"Think Different" is the famous slogan used by Apple to differentiate themselves from the grey PC boxes that IBM were churning out in the 80s and 90s.

However, what if you think differently at a fundamental level? You see the world differently. You process the world differently. And you engage with the world differently.

On this episode, Carlos and Laurence talk with Matthew Bellringer - coach, consultant, speaker and divergent pathfinder.

They learn from him and guests about neurodivergence and why the conventional ways of working and being in business aren't suited to everyone.

Matthew himself has recently been diagnosed with ADHD and he's been on a journey of understanding how to align the way he works with the way he thinks.

If you feel like a misfit at work or an unconventional entrepreneur that needs to do things differently, you're in the right place.

Mentioned in this episode:

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During this conversation we hear from a number of voices, not only from

Matthew, but also Dan and Kim who have all had varying experiences are being

Euro diverse who have also gone down.

The track of being diagnosed to different extents.

And it's fascinating to hear the overlaps and was well as the differences and

the diversity within that experience.

If you have the feeling that life is just a bit more difficult than it needs to be.

And those people around you seem to be weathering it much more easily

and you feel there's something.

Different in the way you think, and the way you experienced the

world, that many people don't seem to understand or resonate with.

And you feel that you can bring something to the table that others can't, but you

just haven't been given the opportunity to do so then I recommend listening

on, because I think there's a lot here that you'll really find useful.

Not only in terms of.

And education as to what neurodiversity is, but also potentially a validation

in terms of how you're looking at the world and realizing you're not alone and

actually being different and doing things differently and thinking differently can

actually be a benefit to those around you.

The businesses you work for.

The people in your community and yourself.

Enjoy.

At the moment, well, what Aiden now do is I really w what is that?

I nurture curious approaches to deep rooted complex issues

which is in some ways, a way of describing what I've always done.

But what inactive now do is I guidance support people with up fundamentally

unconventional perspectives and the organizations that want to

benefit from those perspectives.

And I specialize in working with the unique talents of neurodivergent

professionals, academics and entrepreneurs and also in using new technology to

establish generative approaches or regenerative approaches rather than

a transactional point approaches.

It all kind of ties together in its own way.

And I came to this.

I certainly came to this.

Well, I came to this particular description this morning, which is

the nature of my work is kind of constantly iterative and changing

uh, and is often the case with other people that I work with as well.

But yeah, so I've always been interested in these things.

I had a dyslexia diagnosis as a child, never felt it was a perfect explanation.

And a few years ago I had a ADHD diagnosis as well.

In the meantime, I studied psychology as an adult.

Like a lot of people with ADHD.

I, I did reasonably well in in education until I absolutely didn't.

Um, until, until it, until it actually involved, you know, applying

myself in a way that I couldn't do uh, or wasn't inclined to do

when I came back to studying as an adult and and studied psychology.

So, that kind of emerged as a whole load of as a way of working with this stuff

in a way of understanding this stuff.

The other side of my, kind of my personal work has been around consciousness

and my own consciousness practices.

And on some level, I think that feeds really interestingly into

this, because when we're talking about people who experience the world

differently, that's on a fundamentally, really quite fundamental level.

It's about that conscious experience of the world in quite a different way to the

way that most other people experience it.

And so understanding my own has been very helpful in understanding how that might

differ or be similar to other people's.

I was curious about that, what you said about alright education, what

seemed to work well until it didn't.

Yeah, so, so one of the reasons I work with the people that I do is actually,

there's been some interesting conversation in the WhatsApp, in the Happy Startup

WhatsApp group about this is that I tend to work with people who get diagnosed late

or haven't been diagnosed partly because they've been able to mask or camouflage,

they've been able to adapt essentially.

One of the reasons that they can adapt is because they're gifted.

In other ways, they have a talent to be able to do something that allows

them to be able to kind of get by.

Very often that experience.

Manifests in education or in, in pretty much any domain of kind of

being able to cruise along without really applying oneself very much.

And then when you actually do have to apply yourself, it becomes

very difficult very quickly.

And so you have this this is the space of the kind of formerly gifted

as this is sometimes described.

It's, It's hitting, hitting an unexpected barrier because actually you've kind of,

you've not really been engaging in quite the same way everyone else has because you

didn't first of all, because you didn't have to, and second of all, because it

wasn't very interesting for you to do so, so you've just kind of cruised a bit

done your own thing, and then when you're suddenly required to do something more.

It becomes really quite challenging.

sounds like within education there's a lot of people know they come up

against a barrier because of how they're trying to they're coping.

It sounds like the coping mechanisms stop working at some point.

You, for you at a personal level, how did that work when it came to work and

getting, because you know, I, when I first met you, I can remember you're

working in IT and then it sounded like, you know, pretty full on job.

How were you able to cope there?

Well, you know, w was that job suited to you at the time, or I'm just

curious as to your awareness of the way you interacted with the world and

then how that coupled with the work that you were doing and then what

challenges they were, or what benefits

So I kind of ended up in it, partly because I'd always used computers.

It was a, it was like with the dyslexia diagnosis, one of the recommendations was

okay, well, you know, computers can help.

And so I'd always use them.

And I ended up actually just working with that.

I started my it career as an assistive trainer, is that really helping

people with assistive technology.

And I'm kind of moved through a whole load of different things.

But in the end, what happened is I.

I met both of the awareness that I got to a certain level, and I had no

interest in continuing in that vein.

So I was like, I looked at all of the jobs around, like above the next level.

And I was like, I'm not interested in any of that.

Don't want that.

Then I looked kind of sideways and I was like, I don't want

either any of that either.

And that coincided with really kind of burning out actually with realizing

that I was not in a place that felt good or that could last for very

long and with having really quite negative consequences on my health.

And so looking at around and then changing some of that was really the starting off

point of reconsidering this from scratch.

And I think related to.

Being neurodivergent is really, I'd always assumed that everyone found some of the

things I found as difficult as I found them, and that turned out not to be true.

And I think that understanding that actually my, the amount of energy,

the amount of effort I had to extend expense to do things other people

found relatively straightforward, really did kind of challenge my whole

sense of what it was to do what I, you know, to be who I wanted to be.

And really or thought I was, I suspect is probably a better way of putting it and

really how I wanted to proceed from that place, knowing that, and knowing that

actually, you know, the exhaustion and the challenge, that level of difficulty

that I felt was not normal in that sense.

It reminds me of a message that Katrina Tan who's in our community.

I'm not sure if she's with us live, but she wanted me to just share this with,

because you've been helping her and talking to her about her own experiences.

And um, you know, the message I really quite liked from her where she was saying

like along the lines of just helping her ease into her own wiring, which I thought

was quite nice way of putting this.

And she was saying that looking back, she could see how she wasn't lazy.

She was incredibly motivated and energized, but just sometimes it was on

the only things that she cared about.

And it didn't necessarily work with the productivity, profit model or

society of the systems that they were, she was trying not to work within.

And so I that's, I got that sense from what you're saying, it's

like this going up, isn't going to work for me going sideways.

Isn't gonna work for me actually being here, isn't working for me at all.

And so there's needing to be a switch.

And you said something about being neurodivergent and so maybe it's

an opportunity here because I can remember talking to you previous like

that you talked about neurodiversity in neurodivergent neuro there's a

certain language around this that

Yes, there's some words.

On some level, a lot of this is about giving that experience words, and that's

actually a part of this, you know, finding the words for our experience.

And that help explain to ourselves and to others what's exactly going on for us

and how we are experiencing something.

So in this space, so neurodiversity refers to a population and your

per population can be neurodiverse.

They have a variety of different neurological ways of being, if you

are different from the majority of people in a space, and this

is obviously it's relative.

So it's entirely like about who's around you, you are

neurodivergent as an individual.

So you're you're different from most other people around you.

And that's sometimes contrasted with being neuro-typical, which is to be similar

neurologically to most people around you.

And there are always degrees of difference.

It's not to say that everyone is different.

I tend to find that there is something.

It's kind of qualitative is that when there's a different, you know,

and when it's big enough to be fundamentally qualitatively a different

way of experiencing the world that's usually the way it kind of manifests.

And when people start to become interested in that difference and, or get

significant issues from that difference, it's more, a bit more than a preference.

And then there are different diagnoses or different collections of ways

of being, and those are sometimes called specific neuro minorities.

So for example ESE autism spectrum condition might be a neuro minority.

ADHD might be a neuro minority dyslexia might be in your own minority.

And for many of us, we find ourselves as members of multiple neuro minorities.

If we find ourselves neurodivergent at all.

there's diversity as well in the neurodiversity.

And it sounds like you can have I'm going to say maybe multiple labels put

on you and I want it to like maybe segue into this question here from Julia.

And he saying to label or not to label labels can bring stigma and blame,

but can also change our reality, our view of ourselves and our behavior,

which can be very empowering.

Is there a right or wrong in labeling?

Do we need to escape labels or embrace them?

Yeah, that's a really great question.

And I think for me, the fundamental arbiter of whether a label is helpful or

not is the person to whom it is applied.

It's not down to anyone else.

So the question is, is this helpful for you?

There's this explanatory for you?

Does this enable you to understand yourself and your

reality in a different way?

One of the difficulties with being in any minority group is essentially

the fact that is marginalized.

You know, that it is identified as a minority, it's identified as

different relative to the norm.

And that can be kind of used against you, often sometimes unintentionally

often unconsciously but it can be very much uh, an issue for people.

So I think the extent to which you can use it and the consequences, the

implications of it for you and your experience and your, the approaches

that you then choose as a result are are really up to you, um, and your

experience of the thing, rather than someone else's experience of you and how

they choose to label you, that's theirs.

And frankly it should remain theirs and not become yours.

But very often, if you're in a minority, you don't get the

choice to keep it that way.

I was going to invite Dan up actually, cause he actually loves

his label and I thought it would be a relevant bit of input here from

someone, another person who I assume identifies themselves as neurodiverse.

And I'm getting just a, I'd like to hear his, an experience of how he

has been working with it and how it affects his, the way he works as well.

I think, cause I think that's part of this is giving people a

window into other people's worlds.

So yeah, it'd be interesting to hear, you know, you just said,

you'd love, you love your label.

You know, just share a bit more, but maybe quickly just share about what you

do and share your relationship to this topic, neurodiversity, and then the label.

So I'm an aspiring illustrator who makes money by being a management consultant.

And yeah, I mean, listening, listen to Matt, like so many parallels, so

many similar kind of experiences.

It's like I kicked ass at school.

My, I chose, I decided when I was 12, I was going to be a doctor because,

you know, Why didn't realize that his options completely paralyzed me.

So if I make a decision early removes those of options that's right.

And also I knew exactly, and I was at boarding school, really tight structure,

also a boarding school I could do.

And if you don't want to, I could get into every single activity that

I wanted, which, constant simulation.

And literally I could wake up half past seven every day.

I knew exactly what I was doing until I went to sleep at nine o'clock every day.

Get to medical school blew up because I'm suddenly by myself with no structure

intent designed, intended to now be an adult in a, doing a high stress,

high, emotionally charged environment and designed to be able to just adapt.

And yeah, that's what I say.

I was kicked out until the point that I didn't and it went from.

Top grades to slowly getting more and more ill to into my fifth year, my

final year of medical school, when the old ma I basically continued

being a, got you, probably struggled through passed my exams, got set to

the NHS, it killed myself, or I quit and make the choice for my health.

But like, from that point, my life has then been all one step after

another of somehow trying to prove to myself that I'm not a failure that

I'm good enough, you know, it had, it has massive emotional effects.

And so that's like, this is where it kind of late was coming because

the boarding school gave me lots from a intellectual point of view

and a stimulating point of view.

It, I don't know a lot of emotional ways it was crushing.

So often people with ADHD are hypersensitive in some way.

Some people, it could be auditory, some visual when it's different to

say being an introvert or extrovert can, you can apply to both.

And that can manifest itself in another syndrome called RSD uh,

rejection sensitive dysphoria, which basically means that any kind of

criticism or even perceived criticism is basically felt like physical pain.

Um, And I have that to the max.

So I'm boarding school, right?

Full of all of these people who socially gel, like, you know, get in the

clubs, you know, they link like that.

And I'm this kid who lived abroad had a quite sheltered life

full of self-confidence to the point that I was cocky as crap.

And I was so different, so many ways, and I've never, and

I've never been a thin match.

Right.

I was a, you know, it was always a big kind of chunky prop, right.

In rugby.

So like targeted.

So I've had so many labels throughout my life, right.

Where labels are imposed on me that defining me in some way, according to

somebody else's view of the world and somebody else's opinion about how I

should fit into how they see the world.

And that includes people in my family, even though they don't

realize it even now, right?

All right.

You know, tensions in my family come up because they're still trying,

they still want me to fit into how they think that I should fit into

that world, which has exacerbated.

So like that RSD and that pain is exacerbated by how

much you care about somebody.

So like the pain that you get from your closest family, even though they don't

realize that they're trying to hurt you, they're not trying to hurt you don't

realize that they're doing it is massive.

So it was actually summer camp when I first thought, wait, Just thought

about ADHD, because what I didn't realize until my ADHD tendency for

massive amount of research took over was that there are different types.

So in broad terms, there is generally inattentive, generally

hyperactive or combined.

So ADHD is not a lack of attention.

It's an inability, it's a lack of dopamine production, dopamine reward,

which means that you can focus, but you can only focus on things that

intrinsically give you, you enjoy it, because they produce more dopamine.

So actually it's a focus problem.

It's not a hyperactive problem.

So what happens is that your brain tries to simulate itself, whether that if it's

fit, probably physical, quite moving is probably dominantly inattentive.

Right?

It's it's an internal world.

It's like you could be sat there, like, yeah, but you're constantly, I could

be into stuff and reading activities.

Your brain is going a hundred million miles an hour trying to

simulate itself, but not ever being able to latch onto stuff.

And you can explain these things was applied to that.

I was like, yeah, everybody sometimes we'll go upstairs

and forgot why they went there.

Does it happen every time you go upstairs?

I just wanted to add to that because I think this is one of the really

important one of the barriers, one of the words, whenever anyone has any of

these difficulties, yeah, maybe that everyone's a little bit ADHD, which

is one of those really unpleasant lies that has some truth in it.

Because everyone or many people do actually have those underlying

traits or some of the traits in some ways, but it's a question of degree

and the question of, you know, how much of a barrier does this present.

And I think when you mentioned RSD, the rejection sensitive dysphoria,

which I've experienced for a very long time as well is people like w people

would tell you that no one likes rejection and it's like, well, yes.

Okay.

That's kind of true.

And I'm not actually sure.

That's entirely true because there was some people that seek it, but anyway,

but many people do not like rejection.

The question is, do you have a slightly odd interaction with person in a shop

that you've never met before and will never, probably never meet again?

And then ruminate on what you did wrong about it for the rest of the day?

That's what that level of, you know.

And I think that's understanding that's a different experience of the world

is, is a really important thing to to mention to people is like, yeah,

there are small bits, but there are also, these things are really strong

when you experience them particularly um, uh, with uh, yeah, when they're

just there, unavoidably unignorably.

Yeah.

And so like RSD, RSD has dominated my entire life.

Like, it's so difficult to put yourself out there because you basically assume

that you're going to get rejected and that rejection is painful.

And so you don't do it.

So you're constantly, and obviously then that you're going to get, you're

not, that's going to then manifest other psychological issues, which

are not specific to anything to do with being in diverse, but it's

just a good thing that exacerbated.

So my label came after I was at the summer camp and we found out our

erstwhile MC Sanderson had had got him his own diagnosis and you kind

of go, you look at Sanderson, who's largely I think, kind of go, yeah

and that's, I can charge you that.

Because, and that's because I had the biases, I had this thing,

like the ADHD means you're a big bounty run a person, right?

But actually most of the time near a diversity is hidden.

And we don't like, we mask it in some way, or we get some people who are better at

masking to be able to rest and masking.

Normally you only get, find out that you are near diverse when you

bother someone who's neurotypical.

When you become a problem, they get you tested so they can label you.

Because I had RSD, I was always the good guy.

I would never got in trouble.

I always did everything.

Right.

But you know, tobacco is a perfectionism in me, which is not

great, but I wasn't the radar.

Right.

Cause I was always taught the class, the teacher's pet, all of that, right?

And and I'm primarily inattentive.

So I wasn't bouncing around being.

So I just completely, you know, went under the radar and then so

it wasn't until it sounds little and I guess it's just interesting.

I wonder why he go, he thought at an adult like that.

And that's what I just did some research, from went to some of the the

good central places to get information.

And a lot of them will do briefly all kinds of checklists or little quizzes to

just kind of assess are very high level if you might have some of the traits.

And I started reading some of these lessons kind of go, yeah.

Yeah.

And what do you mean?

You've got to like, yes, like 90% of this literature to kind of like right, this.

So then my propensity for massive amount of research, because if you do

lots of research, you can't be wrong and you can't be criticized, took over.

And so obviously I looked a lot into it and I was like, yes,

I'm I am really confident that things started to fit into place.

And so the provision for getting diagnosed is horrible.

I was, I had, I applied, I talked to my GP and he was a good base supportive and

got me onto the, by the time I'd waited two years, I'm like, I could be waiting

another two years and every moment I'm not diagnosed, I'm not getting help.

I'm not gonna support because it's not because I care so much about the label

is because it becomes access to support.

And it allows you access into groups or support networks or whatever it is.

And so I ended up going private paying for it.

I had that luxury.

I had that privilege by being able to do well enough, not as well as I'd

like, but you know, I can't complain.

I'm like, you know, managed to carve out.

A niche for myself through maybe some tiny little gift, as I said, so.

Yeah.

But most enable then lets me to own this.

Right.

But I can versus like, yeah, I've got this and because I've

got this, I can understand it.

Okay.

If I can understand that I can educate people and I can

start to buy those things.

So yeah, I left my label because it gave not just get, getting the

access to medicine, which helps me, but it is not a, it's not a cure.

It brings me up close to someone.

Who's neuro-typical that's it just, but it just feels like

it's a little bit more quality.

I don't think it's equity, but it's certainly a poster to a concert.

Thanks, Dan.

I just briefly cause I'd like to also bring Kim in at some point, but just

a quick question for you in terms of.

With work.

How is it that you're able to do, are you having to create coping mechanisms?

You know, I hear Matt talking about masking, but then, or is it you're

finding the Asher, you found a way to work that doesn't drain you

or aligns with how you think just to getting a thought about that.

So like, yeah I'm not shy of saying that Happy Startup saved my life.

It really did, but it's it got me onto a new path and you be part of that

journey of understanding and owning and being a better version of myself rather

than worrying about what I'm making.

so I don't have all the coconut columns and I've built up a huge repertoire of

bad coping mechanisms because they're all coping mechanisms which are designed

to be judged by someone who's not me.

They're all I, if I do this thing, I will make somebody else happy.

So a lot of the deep work that I'm doing right now and a lot of help from

Vicks in the community, who's amazing.

And you know, if you ever want to get help, particularly from

a, it's a perfectionism or I, I love her style and body pitching.

Cause I'm getting, I'm really tapping into me.

Like one of the things that I'm gifted grid, because I find some

things hard when you're a lady, three brains are usually be better

connections is why I'm good at my job.

And I can see patterns, whether people don't see patterns.

And so actually intuition is a big part of how I do my job

well, but I don't use it for me.

And so I'm tapping into this somatic intuitive aspect.

And with Vik's help, I'm really doing some deep work.

And so that it's not about making coping mechanisms, actually, it's actually

finding, taking responsibility and saying, stop asking for permission and

stop trying to apologize for who you are.

Disability is not the medical model, which is you've got a deficiency or something

that needs to be, you know, fixed.

It's not the charitable model, which is, oh, someone's suffers

from a disability, right.

Disability exists because people who are in the center of the bell curve do

not create a world in which the people at the edge of the bell curve can live.

The world that you exist in is not designed for me.

That's what disability.

So disability is about say, you know, what, how am I happy

at the edge of the bell curve?

How do I just change the world?

So I do that the responsibility of everybody else is to understand that

they might be the majority in the middle, but there are people at the edges and

their job for any kind of disability of any kind of mirroring in your domestic,

in any instability is two seconds.

Just remember that they're not central to the universe and they need to think about

creating a world, which is equitable.

I wanted to just bring that slightly actually to kind of bring Dan's

point even further forward, which I think is one of the really important

things that I do in my work, which is really focusing on the value of being

neurodivergent to the wider system.

So I think this is one of the, one of the massively overlooked

things in this is I don't work with businesses that are doing this just

out of the kindness of their heart.

I do this work with businesses because those businesses are coming

to understand that the perspective that neurodivergence gives them

the, a huge, competitive advantage.

Neurodivergent people because of that different way of experiencing the

world, that different perspective can see opportunities and

threats that others simply don't.

And so that ability to work with stuff that other people don't see

or work in ways, particularly in, if you will, with a sensitivity that

others can't is actually really about, you know, it's good for everyone.

It's actually good for the people, even people right in the middle of every bell

curve who are completely unchallenged in, in that sense is the continuation

of the system that supports that bell curve is dependent upon it finding new

opportunities and avoiding new threats.

So it's the people at the edges who are, who do that work, who can keep who on

some level kind of keep it going and keeping thriving for everyone else.

I was curious about what Dan had said about so, and the way I heard

is like the neuro-typical person was running the label for this person

because they wanted to work out what.

So, whether it's to fix them because they're not, and even he's, he mentioned

the side of bringing yourself up.

And there's a question here from Meg.

I'm not sure if she's with us live, but she was asking about because of

this, the way I'm perceiving as kind of this judgment that people can have

on the label, this question about whether to disclose or not disclose

the diagnosis and whether you have suddenly inexperienced or an opinions

about that and what that could mean.

Definitely I, it's a difficult question and it is stigmatized.

I think this is, you know, the, when we say stigmatized, I think people

kind of, you know, the consequences, the practical consequences of having

a stigmatized condition is, are not that well understood in general terms.

And what happens is your both you're really, it's when people see the condition

instead of the person, very often.

Even when people are expecting you to be are trying to be helpful without

questioning their own awareness and their own position and their own

capability to help you can get people who will deny your access to things

or relate to in a certain way that is simply, you know, not helpful it seeing

the condition instead of the person.

So that there are strong reasons not to disclose.

It can be helpful.

Particularly, if you find yourself, I think this is one of the interesting

things is the more privileged that you do have the higher you are in an

organization, for example, the better it is for everyone, if you do disclose.

So this is one of the things I often talk to big organizations about is

one of the best ways to make a D de-stigmatize neurodivergence is for

people who are on the board to be Frank about the neurodivergence that they

have and that they, their family have.

So it's a really it's a really challenging one.

I think for me, it's like, there's no moral.

Obligation to disclose is the way that I would say.

So it's a question of whether or not it is helpful to you in the

circumstances that you find it.

Nice one

That's my position.

You can competently, it's not appropriate to out people or suggest that they out

or kind of beyond facilitating openly, inviting them, making it easier for

them, nor should you kind of push people to out themselves before they're ready.

There are big consequences.

It's a big shift, particularly for a pervasive neurodevelopmental

condition like ADHD dyslexia, because they're always going to be there.

And there's a lot of stuff to negotiate around that.

And so it's about transitioning to a new way of understanding things

and new way of being in a way that doesn't create complete overwhelmed.

That doesn't mean that the existing ways of keeping, keeping things

going stop working for you.

Thank you, Matt.

Awesome.

Well, hopefully that's going to be helpful for Meg.

I'm going to have another question here from Andrea, and then I'm going to

even get Kim to share his experiences.

And as I understand that Kim hasn't necessarily gone down the

diagnosis route yet for these it sounds like he's connected with

some of these ideas around ADHD.

So before that, Andrea is asking about this idea of this question

about the difference between condition versus disorder.

Yeah I like to differentiate these two because it's very often considered a,

you know, if you you might have noticed, I say ASC rather than ASD whereas in

the, in the conventional literature, it would be autism spectrum disorder.

ADHD is, doesn't have a positive name or a condition or name it's

a disorder in and of itself.

And as Dan mentioned it's actually completely named wrong because it

isn't a deficit of attention at all.

But, and that's an example of a very good example of what happens when other people

look at us and judge us on their terms rather than on our own terms and our own

experience that sits as an external label.

So for me the condition is neutral.

It's just a way of being, it's neither positive, nor negative

until it's in a certain context.

And so the question is then around what contexts are helpful

for this particular condition?

A disorder is a specific way of being that is pervasively unhelpful to the

kind of way that the individual is.

And that's not to say that people neurodivergent,

people can't be disordered.

In fact, very many of us end up disordered because we've taken on the disordered

ways of being that we were expected to be because they were kind of forced onto us.

It's equally possible for a neuro-typical person to have a disordered relationship

with reality, to not be, you know, not have a set of approaches that, that

work, that meet their needs kind of contradictory relationship with reality.

So it's really making those two things independent.

And sometimes I talk about this as a disorder and mental health

are relatively closely synonymous.

So sometimes it's, you can be mentally healthy and neurodivergent

just, as you can be mentally unhealthy and neuro-typical is

one way to to understand that.

Thank you very much.

Ma'am I'm going to bring Kim on now and well, we bring him on our own, maybe tap

on to this question here from Dominic.

What other things that you found difficult that you thought other

people found easy or easier?

For me until I started picking it apart, the answer is life.

It was literally like, like why do I find this?

Why do I find being me so hard?

Why is it so hard to be me, and still kind of meet intrinsic needs and uh, meet

my intrinsic needs and the, and connect with others and be, you know, be welcome,

be rewarded financially, do not get into trouble, not get punished, whatever.

Um, so it was like, why is it so hard for me to do that?

That, that is the fundamental question.

Now you can break it down into more specific details of another point, but

I think it's like, why is life hard?

Why does life seem to be harder for me than it has for other people?

Thank you.

Ma'am maybe we'll go into a little bit more specifics in

a bit, but we have Kim here.

I wanted to get you on, because from my conversations with you've, you feel

that you have, you identify a lot with this idea of having ADHD and I thought

it'd be useful to get your perspective.

Cause it feels like you haven't gone down the diagnosis route quite yet.

And you're still trying to understand what it means for you.

So I'd just be curious to hear your experience of it and how that's

manifested in the way you work.

And how I think a bit like Matt was saying, you know, what does that

mean in terms of the experience of doing stuff in the world?

Well, I've always thanks by the way, Matt, for the um, for the words,

because I've always felt neurodivergent, which I've never said before.

That's the sentence I've never said before, which actually really

makes like so much sense to me.

But I have always felt neuro diversion or always and I've never quite known why.

And then, so when I was in school, I got accused of cheating at my exams

because I would never pay attention, I always was like, you know, joker

messing around actually ended up getting quite good exam results.

And my genuinely teachers accused me of cheating.

It's because it just seemed like it wasn't paying attention,

but somehow things went in.

A pretty good example of that is when I was listening to Dan

talk so much resonated, I love you, Dan, Greg, see you mate.

And I was hanging on every word, but at the same time I was crafting

this objective fold from blue tack.

And I just only really realize that did it just a few seconds ago.

So it's like, you know, I have this tendency to feel like I'm not

paying any attention, but actually stuff is just getting absorbed.

And so I always had that school of being like problem also is a bit of a problem.

And then at university, I got diagnosed with the last year of university.

I got diagnosed with dyslexia because it always felt like I was like, not

that great at writing numbers, certain things I just could not compute.

But talking of computing.

I only applied for the thing because I got a free computer.

So it was like, excellent, cool.

Again, you can feel that will help.

And then I was like, okay, well, I've actually been

diagnosed like very dyslexic.

How have you dealt with this we life?

And then I think when I went into a workplace as well, from what Dan said

of being in this workplace, like in an agency, just looking around and realizing

that I'm just, so I just thought so different here, even though it's supposed

to be a creative place I feel like I'm just, I just don't fit in at all.

I'm just not, I just don't feel like I should be here.

And part of that is always coming up with so many different ideas and start

trying down so many different avenues.

And I wouldn't just come up with an idea.

I'd come up with an idea and it would get, I would go so far down that route

into that, I just didn't want to do, but then one thing would take my attention

that I was like really curious about.

And I find myself three hours later with an entire visualization

business plan detail on every aspect of how I would do it.

And the whole thing as I taught, right, this is really not helping me.

I'm getting held back here by this whole struggling to focus thing.

So I started looking into ADHD and doing those sort of tests and questionnaires.

And then I did a few paid for little ones that were a little bit more expensive.

Every single one.

It wasn't like are a few of the traits, things like 10 out of 10,

10 out of 10, you know, 190 900.

And I was just like, holy shit.

I guess I've got this ADHD thing and I've never really

considered what it was before.

And then as you say, you start doing you know, more research and then the

light bulb was just, it felt like a huge sort of weight off my shoulders of

like, oh, is this why I'm just struggled with so many things for so long?

And I really like, I'm always feel like there's a.

Pulling me in certain directions and I've struggled to swim against it when

I'm trying to do something that I'm, you know, that I don't enjoy doing.

And there's so many little things that come out since learning about

ADHD and that just tick all the boxes and help lighten make me feel

lighter, because I've cause I feel like, okay, I know one of the things

I mentioned about labels, it's like.

So I've got, I've started to go down the route of diagnosis for ADHD,

but it's just like taking forever.

Do I need it?

But I kind of feel like, I feel like for me, I seek a lot of

justification in what I do.

Um, dunno why, but I feel like if I had like, almost like, a medical reason

or like a factual reason that's been diagnosed by someone who knows more than

me, then that would give me a little bit more of an open door to do actually do

the stuff that I love, rather than just do the stuff I feel like I have to do.

Because it's like, well, actually I've got a really good reason why I'm doing this

as well as just wanting to do it because there's a part of me that feels that's

always felt without a diagnosis about something telling me, no, you definitely a

hundred percent got ADHD and just go with it, I feel like there's a resistance to

doing all the stuff that I love because of almost like a bit of a selfishness,

if like there's stress comes with that, or I don't own the money that I need to

cover that I will be putting more stress on my family or that kind of thing.

So, you know, what I do now with the video is a bit like that.

You know, I know I'm good at it because I spot patterns and a lot of the

benefits of having ADHD really relate into being able to create visual stuff.

And that's why I'm good at it.

And that's why I'm good at sort of teaching it, but then, you know,

everyone, I think pretty much everyone knows here, I think is adventure, and

that's what I've always wanted to do.

And I'm just always like thinking of that stuff.

So I've got a constant battle going on between the stuff that I want to do.

And I haven't actually found when you asked them to come on and call us.

It's like, oh, I'm not sure it'd be very helpful.

Cause I haven't found many ways to actually deal with it.

I stopped whipping myself with a, with an elastic band.

You'll be grateful to know.

Um, but I think that I still struggle with that and I still struggle to

find the balance between that stuff.

And just, I'm just always so gung ho at doing the things I want

to do and just so resistant to the other things that I don't.

Well that's I think what you just said is perfect though.

I think giving people a window into another world and how you've well,

for me, it's this hearing how.

Just telling each other stories seem to be just pinging light bulbs for each other.

And that being, I think as much as anything is the

intention we have here, really.

I think that the thing for me is I deep down, I know, and I've always known that

the ADHD or the ability to hyper focus is something that if I think about all

the best things that I'm most proud of, all the things that I've made my

most success in my own vision of that has been where I've been hyper-focused

on something, you know, building something, fixing something, creating

something I've been like, unshakably like, no one can, unfuckwithable.

No one can touch me.

Like I'm in this zone.

Get out of my way, you know?

And that feels great to be in that zone, but I've just not been in it recently

that much, as much as I'd like to.

So hyper-focus, I mean, like totally, totally like my mind is so immersed in

it and I'm only present in that thing.

So for example, when I'm creating something physical building convert in

a van, get a bit windows convert and a van, I know I can just get hyper-focused.

I will work on it every waking hour of the day.

For those few days possible, I'll go into space, sit and eat dinner,

like talking to myself about, you know, the wiring or whatever.

I'll be so into it that my wife would just be like, oh my god,

I'll just be present for a minute.

It's like I am, but somewhere else, you know?

That, but then the other side of that is the thing where I have to

like, ah, like barricade myself in and put a hoodie over my head to my

screen to try and create that focus that just looks so difficult to do.

And that hyper-focus, if somebody it's always, for me it's also the

pattern thing that related to that, what Dan said, one of the benefits is.

Because I see it as a superpower, if I'm allowed to like wear the

Cape, do you know what I mean?

And it's fine trying to find those opportunities to wear the Cape

where it will be accepted on it, and a real positive for everybody

is quite difficult in the current system of the way things work.

So like for example, seeing patterns.

That resonates with me.

I see things.

And I put them together from so many different places that ended up

coming together and creating some sort of solution, but something

it's like the video making.

This is why I ended up because I just spotted.

Okay, well, these are the same things that make all the videos look good.

Just do those.

You don't need to learn how to do all the rest of it.

Just do the few things that make these things look good, right?

And that seemed really obvious to me, but really not obvious to other people.

And when I like one of the first slides in a lot of my workshops, I'll

go one of the first things where I like mindset creative mindset is show

people what they don't ordinarily see.

Because when we watch something in visual or video, the reason why we're attracted

through people who are attracted to it is because they see something they

haven't seen before, or they see something they can't see with their own eyes.

Like, for example, why we love slow mode because we don't see

in Mo we love a time-lapse cause we don't see in a time lapse.

Right.

We just, yeah.

It's so showing what I feel like it's people we've already had to

deal with have this different, or have these different perspectives.

These divergent ways of thinking is if we can show people what they don't

ordinarily, see, we can show what we see, then people go, wow, that's cool.

That's interesting.

And they, then they go for it, right?

So it's finding, I'm trying to find more opportunities to show

people what they're not seeing.

And I felt like that is a superpower that I think we all need to, if we,

if you're neuro diverse is to try and, okay, what have I got different

than show people that as much as possible, because that's interesting.

Cause they don't normally see it.

Thank you very much, Kim.

I really like that that from Kim as a, as an approach, and I think one of the

big challenges of being neurodivergent and having learned to camouflage for

so long is that the weaknesses or perceived weaknesses that you learned

to cover up and perhaps have learned to cover up so long that you've forgotten

there, even if they are very often your greatest strengths deploy differently and

figuring out what those are and figuring out how to turn them into things that

are helpful for you, helpful for other people is really a lot of the work.

We, if you're, if you experienced the world that differently, you're not given

that on the plate the way the other people are, the pathway is actually not there

for you laid out the work is to make it, if you find yourself in that situation.

And I think that accepting and allowing ourselves to do that, partly because

it's so deeply transgressive, it's so deeply heretical, this work really it's

fundamentally challenging to the way things are in a good way, in a positive

way, but the world does not always respond to that positive is, is a difficult

thing to kind of overcome internally.

And the other part of it is really recovering what you enjoy, you know,

what is, what really lights you up?

I had spent I'd forgotten.

I, I'm not sure.

I haven't used.

Because they've never had it or very rarely had it.

And I had, I definitely still some somewhat carry that idea of, and if it

is like the idea, like for me, guilty pleasure is kind of a tautology, it's

a, it's the same thing that there's no such thing as a pleasure that

isn't guilty, because it's because I was told that everything I enjoyed

was kind of wrong or certainly the way I was doing it was wrong.

And actually recovering that and working on that is a huge part of it.

And sharing our experiences.

I love that.

Yeah, it really is shared experiences so often we experienced, you know, when

you, when you experienced the world differently, you experienced these

very small, constantly invalidation, these things that are like, you know,

actually I might am I experienced, you know, you kind of question your

own experience of the world so much so that you can kind of lose sight of it.

And the recovery of that, the working with other people who experienced the

world in a similar way, sharing those experiences and sharing the value of

that experience, discovering the value of that experience with other people who

are similar is a huge part of it, really.

Yeah.

And so for me, I think that is like, is that, that self exploration that real

it, like becoming curious, allowing yourself to be curious is is for me is the

fundamental thing you're giving, you're giving yourself that gift, because if

not for you, because that is the greatest gift you can offer other people as well.

if it felt like being in Matthew's head and Kim and Dan's head in an,

in a good way to understand what it's like to be your other version.

So for me I'm just absorbing really learning.

And I think what it's given me is like Matthew said this feeling that

these are strengths, not weaknesses.

And how do we like this?

I suppose, create space for conversations first and foremost, to be aware

of these points of difference.

Some people don't feel different, but feel they could be themselves.

But also like Kim has seven, particularly this kind of creative force that

feels like it's at the heart of it.

You know, how do we encourage that more?

Because I guess that's what entrepreneurship is.

Isn't it like thinking differently, having different ideas and not following the

norm is actually a quality, not something that should be sort of bashed down.

So yeah, for me, it's just been fascinating to listen in because I feel

like, yeah, it's like a positive kind of worms in some ways to understand what this

is all about and how we can play our part, I suppose, in making you feel like people

feel that it can do themselves money because when it comes down to for me.

Totally.

I I'm just been really appreciative of, you know, the stories just to see, like

you said, into other people's world.

And some of the stuff that I relate to, some of the stuff that both Kim

and Dan were sharing and, and Matt.

Uh, It was quite interesting to see the idea of, I would like to say, like,

to be different, but not to feel apart because I think, you know, we, we are

all different, but it doesn't mean we have to be apart from each other.

It doesn't mean we can't be connected.

That for me is an interesting thing to think about.

And thinking again from Kim and Dan, like to be unfuckable on the edge of

the bell curve, then don't fuck with me.

I'm going to be happy in this place.

I don't have to conform, but I can still provide value.

So, so much to learn here and I'm really appreciate this.

And thank you, Matt, for opening up this world to me and to Lawrence herein and

sharing that story with everyone else.

For people who would like to learn more about your work and to get help from.

Matthew where's the best place to send them and how best

to get in touch with you?

As a person with ADHD, I'm in the midst of like doing multiple things at once

and redoing the description of the website and everything, the best way

is probably LinkedIn at the moment.

If you're interested in community, although the community name has

changed, you can find out about the community at divergentpathfinders.com.

That is specifically for neurodivergent really um, yeah.

People who want to take this different path in work who are neurodivergent.

I've uh, you can also find out a little bit about me and matthewbellringer.com,

but it's all out of date.

So yeah, I use LinkedIn.

I love talking to people, so do just reach out and have a conversation.

That's the best way to do it.

And join us if you're interested, if you identify neurodivergent

and I should say for me it doesn't you don't need a diagnosis.

It's all about whether you really identify with that experience.

And so that for me is the fundamental thing and exploring what that is and how

we can best benefit from that is yeah.

Is great stuff.

So, there are lots of other good resources out there.

Some of which I can recommend, maybe we can recommend as well

to help people explore that.

So also if you search for a Mackie, bell-ringer on YouTube, you'll find my

podcast, uh Delightful Descent or pop, pop webcast, Delightful Descent, which

is really about fundamentally challenging these kinds of deep seated ideas that

aren't examined aren't considered where they don't work for us and how we can

have some fun doing it whilst we do.

One of the things I really like to focus on is having fewer shoulds.

Is we're all told that there are so many things we should be doing to be

successful, to be, you know, to be happy, to be lovable, to be whatever.

And you I've yet to meet a person who didn't have more

than enough things to be doing.

I've yet to meet a person with ADHD who didn't have a backlog of like who, who

keeping track of the things that they were supposed to be doing was one of

the things that they weren't even doing.

Um, So, So like dropping some of those things off the list and maybe replacing

them with more wholesome, more fulfilling, easier ways of doing them is a huge part

of this and finding what that is for you.

And part of the show is really about exploring some of those and getting

rid of some of the things we should be doing so we can replace it with

things that we want to do instead.

Thank you for listening to our happy Entrepreneur podcast.

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