Expanding Inclusivity: The Neurodivergent Advantage

Love Your Sales

Join Leighann Lovely on the Love Your Sales Podcast as she dives deep into an enlightening conversation with Denise Schamens, co-founder and executive director of Good Friend Inc. Discover Denise’s personal journey inspired by her son's autism diagnosis and how it led her to create an inclusive community and successful nonprofit. Learn about Good Friend Inc.'s mission to develop films and training curriculums that promote neurodiversity in schools and workplaces. Explore the challenges and successes Denise faces in advocating for neurodivergent individuals in the corporate world. This episode is packed with insights on the importance of inclusivity and the unique strengths neurodivergent individuals bring to any setting. Tune in for an inspiring discussion that highlights the value of diverse thinkers and the push towards more inclusive work environments.

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Website – www.Goodfriendinc.com

Email - [e-mail]

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Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. I'm very excited today. I am joined by Denise Shamans. She is the co-founder and executive director of Good Friend Inc. Welcome, Denise. I'd love for you [00:01:00] to introduce yourself and your business.

Denise Schamens: Yeah. Hello. Hello. Hello. Um, my, my business is called good friend.

Inc is a nonprofit and we, uh, started back in 2007 and it really, uh, came out of, um, the experience that I was having in my family. So my background is, uh, I'm a creative. I went to school for fine art and commercial art. And then I started having my boys, my two boys, um, who are only 19 months apart. And then I do have a third, my daughter who is college age.

Um, but my middle son, Sam was diagnosed with autism just at three. Uh, so I've been in the autism neurodivergent space for over 20. Five years, he's going to be 26 this week. Um, and it, um, really came out of a desire for a community that was [00:02:00] accepting of his differences. And I found, um, along the path. I had many other hats.

I was a. Parent liaison for the school district of Waukesha. I did that for about 10 years and had a support group, um, was only reaching just a handful of families at the time and, uh, was a large district. We had over 150 families that had some sort of disability or in place. Um, and I couldn't reach them, but what I ended up doing was going into my son's classroom in first, second grade and sitting down with his peers and telling them about him and how they could relate to him, understanding that his autism affected him mostly in his speaking ability.

Um, Not to say that he's nonverbal, he has a lot to say, but can't really get it out. And so, uh, forming friendships was difficult for him. But what I did find was, you know, 27 of his peers were more than happy to be his friend. They just [00:03:00] wanted to know what was up and at the time there was only 1 guidance counselor traveling to all of those 17 elementary schools.

So we weren't talking about differences back then. Um, so I saw a need there. And, uh, there was another mother that was coming to my support group who she was the one that had all the binders on the resources. Like, this is a dentist. Do you want to take them to? This is the camp. You want to send them to all these inclusive communities that already existed.

Um, and so I decided to have a meeting with her and really talk about what we could do with our own. And, um, I wanted to make a film and she came at it from a different perspective, wanting to create, um, a curriculum to surround that film. So we joined forces that was back in 2007 and good friends started.

Um, we created our first film within 3 months. We were in the schools presenting and as. Our kids grew, our company grew. So once our kids got into middle school, we created our [00:04:00] middle school film and curriculum. And then since then we've remade both of them because we've gotten better at videography.

We've gotten better at storytelling. Um, and the language has changed around autism and neurodivergence. So we've made four. To date, we've made now five, um, uh, short documentaries. Um, so as our, as our children grew, our company grew, um, we were up to seven employees at one time. And, uh, we started business coaching right at year 11, and that helped us look at our, our nonprofit as a business, understanding our cash flow, understanding our sales process, understanding, um, all of our procedures, and it was life saving for us, but it was also.

An interesting time in our organization's life, because now our kids were becoming young adults and we as parents were in the transition program. So we didn't know what that meant. We didn't [00:05:00] really know where our space was, um, in the employment space for a while until about 2 and a half years ago, when we finally decided, why aren't we doing what we always do?

And that's create environments that are inclusive. And by doing that. so much. Um, we educate them, um, employers and peers as well on how to be inclusive, how to understand neurodivergence. Cause now, as we've gotten into the adult space, we've expanded it beyond autism. It's now neurodivergent and it, it's all of these brain based conditions that fall within neurodivergence.

So now we're, we've expanded our message to include neurodivergence. All of these conditions, um, and then of course, what we're offering and the education that we're giving is really helpful to everyone. Everyone will benefit from it.

Leighann Lovely: So before we, sorry, I don't want to cut you off, but that is, first of all, it's amazing.

Um, [00:06:00] to, you know, to start from a personal place. Yeah. Um, coming from a personal standpoint to something that's, you know, impacting you on a personal level, but to take that, you know, cause truly this is, this is your, your child's life that you're following. I mean, And, and that in itself is, is absolutely amazing as you've, as you have grown, as your children have grown, you have been able to step into, I don't want to say step into his shoes, but try to help him, you know, grow.

But so let's, let's talk about where you're at right now, because this is where I find it. Vitally important and a shift that has kind of taken place because when you, when you started, there wasn't information and what that was, you said 11, no, he's 20. Yeah, he's 26. So yeah, [00:07:00] what? 20 years, 20 years ago. Yeah.

Talking. Yeah. So when you started, there was no place for people. To get information, there was, I mean, yes, the library, um, but it wasn't, you didn't have, you didn't have your cell phone and I'm holding my cell phone here to be like, Okay. What is this? What's happening?

Denise Schamens: I'll tell you though. It was, you know, at the time the, the diagnostic criteria and the way that we talk about and diagnose autism is different now than it used to be.

There used to be Asperger's, PDD, NOS, and what they used to call low functioning. They blew all those out of the water. And so now when you get an autism diagnosis, it's by level. And I don't really care for level either because I feel like at any given time, it's based on. Support need. So at any given time, you could present as a level two.

Um, but say you're having a really great day and everything's clicking. You could be now a [00:08:00] level one or you're having an off day and nothing's working, then you're a level three. So, um, isn't that for most humans? I know. It's just so. Bizarre, because it's just such a snapshot of time when you're testing, right?

And, um, so yeah, so when I looked online, he was diagnosed with PDD NOS, which is sort of, if you're going to look at it as a spectrum, he's kind of in the middle. And so when I type that into my computer, into the great Google, um, space, I got just not great news. It was kind of like, well, get him into therapy and maybe he'll, you know, have a job or maybe he'll have friendships.

It was dismal. Although now if you put that information in, there's almost too much information and it's like, how do you filter what's, what is good for you and what is not? So. Yes, information has improved. The outcomes have improved. I will say that, um, social media has [00:09:00] been awesome. Knowing, seeing how the landscape has changed in my son's life from me having to go find an adult on the spectrum to be able to see what my son could do.

Accomplish, um, to now you look on tick tock, you look on Instagram, you look anywhere, right? LinkedIn, they're everywhere and they're voicing what their experiences are. So it's like, what an amazing place to be that now they have this voice. So that's cool.

Leighann Lovely: Being, having an outlet to share experiences. To other people, because I mean,

we as humans want to be able to talk to other humans that are experiencing similarities in what we're going through. And often those who may maybe don't have the [00:10:00] verbal ability, like you said, just because you don't speak well, doesn't mean you don't have a ton to say. And sometimes communication in a different way allows for that outlet.

Yeah. Which is, is amazing. Absolutely. It also allows for the ability to find other people. Exactly. Find your community. Your tribe. Yeah. Yeah. Correct. So now, as you've, you know, watched your son grow up, you know, he's, he's going into, you know, different season of life, right? Yes. Yeah. And so this is the thing that I find the most exciting because now you're, Going into a different season in your business where you no longer, and of course you're still catering to schools.

You're still out there doing that. But now you've pivoted to educating employers, which to me is, is, is awesome because employers always seem to be the [00:11:00] last people to go. Oh, yeah, I didn't like, right. Right. There's a wildly brilliant human being that may be. Horrible at interviewing. Yeah. Again, they've got so much to offer.

Yeah. Exactly. Or they may need special accommodation that is really not that hard to accommodate. Right. And they could be Often free. Yeah. Right. Right. There's the simple things. I mean, if, if you have, if you have a, a, an employee in your office that has diabetes and they need, you know, to check their Blood levels or whatever, so that there's an extra time that they spend in the bathroom doing that.

You're not going to say, no, sorry, we can't hire you, right? It's a simple special, and that's probably a bad analogy here. I was just spitballing trying to grab something, right? [00:12:00] The point being, though, is that, you know, you don't automatically say no to somebody simply because there may might be an accommodation that that needs to be made.

If the person can do the job, right? Exactly. Let's talk about the shift that you've made and how has, how has that been different than what you were doing in the past?

Denise Schamens: Well, yeah, like I said, we weren't really sure where our space was. And so I think we kind of avoided it for a while until we just went back to what we always do.

And that's create a film and create a training curriculum to surround that film. Um, so what we did was we put an ask out there for, um, To find a near divergent employees that were successful in their career, um, successfully employed and, um, that was all neurodivergent. And so we put that out. I put it out on LinkedIn [00:13:00] and we got quite a few candidates.

that came forward on their own, not because their employer asked them to come forward. They came forward because they wanted to make a difference. They wanted to share their story. And so like all the training that we've ever done, when it's in video format, we do a, we do a documentary style so that you can connect and hear their story, their own personal story.

It's not me telling you what it is, um, as an ally. I'm only here to amplify their voice. I'm not their voice. And so I needed to make sure that we had an age range. So I think it's 22 to 52 and, uh, half women, half men, and, uh, It was an interesting experiment because each of them had their own journey of to be successfully employed.

And so this film highlights them highlights and shows their diagnostic story. Um, more than half of them were late diagnosed. Uh, so they went to [00:14:00] seek out a right diagnosis later in life. Um, so it touches on some things that I think are inherently wrong with our. Our testing process, um, number, the biggest one is trying to find someone who diagnoses someone as an adult, um, and then making that more cost effective for them because that's out of pocket to do so.

And then once you have that information, what do you do with that? And so many of the people in our film took that. Now correct diagnosis and just gave themselves more grace in their workplace and in their setting goals for themselves, um, with this new lens of being autistic. So it was, uh, it was really an interesting, um, and still is the film is just powerful for you to see how different each individual is and.

What it took for them to get that diagnosis. And then with that, we took additional footage with them and then brought in some subject matter experts. So we have 5. Individual [00:15:00] training modules that kind of dive deeper into what made them successful in the workplace. And so that's all offered as a course.

So it's great for employers. It's great for anyone. That is, um, working with someone who's neurodivergent. And if you look at. What all falls under neurodivergence that's about 40 percent of our population. So we need to be talking about this. We need to have this training. Um, I just recently did a really powerful screening and talk back.

With, um, UW Madison's, uh, School of Theater and Drama. And that was amazing because they had two, um, individuals on their, as colleagues on their staff that were neurodivergent that wanted to help run this. And it was beautiful because we took the film by chapter by chapter, and we were able to have such a rich discussion around what made them successful and, um, what, you know, didn't work out for [00:16:00] them.

That was an amazing thing. So it's like when you think about what's the perfect client, the perfect client is anyone who is employing other people, right? And

Leighann Lovely: So, um, you threw out a number there. 40 percent is neurodivergent. Do you think, do you, do you think that that number could potentially be higher because there are so many people that are late diagnosed? I mean, or undiagnosed or right. Or undiagnosed. And cause I think about that and there are people that I meet and I think to myself, and this is horrible.

Maybe it's not horrible, but I think to myself like. Especially being somebody who has bipolar disorder. Right. And I talk about this all the time and I, and I see, I see certain signs in them and I'm like, have you, have you ever. See a psychiatrist, have you? And I say it in the most loving and caring way, but they'll come to me and they're, and, and a lot of people talk to me [00:17:00] about mental health because I am open about talking about mental health.

Yeah. Right. I'll say, have you ever seen a medical, you know, a psychiatrist or a therapist and talked about some of these signs and sign? No, no, no. I would never do that. And I think, God, I swear. Yeah. Like at least 80 percent of the population is, is somewhere. On some spectrum of something.

Denise Schamens: Yeah. I think those numbers would be staggering

Leighann Lovely: if it was more accurate for sure.

As do I. And that's why, you know, having a platform, a comfort, you know, a place of comfort to, to talk about this and why I think it's so wildly important that this type of training take place. And this brings me to my next question. How is it going with getting. Buy in from these companies in comparison to, you know, you can walk into a school and say, Hey, this is great.

I'm going to guess schools were much [00:18:00] more like, yeah, let's bring this in because it was kind of a no brainer. Let's educate, but where, where is it standing right now with getting the buy in from. Employers.

Denise Schamens: Yeah. Well, I'll tell you it's, it's not as quick. So the corporate world to your point is really slow to make decisions like this.

And, and I don't blame them because there is a cost involved. It costs, you know, to, um, have this training to implement this training to more than 1 person. And it needs to be in your budget. And so we are running across those kinds of situations where they have to. Find the number 1, see the value in a training like this.

And then where does it fit? Or are they already paying what we're running into with some of the larger financial industries is, you know, we've already contracted with this large training organization that does all of these D. I. [00:19:00] trainings and safety videos. And why would yours be any different? And it's like, but ours is ours is it's not It isn't, it all is these people that have such great, um, impact and you learn from them.

You learn from hearing in their story. And so it's been, it's been a little slow, you know, trying to get people to see the value in this. And we're so small, like we have a, we have a contracted marketing company that's doing amazing things for us. Um, but it is literally just meeting with everyone. I have to have, Probably, oh, four to five one on ones every week just to show them what this product is.

So it's a, it's a slow sale.

Leighann Lovely: And I understand that. And it, it makes sense budgeting. You know, I've been in the training and development where, you know, companies, well, we've got X amount for budgeting, but when we talk about 40 percent of the population and you and I talk about, Yeah, right. It's [00:20:00] not 40%. It's way up there.

My question to them would be, how are you not immediately putting this in the budget when you're talking about one, increasing the population of people that you could hire when how many people who are neurodiverse Go without a job. I know that, you know, a number around there somewhere. It's like one 80%.

Yeah. I was going to say 80 percent like one in four or something. Yeah. Or is that backwards?

Denise Schamens: Yeah. It's definitely like 80 to 85 percent are under or unemployed. Okay. Right. Everybody's

Leighann Lovely: looking. Correct. And if an employer right now is suffering to hire the correct or hire more people and they understand what it might look like and what it takes in order to hire a population of people that right now are [00:21:00] under or unemployed, how can you not try to understand how to do this?

Most employers, if you are a large employer. If you have, you know, 100 employees, I guarantee that you have somebody who is neurodiverse working at your company. You may not know it, right? Or you may think you might, they may have not disclosed to you out of fear. And there's a lot of people out there that don't disclose out of fear.

But if you were to get this, you know, if you get this training going, right? Yeah,

Denise Schamens: it's to, to kind of put it in perspective. I mean, an ideal world world for me and what I'm kind of trying to achieve and I probably won't in my lifetime. Is a workplace or is all workplaces that are so inclusive and so universally designed that you don't even need to disclose.[00:22:00]

Correct. It doesn't matter what whatever the label is, whether you're diagnosed or not diagnosed. If everything, if all these accommodations are already there and you've been taught to be an inclusive. Thriving company, then. That's perfect, right? That's what I'm trying to gain from this and the larger companies that are in the thousands or global organizations that are looking at us, which is lovely.

They want to know if it's culturally. Sensitive to their global partners. And I get that. And I, and I think it would be, I think that once we can get that, um, underway and they can see the film and the value of what these people are bringing, that's the thing. It's not me talking about their autism or their neurodivergence or how to hire them.

It is. Them talking about what works for them. How can you argue with that? How can that not be culturally sensitive, right? Because it's their own personal stories of success. So [00:23:00] it's really, uh, for some of these larger organizations that have DER, they're DEI groups or ERG groups or BRG groups, those business resource groups.

Those are the ones that are already thinking inclusively. So this is perfect. This rolls right into their initiatives. But what I feel like is the companies that don't even realize. That they need this training. Um, those are the ones that I need to try to speak to because they already have them. It's, it's different when you're trying to hire and attract that talent, which we can help you do that.

But it's also retaining what you already have and understanding that they may need to go and get a diagnosis or they may be just finding out while they're working for you. So those are important things to, to think about too, is just retaining what you already have, the talent that you have. And then, of course, we're all about collaboration.

So what we're trying to do is just on the front front end. We're just trying to help change hearts and [00:24:00] minds, helping employers see the value of it. And then we're connecting them with the organizations that are doing the placement, like the engage, like thinkability, like mind shift, right? There's so many organizations out there that are placing.

Neurodivergent people in their field, whether that's manufacturing or tech or HR or whatever that might be. So we're not doing all of it. We're just trying to help them see how you can build that framework to accept, um, all those diverse thinkers. Right.

Leighann Lovely: And

having that diversity. And we, we talk about this all the time. If you have a room of all the same person, Right. No new ideas ever will come out of that room. Or growth. Or growth. Right. But if you have. You know, [00:25:00] a wide variety of people, and we're talking about race, we're talking about religion, we're talking about neurodiverse individuals.

Think about all of the different viewpoints that could potentially come out of that room. I mean, especially. You know, I, I, I, some people hate when I say like, Oh, my superpower is some people like eat, but I truly believe that along with what people consider and I don't like saying like, Oh, I bipolar, my, my disability is I have bipolar disorder.

I don't think of it as a disability.

Denise Schamens: Right

Leighann Lovely: now it's a hurdle that at one point in my life, I, I had to, You know, get diagnosed. I had to get on the right medication. I had to get on the right, you know, regiment of life in order to, you know, function in what society would call a norm. But along with that, there are things that are different within my own brain that I consider to be [00:26:00] kind of a superpower.

Yeah. I mean, because my, for, I don't mind doesn't function the same way as what we. Consider the norm. What is the norm in your own majority? It's

Denise Schamens: the majority. That's becoming we've already proven that the party is not anymore.

Leighann Lovely: Right? I mean, if when information goes in to somebody's brain, Everybody processes it so completely differently.

I like that. I do too. I like that the way that I think, you know, my husband will look at me and go, what's, what is going on in your brain right now? And I'm like, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm a puzzle. I like to put, pieces together. Like I like to, you know, I'm an op, right now I'm working in operations. I like to figure out how do I put this together with this together with this to make the complete Yeah, puzzle work.

Yeah, you know, and like my husband will make [00:27:00] reference to something and all of a sudden it triggers somebody in my head and I'm off and doing this and doing this and then I'm writing on a little sheet of paper and he's like, what are you talking about? And I'm like, Oh, I need to introduce this to this to this.

And he's like, I referenced a movie. And I'm like, yeah, it made me think of this. Yeah. That's how my brain works. Yeah. I, I love that about every human is uniquely different. I love the stories about how, you know, everybody processes that information in their own way to make them uniquely them. Yeah. And the more that we have that, The more powerful we are as a company, as a society, as a world.

And if we allow people that instead of trying to say, Oh no, you have to think like this, right. Well, what,

Denise Schamens: yeah, the biggest takeaway that I've, I've been able to give when we [00:28:00] present, um, neurodiversity at work. Is really to just be curious and it's okay. Give them permission. It's okay to ask questions. It's okay to pull together a group.

Um, of unique thinkers and get their input and get there. I mean, that's the best thing in the world. I think is asking as many questions. Like, what do you need to be successful in your workplace? What can I do to help you be successful and ask them just ask them questions? How do you like to be identified?

Right? When we're looking at identity and. And all of that. So it's just being inquisitive and it's being, it's okay to ask questions. There's no taboo against it. It's okay. And I think that's been the biggest thing for employers to wrap their head around is that they don't need to have all the answers.

They just need to, to ask the people that are working for them.

Leighann Lovely: I think the other thing is, is that so many employers are afraid of making a mistake. Yeah. And therefore they [00:29:00] just shy away. Yeah. From what they don't know. Right. Ask.

Denise Schamens: And it's bringing value to your, your employees then too. I mean, you're placing value on them by asking.

Their opinion on something, or ask how, you know, they could make improvements or what the suggestion or advice would be. How can you, you have to, you have to use those people in your life and use them. Like you said, the, the superpowers that they have. There may be things that you just hadn't even thought of that they can bring new perspective to it.

Leighann Lovely: Absolutely. It's just like bringing in, you know, I'm, I'm 43 bringing in a young, young buck into, sorry, I shouldn't say, but bringing in a young mind, as scary as it is because they're talking about all these, I'm like, I don't even know what that is. And they're like, Oh, it's the newest bubble. And I'm okay.

Great. But it's scary. Cause they're talking about things that I don't even know what they are, but it's [00:30:00] great. That's where we are. Right. Bringing a new perspective. So we are coming to time. Um, this has been an amazing conversation. I love the growth that, um, that, that you have. And I love the fact that you're moving into employers.

Um, yeah, it's just Denise, it's been such a great conversation. Um, and you know, for those of you who have followed my, um, my podcasting career, Denise was actually, um, On a previous podcast that I had, um, so if you want to check out that original episode, you can actually reference back to let's talk HR, um, where she actually, um, had joined.

Those are still live, but you can get that original one out. But again, Denise, it's been such an awesome time. I really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. Yes. Oh, and I, I give everybody their, their, their 30 second shameless pitch. Um, I think we've talked quite a bit about everything, but please, um, if you want to drop anything [00:31:00] where people can reach out to you, go ahead.

Denise Schamens: Yeah, I mean, please find me on LinkedIn. I'm a huge connector on LinkedIn, and I love to make to do one on one. So if you have interest and you want to sit down and talk about what we're doing and what we need as far as time, talent and resources, um, you can find me on LinkedIn, Denise Shamans, as well as, um, feel free to email me at D E N I S E at Goodfriendinc.

com and that's mine. And then our website is goodfriendinc. com. So those are all the all places you can find me. And that'll be in the show notes. Thank you so much. Thank you. Take care.

Genhead: This [00:32:00] podcast is presented by Genhead. Genhead leverages AI so small and medium sized businesses can find their ideal clients to make more sales. Other companies talk about AI, but we are using it every day to drive down marketing costs and increase revenue. Learn more at genhead. com. That's genhead. com.