SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to Neurodiversity Today, the podcast where we shift the narrative on neurodiversity with your host Kenneth Mittley. Every week he sits down with amazing guests who share honest stories and break down the barriers to how we see the world. Whether you are neurodivergent yourself, a parent, educator, employer, or an ally, you belong right here. But before we get into it, if you love what we do here and want to help us grow, please take two seconds to hit that subscribe button, leave a quick like, and share this episode with a friend. It really helps the channel to reach more people. Now, let's jump right in.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Remy Ray, are you neurodivergent?

SPEAKER_04 0:37

Yes, I am indeed.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Can you talk about your journey of discovering, you know, and and and how that transitioned into your your professional pathway?

SPEAKER_04 0:49

So I always thought there was something different about me from around the age of five. I would stand in the playground in school and think there's something not all not all right, but something very different about the way that I navigate things and look at things. Even as young as the age of five, I always felt that I did things a bit differently. I come from a Jamaican background, and so my family did not think anything was wrong in terms of how I processed information on how I was developing because I could articulate myself pretty well. And as far as they were concerned, you could talk, you could walk, it means you could get a job and you'll figure out life and you move through through through whatever it is that we're, you know, is going on. And so age five, I knew something was different, didn't have the language, also the word neurodivergence, much less dyslexia and things like that, wasn't something that was as um widespread as it is now. And so, yeah, I just went through life, kind of like stumbling, bumping my head along the way, figuring out if that was right or that was wrong just through, you know, experiences and friendships and things like that. But I struggled through school, struggled through university. And when I got into university was when I was diagnosed at the age of 19. One of my lecturers said, Oh, you might be dyslexic. And I was like, dyslexic, what the hell is dyslexic? And she was like, You need to get an assessment. And so I went and got an assessment, and then that's when I found out I was dyslexic, and um, then did nothing with that until I was around 28 years old, until I thought this is something that's actually really hindering my future. And so the journey started.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

And what university were you at?

SPEAKER_04 2:32

So I attended London College of Fashion for a year, and then I transitioned to another creative university because at that point I wanted to do fashion, either designing or anything around fashion and supporting people to give them a void spire clothing.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

All righty and so you are a prominent uh high performance coach, entrepreneur, neurodiversity advocate. And so I I have a you know, want to stay kind of like in that in that spectrum of of you know what you transitioned to and how your your background you know impacted. You often um mentioned moving organizations beyond neurodiversity awareness into structural change. What are the most common operational gaps you see between you know companies' HR policies and the um you know actual daily experiences of a neurodivergent employee?

SPEAKER_04 3:26

Yeah, easily for me, it's the human. I think there's no point talking about neurodivergence and HR policies if we're not considering the actual human experience that people are having. And so when I go into organizations, I am trained through lived experience of being a neurodivergent person first. And then immediately after that, it's around the gaps that I've seen in spaces that have allowed me to consider the opportunities because I am neurodivergent, but also embodying the experiences as I've gone along. So many a time I've been into corporate organizations, been bullied, or you know, I did things in a different way, people couldn't understand, and they create the little cruising clicks and try to stress you out while you're in the job, even though you're more than capable and maybe need a few adjustments. So when I go into organizations, I always speak from the experience of the human first. What do the humans need to be able to deliver on X, Y, and Z objective or task that's been set? And what are the gaps between those spaces, between what they're currently doing, who is giving them the guidance and the support, what do they understand about people with additional needs? And then from there we could consider what that looks like in the overall organization. That's usually my like first approach, first steps.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Yeah, yeah. You know, a lot of times we talk about different initiatives and, you know, even neurodiversity, you know, in general, but we we don't we don't focus on the the human piece or just uh humanity, you know, from a human perspective, we're just you know, that's that's interesting you you know that you say that. Um, you know, across there's no work without that.

SPEAKER_04 5:03

There's no work without the human-centered. Um, and I think this is why organizations always consistently get it wrong, because they're asking the wrong questions because they're looking from the wrong POV. Um, and we can't. We just there's no workforce without humans, even with the shift in AI, but there's no workforce without humans first. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

You know, it is challenging. You know, it's challenging, but I want to dive into, you know, companies, you know, companies have programs, hiring programs, or neurodiversity at work uh programs, and you know, many times they they look different. Either they're coming out of different departments like HR or innovation department, or they're coming from a higher level, from an executive who may be personally you know impacted. And so for an executive who wants to build an inclusive environment but doesn't know you know where to start, you know, what are your core, the core foundations you know, required to become a you know truly neuroaffirming leader in this day and time?

SPEAKER_04 6:06

Again, it it's the listening, it's the the the really human things that sometimes we leave at the door once we enter into a workplace. If we're not listening to what as leaders, I should start by saying, as leaders, it's our job to hear the things that aren't being said. That's it. Yeah, we have to start there. The leaders must be able to deter, um, determine, sorry, when somebody's saying something without actually saying something. Because a neurodivergent person could easily show up in an organization and perform to the you know, temp wonder in the world, but then actually be struggling internally, cognitive processing, so forth, emotional overload, all the things sensory that still show off and deliver on their work in every in every single capacity, but that person would definitely burn out. So, what is being said via other forms of communication outside of what somebody's speaking? What does it look like in terms of are they you know bringing in their work really late in terms of deadlines? Are they missing things? Are they not interacting with the rest of the team? Are they going off on their own and kind of needing space to do? It's there's so many things to consider around the adjustments that are needed. But first, it's always what is the story that's been put out? What is the story that everybody kind of has kind of concluded about that particular person as well? And where does that person sit within that mix? Because those are the things that are usually killing the environment in terms of teams, the narrative that people who don't understand Andy are spreading about that particular employee, the bits where the employee doesn't feel like there's space to be, to become, to nurture, to be supported, and then the piece around the leadership in terms of how are they allowing that person to show up, to thrive, to be supported in the environment as well. So there's always free stories when you enter into organizations from my perspective. I need to know all of those things to be able to gather the data to see what gaps are at play.

SPEAKER_02 8:05

So you're talking about, you know, the story or the narrative, you know, that that plays a you know a role into like culture, you know, you know, the organizational culture, you know, the values, the principles, you know, the interests. I know there uh the topic of intersectionality is not always talked about, you know, but you know, your work, that's the core, you know, focus, a core pillar um of your advocacy work is uh initiative uh through the diverse creative. Uh yes. Yeah, I see. Can you talk about that a little bit?

SPEAKER_04 8:41

Yeah, so the diverse creative was birthed out of the fact that um when I was diagnosed with dyslexia, I didn't speak about it to anybody until I was 28. I was invited to the speaking engagement, and I'm now 38. So it's been 10 years more or less since I first spoke about being dyslexic. And I realized that there were so many of me from my community. I come from a place called South London, Peckham. Um, and there's a congestion of people with needs, they have needs from addiction and so forth and so on. Before we even get to the point of even speaking about their learning needs, we're speaking about everything from drugs to you know all the things. And as I looked around, more and more people that looked like me seemed to be struggling, whether it was family members coming to one particular cousin needing forms filled out so that they could get their benefits or access the things. So all of these things started to kind of come together. And I'm like, what is going on? Why are all these people struggling all the time? And they always need my mum to do this, or they always need that person to do this. And I just started to look around the actual environment that I was operating in and knew very well, and realized that most of these people could not read, they could not write, they couldn't process really basic information to be able to support themselves. And so I decided to create the diverse creators that would allow us to provide affordable assessments to figure out if people had dyslexic traits. That was it. That was the whole premise of what the organization would do to start at the foundation of understanding the immediate needs that these particular clients, um, you know, they come become science, but the community had that was it. Baseline, it was the most affordable um screening service that was available or that people could access at 65 pounds, where assessments were 1,000 pounds, what £2,000 to even know where to even go to get an assessment was even a whole nother thing. And so we started there just based on the environment and what we could see. And from there we morphed into providing a report, which is the Homecoming project, which speaks to the black experience within a particular borough here in London, where again, there's a congestion of people with additional needs that are struggling in employment and they need tools. Then we circled back and started seeing that there was a massive gap within the landscape of offering business support, and nobody was speaking to the needs of neurodivergent people, much less black and brown neurodivergent people in the business landscape. This is just before COVID hit, uh or in the midst of COVID, where we were trying to get some funding to be able to say, well, if everybody's focused on business, everybody should have a side hustle. Why do none of these programs actually consider people with additional needs when we make up a massive part of the population? So we've done loads of different things. It looks fragmented, but actually, when you look at it, you know, from a bird's eye blue, you will see we've tackled pieces of employment, we've tackled pieces around enterprise and entrepreneurship, and then we've tackled pieces from the baseline level of community, and slowly they've all woven through in different ways. Long answer, but in and that's the nuts in the bolt.

SPEAKER_02 11:55

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you you you you really uh you know address a systemic issue, you know, when it comes to you know receiving a diagnosis and and just that initial, you know, start, you know, many individuals from certain you know parts of our communities across the world, you just don't have access to to get diagnosed.

SPEAKER_04 12:13

And you know, that's and it's still the same, it's still the same. Access, uh the barrier to be able to be diagnosed, whether you're on a waiting list from like the local um doctor's office here, a practice, like a GP practice, general practitioner's practice. You can be on a wait list for up to five years here for ADHD assessments. Um, dyslexia is something else in its entirety. Most of the time, you have to pay or you have to be going through educational institute to be able to be assessed. A lot of people in the community also don't really see the value in paying for assessments from the experiences that I've had. It's £1,000, £1, £2,000, £3,000 to get assessments across the board from autism, dyslexia, ADHD, so forth and so on. And so they just put it to the back burner and just take any job that they've got and stay there as long as they can until they get pushed out or bullied. So it is it is systemic and it's and it's a deep, deep, deep issue.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

Yeah. I want to transition to uh another issue, you know, that is um is recognized, you know, which is masking. So autistic uh and norodivergent masking is highly documented. Um, but how does this you know shift when an individual also has to navigate you know certain racial codes or code switching as they call it in corporate spaces? Um what are your thoughts on on this?

SPEAKER_04 13:41

A basic masking is protective, but also very dangerous because you never really know the person unless you create the safety. And um, I think code switching right now for many is is a massive, massive safety tool that they should continue to use. I know people always say, you know, you're code switch, you know, you're masking or you're doing this, but actually, most places aren't that safe for you to take your mask off. And so I'm I'm suggesting that people keep their mask on until they're in an environment where they aren't going to be penalized for it. That's first. And listen, I've been someone who's had to mask and code switch many a times in my journey, and a lot of it came down to the fact that I didn't really understand my value. Um, because I was dyslexic, because I struggled with being able to articulate myself in certain instances, or it was the first time I was doing something when I was being held to a different standard because I am a black woman, or because I do things in a certain way, or because I speak in a certain way, I've definitely tapped into the things that would allow me to move myself forward with V1. And yes, that it is deemed as masking, but some of it is just about advancement and slowly uncovering your value too. And I think that's the most important work we can do as neurodivergent people, is to really understand where our value is and where it's best placed in the current economy that we operate in.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Yeah, yeah, that's you know, that's an interesting point. You know, the advice as far as to consider um masking until it's safe, you know, and that's that's just something that's a real excuse me, that's something that's real, you know, real consideration. You know, um you know, I was talking to an individual, you know, that just looking at what you need, you know, and and making sure that you secure that that safety, you know, for yourself. So it's not just a one, it's not no right or wrong answer. You just have to, it's look at where you're at and and and it's a lot of things to to consider. And I want to shift now to um a different aspect, you know, of your experiences, which deals with entrepreneurship. Um and so many autistic individuals or neurodivergent professionals uh struggle with confidence uh due to you know uh you know early school experiences and then also workplace workplace drama, like we talked about. So how do you uh coach clients uh to move past the shame and embrace uh their cognitive differences, you know, as a strength?

SPEAKER_04 16:19

One of the things I've noticed with my clients, specifically men, uh they are so much more better at gathering data about their accomplishments and using those as a strength reminder of some sort. When I work with my female clients, they have sorry, they have so much more trauma that they've taken on, you know, wrapped up and they're cuddling like a baby, and they have different layers of trust, and that takes time to build. And so when I worked with these two types of clients, I have to have different approaches, and that's why it must be custom. None of my clients are actually the same, they're all brilliant in different ways, but they have different layers, and I think maybe I'll latch this on to one of the earlier points that you made around masking and just being neurodivergent altogether. If you have trauma, these things also show up very differently based on what your personal experiences are, which means that you may perform differently. And so, yes, you may be high performing, but your performance may change, shape, depending on what you're experiencing at that time. When I became a new mum, yes, I was high performing in various areas, but actually in other areas, it dipped because I was experiencing something for the first time. My body was embodying something for the first time. And so when I work with clients, I really have to understand what is going on in their lives right now, what are the challenges that they're facing, what are the challenges that are still presenting for them today, maybe childhood traumas, maybe relationship breakdowns, whatever it may be, workplace bullying, finance, you know. So before we do anywhere, they have to uh have an application, so it's application-based, and generally they're working with a therapist. That is my suggestion as a baseline because of the layers that we'll go through to uncover their confidence. Um, and a lot of the time it's self-worth. Somebody hasn't exposed them to understanding how they add value into spaces, and so they either play small or they, you know, run in the wrong direction and then you know hold themselves to some serious guilt of why litwing hasn't happened for them when actually they just needed to take a little bit of the pressure off, a few pots off the stove, readjust, look at the data, and then reload and come again. So long-winded answer, but in a nutshell, like that.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Your computer doesn't crash just because it runs a different operating system, it just processes things in its own way. So, why do we expect every human brain to run the exact same way? Colleagues who process data, sound, or time differently aren't broken. They just run on a different, equally valuable code. Let's build better workplaces for all employees, design an environment that supports every operating system. This message is brought to you by Neurodiversity today.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

You know, best practices around awareness, um, really being aware, you know, of yourself, um, and avoiding uh a burnout. And can you talk a little bit about burnout? Because I mean that's you know, that's a common, you know, theme, kind of reality to like high-performing individuals who are nor neurodivergent. And if they don't practice those particular um, you know, strategies that you just talked about, you know, it is it's going to lead to uh burnout in one form of another.

SPEAKER_04 19:59

What's interesting to me actually is that I think that neuro people who are undiagnosed are probably slightly more burnt out than those that are, because those of us that are know that there's a something else that could be contributing to survey that we're showing up, but the ones that aren't diagnosed, they're stressing up society, they're stressing everything else out because they're running around doing this and then if that person, just say, for instance, your manager is an undiagnosed, undiagnosed ND person, yeah, and then all that pressure and stress because they haven't been able to get support or guidance, so forth and so on, now trickles down into the team. What do you think happens to the team? You know, and so all of these things, and this is why I say like I was shut when the roof stops about being ND because it's not just about me, it's about who I have to show up for. So they show up for the organization of the work that we're delivering on. If I'm unregulated, that energy seeps into my team. They become unregulated because I'm throwing things at them, you know, so many things. So all of these things, it's important that we do our self-reflections, we understand who we are, especially if we're leading ships, especially if we are managing other people's livelihoods. It's important for us to understand our baselines, our foundations of our work. You reinforce the practice of self-reflection also, and bringing in other board members, your advisory boards to really have eyes and POVs on how you navigate and show up in the world. I can't tell you how many spaces I've been into and people are just trauma dumping on other people, and that's because nobody's showing them the mirror. I don't believe in that. I believe in honest feedback that is comfortable and uncomfortable sometimes because you may not know and people may not feel comfortable enough to tell you how you're showing up in spaces. But as my job as the person you hire to support you, it's my job to let you know there's some things that we need to.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

That's a lot. That's a lot. That's a lot. You know, I can see why people bring you on board to support, you know, as a coach to provide that insight. You know, we talk about like high performing individuals who are neurodivergent. You know, but there's one aspect of uh, you know, just you know, um going through that process of of um of I guess being your your true authentic self, but also just um um being comfortable in the in the spot side spotlight. And so you once noted that being you know underestimated can serve as a powerful uh gear shift to uh showing up and to excel. Uh how can neurodivergent individuals um channel like internal uh skepticism into a per first a professional momentum to move forward?

SPEAKER_04 22:58

It's about getting your reps in. I I think we like to um segment things uh quite a lot, especially as indie people. But the truth is if you go to the gym once, nothing's happening. If you go to the gym 10 times, you might see a little change. Go to the gym a hundred, a thousand times, you're gonna see a significant change. And so it is about your reps. What does that look like? You have to build your endurance because not everyone's gonna like you, not everyone's gonna want to play in a sandbox nicely with you. And these are things you still have to live with. One of my personal favorite things that I've personally done for myself is sit in silence more so that my brain can slowly come down and then I can have a lot more clarity of thought. What's helped with that is getting to the gym because that makes my body come down to like a really natural state once I've worked out. You know, my breathing slowly started to regulate and then I can think better. I think more of us also need to be working out and releasing some of these tensions and energy so that our brains aren't going 500 different directions all at once. And when we're tired, we can actually sleep a lot and meet a lot of people who aren't sleeping properly. And then on the other side of that, it means they're not being nourished properly and replenished. And so when they wake up, they're just as tired as the fatigue, which leads to so many more things showing up. So um, yeah, I hope that answers your question. I need to go a little bit deeper on that. It's about the reps.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. Um about the reps, about putting the work, but you sparked another question around, you know, the aspect of um just uh you know being uh balanced, you know, the aspect of balance, including, you know, exercising. And so I'm I'm curious to get your thoughts about, you know, like uh mindfulness, you know, uh from an executive standpoint. You know, their executives there, you know, sometimes they tap into something called like biohacking. Well, that's just you know, can you talk a little bit about that? And and do you have any you know recommendations of how to incorporate those type of strategies for individuals who are neurodivergent?

SPEAKER_04 25:05

Yeah, I think it does depend on where you are on your journey. If you're early diagnosed, I think people then go the route down the rabbit hole with a lot of analysis. And if you're somebody who maybe like me, I'm nearly 20 years in of knowing that I've been neurodivergent, my cadence is a lot slower. I'm not as fast to adapt to things or take on things because I understand that I have a rhythm that really works for me at this stage and it can be adapted. But if I try to implement something really quickly and I haven't had the time to really understand where it's coming from and you know, just the energy around it and what does that look like in my reality, then actually I'm gonna do myself a disservice. So a lot of this comes down to how you manage your time. I manage my calendar really rigorously, uh, it's color-coded, you know, it has its rest incorporated within it. I do this work with my clients as well. I call it strategic blocking. We block out your calendars for fun first, and then anything that's left around that, then we, you know, we weave in your work. So we start with 12 months and then we sit with what are the days that are non-negotiable for you, maybe your birthdays, maybe your kids' birthdays, wife's birthdays, so forth and so on. When are you going to take holiday? So then you also have things to look forward to. So we kind of reverse engineer fun, but it's actually work and just streamlining your time so that it works better for you. But I'm a massive, massive advocate for sound healing um therapies such as sound baths and gong baths and things of that nature, regrounding yourself. And, you know, it's not just about going out and hugging trees, but it's around listening and noticing things within your body. One of the best things that I've ever done is sit with myself and to notice what kind of thoughts are coming up. And I know, you know, every podcast talks about these things. Oh, yeah, what came up for you? What came up for you? But actually, it's just data. We need more data to understand where we have pains and how we can get directly to the pain and solve the issues that we have for ourselves. But if you're not listening, if you're on the devices all the time, if you're busy, your brain is so busy that you actually can't sit with yourself, your body's burning out, but your mind's burning out faster. And so solitude and silence have been some of the biggest gifts that I've given myself over the last couple of years. And my clients as well, they do sound valves now. Some of them are going for retreats, silent retreats and things of that nature. This thing wasn't happening before, and I think it's because I have a level of trust with them that allows them to consider these things. But like these this is the work. It it starts here and then we layer on top of it and build up your your your you know your document arsenal or your suite of documentation that supports you from galaxy tests to psychometric testing and things just to like with fine that data that actually, if you don't notice the changes and the shifts that are happening in your body and your mind, it doesn't matter what else we give you, you won't be able to retain it.

SPEAKER_02 28:02

Yeah, yeah. You you mentioned you mentioned uh diet, you know, the impact of diet. Can you briefly talk about that? And and is that something that you speak to some of your clients, you know, as far as the impact diet may have on their um their you know concentration, their behaviors, their, you know, their life.

SPEAKER_04 28:23

I would say I speak more about sleep than I do about uh diet, but they go hand in hand. This is true. I'm on a health journey now myself as somebody who's always been plus size. My journey before I started doing work with neurodivergent people was advocating for the plus-size uh industry here across Europe, which is now a billion-dollar industry, which has a lot to do with my earlier career, if you want, you know, holding the fashion shows and things and being an advocate for plus-size women here in the UK. And I speak more about sleep than I do about anything else. But like I said, the nutrition piece plays a massive role in it. I won't say I'm an expert, I just listen to what my clients tell me. And then from there, we look at the data of when they get more sluggish or you know, what that looks like for them in terms of what they should be taking or what they should be lacking or what they may be lacking. One of the things I always tell my clients to do also is get blood work because I don't know, I'm not a doctor, but actually the data will tell us where you're lacking in deficiencies or you may need to enhance certain things. And then from there we have more information. And this isn't work that I have to do. Most of the work I do with my clients isn't around business, it's around performance, it isn't around their bodily, you know, like their journeys of health and wellness. But actually, if we don't address these things, then what's the point in me telling you how to scale or how to 10x something or how you could uh make more money if if you're not all right in yourself? And so it's just a hybrid approach, I would say. But a lot of it's built through trust and the things my clients share with me. It's quite deep. It's it's so it's individual, I would say, in that respect, but blood work, mindfulness, um, silence and solitude, and massive journaling and things like that. Um, and now they come and tell me, oh, I've done this and I've done that, which they probably never would have explored um without that trust.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

How does your organization view different ways of thinking? Do you see hurdles or do you see hidden power? Meet Kenneth Mims, a dynamic TEDx speaker, global advocate, and founder of the Neurodiversity Education Research Center. He is a world-recognized expert in neuro-affirming, strength-based practices that change how we learn, work, and lead. From corporate boardrooms to university halls and K-12 schools, Kenneth gives your team the inspiration and motivation needed, along with actionable tools to move past old labels to tap into innovative potential. Foster true inclusion by booking Kenneth Mims at KennethMims.com today.

SPEAKER_04 31:00

Someone who has a four-year-old, single one with four-year-old now, but in the early stages of looking after my daughter, I was so sleep deprived. And then I had a team that's predominantly neurodivergent too. And so my erraticness of a lack of sleep then affected the decisions that we were making within the organization. And so we've had to rebuild some of those strands out from the ramifications of me not being regulated and not being replenished. And that's detrimental. That's detrimental for my whole entire organization. But it's the truth. Everything struggled. But the reason why I talk about sleep so much is because I'm an early sleeper and I'm an early riser. So I'm in bed anywhere between 8:30 and maybe 9:30 every day. It's rare that I'm not, if I'm outside, it's you know something else. But generally I am in bed very, very early. People cannot believe that I go to bed so early. But I'm up at 5:15 in the morning, and that's my hour on my window before my daughter wakes to spend time with myself, to notice things about myself. And I'm not saying doing do extra work. I'm talking about the slowness that allows me to re-regulate myself in the morning, take time with myself, uh, express gratitude to myself and be before the world tells me or tries to shake me. Um, and that in itself, it sounds so simple, so whimsical, like, oh, look at this. But actually, that snee window that I have on myself allows me to be sharper, allows me to be switched on before anybody else is up generally in the world, and it allows me to make better, better decisions each and every time.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

Yeah, yeah. As we close out this um this episode, I I I want to just ask you um to you know reflect um on you know your younger self. You know, what would you say to your younger self, you know, on your journey, looking back? You know, what would what would you say as far as to advise on you know on maybe what to do, what not to do, what to feel, what not to feel, what to think, what not to think.

SPEAKER_04 33:23

I'd say the biggest, biggest learning is still the ones I'm still going through now, because the landscape's changed. What was going on with Indy 20 years ago isn't what's going on with ND now. Like I've walked into organizations, they're like, oh yeah, we have um, you know, we have a uh a network for this and we have a network for that, but then all the staff members, as soon as the leaders are gone, oh my god, my manager's bullying me, oh my god, this is happening, you know. So like it looks like things are changing, but how much is really changing? The biggest thing that I've done is to notice and to be okay with not having to assert myself into things that take me out of character. And that character, my being and D is a part of my identity. And I know people say don't label yourself, it is a part of who I am because I've had to live with it for as long as you know, as long as the day is. And so I just notice things now. I speak less, which has been helpful for me because it allows me to process better. Um, I'm a happy sharer, where before I'll be like this because I wasn't sure, I'll be second guessing, I'll be over-analyzing things. Um, I asked for permission later, before I would ask for permission over and over again because I needed that validation. I ain't doing that anymore. I'm too grown, too big, got too much gravitas. Um, and I spend the time learning my strengths. That's how I became a performance coach because I sat with my strengths. I understand my strengths. Am I the best at this? No. I'm average here, I'm great here. How do I lean into where I'm great? And how do I spend the time in my calendar to understand how I can strengthen these skills? And that's it. So I know I spend time noticing and understanding my data, my Remy Ray data. That that's all the work has been done.

SPEAKER_02 35:18

I I appreciate you um for joining us, Remy. Um your story is powerful, you know, and it's and and my intentions is, you know, you know, that it, you know, it reaches you know others to have an impact. Can you share a little bit about ways that people can contact you and and and uh access some of your resources and services?

SPEAKER_04 35:40

Yeah, so I coach, yes, but it's not like my primary work. It it is for the right people because one thing I can't do in light on myself being an ND person, I work with who I want to work with. I work with organizations that are really advocating for true change, not just change that they think they want to see. Otherwise, it's a poor use of my time. And I do our community an injustice by not being honest about what needs to change and then how I see the ways that we could change it. Um, our project, not your average entrepreneur, completed end of last year. We had thousands of people come through our um our training program for neurodivergent people. We touched on every possible thing you could think about from a business perspective, but it was all considered via the lens of people who were neurodiverg for people who were neurodivergent. So we made every accommodation we could possibly afford to make sure that the clients that we serve were supported. That also won us champion awards for ND champion, you know, champion advocate and change, um, advocacy, sorry, and change. Um, and the work we're doing now is really understanding what are the true needs that, yes, everybody says they're ND, everybody's got a program for neurodivergent people, but actually what the baselines to allow people to really thrive. So we're looking at data, we're looking at what reports we can produce because we realize that as an organization that's black-led, woman-led, we also need to leave breadcrumbs for when we're not here doing this work anymore. And it's a massive part of our focus for 2027 to make sure that we're leaving those data points so somebody doesn't have to start from the beginning all over again. And also being in more spaces loud and proud. The space uh that we navigate in in terms of industry, it has a particular demographic, and that demographic has been fortunate, been profitable for a long time, but more of this work, more stories need to be told as well. We're not exclusive, but we are the people's voice in the background. We want to give the voiceless back the opportunities to be heard. Um, and so that's it. So we have a website called diversecreative.org, the community interest company. I'm not sure if you have those in the States, but it's kind of like a charity. So you get the best of both worlds, is how they've positioned that. We will be launching a charity um early 2027 or so, which will focus more on the advocacy work. The CIC will focus on the program delivery. And then I have another company now that I've just set up, which will be focusing on the infrastructure, so all the infrastructure kind of elements that MD people aren't considered in from housing perspectives, from uh software perspective, from educational perspectives too. If you think about all the universities and the institutions that are available, how many of them can you say that ND people are actually having a great experience and feel like they know what their futures look like? Nobody even considers it, even from a job perspective. Most ND people will get into a role and never leave it because they're afraid of the outside world again. And so, what does that look like from a foundational perspective? So we're touching on all different points, but um, in a nutshell, unavailable and can be contacted via LinkedIn and other, you know, the usual platform, but the workers infrastructure, employment, trajectories for the future, program delivery and advocacy.

SPEAKER_02 39:16

All right. Well, we appreciate you so much, you know, for joining us here at NOAA Diversity today. Thank you, Remy.

SPEAKER_03 39:24

Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. We hope it informed and inspired you with new insights and understanding. Please take a moment to subscribe, like, and share this channel. Your support helps these vital conversations reach the listeners who need this the most. To connect with our guests and fellow listeners, access exclusive content, and stay updated on our upcoming live events. Join our growing community on LinkedIn. You can find the direct link in the show notes below. Until next time, keep embracing neurodiversity in all things mental.