Alexandra Bellitter: Foreign.
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Joanne Lockwood: Billard. And Today is episode
Joanne Lockwood: 163 with the title Unlocking Neurodivergent
Joanne Lockwood: Potential. And I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome
Joanne Lockwood: Alex Bellitter. Alex is the operations manager and
Joanne Lockwood: lead at Shimmer ADHD Coaching, pioneering
Joanne Lockwood: neuro inclusive coaching approaches to support the ADHD community in
Joanne Lockwood: achieving their goals. And when I asked Alex to describe her
Joanne Lockwood: superpower, she said it is a lifelong love of learning
Joanne Lockwood: and a commitment to advancing neuro inclusive coaching. Hello,
Joanne Lockwood: Alex, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me.
Alexandra Bellitter: Very excited to be here. Yeah, pleasure. We were chatting away just now
Joanne Lockwood: and you're joined with you at your end in Texas somewhere by
Joanne Lockwood: a couple of dogs. Is that right? You've got your dogs with you? Yes, I
Alexandra Bellitter: do. I got Freddie and Bella right with me. They're ready to chime in at
Alexandra Bellitter: any moment. Yeah. So. Well, we're looking forward to. If they want to join in,
Joanne Lockwood: if they. If they got something to add on the topic of Neuro inclusive coaching,
Joanne Lockwood: we can involve them. So. Yeah, absolutely. So, Texas. Whereabouts in
Joanne Lockwood: Texas? I am located in Dallas. It is Dallas.
Alexandra Bellitter: I always feel bad during the winter, saying I'm complaining about the cold when I'm
Alexandra Bellitter: very much in warm weather. But it's still pretty chilly here.
Joanne Lockwood: So what's chilly for Dallas, is it. Where are we?
Joanne Lockwood: 32 Fahrenheit, 0 Centigrade, UK. So where are we in
Joanne Lockwood: the 60s or 70s? It does get down into the.
Alexandra Bellitter: Usually there's a week where it does snow, which I think is the. You're
Alexandra Bellitter: allowed to say it's cold at that point. If it's snowing outside, it's usually for
Alexandra Bellitter: only a few days out of the year. So right now it's in the the
Alexandra Bellitter: 40s phase, which quite frankly I have a hard time translating into
Alexandra Bellitter: Celsius. Yeah, that's probably low 10,
Joanne Lockwood: 10ish degrees Celsius, something like that. Was it 00:32? So it's got to
Joanne Lockwood: be 10, 10 or 15, something like that. So nippy, but not freezing.
Alexandra Bellitter: I'll trust you on that. Yeah, well, I had a
Joanne Lockwood: lady on the other day from Atlanta in Georgia and she was saying that
Joanne Lockwood: had snow forecast there, which is kind of unheard of. So the weather in the
Joanne Lockwood: States at the moment is all over the place. Very much
Alexandra Bellitter: so. This February has had really large swings to very,
Alexandra Bellitter: very hot weather, like 15 degrees over the average to very, very low
Alexandra Bellitter: weather. So it's been a bit unpredictable. Wow. So
Joanne Lockwood: your superpower and what you do is all around neuro inclusive,
Joanne Lockwood: coaching around adhd. So how isn't
Joanne Lockwood: traditional coaching neuro inclusive? So there's a lot of different
Alexandra Bellitter: elements to that, but I think you can kind of summarise it with whether
Alexandra Bellitter: or not it is in the forefront of what you're thinking about when you're working
Alexandra Bellitter: with your members of how am I expecting this member to
Alexandra Bellitter: present? Am I expecting them to adopt my style? Am I
Alexandra Bellitter: really meeting them where they are at? So a couple examples
Alexandra Bellitter: will be just first, starting the coaching session as it's very
Alexandra Bellitter: common to do very wide questions of how have things been
Alexandra Bellitter: since I've last seen you? All of a sudden there's a lot of different factors
Alexandra Bellitter: to be thinking about when you can narrow down the scope, make it a little
Alexandra Bellitter: easier for the person to focus on what's most meaningful for
Alexandra Bellitter: them. So asking about the topic from the last time we spoke, asking about a
Alexandra Bellitter: particular goal that you had set, those are a way that you can already start
Alexandra Bellitter: the energy in the conversation without widening it so far
Alexandra Bellitter: that the person really has to think about all the different variables. And we know
Alexandra Bellitter: that from divergent thinking that can be very common. So even just from the
Alexandra Bellitter: initial start of the session, that's one way you can make it more neuro
Alexandra Bellitter: inclusive. But there's several points actually the entire
Alexandra Bellitter: session that you can be adopting your own practise to make it
Alexandra Bellitter: most impactful for your member. So, yeah, I'm aware that if
Joanne Lockwood: you ask an open question such as how are you? Or tell me about yourself,
Joanne Lockwood: that could be too broad, you might need more narrowing
Joanne Lockwood: that down to what do you actually want to do? Tell me about yourself. Well,
Joanne Lockwood: I'm 5 foot 10 inches tall,
Joanne Lockwood: 160 odd pounds, whatever. Yeah. So we end up going down the
Joanne Lockwood: Wrong route. So I guess what you're trying to do here is be open but
Joanne Lockwood: explicit in the response you're looking for. Yeah,
Alexandra Bellitter: exactly. So a modification. How are you today? That's a
Alexandra Bellitter: very particular thing to be answering. What am I feeling right now? What
Alexandra Bellitter: encouraged you to sign up for coaching? Tell me about the moment that you hit
Alexandra Bellitter: book a consultation call or the moment that you hit sign up.
Alexandra Bellitter: That's incredibly useful information of we're probably going to start
Alexandra Bellitter: with what you want coaching about or how you're feeling about yourself right now. Usually
Alexandra Bellitter: when someone signs up for coaching, it is a very raw and vulnerable moment
Alexandra Bellitter: of I'm going to choose to have someone in my life to partner with, to
Alexandra Bellitter: reach my goals. I feel like I really need someone by my side, I
Alexandra Bellitter: need someone to collaborate with. They've put a lot of trust in you
Alexandra Bellitter: by hitting that, that first button and it's an incredible moment to talk about,
Alexandra Bellitter: of how did you decide I was the right coach for you? Or how did
Alexandra Bellitter: you decide ADHD coaching was the right one for you?
Alexandra Bellitter: It's a much more meaningful start to the engagement. So what you're doing a lot
Joanne Lockwood: of then is helping people who aren't neurotypical,
Joanne Lockwood: who have ADHD, navigate, if you like, the
Joanne Lockwood: neurotypical world. Is that base some of the coaching there? Yeah,
Alexandra Bellitter: absolutely. So it's not just, how do I fit into
Alexandra Bellitter: a neurotypical world? That might be something that we discuss, what systems and
Alexandra Bellitter: structures help them be most successful? Unfortunately, a lot of
Alexandra Bellitter: workplaces in particular have a neurotypical approach
Alexandra Bellitter: to how they do things and neurodiversity is sort of a
Alexandra Bellitter: side conversation. Neurodivergence in itself might not be addressed in
Alexandra Bellitter: the workplace. And of course, we're not just talking about the workplace, but we might
Alexandra Bellitter: be talking within families. As a parent in higher education, while you're in
Alexandra Bellitter: college, people aren't necessarily talking about the tools and structures
Alexandra Bellitter: and concepts that are gonna help you thrive. It's sort of one of those
Alexandra Bellitter: things that you have to go find for yourself, which can be really disheartening of
Alexandra Bellitter: no one's prioritising what I need in this. I have to go on this journey
Alexandra Bellitter: by myself, so. So what we do is introduce you to different concepts that can
Alexandra Bellitter: help you thrive and it feels more naturally leaning into your
Alexandra Bellitter: strengths. Most of the people I've talked to on this podcast have
Joanne Lockwood: been coming from the angle of educating employers,
Joanne Lockwood: organisations on neuro inclusivity. What
Joanne Lockwood: we're doing here and talking about today really is how we help
Joanne Lockwood: an individual Self advocate and navigate the world themselves.
Joanne Lockwood: Not coming from a how could my organisation help them, but
Joanne Lockwood: how can they help themselves? That's a really interesting angle. I've never discussed this
Joanne Lockwood: before. I suppose no two people are the same, are they? We
Joanne Lockwood: can't create a stereotype of a neurodiverse person. Is this
Joanne Lockwood: or has that? Not everybody has the same
Joanne Lockwood: hyper focus or the same attention deficit as another person.
Joanne Lockwood: So I guess you have to first mission is, I guess, discovering
Joanne Lockwood: how that person sees the world. So while there, there may be
Alexandra Bellitter: common traits of, you know, impulsivity or distractibility, what
Alexandra Bellitter: we're looking at is more of a spiky wheel. When we're thinking about neurodivergence,
Alexandra Bellitter: a lot of people view a linear line of more
Alexandra Bellitter: neurotypical, more neurodivergent. That's not really what we're looking at.
Alexandra Bellitter: We're looking at a spiky wheel where there's different facets of a person. So how
Alexandra Bellitter: they engage socially, their learning styles, how they
Alexandra Bellitter: like to. I guess that's the same thing I was gonna say how they like
Alexandra Bellitter: to communicate, but how they organise their thoughts,
Alexandra Bellitter: those are all different ways that someone may be more or less social.
Alexandra Bellitter: And that's one particular area. So rather than it being categorical, it's
Alexandra Bellitter: very dynamic in how we view a person. So what are the typical challenges that
Joanne Lockwood: a neurodivergent person may face in their workplace?
Joanne Lockwood: What sort of things holding them back? Normally, yeah. So sometimes
Alexandra Bellitter: it's whether or not they get to utilise their strengths. A lot of times
Alexandra Bellitter: neurodivergent people are incredibly creative. They do well with
Alexandra Bellitter: collaboration and brainstorming. If they're in a role where it might
Alexandra Bellitter: be more isolated, might be more independent work, they might notice that
Alexandra Bellitter: it's hard to get the energy and motivation to complete their tasks because
Alexandra Bellitter: it's not as engaging. When something's not engaging can be much
Alexandra Bellitter: harder to start on a project. And when that's happening, you might see
Alexandra Bellitter: that deadlines so sort of rule the work is as a deadline approach, you
Alexandra Bellitter: start kicking it into gear because it's due. So you might feel
Alexandra Bellitter: particularly stressed on how you're accomplishing tasks. It can feel pretty
Alexandra Bellitter: overwhelming towards that end. Perhaps you're missing the deadline because you under
Alexandra Bellitter: or overestimated how much work was going to be included. We know
Alexandra Bellitter: over and underestimation is a big part of creating
Alexandra Bellitter: realistic goals, is what seems realistic. Once you start breaking it
Alexandra Bellitter: down, getting granular with time estimation, you might have been a little bit off
Alexandra Bellitter: the mark and now your boss is asking where a project is. It's not a
Alexandra Bellitter: great feeling. That's something that we commonly see getting to work on
Alexandra Bellitter: time. So again being able to get out the door, get to a
Alexandra Bellitter: meeting on time, joining a meeting late if you're virtual.
Alexandra Bellitter: That's something that we commonly see
Alexandra Bellitter: organisational systems. So being able to track and manage projects across
Alexandra Bellitter: time, those little details can often get missed or
Alexandra Bellitter: memory. Memory is a big part of it as well. Of do I
Alexandra Bellitter: remember what was assigned to me in a meeting? Do I remember what the agenda
Alexandra Bellitter: was? What did I have a, when I had a conversation with Joe, what did
Alexandra Bellitter: I say during that? Those are all components. Of course the list can go on,
Alexandra Bellitter: but I think that's probably a good beginning conversation of what we're talking
Alexandra Bellitter: about. I'm smiling because it sounds like you're talking to
Joanne Lockwood: me here. A lot of people have that reaction of
Alexandra Bellitter: wait a second, there's something that can be done about this. Hmm.
Joanne Lockwood: So I've learned that I'm terrible at taking notes and if I do take notes
Joanne Lockwood: I never go and read them again. If I don't remember it, I don't often
Joanne Lockwood: refer back. And I've found that using AI note takers now in video
Joanne Lockwood: calls helps me get a list of actions that come out of it. I can,
Joanne Lockwood: I. And because they're bite size I can, I can work on that. It's just
Joanne Lockwood: the whole enormity of hours conversation I think what did I
Joanne Lockwood: agree with, what did I quote? Yeah. And
Joanne Lockwood: the deadline thing resonates with me as well. You know I, I'm a five minute
Joanne Lockwood: to midnight person. You know, I've had six months to do something and then five
Joanne Lockwood: minutes before the deadline I try and pal it all in and then go hmm,
Joanne Lockwood: I've over committed here or under resourced and it becomes a
Joanne Lockwood: nightmare. And I think the other problem I have is that I can often find
Joanne Lockwood: myself wanting to over deliver in
Joanne Lockwood: that five minutes as well. I have this big expectation in my head
Joanne Lockwood: that I've mapped it all out and I just want to go over have it
Joanne Lockwood: all. It's, it's trying to optimise down what you've got time for, what you're going
Joanne Lockwood: to deliver and it doesn't have to be perfect. I think I just want to
Joanne Lockwood: perfect everything that could be in my downfall as well. Everything you're saying, it
Joanne Lockwood: resonates with me completely. Yeah. And the, the over promising,
Alexandra Bellitter: I just want to comment on that real quick is if you know you're going
Alexandra Bellitter: to be late On a project sometimes we try to mitigate that
Alexandra Bellitter: a little bit. So I'll hear members say, well it's going to be a
Alexandra Bellitter: day late but I'm going to add in this. And now they've added more to
Alexandra Bellitter: their plate to make up for the fact it's going to be late, adding more
Alexandra Bellitter: pressure, which makes sense of okay, how do I balance out this
Alexandra Bellitter: maybe bad news or inconvenient news with something good and then
Alexandra Bellitter: I've added more to my plate which maybe wasn't realistic. It makes a lot of
Alexandra Bellitter: sense but. It also the mountain
Joanne Lockwood: gets higher at that point, doesn't it? Not only have you not done the first
Joanne Lockwood: thing, you haven't done the second thing and the third thing you've over promised. So
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, it's a real challenge. Yeah, yeah. It becomes a cycle. And
Alexandra Bellitter: I want to be clear that if you work really well with that
Alexandra Bellitter: late pressure and you deliver on time, that's not a wrong way to go about
Alexandra Bellitter: it. That's perfectly acceptable system of I know I
Alexandra Bellitter: can get it done in this time and it's good quality and it's working for
Alexandra Bellitter: me. We're talking about when it's not working for you of
Alexandra Bellitter: my boss is a little upset or the client I'm working with is a little
Alexandra Bellitter: upset about the deadlines. I don't feel good after doing 48 hours
Alexandra Bellitter: of all nighters to get this process project in. That's when we're talking about like
Alexandra Bellitter: what systems need to change. But if your system's working that's, that's fine,
Alexandra Bellitter: you don't have to do it like everyone else. That's the great thing about our
Alexandra Bellitter: work is as long as it's working, fantastic. But sometimes it's not.
Joanne Lockwood: So mine comes from learned behaviour. I've been in the workplace for best
Joanne Lockwood: part of 40 years now and I've learned that so often the
Joanne Lockwood: goalposts change, the deadlines change or the whole project gets cancelled or
Joanne Lockwood: something radical happens to the projects. I think there's no point investing in it too
Joanne Lockwood: early because it's bound to change nearer the dates. I wait until I think, well
Joanne Lockwood: it's going to be locked in by now so I can actually hit something. So
Joanne Lockwood: I think some of it is just recognising that the world's going to change before
Joanne Lockwood: I get there and my brain just apologises to
Joanne Lockwood: myself saying well we'll do it the last minute by that stage.
Joanne Lockwood: And also I think if you overthink something when the deadline
Joanne Lockwood: squeezes down you, you don't get the opportunity to do all the overthinking. You have
Joanne Lockwood: to kind of optimise what you can do in that five minutes. I've got to
Joanne Lockwood: get it out now. Okay, what can I do out of all the 50 things
Joanne Lockwood: I was going to do? And you just make optimise it down. So I think
Joanne Lockwood: that helps my brain as well, knowing that I can only achieve so much at
Joanne Lockwood: the time and I can praise it down quickly.
Alexandra Bellitter: Yeah, that definitely really emphasises
Alexandra Bellitter: quick decision making is there's no time for ambiguity or just being
Alexandra Bellitter: decisive. Sometimes it can be very hard to be decisive and the reason
Alexandra Bellitter: for that is there's a little bit of decision fatigue when you're looking at large
Alexandra Bellitter: projects. You know, keeping our focus in the workplaces there can be so many
Alexandra Bellitter: decisions that it becomes overwhelming to pick any.
Alexandra Bellitter: So when the time crunch comes in, I just have to execute. And it's not
Alexandra Bellitter: about weighing the pros and cons anymore, it's just about what's going to get the
Alexandra Bellitter: job done. When you're working with neurodivergent clients or neurodivergent
Alexandra Bellitter: colleagues, they're going to be considering a lot of different
Alexandra Bellitter: decisions that neurotypicals might not see. They might not see all the options.
Alexandra Bellitter: They might be pretty narrow in scope. But that's the great thing about your neuro
Alexandra Bellitter: virgin colleague is they can see the big picture pretty clearly. They see the opportunities,
Alexandra Bellitter: the greater possibilities, thinking. But it can also put them in a bind of
Alexandra Bellitter: how do I proceed in the best way. So I think about in a
Joanne Lockwood: workplace I. I've got a manager who
Joanne Lockwood: self identifies as neurotypical. I'll take their word for it if that's who they say
Joanne Lockwood: they are. And I walk in there as a person who is
Joanne Lockwood: unsure of their typicality and maybe has some traits or so
Joanne Lockwood: how do I navigate that interface? Because do I
Joanne Lockwood: declare my neurodivergence, do I talk about my attributes, how I
Joanne Lockwood: behave in certain situations? So I do also like a little check
Joanne Lockwood: sheet of who am I and how do I respond best and then negotiate that
Joanne Lockwood: at the beginning. I mean, is that a good technique or. So it largely depends
Alexandra Bellitter: on the workplace because just as much as it is about, I
Alexandra Bellitter: want to advocate for myself. We know that not all workplaces may be
Alexandra Bellitter: receptive. We don't know what the psychological safety of that workplace is.
Alexandra Bellitter: So I would hesitate to give any recommendation of you need to do it this
Alexandra Bellitter: way. You do not disclose it's largely dependent on the
Alexandra Bellitter: support system that you have at work, what your relationship with hr, what your
Alexandra Bellitter: relationship with your manager or the members of your team. But there
Alexandra Bellitter: is a way to navigate and ask for what you need
Alexandra Bellitter: without having to disclose if that's something that you're not sure of.
Alexandra Bellitter: Rather than sharing a specific diagnosis, you can talk about
Alexandra Bellitter: the different components within it. So for time management, I
Alexandra Bellitter: noticed that I really struggle to get this type of project
Alexandra Bellitter: in on time. I'm hoping to discover different accountability systems or
Alexandra Bellitter: different collaboration systems that can help me move forward. You
Alexandra Bellitter: can also talk about. Instead of time management, you can talk about.
Alexandra Bellitter: Everything is blanking right now, but like note taking. So coming out of meetings,
Alexandra Bellitter: there's really great information that's coming. At our meetings, we
Alexandra Bellitter: do hour and a half meetings. That's a lot for me to take away. I
Alexandra Bellitter: notice that when I'm writing notes, I'm not engaged in the conversation. What are
Alexandra Bellitter: the options for me to get the agenda before or after? Can someone email
Alexandra Bellitter: me a copy of the notes? That way we're talking about engagement.
Alexandra Bellitter: What is the workplace going to see as a benefit to you getting this new
Alexandra Bellitter: resource for this new accommodate? You don't actually have to name ADHD or memory
Alexandra Bellitter: issues. You can say the workplace is going to benefit. And this. I mean
Joanne Lockwood: now we're. We're normalising conversations about menopause in the work workplace.
Joanne Lockwood: People of a certain women of a certain age or a certain stage of their
Joanne Lockwood: life have memory issues, brain fog as well. So it's not. It's.
Joanne Lockwood: Many people have a neuro
Joanne Lockwood: difference, if you like, at different stages of their life. And is there still a
Joanne Lockwood: stigma? Is that still a problem? Is there stigma out there? I think
Alexandra Bellitter: it shows up in different ways. Some workplaces it's going to be much
Alexandra Bellitter: more stigmatised of. This is how we do things and we expect you to
Alexandra Bellitter: conform. It can be really jarring to try to disclose in
Alexandra Bellitter: a workplace like that. There might be some workplaces where there's very
Alexandra Bellitter: obvious signals that it's meant to be psychologically safe. The.
Alexandra Bellitter: The CEO is talking about their neurodivergence. Your boss is talking about it.
Alexandra Bellitter: They have a group for neurodivergent colleagues to come together and work on
Alexandra Bellitter: project. I think there is a lot more to go
Alexandra Bellitter: with this conversation while it's becoming more visible and more public
Alexandra Bellitter: and that's incredible. I would say the general public's
Alexandra Bellitter: understanding of what narrow divergence is is still in the beginning stages. While we're starting
Alexandra Bellitter: to move away from the stigma of that word, the behaviours
Alexandra Bellitter: and traits and what this looks like in day to day isn't fully understood quite
Alexandra Bellitter: yet. We've already established that two neurodivergent people
Joanne Lockwood: are having unique experience of the world.
Joanne Lockwood: In the same way that if I was trying to interface with a neurotypical person,
Joanne Lockwood: if I was to interface into a neurodivergent person, we still have to
Joanne Lockwood: establish the protocols and the ground rules, won't we, about how we communicate, because
Joanne Lockwood: we may have a difference of view, or we may actually
Joanne Lockwood: rely on the other person to help us out in certain instances, and the other
Joanne Lockwood: person's going to go, well, I don't do that either. That becomes another
Joanne Lockwood: challenge to deal with, I guess. Yeah, it takes,
Alexandra Bellitter: I would say, radical communication of your needs. And I think that's something that
Alexandra Bellitter: across the board, we could all do better at. Not just neurodivergent people,
Alexandra Bellitter: but also neurotypical people of. Rather than expecting people to communicate in the same
Alexandra Bellitter: way as you. Making those declarations of, this is when I feel
Alexandra Bellitter: heard. This is how I like to collaborate. How do you like to have these
Alexandra Bellitter: conversations? Rather than making assumptions, we can really come together,
Alexandra Bellitter: you know, workplaces, families, friendships. When we are
Alexandra Bellitter: very transparent about our needs because the other person is. I
Alexandra Bellitter: know it's cliche, but we are not mind readers. We all perceive things to be
Alexandra Bellitter: a little bit different. While I may really enjoy eye contact in a
Alexandra Bellitter: conversation and I know you're listening to me, for someone else, eye contact
Alexandra Bellitter: may be very uncomfortable. And being expected to hold eye contact
Alexandra Bellitter: means that they don't want to engage with you. It can actually harm a relationship.
Alexandra Bellitter: So little things like that. What I might read as you being
Alexandra Bellitter: dismissive because you're not making eye contact with me, you might be fully engaged in
Alexandra Bellitter: the conversation. We don't know unless we. We talk about how we engage socially.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I find this sometimes when I'm on video calls, I'll be looking at this
Joanne Lockwood: screen or that screen or this screen up there, and I'm gathering
Joanne Lockwood: information and without doing it. Now, as we're doing this podcast, I've got some
Joanne Lockwood: notes on different screens so I can listen and look on a different
Joanne Lockwood: screen at the same time. But I suppose when you're in a video scenario, you
Joanne Lockwood: don't always know, do you? And people may treat that as being inattentive, not
Joanne Lockwood: focusing. Exactly. They may think that you're not engaged, and
Alexandra Bellitter: that's not the case. When I'm coaching with members, I have several members that choose
Alexandra Bellitter: to close their eyes while we're talking, and it helps them think better. They tune
Alexandra Bellitter: into our conversation more. They might feel Less distracted by their environment.
Alexandra Bellitter: That's a. Okay. I never stop to say, can you please open your eyes?
Alexandra Bellitter: I know they're engaging. They're responding to my questions and that's great. We
Alexandra Bellitter: all are being engaged in a different way. Are we
Joanne Lockwood: kind of hung up on these social etiquette, this social construct
Joanne Lockwood: of social etiquette, if you like, where we kind of expect people to
Joanne Lockwood: behave as we were brought up or how we were told to behave.
Joanne Lockwood: And when people transgress or digress from that middle
Joanne Lockwood: line, we feel kind of insulted or threatened by it. Same
Alexandra Bellitter: thing with not just the. Maybe the more facial cues we were talking
Alexandra Bellitter: about, but the use of a fidget, for example. A lot of times
Alexandra Bellitter: people associate it with like hyperactive little kids, but that's not the
Alexandra Bellitter: case. It can be helpful for your colleague that's at their desk to have a
Alexandra Bellitter: fidget in a meeting to use a fidget. That doesn't mean they're distracted by it.
Alexandra Bellitter: It might actually be helping them engage. Exactly.
Joanne Lockwood: Yep. Got fidget toys with me. Got my little shark here, which
Joanne Lockwood: I need to sort of play with that. So I've got fidget toys all around
Joanne Lockwood: me at the moment. So that might not be common in a lot of workplaces.
Alexandra Bellitter: So it's even things like that of what do we expect from the body
Alexandra Bellitter: to be doing? Rather than just like, how do I show engagement of nodding my
Alexandra Bellitter: head and making eye contact. It's also, is it okay that
Alexandra Bellitter: they're spinning in their chair? Of course, there may be times and places where some
Alexandra Bellitter: behaviours are more adaptive than others. Of this helps everyone
Alexandra Bellitter: concentrate more. That might be a bit of a balance on how we make sure
Alexandra Bellitter: everyone gets to be comfortable in that conversation or be engaged.
Alexandra Bellitter: But it's something that is better not
Alexandra Bellitter: assumed automatically of just making sure everyone's on the same page for
Alexandra Bellitter: what's going to be most conducive to this meeting. Why do you think there are
Joanne Lockwood: more people? I'm going to use the phrase coming out
Joanne Lockwood: as neurodivergent ADHD neurodifferences. What's
Joanne Lockwood: changed over the last five, 10 years? We hear people blaming vaccines, we hear people
Joanne Lockwood: blaming this and blaming that, but the reality is, obviously
Joanne Lockwood: neurodivergent people have been around as long as humans have. So
Joanne Lockwood: why are people starting to be more aware of neurodivergence now than
Joanne Lockwood: ever before? Yeah, so I do want to be very clear that
Alexandra Bellitter: when I'm talking about neurodivergence, we're talking about a natural
Alexandra Bellitter: variation in how people present it is
Alexandra Bellitter: not something to be fixed, healed, treated. This is something that
Alexandra Bellitter: we're working with, this is something that we can be managed when there's difficulties. But
Alexandra Bellitter: there's also plenty of benefits with having a neurodivergent brain and I
Alexandra Bellitter: would say it's largely contributed to visibility of
Alexandra Bellitter: 20 years ago. The conversations looked very different, the stigma looked very
Alexandra Bellitter: different and a lot of people avoided a label for their child.
Alexandra Bellitter: So I hear plenty of times of, you know, I noticed my kid
Alexandra Bellitter: when he was 5 or 6 or my daughter in high school, I had some
Alexandra Bellitter: questions but I didn't know what a label would do, I didn't know how it
Alexandra Bellitter: would impact her self esteem or I didn't know what that would mean for their
Alexandra Bellitter: career. So they elected to not move forward with it. They didn't necessarily
Alexandra Bellitter: have those conversations with their kids or in the
Alexandra Bellitter: opposite. The child gets a diagnosis, you know, in high school
Alexandra Bellitter: and the parent starts thinking, well, that reminded me,
Alexandra Bellitter: like, reminds me of when I was in high school and I don't think that
Alexandra Bellitter: I'm neurodivergent and they go seek a conversation with a medical
Alexandra Bellitter: provider and they get a diagnosis. So it works both ways of
Alexandra Bellitter: just having more exposure, I think, as more medical providers
Alexandra Bellitter: get accustomed to being able to identify neurodivergence, as schools get
Alexandra Bellitter: more curious about what's going on with the child, rather than describing it as
Alexandra Bellitter: a behavioural problem of, you know, they're just naughty
Alexandra Bellitter: of, wow, they have a lot of energy, they seem to be really absorbed in
Alexandra Bellitter: this type of task. As we get more curious across the board of what's going
Alexandra Bellitter: on with each person, we're starting to notice that more. People are neurodivergent
Joanne Lockwood: and it differs by gender as well, doesn't it? So boys
Joanne Lockwood: would exhibit symptoms in a different way to young
Joanne Lockwood: girls, for example, which is why it's been misdiagnosed in women for
Joanne Lockwood: decades. Yeah, so it can present differently. Of course,
Alexandra Bellitter: it's not a straight line of exactly how it presents for each gender,
Alexandra Bellitter: but it can look very different. And we know that misdiagnosis
Alexandra Bellitter: is very common. A lot of women are misdiagnosed as bipolar or
Alexandra Bellitter: borderline, rather than autistic or adhd.
Alexandra Bellitter: So there's also misdiagnosis that is later
Alexandra Bellitter: correctly identified or what they feel like is now is better
Alexandra Bellitter: diagnosis to reflect their experience.
Alexandra Bellitter: It's different for women, like you said earlier, when it comes to menopause,
Alexandra Bellitter: the hormonal changes, we noticed that even just with their cycles
Alexandra Bellitter: each month, that neurodivergence can look different because of the hormone
Alexandra Bellitter: fluctuations. It's definitely a different story for how to navigate it as a
Alexandra Bellitter: woman. What's a first sign if you like, you
Joanne Lockwood: know, I'm just speaking to the person who's listening to this podcast right now thinking,
Joanne Lockwood: could that be me? Or I'm not sure. How could people. And I appreciate there's
Joanne Lockwood: not one test or one way of googling this and say, oh look, that's me.
Joanne Lockwood: But what sort of things that people should look out for? Just, just illustratively,
Joanne Lockwood: what can people look out for? So looking out for is an interesting way
Alexandra Bellitter: to think about it because my, my first thought when you had started
Alexandra Bellitter: that question is having that conversation with your medical professional provider, a
Alexandra Bellitter: therapist. It does need to be someone that is very familiar
Alexandra Bellitter: with neurodivergence. Not everyone is. A lot of medical doctors
Alexandra Bellitter: may be somewhat aware, but others are going to really have an area of
Alexandra Bellitter: expertise. I would, I would seek out a conversation with someone that is very
Alexandra Bellitter: experienced with ADHD or autism assessments.
Alexandra Bellitter: And it doesn't necessarily have to be a formal assessment, but just being able to
Alexandra Bellitter: have those conversations of I'm noticing these things about myself.
Alexandra Bellitter: I would. The diagnostic material can be
Alexandra Bellitter: helpful. However, it doesn't show what it looks like in day to day life. There
Alexandra Bellitter: are many conversations I have with my clients where we're talking about finances
Alexandra Bellitter: and their budgeting goals and investment goals. And
Alexandra Bellitter: as we're talking about something, I may say, may I share an observation about
Alexandra Bellitter: how ADHD may be playing a role. And all of a sudden there's this light
Alexandra Bellitter: bulb moment of that's how ADHD looks. When I'm doing
Alexandra Bellitter: my finances. The diagnostic material doesn't show that. It doesn't show what it looks
Alexandra Bellitter: like in the workplace. And when you're doing finances or when you're parenting, that
Alexandra Bellitter: context is really essential. That's what we're looking at is
Alexandra Bellitter: what's going on in this actual life area. So it can
Alexandra Bellitter: actually be helpful to talk to your loved ones or workplace colleagues, see what
Alexandra Bellitter: they're noticing. I would say that can be the most helpful, is
Alexandra Bellitter: sometimes when we only have our own experience, we might not notice what other people
Alexandra Bellitter: are observing. And to start having those conversations of,
Alexandra Bellitter: you know, this, this sounded like me. I'm, I'm wondering if you've noticed that
Alexandra Bellitter: or how do you feel in our conversations or what have you noticed about my
Alexandra Bellitter: projects? That can be very helpful information and also something that
Alexandra Bellitter: your providers or trusted therapists might want to know as well. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I suppose because I'm self employed, I've worked for myself
Joanne Lockwood: for decades. I don't
Joanne Lockwood: need to necessarily explain to somebody else about me.
Joanne Lockwood: If I'm dealing with a client, I'm dealing on very short projects or short
Joanne Lockwood: interactions and as long as I deliver what they're after and perform,
Joanne Lockwood: then I don't think my thinking style comes into it really.
Joanne Lockwood: It's just, am I the best person for the job? Can I do it? So
Joanne Lockwood: I don't feel any need to explore that and I'm sure there are many people
Joanne Lockwood: listening to this who are kind of comfortable in their own skin. They don't need
Joanne Lockwood: a label or an identity to put this around. But they're obviously
Joanne Lockwood: realising that, thinking, well, yeah, I do think a bit like that. I do think
Joanne Lockwood: a bit like that. Yeah, that happens to be as well. And we shouldn't,
Joanne Lockwood: I think, I think the danger is if you're not careful, we feel that we're
Joanne Lockwood: inadequate because we're not doing things the way other people
Joanne Lockwood: do. We're allowed to be different, aren't we? Absolutely. And
Alexandra Bellitter: there's a lot of things that attribute to that. It's
Alexandra Bellitter: a pretty common statistic that goes around that a
Alexandra Bellitter: neurodivergent child is going to hear 20,000 more negative comments than their peers
Alexandra Bellitter: by the age of 12. How are teachers expecting you to behave in school?
Alexandra Bellitter: Same thing for high school. If you go into higher education of,
Alexandra Bellitter: well, I expect students to be doing this, you'll hear rule
Alexandra Bellitter: expectations and workplace expectations and it can
Alexandra Bellitter: feel like there's not a lot of wiggle room in that of what accommodations are
Alexandra Bellitter: there or how accessible is this workplace? And so because
Alexandra Bellitter: the automatic default, which no one explained that there were alternatives to,
Alexandra Bellitter: you're doing it differently of I'm not meeting the mark.
Alexandra Bellitter: It's because there's not that larger conversation of there is wiggle room or it can't
Alexandra Bellitter: be done in a different way. And we know a lot of neurodivergent individuals do
Alexandra Bellitter: go on to be entrepreneurs and set their own workplace standards because
Alexandra Bellitter: the traditional way wasn't working for them. So I'm going to do it my way.
Alexandra Bellitter: I'm going to do it in a way that I thrive and it works really
Alexandra Bellitter: well for them. So I. I've always considered myself
Joanne Lockwood: uncoachable. In fact, my family always say I, I would never do
Joanne Lockwood: as I'm told, I would never follow someone else's rules. How
Joanne Lockwood: would you work with me then to
Joanne Lockwood: so I've already said I. I'm. I'm terrible with deadlines.
Joanne Lockwood: I'll procrastinate for weeks until the last minutes. What sort
Joanne Lockwood: of techniques can I. Can I learn that I might actually
Joanne Lockwood: adopt? That's the hard thing. I mean, you can tell me and come up with
Joanne Lockwood: a great idea. I won't do that. I'll never change
Joanne Lockwood: either. Do I have to find acceptance or other techniques that I can start to
Joanne Lockwood: adopt to help me with that? It might be a bit of both. I wouldn't
Alexandra Bellitter: say it's going to be one way or the other, but the first thing I
Alexandra Bellitter: would say that as a coach, I'm not here to tell you what to do.
Alexandra Bellitter: We know that nobody likes to be told what to
Alexandra Bellitter: do, especially if it's things that you've already tried. The biggest
Alexandra Bellitter: part of coaching is the collaboration piece of exploring to
Alexandra Bellitter: view things in a way you haven't viewed before, to challenge you on thoughts, to
Alexandra Bellitter: see how much they're serving you. So I might introduce new concepts
Alexandra Bellitter: that you haven't heard of. Would you be curious to hear about this or this
Alexandra Bellitter: is a technique that I've seen work for other people. Would you like to explore
Alexandra Bellitter: how it could work for you? But I will never assign a
Alexandra Bellitter: specific framework or a specific technique
Alexandra Bellitter: of this is what you're going to do for a week and tell me how
Alexandra Bellitter: it goes. It's not very empowering. I think the biggest thing, what we're trying to
Alexandra Bellitter: do in any neurodiversity coaching is empowerment of
Alexandra Bellitter: you still know your life better than I. I may have more frameworks to
Alexandra Bellitter: use, more models to pull on, more techniques for exposure, but
Alexandra Bellitter: ultimately, you know it's gonna work best for your life and you know what you
Alexandra Bellitter: like. No one wants to do something that they don't like to do. It's not
Alexandra Bellitter: going to be a successful system. So that's really what the partnership
Alexandra Bellitter: is about, is we leave every session with something that you're
Alexandra Bellitter: excited to try, or even if you're not super excited about it, you're
Alexandra Bellitter: willing to try. You want to explore why it's not working for you. And together
Alexandra Bellitter: we'll take that next step in the next session of how do we keep moving
Alexandra Bellitter: forward? But demand avoidance is absolutely a thing. And going to
Alexandra Bellitter: try to avoid triggering that. Yeah. I would say from
Joanne Lockwood: my perspective, if the first question was to
Joanne Lockwood: me, does it cause you a problem? I go, no, it doesn't.
Joanne Lockwood: It's just, I know that's the way my brain works. I know that's what I
Joanne Lockwood: do. So I have my own coping mechanisms and I make sure that
Joanne Lockwood: I've got that Five minutes to midnight space that I know I can just
Joanne Lockwood: land a plane when I have to. And so I guess you have to have
Joanne Lockwood: faith sometimes in your own ability to deliver what you need to do when you
Joanne Lockwood: need to do it or, or have good mitigation strategies when you
Joanne Lockwood: really miss it. Understand the risk. I guess it's risk management,
Joanne Lockwood: isn't it? It's kind of part of it. If I know I can talk myself
Joanne Lockwood: out of it, no one's gonna, no one's gonna die. You know, the world will
Joanne Lockwood: keep turning then it's not a problem. Is sounds like you have systems
Alexandra Bellitter: that are working for you. Of I know exactly what to expect. I'm getting it
Alexandra Bellitter: done in time and my clients don't mind.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And I as I say I'm privileged that I don't have
Joanne Lockwood: a, an employer who is minute by minute demanding on me. I can
Joanne Lockwood: create my own deadlines. And I also appreciate when I'm working with clients I make
Joanne Lockwood: sure I factor in expectations at the beginning. So yeah. So you know what you're
Joanne Lockwood: going to do. And I also, the other thing I do is I book a
Joanne Lockwood: follow up meeting several days before so it's due or if we're going to
Joanne Lockwood: do a webinar or something with someone. I said let's have a briefing call a
Joanne Lockwood: couple days before just to check in on what we're going to be talking about
Joanne Lockwood: on the Thursday. Because very often I turn up to that going
Joanne Lockwood: who are you? What we're going to talk about. I've forgotten all about this. Wouldn't
Joanne Lockwood: we agree. And I just have a way of phrasing it. So let's just recap
Joanne Lockwood: what's your expectation of what we're going to be doing on Thursday? And they tell
Joanne Lockwood: me I go that's exactly what I was hoping for. Thank you.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. If we were actually doing coaching because I know a few
Alexandra Bellitter: questions back you said how would you work with me? My first question would be
Alexandra Bellitter: about your goals. If you like your current system, you don't necessarily want to change
Alexandra Bellitter: it. What would you like from coaching? What would you want to be different? And
Alexandra Bellitter: as we go into that visioning of what you would like your life to look
Alexandra Bellitter: like, well, we'll talk about partnering together to make that happen. But
Alexandra Bellitter: if you don't want change, that's okay too. Of I, I like where I'm at.
Alexandra Bellitter: This is working and perhaps not. It's not something you want coaching on.
Joanne Lockwood: No, no. We've picked an example here that actually I'm very
Joanne Lockwood: comfortable with. Like Many humans I'm inherently lazy.
Joanne Lockwood: I look for the simplest and easiest path path to success
Joanne Lockwood: and to change what inherently works for me.
Joanne Lockwood: I've just turned 60. I'm probably getting a bit old
Joanne Lockwood: to want to start new habits. Yeah I guess I'm
Joanne Lockwood: functioning as an adult finally.
Alexandra Bellitter: Never want to tell someone how to feel about themselves. But I think lazy is
Alexandra Bellitter: one of those terms that a lot of neurodivergent individuals subscribe subscribe to
Alexandra Bellitter: of I'm just lazy. And that's generally not the case. We know
Alexandra Bellitter: humans are inherently goal oriented beings of we're usually in
Alexandra Bellitter: the pursuit of something. There's always a value that we're going after.
Alexandra Bellitter: To an extent it just sounds like resourcefulness. From a coach of I can
Alexandra Bellitter: see the clearest path. I'm going to do that. We know the brain loves to
Alexandra Bellitter: default to easy but it's not necessarily
Alexandra Bellitter: always lazy. It's just being able to see like this is what's going to require
Alexandra Bellitter: the least amount of resources from me. I can execute it. Well there's
Alexandra Bellitter: just a level of intelligence in that rather than laziness of I
Alexandra Bellitter: I can see the path from A to B and I did it. Optimising the
Joanne Lockwood: route I think is what you're saying there. Yeah, I've optimised what works for
Joanne Lockwood: me. Yeah, I agree. It's, it's not lazy. It's just
Joanne Lockwood: I'm good at optimising and spending the minimum amount of
Joanne Lockwood: brain power or physical contribution to a task if I don't need to do it.
Joanne Lockwood: So yeah, I, I'm not, I'm not somebody who goes out for a run for
Joanne Lockwood: the sake of going for a run. Because where am I going? I'm going back
Joanne Lockwood: to where I started. So why do I want to run? The great question
Alexandra Bellitter: is what is important about running? And if it ends up being well, I just
Alexandra Bellitter: want to feel good in my body and I want an abundance of energy. Well,
Alexandra Bellitter: maybe we don't need to run. Let's talk about other pathways that still get you
Alexandra Bellitter: to that ultimate goal. We can get distracted by overly concrete
Alexandra Bellitter: goals. Sometimes of it has to be done this way. Well what are we
Alexandra Bellitter: really exactly? What are we really working towards? And there's going to be different
Alexandra Bellitter: pathways and sometimes we get just very locked in and that's the helpful thing
Alexandra Bellitter: about a coach is being able to zoom out again of like okay, we're getting
Alexandra Bellitter: really fixated on this one particular thing. How much is that serving us and where
Alexandra Bellitter: else can we go? And maybe that is the thing and maybe we need to
Alexandra Bellitter: work harder on that. When I say work harder, it's not about discipline or energy.
Alexandra Bellitter: It's about the experimentation of. We need to dive in deeper of different ways we
Alexandra Bellitter: can do it. Not just buckling down and giving double the energy because we
Alexandra Bellitter: know most people when they're. They're searching goals, they're.
Alexandra Bellitter: Or pursuing goals rather they are like
Alexandra Bellitter: spending an incredible amount of energy to do it. So it's not
Alexandra Bellitter: just trying harder but doing it in different ways.
Joanne Lockwood: Hmm. So what, what areas do
Joanne Lockwood: people I'm going to stereotype here, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to
Joanne Lockwood: step out of that question. Stereotypes of people with ADHD
Joanne Lockwood: really hyper focused. They could be extremely efficient and we talk about
Joanne Lockwood: here about efficiency and not being lazy optimising tasks. They can
Joanne Lockwood: and I say they. I'm going to put a we into that because I
Joanne Lockwood: think I can we enough so I could feel part of this. By shutting
Joanne Lockwood: off the world and really focusing on one task, I can get a lot done.
Joanne Lockwood: I think the trouble is that people are around
Joanne Lockwood: me, don't recognise that I need to switch off
Joanne Lockwood: all my senses and that could cause frustration around. Am I not
Joanne Lockwood: listening? I'm not paying attention. Or didn't you hear me shouting out
Joanne Lockwood: or, or I just want to interrupt you and ask you a question.
Joanne Lockwood: Ask me a question. It would take me three hours to get back my
Joanne Lockwood: brain back to where it was. It's like closing all the tabs on your browser
Joanne Lockwood: one by one. You got to try and open them all again. Yeah, there's just
Alexandra Bellitter: a, a misunderstanding because again, from social norms of,
Alexandra Bellitter: well, I can hear you when you're yelling at me. I have the expectation that
Alexandra Bellitter: you're going to behave the exact same way I do in this situation and that's
Alexandra Bellitter: not the case. I actually have this conversation
Alexandra Bellitter: probably with all of my clients, whether it's a, a boss saying, why weren't
Alexandra Bellitter: you responding to my slack messages? I've been pinging you. But they're really focused on
Alexandra Bellitter: building portfolio or their spouse has been yelling at them that
Alexandra Bellitter: dinner's done for the past 20 minutes and they finally come upstairs and
Alexandra Bellitter: they're livid. It's an expectation that hasn't
Alexandra Bellitter: necessarily been communicated and we haven't found
Alexandra Bellitter: a way that works for both of us yet. It's just the expectation that you
Alexandra Bellitter: must be like me and respond in the same way. I've noticed we talked about
Joanne Lockwood: fidget toys earlier. I've noticed when I'm in situations with
Joanne Lockwood: fidget toys, I'm far less likely to pick my phone up and play with
Joanne Lockwood: it. I noticed I was at a conference one day and they had fidget
Joanne Lockwood: spins on the table and I thought brilliant. How new inclusive is that? Just
Joanne Lockwood: putting out, you know, little toys and things people can play with. And I started
Joanne Lockwood: playing with one on my, on my hand. I think a ball or something like
Joanne Lockwood: I'm holding now. And I realised at the end of the day I hadn't one
Joanne Lockwood: picked my. Pick my phone up and doom scrolled or yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Had to make sure that every single red dot on my icons was gone.
Joanne Lockwood: I couldn't handle. I can't handle a red dot on my icons. I have to
Joanne Lockwood: clear all my notifications every time I see them. So are we
Joanne Lockwood: using our phone sometimes as our. As our fidget spinner?
Joanne Lockwood: Is it fueling our hunger or is it the other way around? Are our
Joanne Lockwood: phones creating the hunger? Which way is it? That's a really
Alexandra Bellitter: hard question to answer. I would say many times. I
Alexandra Bellitter: think because the phone is meant to be a
Alexandra Bellitter: huge dopamine sink. I'm going to call it a sink because we're getting really
Alexandra Bellitter: short bursts. That's the new. Just tap that. That's the new
Alexandra Bellitter: way of getting content is usually pretty short 30 second
Alexandra Bellitter: videos, it's meant to be infinite. Square scroll across the board. I think
Alexandra Bellitter: as humans we're just really, really engaged with our phone because
Alexandra Bellitter: it's intended to be social media sites from
Alexandra Bellitter: websites are intended to grab our attention and we have a bit of an attention
Alexandra Bellitter: economy of how can we hold your attention for a long
Alexandra Bellitter: time because that's profitable. So I would say
Alexandra Bellitter: yes, the phone can be one of those sources of how do I entertain
Alexandra Bellitter: myself, how do I get stuck stimulation, whether or not
Alexandra Bellitter: it works as a fidget, potentially because you are
Alexandra Bellitter: using your. Your hands to scroll. That could be the case. I think there's probably
Alexandra Bellitter: a bunch of different factors that go into why we might be reaching for our
Alexandra Bellitter: phone. But in the case where you just notice you need
Alexandra Bellitter: stimulation, the phone can be one of the quickest ways to get it and
Alexandra Bellitter: build that habit of well, I'm just not motivated yet so I'm going to
Alexandra Bellitter: go on my phone to. To get that stimulation to get entertainment.
Alexandra Bellitter: It's a huge time thing. So it is about finding alternative ways that
Alexandra Bellitter: can help boost your brain to get you to a point where you're motivated to
Alexandra Bellitter: do a task. That absolutely is something I work with with many of my members.
Alexandra Bellitter: But it's hard because phone is so accessible. So there's
Alexandra Bellitter: usually Creating friction with the phone. So it's not the most
Alexandra Bellitter: appealing choice, it's not the easiest reach and
Alexandra Bellitter: increasing the likelihood that you'll go for something else. So there's a lot of science
Alexandra Bellitter: around habit building that, that we go through with me and my members. I know
Alexandra Bellitter: that's a bit of a roundabout answer, but I think there's a lot that
Alexandra Bellitter: comes with talking about technology. So that's, that's probably the route
Alexandra Bellitter: I would go. So you don't think it's not the phone's causing the
Joanne Lockwood: neurodivergent tendencies? It's kind of. You have the neurodivergent tendencies
Joanne Lockwood: anyway, and the phone is just a potential outlet in the same
Joanne Lockwood: way other fidgets and spinners and something to lock your brain
Joanne Lockwood: onto rather than stim or fidget with something else.
Alexandra Bellitter: Yeah, and I think there's a larger conversation happening right now about
Alexandra Bellitter: technology and the demands. We're in a very unique place in time
Alexandra Bellitter: where we are constantly being bombarded with notifications,
Alexandra Bellitter: whether that's our email, our text, our slack or teams, our phone
Alexandra Bellitter: alarms going off, our kitchen alarms going off, our calendar beeping that
Alexandra Bellitter: we have to be somewhere. Ten minutes, reminder that we have to be somewhere.
Alexandra Bellitter: There are a lot of demands and alerts that are pulling our attention at different
Alexandra Bellitter: directions. So I think just as
Alexandra Bellitter: the human species, we're dealing with a lot of demands in a way that we
Alexandra Bellitter: haven't before. But it is entirely different for neurodivergent
Alexandra Bellitter: individuals. Their sensitivity to those alerts is different than for a
Alexandra Bellitter: neurotypical. So while all of us may be dealing with more demand and
Alexandra Bellitter: things pulling us away from our tasks, it is experienced very differently between
Alexandra Bellitter: neurotypicals and neurodivergent. It's funny, as you're talking there, my
Joanne Lockwood: brain has just gone off into a different direction. I'm
Joanne Lockwood: now just showing how crazy my brain is sometimes. I'm
Joanne Lockwood: now wondering why we call them phones. I know why
Joanne Lockwood: they used to be called phones, but now I hardly ever
Joanne Lockwood: phone on my phone. 90% of my
Joanne Lockwood: battery is on social media, browsing,
Joanne Lockwood: chatgpt, texting people, whatsapping, whatever it may be.
Joanne Lockwood: It's no longer really a phone, is it? We should be calling personal communication devices.
Joanne Lockwood: Sorry, this is what I was thinking about when you kept talking about phones. It's
Joanne Lockwood: like I was off on one. But yeah, you're right. We've got all these different
Joanne Lockwood: sort of sources of stimulation and you say the notifications, the
Joanne Lockwood: bombardment, we're data driven, we're.
Joanne Lockwood: We're stimulus driven. In everything we do. And most of the social media
Joanne Lockwood: has emotions attached to them as well, don't they? Likes hate, smiley face
Joanne Lockwood: emojis. We're all feeding off this kind of social etiquette,
Joanne Lockwood: trying to keep in contact with people and be stimulating each other. And no
Joanne Lockwood: wonder that we as a society today are becoming kind of
Joanne Lockwood: locked into these habits because we can't put the world down
Joanne Lockwood: anymore. Yeah, and I love what you said about social etiquette
Alexandra Bellitter: there of just like we were speaking about. What does someone expect in a
Alexandra Bellitter: conversation with us? It is different when we're talking about virtual
Alexandra Bellitter: communication of how quickly do they expect a response from us? How
Alexandra Bellitter: inconvenient is it for me to try to respond to text quickly when I'm trying
Alexandra Bellitter: to focus on a portfolio and test switching can be more difficult.
Alexandra Bellitter: Those are all additional layers that we're having to explore of now that I am
Alexandra Bellitter: so accessible. What do boundaries look like? What systems work well
Alexandra Bellitter: for me? What do I need to communicate? So everyone has a good expectation of
Alexandra Bellitter: how I I'll get back to them or how I'll update them.
Alexandra Bellitter: It's a lot more consideration that has to go into each
Alexandra Bellitter: conversation. And unfortunately it feels like the burden falls on the
Alexandra Bellitter: neurodivergent person because more often than not and I
Alexandra Bellitter: also don't want to do a sweeping statement to say this is how neurotypicals are.
Alexandra Bellitter: But a lot of neurotypical people are not thinking about how the world might be
Alexandra Bellitter: experiencing, experienced, or how this notification may impact a neurodivergent colleague or
Alexandra Bellitter: friend. So unfortunately there's a lot of advocacy to say,
Alexandra Bellitter: hey, this is how this impacts me or hey, I will get back to
Alexandra Bellitter: this on Fridays. I check my text on Fridays or at the end of the
Alexandra Bellitter: day, how you create a routine looks a little different. Yeah, I've had to go
Joanne Lockwood: through my my phone or we call it personal communication device now
Joanne Lockwood: and turned off notifications on any app
Joanne Lockwood: that I really didn't care about because I found myself going into these regularly just
Joanne Lockwood: clearing the little red dots. So I thought, hang on a minute. If I just.
Joanne Lockwood: All I did is clearing it. Let's just turn. I don't need it. And I
Joanne Lockwood: also leave my phone these days on DND most of the day and if I
Joanne Lockwood: miss calls, I miss calls. So what, you'll email me,
Joanne Lockwood: you'll text me or if you phone me twice, it'll break through the dnd. So
Joanne Lockwood: I tend to go, my phone's on silent mode for
Joanne Lockwood: most things and maybe five o' clock in the evening I'll sit and go, oh,
Joanne Lockwood: blimey, that's been a busy day. And then respond to things and I'll sit there
Joanne Lockwood: all evening responding to emails in the evening instead. But yeah, it's. I think you
Joanne Lockwood: have to start to learn to manage these interruptions. In the old days when you
Joanne Lockwood: had a phone on your desk, I remember doing a time management course and I
Joanne Lockwood: was always. These time management courses always said to you, just because the
Joanne Lockwood: phone rings, it doesn't mean it's more important than what you're already
Joanne Lockwood: doing. But we have this betrained phone ring,
Joanne Lockwood: pick it up, answer it, deal with it. It's interrupt driven. If you can break
Joanne Lockwood: that interrupt cycle where whatever, whatever's interrupting you must be more
Joanne Lockwood: important saying no. So I've kind of learned
Joanne Lockwood: that approach in my life that I know what I'm doing is important.
Joanne Lockwood: Something else is unlikely to be more important at this moment.
Joanne Lockwood: So that's the technique I use, is just
Joanne Lockwood: try and stay focused and prioritise on what I'm doing.
Alexandra Bellitter: Yeah. It can be challenging for some people to identify what is the
Alexandra Bellitter: priority. That might be a skill that they're still working on developing it
Alexandra Bellitter: also, like that works really well for you and for someone that's listening, that might
Alexandra Bellitter: feel like, I don't know who's on the other side of that call. How do
Alexandra Bellitter: I know if it's more important? That's something that, as a coach, we can work
Alexandra Bellitter: together to make sure you feel confident that you're always focusing on the most important
Alexandra Bellitter: thing. Yeah. I think the modern community, I mean, certainly my iPhone
Joanne Lockwood: has a way of setting up different focus statuses. And I can put certain
Joanne Lockwood: people in those focus groups and say, okay, if they phone, it is important. If
Joanne Lockwood: it's an unknown number, it's like to be a spam or a junk call.
Joanne Lockwood: And if it isn't, they'll leave me a message. I'll get it. And now my
Joanne Lockwood: phone transcribes it. I've even got to listen to it. I just read out what
Joanne Lockwood: it says. It's even better. I hate listening to voicemails. I want them
Joanne Lockwood: transcribed and it's brilliant. And if someone leaves me a voice note. Oh, what did
Joanne Lockwood: you leave me a voice note for? You left me a voice note on a
Joanne Lockwood: text communication device. Doesn't work. If you want to
Joanne Lockwood: text me, text me. Don't talk to me. If I wanted to talk to you
Joanne Lockwood: or speak to you. What makes you think they're choosing to use audio?
Joanne Lockwood: Well, because they can't bother to Type whatever. I don't know. They're busy doing something
Joanne Lockwood: else and they just decide to talk to me. So I always reply by text
Joanne Lockwood: and they go, what are you texting me back for? Can't you just leave? I
Joanne Lockwood: don't. I'm old school. I'm a texter, not a. Not a voice message. Yeah.
Alexandra Bellitter: It's interesting because some of my members will actually elect to start
Alexandra Bellitter: using voice notes because they notice it's very hard for them to type out what
Alexandra Bellitter: they're thinking. So they won't respond to text for tape. And then they feel
Alexandra Bellitter: guilty that they haven't responded for days. So they want to send a really nice
Alexandra Bellitter: message and they have to figure out what the nice message is. And their shortcut
Alexandra Bellitter: has been, I'll send an audio and I'll just tell them what I'm thinking right
Alexandra Bellitter: now so I can communicate and they know they're important. So it's interesting how,
Alexandra Bellitter: again, that's just. How do we communicate in the way that's best for us?
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I. Our son is. I think he was diagnosed
Joanne Lockwood: as being dyslexic in some parameters
Joanne Lockwood: after he left school. We know that if we text him on WhatsApp,
Joanne Lockwood: he won't read it. And often what we'll do is you'll see the notification, read
Joanne Lockwood: the first line, and then ignore it. It doesn't, you know, he's.
Joanne Lockwood: He's. As far as he's concerned, he's read it but not acknowledged it, and we
Joanne Lockwood: find that frustrating. And Nikki's saying, don't text me because I won't reply. We go,
Joanne Lockwood: okay, I remember, but I'm a texter, so it's really hard. So I bet if
Joanne Lockwood: I left him a voice note or if you start leaving us voice notes, it'd
Joanne Lockwood: be much easier. But yeah, we've taken that to phoning him once a week. It's
Joanne Lockwood: easier. We know he's gonna pick up the phone if we phoned him and talk
Joanne Lockwood: to him or video call. So, yeah, it's. It's an interesting way that
Joanne Lockwood: we got to. Even amongst people who are typical or not typical, we
Joanne Lockwood: gotta establish our communication parameters, haven't we? Absolutely.
Alexandra Bellitter: And it sounds like you found yours with the phone call of. Let's just
Alexandra Bellitter: once a week, cut it down. This makes sense. Yeah. And it
Joanne Lockwood: is. It's. It's finding all these scenarios that don't work
Joanne Lockwood: and finding a middle ground that does work. That's what we're talking about here. And
Joanne Lockwood: I guess that's what you're doing with your Coaching is helping people
Joanne Lockwood: hit the things that bother them and find solutions to
Joanne Lockwood: make them less bothersome, I guess. Yeah, absolutely. It's about the fact
Alexandra Bellitter: that neurodivergence, in many ways, there might
Alexandra Bellitter: be struggles associated with it, but it doesn't mean that you have to
Alexandra Bellitter: struggle. It's just about finding what works really well for your brain,
Alexandra Bellitter: what works for your lifestyle and being able to capitalise on what's
Alexandra Bellitter: working well. It's all about seeing systems that work rather than
Alexandra Bellitter: trying to fix what's broken. It's moving towards
Alexandra Bellitter: feeling good. So we're coming towards the end
Joanne Lockwood: of our hour together. How would you
Joanne Lockwood: engage with somebody who's listening to this? Who a is? Maybe. Maybe a
Joanne Lockwood: couple of scenarios. One is that they're. Their
Joanne Lockwood: neurodiversity bothers them and they need to sort of get themselves into a position where
Joanne Lockwood: they can start to tackle some of the things that really bother them. Or people
Joanne Lockwood: are just more curious about
Joanne Lockwood: the way their brain works and how they can probably explore and
Joanne Lockwood: uncover and dive deeper into that to discover where are they with their
Joanne Lockwood: brain. So there's two scenarios. The answer to
Alexandra Bellitter: both of those is the same. Of course, I'm biassed because I'm an ADHD coach,
Alexandra Bellitter: but with ADHD coaching there are three different elements. So
Alexandra Bellitter: that first is the traditional life coaching, where we're talking about
Alexandra Bellitter: the visions, the goals, the experiments each week and using your strengths.
Alexandra Bellitter: The second piece is going to be psychoeducation. So if you're curious about
Alexandra Bellitter: how does the ADHD brain work? How is ADHD showing up? For me,
Alexandra Bellitter: those are absolutely conversations that we can have. It's all about becoming more
Alexandra Bellitter: informed and empowered with this information. How do I want to proceed? What does this
Alexandra Bellitter: mean for me? Why do I want to know about that? It's all questions that
Alexandra Bellitter: we can go through together. And then the third piece being executive function coaching
Alexandra Bellitter: or skill building, if there's something where you're noticing, hey, you know, I'm really
Alexandra Bellitter: struggling with time management or decision making.
Alexandra Bellitter: Those are things we can talk about. Different frameworks, different tools that you can use
Alexandra Bellitter: and you can pick and choose what you'd like to work on. But we can
Alexandra Bellitter: introduce you to different concepts and see how you feel about it. So in any
Alexandra Bellitter: scenario, coach will be able to meet where you're at. It's not meant to say
Alexandra Bellitter: coaching has to look one way. It doesn't. It can be very explorative. It
Alexandra Bellitter: can be more implementation. A qualified and
Alexandra Bellitter: an experienced coach will be able to meet you where you're. At and how can
Joanne Lockwood: someone in the workplace say they're a manager or team
Joanne Lockwood: lead as someone they suspect is
Joanne Lockwood: neurodivergent in some way? What techniques
Joanne Lockwood: can they use to try and engage with somebody who's neurodivergent? So
Alexandra Bellitter: if that person has not disclosed, I would be
Alexandra Bellitter: talking more about the behaviours that you're seeing of. I notice with
Alexandra Bellitter: projects XYZ is happening. What we would like
Alexandra Bellitter: is ABC to be happening. Are you open to
Alexandra Bellitter: exploring different ways that we could do that or could you tell me more about
Alexandra Bellitter: your experience with this project? It's important that people don't feel othered of.
Alexandra Bellitter: I feel like my boss is talking to me in a way where I'm not
Alexandra Bellitter: part of the team or it is about keeping the
Alexandra Bellitter: conversation open. So just focusing on behaviours, the workplace
Alexandra Bellitter: expectations and working together to meet those or see what
Alexandra Bellitter: accommodations can be made. We understand that workplaces generally may have a
Alexandra Bellitter: particular set of expectations for a job to be executed.
Alexandra Bellitter: So just having a very transparent conversation with the
Alexandra Bellitter: employee in a way that you're employing radical candour
Alexandra Bellitter: of. There's. There's care within that conversation. It's not
Alexandra Bellitter: threatening, it's not meant to be. A huge criticism must be done with curiosity
Alexandra Bellitter: and empathy. People aren't broken, they don't need fixing. They just
Joanne Lockwood: need to have
Joanne Lockwood: different ways of working and to achieve the same goal and objective or adjusting the
Joanne Lockwood: objective so that everyone can win and succeed. Because often the.
Joanne Lockwood: Not every, not every goal or objective is hard and fast. It's just custom and
Joanne Lockwood: practise. So you can sometimes change the pathway to achieve the same
Joanne Lockwood: goal, can't you? Yeah, absolutely. It's meant to be flexible. Life is
Alexandra Bellitter: meant to be flexible. It's more fun that way, isn't it? Just figuring out
Joanne Lockwood: as you go if it's too mapped out, too planned. It feels a bit rigid.
Joanne Lockwood: And humans, we like that, that
Joanne Lockwood: voyage of discovery. Sometimes I know not everybody. Some people want certainty, some
Joanne Lockwood: people want rule sets. Other people are quite happy with chaos, aren't they?
Alexandra Bellitter: Everyone's a little bit different. Um, but that's the great thing is you can
Alexandra Bellitter: adapt a life that meets what you find exciting, meets what you
Alexandra Bellitter: find safe. Alex, it's been absolutely fascinating talking to you. I've really enjoyed it. I
Joanne Lockwood: always sometimes think conflicts when I have like this helps me self diagnose
Joanne Lockwood: myself. So I always find it useful. How do people get ahold of you?
Alexandra Bellitter: So couple ways. You can always just shoot me an email at
Alexandra Bellitter: alexhimmer Care. I'm the lead coach at
Alexandra Bellitter: shimmeradhd coaching, so you can always access me through the website or on my
Alexandra Bellitter: LinkedIn. Alexandra Belletier Fantastic. Fantastic and
Joanne Lockwood: well, thank you so much for your time, for sharing your
Joanne Lockwood: expertise and I've got something out of this today and I've
Joanne Lockwood: really enjoyed it. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. This was a
Alexandra Bellitter: great conversation. As we bring this conversation
Joanne Lockwood: to a close, I want to express my deepest gratitude to
Joanne Lockwood: you, our listener, for lending your ear and heart
Joanne Lockwood: to the cause of inclusion. Inclusion. Today's discussion struck a
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Joanne Lockwood: Joanne Lockwood signing off with a promise to return with
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