 Hello, I'm Mel Hauser, I use she they pronouns and I'm executive director at all brains belong for month. And welcome to brain club, our weekly community conversation on everyday brain life things. And tonight, we are going to be talking are going to be continuing our conversation on urgency culture. They will be about urgency culture in every day life will be joined by a panel of community members and we'll have lots of time for discussion. But before we, before we dive into our topic. I'm just going to go over some introductory kind of like community agreement and housekeeping type stuff and do a quick recap of, of, of last week spring club because it was it's, it's framed I think really some so like this because urgency culture is the theme for the month. And so, last week we talked about what urgency culture even is, and how how this plays out in, in so many ways, and has a profoundly negative impact on health for everybody. So, come on, all the zoom toolbars, I can't see anything. Okay, great. So, especially if this is your first brain club just want to introduce you to like brain club culture, all forms of participation are okay here so as, as, as, as she as many have figured out already. You don't have your video on or off and even if it's on we certainly don't expect anything of you, you don't need to look at the camera you don't need to sit still just do what needs doing and yes, everyone is welcome. You know, if your kids are climbing on you or your pets or, you know, everyone welcome, and you're all welcome to communicate however you're most comfortable, whether that is speaking using mouth words, or typing a chat box or, you know, any of the above ways of communicating. So, a word about language, you'll hear myself and like me, many other people here using identity first language so for example, I am autistic, because being autistic is part of my identity and does not need to be separated from it. That's not the case for everybody and so everyone is welcome to use the language to describe their own identity. It's really important to us that we are affirming all aspects of identity, not just neurotype, but gender, sexuality, race, all the forms of diversity that that our community is, and in addition to respecting and protecting one another's access needs. We really want to make sure that this stays a safe place by remaining an educational event this is not not not a place where we'll be giving medical advice, and specifically individual traumatic experiences are best processed in a therapeutic setting, not, not a burn club. Okay, jury cap. Sarah I'm quoting you, never been quoted on a brain club side before. It's happening. Because I thought this was like for in my mind this was this this was my highlight. At the end of last week's brain club, Sarah said, for me, conversation used to be sharing what I want to share. I'm looking to connect with what you said and you're looking to connect with with what I said. And so, new idea to grow the community agreement so when Sarah said that it was in the context of talking about processing time and quiet space to be able to make sure that brain club is a place where people with all kinds of communication and access needs can participate. First off, observation is completely valid as a, as a, as a participation method. And if people do want to be communicating directly either, you know, with with spoken speech or typing in the chat box, we want to make sure that the conversation can slow down enough to be able to give people the opportunity to enter a conversation. There's, there's some people with the kind of brains that like the ideas ping pong and go so fast. And for others, it's really hard to get a word in edgewise. And so, just to queue safety, I just want to see that upfront that we are going to be looking today to create space and time for anyone who wants to have space and time, because that is going to be, it's going to allow us to facilitate community connection, and, you know, moving beyond taking turns talking. Last bit of access is if you'd like to use clip captioning it's already enabled. It's just that you have to toggle it on at your end. So depending on your version of zoom. I'm likely to see either the live transcript CC button, or if not try the more dot dot dot, and you can choose show subtitles or hide subtitles if you want to turn them off. The other day I participated as as a as a participant in in an activity that did not have captions enabled. And it was, it was just so torturous. It was really very, very difficult and I think it's an example of so many people live life overriding their access needs there are barriers in the environment that interfere with full and meaningful participation. And that is, you know, that's what we talk about a brain club all the time. So, how does this connect to urgency culture. We talked about culture as and defined by Angela Burkfield as a shared set of norms values, ways of life assumptions about how the world works, and that many aspects of culture are based on power systems. So when we think about urgency culture like the, it's important to know. Like, not everything that sends off the signals of like this requires now that is actually urgent or important. And yet, like, a lot of us spend a lot of time getting those messages and spend all the time putting out fires, which is bad for health. It produces a great deal of stress and and ultimately contributes to burnout for many people. So and when we when we zoom way out, urgency culture is a product of unjust power systems. And so you know all of the discriminatory isms which are all connected in one way or another, you know they're all related. And you know the, the, the, the quest for efficiency productivity, the search, like it's capitalism right I mean it's, it's, it's, it's everything it's power over. And we talked about last week how urgency culture fueling internalized ableism so that is the discriminatory belief that it is better to be able to do the thing, and then turned in on oneself internalized discriminatory beliefs against ourselves that we should be able to do the thing. And when you get the message that it's bad to set boundaries, your access these don't matter. And you have a pattern of overriding your limbic responses to things that are unsafe. So for those of you who follow us on social media and maybe Lizzie can you post in the chat the link to Luna's to Luna's real from last week, my six year old helped helped edit our real of the week about about urgency culture she was very proud of and she's not in the video but she she she was tinkering with I movie she's very pleased anyway about about this because urgency culture, once you can recognize and you zoom out and you you you if you're committed to any form of, you know, social justice framework like once you connect urgency culture to that and you spot that. I think for, I can only speak for myself. It's so much easier to reject it when you've connected it with unjust power systems. So, interrupting assumptions of urgency culture. So, you know, like, like any other anti bias framework, we want to, we want to avoid supporting systems that perpetuate power over others, and urgency culture is one of those things. And when we when we when we think about social justice framework of things that we're striving for in a just society, um, urgency culture interferes with those things. And so if we shift out of that to emphasize collective well being rejecting urgency culture. I think it's part of that. So, without further ado, I'm going to introduce our community panelists. Hold on, I wasn't looking at the chat now I see there's a chat box. Oh cool there's. Okay, it's great. Perfect. So, um, what I'll do is, I'm going to spotlight. Alright, so we've got spotlight and spotlight and start over talking out loud. So I support my motor planning and spotlight. Okay, here we go. Alright, so our, I'll just introduce everybody and then you can just decide who wants to say what. Alright, so Sarah Knutson is an ex lawyer ex therapist and survivor activist and a half century of buying into urgency and being very exhausted and demoralized from trying to play an unwinnable unsustainable culturally promoted zero sum game, and they spent the past decade trying to rethink and recover all of this. And so, thank you, thank you Sarah for for for being here. And we are also joined by Kelly Bordeaux from Fairfax, who is a homeschooling to children should a family of four half autistic half non autistic and Kelly is also a fellow in neurodevelopmental disability leadership. Christine Donnelly came to find all brains belong as a way of better understanding herself as an autistic person and advocate for her to neurodivergent children. And Christina is continually continuing to unlearn all of the ableist beliefs that she once held interacting with like winded individuals has been very validating freeing and I'm so glad that you are all here. And I would love to hear from whoever wants to share your thoughts on how urgency culture is, you know, is impacting your lives. I'll go first because my cold medicine is wearing off. So, which I want to open up with yesterday I was in a group medical visit for all brains, and I was saying like man my energy has just been so low I've like sat on my kitchen floor for hours doing nothing. And then I woke up this morning with this huge cold and I'm like, Oh, it's not that I was doing nothing it's that I didn't recognize that I was getting sick. So I have to get better at recognizing that I'm getting sick. My husband laughed at me as I made this like epiphany moment in the kitchen he's like yes I could have told you that you're getting sick and that's where I realized that my husband's kind of like my service animal, because he'll also let me know that I that I'm going to be having a migraine soon. So, like, he's good, he's good like that. So, when Mel asked how much talk about urgency culture. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I said the next week being like, I have not been really impacted by urgency culture and I realize it's because I have just recognized it as not feeling safe so I've kind of stayed away from anything that that made me have to hit a milestone or, you know, hit a deadline in X amount of time you know I didn't go to college right out of high school because I was like that just sounds like the worst thing a person could do ever. And I did the second worst thing which is then I worked retail for the next 10 years and that was just horrific horrific. And I didn't go to college until I was like in my 30s and I didn't have children in my 30s like everything needed for me to feel safe and I didn't recognize that until I started thinking about it and I was just kind of like processing this with my whole family at the dinner table just now I was like I don't know what I'm going to talk about because I feel like I've avoided any system that has urgency culture until I'm ready to be there. And even then you know like I chose the smallest college that you know Burlington had I went to Burlington College. Oh, I'm so sad that it's not around anymore but you know, I had classes of eight people. It was fantastic. You know my master's program was all I was just on my own like I was in with nobody was just me, you know, and that was perfect. You know, I'm doing this Vermont Len program and you know it's self paced more or less. And well it's not the funnest like I don't feel like it's a lot of demand for me, and I feel very fortunate and lucky that I've had the opportunity to be able to put myself into situations that that don't feel right like I'm grateful to my husband for being a great support animal. And which I did tell him that to his face so I don't think he got too offended. And it makes me think you know I'm homeschooling my older son who is autistic, and one of the programs that we use like I edit it every time we hit certain pages where it'll be like okay now answer the next questions as quickly and right as you can. I was like whoa, let's just answer the questions like we don't need to focus on being quick and being right like let's just read the problem and understand it and then answer it. And you know I see the stress kind of like fall off his shoulders when I give him that permission to go against that system to go against that demand that this math program is putting on him or that this literacy program is putting on him. It frustrates me for the kids that I know are being like pushed and fed like oh it says you have to do it quick quick quick quick quick oh you got one wrong start over you know like who it like raises my blood pressure it just brings me to a panic thinking about that. And you know my younger son does go into school, but there are days where he'll just be like mom I just I just can't go today. And I'm like you know what okay, and I call him out and I'm like mental health day like he's just taking a break you know like we all need these breaks. And so I'm hopeful that, well I avoided the urgency culture, just by luck and you know intuitively almost that teaching them to see it, and to be able to, to say either yes I can meet that demand or no I can't do that and here's why or not even here's why just know that's a very complete sentence. And so, so I think about that more of it, how it impacts my kids you know because I do hear them like okay so I have to go to college right out of school and I'm like, No, you don't have to do that, you know, or Oh so my friends are starting dating so do I have to date. No, you don't have to do that, and like all these systems put so much pressure on people for no reason that I can see the, I do understand certain deadlines and you know things like that but like, I think that that we move so quickly that we're not able to pay attention to anything and then we complain that nobody has an attention span when we're not given the chance to have one. And I think I took my five minutes so I want to make sure that everybody else gets their turn. So I think that's my stance on urgency culture is, I've done my best to avoid it and I'm trying to teach my kids to see it and I do my best to fight against it when I can for others. And Kelly, thank you, thank you so much I'm just reading in the chat Sarah says what a beautiful gift you're giving your children Kelly by talking so openly with your children about all of this. Absolutely because I mean this is how cultural assumptions, you know spread like if you're not like zooming out and naming them transparently, let alone wondering where they come from like that's the next step right but you don't even see them. You just get swept swept right into that. So thank you Kelly thank you, thank you for showing us. Um, you know, what's possible if you do it differently. Reimagining Christina Sarah. Sure I'll go. I liked the prompts that were given because I like a scaffold and a structure but um, but I'll try to. Do you want me to read them to you. No no I wrote it down. So I had I had like prompts but um, so one of them was like how his urgency culture shown for you growing up and I don't think I think I was born like into a setting that was like prime for it wasn't subtle. There was literally a sign outside my siblings and I better endure that said I'm the daddy that's why. So like it was compliance like no questions. So that was that was one thing it was like you're not allowed to speak out. I was not great at that as a child. But the other thing that was kind of a part of the structure was scheduling like competitive sports and like academics was like a thing that was like part of my family structure and my sisters did really well with it, but I always felt really uncomfortable with it. And at sometimes I was able to participate and sometimes I like really resisted it. I'm just good didn't feel good. And I think that kind of like I went through this process. Throughout like growing up and then like going to school and like realizing that I couldn't really fit into that well and like still be okay so I would like spurt forward and like then have a time where I had to like take a break and now that I look back on it I realize like I was hitting burnout periods but I didn't know it like then because I didn't know I was autistic. So now you know I, you know recalibrated everything I work from home exclusively, and it allowed me to kind of just like see that when that kind of comes up when I feel like there's like an obligation to go to like a social event or an obligation to like you know do something a certain way and just really be able to like see that, but it took like a whole restructuring of how I did my life. And I still have this kind of like days when I'm kind of like, you know, I, I can't do all the things. And there's like some voice inside me that still has that stuff from my childhood that's like, you need to do the things it's important to do things. And I have to kind of like logic my way through it and just like talk myself through the inner voice that's like talking like that I think Mel mentioned that. And the one thing that I think that I have really resisted urgency culture and is like that childhood has definitely allowed me to see how I don't want to my children to experience the world and so I just kind of when I had kids I just decided that I was going to take my cues from them and try to, you know, understand what they needed and what supports that they required and if they were crying that they needed to be held and if you know if that meant that I literally like had to strap my kid to myself all the time while I was doing chores that's what they needed. And that's what I did and, you know, sleeping on the floor in the bedroom next to the child because they, they needed somebody to co regulate with. And I did that was what I, I did and I think that for them, it's allowed them to be able to tell me when they're feeling uncomfortable and it's allowed them to be able to express. Back to me, their feelings, even if maybe it might hurt my feelings or I might, you know, it might be something that isn't kind to hear. It just, it's important for them to hear their I hear their voice so then we have a platform to really talk about like what is going on, but without that like ability for them to express. It's very hard to kind of understand the why of why they might be feeling a certain way so I think that is like how I've mostly gone against the urgency culture for myself. And I think it is changing I do see parents doing things differently I do see people working differently. I see groups like this which wouldn't have existed and you know when I was even in college so um, I think that it is going the right direction I think having conversations like this and sharing things like this that on and just like advocating and and getting the message out there can make people see things. Maybe there's a different way to go about this maybe I don't have to, you know, always do it the way that the book tells me to or something like that and that's kind of how I think I'm, I am right now I feel like I'm still identifying those embedded ableist beliefs that I have that I feel come up when my body feels like, you know, nervous or anxious than I have to like, alright what is going on here and try to maybe make it a little adjustment for myself, or my kids and I think that's key but you have to step away from it. I think in order to like see it. Totally like that's the zooming out thing, because like when you're in it, you're, you don't have access to your cortex, like these higher level observation interpretation connecting it to past and present like that's all stuff you can't do when you're dysregulated. So thank you, thank you, thank you for for for showing us a better way and it's like part of the unlearning process like it, it's, and I think there are many of us who grew up with very similar childhood narratives, and that makes it often all the more difficult to catch it. And so thank you for modeling that just catching up in the chat feedback from community members as he said so powerful that you're listening to your intuition. And cat says it's so good to be in a place where those things are normalized like sleeping near your children when they need co regulation. Yeah, totally. And Kelly says I feel like helping my kids process helps me understand so much more as well. I'm not here to mold them, but to help them unfold. Love that. Sarah says it's a lifelong journey. And Olivia's Olivia was responding beautiful, as you were speaking. And I shared my story about, you know, when you were talking about, you know, when you catch yourself caught up in the moment with with with your kids. Luna said to me last week, after after helping with the Instagram real mama, stop rushing me urgency culture is rooted in power systems. She's six. It's pretty proud. Anyway, Sarah. So just sorry, Calvin struggling to frantically struggling to unmute which seems appropriate for agency culture. Deep breath here. So I guess, you know, it's interesting because I'm just sitting here realizing how much urgency culture is affecting me right here right now in the moment. And urgency, at least the messages I got tell me, All right, I have to say something fascinating has to capture your attention. It has to, I have to say it fast, it has to come out of my mouth the right way. And if, and if it if it isn't interesting and engaging, then you'll move on to something else and drop me like a rock as a human being. And that's what urgency culture tells me about human communications. It's really the commoditization of human communications, like if it doesn't entertain me if you don't entertain me I'm moving on to something better and more interesting goodbye. And if you want to capture my attention in a coffee table coffee shop conversation then you better, you better think of something fun and interesting and engaging to say. That's how it relationally affects, affects me, how it affected me as a kid. And growing up was, it's hard for me to separate urgency culture from productivity, from the cultural values around productivity and performance. So, as a kid, my, my, my two best friends went to kindergarten and 45 years old and old enough to get into kindergarten, but my two best friends are, but, but my mom, my mom thinks that it would be better for me maturation only to stay back because my birthday sort of on the borderline. My two best friends go off to school and, and I'm immediately introduced or probably knew about it before but but at least they're immediately introduced to status competition which is I'm a first I'm a kindergarten and you're not. And urgency culture is really hard to separate from status competition for me to, which is really about like in in human, it's a human created way for me to compete with you resources that both of us need and can't live without. So it's unwinnable and sustainable. You and I are both competing we're competing for each other's energy and attention and resources like food and housing and everything else that that none of us can live without and yet we're competing with each other to have them. And, and, and, and a lot of those things we could give each other freely we could give each other you know they're not they don't cost any money I could give you my attention. And I could, you know, and I could give you my caring and I can, even if I don't have a sense I can it can still matter to me that you're hurting. And a lot of those things we withhold from each other as a matter of, and as a matter of status and as a matter of like, I know something, I, you know, I know something that you don't. That gives me value. And there's just so many ways that I that that I learned to compete with you. Perhaps you learn to compete with me I don't know but I know that I spent the first easily. The first 3040 years of my life in a kind of uncritical uncritical way, just competing with probably everybody I met on comparing myself on some level to everybody I met whether I knew more than them whether I had more than them whether I did more than them. Whether I weighed more than them. You know, all of those, all of those things we're all on a we're all on some kind of a measurement scale. I internalize those for those. I mean, obviously can see it just as I'm talking how much I internalize those values from from my neighborhood from the neighborhood I grew up in from the school like the school from my family. And the effect that it had on me was my, I spent my great entire grade school not caring about the kids that I was in class with because I was always trying to catch up with the two kids who went to class school a year ahead of me. That's, that's, you know, so all I cared about with academics and all I cared about you know how can how can I get to school to see me as smart enough to deserve to be in the class that rightfully I should have been in the first place. And then that just then that just transformed it to the point where so they didn't have any social relationships because they didn't care about the kids that I was in the same class with all I cared about with. I mean, I cared about the school stuff. So, and it just transformed into approving my proving my worth I was studying three and a half hours in middle school by the time I was in by getting through high school I had a bunch of, I don't know if they do people everywhere does high school but I had 15 high school letters and a 4.0 grade point in high school and and what I can tell you is that at age 60, a bunch of people have had like much more socially connected much more socially worthwhile much more family productive lives and I had. You know, I sort of came out of my high school as a shining star and the example of what you know every kid should aspire to be and went off to and service Academy to try to prove it and and then began to deteriorate from there. And so, and it's sort of, and so, and so, in many ways I started out as the poster child for urgency culture and then and then as a matter of sort of emotional and self survival, then had to have had to really seriously rethink what I was taught and began to really I guess I'll stop with just one more example is, you know, it really strikes me that like, you know, if we're living on the family farm, and we have a cow, we actually, you know, we're intimately connected to that cow. And that and like, and we might even like really actually care about that cow as a member of the family. And, and when a cow dies. I mean, there's a there's a there's this grief, it's maybe even more than more than milk to us. And how commodity culture works is I, is I, is I go to the store and and I buy a carton of milk. And when your cow dies, I just buy another carton of milk. So that's what we're losing is from the commodity culture, or at least what I feel like I'm losing from the commodity culture is really the price of that is relationships and caring. And, and the benefit is I, you know, get a carton of milk when your cow dies. So anyway, thanks. Sarah, that was just like I just wanted like, I, I, I, it's, it's interesting when I, when I went back and listened to parts of the recording from last week. I like wish I had a recording of what you just said to listen to right now. I was trying to capture things along the way to circle back to but I just want to just thank you, thank you for so much, so much of everything you just said and I'll catch up in the chat to let you know what people were saying along the way as you were. As you were sharing. I do want to say first and foremost that the, the, what you began with about, like, part of the part of all of these inseparable urgency culture. You know, you're not going to compete. The class status all of these, these all, they are inseparable. And that message playing out for you. All these, you know, all these decades later as still the first thought being, you know, am I good enough am I interesting enough do I have value because value is tied to these things, or in reality, you have value simply by being everyone does. Anyway, I just wanted to, to name to name that cat says, I that that pressure to join urgency culture to feel safe. And, and, and Jessica and john or else so let's so it's I'm just like plucking up themes for us to all come back to in this discussion now around safety and lack of safety. And, and, and, and Jessica and john brought up urgency culture as being connected to unhealed trauma, and specifically trauma of being under resourced neurodivergent golly's things all these things are connected. Sierra. I think just jumping off of that kind of idea of urgency culture, especially the, I think that there's a really interesting relationship between urgency culture and marginalized identities and kind of how, how much more that plays I know, thinking about school systems like I definitely felt a lot more urgency as a, like first generation college student, when everybody else seemed like they already had ideas of what a PhD was and how to buy the schools and what those programs even looked like. And so that kind of constantly playing catch up and I think I've been thinking about it a lot with the adolescents whether we're talking about in queer trans identities whether talking about and neurodivergent identities and this kind of push of oh you have to be on the same trajectory as everyone else but if you didn't get to experience your adolescents as your true self and it's okay to take that step back and be that adolescent self even if you're in your 20s or 30s or 40s or 50s. And that's really tough in urgency culture where you're not married and have kids in a full career by 25 and you're failing. Right and that connects to the narrative that there's one right way to do the thing and that one right way is the whatever the dominant groups way is and if you don't zoom out and spot that pattern. It allows it to perpetuate. I'm wondering if, if, if, if anyone else has any thoughts about how urgency culture either is impacting them today or has impacted them over the course of their lives that they would like to share either in the chat or by unmuting. This, this may be related to all of this I would, what Sarah was talking about, how you have to talk quickly you have to say things that are engaging and that people will pick up on and otherwise will be dropped I was just reading an article in the Atlantic magazine which talks about shifts in the culture where all of this is apparently just gotten worse. It's a traditionally American values had emphasized qualities like honesty diligence and a sense of duty, and the more and more in a consumption oriented society that's been built. Now it's now is charm like ability and the talent to entertain. That's what they're saying, and that now with with social media means enter entertaining a vast audience but it's a little at the same kind of thing it's all kind of, you got to be quick you got to be charming got to be entertaining everything is entertainment. So that's a little scary things are in that regard the pressures are getting stronger that rather than weaker. And similarly, because and similarly to you know how how, you know, neuro normative culture emphasizes extra version over intro version. And I think, I think that connects to what you said also. And like, and like we talked about last week. If you are someone who is taking your time to process the information that has been presented to you that you don't have a quick response that you know, you know, if you're taking your time you're spoken over and then you're also at the same time, given them, given the message that it's bad to not be constantly inserting yourself. So like you, you, you can't, you can't win it's it's it doesn't it doesn't work. Angela sharing this is my first time joining such a helpful interest in conversation. My 25 year old is autistic with PDA and I wish we as parents had access to this sort of connection resource information years ago. I see all the mistakes we made. So, first off Angela thank you for sharing that you are not the only one, even, even, even folks who you know who's who's children are younger and are earlier on their journey of parenthood. Like we're all on learning we're all on learning and and and we're doing it together. And so I'm so glad you're I'm so glad that you've connected with us. When I first started transitioning socially especially there was I felt this huge urgency to like start doing a bunch of feminine things and stop doing a bunch of things that I perceived as masculine, which would I now realize is a bunch of garbage. But it was definitely I have a cat trying to bother me too as well. But it was definitely rooted in a lot of urgency and a lot of feeling behind as well and wanting to catch up as well. Yeah, I think that's I think that's really common. And, and it's, it's, it's some. Yeah, I'm, I thank you for sharing that and naming that for for for people if for in whatever stage of life circumstance to be like oh, am I rushing the thing, because someone. I got that message that I'm supposed to because it's it's so easy to get swept swept up in the comments saying in the chat. So true about jumping in and feeling pressure participate I always struggled so much in class discussions because by the time I got my thoughts together, my topic was already several conversational jumps behind. Absolutely. I've always disliked that schools teach quote leadership skills and not follower and collaboration skills. This idea that the leader of a group is good, while following is bad. Sets up an impossible dynamic that our culture actively teaches in schools. Oh yes. Oh yes. Christina says, I referring referring back to Angela's comment. I wish my parents were even at the space you are right now and gosh I think that sentiment is held by so many people who are far older than your child, Angela. So, and Christina is agreeing this so great you can, can you can join and there's always chance for connection. Yeah, and, and, and, and, and see as sir I'm just I have the kind of brain that like when I'm paying attention to the speakers I missed the chat so anyway, Sarah is is thinking you Jade for sharing. It's absolutely so common. You know I think I think I think that that that that comment around leadership skills, being like the thing that is taught, although as the leadership means being extroverted, you know, power over you know it's it's all of that as you know I'm Liz Lizzie can you pull up that if you can find it don't don't rush. We is not urgent we can we can we can send it out later. But if you can find that amazing Queen Elizabeth quote that you share sometimes on the in the slack board, I think that would be I think I think really relevant to this to this conversation around like what leadership could be looking at and so find it really what it is it's around, it's around facilitation leadership about connecting with people's values and facilitating not like bossing them around and telling them what to do. And Vicki, Mary is agreeing with you could not and and Jessica and john are saying I used to work at university and was asked to consult on a program mission statement I told them to rewrite the leadership definition for that very reason. I'm highly sharing Jade unrelated but I love your hair. I admired every time I see you. Awesome. So, so, yeah, I, I. Okay, so this is got the quote that we are. Alright, I know of no single formula for success but over the years I have observed that some attributes of leadership are universal and are often about finding ways of encouraging people to combine their efforts their insights their enthusiasm and their inspiration to work together. So yeah, I think very, very similarly, just as, you know, leadership is often kids are taught that leadership looks one way because the message don't be a follower. And also like just the idea of winning Sarah spoke about, you know, a competition, winning, like little kids, when we tell them like introduce a game, you know, the purpose of the game is to X, and it's usually, you know, run fastest and throw hard or throw farther, you know, do the thing. And then we come then then we, we give kids the message that they're a sore loser when we didn't even talk about that there's any other way to play other than being fastest and bar this didn't smart it like all of it. So it's, it's, I, I tried to it's interesting if I'm around a group of kids. It happened yesterday even there were there a group of kids doing it at one of our, one of our ABB programs. Something that was not introduced as a competition, a kid turned into competition because that happens because you know it's culture. And so, you know, you know, look, I'm throwing farther than you say oh it's that interesting that you have the kind of brain that is playing to throw that thing farther. I have the kind of brain that's playing this game this way just like modeling that like your brain's not the default, because I think that's a healthy message for people of all ages. I see you, which is, you know, why there's, there's so many adults who, who think that their brain is the defaults and who turn their own access needs into policies, even laws. Reading in the chat, Vicki says, there can be no leaders without multiple people following so this comes to be a leader not a follower inherently excludes most people. And, oh, Jade okay I'm catching up on linking the message I'll read them in order. Jade thanks to Kelly I have a long time family friend who does it. And I didn't know what she was going to do until there was done my area so so you got trusting relationship that's great. And, and yeah, and, and, and having fun instead being the point. Yeah. So, Sarah you brought up Alfie cone can you say more. I'm just typing a quote but I'll just read it. So it makes me think of, I don't know if anybody else has heard of Alfie cone but he talks a lot about urgency culture related to competition, especially with children. And this is like one of my favorite quotes. When we set children against one another in contests from spelling bees to awards assemblies to science fairs that are really contests from dodgeball to honor rolls to prizes for the best painting or the most books read. We teach them to confuse excellence with winning, as if the only way to do something well is to out do others. Yeah, I remember when I was taking my kids to the library once and, and the librarian it was like, you know the beginning of summer and she said, you know, have you signed up to do our, our book program for the summer. And I was like, No, we're good with that because like my kids they love to read on their own. And if they get like a prize for reading. It takes away the intrinsic motivation of something they already love to do. And the librarian was like, Oh, okay. You know, it's it's it's not it's counterculture it's counterculture to step out of that, you know, sense of urgency and and you know reward systems and sticker charts and all of that you know it's really counterculture. We had a neighbor that had five boys, and each boy was in like three different sports, and like the cars in and out in and out in and out from from their home was just wild. And my younger son is friends with their younger son and we had him over recently. And he was talking about how he was so happy that he got a break in his practice schedule to be able to come over, and then he was complaining that the gardener age got four days off in a row and he was like that's not cool. They should be working just as hard as I am. He's in fourth grade. And I was just so sad. I was just like, Oh my God, buddy, like, Oh, why, why would you just like continue that cycle like you just said how happy you were to have a break, and you want to remove that from somebody else like Oh, and it's so ingrained from just, yeah, from like birth on like what was your abgar score I mean my God, like you're not even like a minute old before we're getting scored on things it's born under stress. It's ridiculous. And I remember and getting asked like is your baby a good baby you know from the very beginning it's just like, does your baby sleep through the night is your baby doing this is your baby and it's just like, so it's just from the very beginning, you know that competition and comparison. Yeah, because there's one way to be a baby. John and Jessica. John is listening in this is Jessica. Hello, hello. I wanted to talk. I think we're getting a lot of this of what keeps on coming to my head is rewards. What are we rewarding. And what I hear a lot is we're rewarding urgency we're rewarding neurotypical achievement. We like the world not not the neuro enclos of world but you know and I'm also asking myself the question like how can I support dignity and rest and wellness like how can I bring those values. How can I support personal life. Right now it's in work season, and it's like annual performance review time. And so I'm thinking about like what are we reporting, like, are we giving people shout outs for choosing not to do a project. Are we giving people shout outs for like taking so much pto like those are things. I mean there's tons of, you know, 1000 other examples but I just feel like, if we can model things like there's been wonderful examples in this conversation. And just continuing to model. I think Mel definitely had a couple examples, continue to model like just praising like people for resting and you know being okay if we have a hard time resting right just being okay with that, because that's not uncommon especially for neurodivergent people but yeah it's got me thinking about like how can I reward the opposite, you know, dignified, wellness dignified slowness. Thank you for naming that. So, example, so at all brains belong. We, we've read reimagined performance reviews we do self actualization planning it's a completely individualized experience of like someone what constitutes self actualization. We're looking at rest and we're looking at you know who's taking your flexible pto and you know like this. Yeah, and we're normalizing like not doing the thing like, like, so Sarah can I put you on the spot where we said you did too much last week. Yeah, that's how your self actualization planning went. Yeah, like, yeah. Yeah, it was really it was focused on the bigger picture and like, wow you pushed so hard and and then had a migraine for two days, like, what can we do to have that not happen. You know, and I think just just making it clear to your employee that you value them for who they are and not what they do and what they produce for you is so unusual and that's but that's the culture that we have that all brains belong. And I think that I think in 2023 that the time is ripe to be having these conversations, because I think that there are in the context of the broader, you know, anti bias social justice framework promoting concepts applied to the workplace. This is part of it. You know, this is, this is part of having inclusive worksplaces that value people over things and and and you can't say that that you're striving for inclusion respect and dignity and all the things you're quote supposed to say you're striving for if you're not doing this. Without reading David's comment. I so much understood Sarah's description of getting caught up in the academic or professional performance to the point of realizing eventually that the people who were less defined by that ended up with much fuller personal lives. And I think that's the story of many people's lives because many people were given that narrative that was a package that we were fed of like, especially you know like I think about and you know I definitely perpetuated this, because it was a script that I used in like situations that didn't feel safe to me, but like that. Oh so what do you do, you know and you like go to a terrible, you know, I don't go to a large group gatherings of strangers. COVID is only COVID that like interrupted that for me. And but but but I mean, that's that those were the conversational script. And like, what is that what like why is that how we get to know people what do you do. As as as as opposed to, yeah like what need is saying yes I'm so grateful to be happy not having a career realizing that I could have, but work is not the focus of my life. Right, it's about who you are. Not what you do. So, with with with, I think that's a great a great note to end on, because next week is urgency culture and work. So, we'll be we'll be we'll be hearing from a range of panelists are there they're all prerecorded interviews with me all lumped together. And we'll have a lot lots of time for discussion. Oh, time out I'm reading Connie. Hi Connie, I didn't see I didn't see you coming here hello. I'm kind of seeing what gets you going which grabs you what you love. So many better questions than what do you do. And jade is saying I hate being asked about what I do even though I love my job, great, people can blankly stare while I ramble about video games. Yeah, exactly right. I mean, it's it's it's it's it's connecting via, you know, identity characteristics, you know, including, you know, for so many people, the what you love the what you're passionate about that that is that is so much who you are. And that's how that that's, that's, that's, that's such a major part of connection for for so many of us. And, and, and, yeah, so thank you. Thank you all so much. And we look forward to seeing you next week. And thank you to Christina and Sarah and Kelly for sharing your stories and being vulnerable and letting letting so many people here are so many aspects of their own stories, you know, play out in your words so thank you. Bye everybody.