- Speaker #0
you are your own best advocate. And that also means you are your own best mindful advocate.
- Speaker #1
Welcome to NeuroDivergent Spot. I'm your host, Sam Marion. My pronouns are he, him, and I am a multiply neurodivergent therapist, speaker, and creator. Today's guest is Shea Belsky. Shea, please introduce yourself to the listeners.
- Speaker #0
Thanks again for having me, Sam. Hi, folks. My name is Shea Belsky. I am an autistic self-advocate. I am a tech lead at HubSpot, and I am super excited to be here. I am a former startup chief technology officer. I'm a runner. I'm a cat dad. I am a normal human being who also happens to be autistic and is very loud about the autism part. Sam, thanks for having me.
- Speaker #1
Before we continue, I've got a quick disclaimer. This podcast is for information purposes only and should not be seen as a replacement for therapy, healthcare, or legal advice. Awesome. Shay, I'm just excited. Just some of your background, your experiences that you can share with us today. I think it'd be great. But let's just jump in. First question here. What has your journey with neurodivergence looked like?
- Speaker #0
So I was diagnosed with autism at a pretty young age when I was two years old. And I had an IEP. I had a lot of support services growing up. And I definitely benefited from that at an early point with very supportive, extremely supportive parents. friends and family. I went to Cornell University. There I worked with disability services there to better understand my own neurodiversity, becoming a better self-advocate, kind of finding my footing for how I wanted to talk about my neurodiversity and talk about my autism. My first job was really where I was on my own. I'm like, how do I talk about autism to ordinary people who don't know a whole lot about neurodiversity and autism? And it was at my first job where I really started to figure out like, okay, what's going on here? what do people need to know and how can I help it make sense for them as far as my what's going on with me and what I need help with from them um
- Speaker #1
I appreciate you give a really great overview from early on um and I'm just gonna sidetrack for a second here was there a certain level in your education when you found uh the the education supports to be most helpful or you not as much?
- Speaker #0
When I was in middle school, I definitely think I benefited the most from the support that I had. I wouldn't necessarily say that it was hands-on, but I was maturing, I was growing, and I was able to start to understand the nuances of what I was being told and started to recognize myself, how I interact with people differently from others. how I interact with the world differently and emotions. And that's where I started to build a better mental model and a better awareness of how my brain works. I think when I was younger, it was less obvious. But when I was in middle school, early high school, it was much more obvious to me. It's kind of like a lights-on epiphany moment for me to say, oh, this is why I get stressed. This is why I get frustrated. This is what makes me happy. This is what... makes me feel energized. So let's try to articulate those moments to people, to people who can support me around me. That way we can do more of the things that work and less of the things that don't.
- Speaker #1
Awesome. I really appreciate you sharing that just sort of as an aside there, because I know a lot of people who do listen to this are parents of neurodivergent kids, of autistic kids. Um, and I know that they, um, Well, they'll appreciate hearing somebody share some of that. So that's a big deal. Let's jump into the next question, though. What are some ways that your neurodivergence impacts your experience as an employee?
- Speaker #0
The biggest thing as an employee that I experience is my ability to communicate with other people. When I'm up there doing a presentation or I'm talking with people, I say to people typically the way that I communicate, that I express my ideas. may be different than what you're used to. It might be different from what you're used to for somebody who's neurotypical or somebody who's autistic. Every autistic brain expresses itself a little bit differently from person to person. And the way that I articulate myself, the way that I talk about things might seem unorthodox or untraditional. I might describe things more articulately or with more complexity than you might be used to. And that's the number one way that it affects me because... I think that's the thing that people get the most hung up on. It's how I talk, how I share information, and the methods with which I actually share information in a digital and physical world.
- Speaker #1
I completely relate to that. I'm just, as you're talking about, I'm picturing myself at times. Now, I work by myself now. I don't have a boss, nor do I have employees. As a very much a personal choice, I do best sort of working by myself. But times that I would be trying to explain something that made perfect sense to me and having a supervisor or, you know, looking at me just confused and lost. And for me, because I'm late identified autistic. I didn't have the language or the understanding of like, why don't they understand me right now? What other tactic could I take? And I wonder if that's your history of having support throughout the years, if that helps you know, okay, I need to change tactics a little bit here because this isn't working right now.
- Speaker #0
I think it helps in the sense of telling people in advance the way they had a context of understanding. Then it might not always make my experience in communicating better. But it gives them some insight into, this is why Shay might be struggling with communication here, or this is why he might need to take a breather or take an emotional break from the situation if there's a lot of things that are going on. So it's not necessarily an excuse for behavior that I'm trying to get better at, but it just provides context and provides reasoning so that others can see it through a different lens. It's not that I'm trying to be a bad communicator. It's that... I struggle with this inherently for reasons that may or may not be inside my control.
- Speaker #1
Got it. Now, let's go to the next question. I'm going to flip this over. What are some ways that your neurodivergence impacts your experience as a supervisor?
- Speaker #0
I have a much greater understanding and empathy for people who have things going on, who are neurodivergent themselves, who have disability or who support somebody who is. And me being so open about my neurodiversity. absolutely opens the door. People talk about it themselves in ways that maybe they haven't had a chance to before. I've managed people for whom this is the first time where their direct supervisor is neurodivergent. And having that empathy moment where I can say to somebody, I've been in your shoes before. I know what's going on. Let's work on it together. That is really eye-opening to people. And for folks who aren't neurodivergent, but know somebody who is or care for somebody who is. that's also really important for them to speak candidly about non-work topics, but still have something to relate on and bond on. And it's a really interesting, powerful moment for people when we talk about it.
- Speaker #1
I can only imagine how powerful that would be. I'm thinking about moments when I had supervisors just be empathic against real human ways and how impactful that was. And so how much... this really have an impact on somebody um do you find or have you ever had the experience where your openness has led to others sort of doing their own self-exploration or learning i once i was a mentor for a co-op at a different company and
- Speaker #0
i was talking to the biden university and they're like oh i i might have an ac i'm not sure i mean they had a frank discussion about that i said like while you're here at this co-op you have access to some resources as you
- Speaker #1
being an employee here that you should take advantage of if you're curious and if you think it would like lead to an improvement in the quality of your life uh got it that that's pretty neat i'm always fascinated even when i i'm a therapist and and i've done trainings for other therapists on some of these topics and then i find out later that somebody a trained clinician sat through the training and we talked about this from a kind of perspective different than what anybody covers in graduate school, things like that, who then they went out and pursued an evaluation because they're curious and ended up with a diagnosis. ADHD, autistic, sort of I've seen multiple of these experiences. And it's It's butterflies. Yeah. And it's powerful because then suddenly people start to pursue supports and their life can start to shift.
- Speaker #0
Yes. People ask about diagnosis a lot and people ask me like, I'm however old I am, I'm mature, I'm forever long in my life. Should I get a diagnosis? And the answer is very complicated. But in my opinion, if getting a diagnosis would provide you some closure, if it gets access to medication, if it would improve the quality of your life, then yes, it's worth considering. I'm not going to say, don't get a diagnosis. I'd also recognize that getting a diagnosis can be expensive. It's not always covered by insurance. It's time consuming. And there's a lot of valid reasons why somebody... may not want to or may not be able to pursue a diagnosis. So I'm also not saying it's simple and straightforward. But that seems to be changing with better access, but it's still a long road ahead.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, and I'll tell you one thing that I've seen, and I don't know if it's a growing trend, but I know of a couple different psychologists who do testing for adults that sort of have different tier structure, different prices. And so one price point is if you just want me to do the evaluation and then tell you what I think, or maybe kind of just here's a sheet of paper that got listed out what I think is, you know, diagnosis, I'll do that. If you want the full report, like, you know, kids end up with a full report. because they need it for school, things like that. If you want the full report, that'll be a different price point because it's going to take me more time. But for adults to think through, what are they going to do with this? If it's just about the validation or affirmation, or maybe it's just they need a letter to take to work, and so they don't need a full 45-page report. They just need evidence of a disability. And I think that's a really interesting price structure because it does start to create more accessibility, but I'm still talking about people that it's going to be out of pocket. Like this is not going to be covered by insurance, but it is shifting a little bit. So last question, and you and I, before we jumped on the start of recording, we talked about this is probably where we're going to deep dive. So I'm not going to start the timer like I normally do for folks on this one. I'm just going to ask the question and then we'll just do a dialogue from there if that works for you. Yeah. All right, last question here. For neurodivergent professionals in the tech industry, what is one piece of advice you'd give to them to help them thrive in their careers?
- Speaker #0
The hugest thing, in my opinion, is self-care. You're in a crazy tech company. Maybe you're at a startup. Maybe you're at a Fortune 500 company. Maybe you're at one of those big name tech companies that I don't have to name on this podcast. And you are stressed AF. You owe it to yourself to... Be kind to yourself. To be proud of the fact that you work at a tech company. You're hopefully in the job of your dreams, doing something that you enjoy. Even if it's just a job, a job is a job. And jobs can be stressful. They ebb and flow. And it is a responsibility of you as an employee to the company to reflect and make sure that you have time to yourself to whatever that's indulging in hobbies, whether that's taking time off, whether that's being generous with sick time, whether that's... changing up your working style, or it could even be you've been on a team for a few years and want something different. You want to advocate for yourself for a promotion. You want to join a group or a club or something within your work. You really need to remember to take care of yourself. I think I'm autistic, and I definitely have the notion that I like to go fast and do a lot of things. And I have to be conscious and mindful of that. slowly pumping the brakes. You don't want to slam on the brakes and fly out the windshield or burn out. That's not what you want to do. It's helpful to reflect and say to yourself, am I doing my work in a way and at a rate that is healthy, that is sustainable for the long term? If I'm working too hard, if I'm burning myself out, let's pull back a little bit. And if I'm not working fast enough, or if I'm not... able to do the work that I need to do in a way that's effective or efficient, what is happening in my environment that is contributing to that? And how much of that can I change? And how much of that can I talk about with my manager or my team?
- Speaker #1
Do you have any advice or guidance for people if they're looking for the right space? Are there, I hate to say the words, but like red flags or green flags to look for as they're searching within companies or within teams that maybe this company will be more neurodivergent friendly or not? Or what advice would you have there?
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The existence of a disability or neurodiversity ERG is a pretty good indicator that a company is forward and open about disability. My company is in the process of building a disability ERG and I'm a part of that, which is very exciting. We don't necessarily advertise it just yet, but it is a part of what we're trying to build here. And that's important to me, that building a community for other people to be able to talk about outwardly and openly, especially in this day and age with the political climate as it is. I don't want to get too off topic, but I found that people are starting to intermingle the discussion of disability with politics. And that is frustrating to me as a disability advocate. And... I'm sure it's frustrating to other disability advocates too. And they want to work for companies, organizations that are forward and open about disability equity, disability accessibility, whether that's for their employees or for their customers. So adding on to that, the existence and the forwardness of accessibility policies for customers of their products is also another leading indicator that they care about their customers in that way. That they build their product in a way that considers people of all abilities, all disabilities, and not pigeonholing people into using their product in a very constrained set of ways.
- Speaker #1
For listeners who don't know, would you explain... Briefly what an ERG is and how they may search to figure out if this company has one on that topic.
- Speaker #0
An ERG is an employee resource group. And that can be an organization within a company that is typically based off of some identity, some shared background, or something about a person, which can include, for example, members of the LGBTQ community, women, people of color, military veterans. And that could go on forever. There's lots of different combinations of... ERGs, disability is often one of them.
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And as I understand, there's oftentimes, it's a case where it's not HR that's running this. It's people that are members of that community within those identities. HR maybe supports them with some amount of funding for activities, trainings, things like that. Is that sort of what you're still seeing in your spaces too?
- Speaker #0
Correct. So every company is a little bit different. So I can't speak on behalf of every company that's out there, but many tech companies... provide staff whose sole job it is is to support ergs and to liaison on behalf of hr they might not necessarily be entrenched in hr even if they work in that department but their job is to kind of liaison for lack of a better word between the more corporate hr and the ergs and provide funding and provide budgeting and put on events and make sure that the ergs have the proper support have the proper um executive sponsorship proper advertising to make sure that they are being communicated not just inside the company but also externally too gotcha uh yeah i appreciate you sharing that is there anything else that you would want to make sure um again
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i've got a broad listenership but whether it's a parent of a young person who has an interest in tech maybe a young person who has an interest in is in a career path this direction you I absolutely look forward to this podcast being live so I can point. I have a couple of clients that are late adolescent or young adult folks that have high interest in tech, and I want them to hear from you. What other words of advice or what would you like to share that you think would be valuable for those folks to hear?
- Speaker #0
If you're entering into an internship or a co-op or a new job, you are your own best advocate. And that also means you are your own best mindful advocate. It's very easy for you to go up to a manager or a team and say, I'm autistic, and walk away and leave them to figure out what that means. But you want to be thoughtful about how you discuss your neurodiversity with other people. Because you may say to somebody else, I have dyslexia, I have a reading disability. And they may have a different idea of what that means versus what it actually means to you. And the more you have an understanding of yourself, what... works for you and what doesn't work and how you can get to a spot where things work, the more you are able to articulate and communicate that, the more it will benefit you. And people ask, like, should I call my manager? I'm neurodivergent. And I'm like, it depends. If you don't have to, probably don't need to. But if you're in a situation where you could benefit from the conversation, benefit from an adjustment, benefit from something, then it is definitely worth considering. As long as you have a very clear idea of what you want to say and what you want to get out of it.
- Speaker #1
Awesome. I appreciate you sharing that. Shay, before we go, for folks who've been hearing you share and they want to learn more from you, what's the best way for people to go about learning more from you?
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I just launched a brand new podcast. Excited to talk about that. My podcast is called Autistic Techie. It's on any podcasting platform of your choice. I had my first episode out today and I'm posting more as I go. And that's where I talk about autism and neurodiversity in tech careers. So if you'd like what you heard today, tune into Autistic Techie or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you want to find me elsewhere, I'm also on LinkedIn. My name is Shay Golsky. There's only one of me. If you search for me, you will find me. I promise.
- Speaker #1
Awesome. Shay, thank you so much. And I'll make sure I'll have some of these links in the show notes. So people, if you check there, they will be able to find you for sure. So thanks for listening to a nerd aversion spot. Again, I am Sam Marion. If you enjoyed today's episode, I hope that you'll share it with somebody who else can benefit, uh, subscribe to the show so you can catch all the episodes coming up. You can find me on Instagram at nerdemergencepot. And from there, you can find all my other places online. Thanks for being here.
