SPEAKER_00 0:35

Welcome to Amplify Your Authority, the podcast where innovative marketing meets heart-centered entrepreneurship. Join Marissa Shadrick, an award-winning international speaker, Ray Edwards certified copywriter, and personal brand expert. You'll gain insights into the external strategies for business growth and how to navigate the internal journey of entrepreneurship. Now get ready to amplify your authority in a competitive digital world. And now, your host, Marissa Shadrick.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Hello, hello, everyone, and welcome to Amplify Your Authority. I am so glad that you are here because today we have a truly insightful conversation with one of my guests. And you're going to really enjoy this because one of the beautiful things about entrepreneurship in our journey is discovering how many different perspectives there are in the world, right? And we learn, it shapes us, we grow, and it makes us more relatable. Well, we're about to hear from someone who brings his passion and advocacy to neurodiversity. So if you don't know what that is, stay tuned because we're going to talk all about this. Shea Belski, he is a former chief technology officer from MENTRA, which is a newer diversity employment network. And he is currently a senior software engineer at HubSpot, but he's also a speaker. And I am so excited to have Shay with us because he's going to just bring some light into this topic. Hi, Shay. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 2:00

I'm doing great today. Thanks for the introduction, Marissa. I'm really excited to be here, talk about autism, neurodiversity, and what that means for entrepreneurship and doing things your way.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

Yes, absolutely. And I I think it's important for us to talk about these topics and really become a little bit more uh savvy and aware because um there's so many misconceptions out there. But let's start with you. Let's start first. When it comes to uh neurodiversity, can you just give us an overview, an explanation of what that is and what it includes, just so we're all on the same page?

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Neurodiversity represents biological differences in the way that the brain operates, the way that they perceive information, interact with the world, interact with people. It describes different ways that are pretty low level as far as how people kind of operate. And different versions or different iterations of that include autism. I am autistic, includes ADHD, ADD, dyslexia, epilepsy, traumatic brain injuries. There's a very broad umbrella of that which neurodiversity includes, one of those being autism, one of those being me. But it's very broad and vast.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

Okay, gotcha. So it's kind of the umbrella that includes all of that. Okay, great. Well, why don't we start with you? Can you tell us about your journey with autism? When did you first recognize your unique perspective?

SPEAKER_01 3:27

I was diagnosed at a pretty young age at two years old with autism. At the time, it was the diagnosis of Asperger's. That diagnosis has since been phased out as far as the medical definition goes, and I've kind of been grandfathered in as far as being diagnosed with autism. I could still choose to refer to myself as having Asperger's. For sake of simplicity, I choose not to go by the definition anymore. But if I was to be asked if I had Asperger's, that is technically true. But for simplicity's sake, I just say that I am autistic to make things easy. And this was also at a period of time when most of the people getting an autism diagnosis were white men, to be honest with you. The understanding of autism and neurodiversity in women, people of color, people of different genders was very hard to come by. And so most of the science, most of the literature, most of the knowledge was around how autism presents itself or implicates white men like myself. And when this conversation happened, but doctors said to my parents, like, your son may never lead an independent, meaningful life. He may you may be looking after him until you grow old. And that was a scary thought for my parents, being like, oh my gosh, there's really not a lot of hope. And the good news is that over the last 20 years, twenty to thirty years that I've been around, the conversation, the amount of knowledge, the acceptance that society has created for people who are autistic and neurodivergent has really been transformed. There is still work to do in that department, but being diagnosed with autism is no longer a complete death sentence or doom for families or people who are autistic. There's a lot more resources, understanding, knowledge, and empathy around it, which is huge for people like me and their families and their friends.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

Of course. And that's great news, right? How wide is a spectrum just in autism alone?

SPEAKER_01 5:28

One thing about that, which is pretty interesting, which I love talking about, is the fact that the idea of autism being a spectrum is something of a limiting factor or not a good description of autism. You and I are here having this conversation. But if you bring me to a pretty loud environment, bring me to like a closed bar, a pub, somewhere with a lot of sensory input, then maybe you would think I swing the other way as far as this spectrum goes, which does not adequately describe myself as being capable of doing many other things. Now, a better framework to think about this is much more of a circle, a color wheel, which says, Shay is great at communicating, Shay is great at executive functioning, Shay is great at these other things, and maybe he struggles socially, maybe he struggles with sensory things and these other things. So there's not any one place for me to say, like, by and large, I am lower high functioning or lower high on the spectrum, but instead I can adequately communicate my strengths in areas where I need some help and additional support.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

That's awesome. Thank you for clarifying that and for allowing me to ask the dumb questions. They're probably in people's minds because I do want to learn, I do want to understand more. And we just hear bits and pieces of what we hear in media, and that's it, right? So I'm so glad you're on the show to bring us some more clarity. So it's interesting that there's a for you, it sort of led you in the intersection of technology and advocacy. What did you always enjoy technology?

SPEAKER_01 7:07

I've been around technology for a pretty long time. My dad works as an IT service provider for people in New York City. So he will go out to companies and businesses in Manhattan and around that area to help them with their computers. So I've always been around it. My grandfather also worked at IBM for a very long time. I've been around technology for a long time. Like I always think that my dad brought home kind of the cutting-edge cool things when I was younger. Like getting to go on the internet in like the early 2000s was a really cool thing. And I remember doing that and being like, wow, this is amazing. Let's do that. And then also my time of growing up was also really interesting, going from not having easy access to the internet, then you have the cart of laptops that go around the school when then you can use the internet, then you had a computer lab. Anyone could go to it. Then the ubiquitousness of the smartphone where you have the internet in your pocket. Like that all happened within a span of like 10, 12 years or so, where we went from nothing to instant, easy access to all the information that you could ever dream of. And so that was a little bit of a whiplash from in that period of time. But it was also really cool to grow up with that, to go from not having anything to having a flip phone, the LG chocolates and the old flip phones of those days, and then having BlackBerries, then having iPhones. I'm an Android guy, so I always had an Android. But seeing that transition over time was really cool. And I said, I want to be a part of that. Like, how do these people figure out what problems are worth solving? How did they identify these problems? And how do they know when they've actually solved these problems? And that was what led me to Cornell University. I studied information science there, which is at the intersection of computer science plus user experience, arts, ethics, humanities, and data science, and understanding how do we know when we've actually solved the problem? How do we identify what problems to solve, and how can we do so in a way that is responsible and ethical? And that program at Cornell was really the perfect blend of all of those things.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

Yeah. And I could tell by just looking at your past experience, technology has been huge. Not only, I mean, you were chief technology officer, and currently, and now you are also now. Let me check back here, chief tech uh currently senior software engineer. I mean, so you like are really in the middle of technology. Technology is exciting because it's changing all the time. I mean, practically daily now, with AI and everything that's going on. It's an exciting world, and you're right. There's so many changes that came about in a short amount of time, and we don't really think about that as much. So, in in looking at your perspective and and your background and as a leader, innovator, loving technology, how has this affected your role as far as the development of technology or even using technology for some of the roles that you're filling?

SPEAKER_01 10:14

It's important to be thoughtful about what is going on in the world around you. How can you leverage what's around you in a way that is responsible and ethical? What you don't want to do is slap ChatGPT onto a solution and call it a day. And I've seen a lot of that. People just say, here's our the the latest hotness powered by AI, powered by ChatGPT. And I've seen a lot of that. What my company right now, HubSpot is doing is really trying to be thoughtful about let's make this AI valuable, let's make it worth using for our customers, for our businesses that use HubSpot daily so that they feel like they're gaining value from using it, and it's not just kind of a slapstick kind of thing. For instance, one of the things that HubSpot is doing, which I think is really cool, is they have part of their application is for social media. People can use HubSpot to schedule social media, gain analytics and insight, and they now have a social media agent to allow you to learn more about your business, about your social media, and suggest content for it, help you create assets and images for it, and be a really good companion as you create content. And for marketing folks who are doing social media stuff all day, that can be a blessing in disguise as far as just helping them a little bit. And even if they don't use what it says, just getting the ideas and the inspiration behind that. And as me leveraging that sort of technology, it's really important to be aware of the things that are happening and thoughtful about how you do it. Because you don't want to rush at Ivor and then you burn the bridges and you can't do that again or at least for a while. You have to be strategic about it. Because you only get a couple of tries before it just people just get tired of it.

SPEAKER_02 11:55

Yeah, and that's a good way of putting it. Don't burn your bridges by getting too ahead of yourself and thinking this is great. And now we're recognizing the repetition and the repeated language that Chat GPT has when people just try to input and output and post it somewhere.

unknown 12:11

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

We're seeing that. So um you're really passionate. I kind of want to segue into the workplace. Um you're really passionate about educating others about neurodiversity. Um, why is that? Is it something from the misconceptions you see or something from your past? Or I mean, obviously you're very successful. You're also married, right? Yes. You recently got married. So um yeah, a year ago. Congratulations. So why the passion to educate others uh as far as neurodiversity?

SPEAKER_01 12:43

What I've found in my experience is that it's such a huge topic for people, but they don't know how to talk about it or they don't know who to talk about it with. For many of my family and friends, I may be the only autistic person that they know about, or the only person who they can have a conversation about it with. And that is unfortunately a side effect of society not filling those neurodivergent, autistic people with the confidence that they need people to talk about themselves to other people. I'm really lucky and fortunate to have found my voice, found my level of confidence and ability to communicate about my autism, about me being neurodivergent, and what that means to the world around me. But I would say by and large, most neurodivergent people may not have that level of confidence. They may not have the emotional safety, they may not have a supportive family, friends, workplace to be able to do that. And so for a lot of people who want to learn more, it's uh challenging to f to communicate with those people, to communicate with neurodivergent folks like myself, and not for lack of trying. So in my advocacy, in my communication, I really try to make sure that not only do I share my story, but also like lift up the voices of others and try to say to them, like, I am one story, I am one grain of sand on a massive beach in a massive desert. So you I recommend people listen to other folks' experiences too to gain a broader understanding because my experience is one experience of being autistic. I am aware of the experiences of those who have ADHD, dyslexia, epilepsy, but I won't say that I have have any of those things, and I don't. So instead, I would say go find out those people who are talking about them and listen to them because they can give you a much better story about those than I ever will, other than for me to say go talk to them.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. So have you noticed some common misconceptions specifically in the workplace? Has there been um more people, more companies hiring people, or is there still a barrier there?

SPEAKER_01 14:53

The biggest thing that I've experienced and witnessed as far as neurodiversity at work goes is the lack of nuance, the lack of specificity when it comes to saying some individuals need some things, other individuals need different things. What an autistic person at the workplace needs is going to be different from somebody who has ADHD, who has dyslexia, who has a traumatic brain injury, who has depression. And yet sometimes I feel that those are all kind of lumped together into one thing and say, here's what you get, have fun. And that doesn't really do those folks justice who need a more nuanced set of needs. For example, the needs that I have in the workplace are very different from somebody who has dysgraphia. Dysgraphia describes people who have difficulty reading and writing and dealing with text. And so what I face on a day-to-day basis may vary from what they face, and they may need a different set of tools or technology to get their job done. And they may not have the same struggles that I do as far as socialization and sensory stuff. It's just a matter of being able to process information in their world and actually do something with it. And so the misconceptions that I found is making sure that the needs of the individual are adequately met to be able to do their job.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Yeah. And some people listening to you might think, wow, he's so articulate and he's so confident. Because you are. And how did you you talked about just finding that confidence? Where did that come from? Did that come from within you? You said you had a good support system, but was that trial and error? Was that like making mistakes and learning from mistakes, or was that just knowing that you had skills that you had you wanted to speak and become a speaker? What was it that led you to that confidence?

SPEAKER_01 16:43

A little bit of all of the above. When I got to Cornell, I said to myself, I I want to become better at this, not necessarily good better at it than other people, but I at least want to be able to feel confident in myself that I could walk into a room and give a talk about something if my life depended on it. Not an extreme example, but so much of being at a big place like Cornell is being able to take something by the wheel and run with it. Even if you're not fully, fully confident in yourself, you should be able to at least squeak by. And so for me, the barrier was let's just squeak by and become confident in this. And what I actually discovered was a quick way to do that was to become a teaching assistant. Because being a teaching assistant gives me a lot of education and support and guidance as far as what students expect from a TA. And that was a great starting place for me to say, okay, here's how I lead a discussion section, here's how I run office hours, here's how I tell a student no. It was kind of like a little crash course for me as far as being able to communicate. And that was a great starting point to then develop my skills and do trial and error and become more and more confident in myself to communicate. And what ended up happening was I just really kept going at it, going at it, going at it, to the point that I did become good at it, better at it than other people who then looked to me as a resource. And I'm like, when did this happen? I thought I was supposed to be bad at it and not great at it. But by the time I left Hornell, I was really feeling confident in my ability to communicate with people and help us help people in a room process information that maybe they didn't know how to or in a way they didn't expect to.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

That is very inspiring because everyone struggles at some form or another with confidence, whether they're venturing something new that they've never done before, especially entrepreneurs. So that was very inspiring. So I'm curious, because you speak a lot. What was one of the most impactful pieces of feedback or success story that you heard as a result of you speaking out and talking to different audiences? Can you recall one?

SPEAKER_01 18:51

This is the one that's more personal to me. I'm a big skier. I'd like to go skiing, and I know a lot of people who do. So like it's a very broad ski family. And I was talking with someone, like, not even someone who like I was like super close, I have like a friend of a friend or something, but somebody who was like vaguely aware of me and my existence. They were aware enough of me if someone had like shared a post I'd made on Facebook or Instagram or whatever, so they were aware of me. And they were just talking to me about their son who is autistic, they don't know how to support them, and we're just we talk for maybe 30 to 45 minutes, not really a long time. And she says to me, like, I gained more learning, I gained more talking to you in this 30 to 40 minutes than I have with like hours of a professional. And that really sticks out to me as far as being able to share my lived experiences from the perspective of somebody who is autistic to somebody who obviously wants to do the right thing, is caring for somebody they love, and is maybe finding that the professionals in this space have varying ability to communicate what's actually going on. Not to discredit any of those people. They are all professionals and scientific and way smarter than I am in those areas. I think what people often miss sometimes is that first person, that personal message, or the ability to articulate that and have it be heard. And I think just listening to somebody who's autistic like myself gives people also a sense of credibility or like a sense of ease. Because like when folks like this person see me and being like, oh, your son with autism is capable of living on his own, having a job, driving a car, whereas maybe a lot of the doom and gloom they see in social media paint a different picture. But seeing it in the flesh in real life, it it kind of feels like you're seeing a celebrity in real life or someone who you look up to because it it seems kind of distant on social media where it's always these very polarizing personalities, but seeing it in real life makes it a lot more real and kind of in your face.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

Yeah. Obviously, you know, parents that would come up to you, you know, they're thinking of their child. Um, what about people that really don't know anyone but they don't know them personally, like they're not a relative? A lot of times people, like for example, if someone dies, you just don't know what to say to that person. You know, they say, well, don't say anything, just be there for them. But how do you start a conversation without being, and I'm I'm asking the question that probably my listeners are asking, how do you how do you start a conversation to get to know someone like with autism without maybe offending them or anything? How do you start that conversation? Because I think that's a problem we have in our culture. We don't know how to start conversations, so we don't, and we stay alienated and we isolated.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Treat them like a human being. That sounds very simple, but something that I've encountered myself personally is the sense of like infantilization. I have to be held with like child gloves. And that's me personally. There are neurodirigent people out there who have a high set of support needs to maybe do need to be treated with love and care. But until you know that that's what has to happen, don't assume that that's what you have to do first. I have been infantilized because people know I'm autistic and they don't know better. They're trying to do the right thing by treating with like almost too much caution. But realistically, the simplest thing and the most effective thing you can do is start from treating them like with just kindness and respect and just talk to them and then see where that goes. For the reason that the needs that I have as a Independent autistic person are going to vary from somebody who is non-speaking and can do everything else. Maybe they just rely on a communication device or a communication aid to help them interact with the world verbally. And you might not know that that's the case until you communicate with them and just say, Hey, like, what can I do to help you? And it's that question right there, like, what can I do for you? Which is so often glossed over or ignored for neurodivergent people.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

I love that. And so simple and so easy. What can I do for you? How can I help you? How can I support you? That's I love that.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

And try not to assume either. That happens in the workplace, it happens in life. Like the set of needs that I have vary from those of an autistic individual who's slightly like me, but also somewhat different. There's a really important quote which says, if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person. And I think that also applies somewhat relative to neurodiversity to different extents, but the needs that I have and the strengths that I have as an autistic person are really different. You can have someone else out there who is nonverbal, not able to communicate verbally, but is superior to me in their ability to be sensory, executive functioning, social, whatever. They just happen to struggle to articulate things, or maybe they have a stutter, maybe they have something else. So putting us both in the same bucket to say you both need these things is really reductive and overly simplifying something that has a lot more complications to it.

SPEAKER_02 24:09

Yeah. And I think in the case of TBI, which you said it included also TBI, traumatic brain injury, that person was one way one day, and all of a sudden now, you know, family members may not know how to start the conversation. So I think it's important to just start with something simple and just conversation and because they're all different, you know. Right. And so, and just to say, how can I support you? How can I help you, you know, just to be able to have a starting point. And I think that at least will open up the conversation. So I love that.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

And for some neurodivergent people, they may not necessarily know what they need. They may not know that something does or does not work until they encounter it for the first time, to be exposed to those environments where this environment works or me, this environment does not work for me. And that is also pretty true for people who have gone through a TBI, it's traumatic brain injury, and they may not know that something is a sensory trigger for them or they struggle with an environment until after it happens. And there's little you can do in the situations other than to acknowledge that that's what's happening, and then either back off if it's not a good thing or lean into it if it is.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

So I'm curious on a personal note. Um, you were so busy with techno software engineer speaking, you know, holding down a job. How did you meet your wife? When did you have time to meet your wife?

SPEAKER_01 25:32

We met on Bumble dating app, oh how exciting February 1st, 2020, which is always really interesting. Technically, we are like a pandemic couple of a sorts, but also not really, because we we existed for about a month and a half before the pandemic really shut things down for the first time. So we did a bunch of normal things that you would do. We went to the cidery, the Downeast Cider in Boston. We went skating in the common, we went for a lot of runs together, we did a lot of things together. And then when everything shut down, I she was studying for her board exam physical therapy, and I was working remotely at the time. And I remember calling her up and saying, like, my parents have a place in the Catskills in New York. Do you want to come hang out? And she said, Yeah, she was just studying, I was just working. And less than two months into knowing each other, we lived with each other for basically 10 days. And that was such a fascinating experience for some of the first time. Like, either it's gonna work or it's not. And that was a really interesting time.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

Oh, wow, that's exciting. My husband and I, just a little tidbit there, when we met three weeks later, he told me, Marissa, I don't want to date you, I want to marry you. Wow. And that was it. And I said yes. And we've been married 38 years now? Yeah. Congratulations. It was love at first sight. So people talk about dating apps and how can that work? Well, love at first sight, you know. Three weeks later we were engaged. So so yeah, very exciting. Um congratulations. I think that's awesome. So looking ahead to the future, what changes would you like to see or do you hope to see when it comes to uh neurodiversity and inclusion in the workforce, specifically in the workforce?

SPEAKER_01 27:25

If I had a magic wand and it could do whatever I wanted, I really think that the standard should be that every manager, every person has an awareness of neurodiversity and knows what that means to people. I think as a society, we've come a really long way with people who are deaf and blind and have other like visible handicaps and how we accommodate those folks. And society has come a great way to making sure that those folks are included with captioning, with the rumble strips, the corner cut cut corner cuts on the streets for people who have disabilities that might be more immediately obvious or more of a physical effect or more of a consistent impact to one's life. With neurodiversity, there's a lot more nuance to it, and that's where I think people kind of get almost tired of trying to account for everything. But you don't have to be tired of that or account for every single little thing. It starts with being willing to be inclusive, to be equitable, and what one person's end state of equitable might look like is gonna vary from someone else's based on the job, based on your family, based on your life. As long as you're working to create that equity and to get to that end state, how you get there and what there actually looks like may end up being really different from person to person, from place to place. And that's where I really would like to see society go in the long term.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

Yeah. For those listening, those in the neurodivergent community who may feel isolated right now, but have a spark of hope from listening to this podcast, what advice or encouragement would you give them?

SPEAKER_01 29:08

The number one thing that I think is essential to becoming confident in yourself as a neurodivergent person is to look inward, to reflect on what works in my life, what doesn't work in my life, and what what sort of help can I ask for, can I get to facilitate those things? If you know that something in your environment, in your life, and your work is a turn on, then lean into that. Really embrace it. And if you know something is a turn off, try to work with your life, with your workplace to reduce as much as possible, or lean on people who can advocate for you. You don't have to do it alone either. You don't have to do it by yourself. If you feel as though you want to lean on your friends, family, coworkers, peers, boss, whoever it is to get stuff done, then do that. Because they should those people around you should want to have your best interests and to help you become the most thriving version of yourself that you have the potential to be.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

Yeah. So if people wanted to find support or maybe want to find a job. Now remote work, I mean, is so common now. Um, I would think there would be more opportunities. I mean, where would they go or could they contact you? Where would they start?

SPEAKER_01 30:27

If you want to contact me, I am on LinkedIn and I'm on the web. You can search for my name. There's only one of me. I promise that you'll find me if you search for my name in the podcast title or the notes or description or wherever you're listening to this podcast. If you search my name on the web, you will find me. There's only one of me, I promise. And as far as the job search, as far as finding the right opportunity for you, that really does come down to understanding what your needs are and your level of comfort with articulating those needs to an employer. Something that I do believe in very strongly is that if you do have a unique or bespoke set of needs that are going to come up in the workplace, the sooner your employer knows about those, the better. That way they know if they can or can't support you. And if they can't or don't want to, then you know that they are an ableist employer and you don't want to be there anyway. Yeah. At the same time, you don't want to disclose unnecessarily in a way that could be distracting. So really be thoughtful about what you want to say, why you want to say it, and what you're hoping to accomplish. I think that's that also takes some internal reflection to say, what's my message? What am I trying to say to these people? That way they know what they know what they need to know and nothing more.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

Yeah, that's awesome. Shay, you bring hope and inspiration to everyone. So thank you so much for what you're doing. Keep speaking. I hope people listening to this podcast will have you on their podcast, maybe even do you do stage presentations as well or all virtual right now?

SPEAKER_01 32:03

Um, certainly. I just came back from a conference yesterday, the Kennedy Queaker conference, and I am always eager to get up in front of people and talk. I am virtual in person. I'm in the Northeast, but happy to travel.

SPEAKER_02 32:17

Yeah. Is there a book in the future?

SPEAKER_01 32:19

People keep asking me about that. And at this conference I was at yesterday, people are like, there's no written material about neurodiversity and leadership. My talk yesterday was about how do you prepare neurodivergent people for career growth, to become a manager, to take on authority. And people said to me, there's just so little literature on the subject. So it definitely got me thinking about putting something out there into the world. I think I want to be in a little bit more of a concrete spot as far as what I actually want to put the pen to paper on. The gears are slowly turning. The seed has been planted.

SPEAKER_02 32:53

I hope so, because you're very good at communicating. You articulate everything very well. So I would love to see a book in the future, but no pressure. When the time is right, you're newlywed, right? You're a newlywed. Enjoy your wife right now.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

About a year.

SPEAKER_02 33:07

Thank you. So thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Marissa. So, everyone, if you need to contact Shay, he is available. You can reach him on LinkedIn. I'll have all the information in the show notes. Thanks for joining us. Thank you, Shay.