Hello. It's Anthony Chadwick from the Webinar Vet welcoming you to another episode of that chat the U K's number one veterinary podcast. And I am super pleased and honoured to have Theo Smith on the line Who is the founder of Neurodiversity World?
This webinar has been sponsored by, vet life. I am a bit jealous because I do like a good t-shirt. I haven't got my, t-shirt on here, but this is a Chris Packham t-shirt that Theo is demonstrating, and similarly, the hat.
I'm a bit disappointed because I've just come back from Texas from a V MA. I could have worn one a nice Stetson. So you've totally outdone me in t-shirts and hat as well The oh, well, you know, I just, I like it.
I'm assessed by hats and and particular pieces of clothing and standing out because you have spent so many years trying to, like, hide, sometimes trying to fit in. Eventually you get to an age where you just think you know what I'm going to be my unique and quirky self in every way that I can. So I embrace it every day these days.
No It's definitely good. I think a bit of disruption never did anybody any harm, did it? No, not at all.
And this is me toned down. By the way, I've, you know, I've I've relaxed the style for today because we can't be, you know, everything every day, right? We're variations of ourselves.
Well, I'm really excited that you've come on. Obviously that life I know I'm gonna be working with you, to a greater extent. Neurodiversity world.
It does what it says on the tin, I suppose. But, you know, can you maybe give us a little bit of an introduction as to why you're an appropriate person to be talking about this area, You know, your background and maybe a little bit about what neurodiversity world is about. Absolutely.
So for me, I lead, you might expect, thinking from an academic qualification perspective. Right? What are the letters after my name?
Well, there's a level of challenge and a lack of privilege that I have benefited from to be able to do that. What I can say is that I really struggled at school. I had significant challenges.
As a young person. I came out of school with virtually nothing. I didn't really know about my cognitive makeup or why I did certain things and why I got into trouble and why I had an aversion to authoritative figures.
And why I didn't want to show up to school. I didn't understand any of that. And therefore, it wasn't until I was 21 that I went to university as a mature student.
Why? Because I'd seen both my mum and dad do it. I'd seen them both as public servants.
Go and get a degree. When I was a kid, so I knew it was possible. No matter what little you had, you could still go through it.
And at 21 I walked into a university with no formal qualifications. And the minute I walked through, they realised that I was dyslexic. Something that hadn't been picked up before.
And and that was the beginning of my journey. But, you know, 20 years later, I've worked in, recruitment and HR leadership. I've worked in tech start ups in the HR technology space as VP sales.
But in the last five years, I've written the award winning book Neurodiversity at work. Also recognised as one of the leading books, in learning and development, within Europe. And, my life has taken a a real focus towards supporting individuals, across the globe who have faced barriers because of the way that their brain works and because of the fact that they didn't have the knowledge and insight to be able to do anything about it.
And therefore they were being marginalised and system impacted for something they were almost not aware of. The way I describe it is not only are you being fed kryptonite that completely disables you, but because of what people tell you, you start to feed it to yourself. So, today I am a a HR recruitment expert and leader by trade.
I am an author. I am a keynote speaker. I'm a consultant and adviser to some of the biggest organisations in the world, but also some of the smallest, fastest growing, organisations in the tax base.
And and all of this comes through my lived experience as an individual who struggled but went on to succeed, and as a dad of a child who's had significant challenges within the education system. And it's those two combined challenges that I utilise to support others, specifically within the workplace, because that's where I decided I can add most value to those people who are currently in work where we can enable them to thrive where ultimately they may have been struggling, or, at worst case scenarios, losing their career completely Well, it's such a privilege to have you on Theo. I mean, my wife is a teacher in junior schools, and of course, there's such a struggle with resource for for schools I, I don't think, education is necessarily necessarily seen as an investment.
Certainly, in the UK, it's seen as a cost. Hopefully, that may change. But first of all, you know what a shock and and I think a shame for society that you get to 21 without somebody saying you're probably dyslexic.
How does that how did that happen? Do you think? Because I was a problem, and not a big enough problem, but, I I got excluded.
Although that almost happened a couple of times. But luckily I had a dad who intervened who, was able to advocate for me. But I self excluded in the end, because I I really struggled that much.
I just stopped going. And then the reality is, if you had a problem and you stop going nobody says anything because they don't want, you know, And I feel for teachers. I do.
Absolutely. This is not, that that's how it happens, right? If you've got a classroom of 30 people and you've got somebody who's causing you a challenge as a teacher, where you're already facing significant challenges under funding had lots of hours training everything else, and that problem just quietly disappears.
It must be difficult, to to ask for that problem, to come back into the classroom. And so I understand that. So I think there are a number of factors that came into play, I think, also being capable in other areas.
I struggled in school. Yeah, I was being revered outside of school in community Theatre. I was doing really well in certain areas, but really struggling in the school environment by nature of the way that the environment was set up.
So I think sometimes it can be confusing for people. What they see is certain challenges. But they they're not seeing the strengths, the abilities, because those are happening elsewhere.
And, and we see this in athletes. We see this, we see these people and people in the workplace, right As a as a human to human, we may struggle with them, but then someone else tells us how brilliant they are, how caring they are compassionate. They are for the animal, for example, and and how they are the most incredible vet, you know, when it comes to the the focus on their work, the passion for the work, But that ability to deal with another human being in that environment is problematic.
They seem an antagonistic or they seem dismissive or, you know, and and that there causes the problem because you may only see one element of that person, and you may not see the incredible work they do. And that is ultimately what happened in the education system for me. Not many people advocated for me in that system.
Some did, and I remember them. But a lot didn't, and therefore I found my interests elsewhere. The sad reality is, sometimes those interests can lead people to prison.
It can lead people into county lines, gangs it can lead. You know, there's a variety of different spaces of places you can find yourself to get that validation. Which is unfortunately, we see more and more of that to date.
I think this is something I think my wife would say. She's very much an advocate. She works in a area which is, you know, a bit more in in a working class, but also unemployed class.
You know, people not working, maybe parents who are on drugs and so on. Obviously not all of them. So you do get the kids who you know, have not come up in a in a kind of normal family, if you like, which is then tough for them.
And it is so important that we support everybody you know in the class. But as you say, if you've got somebody who's throwing chairs at you, if they disappear and I'm not saying you were throwing chairs, but you know, you you can understand. You can understand that, ideology.
But if you treat everybody as an individual. If you treat everybody, as I would like to treat them as I would like them to treat me then, of course, II. I think maybe society sometimes turns people into numbers and wants everybody to be the same.
So when somebody shows an individualism that is kind of different from what's expected it it's threatening, isn't it? Yeah, and it can be really difficult. It can be difficult for the person on the other side, and I think this isn't about us and them.
And I think sometimes it gets into that kind of idea and concept. This is about us as human beings and actually, when we struggle to communicate with someone else, right, we are both struggling to communicate with one another, right? It's not that you are not understanding me because it's a two way thing, right?
So for you to understand me, I need to do better at connecting and understanding you so that we can find a mutual area of interest and understanding. And it's when we don't get to that point that we have the the challenges. And I think there's not enough support to help individuals to get to that space and place where they can find a mutual area of understanding.
And we see this in poli politics. We see this in, you know, the division within the world, in all different areas. And it's that the ability to connect people in something that they both can talk about and understand and work from there is much better than starting from the opposing positions of viewpoint.
Right? Where is the areas of commonality that we can talk about to get us going? Then we can start to dig into some of the more complex things.
And I think that the focus has been on deficit disorder and what we're not good at and what our challenges are. And I've always wanted to flip that right. So those challenges I talked about in earlier years, I, I don't wanna get entrenched in those Those were experiences that I've learned from and those experiences are the are the reason why the you know my child will not have those experiences.
I will do all I can to ensure that I will elevate them to have a better experience. But how do we transition that to the whole world of the education space. How do we transition that to the world of work?
Because if a child is in crisis, so is their parent, and their parent has to go into the world of work often and they have to do a job. And if they're in crisis as well because they're under high levels of pre pressure, stress and anxiety and so is their child. We can start to see the broader impact that that has on the job, the organisation, the community, the family.
I mean, this is like it spreads. So when I talk about neurodiversity, normally this is the context that I put it in. Neurodiversity is like biodiversity, right?
Without biodiversity, the world would stop right without bees fluttering about and and doing their thing. We have a risk, right? We have a reduction in bees.
We have a a AAA challenge to biodiversity. Currently, that could put the planet at risk. There is no difference around neurodiversity, right?
Cognitive differences in every single one of us, billions of brain cells. If we eliminate certain cognitive differences, we, put the world at risk. We put innovation at risk.
We put challenging the status quo at risk. We put politics at risk. We put everything at risk.
We need to enable diversity of thought managed by bringing different perspectives together and finding the common area of discussion and communication so that we can do that. But it's not just that. I think I was gonna say, Theo, it's It's like the Monty Python film The Life of Brian.
You know, we're all different. We're all individuals, you know. And I think it's a great point, the neurodiversity and the biodiversity because actually, I'd love meeting people who are different from me, and I think, But you're also saying there's a lot of commonality and I think we have these binary discussions.
You know, I'm a labour or I'm a conservative. I'm a Democrat or a Republican. You know, I'm a Christian or a Muslim, and yet in a lot of those areas, there's so much commonality.
And yet as individuals, we often look at the negative. We look at those things that are wrong in those situations. What divides us rather than what brings us brings us together.
So yeah, I think it's a really important point and the other point you made we do something in our business. We we use a thing called the talent dynamic, which is just really a you know, it's it's not a super complicated personality test, but it shows, You know, I'm quite creative and disruptive. Now, if somebody is very organised and wants to, you know, maybe an accountant who wants to get all the numbers exactly right, somebody like myself would probably be frustrating for them.
But if we can actually recognise where we are in that kind of spectrum, then as you've said, there can be more understanding and knowing ways in which to speak to people that, you know, particularly as a manager, as a leader in a company, you know, I want to be somebody who who tries, and I don't always get it right, but to speak in the appropriate way that will bring the best out of that person who's working, you know, in the business with me. So this is where I think you You're such a boon to, in a HR situation that you can show to people that actually neurodiversity is useful because if we have everybody who thinks exactly the same way as you quite rightly said, Innovation stops, doesn't it? Absolutely.
And think about the environment you're in, right? Think about the environment a vet is in. That is not a typical normal environment to the human brain, right.
Your bright lights, your windows, the volume of variety of the types of animals you may see in terms of pets, right? Go back What? 203 104 100 years ago.
Not that long, right? If we think about the evolution of the human brain, right and we wouldn't have had these buildings with these bright lights, noisy environment and the technology that we now have, But the human brain has not had long enough to evolve to the environments that we've built. So what we've got is we've got a problem here.
We've got a human brain that hasn't got the time to adapt to these environments that we built. Yet we expect humans. We expect vets to work in these environments and for it to be OK, it's not OK.
We're seeing evidence of this across all workplaces and workspaces because it's a couple of 100 years of infrastructure that is being built that the human brain is not having enough time to adapt to. And this, you know, however many however long we look at it, right, 100 203 104 100 years, let's say industrialization, right? Started with coal mines, people going down the mines, the pits Look at what that did to them, right?
Or we think about the cotton trade. Look at what that did to humans, right? But before that, these big buildings, these big, bright lights, these chicken coop that we stick people into that we say it's OK.
This is the future of the world. The brain has, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of years of evolution. This is we cannot expect the human brain to evolve as quickly as we are involving the infrastructure that we now live in.
And and therefore we have to think about adaptations to those environments and to the way that we work with people because the brain will not adapt quickly enough. It's just not possible. It's really, really interesting again what you're saying there because, of course, as you say, go back 3, 400 years we were hunter gatherers, pastoralists.
You know we were farmers. We were on the land, you know, we walked out each day. Now, I'm not saying life wasn't hard.
We didn't have antibiotics. You know, we we died young et cetera, et cetera. Lots of you know, childbirth, deaths and and so on.
But we were living in that kind of natural environment. We were obviously starting to adapt it, but we spent a lot of time on the land we now see, becoming more and more sort of internal more and more, you know, again using my wife as an example, she would say that neurodiversity, you know, autism is on the rise, and a lot of that is potentially linked. Also, you know, with computers with that scrolling, et cetera.
And this is where we definitely see evidence when we put people out into nature that often really helps to improve their condition. You know, you were talking before about, you know Chris Packham. Obviously putting him into a natural situation is where he is at his best, isn't it?
You know, in within nature. And we've seen on a lot of social prescribing people with sometimes mental health issues you actually socially prescribe going into green spaces and volunteering, and that can really help with just their general condition. So, it's it's really powerful what you said, And but seeing people as a gift, you know, Temple Grand in working within the veterinary space, I think is, you know, as as said, that she's autistic and yet the amazing work and yet apologies my wrong use of words.
She is doing amazing work. It's it's recognising people's skills and people's God given gifts and talents, isn't it? Absolutely.
And I mean, I just think Tama grandon is a great example of recognising. The cattle were were under significant stress and anxiety and understanding why they were under anxiety. The assumption is because they were being slaughtered, which is traumatic, right, but to to consider for many.
But the reality is it It wasn't that it was the shadows and and the noises and the by actually hugging them tighter and taking some of the the vision the view of the shadows and stuff brought the anxiety down and therefore increased, increase the experience of, you know, the the I mean, it's traumatic I guess, but but it made it less stressful for it in that moment. And then I think it's it's bringing that perspective of somebody who is autistic, who who recognises some of those triggers who recognises the taste smell, texture, noise. The way that you feel in a particular space or place being able to tune into that right, that is special.
That is profound. So having somebody who is a vet, for example, who can tune into an animal's experience because they share some of those natural experiences is incredible. And, I did some work with a healthcare company and help them understand the significance of the impact of those things on, a resident whose early onset of dementia and elderly and they, the impact of light, smell, texture.
So and that's somebody who they're gonna have to pick up. They're gonna have to move. They're gonna have to bring food, and they go.
But understanding that those can trigger that person and give them a really bad experience, even though they can't verbalise, why is really important? And why would that be any different for an animal in your care? Because the animal can have stress and anxiety in that space and places as well.
So I think when we think about, having diversity of thought having different, neurological makeups, right? It's not just about innovation and creativity, like literally, it is around, ensuring that the well being of those that we care for and those who are within our care, whether that be a a family member or or or a pet or whatever else it may be. And and that is why it's so important that we have representation from a neurological perspective within those environments.
But sometimes we have to enable some adaptations and changes to ensure, individuals can be productive in what is an environment that is not typical to the human brain. Hm, Brilliant. Obviously, that life are very kindly sponsored.
The podcast or, you know, we invited that life to introduce ourselves together because we're not taking any any money for doing the podcast either. But we're seeing more and more vets have a neuro diversity. You know, diagnosis or or they're seen as being neuro diverse.
And of course, it's such a broad spectrum that sometimes maybe part of that neurodiversity will be the love of the animal, but it will be more difficult to communicate with people. But again, as you said Theo, at the beginning, there's a There is a way of helping people with a neurodiversity diagnosis to become better at communicating with people. So how does that work is?
Are we Are we putting a lot of vets into a place where they're bound to fail? And hence we have this drop off from the profession? You know, within the first five years, we're losing significant amount of vets who are often really passionate, you know, like myself Want to be a vet from an early age?
They got into university, you know, they're often, you know, really intelligent people, very academic. They fly through the course, but then, you know, they struggle when they're having to meet people on a daily basis. 3040 people.
Maybe not having a long time to, you know, develop those conversations and the relationships. Where do you think we as a profession, could and should be doing better in embracing and welcoming people with neurodiversity? Or does it have to go from both sides?
You know the profession. The individual practises have to have a setup that will, welcome people. But at the same time as you've done, for the people also to recognise that they can adapt and, you know, improve perhaps with human to human communication.
If that hasn't necessarily been one of their strong points Yeah, of course. I just want to call something out. First of all, because I think there's an assumption that because of the volume and variety of information that now comes out through the media through things like Tik, tok and everyone else, there's been a massive increase in rise in people talking about it.
However, in in 2021 a study based on data from the Clinical Practise Research data link CPR D found a 787% rise in the number of diagnosis in autism between 1998 and 2018. So when we talk about this massive increase, there was a 707 87% rise between 1998 and 2018. This rise has just not happened overnight.
This rise was happening way since 1998. And for those who don't know what happened in 1998. Well, in around 1996 the advent of the Internet really took off.
So the ability to communicate outside of the academic world because the academic world really took hold of the Internet. First of all, then anybody could make a website. Then access to information globally increased.
So that was happening. More access to information globally. And then, in 1998 the term neurodiversity was coined in 1998 right?
You start to see some links here around why there was a sig significant increase in diagnosis right now since 2018 to now, yes, absolutely. Covid everything else. Tiktok, YouTube, whatever.
There's been huge increase in greater understanding. One of the biggest areas of rise of diagnosis is in adults adults, you know, people who are in their thirties forties fifties sixties because they're now looking at their kids and going Oh, wait a minute, hang on a second. So II, I struggle to, to communicate with people, for example, in in my work environment, I feel really awkward.
And these are the challenges that my child is having in the education system that's stopping them maybe being able to learn or to build relationships. So we're having challenges in the education system and supporting young people building those relationships. That means when they get into the workplace, where was the support?
in developing those key relationships, A and the understanding that it's OK that you don't have to be a people person. You can be passionate about your topic, and you can share that topic. and that is powerful when you hear somebody, who's, neuro diverse neurodivergent depending on your preference terminology, let's say somebody like me who's, who identifies autistic.
Dyslexic? and a DH D. Later diagnosis of autism and a DH D.
I I If I get into my area of interest, I'm I'm all over it, right? If you wanna talk to me about finance, you watch me squirm. I do anything to get out of that room, right?
And and so where that spectrum exists in terms of interest and non-interest, it is varies. So if you've got somebody in your employment or somebody who works in your environment and you're frustrated, cos you don't feel like they have an ability to communicate with others. They may be struggling to communicate with others on the specific topics that you're really wanting them to talk about.
Do they actually need to be focusing on talking about some of those things? Or actually, can you balance that off? Can you get somebody else to deal with the financial aspect to chase them on money or whatever else it may be?
And you just enable for them to have a conversation around the animal? The animal's needs, the support for the animal, the care within the family, the care within the community Watch that person light up when you allow them to focus on the areas special interest of expertise. And and And I see you, yeah, and this great example through, work we did when we wrote the book, we had a story come out from somebody who did a PhD, in how to support a manager working with somebody who's autistic, right?
And they researched as part of this PhD, across all these different organisations and an organisation came up saying, Well, we had somebody who was autistic who wanted to do something else. We had them in the back washing dishes right in this restaurant chain. And in the end, they they wanted to do something else, and nobody wanted to do the front of house job.
Because the serving staff would lose out on tips. And, you know, you had to greet people come in. They were the least obvious person to do this because they thought you've got no customer service experience, no ability to talk to the customer.
However, what they found out was that their special interest in balloon making animal balloons. They put them in front of house, making these animal balloons for people as they came in. They were a massive success because when they focused on creating these animal balloons for everyone who came in and they came alive, they came, they came alive because this was a passion and interest.
And and I've heard this about people who have a special interest in sports or all these different areas. It's how do we enable people to like Yes, they have to do a job? Yes, they have to meet certain criteria.
Without a doubt, we all have to, But if we can take some of those things away that feel like kryptonite for that individual. Some of those things we can see is harming them is hurting them. Do we really have to bang them on the head and say, No, You have to do that because every person has to do that.
Or can we just find a little change? A little adaptation? Technology is an innovator in this space.
Now the things technology can do to bridge some of those gaps. And I really do believe we miss so many opportunities for young people and for workers within our environment to make some of those changes. We may not be able to make them all, but we can definitely make some.
And though some may make a profound difference to that, humans experience and it's it's a personalization thing, which I think is really important. We try to do it. I'm sure we don't get it all right, all the time at Webinar Vets.
But, you know, trying to make life easier for people in the end is beneficial for the company. Because if you get less churn, you know, on on, people leaving the business, then of course, that saves money. So it makes sense from all angles.
You're doing it for the right reasons, obviously. But there's a benefit. Does it?
Do you have to think about it a bit more because the old fashioned model is, you know, the factory model, right? You're making a widget. Go on ahead and make the widget, and you see that some jobs really are they?
They just dehumanise people that they get no joy out of their work. Can't wait to retire. But you know, their passions.
They might be a world leading lepidoptera or, you know, very passionate about art in some form. And if we don't, we don't allow them to show their passions in work. Then that's part of also the issues around productivity.
I guess in work as well, Yeah, and people get into a particular profession for good reason. Sometimes they lose the the faith that it was the right thing to get into. Some people get into the wrong profession, right?
Some people undoubtedly become teachers and realised it was the wrong thing to do or become a lawyer. My wife became a lawyer. Worst thing in the world.
For her academically brilliant law was not the right place for her. But so it happens, right? Just because we have a brilliant mind doesn't mean we should do a particular job.
Just because we have a love for animals doesn't mean we're the right person to become a vet. For example, like my daughter, absolute love for horses and dogs, even beyond people. Maybe, being at some point will be the right thing, but actually, maybe it won't be, you know, and and I think we've got to enable people earlier on to understand the choices they're making.
We don't do young people enough justice in this area about helping them to make really good, well informed choices. And especially if you come from a low socio economic background, you don't have the people to tell you and to trust your parents may not have been there. So you you you just go.
You're bright and intelligent. You need to do something with it and how many how many of us do that? And I think being able to let them see the value in what they do again, being able to grab hold of that amongst the chaos, I think is really important.
But but we need to understand where that value is for that individual. Is it through challenge them academically? Is it through the connection to the animal?
Is it through the connection to the community? Is what I? I don't know, right?
And that's what I think. We need to spend more time with human beings on these human things, these human reasons, why they began on this journey and why they want to continue on this journey so that we can reintroduce some of that into the workplace into the work practises and create better experiences. Because no, I'm There's not one person who's coming in to that job every day, not wanting to do a better job, not wanting to serve the people, the pets, the animal.
What, like that's not what they could. They if if they don't want to be there, it's other factors. And one quick one, I want to point out is the parental piece, the pressure.
We know there's a disproportionate amount, a positive, disproportionate amount of women who are within the profession, right? as facts, and the challenge is we've got a We've got a crisis of young people of Children being supportive. We've got more Children leaving the education to be homeschooled.
We got exclusions have doubled, tripled since covid from schools, and we know that women take up a disproportionate amount of the caring responsibility for Children. So that's a whole other piece there. We we know we've got a lack of leadership women in leadership roles that we want to rectify.
We know that women disproportionately leave the workplace for a number of reasons, but definitely for the support of Children who are facing challenges because of their neurological makeup. So there's a whole other piece we need to think within the vet industry around how we're gonna support parents, right for the the crisis and challenge that they're going on outside of work. That ultimately may mean they're gonna leave work and they don't have to.
We can find mechanisms to to keep them there because they want to be there. How, how, what's the percentage of vets who leave because of their family because of their Children? Because of caring responsibilities?
They may not say it because there's a lot of stigma and stress, but there's another thing that we could do to really help and support workers who are parents who are carers. I think I think about the possibilities there. I think it's huge and I think we're in a really good space and place the positive aspect of this.
I think we're getting to a good place now where the the stats to date are bad. We've got too many people out of work who should be in work, too many people leaving work that should be in work, that wanna be there. But I think we get into a position where we can.
We can really do something positive with it so that that's what we can take from this is that we can take. We have to care and it's an understanding of the problem. You have to understand the problem.
You have to see the problem. You then have to discern and judge it before you can act on it. If we act too quickly, we do all the wrong things and can cause you know, bigger problems than we've already had.
But I think Theo, you know what? What you've really brought home to us, which I'm a big believer in that everybody has genius within them. But if you ask an elephant to fly, unless his name's Dumbo, he's gonna fail.
So we have to think about what elephants can do. They're very good at getting to the top of trees and getting all the tastiest leaves. So, we have to look at what people's genius is and then encourage them in their genius and in the weak points.
Maybe improve those a bit. But actually, the most important thing is to just get better and better at what you a genius at absolutely 100%. I think you know this.
There's a level of complexity. So when we talk about neo diversity, we talk about everybody. We're all neurologically unique.
But we've not all faced barriers because of the way that our brain works. And the extra level of complexity is there are other elements of, trauma barriers that we may have faced for a variety of other reasons. Right where we grew up, our family makeup, our relationships and all these other things come into play.
So it's not just as simple as what's happening in the brain that's important. It's also nutritionally what's happening. And it's what's happened throughout your life experience.
And that's why sometimes we can come up against people and we can feel like they're being really difficult. But I still can't hold a pen properly. I still can write properly.
Listen, I wrote 100 and 10,000 word book, that one Business Book of the Year award, but I still can't hold a pen properly, write properly and spell properly. I was enabled by technology, right by technology. And And I think if you ask me to write on a whiteboard in front of a group of people, you watch me turn back into a child, right?
If you want to see me fail, you can make me fail. And people have made me fail, which is not nice when people see that they can make you weak and they make you weak, right? We as human beings, we have an ability to change our response to a fellow human being.
And if we see somebody is responding in a really angry, dismissive, unusual way to us, I think we could just think, What was I doing in that moment where I got that response? Is this a good time for me to step back and give that person a bit of space and maybe come back to them or maybe approach them in a different way. I can see they're stressed.
Maybe I'll just pop them a little email. I'll say, Right, no problem. I'll leave you to it.
Now I'll pop you a little man and say, Oh, I recognise you were stressed in that moment. Let's pick this conversation up another time. How would be best when would be best?
What way to communicate will be best? Any more information you need from me around this time? I think we we don't do enough of that because of the urgency covid the urgency of everything we we feel like stuff has to be done in the now I think that's detrimental to the best.
Yeah, the important things aren't necessarily always urgent as well. And as you, as you say, just encouraging. Probably.
There's a tendency to use stick more than carrots. And I think carrots is always nicer and actually helps people grow, doesn't it? So listen, obviously we're going to put at the end of this on our descriptions, Theo, when the event is, with that life, if I can make it, I certainly like to get down there as well.
It's, it's a very interesting It's a fascinating area, and as you say, we clearly are not getting it, all right. But it's so inspirational to meet people like yourself who are within the area working hard to help us with our understanding. Because prejudice comes from a lack of understanding, doesn't it?
From a lack of education. So the more that you can educate us, then the better that we can all become. And as you say, everybody has a bit of neurodiversity.
It's what makes us an individual. So, thank you for all the work that you are doing and will continue to do. I'm really looking forward to hopefully being able to connect later on in the year.
Wonderful. Thank you so much for having me on a real privilege. And, yes.
It's been good fun. Thanks everyone for listening, just pointing you to the resource that that life have created on neurodiversity. It's an amazing document.
I would advise you to have a look at it and, do feel free to to comment. Let us know what you think and let vet life know what you think as well. Hope to see you soon on another podcast or a Webinar.
This is Anthony Chadwick from the Webinar Vet. And this has been vet Chat The U K's number one Veterinary podcast. Take care.
Bye bye.
