ADHD, Networking, Retreats and FACE TIME

We are live. Hello everyone, happy Monday. I'm not entirely sure if I'm happy or just existing today. I'm coming off of a whirlwind trip to Denver. I left Friday morning, had to be at the airport at like 5:30 AM, and then flew to Denver, jumped right into conference life, did conference life until 5 o'clock on Saturday, and then went right back to the airport and got another flight to come home.

Ooh, that's harsh travel, Danielle.

Yes, it was. And it was my first time in my manual chair, so that was by myself because obviously—

Okay.

Usually my husband— we only use the manual chair when my husband's going to push me around, and that was an experience. Thank God for Jessica, Dr. Jessica from our team, and her son Cal, because I was so tired. My hands didn't want to hold on to nothing or grip nothing by the time we left, and I got road rash on my wheelchair. I got going down a ramp and I couldn't slow myself down, so I had to run myself into the wall.

Oh, ow.

Oh, I'm fine. My wheelchair wasn't though.

The adventures, right? We have to look at the adventures.

I didn't fall out of the chair. I didn't flip myself over backwards even once, though I had almost attempted that because my backpack— I had a backpack on the back with all my clothes and everything, and it weighed them. So I accidentally lifted myself up too much because I'm not good at the wheelchair yet and almost flipped myself backwards. But my husband put the wheelie bars on so I can't, so that's a good thing. Uh, so those were my, my, my adventures in a wheelchair things. And it was cold. It snowed in Denver. Uh, it was 90— it was 80-something when I left. It was horrible.

Oh yeah, we've had a, we've had a bunch of snow here in Utah. So when we get hit, usually Colorado gets hit. And last week we had 2 days where it snowed. The first day was Tuesday and we got like 8 inches and then it melted by the end of the day, like most of it. And then 2 days later we got another 4. So it's been weird, like weird weather. Of course, everybody here in Utah says just wait a minute, in 5 minutes it'll be something different, especially in spring. It's pretty crazy in spring.

Yeah, we're heading north, uh, at the beginning of May. To go to New York. And my husband's like, oh, we'll take the convertible. I'm like, why? We're going to New York in May. It's probably going to snow somewhere between us and New York or be snowing in New York. I'm not taking the convertible because I have my levels of importance here. I want to take a big cooler so that I can get all kinds of food from Wegmans and other New York—

Oh yeah.

To bring back with me. So I have to have my cooler. He can't—

I hear ya. I am the same way. I am gluten-free, but when I go back home to visit, I, I'm naughty because I miss my tasty cakes and I miss— there's one pizza shop that was a local pizza shop and that's the only time I will eat an Italian sub that's not gluten-free and then I pay the price for it later. But oh man, I hear you.

Wegmans subs are, are things.

They're big. Those too. Yeah.

Yeah, so we go— that's usually our first stop. Sorry, family, we go to Wegmans first.

Um, and then And then yeah, priorities, please. You gotta have food.

Priorities. Food comes first. So I want to talk about networking and retreats and getting face time with other neurodivergent people and how important that is. And that was— I mean, I know this, and I talk about this all the time. But I was just at a conference, and we got to talk to— we had one of our friends was We're both coughing.

Sorry.

Different reasons. But navigating the dual identities of women with invisible disabilities in professional spaces. And we got to talk to so many women. And one woman come up to us, I feel safe and heard. I feel heard for the first time ever.

Yeah, heard.

And the importance of remembering, not just as a speaker. I mean, obviously, there's a huge— amazing— I love going and speaking at these events. It's fun, isn't it? But being able to really connect with others like us face-to-face is so, so important.

It's, you know, I've been doing some speaking, not very much yet, but mostly online. And I find that the connection— people connect, but they have this such strong desire to connect with you Like face-to-face. And I don't know if it's because of the struggle we went through with COVID and how we had to be so isolated that some of us are having a hard time not coming out. We're still staying in that isolation because that's a protection for us. But at the same time, we desire that face-to-face because then we do make a connection of more depth, I think, when we're face-to-face. Oh my gosh, I don't want to leave this place because everybody gets me. They don't have to talk to me and, you know, find out the reasons why behind it because they already get it. It just makes it a lot more simple to communicate and talk back and forth. And I find that when we get into our community, it's almost like we automatically create this safe space for each other.

Oh yeah.

Because we desire it, we're going to create it for the people that we work with, deal with, or interact with every day. Naturally. So people start being— they start to be drawn to us when we actually get out and do stuff and network and talk to people. And I'm not saying go out there and do it like 24/7. Whoa, no, that's too much overload. But definitely when you have the opportunities come up, definitely do it, because when you do, you never know who you're going to run into. I mean, I'm blessed to have run into Danielle. I didn't run into her in person, but I'm gonna see her in May in person.

One month?

I can't wait.

One month, actually. How many, how many exact days? Now, now I gotta look it up.

Oh, look up the exact days. I don't have a countdown because that, like, it makes me—

37 days.

Is that it?

37 days.

I'm so excited, you guys. It's my first time to Disney, Disney World in like, I think, 15+ years, 20 years, something like that. So there's gonna be a lot of new stuff for me too. But again, just finding ways to get into a group, and it doesn't have to be like a big grandiose thing like a retreat. But what about your local, you know, your local network events? How many people could you find in just going to a dinner? Do something casual, small, slow. If you're not used to friends, get together with friends, right?

Get together with others who, who have similar interests.

Yeah.

Is it being neurodivergent? Is that your personality type? Obviously, that's my personality type. Yes, I've made up my whole entire personality type. Because, well, why is it my whole entire personality? Because it makes— that's how I make money too. So, and I can't not be. So I mean, it is what it is. But, but go out with friends, go out to get drinks, go up and get mocktails, go out and have coffee, go out and get cheesecake. Huge proponent of grabbing some cheesecake. Um, go get that sub, go get that slice of pizza, go, go to the bookstore together.

Do something instead of sitting on your couch or sitting on your phone. Because—

There's somebody ringing my doorbell and they keep ringing it over and over and over again. So I'm gonna do something I wouldn't normally do. You're gonna keep talking and I'm gonna mute myself and see what they want because they're gonna keep ringing my doorbell and my dog is going to start barking soon.

Ah, gotcha. So we're gonna keep talking about why it's important to get into the networking and why do we need to connect with people. Look, the biggest thing about connecting with people is being able to, one, share that space with someone. But when we share that space with someone else and we find out that they have some of the same characteristics or same neurodivergence that we have, what are the things that you have gone through that you can help them with? Or maybe they don't even recognize that they're neurodivergent right now. Maybe they don't have the signs that show them, hey, this is what neurodivergent looks like. ADHD, autism. Whatever falls in that area. One of the best things that I have done for myself when I was dealing with the TBI was I went to a clinic, and for a week we went through training to kind of help us reset the brain. And while we were there, I had 12 other people in that group, and those 12 people had the same issues that I was dealing with, varying degrees, maybe more intense, maybe less intense. But by doing that, we had this camaraderie together, even though we didn't know each other, but we knew the things that we were dealing with. And it's the same thing. So I never had to explain to them why I couldn't say something the right way or why I forgot something or what was the purpose to all this. It was already there. We already knew what we were all dealing with. So guess what? We got past that fluff and stuff, you know, that small talk that none of us really like to talk about. And we got to get to know the real person. And when you do that, there's almost like an instant connection. And when I left that clinic, it was almost a grieving process because I knew these people were from all over the states and out of country. And I knew that I wouldn't be able to actually walk up to them face to face, but getting to know them for that one week, guess what? I felt normal. And for me, that was huge because I really didn't understand the neurodivergence at that time. But as I've learned, this new normal is awesome. And having other people be able to start seeing themselves as this new normal for themselves, or just a fact of, hey, here's a piece of what you're dealing with. Here's something that you may not realize that you deal with. I don't know how many clients that I've talked to that were before I started diving into the neurodivergent world. came to me and they had the classic signs of ADHD or autism or something, but they had those signs there and didn't recognize them. So being able to bounce off of other people like, hey, are you dealing with this? If so, what, what are you doing with it? How do you figure it out? Can change someone's whole world. It can change the capability of what they can do and how they can do it because they have one person that gets it.

Having people who get it is so important. And people that get it face-to-face, you can— you make friends fast.

Oh yeah.

Oh my gosh. I made new friends this weekend in like 2 seconds flat because I didn't have to explain that, oh yay, I get to info dump on somebody about all of this.

Oh, we're good at that, aren't we?

Oh, so good. And I had an audience who was eating it up and that was awesome. And then they were info dumping back at me and all of their interests. And it was, it's just amazing to get to do that without having to explain myself first.

Yeah.

Or apologize or mask.

Or having to figure out ways to explain it to them to help them understand.

Yes.

And that, that is so energy draining. And I think that's probably why a lot of us just don't— we don't go out, we don't do stuff, because there's a lot of energy that it pulls. And if we don't know how to keep up our energy, we're gonna be in that energy drain all the time.

Mm-hmm.

And for some of us, that can be very detrimental, especially if you're dealing with any chronic illness with it.

Absolutely. And it's, it's just always so interesting to me how I get fired up by going to these things when they're the right spaces. And when I go into the wrong spaces, how detrimental it is to me, my body, my mental health, the whole entire thing.

Right. And it's exhausting. Like, how many times do you come back from a speaking engagement or a retreat or a gathering or something? And how long does it take you to recover? That sometimes is the basis on whether I feel like, oh, that was really not my people or not my place to really be in versus yes, I totally want to do that again. It was worth that energy, you know, all the energy I expelled.

For me, and I'm in a new space with this, with having to be in a wheelchair and not being as mobile as I was and exhaustion is a constant companion. I'm exhausted when I wake up in the morning. And going to it, this is my first, well, it's, it's my second conference since that happened. But when you're in the right spaces, you get energy from it. And it's the physical aspect of it is not as impactful as when you're in a space that you, that doesn't have your people in it. Right.

Do you feel like you have, um, less recovery time when you're in a space that you— this is a place you're supposed to be? Do you feel like you have a faster recovery time after getting back?

Yeah, because when— I mean, I always have the physical, and the physical is a very different need, but mentally there was zero recovery time for me for this.

That's awesome. Awesome.

Zero mentally, zero recovery time. My throat needed recovery time. My body was like Sit your butt down and don't move and just eat normal food, please. But my brain was like, okay, when's the next thing? Yeah, right?

That's when you know that you've been in a good place doing the things that you're doing. Like, it's the right place. You've had a space for you and others are providing a safe space for you too, back. And being able to create that. Oh, That's so awesome. That's why I can't wait for the retreat. I mean, the retreat is going to be a lot of learning and a lot of education, but at the same time, there's going to be a lot of safe space knowing that we can be with everyone that's similar to us.

And, and we've set this up so that one, we have our learning time, and our learning time will be up until almost lunchtime each day. And then after that, everybody's free to go their own ways and go if they want to, or if you want to congregate and invade every ride in Disney World in the park. And we are doing one park a day, and I am assigning the park. I've already assigned them. Sorry. Actually, no, I'm not, because I'm so excited about what we're doing in each park. I'm really not apologizing. That, that you can stay, you can stay in the neurodivergent bubble inside of the Disney bubble.

Isn't the Disney bubble kind of neurodivergent?

Oh, more than kind of.

I mean, there's a lot of overstimulation that could be possibly coming up, but at the same time, it's a stimulation in a good way too. It's not overstimulation. It's kind of like it's feeding into the things that we draw on that bring that energy for us.

Absolutely. And I think— and we're create— we've created a retreat that specifically set up so that if you need those quiet spaces and you need to get away and you need to do the thing, you can. We absolutely have that set up for you. Um, and we have a way for you to recover, do whatever it is you need to do. You don't have to be with us in the park from sundown to— or sunup to sundown, though if you want to.

Right.

And everybody was joking that Danielle may be the only one that, that does that because I am the— I get energy from these things. So I will be feeding off of Disney energy all day and be fine, I think. Um, I have my power chair though, so I have zero physical energy that has to be done for my movement. So that helps.

So your arms will be saved. You won't be doing the manual. That's good.

Though I think my brother Tim is just as extroverted as I am on that one. So maybe him and I will be still at 11 o'clock at night. Um, But, but if you're not, if that's not your thing, go back to your room, go sit by the pool, go relax, go recharge. If you need a quiet spot inside of the park, right? And we have that. Jessica is creating the psychological and physical safety spaces for everyone and creating a plan for all of that, because not everybody wants that constant input.

Well, and I think the other part of it too, is that if, if I were to say, Danielle, I need to I need to bring it down. You're not going to be like, okay, go do it. You're going to be like, I'm already doing that. Find us later. Yeah, it's— but see, that's some of the things that we do deal with, that when we say we need our space for a minute, or we need this, or we need that, some people don't understand that. And so then you have to explain it, and then you have to help them understand, and then you have to walk through the process. And so it's just—

And you have to mask what you're uncomfortable Where you are already spinning out and falling, like needing that space, you have to mask that for a little bit and hold that in in order to explain to people. And for us, if we just turn around and you're gone, we're just gonna go, okay, she's gone. She's done her own thing. We're gone. Okay, great. Go for it.

Yeah.

Or if you say, hey, I need, I need a break, we're gonna say, do you need our support? Do you need to be left alone? Do you need a hug? What do you need? And we'll provide you exactly what you need in order to move on.

But there's no judgment on it. That, I think, is the biggest part, is we don't, we don't have a judgment on it because we all get it. We all understand. And helping others to start understanding that, I think, is really important. And I think we need to start much younger in showing them that. You know, how many of our kids are doing the same spiral and they're trying to explain to us, but they don't even have the verbiage to do it? How do you, you know, how do you deal with that? Well, you deal with it the same way you would deal with it yourself. Okay, I'm neurodivergent dealing with ADHD. Okay, my son, who's the youngest son, okay, he needs to be talked through. His process is walking through it, but he also knows that when he's at this level, he needs to go to his room and just de-escalate himself first, and then he can talk.

Mm-hmm.

So we have to really pay attention For everyone around us, you know, and start letting them know, hey, you're okay. Just because you had a moment doesn't mean it's— that's the end and you're terrible, you're doing anything wrong.

Absolutely.

That's more important when we start getting face to face, because then we can start reading body language. We can start observing real full-on body language instead of just reading their face, because, you know, sometimes I will say that my face gets ahead of my thoughts.

I don't mask very well when it comes to my—

I don't always either.

I'm very, very bad.

My mom used to tell me, we always know what you're thinking just by the look on your face.

Yeah, I get accused of that pretty often, but that's fine. Uh, making sure that you are again in those safe spaces Such a huge, huge thing. Such a huge need. So we have— we still have—

Yeah.

If you saw us at SIOP, I have a special coupon for you if you want to attend this retreat. It is a professional development certification retreat for those that have jobs that are— you need more training for and stuff. If you want to research neurodivergence in public spaces and you want to pick the brains of a whole entire group of neurodivergent pieces, you're in your research stage, come to Disney with us. You can do that. We will all info dump all about being neurodivergent on you. We have zero problems with that. If you need to find your, your space and you need to find your safe spaces and your safe people, come with us.

We're here.

If you are— did not see us at SIOP but still are— have been on the, the, the, on the fence about maybe going to Disney, My team is maybe going to slap me, but I opened up a couple more slots for those that haven't— were not at PSYOP. PSYOP, I have a special coupon, $250 off for you. So if you want to come, we have created some special coupons specifically for you. But if you want to come, let me know. We have created more space.

Yay! The more the merrier.

But please come with us. And yes, it is a very expensive retreat. And I will tell you, we are making, just so you know, it's not an expensive retreat because I'm a high 7-figure coach. It is not why the expense, the expense is 80% Disney and 10 to 15%, um, paying for all of the swag that I got for everybody because I could not be—

Hey, swag is awesome.

Reined in on that. Uh, so, and the other 10% is to pay the other coaches that are speaking and to help them with their travel costs and things like that. So, and at this point we have made zero and I, I am negative on going to the Disney trip. So—

Well, and overall, Danielle, it's important because not just for the training, but it's important to be around people that are like them.

Yeah, it is. Right.

And you know what, y'all, it's not that big of a cost, honestly, compared to some other things that I've gone to. This cost and it's all included. Oh my gosh.

All your food is included. Your hotel is included. It is occupancy. I do have the ability if you need, if you are someone that really needs a single room due to allergies or whatever, we can do that. It is an additional $500, but we can absolutely set that up. We have PayPal and Affirm and Klarna and all of that that you can do third-party financing. Somebody got $80 payments for the next year to go to Disney with us.

That's not bad. I mean, how much do you spend a week buying coffee or buying little trinket things? So you could set that aside to do this. Come on.

We definitely— we have some space left if you want to go. You do have to DM me at this point because I've closed a lot of links. If you want to go, please let us know. We'll be there and we're doing some pretty awesome training. I can't wait to do some of these trainings because my Disney science, I have done it as little bits As somebody's needed the bits and pieces, I have never gotten to do it as one whole entire training. I am so excited, and my brain is spending so much time doing more research than I probably have. I have 80 hours of research into this, all right, over 80 hours of research into this already. So I, I am gonna keep going because I'm having so much fun. But come join us, come learn, get your preferred professional certifications. If you are a school teacher, these will help you in the classroom. If you are a parent with neurodivergent kids and you're at a loss of how to deal with them, come with us. We got space for you and some training for you. If you are a manager and have neurodivergent people on your team, you will learn how to help them.

Oh, wow.

If you are a therapist, a psychiatrist, a researcher, all of that, we have training specifically aimed for you and we'll help you with all of that. If you have questions, Just DM me or DM Shay. You can get a hold of both of us. We look forward to talking to you. And I cannot, cannot wait for Disney because I have been so focused on PSYOP for the last few weeks. Now I can switch to Disney and be all focused on Disney. I am so excited. My husband is not, just so y'all know, because my husband is the type of neurodivergence, it's like, I'm done hearing about whatever you're talking about. Please be done. And now he has 37 days of hearing me talk about before it and then the 2 weeks after.

So, oh, poor husband.

I hope you have an amazing day. Please come join us. If you have questions, let us know. And if you like these conversations, comment, let us know. Let us know you want us to talk about something specific. We just kind of get on and chat about whatever. So we're here for you. Please let us know how we can help you. Have an amazing day.