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How did you get started?

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A 30-year successful, miserable career.

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OK.

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So yeah, I've had a few different chapters

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in my career.

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The threads that have always connected,

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I started working in early online communication

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in the mid-'90s.

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So it was very early internet.

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And thank goodness, because that taught me

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how to find communities of belonging,

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how to foster community.

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I was doing that back in the Usenet and Telnet days,

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like Telnet VBSs.

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And so that's really where this all started.

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I went from working in technology

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into a career in law.

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I became a lawyer and practiced law for a while.

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I loved the kind of counseling part of lawyering.

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I didn't have the skills at the time

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to manage my anxiety and imposter syndrome

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around courtroom practice, which I did a lot of courtroom

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practice, but it was at a really high personal expense.

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So moved from there into work that fit me better.

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I worked in creative agencies as a strategist for a few years.

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That was where the foundations for this chapter were built,

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working in super subjective environments

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where opinion and ideas rule the day.

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And I just saw a need for less biased, more objective,

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more empirical, data-based ways of operating in all spaces,

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including creative spaces.

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And that personal experience laid the foundation

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for the work I do today.

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That is awesome.

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That actually sounded really beautiful.

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You said in the 30 years, I mean,

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there's some good experiences and some learning experiences

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and some not so good, but it led you to where you are today

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and having a strategic plan and how

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to help the people that you choose to help.

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When it comes to all of this, tell me about your vision.

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Yeah, my vision is a world of work where no one's suffering.

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It's bigger than that because I want a world of work

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where everyone is living their potential

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and making the impact that changes our systems

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that they want to make.

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Like I said, I work a lot with neurodivergent people.

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I think some of the big solutions

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to problems in our society, the solutions

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are going to come from people who not only think differently

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but who are actually wired differently.

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And so for me, autistic people are really underemployed.

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Folks who are neurodivergent struggle in the workplace.

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We're not always nurtured to become the career people

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that we're capable of.

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And my vision is that the tools that I work with,

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the practices I work with, and the way that I do the work,

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and expanding out.

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I train coaches.

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The book is getting out there, so more people

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have access to this, these thoughts and these ways

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of working and these ideas.

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My vision is that no one suffers at work.

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And we all have the tools we need

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to build successful, rewarding careers.

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Yeah.

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In the 30 years, I hate to keep mentioning that,

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but you're beautiful and you don't look like 30 years

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of anything.

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How have you seen things change?

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This is big.

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That's a good question.

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Yeah, so I think I entered the workforce

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in 1992.

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I had two years of high school left, so I started early.

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And it's hard to separate the macro from the micro.

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My experience of my early career was

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it was like I was an animal with antenna just trying

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to understand the work world.

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Trying to mind read my bosses.

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Nothing was clear.

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Client expectations were always, they'd say one thing,

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and then a couple of days later, I'd deliver that,

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and they'd be like, oh, no, that wasn't what I meant.

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So I would really say up until as late as 2016,

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so about eight years ago, I just thought that work

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was trying to mind read.

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And so as a strategist, I've got really high pattern

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recognition.

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I'm a really good researcher.

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I was able to put together, and then the skills

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I learned in law school, again, all of that kind of assembled

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together to be able to work within workplaces,

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even though it was with that totally external kind

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of antenna approach.

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And it was in 2016 I started.

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I got really burned out.

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I was leading people.

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I was sitting at an executive level,

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so I was managing relationships with the C-suite

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and really big clients and leading a team of people.

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And I realized I don't know that I've ever

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set a goal for myself that I care about.

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I've just opportunity to opportunity to opportunity

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to opportunity in my career.

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And so that was when I started experimenting

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with self-set goals that I actually cared about.

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And that led to here.

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So that's the micro.

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The macro is, I think, early in my career,

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I was really deferential to power

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and didn't recognize my own privilege,

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didn't recognize the role that privilege pays in the workplace.

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And so many of us have had learning journeys on that front

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and come to understand those dynamics differently.

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So the activism I work with now, if I

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had tried to work with this activism early in my career,

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I would have never worked.

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Yeah, push back at its biggest.

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Yes, exactly.

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Where now it's not everywhere that we have this freedom,

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but there are places where those of us who are more activist

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can embed and make a difference where change really

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has to happen, where human impacts, like most

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of my clients are focused on revenue, yes,

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but we improve our revenue by improving human experiences,

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which that's really tough.

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And so now there's, I think, in some spaces,

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there's more acceptance of dissent

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and more acceptance of we don't just talk about change.

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We have to do hard things and navigate hard feelings

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and give up power in order to make things change.

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And I tell you, that's a perfect example

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that when it's your time, it's your time.

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We're often trying to lead the journey and make it our own.

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But as you mentioned, in the 90s, late 90s,

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it would not have played out to be anything like it is today.

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And so also learning experiences, right?

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And all these things that you went through

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or had to go through, good, bad, ugly, happy, led you to here.

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And I tell you, when I think about it,

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I just get goose bumps because we often

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want something quickly, right?

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I still feel like this is the microwave generation.

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Put it in a microwave, make it happen,

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make it happen right now.

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And I think when I come on here to VisionPros Live

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and I speak with individuals and leaders like yourself,

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this isn't microwave.

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This isn't microwavable.

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This is like, as we talked about earlier, cooking.

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This is like oven set on like 100.

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Low.

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Low and low.

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Yeah.

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Low and low.

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And I really love that because now it

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sounds like you found your passion as well, too.

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Yeah, I mean, improving the workplace

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has always been my passion.

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Like I just think back about how my entire career led me

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to what I do right now.

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I also knew in 2001 during the first part of my technology

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career that I wanted to be a career coach.

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Like I knew that far back.

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And I became a labor and employment attorney instead.

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And so it's been a long journey of self-acceptance

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of my self-knowledge.

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And then the chapter that I'm in right now literally

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in the last couple of weeks is shifting

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from more corporate positioning that's

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about improving performance to telling the truth about who

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I do this for and my own neurodivergence

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and the role that's played in my work

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and in evolving the practices that I work with.

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And it's really scary.

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Every voice in my head my whole life, my conditioning,

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has said stay in the background.

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Be seen, not heard.

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It's not safe.

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So there's all those voices.

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And at a certain point, if I listen to those,

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and I've listened to those voices for 30 years,

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and that's kept me a very effective number two player,

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like a very effective behind the scenes chief of staff,

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speechwriter, campaign manager.

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And it's really scary to step into the number one spot.

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But I don't know how to do it anymore unless I do that.

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Like I don't have it in me to stay in that box.

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And so it's scary to make that step into being like, ta-da.

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Here's what we're really, Trojan horse.

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Here's what we're really doing here.

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But it was really the book, the You Are a Strategist book

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that made that pivot.

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I knew when that book went from being a how to guide about OKRs

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to becoming a love letter to neurodivergent people

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and square pegs in the workplace.

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I knew that was the shift that I was going to have to make.

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And so now I'm making it.

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And it took me back to, I don't know who it is or who said it,

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but it says do something that scares you every day.

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So you're doing it every day.

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And I think that that is the best way.

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And so many people are scared to jump because they're

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scared to fly, I mean to fall.

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But what if you literally, what if actually there's a landing

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and you just thought it was a big dip.

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And so now you're flying with this.

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And speaking of leaders, how can leaders

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better unlock the potential of neurodivergent

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and unconventional professional?

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I'm so glad you asked that because it

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is really incredibly simple.

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There's a lot more behind it.

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But neurodivergent team members just

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need consistent information and objective information

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that is able to be digested and understood.

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So every person has a different threshold

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for how much information they need to feel confident

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to go get to work.

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Some people have a really low threshold.

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They're like, I'll figure it out.

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But a lot of people who are neurodivergent,

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partly because we've been beaten up for our performance

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our whole lives, want all the information

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so that then we feel safe and we understand

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what's expected in order to get to work.

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And the practices that I work with around setting objectives

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and identifying empirically measurable key results,

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so key results that are not subject to bias,

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they're just fact based.

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They're like, what are the truths

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about what's important for us to try to achieve together?

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It's not a magic bullet.

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But just enunciating those two goal types

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closes the information gap hugely, hugely for people.

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And so there's more to it.

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But that, I'd say, just enunciating actual key results

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that requires us to make some decisions

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and get aligned together about a few key questions,

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like are these committed?

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Are these stretch?

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Are we safe to fail?

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Are we not?

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And so some of those things that lead to ambiguity

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and to the moving goal posts and even gas lighting

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in the workplace that disproportionately

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affect neurodivergent people, OKR's

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done in the way that I work with them,

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is like insurance against all of that.

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It's just a paper trail that both communicates

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your expectations.

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And the good thing is, for leaders, it benefits everyone.

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It's especially helpful for neurodivergent reports,

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but it benefits everyone.

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Yeah.

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Well, and that's definitely good to know,

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because I would love to know the questions.

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Because our leader is not asking the right questions.

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Like you were saying, you have to maybe sometimes overly

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define or figure out.

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But I think it's also, Sarah, if I'm not mistaken,

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it's just about conversation and being human and talking

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and listening more than you do talk to finding out

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the need of the individual and then creating an expectation

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and meeting the goals that are set together

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and not just with the expectations of the leader.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, I see OKR's, it's a starting place.

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We go from a situation where leaders

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think they're being clear, but really they're

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being clear as mud to the people who have to implement,

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including their neurotypical reports.

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If leaders take that one extra step to have that,

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I call it the alignment layer, to create objectives

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and key results in that alignment layer,

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then those are created.

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They can be created through conversations.

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Leaders can write them on their own,

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but if leaders write them on their own,

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then they align them with their reports.

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So it's just wild how many books get written,

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how many people are there, and incredible experts

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in the field of OKRs.

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And it's really just so simple.

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It's such a simple practice.

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The behavior and the feelings and the systems

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can be quite challenging.

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But what's important, why does it matter?

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And when we say success, what do we mean measurably?

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Thank you for being here today.

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I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.

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I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions

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as these episodes continue to move forward.

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This is going to get more and more fun.

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We'll have more and more engagement as well.

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We'll invite people to participate in the show.

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And thank you for giving us your time and attention.

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Have an excellent time building out your vision

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and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.