4: Theo's Friday Neurodiversity Roundup

Another week is coming to an end and with it my weekly ND round up. Remember I'm always happy to share thoughts and ideas around the subjects your interested in, so don't hesitate to make a comment and suggest what you'd love to hear in a future edition.

On Monday I'll be flying to Cologne to inspire CEO's, Founders and leaders of start up an scale up companies, on the subject of Neurodiversity at Work, at the Pirate Summit.

I see SME's (small to medium enterprises) as the perfect place to quickly activate Neurodiversity at Work on scale. Often these companies move and grow quickly, they have less red tape and truly recognise the need for unique, quirky and talented employees.

Check it out here:

Now onto our first day of the weekly round up!

Saturday: Neurodiversity & Depression

Overcoming anxiety and depression when you are Autistic and/or ADHD aint always easy

But what can you do?

🙂 Understand yourself better by evaluating your traits and triggers to discover your cognitive style and preferences

🙃Find ways to understand the thoughts and beliefs that underlie and maintain the cycles of anxiety, depression, and anger and intervene with positive strategies before the tipping point is reached

🙂Apply therapeutic techniques such as mindfulness, positive self-talk, guided imagery, and problem solving to help create a positive mindset

🙃 Learn to accept the past and see the past as part of your learning and development journey to help achieve unconditional self-acceptance and a realistaion that no one is perfect

🙂 Work on managing the need for perfectionism and a low frustration tolerance, to help get things over the line and reduce the potential of burnout

🙃 Try to manage procrastination and learn how to work in sprints rather than marathons

We are often our own worst enemy by allowing kryptonite into our lives. Often it is others who introduce it, but we accept it.

It's time we took control of our own lives and where possible eliminate as much of the kryptonite form our lives as possible. Or at the very least find better coping mechanisms to deal with it.

Sunday: First you have to believe in yourself

Sometimes the only person who really needs to believe in you, is YOU! 🤗

Don't believe the haters 👹

Don't allow them to push you towards your kryptonite ☠️

Lean into your strengths 💪

Spend more time with people who value you for being YOU 🤠

Then give back to those who need it 😘

Believe in yourself!

It's the best decision I ever made and have to remind myself of daily 🦸 ♂️

Monday: Dyslexia and the challenge with reading!

Writing or replying to emails, messages & requests is a nightmare...

When your Dyslexic :(

Why?

- It takes me about 3 times as long to read than a none Dyslexic person

- It takes me 3 times as long to write than a none Dyslexic person

- Due to the volume of information going through my head at any one time (probably the ADHD) if the request is too long I'm likely to get distracted whilst reading it and miss the key actionable points

In short how you communicate with someone matters!

How to help:

- Consider if your email needs to be that long

- Put bullet points at the top to cover the key actionable points or takeaways

- Would it be better communicated via an audio, video message or in person

Tuesday: Growing out of ADHD / Autism

Some professionals and people believe or at least communicate that children “grow out of being Autistic / ADHD”

Spoiler alert: They DON'T!

They may no longer scream at the top of their voice and have a mega meltdown in the middle of the supermarket, but that doesn't mean they no longer get high anxiety levels in busy spaces.

The bigger issue is not how they show their pain, but how they hide it over time that is the greatest source of concern.

When you see someone in pain it is easier to respond.

When you don't see it or hear it, that pain can escalate and increase, until complete burnout.

Adults haven't grown out of ADHD or Autism, I can promise you that as a late 40 year old to the party!

We just manage it differently and sometimes not as well as the child we once were who screamed out for help!

What happens when we scream no more?

Who's there to pick up the pieces?

Wednesday: Job Descriptions and why they are archaic

We want to hire people who are Neuordiverse but we fail at the first try.

JD's are archaic and overlaid with nonsensical babble from one manager to the next.

People who are Neurodiverse need clarity, otherwise they may not apply.

👍Break the JD down into actionable tasks!

👍What do they actually do day to day.

👍Look at the next 12 months, not 12 years.

Because we no longer can see beyond a 12month cycle.

The world has changed significantly and we need to change the way we communicate via our job copy!

Thursday: Making events ND accessible

I attend and speak at a lot of events - My quick wins to make your event more ADHD, Autistic and ND friendly:

✅ Give people places to move around to, choice is empowering and ideally a safe quite space to chill

✅ Try not to create too many instances of queueing for entrance of food etc... or try to offer table service or texting updates when their time, table or entrance is free

✅ Some people need space for a wheelchair, others need to sit and some need to stand and move about - choice and flexibility is key

✅ Noise levels can be frustrating and triggering especially if the noise of the speaker is too loud, so have a specialist on hand to adapt or keep it at a reasonable level in the first place

There are tons more ideas and tips for making events more inclusive, what's yours?

Final Friday Thoughts

Well I hope you've enjoyed my weekly roundup and I welcome your comments, thoughts, insights or you're welcome just to continuing quietly reading in the background.

Hope you have a great weekend, wherever you are and whatever you are doing.

See you same time next week :O)

Theo Smith

Neurodiversity Evangelist at Dynamis Group,

Neurodiversity advocate, founder of Neurodiversity at Work Ltd & Neurodiversity World, author of ‘Neurodiversity at Work: Drive Innovation, Performance and Productivity with a Neurodiverse Workforce’  and podcast host of Neurodiversity – Eliminating Kryptonite & Enabling Superheroes!