 Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for coming. There are a few people I don't know yet. So that's so cool. Hi, I'm Mel Hauser. I use sheave pronouns and I am executive director here at Aubreens Belong Vermont and welcome to Brain Club. We are very, very excited for you know this is it's interesting we we started covering neurodiversity and employment. Back in May was when our community advisory board said, you know, you need to take on employment. So we listen. And the community advisory does this and do things. So that's how we inform all of our programs. Anyway, so we did a we did a brain club, and people were so engaged by this topic, I think because like, there's so many not types of employment experiences going on in the world that we just said we're going to keep doing this. So we've been doing a monthly neurodiversity and employment themed brain club since May. Anyway, and let me share screen, not the screen like what what's happening. All right, technology. That is the screen. Okay. And since I have no idea how to work my computer, I think, whenever I, whenever I try to be in like, like single tile mode I always see people that are not myself as the screen I'm like well that's probably confusing. So anyway, here we are. Since there are some books who are new to brain club just by way of introduction, you can participate any number of ways, whatever works for you, you can have your video on or off. And even if your video is on we do not expect anything of you you do not need to look you do not just sit still please just do do whatever needs doing, move, fidget, eat, stim, all the things. And you can communicate however you want to you can unmute and use mouth words you can type in the chat box you can gesture modicum and error error tree. And, you know, safety is the most important thing to watch. And so, so look at you just chatting. Amazing. Did you like it. Amazing. So, so anyway, in addition to affirming all aspects of identity. One thing we do hear to create safety is just that you are welcome to talk about anything you feel comfortable talking about, but this this this I think is is this comes up when we think about workplace experiences that are traumatic and distressing. So, so if there's anything that you particularly experienced as traumatic or distressing, we just ask you to give a content warning for the topic, so that people can listen with informed consent. And when that this way, you know if there's something that would be distressing for someone else they can potentially turn off the sound or leave the room for a minute and then I will type in the chat when the content warning topic is over. So what we just need related housekeeping is if you'd like closed captioning, depending on what version of zoom you have. Usually, you will see either a live transcript CC icon to click, or the more dot dot dot and choose show subtitles. Okay. So before I review past brain clubs. This summer we spoke about niche construction such as our theme for the month of June about designing a life that works for your brain. Of course that the prerequisite for that is to actually know how your brain works and what comes easily what comes. And what are your sensory processing experiences, what are the things that give you meaning and purpose. And then we took it to the next level. When we when we thought about, since what we don't want is the square peg that gets like into the round hole because what happens you break the peg. A lot of times that happens because our access needs are not met. And we'll talk more about access needs in a minute. Because when we asked our community advisory board this spring, how will we know that our community has become more neuro inclusive. What so many people told us is that it access needs. What do I need to meaningfully and fully participate in my environment in my experience, everyone has access needs. And that can be a wide range of things it can be things in the physical environment, emotional access needs, things related to communication, social technology like all kinds of things. I think when we think about neuro inclusive employment. There are so many different layers and nuances for that. And if we would, if we bring the framework of what do I need to access my employment. And that becomes I think a different conversation than sometimes what goes on about, you know, workplace culture, or, or, or whatever, because you know when we think about diversity, equity inclusion, if you can't even access your workplace environment on earth or you're going to feel like you belong. That's of course what inclusion needs. This month at Marine Club, we've been talking about how do we intentionally create neurodiversity affirming environments, not just access but affirming. So how do we intentionally queue safety. And so we, we made this word cloud from an interview with one of our board members, Hannah Bloom not patient therapist around themes of queuing safety at home, so neurodiversity affirming culture at home. And these were a lot of the topics that came up in, in that brain club from from two weeks ago if you miss that one it's a good one back and listen to the recording. And these are like not things that have have appeared in any, you know, DEI at work training I've ever participated in. They're important. They're really important. So, as it relates to neuro inclusive employment specifically one of one of our projects here. I don't get all brains belong is our neuro inclusive employment right spotting program so this opened the spring and community members had the opportunity to nominate Vermont employers that are using principles of inclusive universal design for all brains to thrive. And here, here again are our fall winners and we've got a couple of, we've, we've, we've got one of these teams Hello Turtle Island team, it's nice to have you here as always. And when we studied these organizations content with them figure out what they what they do that they like got that their employees nominated them. What, what we're hearing is is really matching what the literature shows about what goes into designing a neuro inclusive workspace things in the physical environment, thinking about communication, those are, you know, both right a direct overlap of all of these relate to access needs. It's a culture of thinking about acknowledging that that we all have different brains that learn thinking communicate differently. And so you, you have to create workflows that account for flexibility. And that of course can be hard to do. And it's really important to do that. So, I'm going to stop, I'm going to stop share, because I'm going to, I'm going to throw a question out here. Is there anyone who has actually worked in or been in a workplace situation where you felt like you belong that your access needs can be have been met like does anyone actually have that experience that would, would like to share. Sarah, so it's nice when you're on staff says that it's good. Sarah, can I put you on the spot you want to talk about like what like what do you think we intentionally do here that makes that so. Well, I think you know Sarah has talked about this at a brain club before but when I filled out the application to work for all brands belong the questions that were on even the application were so vastly different than any other position I've ever had before. So questions like what has worked for you in the past or not work for you in the past because some of identifying you know what your access needs are is knowing what hasn't worked for you in the past, and then course correcting and figuring out what works better for you in the present time. So, you know, I think asking those questions up front and normalizing those questions, and just, you know, getting clear on expectations ahead of time, really is very different than the way a lot of employers. They just don't ask those questions, you know. So, yeah, I would say that that was definitely my first experience with it was just right up front. You Sarah. Hi Matt. Am I interrupting. Not at all. Okay, I just wanted to mention briefly I worked for a fundraising consulting firm. And you know their main offices are in Manhattan and, and I worked and lived all over the country and in all kinds of different communities and states and cities and. So everything around me was always changing, and everything needed to be created from scratch, whenever I arrived in a new place, which would have been impossible, except their planning, the plan that my job was to implement their plan, and their plan was so good and so tight and so well developed that I had to fly by the seat of my pants by the nature of the work, but the root to success. I just had to follow it. You know, that was, yeah, that was a, it was one of the hardest work experiences of my life. But, you know, I reflect back and I used to just think how difficult it was. But I reflect back now and I'm like, man, you know, when they said your job is to make the plan work. It's because the plan worked unless it didn't. And then I had to do things differently, which was also good for my neurodivergent brain. So, anyway, that is fascinating. I have many questions. Sierra has been so patient. Hi, Sierra. And then I have questions. Hi, everybody. Can you guys hear me? Totally. Awesome. I'm using a new headphone set today. So I think just echoing off what Sarah said, something that was really important for me in starting at Auburn's belong was as a fairly new provider and coming into a new career. I had no idea what accommodations were even options and what I was allowed to ask for in a job where I wasn't allowed to ask for. And so having an employer who very specifically was like, here are options. What works for you or suggesting different? Oh, I've seen this helpful for other people kind of suggesting what accommodations have worked for other people in the practice, or in whatever organization was really helpful as somebody coming in not necessarily knowing what my access needs might be. Thank you for bringing that up, Sierra. I think that that is something that happens, that that comes up a lot here, like with our patients of like, I don't even know what to ask for. Like, and in fact, I would go so far as to say that when you put the onus on the person to come up with their own accommodations or scratch, that's like not fair and ableist. So it's just really, really hard when you have never thought about this before. And you haven't had experience of things going well. That's why, you know, when we when we worded on our employment applications, what did not go well, because, you know, certainly, we also ask like what what is helpful. But a lot of times it's the, the experiences of what did not go well that you can like zoom out and say, Oh, those things kind of had something in common, I think maybe there's a theme here. And so then we have something to, you know, build a build a life around. Just reading in the chat. When I was struggling with panic attacks from sensory overwhelm they asked if having my own office was helpful. Cool, that's great. It was helpful. Even though other social workers didn't have a private office no one had an issue with it. I could go there and do paperwork when I'm with my nervous system and I was so grateful I ended up really committed to the team because that I knew they were committed to me. And Laura is asking, I'm especially curious about ABB it seems like there'd be tons of conflicting access needs. When thinking about how to meet patient access needs while still meeting access needs of staff. Yes. Yes, I will, I'm going to respond to how we navigate that. And looks like part two question thinking about my own question now I think we talked about this in the past seems like being clearly able to name the essential duties of the job and articulate those to potential employees is critical. Absolutely. So, I'll answer this in two parts. So one is about conflicting access needs when two people are more than more than two people multiple people need things that seem to be mutually exclusive. So like the example I always like to give is like in my house. My sweet little love needs to make noise at the exact same time that I need complete quiet in order to think. So conflicting access needs and so what we do at ABB for employment is exactly what we do it in my house which is that we just try to bring transparency and awareness to it. I'll give an example. So as it relates to my access needs as a person and like a potential patients access needs so we're talking about conflicting access needs between like not just employees or employer employee but you know staff member and the people you're serving. So I have auditory processing differences when I don't have visual cues. It makes it really hard for me to know what you're saying. So guess what the telephone pretty hard. So also, I have the kind of brain that can't be in multiple places at the same time, I can only be in one, and I can only do one thing at a time. So like I can't in fact be seeing patients and answering the telephone. So I say that I say that I can't do that. And I talk about my auditory processing differences even if I'm not seeing a patient I have no idea what you're saying on the phone. So, it's transparency, like, hey, this is what our capacity is right now. This is what my personal capacity is this is what my organizational capacity is. And you have multiple other ways of accessing this and you don't have to access this, like, in fact, human beings have a finite capacity, and no one I think tells people that like I don't think anyone ever told me that as a human. There's actually a finite amount of time in the day, and a finite amount of bandwidth spoons whatever you call it you don't get any more when you run out of them, and name that is healthy, I think, right like Sarah's typing in the chat, transparency is the way out of chaos. Yes. And so we name that we, we say literally that we should probably like hanging on the wall for visual supports. It really, it really helps us transparency as a core value, and acknowledging that in a culture of interdependence where it is not only okay but it is normal and preferred to be connected to and with other people. So we really think about, you know, if something is hard, what, you know, is that because there's a mismatch between someone's access needs, and, and the environment, and is there another team member who that is actually there's a mismatch, but now to Laura's second part of your question, and then I'm going to catch up on the chat. Laura asked, I was talking just about when you're when you're hiring someone being really clear. And being really clear about what is not just what are the required duties, like, what's the job, right because like I can think about so many times where I've like, thought a job was going to be a certain way, and then I get there and like it wasn't that at all. The job description was so vague that I didn't even really know what it was going to be and I get there and I'm like, Oh, this is terrible like, you know, I really want somebody working here like wants to do this job, including like, like things that I can't do right like I want to do. So it is just, it's more transparency I think. I'm reading the chat Claudia says I often need a handful of opportunities to quiet during the day. People sometimes make a comment that it makes me seem anti social. Oh, yes, people do that so I know you have an access need to charge your brain charge your battery. And somebody bring club last month I think shared this to the story of like getting shamed for eating lunch in their own office. Like, eating lunch with other people in an indoor work rooms like a great way to get COVID first off, and only an individual can decide where they are most comfortable eating lunch. So anyway, I'm so so so Claudia the fact that you know that as an access need it's an access need and so sometimes that paradigm can sometimes in solely us from when someone else is shaming. I wonder if anyone else has any anything that has worked in employment environments. And as being shamed for not participating in after work activities with coworkers because you don't have the spoons to socially absolutely right, right, like that there's a right way to be in the end first off, I would have, I would imagine that participating in after work activities eating on the lunch room those probably not in the required activities of the job I bet they were not. So that all that. Um, Maggie do you want to like, do you like, are you situated can I introduce you. Yeah, I'm situated. What you're situated. Situated yes you're situated I want to like give you a chance to like warm up and like arrive. Thanks. I kind of thought it was, I sent you an email with everything I was thinking. Yeah. I was like, I fell asleep. And then I was like, of course I'm waking up late. Turns out the need to rest was an access me. I know and I was like, it's fine I can roll right out of a nap and get on this call it's totally fun. Also, I can if you don't have spoons to talk. I mean, I mean you know what I was hoping to talk about so if I missed it, like, if people are talking about other things and you know there's another direction to go I'm totally happy to do whatever, but. Well, I think what you wanted to talk about I'm going to introduce you. And what you wanted to talk about I think a lot of people are going to want to hear about because sometimes. I find an environment that meets our access needs and we have to create our own. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, I am so excited to introduce Maggie car is owner of three mountain cafe in Weitzfield, Vermont. So Maggie is a neurodivergent small business owner who is focused on celebrating neurodivergent folks in the workplace, who is on her own journey of discovering all the things, including her own access needs and cultivating a workplace environment so like as an employer and a business owner and in like, like creating your own work experience to do to do all the things. Yeah. So welcome. Thank you. This is also my first brain club so I'm hoping I have it on my calendar every week so I'm hoping to make it and not be asleep for it every time. If you're asleep it's okay because we record. Yes exactly so it can follow up, which, which is beautiful. Yeah, so can you can you tell us about your business. Yeah, so I own a cafe that I it's actually a legacy business it's a coffee shop in our, in our little ski resort town, and it's been a coffee shop forever and when I moved to the town I got a job here and knew that the place was for sale. And at first was like no no no like I'm getting this job because I just need I'm coming out of being in student life in higher education and I just need like a norm, a normal job like don't give me anything that's going to you know give me too many creative juices like I just want. I want like to go on autopilot and have a normal job. So, the longer I kind of thought about it though like knowing that the business was for sale like it just sort of like inevitably that's just who I am and I was like, I could do this and I could make this this big beautiful thing and a kid, you know there's so many I have so many ideas. And so after a year of working there and like eight months into the pandemic I was like no better time to buy a business. And yeah so some miracles kind of all came together that made it possible for us to like finance for the cafe which was at the time honestly. I didn't realize how heavily I was leaning on sort of my husband's executive functioning to help sort of like push that application through for financing and all that stuff but I was sort of, I've always been sort of the face of all the ideas for the cafe and yeah so the cafe was already because of our local. It's called Upper Valley Services, I don't know if anyone else in the college familiar with like Washington County Upper Valley Services but one employee whose name is Alicia had an existing relationship working there and another employee, Nikki, who had been working there before to they already kind of had this mini sort of neurodivergent population, working at the cafe and me in the background to not really knowing that I was neurodivergent as well. And I think it was honestly them like being around other neurodivergent people so like they sort of inspired. And maybe will make me feel comfortable first you know what I mean and like welcome in that space and wanting to just like help them feel just as welcome and you know, sort of like allow them to really shine and grow in the space as much as I could, which I was just their peer at that time but so interestingly, I was like we like when I bought the place I was like we really need to make this a space for everybody like these staff members have been here even before I was and like they are the face of the business even more than I am in the community knows them. So, let's sort of make this a place that's centered around neurodiversity. And the more that we figured out how to do that, which involved, you know, a lot of like, how do we do things now. And how should we maybe start doing it so that people like Alicia can run the register, and Nikki can, who doesn't typically feel comfortable like engaging customers directly and sort of stays on the food unit and how can we get Nikki to feel confident and that he has access to like whatever he needs to successfully engage customer from like beginning to the end. And it's all sort of like came together kind of naturally. And I think in part is because I understood, like, that there are multiple ways to do things and that everyone can can kind of, you know, have their own ways of participating in what it is we do. If we choose, like, let that happen and like make space for maybe that looking a little different than normal. So I kind of pushed that and we had some days that were like really confusing, I think for customers, maybe really confusing for some of our staff who who were like, like taking the risks of trying a new way of doing things. But eventually, like, everyone sort of started seeing that that was a direction we were moving in and the community was just very supportive of us like, you know, putting someone at the register who you might not typically engage with on a day to day basis, who like, who can't speak, you know, like coherently all the time, and like how do you how do you engage past like, like someone at a register who has very specific needs and so the community was sort of forced along with us to, to like, figure it out, you know what I mean like this is possible, which made me feel good like I was not asking them for something unreasonable, you know, like, like we can all do this. So it was a bit of a just sort of, you know, it was all coming together as we were also pushing the business down, down the hill, you know, just staying open every day. And the other thing too is like neurodivergent workforce and like how underutilized and how many people are under like unemployed, and everyone's struggling to have keep their doors open. And it's like we had people who like Alicia, Nikki, Chris, all connected to Upper Valley Services and like we had such a tight community throughout the pandemic and no issues with like, I shouldn't say no issues, but like, we have people who wanted to come to work. And because it was our little, it was our space in our community and um, yeah, and so I, you know, I'll start there. But I guess part of it is like what I realized over time is that I as neurodivergent person was creating a space really for me, where like my needs could be met, and then realized like, Holy cow, I've got all these other people around me, whose needs can also be met and celebrated and like we can kind of bring our community along for the ride. And so that's where we're at. But on the day to day we're running a coffee shop, which my husband is like, he's really the day to day driver of like, what that like running that system, which is because it's just like, as someone who's currently working with an executive functioning coach, like, not my wheelhouse, like it's sort of things that I'm learning like, okay, if I need to executive function in this way, like how do I access that I'm still in a place in life where I'm figuring that out. And, um, but the, um, yeah, more of the social drive and the, um, the community definitely aspect is all sort of that's like what I'm sort of propelling all the time. Yeah. This is an incredible story. So, so, um, you know, I think what I'm hearing, so two weeks ago, we had a conversation with with Hannah Bloom, who's an occupational therapist on our board of directors, about how you have to be regulated to create a safe environment. And that was like, what do you mean, what do you what do you mean, because it was about it was about neurodiversity affirming culture at home. It's like, yeah, you have to feel safe in your body in your environment before you can create safe space, because energy is part of this. I am dysregulated. I put out energy involuntarily into the into the ether, and part of neuro inclusion is being aware of the fact that there are many people who are hypersensitive to energy to input to vibe. So that ends up being a conflicting access need thing that if like somebody is frenetic and chaotic, it's not, it's often because they're dysregulated. Yeah. So you're saying you had to create an environment where your own access needs could be met. And I would imagine that the regulation status of your employees is probably impacting you like in a helpful way if your employees are regulated, much like when my child is regulated, I'm more regulated, but when I'm dysregulated. My child is more likely to be dysregulated also like it's co regulation is everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hi. My name is Matt Mulligan. I'm a board member here at all brains belong and you said your businesses in Weitzfield. Yes. Yeah, which is lovely. One of my favorite places to go. And I'm wondering is the the model that you're developing and the connection you have with Upper Valley Services is is the the model of your business is it well known within the community. Yeah, that's the thing that I'm really like in the next year, trying to figure out like, because a lot of it was organically kind of happening because of like who we chose to employ, you know, we, we used our skills and knowledge of, you know, each other to like figure it out and I think the next part is is like, how do we articulate what we're doing so other people can benefit and understand what we're doing. And I was part of like, I found all brains belong, you know, for myself, but also because we're trying to like to have more of a face where we're like, hey, we're actually doing something here. This isn't just like an accident, like a happy accident. And, and there are other businesses that I follow to that are. That's my favorite thing to do is just like follow along with who's doing what and how they're doing it and collecting all the information but yeah so that's sort of where we're at and I think like being keyed into this community especially is going to help me like figure out how do I say this, like what we're doing. How do I talk about this community of people and because there's so much I have to learn and but I know universal design for instance I think is a really easy place for us to start talking about it. Like, because there's already existing, you know, like knowledge out there about it ways to reference it, like just enough to talk about with that that I think like that might be the first place to start with at least, like what we talk about Instagram and like maybe we make some posters in the cafe that talk about stuff like this but yeah. And, and my follow up would be. It seems to be that that neuro inclusion in in traditional systems is a real hard push. It's hard to make happen within established systems. But the bottom line, you know, businesses, nonprofits, everybody in the world businesses need to generate income. You know, is there a case to be made that a neuro inclusive work environment and enhances a business's ability to make more money. Yeah, for sure. And we like we're actually about to go through refinancing because of the startup financing we got in a pandemic was not like a long term thing so we're ready to like refinance and Arctic start to articulate all this as well like to to lenders, you know, like, yeah, this paintable model. But it's funny, just because like from personal like when you say that when you say like, is this like, is there a case to be made. I think that there's this like deep insecurity as a neurodivergent person that like, I'm going to screw this up. And it's particularly financially and over the last year. Like, so my husband and I are also newlyweds like bless his soul because like, I don't know I'm just like the dreamer on the impulsive one you know let's buy a business everything's going to be beautiful and great. And I'm we're just like learning a lot about ourselves still. And so there was like a pretty significant financial like downfall over the last year that we've been crawling out of. And so like for any person who is like neurodivergent or hoping to work with neurodivergent people like knowing who you're who your team is. Like what you're good at and what you know you have a hard time like grasping because like Mel and I were talking about like literacy with quick books, like and in my head. After I watched all the commercials as a kid about quick books, like and how accessible it is. I was like, oh perfect it's going to give me all these little, like these little, you know images that are easy to interpret and yeah I was just thoroughly disappointed and like trying so hard to figure out how can I, how can I get this information in the way that I need it. And it took me like it took me too long to figure that out before I needed like we were in crisis mode financially and I needed to step in for some critical help. And so if I had known sort of earlier, like that I that I wasn't neurotypical, and that that was something that, like, like, just calculate something that I'm like trying to understand, like do I have that and but I mean I could go on about that. And just so, like, in particular I wanted to talk about how I'm neurodivergent and needed to create a space for my own employment, but also wanted to share that with other neurodivergent people and like one of my major hurdles was understanding the finances of that business knowing that that's not really my strength. Yeah, so. And it would be great, like Vermont in particular has so many resources for small business owners too. If they had more specific support, like for people who don't have typical brains, you know what I mean, like I accessed all of the information but still had some major major major troubles. Because the the the traditional trains and there are like so many fantastic resources to support entrepreneurs. Yeah, and there is a an underlying assumption of a brain that functions in a particular way. And I think that, you know, I think your story is making the case for a culture of interdependence, where, you know, here, you know, I can say as someone who has a, has this help Julia the math related learning disability. I never thought I could run a business, never ever. And I like, I didn't know I was neurodivergent I just knew that like numbers made me anxious, and I don't like things that make me feel anxious and incompetent without kind of recognizing that, you know, my brain needs to turn numbers into words and like that I And then it's like, okay, it's not like, you know, like when you think about the way that some people refer to adulting and adulting in that ableist way is referring to having exemplary executive functioning skills or like, you know, advanced math skills or like whatever. But I think that part of my co regulation experience with my patients with my staff is that I try to just authentically and transparently being like, I have no idea what this means. And I'm like, oh, you don't know what it is either. Let's call in a someone and like knowing your team not even like within your, your team but like your, like the different onion peel layers of the resources in your community that you're like your, your, your village it's like your team and your village. You know, because I think that part of breaking down silos is recognize it and like, you know, there's, there's people who know how to do most things you just, it's, it's and you don't have to like, it's about relationships, you form relationships, and you're authentic in those relationships. And it will help you and you help people and it's okay. Yeah, it's like you have to reimagine what entrepreneurship is. I'm just seeing in the chat. I was talking about the co regulation among employees and with the customers. Yeah, yeah I and I think that, you know, like, if, if we can think about not even in our own employment experiences whether it's an employee but like just when you, when you go into a cafe when you go into a store when you go to a health care practice, you can tell when the people are stressed out. So, I mean, I, I, I, yeah, oh hi Athena go for it. I just wanted to mention this because it was the perfect timing. I'm Maggie I own a cafe and still and added for 12 years from New York City advertising was my background. We have a son who's nine who has autism. So, in 2013 when we had had him. We realized a couple years later that he had autism, that became my whole world. And it's funny because as we're discussing this and I'm thinking about neuro divergent minds and I'm thinking about people I've come across who've worked for me in this business. These years like I'm thinking like, yeah, they had, but yeah, they have they didn't have autism, but definitely like, you know, so there's so much variety. I'm thinking about access and how would I actually do that in a way that would be productive. And so what I wanted to something really interesting happened to us about fibers, probably seven years ago now. We started to I'm trying to remember how it happened. We had autism and the discussions about it. If anyone knows me. It's I'm talking about it all the time. We are a welcome open employer for anybody on the spectrum we encourage it. We have had dishwashers and we've had people who've worked up front like in all roles here and not just it just so happens that they've had autism. And so I think that was a great moment in particular, his way of feeling comfortable while working was to tell jokes. And I, we're really a busy, busy place, and so Eric, when he'd be working on dishes when it's any he is poor Eric, like it would just become very all of a sudden the jokes would come out, and then they would get dirty these jokes, and not work appropriate. And, you know, we were caught off guard and I wanted to make sure that the staff also felt very comfortable. We had to have a lot of conversation about, you know, we had to keep it appropriate but we also had to have conversation about what do you I we weren't using words like access book a lot of that vernacular is not something that we were using but we are now. Another gentleman who's non verbal who has a one on one with him he when he gets excited and happy which he is because he's here he's the happiest when he's here. He becomes a lot of vocal stimming and a lot very loud and customers were open kitchen so you can see in the back and hear everything. Customers would have things to say about that, and they might have questions. Sometimes they're not questions and they were unpleasant interactions that we've had to have in my world and in my mind, people are everyone in the world must be open and knowledgeable and they're really not. So, there was several times where we had thought, how do we make this normal. I don't care how loud he wants to be. I want him to feel comfortable working here. I want, I'm, it's my son is going to be a very loud person one day in his job. We're going to be on the restaurant will do forever if that's what we need to do. But it's, it's, it is. I'm still at that point where we're not exactly sure. Forgive me for how this might come across because I don't know the right way to say it. I've never seen people who who have worked for me, who've had autism I've never seen others be so dedicated to their job, and who really enjoy what they're doing, which makes me so happy. And I want to encourage more applicants who are neuro divergent to come and to work and feel comfortable. Even people who are outside of the spectrum, a lot of anxiety we deal with in this business deal with a lot. A lot of different personalities, a lot of people in transition a lot of this a lot. And, you know, when you've got 50 people, 70 people walking in the door here for the leaves demanding the food. I already might the people who work for me they having them feel calm. Closing my online store if I need to. Having people wait outside until they feel our staff can work at a pace that they feel comfortable with is what I care about. I will close early, I will close other days if it means that my staff needs to get the ability to regulate, because I want them to come back and I want them to feel safe and have a place to work so I'm really excited. And I want to talk more about everyone's experiences, because it's, it's a real eye opener for me so thank you for welcoming me, welcoming me to the group. I'm so excited to be here and to come to all the meetings I just wanted to jump in and say that I did, I did relate very much so to to not really quite sure about how to have the conversation with the community, or if I needed to, you know. So, yeah, yeah, no thank you so much Athena for sharing that and I would say that I, I, I want when I, when I, when I do trainings to the general community who are not like necessarily here to like for with a particular interest or lens they're just anyway. I talk about how it's it's an outdated concept that there is a normal brain and everyone else neuro diversity is like biodiversity it's the incident number of ways in which people learn thinking communicate. So we are all on this continuum, and we all have unique strengths and you and challenges where we all have that. And so it's so it's not like an us versus them kind of thing. And so with that in mind, if, if I think about how there's no one right way to have a brain, there's no one right way to be a human. That means that if someone is shaming someone for being a human. I want to call them out on that micro aggression, because when I think about neuro cultural competence. What we permit we promote. And yeah, I don't tolerate that because it's like any other, you know, cultural micro aggression. So, so, so I know, I know we haven't met before but I'm also autistic. I think that many people don't recognize that there is a culture neuro divergent culture. And when, when anyone interfaces with whether that be a customer, or you know, whatever people in the world, like, if you have that paradigm of there's no right way to be a person. Like everything else just is taking care of itself right like, did you know there's no one right way to be a person. So, I say that just like that, at least a couple times every week. I love that t shirt I love that. There's no wrong person. And you guys can sell them in your cafes. We sell seven different product lines from neuro divergent individuals who live in the area, and I love it. I don't think I sell much of anything if you people Maggie you should connect with the people or a bell Kate for their dog snacks that we sell out on my crazy and they're made by all the folks up there it's awesome. Yeah, I will sell those shirts. What's what's the name of your cafe. It's called the Green Goddess cafe. Oh my gosh I go there all the time. The connection I wanted a cafe to go like I'm always going cafes in the area because I need somewhere to go now that I made. Yeah, I have five. I'm like, oh gosh where do I go now. Yeah, exactly I know the feeling. Maggie, I have a question for you because we have we have a we have about five minutes left. When we think about how many neuro divergent folks think that they can't ever run a business. I wonder what advice you might have for someone who's like, been in been like like like unable to find an employment space and culture that really works for their brain. Like, like, like, for example, like one of the reasons I quit my job to try to change the world was that my autonomy was violated and turns out autonomy is an access me. So, for people who are in that sphere. How, how can people begin the unlearning process of the I can't do it. Yeah, well, I mean I know I like absolutely there was a time. I think it actually started when I was having like body image issues and I was like, I need to totally clear out my Instagram and fill it with what I want to see and what I need to see and what I want in my life and so like that really started it when I was in like college but now every time like I identify with a need that I have, I go and I scour. It's not even take that long because there are communities out there and people influencers, if you will, who, like, who are out there, like saying the same thing over and over and over again with all this media attention to it like visuals, like talks links to other resources that like so that has been really important for me to find like I always know, like there's somebody else out there I go like, I'm neurodivergent and I'm a business owner there's got to be someone out there with a hashtag that's like neurodivergent business owner. And so like I, I use Instagram as a tool in that way to like the world that I want to see like I literally put it in my pocket because I like who I choose to follow on on social media, which I know social media is like dicey and like there's a lot of things to not like about social media. It's complicated world out there but you do kind of this power to fill your pocket with the world that you want to see and I think that's a beautiful thing. And so I think that has been pretty critical for me just like seeing other people representation is like super important and I know we know that from all the other kind of social movements out there like that's really representation is important and listen like seeing people talk about talk about it goes like a really, really long way. And so, and people just being honest. And, like you said, I forget exactly what what you said, but like not pretending that we have it all together, all the time, like just showing when you screw up and like talking honestly and transparently about how it's really going. It's like, like groundbreaking for people they're like well I can do this, like I can really talk about how it's going and I don't have to be perfect all the time. It's good for everyone to see that and no matter who you are. And I think that I learned that lesson like when I was a kid. So I think I got that like superpower early. But I get it that like, not everybody realizes that and there's this sort of learning curve to figuring out like, Oh, I can be myself, and I can screw up and it will be okay. Like, um, yeah, so, and I see myself more as like a person who's comfortable with risk. And then maybe the average person, but like, yeah, so if you want to do some risky business and you need some help, like with encouragement just, I'll have a conversation with you. Maggie, you're helping to start a revolution. Yeah, let's take some risks and challenge the norm you know I mean Charlie the norm is always risky but there's always a community around every corner that that gets you you know and that's that's really I don't know that's what keeps everyone going I think. It's so beautiful. You know I think when we think about, you know that the, the, the broader a bb village, you know I just, I think about like the universe brings the people exactly where the people need to be for one another. At the, at the, at the, at the time, the time of fate that they need and I think, you know, building, building the world that we, we wish to see because the current one like is not working for like most brains. Right, so like you can reimagine systems. You have to leave the broken one and create your own world like a lot of a lot of the time and whether that's like, you know, within the culture of your family, or of your educational approaches within your family. It is thinking about what are you really passionate about if meaning and purpose isn't accessing if you're not doing that in your current employment, like, if even if the lights are okay like you're not going to feel self actualized you're not going to be living your best life. And the broader culture of interdependence is such that you, you, you don't, it doesn't have to be super risky. So being as I was saying, we just like dope a sync we just like use the same word at the same time. So, so comfortable with risk and being open to uncertainty is a strength in this changing world absolutely go ahead Maggie go for it about coaching. I saw earlier in the chat people were like how do you find someone like this and interestingly enough, I looked for a hashtag Instagram hashtag executive functioning coach, and found all of these people who are making beautiful media, talking about executive functioning and all these really like progressive ways and most of these people do the work remotely because they just need to sit and sort of chat with you once a week. And, and it's more about finding someone who, at least for me I was scoured some Instagram pages and like could tell kind of who I aligned with based on the content that they were posting. But that has been, again, just like normalizing that executive functioning is really like everybody has it, and people need different ways of accessing it and like getting it going inside of them, and but that's just like a normal, it's normal. Everybody, like, everybody accesses executive functioning at different capacities at different times depending on different circumstances and like learning as much as you can about yourself, and your own needs to access executive functioning is like, I don't know. I've been doing that for like maybe two months. And it's been, I had that same question where I was like, how do like there must be a person out there who does exactly that like I learned about executive functioning and then I was like, I'm going to use my hashtag source here and see what comes up. So, yeah, I hope that helps for some people. Maggie. Did I see, does your website offer an app? At the cafe. You have online ordering. Oh yes, online ordering. Yeah, so one thing that we need to work on is just like multiple ways to engage with us but like and I know online ordering is super helpful for some people to not have to go in and do all the things. I plan to come visit. Okay, beautiful. That's awesome. What Jose in the chat says new language creation is necessary for the paradigm shift. Yeah. So paradigm, like the lens through which you see the world and language I think are inextricably linked. So, you know, if language to describe your own identity, language to describe, you know, like, I just, I think there's so many terms. Oh, yeah. Oh, dopest. Oh, you're, yeah, dopest sparkle. So, so for anyone who knows that Steven Universe the cartoon. And when the characters, I think look like they're getting dopamine. They have stars in their eyes and that's how the creator draws them so so my five year old and I we call it dopest sparkle. So anyway, I was gonna say but it's about time to wrap up anyway. Oh no I didn't remember now I remember. And then and then and then me I'm going to call you in a second. So, so there are so many people for whom autonomy is an access need. And so stay tuned in 2023 we are working on building a neurodivergent entrepreneur support program. So, I think that the executive functioning load of even building your village to start a business is just so, so steep, right. So, anyway, we're gonna do it. Yeah, I've only joined late because, because I fell asleep earlier and meant to join but what was said about new language creation. I think that it can be hard even for us to to to use the language available, just because I think I know for me when I was shut down. I just found it so hard to express myself just because of always being told I was wrong. And so. So yeah it's like, we need to, we need to also be able to find ways to well to to enable people to to access the language already existing as well. Right and I think this also comes back to co regulation. So I think that, you know, many of us myself included lose access to spoken communication when dysregulated and normalizing their being, you know, not not only normalizing non spoken ways of communication. We're also looking at, if, if our access needs are not being met. We're not going to have full access to our cortex and spoken communication is a is a high level of the high level cortical skill. I was going to say and there's so much stigma, stigmatization towards anyone who's dysregulated like it's like they're looking they'll think oh there's something wrong with that person without looking at the context like why are they is regulated or what's that's right. Yeah, and so that's it's when when I do trainings that's one of the first things I talk about is so you know, when you see someone dysregulated you should wonder why. Like I don't know if anybody's read uniquely human by Barry present one of my favorite books ever. You know that that that that's that's that's where I first learned that. And, you know, it, it, it makes it when you think about workplace interactions, even if somebody is not overtly flipping their lives throwing things and screaming. Learning to recognize this regulation in other people and in yourself like given how you know the wide weight ways in which this regulation can present. But also when you think about workplace conflict. And it's almost always related to conflicting access needs or failure to understand the access needs of someone else. And so that's, that's why we keep having these conversations because you know, awareness and connection. So thank you. Thank you all so much for being here. And we will look forward to seeing you next week we'll be talking about neuro inclusive recreation. Very cool.