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Honored as one of the top 50 Global Neurodiversity Evangelists by Neurodiversity world. An AuDHD solopreneur and founder of Mind Your Autistic Brain, Carole Jean Whittington is an Accessibility & Neurodiversity Consultant.  A Burnout Restoration Strategist, ND Leadership Developer and host of the weekly Mind Your Autistic Brain Talk Show on Podcast and YouTube.

 

A subject matter expert, and a straight shooter; Carole Jean, in this interview, has given us an exhaustive account of how neurodistinct leadership can shine through, beginning with simple one- on -one conversations. She asserts, it is imperative for the leadership to be well aware of their own preferences.  Accommodations are more about meeting a need or preference. She speaks about how regenerating after work is just as important as the work itself. Transitioning with ease, between discussing business and philosophy; keeping a pragmatic perspective in mind, she adds “When I start to look at what I value and see if those values are in alignment with my metrics for success that I have in my life, that's when things start to change.”

 

In an interview with the charming and eloquent Carole Jean Whittington:

You recently did the 2nd accessibility Shine a Light Campaign, 2023. How do you think entrepreneurship can be made more accessible? 

 

Such a huge part of the conversation within our neurodistinct population is accessibility, how do I access services, what is the ease of use.  It could not be more prominent in the barriers that we face when it comes to entrepreneurship and accessibility. However, we are also in one of the greatest times in humanity right now, when it comes to technology, because the barrier to entry and entrepreneurship right now is almost $0. It's almost $0, there are apps out there, if it's ConvertKit, if it's Canva, if it's PicMonkey, you know, if it is MailChimp, everything has a basic plan, a free plan for you to utilize the services and get started. Calendly has a free plan for scheduling if you're setting appointments and things like that.  Zoom has a free account. Each service has different limits and things like that, but the barrier to entry and entrepreneurship is at its most accessible right now than it ever has been.

 

However, on the other side of that, it's great, it's more accessible, I can set things up, but speaking from the United States side of things, because that's where I live, I believe the structure of government regulations and federal oversight on what it means for you to own a business is not yet accessible. That is a huge barrier. Taxes, licensing all of the things for you to be compliant and being able to do things to be able to operate your business. There are challenges, there are barriers there, those are things that are not yet easily accessible. As a neurodistinct entrepreneur, I will say that they are not easy. And it is because you usually need help to navigate because you want to make sure that you're doing all of the things correctly and that you've got the right insurance coverage, and all of this stuff. It all costs money, that is a challenge, especially when over 85% of our ND population is unemployed or underemployed.

 

There are two ways that this can be made more accessible, to create regulations and systems to entry that are not creating challenges and barriers. As a solopreneur, I spent last night filing tax returns. I have dyscalculia also. That is not an easy feat.  This is a lot and my brain is not processing all of this, like I have really struggled to do this. I usually hire an accountant but decided to give it a go on my own this time. And I dug in and at 11:54pm flying just under the radar, I filed it. But there were so many things throughout that entire process that were so inaccessible to me. And this has been a really hard part for me as part of my personal journey is I have invisible disabilities. It's not just physical disabilities that I have. I have invisible neurological disabilities, there are challenges. And you know what, it's not that I am broken or defective or not functioning. Our brain and body processes things differently, as it does for others in a very narrow scope of the population. And, there are so many things that are accessible to us now just across the board as entrepreneurs, but then there's also still really big accessibility barriers and challenges to entrepreneurship. 

What could be the best practices for accommodating needs for neurodivergent leaders as in case of accommodations like written communication?

 

I love this question. At Mind Your Autistic Brain, our NeuroDrive Workforce Team, has what's called the FACTS lBueprint. And that's our executive coaching for neurodivergent leaders. Because we help executives, we help leaders within companies who are neurodistinct to navigate the business world in a whole new way. And for a lot of the discussions that we have, we work with vice presidents, we work with the Board of Directors. We have had some really phenomenal clients that we have worked with this past year. And when we're talking about what is it to be a neuro distinct leader? What does that look like in my work environment?

Number one, one of the biggest conversations to have is that we have neurodistinct humans, right from the lower echelons, to the boardroom, at every level, in every position. However, most of the focus when we talk about neuro diversity in business is at that entry level position. And that seems to be where the conversation stops. And one of the things that our NeuroDrive team focuses on is helping leaders and middle managers. Leaders, how are you navigating? Because you've made it this far, right? You have accomplished these things. Most of them are still functioning and are having burnouts, but still delivering. They are pushing through. And they're in a chronic cycle burnout loop, and they just function through burnout. They white knuckled through it in so many cases, and we're talking about creating accommodations.

 I think number one is that within the work world; we have to recognize that neurodistinct employees and leaders are already there, you don't have to recruit us and bring us in. Organizations need to start having conversations that create psychological safety within their culture, so that people feel more comfortable disclosing that they are neurodistinct. A majority of the leaders that I work with, have still not felt comfortable enough to disclose because of the environment they're in. What we talk about, from the accommodation’s standpoint, from a leadership standpoint, is you really have to know your own needs, you have to be able to identify what those are. And for a lot of us, especially late identified folks, like myself, I was almost 40. When you're a late identified, from youth, you've done a lot of things that have gotten you to where you are, and you've probably figured some stuff out on your own, but you don't realize why you figured it out. But then there are also things that you've consistently struggled with, that you didn't realize were just part of your neuro type experience. So, when you can dig in and start to look at, okay, what are my peak performance hours? When is the time that my brain is most creative, and it's functioning, it's in that window, that zone of genius, right, that period of maximum operation? 

 When you know what that is, when you know what your communication style is, and this is one of the things that we talk about in the executive coaching program is helping you identify what are your peak performance hours? What are your communication styles? Because those are two different things. How you like to receive information and how you deliver information can be two totally different things. And it's how do I work with my team and communicate with my team? So when we're looking at doing some team work, you have to identify, Hey, what are my teammates' peak performance hours, who are the people that report to me, my direct reports, what are their peak performance hours? You know, AAC is great if you need that. Fantastic, you know, also, I use Zoom with closed captions, because especially late in the day I have an auditory processing delay, my ears are tired, my brain is tired. I don't hear and process auditory information as well. So, for me, that's an accommodation. If you meet with me after 12 o'clock, I have to have closed captions. Please don't call me on the phone because I don't have a way to lip read either. 

There are certain things that are self-accommodations, but those are also accommodations that we can start making for everyone and when we start to normalize what an accommodation is, usually it's not something that's costly. It's not something that's preventive in performance, actually, it increases performance. And we can start to talk about these things. As you know, my teammate Jessica Michael says, we want to talk about our preferences. This isn't like, you're not going out of your way to, quote unquote, “accommodate me or give me acceptable, accommodations; you're meeting a preference and a need, and I'm meeting your preference and a need, we all have preferences and needs that are based on what helps us best.”

 We can start having conversations that revolve around accomodations. Well, foremost, we don't look at it as something separate, we just look at it as how are we best performing? What are our needs? And how are they getting met? And how are we communicating one person to another, and not being a jerk about it? Because, you know, so often, I hear in the workplace, it's like, “oh, well, we don't want to break any laws. And we don't want to make any mistakes. We're just going to be so super careful, that we're just going to take forever, and we're going to give you everything that we feel like is comfortable. We are worried about getting sued over it.”

The reality is that by the time a person has requested an accommodation, they've already suffered and struggled for a long time, they're in desperate need, by the time they have worked up the courage to ask HR for an accommodation. 

 

We have been discussing how to heed the preferences of ND leaders. At the same time it is imperative for an ND leader to be cognizant of the requirements of his employees? What could they do to make the employees feel comfortable?

 

We either choose to be comfortable or not in a lot of senses. What's comfortable for us, may not be comfortable for someone else? My approach to this question would simply be number one, leading by example. So if you're leading by example, Hey, this is my performance time, these are my communication styles, I'm not a Slack person. Some folks are slack people Oh! I love slack, let's have a conversation and communicate about this project on Slack. Or, you know, let's use these other softwares.

 

But what works best for you, as a leader, when you start asking your team members, ‘Hey, what is the best time of day for you? When is a good time for me to talk to you? And what avenue of communication is best for you? Is the email, you know, a bullet point in an email, not a novella, you know, 10 page email, do you just need the highlights? Do you need me to send you something in writing, and then you can contact me? We'll have a conversation around it, maybe face to face or on zoom with closed captions.” But what it means as the leader to make anyone comfortable is, well, first of all, you have to figure out what works for you.

 

And the second, you have to start asking questions, you have to start listening. What works for the people in my organisation? And by asking these questions you're learning about yourself as a leader.  You're also modelling that this is part of our company culture, this is part of how we work as a team, this is how we communicate with each other. And how does that look? What does that look like for us to show up and shine in our zone of genius? Right, because that's really what we're looking for in businesses. We're looking for performance, we're looking for meeting those goals that we're trying to achieve. We're looking for a value alignment within the individuals and within the company and how the company shows up in the world. All of that starts with having a conversation, one person to another, what works for you.

 

Communication is the key. For each person, communication appears different. And it's said in a different way. It's also absorbed differently. There are 4 levels of communication, level one is the thought or idea you wish to express, level 2 is what I say may not be what I planned to express. Because sometimes those two things are different, level 3 happens on the other side, the way someone interprets what you just said or wrote depends on the lenses and filters through which they are taking it in, how they are processing it, and level 4 is the story they are telling themselves about what they filtered through their lens.

 

Communication is more than simply that and most importantly it's that we have compassionate curiosity in our communication, and that we aren't immediately assigning a judgement or a story to why someone did or said something. But we simply go, like my friend, Tracy Borreson says so often, “I wonder…  “I wonder why did they just said that? Why did they just do that? Let me ask them. And when we can get compassionately curious, in communication, and in just connection, one human to another. We're elevating our performance, we're elevating our business, we're elevating humanity. And we're also eliminating those barriers to access. 

 

What strategies can be employed by ND entrepreneurs to manage their time resources and networks?

 This has been one I have definitely been working on for the last 40 years for as long as I can remember, right from school and throughout my career in business. What I have found, and honestly, right now, with the number of apps and technology that is out there, it's almost like information overload. There are so many options. But I found that I just had to experiment. Automation is my best friend. And I really struggled in the beginning because I thought, “Am I gonna lose the personal touch and connection that I want to have with my clients if I use things that are automated or pre done.” Are there some things I do frequently?  Maybe there is an energy drain?  I'm a burnout restoration strategist so I do take a closer look at all things related to maximizing performance and creating sustainable restoration and thrive. Are you being fueled and energized? And then where are you being depleted? Where's your energy going out? Because we have to look at both of those things. And it's not about balance, because balance is part of the biggest drains. When you look at burnout, one of the biggest contributing factors to an energy drain is the amount of thought energy you expend. You know, our brain consumes over 30% of the energy calories that we have every day. Now, that's the statistic for the normal brain. Bless you folks with those slow brains that only have 70 to 90,000 thoughts a day. Those of us who are autistic and ADHD like myself, we can just double or triple that. We probably have like 180,000 thoughts a day, and that's probably just on an average day. That's exhausting.  When we look at these numbers, what are some things that we can do? How do we manage our time? Look at the repetitive tasks I'm performing; I can automate them. Where are the tasks I can contract out? That's not talking about just your business outsourcing. This is talking about your life outsourcing. I order those wonderful pre-made meals, and I have them delivered to my house. As every bit of my energy is having to plan a meal for the entire week, make a grocery list, go to the grocery store, buy the groceries, bring them home, put them up, then you have to prep it and cook it. That is exhausting for me. And I recognize that that was one of the things that was using most of my time. It was consuming most of my energy, and I was more exhausted at the end of the days that I had to go to the grocery store than anything else. One of the things that I absolutely hate and absolutely dread. I thought, well, how do I eliminate this? Well, I can order it on Instacart. I put it in my grocery list using my MealLime app. I can pick out menus, and it automatically generates a grocery list. And I can send that grocery list, copy it, paste it and send it to Instacart. And then I just drive up and they put it in my car. How can we use technology to decrease those executive function drains? You know, this is honestly not just in your business, but your life. If networking is part of business, the important question is who are you networking with? Are these the people that energize you, that light you up? I've got tons of people; I just love them. I love people, I'm a people person. But I have a bandwidth of energy available for that social engagement. And afterward, I'm still tired, even if I like to socialize with them. It's also looking at this as going back to those needs again. Number one, If I do a networking event, and it's something I want to do, is it with people I enjoy, is it in alignment with the business that I am in, and these are the people that I know, I want to connect with. Number two, are you scheduling time before and after that event for you to regenerate? And what does that regeneration look like? Is it that you go for a walk? Is it that you do yoga? Is it that you simply zone out mentally while watching anything uninteresting on TV? 

You know, what does that regeneration time look like for you? And how much time do you need? It may be different every time but you'll get a feel for what that is when you can start to be the leader and the creator of your schedule, and not say yes to everything. “How often do you say no?” I asked this a lot of my clients. And the answer is usually not very often. Those of us who have had late identification, become people pleasers for survival. And a lot of times it's also a trauma response. Things have happened and I've been hurt. I don't feel safe. That's another big thing, not feeling safe in the world. And so we don't say no, because if I say no, others might reject me. And that doesn't feel safe. One of the things that is really important to come back to is how often do you say no? And it's okay to say no. And one of my mentors asked me one time, and this made the biggest difference. And maybe this is something that will help someone if nothing else in this conversation today touches you.“How can someone respect your yes; If they never hear you say no?

 

What does success personally mean to you? Or do you consider yourself a successful entrepreneur? And what metrics can be used to measure the impact of ND leadership?

 

You know, that's the question that I have asked myself a lot. And that's one of the questions we talk about in The Unveiling Method. Because we have all these metrics. Being human means that we all have these measurements that we have accumulated throughout the course of our lives. We've all been indoctrinated through our parents, our families and our social networks throughout our life. And the things that we've learned have all been to keep us safe. Oh, you need to do this, you need to go to school, you need to get this degree, you need to do this, in order to be safe. Because our brain does two things. First and foremost, it operates to keep us safe. Our brain is seeking to keep us safe at all times. And the second thing our brain does is it says, I'm going to conserve energy. And I'm going to automate everything that you've repeated, so that we can then do other things. Safety and automation. And when we look at that, how often are we operating from a place of fear? Because we want to stay safe. So we don't say no to anything, we say yes to everything. We also have a long list of what success means to different people. Success, it's not a static list. Success is fluid. Some days success might be that you got out of the bed and got dressed in that season of your life; that could be success that day. Success another day in a different season of your life could be I  gave a presentation, and I did a workshop for 150 people. And all of the people in the room had some sort of a breakthrough, something that served and helped them; elevated their heart that day. That could be a success on that day. 

 

Absolutely, I am successful! It has been in my burnout restoration journey, I am now entering year four of being shut down, burnout and meltdown free for the first time in 40 years. My first burnout was at the age of six. And I continued to have chronic burnout from the time I was six years old until around four years ago. In that I had to start defining what is success for me. And also understanding that success isn't the same metric every day. You might sort of have the overarching idea that, for me, success looks like this. But then also knowing that within each day, where you are, how you're feeling? Where's your energy? Where's your attention? Are your needs getting met that day? Have you had some water? Did you stretch your legs? Have you had a hug? Or have you done something that's connected you to yourself and something connected you to another person? 

 

This is how I look at success. Have I connected with myself today? Have I taken a moment to just take a breath in, love compassionately and love myself in a moment today. And the other part of my definition of success on a daily basis is that, have I connected with another human today? On this day, if that has happened, my day has been an overarching wonderful success. You know, as a business owner, we look at numbers and metrics, right? But do we? Can we measure that? Can we measure the impact of our heart, our joy, our peace, our freedom? And when I start to look at what I value and see if my values are in alignment with the metrics of success that I have in my life? That's when things start to change.

 

 

That was beautiful!

Thank you, Carole Jean; for this wonderful interview.