Confession: I’ve been watching Survivor since the beginning. When it started 25 years ago, I was 17 years old, watching on rabbit ears with the two whole channels we got since we never had Cable TV. I’ve watched every season. Tonight was different though. As I sat watching the Immunity Challenge, I could see what was unfolding, but little did I know how much it would resonate with me. Watching the scene between Eve and Joe brought me to tears. How Eve talked about how her parents advocated for her, got her the services she needed to be where she is, and sometimes, things still affect her. She stated how her Autism wasn’t a barrier, it was part of who she was.

I didn’t know I was neurodivergent until the age of 40. I’m still learning how to handle things when life gets too much to handle, when I break down. This week we have seen unprecedented attacks on services for people with disabilities. With the attempted dismantling of the Dept. of Education, attacks on funding for special education in public schools, and the fact that I am having to fight to just survive, since I lost my job over a month ago.

I’m not giving up, but I am going to start speaking out, and advocating for those who are different in this world, and the people who are kind, like Joe was in that moment. ADHD is part of who I am. Yes, sometimes it means I get in my own head, and need someone to just listen. Yes, sometimes it means I get super emotional at a seemingly small thing, but every single day I am working to manage it better, even if I can’t manage it 100% of the time. I am learning, and will continue to learn and find my place in the world.

This last week has been a good one. It’s never easy when you find yourself with so much time on your hands, and as someone with ADHD, you could end up scrolling on the internet for hours on end, playing games on your phone, and not really being productive. This week, I finally feel like I’m being intentional in getting things done, and allowing my creative juices to flow. Part of that might have come from people just checking in, the fact that I had an interview to prepare for, which went really well BTW. Fingers crossed I’ll hear about a second interview next week 🙂

Today I started sewing in my sewing room again, and got two rows done for my nephews graduation quilt. Sorry, no pic’s until it’s gifted in May. Seeing pictures from him running in Boston gave me the extra nudge to get working on it, after getting the layout done a week or so ago.

This week also meant time for connection, with a friend for dinner, with my therapist for a session before my insurance ran out, and with friends via text, chat and phone call. While I may live alone with just my cat for company, I still love connecting with people. Here’s a shot of Matilda, all sprawled out….

Next week will likely bring more things, including friends and family visiting later in the week, and with any luck, more interviews. For now, I’m just relishing my time at home, and getting some things done.

Be Well.

I read a variety of really great books in 2024, so here are my top 5 that I recommend:

Number 1:

My Favorite book of the year was “Civil Unity” by Shola Richards. I mentioned I heard him speak at the 2024 PLA Conference in Columbus, OH, but this book came out much later. Here is my review from Amazon: Shola Richards’ Civil Unity delivers an excellent message at a time when we need it the most. He provides practical tools and guides us in the work required to make the world a more civil place, reminding us that it all begins within. Changing our mindset is a crucial part of this process, and Chapter 4, in particular, offers a roadmap for that inner work. A final reminder that we either give life or drain it—there is no neutral exchange—stays with me.

Here are a few other parts that stuck out to me:

Chapter 2, page 39: “Sixty-two percent of adults said they don’t talk about their stress overall because they don’t want to burden others. Sixty-one percent said people around them just expect them to get over their stress.”

Chapter 4 is so full of good information and tools, I can’t pick just one thing!

Chapter 8, page 213: “Standards are fact based and are within our control, whereas expectations are fiction based and fall outside of our control.”

Number 2:

My second favorite book of the year was “Overcoming Mobbing: A Recovery Guide for Workplace Aggression and Bullying” by Maureen Duffy & Len Sperry. This book was very enlightening, and helped me better understand what has transpired over the last year and half for me. My copy has many dig ears and underlined passages. I will likely dive into this book with more detail in a future post, because there is a lot to unpack here. Thankfully I am no longer in the environment where the mobbing and bullying occurred, but I am still very much experiencing the after effects of being in that environment.

Number 3:

My 3rd favorite of the year was “QBQ! The Question Behind the Question: Practicing Personal Accountability at work and in Life” by John G. Miller

I love how this book reads more like a narrative non-fiction and is less dry when is comes to the topic of personal accountability. It really helped me reframe my thoughts and get to the feeling behind things. This is a quick read, and reminds me of other narrative non-fiction.

Number 4:

My fourth favorite is “Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less” by Greg McKeown. This book helped me understand the power of time to think and process, and not always be running from thing to thing to thing. I had a lot of time on my hands in 2024, and I always say that my mind can be my own worst enemy. This book helped me find things that I was truly passionate about, and where I could make a difference. I always will find it hard to say no, especially when I like being busy. This book gave me a different perspective, and was a great help.

Here is a fun video as well:

Number 5:

Rounding out my top 5 is “Making Work Work” by Shola Richards. This book was also about the inner work I needed to do to handle a toxic working environment. My copy is dog-eared and underlined heavily, which means it a book to be remembered. While I wish some of the tactics I learned from the book, and attempted to put to use in my work environment made a difference, I’m not sure they did. I will continue to try in my next work environment, because there were so many good ideas in there.

I’m going to end this with Shola’s story, that resonated so deeply with me.

As we get into the early part of 2025, I feel it’s important to honor and reflect what 2024 was for me. 2024 was a year full of many ups and downs. I started the year realizing that so much of what I thought I knew about myself looked very different through the lens of my new diagnosis. I was also coming off an intensely difficult period in my work, after realizing I was being bullied, and mobbed, and felt like no one cared what I had gone through, or was willing to do anything about it. Imagine walking into a shared workspace and you notice that one person warmly greets everyone but you. You attempt to greet this person, and they don’t respond. They say that you can’t offer guidance to your own direct reports for fear of “outing” their staff member who complained something wasn’t getting done correctly, and for which was trained, by the person in question. This was just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine having someone “choose” not to communicate or respond to you, yet you are expected to communicate with them.

Most may not realize this, but I started getting bullied in middle school. I’ve worked hard to overcome that, yet, sometimes, I’m taken back to that dark place. I was always a bit awkward, was never popular, and had low self-esteem for many reasons. This quote will always resonate for me:

In early February, I got the news I’d been waiting for. I would eventually get to move out of the region and having to work closely with the person who was bullying me. While initially I thought the move would be quick, it ended up turning into a 7 month wait, which felt nearly unbearable. That wait gave me time to learn as much as I could about change management, supporting staff, working on my own well-being, and more. I dove into books, webinars, and attended my first ever PLA Conference.

In April, I got the chance to hear Shola Richards speak at PLA. It was pure luck, as he was not the intended speaker, just one that happened to fill in when another cancelled. His keynote changed my life. They way he talked about the difference between kind and nice, the concept of “ubuntu,” I am because we are, and more, helped me change my mindset. I immediately bought “Making Work Work” and “Go Together,” just so I could devour them, and learn as much as I could. As part of the launch team for “Civil Unity” I was hooked. His weekly emails are some of the best things out there.

Shola’s work then led me to the work of Helen Rimmer, The Kind Brave Leader. Both of these have been instrumental in my learning and growth and overcoming some really difficult things in my life, and have changed how I lead people.

Stay tuned for another post about the books I read in 2024, and what I’m looking forward to reading in 2025.

Be well.

It was September 2023, I was less than a year in on a new job and I was at the doctor, not sure how I was going to get through the next few weeks, much less months before my location reopened from renovations. I wasn’t sure why things were so hard, the noise, the hustle and bustle of the open workspace. She started asking me questions, it felt like every one spoke to core of my struggles, my answers were not just yes, but OMG YES!!! At the end, she asked if anyone in my family had ADHD, to which I responded yes, my brother, he was diagnosed as a kid. She said, you do to. I wasn’t sure what I felt in that moment, was it relief, was it anxiousness, after all, I knew my mom would never believe this diagnosis. We talked a bit more about when I was young, and I could start to see how far back this stretched, and I didn’t even realize it. At least until now. She asked if I wanted to try medicine, and honestly, I told her, I wanted to wait. A few weeks went by, and I went back, this time saying yes to trying something. I started medicine just days before attending a conference, when I would see many people I had gotten to know since moving to Kansas in 2020. I told a good friend at the conference about my new diagnosis, and she was so relieved for me. Everything was starting to make sense. In the year and a few months since that appointment with my doctor, I have had to learn to rediscover how my brain works, how I can function in a world that isn’t always friendly to people who are neurodivergent. This blog will be about that journey, and everything I’m doing to understand myself, and function in this world.