Danielle RalstonFounder, How Capacity Works · Founder of ND Hive | Building the productivity hub where work actually gets done | Execution spaces, body doubling & community accountability

The Power of Playful Presentations! #publicspeaking #PlayfulPresentations #engageyouraudience

11 Feb 2025 · 1 min

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In this segment of Danielle Ralston's talk on playful presentations, the speaker discusses the pervasive need for neurodivergent individuals to mask various aspects of themselves during public speaking and everyday interactions. She outlines the specific ways masking manifests—restraining speech, limiting hand gestures, moderating volume, avoiding oversharing, and even controlling clothing, accessories, and makeup. The speaker shares a personal sensory trigger (earrings causing overstimulation) to illustrate how sensory sensitivities influence masking choices. She emphasizes that building confidence and actively self‑monitoring can help reduce the pressure to mask, allowing neurodivergent presenters to appear in their own skin rather than an acceptable façade.

Chapters

And being confident while you do it is the other part, being really confident in your own skin. So masking is a big thing for us as neurodivergents. We, we think we have to mask or trying to not talk too much. We're trying not to talk with our hands too much. We're trying not to be too loud. We're trying not to share too much or overshare or info dump on someone or But every one of those things that you have to mask, including what you're wearing, the shoes that you have on, the pants you have on, the underwear, the bra, the— Oh, don't forget the makeup and the accessories and the earrings. Yeah. Oh yeah. Like I can't handle having earrings in right now and I don't know why, because usually I love the weight of earrings, but send me in overdrive right now. So I'm just not wearing earrings. Right. And understanding and monitoring myself behind that. Not masking those things because it's an acceptable thing or whatever it is.