BROADCASTS.com

In This Episode:\n\n\n\n* How Work Brighter founder Brittany Berger leverages her unique strengths to create a custom approach to productivity and structure* Why she tracks her mood and energy to make her working time more effective* How she\u2019s reimagined traditional productivity \u201crules\u201d through the lens of neurodivergence and chronic illness* How her obsession with pop culture has become a strength for creating compelling content\n\n\n\nHow do you operate in a world that\u2019s not designed for you?\n\n\n\nHow do you make sense of instructions that weren\u2019t written for you?\n\n\n\nHow do you navigate expectations that weren\u2019t set with you in mind?\n\n\n\nThese are big, personal questions and, thankfully, we\u2019ve started taking a look at the answers at a cultural level and not just at the individual level.\n\n\n\nBut until we see some serious change to a culture that privileges white, male, thin, neurotypical, heterosexual, cisgendered, hierarchal, and non-disabled ways of living, we\u2019ve got some adapting to do.\n\n\n\nIt\u2019s easy to think that these adaptations are a constraint. A limitation of what\u2019s possible.\n\n\n\nAnd honestly, sometimes they are.\n\n\n\nBut often, these adaptations are leveraged as strengths.\n\n\n\nTruthfully, I didn\u2019t think these questions belonged to me for a long time. I thought I\u2019d been gifted with talent, intelligence, and at least a bit of charisma and that I really should be able to make it all work pretty easily.\n\n\n\nIt wasn\u2019t until I ran straight into a wall of burnout after college that I started to question whether that was really true.\n\n\n\nIt\u2019s been 16 years since I hit that wall. Since I sat on my professor\u2019s couch and cried that I just didn\u2019t know if grad school was the next step for me. Since my mom took the truck up to Syracuse to move down the furniture we\u2019d already moved into my grad school apartment.\n\n\n\nAnd over those 16 years, I\u2019ve tried to fix myself. I\u2019ve tried to become the kind of person who operates in this world naturally, who follows the instructions to a T, and who easily meets and exceeds expectations.\n\n\n\nBut last year, I got curious.\n\n\n\nAs I talked about some of my own breakthroughs and personal successes in terms of learning to manage myself better and execute on ideas, I got gentle messages from folks urging me to be careful about not taking neurodivergent experiences into account in the way I explained what I was working with.\n\n\n\nAt first, my reaction to these messages was the deep concern that comes along with inadvertently harming someone or making them feel like they don\u2019t belong.\n\n\n\nBut then, once I understood their own experiences better, I started to wonder: is my experience really that different than theirs? Or rather, do my experiences fit the norms as neatly as I\u2019d like them to?\n\n\n\nI found myself wanting to reply that I appreciated their messages, truly, and this doesn\u2019t come easily to me. It\u2019s the hardest work I\u2019ve done in my life.\n\n\n\nOver time, the evidence grew and grew. No, my experience didn\u2019t fit the norms. It might be different than other people\u2019s but my sense that I didn\u2019t belong to the shoulds and supposed-tos of culture, relationships, productivity, or emotions became clear.\n\n\n\nAt the same time, I was hearing even more women talk about themselves and their experiences in ways that felt haltingly familiar...