Episode 162: Neurodiversity and inclusion in tech – with Jennifer Opal

The episode transcript is below.

Carolyn Kiel: Before we get started with today’s episode, here’s a 30-second preview of another podcast I’m enjoying.

[All About Change podcast promo]

Speaker 1: He just kind of nodded at me and said “last day of school, mommy.” And that was the last time I ever saw him.

Speaker 2: The front desk told us that we couldn’t visit him. He’s a ward of the state.

Jay Ruderman: Hi, I’m Jay Ruderman, host of All About Change, a podcast showcasing individuals who leverage the hardships they faced to better the lives of others.

Speaker 3: I always had a place to escape, but this was something that was unraveling in front of 23,000 people.

Jay Ruderman: Listen to all about change for a dose of hope and inspiration.

[Beyond 6 Seconds introduction]

Carolyn Kiel: Welcome to Beyond 6 Seconds, the podcast that goes beyond the six second first impression to share the extraordinary stories of neurodivergent people. I’m your host, Carolyn Kiel.

Hey, thanks for joining me on this episode! Today I’ve got a great guest for you. Her name is Jennifer Opal. She’s a DevOps Engineer who was diagnosed with dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADHD while she was at university. She talks about what inspired her to get into tech, as well as some of the challenges she faced at work, as a neurodivergent employee and as the only Black woman in the office at one of her first tech jobs. Now she’s at a different tech company, and she continues to share her story on social media and her blog as a queer, neurodivergent Black woman in tech to inspire others.

If you’re inspired by stories like this from neurodivergent people, then please follow Beyond 6 Seconds wherever you listen to podcasts! I’d also appreciate it so much if you help me spread the word about this podcast. One great way to do that is to share it with your friends! Send my website, beyond6seconds.net, to a friend who would enjoy this podcast, or if you’re listening on your phone right now, just take a screenshot, post it to your social media and tag me at beyond6seconds. It’s a great way to help me amplify more stories from neurodivergent people, and I thank you for that.

Ok, now let’s get to my conversation with Jennifer.

On today’s episode, I’m really excited to be speaking with my guest, Jennifer Opal. Jennifer is a DevOps engineer with the HelloSign team at Dropbox, a multi award-winning neurodiversity and inclusion advocate, blogger and keynote speaker. Having dyslexia, dyspraxia, and ADHD, Jennifer’s worked with clients such as Bloomberg, Google, and HackAJob, sharing her story, tech career journey and providing insight on being a neurodivergent Black woman engineer in tech, in the hopes of educating and inspiring others. Jennifer, welcome to the podcast.

Jennifer Opal: Thank you so much for having me.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, really excited and happy to learn more about your story on the show today. So tell me about how you got your diagnoses of dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADHD.

Jennifer Opal: Yeah. So at the time, this was in 2018. I was at uni at the time, before I dropped out for the fourth or fifth time as most ADHD totally do, I couldn’t understand myself, so indecisive, we’re not sure what we’re decided to do. But I was at university studying business and French language. And what I was finding is that when I was reading texts I would feel physically overwhelmed. It was, it was quite a scary kind of feeling, but always felt panicky. The words were moving across the page. I was always losing track of where I was. It took me, took me hours just to read one page.

So when I went to a tutor who referred me to get some support from a university, the university. And then I was referred to an educational psychologist who ran a test. And in my head I knew dyslexia. And to be honest with you, I’d always struggled with reading growing up. So I knew I was dyslexic. I was just never really had anyone tell me that I was dyslexic, but I knew that I was. So when I got the diagnosis saying, yep, you have dyslexia, but you also have dyspraxia, which I’d never heard of, and ADHD, which I had never heard of. So I was just given these results and I was, and then they were like, okay, cool. There you go. And I didn’t know where to go from there. But from that point I was then referred on to some further support to kind of figure out what tools I needed in order to help me manage my dyslexia and manage being this new identity, you know, being neurodivergent. And I was given support in terms of learning how to use a screen reader, knowing about different colors, spectrums that I respond to, and learning about the Pomodoro technique, et cetera. So the dyslexia didn’t come as a surprise, but dyspraxia and ADHD definitely did. And I was 27 at the time of my diagnosis, and I’m now 31.

Carolyn Kiel: Oh, wow. So yeah, so relatively recent. And it’s amazing. How long it can take to get official diagnoses. Like everybody’s story is different. Most of the adults I talked to were not diagnosed very early in life. They found it, you know, when they were adolescents or even well into adulthood. And it’s also interesting to hear the kinds of supports that you get after you get the diagnosis. So is it just like, here it is, here you go, figure it out. Or is like, here are some supports that you can use in school or just in life or at work or wherever you are.

Jennifer Opal: Yeah, it was really focused on school though, but I, I dropped out in my final year. Because around that time I was doing the coding program, which got me into tech in the first place, which you can, we can delve into later on, but it was really just focused on, what tools do I need in order for me to, to learn? What tools do I need to read, to be able to get through uni and to be able to get through my degree?

But by the time I got diagnosed, it was already too late. I was already failing. I was already doing quite terribly. And it definitely left the impact on my confidence because I just, I stopped going to classes. I couldn’t be bothered to read. And even if I did submit an essay, it was like copy and paste from Wikipedia, copy paste from here. And I just slapped it in and threw it in. And it definitely took a mental toll on me.

And I think for many that might understand, it was quite traumatic to, to get that news. Because you, in your head, you kind of think, but then when it actually happens, it’s like, whoa, what, what now? But then eventually with time, as you start to understand it more, you’re constantly learning new things about it. And I’m still learning about it all the time.

So it was definitely a life-changer for me. But also, a sense of relief that I had answers to thoughts that were in the back of my mind. And I thought was, oh, everyone does that. You know, everyone’s brain thinks and has thoughts all the time, right until they go to bed and right in the morning. And it seems that, oh, no, they don’t. Some people would just switch off. How do you switch off? How do you do that? And some people actually remember the things that they read. I can’t recall anything that I read. You know, short term memory loss is an issue as well, ADHD and dyspraxia overlapping. But I’m, I’m grateful that I got the diagnosis when I did. Definitely.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. And so you got your diagnosis when you were in university, when you were in your twenties, but you went through like all of your early schooling right up until that with these challenges. And you mentioned that you knew you were dyslexic, even though you didn’t have the diagnosis or maybe didn’t know that that’s what it was. So like, what was school like? Did you get any kind of supports in school or how did you kind of get through school before that?

Jennifer Opal: Well the UK schooling system’s a bit different. So for us it’s primary school from the age of, I think it’s four or five up until 11. So got like year one up until year six. But I was always described as a bright young girl. Always bright, intelligent, full of personality. But then over a period of time there times I was described as quite shy. But I think that what I was finding is that my memory was starting to get a bit off around that time.

So I remember that one, one activity clearly. I was given some homework and I, I remember filling in that homework. I was so happy and excited to give in that homework. It was a math homework. Gave it in. And I can’t remember what the equation was. We did like multiple subtraction or addition. And I remember writing in my head, I remember writing the actual result, which was 671. I remember writing that number, but then I was given the homework back to me. And they crossed it off because, no, you got it wrong. I’m like, how? The answer was 671. He goes yeah. but why did you write 6? I’m like, what? I don’t remember writing 6, but I did. I looked at the piece of paper. I wrote 6, but in my head, I wrote 671. So I was just like, oh, okay. I don’t know, it was really, really confusing.

And then I also had incidents where I remember drawing, in art class I had to draw a snake. It was, I was a very creative, very artistic, still am. And I drew the snake and I had to put my name on the back. And then when it was given back to me, someone else crossed my name out and wrote their name on it and said it was theirs. And I’m like, no, it’s mine, but I knew it was mine because that took so much time during that. I in that moment questioned whether I actually did draw that because I genuinely then started to have moments where it was like, am I remembering this correctly? Because this has kind of happened before. Where I don’t, where I think I’ve done something and I haven’t done something. came to realize that the kid was just playing a joke, but it, it definitely kind of stuck in my head a lot.

So there’s a lot of times, where I felt that, growing up into adulthood and even into high school I questioned a lot of my decisions because I wondered, am I in the wrong here? Or did I do something wrong? Did I miss something? I always questioned my memory recall a lot. High school wasn’t any easier. I was bullied in high school as well. So I spent a lot of time on my own. But always described as intelligent, always described as bright, always described as someone that had potential, et cetera. But no one, I think because of that, no one ever thought that there was something else going on beneath the surface, because there was already so much going on outside of it. I was bullied on one end and I was doing well in school. So I must not have any issues. I must not have this dyslexia, but I actually did.

Yeah.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. It’s funny how sometimes if your grades are okay, that a lot of other things get ignored when you’re in school, it’s like, well, I guess they’re fine. It’s like, well, you don’t know what’s going on inside someone’s head and all the other things that they have to deal with. And I’m just starting to learn myself more about dyspraxia. It’s, it’s relatively new for me. And I’ve talked to a couple people about it and I’ve come to learn that people just experience it differently. So how do you experience dyspraxia in your day to day life?

Jennifer Opal: Yeah. So for me in my day-to-day life, I’m very clumsy. I have to be incredibly careful, I bump into things quite a lot, still. I might find moments where I think I’m walking in a straight line and I’m actually not. Or it might be for example, like the memory loss, which is short term memory loss is something that many people with dyspraxia experience. I know that is something that people with ADHD also experience is, there’s a bit of overlap there, but short term memory loss is definitely something that I struggle with. Planning, managing my time. I would say those are the main things that I would say really affects me.

Planning, especially I try my hardest to think, yes, I can do this. I can get it done today. I can get this done this week. And sometimes I just don’t. Or I lose track of time where I say I’ll be able to get something done by this week, and then I overestimate or underestimate and it takes longer and longer and longer. Like what I’ve come to find out to kind of find ways to hold myself accountable. Because I, I can only do so much in terms of asking everyone to support in some way, but I’ve also gonna make efforts on my own. So always looking at different tools. Making to do lists, rather than doing it daily, doing it weekly or doing it every two weeks or two weekly. So I give myself a whole bunch of tasks to do within the two weeks. So I don’t feel bad or feel anxiety because I haven’t gotten something done within the day that I said I work because I’m putting pressure on myself to get something done. But the planning and definitely the memory loss as well. Cause there’s a lot of times where I’d be like, I’ve done something, and I don’t remember what I actually did. Or I’m asking someone to repeat what it is they just said. Or you can say a whole big sentence and I’m only picking up a few words of that sentence. And in my head, I’ve just kind of twisted it all up and made my own sentence. And it’s not actually what was said. So I have to kind of think of continuing to think of ways to just not be scared of just saying, Hey, can you just repeat that? Or I think I heard you say this, am I right? Am I wrong? And sometimes in my head I’m actually right. You know, but I think that because I’m so used to, you know, forgetting things, sometimes I feel a bit nervous or I’d be scared of people think I’m not listening and that’s really not the case. But I would say. Yeah, those are, those are things, if that makes sense.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, absolutely. And it kind of goes back to what you were saying with that, that self doubt is like, well, this sort of thing has happened before. Did it happen this time or was it just once? So yeah, just sort of accommodating for that.

So yeah, so, you know, as we mentioned in your bio, you now work in tech and right now working in dev ops. So I would love to hear more about your career journey into tech. So what inspired you to get into tech in the first place?

Jennifer Opal: It’s interesting because I’d never heard of coding prior to me finding out about it. And I was at university at the time. And even doing this degree, I only chose it because business degree is very easy degree to get onto, at least in the UK anyway. So I kind of got onto the degree, say, okay, I’ll do this and figure out what I wanted to do rather than doing it the other way around.

So then I came across an organization called Code First Girls who, which is a social enterprise in the UK. And their mission is to get women and nonbinaries into tech by providing free education on coding. So I did an intro course in 2017. It was like once a week for a couple of months and I loved it.

I absolutely enjoy the creativity behind coding. But then about three months after that is when I was diagnosed with dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD, and my desire to code just kind of went down. My, my, it definitely hit me at my confidence and my mental health. And it definitely made me question whether I am capable of doing anything. How do I navigate life with this new thing? Even though I’ve always had it, but then just having it in your hands, and this is a huge 20 page report about your reading speed, which is incredibly slow, about your memory, about so many things about how smart you are, your IQ. It’s like, what do I do with all of this?

But then, Code First Girls then collaborated with a major telecommunications company here in the UK to create a free program, which is a full-time program for three months, where women and nonbinaries will get to learn to code for free. And at the end of it, an opportunity to interview for a full-time role.

So I was going into my final year of my degree. So I was doing, I didn’t know whether I should drop out of uni or just do the course or both. I decided to do both because I didn’t know if I was going to get the job or not. So I continued the course. I went to uni, went to university 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM and had the course 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM every day. Monday to Friday for 3 months for the length of the course. And I completed the course, I got through interviews and I was given a job offer and I dropped out of uni. And then I ended up moving to Belfast in Northern Ireland, which is where the job would be based. And I decided to move there to have an opportunity to live in another area of the UK, another country, outside of the concrete jungle that is London. I’ve been here my entire life. I was tired, I want to get out of here. I wanna go. And Belfast is beautiful. Absolutely loved it. And was there for two years. Then Dropbox came along and here I am. So I’ve been here since March last year. So yeah, that’s kind of been my journey since then, but definitely been a lot of milestones in between.

But I started to share vocally about being the only Black woman where I was working in the, where I was in Belfast before Dropbox and just sharing the challenges of that, of being lonely in a space where you’re full of people that so many people around you, but you feel incredibly alone and misunderstood and how exhausting that is and how much has impacted me and my mental health.

So I continued to advocate for that, then started talking about being neurodivergent, and continued on that road because I found that talking about diversity is great, but inclusion is so, so important, because the fact that I wasn’t experiencing inclusion led to me being diagnosed with anxiety early last year. And that kind of gave me that decision, where it was like, it’s time for me to move on from here. And having anxiety and ADHD on top of that, really, really difficult experience. And I just felt it necessary to share that with people on the importance of inclusion. That’s why I’m so passionate about it because we don’t realize just how much a lack of inclusion in tech or any industry can really have an impact on someone’s mental health while they’re working for an organization, and after. And I think that that needs to be talked about a bit more.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think I read one of your articles. I think it was on LinkedIn about where you talk about getting into advocacy, because you were often like the only Black woman on your floor, or even in the building in the places where you were working, and how that made you feel like just not included or just, you know, not really part of, you know, the industry or, or the organization.

And I think you were also talking about how you now work remotely or have been working remotely for a couple of months or up to a year. So do you find that your experience with working remotely, like, does that impact the way that you feel included or that others that you feel have felt themselves included?

Jennifer Opal: Yeah. I think that working remotely has definitely had a much more positive impact on my mental health. And I think that is positive for me as a Black woman, but also positive for me as a neurodivergent woman. And I think that the reason being is that I don’t have to explain myself all the time. Because what I found is that sometimes you’ll go into the office, and having to constantly explain your identity or explain, okay, I have ADHD, this is the support I need, or I’m having a conversation and I sometimes have to take long pauses to kind of collect my thoughts and then speak. And then I’ll kind of be like, “I’m so sorry, I have dyslexia” or “I have ADHD, I have to please gather my thoughts. Just give me a moment.” And I find it sometimes like having to explain that can be quite exhausting.

But what I love as well is that I’m in control of my environment. So if I wanted to have a whole bunch of plants surrounding me, because it makes me feel calm, I can do that. Probably look a bit weird doing that in an office. Probably have people asking questions and probably have people’s allergies, but I would have to, like, I would have to worry about that. But also in terms of just explaining, you know, what it means to be Black, you know, what it means to be a Black woman, the challenges that I face being a Black woman and even just the constant having to explain it, that in itself can be exhausting. Whether you’re explaining your Blackness or explaining your experience as a woman in tech, explaining your experience as a neurodivergent person in tech. It can get exhausting when you’re constantly having to do that all the time, and you just kind of want people to educate themselves too. But then it kind of gets to a point where they’re depending on you to educate them. And that’s when it gets exhausting and it can then impact so many other areas of your life, including your career.

But I like the fact that I don’t have to explain. People take the initiative to learn for themselves. If I’ve explained, I explained once, twice, that’s it. You know, outside of that, I don’t have to keep talking about it. And I think that’s what I love is that I can, I protect myself in that way and I protect my peace and my mental health in that way as well. So yeah, that’s what I find is really important to me.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. And I, I can imagine that it’s gotta be exhausting, especially if you’re the only person with those identities and everyone’s looking to you to explain things to them. That can definitely be tiring.

And you know, in terms of your advocacy that you do, I know you’re also a blogger, so I think you share a lot of thoughts through your blogs, that people can go and read and learn for themselves. You know, when you write about tech and you write about inclusion and neurodiversity and and all of that. When did you start blogging and what kind of inspired you to start?

Jennifer Opal: Yeah, it kind of started accidentally. So this was when I was working in the previous company I was working for in Northern Ireland. And there was a day that you did a huge stand up, I guess you can say, all-hands. And we had senior management coming to visit us and one of the CTOs as well. And I think I’d only been there for about a month or so, give or take. And I was always looking out for someone that looked like me, and I was never finding them. And then when everyone gathered on the floor and I looked around, I was like, I’m the only one.

And it got to the point of the stand-up where they asked, ” does anyone have any questions?” And I said, “Yeah. This company, I’ve known it for my entire life. You know, we grew up on it. Why am I the only Black person here? Why am I the only Black person in this space, in this room?” And I said, “the fact that I’m here and I’m surrounded by people. People have been welcoming and people have been friendly, but I still feel incredibly alone because I’m the only one.”

And I don’t think I’ve heard a room so quiet before. And, you know, he then said, “you know, I didn’t think about that, but we could have a conversation about it. Thank you for sharing that with us.” And we did go on and have a conversation about it. And then it just led to me doing a blog about it. And I just put it on Medium at the time, posted it on LinkedIn, and then it just kind of went from there.

And I didn’t realize that my experience was something that many others were experiencing too. Especially those of underrepresented groups that also reached out and said, look, I’m not Black, but I’m queer or I’m Asian or a person of color, and I have those experiences too, where no one understands me because I’m the only one. Or I constantly have to explain because I’m the only one, or I feel lonely. And it’s a pattern.

But what I’ve also come to learn with time is that in order for inclusion to work in any organization, the culture has to be right. If the culture isn’t right, it’s going to reflect in the people that they’re recruiting, which will then reflect in the behaviors that they kind of project into the company culture, which could then have an impact on many people. And also impact people, whether they decide to stay and grow technically or grow in their careers within that organization or go somewhere else. But the culture needs to be one of the key things that needs to be corrected right, and made right, and made to feel safe for everybody, so that anyone can come into work and login and not feel like a huge weight, just opening up their laptop just to come in for work. Cause if they have to do that, it’s going to reflect in their performance. They’re going to end up leaving and then you’re going to end up bringing in the next person, the next person, but it’s going to be a constant cycle. And you’ll find that the people that represent those underrepresented groups in tech or any other industry will be the ones that leave as quickly as you hired them. So it is incredibly important that we really think about that topic of inclusion because that is key in the topic of diversity, equity and inclusion as well.

Carolyn Kiel: And I’m curious what your thoughts are on what a truly inclusive and a positive culture look like, because as you said, it’s not enough to just bring in all kinds of different people and then not support them because they’ll leave or it just, the culture won’t be right. So what does a truly inclusive and supportive culture look like?

Jennifer Opal: Well, one thing I will say is that it starts from the top. I think that what I find is that a lot of people from underrepresented groups, a lot of Black people that do come into tech, for example, are always kind of taken in at junior roles and then they’re kind of expected to make this huge change in the representation within the organization. But how can they do it when they’re already down at the bottom, in terms of their position? They’ve come in and they’re trying to learn a new skill and improve in their role and their experience and enjoy the experience. And then they have this little pressure of being this marketing tool, you know, in terms of diversity and representing inclusion within the organization. But it’s not their job to do that.

It’s important that it starts from the top. That they lead by example, because that’s the example that will attract the right type of people to come and work for your organization. Because if you are expressing that you believe and support Black people, you believe and support people of color, you believe and support people of disabilities, whether physical or invisible, to support people with different faiths, you have to show that through action. It’s not enough to just ask someone, what can we do? Educate yourself too, because therefore educating yourself. You’re having a conversation with the board. You’re having the conversation with the board, they’re taking it to the different areas that they are working in or the different colleagues that they interact with. And it fizzles down, and that gets to recruitment.

And then that gets to, into how they recruit, who they recruit, where they recruit and that brings in the talent, and then you’ll find they’ll want to stay for longer period of time. And it also goes into the talent as well, because then you’ll find that those that are passionate about inclusion, passionate about diversity and equity in recruitment, for example, they’re going to hire people that reflect that culture. And then you’ll start to see that change as well, where you’ll find that you can log into a Zoom call and the pronouns are just there. You don’t have to ask anybody about the pronouns. They’re just there. Everyone knows everyone’s pronouns. So there’s no confusion. There’s no ifs or buts, for example.

You build relationships with your team. So then you’re comfortable enough to say hey, I have dyslexia. I use a screen reader. I know you asked me to read this email. I’m going to need a little bit more time because I might have to read it over and over again and take notes and then be able to respond to you. There’s things that you can kind of communicate. But in order for someone to feel safe to communicate what they need, they need a team that understands inclusion. And that starts from the top and fizzles its way down. At least that’s how I believe it should be done. And it can be done because there’s organizations that are doing it. And I’ve seen it for myself, within Dropbox as well, but it’s done really well. And it can continue to be done in other organizations too.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. And I’m also reminded of, you know, the example that you used of the pronouns, you just log into a Zoom call and the pronouns are there because again, no one has to explain themselves. It’s just part of, this is what we do with the culture.

Jennifer Opal: Exactly. And I love that. Cause when I, when I first joined the HelloSign team, everyone’s pronouns was just there. And I was like, I love that! Because sometimes, you know, it’s something that some people will not think about. And if they, if they were thinking with an inclusive mindset, they would think about that, because they’re thinking beyond their own experience. They’re not thinking about, oh, it’s just about me. No, they’re thinking about, I’m going to be working with people from different walks of life, with various identities. I’m gonna need to make sure that I do my best to be inclusive and have inclusive mindset wherever I am.

Because if you’re going into an organization that practices inclusion and you are not inclusive, it’s not going to work. You know, there will definitely be an imbalance. But I think it’s incredibly important and I, and I love that it’s just something that’s practiced, but it’s also practiced by everyone. So once you go up the ladder, inclusion is practiced there too. So when I attend, like all hands events, et cetera, everyone has their pronouns in their Zoom names. I know it sounds so, it might sound so small to some, but it can mean a lot to so many people. So, yeah, that’s just one example, to be honest.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. So I’d love to learn more about your advocacy. So you write, you have your blog, but overall, what does your advocacy look like? What kind of work do you do with that?

Jennifer Opal: Yeah, so what I have been doing in terms of blogging, I’ve been doing some speaking events, speaking at conferences, mentoring people. I’ve recently become a board member for Neurodiversity in Business, which is a new UK charity that’s launching in March in the House of Commons. So I’ve joined them. So hoping to contribute to helping organizations across the, across the UK, look at how to make their environments more neurodivergent friendly and supporting neurodivergent people in business and in the workplace as well. So I’m excited about that. I’m contributing to that.

I continue to use my social media platform. And I know like everyone is on social media. Everyone is like, kind of ugh, you as well, you’re on social media, you’re an influencer or something, blah, blah, blah. And that’s actually not the case. I just love talking about my experience, and I love trying to educate people. I do my best to refer people to job roles as well. Anyone that reaches out to me for advice, Zoom calls. And it might sound small. It might sound like it’s nothing serious, but for some people. It’s a big thing for them to be able to have a conversation with someone that’s in the tech space that can pass on their knowledge and that’s how you keep the door open. And I like to use my platforms to encourage others to continue to do the same thing and really look at using your platforms using your voice.

It doesn’t even have to be on social media like that. But even just sharing your experience with people around you, your family, your friends. Let them pass on the story and say, look, I work in tech. You can too. I’m neurodivergent. I have ADHD. I have dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia. I have autism. I could go on, but I’m still able to do this. And I think you can too. What do you think? I think just that having a conversation is how we keep the door open to bringing in more underrepresented people. And not just Black people, because I’m really passionate about bringing in Black people into tech, especially Black women and femmes. As in the UK, Black women only represent 0.7% of the tech UK workforce as of 2020, I think by the Department of National Statistics, if I’m correct. 0.7% is not a lot.

Carolyn Kiel: No.

Jennifer Opal: I know a few people, but it’s not a lot. And I love to try to use my voice as much as possible to bring people back and I’m not doing it for myself. I’m not doing it for self glory. The awards that I’ve won, the features, the interviews on podcasts like yourselves has been an incredible blessing to me and I’m grateful. But the important thing and the joy that I take is when someone messages me and says, I got my first job in tech, or I got an internship in tech. That’s what I want to see.

And especially so proud because then they look like me, whether it be with my skin color or my gender. Or I’m also queer as well. So whether they’re queer also, or whether they’re neurodivergent, I love that, that they see in their reflection me in some way, and it encourages them to learn a new, valuable skill and switching to an industry that is contributing and changing the world already. And they’re in a space that’s contributing to that and bring that experience and their life experience into their job that will make a difference for so many other people. But yeah.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, that’s great. And that’s, that’s so important. You know, especially with all industries, but especially with tech, because, you know, as a consumer of tech and in society, it impacts all, it impacts all of us.

So you really need all different perspectives, people from different backgrounds and race, ethnicity, and just experiences and neurodivergence and, and sexual orientation and, and such because you need that whole understanding of the fabric of society when you’re creating something that impacts everything.

So you really need all sides. You can’t just have like one point of view creating tech. I think we’ve had some of those issues in tech and we’ve definitely seen some of the fallout from that. So yeah. Inclusion is especially important in the tech industry.

Jennifer Opal: Absolutely.

Carolyn Kiel: Jennifer, thank you so much for talking with me on the show today. How can get in touch with you if they want to learn more about your advocacy or your writing or your social media, where should they go to?

Jennifer Opal: Yeah, so you can find me on LinkedIn and you can find me on Twitter. I’m also on TikTok now. But I’m mostly on Twitter. And I will be honest and say, I don’t always talk about tech and I don’t always talk about being neurodivergent. Sometimes I talk about the latest episode of NCIS. Sometimes I talk about the latest episode of Demon Slayer. Don’t judge me. I talk about whole bunch of random things, but I always on LinkedIn, my, my DMS are open if you ever want to reach out and ask any questions or need any guidance. And if you want to check out my blog, that’s JenniferOpal.com. So you’re more than welcome to head over there. But yeah, definitely reach out to me in whatever way is comfortable for you.

And I will say as well as a final note, If there’s anyone that does listen, that does want to get into tech, whether you decide to go down a route where you want to get a degree, not get a degree, whatever route you decide to take, whether it be in tech or even outside of tech, do not think that being neurodivergent is a deficit, and don’t look at it as a disadvantage. It’s really something that’s so unique to us. It has its challenges. Absolutely. But it also has its blessings. It also has its gifts, and definitely channel into that. Because the way that we view the world is so different to others that are neurotypical and because it’s different, we can bring so many different perspectives into any space that we’re in.

So definitely, no matter how you identify, no matter your disabilities you may have, stand in it .Be proud about it. Be unapologetic about it. If anyone else has an issue with it, they’re the issue. You’re not the issue. Just stand in who you are. Embrace it. Be proud of it, and you’ll flourish. If I’m able to do it, there’s many other people that I’ve met that have ADHD and autism, and they are doing incredibly well in their fields, from authors to content creators, to engineers, senior engineers, startup owners, business owners. You can do anything you put your mind to. But just don’t look at being neurodivergent as a deficit. It’s hard, but it’s a gift. Don’t be ashamed of it.

Carolyn Kiel: And that’s, that’s awesome. And you know, it’s great to have role models and mentors like you who have made their careers in tech and people in other industries as well to blaze that trail so that people can look up to you and learn from your experiences.

So thank you for doing that and thank you for sharing your story and your experiences, your advice, and your thoughts to really help people in the tech community.

Jennifer Opal: Thank you for having me.

Carolyn Kiel: Thanks for listening to Beyond 6 Seconds. Please help me spread the word about this podcast. Share it with a friend, give it a shout out on your social media or write a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player. You can find all of my episodes and sign up for my free newsletter at beyond6seconds.net. Until next time.