Shownotes
After Hours Bonus - with G Sabini-Roberts
Jenn wilson
“You are entirely capable of figuring out your own way through.” — G Sabini-Roberts
Jenn Wilson is joined by our guest: G Sabini-Roberts (they/them) – Entrepreneur, Writer, Trainer, Speaker, Activist & Branding Specialist
After Hours Bonus Episode Overview
“You are entirely capable of figuring out your own way through.” — G Sabini-Roberts
In this bonus episode, Jenn Wilson and G Sabini-Roberts dive into the realities of running a business as a neurodivergent entrepreneur. G shares how their autistic brain shaped a radically different—and more effective—approach to branding and client work, one that prioritizes collaboration, accessibility, and joy. They discuss the importance of giving yourself permission to work in ways that suit your brain, the power of mutual support and skill-swapping, and how visibility and community can help neurodivergent people thrive in business. This is a celebration of doing things differently—and making it work.
Join Our Mailing List HERE
Connect with G
Website: https://brandingbyg.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gsabiniroberts
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gsabiniroberts/
About G:
G is an entrepreneur, writer, trainer, speaker and activist. They are the founder of Branding by G, co-founder of The Queer Box and Rainbow Wise, advocate for inclusion, co-author of two books on Neurodivergent Entrepreneurship and author of ‘When Is A Women’s Group Not A Women’s Group’. G has been running their own brand design business since 2012, helping hundreds of businesses to grow show-stopping brands. They have been running events, training and facilitating spaces in and for the LGBTQ+ community since 1996 and in academic and business settings since 2004. Always leading with curiosity and kindness, they bring their unique stories from the margins of gender, neurotype and sexuality to deliver thought-provoking and memorable experiences to your audience.
After Hours Bonus Episode Takeaway
Building a business that works for your neurodivergent brain isn’t just possible—it’s powerful. G Sabini-Roberts shows how embracing your own way of working, seeking support, and exchanging value collaboratively can lead to joyful, accessible, and radically inclusive entrepreneurship.
Further Resources: links to offers from Irregular that are relevant to the episode
More about this episode:
1. Neurodivergence in Business
G shares how their autistic traits led to a unique, live branding process that works better for both them and their clients.
2. Breaking the Industry Mold
They explain how traditional design workflows didn’t suit their brain—and how they created a new model by accident.
3. Permission to Work Differently
Jenn and G explore how giving yourself permission to reject the “one true way” opens up space for innovation and authenticity.
4. Collaboration & Support Systems
G talks about the importance of having a support human (in their case, their wife) and how partnerships and skill swaps can make business more sustainable.
5. Anti-Capitalist Value Exchange
They reflect on how exchanging services and building community can be a powerful alternative to traditional business models.
6. Visibility & Accessibility
G emphasizes how visibility helps neurodivergent entrepreneurs find each other and build mutually supportive networks.
7. Imperfect Action & Experimentation
The episode closes with a reminder that trying things, failing, and adapting is part of the process—and often leads to breakthroughs.
Want to be more Irregular?
Join The Irregular Membership and get Jenn’s support to start your own personal rebellion.
Season 1 Episode 7
Transcripts
Transcript
Start Time::End Time: 00:13:34.579
Jenn Wilson: Hi, and I am back with the bonus after hours, content with G. Sabini, Roberts on the irregular, humans, podcast
Jenn Wilson: welcome back G. We were just talking off camera about the challenges of running a business when and running a life and balancing it all when we are neurodivergent. I'm Adhd and probably Asd. But I don't have a bit of paper to prove that one. I know you're neurodivergent and you live in a brilliantly diverse, neurodivergent household.
Jenn Wilson: So I I think you know, people talk about neurodivergence as a superpower. And I'm going to call bullshit on that, because actually it, you know, sometimes it makes life hard.
Jenn Wilson: and it is certainly in the social model, a disability.
G Sabini-Roberts: Yes.
Jenn Wilson: However, it does enable. Like. When you were describing how you came up with Rainbow wise, you started with, your sister has a problem.
Jenn Wilson: Yes, your neurodivergent brain created this wonderful thing.
G Sabini-Roberts: Yes.
Jenn Wilson: Us, more about that.
G Sabini-Roberts: It's it's the way things happen. Yeah. So I'm autistic. And I actually think that I'm just autistic. But I have. You know
G Sabini-Roberts: our children come in all of the flavors of neurodivergence in different combinations. And so we live it. We both do. And many people do. This is this is our norm, and we don't function the way that the textbook said that we were going to function.
G Sabini-Roberts: So we figure that out. So for me, the way that applies itself in business is partly that I'm a pattern seeker. So when somebody has a problem, you do not want to come to me when you're having an emotional breakdown. Because I don't. I'm not the person who's going to support you with the emotional side of that. But when you're at a point where you need to figure out what the solution to something is. I'm there.
G Sabini-Roberts: So a problem solver. And I know I annoy people regularly in my personal life who actually just want a cuddle. And someone say, Oh, yes, that's really hard. And I'm like, well, actually, we could fix this by doing XY and Z, and it's not always appropriate. But
G Sabini-Roberts: these are the joys. But when they're ready for that we will have an answer. We will have a fix always
G Sabini-Roberts: so for me. That's how that kind of manifests.
G Sabini-Roberts: There are other aspects of business where it's also challenging. So as a designer, the way I was taught in design school was to
G Sabini-Roberts: set a brief. You get a brief from the client, and then you work up some samples, and then you send them back, and they give you some feedback, and you tweak it, and you go backwards and forwards until you get the end result. And
G Sabini-Roberts: by the time you've gone through that review process 2 or 3 times. You've lost the will to live. No one's having fun. There's nothing joyous about that. The other thing is, if you're working that way, you've got to be able to run multiple jobs concurrently.
G Sabini-Roberts: and my brain doesn't do that. I do not multitask.
Jenn Wilson: Hmm.
G Sabini-Roberts: But what I've been able to do by running my own business is create a model that does work for me. So the way I now work is live with people. We get on a call. We design their branding together, so no one has to write a brief. No one has to come up with a list of things or make any decisions ahead of time. I'm never creating something that
G Sabini-Roberts: is likely to end up in the bin, because, as we're going along, they say, oh, actually, could we see what happens if we make that a bit darker? And we say, Oh, we could do this left or right, which one do we think is best. We'll go that way.
Jenn Wilson: Hmm.
G Sabini-Roberts: That means that we've created a process where things are much more efficient. Nothing gets created that isn't actually going to be useful. We're not wasting time or wasting energy or wasting actual designs. We are doing it collaboratively. So it's a much more engaging process, but it means that at any given time. I don't finish that piece of work until the piece of work is done.
G Sabini-Roberts: So I go hard on one client at a time, and I solve that problem, deliver everything all done and dusted, usually in the same day.
G Sabini-Roberts: which is unheard of. No one understands how that happens.
G Sabini-Roberts: It's wonderful from a business point of view, because I can say we'll do your branding in one day. You'll have the results that day or the next day.
G Sabini-Roberts: and people are blown away by that which is great. It makes me look really good.
G Sabini-Roberts: But actually it happens that way, because I can't do it any other way.
Jenn Wilson: Yeah. And you know, that's fantastic. Because I mean, yeah, because you work with solo solo business owners. And I imagine, well, I know that a lot of solo entrepreneurs are neurodivergent. It's just a it's a thing, isn't it, that brains that work differently often end up doing. Let's create our own way of doing things.
G Sabini-Roberts: The last statistic I saw was 55% of business owners are neurodivergent.
Jenn Wilson: Yeah, yeah. So that kind of urgency of like.
Jenn Wilson: oh, my God, I need a website. Oh, my God, I need a brand. Oh, no, I need some photographs, and I need them now is I don't know about anyone else, but that's what happens for me. I'm like, I've got an idea, and I want to do it now, and that's partly my Phd, but but I think that
Jenn Wilson: whether or not you have a neurodivergent brain, I think the nature of solo business is that things are quite swift as turning around, so that that one day process will work really well for most of your clients, and.
Jenn Wilson: like you said, it's like what you've done is gone. What am I good at? What works for me? How do I bring the best of me
Jenn Wilson: to the work that I'm doing. This is how. And I think that there's something I mean. You know my specialism is consent, and a lot of what I do is encourage people to give themselves permission to stop doing it the way everybody else does it and do it. The way that makes sense for them.
G Sabini-Roberts: Yes.
Jenn Wilson: In line with their values and all of those things. And that is so important. And I think that
Jenn Wilson: your autism has given you that gift.
Jenn Wilson: But actually, it's something that everyone could learn from that.
G Sabini-Roberts: I have to be honest, you make it sound like this was planned.
Jenn Wilson: No, it's not.
G Sabini-Roberts: Absolutely wasn't. So the 1st time this happened was because I was still working the traditional way, and it really wasn't working. And the client. I had turned out to be relatively local, and so we got together on the kitchen table, and we created something in that session together. It was just where the communication wasn't working by email.
G Sabini-Roberts: And what we created sitting together was something that neither of us would have ever imagined we'd end up creating. But it was perfect, and I thought that worked really well. And the following week I was doing branding for somebody who ran a cafe. So I actually went into the cafe, drank lots of their coffee for free, which was brilliant and created branding. That again was nothing like what we would have come up with. If I'd just had a brief. And at that point it was like, There's something here. This is something
G Sabini-Roberts: that really works. Let's play with this some more so. It was genuinely an accident. But
G Sabini-Roberts: that wouldn't have happened if, like you say, I hadn't given myself permission to embrace something that was different.
Jenn Wilson: Yeah.
G Sabini-Roberts: So that it's it is really important. It's powerful powerful thing. And then you could create something that is industry changing. It's unique in the world. It's great.
Jenn Wilson: For sure. Yeah, because if we all just keep doing things the one true way, the standard way that everyone says works, and it's not working for us. Nothing changes.
G Sabini-Roberts: Yeah. Yeah. So all of the things around it works well.
G Sabini-Roberts: The majority of my clients are neurodivergent.
G Sabini-Roberts: and it works because they don't have to do the things that they might have to have otherwise done, like, fill in a form, or write a brief, or, you know, do multiple a full, long stream of communication and communicating ideas in writing or by voice, all of these different ways. Yeah, we. We just take all of that away. You just have to turn up and we'll figure it out. It makes it so much more accessible.
Jenn Wilson: I think that process of that evolving there's another thing in there about.
Jenn Wilson: I think a lot of us are stymied by perfectionism. I've got to do it right, and I've got to do it the best, and I've got to do it perfectly.
Jenn Wilson: and actually giving ourselves permission to try stuff, see if it works. See if it doesn't see what happens. If it doesn't work, try something else. That's also quite hard, isn't it, for people to do? But it's an essential part of what happened for you.
G Sabini-Roberts: Yep.
G Sabini-Roberts: and we live in a world where lots of people try to tell us all the time that there is a right way to do things, and this is the right way to do it. And it probably isn't the right way for you. That's just a given. So there is something there around being able to honor your own rights and wrongs your own processes, and not feel that because other people are telling you it's right, it is, you are entirely capable of figuring out your own way through.
G Sabini-Roberts: There's another aspect to this, though, that we talked about off camera as well, and that is about the support structures that we have.
Jenn Wilson: Hmm.
G Sabini-Roberts: And we. This happened because my wife happened to walk in the room, and she was on her way out to do something for the family.
G Sabini-Roberts: but having that support, human like the business I have now. I had nothing like it until I met my wife, and we realized that actually we could collectively work on this business together and create something that would function way better than me, flailing around, trying to manage all of the Admin and all of the accounts and all of the things that actually, I'm really not very good at.
Jenn Wilson: Hmm.
G Sabini-Roberts: And that was taking the majority of my time and holding me back from being able to do client work, which is where I brought in the money. So actually having someone in my life, my wife and I are entirely codependent, I'm sure to some people that it's entirely unhealthy, but it works for us.
Jenn Wilson: Whole other conversation.
G Sabini-Roberts: Yeah, yeah, we we are partners in life and family and business. And we play to each other's strengths in all of those things. And I'm incredibly fortunate, and there is no way on earth I'd have the business I had now if I didn't have that.
Jenn Wilson: Hmm.
G Sabini-Roberts: Me because she's also neurodivergent, but in very different ways. To me. And collectively, we make one entire functional human. It works.
Jenn Wilson: And I think for people who don't have that, I mean I don't have that, and I could be very envious of it. But what I do have is
Jenn Wilson: some very, very part time va assistants, and they do jobs that I don't like doing, or that I'm not good at, or that take me forever, or that distract me. They do those jobs. So I can say to Lucy.
Jenn Wilson: Will you just do me a load of graphics? Here's here's a working, you know. Here's we have Brand. We have a brand template and colors and all of the things that we've got.
Jenn Wilson: you know, and I can give her quite short instructions and go. Can you just give me some images for this in all the social media sizes there's a starting point. Because if I had to do that I can do it. But it will take a whole day of my time, partly because I'm not a swift at it, and partly because I'm just going to completely immersed in it and go. Canva! Hello!
Jenn Wilson: All designing and fiddle about with the details, because that's what my brain wants to do. And actually, there's no, that is not a useful
Jenn Wilson: use of my time. I am. I am the only person in my business who can do the
Jenn Wilson: holding space for people coming up with the ideas, doing the training, doing the coaching, and all of that stuff. But I can get a little bit of help sometimes is all it needs or a collaboration. Sometimes I think.
G Sabini-Roberts: Is really important. Yeah, we do have. We have had things like access to work, which is rapidly disappearing. So it's not something we can necessarily rely on at all anymore. We but
G Sabini-Roberts: absolutely, I still do this. Now I regularly will exchange services, so I've only paid for one of my several websites over the last X number of years, because I've exchanged with a web developer some branding services.
Jenn Wilson: Sure.
G Sabini-Roberts: Have. I did the same for my accountant for a few years. You're actually getting people in who have skills. There are. If you don't have
G Sabini-Roberts: access to work, or a similar source of funding. And you don't have the budget. There are other ways that we can collectively support each other and play to each of our strengths. It's 1 of the reasons why visibility really helps, because it enables you to build those communities and establish those relationships with other humans who could, you could theoretically be each other's support network.
Jenn Wilson: It's absolutely.
G Sabini-Roberts: Incredibly valid way to go about accessing support that is mutually beneficial.
Jenn Wilson: And is anti-capitalist. Actually, because we're not contributing to the to the structural harms of the system in the process we're going. I've got some value. You've got some value. Let's exchange, and that's what it is. Yeah.
G Sabini-Roberts: It's a beautiful thing.
Jenn Wilson: It is a beautiful thing, and you're a beautiful thing. Thank you, Jean.
G Sabini-Roberts: Are you? Here's to all of the beautiful humans.
Jenn Wilson: And thank you very much once again for being here on the irregular humans, podcast after hours.
G Sabini-Roberts: Been an absolute joy. Thank you.
