You Don't Need to Fit In to Lead — Embracing Neurodistinct Authentic Leadership

The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports. Right now, the NBA is heating up, March Bandit’s here, and MLB is almost back. Every day there’s a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you’ve got to see for yourself. That’s why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it’s about staying connected to my sports. I could follow the teams I care about, get real-time scores, breaking news, and highlights all in one place. Dallow the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment. I’m saying, like I have been for years that there is no normal, the only normal is that everyone has a brain. And then it should be normal that the understanding is that everyone has a different brain. And at the end of the day, a brain is a brain we’re all human, and we all deserve to live a life of distinction, which is why I personally identify as neurodustate versus neurodivergent. What if quiet wasn’t something to overcome but a competitive edge? Grant Harris is a proud at Controvert, a certified diversity executive, and a neurodivergent entrepreneur. And he’s here to rewrite the leadership playbook. Welcome to the powerful Introvert podcast. I’m Greg Wanger. I’m here with Grant today. He’s the founder and president of GTH Consulting, the Certified Diversity Executive, a three-time published autistic author and a Hall of Fame athlete. He’s also a proud introvert and someone who’s never been afraid to bring his whole self to the conversation. Grant’s lived experience makes him one of the most thoughtful voices in the DEI and leadership space today. I’m so glad to have you on the show today. Welcome, Grant. Also be here, Greg. I appreciate you mumbling introduction. I never get used to hearing people talk about me, like to my face, come here. It’s always a little unnerving but I appreciate the opportunity to have a conversation and hopefully your audience can give something out of it today. Absolutely. You have really impressive accomplishments and I’m really glad to speak with you today. If we could get into it, I wanted to ask you a little bit about your origin story. Really when did you start to realize early on that you were experiencing the world in a different way than other people? Yeah, great question. Appreciate the opportunity to go down memory lane a bit. My origin story, I’m watching Tony in by a tree born and raised in a DC area. I think I’m going to personally identify as a black man in America, which is not always easy and always almost with difficulties in many ways, shapes and forms. But I have been extremely blessed in many ways. Some of the things that you mentioned earlier in the introduction, but I do have a military school graduate, former college scholarship, division one, Applete. I played a resport that you could touch a ball. Very proud to be inducted into my high school hall of fame. One of the fewer accomplishments in my life that I can look up and say, I did that kind of deal. Look at me, mom, I made it. I know that was a blessing before college, an origin story from a family perspective that is one of being the first and the only. I would do the first to do a lot of things in my family or the only to do so up until this point that doesn’t make me any better than my siblings. They’ve done things that I haven’t. When it comes to the work that I was the first in my family to be diagnosed with a disability formally, still the only one. The first of my family would be diagnosed as neurodivergence as the label goes today. The first thing only to be diagnosis autistic. There are many other markers of significance and light. That society says that this is a level of success and this is part of what I wrote about in my introduction in my first role. To be stat-timpled that I’ve been blessed to achieve, but I don’t necessarily look at it that way because on the flip side of that being the first person or for sibling in my family to make a six-figure income, well, that’s all something great. We all know six figures is not what it used to be in today’s economy, but also on the flip side, people of color and specifically black people still don’t make as much money as their counterparts still struggle in the economy with being one of the most unemployed sections of the economy in the workforce. Then you add to that, not all being autistic in all the difficulties with autistic people, 80 to 85% of them being under or unemployed. All of these layers that I talk about are not just one aspect of money in work. There are multiple layers to the person. The person that I was, the person I am today, the person I will be, and I like to tell people that I’m an onion without the smell because I have multiple layers of who I am. Being autistic is just one. Now most recently, introverted isn’t talking about that. It is the newest layer. I’ve always, anybody who knows me personally would definitely 100% say that I describe myself as an introvert. I display introverted characteristics and traits. I enjoy being alone. I will do things alone versus with other people anytime, any place. I’m so spoken by nature. I learned the user man boys military school will help that and to speak in public, but I prefer to be in the background. I prefer to be doing things to the left with the right of the spotlight. I’m okay with all of that, but I never really talk publicly until the last few months, people like you, your podcasts, people, Black introvert week, both in the UK and the US, all the folks that are in this community have these conversations for a long time. But this is the first, doesn’t it averse for me to talk about it in the way that I am that? So that’s a little bit about me and how we got to this conversation today. Yeah, absolutely. And I really appreciate you joining me on this podcast to talk about that. My podcast is relatively new. I’m in my first season and I haven’t spoken directly to someone who’s autistic. How do you distinguish the parts of your personality that are autistic or neurodivergent from these parts that you feel are introversion? Well, short answer to the very, very good that I don’t distinguish or separate them because they are all part of me. The red layer of that onion that I mentioned earlier is part of the onion. So it’s not like, oh, this layer is not art of me and I just keep doing the pervertity of it. It’s all the same. They play all of each other and it’s human nature to want to put things in a box, right? Especially when it comes to our personality, especially when it comes to how we self-identify how we show ourselves to the world. We show up in spaces and we show up as one grant in this box and another grant in this box. But the word that I do with leaders and people and being an advocate in a space is that they’re actually being understanding that’s not necessary to separate them and say, well, I’m this over here and I’m a coach, switching over here, black people or people of color will be thinking, well, if they’re not in a position, but we all do it. We all do it in certain scenarios. So I try not to separate the two and say, well, this is my introvert side versus my autistic side. It’s not a risk or that it’s not a versus not a competition. It’s not understanding and the self-flection of this is how I’m showing up in the moment and this is how I identify in that moment. However, I’m sure the people might have difficulty swallowing that pill. So the speak, the introvert side prefers to observe first and speak second. There’s less words to keep over by words will do versus seven or 10 to get the point across. But first you be alone versus people and even if I am in a crowded group people, I will subconsciously and consciously gravitate towards one person or two people max and that conversation with them versus just mink lane throughout the entire group. I prefer to focus on deep conversation or deep thought alone period and also people to serve as a couple. These kind of things I really, I get a visual reaction when I’m out in public and I see someone that knows me and that I might know them and I will literally hide or to a different aisle in the grocery store or earn so that you don’t see because I have to have an interaction and a conversation that I’m either not ready for mentally or physically in a moment or I just don’t want to do the small talk thing. It’s a visceral. I don’t control it. That’s just why in some situations, I’ve said put on the mask and able to do that if I need to but as serving not my preference and internally the entire time I’m like, I really don’t want to do this nails on a chalkboard but I’m going to do it because it’s socially acceptable to be nice and to have a conversation in that moment when I see someone but that also leads to stress on my part, anxiety on my part having to be the one that masks and I’m sure that other people mad around me, maybe they do, maybe they don’t but in general the people who describe themselves as introverted or autistic are usually the ones that have to do the same. The ones that have to do the mask thing and say, okay, I’m going to meet you where you are so you could be comfortable because it’s socially acceptable and it’s not always the case that the other person does the same for the introvert and or the autistic person. Absolutely. Well, you’re ticking off introvert boxes all across the board there. I think a lot of people listening can relate to everything you just described. Do you, I’m curious if you think there is such a thing as neurotypical. I’ve been hearing people lately a neuroscientist saying like there actually is no such thing every brain is in me. Or ex, no, there is no typical, there is no normal, there is no standard from a theoretical perspective in my mind from a medical paired from a structural from an infrastructure perspective. There has to be a standard that people would have for society as a whole and then whatever individual pockets of that society, there needs to be a standard that people can tether themselves to and say, okay, this is the, this is the floor and enough people that are either smart enough have enough money power or influence, which is the majority says that this is the floor, this is the standard and then everybody else is somehow different or other than society needs to gravitate towards that. That’s what we’ve been taught and not all of the like that across the globe many and not. But in this era of American culture, it certainly is. So in my mind, no pun intended, no, there is no neurotypical because the only thing typical about the human brain is that everyone has that’s the typical part. Everyone has a brain that is the standard, but outside of that, the physical makeup is typical, the physical makeup of the brain, you have a brain stem, you have a, that’s typical, but we don’t interact unless you’re a neurosurgeon, you don’t really interact with the physical parts of the brain, you interact with the emotional and psychological parts of the brain, which are that we different or all of us, even people who fall under the umbrella of the physical, even within that, their brains operate differently. So much less folks who brains are in a completely different umbrella of neurodivergence. So no, I don’t see, and I’ve written about this, I talk about this often, they’re normal. It is one of my least favorite words. And this was the case before I was doing the DEI work before I was, I knew that I was autistic before I was having conversations with people like you, I didn’t like the word normal because normal is really just based on your particular comfort and your personal bias. So for example, my teenage daughter, if you have kids and your audience has kids, you’ll know, teenagers are great and they’re worse at the same time. I always talk about the taco shelves and my daughter likes tacos. I prefer chips or soft shell, but she likes hard shell and we have tacos regularly. And I buy all the groceries. Many times I’m bad at this. I would bring in taco shelves and it wouldn’t be the brand that she preferred or the color that she likes. I got what was on sale. This kind of is a taco shop in this reason, my autistic side as well. But I’d bring a home that she can play and be like, oh, next time can you just like get the normal taco shelves and like there are no normal taco shelves. There are taco shows that you like that you prefer, but just because it’s a different color or different shape or different brand doesn’t make the ones that you prefer normal and the ones that I happen to buy not me. It’s not how it works. That is always a story that I like to tell. So it’s a little bit different and there’s a layer to that because my autistic nature, I am not a foodie. I really care about food. I use food as fuel. I have to eat. I’m human. These kind of things. My daughter, my wife, her whole side of the family, their foodie, they love to talk about food, look at food, whatever you’re going to eat, obviously. I don’t understand that. I get it, but that’s not me. So from that layer, I can understand in her world a different taco shelf is a different taco shelf. And her whole experience is going to be different. Her whole mouth feel the texture is going to be different for her. So when you extrapolate that to the brain or people with experiences, they are comfortable with this particular taco shelf and when they experience a different taco shelf or different brain or a different reaction than what they’re used to, then they’re all, well, that’s not normal because it’s outside of their comfort zone. And I’m saying like I have been for years, nah, that there is no normal. The only normal is that everyone has brain. And then it should be the normal that the understanding is that everyone has a different brain. And while those tacos, those might be different. They’re still taco shelves and at the end of the day, you’re still going to eat, you’re still going to be fed. And at the end of the day, a brain is a brain we’re all human and we all deserve to live a life of distinction, which is why I personally identify as a neurodustate versus neurodivergent. So that’s my taco shelf story and put it out there a lot because I think it’s funny. Well, it’s, and I also use as a relatable way to think about the brain. I really think that’s a funny story too and it’s really powerful too because as a metaphor, what we do all day about things that we think are movable, really we’re just attached to the way things are, what we’ve been accustomed to. And yeah, we don’t like it when we get this different brand of taco shelf or the color of the tortilla is just slightly more yellow or whatever it is. Yeah, thanks for sharing that. I wanted to ask you about your career progression, maybe describe how you first entered the workforce and what did you encounter there and what led you eventually to the consulting work that you do. So many jobs in my day and many readers will speak about three careers where things that I’ve done are industries that I’ve been in. People have spent their entire career in and I’ve cycled through. I didn’t really understand that when I was cycling through. It was just a level of frustration for me. I didn’t really keep a job with a longer been to three years max for many reasons. And so when I came out of school, I started out management consulting. I was managing a global workforce development program for the Army. I’ve been in management consulting. I’ve been an education as a K-12 educator, a special educator. I saw autistic kids before I knew I was autistic, which probably helped. But I just didn’t know I’ve a tire. I was in a low income. I free or reduced, launched majority, minority, England, South of the second language teaching environment. And I was teaching the most restricted environment, meaning that these students basically stayed in one classroom for all of their, all of their classwork. And they were separated from the general population. And I also have been in K-12. They before K-12, that was in the middle school environment. Then I flipped the script and I went to high school. And it was completely different. The other side of the tracks, literally and figuratively, in that particular county. And it was all white Asian affluent high school in elite STEM Academy. And most of those students were going on to elite Ivy League schools and onto careers that middle school that I came from, probably not so much. But it was my job to market that elites the Academy to those families on the other side of the tracks to those students to those black and brown and underprivileged students to show them that one, these opportunities exist and two, that there were be of those opportunities. I transitioned into higher ed as well at the community college level because I’m a big pro-potonit of community college. My daughter just started community college last week. I think it’s the red headed stepchild of education in this country and does not get as much respect as it deserves. So it’s been time there in equity and HR role, facilitating the interview process, creating change in policy in terms of how staff was evaluated. How talent was brought into the organization. And also from a strategic planning perspective, working directly with the pro-bode was in the senior leadership team on strategy plans and how the school was promoted to the larger community as a whole. And after that, which again, most people would stay in one of those things, but like their old career, but I’m always moving my brain is always like, what else can I do? What else can I learn? How many other experiences can I have? Which led me to entrepreneurship, which is this is the third business that I’ve owned or operated, but it’s been the most successful and transically and etch transically. And it’s connected to government contracting, government consulting, work with nonprofits, local state federal agencies. So always having the opportunity to think outside the box, do something for myself, do something differently than in a management consulting round or an education round, I always applied entrepreneurship principles to those roles. But they always felt like I just couldn’t get outside the box or could expand the box or the type of things which led to being on my own and working with these agencies in my own different way and being able to pick and choose the people that I work with. That’s long and short of my career path in journey, which I have had multiple degrees and certificates that make me sound smarter than what I am. It’s not about the paper on the wall from me, it’s about the knowledge and the experience, the cultural experience and how I can apply those things to you conversations like these, the consulting work that I do with the organizations and to the speaking engagements that I do when it comes to an advocacy platform. And it sounds like a lot in your career journey has been an important experience for your current company, the management consultant with the educational background. So could you describe a little bit more specifically about what your current company does? I’m going to put a lot of it in the intro. GTS consulting is privately mentioned consulting firm and I provide services in the organizational developments, human capital and program management, and verticals. So I help organizations at the leadership level understand and appreciate and harness the business value of neurodiversity and worklists. And I do that through consulting, writing and speaking. The consulting arm is mostly focused on nonprofits and government entities to help bolster their workforce to attract, hire and retain neurodiverse and nervous things, talent of them to understand the talent that they have on their hands already to work through to implement and to integrate and improve policies, practices and procedures. It’s really about from the entrepreneurs perspective, how are you maximizing the human capital that’s already at your fingertips to maximize your financial capital and your bottom line? So that’s the work that I do and that comes through working with leaders. I always talk about the fact that this work is from the hold room to the middle room because neurodiversity impacts us all. 30 year season CEO or the 30 minute brand new intern. Nourity of our city impacts us all at every level of an organization and not to mention the external customers that the innovation serve and that they sell to. The work from a consulting perspective, the speaking work that I do and advocacy work is partnering with organizations that have their own platform or building their own. And adding my distinct experience and voice to that being a late diagnosed black man with vast different experiences that I have and not in terms of length of time because I’m now all I’ve been doing this for 40 years. That’s not the experience I mean, I mean the vast difference of experience because the difference is what really counts. I talk about moving from compliance to community and many organizations have a compliance. My set of this is what we have to do or we’ve met the minimum and that’s really the floor and community is really a ceiling and in between that is where understanding that business value of neurodiversity really has the full impact. So that’s the work that I do, the conversations that I have in the realms that I have them in. I’m thinking of neurodiversity is kind of a superset of what I talk about on my podcast. I do think introversion is rooted in brainwiring, distinct brain chemistry that happens to an impact 30 to 50% or more of the population. And I come from the tech sector where there’s lots of normal diversity and people I work with are weighted on the introverted side. And my contention has been that businesses are pretty ill equipped to support people who are quieter and this is not just human casualty. You’re making life less pleasant for the people that you work for. This is a significant economic loss. You’re not getting the value, the contributions that you could from your people. How did those conversations go? How do you present that argument of that case to leadership? Well, you said presenting the argument, presenting the case is always the business value, the business case for the business case for DEI, the business case for filling the blank. And what that’s code for is convince me why this is important. Why should I care? That’s not me. So why should I care? Make an argument and convince me. That’s what it’s code for. And it’s unfortunate that’s the way of it. So I approach it from I’m not here to convince anybody. I always say that my job is not to convince. My job is to open people’s minds to be thought. Something might be a different way. So for example, Greg, if everyone in your life that you care about and that you respect as to fold you that the sky is purple and I come along one day and say, Greg, no, sky blue. You have no incentive to believe me because again, everybody in your life and around you has said that it’s purple. There’s nothing that I could tell you. You know, science that I could show you this is what this guy is blue because everybody you’re entirely that it’s purple. I will have a conversation with you when I ask you a question and I say, Greg, are there other colors that exist other than purple? And you know, yeah, there’s red, there’s green, there’s blue, there’s yellow, because you’ve experienced those things, right? And it applies to deeper questions like, well, if there are different colors of cars and there are different colors of people and there are different colors of clothes, maybe the sky might be a different color of what you think. And at that point, if the thought is there that, oh, the sky might be a different color, not that it is and not that it is blue because I say it’s blue. But the fact that the person is now thinking that it might be a different color and they’re open to that. Now that you can have a conversation, now you can have reflection. Now you can work through a framework that I have my RACE race framework because you have recognized who and where you are in that journey is they, oh, the sky might be a different color, even though everybody around me for my entire life has told me that it’s this particular color. So that’s my approach to those conversations is not that I’m going to come in the door and I’m going to show you all the stats and in conversation one, one for one, iteration one, you’re just going to automatically be convinced and accept what I said. It’s a conversation of self-reflection and understanding because that’s the foundation that has to be built in order for any true inclusion or any change to happen, not because I convinced you in a moment because then somebody else can convince you in a moment of something else. It’s about having that self-reflective thought to be like, yeah, I see it could be this, what if this happens and what if that happens. So it’s questions and it’s self-reflection and those are the conversations that start with thought leadership that begins with conversations like these as why I have conversations like these so that people can get a deeper understanding. It also is identifying and targeting the people or the organizations that choose to work with and for and that comes with trial and error. But when I am met with those conversations with those questions, that’s the type of approach that I take is I’m not here to convince. I am here to help you come to conclusions of your own based on information that you didn’t have before in a way that is digestible to you. It strikes me that there’s an element of human connection that you’re forming there. So you’re not able to bring someone out of their thought patterns unless you’re first connecting with them and then in a sense helping them let their guard down to open their mind to new ideas. I’m curious, is that something that’s come naturally for you? Is it something that you had to work toward? I would say both subconscious and both conscious. So I always say that I am much more interested in relationships and transactions. Many times in my life period and in my business life, I’ve earned transactions from an initial relationship that was built first. I have rarely, if ever, built a relationship that began on just transactions. What can I do for you? What can you do for me? What can I wash the other? Doesn’t really build a relationship? It’s great for that one time. I need this. You need that. Good. More often than not, that doesn’t lead to an actual relationship. Many times the reverse building a relationship has led to more impactful, more engaging and more long-term transactions, although it might have taken a longer time. But it’s more worthwhile from a human connection perspective. That’s why I talk about being neurodistinct because we’re all distinct human beings that deserve to live a light, a little distinction. So yeah, there is a human connection now. I’m the first one to say that I’m not a human person. I don’t like people that I don’t know. But that comes from an aspect of I’m not just going out the street to talk to somebody and go out of my way to talk to somebody, but I don’t know if in a particular reason. That’s what I mean by that. But I’m all in when it comes to relationships of people and building a deep and a long-standing relationship with you as an individual and understanding your thoughts and your experience and the juxtaposition between my thoughts and my experiences because that’s relationship building. That involves people because we’re not robots. But I’m not a networker because that will be being a people person. I want to go talk to these bunch of people over here in this crowd. I want to build a relationship with Greg and if I build a relationship with Greg, then that work with Greg will probably impact the entire room. That’s the approach of it. So again, I think my audience can deeply relate to that description of interacting with people and if we’re fully honest with ourselves, many of us sometimes do enjoy people, but most of the time we’re most comfortable with the people we’ve already established relationships with. And then we’ve also heard you talk about emotional work. So anyone who is on the quieter side, who has the quieter nature and wants to accomplish things in the world, there are things that we have to do that will make us uncomfortable and will be confronted with our discomfort. What has happened like for you and what advice do you have for people who want to do more and are frankly confronted by strong emotions and the hard work of this? In a great question, two things that I say. So one is that I tell my kids this. I have five kids. Three of them are human and then I have a dog and then I have a pool. So I think I have five kids because it’s just like a kid. It acts up. It does its own thing. I have to like nurture it and massage it and I got to clean it and it costs money. So I call it my fifth kid, but I tell my kids my human kids that in life, you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable because that is how progress is made internally. If you never put yourself in a position to be uncomfortable, then it’s nearly impossible to grow to my knowledge and experience. So I always say be be comfortable being uncomfortable. And then the flip side to that and another thing that I say is always the 1% better. And that’s my personal mantra and goal daily is to get 1% better than I was the day before and when it comes to suggestions for people who have anxiety and social situations, which I do to people who have difficulty mustering up emotional or psychological or physical energy and effort just to deal is one, like I say, get comfortable being uncomfortable. And that does not mean by any way shape of form to put yourself in a position that is going to harm you that is going to do long term or cause long term suffering any of that nature because that’s not the case. That’s not what you should do just for the benefit of others. However, I do advocate for putting yourself in limited positions or time where you have escaped routes where you can remove yourself from a situation where there’s no long term, for wicked cussions to get 1% better and say, OK, what I could do this, I thought that I couldn’t be in this conversation with this person for five minutes but I did it. I didn’t think that I could go to the grocery store and have a conversation with the cash shooter but I did it. These kinds of things, small things that you have in a state route, you can remove yourself from up in official when it comes to the workplace and aspects of how to do that in the workplace. Several examples could be if you’re in a physical space and I know many of us are remote, but either way, if you’re in a physical space, you can stand around all the people in a group or a couple of minutes when maybe you would have just passed them by. And just the fact that you’re standing there, someone at some point in time may notice you, which may or may not be a tool conversation. And I’m not saying that you have to have a pull on small talk, but just being physical and putting your physical presence around the people, that’s an option. When it comes to the virtual environment, I usually have camera choice and I’m usually off camera because that’s supposed to be saved energy. Well, if you have camera choices, you prefer to be all then try being on only when you speak. If you’re speaking, turn camera off and then if you’re not in that meeting, if you’re not presenting, then go back to turning camera off. These kind of small things give you the opportunity to get comfortable being uncomfortable for unlimited amount of time. And in my opinion, give you the opportunity to get 1% better with yourself to say, I did this, I accomplished that and then see where you can go from there. It is not based on anyone else that is desire or need or thought about you. This is all based off of your personal desire and need and the comfort level for lack or better term pushing yourself to a level that you haven’t been before. So all they do these things and all they put yourself in these positions is because you consciously decide that is something that you want to do, not because other people put you in that position of having to do so against you will. It’s a great advice. What advice would you have to someone who is quieter, who is interested in leadership because they see things out there and they want to make a difference? I’m the first person to say and the team that I’ve been on that I prefer to be an individual contributor. I want to do my deal, get my show, I want to be good at what I do, these kind of things over the history, but I don’t want to manage people. I don’t want to have their responsibility. I also say that I do want to lead. I do want to be a leader. I do want to provide leadership within an organization throughout the organizations that I work with and that doesn’t require being a people manager or having the biggest title. So that’s the first mindset shift is that leadership doesn’t require title and it doesn’t require you to manage and leave other people directly. That’s a common misconception. Most of leadership positions that I’ve been in haven’t required a fantasy title and have required me to manage other people formally, informally sometimes but not one. So if you are on the quieter side, there are ways to contribute to a conversation, to a project, to an initiative without having to stand up on the front of the room without having to put yourself going, quote, out there, you can have sidebar conversation. You can give your input before the meeting and a one on one meeting. You can send that in an email to the leader or the chair or the person who is the decision-maker in that aspect in confidentiality after the meeting. You can follow up with your questions. You can take all those notes and all those questions like I have an advice and synthesize them afterwards and reflect on them and then pick one to three that stand out the most. And from that one to three that stand out the most, come to find out what the most important point, the MIP I call it, the most important point. And that’s what you bring back to whomever is the leader and a group to make a decision etc. etc. in that way. So you can do things before you can do things after then the question is what about in the middle during that meeting or during that project or during that initiative, there are ways to participate. You don’t have to be verbal. There you can request to use signals, physical and signals. And this is the conversation on one which is a big deal because these things should be happening in conversation and in concert with the leaders already in the room. And that’s an opportunity for you to show leadership because you are advocating for yourself. And if you’re advocating for yourself then you can advocate for others. So that’s a form of leadership that again doesn’t really have anything to do with managing other people. That has everything to do with managing your self-worth, your self-value, your self-advocacy because you’re bringing value to the table before the meeting, after the meeting or during the meeting. It’s not just the same, well, you know, what can you do for me? I don’t want to say anything in the meeting, but then you never contribute a solution to the problem. You should be contributing. But you can always contribute in different ways. And that is a different form of leadership. And you can have those quiet conversations with one-on-one folks. Those people should be champions. They shouldn’t be the people that will do you the most arm, so to speak. So find those champions that either will listen to you and or will champion your platform so that you’re still bringing things to the table that are different than what the other folks are saying they’re doing. You’re just doing it in a different time in a different way. It’s such a great distinction between management and leadership because everyone has this opportunity to lead whether they’re at work or out in the community or even in their home. There’s always this opportunity to lead. And another point I really liked that you covered there was that ability to speak out and advocate for yourself. You are advocating for other people because there are other people who are like you and having similar experiences. And so you become an advocate. And I’ve seen this even within my own company, some quieter people beginning to advocate for meetings ending early. So there’s time in between meetings and things like that. They’re not necessarily the managers of the company, but they’re leading in those instances. And that type of leadership benefits the whole. It seems like if you are the extroverted leader, it seems like that those people are just trying to serve themselves. But when you take a step back from it and you approach it with the community mindset versus the compliance mindset, you’ll see that those things actually benefit the whole. There’s extensive research that shows the shorter meetings are better than long, extensive research that shows that agendas or knowing what’s going to happen before something happens is beneficial to productivity because people aren’t stressing out about what they don’t know. They have information and they can come to the table with some type of solution, idea, input, and that leads to productivity. So these types of things is not about, oh, well, these people just want to end up eating early. No. These people want to end up meeting on time and or early so that they could go back to being productive and doing what they’re doing, building the widget, building the platform, making the sale. So they just want to value their time. And valuing that time, you value everybody’s time. And if your time is more effective and efficient, then your people are more effective and efficient and then you save money and then you make money. But not a whole leaders go through that chain of thought when they see a request or want a accommodation come through, they just see it as quote, unquote, that’s to treat me for that one person. One, no, it’s not point blank. It’s not special treatment. But two, when you look at it, that benefit for that individual could benefit the whole. And more often than not, the individual benefit does benefit the whole. Brand heard about it time. If people want to learn more about you and your work, where can we send them? So we’re just like www.compliance2community.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn. I’m all LinkedIn. And Harris, 555. There’s a few brand of Harris is out there. Let me, I’m Grant Harris, 555. And I’ll share this with you in the show notes as well. And I’ll probably be basically your website or all websites and all of my writing and my tattoos and people can contact me there, email me and get all my skills or for call and the meeting, these kinds of things are all on my lintry. And I’ll share that with you as well. But most of my activity is on LinkedIn at Grant Harris, 555. Yeah. Thanks so much for being on the show. So you have such great messages and stories to tell. I’m so glad that you’ve been here to share it with my audience. Thank you, Groove. It has been a pleasure. An efficiency tip from Northwest Natural, small steps add up to something bigger. Like changing your furnace filter, it can help your furnace run better. Last longer and can lower your bills. That’s good energy. 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