July 13, 2025 • 62 mins
In Episode 2 of MiND Stim, Jacques sits down with James Dewar-Haggart — trauma-informed coach and founder of Strong Path CIC — to explore what it really means to create safe, inclusive spaces for neurodivergent people.
Almost like a confessional episode, this is a raw and reflective conversation between two people who’d only just connected that week.
We talk about late ADHD diagnosis, the grief of being misunderstood, masking, masculinity, and the realities of addiction as a coping mechanism.
Together we unpack the systems that weren’t built for us, and what healing can look like when it’s rooted in co-regulation, truth-telling, and lived experience.
James shares how his own experiences of school exclusion, misdiagnosis, and burnout led him to found Strong Path CIC — a fitness and coaching space designed with, not for, the neurodivergent community.
🎧 Tune in for honesty, insight, and a powerful reminder that support doesn’t begin with a service — it begins with understanding.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:13):
Today I have a brilliant guest, the founder of Strong Path CIC, championing neurodivergentindividuals to live with confidence and dignity in the world, which often overlooks their
needs.
Someone I've known for about the best part of a week actually.
And we got on, I think, really well on our conversation.
was a bit of an eye-opener for me.
(00:36):
I think we've got a lot of similar experiences, so thought we'd just do more of afreestyle app today and really talk a little bit about what you do.
your background, and see where that takes us.
No, that's cool.
I started coaching about 12 years ago, um coming off the back of a big breakup.
And I was at a place in my life where I kind of knew I didn't want to do what I was doing,but I kind of didn't really know where I wanted to go with it.
(01:05):
um I kind of remember taking, this was at my 30 actually, when I was 30, and I remembertaking some like...
time to kind of read some self-help books and you know look at where I was how did I gethere and ultimately I think that I really kind of looked at when was I happy at work
because ultimately I haven't been happy at work for a really long time so you know whatdid that look like and can I can I try and replicate that again moving forward I ended up
(01:33):
working at a big commercial gym for a few years and there I piloted a scheme with the RNIBworking with visually impaired people yeah and then
Later on in my first kind of unit, I would suppose, I was actually subletting, I ended uprunning a study for the social services and the NHS.
(01:54):
So both of those things were really cool.
Kind of really enjoyed it, but wanted to do something a bit more social, but I didn'treally know how to go about it.
And then kind of fast forward to May last year, I started working with a wonderful humanbeing called Abby.
And...
just kind of highlighted to me kind of the one the horror stories that she told me thatshe'd been through in terms of fitness good coaches coach because they want to help people
(02:22):
we want to see the grip from one place to another whatever that is you know and coachingis doesn't need to be sport can be whatever but I one of the things that kind of really
struck me was actually like what happened with Abby was way beyond I sat there I went wowlike this is really cool
can we like maybe focus on this a little bit more?
(02:43):
And initially I started the CIC to just try and get some grants so that people that can'tafford my services that we can actually get them in and can work with them as well.
And then the whole thing snowballed and turned into, I mean, I like to call it a monsterat the moment because it is a bit of a monster.
But interestingly, we're talking about ADHD.
(03:04):
I only got formally diagnosed a year ago and subsequently I've only been on medication forthat year.
And ironically, my life has turned around like beyond belief.
My ability to work, everything is more than a thousand percent better.
Like it's crazy.
(03:24):
So I think that's probably got some, a big part to play in how I've ended up kind of hereand where I am.
think just in that amazing description of your work and a little bit about yourself thatwe can dive into.
There's so many points to pull from it.
You know with ADHD, I have a tendency to want to then explore, go off on tangents.
(03:45):
So I think it would be good to just start from the beginning really.
And so you got diagnosed, you said about a year ago.
Yeah, so I got diagnosed, I think it's pretty much almost like a year to the day at thispoint.
I think it was February, January, February time last year.
And that came about from, yeah, working with a therapist for three years and just decidingthat that's where we needed to go with it.
(04:09):
And so that's very similar to myself.
I think my diagnosis was about two and a half years ago.
But so before that diagnosis, did you obviously in childhood feel different or was there afeeling that you might have had ADHD?
Did you even have awareness of what that was?
(04:30):
Yes, I mean I was actually kind of soft diagnosed with ADHD as a child so I I went througha childhood psychologist first off when I think I was about five or six because of
dyslexia and actually they couldn't diagnose me at that point because they that I was tooyoung and then when I was eight I went and got diagnosed for my dyslexia
(04:50):
The psychologist told me and said to my parents, have you considered the ADHD diagnosis aswell?
Because he presents very strongly for that as well.
And the problem is my parents then kind of didn't.
So I then consequently went through life.
mean, feeling abnormal, absolutely.
I think that one of the problems is that even if you're neurodivergent, right, and youhave the best childhood ever and you're not diagnosed.
(05:15):
I'm still guessing that that's quite a traumatic thing anyway because ultimately, youknow, not feeling like you fit in, not understanding those things as a child, that's quite
a heavy thing for anyone to just, just with that alone, that is a big thing.
I think although I was diagnosed two and a half years ago, I'm probably about the samelevel of kind of unmasking, if you will, for want of a better term.
(05:39):
I'm still learning all these traits of like, this is wrong behavior, all that conditioningthat you tell yourself.
It's interesting because I agree, think if you're a kid, especially kind of teenage years,largely defining your identity based on how you fit into different social groups and...
(06:00):
It can be quite conformist at the best of times of that age.
know, there's a lot of peer pressure.
There's a lot of wanting to fit in.
And if you don't have that frame of reference, it's almost like a minority of one.
It's a very, it's a very unique identity.
It's not like necessarily race or sexuality.
Right.
It's isolating because it's not, because you don't even technically know that that is whatit is.
(06:24):
So you haven't been able to go, don't, you know, I'm embracing this.
is
this is a strength, this is maybe a challenge, but you can't normalize something until youeven know what aspect of your thinking is largely explained by that diagnosis, right?
that happens.
I remember going to a therapist when I was a school therapist.
(06:45):
So I must have been about 14 or 15 at this time.
I at which point given up on school if I'm completely honest.
But this therapist, you we were talking one day and she was really cool.
Actually, she like, you know, she would actually take me out of school sometimes.
She was like, look, let's just get out of here because you'll look like you're about toexplode.
I wasn't, at least not physically inside.
(07:06):
might have been in coding, but not necessarily externally.
But she said to me, like, what's going
on for you and I just like I'm looking for something and I genuinely like that is thefeeling like I don't belong here I'm looking for something I couldn't tell you for you
know for anything what that thing I'm looking for is but I just feel like there issomething I'm incomplete in some way and as a 14 year old I didn't I didn't understand
(07:32):
that really um but I think that now kind of looking back on it
You know, for me, the dyslexia was hard because the dyslexia actually made me go down ayear in school and being kind of small and sickly as I was, then kind of being put down a
year, like that really messed me up a little bit because...
I don't know, I felt like everyone was looking at me as if I was stupid.
(07:55):
And then to top that off, that actually I can concentrate anyway, so you could put me inwhatever year, it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference.
I actually ended up going to school for a term and they put me down another year.
So at one point I was two years behind at school.
And yeah, mean, in terms of your own kind of personal ego, that's not good for someone'sego.
(08:16):
Like if already you feel isolated and alone, then to then kind of make
your peers have something else that is even more obvious that you're not like them.
The real sad thing is that, you know, I think I said to you this in a chat, I rememberlike after diagnosis, I was looking at something and I think it was about medication
because I was a bit unsure.
And I went on Reddit just to see like kind of, you know, there's anything on there.
(08:38):
And I came across this really cool group on Reddit, but...
One of the real things that struck me was just the amount of people that were in their 30sand 40s, you know, just only getting diagnosed now and just this grief and pain and like,
yeah, it's amazing in that it happened and we got diagnosed, happy days, but there is somuch pain that is...
(09:00):
100%.
I'm still going for it.
Yeah.
We're probably living embodiments of it.
Aren't we really?
It's interesting James, because a couple of things that you said, I mean, you're veryclearly, you're very clearly good with articulating yourself.
It just goes to show what dyslexia really doesn't have any bearing on what you have tosay.
(09:20):
Just to me, so many things that you say really mirror my experience, but what I've seen,obviously I'm just using the frame of reference of newbie really.
So just to give everyone a snapshot as well.
Really, I'll be completely honest, very typical of me.
It started as a bit of a whim, probably an impulse really, where I, it's almost like anapkin paper thing of setting the world to rights.
(09:41):
How are we going to, because I saw the stats on autistic employment and thenneurodivergent, and I just knew that that didn't, you know, it didn't compare with the
experience that I had with that community and understanding the strengths that I could seeand they couldn't.
And it evolved into me using recruitment as a kind of a vessel to really start to tacklesome of that neuroinclusion and get more people in the workplace.
(10:05):
And one thing that was very clear, well, whilst there's a lot of gray area inneurodivergence, the clear line I could see is that late diagnosed individuals compared to
people that were diagnosed really early, the level of trauma and...
and some of that baggage in that psychological damage that's done was so stark, know, lotof, you know, things like addiction, for instance, and suicidal ideation.
(10:30):
And yeah, I'm the same.
had, you know.
I to talk about mine as well because I don't...
uh That's one thing I've found actually of late is that I used to be really ashamed of ummy kind of...
Especially my late teens and my 20s were riddled with problems.
(10:50):
Drugs, loads of drugs, loads of alcohol, loads of sex.
And like I kind of spoke to you about, it ended up really with me getting in trouble withthe police.
But I think that the real sad thing is that I think that we're one of many that go throughthese sorts of things.
I would love to have a look at the prison system and see how many people in there.
(11:14):
I mean, this is the thing, And we're watching, Rachel and I, my wife, were watchingsomething last night and we were talking about it.
So why you going to the topic?
Because the topic's quite dark.
But it's that sense of, you know, when you get someone at the point where you've arrestedthem and you're charging them for something, okay?
Well, all eyes on them, you are a horrific human being.
(11:34):
And one thing I will stipulate before I say what I'm about to say is that we all have achoice, okay?
Yes, exactly.
And we are all...
autonomy over the decisions, but there's still an explanation for you.
There are still things that are factor into that that we can't just decouple from thesituation and turn it into.
Because when you do that, you don't solve the problem.
It's like, know, people talk about I was having an argument with someone who was talkingabout, you know, people that still shoplifters, they don't they don't look at the
(12:04):
socioeconomics and they don't look at the choices.
You know, to say someone makes bad choices, some people's choices are.
you know, go to prison or, you know, but be able to eat that day.
Yeah, absolutely.
see what I mean?
You know, so it's that kind of thing, isn't it?
You have to really see what's underpinning it.
But it's interesting that you spoke um about, you know, the school system and how it failspeople and a lot of those people might end up in prison.
(12:31):
uh Weirdly, I was watching, I don't know if you remember a show, it was where they takekids to a prison because they're bad kids that may end up in adult.
Yeah, I've seen and they try well they took these British kids right to the American oneand it's just this like Horrific place and they're shouting about you know, the darkest of
(12:52):
the darkest.
Yeah subs, know subjects and they were looking at these kids and Realistically what itcame down to one of them was couldn't uh Sit still in a classroom and instead of that
being seen as you know
behavior is language, right?
Instead of that being seen as well, that person, that's a survival mechanism.
(13:18):
It's not what you say about that, it says more about yourself, right?
We project a meaning and we'll say, well, that's defiance or that's anger.
But we wouldn't say that if a house was burning down and I'm screaming, you wouldn't say,Jack, just calm down.
But that is literally how it feels to that individual.
And so that really that person needs
(13:39):
therapy and needed support and they are using this kind of compliance discipline ofparadigm if you will because it works for everyone but it doesn't work for everyone even
then people that are not neurodivergent.
You look at that, for whatever that child is, okay, they're children.
And I think this is the other thing, is everyone sits there and goes, oh, that's a who's14 years old and he did this thing, and oh, let's try him as an adult.
(14:02):
And you're like, no, that's a child.
Like, no matter what that person's done, that's still a child.
We have to have distinguished, like...
Yes, and it's still a collective failing.
We all play a part in shaping society.
I'm someone that sees, I don't see that obviously people have varying levels offamiliarity with me and you're in a circle you kind of, you know, you have a different
(14:22):
relationship with but by by large I don't see this distinction, you know, you have to inorder for society to improve you have to actively seek means to support people and so that
age when you can go into
destructive behaviors that ultimately lead in disaster, why are we not seeing that personand their potential and finding ways in which...
(14:46):
I that you've got, think that, you know, and actually, do you know what, let's big up yourbusiness for a little bit because I think this is an easy one to kind of do.
When we look at it, right, I've got a meeting on Friday morning with my MP, CarolineDokes.
All right.
yeah.
So it was off the back of, did you see that whole thing about them trying to reduceassessments for ADHD and autism in the UK?
(15:12):
So I think it's ADHD UK put out, it was really cool actually, they put out this thingwhere you just had to click it, you put your postcode in, it found your MP and you put
your email in, they bang an email across for you.
I was like, awesome, I went private for my assessment because I couldn't wait seven years.
(15:32):
Anyway, consequently, she emailed me back and she said, look, mean, was probably a copyand paste, but fair play to her.
Someone had to write that email at some point and it answered it.
So I can't really complain about that.
And I ended up responding to her, and I can't remember exactly what I said, but I turnedaround and I said, look, said, why don't you just look at this from an economic point of
(15:54):
view?
I said, because.
you know, like I said to you earlier, my year in terms of my ability to perform at workhas ridiculously been good, okay?
And that is by no short, know, nothing else, right?
That is because I've been diagnosed and I'm given the medication I need to function.
I said, now you're talking about, you know, dropping these down to, you know, the bareminimum, when they're not even there yet.
(16:22):
You sit there and you think, well, that's going to have an impact on the economy.
And the problem is that the people in power at the moment seem too stupid for some or theycan't see that actually you're missing something here.
Let's take Abby.
Abby came to the gym.
Abby's got autism and ADHD, okay, and some other stuff, but that's the important bit inthis conversation.
(16:43):
Abby came to the gym, she got supported and found a place that accepted her and got fitterand stronger and consequently she now works for the ambulance service, okay?
Abby's not only contributing to society through taxes, but actually she's using thedoctors less because you know what, her anxiety might not be so bad, her depression might
(17:05):
not be so bad, you know, she's getting fitness, she's getting all the rest of it.
And the truth of it is is that by looking at people, neurodivergent people and all peoplethat may have disabilities or things that kind of...
stop them from being able to kind of fully integrate into society in the way that societywants them.
By sitting there and going, look, they're a pain, and let's just push those over there,all right, it's so short-sighted because actually, if you sit there and go, no, what can
(17:33):
we do to make that person feel a bit better?
What can we do to encourage them?
What can we do to remove the barriers for them?
Well, suddenly you've got a workforce, okay, and you've got people in there, you've gotreduction on NHS kind of services.
It's a win-win.
And the thing is, as well, that really frustrates me about this is I have been in and outof doctor's surgeries.
(17:57):
whole life.
About hundreds of times.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been on every single antidepressant I've been on, alright?
Same.
And some other things, you know?
um
of it, yeah, I mean, maybe 50.
That's how crazy it is.
And how long does it take to do that assessment?
This is the point though, isn't it?
So how many times are you backwards and forwards for a GP?
How much is that GP having, what is the cost of that, you know, financially?
(18:22):
What is the cost in the sense that that GP can't see the other person that actually reallyneeds their help and all the rest of it?
When it took one assessment, consequently I do have to talk to my psychiatrist, all right,so that is, but nowhere near as much as the other stuff I was doing, and at the same time
I'm putting money back into the system because...
I'm actively like doing better in terms of work.
(18:48):
why just look at why let's stop this old way of looking at things.
Let's sit and say, all right, what can we do?
What can we do to help?
um
I think that there'd be such a huge positive thing that if someone in power in thepolitical system says, let's approach this in a different way.
We're not getting anywhere with the approach now because they're not.
(19:10):
All right.
Why don't we look at actually doing what they need and let's see what that looks like atthe end of it?
Because at the moment it's not working.
There's so many threads to pick up on that.
Firstly, you know, how I approach newbie is that whilst we are focusing on this community,because I guess the needs are a little bit more distinct and pronounced.
(19:31):
The approach benefits everyone.
And so we look at it as realistically everyone's masking to a degree.
And we try to see it as like, what's the upshot from this?
So how personalizing so that everybody can get.
the best out of their performance, right?
And I think that's kind of the approach that seems to work for us.
(19:54):
But when you look at those statistics, and I try not to attribute to malice what can beexplained by incompetence, right?
But it's actually across mental health too.
So sick days and retention are all impacted because we don't found fundamentally grapplewith mental health and wellbeing.
But then it becomes, you know, a question of
(20:18):
even just those accommodations themselves, um this is where the difficulty is.
People don't realize the number of barriers that it takes for people to actually even getto the point of applying for a job.
So if you've had, you may have had terrible experiences in education, you may have turneddown three or four opportunities, the job spec might not be accessible, then you see in
(20:43):
the company that there's no one like you, or they're not giving you that feeling that
It's a place that's conducive to bringing the best out of you.
But we frame it as, um you know, as long as we make it a meritocracy, you know, but inorder to broaden that so that more people apply, there's a lot more that you need to do in
(21:04):
terms of awareness.
And that's kind of something that we're focusing on.
I mean, just to bring it back into the question of just the NHS and that approach.
It's I've had experiences where I'm probably using parts of the NHS that are not designedfor what my needs were.
So you speak to people that go into A &E just so they and then they get emergency care andthen they because they cannot that assessment they can't do they get medication that short
(21:34):
term it has side effects and then you and then obviously you're coming off of those andit's like you get thrown through the system.
When people don't realize the ADHD assessment is 36 questions it's
one, maybe two other follow ups with a psychiatrist, right?
And yes, there is then support that you may need afterwards.
When people talk about atypical or not normal, normal has changed.
(22:00):
So that's not even a concrete framework in which to say some, you can't attribute that towhat the value is or how objectively true that is.
So what's normal now will change.
And what I it does as well.
Yeah, well, it needs to.
And the difficulty of it is we've got this kind of red herring of objectivity andmeasurement.
(22:23):
Right.
And so we say, OK, this is the approach we've got these we can capture in and whether it'san assessment, these traits that we want to see.
But we don't realize how little subject how much of those processes are subjective.
Right.
So you get, see like these conventional wisdoms that are on LinkedIn about the best way todo outreach, for example, in reality, they are that that is packaged to be scalable that
(22:51):
advice.
So you can commodify it.
So you can say, do you know, go in my funnel that I'm going to give you a template for howto speak to people.
But most people realize that it's much more complex than that.
It's relationships in business are built fluidly.
Right.
And it's the same with
with, you know, in terms of how you get from A to B in a company, you need different typesof thinking.
(23:16):
It doesn't fit this rigidity.
I think that that's the thing.
think that if we go back to the tests, I went to a really cool seeds talk with RachelMosley, Dr.
Rachel Mosley.
Okay.
And she's awesome anyway.
So she is an autistic academic who specializes in qualitative research within uh theautism, you know, space.
(23:40):
And, and, you know, it was keeping this particular one was about people assigned female atbirth.
right.
And
What was really interesting was they were talking about the fact that First off up untilthe 90s you couldn't get diagnosed if you were a woman or Gender female at birth right you
couldn't but the other thing is if you didn't go in and answer Let's say 10 questions ifyou couldn't answer absolutely every 10 perfectly.
(24:05):
Oh, you're not autistic you can yeah, which is
So if you're 90%, it's like none of that matters.
eh
And the thing is that it still doesn't look perfect now because you know one of thebiggest things that we see especially with you know assigned gender at birth female is
(24:27):
that autism in that part of the community it's really hard to tell like you know
There's a lot of masking isn't there?
Yeah absolutely and what people don't seem to realise is that masking ends up being morethan masking.
It's not more masking but you get so so good at it that actually you could try and not doit and you would probably instinctively still do it because that thing kept you safe for
(24:54):
however long.
Alright?
Your body and
you've done that, you've conditioned yourself at airy impression wages where your brain'sdeveloping.
It's not as simple as just a habit, it's a real deep learned behaviour.
Yeah, absolutely.
even when you're in the assessment process, you still might mask, even though you don'twant to, you might do it because ultimately that's what you've had to do to that point.
(25:17):
you know, people getting that diagnosis.
had a, I got a lovely lady at work, all right, but she said to me, she likes to, she likesto kind of throw a caveat.
She likes to kind of call my bluff on stuff sometimes.
And we were talking about that whole, we were talking about this subject about people notbeing, assessed.
And she went, you know, maybe we don't need as many assessments, know, blah, blah, blah.
I was like, I was almost like triggered, you know, I kind of had that, oh, don't you dare,I'm gonna like, you know.
(25:43):
Don't upend my world view overnight.
I went on a rant and I do, I go on rants all the time with everything that I kind ofbelieve strongly about, which it probably isn't good because I'm not inviting uh
conversation at that point.
at this point I don't care because I've read more than you do, I'm going to try and showyou the reality of what you've just said.
And I ended up saying to that person that ultimately...
(26:09):
I agree, like not everyone does need a diagnosis, alright?
And if you've got through your life and you don't have, you're happy and successful andeverything's going alright and you don't want have diagnosis, happy days.
But we're not really talking about you as a person.
The person we're talking about is the person that actually...
needs to.
and the person that is having anxiety and depression and I said me knowing my community,it's been huge for me.
(26:36):
I for once don't feel alone.
I didn't feel alone because of my wife, because my wife's amazing anyway, but mate, I feltreally, really, really alone for a really, really long time.
I would say mine is even like, sorry to interrupt.
So mine is so profound.
(26:57):
wouldn't even, the words don't come to mind.
The best way I can say it is I have conversations with now more neurodivergent people thannot.
And everything that you think about neurodivergence changes, but
at the same time yourself.
So for instance, you have a call with seven of us, right?
And one's got two, you've got ADHD, very impulsive, someone with dyslexia.
(27:21):
What's the common misconception is that that's going to be chaotic and just a nightmarebasically.
It's like a Royal Rumble.
It's not because I think there's a much deeper kind of understanding of what thatisolation is and that need to be validated is.
And like everything you regulate around each, it's like co-regulation.
(27:41):
When you have a conversation with someone, it's not tennis, is it?
You don't go, you speak, I speak, you speak.
It's still very innately human.
And so it just, it's the first conversations where somebody has realized that I havedifferent preferences than what would be typical.
And so naturally they arrive at that conversation asking me things that would help.
(28:06):
you know, set the tone and make me feel comfortable.
And then my ADHD traits have significantly, um, reduced.
And whilst I'll still go off on tangents, I'm still a bit impulsive, I'll talk a lot.
It has the emotional resonance of that hasn't been as nearly as negative.
Whereas for 10, 15, 20, however many years, every meeting I've been in, I've thought I'vebeen self-critical.
(28:31):
And it's not that the onus is on the other person to necessarily be, be, um,
psychic, but it's just a natural thing that, you know, and you're talking about the ideathat some people mask so much, they might not even be able to separate that from who they
are.
Well, the more I've spoken to autistic folk and folk with ADHD, OCD, I've realized howmuch what I actually want is very similar to what a lot of neurodiversion folk want.
(28:59):
I like more explicit language.
like, I find that
I was saying this to someone recently.
I've said no maybe 10,000 times when if I'd have felt comfortable, that could have been10,000 yeses to opportunities, to experiences.
And a lot of that is just because I can't control how I'm going to feel in thatenvironment.
(29:22):
And it didn't feel in any way like anybody was giving me that space to state basicallywhat my needs were.
said no and that's a neurotypical kind of conditioning and so it's overnight.
I think that's the thing there isn't it?
what you're talking about for me is barriers, you know?
(29:44):
barriers can work both ways, can't they?
We always think of barriers as I'm putting this barrier down, but actually that might beI'm actually lifting that barrier up and I'm allowing that person in because I feel safe
enough to be able to do that.
I think that, you know, especially in my work, I had a really cool thing this weekactually.
I coached a guy last week who is autistic and has cerebral palsy and...
(30:07):
Awesome guy, right?
You know, really awesome guy.
Again, makes me quite sad because I don't think that he's had the most easy of times.
And you know that we're, I've spoken to the fact that we're piloting a schema in Hampshireat the moment to try and, or we're about to pilot a schema in Hampshire to try and work
with some partner gyms and stuff.
I sent him a text because I'm just little bit too far away from him in all honesty.
(30:29):
And I sent him a text and said, hey, look, if you want to there would probably be a spaceon the pilot for you.
And I know that there's a gym potentially a lot closer.
So I went, yeah, but will you be coaching it?
And I was like, no.
Because the energy that it took for him to come to my gym,
(30:50):
was insane.
know it would have been an insane amount of energy.
He would have been really nervous.
He'd have been fearful.
I think he said to, he's good friends with one of other clients.
And I think he said to him, is he going to be okay with disabilities and stuff?
And I'm sitting there going, man, that shouldn't be a question you should have to askanyone, whether or not they're okay with that, or whether or not they don't want to try
(31:12):
and facilitate anyone in any way they can.
But I think that because that took such a big thing for him,
Now the thought of doing that again is like, and not to know that someone like meguaranteed me was there, he's not so sure, but that's the community, isn't it?
And I think that that's the kind of, that's the other hard thing is that, I don't knowabout you, but kind of at the moment in terms of our business, um or you know, our
(31:39):
business, CIC, you want to do everything and you want to do it all for free, right?
You do.
because you want to make a change.
I mean, I've given away to more than the neuronavigilance, I've done neurotypical and allthe rest of it, you know?
what happened with recruitment, know, first year of business and um there was justopportunities where I had to, I wanted to facilitate a better culture basically for a few
(32:07):
neurodivergent folk and the only way I could do that was for free, so I just did it.
But it shouldn't be expected.
And that's a mantle that unfortunately isn't taken up by corporates really and I find thatquite frustrating because
what you know they seem to get involved with these issues once someone's once the value isis easier to extract and a lot of the work is done i've noticed this with the community
(32:35):
the same people that are unemployed and have been by and large marginalized by the entireindustry when i've supported them and kind of given them a bit of a shout out and
championing you get everybody seeing their value as if it's changed as if overnightthey've become a very good developer and a very good ux because i
And you're like, no, it's just that I spotted it before it was even worth anything for me.
(32:57):
It wasn't transactional.
I simply think that it's unacceptable to not see that there are hundreds of different waysthat we arrive at a similar outcome.
I think that that's the thing.
think that one of the things I do hope is that I know for a fact, so look at what we'redoing.
We're doing something where ultimately we're going to put people...
from our community into gym spaces in dead spots, okay?
(33:21):
And dead spots are times in the day where other people don't want to be there, all right?
So maybe it's in the middle of the day, maybe it's a little slightly later in the evening,wherever it is, we're looking at dead spots.
So ultimately, we're gonna make that gym more money because we're gonna put people inthere where they can't put people in there.
Does that make sense?
Like, doesn't work.
Some people might say, well, is that not kind of, you know, making it like you're notprioritizing?
(33:45):
the the the neurodivergent people is the the honest answer is we can't afford to takethose my prime times out of those spaces the cost is just would be astronomical as in
beyond astronomical because we wouldn't have such a reduced amount of people within thereanyway yeah i'll tell you what someone will there you know that people will be happy about
it when this gets done and isn't this great a little bit like what you just said and andthe thing is is that i kind of hope no one gets it at the moment because that means that
(34:09):
the ones of us that doing it can do it properly and set a standard
And ultimately our standards can be higher than anyone's.
If we're prepared to put in that work and drive it and make sure our community is right,looked after from the way that we feel they should be, because ultimately we're part of
that community, then I think we'll do a damn slightly better job than anyone that isn'tpart of our community that's just trying to uh completely economically benefit from it.
(34:38):
So I hope that...
I'm hopeful because I think if you give people value and consistently and you reallyacknowledge them that is actually ironically I think you've got a more I think you've
actually got a better ecosystem for business it's just that you're not arrive you knowwe're both not going into it with that intent so I whilst you know there are companies
(35:05):
that try to exploit a lot of the community
I don't see them as having long-term success because a lot of the conversations I'mhaving, people are seeing some of the whitewashing, know, kind of the eye washing and all
that kind of stuff that's happening.
think that like from what you said, you you've got a stakeholder, you know, you've gotpeople guiding that process and that's really important.
(35:26):
We have it at work, we have to have it like, it's the most important thing.
You're talking to people, you're building something from a stakeholder point of view.
So what that means is that you're getting people's voices within the community you'reworking, directing your work, all right?
One of the things that we're looking at, because we're running a study with the Universityof Bath.
(35:46):
And one of the biggest things when you come to looking at the science of it all is that,how much of the science has been done by neurotypical people putting their expectations
on, you know, what they think people are going to want rather than actually asking them,you know, asking an autistic person, what do you want?
If you look at science, up until like not very long ago, it was all white men that didstudies anyway.
(36:12):
Nothing was studied on anyone other than that.
ADHD is a prime example, so is autism.
There's practically no female uh informed diagnostics and so there's a gender gap and whenwe see this kind of four to one, five to one ratio of diagnosis, I wonder why?
You're teaching people to mask.
I'm going to big up Lorna Wing, okay?
(36:32):
I think it's the Lorne and John Wing Foundation.
Lorna Wing was the scientist that came along in the 90s and went, wait a minute, thisisn't right.
We need to start thinking about this because, you know, autism doesn't present in everyonethe same way.
Like nothing does.
know, even just the idea of like women being too emotional when it's just like it's soobviously this it's to me it's so obviously a kind of a soft form of misogyny and a double
(37:00):
standard and and all that but but it comes from these systems I mean ultimately it'ssystemic discrimination essentially if you're not Lord if you're not making up the an
equitable representation within all levels of
a medical framework, what's the, it's not a coincidence that what comes out of that isterrible outcome and comes for women.
(37:24):
But the knock on effect, we don't know this unintended consequences of how we even speakabout women.
It becomes, you know, all part of the same thing.
If I went on, I honestly, if I went into my local town and I pulled up 100 random people,alright, of any ages or whatever else, what I would, if I asked them, if I told them I
said, you know, what do you think autism is?
(37:46):
I know what the response would probably be, uh but that's not what autism is.
So, and that is a real problem because if that's, I had, did I tell you about that ladythat came into my gym, a unit I was prepared to move into?
I don't think we did.
Okay, so I won't go too far into it, but I nearly moved into a unit.
(38:06):
I was looking at a new unit.
I have to make sure that my current animal doesn't hear this interview.
But I was looking at its unit.
And long story short, this person actually turned up to my current unit to have a look atwhat I was doing.
And they were, they had some concerns.
And I said, okay, cool.
So I said, look, what are your concerns?
And the first one was the noise about how, how, how much, loud our weight would bedropping on the floor.
(38:29):
And I said, well, look, like we have rubber flooring and our plates are, our weight platesare rubber coated.
said, so actually.
already gone to a fairly good extent to stop that from happening.
said, but wait there, let me go and grab a weight and let me just drop on the floor.
I was like, that's the easiest way for you to understand how loud that is by let's do it.
So I dropped it on the floor and she was like, okay, what about if the rubber platesweren't on it?
(38:49):
Oh, you mean just the bar?
I was like, cool, let's do that as well.
you know, like doesn't mean to do that.
It's so pedantic.
Yeah, yeah, well, it's there, isn't it?
And then I went and said to her, said, look, know, is there any other issues?
To which she said, yeah, I'm not sure about the autistics.
And I just sat there and I went.
(39:10):
plural as if it's this collective like identity right
started and I went, oh, okay, this is bad, because you've basically said, I've said, I'mgonna have to say no now before you even before I said just just out of, you know,
curiosity, what is it about autistic people?
And she went, they're very aggressive.
And I just sat and went, wow, I was like, I have no idea what you think you're talkingabout.
(39:36):
you're not talking about the thing that you think you're talking about and that was aperception you know and the sad thing is I mean I didn't challenge her because we don't
have time for me to go into this properly and I don't know I kind of didn't want tochallenge because I just didn't think I was gonna get anywhere with it.
I think that that is a resistance I've seen and it comes from just years of conditioningthat we even would...
(39:59):
If I didn't arrive at this diagnosis and did know when I was younger I had similar ideasabout autism myself and yeah what that comes from for me is misunderstanding behavior the
idea that you just say instead of understanding what people's needs are it's just
this is how things are done, these statements that are like, you know, it is what it is,that's my rule.
(40:23):
They don't really have that much inherent logic in them.
But when you say that to someone who's autistic and actually misrepresent that anger asnot actually a product of really early on, they have a certain uh need in terms of it
could be routine, it could be social interacting, whatever that is, you're projecting thisjudgment on them.
(40:47):
I've never met an autistic person that wasn't incredibly emotionally intelligent.
um I think the thing is, I think you're right, and think that we're all probably guilty,those of us that aren't autistic, of having some preconceived notion of what it was.
um But the sad thing is that it's not, and a lot of the time we think of learningdisabilities, so we think of developmental delay and stuff like that, and we couple that
(41:12):
with autism.
a lot of the wider developmental disorders, Disorder is word I'm not particularly fond of,but...
don't like it either, but the problem is that autism has this over like, well that'scoupled with it, that's, it's like no, just like anything else, an asthmatic person.
could also be dyslexic.
(41:33):
And I think that that's the big thing with autism.
think that, and to go back to kind of like the employment kind of thing, if you can turnaround and make something right for someone, for an autistic person, okay, an environment
right, that they can thrive and they are comfortable in and happy in, okay, autisticpeople are the most loyal people in the world, right?
So if you've got an employee there that is happy and...
(41:57):
you know, catered, know, his needs are met, his or her needs or their needs are met, allright?
Well, you're gonna have a member of staff there that is like one just super loyal to whatyou're doing, which, not being funny, as an employer, like, that's kind of a cool thing.
and there's some issues that are red herrings and that's in hiring.
(42:18):
We've moved to systemized approaches.
I think it's in a kind of a half-baked approach to give this veneer of objectivity.
It's come from DEI or people's misunderstanding of it.
so objectivity is the word, you know, the buzzword and so is a measurement and...
(42:39):
and consistency.
And so we've got CVs and they're like these pillars and it's like just duplicatingindividuals.
And so that's creating a bit of a monolith.
And then you've got this idea of, well, you have to hit all these different arbitrarystandards, which by and large, I would imagine a lot of neurodivergent individuals just
don't, for no fault of their own, just because they would have a different assessment, adifferent approach, right?
(43:05):
And so we root out
anything that deviates from that norm and then we go back to the system and when thosepeople then no longer kind of hit those milestones and can't succeed we wonder why that
is.
But again, you know, for me it's about just the acknowledgement.
(43:25):
We have to acknowledge that when we make judgments um it isn't always measurable.
things I keep on kind of thinking is that you know I am a white alright and I am middleclass okay I went to a state school at the end my mum's family were all dockers from
Glasgow alright so my poor actually but my dad's side are actually really quite wealthyand consequently I went to boarding school until I was about 14 years old which I hated by
(43:55):
the way it was hell and I was much happier actually in a state school before I went there
But I sit there and I think to myself, one of things I keep kind of coming up against is,uh because I think it's really important that, you know, we look at...
different areas in society and we sit there and we give them all the best kind of help to,know, that whole levelling up thing, which I don't think is being done right.
(44:20):
I think that kind of what I find really interesting is that you and I are from completelydifferent, not really different, but as in the way if someone looked at it in a graph or
from very different spaces, our experiences were always nigh on the same.
So whilst I would, you know, the kind of relative poverty, I would say, you know, from asocial economic stance might play a part in my access to certain healthcare, certain
(44:45):
education.
I mean, how many of that, first of all, across most social standards really, ourhealthcare isn't really addressing this ADHD or autism, you know, kind of issue anyway.
even if you were very well off, especially when we grew up and you're older than me, so itwas much worse.
um But it's also, realistically, you look at the relatively, broadly speaking, we're notthat dissimilar.
(45:11):
I think it's that people don't need know how to both see the kind of wider social context,but then also look at the other layers.
And it's important, I think, these terms and these elements, these segments, when we'relooking at pointing a problem and saying that's where we need to make progress.
But when we look at an individual,
We need to see it as all of those things constructed together.
(45:34):
And that's why I think if you looked at most of what we have in common, it probably isgoing to come out pretty similar because the neurodivergent aspect is probably the biggest
challenge that we've had.
there is a hell of a lot of similarities, which I'm really glad of actually because itmeans we can have a conversation and stuff.
The only reason why I kind of asked it was because I do tend to kind of think to myselfbecause I sit there and, you know, I...
(45:58):
I know that kind of what I went through was horrific.
know that there's no kind of distinguishing kind of whether it was or not.
And I think something else I to you like before was as a kind of society, we tend to lookat trauma in the sense that it has to be, you know, for something to be traumatic, has to
be you saw someone getting shot in the face.
This just, not how the brain works, is it?
(46:20):
You know, I was saying this to someone, they were talking about this really annoyed me.
It's got parallels, but it's the same thing.
Grief is exactly the same.
have no grief is all to me.
There is no acceptable form of grief.
There is no right way to grieve.
It's it.
And, and so, you know, someone was talking about a friend who was grieving because Liampain from one direction, right?
(46:43):
And what it can seem quite.
comical on the face of it, but when you think about it, that person had four in theirformative years have got loads of associations.
So you're grieving more the loss of those, that memory of youth and what that means to youthan the person.
And that's just a simple kind of superficial version, right?
But it's the same as an in-law, right?
It might have bring ideas of mortality.
(47:05):
The point is we can't rationalize it and turn it into an outcome or a one way, one thing.
So when people say, but you haven't
It's a race to the bottom narrative.
You you haven't been in war and you haven't yet, but the brain doesn't perceive it likethat.
It perceives grief in a very simplistic terms.
It's, know, and it depends.
(47:26):
And what there's so much that makes that up from genetics to your predisposition to so,you know, stress triggers.
So when I talk about ADHD, I try to speak to leaders and say, well, what are some of thechallenges and barriers?
I use the exact same approach on them.
And when you include them on it.
and you talk about like personalizing support broadly, it seems to counteract that thing.
(47:52):
going back to what you said, tell me about how you feel with that because it can be reallydifficult for me uh when it's trivialized.
Yeah, yeah, I really struggle with it.
Like I really really struggle with it.
I don't want...
Man, I could genuinely cry because of that and have done many many a time, you know.
(48:13):
I think that, you know, growing up as a kid...
Who at times didn't have any friends?
Most of the time it's because I didn't want them, if I'm completely honest.
kind of like pushed myself into kind of, yeah, yeah, pushed myself away from people.
Then to, remember my therapist said to me like probably in first year I was with him, hesaid, you know, who are you?
And saying, I have no idea.
And I wasn't, I'm not trying to be dramatic with that.
(48:36):
As in that was a absolute, I just don't know.
Because I've masked for so long that I've created so many kind of...
coping mechanisms almost, right?
yeah, but just layer upon layer of, you know, of who people I want, I thought peoplewanted in me.
I mean, that started at school because I did it because I went to nine different schoolsand every single one I'd finish it and I would change who I was so that I didn't get the
(49:05):
problems I had at the last one, you know, and I got really good at it and I just kept ondoing it.
um And yeah, so I didn't know who I didn't have.
I didn't have a clue who I was, like, to be honest.
um
struggle with that.
Because we're only just starting that journey of, I mean, we're not even at the halfwaypoint, you know, for many people.
(49:26):
If you think about even just really basics, how do I really, how can I be more productiveand organized?
No one taught us.
So you come back to that auto-didac thing, it's like we actually process information in athousand.
well, tons of different ways if you break it down into all these, you know, in terms ofsensory, visual and all that.
(49:49):
And we only really teach in this prescribed way and the curriculum is very, very narrowand direct.
And so for art, for me, I was in the background finding a way to teach myself.
when I was 10, I wasn't a professional teacher getting paid.
So I'm not going to be instilling in myself the best ways of learning.
And so you've got all these little strands that you're just unkinking really, but the samewith the identity.
(50:12):
I was always in these social environments where I didn't like the...
It's not that I'm not really masculine or not masculine.
It was just very kind of hyper-normative, know, boys, boys, boys, lads, lads, lads kind ofthing.
And it was like, I didn't mind 10 minutes of it, but I'm not a banter person as such.
And I don't want to talk about football all the time.
(50:34):
like...
And so people...
I mean, I said to the previous guest, everything was gay.
That's gay.
I remember that.
You're so gay.
And it's just like, knew, see, I knew I was different because I was the only one who waslike, no, you're weird.
Like, what are you on about?
How are we deriving, like, homosexuality from the fact that you're creative?
It's the maddest thing in the world.
(50:55):
So then you mask and you're kind of going back to where you started from.
Like, maybe it was eight when I first stopped, wasn't masking.
So I'm eight years old in my journey of knowing who I am in a way, you know?
I'm younger because I had an epiphany moment a while ago, maybe like three months ago, notsuch a long time ago, and I actually remembered how I felt before I started doing it.
(51:17):
And actually, just a placid kid that, you know...
wasn't really the of thing and it's funny the whole masculinity thing I hate it I am veryeffeminate in certain parts of my life and quite probably so to be honest I think there's
nothing wrong with it but I think growing up in those times you know like if you think I'm10 years older than you so growing up in a time with a dad who's ex special forces like
(51:44):
yeah
Yeah, discipline is the word, isn't it?
Horrific is is baby was really racist and homophobic So I mean I remember he's not nowactually I mean I haven't spoken to him for a few years, but he has he has adapted to
Realizing that he was wrong.
I think But I remember being like Yeah, that is cool.
(52:06):
That is cool But I remember being like a teenager and puberty hitting me and just beinglike am I gay?
And I can like I straight up can remember crying myself to sleep
like numerous times because I was just terrified that I was going to be gay and that mylife was already really really hard I thought shit don't throw that one on me as well I
(52:27):
can't handle that I can't handle what you've given me let alone chime in like so that wasreally hard
I had exactly the same thing with similar upbringing.
My dad, I'd never seen him cry in my entire life.
Ever.
And everything was just like rigid and how you had to do things was one way of thinking.
(52:47):
There's no, there was no idea that to solve a problem communication was an aspect of that,right?
And I, and so I'm not against any display of masculinity, even the idea of someone beingbut you know, butch and strong.
It's not that I have a problem with.
It's the idea that somehow it's about, I agree, problem solving and helping people is agood trait.
(53:08):
That's what they kind of claim for.
But then surely having good communication skills to arrive at what somebody, what theirexperience is and validate that experience so you can solve that problem is the way you do
it.
Instead of this stoicism, which is more a projection of masculinity, but actually you'renot creating that safety so that people can actually
(53:30):
give, you know, show you what they really need.
And so that's what I'm against.
And my dad just, you know, looks very stoic and it's all, it's very much, you know, he's astrong man.
But then what came out of that, it's a very suppressed way of living is a lot of behaviorsthat were really not great.
And my mom not really doing well out of it, might myself and my brother and me and mybrother are very much like yourself, more open with our emotions and it might not look
(53:58):
uh like we are men but i don't think that there's any way of how can you value how can youcreate a judgment on that it makes no sense it's just so actually arbitrary
think that a man, in my opinion, or my kind of ideal, idea of, you know, what is a realkind of, what is a strong male figure, okay, let's say male figure, because you don't have
(54:20):
to be a man to have it be a male figure.
I agree.
I think that that actually looks like having kindness and compassion and being able to bein touch with your feelings and, you know, being able to do things that might, you know,
otherwise have been claimed to not be manly, because ultimately that person is
more secure in their skin than anyone else.
(54:43):
you know like I don't think, and I worry actually, I worry little bit and I know thatwe're going off time but I worry a little bit at the moment because I see my son's like
kind of generation, he's nearly 15 and they're looking back at the 90s and going oh yeahthey were cool and it's like no they really weren't like they were rubbish.
ah
all conformed.
I've been in sticky nightclubs and just hating it and drinking.
(55:06):
That comes to the, I was going to say the addiction thing actually, because I think it'dbe really cool to speak about that.
So my brother, I'm 99 % sure he has ADHD, but I don't like to pathologize because he'sactually very typical in the hyperactive kind of display of it.
And he is an alcoholic and he's 10 years sober.
But he had the, yeah.
(55:26):
And he had the very classic example of it at school.
you're an idiot, you're wrong, you're this, you're that.
And he's actually gone on to kind of regulate himself in a way and he's teaching now,funny enough, right?
So it worked out for him.
But even myself, I had spells of really, uh you know, I don't, didn't, I might rationalizeit to myself and say I wasn't addicted, but with drink and all sorts really.
(55:57):
you know, in terms of I was...
I mean, I might as well say this now.
was a point when I was taking like pain, uh, prescription opioids, because, ironicallythey had the opposite of impact that you would think, you know, where that would make
someone placid.
My chemistry was, was such that it actually switched more on my brain.
And, and so there is a lot of addiction in this community, partly because I think thesuppression leads to this destructive behavior.
(56:24):
And so people want to escape, but also that dopamine reward.
system of what's really an issue in ADHD as a part of it.
But how did it impact you?
Do you think that there should have been things that could have put you on a differentpath?
Yeah, so I think that kind of like the biggest ones I think of when it comes to that stuffis that, you know, my childhood was pretty miserable.
(56:45):
So and I think that this is another problem and I think you hit the nail on the head whereit's a multifaceted kind of like issue.
I think so,
I think that, and I think it is probably for most as well, that's the problem.
um I think that kind of, so I got diagnosed with bipolar or just below bipolar in thisscale system when I was 23.
(57:05):
But before that I used take a lot of drugs, ecstasy was kind of my main one.
But other things as well, know, cocaine or whatever.
um
I told you this before, my friends used to find it hilarious because we'd in a pub and I'ddo a couple of lines of coke in the toilet and I'd come out and they'd be like, did it,
and I'd be like, oh yeah, no, I just had some coke, and they'd be like, what?
You seem more normal than you did when you went in the toilet.
(57:26):
And I was like, now looking back, I'm going, oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense now.
Yeah, dopamine, isn't it?
It's not too dissimilar.
It's a similar aspect to the medication that we take.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think my biggest weakness has been alcohol and still is probably if I'm totally honest.
But I find that it's real hard to distinguish which is the ADHD part of this and which isjust trauma.
(57:53):
you know what I find...
never decouple the two, I don't think.
I don't think you can, I think that they're into, I mean, I think one, like I said to youearlier, I said if you've just got ADHD and you went your whole life and you had a really
good childhood, you'd probably still get trauma from the ADHD because of socialexperiences and all the rest of it.
like, I don't think they are kind of, you can't really separate them, but for me, I thinkthat my...
(58:19):
I wouldn't necessarily say addiction was the worry.
I mean have thought about it quite a few times, don't get me wrong.
I actually think that it was my risky behaviour that worries, that really in hindsight,that I look back and I go, wow, like I've done some really silly things.
really strange is that when I was at school, it was almost like a pedestal that my mum putme on.
I think in comparison to my brother who had more classic kind of disruptive behaviour.
(58:42):
And so I was just like hyper perfectionist and would just spend all my day studying.
And when I look back, I clearly even the ADHD, the fact that I needed so much time and I'dgo into hyper focus and I was just forcing myself into this like kind of hyper focus and
it developed, you know, the OCD is what developed out of that.
(59:02):
And so whilst I wasn't as problematic uh as I was younger, when I was about 17 or 18, itwas just like a grenade had just exploded.
And I just, yeah, every single thing that was kind of stable, I guess, it just all fellapart.
So yeah, I mean, if I was going out and I had a few drinks, I wouldn't go out to have afight, but I would say something to someone or I would do something stupid or I would, you
(59:29):
know, not remember that night.
And then I just
carried that into university so I didn't know how to, you know, put back together my mindbasically.
And so every single, you know, time we go to a club, it would just be drinking as much asI possibly could.
And you just, in that moment, you don't really develop or learn anything.
And so I had to take a lot of time just to rebuild myself.
(59:54):
And until you get, you was talking about self-help books, you know, it started with aself-help book that kind of got me.
understanding a little bit more that these differences may, you know, are a medical, thereis a medical word for it, right?
Yeah.
But it wasn't, yeah, you know, my diagnosis was, was kind of just the start of the, of theunmasking, I guess.
(01:00:17):
But that problematic behavior, you know, I was lucky in that I didn't, I managed tocontain it that no one has ever been hurt.
I've never kind of done anything that I would, you know, was terrible, but
It was exactly the same thing, this real repression of who I was.
And that just came out in the masking that was so heavily built on me when I was younger.
(01:00:40):
always had the foresight to go and have a conversation with someone.
So I will find someone, and it's probably been a bit weird.
I that's a typical ADHD thing, right?
I reckon most people would be like, oh, happy to answer your questions, because actually,I'd love it if people started to realize who I am, opposed to these preconceived notions
of what I am.
So I'll tell you something.
So those two labels, dyslexia and ADHD, that you might think are like a tattoo on yourforehead, you've articulated yourself in some of one of the best ways ever.
(01:01:08):
One of the best conversations I've had.
I said this to you on the first conversation we had and you know, those, and ultimatelyhave been a captive audience to me and my ramblings.
I love it.
And so I think it kind of speaks for itself in a way that the ADHD and the dyslexiadoesn't.
And you're a lot more than that and you're a very interesting man.
And so on that note, I will let you go back to your life.
(01:01:31):
Do this again when you got the spoons back.
I've got enough spins for this.
I'm medicated, I'm fine.
I'm lonely.
I can lend you some spin.
Today I have a brilliant guest, the founder of Strong Path CIC, championing neurodivergentindividuals to live with confidence and dignity in the world, which often overlooks their
needs.
Someone I've known for about the best part of a week actually.
And we got on, I think, really well on our conversation.
was a bit of an eye-opener for me.
(00:36):
I think we've got a lot of similar experiences, so thought we'd just do more of afreestyle app today and really talk a little bit about what you do.
your background, and see where that takes us.
No, that's cool.
I started coaching about 12 years ago, um coming off the back of a big breakup.
And I was at a place in my life where I kind of knew I didn't want to do what I was doing,but I kind of didn't really know where I wanted to go with it.
(01:05):
um I kind of remember taking, this was at my 30 actually, when I was 30, and I remembertaking some like...
time to kind of read some self-help books and you know look at where I was how did I gethere and ultimately I think that I really kind of looked at when was I happy at work
because ultimately I haven't been happy at work for a really long time so you know whatdid that look like and can I can I try and replicate that again moving forward I ended up
(01:33):
working at a big commercial gym for a few years and there I piloted a scheme with the RNIBworking with visually impaired people yeah and then
Later on in my first kind of unit, I would suppose, I was actually subletting, I ended uprunning a study for the social services and the NHS.
(01:54):
So both of those things were really cool.
Kind of really enjoyed it, but wanted to do something a bit more social, but I didn'treally know how to go about it.
And then kind of fast forward to May last year, I started working with a wonderful humanbeing called Abby.
And...
just kind of highlighted to me kind of the one the horror stories that she told me thatshe'd been through in terms of fitness good coaches coach because they want to help people
(02:22):
we want to see the grip from one place to another whatever that is you know and coachingis doesn't need to be sport can be whatever but I one of the things that kind of really
struck me was actually like what happened with Abby was way beyond I sat there I went wowlike this is really cool
can we like maybe focus on this a little bit more?
(02:43):
And initially I started the CIC to just try and get some grants so that people that can'tafford my services that we can actually get them in and can work with them as well.
And then the whole thing snowballed and turned into, I mean, I like to call it a monsterat the moment because it is a bit of a monster.
But interestingly, we're talking about ADHD.
(03:04):
I only got formally diagnosed a year ago and subsequently I've only been on medication forthat year.
And ironically, my life has turned around like beyond belief.
My ability to work, everything is more than a thousand percent better.
Like it's crazy.
(03:24):
So I think that's probably got some, a big part to play in how I've ended up kind of hereand where I am.
think just in that amazing description of your work and a little bit about yourself thatwe can dive into.
There's so many points to pull from it.
You know with ADHD, I have a tendency to want to then explore, go off on tangents.
(03:45):
So I think it would be good to just start from the beginning really.
And so you got diagnosed, you said about a year ago.
Yeah, so I got diagnosed, I think it's pretty much almost like a year to the day at thispoint.
I think it was February, January, February time last year.
And that came about from, yeah, working with a therapist for three years and just decidingthat that's where we needed to go with it.
(04:09):
And so that's very similar to myself.
I think my diagnosis was about two and a half years ago.
But so before that diagnosis, did you obviously in childhood feel different or was there afeeling that you might have had ADHD?
Did you even have awareness of what that was?
(04:30):
Yes, I mean I was actually kind of soft diagnosed with ADHD as a child so I I went througha childhood psychologist first off when I think I was about five or six because of
dyslexia and actually they couldn't diagnose me at that point because they that I was tooyoung and then when I was eight I went and got diagnosed for my dyslexia
(04:50):
The psychologist told me and said to my parents, have you considered the ADHD diagnosis aswell?
Because he presents very strongly for that as well.
And the problem is my parents then kind of didn't.
So I then consequently went through life.
mean, feeling abnormal, absolutely.
I think that one of the problems is that even if you're neurodivergent, right, and youhave the best childhood ever and you're not diagnosed.
(05:15):
I'm still guessing that that's quite a traumatic thing anyway because ultimately, youknow, not feeling like you fit in, not understanding those things as a child, that's quite
a heavy thing for anyone to just, just with that alone, that is a big thing.
I think although I was diagnosed two and a half years ago, I'm probably about the samelevel of kind of unmasking, if you will, for want of a better term.
(05:39):
I'm still learning all these traits of like, this is wrong behavior, all that conditioningthat you tell yourself.
It's interesting because I agree, think if you're a kid, especially kind of teenage years,largely defining your identity based on how you fit into different social groups and...
(06:00):
It can be quite conformist at the best of times of that age.
know, there's a lot of peer pressure.
There's a lot of wanting to fit in.
And if you don't have that frame of reference, it's almost like a minority of one.
It's a very, it's a very unique identity.
It's not like necessarily race or sexuality.
Right.
It's isolating because it's not, because you don't even technically know that that is whatit is.
(06:24):
So you haven't been able to go, don't, you know, I'm embracing this.
is
this is a strength, this is maybe a challenge, but you can't normalize something until youeven know what aspect of your thinking is largely explained by that diagnosis, right?
that happens.
I remember going to a therapist when I was a school therapist.
(06:45):
So I must have been about 14 or 15 at this time.
I at which point given up on school if I'm completely honest.
But this therapist, you we were talking one day and she was really cool.
Actually, she like, you know, she would actually take me out of school sometimes.
She was like, look, let's just get out of here because you'll look like you're about toexplode.
I wasn't, at least not physically inside.
(07:06):
might have been in coding, but not necessarily externally.
But she said to me, like, what's going
on for you and I just like I'm looking for something and I genuinely like that is thefeeling like I don't belong here I'm looking for something I couldn't tell you for you
know for anything what that thing I'm looking for is but I just feel like there issomething I'm incomplete in some way and as a 14 year old I didn't I didn't understand
(07:32):
that really um but I think that now kind of looking back on it
You know, for me, the dyslexia was hard because the dyslexia actually made me go down ayear in school and being kind of small and sickly as I was, then kind of being put down a
year, like that really messed me up a little bit because...
I don't know, I felt like everyone was looking at me as if I was stupid.
(07:55):
And then to top that off, that actually I can concentrate anyway, so you could put me inwhatever year, it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference.
I actually ended up going to school for a term and they put me down another year.
So at one point I was two years behind at school.
And yeah, mean, in terms of your own kind of personal ego, that's not good for someone'sego.
(08:16):
Like if already you feel isolated and alone, then to then kind of make
your peers have something else that is even more obvious that you're not like them.
The real sad thing is that, you know, I think I said to you this in a chat, I rememberlike after diagnosis, I was looking at something and I think it was about medication
because I was a bit unsure.
And I went on Reddit just to see like kind of, you know, there's anything on there.
(08:38):
And I came across this really cool group on Reddit, but...
One of the real things that struck me was just the amount of people that were in their 30sand 40s, you know, just only getting diagnosed now and just this grief and pain and like,
yeah, it's amazing in that it happened and we got diagnosed, happy days, but there is somuch pain that is...
(09:00):
100%.
I'm still going for it.
Yeah.
We're probably living embodiments of it.
Aren't we really?
It's interesting James, because a couple of things that you said, I mean, you're veryclearly, you're very clearly good with articulating yourself.
It just goes to show what dyslexia really doesn't have any bearing on what you have tosay.
(09:20):
Just to me, so many things that you say really mirror my experience, but what I've seen,obviously I'm just using the frame of reference of newbie really.
So just to give everyone a snapshot as well.
Really, I'll be completely honest, very typical of me.
It started as a bit of a whim, probably an impulse really, where I, it's almost like anapkin paper thing of setting the world to rights.
(09:41):
How are we going to, because I saw the stats on autistic employment and thenneurodivergent, and I just knew that that didn't, you know, it didn't compare with the
experience that I had with that community and understanding the strengths that I could seeand they couldn't.
And it evolved into me using recruitment as a kind of a vessel to really start to tacklesome of that neuroinclusion and get more people in the workplace.
(10:05):
And one thing that was very clear, well, whilst there's a lot of gray area inneurodivergence, the clear line I could see is that late diagnosed individuals compared to
people that were diagnosed really early, the level of trauma and...
and some of that baggage in that psychological damage that's done was so stark, know, lotof, you know, things like addiction, for instance, and suicidal ideation.
(10:30):
And yeah, I'm the same.
had, you know.
I to talk about mine as well because I don't...
uh That's one thing I've found actually of late is that I used to be really ashamed of ummy kind of...
Especially my late teens and my 20s were riddled with problems.
(10:50):
Drugs, loads of drugs, loads of alcohol, loads of sex.
And like I kind of spoke to you about, it ended up really with me getting in trouble withthe police.
But I think that the real sad thing is that I think that we're one of many that go throughthese sorts of things.
I would love to have a look at the prison system and see how many people in there.
(11:14):
I mean, this is the thing, And we're watching, Rachel and I, my wife, were watchingsomething last night and we were talking about it.
So why you going to the topic?
Because the topic's quite dark.
But it's that sense of, you know, when you get someone at the point where you've arrestedthem and you're charging them for something, okay?
Well, all eyes on them, you are a horrific human being.
(11:34):
And one thing I will stipulate before I say what I'm about to say is that we all have achoice, okay?
Yes, exactly.
And we are all...
autonomy over the decisions, but there's still an explanation for you.
There are still things that are factor into that that we can't just decouple from thesituation and turn it into.
Because when you do that, you don't solve the problem.
It's like, know, people talk about I was having an argument with someone who was talkingabout, you know, people that still shoplifters, they don't they don't look at the
(12:04):
socioeconomics and they don't look at the choices.
You know, to say someone makes bad choices, some people's choices are.
you know, go to prison or, you know, but be able to eat that day.
Yeah, absolutely.
see what I mean?
You know, so it's that kind of thing, isn't it?
You have to really see what's underpinning it.
But it's interesting that you spoke um about, you know, the school system and how it failspeople and a lot of those people might end up in prison.
(12:31):
uh Weirdly, I was watching, I don't know if you remember a show, it was where they takekids to a prison because they're bad kids that may end up in adult.
Yeah, I've seen and they try well they took these British kids right to the American oneand it's just this like Horrific place and they're shouting about you know, the darkest of
(12:52):
the darkest.
Yeah subs, know subjects and they were looking at these kids and Realistically what itcame down to one of them was couldn't uh Sit still in a classroom and instead of that
being seen as you know
behavior is language, right?
Instead of that being seen as well, that person, that's a survival mechanism.
(13:18):
It's not what you say about that, it says more about yourself, right?
We project a meaning and we'll say, well, that's defiance or that's anger.
But we wouldn't say that if a house was burning down and I'm screaming, you wouldn't say,Jack, just calm down.
But that is literally how it feels to that individual.
And so that really that person needs
(13:39):
therapy and needed support and they are using this kind of compliance discipline ofparadigm if you will because it works for everyone but it doesn't work for everyone even
then people that are not neurodivergent.
You look at that, for whatever that child is, okay, they're children.
And I think this is the other thing, is everyone sits there and goes, oh, that's a who's14 years old and he did this thing, and oh, let's try him as an adult.
(14:02):
And you're like, no, that's a child.
Like, no matter what that person's done, that's still a child.
We have to have distinguished, like...
Yes, and it's still a collective failing.
We all play a part in shaping society.
I'm someone that sees, I don't see that obviously people have varying levels offamiliarity with me and you're in a circle you kind of, you know, you have a different
(14:22):
relationship with but by by large I don't see this distinction, you know, you have to inorder for society to improve you have to actively seek means to support people and so that
age when you can go into
destructive behaviors that ultimately lead in disaster, why are we not seeing that personand their potential and finding ways in which...
(14:46):
I that you've got, think that, you know, and actually, do you know what, let's big up yourbusiness for a little bit because I think this is an easy one to kind of do.
When we look at it, right, I've got a meeting on Friday morning with my MP, CarolineDokes.
All right.
yeah.
So it was off the back of, did you see that whole thing about them trying to reduceassessments for ADHD and autism in the UK?
(15:12):
So I think it's ADHD UK put out, it was really cool actually, they put out this thingwhere you just had to click it, you put your postcode in, it found your MP and you put
your email in, they bang an email across for you.
I was like, awesome, I went private for my assessment because I couldn't wait seven years.
(15:32):
Anyway, consequently, she emailed me back and she said, look, mean, was probably a copyand paste, but fair play to her.
Someone had to write that email at some point and it answered it.
So I can't really complain about that.
And I ended up responding to her, and I can't remember exactly what I said, but I turnedaround and I said, look, said, why don't you just look at this from an economic point of
(15:54):
view?
I said, because.
you know, like I said to you earlier, my year in terms of my ability to perform at workhas ridiculously been good, okay?
And that is by no short, know, nothing else, right?
That is because I've been diagnosed and I'm given the medication I need to function.
I said, now you're talking about, you know, dropping these down to, you know, the bareminimum, when they're not even there yet.
(16:22):
You sit there and you think, well, that's going to have an impact on the economy.
And the problem is that the people in power at the moment seem too stupid for some or theycan't see that actually you're missing something here.
Let's take Abby.
Abby came to the gym.
Abby's got autism and ADHD, okay, and some other stuff, but that's the important bit inthis conversation.
(16:43):
Abby came to the gym, she got supported and found a place that accepted her and got fitterand stronger and consequently she now works for the ambulance service, okay?
Abby's not only contributing to society through taxes, but actually she's using thedoctors less because you know what, her anxiety might not be so bad, her depression might
(17:05):
not be so bad, you know, she's getting fitness, she's getting all the rest of it.
And the truth of it is is that by looking at people, neurodivergent people and all peoplethat may have disabilities or things that kind of...
stop them from being able to kind of fully integrate into society in the way that societywants them.
By sitting there and going, look, they're a pain, and let's just push those over there,all right, it's so short-sighted because actually, if you sit there and go, no, what can
(17:33):
we do to make that person feel a bit better?
What can we do to encourage them?
What can we do to remove the barriers for them?
Well, suddenly you've got a workforce, okay, and you've got people in there, you've gotreduction on NHS kind of services.
It's a win-win.
And the thing is, as well, that really frustrates me about this is I have been in and outof doctor's surgeries.
(17:57):
whole life.
About hundreds of times.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been on every single antidepressant I've been on, alright?
Same.
And some other things, you know?
um
of it, yeah, I mean, maybe 50.
That's how crazy it is.
And how long does it take to do that assessment?
This is the point though, isn't it?
So how many times are you backwards and forwards for a GP?
How much is that GP having, what is the cost of that, you know, financially?
(18:22):
What is the cost in the sense that that GP can't see the other person that actually reallyneeds their help and all the rest of it?
When it took one assessment, consequently I do have to talk to my psychiatrist, all right,so that is, but nowhere near as much as the other stuff I was doing, and at the same time
I'm putting money back into the system because...
I'm actively like doing better in terms of work.
(18:48):
why just look at why let's stop this old way of looking at things.
Let's sit and say, all right, what can we do?
What can we do to help?
um
I think that there'd be such a huge positive thing that if someone in power in thepolitical system says, let's approach this in a different way.
We're not getting anywhere with the approach now because they're not.
(19:10):
All right.
Why don't we look at actually doing what they need and let's see what that looks like atthe end of it?
Because at the moment it's not working.
There's so many threads to pick up on that.
Firstly, you know, how I approach newbie is that whilst we are focusing on this community,because I guess the needs are a little bit more distinct and pronounced.
(19:31):
The approach benefits everyone.
And so we look at it as realistically everyone's masking to a degree.
And we try to see it as like, what's the upshot from this?
So how personalizing so that everybody can get.
the best out of their performance, right?
And I think that's kind of the approach that seems to work for us.
(19:54):
But when you look at those statistics, and I try not to attribute to malice what can beexplained by incompetence, right?
But it's actually across mental health too.
So sick days and retention are all impacted because we don't found fundamentally grapplewith mental health and wellbeing.
But then it becomes, you know, a question of
(20:18):
even just those accommodations themselves, um this is where the difficulty is.
People don't realize the number of barriers that it takes for people to actually even getto the point of applying for a job.
So if you've had, you may have had terrible experiences in education, you may have turneddown three or four opportunities, the job spec might not be accessible, then you see in
(20:43):
the company that there's no one like you, or they're not giving you that feeling that
It's a place that's conducive to bringing the best out of you.
But we frame it as, um you know, as long as we make it a meritocracy, you know, but inorder to broaden that so that more people apply, there's a lot more that you need to do in
(21:04):
terms of awareness.
And that's kind of something that we're focusing on.
I mean, just to bring it back into the question of just the NHS and that approach.
It's I've had experiences where I'm probably using parts of the NHS that are not designedfor what my needs were.
So you speak to people that go into A &E just so they and then they get emergency care andthen they because they cannot that assessment they can't do they get medication that short
(21:34):
term it has side effects and then you and then obviously you're coming off of those andit's like you get thrown through the system.
When people don't realize the ADHD assessment is 36 questions it's
one, maybe two other follow ups with a psychiatrist, right?
And yes, there is then support that you may need afterwards.
When people talk about atypical or not normal, normal has changed.
(22:00):
So that's not even a concrete framework in which to say some, you can't attribute that towhat the value is or how objectively true that is.
So what's normal now will change.
And what I it does as well.
Yeah, well, it needs to.
And the difficulty of it is we've got this kind of red herring of objectivity andmeasurement.
(22:23):
Right.
And so we say, OK, this is the approach we've got these we can capture in and whether it'san assessment, these traits that we want to see.
But we don't realize how little subject how much of those processes are subjective.
Right.
So you get, see like these conventional wisdoms that are on LinkedIn about the best way todo outreach, for example, in reality, they are that that is packaged to be scalable that
(22:51):
advice.
So you can commodify it.
So you can say, do you know, go in my funnel that I'm going to give you a template for howto speak to people.
But most people realize that it's much more complex than that.
It's relationships in business are built fluidly.
Right.
And it's the same with
with, you know, in terms of how you get from A to B in a company, you need different typesof thinking.
(23:16):
It doesn't fit this rigidity.
I think that that's the thing.
think that if we go back to the tests, I went to a really cool seeds talk with RachelMosley, Dr.
Rachel Mosley.
Okay.
And she's awesome anyway.
So she is an autistic academic who specializes in qualitative research within uh theautism, you know, space.
(23:40):
And, and, you know, it was keeping this particular one was about people assigned female atbirth.
right.
And
What was really interesting was they were talking about the fact that First off up untilthe 90s you couldn't get diagnosed if you were a woman or Gender female at birth right you
couldn't but the other thing is if you didn't go in and answer Let's say 10 questions ifyou couldn't answer absolutely every 10 perfectly.
(24:05):
Oh, you're not autistic you can yeah, which is
So if you're 90%, it's like none of that matters.
eh
And the thing is that it still doesn't look perfect now because you know one of thebiggest things that we see especially with you know assigned gender at birth female is
(24:27):
that autism in that part of the community it's really hard to tell like you know
There's a lot of masking isn't there?
Yeah absolutely and what people don't seem to realise is that masking ends up being morethan masking.
It's not more masking but you get so so good at it that actually you could try and not doit and you would probably instinctively still do it because that thing kept you safe for
(24:54):
however long.
Alright?
Your body and
you've done that, you've conditioned yourself at airy impression wages where your brain'sdeveloping.
It's not as simple as just a habit, it's a real deep learned behaviour.
Yeah, absolutely.
even when you're in the assessment process, you still might mask, even though you don'twant to, you might do it because ultimately that's what you've had to do to that point.
(25:17):
you know, people getting that diagnosis.
had a, I got a lovely lady at work, all right, but she said to me, she likes to, she likesto kind of throw a caveat.
She likes to kind of call my bluff on stuff sometimes.
And we were talking about that whole, we were talking about this subject about people notbeing, assessed.
And she went, you know, maybe we don't need as many assessments, know, blah, blah, blah.
I was like, I was almost like triggered, you know, I kind of had that, oh, don't you dare,I'm gonna like, you know.
(25:43):
Don't upend my world view overnight.
I went on a rant and I do, I go on rants all the time with everything that I kind ofbelieve strongly about, which it probably isn't good because I'm not inviting uh
conversation at that point.
at this point I don't care because I've read more than you do, I'm going to try and showyou the reality of what you've just said.
And I ended up saying to that person that ultimately...
(26:09):
I agree, like not everyone does need a diagnosis, alright?
And if you've got through your life and you don't have, you're happy and successful andeverything's going alright and you don't want have diagnosis, happy days.
But we're not really talking about you as a person.
The person we're talking about is the person that actually...
needs to.
and the person that is having anxiety and depression and I said me knowing my community,it's been huge for me.
(26:36):
I for once don't feel alone.
I didn't feel alone because of my wife, because my wife's amazing anyway, but mate, I feltreally, really, really alone for a really, really long time.
I would say mine is even like, sorry to interrupt.
So mine is so profound.
(26:57):
wouldn't even, the words don't come to mind.
The best way I can say it is I have conversations with now more neurodivergent people thannot.
And everything that you think about neurodivergence changes, but
at the same time yourself.
So for instance, you have a call with seven of us, right?
And one's got two, you've got ADHD, very impulsive, someone with dyslexia.
(27:21):
What's the common misconception is that that's going to be chaotic and just a nightmarebasically.
It's like a Royal Rumble.
It's not because I think there's a much deeper kind of understanding of what thatisolation is and that need to be validated is.
And like everything you regulate around each, it's like co-regulation.
(27:41):
When you have a conversation with someone, it's not tennis, is it?
You don't go, you speak, I speak, you speak.
It's still very innately human.
And so it just, it's the first conversations where somebody has realized that I havedifferent preferences than what would be typical.
And so naturally they arrive at that conversation asking me things that would help.
(28:06):
you know, set the tone and make me feel comfortable.
And then my ADHD traits have significantly, um, reduced.
And whilst I'll still go off on tangents, I'm still a bit impulsive, I'll talk a lot.
It has the emotional resonance of that hasn't been as nearly as negative.
Whereas for 10, 15, 20, however many years, every meeting I've been in, I've thought I'vebeen self-critical.
(28:31):
And it's not that the onus is on the other person to necessarily be, be, um,
psychic, but it's just a natural thing that, you know, and you're talking about the ideathat some people mask so much, they might not even be able to separate that from who they
are.
Well, the more I've spoken to autistic folk and folk with ADHD, OCD, I've realized howmuch what I actually want is very similar to what a lot of neurodiversion folk want.
(28:59):
I like more explicit language.
like, I find that
I was saying this to someone recently.
I've said no maybe 10,000 times when if I'd have felt comfortable, that could have been10,000 yeses to opportunities, to experiences.
And a lot of that is just because I can't control how I'm going to feel in thatenvironment.
(29:22):
And it didn't feel in any way like anybody was giving me that space to state basicallywhat my needs were.
said no and that's a neurotypical kind of conditioning and so it's overnight.
I think that's the thing there isn't it?
what you're talking about for me is barriers, you know?
(29:44):
barriers can work both ways, can't they?
We always think of barriers as I'm putting this barrier down, but actually that might beI'm actually lifting that barrier up and I'm allowing that person in because I feel safe
enough to be able to do that.
I think that, you know, especially in my work, I had a really cool thing this weekactually.
I coached a guy last week who is autistic and has cerebral palsy and...
(30:07):
Awesome guy, right?
You know, really awesome guy.
Again, makes me quite sad because I don't think that he's had the most easy of times.
And you know that we're, I've spoken to the fact that we're piloting a schema in Hampshireat the moment to try and, or we're about to pilot a schema in Hampshire to try and work
with some partner gyms and stuff.
I sent him a text because I'm just little bit too far away from him in all honesty.
(30:29):
And I sent him a text and said, hey, look, if you want to there would probably be a spaceon the pilot for you.
And I know that there's a gym potentially a lot closer.
So I went, yeah, but will you be coaching it?
And I was like, no.
Because the energy that it took for him to come to my gym,
(30:50):
was insane.
know it would have been an insane amount of energy.
He would have been really nervous.
He'd have been fearful.
I think he said to, he's good friends with one of other clients.
And I think he said to him, is he going to be okay with disabilities and stuff?
And I'm sitting there going, man, that shouldn't be a question you should have to askanyone, whether or not they're okay with that, or whether or not they don't want to try
(31:12):
and facilitate anyone in any way they can.
But I think that because that took such a big thing for him,
Now the thought of doing that again is like, and not to know that someone like meguaranteed me was there, he's not so sure, but that's the community, isn't it?
And I think that that's the kind of, that's the other hard thing is that, I don't knowabout you, but kind of at the moment in terms of our business, um or you know, our
(31:39):
business, CIC, you want to do everything and you want to do it all for free, right?
You do.
because you want to make a change.
I mean, I've given away to more than the neuronavigilance, I've done neurotypical and allthe rest of it, you know?
what happened with recruitment, know, first year of business and um there was justopportunities where I had to, I wanted to facilitate a better culture basically for a few
(32:07):
neurodivergent folk and the only way I could do that was for free, so I just did it.
But it shouldn't be expected.
And that's a mantle that unfortunately isn't taken up by corporates really and I find thatquite frustrating because
what you know they seem to get involved with these issues once someone's once the value isis easier to extract and a lot of the work is done i've noticed this with the community
(32:35):
the same people that are unemployed and have been by and large marginalized by the entireindustry when i've supported them and kind of given them a bit of a shout out and
championing you get everybody seeing their value as if it's changed as if overnightthey've become a very good developer and a very good ux because i
And you're like, no, it's just that I spotted it before it was even worth anything for me.
(32:57):
It wasn't transactional.
I simply think that it's unacceptable to not see that there are hundreds of different waysthat we arrive at a similar outcome.
I think that that's the thing.
think that one of the things I do hope is that I know for a fact, so look at what we'redoing.
We're doing something where ultimately we're going to put people...
from our community into gym spaces in dead spots, okay?
(33:21):
And dead spots are times in the day where other people don't want to be there, all right?
So maybe it's in the middle of the day, maybe it's a little slightly later in the evening,wherever it is, we're looking at dead spots.
So ultimately, we're gonna make that gym more money because we're gonna put people inthere where they can't put people in there.
Does that make sense?
Like, doesn't work.
Some people might say, well, is that not kind of, you know, making it like you're notprioritizing?
(33:45):
the the the neurodivergent people is the the honest answer is we can't afford to takethose my prime times out of those spaces the cost is just would be astronomical as in
beyond astronomical because we wouldn't have such a reduced amount of people within thereanyway yeah i'll tell you what someone will there you know that people will be happy about
it when this gets done and isn't this great a little bit like what you just said and andthe thing is is that i kind of hope no one gets it at the moment because that means that
(34:09):
the ones of us that doing it can do it properly and set a standard
And ultimately our standards can be higher than anyone's.
If we're prepared to put in that work and drive it and make sure our community is right,looked after from the way that we feel they should be, because ultimately we're part of
that community, then I think we'll do a damn slightly better job than anyone that isn'tpart of our community that's just trying to uh completely economically benefit from it.
(34:38):
So I hope that...
I'm hopeful because I think if you give people value and consistently and you reallyacknowledge them that is actually ironically I think you've got a more I think you've
actually got a better ecosystem for business it's just that you're not arrive you knowwe're both not going into it with that intent so I whilst you know there are companies
(35:05):
that try to exploit a lot of the community
I don't see them as having long-term success because a lot of the conversations I'mhaving, people are seeing some of the whitewashing, know, kind of the eye washing and all
that kind of stuff that's happening.
think that like from what you said, you you've got a stakeholder, you know, you've gotpeople guiding that process and that's really important.
(35:26):
We have it at work, we have to have it like, it's the most important thing.
You're talking to people, you're building something from a stakeholder point of view.
So what that means is that you're getting people's voices within the community you'reworking, directing your work, all right?
One of the things that we're looking at, because we're running a study with the Universityof Bath.
(35:46):
And one of the biggest things when you come to looking at the science of it all is that,how much of the science has been done by neurotypical people putting their expectations
on, you know, what they think people are going to want rather than actually asking them,you know, asking an autistic person, what do you want?
If you look at science, up until like not very long ago, it was all white men that didstudies anyway.
(36:12):
Nothing was studied on anyone other than that.
ADHD is a prime example, so is autism.
There's practically no female uh informed diagnostics and so there's a gender gap and whenwe see this kind of four to one, five to one ratio of diagnosis, I wonder why?
You're teaching people to mask.
I'm going to big up Lorna Wing, okay?
(36:32):
I think it's the Lorne and John Wing Foundation.
Lorna Wing was the scientist that came along in the 90s and went, wait a minute, thisisn't right.
We need to start thinking about this because, you know, autism doesn't present in everyonethe same way.
Like nothing does.
know, even just the idea of like women being too emotional when it's just like it's soobviously this it's to me it's so obviously a kind of a soft form of misogyny and a double
(37:00):
standard and and all that but but it comes from these systems I mean ultimately it'ssystemic discrimination essentially if you're not Lord if you're not making up the an
equitable representation within all levels of
a medical framework, what's the, it's not a coincidence that what comes out of that isterrible outcome and comes for women.
(37:24):
But the knock on effect, we don't know this unintended consequences of how we even speakabout women.
It becomes, you know, all part of the same thing.
If I went on, I honestly, if I went into my local town and I pulled up 100 random people,alright, of any ages or whatever else, what I would, if I asked them, if I told them I
said, you know, what do you think autism is?
(37:46):
I know what the response would probably be, uh but that's not what autism is.
So, and that is a real problem because if that's, I had, did I tell you about that ladythat came into my gym, a unit I was prepared to move into?
I don't think we did.
Okay, so I won't go too far into it, but I nearly moved into a unit.
(38:06):
I was looking at a new unit.
I have to make sure that my current animal doesn't hear this interview.
But I was looking at its unit.
And long story short, this person actually turned up to my current unit to have a look atwhat I was doing.
And they were, they had some concerns.
And I said, okay, cool.
So I said, look, what are your concerns?
And the first one was the noise about how, how, how much, loud our weight would bedropping on the floor.
(38:29):
And I said, well, look, like we have rubber flooring and our plates are, our weight platesare rubber coated.
said, so actually.
already gone to a fairly good extent to stop that from happening.
said, but wait there, let me go and grab a weight and let me just drop on the floor.
I was like, that's the easiest way for you to understand how loud that is by let's do it.
So I dropped it on the floor and she was like, okay, what about if the rubber platesweren't on it?
(38:49):
Oh, you mean just the bar?
I was like, cool, let's do that as well.
you know, like doesn't mean to do that.
It's so pedantic.
Yeah, yeah, well, it's there, isn't it?
And then I went and said to her, said, look, know, is there any other issues?
To which she said, yeah, I'm not sure about the autistics.
And I just sat there and I went.
(39:10):
plural as if it's this collective like identity right
started and I went, oh, okay, this is bad, because you've basically said, I've said, I'mgonna have to say no now before you even before I said just just out of, you know,
curiosity, what is it about autistic people?
And she went, they're very aggressive.
And I just sat and went, wow, I was like, I have no idea what you think you're talkingabout.
(39:36):
you're not talking about the thing that you think you're talking about and that was aperception you know and the sad thing is I mean I didn't challenge her because we don't
have time for me to go into this properly and I don't know I kind of didn't want tochallenge because I just didn't think I was gonna get anywhere with it.
I think that that is a resistance I've seen and it comes from just years of conditioningthat we even would...
(39:59):
If I didn't arrive at this diagnosis and did know when I was younger I had similar ideasabout autism myself and yeah what that comes from for me is misunderstanding behavior the
idea that you just say instead of understanding what people's needs are it's just
this is how things are done, these statements that are like, you know, it is what it is,that's my rule.
(40:23):
They don't really have that much inherent logic in them.
But when you say that to someone who's autistic and actually misrepresent that anger asnot actually a product of really early on, they have a certain uh need in terms of it
could be routine, it could be social interacting, whatever that is, you're projecting thisjudgment on them.
(40:47):
I've never met an autistic person that wasn't incredibly emotionally intelligent.
um I think the thing is, I think you're right, and think that we're all probably guilty,those of us that aren't autistic, of having some preconceived notion of what it was.
um But the sad thing is that it's not, and a lot of the time we think of learningdisabilities, so we think of developmental delay and stuff like that, and we couple that
(41:12):
with autism.
a lot of the wider developmental disorders, Disorder is word I'm not particularly fond of,but...
don't like it either, but the problem is that autism has this over like, well that'scoupled with it, that's, it's like no, just like anything else, an asthmatic person.
could also be dyslexic.
(41:33):
And I think that that's the big thing with autism.
think that, and to go back to kind of like the employment kind of thing, if you can turnaround and make something right for someone, for an autistic person, okay, an environment
right, that they can thrive and they are comfortable in and happy in, okay, autisticpeople are the most loyal people in the world, right?
So if you've got an employee there that is happy and...
(41:57):
you know, catered, know, his needs are met, his or her needs or their needs are met, allright?
Well, you're gonna have a member of staff there that is like one just super loyal to whatyou're doing, which, not being funny, as an employer, like, that's kind of a cool thing.
and there's some issues that are red herrings and that's in hiring.
(42:18):
We've moved to systemized approaches.
I think it's in a kind of a half-baked approach to give this veneer of objectivity.
It's come from DEI or people's misunderstanding of it.
so objectivity is the word, you know, the buzzword and so is a measurement and...
(42:39):
and consistency.
And so we've got CVs and they're like these pillars and it's like just duplicatingindividuals.
And so that's creating a bit of a monolith.
And then you've got this idea of, well, you have to hit all these different arbitrarystandards, which by and large, I would imagine a lot of neurodivergent individuals just
don't, for no fault of their own, just because they would have a different assessment, adifferent approach, right?
(43:05):
And so we root out
anything that deviates from that norm and then we go back to the system and when thosepeople then no longer kind of hit those milestones and can't succeed we wonder why that
is.
But again, you know, for me it's about just the acknowledgement.
(43:25):
We have to acknowledge that when we make judgments um it isn't always measurable.
things I keep on kind of thinking is that you know I am a white alright and I am middleclass okay I went to a state school at the end my mum's family were all dockers from
Glasgow alright so my poor actually but my dad's side are actually really quite wealthyand consequently I went to boarding school until I was about 14 years old which I hated by
(43:55):
the way it was hell and I was much happier actually in a state school before I went there
But I sit there and I think to myself, one of things I keep kind of coming up against is,uh because I think it's really important that, you know, we look at...
different areas in society and we sit there and we give them all the best kind of help to,know, that whole levelling up thing, which I don't think is being done right.
(44:20):
I think that kind of what I find really interesting is that you and I are from completelydifferent, not really different, but as in the way if someone looked at it in a graph or
from very different spaces, our experiences were always nigh on the same.
So whilst I would, you know, the kind of relative poverty, I would say, you know, from asocial economic stance might play a part in my access to certain healthcare, certain
(44:45):
education.
I mean, how many of that, first of all, across most social standards really, ourhealthcare isn't really addressing this ADHD or autism, you know, kind of issue anyway.
even if you were very well off, especially when we grew up and you're older than me, so itwas much worse.
um But it's also, realistically, you look at the relatively, broadly speaking, we're notthat dissimilar.
(45:11):
I think it's that people don't need know how to both see the kind of wider social context,but then also look at the other layers.
And it's important, I think, these terms and these elements, these segments, when we'relooking at pointing a problem and saying that's where we need to make progress.
But when we look at an individual,
We need to see it as all of those things constructed together.
(45:34):
And that's why I think if you looked at most of what we have in common, it probably isgoing to come out pretty similar because the neurodivergent aspect is probably the biggest
challenge that we've had.
there is a hell of a lot of similarities, which I'm really glad of actually because itmeans we can have a conversation and stuff.
The only reason why I kind of asked it was because I do tend to kind of think to myselfbecause I sit there and, you know, I...
(45:58):
I know that kind of what I went through was horrific.
know that there's no kind of distinguishing kind of whether it was or not.
And I think something else I to you like before was as a kind of society, we tend to lookat trauma in the sense that it has to be, you know, for something to be traumatic, has to
be you saw someone getting shot in the face.
This just, not how the brain works, is it?
(46:20):
You know, I was saying this to someone, they were talking about this really annoyed me.
It's got parallels, but it's the same thing.
Grief is exactly the same.
have no grief is all to me.
There is no acceptable form of grief.
There is no right way to grieve.
It's it.
And, and so, you know, someone was talking about a friend who was grieving because Liampain from one direction, right?
(46:43):
And what it can seem quite.
comical on the face of it, but when you think about it, that person had four in theirformative years have got loads of associations.
So you're grieving more the loss of those, that memory of youth and what that means to youthan the person.
And that's just a simple kind of superficial version, right?
But it's the same as an in-law, right?
It might have bring ideas of mortality.
(47:05):
The point is we can't rationalize it and turn it into an outcome or a one way, one thing.
So when people say, but you haven't
It's a race to the bottom narrative.
You you haven't been in war and you haven't yet, but the brain doesn't perceive it likethat.
It perceives grief in a very simplistic terms.
It's, know, and it depends.
(47:26):
And what there's so much that makes that up from genetics to your predisposition to so,you know, stress triggers.
So when I talk about ADHD, I try to speak to leaders and say, well, what are some of thechallenges and barriers?
I use the exact same approach on them.
And when you include them on it.
and you talk about like personalizing support broadly, it seems to counteract that thing.
(47:52):
going back to what you said, tell me about how you feel with that because it can be reallydifficult for me uh when it's trivialized.
Yeah, yeah, I really struggle with it.
Like I really really struggle with it.
I don't want...
Man, I could genuinely cry because of that and have done many many a time, you know.
(48:13):
I think that, you know, growing up as a kid...
Who at times didn't have any friends?
Most of the time it's because I didn't want them, if I'm completely honest.
kind of like pushed myself into kind of, yeah, yeah, pushed myself away from people.
Then to, remember my therapist said to me like probably in first year I was with him, hesaid, you know, who are you?
And saying, I have no idea.
And I wasn't, I'm not trying to be dramatic with that.
(48:36):
As in that was a absolute, I just don't know.
Because I've masked for so long that I've created so many kind of...
coping mechanisms almost, right?
yeah, but just layer upon layer of, you know, of who people I want, I thought peoplewanted in me.
I mean, that started at school because I did it because I went to nine different schoolsand every single one I'd finish it and I would change who I was so that I didn't get the
(49:05):
problems I had at the last one, you know, and I got really good at it and I just kept ondoing it.
um And yeah, so I didn't know who I didn't have.
I didn't have a clue who I was, like, to be honest.
um
struggle with that.
Because we're only just starting that journey of, I mean, we're not even at the halfwaypoint, you know, for many people.
(49:26):
If you think about even just really basics, how do I really, how can I be more productiveand organized?
No one taught us.
So you come back to that auto-didac thing, it's like we actually process information in athousand.
well, tons of different ways if you break it down into all these, you know, in terms ofsensory, visual and all that.
(49:49):
And we only really teach in this prescribed way and the curriculum is very, very narrowand direct.
And so for art, for me, I was in the background finding a way to teach myself.
when I was 10, I wasn't a professional teacher getting paid.
So I'm not going to be instilling in myself the best ways of learning.
And so you've got all these little strands that you're just unkinking really, but the samewith the identity.
(50:12):
I was always in these social environments where I didn't like the...
It's not that I'm not really masculine or not masculine.
It was just very kind of hyper-normative, know, boys, boys, boys, lads, lads, lads kind ofthing.
And it was like, I didn't mind 10 minutes of it, but I'm not a banter person as such.
And I don't want to talk about football all the time.
(50:34):
like...
And so people...
I mean, I said to the previous guest, everything was gay.
That's gay.
I remember that.
You're so gay.
And it's just like, knew, see, I knew I was different because I was the only one who waslike, no, you're weird.
Like, what are you on about?
How are we deriving, like, homosexuality from the fact that you're creative?
It's the maddest thing in the world.
(50:55):
So then you mask and you're kind of going back to where you started from.
Like, maybe it was eight when I first stopped, wasn't masking.
So I'm eight years old in my journey of knowing who I am in a way, you know?
I'm younger because I had an epiphany moment a while ago, maybe like three months ago, notsuch a long time ago, and I actually remembered how I felt before I started doing it.
(51:17):
And actually, just a placid kid that, you know...
wasn't really the of thing and it's funny the whole masculinity thing I hate it I am veryeffeminate in certain parts of my life and quite probably so to be honest I think there's
nothing wrong with it but I think growing up in those times you know like if you think I'm10 years older than you so growing up in a time with a dad who's ex special forces like
(51:44):
yeah
Yeah, discipline is the word, isn't it?
Horrific is is baby was really racist and homophobic So I mean I remember he's not nowactually I mean I haven't spoken to him for a few years, but he has he has adapted to
Realizing that he was wrong.
I think But I remember being like Yeah, that is cool.
(52:06):
That is cool But I remember being like a teenager and puberty hitting me and just beinglike am I gay?
And I can like I straight up can remember crying myself to sleep
like numerous times because I was just terrified that I was going to be gay and that mylife was already really really hard I thought shit don't throw that one on me as well I
(52:27):
can't handle that I can't handle what you've given me let alone chime in like so that wasreally hard
I had exactly the same thing with similar upbringing.
My dad, I'd never seen him cry in my entire life.
Ever.
And everything was just like rigid and how you had to do things was one way of thinking.
(52:47):
There's no, there was no idea that to solve a problem communication was an aspect of that,right?
And I, and so I'm not against any display of masculinity, even the idea of someone beingbut you know, butch and strong.
It's not that I have a problem with.
It's the idea that somehow it's about, I agree, problem solving and helping people is agood trait.
(53:08):
That's what they kind of claim for.
But then surely having good communication skills to arrive at what somebody, what theirexperience is and validate that experience so you can solve that problem is the way you do
it.
Instead of this stoicism, which is more a projection of masculinity, but actually you'renot creating that safety so that people can actually
(53:30):
give, you know, show you what they really need.
And so that's what I'm against.
And my dad just, you know, looks very stoic and it's all, it's very much, you know, he's astrong man.
But then what came out of that, it's a very suppressed way of living is a lot of behaviorsthat were really not great.
And my mom not really doing well out of it, might myself and my brother and me and mybrother are very much like yourself, more open with our emotions and it might not look
(53:58):
uh like we are men but i don't think that there's any way of how can you value how can youcreate a judgment on that it makes no sense it's just so actually arbitrary
think that a man, in my opinion, or my kind of ideal, idea of, you know, what is a realkind of, what is a strong male figure, okay, let's say male figure, because you don't have
(54:20):
to be a man to have it be a male figure.
I agree.
I think that that actually looks like having kindness and compassion and being able to bein touch with your feelings and, you know, being able to do things that might, you know,
otherwise have been claimed to not be manly, because ultimately that person is
more secure in their skin than anyone else.
(54:43):
you know like I don't think, and I worry actually, I worry little bit and I know thatwe're going off time but I worry a little bit at the moment because I see my son's like
kind of generation, he's nearly 15 and they're looking back at the 90s and going oh yeahthey were cool and it's like no they really weren't like they were rubbish.
ah
all conformed.
I've been in sticky nightclubs and just hating it and drinking.
(55:06):
That comes to the, I was going to say the addiction thing actually, because I think it'dbe really cool to speak about that.
So my brother, I'm 99 % sure he has ADHD, but I don't like to pathologize because he'sactually very typical in the hyperactive kind of display of it.
And he is an alcoholic and he's 10 years sober.
But he had the, yeah.
(55:26):
And he had the very classic example of it at school.
you're an idiot, you're wrong, you're this, you're that.
And he's actually gone on to kind of regulate himself in a way and he's teaching now,funny enough, right?
So it worked out for him.
But even myself, I had spells of really, uh you know, I don't, didn't, I might rationalizeit to myself and say I wasn't addicted, but with drink and all sorts really.
(55:57):
you know, in terms of I was...
I mean, I might as well say this now.
was a point when I was taking like pain, uh, prescription opioids, because, ironicallythey had the opposite of impact that you would think, you know, where that would make
someone placid.
My chemistry was, was such that it actually switched more on my brain.
And, and so there is a lot of addiction in this community, partly because I think thesuppression leads to this destructive behavior.
(56:24):
And so people want to escape, but also that dopamine reward.
system of what's really an issue in ADHD as a part of it.
But how did it impact you?
Do you think that there should have been things that could have put you on a differentpath?
Yeah, so I think that kind of like the biggest ones I think of when it comes to that stuffis that, you know, my childhood was pretty miserable.
(56:45):
So and I think that this is another problem and I think you hit the nail on the head whereit's a multifaceted kind of like issue.
I think so,
I think that, and I think it is probably for most as well, that's the problem.
um I think that kind of, so I got diagnosed with bipolar or just below bipolar in thisscale system when I was 23.
(57:05):
But before that I used take a lot of drugs, ecstasy was kind of my main one.
But other things as well, know, cocaine or whatever.
um
I told you this before, my friends used to find it hilarious because we'd in a pub and I'ddo a couple of lines of coke in the toilet and I'd come out and they'd be like, did it,
and I'd be like, oh yeah, no, I just had some coke, and they'd be like, what?
You seem more normal than you did when you went in the toilet.
(57:26):
And I was like, now looking back, I'm going, oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense now.
Yeah, dopamine, isn't it?
It's not too dissimilar.
It's a similar aspect to the medication that we take.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think my biggest weakness has been alcohol and still is probably if I'm totally honest.
But I find that it's real hard to distinguish which is the ADHD part of this and which isjust trauma.
(57:53):
you know what I find...
never decouple the two, I don't think.
I don't think you can, I think that they're into, I mean, I think one, like I said to youearlier, I said if you've just got ADHD and you went your whole life and you had a really
good childhood, you'd probably still get trauma from the ADHD because of socialexperiences and all the rest of it.
like, I don't think they are kind of, you can't really separate them, but for me, I thinkthat my...
(58:19):
I wouldn't necessarily say addiction was the worry.
I mean have thought about it quite a few times, don't get me wrong.
I actually think that it was my risky behaviour that worries, that really in hindsight,that I look back and I go, wow, like I've done some really silly things.
really strange is that when I was at school, it was almost like a pedestal that my mum putme on.
I think in comparison to my brother who had more classic kind of disruptive behaviour.
(58:42):
And so I was just like hyper perfectionist and would just spend all my day studying.
And when I look back, I clearly even the ADHD, the fact that I needed so much time and I'dgo into hyper focus and I was just forcing myself into this like kind of hyper focus and
it developed, you know, the OCD is what developed out of that.
(59:02):
And so whilst I wasn't as problematic uh as I was younger, when I was about 17 or 18, itwas just like a grenade had just exploded.
And I just, yeah, every single thing that was kind of stable, I guess, it just all fellapart.
So yeah, I mean, if I was going out and I had a few drinks, I wouldn't go out to have afight, but I would say something to someone or I would do something stupid or I would, you
(59:29):
know, not remember that night.
And then I just
carried that into university so I didn't know how to, you know, put back together my mindbasically.
And so every single, you know, time we go to a club, it would just be drinking as much asI possibly could.
And you just, in that moment, you don't really develop or learn anything.
And so I had to take a lot of time just to rebuild myself.
(59:54):
And until you get, you was talking about self-help books, you know, it started with aself-help book that kind of got me.
understanding a little bit more that these differences may, you know, are a medical, thereis a medical word for it, right?
Yeah.
But it wasn't, yeah, you know, my diagnosis was, was kind of just the start of the, of theunmasking, I guess.
(01:00:17):
But that problematic behavior, you know, I was lucky in that I didn't, I managed tocontain it that no one has ever been hurt.
I've never kind of done anything that I would, you know, was terrible, but
It was exactly the same thing, this real repression of who I was.
And that just came out in the masking that was so heavily built on me when I was younger.
(01:00:40):
always had the foresight to go and have a conversation with someone.
So I will find someone, and it's probably been a bit weird.
I that's a typical ADHD thing, right?
I reckon most people would be like, oh, happy to answer your questions, because actually,I'd love it if people started to realize who I am, opposed to these preconceived notions
of what I am.
So I'll tell you something.
So those two labels, dyslexia and ADHD, that you might think are like a tattoo on yourforehead, you've articulated yourself in some of one of the best ways ever.
(01:01:08):
One of the best conversations I've had.
I said this to you on the first conversation we had and you know, those, and ultimatelyhave been a captive audience to me and my ramblings.
I love it.
And so I think it kind of speaks for itself in a way that the ADHD and the dyslexiadoesn't.
And you're a lot more than that and you're a very interesting man.
And so on that note, I will let you go back to your life.
(01:01:31):
Do this again when you got the spoons back.
I've got enough spins for this.
I'm medicated, I'm fine.
I'm lonely.
I can lend you some spin.
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