#11 — Awareness for Neurodiversity | Samantha Hiew PhD

There's quite a controversial child psychiatrist who treats children with ADHD and autism. And he said, his name's Dr. Sammy Timoney. I don't know if you've heard of him before. He's from a, he's based in Lincolnshire. And he said something that I don't necessarily agree with. He said that he struggles with the neuro.

the term neurodiversity because he said that um that we're all neurodiverse so as a concept it's meaningless in a biological sense but and as a cultural construct it creates unnecessary divisions now i don't agree with what he's saying but i did see a quote from you where you said neurodiversity means all brains are different it actually includes all of us and you said something like we have 86 billion different brain cells which i just think is

amazing to think of it in that way so could you could we expand on what you meant there because that was just i just thought it was such a beautiful thing to say thank you um

So really, I was coming from this place where the origin of neurodiversity, the term, is coined by Judy Singer, who's this Australian sociologist. And she looked at... neurodiversity from a perspective of biodiversity where you know there are so many different forms of lives on earth why don't we have different forms of brain you know a term that describes this because she comes from a family where

you know her children like her family has her children is autistic and i think she identifies with it as well and so she's looking for a way for people who have for so long been marginalized and minoritized to be accepted within society. And I think it's brilliant that she found a way to do this and coined this term, right? But this term, neurodiversity, just the concept of diversity itself just means different kinds.

of things and you know and neuro is different kinds of brain and so the term neurodiversity does include all of us because we're all underneath this but whether we are neurodivergent or not That's a different story, right? Because someone else then coined that term neurodivergent. And that means people who have like different neurological makeup.

that diverges from what society deems as normal. And I always challenge what is normal, because at the end of the day, what is normal depends on what other people, the mainstream, believe is normal. And we change what is normal according to the times that we're in. And as someone who comes from a different place and always constantly feel like a bit of an alien anyway. Never really quite fitted in the culture that I grew up in, which was in Southeast Asia, Malaysia.

And also coming here and I'm realizing that I don't always identify with the things people say. And I always have to find this place for myself, you know, to identify what I am. A few decades have been an exercise of that. And so when people were talking about neurodiversity so much, you know, on social media, and they were creating policies, you know, for people who are autistic, you know, ADHD, Tourette's dyspraxia, and I don't necessarily resonate with.

everything they say either. And I feel that we need more voices and more representation because there are these hidden stories that we're not uncovering. And hidden stories that are so quiet that we're talking about it in... you know, individual boxes and no one's really hearing it. It's not coming out of the echo chamber. And so as someone who loves science and that got me through school and studied genetics, cancer research.

I've always been so fascinated by the brain and neuroscience. So we looked into really neuroplasticity early on in my journey in ADHD and realized that... The reason I don't really fully identify with people who say that they failed at school is because I did nearly fail at school, but because, and I think you identify with that as well, when someone believed in you.

And for me, it was a teacher that completely changed everything for me. And I went on to win scholarships after scholarships to do my postgraduate and PhD when I could so easily have fallen off the scrap heaps of society. And that the concept of finding these coping strategies over time, you know, helped me become who I am to achieve the things that I needed to do. You know, but then...

Ultimately, because of life circumstances, you know, there were so many challenges due to undiagnosed ADHD. And why I said that we have this ADHD. billion brain cells, over 86 billion brain cells that continuously fire and rewire depending on the environment that we're in. That changes everything. And coming from the perspective of...

someone who comes from a different culture and social class. You know, all these things contribute to how we manifest neurodivergence in our lives. And even though we are all neurodiverse, we are also all different. You know, I've learned that... okay, I'm totally on the side of neurodivergence, but within the population of neurodivergence, there are good and also not so good people. You know, so we're not all great. We're not all.

You know, not great either. So at the end of the day, what are we? We are humans. Yes, exactly.

Yeah, your description of that has just made the hairs on my arm stand up, actually, because it made me think of my journey towards understanding what this term even meant. And I actually have a bit of an issue with every time I say the word neurotypical, I feel guilt. It doesn't feel right to me at all because it's a bit of an us and them scenario. And I think it could cause a lot more problems than it's doing good.

The good it does is that when I was 27 and got diagnosed, I go, okay, it's okay to be neurodivergent. It's fine.

And that is an amazing thing because I'd spent the 27 years before that going, well, I'm not right. I have no idea how to describe it. So it's like, to me, it's like a shorthand to go, this is the reason. Now, my individual... scenario of being a neurodivergent person is different to the next person's and that's the really important part to remember isn't it exactly my coach kathy she what what i love about her so much is she

Well, she treats each individual person on their own individual experience. And she strays away from using generalizations when describing what the problem is. Other people I've worked with in the past have not been so good at that.

And I think that if more people could do it the way she's doing it, the better for everybody, really. I love that. I love that. You know, you really see that person as an individual because I'm allergic also to people who say, you know, as ADHD is, we are all like that. Because it doesn't validate those of us who don't feel that way, who have found different ways to cope that kind of help us become not like that. Exactly.

I also noticed you said, so what you're doing is you're integrating those with the lived experience of neurodivergence and those who don't. Okay, could you explain a little bit more about that, please? So can you explain that? You wrote on your, I think it's on your LinkedIn account or it may be on your ADHD girls. The integration between those. Yeah. Yes. With the lived experience. Spilling all my secrets here.

Joe, you're going to go off and do new university training after this. Sorry. That's okay. I'll share. I'll share. Share what you want to, not what you don't want to. No, it's fine. I'm an open book and oversharer, as you can imagine. So, yes, we are... Okay, so again...

This is coming from the perspective of knowing, like you're saying, okay, there is this term neurodivergent, there's also the neurotypical, but no one likes to be called typical. We are not typical by any standard, right? We're just the typical people are kind of... just the ones who somehow manage to fit into society's systems and do you know what is expected of them within the system that they're in and so my work really is like always on

awareness and providing this awareness on neurodiversity. And when I go into a company or when I talk about neurodiversity, it is to bridge these two worlds. I agree with what you say, you know, when we call someone neurotypical, it isolates them and it makes this me versus them, which isn't helpful. for ultimately everyone living in peace and getting the support that they need and actually work together. Because in order for this movement to really come to fruition, we need to integrate.

You know, and that is why neurodiversity was coined in the first place. You know, we don't want to be minoritized or marginalized. And I feel we're at the start of this new revolution. And my work bridges those with lived experience and those. who don't have less experience of neurodivergence or maybe don't know that they have yet. Because we are moving to a society where the concept of neurodiversity is expanding.

Those of us who are labeled, you know, we talk about it. And if we have the freedom to, and those who are not yet labeled, you know, because I was asked recently in a talk that I gave. What separates the day-to-day anxiety and depression from some of the more pervasive ones, you know, like major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder? Because really, is there really a separation, you know, because...

As you might know, and I know, as someone who has persistent anxiety with being autistic and ADHD, it's like when you have this day-to-day anxiety, it follows you. But then if you're in a situation that kind of just pushes you too far, then you enter into this like longer state, you know, of being in it, you know, and then you struggle to get out for a while until...

You know, either you had enough or, you know, you get some support. So really, like, how do you differentiate this, right? Because ultimately, everyone's going to have a label. Yeah, it's like...

I understand exactly what you're saying. It's like... I imagine it like my nerves, nerve endings are fraying. They're like, they're at the end of what they can cope with. But sometimes because I'm in a mindset that I need to get things done, I just push myself through it and it makes it worse. And as I've got older, I've learned when to pull back. I've spoken about this loads of times before, but in 2016, I had five seizures as a result of burnout. Since that moment.

I was only 26 at the time. I think I gained two decades of life experience in that moment because I now am able to... notice when things are going wrong inside my body like a mid 40 year old would seriously and that's so unusual for the people that are at my age My friends have nowhere near that level of self-awareness. And not to brag at all, I just genuinely think that that horrible experience created that for me. It opened me up to go.

I probably need to pay more attention to myself here because this can't happen again. So the first three years were like fear of making sure it never happened again. Now I'm not frightened at all anymore. I'm pretty sure it won't happen again. That's brilliant. You know, I hear it as well. You know, when I hear you talk and I read your content, I do feel like you have this old soul.

I mean, not to make it all sound bad, but then I've always identified with that as well. Amongst the groups that I go in, I do feel like I have this higher level of thinking. everyone or maybe just being a deep when you were a child when you were a kid when you were a teenager did you were you more interested in adults than people your own age

Yeah, I always found people a bit childish because they would like just laugh about the silliest thing and then also not funny. I mean, I had friends, but then I do feel like because I was... like really interested in science and biology. So I always felt like a little bit more of a studious kind of like, yeah, quieter person who always just spend time thinking about thinking, you know, like there's always this thoughts in your head and thinking, trying to work out what that means.

yeah so i was exactly the same and i would say i am still now i definitely gravitate more to people that are older than me even now and yeah it's just me that's just uh it's just who i am and i have no problem with that whatsoever

And the problem that I have had of hanging around with people my own age, not so much now that I'm 32, but when I was in my early 20s was that I didn't really understand what they were saying half the time. They were just making jokes and laughing. And then I would be quiet.

for hours and then then i may then i'll try and get in on the joke and make a joke that was too offensive or not funny at all or something because i was basically trying to copy them i didn't realize i was but that's what i was doing and i just fall flat on my face yeah yeah do you do this thing as well where you just observe people and then it comes up looking like you're staring yeah until i notice i'm doing it and i'm like yeah i better stop that

Yeah. It's so funny. It's like obsessed with human behavior. Yeah. It's interesting. That's brilliant. You know, you're trying to work out how to live on this earth, right? Yeah, exactly. And I think that's why you like talking to older people. You want to learn. You're curious about things. You want to see what your experience is.

ahead of you because you want to see what's ahead yeah exactly so when you were talking a minute ago about um the the convergence between uh neurodiverse and neurotypical just going to use that for the moment because it's the easiest thing to create in our company we employ quite a few software engineers and there is naturally

In that environment, quite a few neurodivergent people, for whatever reason. I don't want to get into that part. So what we do is we ask every single employee to do what's called a coal bait.

strength no Colby index test so what it is is it's not a personality test it is not a career strengths test or anything like that it tests your natural motivation your natural working talents working ability so and the interesting thing is there so there's four markers one's called fact finder one's called follow through one's called quick start

And one's called... I can't even remember what the last one is. Innovation. Innovator or something. I can't remember now. Anyway, so people who tend to be... People who are autistic tend to be very high fact finder. People who are ADHD tend to be very low fact finder, but not always. People who are autistic tend to be very, very low.

quick start is one of the scores and people who are ADHD tend to be very high quick start now you can work out from that score where those people will fit in your business and what they need to do now I, as a person with ADHD, have a medium fact finder score, which means that I am very interested in finding facts, but I also have a very, very high quick start score, which means I like to get started immediately without preparation.

Now, that means that for me, I can't do tasks with lots of follow through, which means I need to get someone who can... do it after I've made it up. So my job is to make it up, make it real, then give it to somebody else so they can do it for me. If I try to do the bit where I do it, it fails. And the reason why I'm telling you this is because even in that test, which we have found to be pretty accurate actually over the years, people who are neurodivergent differ so much.

that they're even scoring completely different on those tests and you can see in the way that they work in the workplace that they're completely different to each other so i think is that something that you encounter and how difficult is that to sort of explain to a company like these people are neurodivergent but they're completely different to each other you see what i'm saying do you feel like the tests do not accurately kind of really like assess them as well each individual person

Yeah, I mean, or neurodivergence. No, it doesn't tell you whether they're neurodivergent or not. But I would say that if someone has a very high quick start score, they're most likely ADHD. right yeah that's what we that's a guess but we say that we talk about that sometimes yeah um i mean i came across i mean that people who still do um was that the

What's it called? That Myers-Brick personality test. The Myers-Brick personality test. Apparently, that doesn't help anyone. And I was asked to do one of those personality tests years ago for a job. And I remember that confusing, confused me more than the actual job itself. Just because you could never really put yourself in one place. You know, I think I was interviewing for a role for a writer and then...

they found out I was more of an account manager. And I'm thinking, I don't really feel like an account manager, you know, but I can do it. So, yeah, I don't really... We avoid that completely. So... So the Myers-Briggs is a personality test and like personality has been proven to not be a permanent thing. So I've actually taken a Myers-Briggs test.

say, five times in my life. And out of five of those occasions, I've had three different scores with completely different personality types. So how does that work? And I was thinking, why is that? Well, I wasn't feeling quite as happy at that time in my life, so I came up with a different score. And I wasn't feeling quite as happy. I was feeling a lot happier at that time, so I came out with a different score.

on that one with two totally different personalities exactly i mean exactly no so you could be a lot of things and then some days might bring out some things inside you and what you were saying about the

Being autistic and being this fact finder, like being able to find a lot of facts at one time and then being an ADHDer, being a quick starter, but not really high on the fact finding part. What if you are both? You know, what if you were both? Exactly. And that's the confusing thing, isn't it, about a neurodivergent person. Actually, my fact finder is high for someone. So I've...

given this test to multiple people who have ADHD and my fact finder score is high in comparison to them. I mean, I don't want to diagnose you, Joe, but it sounds to me that you're also autistic. Coach says that I am. We actually think that our son may be as well. There's such a high co-occurrence between being autistic and ADHD.

that it's like a sister-brother-sibling condition. Well, I'm not going to call it a condition, but I think being autistic got me through school and being an ADHD-er helped me kickstart my business. Because I could actually do both, but then trying to do both over a long time actually resulted in overwhelm and burnout. What is that term? Omnipotentialite? We can do anything. But should we? No. And that's where this Colby A index is called test helps a lot.

Before we started recording, we were talking about this a little bit about how have I been able to set up my life where I'm able to basically get other people to do the things that I'm either very bad at or don't want to do. Well, the very, very first step of that is getting... all the people around that work with you to take this test. And most importantly, yourself, because it gives you lots of information. So let me just read exactly what it is. So the Colbert index test is...

not a measure of intelligence like an IQ test or personality or social style. It just measures the instinctive ways you take action when you strive as it. It's all just about how you do things. It's got nothing to do with your personality or your intelligence or anything. Interesting. And I know where I score and I've done it multiple times and come up with the exact same score.

So it's got, again, it's impossible basically to answer it differently based on how you feel because it's not about that. i've taken on board quite a lot of that information and i know where i'm weak and i'm willing to listen to what it tells me and then i find other people to do that for me and that's i have the evidence that that works for me very very well because there's actually a

coaching organization called strategic coach which is run by a very famous coach called dan sullivan and he makes every single person who signs up to strategic coach take this test brilliant right at the beginning yeah i think this is what we need

yeah yeah yeah so go on yeah what's going on with you i mean yeah i mean i i think i shared this just now but yeah um speaking from the perspective of someone who had been trying to do too much you know and

Like I was saying that I am a bit of an ideas machine, as most ADHD would identify with being. And the problem with that is that being a maximizer and... knowing you want to do so much and actually getting the feeling of what you're doing is helping people or making an impact makes you want to do more and so I did that exactly you know within the first year I was just

interviewing people talking to people like like you are and then the second year I was creating like workshops I was doing talks I was um trying to write a book, create a manual, you know, and I was just doing mentoring. It was just became, you know, this thing where I was receiving so many messages as well, you know, on social media, and I couldn't cope. I literally coped by

turning off the computer and going away and hyperventilate because it was this constant state of hyper regulation. And then I was wondering, you know, because I also created this utopia platform where I want this place to be. an education place where people learn about their neurodivergence and really get the support that they need. But then I wonder if I want to be the one to see that through now, you know, because...

I want to do so much, but then can I really do it without sacrificing? Sorry about that. Can I really do that without sacrificing my well-being and the people who mean a lot to me? And for me, it was my children. Because when I was saying yes to this person, I was saying no to my children and, you know, not spending the time doing what I love. And so I had to regroup and refocus and really work out what is it that makes me happy. Am I going to do more of that?

And try that for at least the next quarter and see how that goes. So is it just you working on your own? I have a team. But my point was to delegate to the team. And so I had people who were really good at what they do and I can trust them to do it. But there are people who have to manage my admin. I don't work out how to do that.

And they haven't worked out how to do that either. And so it's like constant chaos, which I'm hoping will be helped by the new year. Yeah. So it's like I would get a piece of paper and write a line down the middle of it. And then on the left-hand side, I would write the word front stage. This is the easiest way to describe it. And on the right-hand side column, I'd write backstage. Now, on the front stage column, write down all the things that you're doing.

Where you are the face of it. So that's like being on this podcast with me right now is a front stage activity, which promotes your organization. Writing something is a front stage activity. Being on an interview. creating any form of content coaching being there to speak blah blah blah on the right hand side backstage so setting up the technology for this podcast is a backstage activity

Getting you to the venue to do a talk, loading up the presentation, that is a backstage activity. Organizing your diary. Making sure that you don't double book yourself, for example. Now, the reason why I've said front stage and backstage is because Frank Sinatra, for example, he didn't put the piano on stage. He didn't sell the tickets himself.

You know, he didn't serve the drinks in the bar. He just turned up to the stage, played the music and wowed everybody. You need to think you're not going to be able to do this overnight, but you need to be Frank Sinatra. And hire people to do all the backstage stuff and actually call it that. Front stage and backstage. That's how we do it. That works so unbelievably well for...

The type of person you are being a public person, you have a personality and that personality needs to get out there because that's what promotes the movement. Yeah. I agree with that. Well, I love that. I really like that. Definitely going to try and adapt that. Yeah, yeah. And that's the way to think about it. You're an artist.

a musician you know if you and this is the negative side of this is if frank sinatra was responsible for getting the piano to new york and onto the stage and micing it up so it sounded good the piano would never get on the stage because that's just too much for him to do so no no musician or artist or entrepreneur does it alone

They do it with a team that, you know this, I'm not telling you anything you don't know there, but this specific way of thinking about it, front stage, backstage, I've found personally works incredibly well. Yeah. How do you find that, you know, say the things you do, I mean, and I can see that you do all your content, right? And really like 90% of my work is about putting my content out there, you know, and that is really hard to outsource.

You know, I could never trust anyone to do it unless I'm also there putting all the bullet points for exactly what they want to say. And that takes a high amount of time. So editing this podcast.

shouldn't be being done by me, but because I'm only six episodes in, it is being done by me. And the reason for that is justifying it as a thing that's actually going to last before I hire anybody to... take it over now i am actually already talking to somebody to do it for me i'll tell you the name of these people after this call i actually think they'll be the best people to help you cool yeah and it's not too expensive actually yeah um they

There's an organization that's just built to do exactly this, which is let you be the front stage star. They'll take care of all the backstage stuff. That's cool. Yeah. I actually did another podcast recently where there was someone doing exactly this. I wonder if it's the same one. Yeah. I mean...

The guy who ran the podcast only had to turn up. And then he had like loads of people taking photos behind the scenes. And yeah, there was a guy filming and he was going to do all the others. So such a great setup. Yeah, exactly. And it's about getting there slowly, isn't it? So what's more valuable to the world? You being on video talking about neurodiversity. Or you editing the video? Yeah, I don't edit the video for sure. But yeah, definitely.

Making that direct connection and impact, you know, is what I want. And I think, yeah, that's what a lot of founders want as well. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So that's definitely... I think that would be, that would really help what I've just said there. Hopefully you'll have to let me know anyway. Really helpful. Like I'm learning, you know, how to do this because I pretty much just threw myself in and kind of swim.

back to the shores i think they're like neurodivergent people that run businesses tend to be control freaks me yes definitely and part of the learning how to run a business with uh adhd brain or an autistic brain is to learn how to let go of things yeah because you have such perfectionist tendencies you don't think anyone can do it as good as you do although there are people who can do some stuff better than you

Actually, Jo, I know this is your podcast. I want to ask you a question. Go for it, go for it, please. Yeah, of course. This is more a conversation than an interview. Okay, so I came across this and I think it really... resonated with being an entrepreneur and a risk taker, right? I wasn't totally happy when I first heard it, but have you seen Rory Bremner's documentary on ADHD? It was on the BBC. No, I haven't.

Probably a year or two ago. And so he went to talk to other people about what being ADHD means. And I think he was very early in his journey. He just got diagnosed whilst he was on the show. And then he spoke to this person. And they gave the analogy that ADHDers are like the people who swim out to the sea because they would go just that extra length. And what this does is that it puts them at risk.

And they use this analogy of like, you know, being eaten by sharks. The people who swim out furthers, you know, who got eaten by sharks were likely ADHDers. And I was like, oh, no, that's not nice. But, you know, I thought maybe... That actually explains a little bit of what it was like, you know, just kind of throwing myself out there and just, you know, trying to create this thing, you know, that hasn't existed before. And then, of course, they're going to be...

You're going to get bitten. There are going to be times where you feel like, oh, what am I doing? This is really risky and there's no stability in it. And for someone who is ADHD and also autistic. Like I try to reconcile that, you know, how much of safety do I need and how much of the risk taking that I need to also have in my day to day to make me happy. And that is so tough to really reconcile.

How do you feel about that, what I just said? Well, very similar to that description is something that I've written about a couple of times in the past year, which is this theory of the hunter versus the farmer theory. Have you heard that before? Yes, yes, absolutely.

yeah so it's like for people that don't know and what i'm saying is again i'm really sorry to use these uh terms but i'm going to say firstly adhd equals a hunter and a neurotypical person equals a farmer i know we don't really like that but just for this example it does make sense so i think it's very accurate why because hunters adhd is oh hunters let's not

Hunters focus maniacally for short bursts. They notice things that others don't and are comfortable in a changing environment because they go with the flow. Whereas farmers excel at fiddly, repetitive tasks, aren't distracted by boring work, and are patient and diligent. Amazing traits, by the way. Not taking anything away from that.

The thing is, farming is like industrialism, and industrialism requires compliant and obedient workers who will do what they're told without complaint. Now, I don't know a single ADHDer that will do that. I've literally never, ever met someone with ADHD that will do that. They will not be obedient workers. And that because, well, they will, but if they do it, it's going to make themselves very, very unhappy in the process.

And in fact, what you want with someone with ADHD is to understand the fact that they've got genius taps up in their brain somewhere and find a way to release that, which is often by people that have ADHD in our company, we allow them to work whatever hours are best for them.

And if they're not sure about what those hours are, we help them to find out what hours are best for them. Nine times out of 10, it's because when they get to about one o'clock in the afternoon, they need a nap, which is also fine.

What's the point in forcing them to work through a time where they actually need to be asleep? Because if they wake up an hour later and they're energized again, they do much better work. Anyway, that's just a little thing. So I think if you're a hunter in a farming world...

The farmers are going to be frustrated with you. They're going to say that you're not productive. They're going to say that you need treatment or to be medicated to fit into their box. I just think that's quite an unhelpful narrative. And a more helpful way to look at it is...

What I believe to be the right one is that we're differently skilled to farmers, ADHDers. Thankfully, we live in the age of the internet now, so the internet is not for farmers, it's for hunters. Now, there's actually a famous book written about this.

It's called A Hunter in a Farmer's World, which is written by Tom Hartman. And this book helped me a lot because it helped me create a working life that suits my natural abilities rather than trying to force myself into the industrial farming world. Yeah. So similar to what that guy was saying, hunters were risk takers. They could get eaten by the saber-toothed tiger very easily. But that was just part of the job.

And I think that I would, what is this amazing quote that I actually read yesterday? It's like, you would rather, it's better to fall flat on your face, forwards flat on your face than to fall backwards or something. I can't remember the damn quote now because it's really good. Pretty good. Yeah, let me just find it because I don't want to ruin that and I may have to make a little edit here. Yeah, it's so cool. I mean, I'm just thinking, how do you do it? How do you balance that?

you know, need to take a risk and also the need for safety and security. Do you have that? Or are you all out? Take risks. I would say on this quote first, it's like,

He says, you might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backwards. The point is, take the risk. Be okay with the failure. How do I deal with it? Meditation. Great. That is it, seriously. Because I'll tell you why. I suffer more with the thought of failure than failure itself. So I suffer more. So if I take a risk, say start new business in new industry, there is going to be a greater possibility of failure than there will be of success. That is a fact. Most businesses fail.

I know that doesn't make it any less scary. So as I embark on this new business, I am constantly, there's a voice in my head telling me that I'm going to fail and that I should stop because I'm going to look stupid. I meditate to create space between me and the voice. I actually spoke about this with Kate Moore Youssef, actually, which is that...

I think the point of meditation has been distorted. People think that the reason to meditate is to be calmer and to quiet the voice in our heads. Yet that's just a byproduct of it. The real, real point of meditation is to learn. through direct experience that we are not the mind. Because when you meditate deeply enough, you notice that the mind is talking and all you're doing is just listening to it, which means that you're not the mind. You're the part that hears the mind speak.

As I meditate, when I'm taking risks and anxious about an outcome, I can view the voice in my mind telling me I'm going to fail objectively. And therefore I can actually choose to ignore it. I love that. No, I really love that. I think that's not an overnight fix. That takes some time. It takes like daily meditation for a long time to get to that level.

It's not the best advice for a beginner. And meditation, lots of people with ADHD think that meditation is difficult. Meditation is difficult depending on how you've been taught it. But there are definitely types of meditation that are much easier for people.

people with ADHD yeah I agree with that I love the fact that you know like you are so true to your neurotype and you're doing things that are going to you know make you happy make you content you know the risk-taking you know is something that it's almost like

We're bee to honey. We can't avoid it. We want that adventure, the newness. I always say to people, if you hang out with me long enough, you're going to end up... doing what you love because i just naturally talk about what i love all the time and then i don't necessarily think it's good for everyone because not everyone wants that you know risk and you know is willing to go all out

you know because if you have like a family to feed and you know then you need to think about yourself because we're all different like and it's yeah it's contagious you know when you're like that i want to be like that

yeah because you know to live authentically and doing what you love you know who doesn't want that right exactly and it's the other thing is how can we try to be disconnected from the outcome so like what i mean is If we set a goal to, say, make a million pounds, if we do that, we may start doing things we hate doing and are bad at.

just because we want to get a million pounds. So I like to reverse that. I say, what do I actually want to spend my time doing? Is that going to make me enough money to survive? Then I should do it and not worry about what the outcome is.

i think we're all taught to do it the reverse of that which is to set a goal and try and work towards it again nothing wrong with that i just find that with my brain it's better off that i spend time doing things i'm genuinely good at and let the outcome be the outcome Yeah, completely. I agree with that. You're true to yourself, Joe. Yeah. I think everyone should be like that. Yeah, and that in itself is scary, though, because I think that...

So one of the biggest advantages in my life was that I failed school so badly. So I didn't come out of school with any qualifications whatsoever. And it was only that my mum managed to get me into a college. that's not a university for any americans listening in the uk college is basically somewhere you go from 16 to 18 and we i managed to study music there and that's where i met this teacher who completely changed my life completely because she

made me fall in love with learning. Yeah. I got goosebumps just hearing that. Beautiful. Say again. I got goosebumps just hearing that. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's amazing that we meet someone like that because that all contributes to our self-belief too, you know. Because when you had that experience, it actually helped you actually use that feeling that you got from someone believing in you and doing something really good.

to channeling it into things that you like to do and actually had some success. Yeah. Yeah. It was. Yeah. I can't thank her enough to be honest. So.

I don't know if you don't mind talking about it. You've mentioned raising... I think you posted about this the other day. There's complexity of raising kids with ADHD or being neurodivergent. So I'm in that position right now. I'm a father.

with adhd and my son is now nearly two years old and people often ask me how the hell do you do it because uh your mind is all over the place i i would say this actually makes me less frantic because i have to do what i have to look after him i have no choice it actually calms me down yeah so i don't know do you have anything like yes specific like in your experience yeah so

I think your interaction with your child is going to differ depending on what stage and age they're in. And so as a baby, you know, you're getting so much from just holding them. Okay, apart from the time when you're screaming.

You know, the bonding that you get actually helps stabilize you as well. You know, the love and the oxytocin, I always go back to science, the hormones coursing through your veins and it's giving you this feeling like well-being and being next to that person is like the best. ever but then you know as they get older and they get more independent

and they want to do stuff by themselves, and they start to talk back, you know, then it's like a whole different thing, right? Because when people get to that point, they're like, they're trying to tell their children what to do. But then they might not necessarily want to listen. And maybe what you want for your child may not be in their best interest because they might know better what they like. And it's to really trust them to find what they love as well.

A lot of children, parents, especially those who have been raised in situations where their parents were like overly strict or, you know, the other way around, you tend to repeat that behavior because your children bring out.

that time you know in your life as you're trying to work out you know all this um i won't say trauma because not everyone has it but then a lot of us with adhd do have trauma from you know generations before us you know that is that manifested in the way we were raised and the way we were talked to and and that can bring up this trauma you know when we're

Also looking after a child who has ADHD as well is going to trigger certain things in us. And really, it's so hard. Recently, I talked about this. There was this interview. I'm sure you came across it, ADHD and Trauma. But this is Stephen's podcast. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. With Gabor Matta, yeah.

Yeah, Gabo Mate. And that created a bit of a storm. And I read that book, Sketch at Minds, a year ago. Me too. And I'm feeling so rubbish about myself because he was talking about his own... personal maternal wounds you know that obviously is valid for him but then you know doesn't necessarily make you know the adhds feel like you know that that is going to help them because

Like we are trying to find a way to heal and overcome those things that happen to us. But then we don't want to think that we're also channeling that to our next generation. When you don't have children, you might be more likely to think, oh, okay, that makes sense. Because we're trying to find who caused this pain to us, right? But when you have children like me, you're thinking like, actually...

tried my best. I did my best despite my undiagnosed ADHD and neurodivergence. I want to believe that I did everything I could in the circumstances that I had. And part of being diagnosed with ADHD later in life is to learn to forgive myself and actually now see that knowing how my own daughter's brain is and how my son, you know, how he thinks. I'm able to be there for them in a way that I never got. And so, you know, we need to be more compassionate, you know, about parenting and we can't help.

our children if we're not help ourselves to really recognize that i understand exactly what you're saying there because as a parent myself i feel the same like fear that i'll put whatever anxieties I have onto him of course now it's interesting because in the I think it was 50s or 60s there was a psychiatrist called Donald Winnicott

and he's he was a specialist in child psychiatry and he had a term that i always come back to which he said don't aim to be a perfect parent that's quite impossible all you need to do is be good enough that's all we ever expect and i just remind myself that and in fact uh alan de botton wrote a book a couple of years ago called the good enough parent which i recommend every parent read frankly because it's it's just a it's just a lovely book and it really really made me feel

confident in doing good enough and what that really means yeah i love that and you know back to what you said like I don't know if you're that kind of parent because I tend to be this person who can only engage with my children if I'm outside, if I'm doing something along with them. When I'm at home and playing toys, there's just nothing there. You know, I can't engage.

This is like boring, you know, because it's not like stimulating me. But if I'm out in nature with them, you know, that's when I can like really interact, you know, I feel like really involved with them. I can carry them from sticks to sticks to branches, you know, it's about finding.

What is your way of sharing that love? I'm similar. I'm similar to that. I am definitely. Yeah. That's just being there for them in the right way and the way that you can do best though, isn't it? So it's, that's all we can do. Being good enough again.

so before we finish i just wanted to talk about your utopia project so could you explain about what it is that you're doing That's so interesting. Because you mentioned Alain de Botton. I've been a huge fan of his work for a long time. And I thought, you know, why not have a school of life for neurodivergence? That was the thing I wrote in my...

first presentation I made to my impact incubator cohort. I went into a social impact program last year and I thought, oh, just out of nowhere, you know, school of life. I think maybe that really fits this. like autistic adhd a way of thinking you just want to present the facts to everyone you know and then let them make the choice on how they are going to support themselves and that's what i thought and one of them

Things that I think I'm quite good at is connecting people. And because I've read so much and I know this person's doing this, that person's doing that, why not have this place where we bring people together?

you know, so that we can all talk about the things that we like to talk about and actually help people. Of course, you're also good at it. You know, we're not just coming from a place of saying we like to do this. You know, we actually trained and... credible in the things we talk about so so that's my aim in the near future but yeah i'm still trying to work out how i'm going to do this without you know me having to do it you know what we talked about before

You want to enjoy what you're doing and that's where I'm at. Yeah, amazing. I'm excited to see more of that. And I love the school of life for neurodivergent people because I am also a big, big fan of Alan de Botton. and the work that he's doing over there is like we never got we went to school and we learned about maths and physics and geography great we need those things however we didn't learn about how to live

And that's what he's doing, the school of life. And he's using art and literature as a way to make an argument for living, not perfectly, which is impossible, but living well. I think it's probably the way that he'd describe it. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I think he has introduced me to a lot of... I was probably quite dismissive of art and literature. Even as a musician, I was very dismissive as... of art and literature in a way that could make us heal or feel better or learn.

I thought, well, I need to read a psychology textbook if I'm going to learn about the brain. But in fact, most of the things that psychology talks about were covered in literature for the last two and a half thousand years. It's just that psychology is creating a scientific way of discovering that. So it's essential, I think, if we want to learn about ourselves more, that we read more literature, we read more fiction. And Alan de Botton was the person that really inspired me to start doing that.

Yeah, I love that. And I think I need to talk to him and work out how he might create something so far reaching. obviously he's not doing it himself so it would be great to figure out his system an interview with him would be amazing if you could get that yeah yeah i mean please do i mean he's probably a newer divergent himself you know yeah yeah yeah

Amazing. Well, thank you so much for this. I've enjoyed every second of it. Oh, thanks, Joe. It's great talking to you. Forget we're in a podcast, you know? Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Great. Thank you so much. thank you thank you for having me