Different at Math

Transcript — S1:E12 — I Math Differently

00:00:00 Flo: It feels like, ha, there's the evidence that you really suck. That's how, how it feels.

00:00:05 Andrew: And three years later, you're still talking about that moment. Still. And you're still feeling it in your chest as if it's happening right now.

00:00:12 Flo: Literally right now. That's how it feels. And so...

00:00:14 ♪ Intro music ♪

00:00:31 Andrew: Hi, I'm your host, Andrew Sanders.

00:00:33 Flo: Hi, and I'm your co-host, Flo LaBrado.

00:00:37 Andrew: Welcome to Different at Work, where we talk navigating the modern workplace and cultivating professional relationships while being wired a little differently. We've spent a lot of time together so far discussing ADHD and my experiences, my challenges and some of the things that I've learned along the way. Being different at work, though, isn't limited to just things like ADHD or autism. There's so many different ways that people can show up to work. With the neurological difference. So this week, we're turning the attention to another type of difference called dyscalculia. Flo, can you tell us a little bit more about that?

00:01:09 Flo: Yes. And I'll start with, explaining it. This one is a little less known, I think. I think dyscalculia is, is a weird one that every time I mention it to someone, they're like, what? What is that? And it's something that's sometimes referred to as if. It's like dyslexia, but with numbers. And to be clear, this is not dyslexia, but with numbers. But I think it's an easier way to, to kind of explain it. And really it is just, it's a learning difference, that is related to, to numbers and quantities. And it, it sort of looks like having trouble working with numbers and remembering facts with numbers and even basic arithmetic. And this one is personally. Personally close to me. Well, I do not have a, a formal diagnosis. I know that dyscalculia is part of, of me. And it's, it's something that at least one other person in my family that I'm genetically related to, has that same struggle. And at least one other person without a formal diagnosis, I know has that same struggle. Okay.

00:02:29 Andrew: So, well, thank you for sharing your personal experiences today. It gets, you get to feel what it's like to be in the hot seat this time. It's uncomfortable. Oh, turnabout is such fair play, right? So

00:02:40 Flo: uncomfortable. So

00:02:43 Andrew: I've heard you use the phrase that you just math differently, right? So people with this just math differently. Can you walk us through maybe some examples how your different math has showed up at work?

00:02:56 Flo: Yes. I think school and work is where for me. It was very obvious. And that first I used to think, oh, I'm just bad at math or I don't get math. And that was easy for me to say, especially when historically girls are so have been socialized to think that they're not good at math, that they're better at language arts and those kinds of subjects, you know, social studies as to in comparison to, to STEM. And it could have been seen as that I fell into that category. So I just thought I was just bad at math. But then. Over time, I started to notice things were different about me. It's I did really well in school. On my own without much, you know, pushing in high school without even trying super hard. I graduated with a 3.5 GPA. The only class where I had to work very, very, very hard to barely make a seat with chemistry. And it's not because I didn't understand the concept of chemistry. It was because I would get the math wrong. On the equations. I did OK in algebra, but I didn't go beyond that. I didn't take pre-calc any of that because it just it didn't make sense to me at all. Another thing is that I could sometimes do math in my head, but most basic, most basic arithmetic, I had to use a calculator or even my fingers and I would hide it in very subtle ways.

00:04:27 Andrew: So can I ask a question? I about this because this is interesting to me. I'm just curious if this is something that the calculia has in common with ADHD. Some people say that some ADHDers say that math was usually a struggle, like they would get the math. They'd come to the right answer, but they wouldn't get credit because they couldn't show their work. Is that? No,

00:04:46 Flo: it's the complete opposite. I struggled. I could look at a math problem and it might as well be as if they were alphabet soup. But instead of what was floating around. Where? Where these figures that I know are supposed to represent a quantity, but they almost didn't mean much to me. And which it was just very different. If I had a calculator, I could figure it out. If I could use my fingers or objects, I could figure it out. Interestingly, though, is that I understand very easily the concepts of advanced statistics. My issue is the arithmetic. And it felt a little harder understanding. Almost like the quantity. Like I know one million is more than 100. But then when we get close to one million versus 100,000, it takes it takes me almost like a millisecond extra to think about it. Then in university, it was a very similar experience. In the workplace, it was hard. And this is where I hid this for many, many, many years. I could look at a slide with numbers, maybe like a QGP. Or something else. And it almost did not make sense to me. Like it took me longer to digest and understand where my peers quickly might grasp it and move along. I felt like I was always running five minutes behind everyone else.

00:06:12 Andrew: Interesting. I can relate to that for sure. So when did you have an understanding of the condition? Because what I hear you saying is that you felt a difference and you knew you were different. Yeah. Yeah. You school. Right. And then it impacted you throughout school, university and work. I'm just curious, like when did you make a connection that this could be something that is maybe why you were feeling different? You

00:06:39 Flo: know, and even like the feeling different back then, it was I didn't I didn't connect this at all as a learning difference. I thought I'm just really bad at math. And it was shame that came with it. Thinking I'm just like really dumb. I don't get it. And a lot of like that negative self-talk. What's funny is that my sister, who is 10 years younger than me, had a diagnosis, I think when she was in high school, of a learning difference related to math. And so it was just I think it was eventually fast forward. My sisters and I had a conversation. And these are my sisters on my mother's side. We had a conversation one day and we talked. I don't even know how we fell into it. But we talked about how one of two of us. I'm going to use math as a facet. Two of us math differently than the other. And we began to compare notes. And I realized, oh, my gosh, that's how I that's that's what happens to me. And I began to realize that it is very possible that what's happening to my youngest sister on my mother's side is what's happening to me. And I began to do some research. And a really good friend one day, well, she was researching something. She came across and said, hey, have you. Ever heard of dyscalculia? And I said, yes, but not by me. And I began to research. Oh, my gosh. All these different things about me ring true. Here's another another thing that showed up just in my life in general. I had a habit of either being early or late to things on time seemed really difficult, either over or under scheduling. I also when and I manage the finances. And at home. But thank God for spreadsheets. Right. And I sometimes had a hard time without calculating it with a spreadsheet or by hand or something to understand what was really in the account. It was just really hard. And I understood, oh, my gosh, my one of my sisters and I, we think the same. So the same struggles that she had in school, I realized I had very similar struggles, but I figured out how to sort of cover it up. And there was a lot of shame with that.

00:08:58 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. I can definitely, again, tie my experience to yours to relate. I can relate to that, that feeling of shame. And from my experience with my ADHD, it was interesting that I didn't know how I felt until I had a diagnosis. And then all of those feelings kind of that I've had my entire life made sense. It was just an aha moment, a light bulb moment. It was overwhelming at first, but it was also. In a way, empowering because then I had a name for something. And I know that it was something that people are studying and they're, you know, there's developing science around it. And people are still researching, you know, tools and, you know, support and scaffolding and things you can do a little bit differently. So did your discovery of the name or the diagnosis lead you down any similar path?

00:09:51 Flo: It helped to realize, oh, this is a learning difference. It's not that I'm dumb. It's just that. My brain, I think about numbers and quantities very differently. When I see like the number four, I know the symbol represents four things. But I have to like make an extra step to make that connection. And I just realized just my brain is different. So in some ways, yeah, I just math differently. But like understanding and doing the research, I began to connect the dots. The other things that I thought were either a little weird or off about me. Suddenly made sense. For example, I used to take a dance class and in this desk, a weekly dance class. And every month there would be like a certain dance routine. And over the course of a month, you know, the entire class learns it each week, adding a little more. And every almost every other dance student was able to pick up by the end of that specific class. We were supposed to pick up. And I always struggled. It would take me week three. Three or week four to get a hold of what we learned in week one and two. And I'm like, I just thought like, well, I'm just terrible at learning line dances or learning dance routines. It turns out that that kind of sequencing dance sequencing, for example, is one of the ways that this shows up. I never would have made that connection. I just thought at times like, my gosh, why can't I get this? Like, I'm a smart person. What the heck is wrong with me? Another thing that started began to make. Sense is that I often flip numbers. So like if somebody gives me their phone number to enter into my phone, I would often either flip one or two numbers. Excuse me, two or three numbers. Or when dialing a phone number, like you could say, hey, can you call this phone number? And when putting in the numbers into my phone to call, I would so often actually did it today called a wrong number. And it is it was so frustrating. But those things. Things began to make sense. And, you know, just to share some of the some of the ways that this shows up, this shows up trouble doing mental math, giving incorrect change. I worked when I was in high school and college. I worked at a grocery store and I had to work really, really hard to give people correct change. And I actually got fired one time from a job in a retail store because I had accidentally keyed a number incorrectly into the. Cash register resulting in the customer getting a discount they were not supposed to get. And I was suspended and shortly thereafter fired because it seemed like I was trying to hook somebody up with a discount. Other other ways that it shows up. Difficulty remembering names. I almost always remember someone's face. If I if I run in, if I go to one networking event and I see them somewhere else, I'll remember them. But I have to work extra hard to remember names. Often drives. Life's too slow or too fast or misjudging how long it will take to drive somewhere. I'm not proud of this, but in the state of Florida, you are allowed up to five times in a lifetime to take the class that if you get a speeding ticket or a moving violation, the driver improvement class that eliminates the points five times in a lifetime. The first four times I used it before age 22. And the last time I could ever take that class was two years ago.

00:13:27 Andrew: Are we talking like five miles an hour over? Are you going 25 and a third? Like what? Definitely.

00:13:35 Flo: If I didn't pay if I don't pay attention, I could easily go 20, 25 miles over.

00:13:40 Andrew: So you just drive what feels good.

00:13:42 Flo: Exactly. And what feels good to me is fast. Right. Another thing is, yeah, it's terrible. Other symptoms is that having to write down phone numbers immediately or even numbers in general or it's in one year. So it's just all these little things that seem unrelated but are related to numbers, to tempo that I struggle with.

00:14:04 Andrew: Very interesting. So it's not just, you know, mapping differently. That's really reductive, right? It's numbers and sequencing and quantities and combinations and all that it seems like. And thanks for sharing this because I never knew this about you until you shared it with me recently. And

00:14:26 Flo: it's embarrassing. It really is embarrassing, especially in the kind of work that we did. Like and it has it can have some serious implications. For example, I was responsible for compensation decisions. Yeah,

00:14:40 Andrew: I was. Well, that I was thinking that. And then also the work that we did was very dependent on like ticket numbers and issue IDs and

00:14:48 Flo: cases, business

00:14:50 Andrew: cases. And I imagine, you know, this impacts people in areas more. And just while we focus on I can I can see the impacts that this would have. Like your retail example is a great one. Regular office jobs, you know, driving to construction sites. So I see this impacting people with this condition, how it could impact them throughout their lives. Exactly.

00:15:13 Flo: And even like the sense of time, you know, we have internal natural rhythms. Generally, daylight wakes us up. We get sleepier, generally sleepier when it's dark. We have like rhythms. We have rhythms that are natural to us. And I come from a culture. I'm Dominican. I come from a culture in which punctuality is very different from American U.S. culture in that, you know, there's flexibility in the punctuality, which can be it was a really easy way for me to mask my being early or being late. But I I have a good sense of rhythm when it comes to music, like keeping beats, all of that. I can definitely do that. But other rhythms. I tend to under overestimate. I mean, people generally were terrible at estimating time, but I tend to significantly over underestimate how long it will take me to get from point A to point B or how many things I can do in an hour. And that has implications for think about it. Like when I worked at the grocery store, I used to be late a lot. It's

00:16:18 Andrew: just interesting that there's so many crossovers and traits. You know, I don't want to say symptoms because the traits. Between other neuro divergences and dyscalculia or for different reasons. Right. So the ability to show up on time or be late, you know, people might do that because they were a bad judge of time because of their ADHD or their autism or whatever the case is. They knew what they had to do. They just couldn't bring themselves to do it. Whereas with dyscalculia, it's a whole different cause behind it. But the same. And I think that kind of underscores one of the points you've been trying to make throughout the series. Is that some of the tips or tools that you make to help people on your teams that might have a neurodivergence that you don't know about. You don't have their diagnosis in front of you. Are universal in nature. Right. And I just. Your experience with this resonates with me so much. Like the being a bad estimator of your own time and how long it's going to take something. That's again an ADHD trait, but for a very different reason. So. Yeah.

00:17:19 Flo: And it's like it's it really is like there's a genuine desire. Like. I want to be punctual and have become more punctual over time because I've developed systems to help me do that. But like I have a genuine desire to be punctual and to respect other people's time. And so I work really, really hard at this. But when I miss the mark, it's, you know, sometimes it's because of terrible planning. Like, you know, sometimes, you know, like anyone else. Right. But often when I miss the mark, it's because I miscalculated. Here's a really good example. This happened literally today. I'd planned. To. I had a hair appointment. A coffee meeting with a coaching colleague. And then another coffee meeting with another entrepreneur I met recently. And it felt like it was too many things. And what ended up happening was that I arrived at both coffee meetings. The first one, 20 minutes early and the second one, 15 minutes early. Which better than late. Right. Yeah.

00:18:24 Andrew: Better.

00:18:24 Flo: Better than late.

00:18:25 Andrew: Well, like extra time for coffee is never a bad thing in my book.

00:18:28 Flo: Listen, I love me some Yemeni coffee. But yeah, it was. And that's how that's how it shows up. Like, I'd rather be late or excuse me, early than late. But it is a matter of respecting other people's time. I work really hard on it. And when I miss the mark, it is usually not because I I intentionally or was careless. It is because I misjudged. How long?

00:18:49 Andrew: So can we pull that thread a little bit more? Even knowing about your. Math difference in sequencing difference in the dyscalculia. Knowing is great because it helps you have strategies and whatnot, but it doesn't remove the stress from everyday life. Right.

00:19:05 Flo: It doesn't.

00:19:05 Andrew: And I'm curious to know if there are workarounds or tools or ways that you've developed to either manage the stress or like, how do you land on acceptance and compassion for yourself in all of this?

00:19:19 Flo: I'll start with that. The shame is really heavy and sometimes it still gets to me. But it is the shame is really heavy and there is extra stress because some things just take me longer and I've created many systems to help me help me adapt. But some of those systems also take more energy and time so that I can, you know, be better integrated with the flow of life and business with everyone else. And there's also the mental talk. You know, every every person has an inner critic in it. It's somewhere like a judge, almost like constantly monitoring ourselves and self-monitoring is good. But then there's also the judgment. And it is sometimes in some seasons I have to invest even more energy to sort of quiet that inner judge. The part of me that wants to say, why can't you just get it like other people? Why do you have to work so hard? Or it would be so much better if you didn't need as much support and those kinds of things. And while I know that that internal judgment is not important. It's not. It's not true. I don't have to listen to it. It does take energy to remember that I don't have to. But then there's also logistical differences. I'm going on a trip for the weekend with some friends and I have to put extra energy into planning my schedule so that I don't misjudge or the extra step of asking someone to be a sounding board to help me double check. All of that is extra energy. And let's talk about in the workplace. Before when I began to. Sort of be open to that. I math differently. I shared it only with a few people at first. And the first person I shared it with was because I needed someone to double check, double check my numbers when working on bonus and compensation planning. And so I first shared it with two people that we both know, Ronnie and Emily, and they would double check my numbers. Which meant. Also feeling terrible because I'm asking somebody else while they're doing their job to take time out of their day to help me do mine. And that felt terrible. Over time, though, I became more comfortable telling other people it was like testing the waters. You know what I mean?

00:21:38 Andrew: I'm going to say it because I remember you saying in meetings and whatnot, like throughout the years, like I math differently. Like I've heard you say that before. And like I can picture you now say we're in a leadership calibration session all up. And. You know, we're in some hotel ballroom somewhere trying to, you know, get our numbers to match and you stand up and say, hold on one second. I math differently. And then, you know, we'll wait, like we'll wait for you to process what's on the screen on the projector or whatever. And it's interesting because I never really put that connected that with a difference or because there was no judgment. It was like, oh, Flo just needs the time. Okay, cool. Like not a problem. Right. But now knowing what I know about neurodivergence and the difference in the masking and the stress and everything. I can see how that like that took courage to stand up, first of all, stand up and say, hey, I need a minute on this slide because I math different.

00:22:32 Flo: And it took me years to get to that point where I could even say I math differently. Years. And as hard as it was, and I do acknowledge and I am proud of myself that I eventually developed the courage to say that I math differently. It was so worth doing that because I allowed. Other people to support me. And instead of struggling for 30 minutes on my own, I could steal two or three minutes of someone else's time. Someone who loves me and cares about me and spent three or six minutes instead of like, you know, struggling and spiraling on my own. And being

00:23:11 Andrew: self-conscious about it, not knowing it. Exactly. Like all

00:23:15 Flo: the hiding that that hiding was terrible. But yeah, eventually I did start to speak up and be more vocal. And and it was almost like testing the water, starting with lower stakes situation and one to one conversations and then eventually sharing it with the leadership team. And then eventually it became something of someone new joined my team as we began to get to know each other. I began to proactively disclose. And this became even more crucial as my responsibilities increased because there is a really big difference in putting a business case together. That is nine hundred thousand dollars and nine hundred million dollars.

00:23:59 Andrew: I mean,

00:24:00 Flo: that's a big difference. Pocket

00:24:02 Andrew: change. Right.

00:24:03 Flo: That's a big difference. And I'll share. And I do like I don't want to be like all gloom because I do have you know, there are ways that I have adapted and there are strategies that can really help. No one.

00:24:13 Andrew: Before we get to any of the strategies, I just want to pause here for a second because I want to say to you that you are one of the smartest people that I know, and you're very inspirational to me. And my career benefited so much from knowing you, right? And knowing that you had this kind of monkey on your back, like making you feel bad or less than or not smart enough. It's heartbreaking, but it's also inspiring because you were able to do all of that with those negative feelings in your head, right? And the courage it took to stand up in a room and share that with everybody. Again, it was a loving, supporting environment. And we had, I think, one hell of a leadership team at that time. But I just wanted to pause there before we get to the support stuff, because you are amazing and you do amazing things. This is not a negative in my mind because it's part of you. You've learned to work around it and do all these amazing things. And I think that it's another example of why we're doing this podcast. Because for me, I know it's that I want to help other people. Have ADHD or think differently and maybe math differently that are either not aware of it yet. Maybe we are sharing things in this series that people spot and say, ha, identify with that. Maybe let me research that a little bit more. Or people that know they have differences in how they math or break down phone numbers and finally realize that they're not less than and they're not alone.

00:25:46 Flo: First, I want to say thank you for saying that. And it's even now, it is so hard, to take this in because immediately the judge in my head wants to say, yeah, but, yeah, but. And, you know, that's a word. And thank you for saying that, because that's something, you know, like the way that generally imposter syndrome is defined is, you know, someone, essentially someone in questioning the seat at the table that they already earned. What I, you know, I experienced imposter syndrome like everyone does from time to time. But this was different because I used to feel like. I'm supposed to be smart and I'm afraid people are going to find out that I'm really not. Even when and like I said earlier, I do not have an official diagnosis. I'm in the process of evaluations. I'm in that journey toward that. Even even in the one of the assessments, I remember thinking like I have issues with IQ. But I remember thinking, how could my IQ be this when I need a calculator to figure out how to tip in a restaurant? Even if I round up to 20 percent, you know what I mean? And so there's sort of this this this battle in me. And I want to use like before we get into strategies, I want to use a scenario that was so emotionally strong for me. So three years ago, I'm in a meeting. I just take responsibility of leading a team doing some really cool, innovative work. And we were going to make some really bold, bold claims about efficiencies and operational savings. Using automation and AI. And this is before everyone was talking about agentic AI. Like we were like, we're going to do this. And I was in a meeting with my boss and my boss's boss and one of my peers. And my boss's boss asked a very specific question about numbers. And I knew I had my talk track ready. And I froze in that moment. And even now, as I recall it, I can feel like heat in my chest. Like there's a cinder block that is pressing on me. And it seemed like an eternity. Probably it was like two seconds. But in my mind, in that moment, it felt like an eternity. And what happened was one of my colleagues jumped in because he knows that I math differently. I disclosed it with him. I'm pretty open about it by this point. He jumped in and helped me. And I'm so grateful for that. And the conversation moved on. No one else thought twice about it. But in that moment, for me, the world felt like it was falling apart. That. That is hard.

00:28:21 Andrew: Hard. And we've talked a little bit before about our brain wiring just as humans and how our brains are kind of wired for the negative bias. Like it's the whole point of the brain is to keep you alive and save you from, you know, the saber-toothed tiger or the poisoned water. Right. So we're where we already start from a negative bias. And then to have a difference like that stack on top of that, that adds to your psyche. And the negative way that you think about yourself, like it just weighs the scale further and further and further down.

00:28:55 Flo: It's like trying to it's almost like it feels like, ha, there's the evidence that you really suck. That's how how it feels.

00:29:03 Andrew: And three years later, you're still talking about that moment because you're still feeling it in your chest as if it's happening right now.

00:29:10 Flo: Literally right now. That's how it feels. And so, you know, but I'm that those moments have become less and less difficult. The more. The more I'm open. I mean, gosh, even talking about this when this releases, I may have a hard time listening to it, but I am going to listen to it because that is part of my journey of sort of letting go of that self-judgment and just accepting that. Yeah, I math differently. And I it takes me longer to learn how to do the wobble. So I don't do it at weddings. You know, I do know the electric slide, though. I'm Gen X. I knew that one. But, yeah, I think it's important to also talk about some of the things that have helped me. One. I mean, eventually I've become really comfortable with using a calculator. Granted, it does help that, you know, we have smartphones now. So just about anyone has a calculator in their pocket. And I've become more comfortable using a calculator. Before AI was where it was now, one of my friends for funsies developed an app that you take a screenshot. This is years ago. You take a screenshot of a receipt at a restaurant and it will calculate the tip for you. And so I learned. How to rely on these these kinds of things. Another thing that I became more comfortable with is if we if I knew I was going into a meeting to the review data and numbers, I became comfortable asking for the slides in advance so that I would have an opportunity to begin to digest and make up for the difference and be caught up with everyone else. I might also take that data and either request a visual or use it to create a visual for myself to help me understand. The relationships between different variables. The

00:30:52 Andrew: ask. Can I ask about that real quick? Yeah. Just visuals place. But I'm thinking like slide shows or slide decks or reports that we get and like the green arrows and like anything indicating like good and bad and directions and stoplights and graphics that you might see. I can see those being incredibly important for someone with the sequencing math or, you know, the dyscalculia. So I'm thinking like, oh, I'm to do this. I'm

00:31:21 Flo: Yes. Oh, my gosh. And whether it's this like red, yellow, green or even representing in line graphs and bar graphs, because without thinking about the number, I can see the relative difference. And that sort of sets the table for me to then get into the details.

00:31:40 Andrew: So and the reason I want to ask about that is I know that in my professional experience, like we were told, like, make the graphs easier for your boss or executives to read because they don't have the time. To sit there and read through the details. But which is true. I'm not discounting that. But also people see numbers differently and quantities differently. And you're supporting people that math differently or think differently when you're when you spend a little extra time on meaningful graphs. Right. Yes.

00:32:07 Flo: Yes. And it is it is I think it's helpful in general, especially in today's world in which technology, digital technologies allow us to consume so much more data. Yeah. It is important to summarize it anyways. It's not just about the numbers. It is about what is the story, what is the value, what do we need to do with this data? And a good summary can help arrive at that answer faster and help people align on what we're trying to do together and collaborate very differently. But also even baby analyst me probably needed that back then.

00:32:57 Flo: One of the principals at my team on my team, I joked around that he can eat numbers for lunch. He can look at numbers, data like massive amounts and in seconds make sense of it in seconds. Understand relationships. I also believe that he's gifted. So I leaned on him for help to help me understand. In preparation for meetings or if it were a scenario that required on the spot, you know, understanding, digesting numbers. I asked him to take lead. And there's nothing wrong with that. Part of my leadership approach is to empower everyone to be a leader. And he's definitely a leader. And he was able to do that effectively. I didn't always have to be the one in front of the room or doing the talking. And so I leaning on my colleagues and my team members and my leadership. Definitely made a difference so that I could lead with my strengths and lean on others for their strengths.

00:33:56 Andrew: Absolutely. And that's that's a sign of good leadership, right? Like you that the team is accomplishing things based on the strengths of the group, which is everybody. Something

00:34:06 Flo: that has like changed things significantly for me is AI because it can do some of the things that I struggle with. I a really good example was a couple of years ago. I needed to. Digest a table with hundreds of rows and from that pull out less than a handful of the say data points. And I was able to upload the entire table at the time I was using chat to BT and ask you chat to BT the questions and it would give me the answers. Has been such a beautiful equalizer or another time I did some informal research about attitudes related to career development and identity and other things. And I interviewed and collected data and I collected data from dozens of people using a form and instead of fumbling through the system through the statistics. I uploaded my data of course without the names of the participants because really it was anonymous anyway. Anyway, upload the data and ask, ChatGPT to run, inferential and advanced statistics and tell me whether there was a significant difference, what the outliers were in seconds. And AI has just been such a help for me as I know it has been for many other people.

00:35:28 Andrew: Yeah, if not for anything else, just the, the validation and the confidence boost, I think. Just speaking from my own experience. Right. And you said earlier that you understood that concept of the statistics, but the AI is a tool to help with the sequencing and the actual arithmetic, right? Yes. Which you wouldn't know the right questions to ask the AI if you didn't have the grasp of statistics that you have, right? So I think that's amazing. It's super,

00:35:55 Flo: it was super helpful. But there's, there's also a lot of responsibility. I mean, there, so yes, there are strategies that someone who maths differently like me, whether it's this calculator or something else that there are, there are tools and resources that you can use. But in the workplace, it's also important for leaders to do their part.

00:36:14 Andrew: Yeah. We've talked a lot about psychological safety throughout the course of the series. And how it applies to ADHD. But I think that's also applicable for dyscalculia and really everyone on your team. They don't have to have a neurodivergence for them to benefit from feeling safe about speaking up at work and having those words not have any negative consequences to them. And in the shape of this particular concern, you know, like Flo's example earlier, having an employee be, having an employee feel safe and being able to say, hey, I math differently. And can you just look at these? Can or can I run this by you? Or can you confirm my numbers? Whatever that looks like. However, they may need to feel supported as a leader. It's your responsibility to make sure that that support is there without any negative consequences.

00:37:03 Flo: Yeah. A peer review never hurt anybody. Like, it's good to have a peer review anyway. Yeah,

00:37:10 Andrew: exactly. Another set of eyeballs never hurts. Another thing, and we've talked about this a little bit that I think leaders can do is to make work more inclusive. So, the example that we gave about the slide deck or presentations and having meaningful graphics included in the presentation, that is one way that we can ensure that we're including people that math differently. So, it's about presenting data visually. And, you know, nobody loves a boring slide deck. So, don't just throw in clip art to take up space. Like, have it tell part of your story. Have it show that, you know, green arrow or red traffic light or whatever it is that helps people make meaning of the data.

00:37:48 Flo: Yeah.

00:37:49 Andrew: Another way is if you're going to be talking math or figures, send those figures in advance. I think I heard Flo say that earlier that it was helpful for her to be able to spend time with numbers so she can make sense of them ahead of the meeting so that when she was in the meeting, she could talk to them that she would, you know, having had that time, be able to grasp the concept behind them and talk to the story and the meaning of what they're actually conveying. Yeah. So, leaders, again, psychological safety and making work flexible and acknowledging that there are differences in how people's brains work and your role in having a safe and productive team is giving people the freedom and the space that they need to work comfortably and safely. Yes.

00:38:38 Flo: I know. That's good for everyone. So, oh my gosh, this was hard. Yeah. I'm glad that we had this conversation. And, you And, you know, as we wrap up this episode, you know, we've talked about dyscalculia and what it's about and then also ways to help, you know, whether using calculators, giving yourself time to double check and arrive at places, reaching out to your support system, using AI, and got to mention seeking professional support from qualified experts. And for leaders, make it safe for people to disclose and make work more inclusive. As Andrew just mentioned, using, you know, presenting data visually and giving people a heads up. It's a lot, but thank you for joining us for this conversation. And we hope that you keep being you different at work.

00:39:33 Andrew: Hi, one final note. We are not mental health professionals, and nothing you hear in this podcast is meant to replace therapy, diagnosis, or professional care. We are just two people sharing what we've lived and learned. If today's episode brought something up for you, or you're just looking for support, visit our website at differentatwork.com for additional resources. Again, that's differentatwork.com. Just click the Resources tab. Goodbye.