How I Leant To Love My Superpower - Daniel Walters and Ben Docherty

uh yeah so why are we here uh we uh do we need a mic or not I kind a shout [ __ ] sweet all right start again why are we here uh well both myself and Dan are neurodiverse uh we thought we'd put together a talk bring it in and and generally tell how we learn to love our superpowers uh there's a couple C I'll C later uh yeah cool uh so over to you we're going to cover off a couple of different things we're going to start off with who we are why we're here what we've done bit about our career and then we're going to go into a couple of situations where we've Ed what what

we're classifying as superpowers and things that we classify and put towards our neurodiversity um so we'll go through them we'll also get to some advice towards the end and for everything from yourself to Ally ship and different bits there so I'm Dan Walters I work for Dharma um I'm a security consultant I deal with um Financial clients military clients and Aviation clients um I specialize in in best alimer um specialize in instant response and instant management and but also do a lot of auditing in um service attack attack service man management assessments and everything in between yeah cool and uh I'm Ben uh people know me by various things Ben parro brick that weird guy from the north uh yeah uh

those that know me y those who don't yeah you now know me uh I currently work at Arma uh I've worked at quite a few msps and mssp so manage service providers manage security service providers uh I'm a security engineer and specialist and engineer by heart never mind trade uh I have been known to techno wble uh the guy that's walking around with a wheelbarrow around a local local industrial estate stealing not stealing acquiring stuff from trash and all that then building stuff with it that's me uh other than that infos Battle Bots that was me if you went to the Bots upstairs uh and if you've ever been bid Newcastle that's something I founded and worked

with as well so yeah it's quite cool uh experience wise cut me out I believe blue uh I'm a Microsoft one sorry um engineering leadership parachute engineering throw me in no problem I'm the guy that you throw at the tire fire uh and I love that yeah cool right on the next one so little bit little bit about me uh I started off in support uh help desks uh scand to training departments for uh mssp uh MO to managing a help desk wasn't ready for leadership right then uh moved over being a consultant uh worked load of msps uh moved a big parachute engineer the guy you throw at fires uh and then made a slightly different move for a lot

of people I moved from being a consultant to being an engineer because that's where my heart was I'm an engineer by heart as I've said I've been a lead engineer for isps for uh been built engineering teams been head of engineering all that kind of stuff uh at the moment I'm a engineering specialist U mainly focus on Sentinel and things like that uh it's fun I I I tend to just work on what I can do to Ultimate what I can do to help make everyone's life better and depending on day I either love or hate Asim uh after yesterday it's hate Asim today uh but it'll be long tomorrow uh done so a little B

about myself so I started in the sock I took a um bit of a I took a more of a response route than Ben so I started in um the sock multi tendency sock and working with 30 40 clients and became a senior sock analyst and then I moved move to lead stock analyst I became head of insta response for a financial client um and I have been there for quite quite a while now um so I do everything in between from the day-to-day baau to and the house is burning I mean we were just upstairs and I've spent the last hour and a half on an instant call and so yeah it can happen at any moment as that is just

proven so so I'm now a consultant um I consult on solution architectures and process building and everything in between as well it does change considerably from where I moved from a stock response to now consultancy but um it's it was the right move and I I do a lot more people contact which is where um I I find myself enjoying it a lot more and so we didn't want to assume that everybody knew what neurodiversity was and we've done this talk in our in the [Laughter] Box um um so we did this talk at our um work recently and then we found out a lot lot everybody knew what neurodiverse was and so neurodiversity can mean a lot

of different things for a lot of different people but nice image nice image like this one and found when we were researching for this um for this talk it tries to Encompass where different neurod diversities can have crossovers so neurodiversity was a term that was coined in 1990s and it basically relates to um people who might process things in a slly different way um and interpret information in different ways so um there's crossovers in many different sections and we'll go over that in a little bit more detail in a second of where we set on this nice little pretty chart um because it dep depending on the day you feel like it can move with where you're struggling or

where you're succeeding where you're thriving and so we wanted to pull on why are we here to do this talk and not doing it somewhere else so the general population um believe we believe there's 15% say not we statistics um I didn't do the research um whereas in cyber for an industry we have 21% so significantly higher um worth investing worth looking at worth worth it seeing why you can support people in the industry so I'm dyslexic quite heavily dyslexic um I was fortunate enough to we are on Ching yeah um we um I was quite fortunate enough that I discovered my dyslexia very early on career in my career in my time at school so I was picked up in Primary

School um and I've done I was the um guinea pig for many things that are still here and things that aren't here anymore and and got test lots of tools um so my key skills are in planning Logistics and managements are planning ahead and finding the solution before we hit the problem um but also problem solving when we don't plan for that problem um imagination's a really big thing for me so taking a situation being able to build up in my head and manipulate a situation around it to think of the outcomes oring different simulations to get the outcome before we have to put pen to paper or start running um a different license yeah Ben

yeah uh so yeah uh similar kind of thing uh but I'm I'm dyslexic dyspraxia ADHD and there's a few other things thrown in there which if you want you can try gas TR but we're not going to do that now uh my super powers really it's it's the thinking side it's critical thinking side it's being able to adjust which type of thinking I apply to which situation essentially fluidly uh similar as Dan said uh having the ability to spin up uh test to spin up Demos in my head that kind of stuff which is something a lot of new people take advantage of it use it uh hyper Focus yeah sometimes can be a pain sometimes

Rabbit Hole sometimes several days later but if you use it properly it can be really useful you can have super full super delivery days uh problem solving as Dan said it's something I S ties in with credible thinking uh as you can guess resilient yeah credible thing more things but as you can guess energetic yes this is me on a I have been awake since 6 o'cl this morning this is me tired this is me slowed down uh as a lot of people here who know me or test uh yeah I I Am The Bouncing Off the Wall guy I am the everything goes to I see laughter in the C yes I the everything

goes to [ __ ] who's the guy that smiles me uh and hi EQ uh one thing that I've really found helpful with managing a team with helping one people with working with a lot of people uh the high EQ lets me essentially put myself in that place work with a lot of uh lot of varing ones and yeah normally get through things quite well yeah yeah all right so we want to put a little disclaimer in here uh so these are our experiences our uh what what we've been through things that worked for us don't generalize them if you don't see yourself on this list and these things oh I don't do that doesn't

mean you're not neurod diver just means that it's different where we are different neurod Divergence there's lots of them everyone's neur diver in my head uh but yeah so may not PL you but it's things that have worked for us all right planning yay uh a few things I like to live by uh plan work work plan uh i' like to break things down get the ask that and then tie myself to that plan give myself due dates give myself things that mean that I have to do it to that time uh I will jump off to a different project I will that's interesting I'm going to go off and do that that's interesting I'm going to go off and do

that I have to plan my way put the plan in place and decide what days I'm doing things beforehand otherwise I just won't get it done uh another one that I've teed off the Army the seven piece of planning uh all different numbers various words prior planning for friend pisso performance uh I like to plan for everything I like to think about the worst ways that things go I like to spend time really really just kind of seeing how things can go bad uh and the most important thing if you're an engineer if you didn't document it you did not do it document things it stops you doing things hundreds of times I there's there's work that I've done over

and over again because I didn't sit down document my work document how I did document my procedure and and kind of bring that in what you done thank much so for me planning comes down to getting it on paper getting a process built getting all the documentation done so everybody from a sock analyst to client C so can understand where we are in a nice pretty chart and say we're in the Red Zone we're in the green zone we're in the Blue Zone um and we can see it all the way through the phases so flowcharts is my bread and butter I spend too much money on softwares for it and draw IO tends to be where most of

them go because it's where I can send most things to other people to edit but um they flowcharts for me are everything they control most processes most responses that I plan whether it be a Playbook and it's high level or we're going down for for an integration solution developments we do lowle go down to what commands we're running what systems what devices um and procedures slightly touching on that flowchart are normally in my procedures but um processes procedures anything that can be built out that can give more visibility can mean that anybody can lead a lead a situation can lead a response can take can take control of a situation and have all the support they

need and everything there planning ahead for that outcome and what we plan to encounter really helps one of the things that does really help with this for me is tasking moving on to the next slide see nice transition um so tasking is a big part of how I deal with my neurodiversity like Ben said distraction can be a a bit of a bit of a kick in the teeth sometimes so if I can get things down on a piece of paper for me it's not piece of paper it's Microsoft planner and and breaking it down into smaller tasks and being able to have a view over what I'm trying to accomplish so taking a big situation of

implementing a solution or um building building out a I don't know building out a process building out the first section the second section third section rather than having one huge task it's now 30 tasks and that little bit of dopamine I get from each little tick in a box it really helps and but it also helps with one of the biggest issues I had at the beginning of my career which was avoiding attachment um I used to have a really bad issue with given a project I would try and start start it and I would want to leave that thing right till the end it was implemented till it ended and treat it like a almost that was my

solution um and unfortunately I say unfortunately but it's very fortunate it really helped my mental health towards the end of it being able to cut that lead and say right this is where my this is where the responsibility starts on me and this is where the responsibility starts on you I'm handing you the Reigns to this project now and finding out where that where that Line in the Sand is helps me pass over and be able to switch off I used to work weekends holidays I used to take holidays to take holidays to then do work um um it just doesn't really help so being being able to avoid that attachment and see it on

paper and go okay right at 5:00 I know I've achieved this or that job can go till Monday I know that's going to take me 3 hours and seeing ahead of time being able to know I'm not going to meet this target make relevant party where you're not going to meet this Target and adapt onto yourself yeah uh so yeah I've got one or two that but it's pretty much a rehash of what we said in the previous one due dates for all the things uh I like breing things down to tasks I'm the reason Devo is there because I prefer Devo to planner people both like Microsoft things hard uh but yeah uh like that was break tasks down give

tasks time frames give them the structure give them not not just the story of what you want to do but the actual tasks break things down into the ability to complete them make them things that you can accomplish in a couple of days there's if I have a task that's going to take us three days to complete I will not get it done it will I will procrastinate I will avoid it I will do that you take that exact same task split it down into six half day items bang bang bang bang I'll get more for it it's it's all for me about that doing hit if I don't get it within a relative small time I don't find myself

being able to push into it and it it it just affects me quite a bit uh so yeah into adapting didn't do as good of a transition for that as Dan but hey but hey uh so adapting something that I like to think I'm quite good at uh it's something that is one of the things that I that I do a lot uh main things on that it's okay not to know even if you're in a client call even if the customer crying even if it's 3:00 in the morning and their entire environment is pwned if they ask you a question you don't know it don't just [ __ ] actually go like all right yeah it's okay I don't know

it's all right that was something that I had a hell of a lot of a hard time to get over it I don't know it great I've Got to Now go and read white papers till I do know it then get back no I have a team I have other people use them uh other than that analyze problems uh I when I'm adapting to something I will break it down into its component parts get a bit of pen and paper out who's the what things are involved with it who's the responsible parties what do I need to do how do I need to change how do I need to do that map it all out and then

start building your solution uh in line with that mvp than evolve once you've built a solution yeah great that solution it works for it great so evolve it you want to push that into prod what do you need to do what what monitoring do you need what do you need to wrap around it's all about just adapting to all right here's the next problem here's the next problem here's the next problem uh kind of fits into flow deviations yeah so like I said W um point w um so flow deviations is one of the things that comes up a lot for me and like I say flow charts are my bread and butter they are everything um for what I do in

a dayto day so people always think you you need to account for everything and anything which is what we try and do but you need to be able to deviate take a step to the side I know from instant response we do need um sound really close um so um so trying yeah tangents and trying to trying to adapt to situation to step away from what we're what we're achieving and relink back in we we all we're trying to reach the same goal no matter what if we need to take a different step or take a different path being able to plan ahead for them really helps to adapt worst case worst case planning is something that a lot of my

clients rely on is going yeah but if you're going to do that in six months time you're going to have this issue and Playing devil's advocate is something that people hate you for but they ultimately rely on you for because been able to come with the outcome and say we I know I know a client who's had this or I know if you do that you're going to have this issue and if you've got funding issues now in six months time when you to grow that service you're going to have a bigger funding issue um so yeah that was really what I wanted to touch on in this one one of the last points we wanted to give situations on

was communication again transition me this time um a agenda meetings so for myself planning is a big point and me being able to deliver what I need to deliver in that call and making sure that I leave that call feeling like I've accomplished what I needed to accomplish easiest thing for me to do that is tell me what you need from me tell me what you want the outcome of this meeting to be do you want me to tell you the problem you're you're you're having give me the problem before the call and I'll explain it to you I'll bring Solutions I'll give you ideas I'll give you drawing Rings I'll give you everything I can in between in

that whether it be the five minute meeting prep you give me or the two days um I'll come to it prepared if you don't give me I'm going in blind and I can't can't give you an outcome in the same cor possibly it's much quicker for me to be able to plan it present it here's what I've got what what's the next step do you want to proceed with this do we want to take it back do we want to go back to the drawing ring board um and analogies I work with a lot of not technical not technically managed people technically managed technically minded there we go um tongue twister um no it's not

um cat um so and making analogies to make very technical terms not technical really helps baking a cake building a house using these things for deploying in something building something we've hit this issue you've lost you've lost the Lego piece you needed like all being able to put it into a visual cue for something that for technical people that can't understand being able to do that really helps get them on your side and understand where is your pain point where is the issue you're hitting yeah well and and to to TI to that uh when you're making analogies when you're doing that kind of stuff it's really important to be watching uh majority time teams meetings I like people have

cameras on meetings without cameras annoy me to deep level put it that way uh but yeah I I they they have to if you've got the cameras on you can sit there you can watch you can say all right that person get distracted they haven't uh that person doesn't understand the way I've explained it in feedback change it flip what you're looking at uh pick a different one uh you've tried to explain it based as a cake the person doesn't do baking let's try mechanic let's do a bridge build let's do whatever have lots of different ways of doing it but it's important to clarify them uh as I said visual CU and the clarification on that in line with

that is the summarizing communications I like to do a wrap up at the end of a call uh as you've guessed from this and people who know me uh a call for me sometimes requires a call with me sometimes requires a lie down afterwards uh they can be intense I've been told that the person was in the people team as well so I've got to believe that uh but yeah let's wrap up the communications end of the meeting then I take a couple of minutes to say all right this is what I'm going to do this is what you're going to do this is what we're going to do together these are the outcomes these are the actions this is

the time frame giving that wrapup communication in the end and Then followed up with a quick email if it's that important or a quick teams message if it's not as important uh that's something that I do a lot uh having that wrap up helps with my clarity and it helps with the rest of my team it helps just bring that Clarity and Clarity is what makes things simpler for me generally yeah right we're going to move on to a little bit of advice for people allies and uh businesses here uh but again these are examples these are things that work for us these are solutions that we've had these are things that we've been through they may

may not apply to everyone if these don't apply to you I'm not saying you're not Nee got to be super clear on that point it's just our experiences our feelings that kind of stuff so uh Our advice if you're neur diverse or think you're neurodiverse uh I'm going to start with the top one there don't mask uh I spent a lot of time in my early career uh consultancy that kind of stuff masking pretending I wasn't the person I am slowly J over yeah pretend I wasn't the person I am fitting in to do what needs to be done spending till cuz I couldn't do reports spend till 3:00 in the morning writing a report that someone

else would take an hour i' spend 6 hours doing it cuz I cannot it I've probably done it and deleted it three times I mean it's it's that kind of stuff don't mask yourself be honest with who you are and be honest with if you feel happy your employer around it because you can make range you can work things with it uh tent that know yourself be yourself I'm a big one for diagnosis uh I was diagnosed relatively early with a lot of things uni uh so that kind of thing and then I went for a later adult diagnosis for the ADHD and a few other things just to get things clarified I think that's really

important uh not saying go fill yourself with drugs no no just understand what's happening with you understand how other people have worked with it and what else you can share well it's like bsid Community we all stand on each other's shoulders uh it's kind of quite important for that so I want to ttch on capitalizing on your strength so knowing where what you're really shying at knowing where you where you can stand where you can stand Above the Rest really and capitalizing on it and working with everybody else you can you close enough in yeah yeah um and then being able be able to work with your skills and not work against them and is that it does come

down to that don't mask it and be able to say right I I like for instance dyslexia report writing is the is the bane of my life I don't love it I don't I don't hate it but don't love it um but I know people can't build graphs can't work with data can't work with them sort of things to me could do it in my head and visualize it and go that doesn't look right or that doesn't work so working as a team being able to communicate with other people who have other the struggles and be able to achieve I've achieved My outcome you've achieved your outcome what's the difference and in a minute I'm going to

tou you on a document that really helps capitalize on your strengths yeah and um embrace your differences it is just because I'm struggling doesn't mean that you should struggle or being able to say I I know I know I I know what I'm going to struggle with tell people say I'm going to need support here whether it be to someone who's working with you in a project I can I take that task cuz I know that's where my main strength are going to be or talking to your people team and we'll get on that in a little bit cool right uh bit of advice for allies uh all right this was a difficult slide to I know I know I Stumble about

when I talk this is a bit of a difficult slide for me to uh me the to put together uh for me it boils down to does neurotypical even exist everyone is a result of the changes both genetics and the growth everyone's a result of that no one person is going to be 100% identical to another person so if that's the case then how does neurotypical exist it's a bell curve embracing that side is the first thing that I'd say for for allyship it's embracing that we're all different I'm going to put that is my blue your blue I'm looking at that blue right there I see a specific shade how do I know that you see it or that

you see it or that you see it or you see it how do I know that we all see us the same we don't embracing the fact that we're different and we're all different inside is really what what brings an ally really uh yeah what does Ally ship look like uh I mean we'll get into it in the uh in the business side a little bit more that side but it's sounds corny but it's been that it's being able to uh all right you don't work best with this maybe I'll I'll help you out with this I'll help you out with that all right well how can we work together how can we work to make

a better situation for everyone how can we work so that everything is more fluid that to me is what Alish kind of looks like uh I explained it far better with the image that I found than I've managed to do in those words but everyone is different everyone has their own freaky brains I'm probably sitting there with the Squigly one or something like that there'll be robots in there somewhere uh but yeah that's that's that's what it looks like to me all right a one that we're running a little bit close on time so I'm just going to skip this good Pace though want a good Pace we want a good Pace actually better than every than

better than every test room we've done but keep going it's all right we'll tangent for a few more minutes we make it late yeah spoon uh if you don't know about spoons have a look at the QR code have a read up about it I'm not going to spend my time going into talking about it now but in short it removes the stigma of conversations over mental health over the drain that things give in a day-to-day basis if you think of it as you start your day with a draw full of spoons every single act that you do takes a certain amount of certain amount of spoons and when you've got to the end of that you've got to the

end of that you don't have any more Reserve to pull on so understanding that and understanding how much tools the wrong word but what what tool each task takes upon you is is quite important and spoons give you a way to talk to your people team the rest of your team your friends your family whatever about it in a bit of an easier to understand way so I'd encourage everyone to have a bit of a bit of a look and a check in on that on to me and so I want to touch on employers so I've been working with my people team recently to help build out some of the tool set that we that we

provide so I've been looking around many things but I've also been fortunate to use a lot of these um universities we had a lot systems and schemes where you could get free triy trial licenses so um I know it works for me recommend going out there and seeing what works for yourself but it for me when employers ask what right what tools you need it is really good to be asking the question rather than goog Googling what is the best thing what what is the what is the most popular one out there it is a case of asking what do you need where is support what have you used in the past that really helps for me it was

grammaring I will also start this slide with like we we're not associated with anybody not associated with any of those um they're just ones that I I use from day to day um but um investigate toolings there's so many different tools out there some to help Focus like Focus mate which is where you talk to another human and you try and achieve a goal together um mental health and spell Checkers to give you some more reassurance from other things other than just Microsoft Word but also um planning ahead and helping how can you for someone who might not be able to get pen on paper and break things down use toolings that can help do that with you

and there's also Dragon up there which I didn't put dictation on there but I used to use a lot of ation at University um because by the time that I got pen to paper I'd forgotten the thought um and yeah didn't help but um we wanted to talk about how new how neurodiverse who how neurodiverse employees can talk to their employer and we wanted to talk about because one of the things that was raised when we talked about it was how can people feel comfortable about raising it whether it be to their manager or to um their employer as a whole whether it be the HR people team whatever anybody calls it these days um

so we want gather the we recommended G we will recommend we were given the information of Rec record it during the onboarding process so ask the question rather than people feeling the need to say I'm really struggling this is why I'm struggling give it give an objective question about it ask them do you have anything else you want to add is there anything we can support you with but also make adjustments readily available yeah um it was rather than saying I need I need I need a tool right we're going to take six to eight months to go away and find a tool that works we're going to send it through risk we're going to

send it through the procurement team know all these things in between having a tool ready so when someone ask the questions in 24 hours we can have that on we can have that on your system and we can give you that support when we get going as soon as as soon as you as soon as you ask we can deliver um three documents would really recommend giving a some of these a read um I put three up for each for different reasons the middle one's a personal favorite one of mine I've recently discovered this it's a Delo um review into diversity and inclusion Revolution the eight powerful truths um it give I will say also give you some really good

like ammunition if you really want to say why neurodiversity is a a superpower in itself um for instance it talks about how um different percentages so like for instance having a diverse Workforce can lower your risk by 20% and being able to predict and um out see outcomes before they happen and also I said I was going to talk about strengths this one here by University College London and talks about the strengths of different neurod diversities so um ADHD gives you key characteristics that employers look for so rather than saying I'm neurod diverse I've got I and sometimes it comes with a baggage so like dyslexia for instance comes with a baggage of well you you're

not able to spell that you're going to make this mistake you're going to make that you're going to drop the ball here and there going in with the we actually have got this strength here and being able to change that narrative around when you're delivering whether it be on your CV your a review an interview and saying what are the strengths and back it up with I've got neurodiversity this is actually a strength of that and my brain's built for that so the closing thoughts that we're going to get into now and there's a couple after this so don't worry but again we're just going to close it out with another um what's using with another C warning disclaimer

disclaimer is the word I was going to use the cavat and another disclaimer of again these are all our thoughts our beliefs we don't want anybody to feel left out of being neurodiverse because they don't sit somewhere on it yeah cool and I like to finish all my talks with a quote uh it's something that I like adding and picked one from Tim burn asly uh kind of fits really well we need diversity of thought in the world to face new challenges and if there was any industry that that applied to perfectly it's the cyber security industry we need that diversity of thought because there is diversity of thought in the attacks there's diversity of thought in the

people that are going against us so we need to embrace that the only way that we will overcome the new challenges ahead of us is to embrace them is to embrace people who can help us with them and embrace us all as being able to think in slightly different ways that all compliment each other that all help each other and I think that just summarizes it we need diversity of thought in a world to face any new challenges that's it really mhm yeah cool all right that was our main talk finished uh one minute left 1 minute 57 seconds the first time we have ever managed to get that in time thank you thank you so yeah we've

put our contact details up there QR codes up a LinkedIn uh feel free to reach out to us uh but yeah is there any questions I I'm on holiday in a week so like yeah my replies might be slow question micone just very quickly I will say you mention stepping to the left at some point your presentation than you so literally living it's my right though that's L that's left this isn't that's not

left I was like there we're just standing here basically listen sorry so you guys both mentioned about trying to set a time SP things before you start yeah and how do you go about doing that when you don't know how long something is going to it's something you not done before if it's something if it's something that I haven't done before and that's relatively small so I can task it down then I'll generally reach to the community speak to my friends speak to other people in the uh in my company and my industry how long do it take to do this have you done this in the past that kind of thing and get a Rough Guide uh I

always Scotty it I always add myself bit time and my due dates are dates they're not specific times so I know that I need to get XYZ task done by the end of Thursday by the end of Friday otherwise because the delivery meeting is on the Monday and I need to have time just in case there's any changes so putting that kind of stuff in uh also if you're talking about really big pieces of work po them down I cannot capacity plan in my head for how to run up a full set I can how to run up a full senal instance you do it every day exactly but okay uh I I in theory need to break that

down to small tasks what what do you do how do you do the analytics how do you do the RO how do you do the onboarding how do you do SCE how do you do that and break it into things that I know and I can estimate on I can put estimate values they're not if I break one of my own uh slas it's not the end of the world because it's probably a day before I actually have to hand it in so there's there's a lot of like little Works around that that I try to do try to put together then do you want I would I would just jump back on the breaking it down to smaller parts if

you've done part of it before if you've not done any of it so if you've done a bit of it you can estimate the start on the end maybe you know the presentation or you know the creating the the plan possibly but it's the bit in between the mey bit um finding people who have done it in the past finding finding people who can mentor you through that process if you haven't done it before you're going to need someone to check it at the end of the day anyway but it is also that accounting for the time that you might not need if you deliver early better it's better than if you give a time scale you earlier than that time

scale better than delivering after it so give yourself a bit of leeway and I promise you sometimes if you don't know what it is there's a possibility that I know when I when I deliver something to a client there's possibility that they don't know what what the time scale is either so if I say 30 days it's 30 days there's the possibility they don't know what the product is either any more questions two here and one over there this is good I like questions thank you so feel they are Nee they don't have a diagnosis do you have any

advice yeah that's a little bit of a difficult one because a lot of standard uh like employer assistance and health plans and that don't cover mental health uh speak to your employer normally when you let them know this if they're a halfway decent employer they go oh poop we need to cover that and they get something in to cover it but yeah I I have been in situations where I've had no one to reach out I've had nothing to do and in that situation it's the community it's this it's it's besides it's things like that it's reaching out to it's talking to people it's it's having someone who knows cyber who I can just unload my brain to who's

just going to ignore everything I say and just be like yeah smile smile smile nod that's the kind of thing that helps me through basically yeah sorry I tangent a bit on that question but you you [Music] get see stay in the middle stay in the middle you're in the middle oh you call me

[Music] big and my question about our stents and trying to about to ask [Music] how I'll take this one you take that one uni one so I'll let Dan answer this by W so I went to University of Plymouth just around the corner and yeah I knew that was com um so I I was at University 5 years ago now so PE PE Co and I finished so I was I got the stable students allowance did my full assessment did all them sort of things and for me it it is it is a daunting thing it's number one it's the starting of it it's the well I know it's there it's It's haunting me and that that

that's a big piece of work I know but also I remember I mean one of the pieces of work was um a mastermind game and I did that in 6 hours and that was a that was a semester piece of work and to code in Python and so it is each end of the spectrum of saying this bits really easy and once you've got that once the that ball starts rolling it's the thing so for me it was always having the time to go right do you need just need the jump off do you need the how how can we light the fuse and get this thing rolling um again another analogy um um how how can

we get you to understand okay let's let you've got a deadline you've got a you got a due date that you need to reach let's get that information coming and going and going and once you hit once you hit that problem who where am I going to and is building that environment and Community off there is no stupid question um I think especially I work a lot of operation centers whether it be assessing them or and working with our own operation centers and saying what what questions do you have like what what what do you think the weak points are here and coming with that breaking things down into smaller tasks at University I used to use sticky notes I

didn't know I didn't use any and I used to use Trello for a bit and Trello was a big one but yeah it was free it works and Tra was one that I use and it's is is a bit of a skill in itself learning how to break things a big thing down into smaller parts and learning where they connect so whether it be doing some sort of training or Communication in how you can minimize tasks because that little bit of dop dopamine gets you through that 2 am. and or I I want to close off I want I want to close off six objectives today I've got got 10 days there six objectives 10 a day I'll meet

my goal and having that little tick in your head of right I need to get this I need to do that rather than it being one it's 30 and it's a lot a lot easier to KI kick one off the door each time one off the door isn't analogy doesn't make sense um can I add into that a bit so from the I well I went through uni ADHD and all of that kind of stuff I got help you stuff laptops and all crap uh I've lost where I was going you ask me yeah uh so what uh what is the passing down the breaking down of tasks that kind of stuff I sat with with one of my uh I got

assigned one of my lecturers as a mentor uh and we sat on a weekly basis and broke down what I need to do broke down what I need to complete by the end of this week very much what I've taken up with my team I do standups I do that kind of stuff I do catch-ups in a morning I do end of week reviews I do all of that kind of stuff that structure in place really helps me with my larger projects uh it's something that I learned when I was in uni and I still apply to this day I had a really good lecturer who unfortunately is no longer with us but yeah he he really taught me

how to engine problems how to think things through and how to plan things properly uh that that's really that mentorship and I think Dan mentioned it spending the time face to face one to one Sur I'm someone that needs one to one if you say go off do this task is the instructions it will take me days and that'll be 90% starting anxiety I won't start it because I don't know how to do it if I get someone who spends 5 minutes showing me how to do it this is what do all right I'll do the test like that I'll do the test that I can repeat it forever from there it's trying to cater

towards everyone really so it's it's it's given that little bit structure and as I said the structure is what helped me the most cool uh do you have list here sorry it's just have you when you've gone into employees and that of thing have they been accepting of these issues and if they haven't how have you overcome that make them as the one that's bounced around the most I mean Dan dance work for d uh for this entire I I BCE around I spend a year two years 6 months that kind of stuff here uh I pick a company based on their acceptance I pick a company based on if when I was going through the on

when I was going through the first meeting with the uh first meet with the people team first meet with whatever first interview I I I said right I'm Yours what have you got through that what what do you do what what is current rily available what do other people use what what's there and find out a little bit about it I very much picked my companies on that uh it's something that the reason I dropped out from being a consultant and went back to engineering uh is I was at the at a company there where I couldn't discuss it where it wasn't something the people team was Happ with where that wasn't good and to

move over to somewhere where I then was was was a a massive change I would well I still plan on basing any job moves going forward so not solely but majority on how they handle neuro diversity how they how they want to work with me to apply things better that that's that's a really key thing to me I would also add that it isn't for employers now it isn't a case of oh we just doing it to um help people in that sense of course that's obviously the end goal but I know I know certain suppliers or certain companies that won't work so for instance there could be I don't know I I know um well there could be a a

phone brand for instance and they might not work with another supplier if they don't have a Diversity Program if they don't have support in place these are key things that when procuring other services companies ask for now they want to make sure that they're emplo they're not employing or getting a service from a company that doesn't support companies and they want to ensure these services are in place for that exact reason because as as an employee you you you are a number in some way so if they can leverage it with the financial bit as well they're helping you in that way for one more question and then if anyone has questions didn't get asked feel free to P us an

email talked about unmasking and I wanted to ask is that can that be challenging both for neurodiverse and for the more neurotypical people yeah masking is something that both neurodiverse neurotypical people do uh I used it as a survival strategy that's where it gets painful uh the M the the masking side gets back to the spoon one it's the amount of effort I put in to try and make myself be like everyone else absolutely burned me it led to burnouts it led to an emotional breakdown at one point it led to some pretty huge stuff so yeah don't the the the mask inside yeah if I'm in front of a customer I'll put my Posh voice I'll not swear every second

second I don't really see that Mas see that's changing a little bit what I'm talking about is right I will be able to do a report same as them I'll be able to do that and then I'll keep myself up till 3: in the morning I'll work all the way through the night to do it I'll do all of that I'll do all that cuz I should be the same as them I should be the same as I should be able to do that I'm now embracing myself embracing who I was was the key to really sounds cliche but my happiness