Khushboo Chabria from Neurodiversity Pathways, powered by the Goodwill of Silicon Valley
Welcome to the third episode of The Brain Game Changer podcast. I am your host, Melissa Gough. In this week's episode we headed to Northern California where I had the wonderful online pleasure of speaking with Khushboo Chabria. Khushboo is currently a Program Manager, Job Coach and Facilitator at Neurodiversity Pathways - a social impact program powered by the Goodwill of Silicon Valley. She is passionate about diversity and inclusion and in the conversations I was fortunate to experience with her, presented as one of the most optimistic people I have ever met!
This wonderful human wears many hats and we talk about her journey in discovering her own neurodiverse diagnoses, the challenges it presented and then how a conversation, which highlighted her unique skill set led her to discovering Neurodiversity Pathways. We also shine a light on the Peaces Of Me Foundation where Khushboo is a Board Member.
Links:
Follow @thebraingamechanger on Instagram
Email: thebraingamechanger@gmail.com
Follow @ndpathways on Instagram
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Melissa Gough 0:08
Hello and welcome to an episode of The Brain Game Changer: where heartfelt stories, awareness and education can change the game. Each week we delve into the experiences of amazing humans, advocates and organisations from all walks of life, who share their adversities, the triumphs after tragedy, the milestones and those brain game changing moments right here in front of the mic. Through this journey together, we may find that we can learn some valuable tools, knowledge or education that will lead us into becoming game changers for ourselves, or someone around us or even for our community. My name is Melissa, thank you for inviting me into your space. It is great to be with you.
Melissa Gough 0:53
Welcome to the third episode of The Brain Game Changer podcast. Before I delve into a little bit more about what this week's episode entails, I just want to say a massive thank you to the wonderful feedback, subscribes and downloads of the podcast, it is immensely appreciated. It also creates more awareness and more brain game changing opportunities for everyone else out there, so thank you, keep it going. In this week's episode, we headed to Northern California, where I had the wonderful online pleasure of speaking with Khushboo Chabria. Khushboo is currently a programme manager, job coach and facilitator at Neurodiversity Pathways, which is a social impact programme under The Goodwill of Silicon Valley. She is passionate about diversity and inclusion and one of the most optimistic people I have ever met. This wonderful human wears many hats, and we talk about her journey on discovering her own ADHD, the challenges they presented, and then how conversation which highlighted her unique skill set led her to discovering Neurodiversity Pathways and Peaces Of Me Foundation where she is currently a board member. Let's get started.
Melissa Gough 2:04
Good morning from Melbourne, Khushboo, and welcome to The Brain Game Changer Podcast. It's great to have you with us.
Khushboo Chabria 2:21
Thank you, Melissa.
Melissa Gough 2:23
So we're going to segue back, we're going to get a bit of the backstory, can you just share with us what growing up was like for you? Where you grew up, and I guess your education journey with that?
Khushboo Chabria 2:36
Yeah, definitely. So I was actually born in India, I moved with my family to the United States, when I was 10 years old, I was a very busy kid, I had a lot of friends, I was the teacher's pet, I talked a lot, I had a lot of energy. But you know, my parents, they didn't know a lot about ADHD or anything about what that could be, because they just didn't have any awareness of it. I didn't know when I was a little kid that I had been, you know, sort of masking this all this time. When I moved to America, I felt like I was suddenly, you know, super further away from the community that I grew up with, and I kind of had to assimilate to American culture. But I'm very good at mimicking others, and I'm very good at picking up what people are doing, and sort of modelling that. So it wasn't until I was 30 years old, that I actually discovered that I had ADHD.
Melissa Gough 3:42
Can you take us back to that time when you went to university, what was starting to happen, what was starting to change within you for you to observe, something's really different here and I can't quite put my hand on it.
Khushboo Chabrai 3:53
When I lived at home with my family, they had a lot of routines around my life, and once I went off to college, all of that had gone out the window. I didn't know how to take care of myself, I never had to do it. It's not that I wasn't an independent person. But at the same time, it could be that I knew how to cook meals, but I didn't have the discipline to eat meals on time. It could be that I know how to set an alarm clock, but I didn't know how to stop procrastinating. When you know some of the skills but you don't know yourself well enough, then it's really hard to think about what you need, because I really did struggle in college. That's when it started.
Melissa Gough 4:38
First of all, though, congratulations with all that you are experiencing, you did get there! So that's a milestone in itself! It sort of seems like it was a time where you graduated from college, which was an achievement in itself, but it sort of sounds like at the same time you're sort of discovering, hang on, I've got a lot of this internal thing going on here. I'm confused about what's happening with me. I'm trying to grasp who I am going forward and what strategies are going to work for me. So where did you go next? What was the next step for you?
Khushboo Chabria 5:13
When I was in university, actually, I kind of felt like I was sort of grasping at all these different things. I didn't know what I wanted to do. However, when I went into my Master's, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to be a Behaviour Analyst, and I knew I wanted to help neurodiverse children. But at that time, suddenly, when you go up in your career, and when you go from being a supervisor, to being a manager, and all of these things, you sort of reach a point where suddenly you spend less and less and less time with clients. Because now you have metrics to measure and reports to write and emails to follow up on. HR issues to resolve and training to complete. Suddenly, my motivation was just gone. It's not that I wasn't motivated about those things, I just wanted to spend more time with my clients. Now I was supervising people who would be working with my clients, and I hated it. I wanted that people interaction, and I didn't want to be behind a computer screen sitting in a sedentary way. I wanted my activity level to be the same, so I could feel the same level of motivation. Unfortunately, when I started working as a behaviour analyst, that was all removed a little bit.
Melissa Gough 6:43
You're at a stage where you're sort of learning about you. What was the calling to start heading down that path?
Khushboo Chabria 6:51
That's a great question. Before I went and decided to get a Masters in Behaviour Analysis, I had just started working and out of University of San Diego when I graduated, there were multiple options, I could go down a psychology path. Within psychology, I was looking at all kinds of different types of psychology. At the time, I was applying to PhD programmes in Social Psych because I thought that out of all of the different ones, that was the one that was very unique and very interesting. However, at that time, I had just started working part time as a behaviour therapist, I was working with a beautiful eight year old Ethiopian boy, and he was completely nonverbal. He was just this beautiful, beautiful human, and I was just in trance with him. I didn't know at the time that he was going to be the one who changes my whole life. He was nonverbal, so we were teaching him how to speak, and we were using a lot of different strategies. We were teaching education skills, we were teaching him how to distinguish between different types of objects, we were having him learn how to request, you know, I just thought of it as a part time job to be fully honest.I didn't know if I wanted a career in that field. Just a few months later, I started getting all the acceptance letters from PhD programmes and social psych. The day that I received the acceptance letter that I had been waiting for, for a long time, was the day that my client had his first word.
Melissa Gough 8:39
Oh wow!
Khushboo Chabria 8:39
In that moment, the whole trajectory of my life changed, because I recognised that there wasn't a single thing that I could do in my life, that could be of this much impact to somebody else. If I got a chance to do that, because I remember what it felt like to be in that moment. If I got a chance to do that, why wouldn't I?
Melissa Gough 9:02
Want a profound moment?
Khushboo Chabria 9:05
Yeah, so I reapplied for my GRE, I reset for my exams, I reapplied to Masters programmes in behaviour analysis. By that point, when I got into my master's, I had already worked for a few years. So I'd gotten a pretty good idea of what the field entailed. Thankfully, I was really grateful, I got a lot of beautiful moments like that, like, the first time someone learns how to wash their hands or the first time someone brushes their teeth independently, or starts a conversation in the playground. Or, the first time I've seen a client, go to the grocery store and buy an item independently. There was a really, really cool opportunity.
Melissa Gough 9:52
I have a visual of how beautiful it is to be witnessing those milestones in that person's life and you have helped that person to help guide them to get to that moment. How special.
Khushboo Chabria 10:06
Once I decided to get a masters, the rest was history. I knew I wanted to work in this field. However, there were a lot of other changes that happened while I was in my Masters. The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare was passed. And suddenly the field changed as well. Because now private insurance companies were in the game, and it just sort of changed the whole dynamic of the field. It became so much more paperwork that just changed the whole landscape of the field. So that was a part of it, too. I don't know if I mentioned that before.
Melissa Gough 10:43
So you've gone from having these beautiful milestone moments, the government changes its requirements of what they're asking, Where does that take you now?
Khushboo Chabria 10:55
Essentially, I reached a point where I realised that the field is not going to change, there's just too much on the line and it becomes hyper competitive. Investors come in and start buying out ABA companies and start putting in KPIs and measures and billable hours and all of these other things. I was just really unhappy and I was a little burnt out, I didn't feel like the field was headed in a direction that I could keep up with. I was really struggling to get things done on time, my executive functioning was really poor, because I was burnt out, I wasn't sleeping well, I wasn't really eating meals. I don't actually know how I survived that time. Then I ended up in a clinic, and I felt really unwell. I was diagnosed with depression, I was diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder. I was diagnosed with ADHD. At the same time, my therapist and my psychoanalysts were mentioning all kinds of other things. You know, maybe it's bipolar, maybe it's whatever, right?
I didn't know what you think of all of that, because I didn't grow up learning about a lot of these things. Obviously, in the field of work that I was in, I was around a lot of people who had ADHD. But I didn't know how to make sense of what that meant for me. Because now it's like, your this, this is your label. What do you do with that, and how do you take that? To be honest, it wasn't until I learned more about ADHD that the issues that I was having at my job really sort of started to make sense. One time, I was written up for having poor grammar, or making errors on a report. That's a very embarrassing thing to admit, because I wasn't able to understand myself. Instead of knowing that this is because of my ADHD, and my poor focus, I was taking this to mean like, something is wrong with me. So when someone sits down and tells you, hey, Kush, you have ADHD, these are the things you struggle with. Now I'm able to be more compassionate towards myself.
Melissa Gough 13:36
Having all these diagnoses, which must have been just an internally challenging time and questioning everything about yourself.
Khushboo Chabria 13:45
Yeah.
Melissa Gough 13:45
Then you get to sit in front of someone who says, observing all your patterns, here's what it could be.
Khushboo Chabria 13:53
Yeah, pretty much.
Melissa Gough 13:54
That must have been also quite a profound moment as well.
Khushboo Chabria 13:58
It was very validating. It made me feel seen, and it made me feel understood. It was hard, because I didn't feel at the time that I could share that with my family. My parents are from India, they're from a different time, and they never really understood these things. So usually, their response to a lot of things is just sleep it off or just do some yoga or just pray!
Melissa Gough 14:24
Aww bless.
Khushboo Chabria 14:31
Yeah. I didn't know if they would understand. It wasn't until years later that they did start understanding but now my responsibility was taking these diagnoses and figuring out what do I do with this? Where do I go with this? What do I make of this?
Khushboo Chabria 15:05
The first thing I did was I told the company that I worked for that I had these diagnoses, I had decided, basically that day itself, that it wasn't the right environment for me. And I was determined to find a workplace where I felt accepted.
Melissa Gough 15:26
What did you do next?
Khushboo Chabria 15:28
So then I gave that company a three month notice period,and I timed it for when my last grad school tuition was due.
Melissa Gough 15:41
Perfect timing! We gotta live!
Khushboo Chabria 15:42
I needed the job to pay for school!
Khushboo Chabria 15:45
So I basically timed it, so that it was organised with that date. Unfortunately, they didn't find anyone to replace me, I had to discharge all of my cases, and that was an awful way to leave. I wish I hadn't been in that situation, or had to be put through that, because that made the trauma of working in that position that much harder. You know, just because I had the diagnosis doesn't mean the problems were gone. I was still struggling with my job duties.
Melissa Gough 16:21
You're almost giving them the guidance, ‘Hey, here's a manual, this is what I need.’ ‘Can you just help me with some of the tools?’
Khushboo Chabria 16:29
Yeah, I mean, the tools that I needed, and the tools that they might have had just didn't align. I needed things like more time, and not things like corrective action and really rigid deadlines. But unfortunately, that's how a lot of fields are, too. So you know, being on this side of it now, Melissa, I can tell you, I can see both sides of the situation.
Melissa Gough 16:56
Okay.
Khushboo Chabria 16:56
I can see where I was wrong, as well. And I'm self aware enough to say, there were times where I could have asked for help sooner. There were times where I could have recognised that I needed help sooner. There were times where I could have been aware enough to say, maybe I'm not handling this the right way, or I'm not fully in control of how to manage everything.Instead of saying everything is fine. I should have been more honest and vulnerable in those moments, because who knows, maybe this whole situation could have been avoided. Right?
Melissa Gough 17:39
True.
Khushboo Chabria 17:40
I hope that, because if I had received help sooner, and if I hadn't had already, like a record with them writing me up for different issues, I might not have been as reactive. And as quickly as leaving that company. I don't know, it's hard to say what could have happened,
Melissa Gough 18:05
It sounds like you have reflected a lot on that moment. You can now see two sides of the coin. And you're able to take that forward with you.
Khushboo Chabria 18:13
Definitely. Yeah.
Melissa Gough 18:14
Now just in a previous conversation that we've had you said that between 2016 and 2020. You tried working in different roles with all this going on for varying companies and it was not working out. However, in January 2020, there was a big changing moment for you when you hired a careers coach.
Khushboo Chabria 18:35
I did. At that point, I had tried working for a few different companies. I had struggled at a few different companies. I tried working for a school district, I tried working for a clinic, I tried starting a social skills group, a lot of things had been happening. In 2020, January of 2020, I decided that I wanted to transition out of behaviour analysis, and I wanted to do something else. I have finished my coursework in organisational leadership, which is a doctrine that I'm working towards. I just thought, I don't know, let's see what's out there. The coach that I worked with, he basically was this wonderful person who was from a completely different background than myself. He had a tech background, and I was trying to see what else I could do with the background and the experience that I had.He was the type of person who was very inquisitive and asked me a lot of questions about who I am and the different things that I've done and how this works and and I remember that he really made me realise what I shine in the most.
He was able to showcase my strengths and my skills in a way that I couldn't verbalise and I wanted to stop being seen as an educator or as just someone who works with children. I wanted to be known as someone who can work with adults, and I wanted to see if I could do consulting, there were a lot of different options at the time. And just like, from the moment, I started college, to now this moment in 2020, which is a span of 11 years, I continued to not be sure about what I wanted to do. I wanted to do a lot of different things. He was really good at doing research and teaching me how to do the research. I had a few friends and family members who had mentioned neurodiversity to me, and that's when I really started to look into neurodiversity and I started to see what was possible. Even within the field of neurodiversity, there's not a lot of jobs, so I looked far and wide. Then I finally had a moment where I discovered what I wanted to do.
Khushboo Chabria 21:23
It was the moment I met my current manager, whose name is Ranga Jayarahman. He met me at a networking call, and he asked me to tell him a little bit more about my story and what I had been through, and I just started crying to him.
Melissa Gough 21:56
I can imagine, such a moment.
Khushboo Chabria 21:58
Yeah, because it was still all really fresh. At that point, I just felt so lost. I told him everything I've been through, I told him what had happened. I told him what I had tried, I told him all the times, I'd failed. Within 20 minutes of that call, he ended up sending me the job description to be a volunteer programme manager for neurodiversity pathways. And I took it! At the time, he had said, “I don't know if I'm going to be able to pay you, but this is going to help you get some experience.” “I hope that wherever you go next, this will help.” We could use more volunteers, and the rest is history.
Melissa Gough 22:51
You've had lots of profound moments.That must have been like sitting in front of this man… First of all, your coach is asking all the questions, digging deep, delving and going, “Hey, look at this amazing skill set you have.” Then you speak to Ranga, who also recognises all these skill sets and thinks, “Okay, you'd be great for this programme.” The word neurodiversity, according to the Stanford University Neurodiversity Project, it's a concept that regards individuals with differences in brain function and behavioural traits as part of normal variation in the human population.
Khushboo Chabria 23.18
That's correct.
Melissa Gough 23.24
So you now get this job volunteering for this programme. How often are you doing it? What does it entail?
Khushboo Chabria 23:38
More so in 2020, as soon as COVID had happened, Neurodiversity Pathways had lost all their funding. They were basically trying to figure out what they wanted to do, from that point onwards. I joined the team, and at the time, we had just decided to start building an online programme for neurodivergent jobseekers. Before this Neurodiversity Pathways, had a programme called Workplace Readiness Programme, and it was fully in person. When I came on the team, we basically made lemonade out of the lemons that we had, and fully from scratch built an online programme that we started calling the Online Career Launch Programme and Career Readiness Training.
We took a lot of the courses that they already had. But we started to think about the user experience of a neurodivergent job seeker. We looked at it; if someone was taking this course online, how is it that they would experience this course? How could we make it so that it was neurodivergent friendly? We built in a lot of breaks. We made it super experiential, we broke everything down. We made everything very organised, very detail oriented. I created the entire job development curriculum for the programme. It included things like how to create a job development strategy, how to position yourself in a market, how to do different kinds of things, whether it was related to your resume, your cover letter, how to do interview prep, how to do networking meetings, and things that a lot of other programmes weren't teaching. So we really sort of started from the beginning.
Melissa Gough 25:41
So it's the Career Launch Programme, it goes to 17 weeks, and it's for neurodiverse job seekers who hold a two year, or four year college degree or equivalent. It's designed to develop and reinforce life skills, essential for advancing personal goals and achieving career aspirations.
Khushboo Chabria 25:59
That's correct. What we're looking for is the segment of the neurodivergent population that did go to college, and did get a degree whether it's a two or four year degree, but where you are having a hard time finding a job and keeping a job and succeeding in that job. So it's open to people who are just starting out after college. It's open to people who've been looking for jobs for a little bit, but having a really hard time. It's for people who might be underemployed, which means they're working in a field or in a job that doesn't match their qualifications, their skill level or experience. We're also working with people who've had a break in employment, or want to transition to a different field, or those who decided to try something new and need the help and support to get there.
Melissa Gough 26:58
In my research,so the commonly sort of grouped neurodiverse people that you're dealing with, ADHD, autism, ASD, bipolar disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, nonverbal learning,Tourette Syndrome, you are catering to a large umbrella of real complex and unique neurodiverse diagnoses.
Khushboo Chabria 27:24
The truth of it is Melissa, for our programme, we don't ask for any diagnosis information from the client, we don't even have it as part of our application. So we've had people come into our programme without any diagnoses, but they had perceived that they might.
Melissa Gough 27:43
Okay.
Khushboo Chabria 27:44
In terms of nonverbal, I would say that is a little bit tricky, because we are doing this over zoom, it's a fully online programme. So it does need to be for anyone who knows how to go through a college course, how to do an assignment for a college course, and attend zoom meetings.
Melissa Gough 28:06
What I love about the programme is, when we spoke, you said, we don't just start with the job stuff, we break it down, the first thing we ask is, what is neurodiversity? Then we also teach the concept of growth mindset, and even Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, including sleep, eating routines, and, I mean, this is a great programme for everyone across the board.
Khushboo Chabria 28:33
Yeah, I fully agree. I don't think it should be specific to neurodivergent people. But you know, to go back to what you're talking about, that's actually the personal effectiveness segment of our programme. During that segment, firstly, we start with helping our students understand neurodiversity. What is neurodiversity? What does it mean to be a neurodiverse individual? What does that identity entail? What are the things that you might be good at? What are the things that you might find challenging? We're of the mindset that there's nothing wrong with anyone. We're all unique. We're all different. We're not defective, we're not disabled, there's no other terminology like that, we're just different, right?
Our tagline is inclusion for abilities, acceptance for differences, because before we start to talk about how to get a job, the first thing we need to do is address your mindset. Do you have a growth mindset or do you have a fixed mindset? Going further on, we talk about Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. We want to make sure we ensure these habits from the get go. Then we talk about executive functioning. We talk about coping and resilience, and then we get into job development. Because, now that we've worked on all of these internal processes, let's talk about how the job search works. We talk about interviews, we talk about how to search for jobs, we talk about networking, we talk about self advocacy, which is what we were teaching earlier today. After this section, we get into workplace competencies, where we talk about assertive communication, conflict resolution, and we talk about how to do powerful presentations.
Melissa Gough 30:34
It just sounds great and it also creates more awareness, people get to share their experiences, and that's how we all learn through stories. This is a role that you take on with all heart and soul, as well, because you are also an example of living it every day, what you've gone through with your upbringing, your transitioning to America to discovering who you were, and that you've got these skills and, and these traits, and these patterns and these thought behaviours, you wear the t shirt when you're sitting there with your students. Do they hear your story as well?
Khushboo Chabria 31:17
All the time? All the time? Yeah.
Melissa Gough 31:20
That'd be really comforting for them to know that they're in front of people who are hearing them, who are understanding them, who sees them.
Khushboo Chabria 31:31
Yeah, I mean, you have to think about the kinds of people I see in my coaching calls. They've been through so much trauma. They've been dismissed, they have been disregarded, and I get to sit there and be like, okay, that happened. That happened, that happened and all of this is valid. All of this is real. But what else is out there? Why don't we, why don't we turn the page. I have to kind of help people turn the page. Because a lot of times, what they realise is that as soon as I do that, I'm now open to all that opportunity. Who knows what's possible. There are students that I was teaching last week to do LinkedIn research, that are now becoming aware of whole certification that they've never considered, or completely different roles that they'd never looked at before or known about. Just those tiny little moments, you sort of see how like everything else that happened, it doesn't go away, it doesn't leave us, but it just becomes another page in the book.
Melissa Gough 33:01
Well said. It's almost like any programme, any study, no matter whether you're five in foundation year, or like it's college, or even as adults, we walk in on day one, you know, it's almost like the deer in the headlights. Then as each week progresses, they learn more tools and more information, you must see such a transformation in their ability and their competence, and their belief.
Khushboo Chabria 33:31
I do, I do. I feel like a lot of times with these individuals, no one has ever said to them., You can do whatever you want. You can be whatever you want. You know, you can wake up and decide to never do this again, and I'll still be here. Imagine the plight of the parents who raise them. They're just trying to protect them, keep them safe from the world, and to some degree, that makes sense. If I was a parent, I would want the same. I would not want my child to go through any experience that is gonna hurt them. But you know, as we've learned from Finding Nemo, you can't learn anything until you make mistakes. You can't learn anything until you fail. You cannot grow from anything until you go through something that pushes you to grow. When we protect these individuals, to the degree where they do not get to experience the world, then we're disabling them. Let's say it like that. I feel like I healed my trauma. When I created the tools to empower my students, I continue to heal and relive and grow from what I experienced, because I hope that my experience will help my students do things differently.
Melissa Gough 35:04
I resonate with that, because I'm early into my journey. It's been just a year, a year since my brain haemorrhage happened. And 12 months ago, even 18 months ago, if someone said to me, Melissa, you're going to create a podcast, you're going to meet lots of really interesting and amazing people, I would have laughed at them and said, you know, whatever you're drinking, first of all, I'll have some of that. What I've noticed is in starting this process, and it's been a gradual process. While I've been recovering, physically and cognitively, and continue to do so, it's providing healing. Sitting in front of someone, I just think as much as your diversity is different to mine, I hear you and I feel what you're feeling. It's that feeling of not being alone, and that feeling of being heard. You can't pay enough for that. That is just priceless gold for the soul.
Khushboo Chabria 36:02
You can't. At the end of the day, what all of us want and need is just the confidence to go forward on our plan, that's it. No matter how ill fated, no matter how scary, no matter how dangerous. We all just want that vote of confidence, and we want someone to say you know what, I think you can do it?
Melissa Gough 36.29
So true.
Khushboo Chabria 36:31
That's it. So true. That's all it is. If that happens to be my job for the rest of my life, I will consider myself honoured, because what's better than that?
Melissa Gough 36:46
Well, I think you're also equally a gift for those who do get to meet you and experience their evolving and their growth in your presence. I'm going to segue now because we've talked about the programme for neurodiverse students and neurodiverse people. So how do we get the connections going? So we're preparing them to get out into the world and shine their light at these amazing organisations? How do we get the organisations to come on board? What's your process there? How do you start the connections?
Khushboo Chabria 37:20
Yeah, definitely So with the organisation's we do believe at Neurodiversity Pathways that we truly are a bridge between organisations, and neurodiverse professionals and we want to be that bridge. So while we're doing all this work, to help our neurodivergent job seekers learn these skills, and feel confident and coach them into getting full time jobs. We also recognise that in order for them to thrive and succeed and to fully be empowered and accepted into that job, the environment of the organisation needs to be one that fosters psychological safety. We actually have started doing awareness sessions two times a month for free for anyone who's interested.
They can just go on our website and go to awareness sessions, and look at the information on that page. We have availability for individuals to attend, which are the two free ones every month. If you have a workgroup that requires training on neurodiversity awareness, we're able to do that. Lastly, if you're an organisation, and you want organisational wide awareness on neurodiversity, we do Neurodiversity Awareness Trainings. If you want to be an organisation that hires neurodivergent talent, then we also have additional services to help support neurodiversity hiring. That includes half day and full day workshops, as well as in depth experiential workshops, where we do role plays and train managers and recruiters and hiring managers on how to better work with individuals who are neurodivergent.
Melissa Gough 39:32
When you've been doing these amazing workshops, have you ever had an organisation or CEO or an executive come to you with, like an aha moment or a brain game changing moment where they just go,’ oh, my gosh, I didn't realise what I wasn't providing mainly for neurodiversity, but just also for my staff in general.’
Khushboo Chabria 39:55
A whole bunch of times! So the awareness sessions for neurodiversity are run by Ranga Jayarahman, who is our programme director, who happens to be the father of a neurodivergent child. We also have John Marble, who is an actual autistic advocate. He also has dyslexia and I'm the ADHD representative of the group. So these presentations are not slides with statistics that are going into this neurodivergent condition, and this one and that one and all of these different things, what we're doing is generally talking about, what does it mean to be neurodiverse? What does that look like? How does that show up in different situations, and the entire presentation is filled with stories. Real life stories, like this, are how sensory sensitivities affect me. This is how I struggle with executive functioning. Ranga is able to step in and say "this is how I, as a manager, I'm able to support when someone is struggling with executive functioning, or with communication or with whatever other dimension we're looking at."
With each of these presentations, what a lot of leaders and organisations and anyone who attends walks away with is hmm, I don't know why people make it so complex, because if I just understand it as, hey, maybe if I communicate more clearly, everyone will benefit. That's all I need to do. That's easy, you know, we don't need to worry about all the legalities and everything. It's just a matter of understanding that any two people, whether we talk about the two of us, or whether we talk about two people who consider themselves neurotypical, any two people who you ask what their way of doing something is on any topic, they are never going to have the same answer. They're never going to do it the same way. And I can put money down on this, you know, we all think differently. That's it, period.
Melissa Gough 42:29
So true, like I'm a primary school teacher by career. I see this happen at times, especially with things like, I'll give an example doing a maths equation. So the answer is still the same, but how little Johnny and then how little Freddie got there, were in two totally different directions, they still got to the same answer, right. But they got there, totally different ways, and that's okay.
Khushboo Chabria 42:57
You know, as a teacher, you just say, show your work. Other than that, you know, it's, it's a matter of literally just being there in a moment and saying, okay, these are some things that people who consider themselves neurodivergent struggle with, these are some simple ways that you can help them. Maybe instead of saying, tell me a little bit about yourselves, as a lot of recruiters do, and an interview, maybe you say, walk me through your resume. That's a different way of putting it, and that's very clear, or tell me about your educational background? That's a more specific question. I think we tend to be so vague, sometimes without even realising it. So a lot of the aha moments are around just like, wow, maybe if I communicated better, I could be more inclusive of neurodivergent people. More importantly, maybe if I communicated better, I could be inclusive of everyone.
Melissa Gough 44:07
So true that you say that because one thing that I am learning with this brain injury, and through my recovery is, how human beings communicate, can be a circus at times, it really is! I'm observing how I respond to communication now, and also how I communicate this is a new, reflective journey for me.
Khushboo Chabria 44:31
It's a long journey.
Melissa Gough 44:33
Yeah, it's an ongoing, it's a full time 24/7 ongoing journey.
Khushboo Chabria 44:39
You know, while you're going through this, it's really important to take a step back, take a breather, and check in with yourself. You know, and I do this a lot with the people that I coach, because so often we don't teach children how to cope, isn't that insane! How often do we let these people go off into the world and don't teach coping strategies, counting backwards, using, like a sensory strategy using a tool to sort of get back into the moment and then start over. Also thinking about what are the things that cause a lot of anxiety for me? I actually have the opposite thing is you, Melissa, I don't want the facts. I want all the context.
Melissa Gough 45:34
Ah, okay. It's great that you say that, because it's not, it's not me all the time. But if I find it is if I need to be given a lot of information, in a short period of time, and with a lot of fluff thrown in there, my brain goes scattered. I find with getting new information, and if I get a lot of it at once, you've just got to, just give it to me, in point form, give it to me at a slow pace, where I can just digest it.
Khushboo Chabria 46:07
I agree with you on that, too. I feel like there are times when it's too much, and if it's new information, that's the distinction, then I feel like it's a bit overwhelming. I just kind of have to stop and say, okay, what are the key takeaways here? So I agree with you, I think it depends on the context. You know, I think if everyone was a little bit more aware of how guilt and shame affects every little thing that we do, and feel and say, we could be a better species, if we learn how to heal those things, because those things are deep rooted. Unfortunately, when we don't know how to deal with that, or we've never taught those strategies, like counting back from five to one, or name something you can see, name something you can smell, that's another one. Name, all the things that are red in the room. Name, all the things that are blue in the room, like mindfulness exercises, you know, these things are just such quick, easy things. If we infuse them into our educational systems, you know, if we use them for new mothers, when they're giving birth or something, they could learn those strategies and start utilising them. If we could model them for people who are just, you know, receiving therapy even, I think we could be so much better off at not only advocating for ourselves but recognising that we need to, because of that understanding that I need help. As a society we shame that.
Melissa Gough 47:56
So true. We do, we frown upon it, we think it's a stigma. So going forward, how are we going with the programme now?
Khushboo Chabria 48:05
We have been doing a lot of work with organisations as well. We've consistently worked with Stanford, we've consistently worked with Visa. We've consistently worked with Cupertino Electric, which is a local Bay Area organisation. We continue to get more and more organisations connecting with us, involved with us, working with us. It's through opportunities like this. It's through all the things that I share on LinkedIn. It's through the awareness sessions that we host. You know, while we are running awareness sessions for free, we're a very small organisation. The only way that we can make money to sustain our mission is through those kinds of opportunities and working with companies that are interested in learning more about neurodiversity, as well as those who want to hire neurodiverse talent.If you go on our website, you can see all the different companies we've partnered with. We continue to add to that list and we are continuing to get a lot of people who are interested in learning more as well. And you know, it's just sort of opening up now. I feel like a lot more people are aware of what neurodiversity is. While it's not where we want it to be where I feel like we're heading in that direction.
Melissa Gough 49:29
One thing you've also said is that for the students to attend this programme, you don't put the cost of it on those attending the programme. You need it through funding, you need it through advertising, you need it through all the processes that come with an organisation like yours. Can the public put funding towards sponsoring a student? How does that work?
Khushboo Chabria 49:55
Yeah, definitely. If you go to our website and you click on the donate button, you can certainly find ways to sponsor one of our students. You can also donate to our organisation because everything that we use goes towards this. At this point in time, we're also even seeing if people might be interested in being volunteer coaches for our students, if that's something that people are interested in. And this would be, you know, for people who are working professionals, who understand their own neurodiversity, and want to help out another neurodivergent person. Helping them learn more about their career and learn more about how to navigate this whole process of looking for a job and progressing in a job. So there's a lot of different ways to help out.
But most importantly, in your community, in your work group, in your organisation, our goal is to increase the awareness of neurodiversity. Ranga likes to actually speak of this as a ‘herd awareness’ of the normalcy of neurodiversity. That's what we're trying to improve, and increase. So if you want us to be involved, invite us to come speak. We will come anywhere and speak about neurodiversity. We will shout about neurodiversity, from the mountaintops. We want people everywhere to understand this, so that they can be better informed and more able to support neurodivergent people, wherever they may be.
Melissa Gough 51:39
Amazing! Amazing! I think that the world is a better place because we've got people like your organisation out there, especially for neurodiversity but even what we've said earlier, just awareness, just awareness.
Melissa Gough 52:04
To share with our listeners, We met online through an organisation called Peaces Of Me Foundation. Again, another amazing hat that you wear amongst many, you are a board member, can you tell me a little bit about this organisation?
Khushboo Chabria 52:19
Sure. So, around the time that I was hiring a job coach, I was just trying to figure out what else I wanted to do. I actually met Daniel, who's the director at Peaces Of Me, and he invited me to be a board member. This is basically a group of people with disabilities that are coming together to support, advocate for, and increase information, resources and access to services, and support for all people with disabilities. We're very much a nonprofit that's fully focused on improving the lives of people with disabilities, increasing awareness of disability issues, and bringing access to resources and information that will help support that. I've been a board member for a long time, and since I started, we started building our nonprofit, we invited more people onto the board. We did a lot of fundraising, and we did a lot of advocacy work. And starting this year, we've had a different issue that we've highlighted every single month. We started with a board member event. We've done an event on health equity, we've done an event on limb difference awareness. And we're going to continue to add that. We have an event coming up later this year, which is going to be about supporting Guide Dogs for people who are visually impaired.
Melissa Gough 54:06
Fantastic! Beautiful!
Khushboo Chabria 54:09
In November, I'm going to be running a panel on neurodiversity employment. So we have several things. We've been working on building up these events, really getting the community involved, and getting people to see disability is more than what it is, a stigma to most people. We want people to see beyond those labels. And we want people to see the humanity of the situation. We want there to be equity in the world and belonging and we want there to be more ramps for people to be included.
Melissa Gough 54:45
As we've discussed, there's a lot of systems in place that are not designed for disability in mind, so it is important for promoting more awareness.
Khushboo Chabria 54:54
I agree.
Melissa Gough 54:55
Khushboo you wear many hats! Advocating for Neurodiversity Pathways, for Peaces Of Me Foundation, even your own story to resonate and connect with others. You work tirelessly, however, you're not always paid in accordance with all the work that you do.
Khushboo Chabria 55:14
Yeah, I mean, you know, sometimes you, we have to sit back and question, what do we as society give importance to. Even teachers are not paid as equitably, social workers aren't paid as equitably, as they should. It goes back to, I wish that the world was more fair, but until it gets there, I'm gonna do my part. That's all I could do.
Melissa Gough 55:45
And the world's a better place for it.
Khushboo Chabria 55:49
Thank you so much. You're so kind.
Melissa Gough 55:52
Thank you so much for being on The Brain Game Changer podcast today. I think you're a real ambassador, and a real representation of what we all could do in our world. I've only got to speak with you for a short period of time, and you can see that it's very clear.
Khushboo Chabria 56:09
Thank you so much.
Melissa Gough 56:11
What's been beautiful and just hearing your story is, you've allowed yourself to feel the hard days. You've overcome a lot of adversities to get where you are. This is the final question I asked everyone. The name of this podcast is called The Brain Game Changer; how heartfelt stories, awareness and education can change the game. If there's one piece of information, one golden nugget, what would you want people to become aware of?
Khushboo Chabria 56:43
We can look at the world and focus on the world being unfair. Or we can look at the world and see it as a world full of opportunities, and I want you to do the latter.
Melissa Gough 56:57
Khushboo, thank you so much for your time.
Khushboo Chabria 57:00
Thank you so much, Melissa.
Melissa Gough 57:07
I want to thank you for listening to this episode today and supporting The Brain Game Changer podcast and the guests we interview. I hope it adds some reassurance or valuable tools no matter how big or small, that will continue assisting you in being the wonderful game changers that you are. The best way to support The Brain Game Changer podcast is to like, share with family and friends or subscribe, so each weekly episode is easily available to you. I'd love to hear your feedback. You can also find me on Instagram @thebraingamechanger. Drop by and say hello and check out the regular posts about awareness and education on various important topics and issues. Until next time, I look forward to sharing the space with you again soon. Take care.
