How To Leverage Your Autistic Strengths (without alienating your NT colleagues) | Patrons Choice

I already loved my employer because I got to work independently and was allowed to do my own thing as long as I got things done in a timely manner. Turns out this employer actually values my differently wired brain and asked me to take a new position. I started it this week and they are already implementing things I've suggested.

Please Paul, have you considered writing a book about all of this? I would definitely love to read it as well- if ever you do!!!

This was really helpful! My problem is that implementing these ideas always makes me feel deceitful. Saying “Thanks for your advice, it was so helpful” when I have no intention of using their advice and believe them to be quite incompetent feels like a lie to me. Maybe it depends on the exact circumstances.

That thought “some of us being incredibly gifted in some areas and also incredibly disadvantaged in other areas”. Explains every disagreement my wife and I had, until we realized I was ADHD and she was Autistic. Now that problem has vanished from our life because we “understand” each other. That concept seemed impossible for me to believe, that any person could be so shockingly talented yet not understand what I thought was common knowledge. I was wrong, like way wrong and I’m very grateful to now know. Every day I see more of how precious my wife is and your videos have provided the information I needed.

Yes, it is soo true about carefully choosing your language when describing your skills to others. My mom is the best at this. She's a freaking prodigy but if anyone asks her about her background she'll just say "I studied X in college" or "Yes, I'm a professional." She just lets others figure it out on their own as they get to know her. Makes it much easier to make friends than "You lack the skills to even assess how skilled I am." So, I like to take a page out of her book when it comes to those kinds of situations.

I'm always being stuck with people who get jealous of me and I've always tried to amplify their contribution to any success that I may have achieved. This only results in them wanting to use me and tear me down further to claim a "victory"

I had this exact issue today lol Like, I'm busting my ass to do you guys a favor, why are you mad? I don't ask or expect you to put the same amount of effort as I do, this is just how I work.

I’m in autistic polymath, my biggest blind spot is jealousy. I have no sense of jealousy so I have no way of anticipating it in others. When I drop into a flow state and accomplished things my classmates or coworkers can’t even comprehend the reaction from my teachers in school or supervisors at work tended to be negative. They’d say “I’m making people jealous, I’m making people feel bad about themselves”. It’s not my fault people are jealous, it’s not my fault that people feel bad about themselves. It took me a while to realize I couldn’t fake dumb around sensitive people. Now I have coworkers that aren’t so sensitive, they know my strengths and weaknesses, our skills compliment each other, we challenge each other, we laugh and play. Life is good now that I found the right group.

This is absolutely great advice. I have a tendency to feel undervalued and to think less of the abilities of others. This video helped me look at things through the opposite lens and see how I might come across to others in a way I'd never considered before. I probably judge others because I'm used to feeling judged, but if I imagine that people actually admire things about me, it's a lot easier to consider how they might feel too. I have had friends admire my confidence and colleagues admire my ethic (neither of which I felt I had), and I dismissed it and thought they were crazy or seeing something that wasn't there because at the time I was so miserable with my life. I never really thought that I had things to envy.

Teamwork always broke me, I had the ideas, organisation, meeting date lines...but managing people? I found most people to slow, not motivated like me, frustratingly socially (chat, go for drinks, hangovers, late...etc..) not meeting deadlines....I’d end up doing it alone, topped and tailed, restructured, logical....then the bomb....the sly looks, back stabbing....people avoiding me....ho hum.

So I work in software and I'm naturally really good at some stuff (like better than most of my colleagues good) and really terrible at other stuff like admin tasks as an example. I'm realizing from this video that my natural success at certain things has made people jealous of me pretty much my whole life not just at work. Basically I have made them angry with me without trying to do so. This has made me so aware of where I can improve. Especially your point about the incompetent colleagues. I realized that that is me judging everyone by my standard which is unfair on them since I actually have the unfair advantage. Once again great video!

My colleague and I have often had this very discussion about work--how to use our strengths without alienating others, and how to manage our weaknesses without alienating others. It has always been an exhausting balancing act.

My partner is pretty hated at his work because he follows the rules to the letter and is very accurate, and will not bend. Amazing how much they hate him for it.

I have no "autistic strength" but I still think the advice for managing work relationships was very helpful to me. Thanks

I was trained by a former Boeing engineer in Electronics Engineering, and once you brought up your example, it clicked with me. I've always been that way in my work. That's how I ended up leading the test department. I taught farmers to be engineers and we kicked all kinds of ass once there was a force multiplier. But you're right about being humble about it

I used to utilize these techniques out of a defense mechanism, which I thought would protect me against people forming negative opinions about me for not affirming them enough. This year, at the ripe ol’ age of 36, I’ve I realized this was a defense mechanism that contributed to me repeatedly finding myself in bullying and narcissistic relationships, both romantically and at work. Perhaps this is more of a problem in my field (pandemic nursing has been very intense lately.) And/or because I am perceived as feminine/female. Maybe this approach works better for [white] males/masculine folks and engineers. For me, the result has been my “blood in the water for sharks,” so to speak. Thank you for making YouTubes, regardless! We need Autists doing this stuff!

This helped me alot. I didn't realize I could make someone else feel bad when I would say things like ( oh, no big deal I did it in no time.) I will definitely remember this and probably never say things like that again. Thank you 😊

I love how we are being labelled as low in EQ but we do tons of research on other’s emotional feeling. Damn!! Ironically what a fucked up world we are living in.

I love how you are basically saying that we need to mitagate how awesome we are because the neurotypicals can't handle it.

My solution was to fight for the rights of those too afraid to speak up for themselves. Terrified to defend myself, but on behalf of other or colleagues, I become relentless and we attained a pay raise and got the abusers removed. It was rewarding, but so energy intensive. I wish I had known I was thinking like you are describing, I would have lessened the emotional charge that event caused.