Hans, wonderful to have you here. Good day to you. Good day to you too. And, you know, absolutely wonderful to have you here. And thank you so much for for being involved with the conference. We've had I mean, we're having we're having a it's been it's been wonderful. We've got a lot of people involved. We've got a lot of people watching. We've had we had a bit of excitement at 3AM. Our stream went down. It was always the weak point. You have a single pipe into the Internet and we quickly reestablished. I don't know. I can't show obviously modern world. New button. New thing. But it didn't mean we got to see how many individuals had that was roughly the halfway point, about 3AM.

How many individuals had had come and joined the conference? It was 4,400 at that point. So we are, like, really excited about that. So I couldn't we are really excited about that. So it's wonderful. Right. I'm gonna do a little intro on you. So you're an entrepreneur and an employer yourself. Your first company was a legal IT from 1989 till 1998 which you sold. And I think when we talked you said you have sold a reason you had a comfortable existence but you felt that need to to help people. That you'd.

That you'd always coached your your employees, you'd always supported them, and that you saw an opportunity to do that on a wider basis. And so in '98, you started your second company, Quisto Coaching Bureau. You need to think about that, 1998, like, where coaching was at that point. Like, very different world. Right? Like, right now, much more accepted. A lot of the tech companies have done a lot to change attitudes, but, like, really pioneering work. And and coaching employees from with ADHD, autism, dyslexia, gifness, focus on talents. And you're also vice president of ADHD Europe and chair of the science committee of the Dutch Association for People with ADHD, Dyslexia and Dyscalculia.

So you also bring out wider European experience which is something we're very keen on. Mean, we're looking to do this as a a a global event which we've successfully done. You've got a fabulous presentation for us. Shall I flip over to the slides and and bring people then just say next slide and I'll push on and for anyone from like for our UK listeners that is extremely reminiscent of COVID times. We used to we used to come in, watch the news, and we'd have the chief medical officer give us horror upon horror of slide. And each time we just be like, next slide. We'd be like, oh my god. What's coming next? Yeah. Yeah. No no problem. Go ahead. Just go ahead. Over to you.

Yeah. So thank you for having me here. It's a wonderful opportunity to share my experience in coaching employees for employers. This is next next sheet, please. Next slide.

Doing a terrible job already.

There you go. Yeah. So you already told this. I'm here today as a coach. My company name is Crystal, experts in people at work, and as you told them, I'm also vice president of ADHD Europe, etcetera. Next slide, please. Yeah. In addition to what you are told, I would like to share how did I become a coach. And like you just said, it it it emerges in 1998 from two lines in my life. One is that I've been working in different organizations. I started in a cleaning company when I was 15 or some till 21 next to school, etcetera. And I was kind of secretary of the entrepreneur, so I already sensed some entrepreneurship there. And then I went to work in the Rotterdam Court of Justice, so a totally different culture, and.

I studied law next to my job in court, and I was a court clerk, so secretary of the judge. And then the first computers were brought in in 1988 or some, and my my I I will tell you about that later. And then after court, I worked in university as a teacher in legal informatics, legal IT, and from there, I started my own company, legal IT expert sisters. Never mind what that is. It's programming software. And the other line is that in the eighties, I got we would call it now anxiety disorder, and I didn't know back then that I have ADHD and dyslexia. I just felt, well, well, I have to go to a mental hospital or something or whatever. I and I went to my GP, and he referred me to Gestalt therapy. Maybe some of you know that, and it helped.

After, well, more or less one year. Back in court was the time I worked in court. Back in the court sessions, etcetera, go through all my fears and anxiety, and well, I became up and running again. But this opened for me the world of psychology. So I did more therapy, then it became trainings, it became courses, and in the end I did a three year education to become a therapist trainer. So in 1998, when we had sold this legal IT company to a big editor, this experience was still, well, present, and I thought, well, let's the word coaching, like you said, the word coaching came up in 1998, and I thought that's that's gonna be it. I I kind of have a good intuition of innovation, things that will succeed or won't.

And I thought coaching, this is the answer for employees in working situations. In the beginning, I had to explain to everybody what coaching is, but after a few years, everybody became aware, oh, the manager has a coach and the secretary has a coach, etc, so people got to know it. Anyway, so that's how I started in '98 and then I took in another colleague, a trainer and another coach, another coach, so this became my second company and it grew and we had an account manager and an office manager, etc. Then in the twenty eleven-twelve financial worldwide crisis, it shrank again, and then we had to fire almost everybody. It was a terrible time, of course, but everybody has new job in the meanwhile. So.

And then it grew again, but now we work in a network setting. It's more modern, nobody on the payroll but as a network of coaches and psychiatrists, etc. Next slide please. Yes, here it starts about coaching. In 1979 I worked in court, as you see, as secretary to the judge, and my manager back then, nobody knew about ADHD, dyslexia, whatever, they weren't even into psychology, but my manager said, Hans, leave your secretary work there, and these computers that came in are a pilot of the Ministry of Justice and it has to be a success within one year. Hey, now we know for ADHD that's a magic formula. It's one year a fixed period with a clear aim, and let's say he backed me up. He helped me and he supported me, so.

These computers became a success and it was the start of my career in legal IT, so I explicitly thanked him for that later on. Next slide, please. So this is the network I'm talking about, and we have some other colleagues also. We work for employers and most of the time company doctors and HR advisors refer to us. Next slide please. Yeah, let's go into first, before I talk about coaching employees, let's take away some prejudice about employers, because employers are not the bad guys most of the time. Of course, there are some, I know, but in The Netherlands and also in other countries, pay you and they want production. And if you flourish, if you are happy, the employer is happy. So.

Please try to not see the employer as the bad guy. Next slide, please. This is how an HR manager or the manager him or herself looks at an employee. This is kind of in the back of their mind. They look at, of course, your performance, quality and quantity, but next to that how you communicate with clients and with colleagues, how you work together with colleagues, the risk that you get ill, of course your well-being, because if you feel well, everybody feels well and especially your employer. So are your talents in place? Do we make the maximum profit of you? And of course environmental circumstances. Next slide, please. This is what I show employers to make them realize that they have a certain percentage of special brains neurodiversity.

Whatever you want to call it, and it always works. So when I show it to them, I fill in the name of their company, look at the Internet if they have a thousand or 30,000 employees, and then they see this calculation. And for an employer most of the time this is an eye opener: oh, woah, this is serious business!' Yes, it is. And putting it in statistics of other things like depression, sleeping disorder, etc, they see that these are concerns of HR. You have to pay attention to that, you have to invest in that. Next slide, please. So for employers and of course for everybody, it's kind of easy if you realize that about ten percent if you count dyslexia, ADHD, autism and giftedness.

Ten percent of every office, more or less, has a special brain, is neurodivergent. Next slide, please. This is what employers want and what they do not want. This is what I try to explain to my clients also. Don't go too much in fight for your right and demand adjustments, etcetera. Of course, useful adjustments are very good, but please realize what an employer wants: quality, innovation, creativity. Hey, when I'm talking about innovation, creativity, inventivity, does it ring a bell? ADHD maybe? So, there is where you can get a connection with your employer. Next slide please. So now about coaching. First of all, coaching in general. The coach.

In my opinion by the way, this is the Equisto way, there are other ways to look at coaching of course, and I'm only talking about the Equisto way. Coaching the coach is kind of an extended brain, a think along. And for the time, the period of coaching, the coaching trajectory, the brain of the coach is connected with the person and the person can use my brain. Okay, next slide please. If you want to know the opinion of ADHD Europe about ADHD coaching, you can look in the internet and if in Google you just type in ADHD Europe coaching guide, you will find it practical coaching guide version twenty twenty. And there will be a new version in 2022, but you will find it. ADHD Europe coaching guide. And it's very helpful for especially for people.

Who discovered they have ADHD and they are looking for a coach and it has a list of questions you can ask a coach to just check if he or she is a fit with me. It's a practical way of supporting you how to find a coach. Next slide please. And this is we go through it step by step: employer, employee, everything fine, everybody healthy. Next please. Then something happens: employee gets ill or the relation employer employer is under pressure. Next please. Then the coach is called in via what I said, the company doctor or HR. And we do an intake session with employer, that will be the manager, maybe with HR and the employee and we start working on the relation and health etc.

And then if things are repaired, the employee and employer can independently go on, then the coach leaves, next. Okay, fine, that's in general. I told this because it's a triangle coaching. That's why I started with explaining about the employer, because people tend to of course empathize with the employee, but if you don't include the employer in your mindset, in your attitude, that is a risk factor. Okay, next slide please. In Cristo, this is about the average way we coach. It's always a limited time because there's a contract with a quote and it's the average is, I think, nine months, maximum twelve months, of course, exceptions are possible. And the budget is around €4,500. We do 15 to 20 sessions of one and a half hour.

And what is important that when I start as a coach with the employer and the employee, like I said, in the triangle situation, I ask the employer, okay, you pay some money for this, what are your aims with this trajectory? And then at the employee I ask what are your working issues, the issues you want to work on, because that's important. If an employee thinks, well, I've got nothing to work on, then there's no coaching. It might be mediation because the employer has a problem there, but it's important that the employee formulates more or less openly the issues he or she wants to work on. What also is characteristic of our way of coaching is that the coach is kind of softly leading the whole trajectory.

So if something is needed from someone else, the coach takes initiatives. And because the employer pays me or my colleague, this employee, it doesn't work, there are problems, issues with communications, whatever, like I told you in the scheme, and we are responsible for the whole person to get back in place. Next slide please. We do integral and multidisciplinary coaching. I will try to explain what integral is. This is one of the aspects of integral coaching. It's not very well readable, but anyways. At conception you get your genes, your genes are in an environment, first in the womb, then as a baby, etc, and all this creates your personality, including school, etc. With this personality you are in a certain culture.

Like I told you, in the cleaning company or in the court of justice, that's quite different, you know. So your personality in interaction with your environment, that makes out your functioning. And from your functioning, you have your productivity, your and from there, your career, direction of the future, and becoming getting in place and etcetera. So this is one of the aspects. The total person is taken into consideration in the coaching as we do it. So integral for us, the Equisto way means all aspects of private and working life as far as it's economic and necessary. Of course, we're not going through a whole list of things and we are not working with protocols, but everything can come on the table, can be discussed and worked on in.

The coaching. It's not only ADHD, it's giftedness, autism, trauma, communication, private relationships, the family, whatever necessary for this person in this situation to become healthy again, to go back to work, to find another place to work, to a placement or whatever is needed. So whole integral is also that we do the whole process. We start with analyzing the situation, detection, and then we organize, if necessary, diagnosis. That's why I, in my network, is a psychiatrist who does diagnosis, can prescribe medication, do together with me or my colleague therapy or other treatment. We also do the psychoeducation, we work on acceptance and taking very important, taking responsibility for the way you are.

Your ADHD or whatever your characteristics are. It's multidisciplinary, I think you have grabbed that already, because we are a team of coaches, we help each other. If I come to my boundaries, my limitations, I ask my colleague to come in and sit in in the session, coaching session, the psychiatrist, or we have psychologists, or we do tests, or whatever is necessary, it's all in the network. Next please. So before I proceed, I'm explaining this is the way Equisto does it. It's developed since 1998 and, of course, I'm very much in favor of this way of working. That's why I do it. But it's not the only way, of course. That's why I showed you the ADHD Europe, ADHD coaching link.

And there are always other ways to do it. We are not perfect. It's just our way. So let that be clear, I'm just telling you my experience and how we think we became successful. So the coach also does detection because many times a client, an employee in our case, comes in and there are problems in interaction and the manager is a bit irritated, etc, etc, And ADHD is not always already diagnosed, so we also do detection and we do that listening in. If someone says, well, I always felt different, then of course we're going to look at giftedness or ADHD, etcetera. If the person talks about sensitivity for light and sounds, if the manager complains, he is always postponing things and etcetera. So procrastination.

As you know, is really an ADHD thing. Next, please. Other detection criteria is that's why we always involve the manager. If the manager is quoting colleagues and tells us, well, she's a perfectionist or like sometimes they call me one on one, the manager, and they say, well, if he just wanted he could. I think everybody with ADHD recognizes this kind of gossip behind your back, if he just wanted then and then I can translate this into hey, this might be ADHD or something else. So all these things and planning, of course, logistics, or the employee asking for, well, do you have a course in time management? I said, well, let's talk first. Time management is okay, but maybe other things have a better priority. Next, please.

Well, more into coaching. Then if we have a diagnosis, as I told you, we organize that, or the person already has a diagnosis for ADHD, then there are certain we have the general coaching tools and we have the specific ADHD coaching tools. I think the thing that takes, well, a lot of time is again and again explaining to the person this is your ADHD behavior. And even when we do triangle conversations with the manager, the team lead present, and the employee has decided to be open about his or her ADHD, I also explain the brain, that's what I call it, explain the brain, and point out this is ADHD behavior and why it is ADHD behavior, and this is something else, because a person is not only his or her ADHD. You have a lot of characteristics.

What is very important in ADHD is to explain self control and make it specific in certain situations and not as a as as a critique, but as feedback for the employee to get to know him or herself. And as is well known within ADHD, of course, emotional regulation is a huge challenge. And, of course, with medication that helps, but still the coach explains to make the person aware where these emotional regulations going over the top in your happiness or grief or madness or whatever. So what is happening here in all this explaining the brain is creating a kind of helicopter view in the person, and that helps to raise internal awareness of what the person is doing and why. Next, please. And now we have two long lists of all kinds of.

ADHD characteristics, and of course these two lists are not applicable for everybody. But it's I I never bring it up as a list, but it's in the back of my mind, of course, after so many years. And these are the detection criteria, but also when diagnosis is there, it's something to talk about, to realize for instance that with ADHD most of them are functioning better in crisis situations. So they become a crisis mechanic, crisis manager, an ambulance nurse, whatever, and that's great of course, but if in the end you're about 35, 40 years old, 45, and energy changes, then always being in a crisis, which is a solution for your ADHD brain, is draining your energy, and that's when we meet them, for instance, when they get burned out and they.

Have a problem at work. So to realize that your brain is kind of looking for crisis situations, selecting crisis situations, is a solution for your ADHD, then if for instance you use medication a bit, then you don't need too much of a crisis to really become awake. Okay. But also point out the quality side during the coaching, like you're good in risky business, you're a very rapid solution finding, conceptual thinking, and on the other hand also to explain or to work on during the coaching is sort of off topic or have a hard time with making choices in your work or in your life. Hoarders, of course, cleaning your house is many times it's a problem. Here again, we work multidisciplinary. We also have, in our network a coach.

Who helps people at home to get things organized and clean the house. Sometimes this really is a problem and people are really ashamed for it. So it's important to have in our network such a person who is who knows the background a little and helps to structurize life at home. Okay, in detection, and also explain later, I think for ADHD a very symptom is the bumpiness and making careless mistakes. So bump into things when you walk around, have blue spots on your legs and arms, etc, is, one of the most important diagnostic criteria for ADHD, I think. And, of course, alcohol is is important to bring up, And for me, that's easy because in the fifth or sixth coaching session I bring up, I just tell something, yeah, about myself. And.

Some ten years ago, I stopped drinking alcohol and it was for a reason. Then I checked a little about, that it was really more than a bottle of wine per day, every day, and that my doctor said such and so. And then they feel open to, okay, Hans, now that you bring it up, yeah, I do have a problem with alcohol and I blow a lot and whatever. So that's, of course yeah. That's the the advantage of being experienced myself. I I can always tell a little story about my own history, and then people feel more more more at ease to share their problems that are hidden behind the mask of being such a fantastic employee. Okay, next slide please. One of the things that is also reported in diagnostic criteria as well, but also talk about during coaching.

Is interrupt people when they talk. In diagnostics this question is asked, but be careful because someone who interrupts others when they are talking is not always ADHD. It can also be giftedness because gifted people also interrupt. So when you ask do you interrupt people, it's important to ask us. If if they say yes, ask the second question, why do you interrupt? Gifted people most of the time answer, I already know what they are going to say and I have an opinion about it. And people with ADHD say spontaneously, otherwise I forget what I'm to say. So the forgetfulness, the memory problem in ADHD makes them interrupt. So for diagnostics, that's important. And then when coaching starts to bring it up and.

For instance, as a measurement if a d s if ADHD medication is working or in another way. And then, of course, all kinds of other ADHD traits will be discussed. Procrastination, I already mentioned, and they and the forgetfulness is really something more than once has to be talked about. How are you going to solve this because now we are talking coaching, so diagnosis is there, and then we start coaching the ADHD trait. And then forgetfulness is is in kind of all aspects of life, private life, working life, etc, and that needs attention. If we proceed to the next slide, we can now go into tools for coaching. This is my favorite. This is me in my former office and doing a power net. And there are other ways, but mini breaks.

Are very important for ADHD. It helps your brain to recover, to bring back energy, and, I prefer the power nap, but mindfulness is okay. Take a walk. The power nap, please, if you want to do a power nap, first look on the Internet and remember power nap never longer than twenty five minutes. That's very important because if you really get to sleep longer than twenty five minutes, you will have a hangover and really disturbing your brain and your bio rhythm, etcetera. So if you're not used to it, I'm trained in PowerNeb. I do it for, whatever, forty years now. So I can do it everywhere, and after twenty five minutes, I wake up and come back and go ahead with my work. But for people who are not trained, you need to set a timer.

That's important. So power net is a very powerful means to to calm your brain better, to energize your brain. And we know that after PowerNet, people with ADHD are more tranquil, more calm and more focused, so it helps. PowerNet is good for everybody, but especially for ADHD. Next, please. Next slide, please. Yeah. Thank you. Oh, this is I found this this is very expensive, but some companies do have a power nap cabin where you can sleep a little. It's funny. I I wouldn't ask an employer to buy these these expensive things, but it's funny. Okay. Next, please. So other ADHD coaching tools. Protocolize, so that is training the brain to structurize. If we have time later on, I can tell you how we do it.

But I want to proceed now, but this is very important. The the brain of ADHD doesn't create a step by step plan for every action, every small thing you have to do or a total project, etcetera. They're they're in the brain. There's no puppet how to step by step do something. Okay. Hopefully, we have some time left to explain that later. Then habits are good, and a chain of habits is extra good. So let me say, I've also coached adolescents, sometimes brushing your teeth is a problem, but sometimes or sometimes they forget to take their medication in the morning. So this is a nice example. I start asking, okay, when you get up in the in the morning, do you brush your teeth? Yes, I brush my teeth every morning, no problem. Okay, that's great.

Then take a rope and connect it with your toothbrush or your toothpaste and connect the pills, the medication, with the toothbrush. Leave it there for a few days and this will remind you to take your medication. After a while you can remove the rope and the rope is now in your brain. So this is the chain of habits. So use a habit that's already there and connect an important basic habit to it. Like say if they know I use breakfast every morning, you can connect something to the breakfast. So these chains are the anchors during the day. I always explain that the anchors during the day give you the freedom to be creative and be yourself as long as the anchors are secured.

Then of course we work on PTD means things to do, so have one list of things to do and maintain it every day, I have one diary agenda. Really, I meet people who have three agendas. That's no good. It has to be in one place, one thing to do, one email, and one diary. Ohio is also a very nice one because Ohio I met it in 2002, I was in Chicago, and there workshops, and in a workshop someone explained this, only handle it once. So when you pick up an email, when you open an email, deal with it, archive it, delete it, do what's asked, and then if you don't want to open it, if you don't want to deal with this, don't open it. So Ohio is very important. The compartmentalization.

Of the week, so every morning I start with this, Every Tuesday, I do that. That is helpful for some people with ADHD, not for all, but some. Next, please. Yeah. As I told you, there is in the triangle, that's why I showed the triangle, we also include the manager because if you overcome your prejudice against against managers and employers, you will you will will notice that they are open for it. I meet a lot of managers or HR advisers that say, oh, we are perfectly open for ADHD, but please, Hans, explain us, help us, what can we do for John or Mary, and how can we support him or her, how do we have to deal with it, are there any adjustments necessary, and what I meet and I've.

I've been in a lot of organizations in The Netherlands and also abroad, it's it's just that if they don't know, then they will, of course, be irritated and and yeah. It won't work. So in the coaching, you also have to advise the manager in what they can do, and apart from adjustments, this is what kind of thing I I I try to explain. Hey. You pay him or her $2.03, €45,000 per month, profit from it. So make him stand by for crisis events because ADHD is good in crisis events. Or like I told you when I was in court and my manager, who didn't know anything about ADHD, he gave me a challenge with the deadline, including support. It's wonderful for people with ADHD. They really hyper focus and go for it.

And you only have to support them and every now and then, well, tell them to take to take it easy or something, but they will go for it. And also to create to help in things like innovation or in missions impossible. Next slide, please. Yeah, it's back to employers, because employers nowadays ask me and my colleagues how can we become neurodiverse aware, and we made a list of a few steps that an employer can take to make more profit from people with ADHD, from their employees. Okay, next slide please. So these are the 10 steps to become a neurodiversity aware employer. The first thing is I'm very open and challenging with that: hey, employer.

Realize you're paying this person so you have to profit from or her. Not profit in a negative way, but make the best out of it, Because sometimes employers and people, they are also, you know, they're human and they want to empathize, etc. No, take your position. Our aim is we pay you and we hope that you do a lot of good work for us. That's the aim, realistic, that practical. Next thing, the 10% that I showed you, five percent, more or less five percent is ADHD, so they are in your company if you want it or not. Very important, mind your language. That's not only for employers, that's for all of us. Please be aware that ADHD is not a genetic anomaly or.

A disorder or something is broken in the brain or you're sick. No. It's just a property of the brain, it's a characteristic of the brain, it's a set of property maybe, it's not only the noradrenaline or not only the dopamine, it's a lot of things, but a set of properties of the brain and which have advantages and disadvantages. Also important for an employer is if they see certain problems, that it might be dyslexia, ADHD, autism, giftedness, etc. So the problem is not that John or Mary doesn't want to deliver. The problem in communication, in procrastination, in malfunctioning, there's always something behind it. So and if you are aware of neurodiversity, of your 10% of your employee population.

You realize, hey, this might be something with the brain, let's get in an expert. And then, of course, an employer you can't make all employers psychiatrists and HR advisers. Of course, that's impossible for but if they understand the core of ADHD, that will help. So I think, that's my personal opinion from many years of experience, the core for an employer to realize about ADHD is not a disorder, not a concentration problem or whatever, it's a lower standard default level of noradrenaline, makes them less alert, which makes the brain less alert of what the person is doing. And from this less alertness the person isn't aware what he or she is doing. The best picture you can see is children.

When they are talking, their hands are moving around and they bump into things, they throw over their their glass of milk. If you grab that picture, they are not aware where their brains and their their their arms and legs are, so they bump into things. And that's also in adult life, they are not aware that they are talking for more than ten minutes or that they just push the enter and send an email without checking the language or whatever, they are not aware of it and you can help raising awareness, of course, with medication but also with coaching. So what I teach employees employers, HR advisers, company doctors, is try to grab an essential core of ADHD.

And, of course, with the the symptoms I showed you before in these detection lists, how to recognize this ten percent. And then the seventh step, how to use their qualities. Because if you understand what the quality of ADHD is, or the quality of autism by all means, then you can manipulate a little and put them just give them another job or another project and use their qualities because number one is, hey. You pay this guy, so use him and make a profit from it. And then of course hire a coach every now and then, that's what happens more and more. Reasonable adjustments, I prefer the word useful adjustments, but anyhow that's a choice of words. And in the end, and it's happening now already, advertising for people with special brains. So.

Yes, I will now proceed to questions, but let me finish. This number 10 is important. My personal aim is that employers start advertising, looking for account manager, sales manager, dyslexia or ADHD comes as a recommendation. Now wouldn't that be wonderful? And here and there it's already happening. So let's end my talk with this hopeful thing for all of us. Thank you so far, and let's have some questions, Henry. Maybe you can close my presentation.

I will close it in just a second. I can't I've seem to have lost my Oh, never mind. There it is. Questions. Wonderful. Thank you very much. We've had a couple of questions in and so very keen to ask you. We've had someone in enthusiastic so they've actually emailed us in because it for some reason wouldn't get went to enter in the system. Do you ever see resistance from employees that don't see the coaches on their side because the employer appointed them? And he and he she goes on to say, I'll be wary of someone I hadn't chosen myself. Is this attitude common?

Yeah. In my experience since '98 since 1998, it happened two or three times within whatever 1,500 cases or whatever. I don't know. Didn't count them. It's an understandable question, but it's it's well, they come to me via the company doctor, and the company doctor is already bit not the employer, but between employer and employee. So and then the company doctor refers to me and gives a referential, so that helps of course. I can understand the question, but it depends on the attitude of the coach I think, Because as I told you the triangle, the the I empathize with the employee as well as with the employer, and I do it openly and transparent and let them understand. So when I address the employer.

I also include the employee and say, this is the employer the way the employer thinks, and it helps you to understand the employer and vice versa. So then they they really feel that I'm independent.

So you have that strong conversation on where the sort of lines of information are so people can feel confident.

Yes.

We had a question submitted so I think it is an interesting question. The title is Self Employment for Late Diagnosed ADHD in Mid-40s. I have latent diagnosis of dyspraxia ADHD ASD traits. Is self employment the way forward? Disproportionately people with ADHD are self employed, maybe my niche. I got a degree, postgraduate qualification, only place to get meaningful employment is declaring dyspraxia or ADHD in a government organization.

So the question is, is self employment something for me?

Yeah. No. I I think that's slightly inferring. Is it sort of all they can do? Is it is it just a government job or self employment?

Yeah. Self employment is really a solution, not the solution, a solution for people with ADHD because operating that's why ADHD sometimes looks like autism. The interaction with the environment, with colleagues is sometimes a bit challenging, so to say. So self employment, then you really feel where the necessities are, where the priorities are, and I see a lot of people with ADHD and other traits who, in the end, make choose to be self employed and it can help, but also as a self employed person, be it only self employed or even becoming an entrepreneur and hiring people, you always need people to support you. So a good bookkeeper, your partner, your private partner as as your kind of secretary support, like my wife always supports me. So.

It's not the solution. It can be a solution. Sorry. Missed that. In the right file, there's two more questions. Another question.

Thank you. Sorry. The we do have another question, so let me just bring that up. People have been very impressed by your approach. Thank you. They'd they'd be keen to know obviously, it's focused on the workplace. Like, do you see how it could be adapted to work in schools?

Work in schools in what ways? In in schools, there are also employees. I I coach a lot of teachers and from all kinds of primary school, secondary school, etcetera. So is that.

So I think I think they're wondering I think they've been impressed by some of the guidance you've given, and they're asking, I think, predominantly, could it work for for the kids? I think this is this coaching.

Yeah. I I have been working in Rotterdam clinic for family a family clinic and coaching adolescents, and I I kind of did the same approach. I went to school with them, the mother, the the girl or boy, and the teacher or the mentor, etcetera. And but it's it's a bit different than at work. You're you're there is not a contract, you know? You can't say what I always promote is, hey, employer, you pay them, so profit from them. You can't say that in a with a student. So it's different, but lot of the tools are very applicable very applicable.

They're obviously wonderful and very interest you know, and it's I think it's wonderful to have introduced a lot of people to those tools, which I think they're gonna find, you know, which people will find a lot of value from. Oh, my poor video is gone again. It's very sad. So I have to go go to this one so you can see me Yeah. Slightly less beautiful. I thought we got the the other video back. I'm sad for it. Hans, you've been absolutely wonderful. Thank you so so much. It's it's genuinely been really wonderful and insightful listening to you and and thank you so so much. Okay. We have to have to say goodbye. It's always a rather quiet goodbye. But.

Yeah, you've been absolutely wonderful. Thank you so, so much. Very insightful, very interesting, and we hugely value you coming. Thank you for supporting this. Thank you for all your work you've done for people with ADHD that you do in the the charities.

With ADHD Europe and in The Netherlands and your support here. It's a big deal. Thank you very, very much. It's absolutely my pleasure and hope to meet you again. And if there are any questions, just forward them to me. And if there's an email address, I will answer them. That's very kind. We will we will.

You you heard it. Goodbye. Thank you so much. Success with the conference further. Thank you. Bye, Hans. Bye bye. Bye. Bye. Wonderful. So that like, I thought that was wonderfully insightful, very, very interesting and incredible wealth of experience. And I think particularly bringing in perspective someone who's been doing it for a long time, who started when coaching, you know, wasn't fashionable, looking at different things and having had to build up his own techniques around coaching and ADHD. And you can see he's built up real structures and and and ideas which bring their own insight.