Micro-Meditations + Macro Results: Productivity Secrets of an ADHD Founder

Diving deep into the world of young leadership, social impact, and thriving with ADHD - this episode is a masterclass in designing your work and life around your unique strengths.

I sat down with Julian Buschmaas, co-founder of Be Impact, to explore how he's leveraging his entrepreneurial background and ADHD superpowers to create positive change in the corporate and non-profit sectors.

From growing up in his parents' bike shop to founding a tech company bridging corporate training with non-profit needs, Julian's journey is full of insights on building a business and life that works for you.

We dive into:

• (01:30) Julian's background and journey to founding Be Impact
• (03:07) How childhood experiences in retail shaped his entrepreneurial path
• (08:58) Discovering social impact through volunteering in Bolivia
• (15:55) Lessons learned from culture shock and expanding your worldview
• (21:40) The innovative model behind Be Impact 
• (38:01) Practical tips for managing ADHD in leadership roles
• (46:06) The power of micro-meditations and mindfulness techniques
• (58:39) Creating psychologically safe work environments for neurodivergent teams

Whether you're a founder, leader, or someone navigating ADHD in your career, this episode is packed with actionable advice on building a business and life that aligns with your natural strengths and values.

So pop in your earbuds and get ready for an honest conversation about the realities of leadership, social impact, and thriving with ADHD in today's business world.

-> connect with Julian
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/julianbuschmaas/
- https://beimpact.co.uk/

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• 30 Days to Stress-Proof Your Work Life
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Transcript

Em (00:03.119)
Welcome back to Bubbling Out, where we're popping the norms of leadership and we're exploring new innovative ways to lead. And today we've got Julian on the show. We met recently, Julian, a few weeks ago in your DMs. Yeah. So welcome to the show.

Julian Buschmaas (00:16.31)
Yeah, not long. Indeed. Thanks for having me.

Em (00:23.406)
Very welcome. And we had such a great conversation and we were just like, we need to just, I wish we could just hit record at this. So we came on, brought you onto the podcast today to discuss and expand on all the things we were talking about. And what you can expect from our conversation today is very much focused on being a young leader, discovering social impact, social responsibility at a younger age, and dealing with ADHD and how that's been reflected in his work and.

All the things that come with ADHD. I'm ADHD. We've talked about this in the past. And I think this is going to really relate to anybody who's been diagnosed with ADHD or they kind of can see some symptoms in themselves, especially if you're a leader trying to get shit done. Okay, so this is going to be a great podcast episode for you. So welcome to the bubbling out show, Julian.

Julian Buschmaas (01:13.672)
Yeah, I'm very excited for this conversation.

Em (01:16.237)
Yeah, so do you want to tell everyone a bit about where you're based? Just a bit of a like a background, not your full CV, please, but just a quickie on where you are, what you're up to, all the kind of all the kind of fun stuff.

Julian Buschmaas (01:30.582)
Sure, so yeah, hello everyone. I'm Julien, I'm the co -founder of a company called Be Impact. We are a learning platform that matches corporate employees with not -for -profits to engage them in skills exchange programs. In fact, we're turning corporate employees into teachers of what they learned so they can share it. And we believe that teaching is the best way to learn. But I am based in Hackney in London.

Since a few years now I came to London from Germany in 2018 to do my masters at LSE and then somehow got, yeah, fell in love with the city, fell in love with the people, fell in love with the diversity that is present here in this town and hence kind of stayed till today. So now it's been around six years and...

Started my company around two years ago. Prior to this, I worked in strategy consulting for a company called Boston Consulting Group. And before that, I was some time at the UN in Bangkok. In fact, that was shortly after LSE, but it wasn't that long of a time that I counted as a break between London and there. And yeah, I guess that's about me.

Em (02:45.547)
Brilliant. I'm going to ask you about Bangkok in a bit because, you know, we share this interest in Southeast Asia. But I want to know a bit about your childhood because you told me before that you had parents who were entrepreneurs in retail and this has kind of inspired you on your journey and your leadership. So tell me a bit about that.

Julian Buschmaas (02:55.286)
Yes.

Julian Buschmaas (03:07.99)
Well, yeah, my parents there was when in retail and from a young age while other people maybe wanted to become firemen or doctors or lawyers, I don't know, I wanted to become a car dealer because that's what they were doing.

Em (03:20.426)
Okay.

Julian Buschmaas (03:23.926)
And hence I was very affectionate with cars from my entire childhood to the beginning. Later on they did not cars but e -bikes in retail. So I was always helping since I'm like 15, 16 in their shops. From repairing bicycles to being in trade fairs to running the shop when they had to go on holidays and managing the team there.

So in that sense there was a bit of this entrepreneurial path but at the same time they always told me, Julia you can do anything but don't do retail. So it's just because you have to be there six days a week and or seven in some cases so you never can take actually time off because if you're not in the shop or if you're not present things don't work the way they should.

Em (03:53.866)
Hahaha!

Em (04:09.706)
So you can't remove yourself. You are very much... Yeah. Yeah.

Julian Buschmaas (04:13.718)
Not really, yeah. Which is why I'm building tech now. It's a bit different than this. Yeah.

Em (04:21.289)
Awesome. So your parents were in the car industry, e -bikes, and you were kind of, you have to go work for the business. It's like, I know I've got a lot of friends here in the childhood business and they're like, this is where we learned how to survive. And as much as you, as much as like, how did you approach that? Like, did you want to work in the shop? So was it kind of like, you have to do this?

Julian Buschmaas (04:44.95)
No, no, no. I always wanted to. Well, with the cardio shifts, I was way too young. So we left that when I was 12 years old. So that.

Em (04:53.353)
Okay.

Julian Buschmaas (04:53.782)
There was not much involvement in this. It was more that I read all the car magazines that were at home and was a geek knowing all the horse powers of every single car, something like this. But later on when with 15, 16, 17, 18, that was kind of the time period where I was still in school and where I would help in my holidays or in the vacations to support or on weekends when there were some trade fairs to be helped out. And yeah, I liked it because it was just working with my dad in one way or another or with my mom.

Em (04:59.579)
love this.

Julian Buschmaas (05:22.838)
Equally and that's how we would spend time together one way or another. So that was an issue. Funny enough I was a bit the only resentment I have that my brother who was seven years younger He suddenly started to get paid for all of this activity and I never did That's fine. So there's -huh So with regards to this no no regrets and it taught me a lot in the beginning about how to talk with people You know, we were selling

Em (05:39.88)
Younger child syndrome. Okay.

Okay.

Julian Buschmaas (05:52.598)
quite specialized e -bikes in terms of, I don't know, tricycles, I guess, for people with impairments. For example, they would just have one leg or they would be too old to actually ride on a normal cycle because they don't have the balance anymore. So it required a lot of patience and...

a lot of asking the right questions in order to identify their needs, which are all skills now that are very, very relevant. So hence, I'm actually very grateful to have had those experiences. And I was loved hanging out and being with people. And being in retail, that's the one thing that I kind of miss from this kind of tech thing. You're always with people because you're always selling to people day in, day out. I guess that's a bit different if you're just in front of your computer most of the time.

Em (06:37.48)
Yeah, it's this feeling that you're, it's being able to see the impact of your product, for example, in real time, isn't it? And seeing how it's benefiting people and learning like, okay, cool, if I sell it this way, then I get a better response. And sales is, I think sales is such a core skill. Like you learn that at such a young age, sales and customer experience. So many people would love this.

Julian Buschmaas (07:00.886)
Yeah, and service is everything.

So for my dad, it was always the highest priority that the service is great. And that started with a sales experience. And I think this is something that I'm also taking very seriously for my company to really have this really high service levels because we sold so much just through the word of mouth. Being like, well, there's so many people now selling e -bikes, but that's the place where you really get helped. Or they know. And I think this is something, yeah, very valuable lessons I learned there.

Em (07:32.199)
Yeah, and it ties into what you do today, right? It's like supporting other people. And I really resonate with this because everything that I do, like even in my background in marketing and building out the user flow in exchanges, I used to position the products that we were selling as high touch.

So even some of them were white glove, the VIP experiences. And that was my favorite thing. I was like, cool, we've got all these other exchanges that you could use, but ours has the best support. Like, look at this team, they're amazing. And I do the same with me. Like my coaching, for example, people come to me, like when you choose a coach, you have to choose the coach for the person, right? And not just the service.

Julian Buschmaas (07:50.966)
Okay.

Julian Buschmaas (08:01.27)
Thank you.

Julian Buschmaas (08:11.83)
Yeah, absolutely.

Em (08:13.606)
But people come to me because they get above and beyond. Like they come and work one on one with me. They like have them have me in their back pocket. And so experience is everything because experience creates feelings, emotions, amazing memories, trust.

Julian Buschmaas (08:27.446)
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Yeah, and especially also the trust bit for sure.

Em (08:31.27)
Yeah, trust is huge. And so, okay, so childhood, doing that in school up until 18 years old. I wanted to ask you actually, and we discussed this a bit before, but you're in social impact now. We can get into that afterwards. But was this a term that was, because you're a bit younger than me, this was definitely not a term when I was at school, but was it something that was available to you at the time?

Julian Buschmaas (08:58.582)
No, not at all. CSR, ESG, social impact.

No, no, it also didn't cross my mind at the time. I was in between studying sport, sport business or any other sort of business. That was kind of my plan, knowing that getting out of high school, but also being a little bit, I was the first year in Germany that didn't have to go to military service. So instead, I guess we might talk about this later, but I moved to Bolivia and I guess that was the...

the first time where I was experiencing the not -for -profit sector in one way or another, which isn't as present in Germany as it is, might be in the UK actually.

Em (09:44.259)
Yeah, in... Yeah, I'm not sure about the UK. I haven't lived there for a while, but Europe, definitely, yes. In terms of moving to Bolivia, why Bolivia? Because it's just like, did you just pick?

Julian Buschmaas (09:56.406)
Well, we had... So, in school I was always described more as the active child and I had lots of interest outside school as well. So my Spanish, although me studying it for like three, four years wasn't the best, but because it would require you to actually learn the vocabularies outside of school.

that didn't happen as much in terms of doing my homeworks as much as I should maybe have done them. But there was one kid in our class, Julio, who came from Bolivia for an exchange. And as this whole thing was happening with not me having to do the military service and me basically winning a year, I was thinking what else I could do. And I really kind of thought I wanted to learn actually Spanish.

And Hans, I just asked him, hey, can I live with your family in Bolivia? And he was so excited that somebody wanted to visit his country and live with him that he directly said yes. And we basically jumped on a call the same week or the same day and fixed everything. And then my parents gave me around two weeks to find a job when I was there. Else they would, they told me to come back. So in my first two weeks, I went to the German embassy there and asked them about any sort of social projects that are there that I could support. And they were actually loads.

So in the first two or three days I went to see between six and eight projects I would assume and then I came across Proyecto Horizonte which was like 15 kilometers outside the city center of which the host family said this is maybe a bit too dangerous it's too far out but I really liked their mission I really liked what I would be doing there which is working in the kindergarten as a teacher with like five to six year olds but also doing gang prevention programs and...

Em (11:20.415)
That's amazing.

Julian Buschmaas (11:46.134)
through sports program and giving youth in that neighborhood the opportunity, yeah, basically to be active or to do something else but joining a gang. And that resonated very well with me and hence I started working there and then I stayed for like seven, eight, nine months doing that, yeah.

Em (11:55.933)
interesting.

Em (12:05.534)
I love this story. So you went from, so what, how old were you then?

Julian Buschmaas (12:12.342)
20, 19, 19 to 20.

Em (12:15.837)
Okay, so 19, so this is after the working in the store with your parents. Yeah, after high school, got it. So you went to Bolivia on your own, didn't know anybody apart from this guy's family. Was your Spanish good? Were you like struggling with the Spanish? No, no, not really good. Okay, so. And then you like end up in this kindergarten, you're like.

Julian Buschmaas (12:20.886)
Yeah, after high school. First thing after high school.

Julian Buschmaas (12:35.734)
No, yeah, yeah, no, like it was literally not good at all.

Em (12:45.371)
Okay, I'm here. What happens now? Like, how did you go from, I know how to serve people and support them and sell stuff to now I need to like entertain kids. How did that happen? What was that? Yeah, like transition. Is it?

Julian Buschmaas (12:57.238)
Well, that's a very easy switch. I think I just love being with people and being with younger children is in that sense quite easy because you gamify a lot of things. And in that sense, we were learning math and we were learning the alphabet even in Spanish because you need to understand that in the context of Bolivia, there's a high percentage of indigenous population. I assume it's still around 90%.

Em (13:04.57)
Mm -hmm.

Em (13:10.202)
Okay.

Julian Buschmaas (13:24.534)
Which meant that in the area that I was working in, in Uxba Uxba, the majority of the people at home were actually speaking Quechua. So, in the kindergarten was actually the time they were more formally introduced to the Spanish alphabet. And hence I was actually learning with them, for Oso and the kind of alphabet around this. So that was totally fine. And there were still two head teachers with me. So I was more support in terms of like sitting next to them doing.

Em (13:43.929)
Wow.

Julian Buschmaas (13:54.44)
bit of where they were struggling in figuring that out. But, and then I took Spanish lessons every day. I had a private teacher which was, yeah, with the price, with the power of the euro in that sense in contrast to the to the Boliviano was very affordable to do every day full classes of Spanish on top of that. So I would say I was able to speak fluent Spanish within two or three months.

Em (13:58.905)
What experience?

Em (14:24.026)
That's very impressive. I can't say that I'm... Yeah.

Julian Buschmaas (14:26.678)
Because you also have to, like nobody, like, and that's, there is new studies coming out more and more around this because we always thought as adults we're not able to learn new languages as easily, but in fact it's all just about the external pressure. So if it's survival, you will learn very easily. And there it's kind of survival because literally no one speaks English.

Em (14:43.897)
Mmm. I never saw it like this.

Em (14:51.193)
Yeah, I definitely think that I would have a better time if nobody spoke English in France. And when I moved to Vietnam, there's literally no pressure to learn Vietnamese because everybody wants to speak English to you. So it's like, OK, this is much easier if I just speak English. Like it makes my life easier because if you try to speak Vietnamese, there's absolutely no way you're going to get the pronunciation right or the tone.

It's, they've got like five, I think it's five maybe or three different tones depending on where they're from. And so it's like, yeah, you have to create new muscles, muscle movements and stuff.

Julian Buschmaas (15:27.542)
Yeah, so in that sense, definitely it was much easier being in Spanish. And next to Spanish, I also had Latin in school, which apparently should help, but same story.

Em (15:31.928)
Mm -hmm.

Em (15:37.368)
Amazing. Interesting. I like this story. So what is it you feel like you learn about yourself in this time there? How do you feel like you change from being in your parents' store to, I mean, Bolivia on my own?

Julian Buschmaas (15:55.766)
Well, it does a couple of things and I think it's the most profound experience in that kind of way that I probably had experienced till, even maybe till now in terms of the change that was required from me to do that.

being still at home, being in high school, there are still parents that do actually most, if not all of the jobs from require cooking, shopping, clothes washing, whatever it all is. So it's a time where not only you had to figure out all of that and how to eat and how to present yourself, but also a vast expansion of your horizon. Like,

I'm very well aware of my privilege of growing up in a German middle class family, having not to worry about anything at all actually, if not maybe this ADHD that was diagnosed at the time and me having been sent out of a classroom every now and then for these kind of topics. But not to an extent that I've then witnessed or lived at in Bolivia in the area where...

Yeah, we sometimes didn't have water in the kindergarten to wash hands after going to the bathroom. Or being Coca -Cola being cheaper than water. So the kids in the kindergarten were drinking very high sugar at the young ages that they maybe shouldn't. But yeah.

So you see and you get a whole new perspective on life. And I guess that was the main thing that influenced for the rest of my life being like, there's a world outside Germany. There's a world outside my little village there. These are also old people. And the cultures are vastly different.

Julian Buschmaas (17:54.71)
And there's so much to learn there as well. There's so much to see of a different way of life that is equally valid in all kinds of its ways. That was very inspiring to me and that just made me much more open, I assume, to explore different cultures, to explore different differences in general, whatever they might be, and stuck with me for life, I guess.

Em (18:15.506)
Mm -hmm.

Em (18:22.483)
Yeah, these experiences have such huge impacts on us as humans because when you have been conditioned and been in a box, like you said, in your middle -class Germany village, then these kind of normals to everybody else in Bolivia, for example, this is their normal, are so huge and eye -opening. Like the fact that water is more expensive than coke.

But nobody outside of this bubble would know that this is a problem. And instead they go about their day to day lives and they worry about their own things and it's so small. And I really resonate with this because and it's actually one of like, and I speak about this quite a lot on my Instagram. It's one of the reasons why I don't want children. And I don't know how we resonate about this because I want your opinion on this too. But when you see children who are they have no houses and they don't have running water.

and they don't really have parents who are capable of looking after them, you don't want to bring more people into the world. And I think you only get this world view when you've stepped out of your comfort zone and you've taken opportunity and risk.

Julian Buschmaas (19:29.142)
Hmm.

Yeah, I can imagine that feelings like this and that kind of way exist. I feel like for me the topic of children now turning 30 becomes more present, but it hasn't been a discussion that has been very well thought through in my end yet. I'm just seeing babies suddenly more around me and getting like, this is cute. But I'm still both from a relationship perspective, but also currently from the work environment.

far away from being in the position to think about that.

Em (20:04.336)
Yeah, it's very different for men as you'll know. But it's like, it comes to, yeah, and I actually didn't even realize as a woman that this is such a big deal for other women because I was so removed and maybe you will have found this living abroad. But when you're so removed from like your original culture, you don't realize what's important to people anymore. You come back and you're like, wait, it's important to you to have children and have a house and stuff. Like what's important to me is like.

Julian Buschmaas (20:09.046)
It is. It is.

Julian Buschmaas (20:32.278)
Well.

Em (20:33.008)
having spiritual practices every day.

Julian Buschmaas (20:36.022)
Yeah, no, absolutely. And there were a lot of 30th birthdays this year, last year. Also in my hometown in Germany. And yeah, it's different lives as well in terms of what the interests are.

what the priorities are, as you say, and what people value and whatnot. And at this stage, it's a very interesting, I guess, stage in life where this hasn't been such a big gap before. But now I feel like it's actually a huge gap in terms of, yeah, these kind of priorities that people value between London and, yeah, and people outside, well, not outside London, but basically back in my hometown.

Em (21:08.208)
Mm -hmm.

Em (21:23.184)
Yeah, it's like having more of a, you've got more of a wider view, which brings us nicely to actually what you're building at the moment because you've kind of leveraged that experience and used it to help other people. So do you want to talk more about what it is you're working on?

Julian Buschmaas (21:40.118)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, it feeds basically based on the experience I had in Bolivia, the experience I then later had at working at the UN on digital skills. Some of the experience I had working in Brazil on the intersection of mining firms and local communities, but also my time working in strategy consulting at the Boston Consulting Group. And what we identified essentially is that...

Corporate training is not as effective as it could be. And the main reason for that is that there's a big time gap between when people receive an education, let's say a leadership training, and or even something as simple as an Excel training or Power BI data analytics training, and the time where they actually get to apply it on their job. And humans forget.

75 % of new information within seven days and 90 % I think very shortly after. Which means if you don't get a chance to revise the training material or apply it in your job, it's actually lost. So there's a lot of studies out there showing that for example only 12 % of employees use what they learn in a 150 billion dollar training industry in their day -to -day job. And at the same time there is a not -for -profit sector.

where budgets are tight and where there is often no money at all allocated for the development and for training of the employees within that sector. And what we're basically doing now is building a bridge between the for -profits and the not -for -profits by turning the corporate employees that receive this very expensive training programs into the teachers of what they learned.

to the staff and the employees of the not -for -profits. So essentially we pair them up at the corporate side in pairs of two and we bring four to six employees from the not -for -profit together and in one, in an online classroom but also in person, they revise and repeat the exercises and the training material that was first presented to them as part of the corporate training program. And that has a few effects. One, you have free touch points with the training material. So alone the fact that you know you have to teach somebody else,

Em (23:54.926)
Wow.

Julian Buschmaas (24:03.766)
actually improves your learning because you ask better questions, you pay more attention. Secondly, you do revise the content and you have to adapt it a little bit because it won't fit 100 % needs for the not -for -profit that we match you with. So through this adaption of the material, through this adaption thinking, it further increases. And then last but not least, when you actually teach it, there will be lots of questions because you just mastered the skill yourself. You're by no means an expert. And that's fine because research actually shows that if you

there's less of a difference between the teacher and the student there's actually better learning outcomes. So yeah and at the same time the not -for -profit employees then also get access to this high quality training materials and in the best case they will be able to teach somebody else as well which would be then the ultimate step to creating a basically an ongoing cycle of learning.

Em (24:40.558)
Wow, this is so cool.

Em (25:02.222)
It's such an incredible model and actually you can just apply this to so many, so many kinds of trainings, not just corporate, for example.

Julian Buschmaas (25:10.902)
Yeah, and I mean, I just learned while doing this about that this is a very common practice for surgeons. So there it's very much they see one, they do one, they teach one. And it has been a principle in many practical ways of learning since probably long, long time. However, it's not as common in corporate world currently, which is actually very astonishing thinking about all the money that is spent on this. And...

Em (25:17.934)
Ooh.

Julian Buschmaas (25:41.014)
Yeah, the overall vision, I guess, of the company is then to enable people and to equip people with the knowledge, the skills, but also the network and the connections they need to make this world a better place. On the cheesy kind of long -term vision that I'm working towards too and that gets me out of bed every morning.

Em (25:53.838)
Yeah. No.

Em (26:01.134)
Yeah, it was an incredible vision. And where did it all come from? Like, how did you start to understand that this was a core problem?

Julian Buschmaas (26:09.654)
So the initial idea for Bimpact I had during my time at LSE in 2018.

And I was part of an internship society. I got more and more interested by concepts of Muhammad Yunus on how to build social businesses and how to build a social enterprise. And I got more and more into the idea that you actually can start a business with the idea to solve a problem rather than creating one. But essentially, what is your incentive or what is actually the purpose? Why are you building this business? And I got introduced to this world of like, pick a really big problem that is out there.

slice it up in tiny different problems and then solve the one that you can do with the business model and That was the kind of thinking that I was introduced to and I think 2017 to 2018 and ever since I started thinking about opportunities Part of my DHT brain is basically Whatever some whenever I go to a restaurant account amount of waiters that are there how much is this gonna cost? I don't know like Whenever I'm somewhere I'm having this lens on okay, like how does this business?

Em (27:08.654)
Mmm.

Julian Buschmaas (27:12.888)
work, how does it function and so I created by now I don't know how many business models in my head but I was always curious and open to explore them but especially with this angle of a social point which is why I studied an international development because I wanted to understand them further and hence in 2019 when I went when I finished my time at the UN I was a little bit in a quarter -life crisis I would say because

I worked in business, I did some internships and consulting and then a startup. I then switched to study more policy side of things and then I worked for the UN, which I also didn't want to do. And then I was like, okay, what is there to do? So it was that time where I then made my five year plan essentially to have my own business. And I would call it Be Impact because I wanted to have, I wanted to make people be impactful and have a purpose and be happy and be a role model. And...

So I secured the domains, I bought all those domains, but I did not know how and what I'm actually gonna do. I just knew that that's the right direction. And with that mindset, I went to see, okay, where did I learn the most in terms of development? And that was in my internship in the consulting industry. So that's when I then started to apply at McKinsey, at Bain, at BCG, and ended up working for BCG in London.

And again, in this whole time there, I had this five -year plan and had, which was I have my own business. So whatever I did there was to explore in ways how, what do I learn? How is there a need? Is there a gap? Is there a problem? And what I identified is that I wanted to do pro bono projects. And the entire three years, there was not a single time that I could actually get on a pro bono project. And not only that, I was in a subdivision of BCG called Invertor, and we didn't even.

had a volunteering initiative yet. So I had to take holidays in order to volunteer. And then I fought for like one and a half years with one in HR together to get the leadership to sign that we also will get a volunteering day. So then we started organizing our volunteer days for like two or three years. And that was actually incredibly hard because turns out the not -for -profits, they actually are not that interested in entertaining corporate employees for one day because they're asking, what are you guys doing the rest of the 365 days?

Julian Buschmaas (29:32.36)
of the year. And in order to actually have somebody that organizes those events that are meaningful and impactful at the charity side, that's a full -time job. And charities don't have that much capacity and they would need to hire somebody just for that kind of position with the idea that that ultimately would bring in more revenue because they could charge for those sort of activities, but not necessarily because it's actually creating an impact for the mission of the charity directly.

And understanding and seeing that, then I was like, okay, there needs to be a way that we can make high impact in a short amount of time that fits both for the not -for -profits in their mission, but also for the corporates. And that's basically when I started, there was actually a problem, there's a need. And that's how I started a journey in September, 2022, when I said, okay, enough.

Em (30:02.958)
Ahem.

Julian Buschmaas (30:22.102)
I'm so curious. I'm going to start exploring this and then I did a lot of research with a not -for -profit sector above a hundred interviews understanding really what they need and turns out that's when I figured out that they don't have any learning opportunities or training opportunities that are actually tailored to their needs and there's no budget for that and there's YouTube of course there's LinkedIn learning all of these very affordable but they're not personal they're not adapted to the situation and they don't get you started with something.

especially not when you're firefighting all day. And then at the same time I knew from all the trainings that I received at BCG how great they actually are about how little I remembered and that the majority of my learnings came through the casework and came through what I learned from my co -workers. And then I put one -on -one together by working on this 24 -7 for a continuous period of time and see if that actually could work.

And it took a few more weeks and months of research and conceptualization that actually somebody started buying that. And that's when it became really interesting.

Em (31:32.91)
That's incredible. So if we go back, you set the vision. My brain works different to you, but I see steps and frameworks and roadmaps in my head. You set the vision. You wanted to have some kind of impact, but you weren't quite sure how. So you bought the domains, which is something that I've done quite, I do this all the time. I don't know if this is a millennial thing. God knows. Anyway, bought the domains. Yeah.

Julian Buschmaas (31:49.202)
Mm -hmm.

Julian Buschmaas (31:58.998)
It's like 19 pounds a year. Sure.

Em (32:01.646)
Sure, down for that. Make sure no one else has got it. And then this was part of your consulting and the getting the buy -in to support on some kind of like HR initiative to support the volunteering. I'm interested in that. How did you get the buy -in in a corporate? Because buy -in is one of the hardest things to get, especially when you are not a...

Julian Buschmaas (32:25.558)
Well, I joined, yeah, I mean, it was already present in parts of the company. So I joined the activities of that part, but I had to take a holiday. And I brought people along with me to that part who all reported how amazing that time was, how much benefit we had, and the stories that we told afterwards in the office that created a positive...

Em (32:31.79)
Mm -hmm.

Julian Buschmaas (32:49.558)
Story and ultimately it's an emotional people people make emotional decisions. So this was us telling how great it was and how much it impacted us and our work and our motivation and That's I guess how you build a case and that case needs to be strong enough that you can collect signatures or opinions of other co -workers who also would like to do that and then it doesn't cost much budget and

Em (32:55.406)
Mm -hmm.

Julian Buschmaas (33:19.19)
enhance, we pushed that through. It took a while, as I said, but also we had the HR person on board that just joined and said that it would be a good thing for the team. So it was more like a way of then getting through the bureaucracy and the policies and the change of all of that to get that assigned. Yeah, no, it was huge. And it's only actually now.

Em (33:31.31)
sub.

Em (33:42.062)
So that's a big win.

Julian Buschmaas (33:49.462)
reflecting back on it that I more and more realized actually what that meant and I actually got awarded for that at BCG in one way or another for having made that change and from building that connection.

Em (34:03.918)
Amazing. And the thing that threads this all together here is community. Like you built strong relationships. You said you took people with you. You had a great relationship with HR. And this is something that I see a lot of when, especially when leaders are new, right? And sometimes it comes naturally to people and it really depends on your childhood and your experiences. But...

I see a lot of new leaders and founders come into business and forget about the relationship part and then they wonder why nothing is working in their favor. And so, yeah, this is a big problem actually. And in fact, it can lead to people like getting fired because they're coming in from the wrong lens, from the wrong angle. And I've had two clients actually who was very close to being fired.

Julian Buschmaas (34:35.574)
Hmm.

Em (34:51.135)
And when they came to me, they were like, I don't know what's going on. And so this relationship thing is amazing. And this is what I've seen. And from the story you've been telling me here, it's like, this is, this has been pivotal in your entire career and you're like working at your parents' shop and building the relationships there. And I bet you had locals and I bet if you wanted to do an initiative there, then you had support, right? And so it takes this skill set to do it.

Julian Buschmaas (35:15.446)
Yeah, it's a mindset of whatever you want to do, probably you can't do it alone. And not having the ego to think you can't do it alone and that you have to do it alone and that you need to prove yourself. Which was something I had to work hard on myself because part of getting rejected so much in high school for not having done my homework and not performing at the higher level was later than to prove all those people wrong.

Em (35:21.375)
Mm -hmm.

Em (35:25.727)
Yeah.

Julian Buschmaas (35:43.67)
which was a huge part of my motivation in my guess, my undergrad to outperform quite a lot. And then later to get into these quite prestigious jobs, et cetera, just for the sake of, you didn't believe in me, but you know, but that was then something where I got really quickly humbled in my work at BCG as well and where I learned, okay, why, you know, like it's so much easier if I just ask for help.

and it's so much easier if I admit the things I'm not good at and then play my strength. And that's all what relationship building is also about, supporting each other, building a diverse team, creating different strength, and then also having the power of three, four, five brains thinking about a solution rather than just one and then picking the best one out of five and not just of what's coming out of your head.

Em (36:12.573)
Yeah.

Em (36:38.365)
100%. And I think part of that is, yes, you've got four or five brains working on it, but they're all working on it from different angles. And that's the whole, that's the impact of having a diverse team. And it only happens when you know what your genius is, what your genius zone is, how you can bring your strengths to the table and then what else you need. How can the people that you've got bring their strengths? Yeah.

Julian Buschmaas (36:46.102)
Mm -hmm.

Julian Buschmaas (37:00.47)
Yeah, a hundred percent. So it needs to be moderated in one way or another as well. I'm a huge fan of a model that's called like, I was introduced to this actually at Master's University, but it's a changing leadership role. So for example, we have our Monday meetings where we talk about everybody, okay, what's going on, stand up, you know, what's the week looking like? And that's moderated every week by somebody else. And because they have to basically be in my position as the CEO for that meeting, it -

helps them to think about how we think about those things and what's important to report actually to me in order for me to understand what they should prioritize in this week and what's important, what isn't important. But at the same time, I understand how they are approaching this and that there's lots of value in this. And in the university, essentially, we had this like changing leadership role for discussion leader for how we would approach our learnings for each week, what were the learning goals for each week. And it's all based on a thing of like problem -based learning. And yeah.

huge fan of that.

Em (38:01.883)
Ooh, so this is for your like Monday stand -ups.

Julian Buschmaas (38:05.462)
Yeah, but there might be various ways where we can incorporate that as well in terms of brainstorming sessions. And it's really important that whoever leads these meetings is not always the same leader, but actually somebody else is doing that. And that there's a clear person who just moderates time and things and keeps people on track who separate from the person who leads the discussion. And that discussion is just changing.

Em (38:29.691)
I love this. I like, I love the structured roots and like from what you're telling me, like there's a lot of structure in what you do. And I'm actually interested in knowing what are your, have you done your executive skill test recently for your ADHD?

Julian Buschmaas (38:44.566)
And no, actually, I'm not even aware that it exists.

Em (38:48.474)
So in, I think it's in the UK, this they do them in America. So when you're diagnosed as ADHD, you have to do a test. And I redid mine recently with my therapist and she's like, I wonder what your executive skills skills are. She's like, can you remember from when you were a child? Cause I was diagnosed as a kid and I was like, I have no clue. And she said, let's do it. And so my worst executive skills are time visualization. So if, so if on top of my husband says, how long are you going to be? And I'm like five minutes.

And so 45 minutes later, he'll come back and he's like, you said like five minutes, the dinner's like ready like 30 minutes ago. And so it's visualizing time. And so I actually started working more on that. It helps you to focus on the areas that you're weakest at. And then my other one is working memory. Like, I can't remember things at all. And so I, going back to learning, this is something I struggle with. And that's why French has been so difficult for me because it goes in one ear and out the other if I'm not applying it.

Julian Buschmaas (39:47.062)
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Well, I resonate a lot with the time, with the time bet. Definitely something I'm not good at. Or good at, because on the other hand, it allows me to actually work really hard on something once I started working on it. So, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Em (40:04.281)
Yeah, do you get into the flows? Like I will just be in the zone and it's three hours. It's like, I'm like, whoa. But it's when you're enjoying it, when you're good at it.

Julian Buschmaas (40:12.47)
No.

100 % and the great thing about having your own company now I can allow to have those more often more frequent because they will happen for me at night so they would start maybe at 10 p and then I can easily work through until like 4 or 5 a in the morning but what it would mean in the corporate setting usually is that I still had to wake up at 8 or 9 and three hours of sleep is not good for anyone however now

Having informed all my team that I don't want internal meetings before 11 a And also me being the person who schedules them if they are before 11 a I'm able to actually postpone them or say like if they are not very, very crucial to happen on that day. Which means that I can sleep in the day after and I'm refreshed, which would then not, which allows them to happen more often because else they, you don't get into flow with three hours of sleep.

Like that's not going to happen. And basically adjusting for this and then also not feeling guilty the next day that you did that because other people say, hey, Julian, it's crazy that you work so long or so late. It's not, well, that's how I, that's how I'm productive. That's, that's how I get shit done. Like that other people probably need a whole week to do and you know, I can do that in one night, but then being gentle and kind to myself and understanding that the next day.

I did it all last night, so the next day I will be, I'll take it a bit more easy, I do the things I have to do, but I'm not being overly ambitious on that day. And I guess that helps a lot, and accounting for that.

Em (41:53.556)
Yeah, no, I love this. I'm liking all that you said, and the reason is because I resonate very much with it. And the fact that you're able to listen to your body, understand your productivity cycles, understand how to leverage the ADHD diagnosis that's been given to you is something that many leaders struggle with. Like, for example, I'll have clients and I'll say, okay, like I'll tell them about my morning routine. I'm exactly the same as you. I don't have any cause before 12.

That's just how it is. I've blocked them all off and I've blocked them off after six because I know my energy doesn't last that long. Like I have spurts, it goes up and it goes down. It goes up. The morning is my time to replenish, like charge the battery, do all the things I want to do, check my emails, like do all the stuff that I don't do.

Julian Buschmaas (42:38.742)
I have this what people talk about in their 5M routine, 6AM club. I do all of that at 10. I do it at 9. And then I read my book, I have my coffee, I go to yoga, I do my meditation. I go for a walk, I do, maybe even I go for a morning cycle.

Em (42:45.395)
Yeah, same. Yeah.

Em (42:53.747)
Yeah, love it.

Julian Buschmaas (43:01.75)
and then I come back from that and then I'm ready to start the day. And then I also don't have any social pressure anymore of fear of missing out because I've done all of that already in the morning. So it doesn't matter if I work in the evening as much. So the next business I also want to start is a social morning club.

Em (43:02.483)
Yeah. Yeah.

Em (43:17.427)
Yeah.

Em (43:21.011)
Ooh, yes. Will that be a local one in London?

Julian Buschmaas (43:23.318)
Like, why is everybody during the week just meeting for dinners after work or going for sports after work? It's always after work. Why not before work?

Em (43:30.803)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, did you see that in, is it New York, that they have like morning parties, like sober parties? Yeah, I love this.

Julian Buschmaas (43:40.95)
Yeah, exactly. Like that's the kind of vibe I'm... That's probably if I ever have time again. That's a new project I would... Well, let's start a club right now.

Em (43:49.332)
Maybe I'll do this in France because I'm learning to DJ. Let's do it. I'll do the France chapter. You can do the London chapter. The morning social club. They got done. Yeah. But it's so funny because honestly, a lot of the leaders I work with think that they have to be on all the time, especially the founders.

Julian Buschmaas (43:59.542)
Just need to come up with a name and get started and getting people together that... Yeah? It's very easy.

Em (44:17.332)
And when they start letting themselves work with their energy and communicate to other people that they're not available at those times, just everything becomes easier, becomes easier, they get more results, the business feels nice again, work feels nice, they're not getting irritated at things like, yeah.

Julian Buschmaas (44:35.702)
Because what's the point of starting a business if you can't dictate the way you want it to be in one way or another? Or if you can't shape it in a way that actually makes it work for you? Because then you're stuck in the same thing which might mean you left your corporate job in the first place or something.

Em (44:49.876)
Exactly.

Em (44:54.772)
Yep, you just go from cubicle to 24 seven working. But yeah, I'm the same. Build your business by design a bit like James Wedmore. Do you know James Wedmore? he's fab, brilliant. He's like one of the online marketer people, but he has this program called Business by Design. And there's lots of people I follow like this. So if you're interested, I'll send you all my recommendations. I will.

Julian Buschmaas (45:05.334)
I do, I don't, I don't, but...

Julian Buschmaas (45:11.894)
Okay.

Julian Buschmaas (45:18.614)
Please, yeah, no, I'm always curious to learn as you might imagine.

Em (45:22.129)
Love them. Yeah. But I think back to ADHD, because this is a topic, especially because it's one thing being a founder, right? And we can dictate when we work, but it's another thing being someone who works within someone else's company and not being able to necessarily dictate their time and also maybe having symptoms of ADHD or having diagnosed ADHD. Now, is there anything that you do? So...

Julian Buschmaas (45:37.206)
Hmm.

Julian Buschmaas (45:46.134)
Yeah, 100%.

Em (45:49.968)
In regards to time, we've got that. And if they can't change time, that's no problem. Is there something that they can do to just manage themselves, manage their productivity, manage their energy? Is there anything that you do that really helps aside from the morning routine?

Julian Buschmaas (46:06.518)
I guess the main task what this morning routine is about, but again, it doesn't matter if it's in the morning or not. It's active, active breaks, like planning for time to have a break and whatever that breaks looks like for you. It could be yogurt, could be hiking. It can be cooking, baking. It can be.

binge watching, I don't know, sleeping in, whatever it is, but it needs to be scheduled in because then we have this all this fear of missing out and friends are meeting on the weekend and then you do something the whole weekend and you did the whole work week and you still haven't taken time for yourself. But I think especially for an ADHD brain, it's so important that you give it active time to rest.

Em (46:54.256)
Mm -hmm.

Julian Buschmaas (46:54.422)
because it's so difficult to rest. And for me, it's on the weekend, like also two or three hours on the bike after two hours. That's when all thoughts are thought.

there's nothing new popping in. I know what I'm going to do for the next hour, which is continue cycling. So there's nothing to worry about in that sense. And that's the kind of active rest that helps so much to recharge. And I recharge doing exercise, which other people get tired from, but for me, at least the brain recharges. The body is tired. So especially if I manage to get my body really tired, then my brain has also time to rest.

Em (47:19.886)
Mm -hmm.

Em (47:24.429)
Mm -hmm.

Em (47:29.965)
Well, it's interesting that you say that because with the body, so with ADHD, the way I've experienced it is both mind stuff and somatically, so in the body. And so most people think that you think things and then that impacts your body. It's actually the other way around. You are affected by the world first in your body and then that creates...

Julian Buschmaas (47:51.966)
The way you think.

Em (47:52.781)
the thoughts and stories around it, right? It's like, and it really depends what lens you're looking through, whose research you're into. For me, that's how it is. But what happens is, and this is why exercise is so great. Yes, it does change the hormones, but it also shifts out the anxiety and emotions and energy in your body, which then recalibrates everything. And it's this feeling of peace. Okay, we've got quiet now.

Julian Buschmaas (48:12.15)
Yeah.

Aha, and that's the feeling that I guess you need to crave especially in a situation where you can't influence a lot of other things. If you can influence that, that will make a big difference. And that includes making sure that you sleep enough. I guess sleep is really such a big influence on my productivity. And that's also about...

Em (48:23.981)
Mm -hmm.

Julian Buschmaas (48:39.894)
Well, diet falls more and more in. I realized really how focused and how well I can work on black coffee in the morning and not having had a carb -heavy breakfast. Like in Germany, it's so normal. I don't know, I grew up with eating four Nutella toast every morning or eating lots of carbs, muesli, cereals. And in retro perspective, I guess, yeah, and it was always like, breakfast is so important, et cetera. But for me now, I just know I'm so much more focused in the mornings and I can...

Em (48:54.829)
Mm -hmm.

Julian Buschmaas (49:10.358)
when I just have coffee until I actually eat and then eating something more light like a salad for lunch. And then I eat heavy, more heavy like proteins, et cetera, in the evenings or something. But that works for me. And then the weekends, that's where you can eat me just like my Nutella pancakes and sugar overload. So I love that. But then also I can either be on the bike or I can just be a potato in the park.

Em (49:11.946)
Mm -hmm.

Em (49:19.434)
Mm -hmm.

Em (49:23.658)
do what you want. That's literally...

Em (49:35.466)
Yeah, but it's for you. It's knowing that the diet and what you eat, well not diet, I don't like to use that word, but the food that you're eating and when and the consumption, the amount that you eat is impacting your energy levels and how to tailor that to you. So you're biohacking, right? You're taking your feedback. I'm obsessed with this stuff and you might have, have you listened to Andrew Huberman before? yeah.

Julian Buschmaas (49:53.31)
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely in that way. Yeah.

Julian Buschmaas (50:02.294)
Yeah, a little bit every now and then. I can't say that I haven't, yeah, I haven't, I just don't have enough time currently to listen to all the podcasts I want to listen to. huh.

Em (50:04.682)
I like bits and pieces.

Em (50:10.986)
yeah, it's a lot and he has a really long podcast, but he's really interested and this is a test I've been doing recently, which is to manage your cortisol spike in the morning. So for women, it's a lot different to men. So women have to really be on top of the blood sugar because if you let it slide, that's when you start to have all the other side effects and stress hormones released. Starting off with a protein dense breakfast.

Julian Buschmaas (50:18.806)
Hmm.

Em (50:34.538)
Okay, so I'm talking for women at the moment, especially those who've got any kind of neurodivergence. This will keep you on track. Protein, sunlight in your eyes first thing in the morning. Get yourself outside. Have some coffee within 90 minutes of waking up because you already have a natural cortisol spike and continue that. But don't have coffee on an empty stomach if you're a woman. That's my advice. I'm not a doctor. Don't take it seriously. But this is what works for me.

Julian Buschmaas (50:57.878)
Hmm.

I'm gonna go.

Em (51:03.399)
But yeah, it's really about knowing what works for you. And yeah, and so...

Julian Buschmaas (51:06.966)
And being curious to explore that, right? And also being open to that one doesn't work for me. Good, but at least I've tried or experienced it and I've broken out of my natural habit. And especially with diet, I think it's so quick. You can see the changes of a different diet within three or four days, at least what it does with your mood and your energy levels.

Em (51:21.318)
Mm -hmm.

Em (51:29.766)
100%. I am the healthiest person that you've ever met in your life. Like I don't, and I realize that it's a bit abnormal. Like I talk to people and they like, what do you eat? And I'm like, well, I don't eat grains. I don't eat sugar. I don't really eat dairy. I don't have coffee and empty stomach. Like, and I realized, okay, but I'm like a bit of an anomaly. It's really difficult for people to remove sugar, grains, bread, all this kind of stuff. And so, but once you do,

Julian Buschmaas (51:52.566)
And I guess you also didn't start it at once, right? That was a bit...

Em (51:55.59)
No, I've been doing this for like over 10 years now, I would say. Yes, so yeah, this is not an overnight fix, but once you start to tune into your body and how it's doing throughout the day, because the active breaks, that's why they're so beneficial, because you're able to then tune in. Is there anything else that you do? Like, do you do any kind of particular routines? Amazing.

Julian Buschmaas (52:01.558)
There we go. Yeah.

Julian Buschmaas (52:14.038)
Yeah. Yeah, micro meditations. Micro meditations. And it's the thing with Nudor, you know, it's so hard to actually meditate and people say, meditation is so good for you, but to actually sit down and meditate and maintain that as a...

as a regular thing over every day or what, keeping that routine is so hard. Cause there's so many things that can distract you from doing it. So instead of me accepting that and knowing that that won't happen anyways, I have my form of meditations we already talked about, which is sport for some people, it's music. There's so many other ways to meditate, but...

Em (52:31.174)
Mm -hmm.

Em (52:45.51)
Mm -hmm.

Julian Buschmaas (52:52.566)
Micro meditations is really like I'm trying to find ways throughout the day where I can be present. And that means after every meeting or before every meeting, I'm taking 30 seconds. Like it really doesn't, nobody cares if you're going in this meeting at 3pm or one past 3pm. Like take that minute for every, before every, every after meeting. And I do exercises like...

You take your finger and your thumb and you rub them together and you can start feeling the the rills of the skin. And then once you're done with the two fingers you go taking all the five and then when you're done with the five you can do all the hand. If you go for that flow with like three or four breaths you're easily done with 30 seconds. And then you go in a meeting and you do that with various ways. I don't know if you brush your teeth you can just be...

Em (53:18.721)
Mm -hmm.

Em (53:34.657)
of this.

Julian Buschmaas (53:43.254)
conscious about that you're actually brushing your teeth right now and not trying to think about anything. Like, how does it feel on your teeth? I don't know. When you cycle, how does the grip on your hands feel? I don't know. There's so many kinds of ways where you could just tune in throughout the day, 30 seconds, and it's equally effective in building that brain muscle. Yeah, then a 10 minute or one hour meditation in one piece, which is so much harder to achieve.

Em (53:44.097)
Yeah.

Em (53:50.081)
Mm -hmm.

Em (54:05.409)
Mm -hmm, yay.

Em (54:11.233)
Yeah, no, it's bringing the body back to the present moment, practicing mindfulness. And this is, is this, have you been working with like an EMDR practitioner or NLP? There's very similar practices that trigger, when I do this, then this happens. And so,

Julian Buschmaas (54:23.606)
Probably not.

Em (54:33.281)
this and also feeling your fingers and it embodies you. So you bring yourself back into the body and grounds you in. And I love that you're doing that. It's amazing. Okay, so how did you get into doing this kind of stuff? How did you learn it?

Julian Buschmaas (54:49.43)
Well, the time where I had a bit more struggle with ADHD, I was doing my undergrad. I had hair loss, this amount on the back of my hair. I had daily panic attacks. And...

That was a time where I probably started to get into yoga and meditation and certain other... Yeah, just getting to know my body in that kind of way and not trying to do substances, for example, like THC, which till that moment helped me a lot to chill and calm down, but I was kind of abusing it, so that didn't work anymore. So I had to find other ways, and I guess I'm doing this now since, yeah, 10 years in that kind of way, so...

you learn along this in various, I don't know, workshops and practices about this. And there's a thing, I don't know if it was a TED Talk or a book called Positive Intelligence by a guy called Giazat. I think he studies happiness in Stanford, I think. But yeah, he also has a course and a program where he, I think, talks a lot about these micro -meditations. And I guess I picked it up for that as well.

Em (56:00.318)
It's beautiful and I love that you've got this ritual for you because and anybody listening to this you can build your own ritual too like take all the little things that you've ever learned and do what works for you.

Julian Buschmaas (56:08.47)
Good.

Julian Buschmaas (56:12.534)
There are so many things, like if you're in a call, a Teams call right now, you could for example look at the background of the person and I see you have a Rothko there, somewhere in the back, that looks really nice. I don't know, so you can look at the, you can find those details, you can look at colors, you can look at the, you can listen to the sound and how the sound of the person feels like and...

Em (56:22.238)
yeah, you know.

Julian Buschmaas (56:36.598)
you can fix on the eyebrows and the hair. You can find lots of different details, especially also when you have a team's call and you feel like, okay, I want to focus, I want to be present, that enable you then to do so.

Em (56:43.837)
Yeah. In it. Yeah. And these small actions actually reset and shift your nervous system. There's another act that is really lovely. Like, so you can do like five, four, three, two, one. So you can like listen to five things. You can see four things. You can touch three things. What's the other one? What have I missed? Yeah, what's two?

Julian Buschmaas (56:53.174)
Hmm.

Julian Buschmaas (57:07.478)
Two. Feeling seen. Okay.

Em (57:10.78)
How many senses? You can only taste one thing, what's the second one? Okay, anyway, I've forgotten half of the senses, but smell two things, yeah. Smell two things and taste one thing.

Julian Buschmaas (57:18.742)
Smell?

Em (57:23.292)
That's a nice exercise and I do something very similar to you. So I do something called brushing down and this is a great nervous reset because it uses bilateral movement. So you brush down your arms, you stand up and you do it and you ground yourself into the earth. So brush bilateral movement all down your body, all down your back, all down your legs, but moving bilaterally, brushing your hair, taking a big deep breath in, shaking it all out, all the energy.

and using the hard breath because hard breath simulates the vagus nerve in the belly and then you're ready to roll into the next thing. That's what I do when I code switch. Yeah, I'll do a video. Maybe I should do an Instagram video on this. I'm going to make a note. Yeah, brushing down. Amazing. Awesome. So I've got one last question, which is because many people here are managing

Julian Buschmaas (57:59.702)
Wow, I'm definitely gonna try that out.

100 % yeah.

Em (58:17.628)
and leading people who have got multiple kinds of neurodivergence within their teams, right? just not my mic. And it's not easy. If you don't have an understanding of neurodivergence, how the hell do you manage your team? What is your tip for someone who is currently in that situation?

Julian Buschmaas (58:39.926)
I guess it's all about listening and two things that I would say. On the one hand, you need to establish an environment where people are open to talk about you honestly, about the way they want to work or the way they work best and not in the way that they think you want to hear that they work.

We all know those interview questions. What's your biggest weakness? And you say, like, I'm a perfectionist. I don't know. Like, you need to really, and I guess that's leading by example, which means I established every Friday we have our meeting where we all share our mistakes of the week.

the things that didn't work out and to establish this failure culture. So it's okay that things don't work out, but it's more importantly to understand why they didn't work out. So either you learn from it or somebody else can learn from it and not doing the same thing.

Em (59:26.071)
Mm -hmm.

Em (59:36.471)
Mm -hmm.

Julian Buschmaas (59:37.782)
So leading by example, establishing a culture where people are okay to say, I worked the entire night through, I'm so tired today. But I established this and this, or maybe I worked the whole night through and I got into something that is really not important for us, but at least that thing is on a level done that we will never do it anyways. But.

Em (59:54.263)
Hehehehe.

Julian Buschmaas (59:55.414)
And being able for them to admit that which is I guess part of the neurodiversity where they can say okay I don't feel comfortable with something like that and then the second one is then once you establish that this is the relationship that you can have or the conversations that you can have to then ask The questions about more like but tell me how do you work best? Not not this is not about me now. This is about you telling me What is it that you need in order to to work best and if that means I need a full flex work time?

Em (59:59.775)
Mm -hmm.

Julian Buschmaas (01:00:25.59)
Sure, and we just established it as core hours that you are available and I am available so we can actually meet. Great. If that means you don't have to apologize, you don't need to tell me that you're not gonna start working till like 1 p or something. Great. I don't know, but it's really like asking them. And then for them, there's also responsibility then of the employees actually to pick that up and to then have the confidence and to actually say what they need.

Em (01:00:31.479)
Mm -hmm.

Em (01:00:53.175)
Yep. Which is, it's not easy.

Julian Buschmaas (01:00:54.134)
And all of that is... No, it's not. And all of that is then further helped by a mutual understanding of how does autism affect working? And what are the best practices for that? Because every neurodiversity is different, every person with ADHD is different, every person with autism is different, and we're all somewhere on the spectrum. But there might be some certain...

things that do work well for people and that might give you a guidance into what could be tried at least. And being aware of them and having an understanding on both sides, I guess that's what you need to be able to as a leader. So you can build teams that then leverage those strengths.

diminish the weaknesses or providing the support they need for those things that they're not strong at. Like administrative tasks in terms of ADHD and continuous boring tasks and okay let's bring somebody else in to do this kind of more operational things.

Em (01:01:49.206)
Yeah, so it's...

Em (01:01:58.918)
Yeah, it's the creating that safe space, the psychological safety, giving them that space, helping them to understand that mistakes are normal and that we should be making more mistakes actually if we want to get to the end result quicker. And then at least helping them to assess what their strengths are because honestly, if you ask someone what their strengths are, it's really difficult for them to answer without deep.

Julian Buschmaas (01:02:07.03)
Yeah.

Em (01:02:27.862)
thought and journaling and whatever and exploration.

Julian Buschmaas (01:02:29.91)
Yeah, it's actually so much easier to ask somebody else what do you think are my strengths.

Em (01:02:33.718)
Yes, exactly. It's much easier to do for other people. And then also look at examples like we do whenever anybody comes to me, especially if they're struggling or they're challenged with imposter syndrome. It's very common in female leaders.

We dive into strengths and we dive into stories and we dive into like what's happened in the past and we give them lots of questions to help them start to create this like Bible of awesomeness to help them realize that, okay, I'm actually really good at all this and we do quite a few assessments. So there's an amazing assessment by Patrick Leccioni. I can never say his name. I'll send you his link. Yeah, but it's called the working genius model. And this is the best assessment I've ever found to fully

Julian Buschmaas (01:03:13.694)
Please.

Em (01:03:21.336)
understand how to build a team that can collaborate really efficiently. I'll send you it. Yeah.

Julian Buschmaas (01:03:26.902)
Yeah, I would be very excited to learn about this because as we are in the process of closing our funding round, it is the time where we are starting to expand our team. And as part of expanding the team, there's still a lot of things that we can do while we are being a French, a German, and a Czech. We're all three white male in one way or another. So we're well aware of that. So yeah, a lot to do in building this.

Em (01:03:30.294)
Yeah.

well done. Exciting.

Em (01:03:52.022)
Mm -hmm. Interesting. This is another conversation. Maybe we should do another one where it's like, how are you hiring now? Like, how are you doing this? Yeah.

Julian Buschmaas (01:03:56.502)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, please. I've been figuring it out along the way.

Em (01:04:03.766)
Yeah, that'll be interesting. Okay, so we have a new feature that we're doing at the end of each episode and it's called popping into the bubble. You just have to answer one more question and it's just an opportunity to help other people get to know you in a funny, silly way. Okay, so first question, coffee or tea?

Julian Buschmaas (01:04:09.814)
All right.

Julian Buschmaas (01:04:19.702)
Sure, that's good.

Coffee.

Em (01:04:26.102)
a little bit. Books or Kindle?

Julian Buschmaas (01:04:31.19)
books and audible?

Em (01:04:35.382)
Yeah, audibles first. I'm the same as you. Journaling or expressing verbally?

Julian Buschmaas (01:04:42.582)
expressing verbally to yeah trying to probably move a bit more to also journaling and not offloading everything to my friends but it's a lot of offloading to my friends.

Em (01:04:56.294)
yeah. yeah, but once you realise what kind of expression you need, you don't need to offload to your friends anymore. Like, journaling's great. Yeah.

Julian Buschmaas (01:05:06.998)
Yeah, but old journaling didn't work for me. It never did and I also barely think I just can't write anymore. So journaling maybe Probably there's gonna be new invention around it, but I basically would need a video journal or something like this or so speaking to it and

Em (01:05:14.038)
Mm -hmm.

Em (01:05:20.566)
Yeah, there's so many ways to do it. Speaking out loud, recording yourself. Like I get some of my clients to just record voice messages and send it to themselves and they feel better. Yeah. Yeah, it's the best way. But expression, we can also do another podcast on this. Expressing emotions, making decisions. It's fun topics.

Julian Buschmaas (01:05:30.838)
Beautiful. Yeah.

Julian Buschmaas (01:05:41.398)
Yeah. And ADHD and love is also a very interesting one. Relationships.

Em (01:05:44.982)
And love. yeah, yeah, it's true. Maybe we should do this. We could do like a relationship. So we could bring on Regan, Allzy. She's big on this. She always brings on her husband to get his perspective on things. So let's do a joint something. Let's actually vote. If you're listening on Spotify, you can vote on this. I'll put this on as a vote. Relationships, leadership, ADHD. Got it.

Amazing. Okay, thank you so much for this fun chat. Is there anything you'd like to share? Do you want anybody to go and find you somewhere?

Julian Buschmaas (01:06:15.894)
Yeah.

Julian Buschmaas (01:06:20.342)
Well,

I guess in terms of business, LinkedIn is my choice. That's simply Julian Bushmaas and Be Impact. If you want to reach out because you are not for profit and you think there are training programs that you could need, also please don't hesitate to either visit our website, beimpact .co .uk or simply drop me an email, julian at beimpact .co .uk on this. And if you're for profit, I think we could improve our training outcomes and give our employees some fun teaching activities.

Em (01:06:25.718)
Mm -hmm.

Julian Buschmaas (01:06:52.566)
Also don't hesitate to reach out.

Em (01:06:54.998)
Thank you so much, Julian, and we will speak to you again soon. Bye. You too. Bye.

Julian Buschmaas (01:06:59.222)
Yeah, thank you so much as well. Have a lovely rest of your day. Bye bye.