The Four Factors Every Neurodistinct Leader Needs To Understand

**Morra Aarons-Mele** (0:00)
When my business was growing fast, I was still small and I didn't have the budget to hire a full-time designer for all of our presentation needs, and I turned to Upwork, and I met Waseem, who created the most stunning visual presentation for a huge global client that I really needed to nail. And after that experience, Waseem and I worked together for years. Upwork is your one-stop platform to find, hire, and pay expert freelancers across web and software development, data and analytics, marketing, business operations, and more. Upwork really helps grow your business because you can get fast, trustworthy access to specialized talent across 128 categories. Just visit upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That's upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's upwork.com upwork.com upwork.com Hydration makes me feel better, think better, have more energy. And that's why I love DripDrop. That's dripdrop.com promo code Achiever and get 20% off. I tried IM8 a few months ago and I feel amazing because after all, energy is all we have. And when we have energy, you can go to imaithealth.com/achiever right now or click on the link in the description and use code Achiever for a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, plus 10% off your order. Go to monarch.com and write your own money story. Use code Achiever at monarch.com and get your first year of Monarch Core at half off. If you're trying to grow globally, you know that there's compliance and paperwork and a lot of things that you need to worry about and you need help with. And that's what Pebl is here for. But right now, there's a limited time offer that makes it even easier to get started if you're growing globally. Just go to highpebl.ai before it's gone. That's h-i-p-e-b-l.a-i.
Terms and conditions apply. With Shopify, nothing stands between your idea and a real business. So go make it one.
Start your free trial at shopify.com/anxiousachiever.
I use Whatnot for live, connected community shopping for everything from jewelry and high-end fashion to collectibles and fun things. Just search Whatnot, W-H-A-T-N-O-T, in the app store.
Do you have a really hard time sitting at your desk just because you're supposed to? Do you feel like maybe the nine to five is not made for you? Do you feel like maybe the things that motivate other people just leave you cold? Do you have an amazing ability to hyper-focus your attention when you really care about what you're doing? And yet, and yet, so much of your workday leaves you distracted and staring out the window.
That's great if this is you. And today, I'm going to take you deep inside my framework called Adam, although you'll hear me refer to it as Tam because that's its old name, which is all about your attention, your time, your agency and your motivation. The unique four factors that people with different brains need to deeply understand and incorporate into their work lives to be happy, thriving, energetic and super successful. So this is actually a LinkedIn live session I did where 750 people registered and it's a little bit of a teaching session. I'm going to talk you through my NeuroStrength research, where 1,286 neuro distinct professionals told me how they manage and think about their careers. Then I'm going to take you inside the framework. Super helpful. I know you're going to love it. Let me know what you think about your needs when it comes to time, agency, attention and motivation.
I am Morra Aarons-Mele. I'm so excited to be live with you all. And this is going to be an interactive session. So we'll just give it a sec for people to log on. And I'm going to talk a little bit. And then we'll do some exercises. But if you have questions, if you have comments, please feel free to leave them in the chat on LinkedIn. And I should see them, even though I'm broadcasting from StreamYard. So I can't see the LinkedIn page, but your questions and comments will hopefully will show through on here.
All right, well, let's get started.
I am really, really excited. And I'm not going to lie, like maybe even a little bit nervous to present this today because this is the first time apart from my podcast, that I'm talking about this stuff in public. And it's kind of a preview. This is my new book, The Atypical Achiever. I don't know if any of you here have read or know my book and my podcast, The Anxious Achiever. And you can see there's a little bit of similarity in the font. And that's on purpose. This is really, to me, like the next iteration of the work that I have done for many years, examining anxiety at work, mental health at work, and interviewing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, really successful people who have different brains and yet have figured out how to make their careers work for them. And not just work for them, but like really soar for them, even in workplaces that frankly weren't always made for them. And so that's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about the TAM framework. And what I want this to be is a place for you to explore. At the very end, I will give you a link where you can download your own TAM worksheet and do some more thinking if you want, but let's dive in. I'm going to talk a little bit and I'm going to share a couple slides from my research because I think it's, well, A, I think it's fascinating, but B, I think it's interesting to see the grounding. And if any of you watching this feel like, oh my god, that's me, let us know in comments. But the thing I want to say first is that this work, and I think when we talk about working with professionals who are neurodivergent, neurodistinct, or who have diagnoses, is really individual. None of us is the same. And I'm really trying to address that individuality and not make pronouncements. So if something doesn't ring true for you, even if it pisses you off a little bit, that's okay too.