Finding Peak w/ Ryan Hanley - Hiring Neurodivergent Superheroes for Your Agency with Michael Eagan

Episode Date: May 18, 2023

Spartan philosophy, built in the black-ops lab of business: https://www.findingpeak.comFinding Peak podcast: https://linktr.ee/ryan_hanleyIn this episode of The Ryan Hanley Show, Ryan Hanley is joined by Michael Eagan.Michael Eagan founded The Independence Hub, which seeks to make insurance the preferred industry for neurodivergent talent. Insurance Hub aims to offer the insurance industry connections to best practices and talent through industry educational and neurodivergent recruiting events.Don't miss this episode...Episode Highlights:Michael shares his experience with ADHD and how he started a remote work center for neurodivergent people. (7:37)Michael mentions that ADHD brains continue to develop throughout life, while neurotypical brains stop developing. (16:11)Michael believes that a manager needs to be trained and aware of neurodiversity and the leader needs to be mentored and have tools to translate the awareness into the business world. (24:45)Michael explains how neurodivergent people have unique skill sets that are often overlooked in the standard hiring process. (37:55)Michael discusses the challenges of disclosing neurodivergent conditions during job interviews and the need for proper management of executive function skills. (48:43)Ryan mentions that his mission is to make the insurance industry more exciting and appealing to people, including those with ADHD. (53:24)Ryan encourages listeners to get involved in the program and talk to Mike if they have questions or frustrations. (58:23)Key Quotes:“Do you know that ADHD brains continue to develop through our lives? Whereas other neurotypical people, their brains, they stopped developing. So like, where you'll continue to have interests your whole life, like you'll find new music, you'll find new art, you'll find new hobbies.” - Michael Eagan“So that's why I won't listen to anybody because when I listen to people, it doesn't work. When I do it my way, it may be a little messy, but wow, it turns out a lot of times, I'm better at things than you.” - Michael EaganResources Mentioned:Michael Eagan LinkedInThe Independence HubReach out to Ryan HanleyRogue RiskFinding Peak--Recommended Tools for GrowthOpusClip: #1 AI video clipping and editing tool: https://link.ryanhanley.com/opusRiverside: HD Podcast & Video Software | Free Recording & Editing: https://link.ryanhanley.com/riversideWhisperFlow: Never waste time typing on your keyboard again: https://link.ryanhanley.com/whisperflowCaptionsApp: One app for all your social media video creation: https://link.ryanhanley.com/captionsappGoHighLevel: It's time to take your business workflow to the Next Level: https://link.ryanhanley.com/gohighlevelPerspective.co: The #1 funnel builder for lead generation: https://link.ryanhanley.com/perspective--Episodes You Might Enjoy:From $2 Million Loss to World-Class Entrepreneur: https://lnk.to/delkFrom One Man Shop to $200M in Revenue: https://lnk.to/tommymelloIs Psilocybin the Gateway to Self-Mastery? https://lnk.to/80upZ9This show is part of the Unplugged Studios Network — the infrastructure layer for serious creators. 👉 Learn more at https://unpluggedstudios.fm.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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Want to give your host a gift? Consider subscribing, rating, and reviewing the show this holiday season. It really helps the show grow. From all of us at Believe, have a Merry Christmas, everyone, and a happy holiday. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. Today we have a tremendous episode for you, a conversation with Michael Egan, founder of the Independence Hub. The Independence Home seeks to make insurance the preferred industry for neurodivergent talent.

I was referred to Michael by Stacey King. I was on her podcast. She said, you've got to talk to this guy, Michael Egan, connected with Michael. We hit it off immediately. And what Michael is doing is really creating a platform and a space for people with ADHD, ADD, autism, you know, the full spectrum of neurodivergent individuals, which make up close to 20% of the population. and really on the back of my kind of coming to grips with, I guess you could say,

or diagnosis of having ADHD and the revelations that I've had and just the awareness and how much it's helped me just being aware that I had this, although to you guys is probably obvious who listened to the show, has allowed me to become a better leader, a better father, a better basically everything because now I can start to understand how to craft the way I communicate, how the way I interact with people, when to kind of go, you know, full, full handling and when to kind of dial it back because it may not be appropriate. And we just have an absolutely tremendous conversation about how, you know, neurodivision individuals can create a whole new high quality.

And in some cases, super power driven workforce for the insurance industry, how we do that, what his organization does. This is just a tremendous conversation. And a topic that, I enjoy spending some time on now is I've just seen, you know, not so much that I care that I have this thing, but it's like the awareness of having it has led me to make real life changes in how I interact with the world, which has created massive positive, massive positive benefits. And that's why I'm spending time on it, not just to talk about the fact that I have it or whatever, that, you know, people have these things, but that we can, when we become aware of them, and then as leaders, if we're able to be, you know, kind of manage these individuals,

we can extract an incredible amount of value out of people and really give some of these people with superpowers the ability to run if we do it properly. So I think you're going to love this conversation. I certainly did. I think you're going to learn a lot. Before we get there, guys, if you're loving the show, you're going to love the blog. Go to findingpeak.com. That's Findingpeak peak, like Finding Peak Performance.

Findingpeak. com. article comes out every Friday. We do special articles as well every once in a while. But, you know, tremendous feedback from the blog so far. People are loving it, diving into some of the psychological, emotional, relational topics that help us reach peak performance. And then I want to give a big shout out to TivLY.com.

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We just continue to invest deeper in our partnership with them every single day. So tivly.com. And lastly, if you're looking to maximize the revenue you're getting out of your agency today, check out SIA. Guys, there are a lot of networks out there. There's a lot of aggregation systems. There's a lot of different organizations trying to do what SIA does, but I'm telling you if you want max value, go to SIA, period.

If you want Max community, go to SIA. The things that they're doing, you know, I was just at the home office a couple weeks ago learning about a lot of the updates to programs, to trainings, to contracts, to new carriers, to new contingency programs. It's absolutely phenomenal. And if you haven't or you've been flirting with it, now's the time and go to s-I-A-A-A-com.

That's S-I-A-A-A-com. All right, with that, let's get on to Michael Egan. Mike. Hey, hey, what's going on, man? I'm at the beach. I'm in good shape. Is that for real? Yeah.

Oh, dude. Come on. Yeah. Why you got to do me like that? It's nuts. You're up in freeze mud country right now, aren't you? Yeah. Thankfully, the last two days has been nice, but... It's about to get cold, I think. Over the weekend, and it's just rainy, and this is the time of year.

You know, it's funny, and my kids were like, we had such a, you know, we had such an amazing winter for upstate New York. Yeah, I know. My friends are in Vermont, remember? So, yeah, that's right. Yes. Yeah. We had 70 degree days.

And like, and it was crazy. crazy, crazy winter where like it really never. I don't think we saw single digits. Well, they started, I think like in February, they said it got really cold. It was like there was no winter. And then right before spring, it became really cold winter. See, we didn't get that. Oh, wow. Yeah. So Albany sits in a weird place. And I'm going to, I'm going to bore. This is going to be terrible. No, I know. I know exactly what you're talking. It sits down. You get more snow, too, sometimes. Yeah. So like we basically sit between where the air comes down from Canada and where it comes up from the Atlantic. So like, and this is mostly for the people listening since you know the

area. Oh, I forget. There's other people listening to this. Yeah. Yeah. So like, just to you and me. Yeah. So the funny part is where those two systems smash into each other is literally like almost right where Albany is. So we get this weird thing where sometimes it'll be. Vermont will be 10 degrees and will be 40 degrees. And like so people know, Albany, New York is 20 minutes from Vermont. Like it's really, really close. So, and then there'll be other times where, you know, where 20 minutes, 30 minutes south of Albany will be 50 degrees and we'll be 10. And it all just depends on which one of those systems is pushing harder on the other. So it's a very, it's a very, you know, our weather is odd.

And, uh, but this is the rainy season. So, you know, it's raining like crazy. We're playing baseball and parkas. Yeah, it's funny. It's like we got out of there. Yeah, we basically, it's basically like cold jungle weather right now. Like that's, that's how you do it. So, exactly. So, so, dude, I'm so excited to have you on the show. Obviously, we just recently met each other, but I hit it off really well and, um, uh, immediately kind of connected with what you're doing. But, but I would love for everyone who's listening, for everyone who, um, just probably has never heard of your organization. Give us the, give us the 10,000 foot. Give us the origin story. Start to take us. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I have ADHD and like a lot of people,

I didn't know I had it, right? Or I kind of said I had it and would make jokes about my ADHD. You know, I had kids with ADHD. I, you know, I went to the to the appointments, did all this stuff, drove people around, went through that horror of monthly getting prescriptions renewed and driving all across Vermont and people who live in rural areas. I know exactly what I'm talking about, right? But I never slowed down long enough to realize that I had ADHD until the pandemic hit. And at the same time, I had a consulting business that I started that just got destroyed by the pandemic. I was creating a different way for buyers. And I had commuting. committed to a bunch of these events.

So I was up in Vermont, and I don't know if people on the podcast know, but Vermont was really locked down. And probably locked down for a decent reason is that we didn't have a lot of hospitals. It's a rural state and we're like in between a bunch of cities and people with second homes. We were afraid would come up. So I'm sitting alone, right, for a while in Vermont. And I knew I needed to do something else as far as a job. I didn't know what the world was going to happen, but I figured that remote work was kind of here to stay. And so I got an idea to do a remote work center that would be configured for neurodivergent people,

because I started understanding that they had different needs. And then I kind of at some point saw that 60 Minutes piece. And the 60 Minutes piece is specific to autism. So kind of even three years ago when I first got into this thing, neurodiversity. So like the new neurodiversity at work group is now called, used to be called autism at work. So a lot of these neurodip, and it's easier to say autism and it's easier for people to understand autism, but it was really bigger. And then I realized it included me with ADHD. So I started the process very innocently of thinking that I was going to be able to start a 501c3 and I would

just do all this stuff and one thing would lead to another. And what I would do is I would leverage my contacts among insurance executives that I have been selling technology to over the years to create a nonprofit that addresses the talent crisis that's in our industry. Because if you look at any stat, right, we have 400,000 people probably in the next three to five years that are going to retire from the industry. And where is that talent going to come from? Already other industries are starting to do predictive modeling and doing alternative forms of digital distribution. So all those resources that might have kind of naturally fell into the insurance industry are now being actively poached by other industries. And a lot of those people are neurodivergent

because neurodivergent people in general, right? Because if you tried to put a math problem in front of me, there wouldn't be a good chance of success. You put a word puzzle in front of me and I'll destroy it, right? But in general, there's the neurodivergent people have the STEM skills and the data analysis skills and the spatial analysis skills that are so necessary to do innovation in a digital environment. So I think that so kind of the start of it was had a pandemic issue.

We had a guy who was motivated by a couple things, right? I was motivated by my personal story. And I was like, wow, I could really do something about this. And then motivated, quite frankly, by the fact that I have ADHD. And when I find something my life, like, I put my teeth into it. And there's no stopping any of us. And I just, and the farther I get ahead with things and the more, that I hit some kind of barrier.

I just think about, oh, my God, these companies are missing out on all these people. And I think that's why you and I clicked so much, Ryan. Yeah. Right? Because we both had faiths the same thing. It's like, I keep doing all these really great things. And either somebody else takes credit for it. I get blamed for something that goes wrong.

And it's like, he, this doesn't work. So we need to do better. Not for the value so much of the ADHD or the, from the neurodivergent people, but quite frankly, the industry depends upon us. Yeah, that's one of the things that. So, yeah, I love that story. And, you know, mine is is very similar. More recent diagnosis, it was probably, it started in September.

I was, you know, I was dating this woman. Yeah. We go out on a date and we were having a great time. And just at some point she turns and looks at me. And, you know, we're just having a. We're having a great conversation. It was flowing. It was awesome.

And she looks at me and she goes, you know you have ADHD, right? And I stopped for a second. And she wasn't saying it as a knock. And she said, she looked at me and she goes, she goes, I have ADHD too. And it like clicked that the reason that she and I were getting along so well was because she could follow the talk patterns, right? And it didn't drive her nuts or confusing. her or you know i find you know and then you know so then that started me down the path and then about

a month later i went and saw my doctor and i took you know i took some she gave me some to be honest we don't even know what it was yeah she just basically said yes she's like yeah she like you could do a whole battery of tests to find out yeah what exactly the spec you know on yeah the specter where but nobody really knows either that yeah and that's what she said she was she was one we're that there's not enough science yet to say like you're a 17 versus of this. Right. Or you're an XYZ2 or yeah. Yeah. She goes and she goes to do you really care. Like now that you know you have it, you definitely do. She goes, go read what it means and whatever. So I and here's the thing. And this is going to, you know, for people who are listening,

I don't know. And I know I've been talking about a little bit on the podcast as I've grown. But like, so just like you, when you have something like when your brain works this way, you when you get a bone, you can't help but like hold on to it. Right. Like you just you have to go down that path. Now I've been reading about all, you know, what, you know, how your brain works, how your, the narrative mind work, how the interconnectivity of ideas works. And then, and this has been the biggest key for me. And I think I've made an enormous leap in my leadership abilities and in my communication abilities. And actually, I have a quick case study from last week to share with you. I wanted to share with you as a success story. But now that I know,

So I was always branded. I've always been branded. Excitable, Trumbemaker. Disruptor. Yeah, disrupt, you know, disruptive. I make decisions too fast. You know, just put every, you know, all these things. And I was like, man, I don't feel that way.

You know, I'm a fairly self-aware dude. Like I really take to heart what people say as a way to improve. And I'm like, geez, I don't feel I'm not doing this to cause trouble. I'm not just jumping to a conclusion in my brain. I've cycled this through a thousand times. Exactly. You know, I don't understand, you know, so I've never understood it. And then all of a sudden, when this diagnosis hit and I started reading into it, it was like, whack.

Yeah. They are, their brains work different that, you know, there's only, so 20% of the population is neurodiversion, right? I got them from your, from your video in the research that you share. Yeah. And I'm like, this makes complete sense. because I have had people throughout my life, most people in my life find me to be, quote, unquote, too much. Really, that was my ex-wife's biggest beef with me is that I was too much, right? Everything I fell in love with you.

I hate about you now. I heard that. Yes, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. You've changed. You're this. I'm like, I don't really think I changed. I think if anything, I'm probably more of the things that I love. But wait a second, Ryan, and I'm going to interrupt you because you'll love this if you

haven't heard it. So do you know that ADHD brains continue to develop through our lives, whereas other neurotypical people, their brains, they stop developing. So like where you'll continue to have interests your whole life, like you'll find new music, you'll find new art, you'll find new hobbies, your spouse is like, what is this? We already have this cool relationship and now you're out here trying to mess it up. So I didn't mean to interrupt you.

No, no, that's one, I did not know that. too again it these it's like so many when this when this finally you know and I know people people have been listening to me for a long time are like duh Ryan we've known for like 10 years that you've had this you know but like when I finally let it sink into my brain and then had I literally had my doctor you know this woman I was dating said it and in a very nice way you know what I mean it wasn't like you're trying to be jerk and then and then my doctor confirmed it I was like it was like the biggest exhale like like I've ever had to in my life. I was like, oh my God, everything makes sense. It doesn't stop either. It keeps going

more and more and more because like I've got into a bunch of this stuff about eating. So I don't know if you can tell, but I'm like six four. So I can hide weight. But because I am also six four just yeah. Okay. So you know like so right I could blow up to 250 pounds and people wouldn't really know it that well. And that's what I did. But like I've dropped 20 pounds. last little bit. But the more I read about it, I'm a sugar addict. I'm also an alcoholic, but the alcoholism is from ADHD and the sugar stuff is with ADHD too. So all those sugar spikes, they're just riding ADHD waves too. And it's just so like something as simple as nutrition for everyone is important. But for us, it's even more important. And I know autistic people have

all sorts of diet issues. That sugar thing is really, so I haven't done enough research on it, but I was reading an article about this, how because of the dynamic nature of the way our brains operate, they almost, they send out more signals for. Well, it creates dopamine. Yeah. It creates dopamine. The food becomes associated with the dopamine and we can't get dopamine. So once we get it, we can't get off of it.

And the sugar just rides the high. And then it creates more because then we're excited. and what happens when we get excited, we get more excited. That's why we're fun as hell to be around. Yeah, that's, you know, it's funny. You know, that that's another thing that, and again, I'm not knocking my ex-wife because now I actually, I actually said to her the other day, as much as I hate to give her.

We actually have a good working relationship in life, so it's not, you know, whatever. But like, I just said to her like, I was like, it's going to cause me so much pain to say this to you, but I can kind of understand why I drove you nuts. Absolutely. I can kind of understand why I did. You know, it was funny. You know, and then obviously she's like,

you know, yeah, whatever. You know, giving me shit. But, but so, okay, so I wanted to share, I wanted to share success case study, success study with you. So, okay. So for most of my career, when I would present,

it, again, now looking back on it, it would be like, I would be like bludgeoning people with ideas. It would just be idea after, idea after, idea after concept, after concept, after, and I'm just like pounding people.

And people would literally be like, I could see in their physical reaction. Like, leaning back in their chairs like enough. Like, oh my God, you know, it would be too much for them.

And it wouldn't come off well. You know, it would be, I'd hear like things like, that's an impressive amount of ideas, but they're not parsed together well. Yes. Yes.

I'm like, what they are. Can't you see it? Yeah. Yeah. This, this, this, this. Yeah.

Yeah. So, but, right. Yeah. So that, that's been my experience. Okay.

So last week. we had our annual review with SIA, our parent company. So every year we go in and we take a few members of our leadership team and we sit down and we present our annual results. This was the first year that we did it. We did it at six months because it was the first year that we had bought and whatever. We'll probably do it every six months. So we sit down and this year knowing the way that I am, I built the presentation in a way. I practiced in a certain way.

And literally I found, and this was fucking crazy, is that I could almost, for a period of time, turn the crazy contextual, I don't want to say turn it off, but I could control it. I could say to myself, don't follow, yeah,

I really want to go down this rabbit hole because this is really interesting. But I could say, no, don't do it. And I stayed very focused. And this was like a six hour, six hour back and forth presentation. And it was a lot to it.

And at the end, my boss, Matt Massello, came up to me and said, I know how hard that was for you to do because he understands and appreciates, you know, what's going on. And he said, and you did a, you did a really good job, right? And that was like one of the best professional compliments that I had ever received. One, just Matt's an incredible guy and probably one of the best executives I've ever worked with. so much as he was able and willing to understand that I do have this, this crazy brain and that, and that that was difficult for me to stay on point and, and, and, and flow through in a narrative that everyone could follow and,

and, and, and he was willing to come up and say that. And I was like, oh my God, like, I've literally turned a corner. Like having an understanding to what this is is now I can, when I want to go full idea, let's just dominate. I can turn that on. Now I know for periods of time, I don't think I could have sustained it. Yeah. But for periods of time, I could actually dial it down.

And it's all just, it's knowledge. So two things. And now I'll shut up. No, it's great. No, it's spectacular, Ryan. It really is. So two things. One, having the knowledge, appreciation and self-awareness of myself now,

I can actually understand what's going on and do some. do some some changes myself. And then this is the part that I think is the most interesting and really where I want to take the next part of our conversation is having a leader in someone like Matt Mass Yellow who can give me the space to be the crazy idea divergent person who who wants to run at 10,000 miles an hour, but but is going to also hold me to the fact that in certain settings I need to dial it in and appreciate when I do. That type of leadership, that's what I, okay.

Here's my question. How do we, how do we start to cultivate an appreciation for the 20% of the population who can add tremendous value that are neurodivergent? How do we start to get more leaders to appreciate this and be the type of leaders who can give those people the space they need and still hold them accountable? Yes. So I love the way one, he told me this story and also the way you phrased the question. And I may only like it because it just reinforces exactly what we're doing, right? What we're doing because we know the insurance industry and the we is a group of people kind of that I've gathered over the last two or three years as this issue has emerged in their lives and mine. But we know the insurance industry is an industry of not

taking chances, right? So it's by nature or risk averse. And so human resources organizations by nature are risk averse. So when you combine a human resources organization in an insurance organization, that entity, asking that entity to start doing things that are riskier and outside the box, I just don't think it's something that can work. So what our approach is to find those leaders

exactly like you just mentioned, Ryan, and to do small pilots that that leader can sponsor within his or her organization. So it's one, two, three people, and there's two things that need to take place. And you mentioned them both. So the first thing is the manager needs to be trained, right? The manager needs to be aware of what's going on. The manager to get that training, it's not tough. I mean, just to get a general level of awareness, I would think between an hour and two hours. So I've developed kind of some initial education, just basic stuff on a learn world's page that we're trying to take to the level right now. Most of the information comes

from the neurodiversity at work people and Judy Riley at Yukon. So, and I'm sorry, I'm starting to drift here. But so specifically to leadership, so we need to get that leader engaged. Then we need to get that leader to train his manager or maybe that leader is the manager. And then the next thing that happens is we need to have mentorship. So if you use you as the example, right, Ryan Hanley needs to be aware that he has ADHD, right? And once Ryan becomes aware, he then needs tools that he can take that awareness and translate it into the business world. So that consciousness, gets created, right? Because the problem that people, what we have is a lack of executive function. And that executive function is what stops us and stops neurotypical people in a presentation

from going down 14 different things and jamming in so much data that a neurotypical people couldn't, couldn't make it work. So I like to refer to them as normies. Normies, I love it too. Yeah, I know, especially when I get mad at them. And I do because I don't have as much executive function, right? After all the hate that I've received and negativity that I've received throughout my life or my brainworking way it does, I feel completely comfortable. I know, I know, I know, I know, exactly. So you have to have that awareness among all three groups of people.

It has to be the employee or the professional, right? It has to be the manager. And it has to be the leader that gives the space. within the organization to make it happen. And so we're working on all three of those levels through the neurodiversity and friends organization that you join. And you were so nice to sponsor us. And I really appreciate it.

Yeah, yeah. No, and I'm at the end, I want to get all the info out so that everybody knows where to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I know there's a lot of people. And, you know, and what's funny is, you know, since I've started talking about on the show and in social media and stuff, you know, my kind of journey realizing this about myself and trying

to not, you know, one thing that I immediately said to myself, one, it's just not my nature, but I immediately said to myself was, no part of this makes me a victim in any way. No, it's not an excuse to be a jerk. It's not an excuse to be a jerk. It's not an excuse to blame. Like here's the thing. Like, you know, I can think of some of the people who fired me, right? who had problems with the way that I acted and the way, you know, like, you know,

I was fired from probably my favorite job that I've ever had except for rogue risk, you know, previous to rogue risk, which is my, you know, the best thing I've ever done, but like, and, and there was really the, the divergent moment, not to use that word too much, but was when he believed that I was coming after his job. And, and the reason he thought that is because just I was, again, as I became more and more comfortable with the problems in the business and had a larger understanding of what was going on, I started to just say, I can solve this problem. And not like me personally necessarily, but like, I know these two team members together

here, they can do this. And, you know, and again, in all fairness to him, I also told the CFO to get out of the way because I would just solve the problem that he was complaining about. So, you know, I'm not. Yeah. Well, you don't have. executive you have the guy there's a doctor that describes i don't know if you've ever heard of them ned hollering if you ever heard of that guy no so he calls ADHD he says it's like having a race car engine with bicycle brakes yes and that what you have to do is you have to build up your brakes and that's the part that's not an excuse that cognitive in its cognitive behavior therapy and that's why i love golf so much yeah because golf there's nobody else

It's responsible for anything but you. And that's actually how I started getting into the place where I could listen to people tell me that I've ADHD because I slowed down. I was trying to become a better golfer. So I was doing breathing exercises and stuff. And then I thought, wow, what if I did this in real life? Yeah. And it works. You know, I, you know, I, for me, I'd say, and this is going to sound, hopefully this doesn't sound,

weird to people, but two of the things that have really helped me center and focus is I started reading the Bible and I started reading a lot about stoicism. And I find that those are the two best, in my personal opinion, if you can live by some mix of the Bible and stoicism, you probably have the best guidebook for life. And it's all about pacing and doing the hard things first. And, you know, all these kind of things were like, you're not going to allow, like, look, have I have people, I think wrongly, you know, this is like the two sides of my brain. Like, have people, do I feel wrongly judged my mentality to think it's something other than me just trying to be incredibly helpful and whatever. Yes, I do. But on the other side, that's not an excuse for the fact that

I also most likely didn't position myself in a way that that made them, that I probably But that doesn't make you bad, right? It doesn't make you bad. You just made. a mistake you could know right so that's the thing well people with ADHD have high suicide rates too yeah because we feel so much and we worry about like when when you said I'm self-aware believe me I know you're self-aware yeah your worst critic and that's why it's hard to be around us too yeah because like I may criticize other people but I think wow and not verbally criticized but just assess what they're doing very strongly I'm like wow I'm being nice to them imagine Yeah, you're way worse.

Yeah, you're way worse on yourself. You're way worse on yourself. You know what it's like, it's like living 24-7 with an exposed nerve. That's what it feels like. Like you are, you are sensitive. And I don't mean sensitive in like the feelings kind of way. I mean, you like, no, you are sensitive because you can't control it. Yeah.

You don't have control of your executive function of your brain. And it's chemical. I mean, we're not talking about Eastern mysticism here. These are chemicals that neuroscientists are able to identify. What's up, guys? Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show. In an exchange for that, I need your help. If you're loving this episode, if you enjoy this podcast, whether you're watching on

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The things that are going to help you grow as a person and grow your business, but they all check out comments, ratings, reviews, they check out all this information before they come on. So as I reach out to more and more people and want to bring them in and share their stories with you, I need your help. Share the show. Subscribe if you're not subscribed. And I love for you to leave a comment about the show because I read all the comments.

Or if you're on Apple or Spotify, leave a rating review of this show. I love you for listening to this show. And I hope you enjoy it listening as much as I do creating the show for you. All right. I'm out of here. Peace. Let's get back to the episode. And a lot of what I've, and another thing that I've found and I have done zero research on this.

so please tell me if you've seen this. The research all changes too, Ryan. I mean that, you know, so go ahead. Yeah. I just, I found that the better I eat and the more I dial in my diet, the more positive my brain is and the more like I had a day. I had a couple of drinks last night, but I went about four days without having a drink.

And I'll tell you, the fourth day, I felt like I literally, you could have given me any task and I could have dominated it. Like I felt so dialed in. It was like, you know, obviously I'm not as smart as that guy

from like a beautiful mind, but like that kind of idea of like the like the swirling numbers around your head and connecting things. Like it was like that kind of shit was happening. And like at one time and I said to myself, I was like, whoa, you know, as much as I love fucking booze, because at the end of the day, I just, I have not yet found a great way to land the ship.

I'm still working on that. But at one time, I had three Slack conversations going on. I was creating, publishing a blog post. I was also working on an insurance account. And I had three text messages conversations going on about Little League Baseball, because there was like a bunch of shit happening yesterday. all of this is happening at one time. And to be honest with you, I was cool as a cucumber.

I was just like, like I wasn't stressed. I wasn't overwhelmed. We like it better. We're more comfortable when there's more stress. So the more stress that happens, the better we do. Yeah.

It's like, it's funny. Like I get, I was talking to my counsel the other day and I said, I feel like I have a 12 cylinder engine that throw someone through a fucking golf car governor on. You know what I mean? Well, that's a race car engine.

bicycle breaks. I'll send you that little thing. It's cool. I'll send it to you right away after this. Yeah. It's so, it's so wild. Like, um, because you just like, I just thought, I'll be honest with, there's times when I thought that I was nuts. I was like, I was just say like, I'm more, but there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, yeah. Well, I thought, I guess I thought that there was something wrong with it. You know what I mean? Like what is like, what is wrong with me? And I would go. Yeah, why am I bad? Yeah. Yeah. Why? I'd say, why do I react that way or why do I have to be that way or why, you know, why, especially when I was married because just, you know, again, my wife is a perfectly fine woman or my ex-wife's a pretty fine woman, but we were not a good fit.

Yeah. You know, from a mental standpoint. I'm like, yeah. I don't understand why I drive her so crazy. Like I didn't understand. I don't understand why I drive my boss so crazy. I don't understand why I drive this other person in the company. Like, I don't understand, you know.

And now I do because if I walk into a situation with certain people, Yeah. And I give them the full fire hose. They are going to hate it. Yes. And, and, you know, that's not their fault. You know what I used to think? I used to either blame, you know, because I didn't know, I would at one time be both blaming them and blaming myself. Yeah. You know, I would be like, what's going on? I know. You know, I don't understand that. And that's what would cause me stress. you give me a mountain of work and the tools to get it done. You could you could pile it on me all day. It's why I'm over there.

I love it. I love it. I am a hardcore. And again, this is people will be like, you know, I'll say some days I work 12. Some days I'm up until two in the morning. Yeah.

14 hours in still plugging along. No problem. And people will be like, that's not healthy. And I'm like, I like it. I like it. I like it.

This isn't like I feel obligated to do it. Absolutely. It's like, I like it. And now, unfortunately, that I found AI, I'm like a kid in a candy store. Now it's like, I'm piecing these tools to get. This is like a new, just a new thing that I've done. And it's, it's like, I don't know. It has been wild, man. It's been absolutely wild. So I have a couple questions. Okay. How do we? So, okay, so let's say someone's out there listening to this and they've been able to make it through the first 20, 34 minutes of this conversation.

And they're like, hey, I can, I feel like I'm the type of leader or we're the type of organization that would like to be able to find neurodivergent people that are willing to help bring neurodivergent people in, give them opportunities, harness their skills, right? Because I do think it's a superpower. I honestly believe I am better than all the normies. Yeah. And that, that's only partially a joke, guys. It is partially a joke, but it's not a joke to me. Because for some things you are better. For some things, you ain't.

I will say, I will say better in certain areas. I, you know, what I find is, I have friends that are leaders. And I, so I talk to a lot. I like talking, obviously, like talking to people. And I like hearing how other people manage and the way they do things. Absolutely. And what I find is my friends who are, who I believe are great leaders, who maybe aren't neurodivergent, they, they have more well,

they have a higher average levels of skill sets, right? So if you took all their different skills and average them, the level would be much higher than me. But I find, but what I think, and I've seen this in some of my friends who I believe to be neurodivergent if they don't already know, is that they have these things that in some categories, they may be zeros.

But then in other categories, they're pinned at 100. Yeah. And they have the spikes are much higher. You have a much more, a much wider range in your skill sets is what I've found. Absolutely. That's seemingly what you find. And why that and why that bumps into the hiring, the standard hiring process and why the standard hiring process is failing to deliver innovative skills is that risk aversion thing I said. Because the HR people, they are literally trying to find normie.

Because if you're in HR, you don't want to hire somebody who has a chance of being really great or really bad. Because if they're really great, all of a sudden, why can't you do this over and over again? And if they're really bad, it's like, oh, my God, how did you let this person who showed up with their shirt on backwards to this interview? Like, you're crazy. Like, so think, but if you think about it like that, it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it does. We're just weeding out all of the special performers. So that is the main thing that needs to get change on the HR level.

And that change is so big. That's why if that leader we're talking to, we need to get that leader to contact me right now as we start directly and say, hey, I'm interested in doing this. And that's what we're gathering right now. We're trying to gather between five and 10 insurance leaders. We probably have three right now, three or four. who will come up with a few projects.

We have the talent that's sitting on the back end. So that leader who wants to hire people, if they can talk to me, we can work out about 15 or 20 minutes, come up with a generalized job description. And then Connor and the people at Mentra. So Mentra is a group of autistic graduates of Georgia Tech, and they've created a platform,

for identifying talents early, because with neurodivergent people, the important thing is, let's see how Mike grew over time. So how Mike learned how to show up on time. Mike learned how to do what you said before about the presentation, get that presentation down. And if somebody who's hiring can see that as a freshman, Mike was doing this, but as a junior, he was doing this, wow. that's a huge gap.

I can take a chance on this person because of this kind of consistent behavior. And then that platform carries that neurodivergent skills, how they were able to work, what accommodations were needed so that eventually that data base gets built up enough where we can start automating searches, right? So that's the place where we're at right now. We're gathering data so that we can move to an automated environment. I like the idea of a more systematic approach because, like, we need less people finding out that they're neurodivergent in their 40s, right? Yeah.

Like, you know, if I knew, if I knew in my early 30s or even my mid-20s or earlier even, you know, I don't know when it really hard for presented. I feel like as I've gotten older, it's gotten, well, now I'm going to say better, but before I would have said worse. How old are you, late 30s? Is that what you said? I'm 42. Yeah, see, I think that kids that are maybe five to ten years younger than you, I don't think that's as much as a problem. I think that I think you might be right on the edge of it because most of the data that I see says, the problem we're having right now is kids are graduating to their parents' couches who've been able to demonstrate success in secondary school and even at the university level with an individual education plan. And that individual education plan says where you're going to work, how you're going to work.

And it's just a set of guidelines that is built for the person. And a couple of my kids had, I don't think I ever had a kid with an IEP. But my kids were, two of them were on kind of regular counseling and medication for ADHD. One, we never, the poor thing, we denied that I can and I can. And we, my wife and I, it's probably me more responsible for anything. but we came to the conclusion that my middle child didn't have ADHD, but she did. And we didn't realize that until now she's 21 or 22. And I helped there because now I understand it more.

So I guess that's a long-winded way of saying. I think some of that's happening. The point that I'm trying to put my finger on, which is why I'm working with Judy Riley at Yukon, is that place where you move from the university into the workforce. And to me, there's the most value. there because that's where we can maybe help the universities fine tune what they're doing, right? Because once again, make it a two-way street instead of a one-way street. So we make a group of people in the industry who are already there aware of the fact that they have ADHD. And I

think that happens in general. But what we want to do is offer the tools to say, okay, you just found out you're 44 years old, 50-s, however old you are, right, you just found out that you have ADHD. and what does that mean for me as an insurance professional. So neurodiversity and friends is the association of neurodivergent insurance professionals and their friends because I didn't want to get into a disclosure issue that anyone who joined it would have to disclose something. So that organization that you joined then becomes kind of the place where we can have mentors. So I realize I'm neurodivergent.

I take that education. I become a mentor. and that's happening kind of on the industry. And then on the other side, we're working with recruiting people, because that's where the real bang to the buck is, for the industry itself, who's going to pay for this stuff.

Because at the end of the day, somebody has to pay, there's huge money in it too. That's the thing. I mean, I think I'm personally, as far as supporters, we have no money right now,

and we really need support. But eventually, the industry is going to understand enough of what we're doing, and they're going to be able to. Well, the things I'm going to help you with for sure is getting some fundraising. There are plenty of people out in the ecosystem who would be, I think, more than happy to help support this cause and

help support this. Because look, like, talent's the biggest issue. And I know, you know, a lot of the people that I run with, you know, in the industry, they're, they're success driven, right? That's what it's about. It's about, you know, people laugh at me when I joke about world domination. But like the conversations and the people that I talk to, we're looking for primetime players, right? We're looking for move. We want to move the needle. We're not involved in people. And if you can find out, you know, if we find out that someone who has autism is just

dominates as an underwriter or as a account manager or insert whatever and eight, you know, people with ADHD put them out, you know, give them some training and some tools and put them out on the front lines as a producer. Digital producers. Yeah. I mean, you put a person with ADHD. PhD as a producer with the right kind of tools. Jesus. I mean, yeah. So it's like there are plenty of people that I think that I believe will, are going to be very interested in what we're talking about. That's why I was so excited to get you on. I am obviously, you know, I've already told you I want to be a mentor. I want to be part of it. You know, we're the sponsorship that I gave was just to get involved. We're going to. I know that. I know that. We're not really, we haven't been ready. Yeah. To be able to because I don't like taking people's money unless I know exactly where. every penny's going in exactly how things are going to be done right. And we're there right now.

And I think it's especially good, you know, that it's a nonprofit organization and all this kind of stuff. And I think you're going to have a tremendous amount of success. So, you know, I think, I think so I'm going to follow up on that point with one thing. So I was talking with a woman from Liberty Mutual. And one of the things that she, she recognized that Liberty. And Liberty is kind of a leader in this area, specifically around autism. They work. Really? Yeah, they work with Mass General's Aspire program, and that Aspire program is specific to autism. But they have been doing that for a while.

Actually, Liberty was one of the companies that one of my friends said, hey, you should look at what they're doing to try to copy it. Well, this woman, and you'll meet Kara too. Do you go to Pima in New Orleans? Okay, so we're going to be down there, and Matt will be there. I mean, we can talk later about that. Anyway, so what she was saying was that Liberty wants, knows that they need to do mentorship, right? They have enough knowledge of the issue, but they don't want Liberty to be the mentor because if I am an employee of Liberty and I'm asking someone who's my mentor about should I disclose the fact that I have ADHD or should I disclose the fact that I have dyslexia and I've been hiding it as part of my, like there's a lot of things. there. So she was so happy to say, yes, we need an extra or a, you know, a nonprofit third party organization to be the Aegeas and to be the sponsorship for this mentorship organization and to have the certification of knowledge that we're not spreading a bunch of nonsense around, right?

Yeah. And have, and people, people want to do the right thing. They just need guardrails. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I do think that, you know, I love that. I love that. And so I, I guess my one, one, I guess how do we, all right, I have a couple questions. Sorry. So my first question is one, I think it's very, you've mentioned it multiple times and I think it's very interesting. I am, I am by nature a very transparent person. So for me, talking about the fact that I have ADHD, I don't care.

If you, I just simply don't care. But I can understand that some people would. And could you maybe just briefly talk about so people who maybe might not understand what, why do people have to hide the fact that maybe they have a neurodivergency? Yep. And, you know, what does that look like? Because it's interesting to me that someone who, like, say is dyslexic, sorry, would hide that because they'd be worried that maybe they'd be retaliated against or put in a box

or possibly not giving a promotion. Is that is that the idea? It's absolutely it. So one of the biggest issues in neurodiversity is and the term if you want to do a search on it is disclosure, right? Should I disclose or not? And when I disclose and how I disclose are all of these issues. So if you think about should I disclose, right? Well, if you're going for a job interview and one of the things of the job interview. So say I'm me going for a job interview to be an executive salesperson, and I tell them that I have ADHD. And what goes on in their mind?

This guy's not going to show up. This guy's going to miss his plane. This guy is not going to follow up on emails. That's the. And it's legitimate too, right? Because if I just say I have ADHD, that probably might not be the best thing, but you might say, I have a certain set of skills that are associated with my ADHD that need to be managed to get the best out of me, right?

So there's a whole bunch of playbooks for how to disclose, when to disclose, and a lot of that is the work that the neurodiversity at work group that SAP founded. But that's that's the gist of that. It's like, is this going to hurt me for a? a job and it's on in when you fill out a job application too right it's that same thing do you really want to do it and it's mixed up in the fact that a lot of neurodivergent people because they have those executive function challenges yeah they don't have control of their emotions when they're doing it so they may be making a mountain out of a mo hill yeah anyway so they're hey and and when you live in a secretive world that you're always different and you're doing work around

all the time, right? So I grew up just doing work around. So that's why I won't listen to anybody. Because when I listen to people, it doesn't work. When I do it my way, it may be a little messy, but wow, it turns out a lot of times. I'm better at things than you. Yeah. So does that answer your question? It does. It does a lot. You know, yeah. It's also ADA. I mean, it's also HIPAA too. Yeah. Right. So if I start collecting information about all these people who have told me that they have an A, ADA, ADA covered disability, all of a sudden, and that brings a level of responsibility. I mean, I messed around with that just before I could even put up my CRM together because I was like, oh, my God, I'm going to be collecting this data.

Yeah. To me, it's a, it's a two, I think one way to solve that problem as well is finding, we'll call them, neurodivergent friendly organizations, who you can. can feel comfortable disclosing that information to and who will understand, hey, you know, yeah, maybe I have to send two Slack messages instead of one to get this person to take action. But I think but the action is going to win. It's exactly what you're talking. So it's leadership awareness.

And then we can make a few companies, the neurodivergent friendly companies. And then within the industry, we want our industry to be the place where if someone's neurodivergent, you go, oh, the insurance industry is the perfect place. for you. If you're a college guidance counselor, that's what I want to have happen. I want the college guidance counselor at your local college to have a group of neurodivergent students that they've identified and say, hey, you know, you really should think about the insurance industry. And here's why, because they employ people whose brains are like yours. These people have had success and to be able to do that. Now, that takes 10 years, but it's worth it because the industry,

if we don't start attracting people. Yeah. There's nobody to do. You talk about a hero underwriter. A hero underwriter might be somebody who shows up to work because there's no underwriters. Yeah. You know, it's funny to me. Our industry complains so much about talent, right?

Yeah. We can't find talent. Well, we just said 20% of the population is neurodivergent, okay? Now, I can tell you as someone who's in that 20%, when I walk into your stuffy-ass office with your eight to three. get hired. Yeah, you're 830. The only way I get hired is through friends. Yeah, I know me. Well, you walk it, that person walks in. They're going to walk in. They're going to 180 and walk right back out. They're going to look at that environment and go there's no way I can exist in this

space. Insurance is not sexy. People don't. When we're here in college, you don't say, hey, man, I want to go into the insurance industry. Well, maybe for this group, it could be sexy. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. This is my whole mission at Agency Nation. At Agency Nation and like Sid Row and everyone there could tell you back in, you know, back in 2014 to 2018, my entire mission building that platform was to shit was to basically convince, uh, independent insurance professionals that what they did was important. It was fun. It was exciting. It was sexy, right? You're selling shit. You're a fucking salesperson. Like, this is fun stuff. It doesn't have to be boring. And we're nerdy as shit, right? Like we read these policy forms and it's crazy. And it's like, you know,

and I look at it and I'm like this, you know, things like, you know, when you think about like some, like, and people who don't have ADHD, you may not understand this, but like when you, when you have this thing in your brain, when you get something on your brain, you cannot get it off. And I don't mean that as like an excuse or whatever. I mean, it's like it owns space in your brain until you satisfy whatever research, nerdy, deep dive you have to do to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, satisfy that. It literally just rent space in your brain. You can't get it out. So like, you find these people, you know, if you could find someone say, say with ADHD, I don't, I don't know the other types of neurodivergent as well. I'm saying it's the way of experience.

Yeah. Yeah. Just speaking to people with ADHD. Yeah. Give them, you teach them how to sell, show them they can make shit tons of money on their own time with their own schedule in their own way in the areas. Like, like I have a woman who works for me who is ADHD. And she came to me. and put a whole proposal in front of me about how she wants one of her one of her primary niches to be adult toy stores. Right?

Now, a lot of, a lot of agency principals would have ran for the freaking hills. They would have been like, warning sign, warning. I was like, I'm looking through this thing going, wow, this actually looks like a pretty cool frigging niche.

There's a lot of risk there that a lot of people don't want to cover. Good for you. Yes. And I was like rock and roll, right? And for her, and one, I can tell she was 80s,

but just by talking to her and us being able to communicate the way we could. Yeah. The way she approached this particular niche and the way she defined it and the fact that she even considered it, right? Yeah. Showed me that, you know, that this was the thing. I'm going, wow, this could be a nice little niche, very profitable, very consistent, that no other agents would go after. But because this, I gave this person the space to kind of think to what she wanted to go after and let her do her own research,

here's here's here's this thing and that to me like guys you're looking for talent you know open your minds maybe if you if your brain doesn't work this way doing some training like you know working with when you get your trainings up and getting involved there this opens up a whole world of talent that we could bring in that could be that can help you dominate what you want to do I just I just can't believe that more but yep you know you're yeah yeah Mike, this has been incredible. I'm sure it'll be the first of many times. Yeah, I love it.

Talk through this stuff. Okay, so we've gotten to the point of the show where I want, where do people go, where can they donate, where can they learn more, how do they get involved? What are the, where's the place that they go? So the easiest, there's a couple places, but the easiest place to start would be the independence hub. So the independence hub. dot org and that's our website. I'm also, we have a LinkedIn web page. Okay.

And both of those places are great places to store. Okay. And we have all of our information on that. Guys, I will have the website link as well, the LinkedIn page and Mike's LinkedIn all in the show notes too. So if you're listening to me. Just drop me an email. So if you're listening to something, yeah, if you're listening to some treadmill or in the car or whatever, just you can go to the show notes page at Ryan Hanley.com. You can find all the links or just Google everything. You'll find it. But, you know, I think that this is one, just being a capitalist. I think that working with people who are neurodivergent and finding ways to bring them into your organization is just a pure, a pure growth plan.

Business imperative. Kelly Greer, who worked at, she's not there anymore at Ernst & Young. She was the highest executive that I've seen. I'm going to send you to that 60 Minutes article. But she said, for us, let's make no doubt about it. This is a business imperative because they need people who can spot trends that they don't know what happening. Yeah. The whole business, this is an innovation economy.

It's not a resource exploitation. economy. And then the faster that you realize, the more different kind of brains that you have on the problem, the better off you'll be. Yeah, I love that. The last thing I want to say before we wrap up here is if you're listening to this and you are neurodivergent or you think you are, get involved, foul along. And really, you can talk to Mike or guys, you can also, I'm always here. I'm going to be a mentor as part of the official program. But if you need to talk to somebody or you have questions or you're frustrated by something. I'm also always around and willing to talk specifically. Right now I'm very interested in this topic. So I'm happy to help you guys.

I'm happy to talk about things that I went through. And, you know, again, give me the space that really my awakening has really only been September of last year, so less than a year. But I feel like I can share a lot of just in that short amount of time, awareness has changed a lot. So I encourage you guys to dig in to not feel different not feel weird not feel wrong not feel like a troublemaker even if you are you most likely are but but don't feel bad at money for troublemakers yeah they're called disruptors i mean every single company in the world wants disruptors yeah except for their HR organization exactly right uh appreciate the hell out of you man uh love that we got connected bit i want to give oh oh before big shout out to stacey king who

connect two of us big shout out to stacey kink thank you stacey Yeah, we connected to us. All right, everybody, we're out of here. Awesome. Thanks, Brian. Bye. Here. Close twice as many deals by this time next week.

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