Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Maureen Dunne (on neurodiversity)

Episode Date: March 28, 2024

Maureen Dunne (The Neurodiversity Edge) is a cognitive scientist, neurodiversity expert, and business leader. Maureen joins the Armchair Expert to discuss her ability to read a book in a half hour, how most people don’t fit into just one neurodivergent box, and how neurodiversity should be seen as an asset. Dax and Maureen talk about the importance of combating stereotypes, how people misevaluate the level of talent of neurodivergent people, and how a large percentage of millionaires have dyslexic traits. Maureen talks about the disproportionality between talented people and meaningful opportunities, how codification and conduct drive culture, and the value of integrating cognitive diversity into the workforce. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert, I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Mrs. Rathers. Hi there. Hi, how are you? I'm good, I'm sleepy. Yeah, you just had a couple big yawns. Yeah, I did.

Your yawns betrayed your energy level. I know, I was up pretty late watching makeup videos. Okay, okay, any good tips you wanna pass on to the listeners? Oh, so many, I bought so many products. Oh, you did, okay, you really went wild. Yeah, I did. Okay, got that credit card out and let it rip. Apple Pay.

Oh, baby. Mm, sponsor. Sponsor. Today we have Dr. Maureen Dunon, and she is a cognitive scientist, a neurodiversity expert, a global keynote speaker, a board director, and business leader. She also, which we'll talk about, is she was the first Rhodes Scholar

out of community college. Really cool. She has a new book out now called The Neurodiversity Edge, the essential guide to embracing autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and other neurological differences for any organization. This was a very, very informative interview

that ended up carrying into a bunch of other stuff we've done since. Yeah, this is unlike any of the ones we've had. I feel like we learned a lot. Yeah. It's good. Please enjoy Dr. Maureen Dunn. This NHL season, get more excitement

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It doesn't care where you come from, what you look like, your credit score, or your outrageous food delivery habits. Crypto is finance for everyone, everywhere, all the time. Kraken, see what crypto can be. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. Kraken's registration details at kraken.com slash legal slash ca dash pru dash disclaimer. Hi there! How are you? Welcome! Jimmy said he totally remembers that story, but he can't remember what actor it was, but he's going to find out from Molly.

Oh, that's great! Okay. Maureen, do you want to hear a crazy story that has nothing to do with this interview? Absolutely. There is some legendary actress, or in search of who, who had a housekeeper for like 30 years. The housekeeper was saving all of her money, and the housekeeper had built a replica

of the actress' house in Mexico, where she was from. She ultimately retired, moved to the house, that was her replica, and then the actress became insolvent and she ended up moving down to Mexico and living in the house with her former housekeeper. We just got confirmation that that's a story. But we can't, we haven't found out quite yet who the person is.

Did Salma Hayek tell us the story? Is she connected somehow? I feel like she's connected, but maybe that's just I wanted it to be a movie. I mean, I feel like she's connected, but maybe that's just Mexican hair. I wanted it to be a movie. I mean, I wanna. Sounds like a movie. Yeah, I wanna see the whole thing play out.

Yeah. Wow. Okay, so how long are you in town? Until tomorrow. When did you get here? Wednesday, I had a couple other interviews. Okay, do you like it out here? Absolutely. Are you honest? Yeah, I was just telling, no, I do.

I lived in California for 10 years. Where? All over. For a while I was in San Diego and Del Mar and then I was doing work in Central Valley of all places. Something to do with agriculture? No. This goes back over 10 years where there was such little expertise in neurodiversity and I was recruited to be an, you know, a resource. So I was doing a lot of work with Easterseals and other organizations. And so I was responsible for 10 counties from Monterey.

Oh wow. Oh my Lord. To Bakersfield. I ended up having to spend a lot more of my time than I was anticipating in Fresno though. And then after that, we were in San Francisco and Palo Alto for many years until a certain day in November 2016

when we were just talking about it before he came in, completely changed my life. The same day Trump got elected, which no one anticipated, at least people in California, found out I was having triplets. So those two pieces of information. Triplets. Now, is this an inappropriate question?

Please tell me. When I find out someone's having triplets, my very first curiosity is like through in vitro or is this something that happened just on its own? And is that an invasive question? For most people, yes. It is. Yeah, okay.

I wonder that. But in my case, two out of the three are identical. I thought I was having one. I mean, I'm small, right? So I'm already like, okay, you're having twins. There's two fraternal twins. And then I honestly thought the doctor was joking. He's like, wait, wait, wait, wait.

There's a third heartbeat. No, no. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, no, no, no, no. Wow. Cause I never even knew anyone that had triplets. Right? I guess that's why I'm immediately curious

because I obviously knew a bunch of twins growing up. I've dated a couple of different twins. They're run-of-the-mill twins. Triplets, now you're getting into some rare territory. Well, especially when you have the identicals, because you can't predict that at all. Yeah, that's an egg splitting in half. Correct.

Yeah. But then another egg also. But then I also have, yeah. But I wish my son, we were happy that the third triplet was a different gender. That is helpful, right? Yeah, because we already see, like even now, my son feels left out, you know, sometimes.

Like they're best friends, but at the same time, the two, they're just inseparable, right? So can you imagine another girl that just, you know, yeah. So that would have been harder. It would have killed her. That would have been sad, yeah. That was my first thought when you said two are identical. We have two children, and when it was talked about

of having a third, I'm like, absolutely not. Two of them will ruin the middle one. That's just how it works. Not planning on three, yeah. We thought we were having one, and then maybe like a second later if we were lucky. And then it's like, wow. We had some struggles that first night.

We were so prepared to be told like it didn't work out at all, right? And then it was like, wow, triplets. Like, are you serious? Worked out 300%. They were born really early, 28 weeks. Which is normal. Things actually went pretty well up until the%. They were born really early, 28 weeks. Which is normal. Things actually went pretty well

up until the day they were born. You hope for like 32, 33 weeks, all triplets are most likely gonna be born early. But 28 weeks is early. They're about two pounds each. So they spent three months in the NICU. Oh, that's so hard. That was tough, but they're doing great.

You've been through one of the most unique experiences of anyone we've ever interviewed, really, because I only have the experience of one arrives and you're like, oh my God, I hope I can take care of this one thing and give all my attention to this one thing. I can't even imagine holding three and going like, I'm gonna do my best.

It's scary. Yeah, and it was interesting because it was hard to even get people to help us. By the time they came home from the hospital, they were still only five pounds each, and they still seemed really fragile, right? My husband and I were just a great team. And were you on your own in the Bay Area? So I lost both my parents relatively young,

and then my husband and I are both neurodivergent too, yet we have triplets. Oh, wow. So it's like, it's a super complicated, but hopefully inspiring story, I hope for other people out there. But we were in the Bay Area at the time, we made this decision then to move back to where I grew up.

Not that we would have a lot of necessarily help, but the kids kind of get to know their cousins. Also you can have a backyard to dump them in and let them run wild and feral. Yeah, well, you know, yeah, to dump them in and let them run wild and feral. Yeah. Well, you know, yeah. But what I guess I didn't anticipate in making that decision, having lost both my parents and then going back to the home, you know, somewhere where I never really anticipated

moving back to, right? Right. And we just, my husband and I ended up being in a situation where we really could work from anywhere. We had a lot of relationships globally. And after both my parents had died, I put everything into a storage unit. And then I started going through all that stuff. So you're processing all this shit.

Yeah, and all these little babies too. Right. And then like going to places where my parents, it was very weird because of grief and loss from an early age, there were certain memories just weren't as accessible to me, right? But then being back there with my own kids, all these memories started coming back. Yeah, because I'll say also just the act of having kids

forces you to remember your childhood in a weird way. For me, at least. Absolutely. You're watching them go through this stuff and then you just inevitably start remembering where you were at when this happened or what environment you were in. You kind of use yourself as a comp, I guess, as you're going through this. And how were you parented, and what did your parents do,

and what worked, and what didn't you like? Right. Yeah, so it already forces you back a little bit, and then to be physically where you were at, too. It's been an interesting experience. All right, so can I ask you a very frank question with tons of love? I don't know that you're neurodivergent,

and I don't know which variety, and I wanna make sure I'm as helpful as humanly possible. I have a good friend who's autistic and I know how to be very explicit. So I don't know what version you have and I would love to know if there's anything I can do that is helpful. Okay, yeah, part of what's exciting me to be here

is to talk about the complexity and nuance in which neurodivergencies can manifest themselves. So I'll start out by saying that when I tell people I'm neurodivergent, people manifest themselves. So I'll start out by saying that when I tell people I'm neurodivergent, people that know me really well, if I don't say the type, most people would assume I'm dyslexic, but I'm not. So this is what's really interesting is that a lot of how I present ends up being a dyslexic profile, but I'm actually hyperlexic. There's a couple different, so I'll get into the complexity there, but I started reading from a really young age

I was reading full books by the time I was three in college I was reading ten books a day, you know, but I was doing it in this way That was not you can't read two pages with either eye. Can you I have seen a doc about people that can do that This is me self-reflecting rather than a scientific theory, but I've realized that what I do is somehow my brain, basically the whole phonological loop, how most people read, it's disrupted, or I'm not using that part of my brain, and I'm abstracting meaning just from pattern abstraction

with my eyes. So like a full snapshot of it at once. I can abstract the meaning, so it's like I don't sound out every word. So I can get through a book in like half an hour and then like get a mind map out. Now that doesn't work really well. I really want to enjoy like a piece of fiction.

Well, my immediate question was going to be, so I'm the opposite, right? I'm dyslexic, but I find that the upside of it is I have insane retention. I seem to have better retention than the status quo. I seem to be over indexing. So I'm wondering, is the reverse true for you? So if you're taking on so much at such a speed,

do you feel like you pay a price with retention? Where I pay a price, this is why I push myself not to do it for fiction. It's more like when I was doing my PhD and I was doing another master's at the same time and doing very interdisciplinary work, and I was just trying to get information. It's helpful if you're just abstracting information, but it's really not

enjoyable if you're trying to like, get lost, flowery language. Right. So, but I think the interesting price, and this is where I come across as dyslexic is that I was reading so early that I think my brain is so wired in an orthographic sense that sometimes I mispronounce words that I read before I heard them or if I haven't heard them, you know? And so dyslexia obviously has a connection with the phonological loop. There's some challenges there. Explain the phonological loop because I don't know.

There's a verbal working memory. So I'm a cognitive scientist by training, so that's where my PhD is in. So that also, I guess, has helped me think a lot about these types of things. And generally speaking, phonological awareness is really important to reading. There's inner speech going on, it's how you sound out words and pronounce them correctly, and so it kind of factors into how the brain works

with reading and spelling. And so for me, just because, you know, this is my sort of theory of myself. Yeah, you're juggling two things. You have your self-narr I, you know, this is my sort of theory of myself. Yeah, you're juggling two things. You have yourself narrative, and then you have your work as a cognitive researcher, right? Yeah, correct, correct.

So you know, these aren't always in accord, and they wouldn't make for a good study or a published work, but alas, you're also a person who has a story about themselves. Yeah, for sure, you know, just thinking about it, I realize I'm increasingly becoming more conscious of it. At certain points in my life, I maybe would have said like

preface rather than preface, right? Or something like that. This orthographic that's so strong. That's where your dominant language is. Yeah, and so I'm bypassing this phonological loop. And so it's like my eyes are abstracting meaning. So especially for things that I've never heard before, you know, it doesn't. So especially for things that I've never heard before, you know, doesn't

seem to happen for things I've heard first auditorily and hadn't read. An easy analogy, correct me if I'm wrong, would be like, I think a lot of people can read a foreign language and even write a foreign language, but they can't speak a foreign language, or they're strong at the reading and writing of the foreign language, but the verbal aspect, there are six deviations below that. Right, that's just sort of the surface what I'm hoping to convey to in this interview is how so many neurodiversionate people, there's a lot of people out there

that don't fit one box really neatly and are looking for their tribe. It's complicated and for me, I knew I was hyperlexic as a child, but then I actually excelled through elementary school. I was lucky that I was in an elementary school where people that did well in school were actually popular.

It was kind of a nice situation. But then when I was in high school, I was at a public high school. There was 4,000 students, and I really, really struggled in high school. Like I really struggled to fit in socially, and I started to become much, much more aware of like how spiky my profile was.

Clearly at that time you had an explanation, right? One of the more fascinating examples of this I ever heard is that Book, the Big Short, was based on an article in Vanity Fair and it profiled the guy who had been smart enough to bet against all of these mortgage-backed securities. And he had a glass eye. And so his whole life he explained his social, in quotes, awkward And he had a glass eye. And so his whole life, he explained his social,

in quotes, awkwardness by having this glass eye. And then he had a child who was struggling in school, went through a barrage of tests, and was diagnosed as autistic. And the father said that he's not autistic. He said, well, here's the test. You tell me how he would answer to these and see if it's right.

He himself took the test and went, oh my God, I am autistic. This whole story about my glass eye, it wasn't the glass eye, it was autism. You'll fill in the blank, right? Oh, absolutely, that's just how our brains work. And for me, it was extra complicated because my mom was dying from breast cancer.

And so essentially what happened in high school anyway, I wasn't told of any particular diagnosis, but I was struggling. I had a lot of sensory sensitivities, especially during lunch hour. That was an absolute nightmare for me. Absolute torture, the auditory overwhelm. The only place I could go without a hall pass

was the bathroom, right? I remember in high school, escaping to the bathroom. Oh Marina, I wanna hug you. Oh no, I hate that. I hate that. Well, this is where it gets really complicated though, is we had such a short period of time where we could have our lunch.

And so some high school counselor caught me throwing out my lunch and she got it completely wrong. So then she had in her mind, I had an eating disorder. Oh, of course. I totally didn't, right? I didn't even think about that kind of thing. And so then she calls up my parents and tries to hospitalize me for an

eating disorder, which I didn't have. So my mom, she knew I didn't have an eating disorder. And so suddenly I'm being called out of class for doctor appointments that weren't really doctor appointments. And she'd pick me up and we'd go out to lunch together. And so that made it so much harder than to lose her so young because I felt like she knew me better than I knew myself. And then I was bullied in high school. I had so many issues.

And then I ended up graduating early and going to community college. This is why you're a spokesperson for a community college. Yeah, absolutely. Only community college that became a Rhodes Scholar. Rhodes Scholar? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's cool. Oh, I love that. Or the first, yeah. I think there's maybe one Oh, I love that. You were the first, yeah. I think there's maybe one or two more after me. But yeah, I was the first. And you got it from community college or just that was part of your journey? Yeah, it was part of my journey.

So I graduated high school early. How early? I was a junior. So like 16 and a half. And then I'm an elected official now. So I'm one of the few openly neurodivergent elected officials too around the country. So I was board chair and I'm served as a trustee at'm one of the few openly neurodivergent elected officials too around the country.

So I was board chair and I serve as a trustee at the same college I got my start at. But yeah, I graduated high school early and then was at community college and then transferred to University of Chicago. I had done so many credits at community college that I was in like a joint bachelor master's program at University of Chicago. It was just incredibly unusual to have that much of your undergraduate education be accounted by community college and be competing

with people that spent four years at Harvard. So a good part of my undergraduate education that they had evaluated me on was from community college. Right. Okay, but really quick back to being in the bathroom during lunch break. Did you have a story that made sense to you? Was there something that you identified as like,

well, this is the issue. What was interesting was most of my life, I was just identified as being gifted. I was a pianist competing at age four and just doing so many things that were sort of abnormal. I think it was just a very confusing time for me in high school because I'd always excelled. Can you look at you, you'd already felt different.

You had been different. I knew I was different. It was always a positive thing. It was always a positive thing and then I'm in this environment where my profile was just so much more spiky than it had been. It's even started to affect me academically, which had never happened before. I was just confused.

I didn't have a full explanation of what was going on. And then when I was in my 20s, I was diagnosed with ADHD, but I knew that was definitely not the full explanation. My husband's ADHD and he's a textbook agent at ADHD, and I'm not like him. But there's some things that make sense. I was pretty impulsive as a teenager too. I did so much humanitarian work.

I would get on planes, go to places like Zimbabwe. It was a lot more impulsive than I am now, but going through this process when I moved back and digging through all this stuff in storage, then I realized that I fit in this, what we'd call, odd-DHD, sort of these intersections of ADHD and autism. I think this is important.

We just had Lisa DeMoron, who's a clinical psychologist, and we spent a lot of time talking about how kind of arbitrary all of the labels are in the DSM, right? That it's very tempting to think that these are cut and dry conditions, like type 1 diabetic or something. But in fact, it's just this broad spectrum of human behavior that we do our best to say it's this. And obviously, it applies here with all all this neurodivergence, right?

Yeah, human beings are incredibly complex and you know part of why I focus my expertise and studies in these areas, I think there's so much we still don't know, right? I think we're in the infancy of understanding cognitive science and neuroscience. Is it almost a waste of time to be trying to delineate the difference between all the little things. Is it helpful? I think it's part of the path to progress. For a long time, I kind of felt like, I'm not really sure where I fit in here.

I don't really fit in anywhere because I'm like at the intersections of these boxes, right? And then one of the strongest neurodivergencies, I think, that come into play now for me is conceptual synesthesia. Ooh, we were saying synesthesia, but that's different. Is that different? Well, no, no, no, no.

There's 80 plus types of different synthesthesia, and I actually have two different types. And there's over-representative in the arts and musicians, and there's also some Nobel Prize winners. So the two types that I have that I think have really been a huge asset, and to me, neurodiversity is a huge asset. It shouldn't be seen as a trade-off, and that was a big part of my book. There needs really been a huge asset. And to me, neurodiversity is a huge asset.

It shouldn't be seen as a trade-off. And that was a big part of my book. There needs to be a paradigm shift. We need to think about this differently. But for me, having started out my childhood as a musician, I think what helped me. So I have one of the more common types of synthesias where sounds and music is translated into like colors. Literally before you got here, we're doing a fact check when you're talking about

the exact thing. Like 10 minutes ago. That's so crazy. That Pharrell has it and yeah. Oh yeah, Torell Amos. Yeah. And you know, lots of these common musicians especially and artists. What's I think maybe even more strong for me now

is just something called conceptual synthesis, where I experience ideas in a way that is translated as shapes. Everyone thinks everyone else thinks like them, right? So that one is less known, even like with my background, there's not as much research on that. So it took me a while to realize how important that has been to my success in a way. I'm what you'd call a projector with conceptual synthesis,

where it's almost like being surrounded by whiteboards and being able to put different abstract concepts in space and then combine those concepts, have them all in space around me and then, you know, Organized. Organize those. And even when I was writing my book, I found that was this huge asset. I probably was driving my publisher nuts because I reorganized things a bunch of times. But in my mind, like I could put these concepts in space, combine ideas.

Take the pieces and just move them about. Yeah. Combine them. So when you were at University of Chicago doing the BA and the masters, what was your focus at that point academically? Was it cognitive science already? Yeah. So I was in this joint BA, MA, and my bachelor's, I had officially met the requirements for psychology and sociology, but also did a lot of philosophy. And then my master's was in this cognitive sciences, and I had to finish both at the same time. So I finished both those degrees in three years.

Okay. And then you go off to London School of Economics or Oxford? Oxford, yeah. So I was named a Rhodes Scholar, and I was in Oxford, and then this overlapped with, so my mom had been diagnosed when I was a teenager and she actually ended up living longer than what was predicted. So I was back and forth a lot my first year at Oxford, but I was doing my PhD, which there they call a DPhil,

and then in between my doctorate I did another degree at London School of Economics. Are those in close proximity to each other or were you traveling a great distance? I was living in Oxford. I mean, would take the train to do my classes. The British universities are pretty different. It was interesting to acclimate to how things were there.

I can just point out tenderly, it's not like you had mastered the high school dynamic and then now you go to another country where there's yet an entire, like all the little subtleties. For sure. And then going through grief, there's a very different cultural way of dealing with grief, burials, stiff upper lip. My path, like most people, wasn't linear. There was a lot of interruptions. And it was during that time that I spent a lot of energy doing more creative work.

I was supposed to be working on my MIPG, but I did end up spending a lot of time in my bathtub writing fiction and music. And I think that made me just a much more self-aware person doing medit- You know? Yeah, stuff that's more self-exploratory. Yeah.

And then also just coming to terms with things my mom told me, you know, when she was died. Like I suspected it, but I didn't really know. I was neurodivergent until she was dying and after I was a road scholar, then she tells me like, hey, by the way, you're kind of different. Oh my God, do you think that would have been useful to hear earlier?

Ah, it's like one of those things where you know you're different, but most of my life I was told it was just cause I was gifted. Right. But I knew that wasn't the full explanation. Yeah. That's just my story.

I think it would have been helpful cause it was kind of like a shock. So my friend Ricky, who's been on here to talk about it, so I'm not divulging anything he wouldn't want me to, he got a diagnosis and then all of a sudden he literally had to flick through every page of his past and go like, oh, that time on the porch when the kids told me to do this, that was that.

Oh, the fact that I only wear basketball shorts and I have a reason for it, but it's not that. Like, you know, really almost his entire life has to completely get refiled. You know, it's like the same data points, but you start to see everything through a different lens. Yes. It's so wild. I know so many people in leadership positions, really high level positions that are neurodivergent.

And part of why I wrote the book too, was we need to do better at becoming aware of our unconscious biases, because there's already a lot of people in leadership positions that are reluctant to disclose. And the more that there's an appreciation for cognitive differences and realizing our collective future depends on unique problem solvers. Yeah. Well, you say in the book, one in five people are neurodivergent. So right away, yeah, 20% of the population,

it's definitely significant enough. This isn't an anomaly. This is a significant portion of the population. Absolutely. I don't know, you can tell me if this is true. You're a doctor in this. Someone told me that they have bee colonies and there are certain bees that are in charge

of going out and exploring and looking for new areas that they might have pollen. They don't work with the normal group. They're divergent. And if you give them ADHD medication, those divergent bees stop going out and exploring for it. And it's just this great little example of, no, no, this isn't an accident that we've evolved this way. We have this diversity. It's why we've succeeded as a species for 300,000 years and as a hominid for 6 million this is supposed to be and it's baked in and we got to be careful what we're trying to change everyone into. Yeah it's really

interesting and I do bring up because in chapter one about what I call the Divergent Bees some researchers they believe there's 80% that follow this sort of pre-programmed waggle dance. The waggle dance is a way in which the bees communicate with each other to find already known sources of pollen. But then I think what you're referring to is there's 20% that, I guess if they're not medicated, fly off in these seemingly random directions and aren't following their scripted instructions of what they're supposed to be doing. But what it turns out is that 20% is actually responsible for discovering new sources of

pollen and that benefits the whole hive in the community. And that's really important to think about how we think about neurodivergency today or some of the biases that end up unfortunately coming into play. I think a lot of people are evaluating people from some theoretical perfect neuro-typical standard of how things should be and not looking at it from like a community perspective

or how we can compliment each other. We don't all have to be the same. Well, also, let's just add that the 80% that's non-neurodivergent, they're in their own columns as well. It doesn't stop there. That 80% has a whole range of other things that if you really were to chop it all up,

there's not really any type of person that's gonna even be a majority of humans on planet Earth. But one of the challenges I really see as a huge problem, and our brains are wired to do these mental shortcuts. There are a lot of biases that come into play. One is the availability bias, where our brains, whatever's most psychologically available, we tend to take more seriously. And that factors in a lot with our assumptions about neurodiversion people You know a lot of well-intentioned people they'll make assumptions, especially about like autistic people based on very Unrepresentative examples that they saw in the movies, you know, there's a rain man Man, you know Big Bang theory, you know, and it's mostly like white Caucasian boys or men

So the more we could showcase the diversity and the nuance and the richness of how even autism manifests itself and the overlap with other neurodivergencies like we talked about, that's I think helpful to combat some of these stereotypes. And there's a lot of neurodivergent people, I mean, myself, I consider myself an extrovert, but you say you're neurodivergent

and they start making all sorts of assumptions about what you can and can't do. Yeah, you write in here, which I mean, myself, I consider myself an extrovert, but you say you're neurodivergent, and they start making all sorts of assumptions about what you can and can't do. Yeah, you write in here, which I like, is that if you were to bring someone over and you told us that they were neurodivergent, we would have no basis to extrapolate that fact into any preconceptions about the person's intellectual capabilities, general knowledge,

or capacity to successfully perform any task or role. I do think there's these stereotypes, and by the way, some of them are in quote positive. It's like if someone's autistic because the first one we saw, they could count toothpicks when they landed on the ground. You're like, okay, so what's the special thing you can do? And then that's coupled with this thing I want you to tell us about, which is that we've been stuck in a paradigm, which is a deficit-based perspective or a medical deficit model. So explain that to us and how does that limit our ability to see a full-spectrum human and many different variety of full-spectrum

human. That's been sort of the legacy framework. There's been so much of a focus on the deficit medical perspective that then ends up overshadowing or understanding the richness of talent and the strengths that are there, which there's many. And there's also a lot of talent that, given the sort of neurotypical standards of evaluation, are easy to mess. Nonlinear thinking, lateral thinking, systems thinking, pattern detection. There's a lot of really important skills that I would argue are going to become

even more important to the future that we have in front of us with AI becoming so prevalent. But going back to the bee example, you look at the medical deficit paradigm versus a strength-based paradigm. The purely deficit model would see four bees that are performing well, give them their gold stars right for fitting in doing the waggle dance. And then that fifth bee who's doing things different, who's not following the waggle dance would be seen as the outcasts would be marginalized and- Maybe even potentially disruptive to the other four.

For sure. And yet, you know, there's some researchers that study this kind of thing, and that Divergent B is actually really essential to the success of the entire Hive community. And so that doesn't mean that there aren't people that will need support and accommodations in that. I'm not dismissing any of that, but I think it's important to recognize that there's lots of different skill sets where we complement each other and the teams that I think that are the most successful are going to be the ones that have cognitive diversity. And I talk a lot about some of the perils of group things.

There's been some really interesting studies there. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. So the broad scope of the Neurodiversity Edge your book is really imploring business owners and people who hire to get past this and start seeing neurodivergent folks as an asset. And then I want to get into some of the data that would support that. But if we could go through, if you're willing, some of the strength-based framework for people, let's start with autism. What would be a strength-based framework for that?

It's important, again, to recognize that every autistic person is very unique. My friend Ricky says, if you meet someone with autism, you've met one person with autism. Yep, that's the phrase that we use in the community a lot. But autistic people, in terms of the research, there's a lot of uncommon skills in terms of focus on details, hyperfocus, which also overlaps with a lot of ADHDers, also hyperfocus, which also overlaps with a lot of ADHDers also can hyperfocus, pattern recognitions, there's sometimes unique visual spatial skills. There's been some interesting studies. Personally, I think there should be a neurodivergent person on every board of directors because I've been on a lot of boards myself and the

level of group think that sometimes happens on boards. And halo effect and all these. Absolutely, it's like disastrous. And autistic people in particular has all sorts of research about how they're just less susceptible to some of these cognitive biases. Would they track higher on the disagreeability chart when we look at the psychological profile? Like challengers? Yeah, I would imagine, here's my,

having read no studies about it, I would imagine if your experience through all of school was met with so much discomfort one-on-one socially, that the notion of being seen as anti-social, like you've already dealt with that. That's not some foreign fear you have. It's like you've been kind of living in some of that discomfort.

So to do it now in this boardroom is like just another day in life. By the way, I say disagreeability is a positive. I find myself to be disagreeable. So I like this. Yeah, well, I've been on a lot of boards. It's a huge problem when there's nobody that brings up the obvious problems. That's not good for the organization. That's not good for the company. I think it applies to a lot of neurodiversion people, but there's research specifically on autistic people where they're gonna be less concerned about their social status and more willing

to just be super direct and honest and say, hey, this is a problem, right? This thing's gonna blow up when it hits 20,000 feet. Not so focused on climbing a ladder or something esoteric like that. Right, and doing a lot of independent analysis and there's been a number of interesting studies. There's one where autistic people were not influenced by these marketing gimmicks and framing techniques, but most neurotypical people were, or they were less influenced.

There was another study with children where the researchers purposely misled the participants in what was the correct answer, which should have been extremely obvious of what the correct answer was. You know, does this line match this other line? And there was no ambiguity in terms of like what the correct answer was. But most of the neurotypical kids went along because they were misled. There was a social pressure. They're doing the juju dance or whatever you called it. It was a social pressure. Yeah, the waggle dance, right. Yeah, the waggle dance.

And the autistic kids were far, far, far less likely to go along with an incorrect and obviously incorrect answer, right. Right. What's the strength-based framework for dyslexics? Of course, I selfishly wanna know this. In case I have to find myself back in the job marketplace. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A lot of people in leadership positions that are dyslexic, I actually read a study recently, which was super interesting, that there's a large percentage of millionaires, I think it was 40%, that are dyslexic or have dyslexic traits. But some of the traits that are discussed a lot is big picture thinking, connecting dots

among seemingly unrelated areas, like systems thinking. And so that's where it's interesting for me too is, you know, in interpersonal skills, I feel like I have those skills, but yet I'm not. So this is where I think we're in the infancy to brain science and neuroscience 10, 15 years from now will understand a lot of these nuances a lot better. I present in a lot of ways as a dyslexic in terms of my strengths and challenges, but then that's not. Yeah, you're label. Yeah, your label. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right.

If we put all these different types of people in an FMRI, would we be able to observe this? Some things. Yeah, FMRIs, that's definitely helped in terms of progressing the field and understanding more, because if you go back, say like 20, 30 years even, a lot of people thought things were a lot more fixed Than they are with the brain Jerry Fodor wrote a book called modularity of mind

So the thinking has definitely shifted a lot I think we still have a long way to go But we do know if you decide to learn a musical instrument even as an older person Over time that does change your brain. You see certain areas of the brain being activated. It's highly malleable. Yeah, we have a much better understanding of neuroplasticity than we did 15 years ago for sure. Okay, so obviously, or what seems obvious to me, the initial barrier of finding employment if you're neurodivergent

is that it's a highly social entrance to any job. It's a job interview. That's a hurdle. Yeah. Part of the problem too is that people have gotten accustomed to doing ads a certain way and job interviews a certain way and that in many cases is not consistent with the skills that are actually necessary for that job it's not reflective at all. And so that's, I think, a big problem. And then also, if you're talking about autistic people in particular, there's all these talents.

And I think this applies to a lot of neurodiversion people. There's conceptual synthesis even. There's all these talents that aren't going to be communicated in a verbal interview. And employers should want to find alternative ways of evaluating and assessing talent to attract unique talent that could really be this huge competitive edge. So here's one little bit of, I guess you could call this

pushback or some cynicism on my part. But obviously many industries over-index in neurodivergent employees. I guess you would know whether there's data or not. So what do you mean by over index? So I would imagine computer programming over indexes. I would imagine engineers over index. I think there's many different compartments of our economy

that actually over index. So it's like, what about their hiring process just allowed for this all to happen? And do we need to push or do people just find their way knowing that these are some industries that not only take on but are overrepresented? Should we be trying to force everyone into every bracket of the sphere or is it fine that people are going to excel in different compartments? You bring up a good point because I think one of the criticisms in the community is

the neurodiversity community is a very broad community. There's lots of talented people in the arts and design and are not, you know, in STEM. There is, I think, a lack of opportunity pathways, especially outside of these tech careers. You know, that's kind of, again, another stereotype, right? People that are neurodiversion are going to be in cybersecurity. Employers have no problem crossing that barrier when they need the people. We see evidence of that. All these companies have gotten past that. What's obvious is if there is a commercial incentive, they will do it.

And maybe it's that the other one's not obvious and that is the argument you're making, but I just, I want to call attention to that. That when there's an incentive there, employers have responded. Right. And that's one of the reasons I have a chapter I explicitly bring up the economics, trying to connect with employers. We're on a structural labor shortage too, right?

And there should be a strong incentive to do things differently. I would say that sometimes employers think they know what they need, but they don't always know what they really need. So where we're headed in the future work and the economic landscape we have in front of us, I think there's been so much focus on, okay, how do I integrate technology and AI systems? And there hasn't been enough focus on what is

the human resource strategy that we should be employing? And I think across the board, even outside of some of these areas that have been more identified by employers as being consistent with what they think neurodiversionate people are a good fit with. Broader skill sets in intuitive leaps of insight in lateral thinking and nonlinear thinking, systems thinking, people that are comfortable thinking outside the box, as people that are used to their whole lives, they've been finding creative work arounds. That's really valuable. Learning to survive. Yeah, I think it's really valuable, right? Like if you're constantly problem solving

in unique ways, especially in the economic context we have in front of us, I think there's this unique place for neurodivergent people to work with, neurotypical people and all the machine intelligence that's going to inevitably, whether we like it or not, it's going to come into play. Is there data on the overall unemployment rate of neurodivergent people? Yes, and it's very depressing. So if you combine all the categories

of neurodivergent typologies, it's somewhere between 30 and 40% unemployment, and then we're looking at maybe 15, 20% of the world population being neurodivision. And then the US alone is well under 4% unemployment overall. So there's this huge, huge disproportionality. Yeah, it's like a 5X difference. Huge disproportionality with talented people that have a lot to contribute and lack of

meaningful opportunities to be able to self-actualize. Is there a proposed approach for HR that is going to help them identify this and start being more open-minded? Is there like a recommended protocol? It's not really a standard. The good news is that we're finally at a point where neurodiversity is starting to become more of a mainstream conversation at least and there are a lot of companies that are making progress. The approach that I recommend is a very values driven approach and doing the

deeper work at the level of organizational culture. You know, I've worked with a number of companies that I think were well-intentioned and wanted to make progress in becoming murder and murderacy friendly, but there is a big difference if you do a surface level. Well, you said there's two models basically out there. There is the token neurodivergent employee to appear to be neuroinclusive.

That's a bad option. Another bad option is you know it's coming. Eventually you'll have to. These are like the two options on the table Right and what you can do to actually make your organization Genuinely valuing cognitive differences and I've seen a lot of organizations that start out with this sort of tick-the-box Approach which has been really ineffective. We need two dyslexics three autistics and Exactly hyper lexic by Friday. That doesn't work.

I think the organizations that have committed to doing this deeper work at the level of the DNA of their organization or culture, it doesn't just open the doors to attract unique talent, including neurodiversion talent. But I think it helps all their employees be more productive, because there's a different level of psychological safety. You could challenge the status quo. neurodivergent talent, but I think it helps all their employees be more productive because there's, you know, a different level of psychological safety. You could challenge the status quo.

That's encouraged. That's accepted. There's more of a growth mindset. I try to focus there because I think that's where there's that real competitive edge and where companies and organizations are going to attract the best talent. Also, it just crossed my mind, really, maybe starting with the gatekeeper. Like, there should be many more neurodivergent HR people actually doing the employee, because they're not going to have the same reaction. And also, I don't think companies realize that the vast majority already have 15%, 20%.

Even sometimes, their executive leadership, their neurodivergent, they're just not disclosing. And I've worked with companies where there's behind the scenes, these secret support groups going on, where people are meeting and supporting each other, but they're, you know. They're closeted. Exactly.

That's a huge problem because look at the younger generations. I think it's important that these leaders are visible, but that it has to be psychologically safe to do so they can't be penalized. And I've seen that happen, unfortunately. And so that's where I try to focus on the organizational culture. One of the other things I found that has been effective that has surprised me is I've done a lot of work in the community college system.

And when I was president of my state association, the Illinois Community College Trustees Association, I spearheaded a project where we were the first state level educational association that passed a neurodiversity inclusion value statement. And then that led to some legislation in the state house in Illinois. Some people were like, oh, well, you know, it's just a value statement. Does that really change anything? But what's been really interesting is then to see how that has been like an interesting starting point.

Where then some of these colleges like Oakton College is an example, there's many others where there's that buy-in. So if the Board of Trustees adopt that statement and then the president is behind it and the cabinet, then that's opened the door for these broader conversations. They're like, oh, well, how can we do things differently? Maybe we could do things better. Do we have a sensory-friendly space on campus? Maybe we could do more trainings

across the board in the college with faculty. Maybe we could be more flexible. And I've kind of then see the simple value statement actually be this interesting starting point that just opens conversations for actual real change in day-to-day policies and things that have actually then been really beneficial and helpful to students. And then also any of the people that work there in the college, because our statement extended beyond students. We included faculty, trustees, administrators. And what has been the result for businesses

who have made an actual good faith effort and enacted real change? I have some case studies in my book, and the ones I think that were committed to this deeper approach. There's been a huge upside. It's benefited everyone. The organizations where there was that level of psychological safety, innovation goes to the roof. And this isn't neurodiversity specific, but like even Google, it's relevant though. They started all their teams and

they discovered that the teams that performed the best were not the ones that had the most resources or what they would consider the smartest people necessary. They were the teams that had the highest level of psychological safety. Wow, that's crazy. It makes sense though, like if your neurodiversion, especially in your natural gifts or way of thinking is coming from a different solution pathway or thinking about things differently and you're constantly being penalized for that, rather than being in a culture where even if your idea is not embraced, but there's still encouragement, it's like, oh, well, that's really interesting, you know, tell me more.

That kind of culture, that benefits everyone. It's a place everybody would feel excited to show up every day and work versus I have some case studies in my book. There was one in particular where there was a really high performing employee in a leadership position and once she disclosed that she was diagnosed autistic, people started treating her differently. So like trying to put in, it's not just policies. In my book I call it The Three C's where there's codification and conduct drives culture. So you could change your policies, but if the day-to-day behaviors of how people

behave is inconsistent with the values that you espouse in a value statement, that's going to negatively affect your culture. And so the alignment between those two, I think, creates the conditions where everybody can be more innovative and thrive. That's going to also be a type of environment where you're gonna attract neurodivergent talent that could really help your company. I feel like the biggest stereotype

that would prevent a lot of progress in this space is on one hand, the five most valuable companies in the world are again, the ones that are over indexing in neurodivergence. One hand you'd have to recognize, well whatever your thoughts are, literally the five most valuable companies in the world are in most cases led by someone neurodivergent, by Elon Musk's own omission. Many of these people would acknowledge this.

By the way, whatever anyone's thoughts are, the fact that he went on Serent Live and said I'm the first autistic person to host Serent Live, I was like, fuck yeah, good for him. So on one end you have all this fucking proof that the most valuable companies are this, yet I think then the leap is the stereotype of like, well yeah, that works in tech, but that's not gonna work in my ad agency or my hospitality business.

The skills that we think are stereotypical match up to tech, but there's so many skills that we don't know about that aren't stereotypical that are widespread. Right. It's just knowing that. Yeah. You bring up a really interesting point. I think it was Adam Grant in a Stanford lecture back around 2006 where he brought up for early

stage startups. Many are founded by, as you brought up, neurodiversion people. But then when you get into these larger corporations, there's this tendency to, you know, let's hire people that think like me. You almost shift from building to protecting. And when you shift to protecting, now everything's got to be done as it was. It almost codifies group think. Absolutely.

And especially in the economic climate we're in front of us, that's disastrous. The big companies almost have the most to benefit from at this point to become more flexible to hire for what I call neurodiversification rather than a culture fit. Actually, I think a lot of teams get stuck when everybody's similar in terms of their cognitive, analytical, and perceptual tendencies because there's just going to be a lot of blind spots, and you won't know what you don't know. And I think the bigger companies, there's much more of a risk of that, and there's more of a learning curve to figure out how to do this well, and to integrate and include neurodiversity rather, it being like this special track, right?

Some companies have these neurodiversity at work programs where it's really separate from their culture. So not even there to challenge or bring up the different idea. Yeah, I think where the most value is going to be is if you can truly integrate cognitive diversity and, you know, expand the menu of ideas that are being discussed at the top levels of product conversations, of strategy conversations, that's where companies are going to be the most competitive and people that are neurodivergent could be their authentic selves

and they don't have to mask and we can get into what that means because that's also another problem. You could get hired as a neurodivergent person and then if you're spending 50% of your time just trying to fit in rather than solving real problems, you're not gonna get the most out of that person. But I do think the big companies have maybe the most

to benefit if they could make this shift. That totally makes sense. Now, is it fair to say there are some occupations that aren't gonna lend themselves to this? Like hospitality, something that is just, whoever the most social butterfly in the world was is gonna be drawn to this occupation. And should it be everywhere?

And is that realistic? First I bring up when we talk about neurodiversity, right, is a really broad umbrella, right? So you have so many different strengths and weaknesses. And I tend to like to think of it as, hey, we're all just people. We all have strengths and weaknesses. But I'd also bring up, it's a myth.

I mean, there's a lot of autistic people that are super extroverted. So again, it goes back to these stereotypes. I think some people will surprise you, right? Or it could be a special interest of a person with autism where they put lots of effort. So I think it's kind of case by case. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, now I regret that question. I'm kind of embarrassed. I understand. Well, no, I mean, I think it's a fair question. It's a fair question. No, no, it's a fair question. I would hope that at some point

we can live in a world where it's acceptable to have different styles of leadership. Winston Churchill supposedly had strong autistic traits, but he stepped up to the plate in maybe he wasn't the best person at Small Talk. I don't know, but just having that perspective of maybe there should be room for different styles of leadership.

And even autistic people could make great leaders. I would even say that we pay an enormous price for our overweing of charisma. We have lots of leaders throughout time who that's about all they have. Right, they're not necessarily solving problems that need to be solved. I'm not suggesting John Kerry was on any kind of spectrum,

but I do know that people wanted him to be more a Boolean and I was like, this guy is so fucking qualified. What are we talking about? There's been several of those. What happened to Hillary? Like, what are you guys talking about? You don't wanna have a beer with her? You're not gonna have a fucking beer with her.

She's gonna be running the country. I mean, it's why for the most part, there's one type of person in charge of most things, a charismatic man, normally. And that is because we have ideas about what it means to lead, and we all are a part of it. We all follow suit. We all now do look up to that type as, oh, they're going to be a strong leader.

Yeah, we just pray they also can do the job. Well, we don't seem to care that much right now, but we should. Well, I was too. Look where we are. Yeah. You know, I was in Davos in January and big theme was all of the increasingly complex problems we have to solve and we need people that can help solve problems.

Charisma's important too, but hey, we got a lot of problems to solve. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this has been incredible. I hope everyone checks out the Neurodiversity Edge, the essential guide to embracing autism ADHD Dyslexia and other neurological differences for any organization last question I wonder if you ever ponder the unemployment data says everything it's tough School stuff the marketplace is tough, but oddly it is better than it's ever been

Do you ever think about surely 20% of the population was also neurodivergent in 1850. What was happening then? What do you think was happening? So one of the paradoxes is that throughout history, and there's no way to prove this, but a lot of our trailblazers throughout history, like Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, you know, there's so many examples of people that have changed the world that are thought to have had neurodiversion profiles. But if you look at it just more large scale, I'm sure there's been progress. One of the interesting things was during the pandemic, we saw some of the highest employment rates ever for the disability community more broadly.

So not just with neurodiversion people, but because there was a lot more options with remote work. I know a lot of ADHDers that are super hyperactive and the ability to work from home and like, you know, jump around, you know, jump around, you know, their office and create an environment that works for them and whatever they need to do. That actually has massively increased their productivity and if they had to go to the office every day, then they're spending so much time

just fitting in and not expressing themselves. And that actually deteriorates their performance. So different employers have different opinions on that, but yeah, it's an interesting question to think about. I mean, obviously throughout history has always been neurodivergent people. So I think we're making progress. Some of us tend to think of it as this modern thing, but it's not. No, it's not.

Don't you think some people are under that? Like they'll go like, wait a minute, why is everyone autistic now? Like, right? This was nowhere 30 years ago. Now everyone is, is it on the increase? And you're like, we're just diagnosing. Well, there's a lot of women that wouldn't have been diagnosed say 20 years ago,

where there's just a lot more awareness. The schools didn't identify kids as much. So I where there's just a lot more awareness. The schools didn't identify kids as much. So I just think there's a lot more awareness so that there is more kids being identified too. Yeah, I think they were just called bad kids. Sure. Disruptive kids. He's hyper.

Get him out of here. Send him down to that room or thatx. Well, on behalf of the 20% of parents who have a child that's neurodivergent and is probably scared about the future of their kids on their behalf, I thank you that you've written this book and that you're trying to make it a more inclusive place for all these kids to grow up and partake in.

And for anyone who has a business read this book cause it will help you with your hiring and making it more inclusive, but not just inclusive, your business will be better. I think we forget that. Yeah, I don't think you can ask business owners to go into philanthropy. I think you have to convince business owners that there's an enormous financial incentive for them.

For sure, yeah. Which there is. This is an asset, it's not a trade-off. Right. All right, well, so great meeting you, Maureen. You know the thing I have, so we have the opposite things-ish. I'm writing, I'm so verbal, orally, and I'm writing and I get to a word

that I could say all day long, and I'm like, I don't even have a guess at what the first few letters are. There's nothing there. When people go like, oh, you see things backwards? I'm like, no, that's not it. It's just, I can do something orally that when I am trying to convert that into these symbols,

I can't even start sometimes. People go like, look it up. I'm like, I don't even know what letter to go to in the fucking dictionary. Thank God for voice dictate, because used to be I would have to move to a different word. I'd have to think of a synonym that I knew how to spell or start how to spell.

And now when I'm writing in the morning, I'm on my phone every 25 seconds voice dictating into Google so I can see how it's written. Yeah, that's a good hack. What a fucking incredible breakthrough for me, technologically speaking. You listen to a lot of audiobooks, right? Yes, I love audiobooks. I have an audiobook coming out,

but it's not coming out till April. Do you yourself hate audiobooks? That's a good question. Yeah, you know, I do like them, but I get impatient. And I don't know if it's the sort of ADHD element, cause like I'm used to like, okay, I want all this information, but I can, especially if it's something that's written in a way

that's more literary, I can still enjoy it. And maybe the narrator's a really good performer. Yeah, yeah. You know, as long as they have the time, then I really do enjoy it. I do like audio books, but I think because the hyperlexic side of me, I wanna be like, yeah, you're in gridlock traffic.

So it has to be something that I really find enjoyable rather than just information. Right. I thought of you the other day because I was writing the word aisle. Oh, fuck that word. A-I-S-L-E. And I was writing it and even I thought,

why is it spelled like this? This is a crazy way to spell that word. Might as well have an eight at the front of it. Right, and I did it and I don't have dyslexia, but I was like, oh man, that's impossible for people who do. All right, well good luck with everything and I hope everyone checks out The Neurodiversity Edge.

Be well, and I'm sure you'll write another book, and hopefully we'll talk to you then. Okay. Yeah, thank you so much. Bye-bye. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. Stay tuned to hear Ms. Monica correct all the facts that were wrong. It's okay though, we all make mistakes. Choke choke!

Choke choke! You ain't choking, you ain't smoking. You know that. Do you think anyone loves weed so much that they've gotten that tattooed on their neck or something? Yeah. Probably, right? Definitely.

In fact, if you have the tattoo, if you ain't choking, you ain't smoking, say so in the comments. And then I guess I wanna see a picture of it. Okay, I've never heard that. That saying? I think I learned it from Ryan Hansen. Oh.

It's a weed saying. Cause you know when you smoke pot from a dubia joint. You choke. You cough a lot. I know, it's like so not sexy. Sorry guys. You don't think choking's sexy? Coughing?

No, it's not for me. Okay. Personally. Yeah. I'm trying to think if I've ever seen a girl really hacking up a lung and thought, ooh la la. Oh man, I hope she gets it. Yeah, he would like it.

Oh, give it to me. Clear throat. Oh. Oh. give it to me. Clear throat. Oh, sorry. The last one snapped out. Saturday was Lincoln's birthday party. It was. And to my great delight, she picked volleyball tournament for the activity.

And it was looking so touch and go. It was raining all. I was worried when I woke up. I was like, oh boy, this is bad. We all were. But you know, I kept saying the sun is gonna come out. I'm watching the app. Today, not tomorrow, unconventionally.

Right, the sun will come out today. Yeah. First it said 11. No, I'm like, honey, no problem. People aren't even getting here until 12 or one. The grass will dry up. Then 11 became 12, 12 became one. But I kept it positive.

I kept looking at that radar. I was riding that radar. Cause I'm also coming up with a backup plan, which I did. What was it gonna be? Watch strays in the theater room in the downstairs with all the kids. Oh my God, we have to tell that story. Which one?

Oh, okay, great. What's really funny is we started watching it last night. Oh, mm-hmm. And she was like, whatever reason, now it was too much. The first time loved it. This time it was a little, I don't know. Anyways.

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. I think it was because we were all together as a family. Wow. The first time in the movie theater. She was embarrassed maybe. I don't know, just maybe she was catching how sexual it was this time.

Yeah, because Strayz is a Will Ferrell movie. It's a hard R movie. Yeah, about dogs. So Kristen thought it was a movie about dogs, like a kids movie. And so she took Lincoln. To the movie theater. Right.

And she loved it. At her party, we're doing cake and stuff, and then she made an announcement that, we're gonna watch Strayays in the movie room. There is penis eating. Oh my God, I laughed so hard. There's penis eating in it. That was like a warning.

Yes, but also that made me laugh so hard because it's like, it doesn't matter. Well, I shouldn't say this, I'm not a child psychologist, but I kind of feel like, does it matter what you show them under a certain age because they don't get it? That's pretty much my opinion. Yeah.

That's what's interesting is I think between seeing it at the movie theater and then seeing it again last night at home, I think she has matured enough that some of the stuff was registering in a way that was, she was like, I don't think I like it. Wow. But you're right, a lot of it's just blowing over their head. Like they think sucking dicks means

eating people's penises. Well, no, this specifically, have you seen Stray's? No. He bites his dick off the dog. Oh. So it is literal penis eating. Oh, man. And also penis is just a body part, like a hand.

It's not a sexual item. I thought that's what she was interpreting as penis eating and I thought that was so cute. The movie starts with a montage and Will's super happy dog voice and his owner's Will Forte, who's a total piece of shit, right? He's a fucking, he's unemployed

and he smokes weed all day. And then Will Ferrell's like, I? He's a fucking, he's unemployed, and he smokes weed all day. And then Will Ferrell's like, I forget his owner's name, but like, let's say Chad. Chad's the greatest, I love Chad. Chad's favorite toy is his penis. He plays with it all day long. And like, it just shows this dog watching Will

looking at a computer. Oh my God. Playing with his penis, and he thinks it's his toy. Oh. And so at some point, the dogs bite that, they go, like, eat his toy. I see, I see, okay. Anyways. I also might be misremembering the ending, but it doesn't matter. Whatever,

I just thought that was interesting. Yeah. So anyways, volleyball was great. Now, I don't wanna say you got close to playing, but I feel like you got closer. You're certainly sitting next. You got physically closer in proximity to the court. I did. Did it look any more fun this time?

Or less fun? There was an incident. Oh my God, there was an incredible incident. Poor sweet Hannah. Poor sweet Hannah. Someone got blasted. Clobbered, clobbered. Well, what was happening in a nutshell

was we were down, Charlie and I were on the same team, and we were down like, I wanna say 11 to three. It was almost like we're done. And then fucking Charlie started serving just bullets, one after another, right over the, just skimming the top of the net. He aced them like six or seven times. This has not happened in our backyard volleyball.

No one has served eight consecutive points in a row. And so they were just getting more and more frustrated. And Matt, who's a really good volleyball player, they're like, we're gonna have to block it right at the net. It's the only way we're ever gonna defeat this. So Charlie hit it as hard as he could. It's screaming over the net at God knows how fast. Matt comes up as fast as he can

and immediately blocks it with both hands, which redirects the ball at full speed directly down onto Hannah's nose. So it was like a ricochet full speed serve speed, and poor Hannah got blasted right in the face. There was no blood. And at first her eye was stuck. She said her eye was stuck sideways.

Well, I can't believe you had to bring that part up because there was six. Well, you asked me an important question, and it's a part of my answer. I guess it is. The four of us were sitting there and we were all four of us said, I'm so glad we're not playing.

Oh, okay. Well, that's fair. I'm gonna take that positive. I don't wanna get hurt on a Saturday at 36. I just don't. That's fine. At any rate, it was so fun, such a fun day. And I had really, this time I put in the work beforehand.

Now this is gonna go against what I had brought up earlier about Lane Norton's post about the pain and the stretching and the injuries and all that. So my workout that morning before volleyball was a very bizarre workout. I did like 140 jumping jacks. Oh. I did four rounds of my stretching my back

with my legs crossed and that takes, you know, whatever. Very comprehensive, very lightweight shoulder works to get the shoulders warm. I spent- Were you doing this for volleyball? Specifically, yeah. I wanted to get, cause what I read in that thing also was like,

stretching blah blah blah. Now a warmup does prevent, or there's some data to suggest. So I really tried to warm my body up in all the ways I was gonna be using it, mostly throwing my arms over my head nonstop. And it was highly effective. I was a little sore yesterday,

but not anything like I was on my birthday, where I was like disabled for a couple days. That's good. Yeah. You did fall down, I missed it. Oh, 100 I was like disabled for a couple of days. That's good. Yeah. You did fall down, I missed it. Oh, a hundred times. Oh.

Because the grass got wet. I know. And I slid many, many times. I was noticing a lot of falls. Uh-huh. Oh, so fun. Okay, I can't tell you what's fun to you. Yeah, did you hear me laughing so hard?

Yeah, but I also, I did see you in pain. I did. When? You weren't like help. You were trying to keep it quiet, but you were hurt for like some minutes. I saw it and I was like, I have to look away. I was, I had an incredibly great time

from the second it started till it ended. And I had a couple of huge slides where I hyper-extended my knee. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, but that just made me laugh. Okay, then great. So this is for Maureen. Maureen talks about the phonological loop.

Phonological loop. I don't remember exactly how she pronounced it, but it's a part of memory according to Badly's model of working memory, model of human memory in an attempt to present a more accurate model of primary memory, often referred to a short-term memory. Working memory splits primary memory into multiple components rather than considering it to be a-term memory. Working memory splits primary memory into multiple components,

rather than considering it to be a single unified construct. The working memory model is a central executive, is the top, then it's broken down into phonological loop, episodic buffer, and visuospatial scratch pad. Then off of the phonological loop is the articulatory loop and the acoustic store. Okay, now I'm gonna read about

the phonological loop component. Phonological loop or articulatory loop as a whole deals with sound or phonological information. Am I saying it right? Phonological, it feels like it'd be phonological, but maybe it's phonological information. Am I saying it right? Phonological, it feels like it'd be phonological, but maybe it's phonological. I don't know. I think it's a phonogram.

Phonograph, phonograph, phonograph. Photogenic, but you say phonetic, not phonetic. That's what makes me think it's phonetical. You say phonetic. Phonetic, not phonetic. That's what makes me think it's phonetical. You say phonetic. Phonetic, not phonetic. So you think it's phonological? I do, because of phonetics. Because that's the same word, right?

It is, yeah. Phonetic. But is that one of those things where we're just saying it so fast that it's become phonetic? Phonogram pronunciation? Yeah. Phonogram. Phone. Okay. Phonogram. Phonogram pronunciation? Yeah. Phonogram. Phone.

Okay. Phonogram. How about phonographic? Why don't you do phonological? Yeah, do phonological. Why are we tiptoeing around it? Phonological. Okay.

What did she say? Phonological. She did. Ah, fauna. What? Phonological. Oh, sorry. Phonological.

Yeah, phonological. Yeah. It's phonetically spelled F-A-A-N-U-H-L-A-A. But she's saying phonological. Oh, sorry. Phonological. Yeah, phonological. Yeah. It's phonetically spelled F-A-A-N-U-H-L-A-A. But she's saying phonological. I know, you can't trust these robots. They all have weird accents. Phonological. Is this like the blue in dress?

Oh, baby. Whatever, I'm gonna say phonological. We don't know. Standby. Okay, it consists of two parts, a short-term phonological store with auditory memory traces that are subject to rapid decay and an articulatory rehearsal component, sometimes called the

articulatory loop, that can revive the memory traces. The phonological loop may play a key role in the acquisition of vocabulary, particularly in the early childhood years. It also may be vital for learning a second language. The phonological store acts as an inner ear, remembering speech sounds in their temporal order, whilst the articulatory process acts as an inner voice and repeats the series of words or other speech elements

on a loop to prevent them from decaying. It's still confusing. Okay, what is a real life example of a phonological loop? An interpreter translates phonological information from one language into another. A person repeats an eight digit confirmation code so that they can write it down for later. Children repeat a series of words spoken to them

during a phonics lesson. It just means auditory instead of visual, right? No, but it's part of the way the memory is stored. Right, but I'm only thinking that where you hear in the information that is processed in the area of your brain, auditorily is different than it is visually. Like you have a visual cortex, right?

So those things are in different places in your brain, what you're hearing versus what you're reading. This is unrelated, but related. Can I tell you the thing that I was listening to last night as I went to bed? Yeah. In the brief history of intelligence that I found. Obvious, but also like, oh yeah, that makes sense.

So in the motor control center of our brain, like if you look at our motor control area versus other mammals, ours is really quite big. And then it's quite enormous for one specific skill. It doesn't take a lot of memory to move your legs. They only kind of function. There's like, you know, there's very, but primates, because we have these posable thumbs

and these really, really precise fingers, our ability to move these 10 digits in such specific ways into a trillion different permutations, takes up the bulk of our motor control center. And that's why it's enormous for us, because we have these hands that require so much information to move them precisely the way we want to.

Whereas your feet, there's almost nothing dedicated to your feet. Really? Because there's nothing to really move down there. There's no precision done. To walk, for them to perform the function they're designed to, takes very tiniest part of your brain, but these hands are taking up a ton.

Wow. Which makes a lot of sense, but I thought. I guess they do a lot. I wouldn't have thought of that. They do the most work. Yeah, if you think about how you can spin your wrists and all your fingers and the way you can move it versus move your arm up and down.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's true. It only pivots in one spot, it only articulates one way, but these masterful things that have allowed us to become this earth-changing species, it's all because of these little hands. And then our mouths are a big chunk of it. Oh.

Like how we can move our lips and our tongue, how precise all that is to make all these sounds. We're the only ones that can talk with this kind of language. Yeah, with this level of, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, if your tongue is too small. Think of the- Oh gosh, very much.

Like you can only move your knee one way. I know. But that tongue, boy, just do it in your mouth right now. Sky's the limit. I know. Any shape you want. Well, I can boy, just do it in your mouth right now. Sky's the limit. I know. Any shape you want. Well, I can't. Can you do the twisty?

That? No, the one where, some people can twist it all the way upside down. I can fold mine. Mm-hmm, tongue roll? And you can do like the clover, some people can do. Oh, I can't do the clover, but I can do that. Well, that's nice.

Monica folded her tongue in half. I made a suction. Okay, good, you can roll, okay? I was getting nervous you couldn't because you weren't producing that quickly. I can't see what Rob did. Oh, I can't do the clover, can you? No.

None of us can. Okay. It's close. Maybe it can. Yeah, you're getting, yeah, you're pretty much there. Clover adjacent. Some people's. It's an unlucky clover. Oh no, you're getting, yeah, you're pretty much there. It's not some people's. It's an unlucky clover. Oh no, oh no, don't do that.

Oh, on an episode of Nobody's, well, they did a, they did a live stream on Nobody's Listening Right for their patrons and a question one of the patrons asked them was if you could have five liquids come out of each, like if you could have a liquid come out of each finger. What a great question. Isn't that a good question? What would it be? Absolutely.

What would yours be? You know two of them right away. Diet Coke. And coffee. Coffee, okay, you would. Absolutely. Even though that's risky for you. Well, I mean, why have a fluid come out that I don't want? Well, no, but I mean, like, then you won't stop yourself.

Well, wait till you heard my third fingers, cocaine. I'm teasing Monica. I thought you were gonna say. Jack Daniels. Yeah, I thought that's what you were gonna say. Okay. I would want the coffee to come out of my thumb, because then I would suck my thumb in the morning

like a little baby. Wait, you got to. I wonder how you would know how much you've had though. That's tricky. Exactly. And, and. This is a curse and a blessing. There's a bunch of, what's it called? What am I trying to say?

Like there are things that stop you from drinking a lot of coffee, which is the hassle of getting up and making it. Speed bumps. Exactly. Barriers. This wouldn't have it. Hurtles. Hurtle.

I would, I just changed it. My coffee would come out of my index finger instead of my thumb, because I think a lot of people would want coffee. Oh, that's nice. And it'd be so much easier to pour it in a glass with my index finger than have to go like thumbs down, twist everything back to my motor control center.

I thought you were being selfless because you would have been sucking your thumb and then if you give it to others, your spigotots in there. I'm gonna suck that first index finger, obviously. Oh, you're not gonna pour it in a cup? Why would I when I can just pull my hand up to it? I guess you're right.

Would you drink coffee that came out of someone else's finger? Eric would and Aaron would. Okay, what are the others? So you have Diet Coke, you have coffee. Water. You do water, yeah. Well, everyone should.

What if you're in the desert? I know, I know. Okay, wow. Those are my three bevies that I love. You could have some protein. I'll have a protein shake. Shake? Yeah, protein shake.

Okay, we can count that. Yeah, I would never need anything again because I would have nutrition and calories. Oh, you're doing like a survivalist. Yeah, like I could literally go out into the desert for as long as I fucking wanted with nothing, not even a backpack full of food. Yeah.

It was a great question. Whoever asked this is a genius. I agree, it was Bill. It was Bill. Gates. Oh, I thought he meant Cosby. Fuck. Okay, I would pick. I have my fifth.

Oh, you do? Okay, what? Can it be air? Air? Oxygen. No, it's a liquid. Then I can go underwater. I could swim across the Atlantic.

I would like that. But no, it's liquid only. Pick like oil so you can sell it. Actually, no, it's liquid only. Pick like oil so you can sell it. Actually, no, Rob. That's most people, apparently most people, that's liquid gold. Liquid gold, it's melt is hot. No, listen.

It's in the water state. That's what most people pick, gasoline. Gasoline, oh, to fill their car. Well, that shows how spoiled I am. If you would have asked me that in 2002, I would have been like, fuck man, I'm letting gas for sure, it's killing me. And then maybe milk.

Milk. Yeah, because that was killing me too. Well, you might want milk with your coffee. I like to drink it black. But I don't, so like if you're serving others. Right. Oh, okay, now I know mine. Okay, here we go.

Tea, wine, water, tea, wine. Yeah, water, now I know mine. Okay, here we go. Tea, wine, water, tea, wine. Yeah, water, English breakfast, tea. Milk for my tea. Hold on a second. I just thought of something. What? You're probably gonna have to dedicate a couple or three of your fingers to wine

because you like different flavors at different times. Yeah, if you're going English breakfast, tea, specifically. Yeah, you have to go specific. Then you're what wine? I don't, I wouldn't pick wine. Oh wow, you're gonna regret that. I know, actually I am gonna pick it. Damn it.

Of course, you're not being honest. I was being honest, I was trying to do the hurdle thing. Like it's better if I- Can't suck your pinky and have a Chardonnay. Actually, I hate Chardonnay. Actually, I bet that would, I bet I would stop drinking. Really? I kind of feel like it.

Well, because you'd have to. No, it's just like, it's any time. It comes out of my body. Yeah, I like the event of it. Do you think anyone's so dumb that they picked urine? Andy picked it. Oh my God, well. He thought that would be a fun trick

to like throw pee on people. Well, what is interesting about that is it'd be nicer to be able to step up to a sink and just put your finger in the sink. As long as it was actually draining your bladder. That's what he said. That's a good pick. He said it'd be so easy. That's really smart.

I'm not picking that. Cause I don't want, Elizabeth made a good point, I don't want my pee near my water and stuff. Well, just keep them on opposite sides. It would drip. Okay, so for you, it was water, English breakfast tea, and milk so far.

I worry about milk getting like crusty at the end of your fingers. No, it doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't have nipples, so why would it have fingers? Yeah. Exactly. Oh my God, should I do breast milk for the world? For people who can't.

Like a wet nurse for the world? Yeah, and some babies can't suckle. I mean, as we can sit in a chair in front of your house and just have them bring children by and slurp on your ring finger. That's a good charity. Okay, you'll have to eat a lot because it takes a lot of calories.

Can't you produce milk if you just like keep, once you have a baby, if you just keep. I guess. That's how wet nurses. But some people, they have a limited supply. So that's only if you have a really good supply. Wow, I'm using two for milk. I did not anticipate this. You're sticking with that.

I'm not doing that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I didn't think so. But no, but the problem is I really don't like English breakfast tea without milk. So it doesn't make sense. So you gotta have both. What's cool is you could put, like if you did your index in your middle finger, you'd just put both fingers in your teacup. Exactly, but I only need a little milk,

so I'd have to. Well, you'd be able to control it. I'd have to like do it really like. No, just making your finger straight doesn't make it come out. You have control over that. Can't you just do an English breakfast with milk out of one finger?

It's like, cause if he's doing a protein shot. That's a cheat, that's a cheat. He's doing a come out. You have control over that. Can't you just do an English breakfast with milk out of one finger? Because if he's doing a protein shake, it's got multiple things in it. How dare you, Rob. That's kind of true. But it only has one liquid.

You can count milkshake. A muscle milk. That's better. And then I can't cheat. So English breakfast tea, whole milk, breast milk. Oh my God. You gotta get rid of breast milk. No one's gonna wanna bring their baby

to you to suck your finger. Oh, that's what you think. I do. You talk about privilege. Your kids were great at drinking milk out the tit. I'm sure Louisville is crawling with children who have no access to milk. I mean, I don't know if I'll be able to,

so it's good for me, preventative. Okay, all right, so breast milk. Also it's liquid gold, like you can put on your cuts. Well, that's true, it has the colostrum and it's really important. Yeah, I mean, I guess whole milk is breast milk. Just rebrand it, don't call it breast milk, but that's what it is.

It is called super milk. Yeah. Liquid gold, liquid gold. Okay, what's your fifth? Okay, fine, I'll do a cab, I guess. Okay, a cab. I twist my arm. I also like martinis.

Do you think you never wake up in the morning and like, you'd be like, oh, how do I feel? And you'd look down at your sheets and just fucking, there was an enormous puddle of all those liquids that ruined your mattress. Like a wet tray. Yes. Oh, but it would also be like- You'd get a nightmare.

You'd be dehydrated. Can you imagine? I know, there's a lot of questions. Like, do you have to drink gallons and gallons of water to- No, no, that's the whole point of it. Is this coming from a mystery place? Yeah. Yeah. Or like HGH?

That's not a liquid. Oh. Or adrenaline? What am I thinking? I'd obviously do electrolytes, but element is a powder, so this gets complex. Anyway. All right. That's a great one.

Thank you. What a good question that person asked. Yeah. I wish we had asked Bill Gates, be clear, that. What he would pick. He would obviously pick Diet Coke. Coffee. In India water.

Fresh India water out of the well. The chai tea. Chai tea, maybe, yeah. I think he'd drink orange juice. Yeah, well he would drink anything. He drank anything. He drank anything. The only thing he wants to drink is Diet Coke.

Yeah, yeah. And a lot of, not a lot, several people in the comments asked how many Diet Cokes did you guys drink combined in that week? And I said in excess of 100, and I stand by that. God, you drank a lot. Yeah, I think he and I both were doing at least eight, nine a day. I don't understand by that. God, you drank a lot. Yeah, I think he and I both were doing at least eight, nine a day.

I don't know about him. I saw you drink more than him. He magically had like, he had Diet Cokes in all these meetings. I'm like, where'd that come from? I wanted a Diet Coke. You normally did. He has a team, of course.

But I was like swiping him out of cars and stuff. I was like a little scavenger. Yeah, you were. Okay, I think that's probably right. Okay, anyway, there's still some more. People who become Rhodes Scholars after community college. There was a guy sort of recently-ish, his name, shout out,

is Haseem Hardiman. And this was in 2017. He was the first graduate from Community College of Philadelphia to become a Rhodes Scholar. Oh, wow. At the risk of perpetuating this stereotype that people with autism have like superpowers, are you watching Love on the Spectrum yet?

No. Oh, God, it's so good. Have you checked it out yet, Rob? No, I have not. We watched it with the kids. It's so, it's everything Bradley said it was. It's so heartwarming. But there's this boy, oh my God, of course I wanted you.

I wanted you so bad to see this episode. It's an Indian boy in Long Beach. Well, he's not a boy. He's like, is he, might be 32. And he's with his mom and his dad and his sister and they're from India. He's first generation, but they're not. Okay.

So the mom does most of the speaking, like it's his birthday and she does all the speaking. And she's like, you know, and I hope you meet a girl. And he goes, not an Indian girl. I don't want an Indian girl. Oh no. I was like, oh my Indian girl. I don't want an Indian girl. Oh no. I was like, oh my God, this is Monica Hedlund. His mom was like, okay, well, that's not a nice thing to say.

And so she kind of keeps going. And then he's like, how long are you gonna talk? Um, but, um, they were asking him questions. Like, um. He needs to go travel to India so he can heal himself. Yes, it's just really, it's just what we talk about. Like there's no, for this particular individual with autism, which doesn't mean anything about any other.

Whatever he deems is the truth and honest, there's like, there's just no hesitation to, there's no consideration that like, if he just says, I don't want an Indian girlfriend, if that crosses his mind, he just says it. But they were asking him, what day was March 12th, 1998? In this fast, he goes, that was Tuesday. Yeah, I've heard of this.

And then they said, like, what do you wanna do on your date? And he said, like, talk about math. And then they said, like, what's 126 times 92? And the second they finished asking, he just says the answer. Wow. And so. That's so cool.

The reason I bring that up is I was thinking that is the most abstract ability for you and I to imagine having. Exactly. It's like, it's not even reachable. I can't even fathom it. It's so, it's intangible. Yeah.

And I was thinking, and then this skill set I have is equally as abstract. Yeah, that's right. Every skill in a vacuum is abstract. It's just how prevalent is the skill? Yes, and so my follow-up to that was like, once I connected those two things, like, wow, that's something I can't really grasp. But I don't feel bad because of it.

No one should pity me because I can't tell you what day of the month, March 12th was, 1998. It helped me go like, yeah, yeah, you shan't pity these people nor assume that they really give a flying fuck that they don't have that skill. Because I don't have that skill, and I'm just fine not having that skill.

Right, again, the difference though, is you aren't expected to. Right, not having that skill doesn't prevent me from holding employment or finding a partner for sure. Society isn't looking at you in a way because you don't have it. Yes, but at the same time, it helped me, I think, understand that they're not going to, a partner for sure. Society isn't looking at you in a way because you don't have it. Yes, but at the same time it helped me,

I think, understand that they're not going like, wait, so you guys look at each other, you stare each other in the eyes all the time and you're comfortable doing that? Yeah, I don't really care that I can't do that. It helped me to that place. It's like, yeah, yeah, they're not coveting the thing I can do per se.

They might be coveting a job or coveting a relationship, but the actual thing that they don't have, they're not, it's not driving them mad that they don't have that just like it's not driving me nuts, I can't do. I mean, I wish I could do that. 129 times, it'd be a cool thing to be able to do, but my reality is my reality. The things that aren't in my reality

aren't giving me discomfort. But the discomfort comes from society. It doesn't come from a personal. But I'm just being specific, the discomfort of not having a job is not having a job. They might not even really care about not having a job, it's the fact that you need a job in this world. Yes, but those things are different,

those are outcomes. So yes, I concede they might want a job or want a partner, but the skill, if you don't have it, you don't really care. Yeah, I agree. I wouldn't care personally if I couldn't look someone in the eye. I only care because other people take that as a sign something is off with me.

Like, again, I'm agreeing with you. Like the skill itself means nothing. It's just what we've decided is norm. I'm gonna stop pitying campaign. Can you feel it? Yeah, I think it's good. Pity is a, I guess, you know why I'm on? Pity is different than compassion though.

It is, it is because there's an implied superiority to pity. I agree, yeah. And so, you know, I'm in a, I think it's on my mind because I'm in a position where I have young children and I'm trying to delineate the difference between these things. I agree. Like when you feel pity for somebody,

that means you think you're superior to them. Or your position is better. Inevitable. But sometimes it is better. Think both things or again, no, I'm with you. I think pity is bad, but I think compassion is very good and understanding the places in life where you've been given a leg up is good.

Yeah, like I think watching this show and understanding the complexity of how they process the world and compassion for me is like, great. So when I am interacting with someone like this, I have to have a different level of tolerance and patience and I'm happy to do that because I recognize what they're going through.

You're like empathic, but I don't need to go like, oh, that's the part people should police themselves. I agree, totally, yeah. Okay, 40% of millionaires are dyslexic, she said. She thinks that's the figure. There's multiple figures. A study by Richard Branson's group found that 35% of successful entrepreneurs in the United States have dyslexia.

There's another one, 60% of self-made millionaires are dyslexic. There's another one that says 40%. What would be probably fair to say is they're over indexing. Yeah, there's a good percentage. Oh, this one says 60%. Like a multiple of what they represent in the general population.

Well, I don't know how many are dyslexic. Do you wanna look up percentage of dyslexic people? Dyslexic people in the world. What if he thought it was what he wanted to hear pronounced? 20%. Oh, that's high. Of America or world? In the United States. Okay.

Well, that's all for Maureen. Okay, well that was great. It was funny how much that, we had done that interview prior to a couple other interviews where it came up a lot. And I felt far more informed. Yeah, me too. Yeah.

I definitely think she is dead on right about moving forward, especially in AI landscape. Creativity really is gonna be huge. You need neurodivergent people in upper management. Yeah. Like helping run the show. I think that's really important. Yeah. All right.

All right. Love you. Love you, bye. Love you, bye.