Dog walking thoughts - neurodiversity

I have a freelancing client who is particularly chaotic. Lovely guy, charismatic, successful, creative, but every single time I do some work for him it’s a whirlwind of last-minute amends and late nights. We had a Zoom about a project recently and he mentioned his ADHD in passing and BAM! All of a sudden everything was clear! Why hadn’t I thought that he might be neurodivergent? Is it my age (ADHD was reserved only for the absolutely crazy kids at school, and they were certainly never women)? Do I completely lack empathy? Or maybe I’m just used to these kinds of people getting dismissed by society as “wild” or “entrapreurial” (as a euphemism) or just straight-up unteachable and unemployable?

Now that I’ve had a week or so to think about it, I can see that many people in my working life aren’t just chaotic and disorganised, they’ve got ADHD or some other neurospiciness.

So this is really just a reminder to myself anyone who needs to hear it to give these lovely whirlwinds of madness a bit more leeway in life, but also to make sure that you take a more active role in managing them - to chase them for feedback if needed, to clearly manage expectations and to be absolutely up front with what you’re providing them and what you need in return. I know that for me (who is also slightly on the chaos and disorder end of the spectrum!) in an ideal world I’d only work with people who are fastidiously organised, but alas life isn’t perfect but also not collaborating with people who don’t fit in the box you might like them to would lose you some spectacular collaborations.

Today’s photo is of Emily’s beautiful young wirehaired Viszla, Ada, enjoying having her ears flapped around by the wind on the top of the Malvern Hills.