Why Not? & What If?
A podcast about life, work, well-being and the beautiful chaos in between. Hosted by Andy Cracknell, a creative whirlwind and a disruptor of dull thinking and allergies to doing things the usual way. And Siobhán Godden who listens through the noise to what really matters.
Think of Siobhan as the calm in Andy's storm!!!
In each episode, we’ll dig into the stuff that shapes how we live and lead – from gender equality and parenting, to burnout, brave decisions, and big ‘what ifs’.
Why Not? & What If?
Out of Control? Neurodiversity, overdiagnosis and workplaces that must change!
Andy and Siobhan dive into the noisy debate about neurodiversity, ADHD and mental health labels. Andy shares a very personal story of receiving conflicting opinions about ADHD and how many “ADHD traits” can also look like burnout. Together they explore why one in five children are recorded with special educational needs, what EHCPs are trying to solve, and how rigid systems in schools and workplaces push people out instead of bringing them in.
They unpack emotional intelligence, gendered mental load, masking, dyslexia and visual processing quirks like SMIDSY, asking a simple question: are we labelling people, or really understanding them?
You will hear:
- ADHD versus burnout and why the responses can be the same
- Why labels help when used for understanding and harm when used for limits
- How education and workplaces could adapt for different brains
- A practical coaching lens for supporting people who process the world differently
We also put out a genuine ask. If you are an illustrator or publisher who can help bring “My Awesome Mind” to life, please get in touch.
Got thoughts or a story to share? Email us at lets talk@whynotwhatif.com
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Note: Personal experiences and opinions only. This is not medical advice.
Got a story or a view? Email letstalk@whynotwhatif.com
— we might do a follow-up episode with your takes.
Welcome to Why Not and What If?
SPEAKER_00:And
SPEAKER_01:I'm Siobhan Godden, a HR consultant, coach, and the one who listens through the noise to what really matters. Think of me as the calm to Andy's creative storm. Hi, this is Andy Cracknell, creative whirlwind, disruptor of dull thinking and allergic to doing things the usual
SPEAKER_02:way. Thanks Siobhan. I'm also a marketing and communications consultant. And this is
SPEAKER_01:the podcast where we explore the messy, magical intersection of life, work, leadership and all the bits we're not supposed to talk about. Let's get into it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you can take the girl out of Surrey, but you can't take Surrey out of the girl. It's funny, though, because my mates... Wherever I am, I get the piss taken out of me because I've got a load of mates in Bristol that call me posh boy because I have a Surrey accent because I was born and brought up in Surrey. But then when I'm up this way, I get called a farmer because they pick up on the Bristolian twang because I was down there for 14 years. So wherever I am, it doesn't help. But you can tell when I'm tipsy or I'm upset or angry because Bristolian comes out. I turn proper bristle when I'm mad or I'm... This is so funny.
SPEAKER_01:And I get proper posh when I'm angry. If I'm telling the kids off, and they'll start looking at me going, Mum, you're so posh.
SPEAKER_02:Anyway, I suppose we'd better start recording this podcast, hadn't we? Slight sidetrack there. Okay, so there's been some turbulence in the media recently around neurodiversity and mental health conditions. And Sir Jeremy Hunt has said... that young people are being overdiagnosed with mental health conditions. And there was a report that's come out titled Out of Control. And that argues that the definitions of mental ill health and neurodivergence have been socially expanded, which has led to an overwhelm in the system. So one in five children have special educational needs and disabilities. So that's SEND, which places huge pressure on support services. And the report which made... Oh, my phone's paying. Hang on. You see, rookie error. You see, we need to be making sure our phones are on. I'm sorry. So the report which focuses on addressing the rise of psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders among children and young people calls for a reinvention of education, which is what we were talking about in our podcast last week or the week before with Yasmin Wells. That was an amazing podcast, wasn't it? Our little boy, Alex Nine, has written a book called My Beautiful mind you've got to go back and listen to it if you haven't
SPEAKER_01:yes and it'll be coming out soon hopefully
SPEAKER_02:yes
SPEAKER_01:can you imagine I mean the book
SPEAKER_02:no it's out it came out today the book oh no the book on that note so we so the reason I started talking to Yasmin was because she's trying to get it published the main problem is we're struggling with graphic designers and illustrators because we need some pictures for the book so bless her Yasmin's buried herself in art packages to try and do the artwork but she's struggling with it so if you're out there and you're an illustrator or a publisher and you're curious please have a listen to the podcast I think we called it My Beautiful Mind didn't we that's what it was called hang on a minute it was called My Awesome Mind sorry if you can help then please get in touch because we really want to see that book published for Yasmin anyway so the report that Jeremy Hunt was referring to focuses on addressing the rise in psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders among children and young people. And there have been calls for a reinvention of education, health and care plans, so EHCPs, and for children with the most severe needs to get the support they deserve faster. Now, there's another headline out there, which is workplaces must change attitudes to neurodiversity, according to chef Heston Blumenthal. And did you know that the majority of Britain now self-identifies neurodiversity As experts warn of risk in diagnosing eccentric personalities. Just for legal reasons, I've pulled those three articles from lbc.co.uk, but it was a phone-in they had yesterday where the debate got really heated and it really wound me up, so I figured, right, I'm going to get Siobhan on this one. So I'm going to kick off with... with my point on this. So the beginning of this year, my mental health was not good at all. And I decided I needed to do something about it. The circumstances were that we were going through a number of things as a family, and it's to do with supporting young people with mental health problems. And the psychologist that was involved in that part of life had said to me, have you ever considered that you may be ADHD? you are blatantly ADHD and blatantly really high on the spectrum. Right. Now, when a psychologist tells you that, you've got no reason to question it. So I went down a rabbit hole, started researching it. Every box was ticked. That's me through and through. And you've only got to look at my LinkedIn. I was down rabbit holes researching and writing about stuff and publishing stuff and everything else. Then got to this point with my mental health where I was like, yeah, I need to do something about it. And he said, you're not ADHD. Interesting. Now, he had the same information that the other psychologist had, same conversation, same questions were asked, same answers were given. Okay. And the disparity is huge between the two diagnoses, right? Now, the only way I'm ever going to find out for sure is to go through the diagnostics process, which in and of itself is questionable, apparently, but the waiting list on that is about seven years. Now, That conflict in diagnosis did more damage to me than it helped. Because for four or five months, I was like, oh, I'm ADHD. Okay. Well, now my wife took it in. She went off and did a phenomenal amount of research to understand how that impacts relationships and parenting and all kinds of stuff. And so much of it, all of it made sense. So it completely impacted and affected our family and the way I thought about myself, how I saw others, how I dealt with And then I'd gone and seen a psychiatrist who completely upended all of it. Now, the other thing the psychiatrist said was the symptoms, and he did use that word, they're not symptoms, they're characteristics. The characteristics of ADHD are also the characteristics of burnout.
SPEAKER_01:That's true,
SPEAKER_00:yes.
SPEAKER_02:And he said, you have experienced more life trauma than probably 90% of the world population And what's happening to you, these characteristics or symptoms, as he put it, is your normal, healthy human brain reacting to that stimulus. So actually, it's reinforcing that there's nothing wrong with you. Your brain's doing what it's supposed to do, what it was designed to do, because it can't cope. So it's doing these things as coping mechanisms, as healing, as everything else. And he said, why is it so important for you to get a label or an identity around what's going on? And I said, it's not. I just need to understand what's happening. And you've given me a version of what's happening. The other version is I have ADHD. So ultimately, the characteristics are the same and actually the responses to those are the same. So the point is that we've got these three headlines come up. The neurodiversity diagnostics thing for me is a challenge. So, you know, the majority of Britain now self-identifies neurodivergent. Well, that's worrying in and of itself. The diagnostics process is not there. There's a seven-year waitlist where I am and you hear about all other things. There's other options like you can go private, but the NHS pay for it, but there's still a long waitlist. Now, the bit around workplaces that need to change attitudes around neurodiversity, 100% agree. You have a theory about this, don't you?
SPEAKER_01:I do. So this is more around the neurodiversity piece as well. So I do a lot of work around emotional intelligence. Now, I'm not a neuroscientist or a psychologist, although I would like to be both, if I'm honest, and I want to do a course in neuroscience. But they're very expensive, so I haven't done it yet. And I'm a geek. But what I do learn, what I have learned, and I use this in my leadership development programs, is how a bit of understanding about how the brain works. So we've got three parts to our brain. We've got our lizard brain, where our fight and flight sits, you know, where survival, you know, something, a bear's coming up to attack you. Do you fight it or do you run away? It's pure survival. Then we've evolved a bit and had our emotional brain. That's where we started to learn a bit of language and we started to feel deeper emotions, I suppose. And then we've evolved further and created our rational brain, which is where we can You know, make sense of things, think rationally, have a bit of logic. Now, the problem with our brains is because our brain is designed to keep us alive, we have the same triggers as getting an email is a really good example. You get an email from somebody like your boss. It has the same effect on our brain as being attacked by a bear. So our brains go into that fight and flight, all that emotional space, and then it loops around and around and around. And then you can't tap into your rational brain. brain because your brain is protecting itself and you. So it's like, no, we're in survival mode now. We can't think rationally. You just need to react. And this is a problem because our world has evolved quicker than our brain's. And this is where some of the mental health issues are coming from because we're in survival mode pretty much all the time. And then I have the belief that there is an increase in neurodiversity. I think partly that's through education and us understanding it better and being more aware. But also, I think it's evolution. I think it's our brains evolving.
SPEAKER_02:Which really resonates for me because it's something that I've always felt. There's that age-old... trope about women that they can multitask and men can't. Yeah. So men can't multitask. So if you want a guy to do anything, you give them a list of one by one things to do. You don't get them to do loads at the same time. I want to develop your theory because I completely agree with it. Women have been able to multitask since the dawn of time.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Men haven't.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I agree.
SPEAKER_02:Now, the neurodiversity piece in women, so women are hard Yes. Yes. Yes. So to develop the theory a bit further, actually think that the evolution in your argument is that it's less of a step for women to evolve to... Sorry, I didn't make the actual core point, which is that back when we were cave people, women had a lot more to think about than men did.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, men would just have to... Go and hunt and kill and
SPEAKER_02:food. Yeah, that's it. And build stuff, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Whereas women had to think about procreation about nursing about keeping the home the cooking and the food and
SPEAKER_01:education
SPEAKER_02:education
SPEAKER_01:yep the kids and also women would even though the men would work together in the hunting with women it was very much You know, that phrase, he takes a village. That's what it was. It was like we see in animals now, like lionesses. They all help to bring up the cubs, don't they? It's that same thing.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly. So women's existence has been far more complex from a multitasking perspective since the dawn of humanity, whereas for men it was never the case. And the point here is that women were already evolved to the point of their ability to think on multiple levels so the the analogy in ADHD is that it's like having a web browser open with 20 tabs open
SPEAKER_00:yes
SPEAKER_02:women have always been able to do that
SPEAKER_00:yeah
SPEAKER_02:men haven't Basically, men are one step behind in terms of the evolution point. And all of this is driven by the fact that we get up in the morning and we have mobile phones, we have computers, we have technology around us that are throwing bits of information at us constantly.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:And our subconscious brain is having to handle all that somehow. And it's not coping, so the evolution is neurodiversity. Now, I just want to give you a quick real-life example. When my youngest was born, I was away three days a week working with a client in Nottingham. My wife was at home. She went back to work quite quickly because she's her own boss, so she had to, to an extent. She was managing full-time clients, event management, one particular event which was absolutely enormous. It was an international event for 1,000 attendees, audience across 54 countries. It was massive. She was solely responsible for the comms, marketing, and event planning. Whilst dealing with a newborn who had dietary challenges, stomach problems, and looking after our 13 year old and making sure she was 10 at the time making sure she was alright and checking in with me whereas all I was doing was getting up going to work working for three days and coming home
SPEAKER_01:yeah
SPEAKER_02:so Men and women are leagues apart from that perspective. But the neurodiversity story for me, the theory, 100% agree with you, it's evolution.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But is there anything that plays out in the difference between men and women and the ability to multitask? Interesting. Am I coming across the right way or not? Because I'm really conscious about what I'm saying here.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think it's... Well, I think for me, though, it's deeper than just multitasking. But I hear what you're saying, which is... the male brain has had to evolve to be more adaptive and to multitask because that's what society needs now that's how the world of work works I mean even if you had like a most jobs now need to have a degree of adaptability they are all fast paced they're all ever changing you know I used to remember doing like projects and programs that would be two years in the making and then it would be situation normal for a year or two then there might be another change program whereas now there's like change programs every three months and you're not stopping between them because it's just going and going now with ai it's even faster so there is a inherent need survival need to be more adaptive i would say do
SPEAKER_02:you think there is a difference in the genders though
SPEAKER_01:yes i do i think i think you're right i think women women's brains are better designed for multitasking because we had to be, as you say, when we were cave dwellers. And even when, you know, if you think old fashioned times before, it's only really in the last hundred years that women have really worked. It's very recent history in the grand scheme of things. But even when we weren't in a employed job as it were there was still a lot of multitasking that had to be done and without technology there was a lot of manual work that had to be done as well in the home so you can see why even then it would have been a lot of there was a lot of different things to do and now we've added on to that working as well which is where why women are getting burnt out because they're still taking some of this mental load we talked about this in a previous podcast and that's and that could be manifesting with some ADHD trait with women who are getting burnout, potentially. I hadn't really associated the two, but you make a really good point there.
SPEAKER_02:It's interesting, isn't it? Because this goes back to our core, our core values around equality. But when I was saying all that stuff, I was so worried about how it was coming across. Because it does, because... Did it sound derogatory? I don't know. Let's let the audience decide that. But the intent behind what I was saying was just to say, actually, yes, the theory's there, but for me, women are one step ahead in terms of evolution. But you just made an interesting point, which is around the fact that women are now experiencing that burnout because effectively, home hasn't been replaced by work for women in a lot of cases. Actually, it's in addition to. And then when you go back listened to the podcast we've recorded before about what was it the something load the
SPEAKER_01:the mental load
SPEAKER_02:the mental load on mothers and on women they're still having to balance a newborn baby and managing home and everything else but they are but
SPEAKER_01:again they are yeah if we think about that if we put aside the societal norms at the moment and what society thinks men and women should be doing if we put that aside i think that fundamentally there is a there is a about brain function because I think I mentioned before that you know my husband was very hands-on with our kids he's a great dad he does loads of stuff around the house but he thinks about things in a very different way like he his brain I suppose I don't want to say more linear but it's not because he's also neurodiverse but but wouldn't it wouldn't occur to him to forward think about the kids dentist appointments or their haircuts it is not because he doesn't care or he doesn't think it's important, it just doesn't occur. His brain's just not wired to think about all these different things all at once. It's almost compartmentalised.
SPEAKER_02:Is that because he's living in the here and now? So that projection of what's coming up is less there? Or is it that it's... You see, I don't even think that...
SPEAKER_00:I don't think
SPEAKER_02:that. No, because where my head was going, because I'm exactly the same, because Emma's the one that looks after dental appointments, doctor's appointments, vaccines, kids' parties, present buying for other people and all that stuff. It's the emotive stuff, the longer-term emotional stuff.
SPEAKER_01:It's the nurturing stuff. And again, the playdates and friendship groups, and that's from us knowing the importance of being in a pack.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you see, and this is the other thing I was going to mention, is that one of the Yes. If they're on the driveway going out, I'll pause in the porch and wait for them to go before I go out.
SPEAKER_01:But some of that could be where you live because when I lived near you, I was the same. But where I live now, it's not like that. So I think that could be, that's a whole other podcast about
SPEAKER_02:regions.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it is. Actually, that's a good one. Actually, that's
SPEAKER_02:true because Bristol, here we go, first major sidetrack of the podcast. When I lived in Bristol, I love, right, so I love Bristol. So I've lived in the UK the three significant areas I've lived in, because I've lived all over the UK, is Bristol, Leeds and London. When I moved up to Leeds when I was in my late teens, early twenties, I couldn't get over the fact that, and that was from London. So I grew up in Guildford and Surrey and Sussex, so proper posh home counties boy. I couldn't get over the fact that when you got on a bus in Leeds, people would talk to you. And then I came back about four years later, back into my comfort zone where I didn't have to speak to people, which is probably the neurodiversity thing. and then when I went down to Bristol so I was in Leeds for four years I went down to Bristol I was there 14 years and when I came back from Bristol I felt it because I got so used to the social caring neighbours we had street parties we used to get hammered with our neighbours like all that kind of stuff but we don't do it here
SPEAKER_01:No you see I'm from not far from Guildford and my formative years were spent in Surrey and I had my friendship group from school and that was it there wasn't any chit chat in the street there wasn't really a community whereas now I live in a village and everyone knows everyone pretty much there's some people that keep to themselves but you know there's for example we've got a cricket club and once a year they do a little proms thing and it's basically older middle aged men in their bands playing bands and we have cheap booze from the social club and the whole village turns out and And we have a night out. And that sort of thing happens all the time. That is a bit of a sidetrack, but an interesting one. I can't remember what the point was now. I
SPEAKER_02:can't either. I am trying to remember what we were talking about. Oh, no, that was it. You were talking about the emotional strategic planning for women when they're thinking about the emotional stuff and community and everything else. And men don't worry about that. They just go and work.
SPEAKER_01:And nurturing and things like that. And I think that's just our brains. I mean, our brains are different. And this is why I'm interested in neuroscience, because we can scan our brains now and I do think I do think our brains are inherently built differently, like our bodies are. And that's another podcast because there's a book, and I can't remember, Invisible Women is one of them, but there's another book where it references the fact that, I think it might have been Invisible Women, where the whole world is designed around an average male and women are the copy. So the male was the original and the woman is the copy. But because women are more complex, because we are, our brains are more complex, Is this attitude about, or the
SPEAKER_02:lack of investment in finding out more about women physiology, a misogynistic thing?
SPEAKER_01:Yes. It is. And actually, it is. And it's also, again, it's an evolutionary thing. So if you do go away and read Invisible Women, one of the really interesting case studies they use is about town planning. and how towns are designed by men but if they were designed by women or for women or family units it would change the social economic relevance in that town you know things like well where's where's the child care where's the schools how are they going to get there where is those kind of things that maybe in modern society we start to think about more but previously hadn't and there's a really good case study in brazil around how it had a huge impact on the local economy because women physically couldn't work because they couldn't get there so it's things like that that just doesn't occur to them but in terms of the medical stuff I mean that's a whole other podcast because that is a misogyny thing and it's all a bit complex and gaslighting and stuff that goes on there so that's a whole other topic honestly.
SPEAKER_02:We do need to record that or we need to have a conversation around that because there's We've touched on a few things that are fairly sinister, especially around health and safety adaptations and stuff. Going back to the headlines we were originally talking about around the over-diagnosis of mental health conditions in young people, the thing that worries me with this is that if you... And my example early on around the ADHD diagnosis is if you tell a child you're this, do you put a label on them? Somebody's going to have to correct me if I'm wrong on this. There's a... generational thing around labeling. So there's one generation, which I always get mixed. Are we Gen X or are we, we're Gen X, aren't we?
SPEAKER_01:I'm a millennial, just.
SPEAKER_02:So I'm Gen X, you're millennial.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. In fact, I'm a micro generation.
SPEAKER_02:Don't overcomplicate it. It's too much for my old brain. Basically, the generation below mine, so that's millennials, vehemently, they're label averse. So like label,
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:The generation after that love labels.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:And then the generation after that don't. And it alternates.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know what the boomers think. I'd be interested if there's a boomer listening to tell us what you think of labels because I know boomers in my family used to love labeling me a moron. So I think they like their labels. But we'll leave that one to one side for a moment. But yeah, the point is that actually if we're diagnosing stuff there's two key things here is the diagnosis sound so is the diagnosis based on science that factors in adaptations and changes in our environments and how they affect our neurology so my example being a classic, so characteristics of ADHD are also characteristics of burnout. So why would you diagnose someone with ADHD if they're just burnt out? We use that as the staple example. But then when you put the label on somebody, it's the impact it has. And with us, as I said, it completely changed our family because then everybody was like, well, dad or Andy's ADHD. So it completely changed the approach. Now, if the diagnosis is based on poor science or not up to date science, then And you could be creating positives and or negatives in people's lives that shouldn't be there.
SPEAKER_00:And
SPEAKER_02:then how they behave and how they interact with society. So this thing around the overdiagnosis of mental health and neurodivergence in society... is really concerning because it almost smacks of that, what you were saying earlier about the difference in physiology for women, people ignoring it or saying it's too difficult to look at. Rather than actually research it and make sure the science is sound, we just say, oh yeah, you're bipolar or you're ADHD or you're whatever. But in actual fact, people may not be. And I'm a living case of that because I don't know at the moment. I'm waiting to get a proper formal diagnosis done. I don't know if I'm ADHD or not. I think I am. I'm 95% sure I am. But that doubt's there because of the conflict between the two psychologists. And for the record, they're not what some people would perceive to be Mickey Mouse psychologists. They're proper mental health sector-based, highly qualified, highly respected psychologists. So we're not just talking about a conversation in a room and somebody's going, oh, you might be ADHD. There is a lot of questioning and assessment that's gone on in the background it's just not formal
SPEAKER_01:yeah
SPEAKER_02:right so
SPEAKER_01:do you know what I think it might be an element especially when we talk about ADHD because so my son is dyslexic right now he was diagnosed in when he was in year two so what was that seven he was seven but they picked it up in reception because he was a bright kid but he could not read and he couldn't hear the phonic sound so they taught They teach him phonics now and it was making no sense to him whatsoever. So it was quite blatantly obvious that he couldn't hear the sounds and he was probably dyslexic. Now, when we went through the diagnosis with him, what was interesting was the psychologist, yeah, education psychologist was saying they don't really call it dyslexia anymore. It's a specific learning need because they've identified, I think there's seven or eight different traits Numbers,
SPEAKER_02:sounds.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, no, numbers is a whole different thing. Numbers is dyscalculia.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:It's things like memory processing speed. It's hearing the sounds. You can hear the sounds, but it's how your brain processes the sounds. It's reading, but that's, again, what your eyes are seeing and how your brain's processing what it's seeing. There was about seven or eight different ones. and every dyslexic will have a different selection of the seven and different strengths. Now, I thought that was very interesting because they were saying, well, that's why we call it specific learning need rather than dyslexia because dyslexia is a catch-all and people go, oh, it means you can't read. Well, actually, you can have some dyslexics who are very good at reading, but their memory processing is shocking. Now, one of the things with my son is his memory processing is shocking, so he needs techniques to put things in his long-term her memory bank which is horrendous for things like exams but anyway we're working through it and he's doing all right actually but i think dyslexia has been around not been around it's been around forever but the knowledge around dyslexia is probably more established than adhd so there's a bit more nuance about dyslexia now like if you if we talk about in the 70s or 80s where people weren't diagnosed with dyslexia or if they were it was like you can't read now 20 years, 30 years later is much more nuanced. So I'm wondering if there's an element of that with ADHD that we just don't know enough about it yet. And it's way too generalised.
SPEAKER_02:You know, my ADHD characteristics are slightly different to somebody else's and theirs are different to other people. So I think you're 100% spot on. There is a side, there's another rabbit hole distraction I want to quickly throw in here. Okay. And actually this is a health and safety public announcement type thing. Have you ever heard of SMIDZ?
SPEAKER_01:No.
SPEAKER_02:So Smidsy, S-M-I-D-S-Y, is Sorry Mate, I Didn't See You. Okay. And it's a campaign that was launched by a group of people around motorcyclists. And you quite often see when you get up to a junction, you'll see signs that say check for motorcycles or check for bikes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:This goes back to what you said about how the brain processes stuff. So the first thing is, did you know that what you actually see is not what you conscious mind is seeing. So the mechanics are that what you're seeing, everything is upside down.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. And also there's a few millisecond delays as well, isn't there?
SPEAKER_02:That's right. So your brain turns the image it's seeing through your optic nerve the right way up. Okay. So what's going into your eyes is upside down to what your brain is seeing. So that's point number one. The delay is is the time it takes for the brain to adapt that. But the ability of a person's brain to mirror the image, if it's delayed, could be a form of neurodiversity. And I forget which one it is. I think it's dyspraxia, but I'm not 100% sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that would make sense because that's all about spatial awareness, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02:That's right. And coordination.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Now, the ability to predict the movement of an item. So if somebody's kicking a football towards you, if you think about footballers or tennis players one of the skills that they hold is the ability to predict where that ball's going to end up so that when they swing the racket the racket meets the point it's not going to the point the ball is now it's going to the point the ball will be at when it gets to the point it's intended to same with a football
SPEAKER_00:yeah
SPEAKER_02:so the ability to have that level of coordination and to be good at those two sports and many others and rugby is an interesting one because it's not easy to predict where the ball's going to go because of the shape of it, shows a faster processing, faster visual processing mechanism. Right. As well as applying logical thinking prediction and everything else. That's point number one. Going back to Smidzi, this is another optic thing. If you picture you're sat in a car at a T-junction and you're looking from left to right, so you're looking to see what traffic there is, what happens is your brain sees a series of images that are fractions of a second apart.
SPEAKER_00:So it's
SPEAKER_02:not seeing a 4K high frame rate video. It's just seeing a series of pictures. The reason that there is a high number of road traffic incidents incidents where motorcyclists are taken out at T junctions is because as you scan from left to right if the motorcycle is in the point in the visual cycle where the brain isn't seeing the image you just won't see that motorcyclist and it doesn't matter if they're wearing fluorescence if the headlights on full beam whatever they're doing they could be stood there completely butt naked you would not see them because the way you scan your brain is missing the snapshot where it sees them. So the Smitty campaign is all about raising awareness. And I can't remember what the term is. There is a term for this phenomena that says that when you pull up at a junction, don't just pull up, scan left to right or right to left and then go. You have to scan three times because mathematically, the world in front of you will have moved enough that when you scan it three times, you will not have missed anything. And that's why these motorcyclists keep getting knocked off and killed.
SPEAKER_00:because
SPEAKER_02:the motorcycle is in that frame where it's not seen. Now, I'm curious around that because we go back to what you were saying about dyslexia and visual processing is when you then have a variance in that because of somebody's ability to process visual stimulus, so optic nerve input, that's going to create inconsistencies in recovery or coping mechanisms. So what am I saying? If you are neurotypical or if you are neurodivergent, you have to accept that when campaigns like Smidzy come out, that still doesn't guarantee anything. It's all about the awareness around it. But that's quite freaky because that just shows how little we can actually trust what we're seeing. The other thing, the final point is that if you think do you have you ever seen a time-lapse video
SPEAKER_01:yes yeah
SPEAKER_02:right so when you watch a time-lapse video and it's not the ones that I think are really beautiful are the ones where you've got a camera set up and it records from dusk through to dawn and you see the way the stars move and everything else it's very bitty and it jumps that's because it's single photographs that are stitched together that's how we see day to day the thing that makes it smooth so what we're visually seeing is like a video is because our brain creates the gaps in between which is fiction because you're not actually seeing it it's fiction it's made up it's generated by your brain the same with sound slightly different but an element of what you're actually hearing is made up so If you're in a crowded pub, if we were sat in a crowded pub and you were telling me something and I'm picking up individual words, but not the whole sentence, my brain patches together and retrospectively creates the sound in my head. That means I've heard what you said, but I've not actually heard it.
SPEAKER_01:And that might explain some of the people with ADHD. Sometimes when they're distracted by lots of noise and stuff and then can't hear what's going on, they can hear fine, but they can't process what they're hearing.
SPEAKER_02:It's to do with the processing. because your brain is saying so if I was sat in a room if there were seven people sat around me and I'm listening to you I'm also listening to them and that's where the conversations get garbled because you could be saying to me I walked down the street I went into Marks and Spencer's and Morrison's and B&Q but the group behind me could be talking about the fact that they went to Thorpe Park or Chessington World of Adventures and I would hear you telling me I went to Morrison's Chessington World of Adventures and B&Q and And this is why all of this extra stimulus in the world around us is so, I'm going to use the word, dangerous. Because, and I find it with Emma, you know, the TV will be on in the background, the kids will be shouting and screaming at each other, and she's telling me something. And I hear something completely different to what she tells me she told me two days later.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So... this is where the evolution comes in around the ability to multitask. But I think the thing we have to remember as human beings, and Smitty is a great example of this, is that you have to, there has to be a proportion of what you do where you're verifying or second, or validating what you've actually seen or heard. And you hear about this in coaching and you'll know about this where you're in a conversation with somebody. There's that confirmation piece where you say, sorry, can I just confirm, what I've just heard you say is this. We have to be doing that as an internal when we're thinking about what we're seeing. And the example being when you sat at that T-junction, have you actually acknowledged or registered that there is no motorcyclist there rather than just accepting that your brain is telling you there isn't and therefore there isn't?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Freaky, isn't
SPEAKER_01:it? I don't actually know how we survive. How are we getting up in the morning and walking around? It's so complicated, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02:But it is. But this goes, but this goes back to the point, doesn't it? Because if you apply the Smitty theory to being stood at the mouth of your cave and you're scanning the horizon for threats and there's a saber tooth tiger sat in a bush over there, you don't sit and walk out and you get killed.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I'm doing this as I'm talking, but the number of times that you go through life where you think, how did I get away with that? Where you didn't notice something and then something has happened. You're like, how the hell did I miss that? How did I not see that? So Otto, my youngest, has got squint. And one of the tests that they run is when you're looking at a pile of things on the floor, do you just see a shape of a pile or can you identify the different things that are within the pile? That again is all down to the... optic nerve output being processed by the brain he would look i had it the other day he was looking for his auto pistol which was sat in a pile of stuff and he was stood right over it and i was like dude it's right in front of you it's like i can't see it where is it daddy
SPEAKER_00:wow
SPEAKER_02:and it was right in front of him and he couldn't see it and it's to do with the way his brain processes what's it seeing it couldn't separate the different shapes he could just see a pile of stuff
SPEAKER_00:yeah yeah
SPEAKER_02:and then you've got color variance and color blindness is where where it causes problems for people with colour blindness. It's the separation of shapes and everything. So you're right, how we survive It's more luck than judgment, I think.
SPEAKER_01:And how our brains have even managed to evolve into this thing, this computer. My son, being a dyslexic, I would say he's more observant than most. He sees an awful lot. Especially as a teenager, you don't take any interest in anything, but he does. He sees things, even sometimes human behavior, but he spots things and notices things that I don't see.
SPEAKER_02:Well, this is an interesting point because one of the things that has benefited me from a professional perspective and observations that people have made of me. So there's two examples. When I was in my late, early 20s, I used to go clubbing a lot. But I could never relax. I was in nightclubs, stood at the bar, because my social group at that point, there was three or four guys and three or four girls in a group. We'd all go out. And I always took this protective role because where we used to go out wasn't the nicest of places. There was an element of risk. one for the girls being hit on inappropriately and two you know just general violence and aggression
SPEAKER_01:was it guildford
SPEAKER_02:no it wasn't there was a period of time where guildford was pretty grim i wouldn't go out in guildford um but anyway and i was always seen as the security guard of the group because i would notice stuff and it might be it would be a sea of people two three four five well no even more than that a thousand people in this nightclub and I'd know there was a fight about to kick off on the other side of the dance floor because I could just see read the human behaviour I could see and notice things I thought that was normal But then mates of mine would get into trouble and they'd be stood right next to things. How the hell did you not know that was going to happen? And like, how did you know it was? You were stood 60 feet away and you knew it was going to happen. It's the same thing where the head of GCHQ has said that national security would not be as safe as it is if it wasn't for neurodivergent people.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:And that's because one example is data processing where you get intelligence reports and stuff come in. You notice things that other people don't notice. This is all. So where I'm going with all of this is how much of this is not just. What's the physiology of the brain? Psycho, psycho. It's not just how the brain's built, sorry, how the brain processes and interprets stuff. It's how the brain's built as well. So for me, the neurodivergent stuff, and this is one of the main reasons I'm 99% sure I'm ADHD, is because my level of observation, the other example is out walking the dogs. Emma and the kids will be playing with the dog and somebody else will come into the park 200, 300, 400 feet away with a dog that's out of control or not on a lead or not behaving the way it should and instantly the hair on the back of my head goes up and it's like right otto's at risk because he's little and pepper are cockers at risk so i need to move them away i've had that happen five or six times each time pip has been attacked or the dog's gone up to otto and scared the hell out of him and i've predicted it every single time i've just not been able to move fast enough
SPEAKER_00:yeah
SPEAKER_02:or get the others to move fast enough to get away from the risk
SPEAKER_00:yeah
SPEAKER_02:yeah
SPEAKER_01:Well, a little story for you, going a bit off a tangent. So a couple of weeks ago, Simon and Luke, my husband and son, were going off somewhere. I can't even remember where they were going now. And they were going down the dual carriageway. And obviously Simon was driving. Luke was in the passenger seat. And they both saw ahead of time there was an accident that was going to happen. And Luke said it out loud. He's like, that's a problem up there. And it ended up being somebody had tried had undertaken as the car in the right hand lane pulled in so smashed into that car spun around the 360 and in a third car who didn't see it coming crashed into them as well so it was quite a serious accident now Simon started slowing down before anything of that happened it's almost like a sixth sense but Luke also had it and they ended up pulling over and helping these people and one of them gave us a little reward which was super lovely of them that's why they did it but most people drove past because A either they didn't want to get involved or B they hadn't seen it they'd seen it too late and had no choice but to just go round and that was really interesting because it was when he came home two hours later he was like I don't know why you could see that happening I could see they could see it playing out before it happened which I thought was really interesting because I don't think I would have done if I was driving or in a passenger seat
SPEAKER_02:yeah And I think this is the other thing, isn't it? Because people talk about neurodiversity in a sixth sense. I don't think it's a sixth sense. I think it's an ability to process things or predict or process things quicker and faster and to kind of see what's likely to happen. But it's not a sixth sense.
SPEAKER_01:It's almost like what you were saying before about seeing patterns in things. I think that's partly what it is. They see there's a pattern happening and the result of that is going to be this.
SPEAKER_02:Well, if you go to the concept around the Matrix film. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a thing around. It's the analysis of data that allows you to predict. And you could argue about life experience or previous patterns, but there's something around your diversity, specifically ADHD, and your ability to what's perceived as being prediction, but where Simon and I wouldn't see it as prediction. It was blatantly obvious what was going to
SPEAKER_01:happen. Going back to, I was just reflecting on the original point about the over, what was it? over qualifying over labeling people with neurodiversity is that a good thing is it not a good thing is it coming from a place of self-awareness I think it can be helpful but if it's coming from a place of boxing you in and telling you what you can't do and an excuse for certain behaviors like who's the guy off MasterChef who said he reason he behaved badly was because he is autistic I mean come on that's dreadful. Loads of autistic people have come out saying, excuse me, you don't tell us with that brush.
SPEAKER_02:You can't use it as an excuse for poor behaviour because ultimately there is an expectation on individuals within society to behave a certain way. I mean, you go right back to the fundamentals of Christianity, the Ten Commandments, or modern day world, the laws of the land. There is a standard that's set by society and it doesn't matter whether you're neurodivergent or neurotypical you are still capable of behaving properly so that's really poor but I think It just begs the question because there's almost two societies now. There's the neurodivergent society and there's the neurotypical society where there is a difference in accepted behavior.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So you're right. It's about intent. In your world of coaching, it goes back to what Yasmin was saying, which was around the first conversation you should ever have with a colleague is how do you work? How do you get the best from yourself? This is how I work. Because then... which is an environment where labels are appropriate because it enables a better understanding. So the use of labels is really important. To be able to say I'm ADHD or I'm fast-paced or I'm creative or I'm strategic or I'm an implementer or whatever the label is, they're hugely advantageous. But what happens where labeling becomes negative is where the use of the label is negative. to have a negative impact on someone or be seen as a criticism. And I think that's where the challenge lies. Because society, and I see this in black and white, society is such that there are people I'll tell on ADHD, and they're almost... in the right way celebratory about oh brilliant okay now I understand you now I understand how to work with you blah blah blah and then there are people I say I'm ADHD and they go I'm not working with you I can't deal with people like you and that's where it's a problem
SPEAKER_01:and that's where the reputation of it being the naughty boy syndrome back in school comes from with ADHD especially but you just made me think as well actually because thinking about Yasmin as well I'm wondering if and I don't want to become too negative about the education system here, but if he's saying there's an increase in diagnoses for young people, that would be because usually it would be because either a teacher's identified a need or they're struggling in the school environment for whatever reason or there might be a behavioural issue. What I see in the school system, and because of the nature of the job of teachers, They tend to be of... their brains tend to work this is a massive generalization but very that is very systemic so they go to university and they learn how to be a teacher and they have to follow curriculum and it's all very it's quite formulaic and they and they're almost forced to follow a script to a certain degree because the government will say well this is how you teach maths now I mean for example I'm using maths because they learn completely differently to how I was I was taught maths and how those teachers have done that I don't know because they would have learned the way I learned, which seemed much simpler. But anyway, it's almost like dictated to them as like, this is how, this is the curriculum, this is how you teach it. And if that doesn't work for the child or the young person, then they need an EHCP or something to justify doing things differently.
SPEAKER_02:Which is exactly the point, because the EHCP is a coping mechanism for the education system that's broken.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly. And that's exactly it. So it's not really a label, it's like, or It's a call for help from the education to say, what the hell do we do now? Because we've tried our systems and it doesn't work for this person. How do we get them to learn? And that's fundamentally the problem, I think.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it's in that statistic, isn't it? One in five children in England have special educational needs and disabilities. One in five. Now, we kind of touched on this with Yasmin, and you just made the point. The education system's broken. It's not the teachers that are the problem.
SPEAKER_00:No.
SPEAKER_02:It's the system and it's the way that kids are educated and it's the lack of flexibility to adapt to learning styles and teaching styles. There's A lady I've worked with who's done some work around the relationship between teaching styles and learning styles. If you put a teacher in who has a particular learning style that doesn't work, sorry, put a teacher in who's got a particular teaching style that's not compatible with a particular learning style, you're on a hiding to nothing. You're not going to teach that child anything.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And this is where this dictatorial perception of I'm the teacher, you'll do it my way. versus the way it should be and that incidentally is not set by the teachers that's set by the system so it's not it's not the teachers that are the problem it's the system but what it's it's okay so those two headlines young young people are being over diagnosed with mental health conditions which goes on to say that one in five have send needs and then Heston Blumenthal has said workplaces must change attitudes to neurodiversity the underlying message for both of those is that the system is wrong yes so the environments are not conducive to human beings there's no there's no flexibility there's no adaptability there's no The default is a default. There should be no default. It should be flexible and fluid. If I look at the way my kids learn, so my oldest, my middle one, and my youngest, they're three different people completely. They all learn in very different ways. And when I talk to any of them about a particular thing, I adapt what I'm saying to a way that works for them. That should be the same in the education system.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Now, because you've got class sizes that are 30 plus and all of the other stuff which we all know about in terms of the structure of the school day and everything else, and then look at the workplace, we are the lowest productivity in Europe, but we work the longest hours.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well, what's that telling you? Yeah, yeah. So all of this stuff, it's no longer even about whether you're neurodiverse or neurotypical. Because there is a school of thought that doesn't like the term neurodiverse because everybody is diverse in the way that they think. It's just that they're within two labels, neurodiverse and neurotypical, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That's a whole other podcast.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But the point is, is that if you create a world which only works for neurotypical, you're actually only creating a world which works for one part of neurotypical.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:So logically, how can that work? It can't work. Yeah. That's why you end up with, you know, the societal knock-on effect is, and specifically more about people with ADHD and neurodiverse. But if you're neurodiverse, you're more likely to end up in court and in prison.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:You're neurotypical.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So we could, you could, if you can ever get a politician to see it this way, you could say that actually if you fix the education system to work the way it should, the current problems they face around prison populations will be considerably reduced. And it would be the same for workplaces as well. well because these people wouldn't drop out of society. It wouldn't fall out of that structure that's in place that's supposed to keep everybody safe and included. It's self-destructive. We're excluding people. We're proactively excluding people by trying to claim that we're being diverse aware.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:So it's fundamentally flawed, top to bottom, left to right, the whole system's screwed.
SPEAKER_01:I remember there's a little story that always sticks in my mind when I'm talking about these topics. So I was working for a company for many years. I won't say the name, but if you look me up, we can figure it out. But there was an employee there who didn't have a diagnosis, but the behaviors and the characteristics indicated that they might be autistic. Now, there would have been some management issues with him because basically they couldn't get him to do what they wanted him to do. He wasn't following certain procedures. And it got to the point where we didn't have to dismiss this guy. It's just not working out. Now, luckily, his manager was actually very open to coaching and very open to self-development. And he had a very open mind. And I sat down with him and I said, look, I think we need to approach this a different way because I think there's something going on with how he processes information. Because when it got out from colleagues that this person might actually leave the business they were like they he can't because he he has knowledge and information that nobody else has he gets certain certain stuff that nobody else knows about and if we lost him in the business it's going to have a massive impact because he's very very niche in this one particular thing so like well that's something that i wasn't aware of beforehand and i should have been made aware earlier to be honest because all of a sudden it's like no i can't lose this guy that should have been quite paramount before but Yeah. particular thing that we need and yes it maybe doesn't fit the blueprint but if it works and it's beneficial for everybody isn't that the right thing to do and that's what happened and he stayed in the business as far as I know he's still there and doing well and so is that manager and I always think that was a really eye opening story for me because going through that process myself it really made me reframe how I see these things because it was very much one size does fit all and actually what does what does value mean in this with this individual what impact are they having on the organization that's wider than the specific thing you're asking them to do do you know
SPEAKER_02:you know we've got workplaces they've got to change attitudes to neurodiversity young people are being over diagnosed there's a blatant problem
SPEAKER_00:yes
SPEAKER_02:and for me it's about the system failing it's about the constructs in which these individuals are that's failing not the individuals themselves but society says that it's the individual that's the problem. It's completely wrong and it's the wrong way around. And as for whether I'm ADHD or not, as far as I know and can see and all the evidence points at the fact that I am, we'll find out in seven years, won't we?
SPEAKER_01:Seven years, in which case things have evolved so much more. It'll be something...
SPEAKER_02:And I'll be... over 50 by that point. So from a professional perspective, it won't make a huge difference.
SPEAKER_01:No, but then it's all that kind of, does it help you understand yourself better? even whether you're ADHD or not, what do you now know about how your brain works that you didn't know before that can help you? I think that's the only way you can approach these things.
SPEAKER_02:So there you go.
SPEAKER_01:There you go.
SPEAKER_02:I think we'll knock it on the head with that one. But yeah, if you've got views or opinions or you want to jump into this conversation and talk to us about anything we've spoken about today, drop us an email. It's letstalk at whynotwhatif.com. Well, that's it for this episode of Why Not and What If, where the conversations get messy, magical and a little bit rebellious. If it made you think, laugh or rage text your mates, job done. That's what we're here for. Got a topic you think we should dive into? Drop us a line at letstalk at whynotwhatif.com. Seriously, your ideas fuel this chaos. And don't forget to follow, subscribe, shout about us in your WhatsApp groups, on LinkedIn and come back next week for more brutally honest occasionally unhinged and always human conversations see you next time
