 Hi everybody. Welcome. Welcome to Brain Club. I'm Mel Hauser. I use she they pronouns. I'm the executive director here at All Brains Belong. I'm really glad you're here. Let me share screen, get us oriented. You know for some folks it's your first ever Brain Club so welcome and if you're returning to Brain Club welcome to you too. So tonight our panel discussion on making work work for your brain. Brain Club of course is our intentionally created education space to provide education about neurodiversity and related topics of inclusion. It's a way of trying to bring people together based on a shared vision of what's possible and contribute to systems change by shifting social norms, developing shared language and shared culture. It's a place where people can collectively learn and we like to say unlearn together. Feel safe and for many experience something that's quite different from the outside world and promote new ways of thinking and being. We think that then you go out into the world and that's that's where systems change happen. That's how we collectively change the world. And although All Brains Belong does have a variety of other types of programs this one is not for medical or mental health advice. It's also not a support group. This is an education space. All forms of participation are welcome here at Brain Club including observation. You can participate with your video on or off even if it's on we don't expect anything of you. We certainly don't need you to like look at the camera or sit still or any of those other neuronormative constructs. So feel free to walk or move or fidget or stim or you know whatever whatever works for you. And you're welcome to communicate however you are most comfortable. There will be a portion of tonight's Brain Club where we have a pre-recorded community panel and that will run about 25 minutes. So during that time we'll ask that you stay muted. Though the chat box will be open for participation if you'd like to but after that we'll have plenty of time for discussion and you're welcome to communicate however you're most comfortable. In addition to affirming all aspects of identity we protect the space by asking that if you're going to name anything that is distressing to you or was distressing to you and sometimes that does come up when we're talking about work. We just ask that you discuss the impact of your experiences not the specific events so as to keep the space safe for all participants. Closed captioning is enabled you just have to toggle it on if you'd like to use it. So depending on your version of Zoom you might see the live transcript closed captioning icon but if you don't see that look for them more dot dot dot and choose show subtitles and you can also do the same and choose hide subtitles if you want to turn them off. And that's my visual support to remind myself to actually open the chat and put it in a place where I can see if anybody's using it. Hi everyone. Speaking of the chat one of the things we think is important about neuro inclusive space is naming and negotiating conflicting access needs that is when multiple people's access needs conflict and are mutually exclusive. So the chat box I think is a place where that happens. So for many brains the chat box is a way of being able to communicate without mouth words. It's also a way that you have a thought and you get it out. You don't have to hold on to it so it eases working memory. It's also a way that you know someone says something and then you're kind of thinking about it and like 10 minutes later you have a thought about it. You can share it in the chat without feeling like the moment has passed. So it's a way of engaging that expands access. And at the same time we acknowledge that for many brains the chat has a lot of visual clutter associated with it. It's super distracting. Some people have a startle response to pop ups and sometimes it moves quite quickly and it's hard to follow. We would say that the main idea is going to be up on the screen. The chat is optional. So just invite you to if you can open the chat box window if you're on a computer and like put it somewhere else like where you can't see it. But if that's not available at the first time it pops up try leaving it open. Don't close the window. Other messages will replace the old message but it won't pop up anymore. And if you want a little bit about it's kind of a fancier trick but if you can look next to the chat box icon on your toolbar and your zoom toolbar you see this upcarat. If you click on that it'll give you a way of disabling chat previews. So it defaults to have the checkbox but if you click on that word show chat previews it will uncheck and then it won't it won't pop up anymore. All right that's that's what we got for navigating conflicting access needs in the chat. Okay so um on on to our main event uh so we're continuing our March theme of systems change from the ground up. What we know um is that one size fits all does not work for all and that neurodivergent people are more likely to struggle to access all kinds of critical resources. If we've been trying to unpack um Sierra I'm going to make you as a backup co-host. I'm getting distracted. By the way you made me co-host now. Oh is that is that what happened? Oh that's a lot of sense. I just figured you were like doing something. Nope I'm here. Hello. How long? Now you're co-host. I made someone else co-host. Great so anyway um uh anyway so employment is is is one of those critical resources which is why um we talk about employment a lot. We didn't start it we didn't start out that way though like when we did you know we we knew we'd have a medical practice. We knew we'd have social connection programs um but that's kind of all we thought we do here at All Brains Below and it was our community um and our community advisory board that said no we got to talk about work. People wanted to talk about how work was not working for them and you know now that's why this is like this this huge bucket of what we do here in terms of both educating employers to appreciate the strengths of people with all types of brains and to create environments for people with all types of brains can get their needs met and thrive and direct employment support programs. What we know um is that neurodivergent people are more likely to struggle with employment in these examples there's a lot of literature related to autism and ADHD but that's it's not specific to autism and ADHD but autistic adults are uh four to eight times more likely to be unemployed. 75 percent of ADHD years have employment related challenges and given what we know about the bi-directional relationship between employment and health this is an important missing piece of the health equity conversation. What we know is that many people do not have their needs met at work and when we think about the social model of disability where it's not issues or deficits of the individual but this is this is uh disability is relative the amount of disability that someone experiences is relative to the barriers in the environment. There are so many barriers to access in workplaces and when we think about all of the different types of access needs access needs being anything that is required for meaningful full participation in one's environment or community everyone with all types of brains has access needs it's just that um you may be more or less likely to have your access needs met by the defaults of a given workplace and when we think about some examples of the different types of access need considerations and work the environment including sensory processing communication executive functioning mobility motor coordination technology there's all kinds of things and all of this can be framed according to access this is what I need in order to do my work. Lizzie if um I think this is part of our our social media post from today so if you at some point if you could throw a link to that in the chat if folks like want the slide I mean assuming that anyone would want the slide I think it's on I think I think it's on Instagram right now all right um what we don't want and I'm sorry but I feel we need to fix this sometimes when we import slides it changes all the colors and now you can't read it what we don't want is we don't want the square peg being hammered to to fit into the round hole because what happens you break the peg and there's so many people who are being stuffed into containers that don't work for them so like we don't want this we we we need something different um but but how do we get there and that's that's what's a nice conversation is going to be about um I also want to name and we we we touched on this last month at brain club when we talked about redefining relationship to work and if you can't talk about relationship to work without talking about class I don't think you can talk about work at all without talking about class and I think that um unjust allocation of resources is a huge problem many people don't have their basic needs met and so you know housing food like all these like you know basic safety um but also even even above that foundational foundation of the pyramid it's access to networks the social capital that that is um is is is so much a part of um the off ramp out of like a bad work situation um being able to tap into a network of other people to help you do the thing and so part of what we want to invite tonight is the consideration of like well what what what what like how do we think about networks and um can even at a grassroots level um a network of people you know that you connect with a network of organizations uh like like one of our panelists went hardest here today from the center for women and enterprise just there's all kinds of people um who can help that piece even if someone does not feel as though their current network is it is a sufficient escape clause from their current situation and um that's not surprising that so many people don't feel like they have an out from bad work situations especially when we think about all of the different ways that humans are othered in our society and the intersectionality of those things so when we think about being marginalized for race gender sexuality class ethnicity disability educational status like so many things um that's all part of of of this equation as well um but uh what what we're about to do is um uh in just just a minute david's gonna play our panel discussion and um we'll be hearing from uh five members of our community um uh talking about how work systems might be reimagined and some of the things we might think about and again as the video is playing you're welcome welcome to use the chat and uh with that david take it away i think about all the people that i know who are like dude i can't live like this anymore i don't know i have no skill like i hear this a lot right i have no other skills like we get so caught in that like i can't see anything else and then there's the it's just the treadmill of like i can't i'm stuck like this won't move we're caught in systems that we prop up that we have to to navigate and cobble together and we think the system is bigger than us but the system but that really that it's us like we are the ones that have a uh a role in this and we we can disrupt it it is it's worthy of more conversation like what are the disrupting what are the parts of the systems that we have leverage and ability to advocate or disrupt and i say disrupt and not in the like a yeah not like in a burn the house down way right like in a reimagining way right like either we scaffold something or we develop something that like we we can be creative like we don't have to do things the same way because we've always done them that way the idea of shifting social norms through community connection with this vision of like what what like can i rethink some things in my life that aren't working for me or maybe are working for me and can i learn about my access needs in that way there's there's a role for business and employers there's a role for the worker in this in this conversation there's a role for our government partners and for for people in the the space of policy and and there's an advocacy role here really drilling into what are the benefits of workplaces and the benefits of being a worker and who are those benefits for and who are they not for like how are things by design right now either working or not working where are those gaps in our in the safety nets that support workers or that could support everyone but i this is where i start to think about we talk about benefit cliffs we talk about the sort of the that increasing space where workers are earning more but not having safety nets that keep pace and therefore in in an unintended consequence of actually taking people out of work right the idea of like we want people to be in the workplace but if they don't have the supports they need for stability in their housing and stability in their health care they will only work so much where they can't keep working and they will come out because that's how they get their basic needs met and the resources they rely on and that's a stuck place for a lot of people who who would like to be unstuck yes so maybe like thinking through like what is what is what would benefits be how would we support access to work and all the different definitions of that access to work and what are the benefits that we have currently and how what are the gaps with those benefits i i don't know that's my mind goes there sometimes mostly because having worked with workers over time i've seen how systems and benefits including social security taxes irs like different different systems can can cause big challenges for workers and or not support workers right and i think that like that stuff's just so confusing if you design systems based on data like top down like starting from like starting really local like within your business you know so like i have five employees so i really want to know what those employees need right so like i'm gonna put together this proposal of like i want to get this dental plan and i want to do this whatever but it's like what do you actually need can you look at this like is this actually gonna meet what you need if not we're gonna find something else and i think like that's this is an important consideration for work that it is often overlooked is how it matches a person's individual values and that can happen in a lot of ways you can directly approach a value like i like helping other people and work in human services but i think sometimes we we fall short at expanding that definition if you like helping people you can also work in retail or in customer service uh so overlaying what your values are with what the job is and how it feels and and operates practically so part of that is assessing your values and those will change over time and there's no right and wrong values necessarily so it's there's a level of self-understanding in that exploration and they use exploration intentionally because work can be a way to explore those values or how to tap into them but there comes a time where i think people don't realize that maybe they're really good at doing something right but they don't enjoy it but it's what they do and they're getting money doing this but at the end of the day they're just like that wasn't a fulfilling day sure i was good at this but this isn't is this really what i want we all all people to an extent want to contribute something and and and and offer and help in some way uh you might want to find a way to meet that psychological need through your work where you can contribute and and and help others or you may have robust opportunities outside of work i think it's very often we talk about like like what we do like for work rather than who we are and the gifts we have to offer to our communities so being able to share our gifts sometimes our gifts might be tied to the work that we do but sometimes our gifts are not tied that we could be artists we can be we can be other things in our lives that often don't get to be shared in our workplace or in our communities that's what i thought i was supposed to do you know i thought that i was supposed to find this job and that i would just be really good at it and you know it would be amazing it was hard like you know you're in the trenches and we are like struggling in this like oppressive power system that tells people that their value comes from what they produce and like you work for the system and all that anyway so um uh you were starting to say something about entrepreneurial mindset yeah yeah yeah and i think that one of the key because like honestly formal formal entrepreneurship still follows this same like like expectations right and perceptions as the traditional workforce which are rooted steeped in and hung from an entirely capitalistic and um entire experience right thinking about why we even exist like the center for women in enterprise or sbdc's it's because even our language around entrepreneurship is exclusive right like entrepreneur that's a big word like right like let alone like funding mechanisms like all of the language we have built up to prop up this illusion that this is this exclusive experience you told us like you know you had this job and you had this job and this job and you're like oh my relationship worked how did you actually come to decide um to start limelight restoration we always sort of wanted to own a business like we had thought of different ideas like maybe being realtors or something two years before we started limelight restoration my husband he was already working for a surf pro and they needed like an office manager and i was looking to get out of the role that i had um gone into so i ended up working with him at surf pro for like a year and a half which is this is also the same place that i was fired from the only place that i've ever been let go of and a lot of it had to do with the dynamic of the way the leadership was there was a lot of um complaining from leadership and sort of like making people feel bad for not having jobs like it was very negative and i think my pda and my autistic side really didn't like it morally and so i started to have an attitude and they didn't like my attitude still the relationship that he had with them was great and i was four months pregnant and he came to me and said the owner of surf roe is retiring and i either have to find a new job or they want to sell us the business and so i was just like okay like parallel play to me means first adopting and adapting the mindset that goes into entrepreneurship which honestly there's like a whole breadth of literature around how entrepreneurship is actually a myth like there's no such thing as the self-made person like they have connections like they had a wealthy person in their network right like so what's it look like for the rest of us entrepreneurship for the rest of us is i think building a values-based life and like an entrepreneurial mindset that allows us to be flexible adaptable and really be able to like come up with a definition of enoughness like what does enough look like for me in my life and it's not just money right like we go immediately to there's never enough money is that true though like what do i want the quality of my connections to look like what do i want the quality of my time to look like you have to you have to be able to have the the spaciousness to zoom out to reimagine and when you're like in the weeds in the chaos you can't even do that so you like stick to the systems because it preserves your bandwidth even though that known quantity is ruining your life taking a full-time job at u-haul might not be ideal but taking a four-hour a week job at u-haul gives me these benefits it's not that bad i actually like the people there and i'm also uh signing up for one craft fair where i'm gonna just test it out selling some of my stuff or like you know what i really want to be doing bodywork i don't have any formal training but uh i can help my friend out a couple days a week right like what's really also standing out for me is the idea of it's like the um it's almost like like a self-ethicacy piece um you know i think for me like you know as as someone who suffered in a life that wasn't working for me a work life that wasn't working for me suffered like longer than really was indicated um uh because i didn't necessarily ever think that i could start a thing um i think i mean of many i mean i have so much privilege you know i'm i'm white i'm educated you know and i think that what the consequences of those aspects of privilege are that i've had at least um experiences of like the just even the idea of like consulting other professionals i had done that before in other ways or the idea of like i have felt like i had like a little bit of like mini mastery over like whatever the thing if you've never had that i think that it's very hard to even imagine that you could like forge this interdependent life of your own meeting what do you think about that yes a hundred percent yes absolutely and um i'm thinking a lot i love that you said that word interdependent i love that that is awesome because what that makes me think of is again coming back to like there are so many alternative one of the things that i thought you were going to say which is why listening is important because you didn't say this i thought what you were going to say is one of the consequences for the privilege that you have it have experienced i don't want to say enjoyed because like a consequence was you had a set set of expectations that have been bestowed upon you for generations right you have medical training like you are entrenched right in like a set of this is how it's always done this is how like routine expectations and and so yes i there's a lot of mindset burdens that we have and so okay i'll just pull for my own experience this is my first full-time job this one that i'm in right now i've been here for eight years so like i should stop saying that because now i've had a full-time job for eight years but like before that i pieced together my life based on and when i was in it it felt bad like it felt i felt ashamed like because i wasn't like i wasn't getting the you know promotions from other because like i was making the decisions based on what i wanted to be doing exploring and and enoughness for us is like a holistic approach to how we want to live our life you know and so i think the entrepreneurial mindset can be then adopted and we adopt that when we have formal structures in place that allow us to make decisions that we feel comfortable with that often um there are jobs roles positions out there that don't name our gifts but that we have the offer that would be beneficial to our communities and so we call that opportunity creation where we take people's gifts and create opportunity for that for them to maybe possibly make a living out of that thing and be able to thrive i've not heard that term before and i would love to hear like and if you want to talk about this at brain club i could add this out if not like tell me what does what does that look like that sounds incredible oh so i'll give you i'll give you a really great example and i'll just i mean i think i can name names i don't i don't think she would mind at all but i'll i'll name the names because i think it's an excellent recent example of opportunity creation which we have many so anna anna is a um a latina woman in the state of vermont who um when we were trying to do not try when we were putting together a bipod financial wellness empowerment program she had some expertise in this area and so we along with another individual shonda were able to create financial 101 102 103 financial wellness series for bipod people through the intellectual through the vision of the root but the intellectual property of these individuals and be able to share that in an affinity space with bipod to help um lift them up in their financial literacy wellness awareness and education this now has turned into now anna is employed by windham and Windsor housing trust and she is starting the bipod financial empowerment program that is her own gifts that will go with that will get you out the state buying these um tools and resources and awareness to primarily our bipod communities and so not only did she get to share gifts she got to make connections and relationships and she got got to be paid what she is worth for and valued for who she is no it's identifying the strengths of individuals within your community and investing in them not only are they serving the like you're investing in them they are investing in the community and you've created like together you've created something that didn't exist before which is that is incredible I also think about the bartering thing I think about like right like alternative resourcing talk about that like so this is what I'm thinking about like so from this idea of system change from the ground up like parallel play with the economic system you know in some just needs to involve some some creativity right so you just named several examples of that and I think that it have you have you ever read I'm going to edit this part out but have you ever read the book impact networks no oh my gosh one of my one of my board members impact networks I'll send you a link um it's it's it's the structure of it's like a structured approach to intentionally shifting beyond like social networks to like intentional impact like the social change so the idea of like learning networks versus action networks versus movement networks and it's like anyway like game changer book anyway um cool but um where was it going why don't I bring this up we were talking about parallel play with the economic system yeah so um they talked about the idea of asset mapping the idea so like within your community right so like you know not you know but but I think that it's almost like I can not I don't want to say economic asset mapping that's not what it's like it's like what's what's all the people's zone of genius that they are looking to actually do and yes like the earned money or something from and if you knew all the things you have to zoom out to say like all right so if I've got four people in my community well maybe their zones of genius don't necessarily like they don't necessarily need each other's zone of genius for the thing that each of them are trying to do but if you zoom out you have a broader pool and you say this is me and this is what I this is my gift to offer to the world and you put enough people together like isn't isn't that how it happens yes oh my god no okay so I have I'm familiar with the work that came out of impact networks um and asset mapping is actually a really cool community development tool that has that so like so you can pose a problem that you have to solve right an easy one is usually like I have to get to California to get an ice cream machine or something you know I mean like I have to get and I how am I going to do this and then you set people out into like little groups of like three or four and they write down on post-it notes one for post-it note what is one physical thing you have access to so sometimes people are like a pointer a cell phone a blub right like stuff like that what are three spaces or like locations you have access to and who are three people that you have access to right and it might be like Bernie's daughter's sister right like whatever right like and and then you put them together and try to solve this collective problem and it's hilarious right those people will be like oh we're gonna get a car from the like anyway it doesn't matter like they put yourself you're doing collective problem solving too I'm sorry I went so far down breaking love this keep going oh yeah the asset mapping I had found to be a really awesome resource especially in communities where we're exploring entrepreneurship or exploring like work like having a new relationship with work when there's not a lot of um high morale in in their perceptions of work because they're like young right like they're like I have nothing to offer the world what am I going to do like so that that um working with noraday verse folks a lot of times it's like yeah but nobody gets x y and z right um I've also seen it in um uh women who are on have been on public assistance for a long time and how like really low morale they get around system both systems working for them and them work working within the system right um and so I have found that to be a fun um like a game like it's a game right and it's just the the because so many people need to like have been like the over rehearsal pathways of independence like it's it this exercise is like explicitly um you know focusing people around this idea of interdependence so you are and I think you know just like reminding a little bit if someone has and this is like what this month's spring club has been about in various degrees um uh the the idea that like if you don't have the experience of being able to show up as your full self and feel like you can authentically like you know belong to a community of people um you're never going to be able to enter into these stories you know these these you know these kinds of problem collect collective problem solving where you are both like like the group is advancing but the individuals are actually getting their needs met as as people are being appreciated for their gifts and they are being like they're entering into this network where now you know if they're connected with an organization that has relationships with other people and now they have relationships with other people like that's how they that's how their opportunity grows because now it's not just one client it's like bad clients and I think that's how that goes for anybody um but I I also wonder about how do people even like um how do they how do we even know who's out there with a gift that we don't have a relationship with yet whose whose future could be like jump started if only um their network could get bigger when you start building something especially around food where you're just kicking it and people are bringing all different kinds of foods from their culture like oh oh what's your culture or how did you make that oh that's really neat like you just you get a different vibe and a different understanding of who people are and you realize oh my god they're like actually uh I'm I want to be a caterer but I just haven't had that opportunity so when Soul Food Sunday came about I was like I was like I'm gonna bring my fabulous dish and then all of a sudden we're talking about we're talking about hiring you for catering so I again it all really boils down to relationships but finding entry ways that if you will are more low bar that are more accessible to people that they can just show up as their full authentic selves what would it look like to turn the monthly because there's a monthly employment focused spring club every month we've been doing it that way since May 2022 what would it look like to create like a learning network around neuro-inclusive employment through the container of brain club um I mean that would just be that would be really interesting that it's it's it's like you're really inviting in people who are looking to reimagine and the focus is on reimagining it's about it's about brainstorming right no pun intended like of like really coming together and doing that so I don't have any concrete ideas because I think that both both you all and us have that foundation of those visions and ideas I think it's just about having that think tank to come together to see to see more of what's possible because exactly what you said is like now we're not paying Anna anymore those that money is coming from a variety of other different places and that's what we can do is we can leverage our relationships and connections with the resources that all of us have when we come together and we're really willing to make that commitment to each other so I think that's what's most important there we have it another um big thank you to our community panelists Connie Beale Jason Cabo Bianco Sheila Linton Summer Stelter and Gwen Piccolo Hart um and Gwen is here with us today hi Gwen hey everyone it's so nice to be here with you um just so you know I've got a an associate here this is George um and uh he'll be with us do they do amazing um I want to um I'm scrolling up in the chat to try to find um Christina's comment um I think the standard system set up to enact change in the workplace is a top-down approach people with high up need to approve changes but this but with this system change really happens because the systems are too large right and so um that's that's that's that's exactly why we wanted to have this conversation about what would it look like kind of to identify if in a world where everyone did have access to the resources they needed to do the thing that they really wanted to be doing like what would that thing even be when with the maybe Gwen could you say a little bit about about cwe and like what you do and the people you work with totally we're in the middle of a hard moment here so let's see oh yeah yeah do your moment um no that's okay let's see let's see georgia often rises to the occasion so um I just I think it's an amazing group here and um mel is doing something revolutionary and it's so cool to be watching this build um so I'm with the center for women in enterprise we are an economic development non-profit here to help lift up the women who lift up the world and we do that through individual business counseling and tons of different types of training experiences we really believe that's funny um and we really believe in connecting people to their um to their peers because so often in the entrepreneurial development experience it can feel really alienating um and alone and and um we are not alone so we are home to what's called vermont's women's business center which is a um a partnership with the small business administration and so we're able to offer most if not all of our programs at no cost and nobody's ever turned away for for lack of funds and so what who we really work with are people who are at a transition in their life either they're in business and they are looking um they are facing an imminent growth challenge maybe they got a big purchase order from uh like a regional grocery chain or something like that um uh or they're in uh experiencing um stagnancy in their business we also work with people who are like I can't work in this work anymore the workforce has failed me and I know that I have more um to offer and and uh I can't live like this anymore and so we really work with people at the startup through the first five years of um of business and uh and all of our entrepreneur all of our counselors are entrepreneurs themselves so have been there where our clients are clients are thanks Gwen um yeah so so and I I I think you know at the end there when Gwen mentioned the idea of like people who are at this place of like the workforce has failed me and um I think you know I I just I I think that there's a lot of people who like don't see themselves being able to start their own thing even as a as a side gig even Sierra do you have your microphone up there instead of down here yeah you you know my headphones very well um I I think that one thing that this conference has done for me is just reframe the idea of like networking I think networking for me was always like this idea of this is the one way to build community in your like employment and career space and networking has the biggest limbic reaction for me and I despise it and I hate it and I look at a kit networking classes in college and it it it just doesn't doesn't work for me and I think hearing all these panels was really helping to see in all the different ways that like yeah exactly um all the different ways that like networking and building community in this employment realm can can really look at how it really looks like mutual aid a lot of the times more than uh like professional network conference thing really right and it's it's and like I think like what Gwen said in her comments around like you know the word entrepreneur like means like it has these these connotations association as opposed to a mindset of just like okay I'm gonna like flexibly try to do a thing right so um and and yeah I think I think that's Sierra that's really well said like you know I and you know I'm pretty new into my current gig or but but even you know things like all right well I really really want you don't know this but I really want our employees to have short-term disability insurance but we don't like have that and I don't know how to get it and like anyway so I like emailed someone that I know who who like might know someone who knows how to do that like it's it's it's like who do you know who might know something you think you need to know and mapping those kinds of like brain resources out from the comfort of your I mean hopefully the comfort of your own environment yeah right and so a lot a lot of people talking in the chat about thank you summer that's that's what I learned it's awesome um that's great thank you see we just networked right there what's coming up for for others around community networking redefining work Laura I feel like one thing that I've learned I think a lot from you again mel is like not being afraid to reach out to people who seem so big and daunting and terrifying sometimes that like worst thing that's going to happen in most cases they're not going to respond at all but that reaching out to them often they like they are real people and they often do respond and often they are nice and that that can be helpful I feel like when it like when it took me six months to work up the nerve to reach out to you to introduce myself to you that happened can I jump in again the other thing that I feel like is coming out for me is like thinking about my own research and thinking about working with like um community members in research and so I do I do research and I started working with autistic folks to help like collaborate as research partners a couple years ago um and I think when I first started doing it it was very much I'm sorry there's so much background rice here I think it was very much like that that bottom up thinking I feel like I had this idea of like it'll be good to do this and you know I can say I did it and that's good and I feel like it's been transformative for me to actually um hear perspectives from people affected by what I'm doing and make it really truly so much richer and better and I wish there was a way to translate that message to employers that like that bottom up approach isn't just about like lip service to this it's like it actually is transformative and makes everything better and more efficient and more like there is actual like dollar value and in working bottom up and it would be great to be able to like get that message across in some way in a bigger systems way absolutely um you know and I I think that you know Laura when you when you first started doing the work of even like you know being able to you know you got grants to compensate people to share their lived experience right and then when we worked through like these are actually the the the minutiae of what is required to you know like you got to like come to a place and fill out a form like in the middle of COVID and like really let's think about the whole workflow of what are all the people interfacing with and you really come to know your processes better so like when I do neuro inclusive employment trainings um like that's that's a thing that's a thing that we do is we work through like all the the workflow of how people are flowing through the organization and so you're really like you know sometimes processes they just they just get stagnant and they just stay this is the way we've always done it so we always do the thing right yeah yeah that is the stuff that that that that absolutely is what gets what gets in the way um and and and I think that when employees have their needs met they do better work and you know probably are less likely to quit their jobs so when we think about the you know the economic cost of turnover neuro inclusive employment is is win-win but I think that you know um and I I I want to name um I was actually having the same thought for seeing then you then you then I looked over in the chat and I saw that you like I'm I'm skimming but I think you're writing what I was about to say and that's like really cool but but um yeah it's the idea it's but the idea is really um it's really painful um with the idea that when so many people have so much work trauma that interferes with being able to zoom out and reimagine just so stuck yeah not just workplace things Arianna so not just not just workplace trauma but trauma there's just so much trauma of all kinds yeah I'm muted I can hear you okay good okay I mute myself all over the place and then I lift my hand okay um I've been uh thinking about this about employment since attending all brains belong and realizing um and the revelation that I'm autistic and uh I'm approaching 60 and I I I had to close I was the counselor for a couple of decades uh amongst other things like many autistic people I had many irons in the fire I did many things and I burnt out quickly so I would usually only stay at a place for eight months less than a year there was one agency I worked at for 26 years but it was really part time and I would move in and out of positions but I listened to a podcast yesterday uh square pegs podcast um it's hosted by an autistic woman and all the guests are autistic and the guests yesterday was talking about employment and how uh the day also did all these weird and wonderful things to to make a livelihood before settling into something that is sustainable and uh and that I'm thinking about my generation people in their 60s their 70s their 80s who have gone through their life not having the language or even the knowledge that they're autistic or ADHD or somehow neurodivergent and now I have no security I was I I've lived in poverty my whole adult life I've figured out how to make do and I'm I kind of like my life like I look back on it and it's weird and wonderful but it's not without its perils and it's trauma um I really don't know what my point is I think I'm just really right now really tender hearted and soft and thinking about older generations who are now just getting the realization that they have struck what the struggle was through life and there's no nest egg yeah I want to take a minute and process what you just said I think I think um exactly what you just said and all those layers of you know it's like all the the the the emotional experience like the the more layers that you're unpacking and shifting your narrative so complicated and I think doing go ahead Monika pardon me for interrupting I one more the point that I did want to make was I worked somewhere for 26 years and I was an integral member of that team yet I am the only one of that staff who does not own a home who did not own a vehicle who um yeah a whole bunch of other things but I'm the only one out of that team who does not have financial security because I was seen as less productive as the other ones or less I had just as much education but I was less smart because my smarts show up in a different way I don't know it's complex right which I think everybody here gets but I just I have I'm really pissed off that I worked there for the same amount of time as everybody else and um I have no security from it got friends but okay and to me what you just named Monique I mean that's so indicative of like I think we talk about this at brain club a lot right like when society sends the message that you know your value is what you produce like that's really messed up oh there's so much love in the chat going on right now Monique check it out anything you want to add it's okay if not and you might be frozen oh that's what that's wonderful there's lots of people really relating to what you said um well I think building building on Monique's comment next week is our monthly book chat um for those of you who are new to brain club we do we most months the last week of the month we do a book chat most people have not actually read the book we're not expecting you to read the book that's what we design the whole thing so you don't have to read the book and so we highlight themes and anyway and then we have conversation about the themes so we will be discussing unlearning shame um Dr. Devin Price's new book so it's up um how we can reject self-blame culture and reclaim our power I think uh I think it's the perfect perfect next step um to reimagine to reimagine thank you all so much for being here and thank you for being part of our community we look forward to seeing you next week