15: You can't ask for what you don't know you need - Neurodivergence in the workplace

So when we left the last conversation of how we form like memories as children or as neurodivergent people and I still think we have a bit of a tendency towards ADHD in that episode and maybe also in this one and I'm sorry for that.

That's my own bias.

I kept thinking about how that impacts us as adults beyond me thinking oh my god I don't remember my childhood well to what is left or how does how did it shape me as as i grown up in the workplace because if i can't remember very well and detailed who i was then a slight philosophical moment how should i know who i am or who i want to become And if I am so used to masking and performing a version that I expect others to want from me, then I never had the chance to just be me and see if that fits in the workplace.

And then thinking, OK, if I don't know exactly who I am as a worker, as an employee, then it is more difficult to grow because I don't like I have a harder time to identify.

Not by the way, not I as Luisa, but that person has a harder time identifying.

to identify their need for help or what type of help is needed or where they want to push themselves and where they don't want to push themselves because they're still too focused on what should I do instead of what feels naturally to me to do because the whole natural being never got a chance to

manifest and fall into those I guess people pleasing behaviors rather than This is what I need.

This is how I learn.

This is what I want to be.

This is easiest and this will draw the least attention for me to be like this.

And also, I'll never apologize for making it about your experience in ADHD.

I don't say enough.

I don't think we say enough.

Neurodivergence is Not just autism and ADHD, but that's what we talk about the most because that's our experience.

And I guess as much as I want to extend the conversation beyond that, nor do I want to talk about an experience that's not mine to talk about.

So I get you, but

that's really interesting.

And then...

this whole thing of if that clashes with how organizations are built, with how leadership has been formed in the past decades, with how performance is measured and career paths are created, then there is this even bigger drawback.

Everything that I just named is created in a rather linear kind of way.

And rather, let's do step one first and then step two and then step three.

But most neurodivergent minds don't work like that.

They do step 3.5 first and then step 10 and then step one.

Plus the uncertainty of how do I stand my ground? Because who am I? It's just, that's what I figured we might want to explore.

Hey, great idea.