 Who am I? I am mom to John Michael. I also spend, have been spending some time in community. I'm the Woodstock WordPress Meetup Organizer and former organizer of WordCamp Atlanta. I run Sugar 5 Design. We're a little web shop just north of Atlanta. We specialize in small business and medical marketing. As Nathan said, we also, I also am the lead instructor at Medical Marketing Unlocked, where we help marketing agencies learn to navigate HIPAA regulations. And I also partner with a wealth management firm so our company can help you grow your profits and then make your profits grow. So, but I am also a neurodivergent supervillain. So, I don't know if you noticed, but I've got a gray streak which is the hallmark of every really good supervillain. And everybody's hero is a villain to someone else. Being a hero is just not that fun feeling for me, but being a villain, I can get down with that. So, who are you? So, I'm here to talk today about running your business when you're neurospicy. And my particular neurospiciness might not be yours, but here's some of the common ones that show up in the WordPress space. I would say a good majority of us who do this work are neurospicy in some way. Here's some of the common ones. Mine is ADHD. So, and I probably have some of the other ones, but this is the one I have a diagnosis for. And I was formerly fueled by coffee, hence this theme. And I'd like to talk about potential and how we can reach our potential in our businesses, but also what it means when you reach your potential. So, I don't have like, hey, you need this tool. You need this thing. What I really want to talk about is learning to manage your energy and where your focus goes, because if you have ADHD like me, focus is the main thing that you, energy and focus is what you struggle with. And every one of us has probably heard at some point in our life, you know, you have so much potential if you could only reach your potential. And everybody wants to reach their potential into they do. And what happens when you've maxed out your potential, we usually call that burnout, right? When you've hit that wall and you are doing everything you can and you can't do anything more. And that is a problem. And one of the, what leads to burnout is we can't sustain our energy and focus for other people's priorities. But we also have trouble sustaining our energy and focus for our own priorities, unless dopamine, we need lots and lots and lots of dopamine because with dopamine, we can do anything. So, talking about neurodivergent motivation, specifically ADHD, we get motivated and get our dopamine from different places than neurotypical people do. So, for us to be efficient and productive, we need the task and the dopamine. And together, we can be efficient and productive. Without those things, we just have a task that's just hanging. And we, we don't know why we can't do it, but we just can't do it. So, here's the different types of neurodivergent motivation for ADHD specifically, novelty, urgency, and interest. So, novelty, I mean, we all know what new shiny means, right? Like, that's the thing that we want to go to. Urgent, like we can probably do two weeks worth of work in the 45 minutes before something's done, right? And interest, is it, is it in my special interest area? Is it challenging? Is it something that is going to stimulate my brain and give me dopamine? Because with dopamine, I can do anything. But this is different from neurotypical motivation, neurotypical motivation, consequences, importance and rewards. How many of you have had someone say, I don't understand why you can't do this, because if you don't, these are the consequences that are going to happen. Or this is so important, why can't you, like, muster the focus when it's this important? Or, you know, if you do what you'll get out of it. Well, our brains just don't work that way, because neurotypical motivation just doesn't work for us. Neurotypical workflows don't work for us. And neurotypical workloads don't work for us. And because we're not neurotypical. And if you try, keep trying to push yourself into a neurotypical box to folk, to exist and function like they do, then that ultimately leads to burnout. And that doesn't mean that we can't handle the same types of problems and we can't handle the same types of projects. It just means we have to manage our energy. And that's something I really want to talk about and make you think about today. So that's me. And why is that me? Because I feel like things are always going a little sideways for me. But that's okay, because I'm having fun. So we are really great. And some of the great, we always think about the downsides of having ADHD. But some of the upsides are, you know, sometimes you can be super energetic, you know, also sometimes you can be drained. But the upside is energetic, super creative. And when the dopamine is there, we can be hyper focused and spontaneous, passionate. And my God, if I'm not the most competitive person I have ever met, you know, and competitiveness is, does give you the competitive edge. But what a lot of us struggle with is being seen as being reliable, right? So if you're not managing your energy well, your inner integrity may not be translating to outward integrity. If you're missing deadlines, if you are not able to follow through, because you don't have a good plan to manage your neuro spiciness, then our outer integrity suffers. And so that's what we want to address. So where we want to make sure is that we're focusing on our strengths and where our energy goes and understanding that there are going to be some places where our energy fails. And we need to plan for that. And we need to adjust for that. So when we, when we don't plan for that, we get burned out. And I hit a really big burnout during the pandemic. When I say I reached my potential, every bit that I could do, I did. And then I couldn't do anymore. And that felt like failure. So everybody says, well, you know, if you could just reach your potential, well, I did. And it was a failure. And I had to learn how to restructure my life so I could continue on. At the time, I was running a business, homeschooling a child, and also trying to support my community. And I couldn't even support myself because I was burned out. So talking about energy, introverts versus extroverts, I know you probably all know this, but introvert does not mean shy. It can mean shy. But I am an introvert, and I'm probably one of the most outgoing people you've ever met. I could talk to a rock and we'll be friends and be messaging on Twitter before the day is over. But introversion, mean introversion versus extroversion is really more a managing of energy. We're going to be talking about this the whole time. Introverts get drained in complex social environments, and extroverts get charged up. So introverts want really more meaningful, deep one-on-one conversations. And extroverts really, they just get charged up with just like the chaotic nature of lots and lots of attention and focus. And I used to think I was an extrovert, and then I was just really sleepy afterwards. No, no, I'm an introvert. So what activities do you do in your business where it gives you life and you just feel so vibrant, right, and so alive versus the activities that you do in your business that make you feel like you're going to die? You know, I think tracking this and like understanding if I'm going to be doing today, if I'm going to be speaking to a lot of people and I'm going to be doing things that drain me, I don't need to have too many of those things in my schedule for a day because I know myself and I know I'm going to run out of what I'm of my energy. Now, this is a really, really touchy subject. Internalized ableism. Growing up with ADHD, there's probably a good chance that you heard things and messages about yourself and your value that you internalized over time. Are you lazy? Do you not care? Why can't you do something? Are you faulty? Are you broken? No, you're not, but you may be carrying these internalized messages and they force you, like compel you, make it compulsive for you to keep trying to do things that your brain is not set up to do. That's what really led to my burnout. I was sitting at my desk up to 12 to 16 hours a day some days trying to get four tasks done that my brain could not do and I kept trying to force it and force it. I know I can do this. I know I could do this, but I couldn't do it because I wasn't managing my energy. I was trying to push myself into a neurotypical box. I didn't get diagnosed until I was 49 years old and when I tell you it was the best thing that ever happened to me because I was like, oh, this explains so much. I've been trying to live as a different person than I really am. I'm not broken and I know ADHD is technically a disorder. I'm not a medical professional, but having spent time in the ADHD community, my personal opinion is ADHD is just a natural variation of the human experience. We were built for a different type of society than we have right now and that's okay because I feel like what we do have is superpowers, but we might still need to be peeling back that onion and looking at the messages that we are telling ourselves. Non-judgmental self-observation is one of the most powerful tools that I have in my toolbox of my personal growth and learning how to navigate this. I can say, oh, I didn't realize that I thought that about myself, just by observing the thoughts that I'm saying because that can drain your energy as well. Has anybody heard of Spoon Theory? Spoon Theory is a term coined by Christine Missarandino and she's kind of a very popular blogger and she was talking to a friend one day about what it was like to live with chronic illness and while this isn't really an illness, it is a disability and the way she described it is she grabbed a bunch of spoons out of her pantry and she laid them out on the table and she said, imagine each one of these spoons is a unit of energy that you have for the day and this is all the energy you have for the day and anything that you're doing that is not naturally energetic for you cost you a spoon so maybe that might be for some people just getting up and taking a shower and getting dressed, you remove a spoon. Do you have to go and be in a noisy environment if you're sensory sensitive and maybe go shopping and the music is grating on you and the people keep bumping into you, remove another spoon. And she kept doing this and when all the spoons are gone for the day, however many spoons you have and everybody has a different level of spoons, but when all your spoons are gone, you crash and you're burned out for the day and you have to rest but you can borrow spoons from the next day and just keep pushing and pushing and pushing but that is what causes illness. So also when you're running your business with ADHD and if you find yourself being sick and missing productivity time because you're ill a lot, are you borrowing spoons from the next day and think about like as you're going through the day just being aware of how your energy levels drop or rise with different things you do can help you manage your productivity. And with the things that what I said the activities that give you death, the ones that just make you want to die, like if you're tracking this stuff as you go along and you're thinking about you know what really costs me spoons, where am I really getting drained? This is something that you can start thinking about delegating to somebody else. If you have a team maybe this is thing these are things that your team can do and last week I heard this lady on TikTok and TikTok is like the best thing ever but also in ADHD or is kryptonite. I was almost late today because I was watching TikTok before I got in the shower. So she said this lady said that what she found really helpful was making you know we all have to-do lists right? And lists and planners are the bane of an ADHD years life. Could you just get a planner? Everyone says to us why don't you just make a list? Come on. Like why didn't I think of that? But anyway so she says instead of having a whole list of all the things that she thinks she needs to get done today she'll choose four. What's the priority and she'll put that on her to-do list and everything else that she thinks that she needs to get done she puts on the list to delegate to the universe. And what ends up happening is like when you have ADHD your brain just keeps running and running and running with all the things you have to do but when you delegate it you can kind of shut that channel down and that energy is no longer being depleted thinking about the things you need to do because it's been delegated. And she said what ended up happening was almost miraculously things on the list that had been delegated to the universe things started just getting done. And that's you know probably scientifically speaking that's probably because your subconscious is working on it because you know it's a problem but you know if you're you can ascribe other reasons. So here's your takeaways. These are things that help me throughout the day just little tips and tricks. Keep your shoes on. So if I keep my shoes on during the day if I'm working at home it's keep signals my brain that I am still active for the day and that I'm doing stuff. But I take my shoes off I might as well take my bra off too we're done like we're done. Dopamine stack so do you have something that you really don't like doing you can pair it with something that gives you dopamine for me I would rather take an old school beating with a belt than do my bookkeeping like I just I hate that more than anything but right now I don't have a team member to delegate my bookkeeping to and so what I do is I pair it with an album that I really really love and so for that Icarus Falls by Zane is my productivity album it's an hour and 35 minutes long it's a double album and if I need 90 minutes of productivity on doing something that I just I don't really care for I will pair it with listening to this album and I've done that so many times now that when I turn on that album my brain switches on because I have trained it to associate productivity with that music also Pomodoro techniques because we are competitive deadlines are important to us and so Pomodoro is kind of like where you can set a timer for 20 30 60 90 minutes whatever your stretch is and and do that and then take a structured break and you have to stop when you're done and so it forces you to take breaks because also even if we're not being productive sometimes we find it hard to stop stop in our inefficiency because we're like but I need to get this done no you need to take a break and come back GDC JRS so this is a system that I came up with to help my son clean his room and my son also is a little neuro spicy so we have a lot of fun and a lot of mess a lot of the time so we have to have systems in order to manage our home and maybe there's a version of this that you could use in your business and so what it stands for is garbage dishes clothes junk reset and sweep because he would look at his room and say this is overwhelming I don't know how to do any of this and I say well but do you know how to go grab all the garbage out of your room you know how to go get the dishes how to pick up the dirty clothes how to put the junk where it goes how to reset the room like if the pillows go over here and this is kind of moved out of place and you know how to sweep and so each one of these things takes him about three minutes and I'll tell him if he's got if he's getting bored or I just need him to go do something like go pick a letter and he knows what that means and he'll go pick a letter and he'll do it and he'll just go on with his day but I found this very helpful for myself because there's a lot of times I've got a lot of things to do and in my mind I'm like that's going to take forever and in reality how many of you have put something off for weeks and then when you went to go do it it took you 15 minutes yeah like for real um so having a list this is kind of like I have a list of things that take me between five and 15 minutes that I have to do on a recurring basis and when I'm like okay I know I need to get stuff done but I'm like spinning my wheels I'm like just go pick something off the list right um and also we think we're going to remember things but we don't I mean I can remember an exact conversation from the last time me and my romantic partner got into an argument and I remember everything he said and blah blah blah but if you asked me what is next on my to-do list or what I have to get at the grocery store nothing right so um I have just just decided that I'm outsourcing that to Alexa so every time that um I'm like oh I'm out of this Alexa put this on the shopping list and I've got an IFTTT um integration with from Alexa to Trello for my to-do list like I have project management but then sometimes I've just got stuff in my head I'm like oh I gotta get this done Alexa put this on my to-do list right and so that has just that one thing has changed my life um and then PM guy versus AM guy does anybody here have an AM guy that's a go-getter and a PM guy that just screws everything up yeah right um my PM my PM gal um is lazy and she when she is done the shoes are off the bra has slung out the arm um we are done for the day and um and she's kind of a jerk but I had focused for the longest time on my morning routine because we hear oh you've got to have a great morning routine morning routine but what I'm finding and being in the ADHD community and you know really observing myself non-judgmentally is that the bedtime routine is really the most important because in the morning you're already in the day right you're and I find it much easier if I'm emotionally detached that I'm preparing for a time that's not now I can like the the stress is off and I can do things and enjoy them um as opposed to in the morning like I have to have my clothes set out the next day like make sure that I know what I'm eating for breakfast because I actually have to journal out what I'm eating breakfast lunch and dinner or I will like get into a hyper focus and then realize I'm starving and now I don't know how to feed myself because I'm like stressed out um but then if I can just look at what I'm eating I'm okay I know what I'm doing I bet you're wondering about eyebrows right so eyebrows um so if you raise your eyebrows it releases and you hold them up for a little bit it releases a micro dose of dopamine and serotonin and um so if you're finding yourself stressed out you can just raise your eyebrows but if you ever see me walking around like this you know the way I'm not having a great day all right and um I'd like to just I'm not a doctor but I would like to emphasize that medication is not the enemy for a lot of people medication is literally life saving I was diagnosed earlier middle of last year and um I was put on Adderall and within two hours my brain turned on for the first time in my life fully and there was a um a task that I had been putting off for four months because it seemed so overwhelming that I could not move forward and it was costing me thousands of dollars a month within two hours of my first dose it was done and this is not everyone's experience but for me I had been living my entire life on 20 percent of my brain power and so getting medicated has been um one I was no longer anxious and depressed and um I was able to fully function as a human um and not saying that anybody who's not medicated isn't human obviously we are but um it is there is an issue with how much dopamine our brains make versus how much our environment requires right and there's nothing wrong with not medicating but there's also not anything wrong with medicating and we hear a lot of messaging around ADHD is uh or Adderall and Ritalin and Vivants and all of these things that they are just crutches well yeah when you've got a broken leg you do need a crutch right so um when I say I'm basically an evangelist for ADHD medication because it has changed my life I was I was so depressed and anxious and I had to come off my depression medication because my um I was having problems with my blood pressure and when I went and had my first medication appointment the doctor I said do well well now that my blood pressure is back under control should I start back my um my depression medication she goes no let's wait most people when they get on medication their depression anxiety severely drops you know it you know it almost goes away in most cases because you've been fighting a brain that doesn't match your environment for so long um that you just become depressed um I also my blood pressure um didn't I started not have a lot less problems with my blood pressure and I dropped 15 pounds because I was no longer compulsively trying to soothe a brain that didn't match my environment so I would like to just encourage you to embrace your superpowers and give yourself grace for the ways that your brain doesn't match your environment because that's not your fault and but if you continue to live like it does match your environment you're it's going to hurt you and you're going to be less productive and you're not going to enjoy yourself as much so does anybody have any questions I went through that pretty fast anybody no yeah no yep there we go there we are all right thank you April that was fantastic I enjoyed every every single minute of your presentation thank you thank you um any questions no how about this is anybody have a thing that um people have told you or bad advice that people have for 80 hd years I'm going to give you an example I um I found these last night on twitter see if it resonates with anybody one just make a list make a list or buy a planner anybody anybody have planners anybody have 47 planners just focus wow why didn't I think of that um don't overthink it like I have a choice all I do is overthink uh anybody else have anything that they that they hear a lot that's unhelpful advice or maybe you have some helpful advice yes well I don't I don't have anything to add to that list because I've heard all of them but first of all you said you were diagnosed at 49 I thought you were 35 so I you know but uh I was diagnosed when I was about 30 and uh I also have high blood pressure and uh lately I've had to come off of Adderall because of that what uh do you know anything and I understand the disclaimer that you're not a doctor I kind of figured you probably weren't I probably not yeah but uh do you know of anything that maybe doesn't have that same because I mean it's basically a stimulant the only thing I found that wasn't is Dratera which the doctor put me on a dose that caused me to be sleepy all the time and that's a no go for me so just any thoughts on that or how is your blood pressure now that you okay so that's a really good question um I'm extremely sensitive to medication and so when I went in the minimum dosage that they usually start you off on Adderall is 10 milligrams so I knew right away I was like I'm probably not going to be able to take that because my blood pressure is very sensitive it was under control and I I did try 10 milligrams and my blood pressure went through the roof right and then I was like oh that's not going to work but I had asked my doctor because I know I'm sensitive to get instead of a 10 milligram to give me two fives I said because then I can like build up over a series of weeks and that's what I did I took five and then I would I would monitor my blood pressure and and then I had because I had um I was on short acting to the first one right um and then once I was able to take five like after a couple of weeks because I doubled up on my blood pressure medication at first um and once I was able to not have that second dose I was like okay now let's go to you know 10 and once I was able to do that then I switched to five extended release I mean I really just built up my tolerance but I know still some people can't do that and what I have seen help with other people in my life and I know a lot of people are not a big fan of Joe Rogan but his um um on it his company on it has a product called alpha brain and it is extremely helpful for some people um also pairing um I've heard in the community pairing lion's mane and chaga um the mushrooms with caffeine is you know a good supplement personally caffeine affects me more than Adderall does and so that's not a good I mean when I say that I love coffee uh my my bestie here knows like I am a coffee person so switching to DF was a big change for me but I had to come completely off of coffee to get the full effects of my medication because I couldn't have the two together you're welcome you're welcome all right another question hello that's a thorough fellow neo divergent yes I've heard it all from social media saying we're immature you can grow out that behave better uh that doesn't work it doesn't um you know one of the things autistic people like to do is stimming mm-hmm clap my hands a lot sometimes I mean another thing I've learned over time is to relax you know I like I like to my alone time I'm an introvert too so I have stuff on the computer I just I like watching cartoons any cartoons or game shows weird things but I've learned over time ways to manage my autism and then autism in the age to do your chronic was to each other very close yes but um like I said I just in order to behave the people from social media or in person that says bad things about me because it's seems like it's growing especially under certain people around the world and it's just it's getting frustrating well there's a lot thank you for bringing that up um I think we fall into a lot of a lot of times we fall into the category of other because we are not like you know the other people around us and people sometimes have an aversion to other and so breaking down that wall of um one with each other and kind of like well we might be other but we are same and being connecting to the other people who are newer divergent is has been very helpful for me but I'm glad you brought up stemming because stemming is also really helpful for ADHD people like I know um so stemming is any repetitive activity or motion that relieves stress and a lot of times for me it's like with my fingers like I will do this or I will tap my hands and that's releasing energy or stress in the environment um I know people who like just like rub their legs or their arms and um in in childhood a lot of us are told to stop doing that you know please stop doing that you're making other people uncomfortable or stop fidgeting but fidgeting is literally managing your energy supply and so maybe there's a way you know maybe you can't get up in the middle of a meeting and start spinning right but maybe you can have a fidget toy or some type of way that you can channel your your fidgeting but if you need to spend by all means spend thank you for that there's thank you um you on one of the quality opening slide you had um auditory processing delay um what from your experiences or maybe you know input that you've gotten from other people what are some of like the signs that they were showing they were showing some struggles with and what were some methods they did to overcome those so um I am not diagnosed with audio processing disorder but I but I did go see an audiologist because I do have all the signs of audio processing disorder and um I was told that they don't diagnose adults with that I think that's changed that was about 10 years ago um but for me the signs were when I would be under stress people talking to me in my native language English sounded like a foreign language so I would say what what and it's it would just sound garbled because my brain would not translate the waves that were coming in into correct language or um also in this this is across a lot of neuro spiciness is um the hyper focus where you literally can't hear somebody talking to you right so you're you know you're focused and someone's like and then they're like why are you ignoring me I'm like I didn't even know you were talking you know so that um and also a lot of you know sensory sensitivity crosses a lot of the borders but I think also if you like if you're having trouble processing language for one is probably the biggest hallmark there's a great book called the win the brain can't hear and this it's actually um what really got me going down the rabbit hole of learning about my own brain because I had felt like it's almost like an audio dyslexia right and um for for years my mom would tell me you have selective hearing right you want to hear what you want to hear and and I'm like I I'm really not you know and I was walking through the library and it just caught my eye when the brain can't hear and I just stopped and I went oh my god and pulled it out that is a fantastic resource and it explains a lot of that thank you to talking about the voice the audio processing because English is my third language and I literally can shut English and don't hurt anything and I got a trouble with it I I just figured it out these right now get that book it's an incredible resource yeah it really is and I would and I know I've said this but if you are neurodivergent in any way I strongly believe you're probably extremely gifted in some way and I think that's just the brain's way of balancing like you you have this extreme giftedness and we had to pull something from somewhere else and that's just where our deficits are is where we got pulled from and my question is how do you keep up with all the ideas came up in your brain all the ideas that you have when you're driving and you see something oh would be cool if I do something or you just you know tune your couch and see like an advertiser like oh that would be nice how do you keep up with all these ideas pop up in your head every single second so that's a great question and I used to think I had to keep up with all of that but when you're neuro spicy ideas are like buses another one's coming around the block in 15 minutes and you I just believe you have to learn to let go you can't take action on every idea nor should you or you you know how would you manage your day but it's wonderful to say oh man that's such a great idea you know um and acknowledge that your brain is so gifted that it gives you a constant flow of ideas and that that faucet will never turn off can you imagine how many people would love to have one good idea and we've got great ideas every three seconds right we just have to understand and just practice letting go because you can't you can't do everything but if you do have Siri or Alexa on your phone or whatever the android version of that is I'm a little ignorant in that area so or google like hey google um you can say add this to a note you know if you really want to track something or you found the answer to something you've been listening for and you know it's going to disappear out of your brain in five minutes I mean I really believe in automation I like that I strongly strongly believe in that does that help at all yeah yeah and sometimes it's just remembering I have a solution for that right yeah I wanted to say thank you for your talk it was incredible I'm like all my ears are turning now my question though is how did you figure out the thing about the eyebrows because that's interesting so I am just a compulsive knowledge collector and I'm really interested in everything and I read a lot and I just happened across it I used to wait tables and which is I don't know why I would choose that as a way to make money because that's remembering a lot of stuff in your head all the time and but I would get stressed out and and I read somewhere that when you're stressed raise your eyebrows and it would help you manage your stress so when I say I would like if you ever see me doing like this I would be waiting tables like this oh my god yeah but speaking of waiting tables when we're talking about audio processing disorder um one of the treatments for that is um is they have like a recorder and you listen to the recording and you repeat back what you heard training yourself to remember things and at the time like I said I was waiting tables I was like oh so what I do every day so that's uh water and you want the burger and fries so yeah funny yeah yeah lots of raised eyebrows for me uh hello um so my question comes from how you were talking about journaling your food and what you would eat that day um and I personally I found a lot of benefit in journaling but my biggest downfall is there is that uh I just never remember to do it so same same I struggle so yeah so what are um some things you do to try and keep that they're free to do and stuff like that I guess yeah so I have two a two part answer if I forget the second part that I'm answering remind me because you know that happens too um so first of all um part of my bedtime routine is like I try to plan for the next day right do I always remember that no but setting an alarm like you know even for Alexa like please remember you know like if you know you go to bed at 9 30 every night at eight o'clock you know you can send an alarm for Alexa to remind you um and yeah so what was the second part like how do you how do you manage the the journaling yeah I think so I've tried oh here's the other thing I was gonna say you will find solutions and then they will stop working for you and then you have to find another solution and that is normal and so you are not a failure if you get a planner and it's been working great for six weeks and then all of a sudden it stops working for you and you have to find another solution that's normal for ADHD so give yourself grace there and just understand that every solution that you find is a temporary solution that will stop working at some point right um at one point I was using obsidian so at the using that take notes and I would have a daily journal and it was like here's my plan for tomorrow this is what I'm gonna do and I would track my things and I would have what's a what I'm having for breakfast lunch and dinner and that worked for about two weeks and then it stopped working and so right now I'm attempting to do like you know taking notes with Siri or Alexa and saying you know this is because well I need to capture it when I think about it and so I'm really trying to train myself to let my automations do work for me my you know my smart home and really lean on that and that's a work in progress I mean is I wish I had a better answer for you but it's like whatever works for you and you might have to try four or five of them and then know that you're gonna have to do try four or five more again but I think the benefits of planning your food and at least if you know okay well for breakfast I'm gonna have this for lunch I'm gonna go out you know so that you know ahead of time because a lot of us will crash because we get hyper focused hyper focused and forget how to feed ourselves because now our blood sugar has dropped and we don't we can't process that information yeah sorry I wish I wish I could do better for you we have time for maybe two more questions good morning hi I just wanted to say first I want to say thank you I thank you for other things but I didn't get a chance to thank you for the fact that you are so open as a fellow neurodivergent and someone who teaches this in a course it is refreshing when people are open because as you know people are very uncomfortable so that's my question how do you navigate when you can tell other people are uncomfortable with the fact that you are so open about where you stand so that's a complicated issue I am very blessed that I'm a woman over 40 because when you hit as a woman over 40 you just quit caring what other people think and that's a gift if you're not there yet it gets better you know but also I realize that other people's discomfort is not my problem that is their business and I make a point if you hear me talk about my neurodivergence and you're like yeah you've already told me that um I'm not trying to beat a dead horse with it what I'm trying to do is make it a part of my practice to be open and explain you know like oh yeah well you know I struggle with this because of this and you know or just dropping it into casual conversation like somebody would talk about a neurotypical person would talk about any other aspect of their life this is a huge aspect of my life and so this is just a part of my personal spiritual growth is and personal growth is to be accepting of who I am and this is just a part of my healing journey because a lot of us who are neurodivergent have severe trauma from your childhood um from just trying to focus at having to live in an environment that your brain doesn't match so yeah but I cannot overemphasize the beauty of being upper 40 I agree not uh I wanted to wait until everybody's real questions were over so that I could say one one thing and yes I thank you as well because I've I've struggled with really trying to keep it under wraps not not let people pick up on it so well um um uh part of it I've already forgotten but uh I do think it's really cool that you're that I'm not the only person that says please and thank you to Alexa well I tell him oh go ahead the the other thing when somebody says why don't you ever listen just look at him and say that's an odd way to start a conversation excellent excellent uh talking about saying please and thank you to Alexa I tell my son um because I want him to be in the habit of of saying please and thank you to everybody but I tell him I was like look when the robots take over they're gonna know that you are nice all right April where can we find you for the rest of the day for those who still have questions so I'll be around um and I have let's see if we can pull up the screen because my screen died let's see if is it gonna work no probably not oh but anyway you can look I was too fast look how impulsive I am there we go okay um are we gonna can we go slide we'll just scroll but then you can follow me on twitter I love twitter I love tiktok more but you can follow me on twitter at the april weir eye before the e and um I'm on there several times a day like I'm sure probably some of you are and um yeah ask me ask me anything so I'm very accessible and very open with all the knowledge I have so awesome big round of applause for April thank you thank you all right up next