Fast Brained Women
The podcast for women with ADHD, by women with ADHD.
Hosts Dani and Lorna chat with everyday legends about the real-life highs, lows, and WTFs of ADHD.
Expect connection, insight, and hope – plus zero shame, lots of laughs, and the reminder that you’re not alone.
👉 Follow @FastBrainedWomen and join the community.
Fast Brained Women
Rainbow Brains in Business with Sophie Thomas
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Sophie shares her journey of discovering her autism and ADHD in her thirties after her son's diagnosis, reflecting on how her neurodivergent traits were actually the source of her corporate success rather than a hindrance. Her story highlights the power of self-knowledge and authenticity in creating a fulfilling career that aligns with personal values.
• Growing up undiagnosed with academic challenges despite being intelligent
• Discovering neurodiversity through her son's autism diagnosis at age 7
• Recognising how her neurodivergent traits made her excel in strategy consulting
• Leaving the corporate world after realising a disconnect with her core values
• Creating a business helping neurodivergent entrepreneurs align work with values
• Advocating for workplace needs without necessarily disclosing diagnosis
• Finding community with other neurodivergent women
• Using tools like Remarkable notebook, digital calendar frame, and ChatGPT
"I'm successful because of my neurodivergence, not despite it. The way my brain works, being able to absorb huge amounts of information and data, visualise it, and find insights and root causes super quickly...I have this obsession of connecting dots."
Follow us on social @fastbrainedwomen and try Endel : http://endel.io/fastbrains
Late Diagnosis: A Blessing in Disguise
Speaker 1I'm quite grateful that I didn't get my diagnosis earlier, because I think back then in the 80s or 90s, if somebody had told me I was autistic, that would have come with a preconceived notion of what I could achieve. If somebody told me, oh she's, she's going to struggle because she's autistic, and if I did struggle, I probably would have gone oh, from rainbow wardrobes to boardroom breakthroughs.
Speaker 2Sophie is a self-confessed dot connector, a strategy maven and neurodiversity champion. She's the ultimate reminder that you can be both brilliantly unconventional and wildly successful. Hi, welcome back to another episode of Fast Brain Women. I'm very excited to first of all prove that Fast Brain Women do come in all glorious colours today Because, as you'll see, the fashion coordination has really kind of notched up a level. We're either wearing the same colour or wearing wild patterns. We have an amazing guest for you today patterns. We have an amazing guest for you today. I kind of had a little sneaky peek because we have already had a little one-to-one time. I met with Sophie a few weeks ago now in her capacity as consultant for startups and neurodiverse business owners, and we got talking and I knew instantly that she would be a great guest for today's podcast. So so welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you very much, and you guys are already friends as well, right yeah, we ended up in the court.
Speaker 3No, we met at crunch mums. Um, yes, I. And immediately, I think within the first five minutes of meeting Sophie, before my any of my diagnosis, she disclosed to me some of the things that were going on with her and I was like that's so cool. And then the thing was when I went through my own journey, I spotted her and I was like I know who to talk to and I just literally was like didn't you say you had autism, adhd, can we have a chat? And she was so open to it and you're a massive part of my journey, so I'm also really happy to have you here. And yeah, come full circle. Tribes attacked.
Speaker 1And we're always in like we're in a co-working space which is very neutral and we're always there in like rainbow and glitter, and normally I have pink hair and we're're yeah, we're kind of definitely sort of dressing to our own groove definitely so normally, danny and I don't coordinate outfits, but with you, I gave you a heads up of what I was wearing because I was like Sophie, you're always wearing rainbows.
Speaker 3I'm going to wear a rainbow today. So you said I'm not going to wear a rainbow, I'm going to wear a leopard print pattern. And then, lo and behold, Danny turns up in leopard print. So even when we try not to coordinate, we still coordinate, which you know we can talk about the subtext of drawn to fabulous. Drawn to fabulous yeah, fabulous inside and out.
Speaker 2There we go fast, brained and fabulous there you go so I thought it was really fascinating and I think actually the theme isn't. A lot of people have been guests previously on the podcast, have been given a label or a diagnosis a little bit later in life. So, what did that look like for you? How did you get?
Speaker 1there. So for me, neurodiversity wasn't really even part of my consciousness until my 30s when the word autism popped up around my son, sort of the first six years of his life. My sister got an adhd diagnosis when she was 20 and I think I would have put myself in the uninformed, slash, skeptical group that thought maybe she was looking for extra time at exams, not really connecting it to quite a lot of you know red flags in her sort of journey with mental health and eating disorders. Um, and it was very much at that kind of point in the early 2000s when, you know diagnoses started to go up and people started saying it's a bit of a trend jumping on the bandwagon, um, and I never used that as an opportunity to really figure out what it was or understand it.
Speaker 1So it was only when you know the word autism or sort of not so much ADHD, but I think there was always that vein with my son's behaviour emotional regulation, distraction that you know, I started to look into it. But it wasn't until he had his own kind of mental health crisis at seven that I reached out for support for him and instantly kind of playing back his history and what he was struggling with, like they were saying, you know he's a great candidate for an Asperger's diagnosis. And at that point I was like I better read up about this stuff, so dived into it. That became my world Red flag. Hello somebody. Hyper focusing on research.
Speaker 1And you know I read so many books and so many papers and in all of them I was sort of ticking off with a pencil on one side of the paper this is my son, this is my son but then on the other side going it's me, this is me, hello, that's me. And it just was like a massive dot connector for me. Okay, and it wasn't like I felt like I'd been struggling, yeah, or misunderstood. You know I had a brilliant corporate career, fantastic relationship, living in Dubai, beautiful house, three wonderful kids. You know I was very stereotypically successful. So it wasn't like I was sat there looking for the reason of why I was struggling. I wasn't struggling. There'd always been things that hadn't made sense. So one of them was, you know, my own mental health challenges, kind of as a child, university, early adulthood, which were put down to depression but never really made sense because I didn't feel depressed.
Speaker 3What did?
Speaker 1you feel Exhausted?
Speaker 2We've had this before Overwhelmed.
Speaker 1But not emotionally miserable. 60% of the diagnostic criteria for depression could apply to me, but the big ones didn't really make sense. But I still sought out therapy, medication and support, but just sort of sat there and went. That doesn't feel right, doesn't sit well. At school I was a really spiky individual. So I had years of academic brilliance and years where I really struggled and got nowhere.
Speaker 1And there was this narrative of being lazy or a bit stupid. That didn't make sense because I knew I wasn't. I just, you know, I knew I had a good brain, but everybody kept telling me these things and I was like, yeah, and I'm quite grateful that I didn't get my diagnosis earlier, because I think back then in the 80s or 90s, if somebody had told me I was autistic, that would have come with a preconceived notion of what I could achieve right and I think I wouldn't have had that stubbornness or drive to go. I don't believe that. I'm going to prove to you yes, you know, you're telling me I can't go to university. That doesn't make sense. I'm going to prove you wrong. Yes, you're telling me I can't go into strategy consulting. I'm going to prove you wrong if somebody told me oh she's, she's going to struggle because she's autistic and if I did struggle I probably would have gone. Oh, makes sense not going to achieve those?
Speaker 3things. So did you have conflicting feelings then, because you talked about um the signs in your son and then going through that diagnosis at such a early age for him? Did you, or is it a sign of the times that you felt open to that?
Speaker 1I was not resistant to him getting a diagnosis at all because I think we recognized that he was really struggling right, okay, yes, I understand that he needed support and we needed to know what was going on.
Speaker 1Um, and I think we had come across more children with neurodiversity diagnoses. At that point my husband was more resistant because his experience you know going to boy schools, autistic boys in the 80s very different, very stereotypical, you know bullying, exclusion, very poor kind of life outcomes and expectations. So he really wasn't keen to put a label on it and I think that's probably why we didn't go for a diagnosis sooner. We kind of waited, not for a crisis but for something where I suddenly just went OK, enough is enough.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1I'm not OK now and I don't know how to support him. And you know I read all this about myself and I ticked all of these boxes and I phoned up his psychiatrist and went. I feel really bad. I don't want to distract from him.
Speaker 3Yeah.
From Son's Diagnosis to Self-Discovery
Speaker 1But this explains so much for me and I'm not going to be able to drop it now. Now I've got it, it's like a brain worm. What do I do? And she went well, you know, don't worry. What do I do? And she went well, you know, don't worry, it's a genetic component. We see this a lot Because we don't need to get school involved. You know, if you've got friends and family who can contribute, that's great. But we can fast track your assessment. So I got my diagnosis two or three weeks before his assessment was finished and I think that was actually really important for my husband because it completely recalibrated how he thought about it.
Speaker 3Because you were, because I'm not.
Speaker 4I mean I'm quirky for sure, I'm very individual In the unnoticed.
Speaker 2Unnoticed.
Speaker 1You know, for him a neurodivergent person, an autistic boy, you know it felt like there were limitations on what they could achieve and the life they could have and the struggles they would have to go through. And I think when he saw, okay, well, my wife is neurodivergent, she's super successful and happy and accomplished and loving life, that, I think, completely changed how he thought about getting a diagnosis or something. He saw it much more as like and he heard me, I think, talking about how important that self-knowledge was and how affirming it was that suddenly I knew I was part of a community of thousands, if not millions, who struggled with all of these quirks and I think it's so important because you know you're talking and I love what you said, that you weren't struggling with it, but it still helped you piece that puzzle together.
Speaker 3And I think that's the question a lot of people have is you know I've got this far. Why would I, why would I go get a diagnosis? I'm managing, I'm coping, everything's allegedly fine, um, but for other people it is really important, even if you're not struggling to, to get that information and help just make sense of everything it's difficult because it's a very personal experience, isn't it?
Speaker 2and there's lots of mums I've spoke to who harbor this guilt because their children haven't been diagnosed until very late teens or even in their 20s, because actually, all the things that when they were, you know, mum, you know, struggling with this or what does this mean, it was mom's experience too. She was like that, that's normal, come on, like you know, just pull your britches and let's get this. So it's really fascinating to get out of that space. And when you know, I had a very similar experience of trying to articulate and explain. And you've got these buckets of do you have anxiety, do you have a depression? You know. And you've got these buckets of do you have anxiety? Do you have a depression? You know, and you've got to kind of fit in those because on the surface, you know you're not struggling and that you are successful and you, you know you're achieving, you're at university, you've done these things and and that just it doesn't compute, there's nothing you know nothing.
Speaker 2You really can hang your hat on in that, in those moments, which I think derails again that sort of self-knowledge. But you talked about your kind of successful career in consulting. Do you think that you said that not knowing your kind of neurodivergence at that point maybe held you back? Do you think that there is elements that made you more successful?
Speaker 1because of how your brain felt. I don't think it held me back at all Good, so I think I was successful because of my neurodivergence, not despite it.
Speaker 2Okay, and what would that look like on a day-to-day basis?
Speaker 1So I think the way my brain works, being able to absorb huge amounts of information data, you know I visualize data in a way that I can't explain and can find you know, insights and root causes super quickly.
Speaker 1You know I have this just obsession of connecting dots, of listening, like I was never a big speaker in meetings I was always told that I should be more, um, participative and vocal about my ideas, because I had great ideas, but I would always be the last person to talk in the room because I'd always be listening to everybody else, and then I could feel my head sort of going until I could kind of like bring everything together and add an insight that nobody else had connected in the room, and then people would be like that's a really good one. You should have said that in the beginning. I'm like that's not, that's not. I don't, didn't have that when I came into the room. But what I can do is I can connect everybody and I can define it, and then my brain goes okay, so figure that problem, solution, solution, solution.
Speaker 1This one's the best one. Go for that one, let's go. I think the biggest challenge I had was people keeping up with me. Yeah, um, you know, when I tried to be more vocal, I got told I was aggressive and a terrible communicator.
Speaker 2Little red flag and how did you get into consulting then? Because a lot of another question that I get asked a lot and again, mothers of children who are a little bit old, like what career should you know I recommend that my child gets into is no neurodivergent and you know, don't careers coach or a consultant. But I know what's helped me is when I've been as authentic as possible and really been in those strengths.
Speaker 2So I worked in a very kind of creative um background and that's when I shone. But I don't know how I ended up there. I don't know like was it fate that consultancy came? Because it's.
Speaker 1I suppose it's a pretty standard job, I think, because I struggled academically. A lot of you know I really struggled to enjoy things at school. So you know, on hindsight I would have loved to. Academically, a lot of you know I really struggled to enjoy things at school. So you know, on hindsight, I would have loved to have been a marine biologist or a zoologist, maybe even a vet.
Speaker 1And actually when I left my corporate career I looked at retraining and all of those. Or being an organizational psychologist or being an AI and data analyst. I looked at kind of all of those things because I hadn't performed at school and I hadn't loved them. They were really hard so I never kind of considered those as careers. Um, at one point I wanted to be a barrister. One of my special interests at school was reading about law and the abolition of the death penalty for years and thought I wanted to do that. And then I did work experience in a barrister's office and realized I couldn't walk into a courtroom, couldn't walk into a room where all these people let alone stand up and speak publicly and I still stopping you the public public speaking, but also it's not my natural medium of communication.
Speaker 1I think actually if I'd been a solicitor and got to write everything down, that would have been better. But you know, being on the ball, responding, arguing those kind of things, having to defend somebody who could have been guilty, and not knowing about my innate sense of justice, thing then sense of justice is a big topic right is it for ADHD as well?
Speaker 3because I definitely resonate with that and that has fed into my career path of you know, trying to make workplaces better places to be. I feel very strongly deep in my soul about that.
Speaker 2Yeah so it's best fairness and equity, and oh yeah, talking my uh eight-year-old son off the fence when he's like there's been a handball in a football match and like three days later we're still we're still on the topic, yeah, and I think that's what's interesting about this, because you're the first person that we've had that identifies with all dhd.
Speaker 3And so, yeah, what's the intersection, what's the similarities, what the difference is in in your experience? I mean, we can google it, but how, how do you make sense of all that when you're living those two experiences at once?
Speaker 1So I think you know I was formally diagnosed with autism in 2021. I'd always known I was dyspraxic, but I don't know how.
Speaker 1I'd always given myself that label of hand-eye coordination, spatial awareness, motor skills Not my thing. And then my son was diagnosed all dhd, dyspraxic, but it took me so and we focused for him on his the autistic side, the social, emotional regulation post diagnosis, and that was kind of the journey I was on autism journey. It's only when I left the corporate world where I was suddenly just completely incompetent I can't think of another way to describe it. I remember in week one of not having a job and booking meetings with myself in my diary 14 hours a week Sophie, you're going to meet Sophie and you're going to go for a walk and then you're going to sit down with Sophie and read a book and then 20 minutes later you're going to have lunch with Sophie. I had to put this structure in because I think I knew that I was going to struggle with motivation and deciding what to do and that you know, I saw all this opportunity in the weeks. I now had to kind of rest and figure out what I wanted to do. But I in my mind knew I was going to waste it, that I was just going to be like paralyzed and come out of it just going. Oh, what did I do?
Speaker 1And you know it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do, that I wanted to kind of go back to my consulting roots, which was very much about kind of problem solving and thinking big and helping people come up with practical solutions, which I enjoyed so much and I'd got away from when I was in kind of leadership and in internal roles and yeah.
Speaker 1So I decided to set up kind of a mentoring consulting business. I couldn't do anything, I was all over the place. Motivation was an issue, focus was an issue, was an issue. Prioritization you know, my brain was just off. I'm going to go in and do this on a website and I'd come out having done loads of things but none of the things that I was meant to do. And you know, I realized I had to work outside of the home or I'd spend hours organizing viros in my office or getting distracted by sock drawers and the more. I kind of looked at it and then looked at how my son was doing at school and realized that the ADHD side of him was probably creating more challenges academically. And then I kind of looked at what I was doing.
Speaker 2I went okay, that makes a lot of sense yeah, especially when you're you know your nature is problem solving. You are in, in essence, a problem to be solved. At that point you have a blank, blank piece of paper but our ability to solve our. We're fully aware of our shortcomings, our to-do lists and what we need to do, but self-awareness is crippling. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1And the guilt on top of that, but I would always said I'm a really structured, organized person. But I'm not. I was just in an environment for so many years that was so structured and provided me so much scaffolding and so much of my time was defined by other people's priorities that you know I could achieve all of those really easily because I knew exactly what I'm. You know what was one, two and three on my list and I had support of a team and if I had things that I couldn't struggle with or I was struggling with, somebody could help me with that.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1But when I was on my own and suddenly it was just me trying to organise myself and my thoughts and do things, and then you know my hyper focus. Just I'd lose days doing things, yeah.
Speaker 2We're going to take just a quick adhd friendly pause, and if you're listening to this while multitasking, then this is most definitely for you, so listen up. The endall app is, honestly, my secret weapon to getting things done. It's a sound wellness app that creates these personalized soundscapes designed to help your brain do what it's meant to be doing in that moment. I use it every single day and whether I'm locking in, focusing or just wanting to fall asleep at a human hour, it's Endel that gets me there. These guys are such big supporters of the ADHD community and they're giving you a whole month to try it for free, so you can find the link in the description or send us a DM wherever on our socials if you can't find it, and we will send it to you, and if you got distracted along the way. Even during this little short break, we have gifted you a lovely five minute relaxing soundscape from Endel at the end of this episode, so stick around and enjoy.
Speaker 3Kendall at the end of this episode. So stick around and enjoy. I guess my question is what is it that led you then to leave your previous job? Because what you're explaining now sounds like a difficult period of time. But there must have been a real motivation to leave the corporate, and you know what you describe as a very successful or, you know, traditionally successful role, and you'd had some variety, you'd moved around and achieved all of these things. What was the thing that tipped you over the edge of leaving the corporate scene?
Values Awakening and Corporate Disconnect
Speaker 1so I'd ended up in my third internal role and I'd given up my dream role in global strategy because I was kind of persuaded to stay on after my IT cycle of experience. That was always going to be about 18 months and they were like think of a role that you could do in the Middle East. I kind of gave them a list and when I kind of said I can see issues with the HR thing, they went do that, don't do this. And I think it's the first time in my life that ego superseded my rational brain and you know, they promised me this career progression and partnership and things that wouldn't have been open to me. Um, and I could see the problem as well. I was like, oh, that's a really good problem, I could solve that. What I hadn't appreciated was the. You know, the tech role was pretty, pretty easy from a social communication.
Speaker 4You know, for you, for you we were all we're all sat there, yeah computing about like it was.
Speaker 1It was quite an interesting, probably quite a neuro, diversely safe space. You know there wasn't a lot of interaction and there was zero politics. And when I got into the role of people and it was post-covid and we were dealing with, you know, business issues of getting people back into work, getting people back on planes, dealing with people who wanted to continue to remote work, dealing with mental health challenges that a load of people struggled with, you know, trying to grow a business at 25 percent in a year and it was just, it was just very, very political and that I ended up having to compromise on a load of things that were really important to me from a justice perspective. You know, when you start getting into individuals performance conversations at scale, it was.
Speaker 2It was not the right role for me from a skills and mindset and beliefs perspective but also timing, I imagine as well, like that was a wild time to put a non-hr professional in as your head of hr.
Speaker 1I'm really motivated by impact, but I didn't know that at the time and I went on a leadership course that connected with me my values and I realized my values were enjoyment, impact, problem solving, personal development and creativity and connection. And I wasn't having fun. I didn't feel like I was making the impact that I thought I would have been able to make and, in the end, the only thing that kept me in that role was the connection with people that I'd worked with, who'd become really close friends. You know, I just felt I didn't have that, didn't have the things that were really important to me and that the company. I felt there was a divergence in our values as well.
Speaker 1So once I'd articulated mine and I looked at what our company values were and what we stood for, and I couldn't see those at play.
Speaker 3It was almost impossible to come back from that it was such a game changer for me as well the values piece. It sounds I think it's much more in common parlance now, but, um, yeah, when I was still working in health care and going through that being coach experience and just learning my top five values changed everything and that was really a trigger moment for me then going on to train as a coach, because it really does give you like a way to audit everything in your life. It can really help you identify the ingredients that are missing, even if you don't need to change your whole career. It can help you find that common thread between the stuff that you like, and that's such a great thing for careers as well. Instead of, okay, I want to go up and be a doctor, a lawyer and things like that, it's like okay, I really love interfacing with people, and therefore you've got much more diverse option like subset of careers and you can sort of chase after yeah, I'd say in a minority of people that actually know what their values are.
Speaker 2So when we met I was um quite honest that at some point in my life I had actually googled uh, what would one's values be, if one? Were to have values, because I just didn't even know really where to start and there's so many, there's words aren't there and maybe different interpretations of what those words mean, and and they all sound good.
Speaker 3Right, yeah, like, yeah, I agree with all of those. It's only when you start prioritizing them.
Speaker 1No, but that's where I had the biggest disconnect was when I was on this leadership course with all of my peers and I listened to everyone else replay them and you know I was. I didn't, it wasn't overt, but I almost felt like putting enjoyment first made me feel frivolous yes, it's when you don't hear in the corporate setting.
Speaker 1And everybody else had power and integrity, wealth, integrity all over the shop and I'm like integrity is living your values yeah, exactly he's living your values like you can't have integrity like we also get wound up about the semantics and I just looked at these and went are these people that I really want to hang out with these people where you know? It just became really clear that their drivers were on their own personal context and one of the things this course had done sent us a question about what's your ambition? You know, what are you looking for? What's the next step? I sat at the most moment. I can't answer this because my life is freaking brilliant.
Speaker 1I don't know how I've ended up here, but where I was was far in excess than anything I could have possibly have dreamt up yeah, and I sat there and I went like, how could anybody who's in a similar context as me, we're all at the same grade, we're getting paid similar ransom money how could anybody want more than what we currently have? And then all these people like, yeah, second homes, lamborghinis, you know all of this stuff, power, teams, partnership and I was like, oh, my god, that's what drives you yeah that's not. That's not why I turn up for work no, I get paid a lot, but that's not actually important to me at all.
Speaker 2It's the fact that I'm turning up and I love what I do yes, the definition of success, I think, is quite a um, it's quite a point of friction, I think, for neurodiverse people, because and as you would describe me before, I think we can get quite easily swept along by the current of other people's expectations and where we should be and what we should be doing, and and it's almost we don't in those moments when things are good and you know, come up for air and actually assess like am I successful, am I living my values? Is this authentically who I am? Because you're just doing, doing, doing. And it's only when we have those moments of pause, whether it's something that we've initiated or the world has initiated on us, that we can actually be like okay, right, let's just let's figure this out here a little bit what I loved about what sophie said is that not enough people I don't think take a moment to acknowledge that they're doing really good, like we.
Speaker 3We often are aware of when things aren't good and we're feeling crap and our job isn't going well and you know, everything's a disaster. But I think too infrequently we go actually kind of got a good life or today's been a, you know, a good day and yeah, more of that. Please love that. Thank you, sophie.
Speaker 1I've always been a glass half full guy, not even half full, full full. You know every for for me a day is a day and everything kind of either equals out to meh or a bit better than meh.
Speaker 3That's awesome. I definitely have bad days, not going to lie.
Speaker 1I have bad days but they don't stick for me. In that way I find it really easy to kind of reset and refresh and contextualise things and I think again, maybe this is autistic rationality of like that was just one day.
Speaker 3I really like that. Yeah, I definitely need to like get some of absorb that.
Speaker 1I've always just been very kind of like you just focus on the thing at hand.
Speaker 1Yeah, I'm not good at thinking about the future. That you know. It almost terrifies me. You know we have just booked our flights for a holiday next week and probably have a hire car Like over. Have just booked our flights for a holiday next week and probably have a hire car like over. Planning and thinking too far ahead. Yes, I really start. I love setting a strategy, but for me it's got to be really practical and manageable and and I know exactly what I need to do in the next week yeah, the next month, like all of this long, long-term thing, I need to know what again, what values I want to kind of live and achieve, but it has to be super flexible so how does that all fit in now with the business that you are currently in?
Speaker 3tell us about that, so.
Building a Business Around Authenticity
Speaker 1I did some coaching when I was kind of trying to figure out what I wanted to do and I thought this coach was gonna you know, look at everything. Go, yes, retrain as a vet or no, you're mad, go back into the corporate world. Let's tart up your cv, um. And I think I did reflect on the fact that going back into academia was probably not great. That wasn't a brilliant experience in my life. It was fine. It got me where I wanted to, but I could read about organisational psychology or have 17 pets if I wanted to be around animals.
Speaker 1I was wondering when that was coming and I could spend lots of times hanging out with vets but not having to stick needles in animals and she really helped me kind of identify my strengths and look at my blind spots and it all just made like perfect sense. It was really easy to kind of look at and recognize. I could see a lot of my neurodivergent traits and I think that's where I kind of connected the the dots.
Speaker 1In terms of my career had been super successful because of my neurodiversity, I definitely had clear differences and deficits and things that I struggled with and needed to be aware of, but had always been able to compensate. And when I came back to when I was happiest, it was always doing strategy and problem solving. But what she challenged me to do was to think about when that had made me most fulfilled and I kind of thought back to, like the incredible corporate strategy away days I do and that was driven by terror that we were going to not be able to come out of it with alignment. The outcome was never a really good strategy. It was just like, yay, we survived the day and we've got something on paper. Let's okay, let's implement that.
Speaker 1When it felt most meaningful was sitting with friends who were setting up their own businesses or trying to figure out what they wanted to do, and, you know, listening to them and holding that space, encouraging them to share their dreams and then helping to create a roadmap to get there. So you know, while corporate strategy was all about mission and vision, you know, I rediscovered the concept of big, hairy, audacious goals and how that combines passion, purpose and impact, which is very value driven. And when I look at women, when I look at neurodivergent entrepreneurs, they're not doing it to be squillionaires, they they're doing it because they want to solve a problem that has impacted them, that impacts others. They want to make a difference, yeah, and so when I thought about when I had the most joy and felt like I had made the most impact and was living and working in a value, it was with my friends around there, you know, dining room tables with scraps of paper and crayons and mind mapping things, and I thought, well, I wanted to do with Lamborghinis not a Lamborghini in sight and it was, you know, businesses, that skeptical corporate, so if you would have probably gone, there's no money on that, but you know I could see the joy and the and the benefit that they were bringing to the world and to their clients.
Speaker 1And, yeah, so I I thought, ok, how can I bring all of the things that I've learned over the years? How can I bring that corporate strategy? How can I help people who are blocked by technology and kind of enablement, you know, who want to think about people and teams and culture as well, and organizational psychology. How can I work all that together and use that to kind of empower people that I think are going to make a difference?
Speaker 2that must make a difference for Sophie too, right? Oh, yeah, um.
Speaker 1I mean corporate. Sophie was masking continuously exhausting exhausting, setting no boundaries. So you know, figuring out my values, getting my diagnosis, realizing that I wasn't in a space, safe space to die, to disclose, and being really excited about telling everybody what I discovered about myself. That was a big impetus for leaving and kind of figuring out how to, how to understand myself and then recreate a life where I could build in more self-compassion and accommodations. It's night and day, absolute night and day.
Speaker 3I think you touched on a really important point there the disclosure, non-disclosure, um piece. There's going to be a lot of women listening to this who maybe don't have the option of you know or the desire to leave the corporate world. What advice would you give to people who are going through this experience in you know, a larger organisation which they intend to stay at?
Speaker 1I think it's really dependent on the environment, yeah, and how able you are, and accepted it is, to show up as your true, unmasked, authentic self, true.
Speaker 2I think it's almost like it's kind of a process and it's a journey for both the individual and the company as well, and I think with some of the later diagnosed women that I know and that I work with, like getting your ducks in a row and being very like, okay in yourself is definitely step number one, because nothing good is going to come of trying to then school your company on how to, you know, be neurodivergent friendly. If you're not, how do I say?
Speaker 1this. I think the work is in really understanding yourself, yeah, and figuring out what you need to be able to show up as the best version of yourself. That is an ongoing journey, then it's about you know. I think I would have if I'd stayed in the corporate world. I would have kind of prioritised where I needed, maybe not to disclose but maybe to be a bit more explicit about my needs.
Speaker 3I like that.
Speaker 4Talking about your needs, yeah, yeah that's a really good piece of advice, actually, actually this is how I work best.
Speaker 3This is what I need to. When I took on the HR role.
Speaker 1We moved into a new office all open plan. That suddenly became like a massive challenge and I hadn't really anticipated it and I needed a space and I needed to be able to go and focus and have the right temperature and you know people always mocked me for the number like I brought in my own coat stand so I could put layers on it because I was always struggling with kind of sensory things. So I would have started with advocating for, you know, having an ability to book a space that I could use for 50% of the time of blocking out time you know, after big people, days to go and have complete solitude to rest and recover and knowing myself and kind of figuring out, okay, what you know. I'm getting into spoon theory with my son now and you know, understanding how many spoons you have, what takes your spoons and what saves your spoons and for anyone who doesn't know spoon theory, do you want to just give a one-line summary of what that is?
Speaker 1every day you wake up with a finite amount of energy and certain activities take units of energy and the analogy is your spoons. Um, and you know so maybe you start each day with 20 spoons worth of energy. Maybe meetings, social events take three, maybe maybe 15 15 sometimes brushing your teeth takes three, yeah, and, and everybody finds different things. There's no consistency in how many spoons an activity takes. It's you know, maybe one day brushing your teeth takes no spoons, but another day it takes five spoons.
Speaker 1But it's about knowing and being tuned with yourself about your energy levels and how far you can push yourself and what needs to be within your sensory diet, your toolbox that's going to help you recover and replenish. And then I think the other thing is, you know you're probably not going to find a massive community within your organisation of you know disclosing neurodivergent individuals who are happy to put themselves on a pedestal and share their experiences. And you know, create a merry band of you know lighter, lighter verse, non-eye contact making individuals. They're probably not going to find that, but you will find it elsewhere.
Speaker 1So, I think, reaching out and connecting and finding your tribe members yeah and finding a place where you can show up exactly as you want to show up really joyfully, that you know that's a spoon investment like that. That's incredible a spoon investment.
Speaker 2I think the the good part of that is you can usually spot us from a mile away.
Speaker 1I don't know, I don't know how it's how we connect, but do we kind of magnetise to our tribe? And that's been such a joy over the last few years of meeting some incredible women.
Speaker 2They are all incredible. It's like the rule. I've not met one I didn't love.
Speaker 3There's got to be some assholes out there, but I haven't knowingly met them yet. Yeah, I love this community. That's why we do what we do, and I think the visibility piece is so important you putting yourself out there to me the first time you met me. Again, such an important piece like knowing who to turn to and then who to connect with, and it all rippled out from there. And then I found out. Obviously there was more in my network than I realized, but yeah, that sense of connection, connection, is a big value of mine, so it really really helped ground me during what was a very confusing time. Yeah, so if people want to know more about the Growth Pod, which I'm sure they will, how can they get in touch with you? How can they find out more?
Speaker 1I have a website, wwwgrowth-podcom, which has a bit more about me and how I help either individuals who want to launch or grow a business. I have an Instagram, which I'm not very good at doing anything on because that takes consistency and I have great plans for it. There is no judgment here, but they can look there as well. Or I'm on LinkedIn as well and I'm sure you'll put the link in some show notes or something. Yeah.
Speaker 3What is the Instagram handle?
Speaker 1Just so we've got that At growth underscore pod Excellent.
Speaker 3Thank you, you're welcome Is there anything else you would like to add? Any top tips or moments of wisdom as we close?
Speaker 1I'm a toolaholic, so I love my tech and it would be a hard can I have three.
Speaker 3What do you think pushing the?
Finding Your Tribe and Tech Tools
Speaker 2boundaries here. Go on then three okay.
Speaker 1So one is a remarkable notebook which is like digital notepaper, with no distractions, because that's my medium and I can plan and do everything and everything's there. I'm never losing anything. Second is a calendar, digital calendar. That's a physical frame in my living room.
Speaker 1Oh, you've got one of those We've been talking about that when it does everything and everybody can see everything and it's got all of the lists and then the app on the phone. You can walk around the kitchen and go bananas, cereal and it puts it all into a list and then somebody else can pick it up and do the shopping. Because I don't like shopping or I do, but I take forever and buy too much stuff.
Speaker 3Um and chat gpt made a good chat, chat, gpt, and actually it was pretty life-changing.
Speaker 2So I think this week I'm going to be investigating the uh calendar, because we've been oming and nhing about that for a while, so I'll be picking your brains on that and seeing if that will be the next thing to transform my life they will, I can guarantee you yeah everything like I'm always looking for the next thing to transform my life, but this one's going to be the one yeah, definitely, and I'm sure that there are a lot of fast brain women, um, obviously working with women, neurodiverse women and, um, anyone that has a sort of social impact cause. I know that within your organization you do, um, really kind of facilitate a lot of meetups and connectivity and understanding around anyone that's wanting to start their own business or grow. So make sure you get in touch. It was a great session that I had and hopefully we'll be doing a lot more together soon. So make sure you give Sophie a follow and we will see you next week for a little bit more of Fast Spring Women.
Speaker 2Yay, and that's a wrap. Thanks for hanging out with us today. Before you dive back into the chaos, we've got a five minute relaxing end, all soundscape, to help you reset, unwind or just stare into space guilt-free. If you loved this episode, it would mean the absolute world to us and also ease our rejection sensitivity. If you hit subscribe, share it with a Fast Brain friend, or if you loved it, leave us a quick review, take a breath, stay wild and enjoy no-transcript, so I'm sorry.
Speaker 4Thank you ©. Transcript Emily Beynon.
