Interview with Brandon Sanderson

0:00Hi, I'm your host, Dr. Laurie, and welcome to University Unique, exploring the neurodiverse world of the extraordinary. This podcast fosters curiosity and understanding about neurodiversity while empowering individuals with tools for acceptance and inclusion in classrooms, the workplace and communities. Having shared stories of neurodiverse life experiences, it sheds light on navigating the world, not designed for diversity. Universally Unique starts now. Hi, it's Dr. Laurie. Welcome to University Unique. My guest today is Brandon Sanderson, and after we do a little bit of breathing, we'll get to hear Brandon's story. So we're going to do three box breaths. I will count us through those, we're going to breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe

1:03out for four, hold for four, and then go again. So breathe in, three, two, one, hold, three, two, one, breathe out, three, two, one, hold three, two, one, breathe in, three, two, one, hold, three, two, one, breath out, three 2, 1, hold, 3, 2, 1, breathe in, 3, 2, 1, hold, 3, 2, 1, breathe out, 3, 2, 1, hold, 3, 2, 1, and a nice sigh. Hopefully everyone feels relaxed. So, Brandon, what I

2:08like to start with is just for you to give us a little bit of an overview of your journey as an individual who is neurodiverse. I know from our earlier conversation as we were talking about the podcast you had shared with me that you have a couple of areas of neurodiversity. Yeah, so I start with my name Brandon. I am 28. I live in Canada and my neurodivergent story started later in life as an adult. I got diagnosed in October of 2024 and I was 26 of the time. And throughout kind of my childhood journey, I think it was kind of masked and was not noticed during that time because of I had a learning disability with my motor skills. I'm very bad writing and just really struggle with keeping writing down like if I'm half to right need for too long it just

3:11cramps my hand, I can't do it. So I think because we figured that out and I got the supports I needed kind of didn't affect me throughout school and then I got into a career that was pretty kept me on a pretty regimented schedule and I kept myself kind of in a good space. So it's kind of I think why I got diagnosed so late in life. And there may have been things that because of your your learning disability in the area of writing that people were doing that you didn't even necessarily pick up on like they may have been creating routines and processes for you that were actually helping with your ADHD as well without anybody realizing it. Yeah and I think a lot of that was the case like if I looked back on my journey I was a retail leader and started in retail when I was 16 and was part time I went to school and then I worked afterwards or I did homework so it was pretty routine and then when I did go full-time I went to a location that was very good at keeping me on the same schedule and then it

4:15didn't really kind of just all flow and the pandemic I guess kind of showed some inconsistencies and I guess I really kind of started to see some behavior shifts and things during then but because it was the pandemic I think that kind of massed that as well and I kind of made it through for that and then I really noticed it once I moved stores in 2023 I had schedules that were constantly changing I would work one day from like open to 5.30 and then I would work another day like the next day to close like halfway in the afternoon to close and the next week it could be completely different and I just couldn't keep all those kind of routines I had in place at home to get me out the door kind of all started falling apart so yeah well and I would imagine during COVID I think everybody felt really disoriented and you know out of out of sorts so trying to determine what was the isolation or the strange way that we had to operate in our lives and what was what was something else kind of

5:19bubbling up to the surface so I think it doesn't seem to be very uncommon at this point that folks are getting diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder later in life depending upon how things were going for them earlier I know a lot of children don't get diagnosed right away when they have teachers in the early grades who are very organized and very orderly in their classroom schedule stays pretty consistent and they have mechanisms that kind of keep kids you know in on a path and they're in once that is out of out of the out of plays then things start kind of coming up and things start to get to be much more noticeable so what have you been doing now now that you know that you have some attentional issues what kinds of things have you been doing to try to get yourself so that you have a better a better routine and life goes a little

6:23smoother yeah so I think the ADHD diagnosis spread a lot of clarity and I think that was the really big start of my like clarity shift of you know something's different like now I kind of know what's different and I can start piecing together why certain things kind of happened as I was kind of growing up and it made some things that I didn't understand from other people like growing up other kids the way they acted why act differently and had different issues with learning with like keeping schedules like just forgetfulness all these things and I think my like even my executive functioning in my like moods I had very high mood swings of growing up and down so I was very much kind of was a clarity piece and then was like okay what do we do to kind of make this functional so one of the big things I started doing was creating places in my house for things so I keep my bag near the back door I have my shoes there everything kind of ready to go I set the coffee maker so it's ready for the next

7:23day and I recently just started and it's been a big game changer is I don't check my phone when I first get up because I found if I seen too many notifications I was getting overwhelmed and just not focusing on the tasks and the things I need just to do so I don't look at it in the morning and I got a smart calendar that does like has all my kind of morning to do's in it so I do the cat litter get all those kind of things done so it's helped me be more routine to not have a hundred things kind of flying all over the place I think another big piece was just kind of learning what what different kind of breathing met like methods will work for me because before I'd have like outbursts and my doctor was like well just do like to see the five like senses and I'm like I can't remember any of these things so really give me clarity to do box breathing do like the things that are very simple easy to remember and just to have like systems that work like I have like in my

8:24downloads folder I'll separate like what I need to do and then I move it out of there when it's done and just way more kind of things that work for me and that I just need to work with what works for me and know that I might not work for everyone and that's okay and that's what I think gave me a lot of clarity is the neurodivertancy makes me different so I need to do what works for me not what might be the standard norm for everyone else kind of thing yeah I think that's what makes you interesting but that's that you know that's the outlet that I have on on life and on people is I don't like when everyone fits in a box I find it to be actually quite boring I would much rather talk to somebody and engage with somebody who looks at the world in a in a different way but I think that's why I really like the podcast name too universally unique like it's so true right we're all unique we're not in one box yeah we are we all are and we're all individuals in a variety of different ways although some of us probably have diagnoses that that make it more obvious that

9:25there's that there's something different and the rest of us just operate differently I would suspect too I know in talking with a couple of other individuals who had later in life diagnoses the the big aha like oh that explains and that's why that was a problem that you know it not that you can go back and change things but I think it helps to recognize that there were probably situations that you may have felt oh I was I was really terrible in that situation but in our reality you were working with something that you didn't know you were working with yeah I really had that around my self-control and um my self-control really really around drinking I had no self-control around drinking and thought it was because of the alcohol and just not knowing when to stop and when we went I went to Europe in August of last year and I did try drinking and I had a whole different mindset with it because I'm way more self-aware and kind of in that sense of being

10:27medicated and having the ADHD managed and under control so it wasn't a like I'm going to this the crop term going to this because I don't know what's wrong I'm just having a couple drinks with friends so that is a big huge thing that kind of came started coming up as like aha moments for me yeah well and I would suspect too that if you were using alcohol to deal with the situation that you didn't know how to deal with and you didn't know why you didn't know how to deal with it then after it's all over you feel bad about probably what happened or you know I had too much drink I I had too many calories I ate I had a little pizza by myself or whatever it is and kind of occurred from that and then that's a spiral and it becomes yeah I think that's that's spiral I think yeah I think the spiral that really happened with the ADHD side of things with the drinking is if I would drink too much and I'd forget then the rejections and stupidity is for me I got so bad off like what did I do and like just like what like RSD and all the did I make somebody angry

11:32like I can't remember what I did like so then I had an anxiety and it just it was a ripple it's a real spiral yeah effect yeah it's yeah and and it's not going it's not going anywhere good um so I think um now you you have you have systems in place which I think the suspect is really helpful one of the things that I've noticed um some folks have been been saying um that I've had contact with is you know not using the diagnosis as an excuse but recognizing the diagnosis is part that's part of the package and that you kind of have to operate in a particular way and are you finding that other people in your life are like oh come on you know you you're just saying it's your ADHD why are you saying that you know just get over it suck it up you know work harder yeah sleep more whatever it is that people say yeah I haven't had too much of that

12:34I think a lot of my like friends when I told them I have one of my friends is psychotherapist so she really understood that um and uh a couple of my other friends they just said oh yeah like I doesn't really become a thing I think because I've gotten such I got systems in place to handle it now so yeah so good at managing it and I picked those pieces up that it I don't make an excuse I I just work around how I need to work and I schedule myself that way and I've just kind of really integrated my life so that it's works around it and I think the big piece of that puzzle too is when I left the corporate job and got rid of that and now that I can kind of manage around kind of how I operate and how my brain works and when I can kind of function and do things that's been helpful as well yeah so you get to control your schedule which makes yeah huge huge huge difference yeah having more control of it is helpful yeah I think you know one of the advantages at this point in

13:35time is there's there's lots of technology that can be helpful I mean some of it is not so helpful like you know you said don't turn the phone on right away because it creates a challenge but if you lose your phone you might be able to find your phone again because of technology or I know a lot of folks use um why can't I think of what they're called those those things that they put on like their keys and other things so yeah they're just places they find it um you know I think there's a lot of advantages to to use it technology in our in your favor as opposed to um it becoming a distraction so yeah it's the technology can be helpful I think and that's I think what the biggest piece was because I was a big believer I'm a huge Mel Robbins fan and she's always that I've keep my phone not near the bedside and I um make sure that I don't go on a first thing in the morning and I was like I could never do that for the longest time and then one day I was just like I'm

14:38struggling to see these habits in place I've got the calendar for Christmas and I'm like I'm gonna try it I got to try it I got to see if it's gonna work and that was a game changer and the ear tags the wallets now that are like have the like find my in them those are a game changer to make sure I don't lose anything yeah no they need to make something for my sunglasses because I keep losing those all the time I it's been a thing of leaving them sitting on tables and walking away without them so that's gonna be the next thing I'm gonna find to put a tracker on yeah they're you'll have to ask them to invent something that's small enough to stick on the on the side part so tell me from all of this that have you kind of come to a conclusion that maybe you have a particular superpower that is kind of a byproduct of your neurodiversity I do I actually I clicked on this one right away when you kind of asked it in the free interview when we were talking I'm really really good at multitasking and I know that's something that people are against and like I think

15:41it's a negative and it is a negative but I'm so good at it like I will have multiple things on the go on the computer and jump between tasks and I think I recognize that now looking back at my reach out career and that's why I was able to make it so long in one career as well as that I was very good at multi directional and multitasking through that space and I think that is showing very clear in me doing because I'm doing professional I'm doing life and personal development coaching and I was in a background of tech support and services and I'm doing that as well and I think the mix and the multitask is just showing up in there of like being able to go and do tech repair and then I come home I pop on a call kind of thing and it's showing how well I can blend with jumping from one thing to the next and just even on the computer jumping from editing to then jumping into a call about coaching or editing our newsletter and just jumping back and forth so I think the multitasking is a huge thing and just spinning all the plates to it home while I start this business and I'm working for my friend after her therapy business as well with her human resources

16:47stuff and I think it's just it's huge that I can do that like it's something that not many people can I'm realizing how it's helped me throughout commuting and going back and forth and having to do so many things as one person and starting the business and getting everything up and running it's a superpower that's good to have yeah I think I mean I have some feelings about my own inability or ability to multitask it sort of depends on on the day but I think it works when when you know with the when you understand the tasks I think when you're trying to learn something brand new you just got a zero on on that on that one thing you can't be like trying to do five other things at the same time or at least I can't and my experience is as an educator if people like oh I can multitask and I'm like okay but sometimes you need to just pay attention one thing at a time and then once you get it once you understand it once it's part of how you

17:51operate then you probably can do that and and a bunch of other things I think the novelty helps too you know the the consistency of changing different activities throughout the day probably keeps you more engaged and more excited about what it is it's going on it's suspect if we put you with one particular task for the entire day you would die of boredom yeah I know for sure yeah the mix of tasks is definitely helpful yeah that seems to be a bit of a factor amongst folks with with ADHD it's like if it's if it's interesting exciting zoom I can pay attention to it but once it becomes kind of routine and you know not so interesting anymore it sometimes that's when it becomes a problem to sort of stay focused on it so you said that you don't turn the phone on first thing in the morning so what other things do you do to sort of relax and restore and kind of reinvigorate yourself yeah so it a lot of my like restorative I'll meditate what I do at night

18:58a lot of the times is I'll put on a sleep meditation if I can't sleep so usually start I have like a couple TV shows I watch that normally fall asleep with but I know isn't always great but it's just always seem to work so I've stuck with them because it's worked it's there and if not the sleep meditation if I'm feeling very like overwhelmed or anxious at night I'll spend an hour before bed on the couch with usually the TV on and I'll play like a game on my phone just kind of dial out of everything I like like matching games and like things that are interactive so I'll put that on while I have like something playing in the background I find that's also another piece of why I say the superhero multitasking is I'm very good at like I'll put a show on to listen and then I'll like play the game and I get a lot of the listening of the piece I think that's why I like podcasts so much as well yeah or like learning where it's like video learning and you can listen and hear what they're talking about because I'll listen to it while I'm doing other things and I'm picking up the pieces that I need in my ears while I'm focusing on or maybe working on like typing an email or

20:01something that's not taking all my focus and I think that's like how relax at night too is it's just shutting my brain down of the game and the show and then kind of letting everything else go and I also like yoga and working out I added working out back into my habit back in February I did like a phased approach at the beginning of the year to get like my routines back in place from now being self-employed and I did it one thing at a time and I let it implement for two weeks before I added something else a part of my 80s approaching like schooling that I did and I'm like I'm gonna try this on myself and it was painfully annoying it was I wanted to jump in and add something else so bad and I'm like no wait and I got back into working out and the exercising in the morning it just it it gave me energy for the day but it also helps me feel tired at night it really is a big circadian rhythm booster and I think it's what really helped me get through this winter is by getting that kind of reset yeah and I think if people do you know you try to change too many

21:05things at once you know and that whole feeling of oh it's the beginning of the year I'm so I'm supposed to change my diet so I was changed my exercise I'm supposed to change my sleep I'm supposed to get rid of all my friends that are toxic I'm supposed to I don't know get all the clutter out of my house I'm supposed to do all these things at once and I think we you get overwhelmed and you're like then you stop and you don't you don't finish any of them so I like your approach of adding one thing at a time I think that that was that was good and then if it turned out they didn't like that one thing that you added in or it wasn't working then you knew that was the thing that wasn't working so you knew what to change it wasn't like there were five other things you weren't sure what what it was it was causing you know you're scheduled to not not completely and totally work out so you said that you have a friend who's a psychotherapist you have several friends that are very understanding have you found excuse me a community of other

22:09individuals who are neurodiverse are you are you building that are you finding that the people you already knew are you know they're like oh yeah that explains it okay let's move on um you know where where's your safe place yeah so I the encounter I've had like I've had all positive encounters my roommate doesn't always understand it he he didn't understand it first he was like oh ADHD like everyone kind of has that and then he see me like leaving covered doors open and everything and he caught on to when my medication runs out or like it's like at the end of the day or I haven't taken it and he's now understood but I am in a community I like Meredith Schultz and I watch her weekly ADHD calls she does on meetup and I'm in her like the whatsapp group she created and I'm looking at building out a ADHD program for kids and adults for either individual or group I'm thinking to start individually and then maybe try to do a group just to have parents understand

23:12like neurodivergent children and then have a space for adults who are learning their ADHD diagnosis I think there's a big space that is needed for that especially kids with ADHD that are diagnosed and maybe the parents don't understand or aren't fully understanding why things are happening a certain way that's actually where I came from before we met today I was with my friend and her son that was recently diagnosed and I'm gonna start doing coaching with him oh excellent we're gonna start on March break so we can do a fun kind of session before we go into a more like school and executive really big executive function but that's kind of the start I'm starting with that is like a pay way you can client while I finish up the I'm doing some ADHD courses online just to really understand some more pieces and just really grow my knowledge before really fully launching and taking it as slowly but I also kind of plan this whole year to kind of build up

24:12my business and grow so working on it slowly while I kind of continue to learn continue to grow and work through this like self-employment journey that I've started in January yeah self-employment isn't it's it's a whole different world yeah I love the fact though that you're you're gonna start doing some stuff with with the younger individuals I mean anticipating this your friend's son is probably what like a teenager or so yeah he's 14 you know you know because I think a lot of kids in schools start to get the feeling like well people don't like me because maybe I can't always stay quiet during class or you know somebody's let on that they you know teacher doesn't like me maybe somebody's even said something inappropriate like well you're a bad kid I wish you'd stop doing that stuff you know because I think there's a lot of there's a lot of bad feelings that those kids oftentimes end up carrying so I think it's great that you want to focus some of your attention there because anything we can do when individuals are younger it makes the rest of

25:17their life so much so much easier yeah and I think that's a really big piece that resonated from me in that time like of being a child like seeing him go through it now I'm seeing some things of run that I did when I was a kid that yeah maybe if we had known sooner I could have corrected and not brought into so much into my 20s so yeah and I think you know a generationally too think things change you know people are more aware of certain things at different points in time you know I think we're becoming as a society more aware of the fact that there are more people who are neurodiverse than anybody thought there were you know because there were people like yourself who managed to keep it together enough to look like everything was okay when it really wasn't but nobody was noticing that because you were you were doing what it was that they thought you were supposed to be doing you know you were apparently you were getting a schoolwork done you you know you went to college at all the things that they thought you should be doing so they thought

26:21oh everything's fine you know and not knowing what it was that you were you know the the stream that you were swimming uphill on could have been made easier if anybody had actually noticed where some of your struggles were yeah if it would have been noticed earlier I think I could have like definitely worked on kind of not having as many dilemmas in my 20s that I did and having kind of a clearer kind of more self-aware I think my self-awareness really kicked into once I got diagnosed at HD and just being more self-aware myself it was a real big question mark so I agree if you can get in front of it sooner it's going to be so much easier for our early young adults coming into the world to manage and understand more of why they're what they were doing as a teen instead of oh this is why I was doing some things as well into my young adult in my 20s and if you can coach this this teenager so that he builds some skills he'll bring those with him

27:25as an adult because I think a lot of times what happens is kids go through school and somebody had had limitations on them somebody had created the schedule somebody had created a routine for them that was working for them and then they get out in the world and that's not there anymore and it's really hard for them to figure out how to how to make stuff happen so you know the the earlier the better that somebody builds builds skills so Brandon it always amazes me how fast the the time that I have goes but we are we're getting close to the end I just I wanted to thank you for your willingness to to share your story with us and you know your excitement about coming on the podcast I appreciated that it made me feel like I'm you know I'm hitting the audience that I want to hit which is which is important as well you know because there's lots of folks out there that I think need to find a place where they feel

28:28where they feel comfortable and so all of your information is up on the transformation networks page so if folks are looking to reach you your social media your email address and all that stuff is there so it'd be great hopefully if somebody's looking for someone to coach who has a background and understanding of ADHD that would be a good spot for them to find you so yeah they're going to check my website and just book a discovery call so thank you so much Lori for having me on and it was so nice to meet you and spend this last 30 minutes with you I can't believe how quick or when either so thank you so much yep all right well thank you so much enjoy the rest of your your evening and thank you to everyone who's been listening and we will see you again in a couple of weeks thank you for listening to Universal Unique exploring the

29:30neurodiverse world of the extraordinary join me dr. Lori on transformation talk radio every second and fourth Monday at 11 30 pacific time as we continue to explore navigating the world not designed for diversity for advocacy and support for individuals with disabilities let's connect learn more about consulting and life coaching at notapolisticconsulting.com