Over the last three months I’ve been ‘doing a pivot’ from being an email marketing mentor and employability lecturer, into a mentor for neurodivergent people. Here’s why…
I’d been working on growing an email marketing business for a few years. Initially I’d planned to manage email marketing for small businesses, but I found the kind of small businesses I enjoyed working with most wanted a mix of ‘do it yourself’ with me advising, then me doing some tech set up and tweaking when needed.
On the side (although it was a lot more than just on the side at times!) I worked as an adult education lecturer, teaching adults basic English, maths, CV writing, interview skills, retail, customer service and other skills that would get them into work or promoted into better paying jobs.
There were several neurodivergent people on each course I ran, sometimes a lot more. Many had a diagnosis, others were almost certain they were neurodivergent but didn’t have a diagnosis yet. I got a lot of practice at breaking down course content and explaining it in different ways, working out exactly where people were stuck, scribing answers in coursework for learners with dyslexia, accommodating different ways of learning and not jumping to the ‘easy’ suggestions like ‘why don’t you just try this’? (Answer: Because people have been telling me to do that my whole life and it doesn’t work).
I learnt to fully listen to people and meet them where they are, not where anyone else said they should be.
Over in my email marketing business, I found that the service I offered began to over flow from email marketing into other areas like sales, goal setting and marketing planning. Which actually made it more interesting for me.
Speaking at the Indie Cambridge meeting, March 2024
Back on the education side of my working life, I was asked if I’d like to become a specialist mentor for autistic university students, which meant adding the National Autistic Society’s training for mentors and non-medical helpers to the teaching qualifications and experience I already had. I really enjoyed this work, too.
What people seemed to want and need from me was slipping out of alignment with what I’d intended to offer just a few years before. That’s no surprise given the unbelievable pace that things have changed in the world in the last few years. And actually, that was fine with me!
I’ve always had a love of small business and I wanted to take what I’d learned about neurodivergence and using it to help small business owners be happier and have more success. On their own terms, of course.
Being your own boss gives the freedom you can’t get as an employee, but it can have a lot of challenges around confidence, prioritising, organisation, taking in lots of complex and sometimes conflicting information, dealing with other people, staying focused and at times, needing a lot of energy and stamina. Any – or all – of which can be more difficult if you’re neurodivergent.
So here I am moving into Autumn 2025, already a mentor for neurodivergent university students and email marketing mentor, now taking a side-step into mentoring neurodivergent small business owners.
If you’d like to know more, feel free to drop me a message or get on touch on Instagram or LinkedIn. Or keep watching my blog!