From Adversity to Advocacy: Marcia Brissett Bailey's Story

Marcia Brissett Bailey takes us on an extraordinary journey from her childhood in East London to becoming a champion for neurodiverse individuals. As the editor of "Black, Brilliant and Dyslexic," Marcia shares her personal experiences with dyslexia, the hurdles she overcame within the education system, and the pivotal moments that shaped her advocacy work. Discover the power of supportive educators and the impact of intersectionality as Marcia recounts her story, emphasising the importance of recognising and addressing unique learning needs.

In this episode, we unpack the layers of being black, female, and dyslexic, and how these aspects intersect in both educational and workplace settings. Marcia's reflections on growing up with a Caribbean heritage offer a deep dive into the historical and contemporary challenges faced by her community. From microaggressions to the necessity of psychological safety, we discuss the complexities of navigating multicultural environments and the importance of cultural competence.

We also spotlight Marcia's initiatives beyond education, including her advocacy for accessible formats such as audiobooks and the NeuroEnigma  membership program. Learn about the numerous benefits this program offers, from career mentorship to mental health well-being days. Through her book, career, and projects, Marcia continues to amplify marginalised voices, fostering a more inclusive environment for all. This episode is a powerful testament to the significance of shared stories and the transformative potential of embracing diversity.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

feeling marginalized. You may have a privileged background, so we, you know, different cultures, have different kinds of experiences. So it's so complex, just like defining dyslexia there's over 35 definitions and an organization's coming up with a new one. So do you see it's so complex? Only if you're ready, ready, ready, ready, let's go. Hello and welcome to Divining Egmar, a podcast that talks about how to navigate through the complexities of the workplace as a modern day professional whilst simultaneously having a side hustle.

Speaker 1: 0:43

We appreciate all of our audience members for taking some time out of their day to tune into another episode and look forward to providing you all with some value through our show today. My name is Sarah and I will be the host for this podcast. This podcast will be available on all platforms where you can find podcasts, including Spotify, amazon, apple Podcasts, and we available on all platforms where you can find podcasts, including Spotify, amazon, apple Podcasts, and we're also on YouTube. Now, before we dive in, I have a small favor to ask. Creating this podcast takes a lot of time and energy, and every bit of support helps me keep it going and growing. If you're enjoying the show, five star rate comment on Apple Podcasts or Spotify can make a significant difference in helping new listeners discover us. Your support is invaluable in our growth journey and if you're also watching on YouTube, hit the subscribe button and tap the bell so you never miss an episode. Want to show your appreciation more? You can even buy me a coffee through buy me a coffee page. It's a simple way to support the show directly and helps cover production costs. Together, we can build an incredible community for ambitious professionals like you. Thank you for your support. It means more than you know. Now let's get started. Hey, marcia, how are you today? I'm good, thank you. Happy Friday. Thank you for coming onto my podcast, divining Eggma. I'm so grateful you've come on. I'm such a fan of all the work you do.

Speaker 1: 2:23

I'm a fan of this book Black, brilliant and Dyslexic. And, yeah, I just wanted to talk to you about the book, about what inspired you, what made you write it and, yeah, how dyslexia has shaped you as the woman you are today. And yeah, let's just get into into it. We had a lot of technical issues starting, but I'm really like hoping and I'm praying that this goes well. We don't have any more like technical issues. But, um, so far so good. Everything's working actually quite well. So, yeah, do you mind introducing yourself to my audience? Um, and like, yeah, telling them a little bit about yourself? Um, yeah, and let's start from the beginning, where it all started for you, really, okay. So, hi everybody, my name is Marcia Brissett Bailey and, as Sarah said, I'm the author of the book Black, brilliant and Dyslexic. Well, we, we'd like to say the editor, because the contributions from those who contributed to the book it wouldn't be a book without them and a lot of the people in the book actually wrote their chapters and I guess I kind of created it and put it all together. There's some, we had to do some of the work in the sense of transcribing what has been said, but it's a collaboration of teamwork and bringing everyone together.

Speaker 1: 3:48

So I have been working in the education sector for at least the last 30 years, and it really started from the journey of wanting to make a change and empowering others, or enabling others to find their voice generally, because I didn't feel that I had that when I was growing up, which was a very long time ago, and so I just tell you a little bit. So, as I said, I've been 30 years. I'm what you would say is a SEND specialist in in the terms of I'm qualified to be able to support parents and young people with special educational needs. That looks like working with which some people might know education, health care plan, going to tribunals, looking at the send, support in schools. So I do all of those things. But I've worked before doing that. I've worked in education from primary right up until higher education, from being a tutor, but the main part of my role and job has been a careers advisor within a post-16, sixth form college and a SEND lead supporting students with special education who are transitioning or leaving the education sector. So that's kind of in a nutshell, but I think, yeah, most of my work is, as I said, being education.

Speaker 1: 5:02

So I've been learning as well as learning with the students, but with a passion of that, what we call now neurodiversity. I didn't kind of know what that was for a long time. I would say. I think I really come across neurodiversity as a term or an umbrella term, like four years ago, so it's really evolved. I would say in that period, years ago. So it's really evolved, I would say in that period.

Speaker 1: 5:28

And I grew up in Hackney, which is in East London, and I grew up in a council estate, which I loved and it's part of what I talk about in my book because it also gave me a lot of foundations about unity and community, listening to your adults and having respect and having lots of time to play and reflect and just enjoy fun calling the ice cream van, you know, for your mum, for money and running off and playing in the park. So I think I got a lot from that. But also what I did also have a bit of a difficult experience was when I was in the education system. So I always say and I think I've written the book I can't remember now I love school, but school doesn't love me.

Speaker 1: 6:09

And really what happened was when I got to about year four, five, in particular, before I sort of left to go to secondary school, things got a bit tricky and hard and I started to really realise that I wasn't like my peers and what I mean by that. Of course, I was a young girl growing up, but they, you know, and I was a young black girl. So there were some things that didn't seem apparent and we're not going to be going into, like the stereotypes of what you know black being beautiful and all these kind of things. But what I mean is that I just couldn't sort of read the way my peers were. I couldn't do things in the way my peers did. It just always seemed hard and I didn't know why.

Speaker 1: 6:52

It's like I'm doing everything, I'm showing up, I'm doing. What my, my parents and my, my grandmother, um, said was that you've got to show up and work twice as hard. I'm doing all of this, but why is it not coming over on my paperwork? Why am I not displaying the same hard work? Why is it not showing the work and the the length of time I've spent on that piece of paper, um? And it just wasn't apparent to them. Even though if we look at my school reports now, um and I have got a few, luckily, because my dad kept them you can see Marcy's got good behavior, but he's really trying hard but doesn't get maths quite. You know making small steps. If you read it you would really see that there was something not quite right. But I was really good at sports and art and really showed good expressions on these things. But that is really indicating there's a possibility of a spiky profile.

Speaker 1: 7:45

You've got a young person, but I know there's some real intersections there and sometimes we have to call it for it is. It could be stereotypical. You know this young black girl, you know you're deprived, or you know deprivation in a, you know, in an area that's working class and all those things. I think I got missed really in the education system, but what that led to was an element of trauma as well, because I was really trying hard but I didn't feel so. I got that palpitation, the sweaty hands, the you know, my heart pulping every time I went to go and read. So it was really, really tricky and I found school really hard and some of the work I've done in my recent as an adult, the similarities are still there.

Speaker 1: 8:29

So I feel there's something about our infrastructure in our system that's not supporting our young people. If I'm saying over 30 years ago, if not longer I can't do the maths right now that I'm having those, say, I had those experience and we're moving it forward to 2024, 2023, to whenever, you know, in the 21st century, in that sense, we're still having the same thing. So there's something about the way our systems design and it's not created for everybody, because it wasn't like it wasn't for everybody, if I'm, if I'm really honest. So then we talk about inclusive and how we assess. Well, if you assess me on my intelligence, if we're measuring intelligence, whatever that looks like, then it would be inadequate for testing me on my memory. If we're talking about memory is a test of intelligence, how can that be? So you were testing me in my memory? Then that wasn't going to work because my memory is really short, that phonological processing. You tell me something I was like oh gosh, it takes me a long time. So I need time to be able to be assessed. If we're assessing on that and I think it's a bit outdated we need to be do a multi-sensory, multi-sensory range of things to demonstrate or enable people to feel good about their strengths and what they're learning.

Speaker 1: 9:42

So I just feel school didn't feel right for me for many reasons, and then that led to me feeling traumatized and my teachers told my parents that I would never academically achieve and I was like that, don't sound like me. In that process I actually selectively muted and what that meant is I did speak because the cultural part was there that you have to be listening to your teachers, you've got to be respectful. So I did speak, but I thought if I didn't speak all the time in class and didn't act with my peers, I just kept myself to myself. Then I'll be invisible and then it wouldn't ask me to read. So that was all my kind of selective mute was about and it's.

Speaker 1: 10:23

There's more to it, but I just know that we haven't got loads of time, but it did lead to therapy and it did lead to me, um, working on this and I think there's a real piece for some people who have experienced, you know, ptsd whatever people want to call it is a reading trauma is real. Um, that I had to do a piece of inner work, inner child work, you know, you know childhood's a lifetime and if we're not learning to work with that inner child piece, um, these traumas can trigger and I still get triggers, don't get me wrong, sarah I still get triggers but I've learned to be able to kind of manage it because those traumas were real and they still come into my adulthood, but I've learned to be able to find strategies and tools. So that's kind of the essence, if you want to give a background to Marcia, in terms of the beginning of that journey and that beginning of feeling like that teacher's saying I'm never going to achieve. No, that's not me, I'm going to find a way and I'm going to try and hack through this system.

Speaker 1: 11:23

And secondary school was just a bit of a blur. So if we just move on to that diagnosis of dyslexia, secondary school, I came out of one GCSE so I was really trying, but it was like a blur. It just I didn't understand. I know I was good at subjects, I liked history, I liked facts, but I didn't know how to apply myself because I didn't at this stage, even though I've learned to read now, because I couldn't read until I was 10. Um, even though I started to learn to read, my fluency in reading wasn't strong because I didn't have, I wasn't turning to a book as a, as a kind of leisure thing, and so I didn't develop that. I was fearful of it because of all those things, what happened at school. But what I did know I was starting to read, which was great.

Speaker 1: 12:04

But it's interesting, you say that you couldn't read but you wrote a whole book. So yeah, we'll get on to that. So it's like a journey, if anything. You know, and you've got to have that self-belief, that acceptance, remove those kind of um, sabotages and imposter syndrome, because the imposter syndrome is not me, the imposter was the system disguising itself is that you've got to use this kind of um structure and then we're going to all pass. But that is not me. So I'm not in the imposter, but I felt like an imposter. But imposter is it wasn't me, do you understand? So yes, dyslexia is not based on intelligence. But if we was to base it on the system that assessed us and measure it's a lot of measuring, it's very restricted then it would tell you that I wasn't academically able to achieve.

Speaker 1: 12:59

But if we did it in a different way, if Marcy could read and I'm not read, write or no, not write speak her essays or do a combination of some coursework or something else to present herself and what my thinking is, I would get an A every time because you've got a combination of different ways to show up and present who you are and working on your strength. But I don't get opportunity in the school system to show my strengths because you're just basically in a linear and a rope way and I'm, you know, that's just not the way that I process and then that puts a lot of stress on you and that's what was happening with me. So just coming out with one GCSE which was a B in those days. That would be like a grade seven or eight now, um, depending on how I think it was on the I end. I think it was like a B plus um, so it's probably like on your eight side. But if I could write essays and structured it in a way better, I sure I would have got an A.

Speaker 1: 13:55

So it was down to my writing skills ability, um, alongside my acting. Do you see what I mean? So it was only when I got to college, um did I really start to really try retaking my maths English. I did literature. Um, and it was my government and politics teacher said Marcia, something's not quite right. We're seeing that you're, you're very articulate, but when it comes to putting what's in your head down in paper, it wasn't a reflection. And that's when I think it was like a Harika moment. It's like, oh. So this teacher's seen who I really am. He's seen my abilities and he can see that this is not. It's just not me playing up and I'm just really stupid and I'm not academic. There's something more to it. So he referred me to a teacher called Jenny McWinney who I think really, I felt saved me. Um, I really do think she saved me and it was then that I had assessments.

Speaker 1: 14:55

And maybe this is not the route for everybody, but I had an educational psychologist assessment that diagnosed me as dyslexic and it was like, wow, so I as dyslexic. And it was like, wow, so I'm dyslexic. I'm black, I'm a woman, I'm a teenager, but you know, woman, young girl, that's a lot of things. So I've already been told I've got to work twice as hard as a black person and a woman because there's glass ceiling. And then you want to put dyslexia on me. That's a lot of stuff. Which one do I choose? And I can't choose any one of them because they're all part of me and that was the thing that I had to learn about acceptance and loving me.

Speaker 1: 15:32

It took a long time because the trauma was real and I had to believe there was intersections of inequalities which my parents and my grandparents were talking about. And then you're saying you're dyslexic. How was this going to work? So I just disclosed everywhere and everywhere and I kept on talking about dyslexia and I never saw a black dyslexic person. I never. I I really didn't.

Speaker 1: 15:54

I thought that and I I say this and it might sound about odd, but I thought somehow I must have caught something from the white side of me or something, um, you know, coming from the character you know, like that, that it was because I never saw anybody. And that's the thing about representation, which I'll bring on to talking about why I wrote the book. I just didn't see anyone who looked like me. It's only um. Later on I heard about Angie Lamar, who's a comedian, presenter, actor and so many other things. Um, I can't even really say her accolade, accolade or things, but um, and you can see, I can't even say that word right now. So dyslexia does affect language. So you've got a word in your head, but then you can't actually always say it. So, accolades, yeah, her accolade, it came through in the end, but yeah, that's another thing for dyslexia.

Speaker 1: 16:41

People get miss and dyslexia can get misunderstood because people just think it's about reading and writing. It's about time management. It's about, you know, left and right. For some people it's about tying my laces, which I couldn't do for ages. I definitely couldn't read the time. That was the one I've really struggled with for ages. So let's not get it twisted.

Speaker 1: 17:06

Dyslexia is not just a reading and writing thing. Even though those things reading fluently and phonics they were difficult me. I still can't do phonics today. Um, I, I understand the, the kind of understand, I can understand what it's trying to do and I have taught children how to do phonics. Funny enough, but for me it doesn't work. I have to learn the whole word and, um, I have to learn in pictures and chunks as well, and actually some of the processes that I learned to spell words or spell words, people be like what, but it works for me and that's the thing. There's different ways of learning. That's what we've got to start looking at. We have to look at the individual and how. What's going to be best for them. So we just doing phonics is just not. It. It limits or it brings barriers to some, and then we already have the systematic barriers as it is. So we have to be doing better about that and it's still really hard because that's where you know our governments are choosing, as phonics is the main thing.

Speaker 1: 17:59

So I've said so many different things, but yet what I wanted to conclude was that I got diagnosed when I was 16, if I didn didn't say that already, because I go off and then have to bring myself back. So I hope we captured that that it was when I was 16. And I think I said all the things that it just changed. It was a game changer, because I no longer felt stupid and, yeah, it just changed my life. Because all of those times before nobody saw me and it was this teacher and I can't remember his name, but it was my government politics teacher. I think it felt like it was Mario, because he was Italian or so he really was the first point.

Speaker 1: 18:38

And you need people in your corner, you need people to see you or believe in you, and I think I was very fortunate at that stage of my life that the college I was at was starting to kind of not experiment but explore dyslexia and they were getting they've got funding. So I just was happened to be in the right place at the right time and I feel like that I was very fortunate, um, blessed in a way, to have somebody assess me and that the college was exploring this as a, as a, as a thing like dyslexia, as a real thing, that people were struggling and I was what you call the high dyslexia. Um, I was a classic dyslexic person. So that's just really a really quick store because I can really speak, um, about loads of different things and you've got to stop me. That was a really big background of my dyslexia journey, if I hope I've captured it before I sort of talk about the book so beautifully. Um, there's something that I kind of picked up from when you were speaking. You talked about.

Speaker 1: 19:37

There's two things that I always hear as well as a black woman is working twice as hard, trauma. And then the other thing about angie lamar. Although she was a dyslexic woman, I would class her as maybe a coded neurodivergent. So there's coding in her neurodiversity diversity but she's not explicitly saying that she is neurodiverse, um, when you initially see her. So what I wanted to touch on was twice as hard.

Speaker 1: 20:05

Do you feel, as a Black person, is it relevant for today for us to work twice as hard? Because I've really I've always heard that phrase from my parents, but as I get older, it doesn't feel like I should have to work twice as hard. I'm beginning to feel like, can we just work hard and just be accepted for who we are, and where's the twice as hard that we have to work? Because we wouldn't say that to somebody who was white or Caucasian and tell them they have to work twice as hard. That wouldn't even be something that goes into their mind. They will just be like I have to work hard and I have to do my best and somehow I'll get through. Do you think we can kind of scrap that mentality? Or you don't think we're quite there yet?

Speaker 1: 21:01

There's some complexities. Complexities in that, see, I'm having a day where I can't say things very well. But that's a really good question and, um, it's one that I'd have to take a few sort of hours to kind of even understand that process of what it is. But what I do know I understand where it comes from. So my family are from the Caribbean and I think my grandmother kind of come just under after the wind rush, which is when a lot of Caribbean's, people from Africa and even people from Asia were coming in at that time, from Kenya and all sorts. So I think their experience growing up in the Caribbean, in addition and we can't sort of shy away from slavery and all of those elements, so some of these things are coming from those times, that kind of colonial time, and so that's just to touch that bit. And what's quite interesting about that if we speak to, uh, whether we want to refer them to our brothers, sisters or our cousins on the other side of the, in the Americans, because they've got a very similar journey, even though for some of us we've come Caribbean and then the UK and then, you know, some people go straight to the Americans. There is very similarities in terms of what we're saying, the same things.

Speaker 1: 22:20

But, to answer your question, what I do know, know working with young people from you know multicultural diversity. It's not just us having these same things. Some people have the thing where you've got to not only have you got to work twice as hard, you have to be a doctor and lawyer. So there's lots of different intersectionalities to this in terms of giving hope and future and being successful, and you know we didn't have it, but we want you to have it. So there's still these elements today in different shapes and forms, from different community and cultures.

Speaker 1: 22:48

But, um, no, I don't, I shouldn't have to work twice as hard. No, I shouldn't. To answer that question, I shouldn't be and it would be nice to drop that. But what the truth behold, from my lived experience and what's important for me to say, I can't speak for every black person or any every black person who's dyslexic or neurodiverse, but what I do know from my lived experience, there is still microaggressions, there's still discrimination, racism, and I think for some people and, um, it's this thing that I have to prove my worth, or something like that. So if we have to drop this in some way, I do agree, but I think we have to be delicate about how we're speaking about it, because everybody's experience is different and some people are not feeling that. But we do know from recent um things that have been, you know, been on social media, people even committing suicide. This is a real, this is a real discussion. It's a big one. I think I wouldn't be doing it justice in the time. We have to sort of talk about the layers of my experience, but I do.

Speaker 1: 23:53

I do believe, um, and I didn't believe before the microaggressions, the indirect kind of conversations, or, you know, the hearing of your stuff that smooth, that food's a bit smelly or whatever it is, the feelings that you have to carry some of these things when you feel that wasn't right what they said, but did I really hit it or is it just me? And then you have that self-doubt and if you've got the neurodiversity self-doubt in addition, that then you're having the, the black experience of going into a workplace and that that culture doesn't make you it's very complex, yeah, and so we then we're starting to look at work culture and what this whole thing. We have the dni kind of space of people feeling belonging, people having a sense of psychological safety, understanding culture and being cultural competent in how we speak. I really like your hair. Do you change? It is a week today. I don't ask you about your hearing, is your?

Speaker 1: 24:52

So there's some things around sensitivity, around culture, and also there's assumptions. But you need to sometimes have the uncomfortable conversations to be comfortable and I think we have to start those conversations. And why people talk about being black and brown and all these kind of things. Because when you've been marginalized for so long in in a, in a history that erases you from there, and then you have the element of um, you know oppression and all those kind of things, these things are still impacting on people today. So, to answer your question without and saying all these little innuendos but not elaborated because we don't have the time yeah, and I only can speak from my experience um is that, yes, we should be dropping, of course, and I do hear young people that's dropped in their mind, but sometimes, when the reality hits the fan, when you go into a place where you've gone and done all your five degrees and whatever you've done to feel like you've got to do this and you've got to, then you still feel like you're having to compete and things are changing. Because we're having a conversation, there is elements of diversity, change, but it's are we supported when we are in these organizations? And that's the question as well for myself.

Speaker 1: 26:07

I feel we shouldn't have to work twice as hard as we just have to work hard and do the adequate amount of work and be merited on that. I don't feel that there has to be this extra layer of oh, now, I've got to do more work now. And I believe if I was a white woman, I wouldn't be thinking that way, or a white man, I wouldn't be thinking that way. I'll be just thinking I'm going to put the effort in and hopefully I will get the opportunity and that's it. I'm not thinking about all those layers, but I feel like we have to think about a lot because, number one, you're neurodiverse, you're black, and then you have to think about a lot because, number one, you're neurodiverse, you're black, and then you have to think about how you can even mask and code switch and you're constantly code switching because you're kind of masking who you are and then going back to what I was talking about, it's being a coded neurodiverse person. So it's almost like you.

Speaker 1: 27:02

I look at Angie Lamar and I remember her growing up listening to her on the radio. I thought she was absolutely fantastic. I loved her. I didn't know she was neurodiverse, I didn't know she had dyslexia, um, but she never made that quite obvious that you wouldn't have known she is. And I noticed that with a lot of black people they'll never kind of say I am dyslexic or let people be aware of it. If they do make you aware of their dyslexia, it will almost be like coded or not really talked about, and I want to kind of explore that. Why do you think that is because I feel like it's it's easy. It's almost like we have to be something that we're not in order for us to fit into a society that will accept us, and I want to know where that comes from. I know it comes from other things, but I feel that we are moving to more of a time where we can. I think we can try to be more of ourselves. But it's that thing that kind of holds us back a little bit and I'm trying to figure out what that is. What do you think that is, marcia? Right? Big, big questions. So just to finish off, because I've tried to hold that, because that's the memory of trying to make sure you hold conversations so you can move on to the next bit.

Speaker 1: 28:16

Obviously we can't speak for angie lamar, but what I do know, angie lamar came my role model because she did a sketch on dyslexia. Um, I don't I mean we're not going to go into age groups and how old you are now over there but I saw a sketch that she referred to dyslexia and saying she was dyslexic and it was from there that I was hooked on Angela Marr and being my role model and then it was just such an honor that she was able to feature in the book. So obviously it's still part of who she is and she wanted to share that and I'm just so grateful for that because people then can see someone like Angie and all the amazing things she does and still does today. So I wouldn't want to speak for unless she was here for herself, to what that narrative is. But I do appreciate what you're saying and hear what you say, but it's very difficult to speak for people when they're not here. But all I do I can say is that it was a sketch that caught my eye and that really just I was like, wow, another black person who's dyslexic. So, and you know, we've got to say whether you're black, brown, white, um, you know it's only now I'm seeing, you know Bridgerton's on at the moment and maybe I don't want to make this podcast dated, but one of the guys there who's on the next season three, he's dyslexic and ADHD.

Speaker 1: 29:28

We're hearing more people sharing experience. Obviously, people talk about privilege or having different experiences that may make them feel more comfortable. I don't want to read into that, I just love the way you address this. Twice as hard that we don't have to, and I think that's the bit I want. Twice as hard that we don't have to, and I think that's the bit I want to leave on on that particular discussion we just had, because there's just so many things to unpick and to un, you know, to kind of pull out of that tapestry of lived experience, but also the black experience living in the UK, um, and all of the other things. What goes on with that because the realities are real, what we see, the statistics, different things, whether we talk about mental health et cetera. So these realities are real.

Speaker 1: 30:07

We're not saying that we have to work twice as hard, but it was just the way I grew up, because it was that very children were seen and not heard. And then it was you have good manners, you've got to be respectful no-transcript also part of that culture of you. Know you put yourself other people first and even if you haven't got enough, you make sure you you give them a drink. You know your hospitality was just remarkable and you're always serving. But actually then who's serving me in the sense of not? You have to be a little bit selfish. So the, the complexity of culture, you know, has helped me. So let me just give example. Resilience has been a phenomenal part of my strategy to survive in a system that didn't feel quite seeing me, whether it's the curriculum to my school books.

Speaker 1: 31:31

But then what happens is we're putting away the twice as hard, because I'm talking about the resilience, because that was another thing, and the whole thing around black women being strong and being resilient. But when do I get a chance to be vulnerable? It's the same thing. You're asking that vulnerability. When can I cry or when can I just be me? Because I'm having to always show up twice as hard. I'm having to just almost try to be perfect in a system that doesn't necessarily set me in it, but when do I, when can I be vulnerable? So it's that same kind of thing. So you have to unlearn some of that. Huh, it's like the strong black woman trope. I'm trying not to really subscribe to that because I don't want to always be the strong black woman. Yes, this is the same kind of thing. So that's what I'm saying. I'm having to unlearn some of those behaviours that were serving at the time.

Speaker 1: 32:22

I came from quite a matriarchal family, so the women in my whether it's not organizing this and I talked about this like partners doing a club, doing this, doing a cleaning job. We're always multitasking so many things and I've captured all of those things. But some of the things you've got to be smart, so you don't need to have five jobs I'm just exaggerating here but you can have one and it pays the same. But it's about survival, right? So these about survival mechanisms, so they have served me in my dyslexia journey as well as a black woman, because if I didn't have those I don't think I would survive. I don't know.

Speaker 1: 32:53

You know there's a thin line and we know statistically, you know, some people who are dyslexic or neurodiverse. They're in the prison system and for various reasons, we're not having that conversation today, but we know there's people who have really high mental health. We all have mental health. But how is that managed? And we know, even though dyslexia, you know, or neurodiversity, is not linked to mental health, we know that there's significant because of those oppressions or marginalizations, whatever they are.

Speaker 1: 33:22

Then the other things can kind of trigger from that and I know I was in that bracket when I was like you know, like 10 and 11 anxiety, feeling that I wasn't really myself, I didn't speak. That is trauma, that is something big and what happens is if you are anxious about going to school, not going home, it's picked up, so they thought something was happening at home. But if I'm anxious about going to school, everyone's encouraging you to go to school, but they're not looking. Why is that child anxious about going to school? No one's looking at it. They're only looking at when you're anxious not going home. But school can be really harmful for some children if they've not got the right support, and that's meant to be a nurturing place, right? So just to, I hope I'm putting we've got. I've gone off a bit, but I hope you've just captured some bits from that.

Speaker 1: 34:15

But I think you need to have a part one, part two, part three, when we talk about intersections and the intersectionality of culture, gender, race and how those intersections can impact people differently at different times, and some of us may not have that experience. We can't assume because you're a black person, you have those intersections of feeling marginalized. You may have a privileged background. So we, you know different cultures, have different kinds of experiences. So it's so complex. Just like defining dyslexia there's over 35 definitions and, uh, an organization's coming up with a new one. So do you see it's so complex. It's no day of the definition of dyslexia, is it's been? It's been recently, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So do you see it's so complex and you, you've got to always look at the individual and what's happened in their journey rather than just looking at. So I think, I think organizations, schools need to be more cultural competence. For sure, there's no cultural sensitivity and there's a lot of assumptions. Um well, so this conversation is complex. So all I can say to you is that I'm aware and I love the way you're looking at that.

Speaker 1: 35:31

You don't want to carry that. I call it my shopping bags. You don't want to carry those things. You're dropping those. You don't own those. They were somebody ancestral or it was a survival then, but this is not going to serve you because you don't want to have those stresses. You don't want to have those, those stresses. You don't want to have all of these other things that are holding you back.

Speaker 1: 35:53

Um, to be just you, and it's, it's knowing who you are, because you've had all these layers. Who am I? Because you have to learn to almost become and have a relationship with yourself, because you've been masking all these things and all these identities to just show up and it's, it's just crazy, but that's, that's some of the history and um, it's lovely and refreshing, sarah, to hear your take on it as well. That you're, you know I'm just old school, so I'm let trying to let it go, but I still hold on to bits of it and it does still trigger me sometimes, but the majority of the time I think I've, I've, I feel it's very hard for me to mask, so I didn didn't mask in sense of who I am, but I mask more about.

Speaker 1: 36:29

Oh my gosh, how long did it take me to do that report. You know no one's seeing that the chips and the, you know the, the chocolate, and staying at work until seven. No one saw that. But I when I submitted that report to my manager she'll see a lovely report, that. But I, when I submitted that report to my manager, she'll see a lovely report. And the detail was just on point because that was a way I could show up. But I had to do the, the, the masking was the amount of time it took me to do it because I didn't have the reasonable adjustments or the assessments.

Speaker 1: 36:56

But in, in terms of being me, it's very hard to mask that. I mean, I always used it. Say it was a bit I was a bit quirky and a bit different I. I kind of just be me. You know, I've always had an afro here, so that was a problem. I always wear African print. That was a problem. I've even had someone say to me well, I wear that at home but not at work. What, what was I meant to say? Well, yeah, maybe I shouldn't wear it too. No, because it's something that I identify. So I've had it all come forward to me as a black person, as somebody working professionally, but it doesn't change me. So I find it very hard to change who I am. So I've never been able to mask that part of me and everybody knows I'm a bit different, you know.

Speaker 1: 37:35

I mean, I have a question this book, who was your favorite person to speak to? I can't ask that. No, oh no, I don't think that would be fair. I love not crazy. Who was the most impactful, like that kind of was quite significant when you wrote this book? I know you're probably going to say Angie Lamar, but, like someone else, well, if I said Angie Lamar, I only will say Angie Lamar because, um, how ironic, how the what. It goes into a circle. So she was somebody I looked up to and it was just. I attended a drama because I love I still love acting. I attended a drama workshop and Angie was there and I said, angie, I tried to contact you and then it just has. It was just timing and that, to me, is just priceless for me because of who she, she meant to me growing up and that inspired me.

Speaker 1: 38:31

But in terms of um, I couldn't select anyone, say anyone's particular, because I think everyone's journeys are fencily unique to them and I I just thank them for being visible and sharing that to hopefully help others to find their voice and inspire them. So everyone's story is different and, as a black person, we do have different intersections and experiences, just to put it on record, and so we're not all the same. So some of us come from the Caribbean, some of us come from Africa, some of us come from America, so those intersections will be different. What I like is a few that I have younger people in there, including my daughter who's in the book. But I really was taken by Will Carter because he talked about that, that intersection about privilege, from growing up in Dulwich, from the poor side to the posh side, and the intersection of his mum having a white mum and what that meant as well. So that complexity, I think I think he could write a book on his own because you know, and Zoe talks about that way, zoe, jane, who's all there also in there, they're in the book, black, brilliant and dyslexic, but they're black and they have, you know, a white side, and so those complexities are really interesting and I've really um, yeah, I've read um Will Carter's story so many times because they had failed him, you know, as in a system that saw him as black, though he's of mixed.

Speaker 1: 39:56

So you see, even me saying it don't sound right because we should be all treated the equality should you know equity is real. You know it doesn't sound like me saying it, but he was also having experience and his mum was having experience. I always think it's interesting treated the equality should you know equity is real. You know it doesn't sound like me saying it, but he was also having experience and his mum was having experience. I always think it's interesting when you hear white mum's stories around this because you know they start to see the intersections of discrimination in a different way and being ostracized because they had a, you know, a black child. So Will talks a little bit about that, how his mum was ostracized from not just from the working class element but, you know, from the group of parents and that's real because it still happens and um, that really kind of choked me a bit, um, but so many stories did do. But yeah, and it's nice to have men, um, whether they refer themselves as a man or they or them, it's nice to have that aspect. We don't hear from the guys too much all the time.

Speaker 1: 40:50

What did you learn about yourself doing this book and speaking to others? Because I'm sure definitely you learn about who you are from learning from others, other experiences. I know for me doing this podcast I've learned a lot about myself that I didn't realize that was there just from talking to other people. Yeah, I learned that I could write a book and there's different ways of writing it. So I always loved Maya Angelou growing up, because she selectively mute as well and she had a lot of trauma and even though we were on different sides of the water, I still really resonated with her poems.

Speaker 1: 41:28

I love poems. I love, um, the expression of words. I love language and actually English is probably my strongest point and if I was to go back, I I didn't even say that when I retook my GCSEs I got a B, which would again be like a seven or eight, but that tells you that with the right support, I could have academically achieved remember this achievement of academics. So I love language, so English is actually strong for me and so being able to do this it was something I actually said when I was about 10, or something that I'm going to write a book. So you know, the intuition and vision is real, you manifest things enough and I was just very fortunate I was in the right place and it came forth that I was in a position to ask the question and have to write a book proposal, which I never wrote before, and got an opportunity to write this book because people saw the vision.

Speaker 1: 42:20

But the book's always been inside me, if that sense for I wanted I read books and like I want, I would love to. You know, I would love this, but how do I do this? Because I can't write and I can't read, but it was inside me. We've. They always say there's a book in everybody, but it's if you want to write that book or that story.

Speaker 1: 42:38

I wanted to write a book because I wanted visibility, because in life I've been in situations where I've seen people, colleagues or whatever, and they don't see you. You walk past you and I'm like hello, well, they've gone. They didn't even see their. Their head was straight. I'm like, how is that possible? And I feel the same as a black dyslexic. It's like how's that? Um, no, you can't be dyslexic. What? What does dyslexia look like? You don't look dyslexic and it was always felt like there was something where I couldn't be dyslexic. But dyslexia doesn't discriminate.

Speaker 1: 43:09

So for me, the reason and the journey of me writing the book was about self-discovery, of acceptance and even more self-love in the sense of I could do this and you know it makes me still feel emotional, but the learning in it is it that it's empowered me even more to be able to talk more and share this story, even though it's so many years later. But also being a parent of a young person's dyslexic so my mum was dyslexic, I'm dyslexic that's three generations and my daughter's dyslexic um, I'm dyslexic, that's three generations, and my daughter's dyslexic, so that's three generations. How could I make a difference in sharing that? This is something to break that stigma, that taboo. Um, how could I make a difference? Because I was so passionate and not to say no one else is.

Speaker 1: 43:59

But it's about finding what's the thing or something that you can, you know, to enable you to help you to change or find your voice. I've gone a bit gibberish there, but what I'm trying to say is that you find in your purpose, or your passion, or your way to you know, to explain what is your passion about, to share with people, and I just found it to be through a book. But I've learned so much about me. And I just found it to be through a book, but I've learned so much about me and because then people want to know more about you and like, hence me being on the podcast. It's helped me to be this person who's still shy.

Speaker 1: 44:31

I still, you know, sometimes when I see podcasts live, I'm like, oh no, I can't look at that. I still feel that I can't do that. Mirror work. They do things around building your confidence, mirror work. I'm not strong enough. I'll say, hi, I must. And then, yeah, I still can't do that. But I have done lots of things to overcome my voice, because I've had to learn to expand that voice from stop, from stop it being small and playing small, because we've all got that light inside us. It depends on how we want to use that vibrational energy and, um, this has become my thing. But I still sometimes go back to thinking, oh gosh, that's that that young Marcy, as my family members call me? You know how, how can this be me talking? And then I just shut that bit down and, um, yeah, so I'm not answering the question correctly, because this is me going off again, but I I just feel I'm hoping the book gives a representation of people's voices, their stories, so there's visibility.

Speaker 1: 45:31

It's not about being black, but the black comes into the fact, because when people have been oppressed or you don't hear this story, you don't see it in the curriculum, we just have to say something a little bit different. I'm not going to say you have to work twice as hard, but you know you have to say something a little bit different. I'm not going to say you have to work twice as hard, but you have to do things in a different way to be seen then that's not right. So I wanted it not to be about me. I wanted it to be about a selective of people and really how I selected those people, because I think that you mentioned that it was just people in my network and people I come across online and I said would you like to be in a book? And they took a chance with me. They trusted me with their stories and I'll be ever indebted to that and I'm just so honoured. So it wasn't like they were all like in my inner circle kind of thing. It was just people that I've got to know who are also out there doing amazing work, and I just thought would you be willing to be in a book with me and share your story so we can empower others or enable others to see, and also from an academic point, we want these books and there's many of them it's not just my book out there in the academic world and the academia, because we need to change that curriculum. It doesn't resent all of us.

Speaker 1: 46:41

If you're referencing something like my book, that's a start. You know, when I was doing my master's, I was doing a master's in special education. I always forget to tell bits, but yeah, I did a master's in special education and I wanted to write about ADHD and black boys, but my supervisor wasn't equipped for it for one. So that tells you something about the diversity within our lecture is not no bad thing, but then then they've got to do that work Right, because if I'm wanting something and that's helping me in my development and specialty, specialty or specialism in what I wanted to write about, but so I couldn't do it for that. But also there was no research in the UK, but that's another story about research and who gets the funding, who gets money.

Speaker 1: 47:30

I can't just take five years off and do a PhD and say I'm going to do a specialism. I can't afford that right now. Not say I never say can't, but it's always a possibility if I really wanted to do a PhD. But do I really want to do? I want to put myself through that strain of trying to study and getting the anxiety because I feel like, oh my gosh, am I really? You know writing, um, but um, yeah. So it's a lot of different things and I I think today I've said so many things and started things and start I don't know if you're following me, sarah I'm having one of those new, those dyslexia days where I've got loads of little thoughts and then I go off and then come back. So that's telling you. Dyslexia is real daily. I don't know which dyslexia bit I've got on a daily basis. It's on this podcast. It's a neurodiverse podcast. It's okay and I listen to it. It's fine, yeah. So, yes, I'm. I'm so just kind of like.

Speaker 1: 48:20

I hope people read the book. I hope people capture the stories. There's quotes in there. There are people's stories who were just opened up their their. There are people's stories who had just opened up their, their selves, to really just get a little glimpse of some of the intersections and some of the the barriers for anybody who's dyslexic. And what's interesting, sarah, that majority of those in the book they all got diagnosed at university.

Speaker 1: 48:47

So say if you didn't? But say if you didn't go to university, what happens? So that told you. There's a gap, there's a crack, like um. Kimberly grenshaw says he's a crap in the intersection. If they don't, what happens? So we know the prison system. Some people go there. But what happens to people at work? And then they're masking and showing up because they've had this experience of feeling not quite it happened happened to my mum. She didn't find out she was dyslexic until she was in her 50s, and that's because she went to university to find out. But all throughout her working life obviously she had dyslexia, but she didn't know until she was 50. She already had two grandkids.

Speaker 1: 49:27

So you know there is that um problem where diagnostic testing needs to happen much, much earlier so people can get the support they need throughout their school. You know, career right up to college, right up to if they decide to go to uni. Um, yeah, it's. It's far too often and I hear it over and over again where, oh, I only found out when I was at uni. What if you can't go uni? What if you're not that academic? Or what if you're dyslexic? That's severe that teachers are just saying they can't? They can't help you and you might not have that resilience, so you just try to find a way through a different avenue. So it is interesting that we're always hearing the same story of oh, I only found out when I was at university or when I was in this sort of institution. Now I know that I have dyslexia, where it was always apparent, but you were just masking and finding coping mechanisms to essentially survive and get through it. So, yeah, that's been. That's really interesting, but yeah, I just yeah.

Speaker 1: 50:32

The only thing I would say about the book and I'm asking you please do an audio book whenever you can. I know it's not easy, but yeah, sarah boy, how's it going? These are the intersections and you know which is real. I don't want to say too much, but it's not my choice. You have to be selected. So I don't know if people can write to the publishers and say we really want this book in an audio, but mine hasn't been selected and I don't know how it gets selected. But it needs to be selected.

Speaker 1: 51:09

I have put it out there, this book on audiobook for everyone to listen to it. I'm going to say it and I have put it out there, this book on audiobook for everyone to listen to it. I'm going to say, and I'll put it on the podcast black, brilliant and dyslexic it needs to be on audiobook because, um, dyslexics are audio learners. Yeah, um, I've, I've asked and I'm still waiting, so I can, can't, I'd love to, I'd really love to what? I think it will be tricky because I would really want then to have everyone's voice it wouldn't be just my voice reading that book, because everybody has to have their chapter read individually and then all those quotes. So it would be a big task. It is possible, yeah, but it's not coming from me. So the more people ask, the more people put it out there to post.

Speaker 1: 51:57

Please make a black, brilliant, dyslexic audio. Maybe they'll listen and that's the fit, you know. Yeah, this is just the thing that I I don't have any control over. I really don't. I wish I did um, because I'm I'm for it. You know, I've I've met so many people when I've gone to the gym and that, marcy, I love the book, but I wish it was audio because I'm better at listening to it. It's a it's, it's a win-win, but I don't know. I don't know what the the reasons are particularly, but what, what should have been selected. It will happen soon. I'm I'm putting it out there like I'm putting it out to universe. It's gonna happen. One day we'll have it in audio book. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, um.

Speaker 1: 52:37

The only thing I would like to ask, normally at the end of the podcast we're getting to the end um, I wanted to know, um, what kind of advice would you give people who are professional? I can't hear you. What kind of advice would you give people who are professionals Sorry, I can't hear you. What kind of advice would you give people who are professionals on how to maintain and manage their neurodiversity? This podcast is normally for people who may have a side hustle or they're trying to navigate the corporate world. And what one piece of advice would you give them, particularly now they're in the corporate space? And what one piece of advice would you give them, particularly now they're in the corporate space, how to navigate that and how to deal with the challenges that come with that? Just one piece.

Speaker 1: 53:19

That's a really tricky one because for me just being um working and even if it's in the like, the local authority or government role, I think what's what's helped me the most, and everyone's gonna be different. But even if people try coaching, executive coaching or you know in some shape or form because I had a thing whereby I'm happy to share it in the podcast, whereby I had a thing about authority and being respectful, not being rude, and it wasn't nothing to do with the neurodiversity itself, even though there was elements of that I needed to work on, but by working with a coach, the coach really enabled me to work through that as a barrier, so then I could then lead on to other things to support me in what I needed in the workplace. It wasn't that I wasn't saying what I needed, but it's how that was communicated as well and me not feeling bad about authority and the rules. But you remember I'm coming from a different kind of generation that there was this whole respect about, and then I learned that how can you know authority always be right? When they got it wrong, they failed me. So we it's about collaboration and um working together. But I know everybody's individually different and, as we know today, we've had, we come from different lived experience and how we've grown up. So I love the fact that you want to drop the twice as hard, but for me, I've come from that generation and it's like we're all at different stages. Um, so, talking about the corporate world and I do know some of the organizations are not easy we're still working on performance management. We're still working on, you know, I've got to get occupational health, because you're saying what? And we've still got organizations whose middle managers are not great. Some of the work starts with us, but we're always having to do the work right. It's a tricky one for me. I can only speak from my own experience.

Speaker 1: 55:18

I think I found coaching one of the best things even if it's to talk it out in terms of career development or to talk it out in terms of your neurodiversity and diversity is getting somebody who's trained enough and having understanding of cultural competence as well as sensitivity that you need to have somebody who's really, really good and understands those elements, and I've been fortunate. The coaches I've had have really helped me on my journey and I still need coaching. I'd love to have a new coach. I haven't got one at the moment, but it it's really helped me and guided me and so I don't know if that's going to help everybody everyone's cup of tea but I know that it's really helped me in my journey.

Speaker 1: 55:57

I say that like almost, like I'm saying the word individually, but it's because that's been. That was one of the best things that's happened. That was through access to work. Yeah, now again, I know there's a lot of people in the corporate they're masking because of the structures of some of those organizations, even though they say they've got EDI, we're doing all of this, but the bottom, it looks good on the outside, but in the inside what is going on? So I always feel about doing the self-develop myself and sometimes maybe those organizations not the right organization for us, because then maybe their culture is not going to change. But it's not for me to say to people to leave their job. I'm just saying it's about coming to a place where you feel that you can start to ask or whatever it is that you require, because everybody's different and different, as I said, chapters. So for me, if you're asking that question, coaching was really helpful to me to really work and iron out what was going on, whether it was an imposter thing, whether it was. I was self-tabotaging and, like you.

Speaker 1: 56:54

You said today about I'm dropping that twice as hard. I'm not. I don't, I'm not carrying out who's. So if I'm doing my best, what else is it? Is it around the organization? Maybe I need to understand strategies about how I can work best and be my best in the workplace, because what I'm doing at the moment is not really serving me the best and I'm I'm doing. What I did was stay until seven or stay until six. What ways can I do and what strategies and how can I empower or let my colleagues know some of the things that I require, that what makes me work at my best? So that's how I'm answering the question.

Speaker 1: 57:24

I don't know if it's how you you know, but everybody's such an individual exactly, and there's plenty of like accredited and well respected organizations that support people with neurodiverse conditions. Some of them think are like um lexic are a really good one, and so is genius within um. They're very, very good organizations that you can contact the british and I I probably work with like dna diversity ability. So there's different organizations doing different things. So, yes, reach out to organisations, one of the things I had the biggest thing to learn for me, because, again, this is from a cultural point of view, learning to ask for help.

Speaker 1: 58:04

I found that really hard in the beginning of my journey. Even when I was diagnosed I did everything myself and it was always a hard way because it was that resilience you. You find a way because you don't ask people or tell people your business. So, again, sorry, I've got all of this kind of stuff from my upbringing but it served me to an extent with the resilience. But then where do I go when nobody in my family or network has written an essay? Where do I go if I need this kind of support in terms of doing an application form? Where do I go? So I started to learn to ask for help. So my first asking for help was the dyslexia teacher and once I started to build up the confidence and not feel shy, then I started to tell people my network and so if someone could read a letter for me back in the days before we had all text help and all these kind of lovely assistive technology. So I think there's also having trust to have a network or pool of people you can talk to and check in and say what, does this sound okay or does this sound right? What I'm thinking because for some of us and I can speak for myself again, I just always want to speak from my own experience I overthink things and then I'm a people pleaser very early on in my journey, so that didn't help overthinking and not having boundaries to that Helping people while not helping myself. That happens in the workplace too, so coaching was really helpful to help me with some of those boundaries. You're so helping somebody else, your work needs to be done and no one's helping you. So asking for help, having boundaries and the coaching was some of the things that I found really useful in my adulthood as well.

Speaker 1: 59:35

For sure, and Marcia, if people were to look for you, where would they look? Where can they find you? Yeah, what can they do? The best place is, um, linkedin and Instagram. Instagram is a little bit my brain dump, but, but the professional page is on my LinkedIn, which is just Marcy Brissett Bailey, where on Instagram is the Black Dyslexic and I've got that's my.

Speaker 1: 1:00:02

You know, if we talk about interest, I have interest in social media. Yeah, I'm really. I was learning to sort of take a break because I like to post and my first degree is information science, so it makes sense. I'm an informationist. I like to share information. I like to, you know, engage in some kind of, you know, provoking the narrative in some way. So, yeah, it makes sense, but not everyone sees it like that when people generally are overwhelmed by social media as well. So we have to take that into consideration and it's okay to stop. We don't have to be always in social media. It's just that I've got an issue in that area so I like to engage in it. So it's something that kind of keeps me, yeah, ticking, but yeah, yeah, I think I get a bit overwhelmed like social media, and every so often I have breaks from it where I just don't go on it and people should.

Speaker 1: 1:00:49

It's not for everyone in that way, and also, everything you're seeing is not always what it is, and so you know, just like when you know I had my peers, you think, oh, they can read and I can't. It's not always what it appears, but no one tells you, because nothing's perfect, and that was one of my takeaways from my own learning is that, gosh, there could be something else going on, but no one sees that. We're always seeing that it's presented in a perfect way, but it's no one's perfect, it's not a perfect world, and so what if I can't always read a line? That's okay, and I had to have those kind of talks to myself, and it's the same with social media, but yeah, you can find me on there.

Speaker 1: 1:01:27

Oh, amazing, marcia, thank you so so much for coming on. Divine, divine, magma. You have so much wisdom, so much lived experience, so much like gems. Um, I know everybody that listens to this is going to learn something from this episode. So thank you again. Oh, thank you for having me. It's such a pleasure. I hope people gathered something from our presentation. You were amazing. I'm like the sabotage is now. I'm like not sure about me, but I hope you captured all of that. So, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure, thank you. Thank you, bye.

Speaker 1: 1:01:57

I just want to let our audience members know about the six week coaching program that I'll be offering for people who are neurodivergent and who want to improve their career prospects in general, or those who want to get into project management. You can also be non-neurodivergent too. I mentioned this earlier in previous episodes, but I want to make the time to offer it up to those looking for help in those areas in their life, as it's a great way to learn new skills to help you advance in your career. A great way to learn new skills to help you advance in your career. I'm also offering my support to people who want to pass the print to practitioner exam or other project management exams, as I've taken and failed the test a few times and I would like to help others by showing them how I passed.

Speaker 1: 1:02:48

I also launched my membership, neuro in Eggman, in which you get supportive community career and business mentorship, monthly group coaching calls, networking opportunities, mental health well-being days and unlimited body doubling sessions and UK and very soon international meetups. I'm also working with the British Dyslexic Association, analexic, one of the UK's biggest neurodiversity organisations, to ensure our members get free full neurodiversity assessments, accredited with an educational psychologist or doctor. So if this sounds like you're interested to learn more, please reach out to me directly to talk more about the membership. Please follow me on all platforms where you listen to podcasts Thank you for listening to Divining Ed Mom, and if you got to the end, this is a safe place for project managers, professionals, side hustlers and anybody who's looking to navigate the complexity of being neurodiverse in the workplace and the corporate space. I'll see you next time.