Starting a business can be a life-changing move, especially for those navigating the complexities of ADHD and autism. In a recent conversation, Brett, the AuDHD Boss, sat down with Patrick Casale, a therapist, private practice coach, and host of the All Things Private Practice podcast, to discuss his journey from workplace burnout to business success. Patrick shares candidly about his experience working in a demanding community mental health setting, the toll it took on his mental health, and the pivotal moment that pushed him to leave and start his own private practice.
Burnout in the Workplace
For Patrick Casale, burnout wasn’t just a buzzword – it was a reality. Working in a 24-hour walk-in mental health urgent care center in Asheville, North Carolina, he was on call 24/7. “It was a great concept in theory, but drastically underfunded,” Patrick recalls. “I was working 60-hour weeks in middle management, asked to do more with less support.” The unrelenting pressure led to severe burnout, culminating in a hospital visit. “I kept thinking, there’s got to be something else. This is not sustainable.”
Breaking Free and Starting a Business
Leaving the stability of a paycheck for the uncertainty of self-employment is daunting, especially when you lack business training. Patrick was undiagnosed autistic at the time and struggled to make sense of a workplace that refused to offer raises but celebrated annual pizza parties. “That was my breaking point,” he shares. Patrick finally wrote – and submitted – his resignation letter after being told he wasn’t eligible for a raise while others were.
Navigating Self-Doubt and Imposter Syndrome
Starting a business didn’t erase Patrick’s self-doubt. In fact, it magnified it. He vividly remembers sitting alone in his office after a series of client no-shows, questioning whether he was cut out for business ownership. “I sat there in the dark for hours, convincing myself this is clearly not going to work,” he says. But instead of giving up, Patrick pivoted. He implemented new policies, adapted his routines, and sought out connections with other business owners who shared their stories of resilience and growth.
Creating Self-Accommodations as an ADHD & Autistic Business Owner
For Patrick, the transition from a highly structured workplace to self-employment brought both freedom and chaos. “I went from working 70 hours a week to 20,” he explains. The challenge was not just finding clients but managing his own executive function. Over time, Patrick learned to structure his days to balance work, rest, and personal time. “I had to create a pretty regimented schedule – two to three days of work and one or two days just to decompress.”
Patrick’s accommodations included setting clear boundaries, such as specific networking hours and scheduled send for emails to avoid late-night idea dumps. “That way, I could get the thoughts out of my head without overwhelming my team at 2 a.m.,” he explains.
Empowering Other Neurodivergent Entrepreneurs
Today, Patrick has not only built a thriving private practice but also coaches other therapists on how to launch their own businesses. His message is simple: “Doubt yourself, but do it anyway.” He emphasizes the importance of normalizing fear and failure while also embracing the entrepreneurial journey as a neurodivergent leader. “You’re not the only one feeling this way,” he says. “The more we talk about it, the more we take the power back.”
Building a Neurodivergent-Affirming Workplace
One of the biggest lessons Patrick learned as a business owner was the value of creating an affirming workplace culture. Today, he employs 25 therapists, all of whom are neurodivergent. “We do things in such an unorthodox way,” he says. “No dress codes. No mandatory office hours. We build the role around the person, not the other way around.”
He shares a practical example of this flexibility – using a communication preferences form that allows staff to indicate whether they prefer email, text, or video calls for check-ins. “I’ve hired people strictly over email conversations without ever seeing their face, because that’s what worked best for them,” he says.
Final Thoughts: Turning Fear Into Fuel
Patrick Casale’s journey from burnout to business success serves as a compelling reminder that the entrepreneurial path isn’t linear – especially for those with ADHD and autism. But by embracing self-accommodations, redefining workplace norms, and leaning into fear instead of letting it drive the ship, he’s found a way to thrive. “If there’s one thing I want people to take away,” Patrick says, “it’s that the world didn’t stop spinning when I started speaking openly about my struggles. In fact, it started to spin in my favor.”
Connect with Patrick Casale
Listeners can hear more from Patrick on his All Things Private Practice podcast and the Divergent Conversations podcast with Dr. Megan Anna Neff. He also recently delivered a TEDx Talk, sharing his experiences as a neurodivergent business owner. To learn more about his work and upcoming projects, visit his website [Insert Link Here].
For more conversations on navigating ADHD, autism, and entrepreneurship, subscribe to the AuDHD Boss channel and stay tuned for more insightful discussions.
Below is the transcript from our conversation:
Brett (00:00):
From imposter syndrome to overwhelm to figuring out your own self accommodations. Starting a business on your own or running a small business can bring a tremendous amount of independence for those of us with autism and ADHD. And it can also come with unique challenges and its own kind of anxiety. I’m Brett the AuDHD Boss and on this channel we talk about ADHD and autism in the workplace. I’m an autistic leader with ADHD and I have over 10 years of leadership training and experience. Today I’m thrilled to be talking to Patrick Al, who’s the co-host of Divergent Podcasts with Dr. Meghan Ann Enough, and also he hosts all things private practice. Patrick is a mental health and addiction therapist. He’s a group practice owner and a private practice coach and strategist for therapists. And he recently completed a TED Talk. Our conversation is in three parts.
(00:48):
The first part is learning about how Patrick struggled with the formal workplace situation in an early job and how he made the critical decision to leave. And in the second part of that conversation how Patrick sort of moved into the place of understanding how to normalize fear and failure while trying to start his own business and how that work both led him to help himself and others. We then address that fear of is it too late for me? A question. Many of us worry about different things that we want to take on as we lean into our late diagnosis. In the third part of our conversation, we talk about being ADHD and autistic leaders and how we create affirming workplaces for the people that we work with and the people that work for us. We started off our conversation with the job that Patrick was struggling with, the changed everything for him.
Patrick (01:34):
To give some context, I’m a licensed mental health therapist in North Carolina, so my last place of employment was a community mental health agency here in Asheville and it was a 24 hour walk in mental health urgent care. It was like one of the first of its kind in the area, and the whole goal was reduce recidivism from people going to the hospital for mental health care. It was a great concept in theory, but drastically underfunded. I was working maybe 60 hour weeks, I was in middle management. That’s a no win space to be, cannot please the administration ever and never doing enough. And they’re constantly asking for more productivity but with less resource
Speaker 3 (02:16):
And
Patrick (02:16):
Then having to go to staff meetings and be like, Hey guys, we got to do more and we are not getting more help. And it was just so demoralizing to be involved in that type of environment day in and day out. And because it was a 24 hour locked facility, I was on call 24 hours a day, 365, and if a nurse called out at two in the morning, it was my responsibility to figure out how do we fill this space with our limited staffing pattern. Burnout was so high, I ended up in the hospital and throughout that tenure I was just thinking, there’s got to be something else. This is not sustainable for me. And because mental health in this country specifically at large do not really focus or talk about business ownership, it’s almost taboo. There was never any other course in my mind other than this is my career and if I can’t handle it, then I guess maybe I chose the wrong career
Brett (03:15):
Path. I can only imagine how sensor wise and overwhelmed and the stress levels that you were carrying with you throughout that entire experience, just how much pressure that must have been putting on you day in and day out.
Patrick (03:26):
Yeah, it was a lot. You’re pounding caffeine constantly because you’re working 12 hour, 14 hour shifts and then your sleep schedule is all jacked up and your mental health is all in disarray and you kind of trauma bond with your staff in a way because seeing these horrific things happen on a daily basis and you’re kind of looking at each other,
Brett (03:53):
I
Patrick (03:53):
Guess we just figure this out.
Brett (03:54):
What was your pathway out of that? How did you figure out I can go do something else?
Patrick (03:59):
During that time, the agency I was with got another grant for another startup and it was more of a case management pathway instead of a clinical pathway. And I was like, I think I need less stress in my life. I’m going to apply for one of the team leads on this new grant. I ended up getting the position, I do it for about a year and it really just was not fulfilling. I mean it was a lot of paperwork, it was a lot of sitting in an office, similar issues with the other program where you’re a startup and you’re kind of having to constantly prove productivity goals and meet quotas, and I was just not happy at all and I had this idea of starting my own private practice and it felt like so taboo, almost like too risky and too pie in the sky.
(04:46):
And I also have zero business training and I just kept convincing myself like, no, that’s not for me. I kept seeing all of these private practice startup checklists circulating within therapist Facebook groups that I’m a part of, and I would look at them and get really overwhelmed and just be like, no, not today. As my level of burnout increased, I was trying to figure out ways to leave my job every day to go connect with people in the community who were in their own private practices for lunch or coffee and they were telling me these stories about, yeah, it’s scary and it’s a risk, but I’ve never been happier. And I was like, that seems like such a fantasy and so unrealistic. But I started getting more and more excited about that possibility. I can’t tell you how many times I wrote my resignation letter and deleted it.
(05:37):
My tipping point was that my agency was notorious for celebrating the fact that they did not give raises. They were like, it was something they felt very spiteful in for some reason it was always like, we don’t do raises, but we do annual pizza parties. And I was like, okay, I can’t pay the bills that way. So they finally announced like, alright, we’re doing these annual across the board raises for each program based on productivity. Because I transferred to a new startup. I was one of the only people in the company that was told, you’re not eligible because you’re at a new position. We can’t gauge your productivity, so this is not something we can offer you. But every one of my staff got raises and I was like, well, this doesn’t make sense to me. And
Speaker 3 (06:23):
They’re like,
Patrick (06:23):
Well, hourly staff are different salary staff. You’re going to have to wait until next year. And I think that for me, the lack of it making sense, I was undiagnosed autistic at the time, I was like, this just doesn’t make sense and I’m not okay with this, so I’m quitting. And that was kind of the final straw for me. And I wrote my letter of resignation that day. I naively wrote a 90 day resignation letter. I was like, they’re going to need me. I am a supervisor, my team needs me, my staff needs me. They replace me in two days. So this is kind of what capitalism
Brett (07:01):
Means. All my years as a manager, I’ve learned there’s a formula to the notice. The first week is for people who give two weeks notice. The first week is usually nostalgia and the second week is just done. Nobody wants to do anything in that second week. The second week the staff that are staying or working around that person have to make those changes and the person who’s leaving is just So last week of school, I’m out of here. Yeah,
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Exactly.
Brett (07:31):
But yeah, the companies will immediately move to replace us. There’s no hesitation on their part.
Patrick (07:38):
No. And it was a shock to the system, but it was also a good reality check. And I ended up cutting that 90 day notice to about a 40 day notice and ended up leaving sooner. But I do remember going on an exit interview with my program manager and some other staff, and I remember her saying to me, I’ll see you back here in 30 days because nobody makes it on their own. And I was like, wow, that’s a really weird crappy thing to say. I thought friends,
Brett (08:07):
But also challenge accepted
Patrick (08:11):
The fire for sure. For the first couple of years I had it in my mind, no matter what, I am going to make it work on my own and I will never go back to working for somebody else.
Brett (08:23):
Yeah. Well, and especially if you’re anything like me, if someone says something like that to me, I am more determined than ever to prove them wrong if they’re going to, I don’t know if that’s PDA, it feels like PDA, but it’s definitely the fire. I need to go get that thing done
Patrick (08:42):
100%. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve anchored into that when things were kind of rocky at first when I started my own business, I would always try to keep stuff like that in my mind of, okay, things are really tough now, but I get to control the narrative and I get to control the environment. And for me, that just outweighed anything that might resemble safety and security.
Brett (09:07):
As you’re making that transition, I imagine now you’re introduced you, you’ve sunset one version of overwhelm, but were you walking into a different kind of overwhelm as you were sort of beginning your new business?
Patrick (09:19):
Oh yeah. As someone who has always been very entrepreneurial, I can remember doing yard sales and lemonade stands as a kid and shoveling driveways and stuff like that. And however, having zero business experience or training, it was tough. And the marketing side never felt unnatural to me. I enjoyed the networking component, but I really struggled with the dips, like the ebbs and flows. So if the phone didn’t ring for a couple of weeks with new client calls, I would immediately default into imposter syndrome of, see, you don’t know what you’re doing. This is not going to work. Or I still vividly remember one night in my office where I had three back to back to back no show cancellations, and I didn’t have any policy in place, so I didn’t have any credit cards on file, and I didn’t have any ability to collect any fee in that regard. So that was a moment where I sat there for hours in the dark of my office convincing myself, this is clearly not going to work. This is a failure. You don’t know what you’re doing. And thankfully as a therapist, I was able to ground and regulate
Speaker 3 (10:32):
And
Patrick (10:32):
Just say, okay, let’s just pivot and adapt. Let’s make the policy, let’s have everybody sign it. Let’s make sure that we get really comfortable talking about it and then going forward, this type of stuff won’t happen again. So it’s just those moments as a small business owner where you’re like, it’s a roller coaster ride. I would hate to say to anyone listening that it’s just completely filled with joy and satisfaction there. It’s a bumpy road, but I also think that, I always like to joke that my worst day in private practice or small business ownership is a million times better than my best day and my agency
Brett (11:12):
Job. How did you manage establishing routines and working with your executive function to get this to work for you and for your brain?
Patrick (11:26):
So when I started back in 2017, I had been diagnosed ADHD, but not autistic yet. And I think when you first start your own business, you have a lot of free time on your calendar. You kind of look at it and you’re like, what do I do? And you almost feel guilty for having the free time, and I’m always like, but I didn’t do this to recreate my agency job. So it took long time, especially now knowing that I am Audi DHD, it took a long time to get comfortable without having regimented routine and structure every day. So what I tried to do was start the day by a certain time, even if it meant going to a coffee shop and blogging or doing some marketing stuff, always trying to have things in my schedule without too many big gaps of time because in those situations I would do basically nothing and then ultimately use some of that time for networking. So I had weirdly, of course, I had these regimented blocks of time in my schedule, and that was my networking time, and if anyone asked me to meet outside of it, I was like, no, only network at this time.
(12:45):
And so I tried really hard to just build structure into a schedule where I was now working 20 hours a week instead of 70, and then trying really hard to almost allow my nervous system and have a decompression regulation time as well as getting comfortable with being uncomfortable about my schedule. And my inclination was always to fill it, right? My inclination was always free space, fill it with something. And I’ve had to really work hard on allowing there to be gaps for whatever reason and just trying to be more comfortable with that.
Brett (13:24):
I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about that discomfort, because I think especially for the ADHD part, there’s that a lot of us struggle with vacation and downtime and always feel like we have to fill that time with something. And I can imagine that feeling being present when I’m self-employed and trying to work through building a business. How did you manage that discomfort?
Patrick (13:46):
Not well, Megan, Anna and I have divergent conversations always talk about free floating anxiety
(13:55):
And the restlessness of being ADHD and feeling like there’s got to be something else or more creative or something that’s more exciting. The realization is that process for me pushed me into massive autistic burnout that I did not know that I had and was really the catalyst for discovery and diagnosis three years later because to the outsider would be probably defined or labeled a workaholic in some contexts. And in reality, it was just like I can’t get my nervous system in my brain to stop, so I need to give it something to do otherwise I feel so uncomfortable in my own skin that I want to crawl out of it at all times. So yeah, I didn’t handle it well.
Brett (14:45):
I relate to that in a similar, slightly different way though as the head of a department, I struggle to stop with my idea generation to the point that it overwhelms my team to the point that they’re like, we need a break. But I’m like, but we’ve got, oh, we’ve got an hour open there. We can fill that by doing this. It’s just like, no, we don’t need to fill every hour of every day of every moment.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
And
Brett (15:11):
Then eventually I’ve become overscheduled to the point that now I’m begging for that time to just have thinking time and thinking space, and I now accept because of my diagnosis, I need that processing time. And if I don’t give myself that and I don’t give my team that, we’re all screwed.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
So
Brett (15:30):
It’s definitely a feeling that comes up. I love how you phrase that. Did you need to build accommodations for yourself, especially so you knew you were ADHD in 2017 and then you later found out three years later you have autism. How did you start to then, or did you have to build accommodations for yourself as you continued to build your business?
Patrick (15:52):
So as I started to grow my business and learn significantly more about my neurology, I had to build in, and it’s still a struggle. I mean, just be really clear about this, that internal push pull of autism, ADHD is constant for
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Me
Patrick (16:09):
Because there’s always that part of me, like you were saying, idea generation projects, creativity, seeking out stimulation and excitement. And the other side is autism, waving the white flag of like, dude, no, no saying yes to meetings. No more. Putting this stuff on your calendar like an ADHD won out for several years. I’ve gotten significantly better. And one accommodation I’ve really built in is being able to boundary set by saying no to every new opportunity and really trying to step back and almost rank and wait it on a weekly basis of like, okay, here are these ideas or these opportunities. Does this meet green criteria, which is a go yellow, which is caution and maybe and red is no, but not no forever, but no for right now, and I’ve had to really work hard on that. Other accommodations that I’ve built in for myself is to give myself a pretty regimented schedule, two to three days a week, but then allowing myself to have one or two days where it can just literally be laying on the couch watching Lord of the Rings, one of my other special interests shows or things in general. So I’ve really had to do that. And then schedule sending stuff is my best friend because when my mind starts going at night,
(17:30):
As so many of us can relate to, and I don’t want to bother my team with ideas at two in the morning schedule, sending texts, schedule, sending emails, it gets it out of my brain, but it allows it to be sent, so it allows for me to have that piece. So those are some things that I did in terms of my executive functioning. I think my autism always has overcompensated for my ADHD. I’m not someone who forgets things easily. I’m not someone who feels traditionally scattered in a sense. So I’m very regimented in a lot of the things that I do, and I think it’s helped overcompensate, but I also think it’s helped to lead to a tremendous amount of autistic burnout.
Brett (18:09):
Yeah, I want to go back to the scheduled send. I can’t stress enough what a brilliant strategy that is. It’s a small, but very, I do the same thing. I’ll sit here at nine o’clock, 10 o’clock like you one o’clock in the morning, and I’ll have these ideas. And in the programs that I use, there’s actually now a notification that comes up that says, don’t you think it would be better to send this during working hours? I’m like, yes, yes, I should. So that I do the schedule. I appreciate that little program prompt to remind me to do that.
Patrick (18:44):
Yeah, it’s good to get you to pause for a couple seconds before, because I’ve been there where I’ve just been like, boom, idea, boom, boom, boom,
Brett (18:49):
Boom.
Patrick (18:50):
And then I’ve had team members wake up and be like, what the hell is,
Brett (18:54):
How are you now managing that imposter syndrome as you’re getting a little bit more established as you’re getting a little bit more settled? How are you working through that part of it?
Patrick (19:03):
So I used to experience it so intensely where it would prevent me from moving forward on goals and dreams and ideas that I had. And one thing that I would show up as is, okay, bad clinical interaction. Maybe the client no longer comes to therapy, all of a sudden supervision. I’m like, so yeah, I’m clearly the worst therapist of all time. And my supervisor would be like, I think it’s probably just rapport and maybe not a good fit. And I’m like, oh. So part of this discovery process for me of realizing that I’m autistic is allowing myself permission to unmask and be as authentically me as possible. And the realization then was like, oh, now I’m attracting the right clients and people who are a good fit when I’m speaking the way that I typically speak or putting information out into the world the way I present. So fast forwarding to now, I’ve had an interesting career trajectory since 2020. I got bored of being a therapist, if I’m being very honest. I was bored of doing one-on-one therapy, and then we hit the pandemic and I was like, I am so burnt out,
(20:12):
Or we’re in our homes, I’m working from home. I feel like I should have all this energy. I could see 40 clients a week if I wanted to. And then very quickly it was like, oh shit, we are dealing with the weight of the world. This is a lot. I pivoted in that time and started pursuing some other things that were interesting to me simultaneously by starting all things private practice, which is where I was coaching therapists to take the leap and leave their agency jobs and start their own businesses and work through imposter syndrome, self-doubt, perfectionism, et cetera. And funnily enough, it started with me doing Facebook lives in my living room during 2020. I had zero audience, not a single person about imposter syndrome. And I would be feeling it. My heart would be racing, being on camera and being public, and my grandma would be the only one who would respond. And she goes, your kitchen looks great, or the dogs look so good. I’m like, get out of here. This is.
(21:18):
So I realized the more I normalized this feeling of really struggling, and I didn’t realize it was probably some RSD as well, but normalizing the fear and the self-doubt and the imposter syndrome and the perfectionism and talking about the normalization of it, normalizing fear and failure, that started to really become my brand. And it launched into this whole other career path that I really never expected. And I realized the more we openly talk about the stuff that we find really challenging psychologically and emotionally, because honestly I’m not the only one experiencing that. So by putting words to it and putting it out into the world, you kind of take some of the power back from it, but it also helps someone else feel like seen and validated and it normalizes the human experience. So that kind of became honestly the foundation for the last five years of everything else that I’ve created. And I’m not saying I don’t experience it still because I do, but I’ve realized now that I would rather use fear as a gas pedal and not a break. And if I’m feeling really insecure or feeling tremendous amounts of self-doubt, I kind of coined the phrase, doubt yourself. Do it anyway. And that has become my motto because anytime I feel those feelings, I know that I’m on the right path instead of allowing it to be like, Ooh, I’m going to shrink back, and maybe these ideas are better suited for somebody else.
Brett (22:46):
How do you help people work their way through that doubt and keep going?
Patrick (22:52):
I think I used to take this approach of like, let’s give your imposter syndrome a funny voice and a funny name, and let’s really laugh at it. And that’s fine. I think humor is important, and I think play is important too to work through a lot of this stuff. But I’ve also realized let’s just acknowledge that it’s here and that it’s playing a role and that for a long time and our body or our brain warning us that something is risky was developed in us, and now we need to think about it more. So in terms of, okay, I acknowledge that that doubt is here. I, I’m noticing it’s showing up, it’s allowed to be here, but I’m not going to let it drive the ship anymore. I’m going to steer the ship and it can sit in the backseat. And the more you put your ideas out into the world, the more you share them with people who are going to be positive and supportive, the easier it is to navigate through some of this stuff. Because I find that when that idea or those goals live in our brains and it’s all cognitive, like cognition level, it can become really overwhelming and daunting. And it’s a lot easier to just say, not today, but if I put it out onto social media or in a safe space with the people who I know are supportive and I get a positive response or I realize the world didn’t stop spinning, it doesn’t take up as much weight, it’s not as heavy.
(24:23):
So I really help people challenge them to do some of that stuff. And it might feel really simplistic, but the reality is how often do we have these dreams and aspirations and goals, but we never talk about them? Because that might mean if I do talk about it, that means I have to follow through
(24:41):
Or someone’s going to say it’s not a good idea, or My RSD is going to be so bad that I have to completely back away from it. And it’s just really sad. Have you ever seen the movie Bronx Tale with Robert De Niro Back in the day, there’s a quote where he’s talking to his son and he says, the saddest thing in the world is wasted talent. And I believe that wholeheartedly because so many of us have so many good creative ideas, but we can often prevent ourselves from acting on them or convince ourselves that they’re better suited for somebody else. And I was helping other people start their businesses for coffee or for lunch or whatever, and people would keep saying, you should do this for a living. And I’m like, wait, what? No, who would pay me? Why would anyone ask me for my advice? And also, there was another private practice coach who lives here in Asheville who has a very large following, and I would say, why would anyone hire me
Speaker 3 (25:37):
If
Patrick (25:37):
You could hire them? And then I had lunch with my grad school mentor one day and she was like, I think it’s just because you have very different personalities and you attract very different people.
(25:48):
And that light bulb moment for me was like, oh yeah, we do kind of attract and repel by how we show up, and there are more than enough people who need or are looking for the services that we’re trying to offer or provide that you’re not going to be for everybody. I’m not going to be for everybody. And that’s okay. And that’s where relationship building is really important because if someone comes to me and says, Hey, this is stuff I want to work on and it’s not something I do, but I know that you do, I can say, well, Brett actually would be a much better fit for you. And I think that is so helpful in terms of also kind of navigating this entrepreneurial landscape.
Brett (26:27):
People who come to us and say, I feel like it’s too late for me. And I think we both try to sit on the same message of, no, let’s work through that. Let’s work through that. So I’m curious how you help them through that.
Patrick (26:41):
I mean, I want to honor that thought process and explore it a bit because it could be, it’s too late in my career, it’s too late in my age range, it’s too late in my energy levels, or it’s just not the right season of life. But in reality, I’m always trying to get to the value point. So I always want to know the why. What is the why behind what you’re looking to accomplish or create or what you’re looking to pursue? Really tapping into that values aligned mentality, strategy and business alignment. Because I think for us, for those of us who are autistic, ADHDers or neurodivergent in general, a lot of us are very values aligned.
(27:18):
So if we can really anchor into our values about why we are doing the thing and why we feel really passionate about something, it allows for it to be a bit easier to overcome some of the objections too old, too late, too whatever season of life type of stuff. And I really just want to explore the values piece of it because I think for me, whenever I think to myself, I want to give up on something or I want to hang this up, or this is done for me, circling back to the why, and for me it was always autonomy, freedom, the ability to make my own choices and decisions and set my own schedule and the ability to share my message with the world. I think oftentimes that’s something I feel very passionate about. If I can anchor into the values, I can kind of overcome some of the resistance or the struggle or the mental blocks that come up. We don’t have that many individually unique ideas. And I think that’s something we also need to recognize is you might have a similar idea to someone else, but you might be putting your own life’s perspective and experience
(28:29):
And your own thought and creativity into it and a different approach. I’m not the first person to become a mental health therapist in private practice. I’m not the first person to be a private practice or business coach. There are so many, but the reality is a lot of those people got started and a lot of people did not. And that’s I think sometimes the differentiation,
Brett (28:51):
The spark that helped me start all of this that I’m doing, it was a colleague who had lost their job where we worked, and then she was doing some new incredible, amazing work that I was so impressed by. And she said to me, you just have to figure out what is that thing that you have a voice on that’s unique to what in that what you can do and what you can specifically talk about.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Find
Brett (29:15):
That thing and then run with it. Exactly. And that’s what I did. So it was really phenomenal advice. I’m always grateful to her for that.
Patrick (29:23):
Being an Audi DHD leader or employer, I think that workplace culture creation has been something that I felt very passionate about. And hiring practices, how to support your staff who are typically neurodivergent, ADHD autistic or ADHD. That has become a big part of my day to day,
(29:46):
And I didn’t know what I was doing there either. If I’m being honest. I was so busy back in 2020 with clients that a friend reached out to me and said, would you hire me? And I was like, dude, I help people do this for a living. I’ll do it for free for you. No, I don’t want to do any of the business side. And I was like, okay, you’re going to be the Guinea pig because I have no idea how to be a boss or an employer. And fast forward till now, and he’s still with the company and we have 25 therapists who are all autistic or ADHD or ADHD, and I think it’s a navigation system and a landscape where you’re constantly trying to make sure that you are supporting neurology and being affirming and supporting communication style and processing style. And everyone’s a bit different. So really trying to be a boss or leader or employer that doesn’t see things as a black and white. I never wanted to be the person who was like, you have to be here from these hours to these hours, or you have to do things this way. And I’ve done a lot of training for organizations on how to create a more affirming workplace culture. And it’s amazing how many people just default into the like, well, this is just how we’ve always done it,
Brett (30:58):
How you’re supposed to do it. Yes. I hate hate when I hear that, your reaction
Patrick (31:05):
When you hear that way doing your work.
Brett (31:08):
Yeah, it makes me crazy. Just like there’s always another way. And that’s sort of my message that’s similar. There’s always another way. And if we’re leaning into, if I’m a person who is sitting here asking for accommodations for myself or I’m figuring out my own accommodations, then it would be deeply hypocritical of me to not then expand those even for whether I know or don’t know, if someone’s diagnosed or maybe they’re not, maybe they’re holistic, fine, those accommodations are going to help everybody no matter what, and it’s going to help an employee feel seen and it’s going to help them feel psychological safety in their job.
Patrick (31:48):
Yeah, a hundred percent. And sometimes the accommodation requests are so minute
(31:53):
Where it’s just like, why would you not say yes to this stuff? I have a hard time with that and what I see a lot of in certain workplace culture, and I think anything I’ve ever thought about internally where I was like, I don’t think this makes sense, are all the things I try to either implement or to talk about with my staff and to have that type of experience because we have a pretty good employee retention rate right now for a reason. And I think it’s because we do things in such an unorthodox way where it feels like, oh, I don’t have to work in an environment where I’m stressed about A, B, C, D, and E all the time. I don’t have to worry about my dress code every day or the hours that I work. I don’t care about any of that stuff. It just makes no sense to me.
Brett (32:44):
When I hire people, one of the questions that I have in my interview process, and I ask them again after the interview process is, tell me about your working style. Tell me about your brain’s needs. What do you need to be successful at this job? But don’t tell me the answer you think I want to hear. Tell me for you, your brain, your working style, your needs. What do you specifically need to be successful? How do you
Patrick (33:07):
Work
Brett (33:08):
So that we can build the role around you?
Patrick (33:13):
And I love that because it’s a much more affirming model than just kind of saying, this is the job, take it or leave it. And
(33:20):
I implemented something that I created a simple Google form, but it’s a communication preferences form, and it’s just kind of like, how do you like to communicate? What’s your preference? What’s your style? How do you process information? And this has allowed us to, I do one-on-one quarterly with my staff and it has allowed for some of them to be like, Hey, can we do our check-in via text today instead of video call or things like that. And just giving that flexibility in terms of accommodation. I’ve also hired people strictly over email conversation without ever seeing their face, and it’s because they’ve been like, I really struggle on camera, or I really struggle on a zoom call when I’m feeling anxious, so can we just please email a synchronistically back and forth? And I’m like, absolutely. And I think it’s about trying to take those risks sometimes when you’re like, oh, this isn’t how I’m supposed to do it. But in reality it’s like, how are we supposed to do it?
Brett (34:16):
Let’s challenge the systems that we’ve been conditioned to because those systems are what is causing us the burnout. It’s causing us the harm, and so what’s causing the burnout and things like that. I think also for managers as well, for people managers, it’s important to also try to have enough awareness when having those employee conversations in whatever format that they are to know when to also back off and let that person go process
Patrick (34:47):
A hundred
Brett (34:47):
Percent. I think far too often I’ve had to learn that lesson the hard way, but it’s so critically important to go, okay, this person, they need space.
Patrick (34:59):
Yeah, one of my clinical directors is a very good friend of mine, and she would definitely be someone she would consider self-defined as a slower processor, and she really needs time. And I would get irritated by that initially, and I’ll be like, we need an answer on this today. Now it’s like, do you need four or five days to figure out how we want to approach situation A, B, and C? And I think it’s about, as a leader having accountability to when you also step in it, make a mistake, do something where you’re like, oh, that doesn’t feel aligned. Let’s walk that back, but let’s stay accountable to it. And I think that’s been a big process for me in terms of I want to show up authentically, I want to be accountable, and I also want my staff to feel like they can call me on things if things don’t feel aligned.
Brett (35:48):
Yeah, I’ve found the exact same thing. There is more trust built when you step into that accountability as a manager. And when you bring with you a lot of transparency,
Patrick (36:03):
A hundred percent,
Brett (36:03):
The more you can own transparency, bring people in on what they need to know as soon as they need to know that thing and help them process through how it impacts them in their role. Exactly. And I think as a manager, it’s also important to recognize they don’t care about your role. They care about how this is going to affect their role. So true.
Patrick (36:29):
I think of Michael Scott on the office so often, and I’m like, they don’t care about my day to day. For the most part, this is their livelihood. Accountability matters in leadership and I think it’s really important for transparency’s sake,
Brett (36:42):
My thanks to Patrick for his time today. It was really such a pleasure to talk to him and learn about his experience and about the work that he does and just sort of how he moves through all of the advisory that he does for people. You can hear more from Patrick on his podcast, all things private practice and also divergent conversations with Dr. Megan Anna Neff. Patrick also recently shared his TED Talk on Instagram, and be sure to check out his website for more information about him, the podcast that he hosts, the coaching that he does, the practices that he runs, and all things that he’s involved in. He’s involved with a great many things and it’s definitely worth checking out. I placed a link to all of those things in the description below. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. And be sure to like and subscribe to the channel because it really does help my channel grow. And while you’re here, be sure to check out some of the other topics that I have covered on this channel, and if there’s a topic or an area you’d like for me to be diving into, leave me a comment on one of my videos or shoot me a note through the information in the bio on my page. Thanks for watching and thanks for checking out the AuDHD Boss.