Neurodivergence, business and soul

By Lian Brook-Tyler

That might sound like a strange collection of words to put together and yet, in my work they make for such easy bedmates, they’re more like soul mates (we’ll ease into the scarily woo matter of ‘soul’ gently, leaving that to the end.)

Let’s start with neurodivergence (ND for short), what our mainstream culture thinks that word means and what I’ve discovered it really means.

What our culture thinks neurodivergence means…
Conditions like:

Autism (or Autism Spectrum Disorder)
ADHD
Dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, dysgraphia
Note, those D words - disorder, deficit and the dys prefix - mean variously illness, lack, bad, difficult, abnormal, faulty.

And therefore:

Disabled
Difficulty
Special needs
Awkward
Socially gauche
Weird
Pedantic
Lacking empathy
Struggling

Admittedly, I left the corporate world, and therefore in many ways the mainstream world, almost 10 years ago but I still have close family, friends and clients who work in that environment and from what they share with me, there hasn’t been much sign of change in all that time.

LinkedIn’s very recent recognition of dyslexia as a ‘skill’ is welcome and… it’s a drop in the ocean.

Despite the helter-skelter into inclusivity of other kinds, strangely it doesn’t seem to apply to neurodivergence much beyond lip service, which to this literal autistic woman means speaking about things that aren’t being done, which is dishonest.

Side note: you can stamp the awkward and pedantic boxes on your neurodivergent bingo card now.

And yet, neurodivergence really just means different, specifically differing in neurological function from what is considered typical.

So yes, some of those definitions of neurodivergence above are accurate (I for one, am a match for pretty much everything on that list at times, bar dyslexia - I’m actually hyperlexic, turns out reading fluently at three years old wasn’t just because I was smart) *and*:

1) Just like with neurotypical folk, if you’ve met one ND person then you’ve met one ND person: every ND person is unique and therefore different to another.

2) That whilst there are commonalities between neurodivergent people, the list above really doesn’t capture all the differences (not disorders) and certainly not the ones that often have the most power and meaning, not just to the ND person but to those around them.

What neurodivergence can mean…

Compassionate
Brilliant
Intuitive
Genius
Principled
Honest
Focused
Innovative
Sensitive
System thinkers
Specialists
Open
Creative
Dedicated
Magical (yes, magical, more on that soon)

I had planned next to write a whole section about business but instead, I invite you to read that list again and see if you can spot the craftily hidden reason it might be beneficial to understand some of *those* traits of neurodivergence and then proactively include ND people into your business, making round hole adjustments for them where needed.

Side note: if you can’t see the reason, then I’m afraid it’s unlikely this post can help you. 2014 wants you and your business back, BlackBerry and Blockbuster look forward to working with you. I joke (yes, autistic folk can), I know you know.

So let’s move on to soul.

First, a question for you…

What do Steve Jobs, Greta Thunberg, Whoopi Goldberg, Elon Musk, Eminem, Emily Dickinson, Bill Gates, Simone Biles, Albert Einstein, Salma Hayek, Richard Branson, Anthony Hopkins, Darryl Hannah, Jerry Seinfeld, and my personal favourite, Carl Jung, have in common?

I’m guessing the answer is obvious given the context but I wonder what you’d have answered if the question was in a pub quiz (apparently “bar trivia” to my American friends.)

So yes, they’ve all been diagnosed as or strongly suspected to be neurodivergent (most of them autistic.)

Side note: I had to look hard for well known autistic women, and couldn’t find even one famous person of colour known to be autistic. Awareness of ND, especially the form of autism we used to call Asperger’s, is slow to move outside of “the little boy with learning disabilities” or the “genius, if childlike, white Rain Man” stereotypes. I know many people, especially autistic women, who have gone half a lifetime without diagnosis because of this.

And remember those D words - disorder, deficit and the dys prefix - and their definitions? Illness, lack, bad, abnormal, faulty.

Do those terms sound like the go-to words we’d use to describe those world-changing, ground-breaking, edge-pushing people?

What I’ve discovered over the past 10 years, particularly the past 18 months since my own autism diagnosis confirmed what I had been suspecting for years (my husband and business partner said a diagnosis was unnecessary because it was bleeding obvious) is that neurodivergence is something way beyond our modern culture’s understanding of it as something that’s “gone wrong”.

This says a whole lot more about our modern world than it does about neurodivergence itself - if we live within a system that disables people’s nature then yes, it will create the experience of disorder, difficulty and deficit.

Putting that aside for now (it needs an epic post of its own), what we can see is that when ND people are in environments in which they’re able to function adequately (also another post), their gifts can come online and they can be who they came here to be.

I’ve given some examples of well-known ND people, what I’ve experienced and witnessed firsthand shows this applies to other ND people too.

As neurodivergent people discover the truth of who they are, they also discover they’re naturally gifted artists, visionaries, healers, innovators, and leaders.

Exactly the kind of people every village has needed and valued for all of human history, only then they were known as the shamans, medicine men and women, seers, sages, doctors, and leaders.

Side note: Recent research has shown that the “spirit molecule” DMT (the active component of psychedelics such as peyote and psilocybin mushrooms) is hypermetabolised in the autistic brain, and this is endogenous DMT, i.e. naturally occurring in the brain. This molecule is responsible for opening minds to seeing other realities, possibilities and the connections between everything - it is the reason people flock to Peru to drink ayahuasca.

All of this suggests that nothing has “gone wrong” in neurodivergent people’s minds, the differences in their neurotype are exactly right for the specific roles their souls chose for this lifetime.

You might be asking… so, how do these ancient roles that were vital in their communities then translate to today’s business world?

Well, for me, this is where it gets most interesting… what I’ve seen, firsthand in myself and in those I work with, is that we are here to become…

The heart-centred leaders: thinking holistically and seven generations ahead (like autistic woman, Thunberg at just 19 years old.)

The visionary creators: the people who see what others want and need before they do (Jobs famously modelled this.)

The first principles innovators: people who do the seemingly impossible by working from the smallest known truth from the ground up (Musk popularised this age-old way of thinking that comes naturally to many autistic folk.)

The conscious coaches, consultants and trainers: bringing business results *and* business taboos like love, wisdom and spirituality into the corporate world (my client, soul sister and leadership coach Elizabeth Lovius is a brilliant example of this.)

The impassioned speakers: telling stories that set souls alight and move them to create the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible (as the modern day sage Charles Eisenstein says.)

And I believe we need these people now more than ever.

Photo: Varvara Grabova

 
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