All right, hello again. Beautiful intro. Yeah. That's what you want to expect from us. So, um, starting kind of just rewinding tiny bit, it was about, we were just talking about your tweet that you tweeted of Ali's, um, and the default mode. It's a post now, it's not a tweet, because it's not Twitter. Don't give a shit, it's Tweed. It is Twitter. We'll remain Twitter, and I don't care. We call it Twitter.

It's a stable, a stable behavior. You've attuned to a stable behavior, and it's going to take time to shift your attunement. It requires notice of destabilization of the attractor layout. There you go. And I'm stubborn as hell. That's relevant to the field of affordances that you have, John.

Sure. I love it. Yes. And I'm stubborn as hell. Yeah. Simple terms. Stubborn. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that'd be my stunt. Yeah. Anyway, we'll go there in a minute. But yes, we were talking about Ali's post and your retweet of it, asking about the default mode network, and I'm just like, right, cool, I've done this. This is the stuff that I did right at the beginning. One of the first kind of big papers I dived into was like the neuroscience of ADHD and neurodiversity and what it all means according to the scientists. And it's like, I go into According to some of the scientists, at least. Well, according to some of the scientists, yeah. Well, that's the thing, I'm supposed to say the scientists, because obviously there's only one theory. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. At least if you talk to anyone, that's how it frickin sounds, unless you listen to us, and then you realise Oh, okay, there's an alternative. Yes. Or sports coaches. Or sports

coaches.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah. But they talk about the constraints led approach, which isn't quite the same. Ecological psychology, because not all of them follow ecological They follow ecological psychology, but they're talking so much about constraints that they kind of overlook that, Hey, direct perceptions are a thing, and, Hey, you know you know about these attractor states? But, yeah.

Uh, so you have the, there is this network of pieces of a brain. You've got the default mode network, which is the thing that is overactive in neurodiverse brains, specifically ADHD. Then you have the salience network, which is in control of switching from the default mode network, um, to the other one, which is Yes, the central executive network, and is involved in switching between the two. But the problem is, with people with ADHD, and autism, and all these things, is that one piece of it doesn't work properly. So, you're fucked. But that's where you get to, because there's not a lot you can do. You just get to a point where it's like, well because this part of your brain doesn't activate properly, the only thing you can do is just try to work around your brain. Or take medication. Or take medication. Yeah, of course, there is medication, and if that works for you, great. But, it's just like, one, how does anyone expect to dive into the research and actually get something out of it? Because when I went into the research, it was just like, Okay, cool, we've got a bunch of really There's nothing I can do with this information. Like, not really. There is nothing I can actually do to help myself outside of, Okay, cool, my default mode network is always activated. Can I do anything about that? No, because I'm biologically built to do this. To work like that. Oh, great. So now what? But what about all these things? Oh, bullshit. Well then talk about these things. How is it happening? How am I actually doing it if my default mode network has switched off? And it's, and that's where things stop. Oh, it's because you've built habits and built this, and I'm like, But I haven't, because I spent way too long trying to build habits. And you know what I did? Nothing. Because all I was doing was building habits, versus doing the stuff. And it was just so The idea about exploring the way that we work is great, I mean, it's my whole thing. But we can do it I think that both of our things, to be fair. But like, I Um, doing it, like, directly perceiving things is so fun, because it just takes all the crap, and I It's so, and one of the things I've been trying to remember is where I got from from the beginning. I need to go find the episode where we first started exploring this, which I haven't found yet, because there are so many episodes. And so, it's just like, and as I was reading that, um, Article you sent me. I'm just like, why are we going It feels like we're going backwards. When you read that article of like, Oh, it's active inference. Oh, so once again we have absolutely zero control of how we work. Great. Thanks. We just have to We just have to wait. And hope. We cannot directly perceived. We cannot directly move to act. We cannot see opportunities in the environment. We cannot see opportunities for behavior.

You see, that's, that's the thing about the article and about all of this default mode networks, alien network stuff. There's a couple of points that I was thinking about while you were talking is, you know, It's the default mode network, the, uh, central executive network, et cetera, et cetera. There aren't, from my understanding anyway, hard lines. There's no lines or mechanisms. It's just, we think this thing is in this part of the brain because it's sort of active at this time. It's

actually in, um, so for the, um, central executive, it's in two, primarily two pieces of the brain. And then also it's elsewhere too. Okay. According to one scientist. Yeah,

but when you look at, well, most of cognitive psychology, when you have damage to the brain, and this is part of the principles of thermodynamics, when something is damaged, the organism will adjust and adapt, so those functions in that part of the brain go elsewhere, so there's not anatomical modularity, there's not, Okay, this part of the brain does this thing. Because if that part of the brain doesn't exist, or shapes, or moulds, or develops differently, then a different part of the brain will do that function. When you look at people that are blind or deaf, parts of their brain work differently to other people because they don't need certain parts of their brain to do the things that they would traditionally or more likely be developed to use because of the affordances of the organism. So you can't say, Oh, the default mode network is this part of the brain, or that part of the brain, because It changes between people and then that would then suggest, okay, if we do have all of these different networks in the brain, but they could overlap and we don't really know what is active because apart from the scan saying your brain is active. Great. It doesn't tell us what information is being conveyed, if there is information being conveyed, and if activation can be detected in a different way, because the brain activation levels obviously is looking for certain mediums of energy, but there are lots of different mediums of energy, so This is very hypothetical here, but if there are other mediums of energy that are transferring between different organisms inside of the brain that we are not detecting, how do we know that that part of the brain is actually the most active? It might be another part of the brain that is more active because of the weight that puts on something. You could have a hundred activations there, but this one over here is actually far more significant than the hundred over there, but the hundred over there is what the default mode network or central executive or salience or whatever name you want to put in it. That's what we're seeing. So apart from brain activation, we're not, from, for me anyway, we're not actually seeing anything apart from, yeah, you're thinking. Great, yeah, we figured that out on our own, like, you know, centuries ago. I don't need

to be told I'm thinking, I know I'm thinking.

Yeah, but we, we know the brain is important. What part of the brain, well, that changes on people. How, how significant, again, that changes with people, so I don't find the science of bad information that useful or actionable apart from saying, Hey, you think, did you know that? Yeah, thanks.

That's basically what's being said. That is basically all that is being said is your brain turns on. I'm like, Oh, that's good. Thanks. But that's the thing, it doesn't turn on. It's always on. It, no. No, it activates, it turns on, it, it, it, parts deactivate. Well, no, they don't deactivate, do they? Not really. Anyway, I think you just keep I wanna Shut

up,

John. I'm talking. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah. Uh, uh, what are you talking about? So it's not working. Yeah, I know. I want to say one more thing because I think this is going to relate to what you're going to say when it comes to the default mode network. You mentioned like when it's when it's off ADHD or neurodiverse or whatever label person is more active. Right? That's what you're saying. Yeah. But if we're if we're thinking if we're always thinking, then it's not more active or less active. It's a part of the brain that is active. But a part of the brain isn't necessarily the default mode network. So those those people that are neurodiverse know that they're thinking. Okay. Does it mean that they are thinking more than someone else? Potentially. And thinking more than someone else isn't a negative thing. No.

And that's the interesting thing. It's like when you, when you go through, this is something I've been doing a lot of recently because I've been building up some marketing stuff and resources. It's like, if you are, if you have symptoms of ADHD, et cetera, et cetera, autism, et cetera, et cetera, You may have your brain activating more often. In other words, you struggle to kind of point at an action, look at something in the environment, and try and attract you are basically doing it all of the time. All of the time. Well, you are doing it all of the time, no matter who you are, but you struggle with kind of interacting with that. I think that was the best way of putting it, but Interacting with or attuning to? Attuning to, thank you, yes. Attuning to the information in the environment. And there is a difficulty there. But, that's, uh, the way that I kind of see it now, from my perspective, is that's because I'm attuning to multiple, like, so many things at once. I'm not sure whether it's actually a difficulty in attuning, or it's a difficulty, uh, hang on a minute, that could be my language. See, I don't

straining. I don't think that people that are traditionally labeled as neurodiverse consume, detect more information than anyone else. I think all organisms detect the same amount of information. Yeah, I think it's the weight of the information that's related to the individual that impacts how they behave. Because, I mean, this is the, the idea of field, of the field of affordances. You have a height, you have a width, you have a depth. Uh, and then you have the color of the affordance and some

people, yeah. So we kind of see more of, not see, because I don't think that's the right word, but we perceive more affordances. I disagree. Would you say?

No, because the affordances, we're detecting the same amounts of information. And we're perceiving affordances, but the affordances that we're perceiving are different, because an affordance is whether, when, or how to perform a behaviour. It's true, yeah. Whether, whether you can or can't do it. So if you have some sort of situation, whether that's depression, maybe depression is, again, this is talking about field of affordances here, it's narrowing the affordances. So you're still, you're still detecting the same information, but you're narrowing the perceived affordances. So it's, it's not that you, don't perceive the affordances you do, um, but you're perceiving them in a way that you're not going to behave to them because there's no, like, you're not going, oh, that's a good performance, that's a good affordance right now, that's a good affordance right now, you're just, they all don't look very interesting. Whereas, I think with ADHD or something like ADHD, whatever label you want to put there, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, There, the relevance of the affordances could be higher. Like OCD, you're gonna have something, you're gonna have one affordance, you're like, okay, I must do this one. This is highly relevant to me right now, even though it might not actually be that important in that context, but this is highly relevant. So that affordance, that behaviour, is done before the other behaviours because of the relevance of that affordance. It's not the perceiving more of or less of, it's just the relevance. Relevance of it. And so, so in

my experience, it's like, it's like, Almost everything is relevant.

Precisely, so it's

hard to filter between the notes. Like for me, everything is relevant. Which is,

yeah, that, that, that, that. Which again comes down to attunement. How do you attune between the relevance of the perceived affordances that comes with expertise and skill?

Yes, yeah.

Which is what we're talking

about. Yeah, which is cool. And it's, it's really, and that's really helped me. In just my daily, I mean, it keeps helping every single time. So, okay, cool. What's, what is happening? Just that, and you were saying it yourself, I think it was in a message to me, uh, It's such a subtle shift. Like, once you're attuned to that information, once you gain that expertise, it's such a, It's not as big as when I first explored it and first, like, Okay, cool, so there's all these things that I've got to learn. No, no, I'm not sure whether that's true. It is just such a subtle shift, because all of the conversations that were had over the two days I was at the Big First Student, I was like, Oh, you could explain that in this way. Oh, you could explain it in that way. Oh, you could explain it in this way. Oh, and it's like, Oh, and it's like, It's so interesting, just that matrix y, sudden shift of like, Ooh, but this is, have you thought about it this way? How about this? Like, have you explored this? Because once you do, it's like, Ooh, that, that changes things. It changes things in a fundamental way, but also is not a big, massive, Uplift of do lots of things, because by its very nature, you perceive and you act at the same time. So once you see something, you act, see something, act, see, see, act, see, act, act, see, act, see. Like, it is just Coupled. Completely coupled. You, you can't not see and do things. You can. Well, yes. You'd be there. Well, yeah, you'd be there. Exactly. But, and that, from a, an organisation, from a productivity, from a business perspective. It's like a 180. Like, it I

think for me, this is where, like, actions, like, people that want to action this sort of stuff, inside of the ecological psychology research, you would say it's education of attention, intention, and then calibration of that, which, when I was talking about the affordances just a second ago, it's working out what to pay attention to. And that's the skill. That is what learning is. Education of attention and intention. And then, as you develop those abilities, those skills, then you gain expertise in that context. And that, to me, is far easier to explain, and For me, more relatable to my actual experiences of the world than saying, Oh, what you need to do is learn to focus. And I know you, uh, you started writing about focus, but I watched a video yesterday, uh, answers in progress. And they were saying how you need to get better at focus on how to focus better. And. Long story short, it's about a 25 minute video that very briefly skims over some of the attention focused research. Which, I would love to actually go into with them, but, yeah. They're big YouTube some nerd like me. And, they, towards the end of the video they say, Oh, meditation works, but I don't know why it worked. And then they explore it for like a couple of minutes. And Sabrine, Sabrine basically says, Oh, meditation works because it doesn't change your environment. It changes your ability to focus. And I'm like, so you have developed a skill. Surprise, surprise. Um, and you've got better at doing that thing. Surprise, surprise. It's, it's not complicated. If you think about it, for me, logically. But Ecologically, if you want to focus on something, you could remove the thing from the environment. Yeah, that's a constraint, but you're not developing the skills in that new relationship between the organism and the environment because you've taken the opportunity away. So when the opportunity comes back, you then need to develop that skill. So when you take your phone away and say, Oh, I'm not distracted anymore. Yeah. But as soon as your phone comes back, you're going to be distracted because you haven't developed the skills to attune your focus elsewhere.

And in many ways, you'll be more distracted. I believe. Yeah. Because you've been starved from that information, so there'll be

more of it. I wouldn't say starved. It's certainly a new piece of information in the environment that you're going to attune to, because it is different. Like, anything that is different, you're going to focus on. And this is why she was saying that she was trying to focus on staying focused, but she ended up just focusing on her inability to focus. And like, well, duh, because you've set your attention, your affordances and your attention are Am I being focused? So all of the information about you being or not being focused is where your focus is. So you're not going to work because you're going to go, oh there's a cat there, that could take my focus away. Well it already has because you're thinking about it.

Yeah,

yeah. And that's

that, that is the relationship that most people

That, that's the head banging, like head banging against the wall feeling when you come at a situation from an ecological approach. You look at it and go Well, duh, obviously when they come to this conclusion or the solution like we yeah because we directly perceive and what you're perceiving is the affordances and you're developing skills education of attention and intention. To either perform better or act better, behave better because of the environment and the relationship you have with the environment. It's not as complicated as people make it out to be. It's, yeah, it's just a head banging moment and it's so, it's, it's so It's so frustrating being, I guess, on this red pill side, on this matrix side, because you look at people's frustrations and you think, yeah, but all you need to do is just shift your language slightly. But that shift in language is, like, run down a hill and then run up a hill. It's not, it's not, oh yeah, I just changed that word.

Like, when I, it was just, it was constant during the conference. And of course I was, I haven't been to conference since stuff happening with ear. So that was entertaining and, and complex. So there was that I was doing as well. As I was, I was just like, oh, can we stop? Can we stop assuming all these things that just don't match anyone's experience?

Yeah, we see back to front, upside down, and 2D. I'm curious when it comes to the conference, because I'm going to be going to a conference next month. Uh, or end of next month at least. Uh, did you No, was there an opportunity to sort of like stick your hand up and ask questions? No, no, no, no.

So it was literally just a lecture? Yes, it was a very party based, it was very, like, edutainment based. It was very much a traditional lecture y space. But there was a place to talk to afterwards, but just getting there was By the time the music and the conference had finished I was like, Oh gosh I'm exhausted. So trying to grab, but yeah. I was, I was ill prepared for the amount of energy, because I used, I was, I always struggled with those kind of environments, but now with This and the floor was like, really weird, constantly moving shapes. Like, well, they're not constantly moving, but they look like they were constantly moving, which triggers all of the ear stuff. So I was constantly doing all of that. So I was like, okay, great. Okay, cool. We'll be fine. But it's interesting, because as I was, the thing that I'm working on now, in fact, I sent an email, how did I send that email? I've been sending a lot of emails recently, which is quite nice. I think I sent an email on this. One of the interesting things is bringing what I do in, like, marketing my business from an ecological lens. From an ecological perspective. Because, as I was saying, when I first started talking to someone, I, Just completely dumped a bunch of information. So what do you do? Well, you know all those things that you like are told to do and all of the things you're trying to figure out what you're doing and all the strategies and this? Well, I help you put them into action. Oh, so you organize people? I'm like, No. No. But, yes. From your perspective, yes. But, no. And so the next person I spoke to, oh, I help organise people. And they look just as blank. And I'm like, I've still got to work on that. Is that, um, how do you explain? We do in a nice, tidy pitch. And, and I was laughing with another, um, with another, I mean, in fact, I think it might be education of attention and intention. That's why I wrote that down. Well, I,

I talk about it in my upcoming video essay. You know, it's only two hours long.

Oh, it's two hours long. Nice. Oh yeah. 2006 minutes, isn't it? How did you know that? Because you told me. Oh, did I? Okay. Um, and so it's like, as I was speaking to another, um, you know, a colleague from one of the works I do with some, someone who I work with as a client, I went, I've got about multiple chapters to describe what I do. Chapter one. And they just started laughing. I'm like, yeah, it's not funny. How do you, how do you explain what I do? It was interesting because I did some, one of the things I have noticed since Kind of exploring the ecological approach and explaining what I am better at explaining what I do now than I ever have been before. Because I have I think it's I have that kind of backing. That that foundational understanding of like, what I do. I actually disagree. No? I think it's

practice. I think it's the conversations we have here.

Yeah, I think it is too, yeah.

Because you can, you had the understanding of the ecological approach, um, before we fully engaged in conversation and you still struggled, so I don't think it's the understanding or the knowledge about, it's the knowledge of, it's the actual explanations, the talking through things, which is why I mentioned about thinking through words, rather than just thinking inside.

Yeah, and it was, so I was like, okay, cool, let's take, let's try and boil what I do down and figure out. Yeah, there is, um, Chris Doe, I think you're familiar with him in the future, uh, he has an exercise called the two word brand. And I'm like, cool, let's be reductive, shall we? That's what, um,

oh, what's his name? Not, not James Clear, the other one, Cal Newport. And Cal Newport was talking with Andrew Huberman a couple of weeks ago on a podcast, and he was saying that he tries to condense down complex topics and ideas into two words. That's where, like, deep work comes from. He just tries to condense things down. So I certainly think it's a marketing strategy for the, for the public.

And, and so I, of course, did that. And, you know, I stuck to all the rules. I have four words. I don't even think they're four. I think it's two, but they are from two different contexts, which is way too important. So one of them is dynamic momentum, which sounds It, it does make sense, which is like, yeah. Okay.

I would, I would have gone far simpler. Like, I already know how I would market you because obviously it's marketing me as well. Oh, go for it. Um, go for it. No, no, it's, it's marketing me as well, but I don't want to just say, hey, here's the thing, because then it's giving you an answer. I'd much rather you work, work your own way through because you may attune to something else.

Oh, cool. And then there, the other word was dynamic foundations, which is a little bit more, it depends on where you are, obviously, because that, that variability, that dynamic nature, so much of business is not about that. It's, it, you'd think it was, the lived experience of business owners is dynamic. Well, the lived experience of everyone is dynamic, but I'm saying business owners because that is my niche. Everything, yes. Okay. Everything is dynamic, um, but it's never really approached from that way, it's always approached because information processing! CCR.

It's the best explanation, as they were saying in the 40s. Before years of cognition, say extended cognition, one of the arguments is, is the best explanation? I'm like, no it's not, it complicates stuff. Anyway, that's, that's conversation for another article. Yeah, it does bug me. So, I guess, I guess my question, what do you actually do with the client? We talk a lot. To, to get what? To

To get, the real simple answer is to take action. to move forward. It's they come with me, they come to me because they're trying to do something, they are overwhelmed, there is too much context, they are trying to do everything because they're told to do everything, and they're not sure how to, and everything has become a priority, everything has become a thing they must do. And so what we do is very much helping to, what we do, what I do is, with them, create that, create an environment that actually helps them to attune to what they want to do, to what their, to attune their attention, to bring that in, to be able to go, cool, well what do you want, what is your intention?

So broadly speaking, would you say you're looking to improve performance?

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Well, improved performance is two words, so that's one option, but when you're looking to improve performance, because everyone's looking to improve performance, what specifically are you looking to do? Because all of the other jargony stuff is great, but what are you actually trying to do to help them improve performance? I wouldn't say you're trying to simplify their life. Even though, even though you are like SimpliVity, you're not trying to simplify their life because you're maintaining some of the complexity,

the definition of simplicity. It, it's making it easier. I think it, it, it is just bringing more, the best way of describing is it's just bringing more ease. It's making it, they're developing a skill. That's what they're doing. It, it, it, it, it is developing a skill of attention and intention

that ju just as an FYI, that that is what the two words that immediately. I started thinking about skill development. Oh, yeah.

But that's not exciting. No, but when people say, what

do you do? Skill development. I, I, I,

That's very interesting. Cause I'm like,

what?

Yeah.

I help business owners develop skills to get. High performance, improved performance, whatever, to do something. Because as soon as you say skill development, I'm like, okay, what skills? Oh! Oh! There are lots of skills! Take a fucking seat!

Yeah, that, I like that. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna write that down.

I mean, that's what, that's how I would answer it. When people say, oh, what do you do? I say, I research. Oh, what do you research? I research skill development. Not skill acquisition, because I don't think we acquire skills. I think we develop skills. No. And then, oh, what does that mean? I'm like, well. I, I look at how individuals perform and I look at developing skills to help them perform better. Better how? Depends what metric you want to be better at. Like, if you, if you want to be better at school and getting good grades, then you're going to develop different skills. So if you want to be able to learn for a long time span, lifelong learning is different from getting good grades at school. So you're going to develop different skills, which means if you are looking to

And that very much, kind of, one of the things that is still, I'm still kind of, Figuring out is obviously because my skill set is pretty darn vast everything from like marketing Stuff except my own stuff You've said skill set yeah, how do you have a set of skills good point? How do you have a set of skill you? Can you have a set of skills? No, I have a set of developed skills. I have developed, yeah, but then I have developed skills and I have developing skills. Well, they're always developing. So, I have shit I could do that I have developed expertise in.

That, that, that's the one I'm thinking about. We're always developing skills and you have an area, you have areas of expertise that are useful in said context.

Yes. Yeah, I have areas of expertise in quite a few different things. In tech, in, like, creating systems, building environments, and all of that lovely little, little techie stuff. And then there is the marketing. Then there is the, like, describing how, who you are, what you do, when you're doing Like, I'm good at that. Not for myself, but So why are we not That's an interesting question. What is the difference?

The relationship between you and the individual. Oh yeah, I am the individual. It's just a relationship between myself. Yeah, interpersonal, intrapersonal, like, is it, is it you helping someone else or is it you helping you? Like, they're, they're different things. I imagine when you, when you help other people, you treat other people differently. Like, you're not going to treat, um, two different clients the same way. So if you're trying to treat yourself the same way you treat a client, then Obviously, you're, you're limited. So your, what I would say is your area of expertise in marketing for other individuals is actually higher than your area of expertise, uh, marketing for yourself, which is what you said. You have a high level of expertise in marketing. I would go more narrow. Because I, I don't think your level of expertise in marketing yourself is that high when compared to marketing for other people. Because, I mean, one, just look at the results. Like, when you, because you can compare levels of expertise with results, you can't compare level of expertise themselves. When you look at performance metrics, which is what expertise is for, performance metrics, if you were looking at sales, sales, are we looking at numbers? Are we looking at high ticket sales? Low ticket sales? Values? Frequency? Like, if we look at any of those performance metrics. Are you performing high or low in comparison to who? Obviously, you can pick anyone. If you pick someone that's not in business, you have higher levels of expertise. If you pick someone that's a billionaire, obviously, lower levels of expertise in those performance metrics. So, what performance metrics are you using to justify your level of expertise in that context? And this is how I would narrow in on what it is you're talking about. Rather than saying, oh yeah, I'm good at this. What does that mean?

I'm good at helping others. I mean, that is, my high level of expertise is helping others. But it's not helping all of others. No, that's another thing I've been like, going through, thinking about, it's like, who is it that I actually help? It's primarily service based, so those who deliver a service to others, which is quite an easy one. So it's service based, because I've been in that industry for so long now.

But there's the relation. But your area of expertise in your own skill development is where you can best help other people because you have experience in that, which is why when you look at all the online courses and people say, Oh, yeah, just follow me. No, you have expertise in your experience, not other people's experience. So when you're looking to coach other people, this is where players become crack coaches a lot of the time. Players have great experience in their own skill development, but not necessarily in their ability to develop other people's skills, which is how some coaches are good, because they're good at coaching, but they're not good athletes or individuals, performers, and then you have the other way around.

Yeah,

as

you say, yes, I am the problem, it's me. Because that's very true.

And that's why some coaches need coaches.

Yes, yeah. Absolutely, I am a very good, I have expertise in coaching others. Oh dear. But that's the thing, that's the calibration. Here's another question for you, this is fun. One of the hesitations I have is a lot of the people I interact with have given themselves the label of neurodiverse. Now my experience is from, uh, traits of autism. I can't think of the right words to use there that I'm comfortable with, so I'm still working on that one. Like I have autistic traits. I see patterns in weird things and lovely blah blah blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I have expertise with. people diagnosed with ADHD. That is very specific. But one of the things that I, I think, find difficult around that, if I were to market it just for others, then it would be service based, neurodiverse business owners, because that is a delightfully niche audience I can take full advantage of. do a lot for. Because this, I think I'm recognizing that the ecological approach, for people who are already doing things in the way that they want to do things, it's not gonna help them, because they believe everything they're doing is fine. I disagree, I carry on. Whereas when you look at the, now I'm poking at that myself, now you've said that. Yeah, I don't know, it's, it's, it's, What I don't want to do is put myself in a position where I'm only working with neurodiverse individuals. Even though, if I am, I have, I suppose, if we look at it from an expertise perspective, I have a higher level of expertise working with neurodiverse individuals. Depression, anxiety, like, all of those different

things. If we take ourselves out of business and go into sport, because I think sport is, Arguably more, more tangible. There's more lines there.

Yeah.

When you look, look at a coach, a sports coach.

Yeah.

A sports coach picks a sport. Yeah. What you're doing is picking a sport. Because you could, a coach could coach everyone in any sport. But their level of expertise, which is context specific in sport, is obviously the sport that you're, that they're coaching. But A football coach coaches nine year olds, but is it nine year old participants or nine year old performance? Like, are they nine year olds going to go play for Chelsea or Man United as a top Premier League football club, or are they coaching nine year olds just to participate in activity? So now you've got a coach. That is coaching football, that is coaching nine year old football, that is coaching for participation sport, and they're coaching boys participation sport. Now you've narrowed what that coach is doing, you've narrowed the context. That's, that's what you're trying to do right now, is you're trying to narrow in on what, what context you're in. Uh, and when we look at the definition of effective coaching, Sports specific context. In your case, it's not sports specific, but it's individual specific, which I would, I would probably say is ADHD, um, and autistic. I can't imagine you working with four year olds.

No. So

you haven't, so you have an age bracket there as well.

Yeah, I would be working with. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, working I realized I said that in my head, not out loud. You said that in your head, yes. Yeah, no, I didn't say it in my head. I said it to myself. Yeah, there we go, it's better. Yeah, it's very much I work with, and I think I, I am wanting to move away from the neurodiverse label, because that is so I mean, so is the diagnosis as well, but still, that's beside the point, but like, very, whether I use neurodiverse, or whether I use autistic, ADHD, those with chronic illness, because all of those things, I have expertise in. So,

I guess an experience for you that may help. When I was coaching the under sevens, They were called the under sevens because they were all under seven. Well they were supposed to be under seven. What I was actually coaching was a group of kids. Because I had, I had some five year olds, had some six year olds, had some seven year olds, had a couple of eight year olds, I had a nine year old, I had a ten year old. But they were the under sevens. Because their ability matched what was expected at the under 7s. I see. Because a 10 year old was dyspraxic and he had extreme difficulty in certain movement abilities because of his lack of capabilities due to biological constraints and his practice because the coaches that had coached him previously were like, Oh, you're 9, you should be able to do this. And then they gave him drills that he's like, well, I can't even control the ball with my foot. How am I meant to control it and pass at the same time? Desirable difficulty in practice. for coaching, in my opinion. So, I was coaching the under 7s, but the individuals in that group were not all under 7. It was just the label that I put on the group. So, when people asked, oh, what group are you coaching today? Oh, the under 7s. And that's how I see the neurodiverse label. I'm coaching my neurodiverse group today, but the neurodiverse group could be a group of people that are neurotypical and neurodiverse by traditional diagnosis.

So you, so it's kind of like, because I think one of the things I struggle with is the specificity. Because I mean, in, in the traditional approach, neurodiverse is specific. Yeah, but it's not. Well, no, it's not, I know, but, but, I su I suppose, for me, I like specificity, and I think I'm trying to go too specific, in many ways. I wouldn't say you're

trying to go too specific, I would say that with the, so when it comes to the, the traditional approaches, when people say neurodiverse, neurodiverse could mean diagnosed neurodiverse, suspected neurodiverse, and then there's the, sort of, the middle, Marshal ground of what I have some of these traits, but I'm not really that thing and you, you, some people would say they are some people would say they aren't. So there's, there's no incognition to say Mark of the cognitive, there is no absolute label because even if you've been diagnosed neuro diverse, that diagnosis may be inaccurate, because it's being over diagnosed, or I'm diagnosed in different groups because of loads of other social factors. And when we actually have a look, At communication between humans, what is language? Language is there to make heuristics, shortcuts, easier for categorizing things. But in the real world, we don't need the categorizations. We do it to make certain things easier. What are those certain things? Grouping people. So does it matter that the group of people aren't entirely accurate? Well, if you're saying to someone else, I'm coaching some neuro, uh, my neurodiverse group, it doesn't matter because it doesn't matter to them who those people are. So you could call it group one, group two, group three, or you could call it N1, N2, N3, or neurodiverse, neurotypical. It really doesn't matter. It's whether the communication between you and the individual that you're talking to at that time understands what you mean. And that's the affordances of the words that you're using.

Which goes into kind of when, when marketing, when I, if, if I have the overall label of, of coaching neurodiverse, service based business owners, then the rest of my marketing takes that and explains. specificity and adds that specificity into what I'm describing of autistic, ADHD, those with chronic, like, illnesses, like, those pieces.

This is my personal approach. I personally wouldn't use the traditional labels. I would use the action capabilities and the affordances that you help with or you're looking to improve performance with or develop skills from, rather than say neurodiverse. Because neurodiverse has social implications and the meanings behind those words are going to be dependent on the individual's relationship with them. This is what I was saying to um, Anne, Anne Marie at when she was doing one of her questionnaire studies. She asked People about Neurodiverse, and I was like, yeah, but you are assuming people know what neurodiverse means, which means you're gonna get the people that have been either diagnosed neurodiverse or have looked into being neurodiverse and not the people that are neurotypical, that have never been exposed to that information before. So you're results are gonna be biased. Mm-Hmm. Instead of saying, oh, neurodiverse say people that struggle with focusing their attention on this thing. Yes, the neurodiverse people will go, oh, well, that's ADHD. Maybe. Or, maybe it's something else. And the, quote, Neurotypical people that also struggle with focusing on said thing will also be able to relate to the affordances, because we're looking at higher order variables, not lower order variables. We're looking at the affordances, the opportunities of behavior for the individuals, and whether they are a attuned, whether they can calibrate their education, or I wouldn't say education of attention, because it's, it's calibrating their attention and intention of affordances, but you get the point. It's, it's the skills developed and their abilities to attune to that, whether they can or can't or should or shouldn't do that in certain situations well enough to perform at the levels that they want to perform at. I know that was a lot of words there, but essentially, Can people perform, at the level that they want to perform, doing those things? If they can't, then maybe you can help with that, if you explain those things. Because there's a, there's a lot of baggage that goes with neurodiverse.

Yeah, and I think that's the thing I've been like, attuned to, of like, oh, I could put that there. But I don't, for me, I feel like I'd be adding to the problem. Like, and, and, and that's an interesting point. Yeah. Of like, adding, because from a marketing perspective that is the easiest way of marketing. That is the simplest form I could do. And it's not inaccurate as well. Because I can. It's something I am very capable of doing, but it's also not just from that perspective. It is those with the action capability, people who are struggling with focusing and figuring out what they want to do, taking action in their business in a way that actually matches what they want to do and what matches the reality of what they're actually trying to do and what they want to do. That's what I do. Whether you have a label is almost secondary to that. They're all unique.

Language is socially constraining, whatever word you use is going to have varying meanings depending on the individual's relationship with it, because words, I would argue, are affordances.

Yeah.

And the language that we use, obviously, being constraining, can constrain the group, but can also open up the group. And what constraints you add into your own practice design is up to you. And that's what marketing is. How it's designing with affordances in mind. You're, you're designing your practice with the verbal constraints of language. Which, if we look at it as a practice session, that's what we always do. And when you're looking to practice, typically you want to start simple, so you add more constraints to reduce the complexity of the environment. So starting off with neurodiverse adds more constraints, so maybe a constraint you want to put in your practice design to start with. And then, as you develop those skills, you then expand, so you reduce the constraint by changing the language. Yes,

I think I'm trying to put myself in a box of like, okay, this is what I am, and this is what I do, even though it's not entirely what I do, but it is part of what, I think I'm trying to get to the end, versus just taking action and moving forward. But it's practice design.

You have a practice, which is the business, and you want to develop skills as you grow the business, because obviously you don't want to do the same thing over and over, but as you develop the skills, that is practice design, so there will be constraints, or In, in some way at least, um, so you need to design for the affordances, which means adding in constraints and either making the practice design simple or complex.

Yeah.

Desirable difficulty of your business, and desirable difficulty in your business, I imagine, to start with, will be, let's not have 3, 000 clients. Perhaps not.

I like helping people, but I, I do want to live still. Precisely. That's the way that I would explain the situation at least. Okay. Marketing from an ecological perspective. This is fun. This is what I've been thinking about as well because I put I put this down in My uh Morgan. I can't remember app names these days. I put it in my Morgan of like Why do you even call it Morgan? Why not call it calendar? because It's more specific and I like it to be more specific. I don't know Yeah, but

it goes into google calendar as well because it goes into Morgan So if you want to be specific you'd have to say both You

Uh, fine. Okay, fine. I'm Google Calendar. So there we

go. It's just, when it comes to language, I think of language through affordances because we're designing for affordances in mind and so language, what is more accurate? Like, it doesn't matter what's more accurate. It's a calendar. That's the affordance.

That's true. That's true. That's very true. Yeah. Marketing through goal directed behaviors. Was what I had

written. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure how you would market through goal directed behaviours unless you're talking about, like, first person perspective view of you as the marketer.

Yeah.

Because as the person, sort of like, getting things, like wanting to look for something, finding something, the audience as it were, I don't think their goal directed behaviours are going to be the same as yours.

No.

So. But yeah, as long as the meaning behind those words is explicit to you. But yeah, when it comes to this, I guess this, I'm going backwards here. Uh, the default mode network, the turning on and off, the active inference stuff. Yeah, I know, I'm going, I'm going, I'll go back. When it comes to this conversation, because I want to relate it to the your potential clients, do you think the brain, because you mentioned neuroscience, do you think that the brain science, the neuroscience, the cognitive science, the rest of it is something you would discuss with the individuals? Because when I look at coaching, I wouldn't want to discuss direct perception, constraints, affordances, achievements. No. I haven't.

Do I want to talk about it more? Yes. Because it's, well, the, the info dumping of everything. Yes. But I am recognising that, that, great, all this information, cool, what do I do with it? Like, it's just more information. Um, so, it's very much, it depends on what,

what they're looking for, I suppose. Because I can't imagine many people going in wanting to get somewhere and then hearing loads of stuff about your approaches and all the different words and jargon and things that we talk about. Most people will go in there wanting to improve performance, so you as the coach would therefore guide the performance. How you design the sessions and the practice doesn't need to be known by the Participant. I was going to say athlete, but they're not.

Yeah, by the business owner. Yeah, exactly. They don't need to know the That's interesting. Yeah, that's a good point. A lot of what I've been saying right now is talking about the approach, which is just not.

Because not many people are going to care about the approach. They care about the results. Most people go, okay, great, ecological, cognitive, don't care. What are you actually getting from it? What are you actually doing from it? Where are you? Where is the performance?

Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. Oh, I sound like everyone else. I suppose I don't, thinking about it. Because I'm describing it because the words I would use are, I suppose, more specific. I don't think specific's

an accurate word there.

Yeah, I've tried are more

intentional.

Intentional? Yeah.

Again, I'm not, I'm not sure when, when you compare someone that's discussing cognitive psychology or ecological psychology, they can both be as specific or as in specific or intentional or less intentional as one another, the differences of the words chosen to use. So the words in your marketing will differ in some way because of what it is that you're expressing, I either practice designs that you're expressing, but you don't want to be teaching people how to teach people in your marketing. Okay. No. Because you're marketing for performance, and, and so what you'd, I would imagine what you'd want to do is express the performance gains in some way, the results, showing results, but using explanations that align with your practice design.

Yeah.

Because sharing a, sharing a philosophy is going to be. It's not going to be for everyone. Not everyone is going to want to know what your philosophy or ideology is about practice design. Some people will, but most people won't. Most people are just going to get better at the thing.

There's kind of the two pieces of it. There is the leadershipy thing that they talk about, talking about it. That bit I'm really interested in doing. And then there's the helping people do it, which is, which

is What do you mean by leadership thingy?

You've got a message you want to share. It's, it's about talking about that philosophy. It's the philosophical piece of it. And like, putting a stake in the ground and leading people somewhere. But where am I leading?

Yeah, I was gonna say, I like the idea, but apart from just conversation for the sake of conversation, I'm not sure, like, Put your, put your flag in the ground and then go towards the flag. That, like, that, that's That's what I would want to do. I mean, that's what I'm doing the video essay. I've put my flag in the ground by saying, okay, this is my story. I went from, uh, depression and suicide to I'm now thriving. I love my life and I want to keep going. That's a huge difference. I went from having multiple mental health issues to having none, like literally none. I went from being Unconfident in my shell didn't want to talk to anyone too. I'm quite happy to go across the country I'm happy to go to berlin to talk to people i've never met before Uh, and and that is drastically different. I have a drastic change Because that's what a story is, a transition is, an action is, and that happened through practice design, that practice design happened to be from ecological dynamics, but I, I am my transition story at the moment, I don't work with other people, so I can't have another transition story, I guess you would be my transition story. Second client, potentially. John went from really confused to really confused, but in a different way.

Yeah! Yeah, and I suppose I have the transition story, and then there's clients who have their transition story. Yeah, yeah.

So you'd use the transition story as the performance metric, the results that people are looking for, and the practice design is how you got them from A to B, because that's what a story is. A story is going from A to B. It's a change going from A to B.

Yeah, it's very much, which is, yeah, I, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. We're back to the yes. Yeah! Yeah. Go on, say it one more time, just cause. Yeah. That was serious. Unless there's anything else you want to add, I think we've covered a fair bit. We have done quite

a lot today. It's been a good session. So, yeah, tell us. Hi everyone. We've been here this whole time. I'd forgotten.

Oh, right. You forgot we were recording. Of course, because you don't see the recording. Well, for some reason you're not seeing the recording button. No, I didn't hear the recording start. Oh. Yeah. Okay, right. Well, I have no idea what I'm going to title this, but see you all next week.

Have fun with that.