself. Because I’ve done it again. I’ve prioritised being helpful, doing the right thing, being the good girl, whilst totally ignoring what might actually be best for me.
I’ve had a lifetime of this, but in recent years I’ve started to wonder whether I really am as easy-going as I think I am. Or if, in fact, I’ve just gotten really good at being easy for other people. As that’s a whole different kettle of fish entirely.
When ‘easy-going’ stops being easy
To be clear, I genuinely am pretty chill. Unless you cut me up when my kids are in the car! (That’s a road rage story for another time!)
If I don’t care whether we meet at ten or eleven, then I really don’t care. I’m not secretly sitting at home seething because somebody chose eleven while whispering, “This is fine” through gritted teeth.
But I’ve realised there are plenty of other times when I do have a preference. Or something is inconvenient. Or I’m already stretched. And yet out comes the trusty old “Whatever works for you!” before my own opinion has even had the chance to reach the front of the queue.
I think some of that comes from spending years feeling like certain bits of me needed toning down. Too sensitive. Too emotional. Too direct. Too much. You learn pretty quickly that being accommodating gets a much warmer reception than being the person saying, “Actually, this doesn’t work for me.” So perhaps somewhere along the way I got a little too good at it.
Because there’s a point where being flexible stops being about genuinely not minding and starts becoming a reluctance to risk somebody thinking you’re difficult. And THAT is where I’m starting to question things. I don’t want to stop being easy-going because I quite like that bit of me. I just don’t want “easy-going” to mean everyone else gets to be comfortable at my expense.
The helpful one
Being helpful is another one I’ve started looking at a little more suspiciously. Because I LOVE being helpful. Give me a problem to solve and I’m in. I’ll find you the person you need, send you the link, come up with three ideas you hadn’t thought of and possibly become considerably more invested in sorting it out than you are. Possibly? Who am I kidding?…I will definitely be more invested.
This is particularly true in business. A client can ask me for one thing and suddenly I’m thinking, Ooh, but if we did this as well… And then I’ve spotted something else. And that connects to another thing. Before long, what was supposed to be a fairly contained piece of work has developed several additional limbs and I’m happily giving them all away for free.
And some of that is absolutely one of the reasons I’m good at what I do. I don’t want to stop seeing the extra thing just because it wasn’t technically in the brief. That would be like asking my brain to notice fewer things, and good luck with that. But again, I’ve started noticing the difference between doing more because I’m excited, interested and genuinely think it will help, and doing more because I have that little nagging feeling that what I’ve already done might not be enough.
Enough for what, exactly? Enough for the client to be happy? Enough for them to think I’m good at my job? Enough to justify what they’ve paid me? Enough for them to like me? Because “I always overdeliver” sounds like a fabulous business principle until you realise you’re routinely delivering 150% while only charging for 100%. At which point it becomes less of a business strategy and more of an unpaid internship in your own company.
Perfect is safer
Perfectionism gets tangled up in this too. I’ve always cared about doing things properly, and I’m not planning to start merrily chucking out crap in the name of personal growth. There are standards. But there are also times when I know something is good enough and STILL can’t leave the bloody thing alone.
One more read-through. One tiny tweak. Move that sentence. Put it back again. Change a word. Decide the original word was better. Stare at it for another ten minutes as though the I can summon the correct answer with my eyeballs. At that point, I’m not sure we’re talking about high standards anymore.
If I am honest with myself I know I’m removing every possible opportunity for someone to think I’ve got something wrong. And gaslighting myself into thinking it’s my attention to detail, or perfectionist streak.
Overexplaining is probably part of the same family too. I can turn a perfectly straightforward email into something requiring chapters if I’m worried there’s any chance of being misunderstood. The number of times I have thrown what was meant to be a quick email, and invariably evolved into my life’s work, into ChatGPT with the prompt ‘make it less rambly’.
Here’s my answer. Here’s why that’s my answer. Here’s some context. Here’s a small piece of supporting evidence. And while we’re here, would you like to know what happened in 2007 that explains why I think this way?
I joke about it, but there is something underneath all that explaining. If I give you ALL the information, you’ll understand me properly. If you understand me properly, maybe you won’t think badly of me. And suddenly that six-paragraph email looks a little less like being thorough and a little more like me trying to control an outcome I can’t actually control.
Anything to avoid the awkward conversation
Now’s the part where things get particularly ridiculous, because I am absolutely not someone that actively avoids conflict. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t go out in search of it. Who wants that?
But if someone I care about is being treated unfairly, then I’m hunting down that conflict, Liam Neeson style. I’ve got the skills to ask difficult questions… I can challenge people. I can become an absolute pain in the arse when required.
Give me an injustice and apparently all concerns about being easy-going have left the building. If there’s a wrongdoing afoot, my flag’s in the air and I’m leading the march. Yeah, I’m gonna chain myself to something in the name of fairness if I need to too!
But disappointing somebody personally? Ah, different department. Suddenly I’m explaining. Softening. Apologising. Adding a smiley face so nobody accidentally thinks I’m furious because I’ve said I can’t do Thursday.
Even saying ‘no’ comes with an entire supporting statement for me. I can’t just give you the cold hard facts. I need to set the scene for you, give the full background story of why I can make it, what else I am doing instead, and a hundred other bits of evidence about how I am still indeed a decent human, in spite of letting you down.
And the crazy thing is that most people aren’t giving any of this a second thought. They’ve read “Sorry, I can’t do Thursday”, thought okay, and moved on with their lives while I’m still mentally preparing my defence for a court case nobody has brought. I think that’s where the fear of disappointing people really shows itself for me. It’s not necessarily that I can’t say no. It’s that I want to make absolutely certain you’re still okay with me afterwards if I do.
When did this become my personality?
This is the bit I find most fascinating. Because when we talk about masking, it can sound like something quite deliberate. You put the mask on for work, networking or a client meeting, do your best impression of a person who definitely knows what they’re doing, then come home and take it off again.
But what if you’ve been doing some of this stuff for most of your life, so you genuinely don’t know where all the lines are anymore. I know I am helpful, and kind. I like making people happy. And I really know how much I care about doing a good job. So, I don’t want to start examining every decent thing I’ve ever done and decide none of it was real and I’ve actually just been one enormous mask in leopard print clothing.
But there are definitely bits I’ve started questioning. Do I actually not mind, or have I just become really good at saying I don’t? Am I making this thing better because I want to, or because I’m scared it isn’t good enough? Am I explaining because the other person needs more information, or because I need them to understand that I am Definitely Not Wrong? And would I still be quite so accommodating if there was absolutely no chance of anyone being disappointed in me?
That last one is a bit of a bugger. Because once you’ve been The Helpful One, The Reliable One, The Easy-Going One and The One Who Will Sort It for long enough, people come to expect it. More importantly, you come to expect it.
So where does the masking stop and my actual personality start? No idea. Helpful, I know. But maybe I don’t need to completely unpick it. Maybe I just need to notice the bits that don’t feel like a choice anymore.
So… who ARE you trying to impress?
I’ve seen enough advice about people pleasing to know I’m now supposed to announce that I no longer care what anybody thinks of me. Unfortunately, that would be bollocks. Of course I care what people think of me. I want my clients to think I’m good at what I do. I want my friends to think I’m a good friend. I want the people I love to know they can rely on me. And, as a general life ambition, I’d quite like most people who encounter me not to leave thinking, “God, she’s an idiot.”
I don’t think caring is the problem. It’s what I sometimes make myself do to guarantee the outcome. Because I can’t actually guarantee that everyone will like me. I can’t make sure nobody is ever disappointed. I can’t explain myself so perfectly that I’m never misunderstood. And I definitely can’t keep giving everyone 150% without eventually wondering why I’m bloody exhausted.
So, I’m trying to notice it sooner. The automatic yes. The unnecessary apology. The extra hour spent making something better that was already absolutely fine. The six paragraphs of explanation when two sentences would probably have done the job. Not so I can become less helpful, less caring or less me. Just so I get a say in it too.
Because maybe the question isn’t really “Who are you trying to impress?” Maybe it’s “How much of yourself are you changing to make sure you do?”
And I think I’m finally ready to stop auditioning quite so hard.
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..
Being Self-Employed Without Wearing the Mask at Home
So, anyone who has listened to even just one of our Podcasts will be fully aware by now that Stu and I are huge fans of self-employment. Especially if your brain is of the spicier variety like ours.
But for those of you who haven’t heard us banging that particular drum (shame on you!), we are advocates for it because it can be hugely freeing, flexible, and often the safest way to build a working life that actually fits a neurodivergent brain.
But… there’s always a but, right? There’s the assumption that if we’ve chosen it, we must be fine. Because somewhere along the way, that freedom that’s afforded us gets tangled up with another expectation. If we’ve designed our own working life, we shouldn’t be struggling in it.
We’ve got to be coping, calm, and capable. On top of things. Definitely not lying awake at 3am replaying that time you finished a call with a client by saying “love you” then hanging up (true story). That’s a whole ton of pressure.
That pressure to be seen as ‘winning’ in our employment choice often turns into masking. Not the dramatic kind, but at least acting like everything is under control—not just to your clients, but also your loved ones. In reality, there are times when you can’t believe anyone ever gave the role of ‘adulting’ freely to you.
When “work mode’ refuses to sod off!
Self-employment doesn’t always stay in its cage when you want it to. Because your business is tied to your ideas, your brain, and your sense of self. Which is awesome when things are rocking. But deeply inconvenient when they’re not.
Masking at work, for us, often starts as self-defence. We learn how to say “yes, that’s all in hand” while our internal monologue is screaming. Not because we’re incapable, but because we’re translating chaos into something other people can digest.
We don’t perform fake competence. We buffer real competence. We smooth the edges, downplay the effort, and make difficult things look easier than they feel. Over time, that constant translation can solidify into a persona — the version of us others rely on, even when it costs more than anyone realises. The problem isn’t that the version exists. The problem is when she follows you home, sits on the sofa, and refuses to shut up.
So you keep reassuring. Keep editing. Keep smoothing the edges. You keep saying things like “it’s all fine.” Not because it isn’t, but because you’re translating when you actually need to sit in silence for twenty minutes, scrolling absolutely nothing, while your nervous system whispers kind words to itself.
Home slowly becomes another place where you’re on. And that’s exhausting in a way sleep alone doesn’t fix.
Why neurodivergent stress is like your drunk uncle at a wedding (Unpredictable!)
Neurodivergent stress is famously bad at behaving itself. It’s like a cat that is determined to tap all the precious things off the worktops onto the floor below. And it’s also almost always really unpredictable. Often, there’s a delay where we cope beautifully in the moment, lulling those around us into a false sense of security. Then unravel later while loading the dishwasher or standing in the shower, suddenly furious about something that happened last Tuesday.
This is where stress can start leaking out as irritability, withdrawal, or over-talking. Sudden emotional fireworks that seem wildly out of proportion to whatever happened. People around us can often get confused here because, from the outside, it can look like anger, disinterest, or distance. When, really, it’s the nervous system finally processing something it didn’t have time to deal with earlier.
So many of us default to jokes. Or silence. Or insisting everything’s fine until it very much isn’t.
Authenticity is not the same as handing over your brain
Dropping the mask at home doesn’t mean narrating every anxious thought like an audiobook nobody asked for. There’s a difference between honesty and emotional dumping, and most of us are trying to find the middle ground without traumatising our loved ones or imploding quietly instead.
Being honest can be as simple as translation. “I’m stressed about work” lands very differently from “I am spiralling, and you are now responsible for fixing it.”
“I don’t need fixing — I just need to talk this out” is, frankly, the king of sentences.
Timing matters too. Mid-meltdown is rarely the moment for a nuanced discussion about cash flow or existential dread. Whereas when we wait until we are more regulated, the outcomes are almost always much better. Believe me, I’ve tried the alternative multiple times, and it’s not a winner! And waiting for that regulated moment, when she arrives, isn’t avoidance. It’s the smart choice if you still want to get on with your family, ha ha!
Supportive people are still, annoyingly, not psychic
Here’s the deeply irritating truth: people can’t support what they don’t understand. I’ve dreamt of a psychic husband for many years now, but sadly, he has not materialised.
If all our family ever hears is that things are going well, they’ll assume they are. Not because they don’t care, but because they’re working with the information available to them. So when we are more transparent about how we feel about our work, they have a fair chance of understanding better. That’s not to say that we need to unveil our stress in a way that creates panic. It’s just about giving them context, for example, explaining patterns, and letting them know when our stress is a background noise rather than a car alarm.
Without that context, any concern they share with us can quickly morph into pressure. Especially around money and stability. Advice offered kindly can feel like judgment. Reassurance can feel like monitoring. Suddenly, “how’s work?” feels like an interrogation, and you’d rather fake your own disappearance than answer it.
Boundaries that keep work out of your living room
Unmasking doesn’t mean talking about business constantly. In fact, boundaries are usually what sustain honesty. That might mean limiting business talk in the evenings or having a loose container for venting rather than letting it seep into every conversation.
It might also mean choosing one trusted friend (thanks, Stu!) who understands self-employment in its ever-changing landscape of grassy fields and quicksand swamps. And better still, someone who is prepared to hear the gritty details, or at least nod and smile in the right places, without wanting to slap you.
Because, regardless of how much your family love you, and hopefully wants to be supportive, there is a limit to the breadth of their goodwill if you are expecting them to be your accountant, therapist, and crisis-response team all at once.
Now, I appreciate the irony in typing these next words that are basically my spirit animal. But try to avoid oversharing. Yes, yes, I literally overshare on everything. Sorry, not sorry. But just because I do, doesn’t mean you have to. Relationships where everything is shared can be as draining as those where nothing is. The goal is enough openness to feel supported, and enough structure to feel safe.
Remember, boundaries aren’t secrecy. They’re nervous system management.
What changes when you finally take the mask off
In healthy, honest relationships, you’re allowed to be uncertain without being fixed. You can admit when you’re tired without being judged. And be honest with those closest to you, without making them feel they need to manage it.
Being able to say “I’m not okay, but I am handling it” and be believed, is life-changing. Especially if you have spent a large portion of your life trying to avoid that at all costs.
It creates emotional safety, a shared language, and a sense that you’re not carrying self-employment entirely alone. Dropping the mask at home doesn’t make you less professional. It makes self-employment survivable.
Because when you stop performing competence everywhere, you get some energy back. Enough to rest. Enough to regulate. Enough to show up again without dragging yesterday’s stress into every room. You’re allowed to be capable, whilst still feeling unsure. Being human doesn’t prevent us from being successful…however we define that. And we can still be professional at work and still be fully ourselves at home.
That balance isn’t indulgent. It’s how you last.
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.
Surviving Celebrations: Holidays, Birthdays and Social Pressure
I have a confession, and it might not be the popular choice. But I find celebrations exhausting. Particularly when I am directly involved in them. Not all of them, and not all of the time. But for something that meant to be fun, I seem to spend an awful lot of energy preparing for them, masking through them, and recovering from them. That doesn’t feel like fun to me.
Holidays, birthdays, Christmas… basically anything that involves social pressure. And if you’re neurodivergent — autistic, ADHD, AuDHD, anxious, or just on your knees from people-ing — I bet you’re reading this and nodding along. Because there’s so much more than ‘joy’ involved. There’s compulsory attention, sensory overload, social scripts, other people’s expectations, and tons of logistics and executive function. I’m just exhausted thinking about it!
So, this blog isn’t an anti-joy rant (promise). It’s a permission slip to everyone who finds celebrations complicated — and a little survival guide for making them more bearable, maybe even enjoyable… on your terms.
When your birthday feels like a “do you like It?” nightmare
Let’s start with birthdays, because they seem to bring out the worst of me whichever way you look at it.
On paper, birthdays sound great: a day all about you. In reality? A day all about you. Good lord. I’m not good at things being about me any other time of the year… and my birthday is no different. There’s so much to consider. Like, what will I actually do on the day — and will it be what I want instead of what everyone else thinks I want? How am I supposed to act when everyone is looking at my face while I open things? Have I mastered the “oh wow, I love it” face when I open something particularly disappointing?
Spoiler: I absolutely have not. I have crushed a few souls over the years with my lacklustre “thanks” as another candle joins the dusty candle graveyard in my fireplace.
For my 50th (I know, right? Not a day over 30!) I felt this more than ever. People kept asking, “What are you doing for the big five-0? New decade! Big plans?” Like I was planning to rise from the ashes of my 40s in a sequinned jumpsuit declaring “I’ve arrived!” When in reality, I just started to creak a lot more and began worrying about hydration levels, comfy shoes, and whether I needed arch support.
Note: If younger-me has somehow travelled through time and is reading this — I’m sorry. Older you never got that call from Dave Grohl and now prioritises sleep and water.
Right — back to my 50s (which sounds like a disappointing 90s movie without Michael J. Fox). Confession time: I was due a major operation around my birthday, and I got a choice of dates. So I deliberately booked it so I’d be in hospital on my birthday. People were horrified…because they had no clue that it was deliberate! “Oh no, that’s awful, such bad timing!” No. It was perfect. I picked it. I wanted to be somewhere where nobody expected anything of me except lying still, drinking tea and eating biscuits. Bliss.
And yet (here comes the contradiction), I am fully capable of becoming a birthday princess monster if my “Oh, don’t worry about my birthday, it’s just another day” gets taken literally.
My husband and kids will never forget the year they leaned into my birthday ambivalence and made almost no effort. It was like someone injected my RSD with steroids and I felt every emotion in ten minutes flat. Tears, rage, disbelief, more tears. So yes, even when we know we don’t want the fuss, sometimes there’s a small feral part of us that still wants to feel special. The key, I’ve learned, is to stop pretending I don’t care and start being honest about what I can cope with.
Gift-giving, or as I call It: “Stop staring at my face”
Let’s talk about gift trauma. I cannot lie convincingly about presents. I just don’t have the face for it. If I get another generic middle-aged-lady hand cream gift set, my face will absolutely say “WTAF?” even if my mouth is attempting “Oh wow, I love it.”
I don’t mean to be ungrateful. I know the time, the cost, the last-minute panic shop (in the case of my husband). But my brain goes into meltdown — especially if the giver knows me well.
One year my husband got me a voucher for a very fancy shop for ladies who are significantly more chic and sensible than myself. In my head it became evidence that he didn’t know me at all. Cue days of overthinking and a small existential crisis, all because he panic-bought from the shop most likely closest to the carpark on Christmas eve. To avoid all the other panic buyers.
When I eventually worked up the courage to go spend this voucher, it was like the “Pretty Woman” scene but without Julia Roberts’ charm or the happy ending. One sales assistant looked baffled that someone in ripped jeans and a Pink Floyd T-shirt had wandered in. The other looked like she was about to call security.
I ended up buying an expensive belt I would never wear just so I could leave with some dignity. Now he is under strict instruction to buy vouchers from shops where I actually belong.
Surprise parties: Why, just why?
On paper, they sound delightful. In reality, they’re jump scares with canapés. The sudden noise, the wall of faces, the sensory chaos, the lack of warning — it feels like being ambushed by everyone you’ve ever met.
Those who know me understand that if they ever throw me a surprise party, I will walk in, turn around, and go home. Probably with some crying in amongst that. It’s not ingratitude. It’s about control and predictability. My brain wants to know where I’m going, who will be there, how long it’ll last, and (most importantly) where the exits are.
If you love a surprise party — fabulous, enjoy. No judgement (…ish). But some of us need a celebration with escape routes.
Christmas: Expensive sparkly chaos
Christmas is marketed as cosy, twinkly, joyful magic. But for many of us it’s an expensive sensory hurricane. The routine disruption. The noise. The family stuff. The forced fun. The exhaustion.
Personally, one of the best survival tactics I’ve ever discovered is cooking. Everyone assumes I’m suffering in the kitchen — “Oh, I feel so bad you’re doing all the cooking!” Please don’t. I love it. It gives me the quiet and structure I need to not burn out before the King’s Speech. My kitchen is tiny, so nobody can “help” unless they want to be hit with a roasting tin. Perfect.
Surviving celebrations isn’t about avoiding them. It’s about finding your entry point — the version that doesn’t drain your soul. And sometimes that means disappearing to your bedroom with no explanation. (Other rooms are available.) The world won’t end if you lie down during Christmas. Who knew?
Holidays: Same shit, different country
This is a whole episode on its own (coming in Episode 14), but they deserve a mention here. If not just for all the trauma they have caused me over the years. For many people, holidays are restorative. For me? When the kids were small, my husband stopped asking if I wanted to go on one after I described them as:
“The same shit in a different country, but without the kids’ favourite foods or safe spaces.”
The stress kicks in weeks before — planning, packing, taking time off work, managing all the unspoken emotional labour. If you love holidays — amazing. But if you don’t, it doesn’t make you broken. Rest looks different for some of us. Quiet days at home absolutely count.
Boundaries: The real celebration
If I’ve learned anything, it’s this: You’re allowed to design celebrations around YOU. For years I thought I had to perform enjoyment to keep everyone else comfortable. Now I’m more interested in getting through these things without throat-punching an elderly relative.
(Disclaimer: that has never actually happened.)
Honesty helps. Recovery time helps. Boundaries help. Permission helps. If celebrations feel complicated, you’re not weird or ungrateful or anti-social. You’re a human with a nervous system that notices everything — and that has limits. You’re allowed to build a version of “special” that doesn’t leave you wrecked. You’re allowed to want a quiet breakfast and a book instead of a balloon arch and a bouncy castle.
Because when you stop forcing yourself to enjoy things the “normal” way, you make space for something better — moments that actually feel good, not just socially acceptable.
So, whether you celebrate big, small, strangely, quietly, or not at all, do it in a way that lets you breathe. You deserve that.
Sustainable Productivity Hacks for Neurodivergent Entrepreneurs
If you’ve ever Googled “how to be more productive” and ended up rage-eating crisps because some bloke in a navy suit told you to just wake up at 5am and hustle, this one’s for you.
Most traditional productivity advice feels like it was written for robots with no sensory issues, no ADHD paralysis, and an unhealthy love for Excel. For the rest of us — the neurodivergent entrepreneurs with fluctuating focus, executive dysfunction, sensory sensitivities, and a sprinkle of perfectionism — that advice often backfires.
We don’t need more discipline. We need systems that support our brains instead of having a little scrap with them. So with that in mind, here are some sustainable, real-world hacks — designed to help you get things done without burning out, selling your soul, or needing to search on the black market for a new nervous system.
1. Build systems, not routines
Here’s the thing about routines: they rely on willpower, and willpower is like the battery on an old iPhone — fine one minute, dead the next.
Systems, on the other hand, are flexible frameworks. They don’t care if you wake up at 6am or 10:37am; they meet you where your brain is that day.
Instead of “I must write my newsletter every Thursday at 9,” try “when I open my laptop, I’ll spend 15 minutes on content before emails.” Same goal, less guilt.
Imperfect consistency is still progress. In fact, it’s the only kind that lasts. “Good enough” beats “burnt out but technically on schedule” every time.
And if you miss a day? You haven’t failed — you’ve just gathered more data on how your brain actually works. That’s useful intel, not a character flaw.
Quick side-rant about consistency (Someone had to say it!)
People love to bang on about consistency like it’s the holy grail of productivity. “Just show up every day!” they say. Like it’s something that comes naturally to everyone.
But here’s the truth: consistency isn’t about frequency. It’s not about grinding out content or showing up every single day with nothing better than an enthusiastic smile.
Consistency is quality and reliability, not repetition. Turning up with weak, run-of-the-mill content just to tick a box hurts your business. Turning up unexpectedly with quality — something that surprises, delights, and actually offers value — builds trust and interest. It’s that old adage of not speaking unless you have something worth saying (I appreciate the irony of me typing this, given that speaking is my specialist subject!).
Reliably rewarding, high-quality content every two weeks will do more for your business than daily posts that are weaker than a US beer. Consistency isn’t doing more — it’s doing better, at a rhythm you can sustain.
2. Leverage your hyperfocus (without exploding)
Hyperfocus is the neurodivergent equivalent of a superpower — one that comes without an off switch. It can also have a mind of its own, but that’s a topic for another blog. You can build a website, design a course, and reorganise your sock drawer before lunch… but forget to eat, stretch, or blink.
The trick isn’t to stop hyperfocusing — it’s to use it strategically. Save it for deep creative or strategic work, not admin rabbit holes. If you know a task will grab your brain and not let go, plan for it.
Set external reminders: timers, alarms, accountability friends — people who can text “drink water!” without judgement.
Keep a soft landing list: low-effort tasks you can move to when your focus drops off. It helps you transition gently instead of crashing into the burnout wall.
Once a week, reflect. What brought you joy? What wrang you dry? Adjust your workload accordingly — that’s not flakiness, it’s self-preservation.
3. Redefine time management as energy management
If you’ve ever looked at your calendar and thought “who the hell scheduled me for this?”, you’re not alone. Time isn’t the problem — energy is.
Neurodivergent productivity works best when you manage your mental fuel, not your minutes. Try energy-based time blocking instead of hour-by-hour scheduling.
Label your day in blocks like “high focus,” “medium focus,” and “low focus.” Do your hardest work during high focus, admin or email in low focus, and gentle planning during medium focus.
Build micro-recovery moments into your day — stretch, breathe, lie on the floor, eat something that isn’t beige. Create fire breaks between tasks; five-minute buffers to reset your brain before diving into the next thing.
And remember, asynchronous productivity is valid. You don’t have to work when everyone else does. If your best ideas show up at 11pm, so be it. Some of my finest work has been crafted when the rest of society are snoozing! Just make sure you rest when the world’s awake.
4. Design your environment to work with you
Environment design beats self-control every time. The less friction you have between “I should do this” and “I’m doing this,” the easier life gets.
Minimise distractions: use noise-cancelling headphones, reduce visual clutter, or change locations depending on the task. (Some of my best ideas have come whilst working in a cafe — part caffeine, part chaos.)
Create sensory-friendly spaces. Adjust lighting, add soft textures, or use ambient sound that soothes instead of overstimulates.
Body doubling, working alongside someone else, even virtually, can also work wonders. It tricks your brain into accountability without the performance anxiety.
Keep friction low: have shortcuts to your current projects on your desktop or in one easy-access folder. Nothing kills motivation faster than the digital equivalent of rummaging through your handbag for half an hour. Set the stage, and your brain will follow.
5. Use tech as your cognitive sidekick
Tech isn’t cheating, it’s scaffolding. You’re not lazy for using tools that make life easier; you’re building a support team for your executive function.
Use AI tools (like ChatGPT ) for brainstorming, writing drafts, or summarising notes. Set up digital reminders, gentle nudges, and calendar alerts to keep track of what ‘future you’ might forget.
Task visualisation apps like Trello, Notion, or ClickUp let you see your workflow instead of holding it in your head. That’s not an aesthetic choice, it’s cognitive relief.
Keep it simple, though. The goal is to support your brain, not to spend three days colour-coding task boards you’ll never open again. I have whiled away many hours on a Miro board, knowing I will almost certainly never look at it again.
6. Normalise rest, downtime & self-compassion
Repeat after me: rest is not a reward for hard work — it’s preparation for it.
Schedule rest on purpose. That might look like no-meeting days, naps, or sensory breaks. Track your early signs of overwhelm — irritability, procrastination, forgetfulness — and intervene early.
Rest doesn’t have to mean doing nothing; it can mean doing something that restores you. Gardening, gaming, stalking the aisles of TK Maxx without purpose. All valid.
Celebrate progress, not perfection. If you got through the day without crying into your to-do list, that’s a win.
7. Build support systems
Sustainable productivity doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens in community.
Outsource tasks that drain your executive function; bookkeeping, inbox management, or even meal prep if you can. (Tesco delivery counts as self-care, I promise.)
Join neurodivergent entrepreneur networks, accountability groups, or yes — the OddSquad. Find your people. They’ll remind you that you’re not failing; you’re functioning differently.
And when possible, communicate your needs openly with clients or collaborators. “I work best with written instructions” or “I might need a bit of notice for meetings” are not admissions of weakness — they’re signs of self-awareness.
8. Give yourself permission to evolve
Your productivity will change — with seasons, stress, hormones, health, or just because it wants to. That’s not failure; that’s life.
What worked brilliantly in January might crash and burn by May, and that’s okay. Instead of seeing it as inconsistency, think of it as calibration. You’re learning your rhythms, not breaking them.
Check in with yourself regularly. Ask yourself “is this system still serving me, or am I serving it”? If it’s the latter, tweak, adapt, or ditch it entirely.
You’re not meant to be a static machine of efficiency. You’re a human — and humans change. The real productivity hack is accepting that evolution is part of the process.
The big reframe
Productivity isn’t about fitting into a neurotypical mould. It’s about designing a system that fits you. Treat productivity like a living organism; something that evolves as you do. What works this month might not next month, and that’s okay.
Your brain isn’t the barrier; it’s the blueprint. The right systems protect you, your business, and your energy. So next time someone tells you to “just be better organised”, feel free to smile, nod, and ignore them completely. You’re not disorganised — you’re custom-built!.
Now go design the kind of productivity that sustains you — leopard print optional. Unless you’re me, then leopard print is compulsory!
To Unveil or Not to Unveil: That Is the Question
Should I tell clients I’m neurodivergent — or keep it under wraps? What if they don’t get it? What if they think I’m difficult, unreliable, or… too much?
Note to self: that ship well and truly sailed when I started wearing my leopard print army necklace!
It’s a question that I imagine most neurodivergent business owners wrestle with at some point: Do I show up as the real me — or play it safe and hope no one notices the sparkle leaking out? The answer, of course, is messy. Because in a world that still misunderstands us, unveiling can feel like standing on stage without a script — hoping the audience claps instead of walks out.
The armour we build
For many of us, masking isn’t about deceit — it’s about survival. And often, it’s not even conscious for those of us who’ve been doing it for as long as we can remember. We learn early on that being “different” can attract attention that we don’t want, so we build armour. Polished responses. Measured emotions. Perfectly timed smiles.
In business, that armour can look like people-pleasing, over-preparing, or saying yes when every cell in your body is screaming nope. It’s professionalism, we’re told. It’s adaptability. But often, it’s fear. And the longer you wear it, the heavier it gets. Masking isn’t pretending to be someone else — it’s protecting yourself from a world that doesn’t always make space for who you are. But it comes at a cost.
The Fear of Being Seen
Let’s be honest — unveiling feels risky. You start worrying: Will clients think I’m unreliable if I need a bit of wiggle room on deadlines? Will people assume I’m hard work because I process things differently? Will the ND label make them look for faults that aren’t there?
The fear isn’t irrational; it’s rooted in experience. Because we’ve all seen what happens when people throw stereotypes like darts: “Rain Man.” “High-functioning.” “Superpower.” Each one oversimplifies something beautifully complex.
It’s hard to “be yourself” when the world has already decided what it thinks that self means. And don’t even get me started on the word “admit.” I didn’t admit to being neurodivergent like I’d just confessed to putting kittens in the washing machine. I’m not revealing a dark secret or a moral failing — I’m just describing how my brain works. It’s not a crime; it’s just my wiring diagram — and frankly, it’s a pretty interesting one.
The Toll of Staying Hidden
I spent years perfecting the art of “passing.” Holding it together in meetings. Smiling through the sensory chaos. Matching the tone of the room, even when I wanted to scream.
And then I’d come home and collapse — physically and emotionally drained — because the performance had munched up all my energy. That’s the real cost of veiling: not rejection, but depletion. You become so good at being fine that you forget what feeling good actually feels like.
As someone with AuDHD, I’ve always had that strange internal contradiction — loving the rules but hating the confinement. Wanting structure but resenting how rigid it feels. That’s the paradox of masking — it keeps you safe, but it quietly steals your authenticity while it’s at it.
Imagining a Neurodiverse Economy
Here’s a thought experiment: what if we stopped trying to make zebras look like horses? Imagine a business world designed with neurodiversity in mind — flexible, creative, inclusive by default. Deadlines adjusted for energy levels, communication built on clarity instead of assumptions, quiet workspaces normalised rather than negotiated. It’s not a fantasy. It’s an economy that values different ways of thinking — one that’s sustainable, innovative, and actually human.
For many of us, that’s exactly why self-employment feels like home. It gives us the freedom to structure work around our energy, not the clock; to build systems that actually fit the way our brains work. And one of the most beautiful things about being self-employed is the freedom to build your own ecosystem — and fill it with people who get it. The right clients won’t flinch when you drop the mask; they’ll exhale too. They’ll see your focus, creativity, and honesty not as quirks to manage, but as assets to celebrate. And the ones who don’t? They were never your people anyway. Because when you start showing up as your unmasked self, you stop attracting the wrong ones and start magnetising the right ones. That honesty becomes the filter that protects your energy and your peace.
But wouldn’t it be incredible if that same flexibility existed everywhere — if employed roles, big organisations, and traditional workplaces embraced difference in the same way? The good news is, things are shifting. Slowly but surely, more employers are starting to understand that inclusion isn’t just a buzzword — it’s good business. Simple accommodations can make a world of difference. And when neurodivergent people don’t have to waste their energy pretending to be “normal,” they can spend it doing what they do best: innovating, creating, and seeing what others miss.
The Choice to Unveil
Unveiling isn’t a one-size-fits-all act of bravery. It’s personal. Contextual. Sometimes it’s safe; sometimes it isn’t. And that’s okay. Some industries will naturally be more forgiving, understanding, or even welcoming of neurodivergence than others. In some spaces, unveiling might feel empowering and freeing. In others, it might not feel safe — or relevant — and that’s completely valid.
You might decide that your diagnosis is a key part of your story and how you work best. Or you might feel that it’s totally irrelevant to your day-to-day — that it doesn’t define you, and that it doesn’t need to be shared. Both are absolutely fine. There’s no moral hierarchy to how “out” you are. Only what feels right for you. Maybe you start with a trusted client, or a simple boundary like: “I work best with clear instructions and time to process feedback.” That’s unmasking too — in small, sustainable steps.
I picture “unveiling” like that scene in The Mask, when Jim Carrey peels off the cartoon-green grin and stands there blinking like, Oh… so that’s what my actual face feels like. That’s what dropping the ND mask can be like — equal parts terrifying and liberating. The world looks the same, but suddenly you can breathe. And once you’ve felt that? It’s really hard to go back to pretending you’re fine behind the rubber.
For me, though, there’s no going back. Since co-hosting The Business Oddcast, I’ve basically sprinted out of the ND closet wearing my best leopard-print dress — and honestly, it feels glorious. No hiding, no hedging, no tiptoeing. Just showing up fully, sparkly, unapologetically me. Because here’s the quiet truth: every time we choose to be a bit more open, we make it safer for the next person to do the same.
The Final Question
To unveil or not to unveil? Maybe it’s not a question of if — but when. Because unveiling isn’t about confession, it’s about alignment. It’s about building a life, a business, and a community where you don’t need to constantly edit yourself.
And when that happens — when you finally stop performing and start existing — that’s when real work, real creativity, and real connection begin. So, whether you whisper it or shout it from the rooftops: your neurodiversity isn’t something to hide. It’s the reason your work has colour, depth, and spark.
And the right people? They’ll love you all the more for unveiling it.
High-Functioning, Superpowers, and Other Painfully Annoying Phrases
Let’s get one thing clear: ‘high-functioning autistic’ isn’t a thing. It just means that whoever is being described as that is just doing a really incredible job of making sure that they don’t get sniffed out as anything other than absolutely blooming ‘normal’. And that will be taking up a huge amount of mental and physical energy. Believe me, I should know — I spent most of my life doing exactly that, and it was exhausting.
I appreciate that when some people think of autism they are going to what they consider the extremes in their head. So, if someone doesn’t match the stereotype they’ve built in their mind — because we can speak, work, or make eye contact — it somehow feels ok to stick us with the label ‘high-functioning.’ When actually, what’s going on is usually a huge amount of masking.
And while we’re at it, can we talk about some of the other painfully annoying phrases that get chucked around in conversations about Neurodiversity? Usually by well-meaning but brutally misguided people.
The ‘Superpower’ myth
Before I go further, a bit of context here to better explain why I am so ‘bitey’ on this subject. So, I am 50 years old and for about 48 of those years I was told on many occasions that I was ‘too much’. Too dramatic, too sensitive (hello emotional dysregulation), too needy, etc. And yet now I am to believe that I have a ‘superpower’ that makes me some sort of magical space unicorn. Because I can work through the night churning out blogs or write my degree dissertation in 3 weeks and get a first (yes, I will always dine out on that story!)
But that same ‘superpower’ has me haunting my house at 2am, when everyone else is asleep, looking for something that I absolutely don’t need, and yet my brain will sing the ‘where is it’ song in an annoying whiny brain worm until I find it. The last time it was a lip balm. I have about ten, as I forget I buy them and buy more (another gift of my spicy brain!)
Or what about my superpower that makes me fear public bathrooms in case someone sets off the unnecessarily loud hand drier and I feel like my ears are being screamed at by fire alarms. Lastly….and I’ve almost got closure I promise: Imagine ‘captain rejection sensitivity’ in her ill-fitting Lycra, and cape. A magnificent superhero who wanders around shouting “why don’t you love me” repeatedly to everyone from her long suffering husband to the poor woman in the supermarket who she swears looked at her funny.
Don’t get me wrong, I know I’ve got some incredible strengths that come straight from the way my brain is wired. And I wouldn’t swap them for anything. But calling them ‘superpowers’ skips over the messy reality that those strengths usually come bundled with so much physical and mental energy.
But here’s the thing. Whilst it might look, to a lesser being, like some sort of ‘other worldly’ gift. Worthy of celebration, and a special title. Actually, in reality, in the case of my dissertation, I think I slept for about 3 days during that time. Well….it felt like it. And the anxiety that accompanied not being able to start my work until that close to the deadline (hello task paralysis) was all consuming. The same goes with the other examples, which will be relatable to many of our listeners, I am sure of it.
Contradiction time
Bear with me, because here comes the bit where I contradict myself! There’s no doubt that some of our abilities can be harnessed and turned into something brilliant. But the truth is, a lot of the time we’ve had to dig through the rocks just to find the diamond — the tiny shiny bit that allows us to work with our brains instead of battling against them.
And let’s be honest, society doesn’t make that easy. The world is designed for nine-to-fivers who can cheerfully wake up at 7am, eat a sensible breakfast, and plough through spreadsheets until lunch without crying. For me, inspiration usually turns up at ungodly-o’clock, just as everyone else is snoring. Unfortunately, most workplaces don’t see “I wrote an entire business plan at 3am” as a valid excuse for rocking up at 11 looking like you’ve been hit by a bus.
That’s the real sticking point for me: what gets called a “superpower” is often just us squeezing our square-peg brains into round holes until something vaguely shiny pops out. Yes, we can hyperfocus, yes, we can spot details others miss — but that doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens after years of masking, adjusting, and figuring out how to survive in a system that wasn’t built for us. So yes, sometimes our abilities shine — but let’s not dress it up in glittery Marvel costumes and call it a superpower. It’s not X-Men, it’s just us doing the best we can with the brains we’ve got, in a world that wasn’t exactly designed with us in mind.
And while we’re clearing things up, can we retire a couple of other classics too?
“We’re all a bit autistic.” Hard. NOPE. You’re not. Unless you also spend hours rehearsing conversations in your head before you actually have them or feel personally victimised by hand dryers in public toilets, then no, you’re not “a bit autistic.”
“You don’t look autistic.” Also NOPE. What does that even mean?
The impact
Here’s the thing: most of the time, NTs who trot out these phrases aren’t trying to be cruel. They think they’re being kind, supportive even. But what it actually feels like, when you’ve spent years masking and blending in, is that your whole lived experience is being brushed aside with a cheery little phrase that makes my eye twitch.
Because when people say “we’re all a bit autistic” or “it’s your superpower,” what they’re really doing is putting you back in a box you’ve spent a lifetime trying to climb out of. And honestly, I don’t need to be a superhero or a quirky little project. I just want to be me — tangents, 2am brainwaves, hand-dryer paranoia and all.
So, here’s where we land: embracing my ND-ness (yes, I just made that up) has been the most liberating shift of my life. Not because it made me a superhero, or “high-functioning,” or whatever other phrases gets thrown at it — but because it finally let me stop pretending to be something I’m not.
So next time a well-meaning soul feels tempted to say, “we’re all a bit autistic”? Don’t. Just… don’t. Say literally anything else. Compliment my shoes. Ask me about Wotsits. Tell me I don’t look like someone who once got banned from karaoke in Menorca (long story). But please, leave the phrases at the door.
We don’t need superpowers, thanks. We just need space to be ourselves — Lycra optional.