Among Us: EoN Part 5 - Hustlers are Minds that Mean Business

In this field of interest, it is not uncommon to hear stories of the Albert Einsteins of the world; the Thomas Edisons - children who struggled with the simplest academic tasks only to excel prodigiously in other fields. The same thing can be said for the Steve Jobs’ of the world - those who struggle to successfully hold down a menial job but later shoot up the ladder as incredibly successful entrepreneurs. If this was because of a precocious predisposition, why would it show so adversely in early life?

Scientifically, it seems plausible that the two phenomena are related somehow, as paradoxical as it may seem. One of the most basic scientific and mathematical concepts taught in school today is the difference between a direct relationship (as one variable increases/decreases, so does the other) and an indirect relationship (when one variable increases, the other decreases, and vice-versa). When considering a theory like this one, an established direct relationship between two variables is ideal because it gives us far more information about what this thing is rather than what it isn’t. So we know our dependent variable (the thing we’re trying to figure out/measure) in this equation is the neurodiverse capacity to excel academically. But our independent variable (the thing the dependent variable is dependent on) seems a surprisingly controversial topic of debate.

One of my first jobs was as a part-time salesperson at a high-tech store that formed part of a massive corporate chain. Fresh out of high school (but as a regular at this rodeo), I felt so amped at the possibility of a commission, of climbing up the job ladder - even if it was just one step higher. I was the top salesperson in my first month, even higher than the full-timers. I made three quarters of a million Rand in gross profit for the company that month, excited to prove myself. I imagined a fair compensation might equate to a similar percentage that a car salesman might make on average on a sale that size.

When I was handed my first payslip, I thought "There must be a mistake. Nobody could live on this". R600. That was my commission for the month. Six-hundred-Rand (For context, this equates to 33 USD or 25,8 British Pounds). That was my karma for taking Maths Literacy instead of Pure Maths and bunking it to smoke on the soccer field - illiteracy in understanding commission structures when I read them.

I never made that much money or effort for the company again. I took my time getting back from lunch; I chirped rude customers and managers back. I had lost respect for the company because they showed me exactly what value I held to them. So many of us get caught in the promise of a protected job and lifelong career when really we are donating our lives to another person’s cause. Read that again. The neuroDiverse are not wired for placation. While a sense of comfort and confidence in one’s own insignificance is an ideal state of mindfulness to be in, a stressed out, demotivated and demoralised neurodivergent is anything but.

You know how after you’ve assembled a make-it-yourself piece of furniture at home, there’s always four or five weirdly shaped pins or screws or triangles (???) left over which perplex you because you cannot for the life of you figure out where they go? There’s no pictures of them in the? broken-English instruction manual. Nobody warned you about them. They’re just kind of there, after the fact. They don’t seem to really impact the functionality of the thing, so you tuck them away in the back of some drawer because they’ll probably be useful for something later down the road. And then five years later you discover that those stupid little parts that you couldn’t figure out were actually that massive price difference between your first and second choices at the store because they actually allow your cupboard doors to open and shut with applied pressure, or a simple child lock facility on a drawer that would have made SUCH A DIFFERENCE if you knew about it when you bought it?

Those are your neuroDiverjents. The oddly shaped bits that don’t seem to have a spot until you really need them and then they weren’t in the drawer that you left them in and you could tear your hair out in frustration.

Kidding! Please don’t put anyone in a drawer. Just don’t be that boss who loses the employees who could really make a difference to your company because after you became an “integral cog in the company wheel”… that’s all you became.

NeuroDiverjents are perfectly wired for entrepreneurialism because we tend to be decisive, somewhat impulsive and are often vividly task oriented - even if not people-oriented. Because we have had to figure out alternative ways to make sense of a world that doesn’t follow our logic, we have a wonderfully reliable familiarity with our instincts. At least half of us are night owls and can get far more done with flexible/remote work hours than we ever could sitting at a desk in a box at the office all day. Hustling is built into our DNA. Because we mask all the time we are exceptionally good at reading between the lines and picking up on subtle clues as to what people really want. We are experts at adapting our responses to match what your clients want to hear... IF and it’s a big if - you can prove to us that the value you bring to the party matches ours. Yip, that’s right, we have the audacity to demand exchange of equal value (scandalous, I know). That is the direct relationship that provides our hypothesis with a meaning: VALUE BEGATS VALUE. If you’re not getting the value you want out of your neurodiverse employees, look at:

a. The value you are investing in them and

b. Who your investment is really valuable to. Don’t let a prospective future CEO slip out from under you - they tend to grow legs!

Lean into your intuition this week. You might just discover a neuroDiverse superpower. We are capable of far more than we realise.