Welcome to the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.

I'm Kate Moore Youssef, and I'm a wellbeing and lifestyle coach, EFT practitioner, mum to four kids and passionate about helping more women to understand and accept their amazing ADHD brains.

After speaking to many women just like me and probably you, I know there is a need for more health and lifestyle support for women newly diagnosed with adhd.

In these conversations, you'll learn from insightful guests, hear new findings, and discover powerful perspectives and lifestyle tools to enable you to live your most fulfilled, calm, and purposeful life wherever you are on your ADHD journey.

Here's today's episode.

Today I've got Natalie Brooks, and Natalie is the founder of Dyslexia in Adults, which is a company on a mission to help ambitious dyslexic adults thrive in the workplace.

And we've actually, you know, we talk about neurodivergence so much on the podcast, obviously, always through the lens of adhd, we blend it in with autism.

But dyslexia hasn't been a conversation that we've had on the podcast.

And I've really been looking forward to this conversation because I know the overlap is huge.

We're going to go into all of this, but I just wanted to welcome you, Natalie, to the podcast, and I hope we're going to bring lots more awareness and a lot more understanding to this topic today.

Thank you so much.

And I feel.

I feel exactly the same.

I feel like I'm constantly talking about ADHD through the dyslexia lens.

So, yeah, there's just an almighty overlap, both in my own brain and in the work as well that I do.

So, yeah, it's going to be really interesting to dive into it.

Yeah, you got your dyslexia diagnosis when you were six and you went to a specific school that was very sort of helpful and supportive of dyslexic students, and you were diagnosed 10 times, the dyslexia, and.

And you never once had any inkling about adhd?

Can you tell me a little bit about your experience, but what you're seeing in general and why are we not understanding this huge overlap between dyslexia and adhd?

So my personal experience, but first off was, yeah, I was really lucky that they noticed this girl who was bright, interested, engaging in school, kind of getting involved in the conversation.

And then the second that it went to any written work or learning to spell or learning to read something just wasn't working.

And, you know, I was just lucky enough to have teachers that knew the signs, picked it up, went straight to my parents.

They were really supportive.

Straight to a diagnosis, whipped out of that school, put into another one that understood dyslexia.

Was 10 by the time I could read and write properly.

And that was all due to the fact that I was changed schools and able to kind of get the support that I needed.

And I went through the education system incredibly supportive for dyslexia.

I was given specific classes, I was given extra support.

My parents paid for extra tuition.

You know, I was given everything I possibly could.

And one of the things you had to have when I was younger is a dyslexia diagnosis every two years to be able to be eligible for all of this support.

So every two years since I was six, I was going back every single time to an educational psychologist who was diagnosing me.

And like I said, my parents were on it.

They were on it.

And no one saw the little girl who was wiggling in her chair, playing with her hair constantly, couldn't sit still, would just yabba yabba the entire time, couldn't shut up.

Never remembered everything that I needed for the day.

Never remembered my books, never remembered my PE Uniform, never remembered my lunch.

You know, you name it, I forgot it.

I was losing everything all the time, all the classic signs, and no one said anything.

No one.

Everyone just let me build this shame over and over and over, these layers and layers and layers of shame.

And I was so open about how frustrating it was and how hard it was, and no one put anything together.

And it was only until I was 28 and I started dyslexia in adults.

And I was like, I can't do this anymore.

I cannot suffer any longer.

I have to find the answers to how to handle this.

That I finally put two and two together, and I was like, oh, Oh, I see.

Dyslexia is a real challenge, and I am really struggling with the nuances of dyslexia, but it's.

My hands are being tied even further around my back by ADHD and the challenges that are coming alongside that and the lack of understanding that it's ADHD that was causing even more challenges.

So can I ask then what I'm hearing is that you.

It was kind of like the teachers were okay with the dyslexia diagnosis.

There was support there.

The stigma kind of wasn't there.

And they were really like, you know, let's help you.

Let's help you succeed.

But you were then kind of made to feel bad about forgetting things, losing things, and it was kind of put upon you.

That was a bit of a personality defect that.

Exactly.

The dyslexia was kind of like, this is your superpower.

We're going to harness it out of you.

It's all going to be great.

But then with the sort of the missed or the misdiagnosed adhd, that was a bit like, you need to try harder thing, you know, you need to do better.

And that was kind of compounding those layers of shame.

Exactly.

Yeah.

You summarized it perfectly.

It was like it was okay that my homework had spelling mistakes because they were like, well, let's think about the content.

But it wasn't okay that I forgot my books to class.

That was.

That was a defect, and that was something that was unacceptable.

And it was something.

You know, I vividly remember the specific dyslexia support staff, you know, saying to me, you know, Natalie, you need to write a to do list before you go to bed the night before, and then bring things.

And I just.

I just remember looking at them, like, even with my limited knowledge of what was going on, I was like, are you joking?

Do you have any idea what it feels like in my head?

Like, a to do list?

Is that a laugh?

I mean, the irony is a to do list is really helpful now, but back then, when it just felt like chaos that couldn't be contained, I was like, are you serious?

It's just how it felt.

Yeah.

I mean, how did you feel getting the diagnosis, the dyslexia diagnosis?

So I never remember getting my dyslexia diagnosis.

I was sick.

So it just feels like it's something I've just had my entire life.

And it definitely.

That is the way I used to describe it, is it felt like a shield of armor.

Like I wouldn't allow myself to feel stupid because I knew it was dyslexia.

I understood that it was dyslexia.

It was more complicated than just simple.

I feel thick, I feel useless, I feel incapable.

There was still a lot of frustration and shame.

I went to a very academic school, and so they had very high expectations.

You know, they would give you the support, but they had the expectations alongside it.

So, you know, it wasn't as simple as, like, I'm fine, I'm golden, everything's great.

No problem, no issues, never.

But it definitely felt like I had that coat of armor around me of like, no, it's dyslexia.

It's because I need to do things differently.

It's because I need to figure this out.

And it wasn't this ineptitude that I felt, which is what I felt with the challenges that came alongside adhd.

I'm well known for running my mouth and saying things I shouldn't.

It's just like the thoughts just go straight to mouth.

They don't.

They skip brain.

Like brains are relevant in the conversation, just straight to mouth.

And I'm like, oh, my God, Natalie, did you really just say that?

And I mean, I can't tell you how much that impacts the amount of.

I miss trains, I book things wrong.

It's so substantive and obviously, you know, like, we're going to talk about.

I just talked it up to dyslexia.

I was like, oh, yeah, it's just that.

And actually now I'm like, no, it's not.

No, it wasn't.

It's so much deeper than that, it's so much more than that.

And yeah, there just felt like a real ineptitude that I can now see is placed alongside that lack of awareness and understanding of the fact that it was adhd.

Yeah.

I mean, what I have known for a while from speaking to lots of different experts is that ADHD doesn't sort of ride alone.

And it's not just the adhd, but we are only just at the beginning of understanding that when people are going for a diagnosis, it's like, here's your ADHD diagnosis.

But actually, why aren't we testing at the same time for dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia?

Why we not understanding that there's going to be at least one of those in the mix?

Like, it's just not possible for you to just say, this is ADHD and that's all you've got.

Like, we understand that there's going to be anxiety and OCD and, you know, all different types of sort of mental health issues and conditions that go alongside adhd.

I don't know one person who has got ADHD and doesn't have at least one of the other co occurring.

You know, one of the things I like to say to people that really helps put them at ease with this sense of the fact that they're kind of collecting these cards of like, oh, there's another one.

Oh, we'll pop another one on.

Is actually it's the rule rather than the exception that all these neurodiversities are coming alongside it.

So if you're sitting here with just an ADHD diagnosis or just a dyslexia diagnosis, then that, that's not, that's not the full picture.

That's not what you really need to.

Scratch beneath the surface.

Exactly.

And the thing that I have started to realize, because I work globally and I've started to see different countries and how they're doing things.

You know, the UK is a market leader for sure in so many areas of neurodiversity.

But interestingly, in a lot of countries, they do diagnose these altogether.

They actually are looked at holistically.

In South Africa, for example, they do actually look at ADHD, autism and dyslexia holistically.

And it's not, you know, £500 a pop for each diagnosis that you're going alongside with.

So I think it's one of those things that this is the way it's set up right now, but it.

It certainly doesn't have to be.

Yeah, And I think you're absolutely right.

I was in South Africa a few.

A few months ago, and I saw they had all these neurodiversity centers across South South Africa, which was looking at, like you say, neurodivergence as a, you know, a holistic approach where we're understanding how the intersectionalities of all of them, you know, playing together and one's stronger and one's, you know, comes out at different times in our lives.

And.

And this is what we need to stop moving forwards.

We need to stop separating everything and making everything.

That's that.

That's that.

And understanding where the overlaps are so people can remove that shame and the stigma can be removed and we can get on with our lives, understanding that our brains are just working differently.

Obviously, neurodiverse people are famous for explaining things through stories.

And the way that I like to help people to terms with this understanding of how these all interplay is I like to think of neurodiverse people as a mojito.

I mean, how many times have you seen a mojito made the same.

It's all made slightly differently.

Well, I will all mojitos, but maybe it's different types of rum.

Maybe the amount of sugar that's put in is different.

Maybe it's more minty, you know, or maybe it's a passion fruit and mint mojito, my personal favorite.

And it's all just different types of really the same thing.

And there's different nuances that go alongside that.

And that's really helped me come to terms with the fact that I'm like walking along with like, pretty sure it's dyspraxia, pretty sure it's dyscalculia.

Pretty sure it's Dyslexia.

Definitely not.

Well, dyslexia diagnosis.

And then even more confident that it's ADHD as well.

Yeah, I love that analogy.

I really like that.

And it's so simple to understand.

I mean, I'm intrigued to know, how can dyslexia show up in different ways for different people?

Because I know if we've got this kind of old age sort of stigma of you can't read and write or your spelling or this happens or that happens.

But what are the more nuanced ways?

If someone's listening now and they kind of go, well, I've got my ADHD diagnosis, but there's always been a bit of curiosity about whether there is dyslexia there.

How, you know, what are those nuances that we can start reading into?

Yeah, I mean, the reality is every single neurodiversity has just got this really narrow lens that we're looking at it through and really trying to explain the full range of what it actually means is so important.

I think, firstly, if you search any kind of traits of dyslexia, the first thing that's really interesting is that you get all of the kind of traits of ADHD alongside it.

So you'll get disorganized, difficulty with time, all of those classic things, difficulty with prioritization.

Those classic things that are associated with ADHD are often in the dyslexia traits list as well that are provided.

So I think that's definitely very interesting.

And it makes me start to think, do they really.

Are they really separate or are they always coming alongside each other?

Is it really possible for one to exist without another?

I've dealt with hundreds of clients now, and every single time I'm like, okay, I'm starting to see some traits of other bits and pieces in here.

So I think that's the first thing to say in terms of the more quintessential, specifically dyslexic things.

I think one of the things I always say to people when they're trying to understand neurodiversity, and this works for any of them really, is it's about the mental load that a sudden task is taking you.

It's not really that we can't do things.

It's about how much work is it taking you to get to what we kind of feel is the normal range.

So how much effort is it taking you to process a piece of written text?

How much time are you having to take to really understand what that has said and really feel clear on what that's written?

When you're reading aloud, is it a little bit janky?

Is it a little bit like all over the place?

And how much do you have to concentrate to really keep yourself together and keep it clean and keep it clear?

And with spelling, I guess there's the classics of, you know, difficulty of spelling is an obvious one, but it's a lot more nuanced than that.

You might see a lot of difficulty with homophones particularly so we're talking Darian diary, Angel and angle there and there, which and which.

All the classics.

You would also be looking out for the divergence of how you're articulating yourself verbally versus how you're articulating yourself in written format.

You probably hear me talking now and you think, oh wow, this, you know, this girl's really articulate.

Not in an email.

Unlikely in an email.

And particularly if it's a long form written piece of content.

I used to work in sales because I was like, oh, salespeople, they just talk all the time.

And I somehow managed to get myself in a sales role where I was writing 25 page bid documents and I was like, oh no, I've gone too far, I've messed this up.

So again, it's a lot about, you know, mental load of making those sentence structures make sense and how clear and clean they are to read.

If you're reading your sentences back and thinking, I see what I'm trying to say, but doesn't sound great, it sounds a bit off.

That's the kind of thing that we're looking for really in adulthood.

I mean, I have to say I've had the paid version of Grammarly for the past couple of years and my goodness, that kind of AI tool of what, you know, how it helps me write my emails, it brings my thoughts together a little bit better.

It just kind of.

And I'm, I'm very good at waffling in my emails and waffling in like anything that I do.

And it needs to be a bit, a lot more concise.

And so I use things like that to help just tighten things up for me because with my adhd there's all sorts of ideas and things that I want to say.

And then, you know, if I'm walking my dog and all of a sudden something will come into my head, I'll be like, that's an amazing email.

I'll sit down and go, I don't even know where to start.

Like, I don't know.

And then just.

And then I read it and I think no one's going to want to read that because it's just so much of my waffle.

And I.

And I struggle to know where to edit down and how to make things a bit more concise, which, thankfully, I now have an amazing kind of team of freelancers around me who help me.

And I've realized from a very early, you know, time in this career that if I don't ask for help and if I don't delegate and I don't bring in that support, this isn't going to happen.

Like, my career is not going to happen.

My work's not going to happen.

And that, for me, has been the most freeing thing ever.

I'm in a position, you know, thankfully, I can afford it.

But access to work has been an amazing option for me, like, really bringing in that support so I can do the things that I really enjoy.

I love doing that light me up and also bring a huge amount of service to the community.

So I'm interested to know that you obviously work with a lot of ambitious business people.

You know, founders, startups, all things like that.

What are you noticing when they come to you and then what are they saying to you?

Are they feeling like dyslexia has been their kind of, like, block, that they're stuck and they can feel that this.

All this success they want to create, but they just don't know how to move forwards?

Yeah.

What I often see time and time again that I am just so saddened by, honestly, it sometimes really gets to me is consistently people feeling too scared to go for a promotion, feeling incapable to change jobs because they're too scared of, you know, being in a situation where they have to learn again and pick things up again, and a lot of embarrassment about, you know, speaking up in meetings and the thoughts just coming out a bit jumbled and a bit difficulty, and all the working memory issues that are going alongside that, that's resulting in them staying quiet, staying silent, staying small.

And they have these dreams and these goals, and yet it's not translating to their action.

It's not translating to what they're doing.

We still have these dreams, we still have these goals, but we kind of learn over time to keep ourselves small because we think that that's a coping strategy.

And before you realize it, your world has got too small, it's got too narrow, and there's no.

There's nowhere for you to turn.

Hi.

So I'm just interrupting today's podcast because I wanted to let you know about a free webinar I'm doing with my friend My colleague, Adele Wimset, she's an ADHD hormonal expert and what she doesn't know about hormones and ADHD is, you know, really is second to none.

And this is happening on July 9th at 7pm and with the conversation that we're going to be having is about demystifying progesterone and adhd.

So we hear a lot about estrogen and perimenopause, but actually, can we understand the role of progesterone and perhaps the slightly negative reputation it's had, especially for those of us who considered ourselves progesterone sensitive and many of us with neurodivergent minds and nervous systems, we have very much felt that progesterone is sort of the antihero in our, in our story.

So this is happening on the 9th of July.

Now, I know that all this information is very overwhelming, so I'm going to just say go to my website, ADHD womenswellbeing.co.uk and you'll see on the homepage the two buttons and all the information is on there.

Now back to today's episode.

So tell me a little bit about who are your clients?

Like, what they coming to you, what the blocks, what are they struggling with?

And I love the idea that you're working with ambitious, you know, business people.

What if they, in an ideal world, what are they wanting to do?

And lastly, I know there's like a million questions in one that I would love to be able to know who kind of you use as your, you know, I only think about like Richard Branson.

But first of all, I'd love some like, female founders of where they kind of own their dyslexia and hopefully, you know, neuro, neurodivergence and what they've done to create a success, you know, for themselves as well.

Sorry, lots of questions.

Go for it.

Answer whatever one you want.

I was going to say, you're doing wonders for my working memory skills.

So we set up the business particularly to work with people who work in corporate jobs because that is just the most, the most need and also really heavily underserved.

That's, that's where I originally came from.

I was working at Amazon before I was doing this and really I wanted people to feel like they didn't have to give up their dreams of working in their job and working.

If they liked their job and they were enjoying themselves, I didn't want them to feel like they had to leave their job.

Lots of neurodiverse people want their own business because we've Got ideas.

Ideas are our currency.

That what we are really passionate about and that's great and that's fine.

And that was me.

I've always wanted my own business.

But if you're the kind of person who thinks, well, you know, I like my job, I like my team, I like what I'm doing, and I don't want to start my own business, then I don't think you should have to.

And so that's the kind of original starting point of the business.

We do with what, work with lots of entrepreneurs, but we also work a lot with corporations and individual people who are working in companies to kind of fill that need and fill that gap.

I have a hot take on the celebrity piece and this is just my personal perspective.

And you know, lots of people find it really inspiring.

I personally just find it a bit irksome.

I feel like if you have got to the stage where you are famous enough for me to know who you are, that I don't really want to hear about how dyslexia is a benefit for you because you're the other side.

You're not, you're not something I can relate to.

I don't have 25 secretaries, I don't have people really interested in my ideas.

And you know, my, my wacky side tangent in my corporate job, like I, I'm here doing the hard graft every day and I want to hear from people who are also following that track, who also may be doing it a little bit harder and finding it a little bit more difficult.

So we try and either interview people who I work with to give real world examples of, you know, what it is that they're facing, how they're experiencing things, or people who are really successful in large scale corporate jobs to be able to, you know, really learn from that.

If I was to pick out one female entrepreneur who I'm really obsessed with, it'd be Pip Jameson who founded the Dots.

She's really amazing and she talks a lot about her dyslexia.

But we also recently had on the podcast the CMO of Samsung Europe who is dyslexic.

And, you know, he's working in a much more quintessential corporate environment.

And you know, he was talking about, he's Swedish and he was talking about how he writes all his notes in Swedish so no one can see his spelling mistakes, you know, so he doesn't have to deal with that.

And just little things like that that help people know that being successful doesn't mean no challenges ever.

It means being able to navigate through, around, over the challenges and, you know, dealing with them sometimes and working with them.

So that's my specific take because when I was at school, there was like posters of Albert Einstein, Keira Knightley, Richard Branson.

You know, I was just like, what have I got to do with them?

Like what?

Like, how am I the same as them?

They just felt so removed from.

Yeah, I think it's really important, isn't it, mentoring, you know, to see, like you say, you can really relate to someone and you can understand the challenges and knowing what they've done, you know, is within our grasp as well.

Like being able to say, right, okay, and what you said then, that, you know, having to go over and round and do sometimes do things the long way, sometimes doing things the smart way, finding loopholes and systems, all of that just makes our divergent brain so brilliant.

I think, for entrepreneurialism, for business, for being that member on the team that sees things differently and does things differently and doesn't have to conform to, well, this is how the system is and this is how we do things.

It's like, well, that actually, no, I've seen a better way, I've seen a shorter way and I've seen a much more efficient way.

But we're so sort of conditioned, aren't we?

Well, you know, especially in the corporate world, which is why I think, you know, we do always thrive better when we are kind of leading the way in our own capacity.

And sometimes it just looks really different and wrong to other people, but to us it feels so right.

And I battled this.

And, you know, anyone that's listening right now can probably relate that when I first started on my own, like, the imposter syndrome was huge.

And I compared myself to so many people and thinking, well, so and so is doing that, and they're posting and they're scheduling and they have all these forms and contracts that people have to fill in.

And I was like, but that's the way I need to do things.

And actually I've realized that doing it my way has helped me achieve what I want to achieve, you know, with my values and what inspires me and what kind of lights me up, what gets me up in the morning.

And I've stopped slowly but surely, kind of comparing myself and being the founder or the, you know, whatever you want to call me, the owner of a business that conforms to neurotypical ways.

But it took me a long time, and I still have imposter syndrome, and I still think that I'm going to get found out or I'm still going to be told that you're doing things wrong and you know, you're a fraud or something like that.

But actually for me it, it works and I'm still serving the community and doing what I want to do.

I feel like as adults, if we're finding out about our own neurodivergence and whatever that is to you, we've got so much unlearning to do and unraveling and re building who we want to show up as, you know, in this world.

Are you finding that, you know, for yourself as well, where people maybe who are like highly educated, they've done really well, they've done, they've gone through all the stages, but actually something in them now, especially maybe after a dyslexia diagnosis and ADHD diagnosis, an autism diagnosis, you know, whatever that is, they're just wanting to just kind of like go do things their own way.

Now.

Are you, are you seeing that as well in what you're doing to some?

I think you've got to do the work to get there.

You've got to be the other side of dealing with the shame, the embarrassment, the frustration, the imposter syndrome.

To be at the place where you're like, I'm going to do this differently and I don't care, I'm going to do it my way.

Because you know what, it's easier and actually have success when I do it that way.

I think a lot of the people that I speak to are a little bit earlier on the journey and they're like, I want you to help me hide.

I want you to help me pretend that this isn't a challenge.

I'm like, well, doesn't really work like that.

We can, we can some, in some ways make it easier for you, but hiding is a different strategy.

That's what I always say to people.

I'm like, I can help you manage the challenges.

Hiding the challenges is a diff, is actually a different thing you're trying to achieve.

So let's stop trying to hide and let's try and like deal with the challenges because they are subtly but very importantly different.

And that's often the conversation I find myself having to have with a lot of people.

Like, I get and respect that you want to hide.

I think we need to try a little bit of a middle ground between where I want you to be, which is like outwardly proud and accepting and comfortable, and where you want to be, which is like under a rock pretending this isn't a real Challenge.

And the way that I describe it to people is if you think about, you know, you're wandering through life and you've got your backpack on and you know, everyone's got stuff in their backpack.

But if you're neurodiverse, your backpack is working memory challenges, it's sensory issues.

It's like the mental, like, fatigue of having to read emails all day long.

You know, whatever it is, there's the stuff in your backpack, there's the brick in your backpack that you're kind of chugging around with and dealing with.

But the problem is, what I see all the time is people are adding in five more bricks of frustration, shame, embarrassment, working, you know, the scenic route, trying to use hard work to get through things, gritting their teeth and pretending that they're fine when they're really not.

You've already got five bricks in your backpack from all the, you know, the things we talked at the beginning, the working memory challenges, the reading challenges, the spelling challenges.

Why do you want to add more bricks to your backpack?

It's too much.

So that's often the conversation that I have to have with people.

And then once we've done all of that work, yes, I do start to have the conversations of like, you know what, I want to do this differently.

And you know what, I'm not ashamed.

And you know what, it's okay.

And you know, what is having benefits and impacts.

And that's often the conversation.

We have to kind of put this more into the specifics and out of the kind of ethereal piece, I think often a lot to the example of one of the workplaces that I was in, and it was a fast play startup that I thought would be perfect for my kind of idea centric brain.

By that point I knew that ideas were my currency, but again, hadn't quite got to the stage of adhd.

And, and I was working at this company and within two weeks from all of the things that they've said to me.

And you know, one of the strengths we're often told is just like, see people, we have this big picture thinking.

We see things at that top level, we see the ability and all the interconnections.

And I think it's very the same for adhd.

And so when we're.

When I was talking to everyone and they were explaining how the company works, all of the interconnections of what they were explaining to me clicked something.

And I had this great idea of putting a form at the bottom of the email newsletter that we're going out that was going out to a large number of people.

And that form got so many requests for companies to work with us.

So much interest, so much engagement, did so well.

And it was.

It was making great guns.

I mean, the first week that I was working there, you know, I got this huge sale, I was working in sales, so I got this huge sale in and everyone was really, really happy and it was going really, really well and I was really proud of.

But then two weeks later, I was sending out emails and I was working across three currencies.

I was working across euros, pounds and dollars, and I got them confused.

And I just, you know, I struggled to see the difference and notice the difference between euros and pounds and dollars.

And I sent out a quote that was meant to be in pounds but priced in dollars, which meant it was too cheap.

It was the wrong pricing.

And my boss said to me, are you lazy or are you stupid?

Or maybe both.

And I remember it so clearly because it was like two weeks after this huge success.

And that, to me is the reality of what neurodiversity is like.

You know, they're all over you and interested in you and the ideas and they're all excited about all of that.

But would he help me check my emails?

Absolutely not.

Like, no way.

No interest in that whatsoever.

And I think that is what it can often feel like with the shame and the frustration and the embarrassment and not willing to do things differently, not willing to ask for help on that, that.

Not downloading the text to audio so I can listen and hear the differences and all those kind of things and trying to find ways of slowing down and doing things differently so I can catch those mistakes.

It was just, okay, next week I'm going to try harder.

Next week I'm going to be better.

Next week I'm going to.

I'm going to make sure I don't do this, but without any systems, without an actual approach, without trying to do things differently, just pure grit that obviously didn't work.

And I consistently kept on making the same mistake and getting more and more frustrated.

Boss kind of screaming at me while this form was making us more and more and more money at the same time.

And so that's what it feels like to me.

And he.

Did he know you were dyslexic?

Yes.

Yeah.

So, okay, so this is what really aggravates me at the moment.

We're kind of at this, like, this pivotal point where, you know, big companies are kind of going, right, we probably need some sort of neurodiversity training.

And it's a bit of lip service, and they're bringing people in and they're sort of like doing all the tick boxes and knowing that it's kind of like the woke thing to do whatever you want to call it.

But actually, are they instilling these accommodations?

Are they helping?

Are they really showing that they are supporting neurodiversity in the workplace?

And this is what's kind of annoying me right now, is that we're still.

We're still at this point where it's a bit like, well, you just need to sort it out, deal with it, or you just need to be better, you just need to work harder.

And.

And people are wondering why burnout, you know, in the corporate workplace is so huge.

You know, I've not had one client who hasn't worked in sort of like big corporate environments who hasn't suffered from cycles of burnout.

And that is purely down to having to overload their brain to suit the neurotypical environment, which may or may not be the majority.

Like, we still don't know the exact percentage of people who are working with, you know, neurodiverse, some form of neurodiversity.

So we kind of think we're there, but we're not there.

And we're really not there.

And I really hope, and I see it with my kids in school as well.

Like, I see that they have a send department, I see that they're understanding about dyslexia, and, you know, there's an acknowledgement of adhd, but the vocabulary and how they speak to the students is not catching up.

And I've mentioned this in a podcast, you know, a few.

A few months ago that we had a parent's evening with my daughter, who's 16, and even though it still.

It says on her reports and her kind of profile that she's got ADHD and processing differences, several teachers still said to her, you just need to try harder, you need to work more, you need to revise more, you need to just do more.

And I, you know, my blood was boiling, and I obviously didn't want to kind of shout at the teacher in front my daughter.

But this, this visceral part of me just like, what is going on?

Like, why are people still not understanding that people work differently?

People need different environments, and they need to be able to process and learn and read and do all these things differently.

And it's not a sign of weakness.

It's not a sign of laziness or stupidity.

So I just hope that, you know, what you're doing and you know, speaking to people who are running businesses and leading sort of from top down and really kind of changing the culture in businesses that we can harness all our strengths and we can get support for some of our challenges and know that maybe, you know, in your situation with that, maybe you just needed a copy editor, you needed a proofreader and you could just say to someone non judgmentally, I've got an issue with maybe missing things.

I've got, you know, I would say I've got an inattentive adhd.

Like I would definitely miss something really vital and I would have to reread the email a million times causing lots of anxiety and burnout.

If I could just say, can you just check this and make sure I've got all the key points, like I've not made a mistake and it's kind of done really light heartedly with no judgment and it just feels like a natural course of just being in a team.

Like how much better would that be?

And then the same way someone who's maybe neurotypical just says, you know, I'm really struggling with like an idea or like bringing this concept to, you know, like, yeah, connecting the dots.

Can we just like, can I just use your brain just to help me just make this a bit more exciting or imaginative, whatever that is.

And just doing this all without judgment and without putting someone down or putting someone on a pedestal or all of that, how much easier would it be to work and to work to our strengths?

Sorry, I just went off on a bit of a rant but it feels really important to say for people to hear that, that it's these little tweaks, isn't it, that don't cost a huge amount of money, that doesn't involve huge training.

It's just kind of compassionate insights that can make a really big difference to a team and create more success.

Yeah, I completely agree.

Well, that was a big part of the reason why I started the business is I could see that the tide was starting to turn, that the wave of neurodiversity is coming, we are heading in the right direction.

And I could see that people were making moves at the top and there was people who were having the right conversations, engaging in the right stuff, but the trickle down, because I was at the bottom at this stage.

I was in my early 20s, I was, you know, working with managers who had done the neurodiversity training but didn't really give a shit.

And I was like, okay, you know, I can see that people are Trying to make the big societal change.

And I thrilled that they are fighting the good fight.

But I don't want to wait 20 years for the right answers to be there.

I don't want to wait 10 years for me to get fired and, you know, have to have my career crushed by, like, lack of clarity on what to do.

I want the answers for me now.

I need the answers now.

I need to know what's going on now.

And so that.

That's really the perspective that I took with the business is, you know, I'd love the world to be different.

I'd love it to be different, but I would like the people who are caught up, like, in a fall between the cracks to have a place to catch them and to be like, yeah, you know what?

I've got you.

There are solutions.

There is a way forward.

There is things that can be done.

And I have to say, I have noticed a huge trend of corporates paying for coaching, paying for our membership, paying for diagnosis.

And it does really feel like it's glacial, the change, don't get me wrong.

And it is frustrating that it's glacial, but it does feel like it's going in the right direction.

And I remember when I worked at a large corporate that, you know, is one of the biggest employers in the uk, and I went to them and I said I was really struggling with my dyslexia, and their HR department was 15 people.

And they replied with me, well, what do you think you need?

You're the first person we've ever had who has dyslexia.

And I'm like, well, that's just statistically not possible.

And they were like, could we give you Grammarly?

And I was like, yeah, whatever.

Fine.

Never used it again.

And I personally just don't like Grammarly.

I think I'm the only dyslexic person in the world who doesn't.

But I just find it so distracting, all the different colors.

It's just like, so many different.

So many different colors that I'm just like, whoa.

It gives me, I think, PTSD from school where, like, my essays were, like, torn apart.

And, yeah, I just was like, okay, well, my challenges are to do with, like, paying attention in meetings and being able to communicate my thoughts and my difficulty in, like, articulating my presentations correctly and feeling overwhelmed with organizational challenges.

But, yeah, Grammarly would be great.

Thank you so much.

And I just quietly went away and just, you know, suffered in silence.

So although the change is slow and it is frustrating, I guess, because I was completely Alone.

I'm just glad that we're heading in the right direction.

That's just how I feel about it.

I feel a little bit more positive.

Good.

And, you know, if someone's listening now and they're thinking, right, I want to like, bring you in.

Like, what, what, what are the services?

Like, what do you do?

Like, what are all the options?

Yeah, so we do mostly focus on the individual.

That's kind of our bread and butter.

So if you are someone who wants advice, support and awareness, you know, we have lots of free resources.

We have a podcast, we have a free guide, big social media presence.

But also we have a membership which you can join and kind of learn to let go a lot of that shame and frustration and learn the systems that work, figure out what you are actually good at, what the hell those dyslexic strengths are.

We never call it a superpower because I think it's cringe.

And then we also do one on one coaching as well.

And, you know, we do workplace training as well on advice and systems and approaches.

And I try and really do a good job as much as possible of persuading people that the things that you just talked about there are not that big an imposition.

They're not that big a deal.

And actually look at what you can unlock, look at what you could achieve, look at what you'll get in return and realize how small those changes are.

So that's, that's what we do so far.

Yeah.

And it's.

I want to take over the world, so I've got big ambitions.

I mean, it sounds amazing and it sounds so helpful and I really hope, like you say, we're just at the beginning here and you know, this is just the norm where we're.

Services like yours, coaching accessibility, you know, helpful accommodations, which don't feel like we are asking for the world, that just, it just feels like the norm.

You know, anyone that is going through education and going through, like, how am I going to, you know, how is this going to translate into, into a working environment to know that it's okay to ask for support, but just to say, you know, I have got dyslexia, I have got adhd, and this is what I struggle with.

But I really want to do well and I really want to succeed and I'm ambitious and I have all these exciting ideas, but I just need a little bit of, of help, you know, with a few little bits.

One of the things that we say that I hopefully will help people think about what exactly what you said is People commit to the committed.

And so, you know, if you are showing a commitment of, you know, I want to work hard, I want to try, I want to make an effort.

I want to show off my ideas.

You know, I'm.

I'm determined, and I'm.

I'm ambitious, and I.

And I'm committed.

You'd be surprised how much people are willing to commit to you.

I mean, the amount of times my probation got extended when they were like, oh, it's not going well, Natalie.

And the thing that always got me out the other side was I was like, yeah, I.

I agree.

But, like, I'm gonna work hard, I'm gonna try.

I'm gonna show you that I'm an employee worth taking some time over and worth bearing with is the.

Is the phrase that we always use.

And I think if you can show.

We often keep our cards very close to our chest as neurodiverse people, and if you can kind of release a little bit of those cards and put them down on the table and say, listen, you know, this is what's going on, but I am doing this, this, and this in return, and I am trying, and this is what I'm doing already.

And, you know, I'm listening to podcasts, and I'm engaging with this and all of these different things.

Be surprised at how open and engaging people will be.

Yeah.

And I think the power of mentoring as well.

When we can, you know, someone who is running successful business, who is doing well, as, you know, on top of their neurodivergence, they can sort of say, well, this is, you know, this is where my vulnerabilities are, and this is where I've struggled.

And, you know, this is how maybe I can help you, and this is how you can help yourself.

I think it's really powerful.

But we need more people coming out and saying, I run this successful business, or I've made a success of myself, and I have brought my dyslexia or my ADHD along with me.

And it's helped me kind of really focus and hone in on what I enjoy and ask for support, build a team.

I know I'm going back to Richard Branson, because I know it sounds just a bit cliched, but he says that he has a team member for absolutely everything.

Like, he knows he can't read his accounts.

He doesn't write his reports.

He doesn't read his contracts.

Like he has someone, because he knows how severe his dyslexia is.

And probably, I think he knows now his ADHD as well.

So if he doesn't, then it's shocking.

Yeah, it's blindingly obvious.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think he.

For him, it's always been about the dyslexia.

And now I think as he's got older, I've heard him on a couple of interviews where he's kind of said, you know, intimated that there's probably ADHD there as well, so.

But at least he's coming out and saying I'm a success, but I've had a lot of help along the way, so we just need more people coming out and telling people that it's okay.

You don't have to do it all on your own.

There's a really nice story that I really like, that the initial starting point might put you off, but it's a story that I really, really like.

There's an MP that I really admire and I think has a really interesting story with dyslexia.

His name is Peter Kyle and he's part of the Labour Party, and he's dyslex.

And if you think of MP as the dyslexic, usually you think of Matt Hancock, and he's obviously not everyone's favorite person in the world.

So I really like politics and I wanted to become an MP one day, and so I was really inspired by his story.

And he tells this incredible story.

He's from Brighton, and I'm also from Brighton, so I think that's why I really connected so strongly with.

It is.

Anita Roderick, who started the Body Shop, is dyslexic, and she talked a lot about how powerful her dyslexia was as part of that journey.

And she.

He was working for her, but just in an admin, like a kind of a junior member of staff and, you know, really minor role.

And because he was neurodiverse, he was working harder to try and, you know, manage things.

So he was there at weekends and he was there working late, and he was there early, and they were there in the office at the same time.

And she spotted him and she was like, what are you.

Why are you here?

Like, what.

What is going on?

He was like, oh, well, I'm dyslexic and, you know, things are just taking me a little bit longer.

And she was so inspired by his hard work that she paid for him to go back to school to get his grades, because he didn't get his grades to go to university.

Pushed and badgered him into going to university, and even, I think, rang up a few chancellors at universities and was like, this kid needs to go to university.

He's so bright, so capable.

He went back to school when he was like 23 or 24, you know, because of her support and her help.

And now he's a senior shadow cabinet minister in the probably incoming labor government.

And I mean, just, I just thought that was just the coolest story.

And, yeah, I'd love to, like, share that one.

So, yeah, if you ever want to look him up, his name's Peter Kyle.

It's a cool story.

Thank you for that.

And I agree, it's a great story and it's, it's inspiring and it's nice to leave that on a, on a high point because I think what you're doing is amazing.

Just remind me what's, what's the website called if people want to just go and check you out.

Dyslexia and Adults.

You can find it in kind of all, all the major places.

Can you tell?

I have adhd.

I've started about five different social media channels, just like Scattergun, TikTok, Instagram, podcast, LinkedIn.

You can find it all on dyslexia and adults.

Yeah.

So hopefully that will help help some people get some answers on the challenges that they're facing and encourage people to be ambitious, shoot for the moon, achieve anything that you want.

It's just about learning to do it differently.

Amazing.

Thank you so much, Natalie.

Love this conversation.

I'll make sure all the details are in the show notes and yeah, hopefully speak very soon.

Thank you so much for your time.

It was lovely.

I really hope you enjoyed this week's episode.

If you did and it resonated with you, I would absolutely love it if you could share on your platforms or maybe leave a review and a rating wherever you listen to your podcasts.

And please do check out my website, adhdwomenswellbeing.co.uk for lots of free resources and paid for workshops.

I'm uploading new things all the time and I would absolutely love to see you there.

Take care and see you for the next episode.