I went all in on myself as a meat cutter, as a restaurant manager, as a firefighter, as a public educator, and now as an independent business owner. Why did giving everything I had to the job not yield the success I desired? Today on Authentic On Air, I discuss my neurodivergent struggle to work. Oh, you know what? Dang it. We're going to do that all over again because I forgot about the first part. The intro. Silly boy. All right, I'm still with you.
I just forgot to do this extremely important part of the process. Okay, so now we are going to drop in our season two intro. I went all in on myself as a meat cutter, as a restaurant manager, as a firefighter, as a public educator, and now as a business owner. Why did I give everything and yet not yield the success I desired? Today on Authentic On Air, I discuss my neurodivergent struggle to work. Welcome back to Authentic On Air with Bruce Alexander. I am your host, Bruce Alexander.
As I mentioned last week, my brain is absolutely 100 % a liar if I let it be. And in this case, it has been super confusing throughout the years. I've always been an outsider at work. I just didn't always know it. As I reflect on the time before becoming a solo entrepreneur, here are some of my main takeaways. I had my feelings hurt a lot. from promotion passovers to friends turning against me. There was always at least one person who I at least had some low level of conflict with.
I don't know if that's healthy. I always needed someone fighting in my corner or work was hell. I found something that I was great in or great at and I just hyper -focused on that. And in all honesty, I don't know if I paid much attention to anything else. and something that is definitely a concurrent along all the jobs I can think of is I blamed everyone else all of the time.
I obviously didn't realize all this at the time, but I know that it would have changed or I'm sorry, but I don't know that it would have changed anything. The perspective that I held was that I decided what should be important for everyone else and fuck them if they couldn't get on board. It's funny because I didn't write any checks. I didn't manage a team without some sort of supervising body. Who was I to make these declarations?
In my mind, I got results and objectively I can say that in some areas I did, but they were the results that I decided were the most important. And the fact that, or the fact may be that they should have been for the organization, but if it wasn't, I just didn't really care. As an employee, I always had my mind on systems and processes that were out of my pay grade. And as an up and coming supervisor, I did not see the importance of building and maintaining work relationships.
It just, I didn't see why it wastes the time. I'm doing the job. I'm getting results. Why do I need to build relationships with people I don't really care about and don't seem to care about me? I have now learned to rely to rely on something that is a little more. It ties to my heart a little bit more. I rely on results and relevant feedback. not just from coworkers and peers, because sometimes they can have selfish motivations and occasionally hidden agendas, not always, but occasionally.
But the feedback that I've learned to prioritize is the feedback from those that sign my paychecks and the people I serve. This is much easier for me now because I get to sign my own paycheck, as small as it may be, and I have a very close relationship to the people I serve. But as in my most recent past life as a public educator, I had the unfortunate experience of the feedback of the people I was serving not matching the feedback of my boss, the guy who signed my check.
This is where my autistic ADHD struggle kicked into epically high gear. I became obsessed with what I knew. I knew to be true. It had to be fact that I was a stone cold killer of presenting and educating the public on fire safety.
Without a doubt, all of my, you know, all of my clients are Contacts told me that I was killing it But my boss was telling me that I was not doing what I needed to do to I was not doing what needed to be done to become a necessary An integral part of the team and if I couldn't get on board they could find somewhere else for me What the fuck does that even mean that left my head swimming?
Whenever I was giving a given a task and I crushed it every time How was I not doing what needed to be done to be part of the team? I didn't even ask for help most of the time I did it all by myself. I take the entire team where the obstacle and put it on my back and get it all done. That to me was what being a great team member looked like. I found out since that building relationships is part of the game.
But here was where the true problem lay off is that I was asking myself, what is he even saying? I literally did not understand what he was communicating to me. And this was not the first time I found myself in this situation either. I didn't speak the same language and many of my bosses had gotten fed up eventually with me quote unquote, not living up to my potential. Also my teachers, my coaches, what was wrong with me? Or was it what was wrong with them?
Why weren't we able to understand and communicate common goals and strategies? This wasn't always the case. There had always been teachers, coaches, and bosses who had been able to identify my strengths and get me producing at very high levels doing exactly what it was they wanted me to do. What the fuck? What was the common theme? Those who were able to squeeze water from the stone? I remember liking them, laughing with them, feeling seen by them.
Whatever the work they wanted done was didn't feel like work. It felt like purpose. I had bought in. Why? These administrators in my life saw something more in me and understood how to get it out. I know now that they were like me. They had an understanding of how I ticked because they too were neurodivergent. They never would be identified that way because back then, even sometimes now, somebody in the supervisory structure wouldn't come out and say that their ADHD are autistic.
It's not something that is highly touted on your on your job application. I mean, it is for me. I put it on all of mine because I don't I don't want to walk into any situation and have them expecting something that I'm not going to be anymore. But the stories that these these people that I that were getting the most out of me, the stories that they shared, the struggles they expressed to relate to me identifies them as like me now. I get it. I see.
that they had struggled just like I did trying to learn how to operate in a system that wasn't made for them. The important takeaway is that there are and were neurodivergence out there who are not only surviving, but thriving in the neurotypical workplace. And it takes the ones out there who get what it means to operate inside of that structure to recognize and guide those who just don't get it. I'm on the other side now. I get it. I understand how that world works.
and how to grow and succeed in it. Thank God I'm not operating in it, but I get I get it now. I see how the game is played, but unfortunately, learning it cost me my place in that structure in order to gain that understanding. And I say unfortunately, because the stability financially, the consistency, those things do provide a sense of safety and there is the opportunity for belonging to something bigger. But for me, I was dying. I hated, I hated going to work every day.
I was anxious whenever I woke up every morning. I spent most days trying to find something else to do somewhere else. If there wasn't active work to be done to just not be there. I don't think that that made the situation any better. So the responsibility of the neurodivergent trying to make it out there in standard society is to accept and acknowledge your uniqueness.
Be self -aware and understanding that there are things that seem like neurotypicals unfairly get away with that have much more nuance than we are able to understand because they just don't think like us. Be on the lookout for and accept help from the neurodivergence who have figured out how to play the neurotypical game and whatever sector you're in. It is essential. You need someone who has your back because it is a game of relationships. If you don't have it, you will be pushed out. Storytime.
A friend of mine just got let go from his job yesterday. He had no idea this was coming. I have gained a high level of patent recognition in this process from my experiences of getting hit out of nowhere with pink slips. A couple of months ago, I felt it coming for my friend. I didn't tell him exactly what I saw happening, but instead I gauged his readiness to hear what was going on. Remember, I have been in the exact same position before and I know that you have to be ready to hear this truth.
He wasn't ready. And I have learned that as a friend, it is not my position to break down the frame you're viewing the world through. That's not what friends do. Friends are there for you to support you are there for you to, you know, be a shoulder to cry on, to offer advice whenever it's needed, not to impose your, your learning or your teachings upon them. And so I didn't. Ahem. But as a coach, I know now that in the frame in which he created the problem, he would not be able to solve it.
Unfortunately, he needed a massive shift in order to be able to see how to get out of the situation he was in. And unfortunately for many that only comes from devastating consequences. I hope he finds the truth he needed to learn from this experience. And if he asked me, I will help him correlate the lesson to action, but someone has to want to take action for me to intervene these days.
I have learned that it is my obligation to deliver my message to those I'm called to serve because like those who tried to tell me at various points throughout my career, I know if they're not ready, the advice will be wasted. But I know someone listening to this episode is aware of their struggle that I'm talking about. Another story.
So I spent a year and a half preparing for exercising for training for applying for getting on the fire department to then spend six months being treated as a I don't know, a bootlicker. Basically, it's similar to basic training for those of you who don't know. And there is a reason for it. I understand. why the structure of the fire department is the way that it is. You need to be broken down and understand that you have orders and you have to follow them because lives are at stake.
I 100 % get it. What I didn't understand is when we were training, why me asking a question about how something works was making an excuse. About whenever my explanation for why something didn't work, was called an excuse. Why my problem solving ability, trying to figure out a smarter way to do things, was seen as laziness and was told that I always wanted to get out of work. I wanted to get out of working dumb.
I wanted to get out of expending unnecessary energy whenever I was at the busiest station in the city and we could make anywhere up to 30 calls in a single day, including house fires. I didn't want to waste energy. I wanted to be ready for whenever the important call came to save somebody's life or to go fight a fire all night. I wanted to work smarter, not harder. But the structure in which the fire department was built.
was built for neurotypicals who can just do what they're told and not have any questions. As I started to rise up in the organization, and this was not because my peers liked me so much, the way that you were able to advance is through testing, and I'm smart. So I was able to advance and have the opportunity for control to a certain degree. But whenever you think differently in an organization like that, you get a reputation. And my reputation was I didn't know how to get along.
I didn't know how to just do what I was told. And that used to, it broke my heart because I did everything I could possibly do to try to get these people to like me to the degree in which I faked who I was and made it actually worse. Masking is not a solution long -term.
And as this, as this reputation followed me, I found myself Not only not being able to exert the supervision that I knew was correct, the systems that I had I had come up with and had thought out and had figured out would be more efficient or faster or whatever. I found that even in a position of power, my power was taken away from me by those who had just a little bit more.
I was constantly undercut and told that those powers in which I had seen exercise, thousands of times by other people who were in my position had previously been in weren't for me. And I still have to this day have to ask myself how much of it was race and how much of it was neurodivergence. But the result was the same. I felt defeated. I felt so isolated. And I can overall say that I felt numb when I was at work. And whenever I came home, I just wanted to not feel. numb.
And so I did anything I could to distract myself and this led down a dangerous road. I want people to learn from my mistakes, to see the signs of trying to distract yourself from your life or trying to numb yourself to your life because you are not engaged with passion and purpose. I know that there's somebody right now who's like I was that can feel the walls closing in on them at work. You can feel the water around you rising and splashing up your nose. You are doing everything.
and anything you can to distract yourself from the overwhelm or boredom that has begun to consume your life. Drinking constantly, social media, binging, porn, TV, pick your poison. But continuing down that path does have dire consequences. This unrecognized chaos will end in damage to the relationships you have with your kids and with your spouse and your friends. You will see consequences in the workplace, just like my friend did.
who got laid off because he was not able to see that he was not following the neuro -typical rules. To him, everything was just fine. He was doing great. He was crushing all of the objective metrics. But to neuro -typicals, there is a hidden unspoken code that you have to be able to get on board with or you will be pushed out. You will start to take your body for granted and slowly it will break down right before your eyes and you will feel helpless to do anything about it.
And worst of all, this is absolutely the worst thing that happened to me as I went through this process is I was no longer able to feel God's touch in my life. You will eventually through drinking drugs, turning the volume up on the TV, bearing yourself. in a book or your head in the sand, drown out the voice of God that speaks inside of you and calls you to move in the right direction. The shift is the most powerful and sadly I can say the most subtle.
The voice or the shift between hearing God and feeling him move in your life to not. One day you look up and you just don't hear it anymore. You don't hear that bigger thing calling you to do more. I had no idea that it was gone until it started to come back. The amazing news that I can report, and this is good news, and I can report this as a testimonial is that God's voice never left you.
You just stopped listening and all it takes to turn the volume back up is one act of faith, one bold action, one statement of acceptance, accepting that you are not okay anymore. You will start to hear that voice again, but you will be challenged to move, to take imperfect action. to step into the unknown without knowing what is next. Because right now you can't comprehend the solution to the problem that is your life.
You just, you can't as you are right now, you have to step out on faith into the unknown and without knowing what is next. You just have to commit. You have to commit to do whatever it takes, whatever it takes to start feeling again, to stop numbing and sedating yourself to the life that you, that belongs to you. It belongs to you. The control belongs to you. But first you have to accept that you've lost control.
You have to shake off the numbness and sedation and find true engagement into this life because that is all that we can control is how we engage in this life. My struggle to work was a struggle of my own implementation, but it was a divine creation. I needed my struggle to sharpen me as a tool to serve my calling, to serve you, to shepherd ADHD parents back to lives of engagement and purposeful lives of balance.
If you are raising your hand right now saying, that sounds like me, don't panic, do not freak out. The distance between the paths of destruction and destiny, are separated by a microscopic margin with the right assistance. Right now, click in the link in the episode description and take the aimless life assessment. This quiz will give you immediate results and instructions on what the next steps you need to take are to change the trajectory of your path.
Go to www .authenticidentitymanagement .com forward slash assessment to get access right now. I am, this is your call. If you've listened this long, this is your call. I don't think that I have all the answers, but I do think that God is shaping me and using me as a tool to help you find connection in your life again. But you have to take the first step. I know that it sounds crazy and right now you can't even possibly fathom what it looks like to re -engage in your life, but that's okay.
I've been exactly where you are right now and I can help you out. Consider the consequences that you are guaranteeing your family by not taking action. What watered down, numb version of yourself are your children getting? How much has your relationship suffered? How separate do you feel from your spouse? How cold have they become to you? Are you to them? Your kids, your wife, you deserve better. But it starts with you. That's it for today's show.
Just so you know, I will be bringing in plenty of guests in season two, but I'm done wondering if my audience likes me. This is my house. And in it, I determined the message and setting the groundwork for growing a movement for the rapid growth of ADHD parents in all areas of life is priority number one.
But stay tuned this season as I bring on therapists, social workers, and other mental health professionals, which I call tools in your toolbox for the overall mental health, physical wellbeing of the ADHD parent. We'll also have success stories, souls in crisis, and anyone else who can help us explore this intersection. of authenticity and neurodiversity as we try to be ADHD parents who have it all. I will see you next week. Episodes drop every Thursday morning.
And until then, please in all truth, be yourself and love yourself. Have a great afternoon.