ADHD and the tech industry: Understanding the 'operating systems for the brain'

Speaker A
It's 30% to 40% of the population. That's one in three people. So if you're in a room with ten people, three of those people are probably neurodivergent, whether they've been diagnosed or not, because 85% of us are not. It's life changing knowing, oh my gosh, it's not me. I'm not alone.

I'm not broken. This is a thing. It's brain chemistry. There's no magic wand, there's no light switch even whether or not you want that. And once you understand it, now, that knowledge is what we can use to do our lives better.

Todd Bishop
Welcome to Geekwire. I'm Geekwire co founder Todd Bishop. We are coming to you from Seattle where we get to report each day on what happens around us in business, technology and innovation. What happens here matters everywhere. And every week on this show, we get to talk about some of the most interesting stories and trends in the news.

This week, we're going to dive into a trend that underlies the news, or at least the larger trends in the tech industry just based on the number of people who are impacted by it. I'm joined at Geekwire by Brett Green. Many of you in the community, and I know him as the founder and CEO of New Tech Northwest. That's a startup community and tech community here in Seattle, in the Pacific Northwest. But he's been developing a specialty over the past few years as an, an executive coach and specifically an ADHD coach.

Brett, it's great to have you here. Todd, it's amazing to be here. So especially our journey of knowing each other for eleven or twelve years and loving you, John, Geekwire, and everything you guys do for the community and people. So thank you for graciously giving me time to be here with you. Absolutely.

Well, first off, this is just an interesting topic. I think your journey is interesting. Let's start with just a few basics. ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, what is it? How does it manifest itself in the people you work with and the tech community?

Can you just give us a few of the basics to provide the foundation for our conversation? Yes. And since I have ADHD, I thought of eight things when you said that, and I won't remember because you asked like three or four really good different things. So feel free to cut me off or jump back in the ADHD. And I mean, in tech, we've, for years, for decades, we've, you know, people, entrepreneurs especially, joke about having Add and professionally in the, in the professional and the psychological world.

Speaker A
They've moved ADD underneath ADHD. And the reason is because ADHD is thought of as having three varieties. So the hyperactive variety is what we all think of generally as a third grade white boy running around in circles in a classroom. And for most folks, that's all we've ever heard or understood. What we've always called ADD is considered inattentive ADHD, meaning that it's happening in our mind.

So that's what I have, and people don't know because we're thinking about three to five things constantly. We have deep pattern recognition. We are looking for problems to solve, whether we like it or not. And our brains are racing, but we're quiet. Or if it's a topic we love, then we can't stop the verbal train.

So. And then combine type is the third of those together. And there's. I'm glad. As more awareness is coming up around this, another big thing that's happening right now is because there's more awareness and more people are being diagnosed.

Largest group are adult women, second or adult men. People are realizing from the people in the community that it's mislabeled, which is the most frustrating thing if you have it. Because first off, it's not a disorder unless you think like, okay, neurotypical is the order. And this is different. It's different.

It's not a disorder for most people with it. They don't consider it to be hampering or a disability. It's just how they are. Right? And there's.

And there's no deficit. I mean, the attention deficit is backwards. We have actually attention surplus. We're thinking about three to five things at any given moment, working on them, sometimes doing well with that and moving them forward. There's never a deficit.

The only deficit, if you go back to the original idea of a child in the classroom, is that we're not focused on what someone else wants us to have our attention on. And that seems a misnomer. And my guess and hope is within the next ten years, it's not going to be called ADHD. They're going to come up with something else that is a little more specific, but it's created by the people who are psychiatrists and such that write the DSM four or DSM five now. So that's where they go with it.

Todd Bishop
Brett, I think one thing that might help people is to get a sense for the strengths and the weaknesses of people who are neurodivergent and specifically people who have ADHD. Can you run through first some of the strengths that people have if they have ADHD. Speaking broadly, I realize we're generalizing here. Yeah. So strengths include things like generally having a high iq, being very resilient, being empathetic, having a high tolerance for risk, being creative, seeking novel experiences, having an ability to hyper focus on work that's either hard, challenging, or interesting.

Speaker A
We are uber problem solvers. We see problems and solutions that neurotypical folks don't see. And we can be very attentive to multiple thoughts, ideas, and conversations at one time. So all of those things sound like very valuable things in an organizational context. I mean, the traits that you just described are people that I would want working alongside me, working with me to accomplish big things.

Todd Bishop
So what about the weaknesses? And those are the people that we admire, like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and, you know, so. And in tech, we see a lot more of them. So the things we're not so strong with that we're a little weak on our organization. Planning, prioritizing, managing our time.

Speaker A
Time blindness is a big challenge. Communication, social cues, being attentive to only one person or a conversation or an idea at one time. How does this manifest itself in the people that you work with and what you see in the tech industry? First off, it's good to note that there are around 15 neurodivergent conditions, and if anyone has one, we usually have at least two. The ones we mostly know about, or we hear about are autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and there's a whole host of others.

And so there can be pairing, and I believe everything's on a spectrum. There's very few things that are binary. So if you just picture somebody might have obsessive compulsive disorder or bipolar along with ADHD. And either one of those could be like a low level or a high level as far as how they operate. And then we're just individuals.

So there's some general blanket things, but they, it's not one size fits all. Depending on what studies you read, 30% to 40% of the population are neurodivergent. 85% of us are undiagnosed. Right now, people are mostly getting diagnosed when they bring their children in and they start hearing what it is, and they're like, oh, my gosh, that's me. Or they, you know, their friend says something or they read about it online and they go look at it.

I can guarantee you folks listening to this, at least 510 percent of them are going to go look this up now after we talk about it, anytime I speak, there's a minimum of ten to 20 people that come up to me and say, how do I get diagnosed? Because when you talked about what this is, this is my life. It's like a mirror if you've never heard this. And the older you are, the more you flash back on your whole life and you're like, oh, my gosh, that's why I made those decisions. That's why I do things that way.

All these things that I thought I was weird or wrong or I was told I was lazy or negative or these other terms, we hear a lot, especially in the workplace, from being misunderstood. All of a sudden there's a revelation of like, oh, it's not just me, it is a thing. And what I work with people a lot on, and companies and them understanding around this is. It's brain chemistry. So ADHD is defined as low executive function, low working memory, low dopamine, and low serotonin.

Most of us have never heard of low executive function. That's generally things like organizing, planning, and prioritizing. Low working memory shows up a lot in our work and our personal relationships of people asking us to do something and we really want to do it, but we live in now and not now in our brains. And it's either now it has to be done because I'm afraid I'm going to forget it or not now. And we do forget it because we're really hyper focused on what we're doing or really interested in what we're doing, and therefore we end up not doing it.

So a scenario that's something people can probably relate to is imagine if you got a job and you're a week or two into it, and people have realized you're pretty smart, you do things. That's another thing. We know we're smart. We forget other people know we're smart. Which makes both sides very confused when we forget things or do that because they are thought to be just normal or how everybody operates.

So if you hired me a geek wire, and you know how that first six months is too, you're really hyper focused on doing a good job. And the first or second day, I had asked, like, you know, where. How does the break room work? Where do I put the coffee cups? And it's two or three days later.

And you walk in, I'm standing there like a deer in headlights looking at the cupboards, and you're like, what's going on with this guy? And I literally would be in my head trying to remember. I don't. Was it the upper left? Was it the upper right, there's too many cabinets.

If I open all of them, then the people are going to wonder, like, what am I doing? And you would know that. You think I'm smart. That's why you hired me, because you thought I was good at things. And we think of especially smart as a blanket, which it's not.

We all have skills that we're strong with and we're weak with. And you can have great skills at innovating and creating because you're neurodivergent. But when it comes to writing reports, being at meeting meetings on time, creating slide decks, we're not that good at that. And so one of the things I work with companies with around that is really just skills based training, which is good for everybody. And being held to do the things you're really great at that are helping the company.

And then you're not wasting your time, the company's time, the company's money, doing things like spending 10 hours mentally beating yourself up about writing a report because you know it's going to not be up to your standards. You're afraid you're going to get blowback from your manager. And instead I could spend a half hour talking with a neurotypical person or somebody who's really good at those kind of things, of taking notes and building reports. They could go write a report on what we talked about. Because another neurodivergent thing is we create verbally more than anything, and especially with other people back and forth.

That really helps us to work out ideas. And we've all had that experience, neurodivergent or not, when you're talking to somebody and you just talk it out and all your friend did was listen, and then you walk away. That was awesome. That really helped me. And now I got to where your friend's like, I didn't say anything, but it worked out.

Todd Bishop
You've talked about the fact that many people are only now coming to realize that they have adhd as adults or to be diagnosed with ADHD. To what extent is it important for those people to be transparent with those around them about this condition that they have? Can we call it a condition as opposed to a disorder? Yeah, that's great. And how much should people inside the organization be aware of it?

Give me a sense for the awareness issue. Thank you for asking that. I think that's the biggest issue. And I'm writing a book right now to help with that. And that's what I help companies with.

Speaker A
One simple way that I help people to understand how to explain this to other people is think about operating systems, which we all understand now, because everyone has a phone. If you say phone, there's, you know, a lot of different kinds, but you know what a phone is and what it has. But nobody's ever gotten mad at the Apple phone they have because it didn't do the Android thing. Why? Because we have context and we know that some things are going to be the same, some things are going to be different, some things are not even going to be there.

We don't know that about neurodivergence. And neurotypical. If you haven't been diagnosed, you don't know someone. You probably never even heard these words. And once we understand that, we can explain to somebody saying, if you say, hey, I have ADHD, and then say, and this is what it means, I have low executive function, which you may not have ever heard of, low working memory, low dopamine, low serotonin.

This is how it shows up. These are the things of how it shows up. But a real simple visual way to think about it is an operating system. Just like you have an Android phone and an Apple phone. We have neurotypical brains, and we have neurodivergent brains, which also, you can tell by the word neurodivergent.

Lots of variety in there. And another way that I help people think about this, that seems to make it really easy to understand, is simply to think about a foreign culture. And if somebody's doing something and you don't understand why, like dipping their french fries and mayonnaise, and you think it's weird because you're american, if you're curious and you ask them, like, why do you do that? Even if you think it's weird? And they say, oh, I'm from Canada.

That's what we do. The second you hear Canada, different culture, France, different culture, all the weirdness is gone forever. And I hope and believe a lot of what's happening now with the awareness coming around neurodivergence is once we have this education that's just lacking everywhere, there's no shame or blame. Everything transforms immediately. That's one thing I love about working with people in companies with this is it's so simple, quick and easy to make things better and to connect, to have people connect better, to have teams connect better and get better work done, enjoy your job more.

Just because without this understanding, it's kind of like having a, you know, asking a short person to do something that's 2ft above them, but you don't give them a ladder. And they're like, but I. And they didn't ask for the ladder, but you're like, oh, well, they're a person, and they have legs and arms and why can't they do this? But that's physical, so we can see it because so much of this is mental and we haven't been educated on it. We just, it's just most neurotypical people just don't have that experience or even know that it's possible because they haven't gone through it themselves.

Todd Bishop
Mobile operating systems. Brett, now you're talking my language. I have a specific question for you on this related to iPhone and Android, it actually does relate. So let me get back to that when we come back. You're listening to geekwire, and we'll be right back.

Brett Green
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Todd Bishop
Welcome back. It's Todd Bishop. I'm speaking this week with Brett Green. He is an executive coach and specifically focuses on ADHD in his work with his clients, individuals and companies. Brett, you gave a great metaphor there.

The iPhone and Android and how neurotypical folks might be one operating system and neurodivergent folks might be another. I tend to think of the iPhone as the neurotypical, as an Android user myself, actually as the neurodivergent. And just continuing that metaphor forward, is that a fair way to think about it? It depends on who you ask, right? I mean, there's Apple folks that would say the reverse.

Speaker A
But like I mentioned, Bill Gates, neurodivergent Steve Jobs. I mean, Steve jobs. There's a whole list of people like Steve Jobs and Einstein and Henry Ford. Richard Branson's talked about being dyslexic, but a lot of folks, especially back in history, that we wouldn't, you can look at the traits and go, oh, they probably were. Steve Jobs famously wore the same clothes every day.

And people talked about it like, oh, he didn't want to waste time. No, man, he didn't want to waste executive function. The guy was innovating and creating. And whether it was conscious or unconscious, once he figured out, I like these kind of shirts, these kind of sneakers, these kind of jeans, get me 50 of them. Because he could walk in his closet, get dressed, and walk out and not spend ten or 15 minutes in there.

It's not about losing the time. It's that with executive function, statistically, we have. They say that those of us that are neurodivergent wake up with 20% of a neurotypical person. So imagine visually if that was fuel. If there's a neurotypical person wakes up with ten gallons of fuel for organizing, planning, prioritizing, and neurodivergent folks wake up with two gallons.

Every time we make a decision, we have to organize, we plan something, we're prioritizing. It's eating up that fuel. So by 11:00 in the morning, we could be out. And there are some ways to kind of boost it a little bit throughout the day. But if, you know, you're neurotypical and I'm neurodivergent, and at 04:00 I go, you know what, Todd?

I've had a really long day, and I had to work on a lot of these things. I really have brain fog. I'm really kind of, you know, feeling on empty mentally. And I have two gallons that went to zero at eleven, and you were neurotypical and you had ten gallons, and now you're down to about five. It's a lot lower for you.

But you have never even had the experience of hitting zero or even getting down to two. And that's where we start, which you could kind of equate that to if you only had 6 hours of sleep every night and waking up that way. And then imagine a night when you only had 6 hours sleep, along with the way your brain is already that way. And one of the main factors people realize around this is communication wise, is communication after 02:00 p.m. and it gets worse, like, after 04:00 p.m.

or 06:00 p.m. so if we're in a work environment and I'm really working on something I'm into, but I've been having some problems with it. I ran out of my executive function at 11:00 a.m. it's two or three in the afternoon, and I'm really frustrated in my mind. And you walk up and go, hey, Brett, I wanted to ask you this question and turn on, like, what do you want, Todd?

And you're like, what? You don't know what you walked into. And the second I'm done with that, I totally wake up and go, oh, my. What did I just do? Like, why did I say that?

Why did I have that tone. Why did I talk that way? And I don't know. I mean, if you're not diagnosed, that's why when people read this, like, oh, my gosh, I now I understand why I do that stuff. And now if I know, if you and I have had this conversation about, hey, this is how my brain works.

Now, if I snap at you, besides just apologizing, I could go, hey, Todd, remember when we talked about that? I'm really sorry, man. I've just mentally been had a really hard day. I have a client, former client, who is neurodivergent with neurodivergent employees. And I love that their company created bad brain days, which isn't just for neurodivergent people.

Anyone can have a bad brain day. You have a bad brain day because your child was sick that morning, or, you know, whatever, and they just have that phrase that anyone at the company, you know, smaller, so it's easier, can say, hey, I'm having a bad brain day. And anyone they talk to knows, okay, back off. Give them a little space. You guys just agree to go revisit this on another day.

And so they actually get supported in, you know, the mental space that they're in, which also makes them have a better day, be more productive, and feel supported by, by co workers and the company. I love that because I was just going to ask you how people around neurodivergent people can help them operate at their maximum potential. But first, I did look up just because I wanted to jog my own memory. Executive function refers to the higher level cognitive skills that you use to control and coordinate your other cognitive abilities and behaviors. So it's kind of that orchestration layer, to use a bit of a cloud tech term.

Todd Bishop
If I could. Are there other things that people you work with, your clients have figured out about how colleagues of neurodivergent people can help them to work and live at their best? That's a fantastic question. And one of the things I work with my clients on a lot is focusing on fewer steps, systems, and anchors. And that ties into kind of what you were just asking, but to be.

Clear, so it's fewer steps, more systems, more anchors. Correct. So again, if we think about what you just described with executive function and low cognitive ability, the fewer steps you have, the more fuel you have and the longer you have it throughout the day. And if we're struggling with anything or challenged by that, simply by figuring out how to have fewer steps, we'll use less brain power and get you there. You know, faster.

Speaker A
We all understand, we've talked for years about different operating systems. And some take seven steps while another one takes three. And you're like, why does that one take seven? And there was a great thing in your question earlier, and I forgot what it was. Oh, yeah.

Todd Bishop
How could the colleagues of neurodivergent people can help them be their best? I think the best. It's a great question. And to help them be their best, it's really just this little bit of education first, and then from there it's really just honestly caring and having good communication and curiosity. Our good friend Julie Pham, who's been on here, has done a lot with curiosity.

Speaker A
And that comes up all the time when I work with folks because that's really the antidote. So the antidote is instead of something happens and you're like, that's weird, you think that's interesting, or I wonder why? And you just ask them in a loving might sound weird at work, but, you know, loving, caring, interested way of. I noticed you do that thing that way and I would have never thought about that. Why do you think you do it that way but not in accusatory way?

Or, you know, the tone matters a lot. So curiosity is the number one thing I think helps to make that connection and understand each other. And just understanding this simple definition. And if there is something that's causing frustration or arguments or you see a struggle, it's pretty easy to go back and identify. Does that seem to be something that would be related to organizing, planning, memory with the dopamine?

Because it's low in our brains, we're always searching for novel things to do, creative, interesting things. There's probably very few of us who work at the post office that would drive us nuts asking people, would you like stamps with that? 300 times in a day. So just understanding that we are different and again, this is another thing just translates into life. We're just people.

And if we are just caring and curious about each other, connection happens, magical things happen. We're happier, we're more productive, we're more effective, and it's effective on both sides. It's nice that you ask how the neurotypical person would help and understand that, though what we're talking about needs to be instigated on both sides. And that's a big thing that I realize with clients is we think we're supposed to talk about what is ADHD? And tell them yes.

And then it's time to be curious about them and their experience. And when they're like well, when you do this thing, it makes me feel this bad way. We still have responsibility. So understanding this or saying I have ADHD is not a get out of responsibility card. It's a, hey, I understand now why this thing is happening.

This can actually help us have a solution. But you still have to apologize. You still have to try not to do it. And I just use spilled milk as a term for these things where we feel like a ten year old most days at some point for something that happened. It can help us to do those things less often.

It can help us to clean it up faster. It can help us to move forward, maybe not have so much anxiety about, oh, I did this thing, who's around? Who's going to see it? How are they going to react? What are they going to say to me?

And instead we could go like, oh, remember when we talked about ADHD? I'm really sorry I did that. But you got to take responsibility, apologize and take the steps to go forward, though. Or I guess I should. And by having that understanding on both sides, it just creates a lot of opportunity to do things better, to not have so much suffering and anxiety around what we're doing and just have a nicer workplace and a nicer experience together.

Todd Bishop
Implicit in all this is that you're very transparent about the fact that you yourself have ADHD. So I want to talk a little bit about that when we come back. You're listening to geekwire and we'll be right back.

Welcome back. It's Todd Bishop. My guest this week is Brett Green. He is the CEO of new Tech Northwest. Many people know him for his work with that community group in the Pacific Northwest.

They bring together entrepreneurs and supporters and they do regular pitches at a variety of events around the Pacific Northwest and Seattle. Your day job effectively is as an executive coach and an ADHD coach. Let's talk about the neurodivergent experience, about your experience. When were you diagnosed? How did you find out?

Were you diagnosed or did you just figure it out? Tell me about your ADHD journey, as it were. I will try to make it short because it could be very long. So the short version is, in my twenties I had a relative who, my nephew had a few different sensory things going on and his mother was getting her PhD in psychology at the time. And she gave me a Ritalin and said, you might want to take this one day and just see when you're trying to focus on work what happens.

Speaker A
And I took it on a Sunday and the first thing that happened is within ten minutes. My brain was quiet for the first time in my life. I was in my late twenties, and I literally, the thought in my head was, what is this? I'm like, wait. And people's brains do this.

Like, what is this? I didn't know this was possible. I just thought we all had these busy brains working on three to five things, and there might be times when it's higher or lower, but we were all just kind of having that experience because I only know what happens in my brain. And at the time, I just thought, oh, I don't want to be on medication for the rest of my life, and I don't know what to do with it. So I just kind of blew it off.

In hindsight, it would have made way better decisions in so many areas of my life if I would have gotten on medication then. Not that everybody needs to, it's a personal choice, but that would help. And I do think it's important to share that. When I did finally do it, a couple things. One, it was to save my marriage.

I have a master's degree in psychology. I've been in therapy off and on for years. I had to be in therapy getting my master's degree, and have read all these books, done all these things, and I was in my forties going, she's like, you've tried everything. What's going on? I'm like, maybe I need to look at this ADHD thing, because I was trying to figure out what to do.

And unfortunately, I lived in Issaquah at the time and went to a nurse practitioner because a lot of them can diagnose. And I was shamed. I filled out a form for an hour. I talked with someone for an hour. I was founded and was running the new tech community with 60,000 technologists and three to 500 people coming to events.

And I was a successful entrepreneur, and I was treated like I was a drug dealer because Issaquah has a drug problem. And so I was treated like I was trying to get, which a lot of people go through that now. And the important reason I want to share that is women have a really hard time with this. Women are misdiagnosed. 80, 90% of the time.

They're told, oh, it might be bipolar, it might be OCD, it might be this thing. And not that it's only women, but it's higher for women to have that issue, and then they get put on medication. That makes what's happening for them worse, and that's how they end up being there. So if you do go to get diagnosed, it's very important to make sure the person diagnosing you has a background and has, you know, this is something they know about and they've done a lot because they're humans, they have their own prejudices and you don't know what will happen. So because of the shaming, I waited another like three or four years before I would do still.

Same problem, you know, same problem of like, how, you know, my wife was confused and she's like, I don't understand. You're a really nice guy, you care, you do these things, but there's things you do that are what a narcissist does. But I don't think you're a narcissist. And that's another good thing to know is a lot of things that present is narcissism because that can be selfish happen because we'll hyperfocus. And when we're interested in something, the world turns off and we want to ride that wave, and we don't want that wave to be broken by anything.

We don't want to be taken away from it and keep going. So, and I realize I'm kind of rambling and going through this, but this is your story. Keep going, right? And I've been, you know, I originally had coach training 25 years ago and did it again a few years later because I was doing it since 2006. I've advised, mentored, and coached startup companies and founders, mostly just as a community thing, not as a profession.

I was doing it all the time, but just volunteering to do that. And then when I got diagnosed, that just made a lot of sense of, oh, I have this master's degree in therapy I haven't done much with. It's just not the direction I went in. And I have coach training. I've been in the startup world for 20 years, and when I realized what it was, I, oh my gosh, I thought I liked smart, fun, interesting people that were creative.

And my first career was in the music industry, same thing. You know, we're the creatives, we're the innovators, we're the risk takers. We thrive on that, partially because the dopamine is low and we're looking for new things to learn. Another, you know, good statistic to know, but kind of a bummer to hear that's helpful is if you're neurodivergent. Statistically, you have heard at least 20,000 more negative messages about yourself by the age of ten.

And that doesn't change after ten, we still hear it at, you know, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, you're still going to be. And it's no one's fault. It's a lack of education, and people are confused. Especially, I believe now, I've worked with now, hundreds of adhd folks, mostly in tech. And that's one of the major patterns that I realized, was that we don't realize other people know we're smart.

We, we undervalue what we're great. If it's easy for us, if we're great at it, and it's amazing, we think anyone can do it, and we totally subjugate that and subjugate ourselves, and we look at the stuff that we can't do, that seems pretty easy and normal to most people, and we overvalue that. And the people who are really good at that and go, oh, I wish I could do that thing. And we don't realize that what we're amazing at is about one third of the population, which is another thing that I really would like people to know and understand, especially at work. It's 30% to 40% of the population.

That's one in three people. So if you're in a room with ten people, three of those people are probably neurodivergent, whether they've been diagnosed or not, because 85% of us are not. But when you look at what these things are and you're like, oh, my gosh, if a light bulb turns off and you wonder, chances are pretty good, because it is. It's life changing. Just.

Just reading that and knowing that and knowing, oh, my gosh, it's not me. I'm not alone. I'm not broken. This is the thing. It's brain chemistry.

There's no magic wand, there's no light switch, even whether or not you want that, and once you understand it now that knowledge is what we can use to do our lives better and to enjoy our lives better and to have better relationships and communication. We have really high percentages, way higher than the general population for getting fired, for quitting. If you're neurodivergent, you're 300 times more likely to be an entrepreneur. Therefore, a lot of founders are there. I've talked to multiple venture capitalists who have said, we realized in hindsight that one of our founders, or both of our founders with this company that failed were neurodivergent.

If we would have realized that and known what to do about it, the company would have made it. But the neurodivergent person was held to neurotypical expectations. Just out of a lack of knowledge. You know, there's no malice. And because of that, the neurodivergent person's beating themselves up all the time while they're creating these multimillion dollar products in their head.

They're just saying, you know, oh, I'm not good enough. And I know this is going on long, so I'll kind of wrap it up. So one way to think about this is, Todd, if you cured cancer, if you spent 40 years of your life and you cured cancer and you're a neurodivergent, you'd have maybe 30 seconds of celebratory bliss. And then this little voice in your head, I call it the yab butt troll, that comes out when neurodivergent people are successful, would look at the top of that mountain, look over the valley and see all the other mountains, and go, lupus, multiple sclerosis. And after 30 seconds, your brain would totally forget that you spent 40 years, did all this stuff, had all these accomplishments, won all these awards, and cured cancer.

And your brain would be like, oh, man, I'm just not good enough. I gotta go figure that problem out. And we're off to that without actually even getting the internal accolades for what we're doing. Fascinating. Your ADHD or similar condition would say to you, more dopamine.

Todd Bishop
More. Not enough. Go get the next thing correct. One of my questions for you is, how do you manage this personally? And what have you seen be most effective among the people you work with for making your ADHD or other neurodivergent condition work in your favor?

Speaker A
As I mentioned before, fewer steps. Anchors and systems. Systems, we all kind of know what those things are. And anchors might seem a little, you know, blurry or obtuse or something. One way to think of an anchor or one example of that would be if you thought of the phrase, when blank happens, I will blank.

So, for instance, I am a middle aged male with ADHD, so no shock. Interrupting is a problem. And I you interrupting others. Me interrupting others, just as I did just now. But see this.

So this is a very, I'm so glad you said that. One of the crazy making things when you're not diagnosed is if you're neurodivergent and you talk to neurodivergent people, you excite each other with your ideas, you talk over each other, you interrupt each other, and you leave higher than when the conversation started. You go to start that same conversation with a neurotypical person, and as soon as they start doing their part and it triggers three different ideas in your head and you jump in, you think as a neurodivergent person, oh, I had something kind of like that. I remember when this thing happened. I'm going to share this.

This is all unconscious, right? So I'm going to share this thing and that's going to connect us. That's going to make them know that I understand what they're going through. No, it's going to make them think that you're rude, that you don't care, that you think what you have to say is more important. And, you know, most men could talk to most women about this, and they would probably nod their head if they're not right now listening to this, going, oh my gosh, yes.

Because it happens all the time. And so that's confusing. If you're not diagnosed, you're like, I don't understand why. Sometimes it's awesome, and sometimes I just stepped in a giant mud puddle and I didn't even know the mud puddle was there. So again, the knowledge is a lot of power with this and what we're talking about.

Somebody could just listen to this podcast and it could change their life because they just heard this concept. And if you're neurodivergent and you haven't heard these things, as soon as you hear a couple of them, you're like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. And your brain will flash through your entire life. Of all these times that these things. Happen in the abstract, people who are neurodivergent, sounds like, would tend to work better with other people who are neurodivergent in that very much.

Todd Bishop
Yeah, they can build on each other and work in the same way. They're exciting each other in their conversation and the ideas. So if there was a way to go back and look at it, I would guess, I would bet money that things like 10,000 songs in your pocket was not something Steve Jobs had in his head when in the middle of the night. It was because he surrounded himself with smart, fun, creative people that were most likely neurodivergent. And when he started having the idea or somebody else mentioned the idea, these are brains that are thriving on challenges and solving problems, and pattern recognition is just, you know, normal for us.

Speaker A
Some of us have photographic memories, which are great. This is a little more in autism than in ADHD. And there's another term, I don't know the right way to pronounce it yet, but you read a lot, audhd, because another statistic, if you don't mind. I keep throwing them out. It helps people just understand how prevalent this is.

If you have autism, you have an 85% chance of having ADHD. If you have ADHD, you have a 40% chance of having autism. And again, both are big spectrums. So, you know, however strong or weak those signals are in your brain, it's still the way your brain is wired and that those characteristics and traits can be there. So if you have the neurodivergent people together, like you're saying you understand each other, you might not even know why, but that's why you resonate with these people and you like being around them.

And going back to how can neurodivergent or neurotypical folks help out neurodivergence at work? One of the main things is look at the things or ask again, curiosity. Another thing that I say over and over to people is use questions to start with the word what. Use questions to start with the word how, what and how are magic words because they create a place for someone to be open and to share what's there. You don't want to ask questions that are yes or no questions.

And if you say, what do you think about this? How would you do this? Even? Why? It's like, why do you do that?

You can see how that feels. So before I interrupted you on the topic of interruptions, you were about to give us a good explanation of something. So I want to ask you, what are anchors and how do they work? Okay, so one, the anchor example is when blank happens, I will blank. So I would say, todd, we're friends and I care about you.

I care about our friendship. Always start with that foundation of, like, there's a reason we're in relationships with these people and we like them. So start that for the context and say, I care about you. I care about our relationship. Hey, I have ADHD.

This is what it means. And part of that is I know that I interrupt a lot. I don't like it. I wish I could stop it. It's not going to happen.

It's brain chemistry. There's things I can do to try to make it better. I know it's going to happen. And since I don't, I want to create with you or agree on what would be helpful. So from my end, I would think, Todd, I give you permission.

If I'm interrupting, you could, you know, hold up your hand at me. Like the way people say stop. And you could say, hey, you're interrupting. Or you could raise a finger and say, hey, you're interrupting. And if we know that's the cue, you know, then you know.

And then I'd say, well, todd, I give you permission to do that. First off, second off, I'm not going to get mad. I want you to know, like, I'm asking you to do this, it's going to help you, it's going to help me, it's going to help our relationship. And I want you to know I will do my best to stop the verbal train. And again, brain chemistry, I can't promise it'll work, but I want you to know now, I'm going to do what I can to try to make that happen.

And if it doesn't happen, you're not going to get mad at me because we already had this conversation. Just having communication solves everything, which is why I'm writing about that, to try. To help people in the realm of systems. Does AI help? Yes, AI definitely helps in different areas.

And as we know, it's evolving quickly, so there'll be, you know, other ways it helps. So the main way AI can help is with email. And the reason is it's incredibly anxiety provoking when you have to send a message to, let's say, your boss or a client or something where you feel like there's some weight there and it could go badly. Neurodivergent folks, I am not exaggerating, could spend ten to 30 minutes crafting one email because we're trying to guess how someone's going to receive it and you can't guess what's happening on the other end when the person opens it, what's in their head. So you could be talking about different genders, different ages, you don't know if their dog died that morning, you know, when they read that.

And the filter that goes through is how they're going to see it, and there's no way to ever predict that. And if you're neurodivergent, we overthink everything, and so we think of every possible way it could go wrong. And another thing to throw in, that a lot of us, including me, have rejection sensitive dysphoria. If you have inattentive adhd, there's a high percentage chance that you have rejection sensitive dysphoria. I won't go that deep into it.

People can google it and find plenty of great information, but that means, in a nutshell, we mentally catastrophize a lot. And the simple thing is think of making a mountain out of a molehill. And we usually catastrophize things that other people don't even notice. But in our mind it's going to not land well, and we generally tend to be people pleasers and we're trying to guess what's going on in someone else's world, and that's impossible for anybody. And so with AI, with email, you can write the email you want and you can tell AI the way you want it to land, and AI can write it in a better way with words that are going to help you to have your communication be clear, because we just don't have those parts.

Our brains are lower on the parts that have executive function. So what might be easy to somebody else? Like, oh, I just sent an email and I don't really care how it lands, I'm just telling them how it is. That doesn't occur for us a lot, and AI really helps people save a lot of time and a lot of anxiety if they're neurodivergent. Brett, I can imagine, as you've mentioned, that a lot of people are listening to this and saying, I recognize myself or I recognize someone in my life.

Todd Bishop
You're writing a book in part to help people who have those realizations. In the meantime, are there any resources you would point people to? Things they can do, groups they can join, websites they can visit, or books they could read in lieu of yours that might help? Sure. So the simple way not to plug myself, because I'm not great at that, but to make it simple.

Speaker A
Brettgreencoaching.com so it's Brettgreen with an e. Two t's and one e coaching.com, right? And if you go there and either look for resources or do that slash resources, there's a page there that for the associations for helping with organizing, with focus, you know, a lot of different things. And I continuously update that because part of the way I'm wired is I like to connect people, help people and resources is a big reason. That's why new tech northwest exists, is come to our event and you find out that geekwire exists if you haven't heard about it.

And we want people to find, and I want people to find the things that are going to help them the most. And that's not necessarily me. I'm not necessarily the best fit for that. And if I'm not, I want to, you know, share my resources and send people the right resources. So that's a great place to find books, websites, podcasts.

If you're wondering if you have ADHD, you want to get a diagnosis, you can just do a search and there's a lot of free assessments you can do online that give you a pretty good idea. And then there's other ways, you know, to go get an official diagnosis if you feel like that's something that would be really helpful for you or somebody you know. As you described the role of new tech northwest and also what you're doing in your role as an executive coach and ADHD coach, it strikes me the irony of the fact that you're providing the executive function for everybody else. That is an interesting observation.

Todd Bishop
All right, that's good. Hey, Brett, this is awesome. I'm really glad we had this conversation. Thank you, Todd. I really appreciate your time.

Speaker A
Thank you for inviting me and all the best to you and geekwire because you guys are such a fantastic asset in the community. Thank you. Thanks for your support. Brett. One quick note.

Todd Bishop
On July 18 in Bellevue, Washington, Brett Green will be holding a workshop called ADHD Strategies for tech founders and investors. You can find a link to that in the show notes if you're listening on a podcast app or on the post for this episode. Thank you for listening, everybody. I will link from the show notes to everything we talked about, including a lot of the resources, and to Brett Green's website. Kurt Milton edited this episode.

I'm Geekwire co founder Todd Bishop. We'll be back next week with a new episode of the Geekwire podcast.

ADHD and the tech industry: Understanding the 'operating systems for the brain'

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1: Introduction

2: Understanding ADHD

3: Strengths and Challenges

4: Workplace Strategies

5: Personal Experiences and Advice

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