Championing Neurodiversity: Geoff Bykes on Inclusive Workplaces and Unmasking Potential

Trevor Botkin: 0:10

and welcome back toW to here leaders connect, the corporate connections podcast, where we sit down with our members and we talk about what motivates them, what challenge they have, their journey and what they're up to today. Hi, my name is trevor botkin, I'm the national director for corporate connections, canada, and today it is my great pleasure to have one of our edmonton two members. Hi, my name is Trevor Botkin, I'm the National Director for Corporate Connections, canada, and today it is my great pleasure to have one of our Edmonton 2 members, mr Jeff Bikes, on the show today. Coming from a background of work-related disability claims, jeff was diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum six years ago, which was a turning point in both his personal and professional life a turning point in both his personal and professional life. Now Jeff works with his wife and business partner, alana, to break the stigma that surrounds those who identify as being neurodiverse and helps them and their employers understand, appreciate and accommodate each other's needs. Please welcome to our show, mr Jeff. Hey, jeff, how are you doing today?

Geoff Bykes: 1:02

Good Yourself, Trevor. Thanks for having me.

Trevor Botkin: 1:04

I'm good. It's Thursday morning. I know it's a lot earlier for you. You're two hours behind me. I had a chapter meeting that ran super late last night, so I got to bed around 1. So today I'm not as fast as I normally would, so if I feel a bit dull it's because I am.

Geoff Bykes: 1:22

So I'll be kind, is that what you're saying?

Trevor Botkin: 1:29

Yeah, I think it's just good practice for next week, when a bunch of us are going to be in London and try to watch the Oilers win the Stanley Cup. With that five-hour time zone or I guess it's a seven-hour time zone, it should be interesting.

Geoff Bykes: 1:39

I've seen the links already of pubs that are going to be showing the games.

Trevor Botkin: 1:42

Yeah, I know I can't believe. I can't believe we're going to be in London during the Stanley Cup playoffs, but I think it's going to be pretty fantastic. First off, thanks for being on the show. You've been a member. Now. This is your three year anniversary.

Geoff Bykes: 1:57

It is yes.

Trevor Botkin: 2:00

And I didn't know until I just read that I didn't know that you were on the spectrum, which either means I'm super unobservant, or or you are someone that obviously integrates well with those who are not neurodiverse.

Geoff Bykes: 2:18

It would be the second one. Yeah, maybe most people have no idea that I'm on the spectrum. I am a very high masker. Is the language we use.

Trevor Botkin: 2:25

High masker.

Geoff Bykes: 2:27

High masker yeah.

Trevor Botkin: 2:28

Okay, and I guess that doesn't mean anything in terms of depth on the spectrum or that, and I think many of us, if you've been around long enough, you know people or you have friends with kids or you have experienced people somewhere on the spectrum and I know, when I was a kid it was very different than it is today.

Trevor Botkin: 2:51

But I'd be curious I want to go back to that six years ago, because obviously it's different when you're on the spectrum as a kid, because the education system which is horribly set up for and maybe it's better today, I don't know, but I think back to my own childhood and it just wasn't set up for anyone on the spectrum, let alone kind of on the spectrum or or a high masking or whatnot. But I'd be curious, as an adult, for someone to give you a diagnosis that obviously changes how you perceive yourself, how you perceive the world, but also to give you a diagnosis that obviously changes how you perceive yourself, how you perceive the world, but also to give people maybe a clue as to who you are deep down inside.

Geoff Bykes: 3:36

Absolutely I.

Geoff Bykes: 3:37

why don't I tell you a little bit sort of the story around that and I will say the the system today for kids is a lot better than it was 30 years ago, for sure, but it's very different starting as an adult. So I used to work in the disability management field. So we actually helped employees who got hurt at work and got them back to work. So we worked sort of beside WCB and one of my roles was to look at these really complex files. So pretty simple injury, you know, straining knee but yet two years later they're not back to work and we can't figure out why. And there's all these barriers. The relationships are ruined and no one wins. No one wins in this situation.

Geoff Bykes: 4:19

And I kept trying to figure out why people were throwing up all these barriers or struggling with these barriers to return to work. And I kept feeling this, that I was missing something, I wasn't picking up on what I needed to. So, as I was working through this in my last business, my wife and I were looking at getting married. We did the smart thing went out, got some pre-marriage counseling and and behold, we talk about communication, because every marriage is about communication for all the listeners who are married, and a couple sessions in the therapist, who happened to have a background in autism, actually had a chat offline with my wife about she's seen some signs in me. Something's not making sense. What do you, how do you feel about doing some testing on the autism spectrum? So she chatted with me and we looked and thought, well, why not, more information is not a bad thing. So we did the testing and I was off the charts on most of them, and so that's sort of how it started. So what happened was we're in this marriage council about communication and now we've determined we I have a brain on the autism spectrum and my wife has adhd. So not only is it the whole male, female married dynamic, it's two brains that are very, very different biologically speaking yeah, wired completely different, wire totally different. So no wonder we were struggling with communication. So we started having to learn all these lessons and all this interesting things.

Geoff Bykes: 5:51

And what I wasn't expecting was when I went back to work with all this knowledge, I started seeing these traits, these trends, these struggles in the claimants who we couldn't get back to work. It wasn't the injury. The injury might have started the process, but for the first time. So when they're injured and on WCB, they either don't have to do their full job or they can spend more time at home. They're finally getting time to rest and heal and recover after a lifetime of masking their true selves because they didn't even know they were neurodivergent, they didn't know they had ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, and so I started digging into this. I was limited because WSV has rules, and I started digging into this with all this new knowledge and I found all these connections and was able to make some real differences in people's lives. Sometimes that difference was they had to say goodbye to their employer, but at least we can end on good terms. Sometimes we could save the relationship and get them the accommodations they need. So I was going through this and I learned all this about myself and my wife and I had learned, learned together, and I was helping people with these skills, but there was something missing, like I couldn't. I had no ability to help a whole workplace adjust. All I could do is help an individual.

Geoff Bykes: 7:15

And actually this ties into CC, because I joined corporate connections in 2021, in June, and when I joined, it was getting close to the time to sell my last business. For anyone who's ever had a family business, some of the things you hear are completely true, and sometimes things fall apart and you have to sell. That happened to me. We had to sell. I wasn't majority shareholder, so the other ones didn't. We had to sell. So I'm in Corporate Connections, which is a business growth community, selling a business. So I'm in Corporate Connections, which is a business growth community, selling a business. So I'm in this chapter who have been tremendously supportive for me and I'm able to share my story and learn and grow with them. And they talk about Mexico, the big convention in 2023.

Geoff Bykes: 8:08

23. And I thought this sounds amazing. This sounds like business people that are going to get the struggle so many of us seem to go through here, but all around the world. And so you know, my wife and I decided we're going to go. Well, two days into Mexico, the final paperwork to sell my business came through. So I'm on a video call with my lawyer signing so she can witness the signature.

Geoff Bykes: 8:25

So, two days into this global business conference, I had no business. So I mean, we'd been in CC for a couple of years by then and my wife and I had talked about what we were going to do, but we thought, well, what the heck? So we were sitting in our hotel room after I signed this paperwork we had all these days of conference left and we thought, well, we know we want to work in the neurodiversity space. I know what I'm good at, she knows what she's good at. We believe we can make a business out of this. So we left the hotel room to the next event, talking like this is our business, and just went with it and launched it right then and there it was basically come up and launched it Corporate Connections Global Convention and every person I talked to was supportive. They got it, they resonated. They knew someone who was neurodiverse, who had these struggles, and this was people from India, poland, japan, like everywhere all over the world, and they all had the same reaction. So we left that conference going OK, this is it, we're doing this. So that's actually how Counter Diversity Group started.

Geoff Bykes: 9:39

We incorporated in October of 2022. We officially launched in March of this year, in October of 2022. We officially launched in March of this year. And so now we go into workplaces and use storytelling and emotional connection to make champions in the workplace on what neurodiversity really means to everyone in the company how to work with ADHD, understand it, what is autism, how to accommodate it, and we do it from a completely behavioral perspective. We're not doctors, we don't want to be doctors. We talk about if you have ADHD. These are the common behaviors. How can we make your job work for you better in your workplace? Maybe you don't know you have ADHD. Let's talk about the common behaviors. When you're not diagnosed, can we help you identify and start your own journey to a diagnosis, to help, to treatment, to support I mean, that's the short version, but that's how we ended up where we are today and corporate connections. Without that conference in Mexico, I'm not sure where we'd be. Honestly.

Trevor Botkin: 10:42

But you'd still be in Edmonton, where we'd be, honestly, but you'd still be in edmonton, um, but um, probably still doing something amazing. Uh, knowing the two of you, I I'm uh, it's, it's inspirational. Uh, first off, I I want to go back though in, because I, and I know, I, I know a number of people both within our community, outside of our community, that you know, were diagnosed with, say, adhd as an adult and or dyslexia, and for them it was kind of like unlocking a piece of themselves, of going. Oh, that makes so much more sense now. Yeah, because and to me it feels like it kind of feels like there's no such thing as neurodivergent. It's just that we're all different.

Trevor Botkin: 11:30

But we've, our institutionalized systems have been like this is normal, but if you start really peeling it away is going, we're all somewhere along some element, along some element, and you may be all the way over here, you may be all the way over there, but no one's brain works the same as anyone else's brain.

Trevor Botkin: 11:49

But we've, we've created an educational system that just kind of is let's throw as much information at people and it sticks for some and it doesn't stick for others. But you know, it's to say that, you know there are things that your brain is going to be very well attuned to that my brain will not have the attention span for Can't do it, won't do, it doesn't like it. And I think because our education system historically has not been set for that, that when somebody as an adult is told it's you're not stupid, you know it has nothing to do with discipline, or you know your own kind of unteachability is that you're not wired for that system. Your brain is not attuned to that. And so I'm curious for you if you had that experience where these tests came back and you're like OK, that makes so much more sense and almost as a validation of who you were or who you are.

Geoff Bykes: 12:52

Oh, yes, I remember so clearly the feeling. I didn't happen right away but when we got the diagnosis and sort of went away and thought about it and started thinking things like oh, you know, I've never really liked social gatherings, but that's just because it's loud. Well, yes, but it's bothering me because of X, y, z as a part of my autism diagnosis, like so many things started making sense and you raised some really like you made a really good comment there about how so many systems are built for the neurotypical brain, like of our population give or take, they say is neurotypical and we have all these supports now for schools, post-secondary, uh, any type of education but it stops the second. You leave school and then you hit the workplace, just like I did when I had. I've had a couple of different businesses and I realize now I was self-employed because I could make my own space, I was able to accommodate myself so much easier without having to deal with the boss and I was incredibly privileged to have the resources and ability to do that. But when I talk to people, like for HR for example, they have all these wonderful tools, methodologies, behavioral models and they use them because they love them, they work and okay, but they only work for up to 80% of your workforce.

Geoff Bykes: 14:18

20% of your workforce is neurodivergent. So you made a comment that it's not. It's your brain is physically different. It just won't grasp that way. So people are going through school, diagnosed or not, supports or not, they're hitting the workplace and if they don't fit that 80 system, they fall out, they fall behind. There's burnout, there's mental health conditions, there's just overall stress. My own experience having to mask my true self to fit into spaces. Well, that's 24, seven or so. If you're working 40 hours a week, that's 40 hours of hiding your true self to do your job, and that's not 40 hours of energy. That's that's the equivalent of 40 hours of energy plus 40 hours of energy to do the work of energy. That's. That's the equivalent of 40 hours of energy plus 40 hours of energy to do the work it doubles your output.

Trevor Botkin: 15:07

Yeah, and and and and stress, I mean obviously just the stress of of that, because I, and again, if, if you don't know, if you don't, if you, if you don't have that label, and and I don't mean that in the in the kind of negative sense but if you, if you can't say this is, this is who I am medically speaking, and that kind of understanding of it, then the high masking is just so that you're not, you don't lose your job because you're seen as as being incapable or not capable of performing as everyone else. And there's so much stigma around um, this idea of stupidity, right, because you know, if you're not neurotypic, then you're broken, as opposed to saying there's nothing broken about someone who's neurodivergent, it's just you don't fit, you are a round peg in a square hole. You should stop trying to stick you in a square hole Like that's not your strength, I'm, I'm. I'm wondering if in the last six years, you've been able to. Obviously your story must resonate with people you work with. But how do you, how do you help business owners no-transcript, I would say in a safe way identify within their own teams people who are neurodivergent and then start having these conversations away.

Trevor Botkin: 16:31

How do I help you Like, how do I help, how do I help create a space for you where we're not giving you stuff that maybe is a waste of your time, but where we can let you really flourish and find your rhythm within the company, because obviously we talk about this all the time in just straight diversity. You know, if you fill the room with everyone who's had your experience, comes from your background, lived in your city, you're missing an incredible opportunity to have all these other voices and experiences color and shape the way a business runs, and that just whether it's sex or ethnicity or gender. And then, when we start bringing in now, you know the neurological side of it is how we see the world, which is incredibly different, right and, and how we experience it, and you know, whether it's through sound and sight and vision, or lack of vision or whatever. How do we start having those conversations as business owners, whether it's internally with our teams or externally amongst ourselves as business owners?

Geoff Bykes: 17:40

Oh, that's a loaded question. I'll sort of two parts to that. One is with my experience with CC. I've been exposed to many, many business owners. I've shared my story. I've connected with almost every single one I've shared my story with, because every single one of those business owners either is neurodiverse themselves or has children or nieces and nephews who are neurodiverse. They all know someone. So that's sort of. The first connection is when I talk about my story, the learning, the masking, the energy required, they all go. I need this, for this person Like this would make such a difference. Which also ties into we're actually working on trying to research project.

Geoff Bykes: 18:22

We believe most business owners, like over 50%, are neurodivergent. Why? Because when you have your own business you can make your own rules and you don't have to build a workspace around the 80% neurotypical that exists. So we're working on that as a side project. I think you know what I'll share, sort of a short story that really explains this really well.

Geoff Bykes: 18:49

So we have a client here in Edmonton, a small business, a couple owners, team of 20, give or take and they brought us in to do some very basic education.

Geoff Bykes: 18:58

It's one of the things we do and we did an educational seminar on introduction to neurodiversity and we talk a little bit about ADHD and autism in there.

Geoff Bykes: 19:07

And we finished the seminar and the owner's faces were just a little shell shocked, like this is a whole new world for us and we thought, okay, so they really connect. But what we didn't realize was they brought us back for another seminar just for the two of them. And what we didn't realize was they've been in business together for I think, eight, 10 years and they'd been struggling for some time to communicate and they had had business coaches and strategy advisors and all these different professionals to try to help them work through their concerns and it all failed and they had internalized that failure like we are bad business owners. That's what they were starting to think because everything had failed and all we did was have two 90-minute presentation and conversations about what neurodiversity is for both of them to realize. One of them is an adhd or so autism and ADHD, and one of them has ADHD and they have never in their life tried to change their business process to match their brains. They were building their business on the neurotypical framework that almost every consultant out there goes for.

Trevor Botkin: 20:22

And it wasn't working.

Geoff Bykes: 20:24

It wasn't their fault. It wasn't working. Like you said it earlier in the podcast, it's structural differences in how they approach the world. So a little bit of education, which then turned into some coaching and some workshops and how to sort of navigate those issues. But until people know that there's another way that works for their brain, they don't know. Until someone knows that I'm on the autism spectrum and have to mask to be in a social situation, they don't know, which is why I'm so open about it, Because once people know, most people are happy to work with you. I was at a networking event prior to this call and it was too loud so I just left. I got out of the room for about 10 minutes to clear my head and I told a few people. No one had any issue and they understood that level of support. So when you talk about what makes business owners connect to what we're talking about, it's a perspective that 20% of their team and likely them, need a different method to work, to be happy, to be successful.

Trevor Botkin: 21:33

I think that's incredibly. I don't even know what the word I want to say. I mean it, just the idea that, and I think it resonates. I mean it resonates Entrepreneurs, business owners, they're a different breed and it's funny. I was at a dinner last night and a young entrepreneur who's running her business, who did not go into it. You know, you have the people who go to school and do an MBA and you know, like want to be a business owner and want to build a business, that's one thing. And you know to study and do the school thing, you know that's that's, that's a choice. But their journey was not business related and ended up in any business plan. And she says is it normal that most days I hate what I'm doing and then the next moment I love what I'm doing, and then I hate what I'm doing. And I love what I'm doing and I don't know what I'm doing and I think I'm you know, I'm going to burn it all down. And then I'm like this is the greatest thing I've ever done in my entire life.

Trevor Botkin: 22:36

I'm like, yes, that is from everyone I've talked to, that's normal that we call that Tuesday and and it was such a validation for her. But this idea that so many entrepreneurs in that, in successful um, probably are somewhere on some neurodivergent scale and that that would just that would make so much sense. And not from an idea of like again, this idea that someone who's neurodivergent is broken somehow, but to say that it's just not true, that it it this ability. And it's funny, when I talked to some of the members who you know, they tell me their story and just the number of times they got kicked in the teeth, whether it's financially or business partners or spouses or whatever, and they just kept coming back for more. And I said why, why, how did you not give up? And they're like, well, what, what choice did I have? Like this is what I want to do? And I just keep coming back and I'm like man, I would have quit, I would have been out of there.

Trevor Botkin: 23:42

And and it's just to say why do some people have the I don't want to say courage, but the discipline to get up every day and just keep pushing a boulder up the hill? Because they have a vision, they have an idea, they have a thought in their head that they can do something that's remarkable. And then they do it. And then other people are happy to show up and just kind of punch the time card every day and do their job. And so it must be something special, it must be something in their wiring that doesn't allow them to alloy their dream or, you know, kind of give up, and it would make sense that it's just hardwired differently.

Trevor Botkin: 24:31

You know, and I love that idea. I love that idea that it's like you're kind of part of a special club, but then we can start looking at going. Yeah, this idea that your business process has to be the same as this person's business process is just fallacy and what I read this book and that's not how I run my business. So there must be something wrong with me. It's like no, you know, just this idea of A equals A equals B is the right formula. It's not, so I think that's incredible.

Geoff Bykes: 25:07

Yeah, I've talked to enough business owners now that resonate with this that it's something that I share quite a bit is most people agree that starting a business is terrifying. It's scary, it's exciting, but it's terrifying. And you often need a kick to get your business started. You need some reason to go. Nope, I'm not working eight, eight to five, I'm going to go start my business. Yeah, um, the business owners I've talked to, without exception, who identify as neurodivergent, have said I was. I couldn't find a place that worked for me anywhere, so I had to make my own, and that was their kick. So they took their neurodivergency and used it as a superpower to get them over that hump of starting it. And I've heard that so many times.

Trevor Botkin: 25:52

Yes, and I and I'm it's funny I'm glad you used the word superpower, because I was actually going to ask you. I'm like, so, um, as you look back on the last six years and we can look back further, I mean mean, you're, you're, you've, you've been in business quite some time now, but what would you say, especially with the hindsight of the last six years? What would you say Jeff's superpower is?

Geoff Bykes: 26:14

Actually organization of all things, so the way. So I mean, if you know this is a really common saying if you know one person with autism, you only know one person with autism. Everyone's different. It's such a spectrum For me. What I found is my brain operates on mental spreadsheets. So whenever I have a social interaction that works well, I update my mental spreadsheet. So in this situation with these people, I do this. It went well. I will do that again in the future and it's almost like a logic pattern, like computer programming, and so that has overflowed into every aspect of my life. So I have this ability to take a really big idea and organize my way down to the very beginning and make it happen and it's not scary. So I think my superpower is the way my brain is, so logical it removes the fear from big ideas and that has gotten me to where I am today.

Geoff Bykes: 27:15

I didn't know I was doing it back then, but I've. This is my third business. Both the other two had been very successful. I learned a lot. But when I think back to when I started like back when I was doing my e-comm actually engineering at the time and then moved to be calm, I started repairing windshields, like those orange windshield repair tents. That was my first business. Like what the heck was I doing? Everyone else thought I was crazy, but it just made sense to me. Made sense to me and I turned it into this. You know I had 40 staff and 30 locations and I just turned it into this business because my brain just said, oh, you can do this, and it kind of ignored everyone else who said it was wasn't gonna work yeah, because because a spreadsheet brain just takes a big problem is just a series of little problems and if you start solving problems, it breaks it down.

Trevor Botkin: 28:04

There's nothing. There's nothing to it. And then the. I think the thing with businesses that have a trouble scaling is because they get lost in the numbers or they don't understand the numbers. And scaling is a numbers game. That's all it is. And if you can, if you can figure out the equation that frees you to scale, you scale a business. And if you can, if you can figure out the equation that frees you to scale, you scale a business. And if you can't figure that out, or if you don't figure out how to do that, then you, you stagnate or you, you kill the business. So it's, it's uh, and I and I think everyone needs.

Trevor Botkin: 28:37

If you're neurotypical, I think having somebody whether it's a partner or a c-suite with you who is neurodivergent enables you to see the around the curve or see the other side of the problem. And if you ask them, it's like well, how do you see this problem? And if you actively listen to their explanation, the problem, the solution, lies somewhere between you and them. Yeah, because if you're, you're bringing, and I and I know I've had a number of friends who who didn't have the emotional intelligence, but just wicked, wicked intelligence. But the emotional intelligence wasn't there, and that's something I always could bring to the table.

Trevor Botkin: 29:19

And the between the two of us there wasn't anything we couldn't figure out, because they could see something that I just couldn't see, and vice versa, where I can say, ooh, let's look at the touchy, feely part of this and just make sure we're not missing anything. And between the two of us we could, we could find a way that I think the vast majority of people would be like yes, this feels right. Um, in that, and and I think it's, it's, it's, it's beautiful, what? I'm curious, what's been the biggest surprise for you in your marriage after the last, I guess, six years of communication and now having her as a full-time business partner? Biggest?

Geoff Bykes: 30:04

surprise, biggest surprise. Yeah, this might sound a little trite, almost, but uh, how well I actually understand some of the emotions, despite not feeling the emotions myself but that's interesting so like once they're explained to me.

Geoff Bykes: 30:25

yeah, because emotions don't work in a spreadsheet.

Geoff Bykes: 30:27

I can't.

Geoff Bykes: 30:27

It's very hard to take an emotional concept and put it in my mental spreadsheet, but I found a partner and a wife and partner who has learned how to explain things that she is feeling to me in a way that, once she explains them, I can recognize all the signs of that emotion, because one of my one of my superpowers, I believe, is also how observant I have to be, which was learned through a childhood of trauma and protecting myself through observation. But when she teaches me how an emotion looks, I then can remember that, and I see that in business. So it has helped tremendously in our marriage with communication, but it also has been super helpful in business because instead of walking into a room and missing 99% of the social cues and blowing the meeting, even though my product is great, I can can. I can identify, connect and then mirror the room in a way that I couldn't have done without that and it's I don't know if that's explains it well, but if someone can break it down in the steps that it makes sense for my spreadsheet.

Geoff Bykes: 31:33

It sticks there and I can use it.

Trevor Botkin: 31:37

But that's that's. And again, even for someone who's neurotypical, it's learned behavior Right, and that's what we do as kids. We learn mimicry and we we go well, if, if, if I smile and they smile, smiling is good, and if I laugh and they laugh, laughing is good in all of these things, and I think it's just another way of of understanding and anyone that understands sales. It's the same process, and you may intuitively understand emotions or you may have to be taught. So I think it's I fully, fully, and as an actor, former actor, literally, literally, that's what we're taught in theater school is, if you're not feeling the emotion, you still have to emote and give people the semblance of it, so that the other person across the room is like, oh, I'm getting anger here. This reads as anger, okay, so how do I react to anger?

Geoff Bykes: 32:29

and so a lot of what people don't realize is we're constantly reacting to everything around us, stimuli, and and if you don't have a logic filter that can process it, you are probably reacting wrongly, yeah, or you get overwhelmed, which is very common, but I think a lot of business owners don't understand that a lot of our culture is built around yes, work with your strengths, but if you have a weakness, develop it, get better at it, try to fill in your gaps. And the problem with that, from a neurodivergency lens, is like my gaps aren't going to be fixed with soft skills. So, rather than put all my time and energy into my weaknesses to try to mask them or fill them in, find what I'm good at, which is education, public speaking, some other things, and that's all I do. Here's my gaps. Find someone else who is strong there to fill them. Don't take all my time and energy to fill them myself, and I wish more business owners learn this.

Trevor Botkin: 33:36

I think it would help with the imposter syndrome, which every business owner I've ever talked to has felt like an imposter at one point. Yep, yep, we all do. We all do and same with their staff. But I, unfortunately, I, I feel increasingly I'm seeing that shift where people are are saying find your ex, stay in your, and then surround yourself with people who fill in your gaps yeah, and empower them to fill in those gaps, where you're not micromanaging, you're not controlling, but say stop trying to make yourself the perfect boss, you know. Just improve yourself, yes, but if you are not a numbers person, don't go do an accounting course to say, well, I'm going to get better at numbers. No, get people around you who are great at numbers and who can say, okay, trev, um, you need to do more collections, you need to do more sales, because your numbers suck. And then you don't need to understand why they suck. Just more of that, less of that. And so I, I think it's, uh, I think it's beautiful. Look, we're, we're almost out of time.

Trevor Botkin: 34:35

Um, I had, I had no idea that this is, this is the extent of why you do what you do.

Trevor Botkin: 34:45

Um, it's a, it's a, it's a bit of a paradigm shift for me in terms of.

Trevor Botkin: 34:51

I again, I think when we see, when we see diversity in the name of a company, uh, most of us are pretty narrow in terms of what we see or what we think, uh, and we get into some of the conversations that we've been having for the last couple of years, um, and sometimes it just feels like, oh, then we need more women or more people of color or that, but it's it's's, it's so much larger than that. When we start looking at, yes, those, but also in terms of how we're, we're wired internally and how we, we think and and approach problems, and I think it's such a, it's such a wonderful discussion to be having as business owners of how do we create spaces, um, that everyone has an opportunity to flourish and bring their best, and and that's what I love, right Is that is, that you can create in a company, a place where everyone is spending their time bringing their best and not spending their time masking, thinking that this is what the company needs, which is not true.

Geoff Bykes: 36:09

And I wish more business owners and business people would stop harping on some kills, some skills being key. Skills Like time management is one anyone with ADHD really often struggled with time management, task organization, calendars, and we've talked to businesses where, oh yeah, I have this employee, fantastic employee but they cannot manage their time. They're always over time, always late and they use all these tools and none of them are built from a neurodivergency lens and so it creates frustration and anger and ruins the relationship, and I just embarrassment and guilt and and we make people feel again broken.

Trevor Botkin: 36:49

That it's something.

Geoff Bykes: 36:49

Internalize that and carry it from job to job and all you have to do is, instead of telling them to, you have to use your calendar, you need to be on time, set alarm, ask them, coach them, ask them truly. Why. How do you feel you are struggling with this and how can we make it better? How can we remove this from your job? Just ask. Don't tell. Don't use a technique your company has had for five years, given to you by a high-priced consultant that had no idea about ADHD. Just ask. People know what they need.

Trevor Botkin: 37:24

So what you're saying is communication doesn't just work for marriage, it also works for business owners and anyone aspiring to run a company.

Geoff Bykes: 37:33

A short conversation can change the entire culture. It's amazing.

Trevor Botkin: 37:38

Beautiful, beautiful, jeff, look, I really appreciate you. I appreciate you taking the time to sit down with me and have this conversation and I'm so excited to see what you do with this with Alana, and where we go on your journey over the coming years.

Geoff Bykes: 37:58

So are we. We're looking forward to it.

Trevor Botkin: 38:00

Beautiful, beautiful, well, and to everyone else listening today, I hope you found value in our conversation and I hope it opened some potential conversations for you have, either with your employer, if you're an employee, or with your employees, if you're a business owner, or even to have amongst each other as members in our community, to say how can we create more room and more space for conversations around diversity and create a safe space where everyone can find their X and commit and really flourish as wherever they are in that neurotypical or neurodivergent scale from that aspect. So, jeff, once again, thank you so much and to everyone else, this is where leaders connect.