0:00:02 - Briar
Hello everyone, welcome. I am Briar Harvey. This is the Neurodiversity Media Network. I have a very busy day today and we are here with the marvelous Joa Ahern Seronde and we are talking about accessibility today. Apparently, we have decided well, she decided that for this show in particular, she was going to ask me questions, which is, I think, fair. So we are going to talk about work from the point of view of disability and accessibility and what those accommodations mean and what they look like. So I think it's going to be a good time, y'all.
0:00:56 - Joa
It's going to be such a good time and we've got to mention that this is the grand finale of our first season. It is the big deal. It's a big deal. These conversations have been so much fun and we've got such an arc for the places we've gone and the topics we've covered.
0:01:13 - Briar
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to putting this master class together and adding all the resources and fun things for people to dive into, because I really do feel like we've explored so much good territory here.
0:01:29 - Joa
That's right. That's right, and a span, I mean it spans demographics of people, but it also spans demographics of business type, too, right, we've talked about a lot of different angles and facets, and the additional resources are going to be really fun to dig into as people go through the content that we've talked about. All right, let's get to it. All right, briar accessibility. Accessibility is such a critical component, and I think that for some people, accessibility has just become a buzzword. They say like, oh yeah, things should be accessible. Or like, oh yeah, accessibility, that sounds great. But and then some people, it's a critical part of their day to day lives. Right, accessibility is something that they need to be able to access, everything that other people don't think twice about. And then there's people in the middle, and so let's start by just like getting on the same page. What is accessibility? Why is it important?
0:02:34 - Briar
So accessibility is conceptually, the idea of making things equitable, which is another word that we have defined, I think, before, in ways that people who have disability require to be able to work or do life at the same level as other people. But this gets really mucky, because what does that mean? Who is it for? How do we define accessibility? Because even amongst similar diagnoses, we have many degrees of what is and is not required. And then, of course, especially in work situations, asking for things to be accessible is often a problem.
0:03:41 - Joa
Yeah, right, right, the ask, you know, and I think that, well, we're going to get into so much of this. But so it's about making things equitable for people to work and live and be at the same level that anybody else might be. And you mentioned diagnoses very quickly in passing. But accessibility looks a lot of different ways for a lot of different diagnoses, right, so there's, you know, broadly right, there's physical ability and disability there's, and then there's, like, the whole mental health side of it as well, with those set of diagnoses, and we're on the neurodiversity media network. So we we obviously like have a particular angle that we're coming at it to right In terms of the people who are drawing into to this content. So talk to me about the diagnoses. What does that look like for accessibility in terms of what we'll be talking about today?
0:04:43 - Briar
So when we look at having a diagnosis, it is the legal standard by which accommodations is are granted. The problem is requiring a diagnosis in the first place, right, and then disclosure, which we will unpack in greater detail. Yes, but for most people, the reality of having a diagnosis is that it is the thing that starts the information. Once I have a diagnosis, I can then define oh well, these are the terms, this is what it means to be this, not to have this, to be this, because when we're talking about disability, it's permanent. We're almost never talking about something that can be recovered or cured. So we got to talk about this new standard, this new baseline, and having a diagnosis allows us to really define what that baseline standard is.
0:06:14 - Joa
Absolutely and, like you mentioned, it's, it's the mechanism that allows you to access accommodations. And that's something that I find to be very heartening is that, over the course of time that I've been a professional in the world I started off in psychology, working mostly with children in school systems and looking at what the transformation has been, even in my professional lifetime, of people understanding that a diagnosis creates accessibility to accommodations and helps reduce some of the stigma around diagnosis has been incredible. I mean, we still obviously have so much gains to be made in that arena, but to be able to see tangible gains made even within one professional lifetime is really remarkable.
0:07:06 - Briar
And I think what's key here is that a diagnosis is covered by law. So we've talked a lot about diversity, equity, inclusion, and for most people, whether we like that or not, it's a nice to have Accessibility is required by law, and so when I'm having conversations with people about this, it is so much easier for me to say hey look, this is a baseline requirement in every country, but in the United States, it's the Americans with Disabilities Act, right, and there is, in addition to a baseline standard of requirements, there is a heap ton of money available in the form of federal grants for making accessibility changes. So, rather than having all of these nice to have and I do say that with bunny rabbit ears and sarcasm, right, dei work isn't a nice city, but it's viewed that way by so many people that when I talk about accessibility as a legal requirement, there's no argument, right?
0:08:36 - Joa
That's right. That's right. It's mandated through the Americans with Disabilities Act, the ADA, and so let's talk about that a little bit just to help people understand, because I think that there are too many people who have no idea what the ADA is or how it might be relevant to them in their lives. So when we're talking about the ADA, you know just sort of off the cuff in this conversation what would you say the most important piece of information would be for people to sort of take away about the ADA and its potential relevancy for them.
0:09:17 - Briar
So the ADA itself is not actually that long. It says that the ADA protects people with disabilities from discrimination and that disability rights are civil rights, so what it means can actually be fairly broadly determined, as long as disability contains the appropriate diagnosis, and we can go rounds about what actually should or should not be included. But I can say things that are in addition to physical disabilities, like blindness, deafness, right, actual physical handicaps. Neurodiversity, specifically ADHD, autism, dyslexia and some of the other meas are covered as disabilities under the.
0:10:23 - Joa
ADA. So if any of those things apply to you and you aren't familiar with ADA and you aren't familiar with how that interfaces with your work life, that's definitely something to dig into a little bit more. To just have that working knowledge of access to accommodations, access to resources, access to ways of gaining accessibility that you may not have known about before.
0:10:53 - Briar
Now, I always want to acknowledge that, especially with the hellscape that is our modern medical system, access to a diagnosis is, in fact, a privilege. However, if you have that diagnosis, you should be using it for your benefit. You should not be ashamed or hiding it in the closet or worried about the potential ramifications and advocacy in this way. Listen, I recognize that this is some of the hardest work you'll ever do for yourself is advocating for your needs. It can be, especially in a workplace, a difficult thing to do, but the more that we advocate for our needs, the more those become baseline standards.
Unfortunately, people don't know what they don't know, and they don't know what disabled people need because it doesn't even occur to them. I have an example. I saved a meme the other day of a baseball team that had I think it was 2018, had changed their logo to Braille, which sounds lovely, but blind people can't see your logo, and if that Braille isn't touchable which it did not appear to be raised or embossed in any way then it is functionally useless. It seems like a lovely gesture, but gestures are also functionally useless here. People don't know what they don't know and it's difficult for them to imagine accommodations if they don't actually need it.
0:12:57 - Joa
Yeah. And then all of a sudden, however well-intentioned, just looks like virtue signaling which, at the end of the day, means nothing to the person who can't see.
0:13:08 - Briar
Correct Virtue signaling is useless and arguably a huge waste of everyone's time.
0:13:19 - Joa
Yeah, it certainly doesn't have any mechanism for improving the situation for somebody who might actually need their situation improved.
0:13:30 - Briar
Right, it's not advocacy, it just makes you feel good so you can post it on social media and pat yourself on the back. Yeah.
0:13:36 - Joa
That's absolutely right. I want to just highlight, too, another benefit of advocacy, not just for the individual who's like flexing those skills and working on getting a better situation for themselves. I remember viscerally working with somebody who had ADHD at a very significant level, did need accommodations, and she would talk about it in the workplace, not just with the people who were in charge of saying yes to accommodations, but at team meetings, in conversation in the context of doing teamwork with her. She would reference it and that created a really significant salient experience for anybody who didn't have ADHD to say, oh, I'm learning something new right now. And any person who worked with her who then would perhaps go on to leadership positions of their own then had a salient experience of having worked with somebody who brought it to the forefront, who made it a real tangible thing for them to understand, who then maybe would have virtue signaled previously. But because of that experience, having worked with this person who was vocal about their own experience, could then know something in a deeper, more meaningful way to implement changes later on.
0:15:10 - Briar
Someone that I adore, who would not want to be quoted here, once told me that there are two kinds of disabled people. There are the kind that wish to use their disability for personal gain and there are the kind that are aware of having the responsibility of doing that. Advocacy work. And it's rough. Man Advocacy work is hard. I say this as someone who does this every single day. It's hard, it's exhausting. It gets very tiring to say to people this is what this means and this is why you should care, and to people who deal with a disability, that additional level of work is exhausting. So I recognize that it is difficult work to do and we are also doing it for people who cannot do it for themselves.
Diagnosis so something that is often a sticking point in the autism community are levels.
When you are now, when you get an autism diagnosis, you're given a level one, two or three, with one being has needs, two is moderate needs and three is severe needs.
And in the community there are a lot of people who argue about levels because they say they change on a daily basis and I might have more needs at one point in time or another and being given this level precludes me from getting my needs met.
At certain times, however, it is almost never the level two or the level three autists that I see arguing against the levels. It's the level ones who wish that they were given more things, and while I get that, there is still a dearth of accommodations available. So we have to until this is something that we really understand and are practically advocating for be able to distribute access to the people who need it most, and often, when it comes to disability, the people who need it most are absolutely incapable of advocating for their own needs, both in the workplace and in real life. They are put on disability, which I believe we have discussed, is basically enforced poverty, and I will die on this hill, yes, and the more you require these services, the harder they are to get. So having a standard and being able to practically say this is the baseline need for someone at this level of functioning is still important.
0:18:31 - Joa
Right, it absolutely is. And you are right, it is enforced poverty. The number of indignities that go along with being able to access disability payments and services is too long to list. I mean it is just. It is absurd. It is a hill worth dying on, and it is a hill that more people should know about so they can die on it too.
0:18:56 - Briar
I belong to this networking platform. It is called lunch club and I love lunch club. I meet incredible people on lunch club all of the time. In my bio I state that I am a diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility consultant, a DEIA consultant for neurodiversity. When I get on a call with people, the first question I have to ask is do you know what any of those words mean? When I am in my bubble, accessibility and neurodiversity are things that people are talking a lot about, but outside of that bubble, most people don't actually know what a significant chunk of those words mean, and I have to define them. So this, too, is important. It often feels to us that we hear about accommodations and accessibility and needs all of the time, but that is because we are in community with people who are having those conversations Outside of our communities. This is not a conversation that people are having on a great deal of bases.
0:20:14 - Joa
That is right. The advocacy part goes hand in hand with an education piece in terms of advocating for your needs but also educating people around you to make sure that people do understand what this conversation is about. I want to talk to you a little bit about what you said. You mentioned that the ask for accommodations is a hard one, but you also talked about how, if you have a diagnosis, use it for your benefit and the disclosure piece of when you mention your diagnosis when you ask for accommodations. This comes up a lot in my work. When I have clients who say I am applying for jobs, the applications ask if I have X, y or Z. Do I say yes? Talk to me a little bit about the disclosure piece of this, the legality piece of it. How do people navigate when to disclose these pieces of who they are?
0:21:20 - Briar
That is a really important distinction here. When a company asks you to disclose diagnoses, understand that that information is kept separately from your application at large. You are giving your diagnoses for their record keeping purposes around who is applying and who is seeking a job, but those answers are not kept with your application and your resume. Knowing that when to disclose is, personally, I think, a matter of safety. When do you feel safe to disclose? Sometimes that won't be on a job interview. Sometimes that won't be until you have a job. Sometimes that won't be until you've been on the job for a while because you require the income.
I'm not out here saying you should advocate at the detriment of your own needs, and sometimes that's a reality. You have to be able to advocate for yourself in a way that it is not going to harm you. Faith Clark and I talked about that quite a bit. We have an episode on this. I'll link it in the show notes. It's really important that you feel safe enough to say this is the thing that I struggle with and these are what my needs are.
0:23:00 - Joa
So I love your conversations with faith, and the conversation around building safety is so critical. I think that you and I have talked about the hiring market right now and about how there are more jobs than there are people looking for them, which means that really the power for should be in the hands of the applicants, but I think that the reality unfortunately too, is that that power isn't always felt by the applicant, and I think that that's great advice in terms of really assessing where the safety is, where you feel it and when to bring that forward.
0:23:45 - Briar
You know and, arguably, you disclose when it is beneficial and not harmful. Determining whether or not it is beneficial is always going to be on a case by case basis.
0:24:02 - Joa
Absolutely yeah. There is no one size fits all for this kind of this kind of question. Yeah, so in terms of how this interfaces with our, with our entire scope here of fixing work, how does accessibility and the question of fixing work come into play? You mentioned federal dollars available. This is an important thing that I think not enough people know about. Talk about that a little.
0:24:33 - Briar
I love this question because truly I think accessibility in the workplace has been a beneficial to everyone. I think that when you recognize what these baseline level needs are for people, especially who are neurodivergent, you recognize that building them into the workplace will benefit everyone, because they are things like clarity of process. They are systems, they are things like the ability to work remotely, the ability to opt out of meetings. They are things that, at a base, systemic level, are often the things that we are missing in work, and so fixing them truly benefits everyone. As to the way in which we make that work, again, this is all covered by the ADA, so there are tons of grants that are available federally, and my company does, in fact, do some of this grant writing. So, like, if you know that you want to fix the work, come see me, let me know. We will write grants for you and we will get the funds available to implement these systemic changes, and I got the people who can do that for you too.
What you're looking for are ways to not just change the culture but change the underlying system of how work is integrated For people who struggle with day to day tasks and just functioning on a basic level. Having work fit into. That makes it easier for us to do our best work and one of the benefits truly for making work more accessible is workplace retention. So churn is significantly higher for specifically ADHD and autistic folks, because what happens is we go in and give our all to this job and then we burn out with a big flame of glory and then end up having to quit or go to a different position or leave the job entirely. So being able to fix this kind of retention problem and one in five people is neurodivergent, so that's 20% of the population and most likely 20% of your workforce If you can fix the underlying problems that make them flame out, then you can increase retention and you can create a workplace culture with some longevity. And, despite what the media would have you believe, it is in fact a worker's job market right now. It is.
0:28:07 - Joa
It absolutely is.
0:28:08 - Briar
There are more jobs available than job seekers, and the people complaining about how no one wants to work anymore are likely not looking for people or being able to pay them what they are actually worth.
0:28:27 - Joa
That's right. I just want to go back for a second to about your 20% metric with the one in five. That is an average, and let's be clear too that there are certain industries and roles that have a much higher than 20% rate of neurodivergent for them because of the type of work it is and because of who is drawn to doing that type of work.
0:28:49 - Briar
Yeah, that's especially true in creative fields STEM, believe it or not. So places where the job description requires big picture thinking are often jobs that are best filled by neurodivergent folks, and we want them to love that work because that's how we change the world Right right, that's absolutely right.
0:29:21 - Joa
That's absolutely right. And let's talk a little bit about the giving all of yourself to a job and then flaming out really dramatically. That you know, because this is my business. That sounds very intuitive to me, like I understand all the levels of loss there. But let's spell it out a little bit, because there are many people listening to this who don't quite grasp the enormity of why that is a loss. Right, like, oh, maybe it's a loss for the individual, but it's not. It's much more nuanced than that. Right, when you have somebody who comes in and does give it their all in all the ways we're talking about. Right in terms of the actual work, maybe in terms of advocacy and helping to impact the system where they are, and the compounding effect of all of that is what leads them to really just burst into flames and be done. What? Who loses in that situation?
0:30:19 - Briar
We do, society does, the company definitely does. I was complaining last week to Sam Fisher that there are not institutional business storytellers and that's a loss, because company culture is much like any other kind of culture and how we maintain culture is through stories. Understanding where we've been, where we've come from, helps us to shape where we're going, especially so we're not repeating the same mistakes over and over and over again. And she sent me a link to a workshop. It was really incredible timing with some folks talking about institutional business storytelling and they were all marketers, because if anyone is actually keeping the company's story, it's the people whose job it is to sell that company to the people who are buying, and so marketers and marketing.
As an industry is populated, I would say, at least 50 to 70 percent by neurodivergent folks, because we're just drawn to story and how story works and how things fit together. And when we lose that institutional longevity it's damaging to the business as a whole, because we make decisions based off of what is culturally relevant rather than what is relevant for our culture. And that seems like it's the same thing, but it is not the same thing. The best, most recent example I can give you of this is Budweiser's whole thing with Dylan Mulvaney and the rainbow flag. It's not supporting LGBT. They've done that before. Other beers do that too. But it was about a mismatch of understanding to the culture of people who buy Budweiser and the way that they like things like Clydesdale horses and tradition and right. You can you can absolutely make this argument to them, but you don't do it that way.
You do it the way that makes it seem as though we're embracing something of longstanding belief and tradition and that feels much different. Truly, we can make the same decisions and we can do much of the same things, but the way in which we tell the story matters.
0:33:55 - Joa
Absolutely. The things you're talking about are alignment right, and how to help people feel like there's a sense of continuity and safety, even while pushing forward, perhaps into new territory, right, but it's that continuity right. It's the storyline that has to be continued. You can't just start a new story in the middle.
0:34:27 - Briar
People need things to feel safe and ultimately, having accommodations in both how we shape the work on the back end and how we tell the story on the front end are what allow people to feel safe in transition, and this is an easy thing to say, harder thing to do. But the reality is that it's about thinking about who are we not inviting to the table, who are we not including in this conversation? What do they have to contribute? That perhaps might influence the decisions that we are making, and we have very traditionally included certain voices at that table and are expanding out now to a greater awareness of the people who should be contributing to the conversation, but we're still not making that table accessible or available.
0:35:56 - Joa
Right, right, and in fact sometimes people don't even know the table exists. Right, like talk about lack of accessibility and availability. You know, I think that when we talk about making these opportunities available, it's about really like spreading the word far and wide, really making sure that even just the knowledge that it exists is out there, let alone the path to get there.
0:36:26 - Briar
Right, so paving the way isn't just for us, it's for the people who come behind us. I think one of the things that is frustrating about accessibility is that when I am not getting my needs met, I care very little about the people who come behind me, because it feels so urgent in this moment that I am not getting my own needs met, and so there's a real dichotomy here about being aware of who the work is for and how it benefits us all.
0:37:12 - Joa
Absolutely, absolutely. And one of the sort of ways that people make this understood in disability circles is to talk about the spoons Right, and a lot of people who aren't in disability circles don't know about the spoons. They've never heard this construct before. But the idea is you have a set number of spoons, and spoons is sort of a placeholder for energy or ability to navigate your moment to moment, day to day life. You have a certain number of spoons that you get at the beginning of the day and you have to use them throughout the day for different things.
If you have five spoons and you've got to use four of them to just navigate your professional life, you've only got one spoon left for feeding yourself, taking care of yourself, you know, spending the right amount of sleep, spending time with family, doing something for fun, right, like anything else. And so when we think about this, what we're trying to do is just reduce the energetic toll of trying to do your life, whether it's at work, whether it's at home. And this analogy, I wish more people did know about it, because it makes so much sense and in a certain sense, it's what it comes down to when we talk about a living wage, right? Or oh my gosh more than a living wage. Right, it's about not needing to expend so much energy worrying about whether you'll be able to pay all of the bills that you have. Right, it's about making sure that you can move through your life with some amount of ease and be able to really exist and be interwoven into the fabric of all of the different parts of your life that you want to be.
0:38:58 - Briar
Yeah, spoons are really interesting because at a higher level you know it can be limiting in some ways.
0:39:06 - Joa
If.
0:39:07 - Briar
I only have five spoons, then I'm never going to rise to the occasion that costs me nine or 10 spoons and factually that's probably incorrect. I'll spend those 10 spoons and then spend two weeks laid out on my ass afterwards. So there are some structural problems with it. But yes, on a basic level, most people just don't conceptually realize energy management for someone who is disabled and it takes us more work. It's more work, it's more time, it's more on the day to day, just to survive and exist, because that's what a disability is.
That's why this language is so important. That's why we can't talk about neurodiversity in particular is a superpower, because doing that minimizes the actual work that it takes to just get through the day, and I think that part of what is required here is a clearer understanding of just ability in general. Everybody has differing levels of ability, and this is true for most things. I think singing is probably a really good example of this. Most people can be taught how to sing, unless you are tone deaf. You can be taught how to hit a note properly Even if you are tone deaf. You can be taught what that tonally sounds like in your head. Even deaf people can be taught how to sing.
It's something our body does this thing Now skill levels very wildly. I am no Taylor Swift friends, and just because I practice with my app at hitting the no in the right place does not mean that I am ready for my stage debut. I'm just trying to fit into a choir here at this point in time, and that's important. When we talk about ability, it's really important for us to understand that those are like levers we move them up, we move them down, but they're different for everyone and everyone has different ability in different areas, so finding ways to allow people with differing abilities to structurally fit into society is important because we all benefit from that.
0:41:53 - Joa
Right, right, right. It's almost like diversity is something to embrace.
0:42:00 - Briar
Almost.
0:42:03 - Joa
About that? How about it? How about it? So let's talk about structurally. I mean, we've alluded to some of the things. We've talked about transparency, we've talked about process. What are let's do top three, top three most important things that a workplace can do to help improve accessibility across the board, not for that one person who has felt safe enough to ask for the accommodation they're legally entitled to through the ADA, but just broadly accessibility that will make broad spectrum sense for a business. What are the top three things?
0:42:45 - Briar
Top three things Clear and understandable definition of my job description. A clear hierarchical chart of who is responsible for what and who owns what institutionally. And three, a clear and regularly updated not just updated in 2010 and then shoved in a drawer Operational manual that allows me to know what all of the things are and what it is that I need to do here, how we do things and again, for would add them all of this with a regular institutional process of revising and updating these materials. These three things will change every workplace if they're actually functional and if we actually review them on a regular basis right.
0:43:55 - Joa
They need to be living documents. They have to be living, breathing documents. Here's what I love about your list you don't need to have a diagnosis to understand the value of them and you don't need a diagnosis to advocate for those things in your workplace. We talked a little bit about how, if you start asking questions in the right manner, you will be voluntold into doing some things. But if this is something that strikes a chord with you in any way, that makes you think, yeah, that would make my work life better. Yeah, that would make my workplace better. Yeah, I know exactly who that would benefit beyond just myself. These questions folks ask them where you are. If you're a team of one, if you own your own business, make these things exceptionally clear for yourself and for anybody who you may hope to hire onto your team as you grow. If you're a midsize or large business, ask these questions within your team. Ask these questions of leadership. Look at ways that you can do your part to advocate for these changes.
0:45:01 - Briar
So later this month I'm doing a workshop on creating your personal 504 plan, because I think that there's a lot of room here for understanding what your workplace needs are and how you define and articulate those, so that you can in fact, take this into your workplace and say, hey, this is this is what I need and these are my requirements. If you own your own business, you can hand this to an employee and say this is what I need and this is how you can help take ownership. But either way, what we're looking at here is truly just a basic definition of terms. What's the job? Who do I talk to when I have a problem and how do I do this thing? And these aren't hard questions to answer. They really, really aren't. You just have to ask them.
0:45:58 - Joa
Sounds like an exceptional workshop.
0:46:00 - Briar
Briar, tell us what 504 plans are for those of us who may not know, for those of us who don't know, a 504 plan is something institutionally that we give to students to explain their needs in the school and educational place. So there's in a home school, so I did not have to worry about these things for my children. But broadly there's a 504 plan which generally covers physical disability, and an IEP, which is an individualized education plan which tends to cover neurodivergence and other mental disabilities or places where accommodations are required there. Something that I've learned that is really interesting is that a 504 plan goes with you. So if you graduate from high school, you can actually take your 504 plan to your college and say these are my needs and requirements, and I've decided that that means that we can just take a 504 plan out into life with us too, if it's transferable. Now, obviously this isn't going to be an officially sanctioned document, but these are my needs. This is what I would like to have happen, so that I can do my job, and I don't think these are unreasonable requests. They're going to feel wobbly for some people.
I have a client whose current personal 504 plan states that he might be late and that feels a little hinky if you're the employer and you're like, oh, he might be late. Well, that's just a permission ship to show up late, but that allows you to say so if you might be late. Are you going to stay later? If you might be late, how are we guaranteeing that we're going to achieve the same level of results? And finally, this is where we change things on a structural level, because if we stop thinking about time and start thinking in terms of project or deliverables, then it doesn't matter whether or not I show up on time. What is the deliverable? What is the expected outcome? If you can answer that on my job description, no less, then it changes the entire shape of what we're building and how we're building it, because I don't care about time If you get the thing done. Take two minutes, take 20 weeks, I don't care. This is the thing.
I just need to know what the expectation is.
0:48:59 - Joa
Right, right. And there's a whole side conversation to be had in this regard about time and about policing people's time. That's so critical, right? If we had an extra hour, we could really get into that.
But that idea, I think, is such an important one to consider.
If you're in a decision-making capacity in your work, like in your organization, think carefully about whether having someone in person there from 8.30 to 4.30, from 9.00 to 5.00, really makes a difference or not. Because I guarantee you that if it doesn't make a difference for them to be in that seat doing the thing in that spot at that exact time, it makes a difference to them to not have that expectation. And if they are, if you can articulate the deliverable and if they are delivering the deliverable and they don't have to do that, don't spend your time policing it. That's not a good use of your time, that's not a good use of the organization's time, that's not a good use of their time, it's a good use of nobody's time. There are, of course, jobs where you do have to be there in person, where if you're not there at 9.00, there is a problem. But think carefully about whether that job is that criteria or not. Because if it's not, think seriously about why you're policing it, maybe consider not policing it.
0:50:34 - Briar
That's because most things aren't in fact urgent and most things don't require us to deliver around time. But modern productivity culture in particular has stated that time our time is equal to our value, and the sooner we unlink these things, the happier we'll be societally.
0:51:05 - Joa
That's right. That's absolutely right. I've talked about her before, but does Ray Lynn Attaway does fantastic work on productivity and our concept of time. Anybody who thinks that this sounds interesting, go look her up, look up her work, find out more. It's worth it.
0:51:23 - Briar
Yeah, I think that we really have a long way to go when it comes to decolonizing time, and I don't think people like to put those two words together especially. But what am I doing? And whose work is required? Whose labor is allowing me to do less, is not a question that most people like to ask. So if it's not for you, who's doing the labor? And just be honest about it. I think, entrepreneurially, we get very stuck in this mindset of oh, I can just delegate this, but who are you delegating it to and how much are you paying them? And when you are working for a wage that is related to time, how much of yourself are you giving in order to complete that task? And this is the balance. Here we have to ask it from both sides of the equation, both how do we get this job done and how do I do this job without giving all of myself? Yes, both things can be true.
0:52:52 - Joa
Absolutely absolutely. And I think you're right, decolonizing our concept of time is where it's at. It was actually from Desiree Attaway that I learned the origin of the term deadline, which is interwoven into all labor and work. Everything right Like who doesn't know what a deadline is, except the origin of the term is that it's a physical barrier around a prison, and if a prisoner crossed it, that was when you were allowed to kill them for having-.
That's the cross, the deadline, the deadline and that is what we have embraced as our concept of getting things done right. It has to be before the deadline, right? We have interwoven this into how we conceptualize almost everything in our lives, and without even thinking about it we've internalized that panic too.
0:53:51 - Briar
Right, Because if I'm gonna be killed if I don't meet the deadline, then that anxiety means that I am always going to be giving more of myself than I should for an arbitrary date. That's right. That will not, in fact, kill me, right, talk about adrenaline response right.
0:54:16 - Joa
If we're literally being pushed into a life or death question about any task and when it needs to be completed, what are we doing to our nervous systems? Nothing good. Nothing good to answer, nothing good.
0:54:32 - Briar
And we don't talk about the epigenetic legacy enough of how we have internalized these things for generations. Right, it's not just my productivity that I've learned, it's my parents and my grandparents. And what messages were they internalizing as absolutely non-negotiable that when I look at work now I can see are not only not accessible but not fucking realistic? That's right.
0:55:11 - Joa
We've ended with a bang Slightly.
0:55:12 - Briar
you know, we've really waffled this whole series about ending on high notes versus ending on a deadline.
0:55:27 - Joa
I know, I know, but you know I find it's perverse of me, but I find this to actually be a very hopeful conversation, because I think that's the most important thing to do in a very hopeful conversation, because I think the more people know, the less they have to just reenact without even giving a second thought to something. Right? If you know that time is colonized, if you know that we are internalizing urgency that does not belong in the present sense, right, then you have some agency for saying, well, maybe we don't have to do it that way, and that's the whole point. Right. And if it's work, maybe we don't have to do it the way we've been doing it. Maybe, in fact, there are a lot of better ways to do it that we could do. We don't even have to really ask for permission. There's a caveat there. I'm sure there is some permission to be asked for, but we can do things differently.
0:56:26 - Briar
And I can't imagine a better note to end this show on than that. Shola man, this has been so fun. I really deeply appreciate the time that you have given to me for this series and the conversations that we have had, and we're gonna have to figure out what season two looks like at some point in time.
0:56:56 - Joa
Absolutely absolutely.
0:56:58 - Briar
Don't think that we're done yet.
0:57:01 - Joa
There's always more to talk about and there will continue to be. And, briar, this has been such a pleasure, this has been such a pleasure, and the masterclass with the additional resources is going to be so much fun to put together.
0:57:13 - Briar
I'm very excited to see what we come up with and what we can throw together for y'all. And remember, if you are not a paid subscriber, you go to neurodiversitymedianetworkcom it's just $25 a month. It's only $20 a month right now for the month of July. It's my birthday celebration. I got all of these new shows, so much fun stuff happening right now. We've got two workshops coming that are included with your paid subscription and four masterclasses that we're putting out within the next month that will be completed with all the resources in the learning paths. So if you have not joined us yet, come do so. We're so excited to keep bringing all of this work to you. Joa, thank you for being a part of this, and we will talk to you all again later today. We'll be back with history and wise words and my husband. It's gonna be amazing, y'all.
Transcribed by https://podium.page
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