[Music]
if you know anything about origami or
Pokemon you might recognize this object
it’s a Pikachu made using origami that
my son Asher decided to create in bulk
and sell to his classmates at the age of
eight in theory it was a really
imaginative idea he started selling them
at school individual Pikachu’s three
packs he even made a holiday bundles
with different designs in practice
though things got a little out of hand
first other kids started making their
own versions and selling them for less
money
suddenly there was a price war and kids
were taking sides
Asher’s teacher mr. Hamby he implemented
a price cap of 10 cents to try to help
out but when that didn’t work he banned
classroom businesses altogether well I
sure thought it was highly unfair that
his great idea and his business
initiative had been shut down and he
made sure everyone knew just how unhappy
he was in fact his reaction and his
behavior was so big he had to spend the
rest of the day recovering in the
principal’s office shortly after the
origami Pikachu incident our family
moved here to Amsterdam you know one of
Europe’s hubs of innovation and
creativity and in living in the middle
of this startup capital I started seeing
and hearing the word disrupter being
used everywhere and it was always used
to describe companies and people in a
really positive incredible way and I
thought to myself we are gonna fit in
really well here because if there’s one
thing
Asher had been called many times in his
short life it was disruptor but in his
case the word was always used in a
negative way you know I can’t help but
think that
someday I might see Asher’s picture on
the cover of a magazine being celebrated
as an industry disrupter but back then
when his ideas and creations often
resulted in chaos in the classroom his
only claim to fame would have been for
disrupting the school day so while
others have called him a disrupter I
call him differently wired differently
wired refers to anyone who is
neurologically atypical so for a sure
that means he’s both highly gifted and
he has ADHD for others it might mean
those diagnoses or it could be dyslexia
dysgraphia autism giftedness anxiety
sensory processing disorder or there may
not even be a formal diagnosis but the
person is clearly moving through the
world in a unique way so before I go on
I just want to invite you to take a
moment and apply this definition of
differently wired to your colleagues
your friends your family your children
or maybe even yourself
chances are every single one of us in
this room or watching this talk online
is picturing not just one differently
wired person in their life but more
likely many you see if we take all those
differences and we consider them
together suddenly our population of
different people is enormous
at a minimum based on current diagnosis
it’s one in every five people that’s
more than one and a half billion
differently wired people worldwide so
why are we still seeing differently
wired people as outliers as abnormal and
when they’re kids as disruptors
but the bad kind I remember when I was
younger one of my teachers told a story
about this truck
that got stuck in the entrance of a
tunnel because it was too high and all
these adults were running around
frantically you know calling engineers
and firefighters and trying to figure
out how to get this truck unstuck until
this little girl this child who could
look at the situation with fresh eyes
finally said why don’t you just let the
air out of the tires this is the kind of
thinking that differently wired people
bring to the world they see and feel
things that other people don’t I want to
talk with you about why we need to make
big changes to the way differently wired
people and specifically kids are
perceived treated and supportive in our
homes in our schools and in our society
because we are going to need their
contributions parenting Asher back in
those origami Pikachu days I was
desperate for information and just to
connect with other parents so I founded
a podcast and a community for parents
like me hoping there would be a few
others out there who could use it well
the email started pouring in with
stories that I could have written myself
stories of parents whose kids had been
kicked out of their neighborhood
preschool parents who are on lengthy
waiting lists for assessments or tests
that probably aren’t even covered by
insurance parents who feel as if they
can’t even speak out loud about their
struggle because of the stigma their
child might face for being different I
can tell you from personal experience
this process is heartbreaking it’s
nerve-wracking and it’s incredibly
lonely I said before there are 1 and a
half million differently wired people in
the world how is it that with such a
huge number we still
I feel like we’re going at this alone so
that’s what’s happening at home but
what’s happening in schools well no
surprise but most aren’t working well
for anybody the kids that we would call
normal the kids who comply and
cooperatively do their work they get
less attention because the higher
maintenance kids are taking up so much
teacher time and the differently wired
kids one little boy in my community told
his mother when she picked him up from
school one day mom school is killing my
dreams and that pretty much sums it up
so just like what happens when Asher
lost his origami Pikachu business these
kids are often punished for their
behavior that stems from their atypical
wiring they get bullied for their social
differences over time they start to
identify as the bad kid
and they internalize the message they’re
receiving that they’re broken or they’re
wrong these kids also have a higher
chance of being suspended or kicked out
of school which research shows us
increases their chances of ending up in
prison we actually have a name for this
in the US the school to Prison Pipeline
that’s right there are kids going from
school to crimes to jail in a cycle that
we have the power to reverse luckily
there is good news here each year we’re
starting to see more and more schools
try to find ways to teach atypical kids
so they can learn the way they learn and
they can feel respected for who they
inherently are and now companies are
starting to do the same so think about
your own work environment for a moment
I’m sure that many of you here are
working for innovative and creative
companies so you might also be reading
the same studies I am that
point to diversity as the key to
innovation and while many of the
articles point to gender or cultural
diversity many are skipping what I
believe will be the biggest game-changer
here neurodiversity in fact I would
venture to say that companies will need
differently wired people to be
successful in the future
if you look at some of the most modern
innovative creators of today Elon Musk
Richard Branson Steve Jobs
these are disruptors these are people
whose unique wiring has allowed them to
approach their problems and work life
differently they’re non conformists they
probably would have started their own
origami Pokemon business if it had been
around when they were kids but even
though these are the kind of employees
that businesses need many companies
don’t know how to hire and retain
differently wired adults just think
about what’s involved in in what’s
expected in a typical interview process
good eye contact
confident communication oftentimes there
are written assessments or tests that
have to be finished under tight time
constraints or just imagine how those
open floor plans that so many companies
embrace can create all kinds of problems
for someone who is highly sensitive or
highly distractible again there’s good
news here some companies like Microsoft
hewlett-packard Ernst and Young
they are starting to seek out
neurodiverse employees at one software
testing company is founded by two MIT
grads ultra testing 75% of the employees
are on the autism autism spectrum and
the founders say that these employees
give them a competitive edge and to
eliminate potential anxiety
of an in-person interview they do their
interviews over Skype and they have
adapted their work culture so these
employees can thrive there’s no question
we’re in a time of shifting paradigms I
mean even 20 years ago if Asher had been
a student and wanted to start his
origami business at school probably
wouldn’t have even gotten off the ground
today the possibility was there but we
still have a lot further to go and I
can’t stress this point enough not just
for the happiness of our kids but in
order to meet the needs of our
collective future we have to change the
way we see and support differently wired
people we have to show more
understanding and empathy for these kids
and their families so they feel less
alone we have to recognize the way that
we may be contributing to the stigma
without even realizing it and we have to
stop treating these kids like the bad
kind of disruptors when they’re in
school and start embracing them in our
workplaces and our society when they’re
adults because we are going to need
their unconventional way of being and
all the gifts that come with it so
whether you’re a community member a
friend a neighbor a colleague a parents
an employer a teacher my question for
you is this how will you disrupt the
status quo and play a role in this
particular revolution thank you
[Applause]
[Music] [Applause]
if you know anything about origami or
Pokemon you might recognize this object
it’s a Pikachu made using origami that
my son Asher decided to create in bulk
and sell to his classmates at the age of
eight in theory it was a really
imaginative idea he started selling them
at school individual Pikachu’s three
packs he even made a holiday bundles
with different designs in practice
though things got a little out of hand
first other kids started making their
own versions and selling them for less
money
suddenly there was a price war and kids
were taking sides
Asher’s teacher mr. Hamby he implemented
a price cap of 10 cents to try to help
out but when that didn’t work he banned
classroom businesses altogether well I
sure thought it was highly unfair that
his great idea and his business
initiative had been shut down and he
made sure everyone knew just how unhappy
he was in fact his reaction and his
behavior was so big he had to spend the
rest of the day recovering in the
principal’s office shortly after the
origami Pikachu incident our family
moved here to Amsterdam you know one of
Europe’s hubs of innovation and
creativity and in living in the middle
of this startup capital I started seeing
and hearing the word disrupter being
used everywhere and it was always used
to describe companies and people in a
really positive incredible way and I
thought to myself we are gonna fit in
really well here because if there’s one
thing
Asher had been called many times in his
short life it was disruptor but in his
case the word was always used in a
negative way you know I can’t help but
think that
someday I might see Asher’s picture on
the cover of a magazine being celebrated
as an industry disrupter but back then
when his ideas and creations often
resulted in chaos in the classroom his
only claim to fame would have been for
disrupting the school day so while
others have called him a disrupter I
call him differently wired differently
wired refers to anyone who is
neurologically atypical so for a sure
that means he’s both highly gifted and
he has ADHD for others it might mean
those diagnoses or it could be dyslexia
dysgraphia autism giftedness anxiety
sensory processing disorder or there may
not even be a formal diagnosis but the
person is clearly moving through the
world in a unique way so before I go on
I just want to invite you to take a
moment and apply this definition of
differently wired to your colleagues
your friends your family your children
or maybe even yourself
chances are every single one of us in
this room or watching this talk online
is picturing not just one differently
wired person in their life but more
likely many you see if we take all those
differences and we consider them
together suddenly our population of
different people is enormous
at a minimum based on current diagnosis
it’s one in every five people that’s
more than one and a half billion
differently wired people worldwide so
why are we still seeing differently
wired people as outliers as abnormal and
when they’re kids as disruptors
but the bad kind I remember when I was
younger one of my teachers told a story
about this truck
that got stuck in the entrance of a
tunnel because it was too high and all
these adults were running around
frantically you know calling engineers
and firefighters and trying to figure
out how to get this truck unstuck until
this little girl this child who could
look at the situation with fresh eyes
finally said why don’t you just let the
air out of the tires this is the kind of
thinking that differently wired people
bring to the world they see and feel
things that other people don’t I want to
talk with you about why we need to make
big changes to the way differently wired
people and specifically kids are
perceived treated and supportive in our
homes in our schools and in our society
because we are going to need their
contributions parenting Asher back in
those origami Pikachu days I was
desperate for information and just to
connect with other parents so I founded
a podcast and a community for parents
like me hoping there would be a few
others out there who could use it well
the email started pouring in with
stories that I could have written myself
stories of parents whose kids had been
kicked out of their neighborhood
preschool parents who are on lengthy
waiting lists for assessments or tests
that probably aren’t even covered by
insurance parents who feel as if they
can’t even speak out loud about their
struggle because of the stigma their
child might face for being different I
can tell you from personal experience
this process is heartbreaking it’s
nerve-wracking and it’s incredibly
lonely I said before there are 1 and a
half million differently wired people in
the world how is it that with such a
huge number we still
I feel like we’re going at this alone so
that’s what’s happening at home but
what’s happening in schools well no
surprise but most aren’t working well
for anybody the kids that we would call
normal the kids who comply and
cooperatively do their work they get
less attention because the higher
maintenance kids are taking up so much
teacher time and the differently wired
kids one little boy in my community told
his mother when she picked him up from
school one day mom school is killing my
dreams and that pretty much sums it up
so just like what happens when Asher
lost his origami Pikachu business these
kids are often punished for their
behavior that stems from their atypical
wiring they get bullied for their social
differences over time they start to
identify as the bad kid
and they internalize the message they’re
receiving that they’re broken or they’re
wrong these kids also have a higher
chance of being suspended or kicked out
of school which research shows us
increases their chances of ending up in
prison we actually have a name for this
in the US the school to Prison Pipeline
that’s right there are kids going from
school to crimes to jail in a cycle that
we have the power to reverse luckily
there is good news here each year we’re
starting to see more and more schools
try to find ways to teach atypical kids
so they can learn the way they learn and
they can feel respected for who they
inherently are and now companies are
starting to do the same so think about
your own work environment for a moment
I’m sure that many of you here are
working for innovative and creative
companies so you might also be reading
the same studies I am that
point to diversity as the key to
innovation and while many of the
articles point to gender or cultural
diversity many are skipping what I
believe will be the biggest game-changer
here neurodiversity in fact I would
venture to say that companies will need
differently wired people to be
successful in the future
if you look at some of the most modern
innovative creators of today Elon Musk
Richard Branson Steve Jobs
these are disruptors these are people
whose unique wiring has allowed them to
approach their problems and work life
differently they’re non conformists they
probably would have started their own
origami Pokemon business if it had been
around when they were kids but even
though these are the kind of employees
that businesses need many companies
don’t know how to hire and retain
differently wired adults just think
about what’s involved in in what’s
expected in a typical interview process
good eye contact
confident communication oftentimes there
are written assessments or tests that
have to be finished under tight time
constraints or just imagine how those
open floor plans that so many companies
embrace can create all kinds of problems
for someone who is highly sensitive or
highly distractible again there’s good
news here some companies like Microsoft
hewlett-packard Ernst and Young
they are starting to seek out
neurodiverse employees at one software
testing company is founded by two MIT
grads ultra testing 75% of the employees
are on the autism autism spectrum and
the founders say that these employees
give them a competitive edge and to
eliminate potential anxiety
of an in-person interview they do their
interviews over Skype and they have
adapted their work culture so these
employees can thrive there’s no question
we’re in a time of shifting paradigms I
mean even 20 years ago if Asher had been
a student and wanted to start his
origami business at school probably
wouldn’t have even gotten off the ground
today the possibility was there but we
still have a lot further to go and I
can’t stress this point enough not just
for the happiness of our kids but in
order to meet the needs of our
collective future we have to change the
way we see and support differently wired
people we have to show more
understanding and empathy for these kids
and their families so they feel less
alone we have to recognize the way that
we may be contributing to the stigma
without even realizing it and we have to
stop treating these kids like the bad
kind of disruptors when they’re in
school and start embracing them in our
workplaces and our society when they’re
adults because we are going to need
their unconventional way of being and
all the gifts that come with it so
whether you’re a community member a
friend a neighbor a colleague a parents
an employer a teacher my question for
you is this how will you disrupt the
status quo and play a role in this
particular revolution thank you
[Applause]
[Music] [Applause]
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