---
title: "Embracing Every Mind"
episode: 152
date: 2025-03-20
guest: "Charlie Hart"
canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/152-embracing-every-mind
audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-152/audio.mp3
---

# Embracing Every Mind

Joanne Lockwood is joined by Charlie Hart (Awesome Charlie) for a wide-ranging conversation on neurodiversity at work, grounded in Charlie’s experiences of late diagnosis and a career in HR. Charlie shares what it was like to run into burnout, overwhelm and “meeting behaviours” that didn’t match workplace expectations, and how discovering autism, ADHD and complex PTSD reframed years of feeling “broken”. Together they explore neurodiversity as a natural form of human variation, unpacking ideas like neuronormativity, interest-based motivation, hyperfocus/monotropism, and why common stereotypes (including “superpower” narratives) can be unhelpful or reductive. The episode also looks at what inclusion can mean in practice: recruitment and job descriptions that unintentionally screen people out, sensory and social pressures in open-plan offices and team culture, and the need to balance different access needs in real workplaces. The conversation includes reflections on identity language and intersectionality, including explicit references to trans and non-binary identities alongside neurodivergence. Listeners will leave with a clearer understanding of how modern work can shift from expecting people to fit a narrow norm to creating environments where different minds feel safe, supported, and able to do their best work.

## Chapters

- 00:00 — Introduction and Welcome
- 02:10 — Autism Discovery Transformed HR Career
- 08:54 — Hidden ADHD in Girls
- 14:05 — Neurodivergence: Unique Strengths and Challenges
- 16:11 — ADHD and Autism Overlap
- 25:07 — Autism and Gender Identity Link
- 26:50 — Celebrating Diverse Identities in Family
- 33:01 — Rethinking IT Recruitment for Autistic Talent
- 40:39 — "Gen Z's Inclusive Design Preferences"
- 47:09 — Prioritising Neurodiversity in Business
- 48:59 — Avoid Stereotyping Neurodiversity as Superpower
- 57:59 — The Liberation of Honesty
- 01:01:54 — Join the Inclusion Conversation

## Key takeaways

- The journey from HR to becoming a neurodiversity and LGBTQIA+ advocate.
- Understanding the intersection between neurodiversity and gender identity.
- The impact of late diagnoses of autism and ADHD on personal and professional life.
- Strategies for fostering neuroinclusive workplace environments.
- The importance of recognising individual strengths and support needs.
- Misconceptions surrounding neurodivergent traits and capabilities.
- The role of Gen Z in shaping future workplace dynamics and inclusion practices.

## FAQs

### Who are the host and guest for this episode?

The host for this episode is Joanne Lockwood, and the guest is Charlie Hart.

### What is the main theme of this episode?

The main theme revolves around embracing neurodiversity, particularly focusing on autism and ADHD, and fostering inclusive environments for neurodivergent individuals in the workplace and society at large.

### Why did Charlie Hart become passionate about neurodiversity and inclusion?

Charlie Hart's passion for neurodiversity and inclusion stems from personal experiences. Diagnosed later in life with autism, ADHD, and complex PTSD, Charlie realised the significance of understanding and embracing neurodiversity, partly inspired by their own children and the broader Gen Z community.

### How does Charlie describe the concept of neurodiversity?

Charlie explains that neurodiversity acknowledges that every human brain processes information uniquely. It does not categorise brains as 'correct' or 'broken,' but rather celebrates the diversity of human thought as advantageous, akin to biodiversity in nature.

### Does Charlie Hart prefer person-first or identity-first language?

Charlie prefers identity-first language, such as 'autistic person,' rather than 'person with autism.' They believe that describing oneself as autistic is an important part of identity and rejecting the notion that autism should be seen as a negative attribute.

### What does Charlie think about the term 'neurospicy'?

Charlie is not a fan of the term 'neurospicy' as they feel it trivialises the real disabilities and support needs of neurodivergent individuals. They also mention that it can be culturally insensitive.

## Transcript

Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood, your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of inclusion, belonging, and societal transformation. Ever wondered what it truly takes to create a world where everyone not only belongs but thrives? You're not alone. Join me as we uncover the unseen, challenge the status quo, and share stories that resonate the within. Ready to dive in. Whether you're sipping your morning coffee or winding down after a long day, let's connect, reflect and inspire action together. Don't forget, you can be part of the conversation, too. Reach out to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk to share your insights or to join me on the show. So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites. And today is episode 152 with the title, embracing every mind. And I have the absolute honor and privilege to welcome Charlie Hart. Charlie, also known as awesome Charlie, and you'll find out in a minute why, is a neurodivergent keynote speaker championing neurodiversity and LGBTQIA plus inclusion in the workplace. And when I asked Charlie to describe their superpower, they said, it's just their unwavering dedication to creating a better world for neurodivergent and queer youth inspired by their own children and the Gen z community. Hi, Charley. Welcome to the show. Hi, Jo. Thanks so much for having

Charlie Hart: me. Yeah. We've talked about this for a couple of months, and it's I'm

Joanne Lockwood: really honored you've come on today. I'm really excited to be here

Charlie Hart: because I've been following your work on LinkedIn for quite a long time now. And then we met through the professional speaking association, and I'm really keen to get on this fabulous podcast, which I quite often listen to when I'm on a long walk. Oh, thank

Joanne Lockwood: you. And this you have the honor of being the first video version of this podcast. I mean, yes, it'll be published in audio only as well on Spotify, iTunes, and the user places, but it's gonna be the first one we actually recorded the video as well. So, yeah, I'm excited by that as well. So it's gonna be brilliant. Me too. Yeah. So,

Charlie Hart: Charlie, we talked about in the opening there about

Joanne Lockwood: your work championing neurodiversity through your own experience and also out of your children and the Gen Z community at large. What took you from where you were to deciding this was your your passion, your calling?

Charlie Hart: So it's quite a long story as you can imagine, but my background is HR, and I fell into that quite by chance. Analytical and project management side of HR and supporting the HR system, but I've tried to progress, and I ran into difficulties with meeting behaviors. I was frequently overwhelmed, quite often getting burnout that looked like depression, and I just wasn't getting promoted through the ranks like my peers that started at the same time were. Eventually, I eventually, I realized that my child, Iggy, my first born, was autistic, and that so was I. Everything that he learned about his neurotype and the reasons that he struggled with anxiety and getting overwhelmed and having what was actually autistic meltdowns, but he he thought were anxiety attacks. Everything that he realized, I realized was true about me as well. So in 2018, I went through the autism diagnosis, and I discovered the neurodiversity community online. So that to me, it really sparked my interest. After 15 years of feeling like I was somehow broken, there was something wrong with me. There were I realized that there was a concrete reason why I struggled with things that my peers took for granted, and there were concrete reasons that I was losing my call and even tipping into burnout. And it explains so much about me. And then I discovered that actually neurodiversity is a thing. There are differences between each and every human brain and mind. We all process the world and its inputs. We all think, feel, and respond to things uniquely. And that doesn't mean that some people are broken and that some are good. It doesn't mean that some brains are correct and others are wrong. It's a natural part of human diversity, and it's advantageous. So like biodiversity in nature, neurological diversity in a human population, such as a workforce, is advantageous. This really sparked my curiosity. And then I found out I have complex PTSD as well, which a lot of neurodivergent people have who are late diagnosed and have gone through society and work not understanding how to support their own needs. And I also have ADHD, so I'm multiply neurodivergent. And yeah. So it's all I wanna talk about and write about now. Yeah. So I quit my HR job 18 months ago, and now I full time research, think, speak, write, create content about neurodiversity, inclusion, and acceptance, and I'm loving it. You you mentioned there that, you know, we all

Joanne Lockwood: have our own unique minds. We all see the world through our own lens. And the way we we the way we think and act and feel. I've always wondered when the human species evolved a 100000, 200000 years ago, however, we came from our prehistoric primitive backgrounds. Who decided that we needed to think in a specific way? So it's it's almost like the 21st century, the 20, yeah, 2025 where we are now that said, this is what we value, these calm, cool, collected, logical people. Yes. Our history must have been we needed people who had attention to detail. We needed people who were creative. We needed people who could get on with stuff, people who are did all these different things. So neurodivergent really is is part of our historic makeup, and we've just decided that this part is more valuable than this part. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's,

Charlie Hart: this neuronormativity, this expectation that we should think and respond to things in a certain way, it is a social construct, really, like gender. So I'm drawing parallels here. If you think back to caveman times, for example, it was super important that some members of the population brought up children and the others were hunter gatherers, but that doesn't need to be attached to gender. It's really about finding out what an individual's strengths are and and what their support needs are. So some people will be super good at some things and will struggle with others. And we can work together and collaborate and be greater than the sum of our parts.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. We certainly didn't have toilets with signs on them a 100000 years ago, did we, in in the forest and caves? We were Yeah. Wiping our bottoms on the nearest leaf probably or in the stream. Absolutely.

Charlie Hart: So it's it's just another social construct. And one thing that a lot of people may not understand as well, even if they know a little bit about neurodiversity and neurodivergence, is that neurotypical or normal, that's a construct of the dominant culture that you're operating in. It will be completely different between different countries. And a lot of neurodiversity advocates are only seeing things through, a northern hemisphere white western lens, but it's far greater than that. Yeah. You mentioned also that, you know, you were late

Joanne Lockwood: diagnosed and that that's as yeah. We bring gender into this. That was it's a gender thing because because people who are assigned male at birth exhibit autistic ADHD neurodiversity in different ways than people assigned female at birth, don't they? They can do.

Charlie Hart: Yeah. I mean, I'm not gender conforming anyway, so I partially reject that. And, also, when you look through my school reports, they are full of evidence of ADHD. It's full of stuff like, she's a really bright girl and could really excel if she would only fulfill her potential instead of allowing herself to be distracted by her intense hobbies and interests, things like that. And if it was a boy, it would have been picked up. So it isn't that my behavior was different. It's I think it's more that the diagnostic criteria are actually based around unruly, disruptive little boys. So they don't see the they don't see ADHD if it's less evident externally. They think it's about running around being hyperactive. Girls are more socially conditioned, I think, not to be disruptive at school and to sit still if they're expected to and to not heckle the teacher, although I always did. So it's just, there are massive preconceptions about what's actually going on. If the person appears to behave be behaving, they're not too much trouble to the teacher. Nobody takes the trouble to work out what's going on inside of their minds. If they're running 20 tabs and 10 of them are frozen, we don't know where the music's coming from, and we can't stop it. Nobody sees that unless they ask us. They'll ask our teachers whether we're disruptive. They'll ask might ask our parents how we are at home. But if you're a child and you're experiencing the world in that chronically overwhelming way, nobody seems to really want to know about it. Are you aware of what what age were you? Because I

Joanne Lockwood: appreciate ADHD traits and the autistic traits are different. Yes. And they exhibit themselves differently. And I I I know I've spoken to many parents of autistic children, and they're very aware from the early, very early ages of their child in terms of developmental differences, learn to speak and read and vocabulary and things like that. They're very hyper aware of the the autistic traits. When did you become really aware of your your bouncy tigger traits? You know, your ADHD, your your your the way your brain was white. Yeah. I think it's when I started

Charlie Hart: to really need as an adult to get outside in the countryside and run or walk. Otherwise, I wasn't okay. It's at that point that I realized that I've got a hyperactivity that nobody else had had picked up on. And then the inattentive side of my ADHD, I realized I have that when I tried to repeat my HR professional qualifications. So I completely flunked to university when I was 19. I was a total disaster. I fell so hard off the rails, but I did do my CIPD qualifications when I was in my early twenties. Moved back in with my mom, I did them. She was looking out for me. I had a steady job. Everything was okay, and I got them done. And then 20 years later, I thought I should probably do them again because they're 20 years old. They seem quite irrelevant. And I did that, and I was great. I, you know, I'm quite clever. I can focus and but only if it's something I'm interested in. It's not that I don't have any attention. It's that I've got a very interest based motivation system. So in 2021, I thought, great. We're working from home all year. Some people have returned to the office, but we were refurbishing ours. And I knew that I got time on my hands. I thought I will do my postgraduate diploma in HR management. And I absolutely flew through every subject that I was interested in and really, really struggled with the ones that I wasn't. To the extent that it was right up against the deadline, and I was an absolute nightmare to live with. Just put things off and put things off and then snap to anyone that that interrupting me. But I I could tell I got ADHD then. My husband had just been through the diagnosis, so I knew what the questions were. And all the way along, I was thinking, yeah. Yeah. Me too. But then I actually got diagnosed this year at the age of 48. It's been there all along. I looked through my reports, and it's it's always been there. It's it's interesting

Joanne Lockwood: because I love talking to people who who are a diverse ADHD because I'm trying to self diagnose myself and try to figure out if I have autistic or probably not autistic, but certainly ADHD. Because I I have hyperfocus. I went through a phase in my when I was probably about 14 years old, probably a bit of puberty kicked in, and I became completely unmanageable and still or sorry. Partially, completely so if you look at the left hand side of my report card, I was e. Look at the right answer on my report card, I was a. Yeah. There was no there's nothing in the middle. I was either full on or completely disinterested and troublesome. Yeah. As it's the science The ones you're interested in Yeah. Or

Charlie Hart: the ones you were Hyper gifted. Engaged in those. Yeah. The sciences, the

Joanne Lockwood: maths, the, yeah, the the history, the the geography, economics, all those kind of sort of more theoretical, you know, ethereal sort of things. Those were the kind of ones that I just was interested in. Yeah. And I was kicked out of class, and I was excuse me. I was told I was disruptive, and I I think I found that I I'm still there now. I'm either in or I'm out. If I'm in Yeah. I I'm both feet. I'm I'm dissolved. I'm I'm pulling it apart. I'm ripping it to shreds. I'm turning it inside out, bringing it back together, turning it inside out again. If there's anything else, I'm just gonna, like, I procrastinate until it doesn't matter anymore. Just get rid of it. So, yeah, I've learned that about myself. I I never I never seen that as a a superpower or weakness or anything like that. It's just part of who I've always been. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, I

Charlie Hart: don't really subscribe to the superpowers versus weaknesses kind of narrative because every human has strengths, and we all have things we find harder or that we need support with or that we just don't like. So every human's got their own ways of working where they can thrive and and things that they'd rather not be doing or that they need someone to help them through. The difference is when you're neurodivergent, it can mean that the things you're good at, you're particularly good at, and the things you that you struggle with, you're you particularly struggle with. So rather than being a good all rounder, you have what they call in the neurodiversity industry is a spiky profile. So my observation skills are right at the top of the chart, my meeting behaviors right on the bottom, that kind of thing. And and everyone has a profile that looks different, but particularly if you're autistic or ADHD, there will be things that you're shit hot at and things that you're constantly told you're not good enough at. Yeah. But it is from the dominant perspective, the dominant cultural perspective. Yeah. No. I get that. Because I also I mean,

Joanne Lockwood: you've met my wife, Marie. I I also recognize that there's elements of her personality, which should probably through menopause have probably become more exaggerated. So I know due to the her age, her her her hormone balance, other things where she's become much more I I describe as bouncy, bouncy, ticker sort of over various things. And but she also has a an inclination to be slightly manic and slightly reserved. So she goes through this you can tell this cycle about certain things, and it's she has to go into a hyperplanning mode, or she has to go into something else. So absorb it. Yeah. And it's different to me. And we we we I think I've learned that how to be with her and absorb spikes and the and the troughs and everything else. And I guess my family have have adapted to me. But, yeah, it it's interesting talking to other people with their experiences. They're similar characteristics. It's different, aren't they? Dynamic, and me and my husband have the

Charlie Hart: same. So we're both ADHD. That is we're both autistic and ADHD, but he's been told that his autism isn't quite meeting the diagnostic threshold, which is arbitrary anyway. Let's face it. I'm not saying I would never say everyone's on the spectrum, but you can quite often notice ADHDers who have quite significant autistic traits, but wouldn't get through the diagnosis because the medical model wants us to draw the line somewhere. But he he's ADHD, and everyone that knows him knows that he's autistic as well, despite what the clinicians might say. And I'm autistic, and it was a bit of a battle for me to get my ADHD recognized by the medical profession, partly because it's very easy to think, well, everything that she's talking about could be a combination of autism and complex PTSD and menopause. But, yeah, I think it's you can't draw a neat line around the autistic part of my brain and the ADHD part. So there's no way of knowing if I spend 10 hours doing a particular piece of work that I'm really engrossed in. There's no way of knowing whether that's me leaning into that monotropic flow state that autistic people get, which is where we get our highly focused special interests that are in the diagnostic criteria. There's no way of knowing whether it's that or whether it's the ADHD hyper focus. If somebody says something that makes me feel like crap and I have a meltdown, there's no way of knowing if that is an autistic meltdown or if it's an ADHD, emotional dysregulation thing, a rejection sensitive ADHD, emotional dysregulation thing, a rejection sensitive dysphoria reaction. I don't have 2 brains. It's just all ADHD. Yeah. When you look at it like that, I I don't know many people that I would say were just just autistic or just ADHD. It starts to feel like it's all one spectrum. I was speaking to a lady on on this

Joanne Lockwood: show the other day, and she was saying that her child is autistic. She has an autistic child. And it manifests itself in her child as he is nonverbal. He also has a very limited vocabulary, which so that's how it manifests itself. So so that's how he is developing as a nonverbal autistic child. Yes. How would you describe your autistic because, you know, people listen to this show, hear the term autism, hear the term neurodiversity, hear the neurospicy, neurospicy, all these kind of buzzwords. What's different? Or where where where where is the sort of So I have the kind of

Charlie Hart: autism which doesn't come with intellectual disabilities, and it doesn't come with a a language development delay. That used to be called a Asperger's syndrome. They call it all autism spectrum disorder now. I don't identify as having a disorder, so I call myself autistic. I don't think I'm better or more valuable to society than people who are autistic and have intellectual disabilities. So I don't use terms like high functioning or low functioning either. So it's just autism. Yeah. It's labeling people. Autism. We're saying.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, high fashion, low functioning. Person with autism because it

Charlie Hart: goes without saying that I'm a person. And to me, if anyone insists on saying, no. You're not autistic. You have autism. You're a person with autism. To me, they are saying autism is a bad thing, and you shouldn't make it part of your identity. And I reject that because I think it's a neutral thing, and it's an adjective. So I'm happy to be described as autistic because it's an adjective. If you say, oh, no. You can't use it like a a normal adjective. You have to distance yourself from it. That's telling me they think that there's something wrong with being autistic. So just loads of really ableist with me. Yeah. I I think it's probably been

Joanne Lockwood: inherited for the the physical disability community who use with, don't they, as a as a kind of a it's evolved as a kind of language. Yeah. The healthcare professionals,

Charlie Hart: it doesn't come from the community. No. It's a medical model

Joanne Lockwood: versus the societal model of disability. Yeah. So

Charlie Hart: if you get taught person first language, it's usually because you're in a support role or you're a diagnostician or a teacher, or it's not because that's what the community have said they wanted. Back in the nineties, you might remember we had this, politically correct thing where they changed a lot of their language and dress things up in flower euphemisms, and it really didn't do diversity and inclusion any favors at all. And one of the first communities that came out of that saying no bollocks to all that was the deaf community. So in the politically correct is when people were saying, you have hearing impairments and you should say you're hard of hearing or you have a hearing impairment, Don't describe yourself as deaf because there's more to you than that. You're a person person. It was the deaf community that said bollocks to that. We're deaf. And they put a capital d at the beginning Yeah. And became the deaf community. The autism community were hot on their tails. Yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: When I when I talk about adjectives or describing words or anything like this, like we're talking about now, is I tend to try and mix up the language. So I always say, a person with a disability or a disabled person, almost in one sentence. Because I know there are some people who I who would identify as 1 and one people who identify as so you try to be inclusive Yes. Cover all the terms possible. That's so

Charlie Hart: really great. Approach. Yeah. Capital d deaf is

Joanne Lockwood: important to people who are born deaf. Yeah.

Charlie Hart: So I know other people who don't use I mean, there's I know a deaf speaker from the Speakers Collective who describes herself as deaf with a capital d and another deaf speaker in the professional speaking association who says that she has profound hearing impairments. So it's never gonna be the same for everyone, but you can look at what the community asks for and want and prefer as a whole rather than just being learning about something in a training course and thinking, oh, yeah. That must be the wishes of the community. Yeah. You'd never say someone has seeing

Joanne Lockwood: impairment, would you? You'd say they were blind Yeah. Or hearing or sight loss or, short sighted, long sighted Yeah. Or myopic or, glaucoma or something. So you'd say, yeah, you have sight loss or Yeah. You're blind or going blind. ADHD is a funny

Charlie Hart: one because there isn't really a noun. There isn't really an adjective for ADHD. So we use ADHD as a adjective, sometimes under noun. You might say, I'm an ADHDer or describe yourself as ADHD, but that's technically not correct because if you look at what it stands for, that's just grammatically nonsense. But still, a lot of us have done that just because we're trying to say it's part of our identity. It's part of who we are. It's how our brains are wired. So it's it's not something we can distance ourselves from.

Joanne Lockwood: I've heard people use ND for neurodiverse, or I've heard people use neurospicy other terms. Yeah. I guess it's down to them, isn't it? I mean, it's not a totally down to them. I personally don't

Charlie Hart: like neurospicy because I think that it it it's kind of one of those euphemisms that plays down our, quite real disabilities and support needs. But The trivializing joking about it, obviously. That's the word. Yeah. But, I heard from members of the global majority have said, actually, some Asian women, are described as spicy in a derogatory way. So it's it could be potentially I don't know if problematic is going a bit too far. Potentially insensitive, culturally insensitive. But then I'm not gonna tell people how to identify. So if you have got someone that does like to call themselves neurospicy, that's fine. But if they buy me a badge that says neurospicy on it, I'm not likely to wear it. So, I mean, you the audience and and you are obviously aware that I I'm a transgender woman or

Joanne Lockwood: a woman with a transgender history. That to me, the more I talk about it, that's just a difference in brain development. It's just a a different way of wiring up. Absolutely.

Charlie Hart: My blue wire is connected to my red wire, not not to another blue wire.

Joanne Lockwood: So that's all it is really. It's a really good way of looking at it.

Charlie Hart: And, I mean, I think it is a neurodivergence as well. I think it's part of the neurodivergent umbrella. It's it's a brain wiring which is different from society's idea of typical. There's also a huge correlation. So if you're autistic, you're far, far more likely to be trans or non binary. If you're trans or non binary, you're way, way more likely to have at least some autistic traits, whether it's diagnosed or meeting the diagnostic threshold or not. So there's been quite a few studies done on this, and I'll send you those links for the show notes if you like. But, yeah, there's a huge correlation. So, this is one of the reasons why my niche, when I'm talking about neurodiversity inclusion, my thing that I get asked for more than anything is I get asked to talk about the double rainbow, and that's an intersecting identity. It's when you're both neurodivergent and LGBTQIA plus. And I'm particularly interested in that because I'm multiply neurodivergent. I'm bisexual or pansexual. I don't know which because both definitions fit me. I'm gender nonconforming. So, yeah, I'm a woman, but I am also a tomboy and I don't really identify as a woman. I don't know. But I'm more like George from the famous 5, really. So it's me, but then it's also my kids. My, my first born, Nicky, he was he was gay and gender questioning. He was autistic. He was probably ADHD as well. We don't know. My teenage kids constantly changing their gender identity because there's no hurry to work it out. Is there? But, they've had all kinds of different names and pronouns. They are autistic as well, and the older one, I mean, has got ADHD too. And I've got transgender autistic people in my family as well, but I'm not going to out them because they're not public about it. So it's a very queer and autistic family that I'm in, defying all the gender laws. So this is my area of interest. And there's really no point just looking at one identity either because none of us is a single issue human. I think it was Audre Lorde who said that. She was a a black lesbian feminist poet, and she says there's no such thing as a single issue human. And anybody that is working in the diversity and inclusion space, it's really important to understand that we are a blend of characteristics. Some of them we're born with. Some of them are a response to our environment and our experiences, but we're all really complex. So you kinda need to look at the whole package of the human. Yeah. I remember in my in my

Joanne Lockwood: probably my thirties and early forties, I used to describe myself as low maintenance. I think coming out as trans, I had to re rebrand myself as high maintenance. But maybe we all have a a perception of ourselves that we're we are low maintenance. But, actually, if you start asking people around it, they go, actually, no, and, actually, this and, actually, the other. Yeah. Oh, okay. That's part of a bit of emotional intelligence, getting in touch with who you are, isn't it? Absolutely.

Charlie Hart: Emotional intelligence, there's an interesting concept. I know a lot of people who regard themselves as having really high emotional intelligence. But to me, I what I'm observing is a lot of social scripting and saying the right things with the right facial expressions because that's what we've learned from other people, and it's like a chameleon behavior rather than a innate empathy. I've seen a lot of autistic people being misunderstood as not being empathic and having low emotional intelligence when actually the reverse is true. So it's really quite interesting to unpick that. Yeah. I I've noticed that because if you look at the the the

Joanne Lockwood: stereotype of femininity, women are supposed to be more empathic and more empathetic, more more softer, more kind, more more caring. And I thought, hang on a minute. I have to be all these things, do I? Then I then I kinda realized that I was, and I was judging myself unfairly. I I was just maybe putting a shell on myself, stopping be being too caring and too empathetic because, you know, in my own world, it doesn't necessarily win you any battles being Yeah. Kind, caring, fashion. Did you work in

Charlie Hart: tech before you got into I did IT and tech. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's kind of a a role where you're expected to be rational and logical and methodical and analytical and all those things. Yeah? Yeah. But it doesn't mean

Joanne Lockwood: that you haven't got creativity and empathy at the same time. I I think, you know, going back to what you're saying earlier about hyperfocus, things like this. You know, when I was deep in hyperfocus on a on a IT problem, you know, trying to rebuild someone's server in the middle of the night, working all night in a computer data center in a freezing cold with a coat on trying to fix something, I I didn't have any brain capacity for anything other than the problem. All of this all the empathy, all of the human contact stuff was pushed to the edge, and I was beeping techie mode. And so I'm curious

Charlie Hart: some resources about monotropism. So this this is a theory. It links to that diagnostic criteria about the highly focused special interest that you have when you're autistic, but it's it's way more than that. It's about being able to put the blinkers on and have tunnel vision to the thing you're researching or the problem that you're trying to solve. And it's widely regarded as being an autistic trait rather than an ADHD one, but it looks a lot like ADHD hyperfocus. I think you'd be really interested to read that stuff. Yeah. We'd

Joanne Lockwood: we'd we'd we'd discussed the idea of superpower earlier, but I I always saw it as part of my my technical skill is to better really get onto a problem. Yeah. My time in the RAF, electronic engineer, most of that course and that training was all about fault finding, finding faults in circuits. And I was very good at working out, you know, half splitting in the middle, in the middle again, in the middle again, in the middle again, in the middle again, narrowing it down to sort of like a square centimeter. I go, must be that component. So I was very good at that. Yeah. It was a good designing circuits, but I was very good at finding out what's wrong with things. I'm not so surprised. Yeah. Yeah. So my husband's doing that

Charlie Hart: now. So he worked in IT for quite a long time. He's doing an occasional speaking event now, and he's a musician. But his his current hyperfocus is tinkering with electronic things and fixing them. So he'd buy a a secondhand amplifier that's sold as it's a really good amp, but it's a bit broken, and then he'll fix it. Teaching himself as he goes along, and he's done the same with record players and and laptops and all sorts. And I think that it's a special skill to know when to keep digging, but to know when to leave it because you're just wasting your time after a while. But, when I worked in char and like I say, I was in an analytical role. I was supporting HR systems and projects. But I think one of the things I was particularly good at is getting to the underlying cause of the problem. So I could help people in my team pass error messages. I could find work arounds. I could teach them how to do things. But if there's tough data I need to be able to establish where the learning need is that's causing something to be input incorrectly, if there's an error message that keeps cropping up, I need to know where in the process it's coming from or whether there's a glitch that needs to be fixed by the system vendor. And I just don't cross it off my list until I've got to the bottom of it. Tenacity,

Joanne Lockwood: that, dog with a bone. Yeah. You keep chasing it. Yeah. So I

Charlie Hart: think that's why in IT, if you look at IT with, like, this kind of service model where you've got the service desk people, and then if it's something more technical that they can't they can't fix it there and then they will refer it to a resolver group. That resolver group quite often has a lot of autistic people that are really tenacious and excellent at problem solving. So what workforce what workplaces need to understand, employers even, is if you want the people with those skills, then you're gonna have to not have neuro normative expectations on how they get through the recruitment process, what support they need in the role, what their interpersonal skills are like, and that kind of thing. You've won the best person for that job, not the best person at passing an interview and getting on well with their colleagues and making the right small talk on a Monday morning. I I was at a, a mini conference once, and we were doing these sort of roundtable discussions that we

Joanne Lockwood: were talking about. I think it was probably CultureFit or something like that came up. There's an owner of a of a business there who was, I think, a technical or a SaaS platform, a cloud platform, something like that. And he was talking about he has he basically said, I've got a couple of members of my staff. They really don't wanna join in with anything we do. You know, at lunchtime, when we wanna go to the pub, at lunchtime, when we wanna have a little bit of a giggle and laugh, all they wanna do is go and take their lunch, sit in their car for an hour, and then come back. I said, I was thinking about firing them. They just don't get on. They're just not they're just not part of the team. And I thought, blimey. Yeah. What you're doing here is you're what you're saying is judging people by your culture. And, you know, when people don't fit into your definition of normal, and you're you're you're writing them off as being not team players. You think, hang on a minute. These are probably your best resources at writing code and problem solving. And They're recharging themselves. How to think. Yeah. They are. Yeah. They're working in an

Charlie Hart: open plan office with the a lot of different noise going on and and people asking them things and calls coming in, and they're trying to solve the problem. They've they've got a lot of inputs. Then if they need to spend their lunch hour without those social inputs, at least, probably without the sensory inputs as well, if they've chosen their own sensory environment that they can curate like a car, They're recharging themselves so that they can come back and be productive in the afternoon. That should be tremendous. It's a neuro normative expectation that they sit around and continue to do the peopling. Yeah. I I I

Joanne Lockwood: had a clash with one of my team in the past where they wanted the radio on, and I couldn't stand any background or noise or chat or something like that. It was like well, like, the radio just kept taking my brain off of the task. It's like, go away, Eva. Just turn it off. Yeah. And they but they needed it on because that's how they thought. So it's trying to find that that balance and Quite often it is.

Charlie Hart: So when you're looking at neuro inclusion in the workplace, it's quite often balancing conflicting needs. And when you do it in in the home, it is as well. So I had that problem in the pandemic. I'd already been working from home a couple of days a week, so my husband was quiet on those days. But when the pandemic hit, I was working from home every day. And he liked music on and TV on at the same time, and I wanted neither. So we had to find our ways of co in cohabiting without wanting to kill each other, and we did. It just took a while in the workplace. In my in my last, HR job, I was working from home all the time, but I had a manager who didn't like to type things into a chat or send a lot of emails. She had a lot of issues with her shoulders and her wrist aching, and she wanted to just ask me things verbally like we're in a normal office. So she dropped into Teams video calls with me like we're in an office, and she was just, tapping on my shoulder and saying, can you have a quick look at this? She was doing it all through the day. And I said to her, I can't work like this. It's so overwhelming. And I started to send a a lot of text messages on Teams, and she was saying to me, I can't work like this. It's hurting my shoulders and my wrist. So we work together, and we compromise, and that's what you've gotta do. Yeah. Our son is, he

Joanne Lockwood: he's an IT techie. He he was diagnosed as being dyslexic in his early teens, and he was given, allowances and exams and all that as well. But he he doesn't respond to text messages. He might not even read them, me, or just say, haven't you responded? So, you know, I don't do text. Oh, yeah. So you give him a voice note or you just ring him up. He'll answer the phone and reach out with you. But if you start texting, because probably it's the rest of the family, we have WhatsApp groups. And we wanna what we wanna do is it pops out in the WhatsApp group. He coming around later. He doesn't respond. Is he doing it or is he? So you have to send him another one, which is a voice note, which he then responds to. Yeah.

Charlie Hart: We have So he's just learning. Similar issues. Yeah. So my kids, neither of them like making phone calls, but they're quite comfortable to chat to people online when they're gaming, and they're quite comfortable to send voice notes and video notes. It took me a really long time to get used to that because I'd rather be typing. Seems a bit funny now because I've been a professional speaker for 18 months, but I communicate a lot better in the written form. I hope all the friends as well. They send me a voice note, and I'll listen to it, and I'm typing back to them while I'm listening to it. That's what I

Joanne Lockwood: do. Someone voice notes me. I reply back by text. Yeah. Because I I I keep my phone on silent all the time. I don't it doesn't make a noise. It doesn't squeak. LinkedIn, wherever I'm scrolling, all the videos, they haven't got subtitles. I'm not interested. Even though I I'm also find it I I think I've I've got sight dyslexia as well. I find or maybe it's my my neurodiversity. I I don't know. I can't I find it really difficult to read vast amounts of text. I lose track. My brain wanders off halfway through the page. But I can consume little 2 or 3 liners. No problem at all. One bite sized chunk, I can do that. Yeah. I prefer to text, not not voice notes because I I don't wanna turn the volume up. It's like, oh, go. You're invading my space. I could

Charlie Hart: always put earphones in to listen to a voice note because I just don't wanna disturb the people around me as well. But, sometimes I think when we get big blocks of text that it would be easier to read it and pay attention to it if it was broken up into, like, a you have a sentence and then a blank line and then another sentence. So these are tips that you can get off the British Dyslexia Society, I think they're called, website. They're aimed at people who are dyslexic, but it helps as well if English isn't your first language, if you've got ADHD, all kinds of things. So you tend to find most of these neuroinclusion tips will make things better for far more people than they're intended to. Yeah. Whenever I'm writing

Joanne Lockwood: articles and and reports, I always make sure there's a a good space between paragraphs. Yeah. I'm I would do 2 spaces after a full stop to break the sentence up. I like I like some white amongst the black. You know, I like I like it to look, of course, all these things. You know? I I like to capitalize the first letter of titles, things like this. And everyone's like, no. You shouldn't do that. You shouldn't. It's just a capital at the beginning. I well, I don't read it that way. So yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it's just

Charlie Hart: aesthetics as well, isn't it? It's what It is. Looks pleasing to you. But, that's exactly it. It's about look how it is. It sort of look nice, isn't

Joanne Lockwood: it? Yeah. There's some dyslexia friendly fonts that

Charlie Hart: are just not attractive at all to look up, but then there are others that are. We've been going on a lot of tangents, haven't we? I went to a Future is ND event about inclusive design and advertising and creative industry, and I've picked up a lot of stuff about fonts and spacing and things. So I'm building like a mind palace of information about neuro inclusion. But a a lot of times you read something and think, well, that's gonna help everyone. And do you know what? That's what gen z want. They are the workforce of the future. And if they've got preferred ways of working, preferred hours or flexibility or media, all of these things, they're used to expressing that preference and not being told, no, you've got to work in this place from 9 till 5, Monday to Friday, and do as you told. It's they know how to advocate for their individual needs and preferences, and they're going to expect work to fit into their lives and not the other way around. Yeah. That that's that's

Joanne Lockwood: definitely, what I'm hearing. Our children are are 30 seconds, so they're millennials, really. They're not they're not not really Gen z. But even they have, different trace because I because I my background's tech. They were pretty tech included from day 1. They had all the gadgets. They had phones early. They had, so as soon as it was available. So, yeah, they they weren't tech tech. So I suppose from the age of 10, they were they were pretty tech included. So yeah. But I I've seen a lot of examples. I've talked to people of of, yeah, the gen z age group where they have a different relationship with the world because of the way they're communicating with each other. Yeah.

Charlie Hart: Definitely. And all these I don't know how topical I can be here, but of this idea of American the American administration and big tech companies in America abolishing d and I DEI programs, it's so blinkered and counterproductive because those companies will die out when the workforce is made up of Gen z's. They are going to want to be able to talk about their needs and ideas and to have those needs met. So they're not gonna stand for working in a company that doesn't have that corporate social responsibility and doesn't care about human needs and individuality and being protected from discrimination and bullying and all that stuff. They're gonna want more than that. Yeah. My my

Joanne Lockwood: view is that people have latched on to the the negative side of DEI initiatives rather than the positive side. Yeah. I think what what people are trying to say is we want to stamp out the negativity around forced quotas and forced this. And I think we hey. You know, you you gotta find out How many people do that? They're kind of

Charlie Hart: behind the times with that view because we really don't do that. I mean, a lot of people in diversity and inclusion realize that there are minority groups that unfairly experience some barriers to education, employment, progression, etcetera. But nobody's ever saying you can't have a job here if you're a cisgender, middle aged, white, affluent, heterosexual man. That's just never been a case. It shouldn't be for for sure. No. I mean

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I always say that you can't have an inclusive environment by excluding people. No. And you can't exclude the typical person either. You have to include everybody in this. So it's about breaking down those

Charlie Hart: barriers rather than saying, no. We want we want a workforce full of people who are not that a cishet white, middle class dude. I think

Joanne Lockwood: some some of it for me comes down to defining more clearly the meritocracy because meritocracy isn't always bigger, louder, faster. Sometimes it's more I can never say that word, empathic, empathetic. Sometimes it's about being better listening skills, more team management skills, more more creativity. So some of these things are often excluded from the definition of meritocracy because they're not seen as valuable. Or they're you know, to quote Zuckerberg, we we need more masculine energy in our businesses. Actually, we need a balance of energy. Yeah. Not not labelled masculine or feminine. We're labelled it. We need to change abandon those labels as being a a neurotype, if you like, and think about the actual core skills people are bringing in, not soft skills, not hard skills. That's, again, labelling things in the wrong way. It's not the wrong system. Time though, hasn't

Charlie Hart: it? We've been talking about team dynamics. And though, you know, those team roles, I forget what they're called now. It's Belkin and all that stuff. For a long time, everyone knows that you need different kinds of people to make a team work, and that some people need to have leadership skills, and some people need to have the ideas, and others need to be the completer finishers, and all that. Learned all about that over 20 years. Yeah. Probably 25 years ago now, I did my HR qualifications the first time around. So I just I can't believe we're even type a people, type b people. We've got Hertzberg. We've got

Joanne Lockwood: all these things going on in the the HR psychology stuff. And Yeah. Yeah. People are people. And you're right. We need a we need a a colorful box of Lego to make it to make the fire station, don't we? Absolutely. So what what's the biggest challenge you're finding when you're working with, organizations? Where do they need to educate most around, you know, your your field? The, you know, the neurodiversity, the ADHD Neurodiversity position.

Charlie Hart: Yeah. One of the challenges I've had is that they think it's a novelty, nice to have HR hot topic kind of thing rather than something that really needs a lot of thought. So it was to me, I noticed it gathering a lot of momentum before the pandemic. And then with the pandemic, we started to think about a lot more about the whole self to work and psychological safety. So this is turning up to work. And if you're having issues because your kids are at home and they're anxious and you're trying to do a job at home school at the same time and there's a global pandemic, that you're not just putting on a brave face and only showing a professional veneer, but you can actually say what you're up against and know that it's not gonna be used against you. But then we had the Black Lives Matter movement, and we've had me too. And it just seems like the businesses are kind of latching on to the current big thing and putting a lot of resources into that and then forgetting about the other stuff. And any kind of disability, neurodiversity, accessibility, that stuff's bubbling away, but it never seems to be particularly high on an agenda. So what I would like to see is that people realize that your workforce is neurodiverse. Even if you think you don't have any autistic employees, and every company will, but every workforce is neurodiverse because it is made up of human individuals who think, fail, and process in different ways. So what we need to be doing is working out how to accommodate each individual so that they can thrive in their roles and that it isn't some nice to have. It isn't some tokenistic tick box exercise. It's just about ensuring that you've got employee engagement and that everyone's doing a good job and that people aren't leaving in droves, that they're not having a lot of time off with with work related stress or depression. But everyone is okay and doing the best work they can. And it's really not about doing nice things for disabled people. It's it's the right thing to do, and it's good for business because you've got employees who are engaged. They're doing good work. It's gonna keep you out of tribunals. It's an absolute no brainer to me. Let's treat adults in the work force like like adults who can have needs and preferences and should be safe to voice them. Let's take them seriously. Let's meet their needs so they can thrive in their roles. It's good for everybody. Not so much today, but in the past,

Joanne Lockwood: I've seen branding, for want of a better way to describe it, branding neurodiverse people in this superpower. We we don't like that word. Instead of saying, you need an autistic person to do that task because they will be hyper they will be able to do this. And you're almost saying, well, if you're if you're an autistic person who isn't a mathematical genius, what's wrong with you? You know, you should be you should be like Rain Man. And it's almost like setting people up to being the stereotype of 1 type of autism or one type of really helpful.

Charlie Hart: Yeah. So even, no, even with dyslexia, I mean, GCHQ, for instance, they did a dyslexia hiring program because dyslexic people apparently have superpowers of, pattern recognition and, code cracking and all that. Not all of them, I'm sure. It's great to acknowledge the strengths that can come with each neurotype, but they're always going to be individual to the employee, to the person. So, yeah, I mean, that that would be my take on

Joanne Lockwood: some of this is look into the person. Look into the spec you want, and not everybody who is neurodiverse, ADHD, trans, straight, non bi whoever you want to describe yourself. But everyone's gonna fit that role for a tick box. I think that's what we need to do is look into the heart, but give that person the opportunity, the equity, the tools, opportunities here.

Charlie Hart: Yeah. Exactly. Assume. Yeah. So let's consciously include people that have been previously excluded. Let's break down barriers to inclusion and success, dismantle some systemic barriers, and give everyone the chance to show what they can do, how they can contribute. But the other thing is, though, all humans have got value even if they don't have a job. So isn't all about how many of us are in the workforce? Yeah. It is. And I think I think

Joanne Lockwood: you're right there. It is and and it's also around creating aspiration. You have belief, trust in the process because a lot of, when you're when you're not atypical, you you're on that middle of the line. You tend to see other people who are more capable. You your imposter syndrome kicks in. You don't see anybody else doing it. The language around the the job role or the job spec isn't doesn't shout out to you that they care about you. So we're actually creating barriers just in the language, the employer branding, the recruitment marketing we're putting out there, not just not just some of the other things that we turn people off. It needs to be all

Charlie Hart: big overhaul. And you see so many job descriptions even now that expect people to work autonomously. I'm part of a team to communicate effectively at all levels and what other bullshit is there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's that mean? Do you want to roll in a fast paced environment? I read that and think, no. That means they're understaffed and badly managed, and it's overwhelming. That's not for me. Dynamic and fast paced. Yeah. They want young people that are full of energy that they can lean on more and put more pressure on. It's ages. Yeah. Some of that, as

Joanne Lockwood: you say, ageist, some of that is is gender cosas as well. Yeah. Your typical cosas you say is a lot of dynamics in those in those bland statements that we've just been cutting and pushing. And mask racism as well and

Charlie Hart: it's yeah. Good fit for culture. Is your culture that you will go down the football on a Saturday afternoon and then talk about it on a Monday? How many people is that gonna exclude? Does it actually mean that you have, better productivity or better innovation? I don't think so. Yeah. Yeah. I I I is the best way to prevent innovation. I'm a person who's teetotal. I

Joanne Lockwood: don't drink anymore. So talk about going to the pub or even putting on dinners where alcohol is a is a is a major part of it. I'm also doing weight management. So wanting to go out for a meal and have alcohol is, like, a double turn off. And it's, there there are many people out there, certainly the younger generation, whose lives don't revolve around alcohol and eating anymore. But that's a very old school human thing, isn't it?

Charlie Hart: Yeah. So I I have a complicated relationship with alcohol, and it's generally not great to say you're only part of the team if you can go and work hard and play hard. Because I will drink too much to cope with the difficult social situation and difficult sensory situation. Social situation and difficult sensory situation, and then have all kinds of anxiety about how I might have come across, what wrong thing I might have said to the wrong person. And I just wake up full of dread. It's so necessary. Got that t shirt myself. Yeah. That's one of the things that I realized

Joanne Lockwood: that I was focusing on drinking too much because I didn't know how to have fun or how to interact Yeah. Without the alcohol. And then I I took the alcohol away and then found that, actually, I don't wanna be in this environment anyway. I don't like it. It's like, what if I wanna be here with the drunk people? It's no fun. So I, now

Charlie Hart: I'm self employed. It's great because I just work in a way that suits me. If someone says, can we go out for a drink? I wanna pick your brains about a work thing. I'll say, decaf coffee, but, yeah, I'm not I now I don't mind a coffee. I don't

Joanne Lockwood: mind a decaf coffee, but, yeah, I'm not I now self exclude from alcohol focused events and food focused events because I'm no good with either of those. I eat too much if I'm get your visit in front of me, and I'll drink too much if it's there. So I find it because it's a dumb meal really quite

Charlie Hart: stressful with a lot of people. It's mostly the Skip. The noises, though, the competing noises. You know, someone's trying to talk to me, but I'm hearing 10 conversations at once. So I don't think that's an an expectation to join into the

Joanne Lockwood: conversation. Actually, sometimes I my brain just wants to shut off and zone out, eat my dinner, and stare into space. I'm quite happy with that sometimes. But you wanna I feel obliged to talk to you, then I feel obliged to talk to you Mhmm. And then feel obliged to contribute to the and I think, well, I was drinking. It was fine because my down cold just kicked in and kept me bubbly. But now it's just like, sorry. You're boring. I don't mean that rudely, but I'm just not interested in having a small talk conversation anymore. It's I feel so much happier not.

Charlie Hart: Yeah. It's great, isn't it, when you can identify what makes you tick and and what sort of massive drain and just decide what's worth doing and what you're not gonna do anymore. Yeah. I again, you've met Marie,

Joanne Lockwood: my wife. She has some social anxiety exaggerated by menopause and COVID and isolation. But when you engage her in a networking situation, she is brilliant. She'll work the room. She'll form conversations. She'll go up to people who are complete strangers and sell or or or or share. And I just can't do that. I can do it, but it's not my comfort zone. I just wanna go I just wanna go. I'm gonna sneak off now. It's so sad. My comfort zone as well. You know? I'm quite confident

Charlie Hart: when I'm talking about things I know about, but small talk is horrendous. That future is future is n d accessible design event. I mentioned I offered to help with that. And one of the things that needed to be done is meeting people in reception and going up the lift with them to the conference room. And I was just so tongue tied and awkward. It was ridiculous. But I wanted to help. So I volunteered to do things and then think, oh, this isn't me at all. But I can get up on a stage in front of a 1,000 people and deliver a speech, and I'll answer questions as well, unprepared, you know, off the hoof. And I'm completely fine with all of that. But going up up a couple of floors in a lift with someone who I'm expected to make polite small talk to, no. That's so out of my comfort zone. But I take a turn with me to get out. Working. Yeah. Yeah. If you've already got someone there with you, then it's easier to talk to additional people. So that's why you see me and my friend, Lucy Hobbs, going everywhere together. Yeah. I I do like a a

Joanne Lockwood: buddy at those sort of events, but I found the danger is if I if I'm there with somebody I know and they're not particularly bothered about networking, we'll just talk to each other. Yeah. We won't actually do anything else. So you say, well, what are we here for? You know, I forced myself into this environment, and now neither of us wanna be here. So we just should we go now? Should we? We just sort of sneak off. But, yeah, it's which is why I picked a very specific yeah. You wanna leave

Charlie Hart: stupidly early, but without having to do a lot of goodbyes and reasons why. So just, like, quietly slink off and then send people a text saying, I've gone.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Sorry. I I just I realized my train was coming and Yeah? Off. Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely a thing. You go in the entire room 5 times, so it never quite gets saying goodbye. It's so freeing, to be honest, though, I think. When you when you can when

Charlie Hart: you feel safe to actually give people the real reason and you don't think they're gonna mock you for it, it's so liberating. I got invited to a wedding, and the the person realized she'd invited way too many people. She said, would you mind if you and I just come to the evening do and not the daytime? And I said, do you know what? Neither of us really like weddings. Do you mind if we don't come at all? And and she said, thank you so much for your honesty. Yeah. That's absolutely fine. And I thought, we should've traveled to this wedding, spent a fortune, had a miserable time, probably had a row when we got back to the hotel. One sentence of honesty with someone that respects me for my honesty, and we were spared all that. Yeah. I mean, I I find these days because

Joanne Lockwood: people are are more aware of these these attributes and traits of of people. I'm just quite comfortable saying, look, my my introvert nature is is saying my batteries are flat. I need I've had too much. You burnt me out. I've I've got no more energy to give you. So I I need to go and recharge. Sorry. I'm off now. Yeah. After an hour or so. Yeah. Often people said to me, wish I could go as well. You know, we stick off together. But I'm more than I'm more than okay with having one to ones or small conversations with people. Well, that's not small talk. It's good talk in in very intimate conversation. I can like, look. We're talking now. I could talk to you all day, one to 1. And maybe even 3 of us, maybe I could do. But anything more than that where it becomes free calling you have to really try to make it happen. It's like, oh, I'm done now. It's like, bye. Yeah. Yeah. It's meant

Charlie Hart: to be interesting and fun, isn't it? Having a conversation, not some kind of test of your interpersonal skills.

Joanne Lockwood: It's like Game of Thrones networking, isn't it? Last person standing. Darling, it's been an absolute pleasure having a chat with you. I can't believe we've been nattering away now for just over an hour. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. Thank you for being so open, so honest, and, sharing with everybody. How can people get a hold of you? So you'll find me on LinkedIn under,

Charlie Hart: Charlie Hart or Awesome Charlie. Awesome with an AU for autistic because I'm openly autistic. Same thing on Facebook and Instagram, but I may well leave them. Who knows? I've got a website. Guess what? It's www.awesomecharlie.co.uk. And the YouTube channel as well. That that's about it. And let me guess that's Awesome Charlie. Yeah. Awesome Charlie. In AU. I'm on Blue Sky. So I've still got an account on Shitter with an x as I call it now, but I don't use it. I just don't want someone to take over my handle. But, but I'm on Blue Sky as well, which is like that, but it's way friendlier and more inclusive. But yeah. I'll stick all of that in the show notes underneath this, and

Joanne Lockwood: you're gonna send, you're gonna signpost a a resource, won't you, which I'll,

Charlie Hart: so My ADHD brain can't remember what it was right now. Oh, monotropism. Yes. I will. Yeah. Anything

Joanne Lockwood: that's in there, I'll I'll I'll share in the in the notes, and then we'll

Charlie Hart: It's the tension tunnels that give us the flow where we can really, really get into our expertise and change the world, really. If I'm really honest, I

Joanne Lockwood: can't remember what you said you were gonna give me either. I just knew you said something. I play along and see see see if it becomes obvious after a while. But, yeah, it's you learn that about yourself sometimes that you don't have to remember everything. You just have to have coping mechanisms. My favorite

Charlie Hart: ADHD advocate, doctor Ned Hallowell, he says, my thoughts are like butterflies. They're beautiful, but they fly away. So that that's my brain. Yeah. They do come back eventually.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Well, you know, they're there somewhere. You just gotta hunt them down, don't you? But you get your nest out and try to catch them. Johnny, thank you so much. Thank you. As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to express my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lending your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion. Today's discussion struck called Consider subscribing to Inclusion Bites and become part of our ever growing community, driving real change. Share this journey with friends, family, and colleagues. Let's amplify the voices that matter. Got thoughts, stories, or a vision to share? I'm all ears. Reach out to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk, and let's make your voice heard. Until next time, this is Joanne Lockwood signing off with a promise to return with more enriching narratives that challenge, inspire, and unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.