Hacking Neurodiversity in Web3

Transcript

[Music] foreign what's up everyone my name is Annalisa I work with super modular and the project that I work on with super modular is called Bittle box uh we're a hackathon platform or self-service hackathon platform but um that's not what I'm talking about today uh I did use a play on words and hacking when it comes to my presentation but I am talking about hacking neurodiversity in web3 so um and that pertains to web3 work culture and just general mental health and wellness overall so as I said this presentation has nothing

to do with crypto it does have to do with working in the crypto space in my experiences with it um which I feel is a lot different than my experience working in web 2. I have been working in the web 3 space since February of last year and I noticed that I mean there are a lot of changes in web3 and there's a lot of uh I think in general cultural wise in web 3 we're trying to move away from different norms and different standards that were originally used in web 2. so um why am I talking about this well I guess I could talk about me for a second uh the slide is blank because I find it very difficult to talk about

myself but I am talking about neurodiversity because I have ADHD uh when I first started working at we were originally on git coin but when I first started working in web3 this was the first time that I actually felt comfortable uh disclosing in an interview at the very first stage that I had ADHD and uh from my experiences working in web 3 also I noticed that there are a lot of people like me that are neurodivergent there's a Twitter saying we call it neuro spiciness instead but I think neurodivergence is the bucket of ADHD autism and a couple other mental conditions so we can call

it neurospiciness but so here's the why I kind of touched on why I'm talking about this uh I do feel like there are a lot of neurodivergence that work in with web 3 so I would love to unpack that and also I want to talk about different I guess productivity hacks or methods that have worked for me uh and some that haven't hopefully this will help you all and if you are neurodivergent or if you're not maybe you're a people Ops person and you are working with employees that uh need a little bit of uh extra help or support so um main point here mental health is very important and I think that we do need to

create a culture or we need to build more transparency around it and allow people to or enable um people to be able to talk about it openly in the workplace uh because I mean I could speak to my experience and my friends experiences with working in web3 we work a lot we deal with burnout a lot we deal with stress anxiety so uh we got to talk about it we all gotta thrive okay so um I know during the pandemic they're like with Tick Tock uh a lot of people became self-diagnosed with ADHD which I think I'm not going to say that is untrue

because uh ADHD is very under diagnosed in among women and among people of color so I think it's really good that ADHD and I guess neurodivergence in general gained a lot of viral attention but uh there are a lot of funny memes out there but I do want to make it clear that neurodivergence is not a cute little Quirk it is actually a mental condition and um it's very important to understand and yeah set my water real quick okay I don't want to cut into the next person's time so a couple things I wanted to bring attention to are microaggressions we talk a lot about a we talk about this a

lot in web 2 if you have attended a diversity training but generally that pertains to um gender or racial bias but I want to just talk about some ableist microaggressions that I've either heard in the workplace or just among my friends so some of these pertain to ADHD but I've there's probably tons more if you are neurodivergent maybe you've heard some of these yourself uh you're always late this is funny because I was actually late today that's not my fault I'm just going to say that but um aside from that like I've heard a lot like I don't think that's an ADHD thing

um from colleagues or just from my friends ADHD and autism it's essentially a spectrum so we tend to or I guess for me I tend to struggle a little bit harder with what seems to be like a normal normal person struggle like just a regular work day or average workload sometimes um executive functioning like self-care can be extremely difficult for me or for someone who is neurodivergent or struggling with a mental condition versus the average human um let's see a couple other things I've heard just focus it's not that hard yes it is everyone has ADHD nowadays

which I have mixed feelings about this because that is kind of debatable but I do think downplaying and minimizing any mental condition in general is uh can be considered a microaggression and I have heard in response to me disclosing that I am neurodivergent LOL of course you do it's so obvious so those are a couple things I'm sure if you've struggled with this maybe you've heard some yourself that you can think of but okay so just I I know I skipped through my about me but uh when I was working in web 2 I had a lot of uh I struggled a lot with

falling in love with my job and being excited about the work that I do um and it end result I I came off a lot more inattentive uh it wasn't until I started working in web 3 where I like the position that I am in now I it plays up to all of my skills it is constantly stimulating but with that that also leads to excess like very very excessive burnout um for a lot of us that work in web 3 we do work on International distributed teams so uh sometimes it feels like there isn't an actual nine to five work day sometimes that's exciting but sometimes um when you are running excessively on

dopamine or you're just constantly working and constantly running around uh you can crash really really hard it's not just an ADHD thing in my opinion we all do suffer from burnout uh I did notice that um I think when I was at Devcon in Bogota it was extremely overly mentally stimulating and after Bogota I didn't really take the necessary steps to prevent the um to prevent my burnout but I crashed extremely hard I think I went into like a 10-day depressive slump because I was um just traveling 10 days straight talking to people exuding all of my energy uh and it might appear that I have a lot of energy to exude but there

is a cap so um common contributors of burnout uh masking so hiding your authentic self or yeah hiding your authentic self and efforts to fit in or come off as normal to the average person I know masking for those who are who are autistic looks a lot different for those who struggle with ADHD let's see so executive functioning fatigue uh following a oh hello following a number of stressors or transitions I'm going to talk about transitions next but um when I'm talking about executive functioning fatigue that means struggling with self-care

um struggling with daily tasks it's impossible to focus on anything for me that looks like when I go home the laundry's piling up dishes are in the sink I can't even get out of bed so that's what that looks like um and then burnout happens when your overall workload exceeds your abilities and your support so common symptoms I kind of went over that already executive reduced executive functioning anxiety and depression um usually it's anxiety comes first and then if it's like for me that was 10 consecutive days of recovering from burnout that did feel like it was airing on the side of depression uh chronic

exhaustion and then lack of basic self-care um so I did want to touch on this because I want to make it known that for ADHD specifically it does go beyond just a mental condition where you're struggling to focus or you're very very hyper um there are emotional um how to how did I say this there are like emotional conditions that are also associated with ADHD uh for me I often struggle with imposter syndrome I offer I often struggle with well now that I became aware of it um RSD which is rejection sensitive dysphoria so um it's characterized characterized by intense emotional pain triggered by

rejection teasing or criticism so um that can even be If you're receiving like feedback at work and maybe your boss thinks that you know or it is constructive feedback to the average human uh sometimes for those with ADHD they take that very heavily they take it very seriously um it can feel like they're being kicked down if it might feel like you know you're failing or you're a failure uh once I did learn about this I um this actually helped me to not take things as personally and to be able to work through uh work through it when I am feeling triggered by any feedback um so common symptoms emotional outbursts social avoidance deep fear of failure

um approval seeking Behavior oh okay well really quick on this um I didn't actually make a slide for this but when I did first start working in web3 I was so used to uh struggling in my previous uh web 2 positions and um some often like you know being considered a disengaged or uh like a bad employee I've been fired I've been laid off before um so when I first started working in this job that really excited me that I really love uh I'm not going to say love because I still do love it uh I felt the need to over perform because I was doing everything possible to avoid any failure or any perception that I do have a

mental condition so um that eventually led to burnout as well so um this presentation doesn't really have a flow so uh what I want to talk about next I I said we were going to touch on this um a few slides back but for those who are neurodivergent um for being with ADHD it is extremely difficult or some often difficult to transition in between tasks unless I have like a set routine if I have a set timer I have to constantly um and actively make sure that I am

creating a ritual out of transitioning between different tasks so for all of us most of us are traveling um there are big transitions that we need to uh that we need to I guess recover from so that's work travel and events sometimes that does take a couple days um my recommendation is you're going to want to take at least one or two days off of work no work when you come home uh just to give yourself some time to return to your routine get some rest your laundry unpack your luggage it is a scheduled day for me and then a smaller transition so I'm going to assume most of us work from

home or we're working remotely uh there's even smaller day-to-day transitions that we need to make sure that we're doing to partition our tasks or when we're moving away from a project from one project to another uh this can take just 10 to 15 minutes out of your day but it is very important to mentally reset and so that you can go into your next task with a clear mind uh for me I like to go on a walk I tidy up my space I listen to music or I put on a transitioning song um or I meditating meditation is great I'm not going to say I meditate because that's actually really difficult for me to

quiet my mind during the day but for those who can meditate highly recommend or try it okay so how many sides do I have next I'm not sure if there's any two minutes okay I'm almost done too so um I'm not sure if there's any people Ops folks in here but uh one thing that really stood out to me oh cool maybe Arthur hey one thing that really stood out to me from our people ops manager uh when I was well we started at Bitcoin we changed to Super modular that's a long story um but I mentioned earlier that I felt very comfortable uh in being transparent about having ADHD with her uh from the

jump I actually like have a Instagram Community where I share like a lot of these tips and I shared that with her um but this is something that I felt was a lot different in my web 3 like work experience was that um my people ops manager genuinely cared uh from the jump she asked how can I support you um instead of uh making me feel bad for my big 10-day burnout episode back after Pagoda or Bogota um I felt that she was genuinely looking out for me and she sat me down well virtually and she said hey

like what's going on how can I help do you need some days off uh I know you're burnt out um so I think it's it's as simple as that it's as simple as just asking how can I offer you support um she did research some uh potential reasonable accommodations which um I believe it's like a U.S law that employers need to provide reasonable accommodation for those with mental conditions or disabilities so some examples of um I find it difficult to ask for help so even just asking or asking me if I need support is enough but um there are reasonable accommodations

out there I have not asked for them I could but that can be something like asking your job to provide a noise cancellation headphones or possibly like a co-working space so you can get out of the house and you have a place to um you have a place to work okay two more slides I'm almost done okay your environment and your daily rituals are very important if you are working remotely and you're traveling uh try and make a home out of wherever you are maybe that's bringing a crystal with you uh your favorite mug and at least building a schedule this is my last flight I promise but I did want to share something that we can all benefit from this is what my therapist taught me instead of having like a very extensive

daily planner I have a very simple daily planner where every single day I write two work things that I need to complete one self-care activity and then one fun activity and that keeps it extremely simple take a picture real quick because I'm getting cut off I apologize and um this has been very helpful my Google Calendar is in shambles but this is what I always come to so I know at the end of the day that I've done things for myself and I've done two of my work priorities all right that's it thank you all that's I know I'm sorry all right thank you all if you have any questions um hit me up on Twitter my Twitter is at not Annalisa and um my name is Annalisa

thank you all foreign