Transcript

Why Understanding Neurodivergence Changes Everything with Paul Mosson

Victoria Bennion: [00:00:00] In this week's episode of the Autism Moms podcast, we welcome Paul Mosson, CEO of the Cost Lawyer Standards Board to the show.

Paul shares his powerful journey of growing up feeling different, and only discovering his A DHD later in life. Paul talks about masking burnout and why understanding neurodivergence can completely change how someone sees themselves.

Natalie Tealdi: Welcome to the podcast, Paul. It's great to have you here. Can you start by telling our listeners a little bit about yourself, please?

Paul Mosson: Professionally, I have two key, main key roles. I am part-time chief executive of the smallest Legal Regulation in England, Wales, which is the Cost Lawyers Standards Board. And I'm also a coach that specializes in neurodivergent clients like exclusively. I do work with neurotypical clients, but increasingly my practice has been centered around neurodivergent clients.

I'm 49 years old. [00:01:00] I'm a gay man. I'm married. I've been for over 20 years. Have a couple of dogs. And I live just outside Liverpool on the coast.

Natalie Tealdi: And we'd love to know more about your journey. 'cause we know from speaking with you before, you've had, you've faced some personal struggles and you've gone on to have a really successful career. So could you tell us a little bit about that please?

Paul Mosson: Yeah if I could share an anecdotal reflection that somebody that used to work with me once said, when we were talking about their career development Paul, I'm not like you. I didn't have a clearly mapped out plan for my career, which made me laugh, belly laugh actually, because it couldn't be further from the truth.

There was no great master plan. I, struggled terribly at school. A academically I could cope if I was allowed to learn in my own way. What I mean by that is I'm not a non-linear thinker. I don't learn when in classrooms. I can self-teach, I can do, and I learn by doing which didn't match [00:02:00] the education system of the late eighties and early nineties.

At that point, no one was talking about any Neurodivergency certainly weren't talking about A DHD, even though obviously it was around and had been for a long time. And back then the only real tests were and often still are focused around young boys. Whilst I, in retrospect, when you look back, I fit the mold.

It wasn't explored with me, but I was such a problem. That I was removed from my mainstream school for the final year largely 'cause I've not been the year before. And finally the local authorities, truant officer had picked up on that. And I was sent to a special center, which back then was called the service for pupils with emotional or Behavioral Difficulties.

Snappy title and not exactly the place that you wa thought you wanted to be sent to. Most people referred to it as being sent to a version of Boal. And it [00:03:00] looked a bit like that. There was barbed wire, high fences, you were collected in a taxi. So I finished my education very. Not well in no way expected at all.

In the, I didn't even know these places exists. Put it that way when I was 11 and I started secondary school. But it did mean I left with some qualifications. Had I stayed in mainstream school, I never would've I just wasn't going. I was being bullied because I was different. I didn't fit in.

At the time struggling with my sexuality. We're at this point we are still in the middle of the AIDS crisis. The rhetoric around being gay was, for some aids was sent to cure. The gay illness so felt I didn't fit in, was struggling with that. And obviously now I can look back and realize I wasn't fitting in as well because I was neurodivergent in a system designed for a neurotypical mind.

So almost a double shame is the word of sometimes used. My answer to that was to not go [00:04:00] and because I was such a problem child, it, the school didn't care. It was only cared when the local authority picked up on it, and I still don't really know how that happened, but I had not gone for the entire of the fourth year.

So I went in the third year, didn't bother going. 'cause in my. The, one of the benefits of the cur curious mind of an A DHD brain is you start thinking of all different ways of getting around these solutions is if I never turned up to the first registration with the new class, I could never be missed.

And it was put down as an anatomy error. I didn't get, I got away with that for two weeks in the fifth year before it was then where is this kid? I left school, left there, left the center left with four GCSEs. That was the most I could study in the time that was left. And I got my first job at Pizza Hut.

I left school April. 'cause of my age back then I was able to, I don't think you can anymore. Still had to go back in the junior July and do my exams. Started working [00:05:00] full-time, waiting tables in a restaurant. And that was my. One of the most key, important decisions I ever made. I had the, one of the most inspirational managers called Karen Williams who I'd saw something in me that nobody else had ever seen.

And that and whereas in the education environment and with family and what few friends I had I was the odd ball. She saw something different in me. And he promoted me very rapidly by the time I was 17 to supervisor and would give me even more responsibility than that. I would manage the store restaurant some days when other managers weren't around, and that was incredible for me to have somebody that gave me that much confidence.

But. I had the wonderlust and this feel that I wanted to escape life, it'd been so difficult that I left there, went to America for a month, stayed with a friend that I'd met through that job, came back and did a variety of jobs then. Over the following [00:06:00] years with no aim or direction, periods of unemployment.

But I would, I worked for next for a bit. I worked in call centers and then eventually I got a job with NatWest and things started to stabilize a little bit once I did that. But then I got. Not to my current husband to my ex-wife, and we moved to Los Angeles. That didn't work out for what is now obvious reasons.

And I returned to the UK and started taking more responsibility for my career, but still no idea that I was neurodivergent and frankly didn't know what it was. And that's pretty much where I was all the way through the next couple of decades. Had some really good jobs. Took advantage of some support from another inspirational leader called Elaine Walder, who again saw potentially in me, but took me to one side and said, you don't have the qualifications.

You are gonna hit a glass ceiling. We think you should do a degree. We would support [00:07:00] you in doing that. What have you ever been interested? And the only thing I'd ever been interested in was law. And at that time I wanted to be a barrister but not crime, not family. I wanted to be a commercial barrister.

About two years into starting this part-time degree with the University of Wamp, I realized I was never going to be a commercial barrister because while social mobility has de definitely improved across the bar, back then, I wasn't going to go in with a University of Wamp. Degree in my twenties with four GCSEs, no A levels still no a levels to my name and land, the kind of pupillage that I wanted.

But I loved the degree, I love law. I love the critical analysis of it. I placed to most natural sense of justice and fairness, which I now realize is a classic attribute. For people with A DHD, and I think that's why you find a lot of people with A DHD and autism in the legal sector, and that might be why I've found it my home.

So I [00:08:00] finished my degree. I was working in the National Housing Federation at the time. It was a wonderful place. Huge social impact and all of my roles have had a social impact in one way or the other. But then the Bar Council job came knocking and I left there and I went off to the bar council for nine years.

And then I went off up to Scotland to do a similar role at the Law Society of Scotland. Still blissfully unaware of my neurodivergence. And it was at Law Society of Scotland where things started to change. Now unmasking all the, as I have done for most of my life, what is actually the reality underneath what sounds like, oh, a relatively successful career trajectory for someone that kind of bounced out of school with very few qualifications.

Behind that is several attempts to deal with depression, anxiety terrible bouts of poor mental health misdiagnosis after a misdiagnosis to the point where I've still got a letter from a psychiatrist [00:09:00] in central London that says, we can't label this. No one explored neurodivergency with me at all, but no one ever got past my father leaving when I was a kid.

We never actually got, and it wasn't until I was talking and exploring my neurodivergency as an adult that I realized on reflection we never got to the point in the discussion with the psychiatrist that I'd left the mainstream school at 15 and gone to this special center. Now if you google this special center, it's now a special center for kids with special needs, the center Send Center, and it's a correctly resourced and identified as such, and it's lost that rather diff difficult name that used to be associated with it.

So this starts a period of self-reflection. And in there for me is first of all. Coming to terms with what A DHD means, starting the diagnosis journey, which is awful at for anyone of any age in this country. And looking at how [00:10:00] I address the characteristics that have caused me some of the challenges that I've talked about there has been, impulse buying.

There's been periods of death and thankfully I'm not in debt anymore at all, touch forward. But there have been periods where it's been. Awful. And really stressful periods of time put terrible strain on my marriage, but both my marriages and, impulsive behavior that I didn't understand.

But moreover, I never fitted in. And in, in the law society and the bar council, they both have these really large councils. And as, as a director, you're expected to go and everyone sits in these large chambers almost still. And paying attention. And you'll notice through the periods of this podcast, I can't sit still unless I'm literally trying to force myself.

And it's like having some kind of strange outta body experience when I attempt to do it. So I'd always sit there almost in awe that people could sit there and not disappear every. 15, 20 minutes. People must have think [00:11:00] I have the weakest bladder going because I would constantly say, oh, I've gotta go to the toilet.

'cause that was the only excuse that almost nobody could challenge you on as an adult. You thought, no one's gonna say, no, I don't think you should do. And I'd go and sit in the toilet cubicle. I'm play a game, or listen to a podcast or listen to some music or do something for five minutes so that I took enough time to just reset my brain.

Blissfully still unaware. I'm neuro divergent. There's presentations of information. We used to have a finance director at one of these jobs, and I don't wanna say which one because I know who it is, but they used to present the management accounts on the day a in the senior leadership team meeting, and all the other directors would be like following it around, jumping around this spreadsheet.

And I, I need, I should have just caught up and said, there's no point in me being here 'cause I couldn't follow that data. And if I ever said anything, I was like you are a director. You should be able to understand complex financial data. And because I wasn't able to advocate for myself, what I wasn't able to say was, I do understand complex financial data, thank you, but I don't [00:12:00] understand it when it's presented in this way.

So I had the, I had a big clash there, so always felt I wasn't performing as well, everyone else. So my answer to that, like most neurodivergent individuals, is to throw more effort and energy into it. To burn myself out. And I've had serious periods of burnout that have led to periods of being off, off sick because of it or trying to battle through and then making it worse because I'm fighting as hard as I can sitting in presentations, trying to understand, meet data that I knew I couldn't then go away and have to do it separately.

And a good example of that was the way I studied my law degree. I couldn't sit in the lecture theaters, so I used to sign in. See how the lecture was going. Always ended up the same way. I just disappeared to the library. And repeat every hour, go to the next lecture, come back. So I pretty much read my law degree.

I self-taught myself, just got the exam papers, read the books and did it my own way, which is how I realized I learn [00:13:00] best or I learn by applying, which is completely at odds with the education system that I was trying to fit into. But moreover, I can now look at the periods in my career where I've clashed the most and it's where I don't fit in.

I've been bullied, and that might sound strange for a 49-year-old chief executive, but I've been bullied and I've been bullied seriously on, in multiple occasions in the last five years. I advocate for myself and I stand up and I fight for it, but because it's not unusual for it to happen. You do feel like people going, oh, here he goes again.

Oh, he's got, he's gonna say something else. Or I've had, oh, he can't say anything around you. But it's because I don't fit the mold. And for some people, particularly if you're in a senior leadership position, there's a mold that people think you should be, you should dress a certain way, you should talk a certain way, you should behave a certain way, and you should be able to interact in a certain way.

[00:14:00] People have always thought I was good at networking. I probably am. People have also thought that because I'm good at it, I enjoy it. No, I don't. I find it really difficult, and I don't always pick up on social cues, particularly a joke. My brain doesn't move quick enough with jokes. I don't retain them and I don't necessarily get them.

So an answer that is quite common is for people to drink a little bit more. But that doesn't go well with A DHD because A DHD don't need the stimulant and goes with it. As I began to understand my neurodivergency more, my brand of it and how it impacted me, there are massive changes that I've made to my life since then.

I drink significantly less. I, if I do drink, I like to be in a safe environment with people that I trust. My inner trusted circle. You'd be very rare. I'm not saying I would never do it, be very rare to find me drinking at a work event because I need that additional control, but the downside to that is I don't relax as much as other people will.

I can mask it. [00:15:00] But it does mean that as you peel back that mask, you start to realize, oh, actually I don't necessarily need to do this. And I think that's where the pandemic came in, was really pivotable. I, it wasn't the pandemic that made me question minority divergency. It was actually the diagnosis of one of our nephews.

And as we learned more, my husband said to me, you've got a DHD, don't you? And I was like, what? Who have I really? And I went trying off to my mom who we were seeing a few weeks later and I sat her down and I said, oh what would you think if I said I was to explore an A DHD diagnosis? And her response was from, she's a brummy.

Are you really need the diagnosis Bab? I was like, okay. Alright. So then I went to my elder sisters and said. Similar. This is what mom staff said and they all went. Yeah. And one of my nieces works with young children in a nursery up to five. And she said, oh, we've had this chat so many times about you.

And I was like, was anyone ever think to have it with me? And I went how [00:16:00] do you raise that with someone until they raise it? So everyone seemed to know it was a bit like me when I came out. That was a surprise more to me, I think, than I think it was to the people around me. So then I think back of all the missed opportunities, and because I was moving from Scotland down to England, I asked for a copy of all my medical records because my twin sisters live in Germany and I, hers got lost long ago.

So I've got. Surprisingly got everything to birth. I was really quite shocked. So I got this big, huge brown envelope with all my medical records in it. And I found the psychiatrist's letter to my GP when I was 15, when I was kicked out of the mainstream school and sent to the special center. And it described me as an angry, uncooperative young man that she could no longer assist.

And that was really hard to read because you, she was the professional and had they intervened at that point and known [00:17:00] I'd got a DHD or at least explored it, I'm not saying my life would've been better. I am not saying it would have been that I would've done necessarily anything else in terms of my career, but it would've been easier.

Because I would've understood things better, and that's what I now advocate for. It's so important to understand. People say, what's the value in a label? It's not the label, it's the understanding. And I think of the dangerous situations I've been in, the impulse control. Not understanding and 40 odd years of feeling like I didn't fit in, that I didn't belong, that there was something wrong with me, rather than, okay, I'm in a minority, but I'm still part of a very large community.

And that was the most rewarding part of the first time I reached out for my own A DHD coaching. And it followed me reading the book by Leon Maskell called at a said. Of a DHD and [00:18:00] I read this relatively thin books. If you buy me big books, unless it's a Shard Lake series and anyone that knows that will understand the addiction I struggle a bit, but it was nice and bite-sized.

And I read this book and I was like, she's in my head. This is me. Oh my God, somebody actually understands me. So I went and got coaching through them. And but from that you realize that you're part of this community of people that sit there nodding. And smiling not in a or a, in a condescending way, but in that I get you kind of way.

And that's the important of sense of understanding. Now, diagnosis, there's a big debate over whether how important the diagnosis process is itself, but the identification. Of it is where I think is really important. And if a client comes to me in my coaching practice as they regularly do and say I'm on a, I'm seven years waiting for my diagnosis.

Some of the stories are horrific about how long people wait for a diagnosis. I also think the same thing. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you've got a [00:19:00] diagnosis. Do you relate to these characteristics? Yes. Are these characteristics causing you challenges or opportunities in your life that you wanted to talk about?

Yes. Increasingly, I have clients that say to me, I've got an A DHD diagnosis. Think I'm DHD. And I've now gone started the process of looking for a diagnosis for DHD. And again, the answer is always the same. Okay. Then let's talk about what you think those are. Okay. I've, I'm trained and I can help coach through that.

And this has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life for a number of reasons. It plays into my natural sense of wanting to help people. You make the journey's so unique with every single client and everyone is so different and the people expect, as with any minority group, you get clumped together and expected to all think and behave the same.

And you realize I've never had one single client in the hundreds and hundreds of hours I've done of coaching for neurodivergent individuals. It's the same as each other, and I've never been the same as a client. Commonality [00:20:00] runs through it. Which is where you get that sense of, I'm part of something, part of a community, I'm not alone.

And after a lifetime of feeling odd, that's immensely valuable. But through the coaching, you are able to then look at how people are different and how it impacts people differently, can impact people differently through the course of a coaching journey. So if they're with me for say, four or five months, for example what starts the original problem or challenge isn't towards the end.

I stay away from phrase

Natalie Tealdi: what are some of the challenges that you see with your coaching clients? How do you help them overcome them?

Paul Mosson: Varies greatly. Depending on where they are in their own journey, if they're at the beginning of the journey themselves, it can be about the first steps of unmasking and identifying what the challenges are. They'll have heard phrases like RSD, but what does rejection sensitive dysphoria really mean?

They'll be aware of executive functioning. But how does, [00:21:00] what is, that's a term to them. Then I might have something that's more advanced or something that's come back for a second round of a DHD coaching. But we look at the executive function, we look at the developmental delay, we look at the way people learn and digest information, impulse, memory, function.

Definitely spend quite a bit of time with rejection sensitive dysphoria because this can lead to people trying to take their own lives, self-harm, quitting jobs, quitting relationships. It, it is so destructive. And what we try to do is work on exercises, but we work with people's brains. And this is the key thing.

And this might be the first time someone said this to them. We're gonna work with you, Brian, not against it. We're gonna identify your wiring, your unique wiring, and we're going to then work. So it's strengths based and we look at where the strengths are. I don't use the phrase superpower. Some clients do.

Clients can use whatever pH phraseology they want within the bounds of [00:22:00] respectfulness. If I wanna refer to the A DHD as superpower, that's absolutely fine. I think if you were to say to somebody that had bounced in and out of prison, for example, 'cause of their A DHD, that it was a superpower, I think you might get a very adverse reaction and if you, there's a huge amount of discourse on it, so I just avoid it.

It's for people to accept how they want to accept it. You've had a lifetime that you have just struggled. It's not a strength. Even though I just said it's a strengths-based approach, and the reason I say strengths-based approach is we're trying to unmask and we're trying to look at, okay, where, what are you good at?

Where does this lie? Where are your values? Where? And then we work on boundaries Now for most people that neurodivergent, and if they're later if they're discovering this later in life. They may have never even considered what the boundaries are. So if I ask them what the boundaries are, you might sometimes get yes.

But if you then say, okay, tell me what they are, and I'll write 'em down, and then they'll go, actually can't. And then you have to break it down. And that's where the values and the strengths often come in. And then the next step is, okay, how far away are you [00:23:00] from your boundaries being in place?

And this is where the masking is, and this is where the burnout really lives. And you work with them to talk about whether that you can in implement these boundaries, how to introduce them, how to have conversations with siblings. This is a real common one. Often clients find it easier to go and talk to their employer than family members because you've got decades of this life together.

And suddenly you wanna do maybe a handbrake turn and say. I know I've spent 30, 40 years putting up with this, but this doesn't work for me. And actually I need it to be slightly different. Working on energy management is really key. So if we can't work on energy management, and this covers across from A DHD and into A DHD, it's looking at how your energy system works for you.

Doesn't matter what it, what works for me, the next person, the next client I spend a lot of time on that so that we can pre-plan. So really good example, seeing as we're doing this just after Christmas. I love my [00:24:00] family. I love spending time with my family, including my in-laws, but it is an energy draining and I can't sustain it for a long period of time, and I can have a meltdown or a burnout, so I need to insert circuit breaks in to make it work.

Now, if I just. Barrel into Christmas with no plan whatsoever. I can tell you by this point in the year, I'm burnt out from what allegedly was a two week break from work. But by planning, by putting strategies in place, I can put those circuit breakers in. So I can take it at a time. And then this leads to more honest conversations with family and friends.

And in some ways you can go and go back and reflect on. That's why I behaved the way I did that day. That's maybe why I lost emotional regulation and I had a, I was, I looked like I was angry, but actually I was just overwhelmed. And say when I take that break, if I go [00:25:00] off an hour, half a day, whatever it is I need to go and do, it's not that I don't love you or care for you, it's nothing to do with you.

It's not because you are too much, it's because I find this too much and then I can go and take away. Then there's that phrase too much. Most people that are neurodivergent have spent a life bit of time being told they're too much, and that's really hard because it makes us feel even worse and then increases the level of masking.

It's really hard to peel that mask back. It's not a face mask that you can quickly wash off. It's not a face mask that you put on to go to a party, and I once read this really critical post on social media, which I tend to try and avoid doing if I'm not a massive fan of people's independent commentaries.

That said, everybody wears a mask. And it's necessary at times. And I would actually subscribe to the view that sometimes a mask can keep you safe. But the difference is does your mask come on and off, or is it just stare permanently? And when you're [00:26:00] trying to peel back something that you've spent decades pasting on to be somebody else, you've first of all got to work out who's underneath the mask.

Then you've gotta work out where it's safe to take it off. Some people are a bit like coming outta the closet as a gay man. Some people burst out and some people do it gently. And again, that's another part of the coaching is what does this journey look like for you? What are you comfortable with? Where are you safe?

Where do you feel safe? Where are you peaceful? And how do you get to that? And in some cases, clients are in the right job and with really supportive employers, but even the most supportive employer can say to you. Okay. Great. What do you need from us? If you, the start of your journey you're overwhelmed already.

You're like I don't know. Can somebody else tell me? And often one of the answers is to send you off to occupational health. Nothing wrong with that. That's how I found out a DHD coaching existed. If I'd not been sent off to occupational health, I wouldn't. I be still know. I would've carried on blissfully unaware.

But they can only start pointing you in the right direction. And then of course, you've got the [00:27:00] employers that aren't supportive. And the conversations are them with clients what are we gonna do about that?

Natalie Tealdi: That leads me onto, it's onto a question,

how do you think organizations can better support neurodivergent individuals? Because there's that work around that finding out, their own strategies for managing it. But how do we meet these people in the middle as well?

Because the world isn't set up so well for neurodivergent people.

Paul Mosson: So I do, in my private consultancy business, I do a lot of talks about how to create non-affirmative workplaces. First of all, I wouldn't, in enormous diversity celebration week, I once put out a post of 10 things that people could do as employers that cost nothing to be neuro affirmative. So the first myth that we need to dispel is it costs money.

Some of it can cost money, but the basics don't. For example, we need breaks. The Pomodora technique, if anyone looks up, [00:28:00] that is fantastic way of modeling meetings and work patterns, and that's regular breaks, regular intervals. And off the top of my head, that's five minutes every half an hour and 10 minutes every hour and longer after two.

Who doesn't need a break in a long meeting? Neurotypical or neurodivergent together? That's actually just good energy management. So not only is it free. It's a good example of something that benefits the whole workforce, setting agendas and sticking to them. Most of us have worked in places where you're thinking, they're thinking, is this meeting ever gonna end?

And it's actually just a soap box for one person to talk about things a half, if not more. People don't need to be there listening to any other business. I personally would like to see it obliterated from agendas, but if it's gonna be there, can it be limited to genuinely things that couldn't wait, not, I've got 10 items that I couldn't be bothered to tell the chair of the meeting about.

Chair the meetings effectively. Keep it on schedule. [00:29:00] And these are important because with A DHD and autism, it's important to know what you're going into. We can get so stressed, so anxious if we don't know what to expect. Worse still, if we're gonna be put on the spot and ask for something. If you want us to not be prepared, tell us that we need to be prepared.

We like routine now. We also like persistent demand for autonomy as well. It's a struggle in our heads. We are living it. I appreciate that can be difficult to work with. But we, if we've managed to get a routine that works for us, it isn't okay for us to just throw it out the window on a whim.

That's not to say we aren't, you can't come along with a crisis or an emergency because this is what we've been training for our whole lives, because we don't just think about plan B if something's gonna go wrong. We've gone all the way through to z. Maybe round again with every possible scenario because we catastrophize naturally.

So when a crisis hits like the pandemic, [00:30:00] this, we've been training for this our whole lives. So it's not that we can't be flexible because frankly we've been flexible our whole lives. We've been fitting into it in working environment or an education environment or a social environment that was never designed for us in the first place.

But if. It isn't important. They're knocking us off. Can be difficult if you see someone with headphones on typing away, and I would argue this for anyone, but particularly if you know they're neurodivergent and then you go over and interrupt them with the question because you didn't wanna wait.

You might have just interrupted A-A-D-H-D-R who has been procrastinating over this dreadful, dreary task that they never wanted to do, has managed to finally crack their procrastination, which is another thing that we look at in coaching. You just interrupted it and ruined it. You might then get an adverse reaction, because I know I've been there where you're thinking, I can't believe you just did that.

The photocopier lizards, as I call them. Let's just hang around for what feels like hours be if [00:31:00] you're waiting to go over there. That kind of impromptu water cooler moment that everyone said that we desperately missed from the pandemic. I don't know a single neuro divergent individual that missed that water cooler moment, that suddenly somebody in your face asking you questions or telling you what their cat did on Sunday.

We're not wired that way. We'll have meaningful conversations, but it's abrupt and it's difficult. We're not necessarily gonna pick up on the social cue. So I used to be like this, trying to look around the corner to see when it was free for me to make a dash and just fingers crossed that I didn't get cornered.

It's not salmon sociable. I've got plenty of friends, but I didn't want, I wanted to go and print something called or photocopy something and not be put on the spot. And that's the other thing about not putting people on the spot. There'll be times when you've got no choice. I talked about networking earlier.

You, I'm not gonna get an advanced agenda from somebody that's wants to wander over a conference to drinks reception and say hello. But if you can give them that space. Allowing people to work in the best way that suits them. This [00:32:00] obsession between either working at home or this return to office mandate is unhealthy driven by, I'm pretty sure economic drivers that make sense to investments them, necessarily the individual.

Now, that's not to say if you're neurodivergent, you wanna work at home. I know plenty of people, plenty of clients that really want to go into the office because they value that. If you value peace and quiet, and I do as an individual I need, I love working at home 'cause I love the solitude. I can get things done.

I'm so easily distracted. I'm also easily the distraction, get super excited and start chatting to everybody and I can be the loud one. Everyone's thinking, oh, I wish he wasn't here today. But for some people, home is the noisy environment. If you've, if you live in a smaller property, you've got lots of kids running around, you might not have the solitude.

The office might be the right environment for you. You might also need the stimulation that comes from [00:33:00] working with other people because it goes back to we are not all the same. So there's an assumption that if you know a divergent, you wanna work at home. That's not true. I know that from my clients, but.

The autonomy to work in the style that suits you best to get the best output is where it's really key. None of the things I've just mentioned. Even come close to costing an organization money. We haven't got to coaching then the software, then you can start to make investments. But you can apply to access to work for grants that can help you do that.

Let's widen the neuro inclusion discussion to include all of the forms of neurodiversity, including. For example, dyslexia and just how game changing AI has been to help level the playing field with people with dyslexia. And of course, lots and lots of people have co-occurring conditions anyway, that's increasingly being seen.

So there are additional things that you can invest in this employer. Then it's about not making assumptions. And I put this in a post [00:34:00] out for the charity r I'm a trustee disabling borough of Scotland. It does fantastic work to try and change access to the profession for aspiring lawyers in Scotland who identify as disabled, not either neurodiverse or with physical disabilities.

And this was about Christmas parties and the assumption that if you don't turn to Christmas party, you're not a team player. And actually it's got nothing to do with that. But the same applies to all of like team building days getting people together. Now, I've just said to you, I love working at home and that's my preference.

But in my old job, I was the one that arranged all of the corporate away days and quarterly away days with my directorate because I do value getting people together for purpose. So if it's purposeful and that's how you attract in more and more people, but how has any of what I've just described bad for a neurotypical mind?

I've talked about efficiency, I've talked about lowering risk. I've talked about people working on what they, and [00:35:00] focusing on what they should be focusing on. I've talked about effective time management. So if organizations can't even see the need to be inclusive, welcoming, open. Workplaces, then look at the bottom line, look at the risk profile of your organization, and then somebody tell me why.

Making these really small but really significant adjustments would not impact the whole workforce. And then you create a culture where people can speak and once one starts, the domino effect starts and people start to speak up. And I. I was in a senior role and I was chairing the Law Society of Scotland's EDI group.

It was called Freddie Fairness, respect to Quality, diversity, inclusion, and Engagement. I felt I had to, even though it was uncomfortable, talk about my journey from as soon as I started it, and I did this, and I then had somebody that worked in my team [00:36:00] that when I first joined was my actual assistant. Come to me and tell me that she'd been diagnosed years before, but I'd never felt that she could actually talk about it. HR did not know. And then slowly that ripple effect through the organization happened where people would go. Paul, if you've got five minutes, can I just talk to you about what your talk Okay, yeah, of course.

And then it would be, I think I have. The number of people that came to me with preexisting historic diagnosis was actually a little unsettling, led to a conversation with HR colleagues about why we weren't expecting this, how do we manage this effectively? And the organization was very good and very supportive and pivoted quite quickly to go, okay, we've just uncovered something here that's bigger.

I suppose if you. Reflected back on it. In hindsight, that was gonna happen. But that's the impact of creating this inclusive workplace is then people start to come forward and start to talk more [00:37:00] openly. And then by that, you then start to build staff retention. So I'm back into this saves businesses money.

Natalie Tealdi: Yeah, it's so important. And how do you feel mainstream schools can better to support neurodivergent peoples?

Paul Mosson: Not being a parent. I'm surrounded by nieces and nephews from my fir. My eldest niece was born when I was four 14. And our youngest nephew is six and we have four neurodivergent children in the in. My family have siblings including my in-laws. They're all different. I don't know what I don't want it's like anymore to be in a school.

Hopefully we're a long way from the way it was where I was there, which was ignore the problem and ignore him and hopefully he'll go away, which is actually what I did. Schools themselves, I think. I see one of my nephews where going to school is the right thing for him, mainstream school.

And there is another nephew who options are being explored for going to a special center because of his needs. And I would [00:38:00] reflect that back into what I said about my coaching clients. Everyone is so different. We need a system that can embrace different learning styles. That doesn't refer to it as just a label.

We know the education system needs to be funded properly. I. Know from experience with people, clients, family members and friends, that people get funding and the funding isn't used as is intended to, so that needs to stop. Of course, you do understand. Also, at the same time, I'm married to an educator.

That this is a se, this is an entire section of society, only a financial crisis. And that people I like to believe the best in people. People are trying to do the best that they can, but you people need to be treated as individuals and understand that this is big chunk of society who don't learn in that linear fashion.

That don't, that can't, doesn't, it's not about knuckle down and concentrate. Looking at how that support network comes in and looking at what [00:39:00] support the parents get. I don't coach children by coach parents not on parenting. That would be terrible. Anyway I'm not sure I've ever agreed with other parents telling other people are to parent.

Certainly if somebody who doesn't have his own children, I don't, it'd be awful for me to be telling to be on parenting skills, but by coaching them on how. To look at Neurodivergency and look at the techniques that they can then use with their children as appropriate often as well. When people come to me as parents talking about neurodivergent children, one of my first questions is there any other neurodivergency in the generation up?

And there's often the answer is not formally, is often the word that's used, not diagnosed, but yeah, maybe it's here and there and okay, let's look at the characteristics and go back to that. Correctly labeling these centers is really important. I have never been so scared in my entire life when I went to that center.

I still can go back to that 15-year-old boy and remember how I felt. I felt abandoned. I felt [00:40:00] utterly hopeless. I was going, I was just about within the same education borough, but I was going so far away from home. I was being collected in a taxi. I wasn't trusted to get there. To be fair, that was probably a fair, probably wouldn't have gone, but I'd arrived with these big, huge steel gates that were opened in and out after every taxi security.

But I was in a small class. There was about eight of us with two. I don't remember whether one was a teaching assistant, one was a teacher, but let's, there was at least one teacher and two people there that cared. They weren't there because that was the only job they could get. I still remember that 'cause I still remember their names.

And that place changed my life for me. Now, I'm not saying a center is the, is where everyone should go to. If I'd have not had that intensive attention, I would've not had any qualifications when I left. But of course back then we, no one really understood. I'm not saying they weren't good at their jobs 'cause they were, but no one necessarily [00:41:00] understood what they were trying to deal with.

I often look at their website and one of my, one of the things I'd like to do is get in touch with them, but I have this imposter syndrome that I can't seem to get rid of and who am I to say anything? But I would love to go. There to those scared kids and say, this is not the end, this is the beginning.

This is I am where I am today because I came here. I'm not in spite of it. And it's a message. I would like people to understand that by going to these spaces, because of the way society can look at it, it can feel awful. My own family referring to it as Boal did not help. But I was in there with some kids that had really serious behavioral challenges.

Came from really awful own backgrounds. We felt dumped and there's no other way around that. So whatever the education [00:42:00] system does for kids, I'd like to think we've moved past kids feeling dumped at any age. 'Cause that stays with you. And I'm 49, like I said, and I'm not sure I've lost that, that dumped kid at 15.

But it needs to be as individual as the education system can. Like I said, I'm married to an educator. I'm a realist about what the system is faced with, but at the same time we need to get rid of this rhetoric that people have been overdiagnosed, so people have been overdiagnosed. We wouldn't have the waiting list that we've got.

What we're doing is we are correcting a historic problem that is causing all of these issues.

Natalie Tealdi: Yeah, absolutely.

Paul Mosson: coaching for kids would help.

Natalie Tealdi: Yeah.

Paul Mosson: So interesting. You can get government funding for coaching for, as an adult to keep you in work. Brilliant. Because it's keeping you off employment and that's the whole access to work theory.

Where's the coaching for the kids?

Natalie Tealdi: Yeah.

Paul Mosson: they need it too. So imagine the coaching. What would how [00:43:00] transformative would've been, let's rewrite history and say either diagnosis at 12 and got a coach

Natalie Tealdi: Yeah. Yeah. Be amazing.

Paul Mosson: life would've been different and a lot nicer and easier. But that said it's, I don't wanna paint having a DHD as this awful thing.

I wouldn't call it superpower. 'cause I've had too much, too many troubles. But I love my non-linear thinking. I'm great in a crisis. I am creative. I'll never be a scientist 'cause I can't think that way. But here's a, when I have scientist clients and it's, it blows my mind that somebody with a DH ADHD can be a scientist or an accountant because again, it's in a good example of just how different we all are.

But I would've leaned into those strengths and maybe I would've had more confidence. Maybe I would've gone for that pupilage. Maybe I wouldn't have abandoned it and said, I'm not even gonna bother applying because there's no way they'll ever accept anyone like me. 'cause that was fed from you don't belong, you don't fit in.

But I can't. I am doing two jobs [00:44:00] that I love. I love law. I get to work in law and I love coaching people. I finish work every week and I've made a difference to my client base. And it's one person at a time. It's one small incremental step at a time, but it's incredibly rewarding and it's why a lot of you've, I'm increasingly, 'cause I'm always in training for something or another because I love learning despite not being able to learn in traditional manner and the number of people I come across in the coaching community that identify as being neurodivergent.

And I think I make the connection there with the fact that there's a natural curiosity in other people. So there's empathy and there is acute emotional intelligence and the ability to read energy shifts really well. Even on a Zoom call which I don't necessarily think you gen I've worked with enough neurotypical people to know that's not always the case.

So would I wanna be neurotypical? I don't know. 'cause I'm not, I don't, I'm not neurotypical, so I can't compare it. Some people have asked [00:45:00] me if I'd like to be straight. I have no idea. 'cause I don't always like to be straight. Do I wanna be somebody different? No. Despite the challenges. What I would change is an earlier identification, support through my life and to not have felt like the odd one out my entire life until I realized that I wasn't as special or unique as I thought I was.

And actually I was part of this massive community around the world.

Natalie Tealdi: Yeah. So final question. If there's one thing you could choose to change about the world to make it more inclusive in your divergent families, what would you choose?

Paul Mosson: Families I would address if I could change it, if it was a magic wand. Social media. Which to be fair, the influence was there in the eighties. If it was just in different forms. It's that it's this is what you should conform to now. I think that's a challenge for any kid. I think it's a challenge for any parent.

Because I am the own, there's one other friend I've got that does in my generation that doesn't have kids. [00:46:00] I'm surrounded by parents and children and the hoops and the things that I've seen parents put themselves through, be that ideal. I love the comedy motherhood. I think if I'd have been a parent, I would've been part one of that group the social media impact this idea that you need to be this perfect person that you need, if you don't fit this.

You you're wrong. You, there's something wrong with you. And that's not just about neuro inclusion, that's social mobility, that's inclusion in its widest sense. The color of your skin, the way that you talk, where you were born where you were born in this country. Let alone if you are facing challenges because you've moved here your sexuality, this all comes from perpetuating this idea of an ideal.

And that's why I would change. So social media is the place that I find most challenging to be. You'll largely find me on LinkedIn. Instagram is for dogs where I go and chill and watch dogs do stupid things. And especially when they [00:47:00] animate them and they're talking to you. 'cause I would love to be able to have a chat with my dogs.

I'm not on. Certain other platforms, which I'll get sued for saying, but you won't find me on certain others 'cause I came off them years ago. 'cause I find them a cess pit. Imagine that a powerful impact social media could have though if it portrayed the beauty of diversity and people weren't taking pot shots at people.

So that's why we change if it was a magic wand.

Natalie Tealdi: Thank you. And where can people go to connect with you?

Paul Mosson: LinkedIn and my own website, which is pm exec.co uk. It's very difficult to connect with me on Instagram 'cause I keep it super, super close, very private personal space where I know that if I go in there unless an algorithm has spotted something which is normally the latest Labrador stream, then I keep that nice and close.

So LinkedIn and my website is two ways of going there. And if people wanna explore. Coaching wider. Somebody was to watch this and think I'd like a DHD coaching, but for some reason he's not the one I want. And that [00:48:00] happens all the time. Chemistry and coaching is really important. Then I would go to ADHD works, do info who have videos and training that can help me with access to work application forms, and give you access to an even wider bank and pull of some fantastic coaches that I've worked with, trained with, and just the same skills and empathy and care about the community that I have too.

Natalie Tealdi: Brilliant. Thank you. We'll link to those in the show notes as well. So thank you very much.

Victoria Bennion: Yeah, thank you so much coming on and joining us. It's been really interesting.

Paul Mosson: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.