No Way Out
Welcome to the No Way Out podcast where we examine the variety of domains and disciplines behind John R. Boyd’s OODA sketch and why, today, more than ever, it is an imperative to understand Boyd’s axiomatic sketch of how organisms, individuals, teams, corporations, and governments comprehend, shape, and adapt in our VUCA world.
No Way Out
Reimagining Neurodiversity: From Isolation to Interaction
What if your child’s unique way of seeing the world could be their greatest strength? Join us for a heartwarming dive into neurodivergence and the environments that help everyone thrive. Our guest, Sarah Kernion, founder and CEO of Saturday's Story, is a global keynote speaker and neurodiversity advocate. She’s also a mother of three, including two children with non-speaking autism. Sarah believes in “choosing interaction over isolation,” a lesson she drew from John Boyd’s briefing, "The Strategic Game of ? and ?."
Sarah shares her “Inchstones” (versus milestones) philosophy, which celebrates small but meaningful steps. She challenges traditional thinking, showing how everyday progress can lead to big breakthroughs. Her work shines a light on the strengths of neurodivergent individuals, like hyper-focus and pattern recognition. These talents can drive innovation in business and education.
We’ll also explore how augmentative communication devices and sensory-friendly spaces create more connection. Sarah explains "stimming" behaviors and how they help autistic individuals process their world. We discuss how support systems and psychological safety unlock neurodivergent potential, giving businesses an edge.
This episode challenges outdated thinking. We look at how flexible work environments and customized learning paths can help neurodivergent people thrive. Inspired by John Boyd’s ideas, Sarah shows us the power of interaction over isolation. Together, we can build a world that values every mind's cognitive diversity.
You can learn more about Sarah and her work at www.saturdaysstory.com. You can also follow her journey on her Instagram, @saturdaysstory.
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is it like a? What kind of surprises this? What do you? What can you talk about? What can you share?
Sarah Kernion:with a loop and autism yeah as a parent of two children with non-speaking autism, my ability to thrive in vuka conditions, every single second of the day when I'm with my children, is vital to my ability to be a individual, just as Sarah, and not a caretaker.
Sarah Kernion:It's fundamental to my ability to not succumb to what can be considered a life of containment. Wow, because that is what I realized very quickly after sort of the acceptance that this was my life and reality and perpetuity that the majority, if not 90%, of special needs parents receive a diagnosis of autism for their child and they go. And the only way for them to control the world and live and breathe and wake up every day is to not allow for any variables to come into their life. And I don't know if it's because of how I was raised, I'm not sure if it's about my own late ADHD diagnosis of myself with neurodivergent circuitry, but the ability to realize that containment of autism in my children was not going to be the best way to live and grow as an individual, as a family, and for my children to actually reach their highest potential. It was not to contain.
Ponch Rivera:Okay, so here's a couple of thoughts on this. In the past I'd say prior to six years ago it was my belief that neurodivergent people had a problem right um. Today, the way I understand it and the lessons we're learning here on the on this podcast, is it's the environment that needs to change, correct? Not us trying to change the individual person. And this goes back to coaching. I'm not a big fan of trying to coach and change individuals, but you change the environment that invites them to change or adapt to their environment. So where am I right and wrong on that thinking based on your experience?
Sarah Kernion:This world is not set up for people of different neuro spiciness, as I like to say.
Sarah Kernion:The world is set up for a neurotypical response and a cerebral behavioral response of a typically developing human child.
Sarah Kernion:Typically developing human child, yeah, and the expectations around that are so ingrained in our society, from the way that we board an airplane to the way in which we matriculate through school, to the way that we set up our businesses.
Sarah Kernion:It is based on the expectations of a typical response of an individual and then that individual within the group. And I believe that, to your point, setting up the environment to allow for the range of reactions and neurocir, neuro circuitry responses to a task, to an educational path, um, has got to have a little bit more of a water bandwidth to what that looks like for someone that is on the spread, that is, that is autistic or um or has a neurodivergent diagnosis. Because if you don't do that, to your point the environment, if the environment is not set up for that range of reactions or experiences, or's or educational system or a company's end goal is, and I think that what you're doing, what people are doing or companies or institutions are doing, is really like putting aside what can be an amazing competitive advantage for their end goal because of their lack of range.
Ponch Rivera:Yeah, yeah. And one example that comes to my mind and this is from a facilitator standpoint is anytime we do any type of complex facilitation or red teaming technique there are I'm not going to, I'll just classify as two people that we notice. It's just to kind of give you some context. I'm not going to, I'll just classify as two people that we've noticed. It's just to kind of give you some context. There are those that can think on their feet under pressure and then there are those who need to reflect, need to take time and go do something oblique, go for a walk, whatever it may be, to come up and generate ideas.
Ponch Rivera:The problem with facilitating like that is is you're only catering to one group of people, right, the pressured folks, and you're missing out on those mavericks that see the world differently, that are probably going to hold back information because they need to reflect on it some more. So this is again this is a knuckle-dragger's view facilitation of what it kind of looks like in situ, but is that kind of what it? I mean, can you expand on that to maybe talk about more about what neurodivergent people may need to?
Sarah Kernion:There is an underlying anxiety that comes with neurodivergency diagnoses and what I'm realizing more and more is that there is innate anxiety that comes like below an autism diagnosis. That is part of the wiring as well explanations, or in how they see or want to answer about their experiences to provide clarity or a greater, you know, understanding of a situation, because it's not typical, it's not what the majority of people see. So you're already you're an outlier in how you feel, in your body and how you see the world, and then you become an outlier consistently with how you are voicing your experience and then, for the most part, not getting the receptive feedback that that's accepted. It becomes this like compounded pushback into thinking that, wait, did I actually experience that? Or did you know, like when I, when I see my child, you know desire to watch the same thing over and over again and realizing that they're picking up on inflections of things that I might, may not have noticed in a song or a football game or or something.
Sarah Kernion:It's because it's because of the wiring of the receptor to not understand why that's important or what are that being the most you know prominent thing that a neurodivergent individual sees and receives, and so I think there's that reception of that and like having the ability to be, have a breadth of your resiliency, of expectations from the people that speak to it. And so if you don't provide an environment that is safe, psychologically safe, for a neurodivergent individual to speak up their experience, you're just completely cutting off that competitive advantage that will potentially be used to benefit your company or institution, because that safety has to accommodate and allow for understanding of that maybe underlying anxiety that comes with speaking about their experience being wired differently.
Ponch Rivera:So there's a saying or an idea in complexity that we want to leverage our mavericks, those people that see the world in a different way. We want to find those weak signals and there's things known as, like, inattentional blindness. We only see what we see.
Ponch Rivera:From neuroscience we get the reticular activating system, that kind of tells us that we're not receiving all the information from the outside world, and that includes everything. So we actually demonstrate this for folks in our workshops that, hey, you know we're pattern matching beings, we reconstruct our memories, all the things that you need to know from the neuroscience, but not about how the brain works, if that makes sense. So can we talk about and start connecting us to how we walk through the OODA loop, where that new information, that information from the outside environment that we all could be experiencing but our senses are not picking it up right? So what can you teach us or help us understand about what neurodivergent people experience in a way that's different from somebody who's, I guess, typical?
Sarah Kernion:Again, I'm taking this from having two young children, so their experiences and how I witness it consistently on the daily and how they respond to typical sensory experiences or just living right, and what I watch from them is that there are certain things that are so peaked and heightened for them to look for for connection. Um and again. My children are nine and six, so I can't speak to like working at a corporation with them, but when I think about them watching um, a, a musical, uh cartoon, or specifically like a sporting event which which my daughter is a nine-year-old, is into, probably to a degree that's unlike any other nine-and-a-half-year-old girl, I believe that she's finding and pattern matching at a rate that is faster and quicker than a typical child watching a football game a football game because she desires to watch routinely the same thing over and over again and finds deep satisfaction. And then looking to me to connect as if do you see this too? She's still looking for a connection to the leader. She's still looking to connect and see that I'm validating what she's seeing, even though I'm not seeing it. She's, she's feeling safe enough to to to look at me and go did you see that, did you? Or are you aware that that just happened able to continue to validate that kind of sensory experience for her, so that that skill set that is innate to her and not to me and not to you will then be supported through her growth as an autistic individual.
Sarah Kernion:An autistic individual so that is seen as an advantage to a back office of a sports team, of someone who wants to watch film, of a game, desires to like, actually innately desires to know, and has the capability of her senses to take in something that a typical individual wouldn't, and then provide a competitive advantage to the organization. That, from the ground up, is what I speak to and what I see so clearly within these little kids who are obviously they're desiring connection and that's one of the biggest things I want to like share with you here is that the neurodiversity and neurodivergent community and population, especially at a childhood level, they are not socially inept, they are not. They don't, they don't desire to be reclusive of connection in the world. They just are showing you the ways in which feels good for them to connect, based on their circuitry, and I think if you have enough exposure to that, you can see it as a different variable. It's not going to look like a typical employee or child, coming up to you and sharing verbally and over the top, but they have the ability to show you what they're really good at and they want to connect with you on that. But they have the ability to show you what they're really good at and they want to connect with you on that.
Sarah Kernion:And I think that that again from my advocacy platform it's it's capitalizing on what the strengths are from an early, early age and then seeing that through to validate their experience, to validate their growth, because it's not going to look anything like a typical child's development. But if you can harness that and find a way to see it in the small little things, as a fledgling human, it will become the highest strength. If a company organization then says, hey, we have the bandwidth. Organization then says, hey, we have the bandwidth. We've seen the positivity of neurodivergent individuals and how their work benefits us.
Ponch Rivera:To me, this is the power or source of diversity. It's the cognitive diversity that matters, and I think a lot of organizations do not understand that. They look at surface diversity as key. I don't know if you know this, but my neighbor, um, uh, retired, uh, navy officer, his wife, uh, they have a non-speaking, autistic daughter in their teens, right, so right next door. Here's what I've learned over the last few months and years um, she is fantastic at picking up languages, right, right, like within a couple of days. Her ability to understand sacred geometry and advanced physics things is insane. So talk about pattern matching. We're looking at sacred geometry on the show as well, but to find out that she is absolutely capable of seeing patterns in ways that we just can't see right now is crazy. The challenge that we see is she has a difficult time communicating, and what I understand from her mother is that she can sense, when I walk out in my backyard, how I'm feeling and she reacts to that.
Ponch Rivera:And she's 40 yards away 30 yards away and you know what I mean. I'm like I didn't know this is happening and but, like you, my neighbors are really involved in this, in what's going on, and the advancement of technology is allowing the daughter to communicate and type things out in ways that you know, years ago wasn't able to I don't think most non-speaking autistic people could. So it's just, you know the context of looking at John Boyd's OODA loop and learning about free energy principle and understanding the brain a little bit more and finding out your neighbor has this context happening and having a conversation about what we're talking about on the podcast as far as Boyd's OODA loop and how that connects to autism allows us to see things in a way that I don't think we could have if we didn't understand the OODA loop. So you know, just given that, walk me through, you know you coming around the OODA loop or anything I just commented on about the neighbors.
Sarah Kernion:Well, so number one with the OODA loop.
Sarah Kernion:When I first read Robert Corum, the biography on Boyd, the first thing that popped up to me as I was reading the story was that he's a special needs parent and that his child with, I believe, polio, he noticed that on the school grounds during recess he was excluded.
Sarah Kernion:I mean, he's physically unable to participate and even if he could, the physical participation was not as quick or adaptive as needed. And apparently I mean one of the first things that he did was to create an adaptive system for his son's body to allow him to participate more, which I don't know exactly the details from the book, but I do remember it being like he saw a problem with the lack of physical ability created a system for the body to allow for at least a marginally greater ability to interact. The interaction part, which I go back to from my original comments on coming on part, which I go back to from my original comments on coming on the ability to interact with the world, with the typical world, and choosing interaction over isolation, which is from the strategic, remind me again the exact title.
Ponch Rivera:It's the strategic game of interaction and isolation.
Sarah Kernion:Of interaction and isolation, question mark and question mark, it's going to be 30 times harder for that interaction to take place or allow or have a lot more variables to even encounter an interaction. It's always the right choice. It's always the right choice for the environment, it's always the right choice for everyone involved. And to your point about your neighbor, the abilities of non-speaking autistic individuals has grown exponentially with these augmentative communication devices. That being said, that's a language itself, right. So getting the autistic individual even on board with using that as their voice is another hurdle, but it's amazing to what they can then voice back.
Sarah Kernion:When it comes to John Boyd and the OODA loop, I just think he saw that lack of interaction and the isolation that was forced upon his child and did something about it.
Sarah Kernion:And it's foundationally what I see within parents of autistic individuals and I'm sure your neighbors feel the same way is that they're so isolated from the offset of being neurodivergent, specifically non-speaking, non-verbal, that any sort of ability to then forward them to be non-isolated and interact with any typical generalized population is going to push the boundaries of what the expectations are of autistic, non-speaking individuals.
Sarah Kernion:And I guess what is so much like deeply rooted in my mission is that you have to put the power back in these families with individuals like that, because if you don't, or these parents don't, have high vulnerability and are rid of shame for what the world sees as a failure, a developmental failure, they are going to isolate a developmental failure they are going to isolate. Isolation allows for the compartmentalization of any feeling or emotion or disruption of someone else's, an adult's, internal piece right, so it has to start with the parents and it sounds like your neighbors do that but the support network of that has to be so strong and constantly showing that they have the ability and they should have the right to engage and interact with the world and that what they're seeing is fascinating, what they're feeling is fascinating, what they can eventually communicate through a device or an app is fascinating and should be seen as a competitive advantage to someone.
Ponch Rivera:So here's, here's something else that and I may have this wrong, but there's the sensory capabilities. They're overwhelmed. I mean, she's she's overwhelmed, she walks outside and she sees she experiences the umwelt for something that we can't experience.
Ponch Rivera:It Right, and the reason for that is we don't. Our brains are developed to filter out information that is unimportant to us. You know, we only need a minimum to survive and all animals were like that. The way I understand it, however, what I understand is going on in her brain and I'm sure this is true with with any level of neurodivergence is the information coming in? Is not, say, greater, but it could be greater. It could be a sixth sense that you're either picking up, I don't know, but it's overwhelming the brain, it's overwhelming to them and the patterns they revert back to. If you go back to the loop. It's implicit guidance, control, it's the. For us it's the moaning, it's the rubbing of the hand, it's the rocking back and forth. That pattern helps them reduce the uncertainty in what they're experiencing. Is that true, I mean-.
Sarah Kernion:Yeah, I mean there's a there. You know, decades ago there was an attempt to extinguish the stimming like you're saying, like a rubbing or a rocking or, you know, twiddling on the fingers or whatever the stim is of an autistic individual. There was years ago the motion to reduce those or extinguish that behavior because it was seen as atypical. And what you're referring to is that that actually allows for them to take in the senses because of the routine of okay, I'm feeling all these things in my you know they can't vocalize it, but what I'm, they're taking in so much more information and by stimming it allows for them to recenter and almost like create a stable environment in their body of like something that's very consistent with how they then live. So my daughter she taps her chest, like over her heart, and when she does that and I take in all the information it's that this feels really good and I'm able to she's understanding more or she's anticipating the next sequence of events with a greater I guess I use the word peacefulness about it. She's not unable or like retreating from a situation. She can continue to go on because of whatever that stimming does for her, like the patting of her chest or the patting of her leg, and it allows for her to learn, then, and I will say, I think the hardest part, though, is, as the mother of that and I'm're, learning the language of a device or an argumentative communication device that adds this Z-axis to us learning about them, because they then have to learn another thing. That's a typically developed language, but they pick it up quicker.
Sarah Kernion:I mean, I can give you examples of my daughter. My daughter and son are are so wildly different on the spectrum and their diagnoses are exactly the same. My daughter resonates to music and language so much more than my son has ever shown. She to your point the picking up of language through song. I'm, my, my myself and her speech therapists are convinced that she's completely fluent in Mandarin. She listens to Chinese sing songs that are the same songs that an American child would listen to Five Little Ducks, old MacDonald, ring Around the Rosie but she's listening to it in Mandarin, she's listening to it in Spanish and she's finding she's laughing at the appropriate times in the same way. Now it'll be interesting to see once she masters the English language on a device. A now it'll be interesting to see once she masters the English language on a device if we add Mandarin and Spanish in, if she's able to answer the same questions and B have humor behind it. The capacity is so different, but you have to allow for that bandwidth.
Ponch Rivera:I understand from our next door neighbors that there is humor involved. Oh my gosh, You're not smart enough to understand this. I think those are some of the comments she'll make to her dad. Yeah, you know. So, on this line of thought, a couple months ago I sat down with Mary Boyd.
Sarah Kernion:John.
Ponch Rivera:Boyd's daughter and we were having a discussion about aviators and how the aviators see the world slightly different. Is that because of our training or is that because of you know the type of person who goes into aviation? And then she pointed out and we haven't released the episode yet it may come out after this or before this one, but that is. Mary Boyd said her father was neurodivergent. You know he had ADHD slightly on the spectrum there. He had to be. He's making snowmobiles, he's making connections that others just couldn't see. So when you heard that and I actually believe you told me or you told us on the show that you thought and you just pointed out earlier, john Boyd is probably Without a doubt, no doubt, yeah, and it's been confirmed, from his daughter at least.
Ponch Rivera:I mean there's no, yeah. Is there a medical confirmation, by the way? I don't, I don't even know.
Sarah Kernion:I don't, I don't think so. I mean I this we can go down a tangent on this and I, because of him, you know, being an aviator and in the air force, the a passion of mine is the fact that the current United States military does not allow for anyone with a neurodiversity diagnosis to enlist?
Ponch Rivera:How do you get the diagnosis? And then let's come back on that topic how?
Sarah Kernion:do you get it? How do you get an ADHD or autism diagnosis? I mean, that has to be given through a psychologist, neurologist or a developmental pediatrician or generalist, so that is a proactive thing that has to be done. The statistics, though, coming from the government and the military, is that there's 70,000 prescriptions for ADHD medication being written to active members of the military. So there's a don't ask, don't tell policy, because if you're exhibiting behaviors and you realize that you're, those behaviors are not able to be discussed on a diagnosis level, but that you experience them and can get a prescription for it.
Sarah Kernion:That's a. That's a different, that's a whole different case right there. But yes to to the point of of Mary and her and her dad and John Boyd being neurodivergent, yes, I mean the way that in which he saw and created his theories are taking in ideas and humans in a way that others weren't at the time and, specifically when it comes to aviators, the impulsivity. That I believe is a positive. When it comes to an Air Force fighter pilot, if you have a quicker response because you're taking in more senses, and then it leads to a positive outcome for the mission, how is that seen as a negative?
Ponch Rivera:Yeah, and there are folks that just can't make it because they can't see things right. They just can't make the connections. And it's not that anybody's better than anybody. There's context, right, correct. In this context, we need somebody who can do this, correct.
Sarah Kernion:Well, that's. I mean and again excuse me if I sound outside the military, but I mean isn't the joke, isn't there a sort of like ha ha, like every um insanely successful fighter pilot has to have ADHD.
Sarah Kernion:I mean, maybe you know like the, the, the, the hyperactivity, especially in males is, is a much more of a trait. In females it's less of the hyperactivity and more of the um, the uh, extensive circuitry and ability to shut off the senses. But for men and for males it's more of that hyper impulsivity. So I find it fascinating because it's for again, society has cued us into thinking that that's a negative.
Ponch Rivera:Yeah, no, to me it's a flow state right. The reason flying was so enjoyable and preparing for combat not necessarily combat itself is because the challenge is extremely high and your skills have to be extremely high to actually be in that world. So you have to build those up over time through that implicit guidance and control. So I imagine that your children are going through a sense of flow when they're watching a game, right?
Sarah Kernion:Oh yeah.
Ponch Rivera:Yeah, that's where they want to be, and you can't always be in that state, as far as I know.
Sarah Kernion:I have to stop you there because, before I forget, the repetition part is so big. You know, there's a again, there's this what society dictates as a positive and what is actually maybe society dictates as a weakness of autistic or neurodivergent individuals, which is the repetition, the repetition, the repetitive stimming, or the repetitive desire to categorize, or, you know as a toddler, line things up, alphabet, alphabetize, or you know as a toddler, line things up, alphabetize things. That ability, that innate desire to do things over and over and over again, to form a pattern and to take it to an exponential level, that is misunderstood by a typical human. I believe, starts as a. I mean, it's starting as a child, right, and there's the reason that trains are lined up for a lot of autistic boys and toddlers. They crave the most basic patterns from whatever they have in their world and I think that the satisfaction that it gives to neurodivergent individuals, that mindset from the outside, needs to shift to being. That's a real, huge benefit If they can pattern match quicker and more efficiently than a neurotypical individual.
Sarah Kernion:Shouldn't we be celebrating that? Because I think again I go back to this example of my daughter watching college football or NFL football. I will catch her choosing to re-watch a championship Alabama versus Ole Miss SEC championship game Like she proactively, without me even being around on an iPad, is choosing to watch this one game and I think to myself why? What is it that in that one game that she, that she's just so zoned in on, you know if, if her vocabulary and her device usage increases and eventually she can one day tell me the play that was missed by old miss was this, yeah, yeah.
Sarah Kernion:Like I mean she'll look at me like you. You were confused as to why I watched it all again. I can go in, you know, as a 20 something year old she probably can go back and, you know, go back in time and tell Nick Saban yeah, this is, this is what play they pulled on you.
Ponch Rivera:Yeah, yeah. So I don't know if you saw the Netflix documentary Science Stealer.
Sarah Kernion:Oh, I just watched it, we just watched it.
Ponch Rivera:So when I'm watching it, you've got a Naval Academy Marine.
Sarah Kernion:He is.
Ponch Rivera:Pattern matching, taking photos of himself in these different positions Yep.
Sarah Kernion:I mean, the beauty in his catalog is that of an artist. I mean, it's art.
Ponch Rivera:But? But I would never have done that, I would have looked. I mean, we all watch a football game, we see the sign. Everybody on the side like, oh, look at that, that's, that's. But it takes a certain type of person to sit down and maybe he is a spectrum, I don't know. I think his name is I forgot his last name Connor, Connor, Connor Stallion Stallion. Yeah, Interesting name, right. Yeah, exactly, and it'd be interesting to talk to him about this too. He would be a wonderful person to have on the show. Yeah, but the pattern matching there that's what we're talking about is at a different level. And to Sarah's point about in the military, that's what you need. You don't want to bring. Well, let's see, I might not be a good example, but do you want me stealing signs? Because I'm going to get bored.
Sarah Kernion:Right, right, right. Well, listen, hyperfixation is a known quality of a neurodivergent individual. Man did for the sign stealing. Sign stealing or not, like whether, whether you're in a corporation looking for a pattern within a competitor that they always do xyz within an ad, that hyper fixation, desire is higher in neurodivergent individuals. Yeah, so I believe, in terms of that exact example, they were they sort of. I mean, they got lucky because of the innate fandom, fanship of this, that that kid.
Sarah Kernion:But the desire and hyper fixation to figure it out and then to do it in a way that turns into a catalog of 30, what was it? 3,500 sideline body movement signs and then the categorizing of the recruits across the map. I mean, that is such an innate desire and a hyper fixation that, again, as a typical individual, you can actually, you and I maybe take us out of the equation. But a typical leader would think, wow, let's capitalize on that human's ability to do this for us. I mean, and you can't force anyone to desire to do that, it has to come from within. It has to come from within. So if we start to recognize that, these traits, as I keep saying, is, you notice it from the childhood, from their childhood, and what these neurodivergent children are drawn to, and then you can cultivate and grow that and lead that so that they become these very, very wonderfully competitive advantages to a company, because of how they see things and what they innately, might become hyper fixated on.
Ponch Rivera:Yeah. So as you're walking through this, I'm thinking about a counterfactual fight in the future, right when you have like 10, 15 years down the road, your son or daughter are now in the military and they're, I hate to say, being weaponized to train AI to see things that AI can't be taught now by our current information. That is an asymmetric advantage that the military I hate to say it, I'm not advocating for this.
Sarah Kernion:No, no, I've had this conversation.
Ponch Rivera:But this is when we're talking to military leaders or leaders in organizations. The power of cognitive diversity is absolutely critical in your organization and, importantly, how do you leverage that Right? The tools and techniques that we use now are probably insufficient for what needs to be developed, and I'm talking about the methods we use, like red teaming things, and complex techniques are probably, in my guess, they're probably insufficient to leverage what is needed. There may be a technology aspect to it where somebody who can crack codes I don't know. I don't know what it is, but there's something there. So that's the path that, or the direction of travel leaders should be thinking about when they talk about neurodivergent workforce, right. So so, going back to the science dealer, leaders should be thinking about when they talk about neurodivergent workforce, right.
Ponch Rivera:So, going back to the science dealer thing, they were not looking for him. He came to them, right, right, and he just said well, I'm going to do this. It emerged from the situation and his fascination with wanting to be a coach, right, that's what he wanted to do. So creating an environment where people can be who they are. That's the psychologically safe environment bring their full self to work is important, and I just don't think organizations are doing it, and clearly you talk to military leaders about this.
Sarah Kernion:What's their big pushback on? I think their big pushback is can neurodivergent individuals be successful in completing the basic requirements of enlistment without extra support? Okay, and that was told to me from a three-star general in the army and I understand the directive of that very much so. Also, my biggest response to that was then why does the Israeli army talk about this? Why is the Israeli army there's not billboards and signs but the Israeli army proactively recruits for neurodivergent individuals? If they're the gold standard in the world, why are we not leading?
Sarah Kernion:And I'm not saying that neurodiverse individuals need to be on the ground, but I'm telling you right now, if you told me, as a mother who is open to the possibilities of their children being the best versions of themselves as autistic adults, and the United States Army or the United States military told me that there were submarines or positions within active duty that require 12 hours of observations and to point out the differences and patterns of any sort of environment, that would go on my vision board for my children.
Sarah Kernion:I can see that that would bring such contentment to my children if I had to guess right now that the ability of that option being out there not only to benefit the country but to benefit the facet of the United States military and their innate wiring to then be a competitive advantage. It seems to me that the enlistment procedures we need to reaccommodate, Because I'm not asking, and I think most families are not, or potential enlistment members are not looking to be on the front line. We're not looking for that at all and I'm very surprised that there is not a difference in qualification of that role. Yeah, Because if numbers are down, if we're missing the mark by 10,000 soldiers enlisting, you're basically putting aside a very big population of the country that would do so and fill that.
Ponch Rivera:You know I'm thinking about in the military or in the Navy. We have a you know staff line. We have people that go in from the legal healthcare and they go on a different pathway to become an officer. And you know. Next thing, you know you're looking at beer gut somebody, a 40-year-old lieutenant Right. Like really it's not his job to fight, right, I mean it's it never was.
Ponch Rivera:Yeah, but the line officer in the military, uh, a little, or in the Navy, is a little bit different, right, uh, especially in aviation, our job is to fight. It's, it's, it's a little backwards. The Navy, naval, aviation, air force, aviation officers do the fighting, and the army it's the enlisted and the Marines, it's the enlisted and the officers.
Sarah Kernion:I was privy to some situations and just areas of the Coast Guard and of the Navy where I can actually feel. I actually sense that the only successful, highly successful active duty member would be on the spectrum there for the amount of intensity it requires to do that human pattern matching and awareness. There's something that is not being supported or celebrated in that, because if you're asking a typical adult to do something that a neurodivergent adult could do better, that's a mismatch for me. That's a major mismatch. You're right, it is.
Ponch Rivera:In working in complexity theory. One of the lessons I've learned in there is to stimulate the human sensor network right. That's one point in a complex and you can say that with increased uncertainty as a result of rapid change, we are in a very VUCA environment at the moment, where it's the way we thrive in the spaces. You have to stimulate that human sensor network Right, and this is the whole point of this. Bring in the people that see the world different ways and find out where you can create, like you pointed out, where you can create those mismatches, and thank you for using John Boyd's-.
Sarah Kernion:It's one of the best terms.
Ponch Rivera:It's great, by the way, I think it's become more popular. After the free energy principle, they start using it more and more, creating mismatches. Right, we're trying to find those mismatches in the environment so we can take advantage of them or create a mismatch for our opponent. Yeah, so this is fascinating. I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while and I can't remember if I sent you the paper.
Ponch Rivera:We've had Ina Cipollito on here a while back. She wrote a paper actually I have it right next to me on smart environments for diverse cognitive styles the case of autism. To me, after we had her on the show, this was written and I was blown away. I was like, wait a minute. This kind of changes my understanding of autism, but it's very aligned to complex adaptive systems, the neuroscience and all this stuff. So I think the importance of going back and helping people understand what the OODA loop actually means. It's how we perceive reality, it's how we sense, it's how we plan, it's how we adapt, how we learn. If you understand that, just that basic component, that basic aspect of it, you can start to see the world and make connections in new ways. So I want to leave some time for you to ask some questions or just anything else you want to cover today and kick around.
Sarah Kernion:I have a major fascination with how John Boyd was a father in general, because I think he had to have seen and as his daughter Mary shared with you, he had to have seen the beginnings of slavery, neurodiversity within his son or child, before it was even a thing right, and he probably saw that within himself.
Sarah Kernion:I mean, I wish we could go back and interview him, obviously, but what he felt and what he actually was observing, and he was so confident in observing but also had the ability to articulate it. That's why I believe his theories are so profound for us, because they're he, he's an, he's in a league of his own, and the ability to articulate that theoretically, because I think that's what my children are doing just being, just because of who they are, they're, they're having to constantly adapt to a world not made for them. Yeah Right, and so do you. I would love to know like, do you feel like John Boyd, not just as an aviator but as a human? I mean, I think that the study of human interaction, aside from corporate, you know, america and complexity, how he lives, how does that, how does that resonate with you, just in how he speaks?
Ponch Rivera:volumes to. You know um asking when he was back in the um Pentagon after he retired. He didn't ask for a big salary, I think it was a dollar, it was very minimal. He uh according to Mary and we'll have that episode out soon she talks about growing up in a small house. You got her dad's an Air Force colonel and other colonels have these big houses and they live in this little apartment, right? Why is that? He really simplified his life to a minimum, right? What do I need? Just to survive. I don't need all these fancy tools and toys. We ask questions about his interactions with people. In the quorum book there's a couple of points where you know he'll tap people in the chest. So a little. What would you call that?
Sarah Kernion:I mean they're nuances and they're atypical. They're atypical ways of trying to engage and react.
Ponch Rivera:Yeah, and the way he ate food, you know he viewed it as fuel. It wasn't a social thing, right? So you know, here we have somebody talking about interaction, isolation. He's probably enjoys being isolated. The phone calls are interesting. When Mary and you hear stories, and even in the book that Corm wrote the phone calls he made late at night, you know, I think he found a group of folks that were a little like him, that would listen to him, think through his, his new ideas, right?
Sarah Kernion:So late at night making these long calls, yeah, so there's, just like the interpersonal choices that neurodivergent humans make are also going to be seen as very atypical, right, like how the way in which they interact is just going to be so different. But it doesn't take. I always say this like it doesn't mean that autistic individuals don't desire to interact. They just are going to do it in a way that makes, you know, others feel probably a little bit uncomfortable and but it doesn't violate, um, you know, uh, the rules of, just like, living in society. It's just, it's, it's, it's. It's brought up in a way that goes wait, I don't, that's not how I interact with someone. I don't feel, you know that that was bold or that was, um, that came out of left field or something like that, but it's still seen as a point of connection. That's something that's huge for me.
Sarah Kernion:Is that interacting with the world? And I will say, as a mother, who's? I mean I'm the leader, right, like you birth children and you become this tribal leader, right? I firmly believe that I am to make my children become the best versions of who they are, full stop. But but what that looks like to me doesn't matter. I'm supposed my, my job as a parent is to figure out that and help them do that for themselves. But I'm going to be this navigator and say, yep, I see how well you do that, let's keep going.
Sarah Kernion:And that doesn't. That shouldn't be different than any any parent, right? It takes on a totally different lens when it's a language and a and a circuitry that is not your own and you know it's. It's like you're a baby and then you're a baby adult and then you're a baby second time parent. I mean you're never. It's never going to be the same for each child. But the I still think that if you can take a sense of guidance and ownership of that and know it's, they're not going to exhibit anything typical. But if you see it being a positive to them and to the world and to how they interact, support that. You know, if it's not doing any harm, support that.
Sarah Kernion:You know I travel a lot with my kids. It was something that was ingrained in me from my own upbringing. You know there is no reason why my children should not be able to travel. And if the disruption of a giggling on a flight is so bad or so disruptive because a song is being listened to on his headphones over and over again, I think that we just have as a society, we have a ways to go in terms of what's accepted, because their reaction to just living their lives and being who they are really shouldn't be anyone else's problem. I mean, I, you know. If they're happy and healthy, why is? Why is how they respond to the world negative?
Ponch Rivera:Their experience of the world is different.
Sarah Kernion:It's just different. Yeah, it's just different.
Ponch Rivera:So I have when you're doing keynotes and you're out in front of folks. So I have when you're doing keynotes and you're out in front of folks um who, what a couple of things. What are your key messages and what are some feedback?
Sarah Kernion:uh, points that you get from some of your um right now. Um, you know, my keynotes are are directed to specifically parents that have special needs children within organizations. So I speak to a lot of employee resource groups ERGs, brgs the HR side of things that have parents that are looking to be understood within their organizations as how they play into their own roles. I've spoken at larger events that are just more HR employees who have DEI responsibilities. What I realize is that the acceptance there's a grief timeline this is a whole other podcast timeline of having a child with special needs or, specifically, neurodiversity is something that the quicker that you can move through the acceptance of a diagnosis of your child, the quicker that you are able to interact with the world and live your life to the fullest as well, with very, very different expectations of how that life is going to look.
Sarah Kernion:I'm in the process of trademarking the term inchstones because milestones is. Milestones is something that, like I mean, you become a parent and it's like day one, you're in a after leaving the hospital and a pediatrician looks at you and is like here's the. Here's the milestones that had to be met in the first three months. Here's the milestones that have to be met in the first three months. And when your child does not hit those and your child becomes lagging to those, you start to really hate the term milestone because you think to yourself I'm a failure. I feel a lot of shame that I created a child that is not hitting what society dictates is supposed to happen. And I, through my grief and sort of acceptance of neurodiversity, I realized that I was like harnessing these inchstones over milestones of my children and realizing that those developments were still really powerful. It just wasn't going to look typical to my typical oldest daughter and it didn't mean that they weren't growing. It didn't mean that their growth was stagnant, it wasn't at all. It was just on a completely different bell curve, honestly, to really their own self. And excuse me if I sound bold here, but I don't think that anyone should be on a typical developing curve of what a successful human is. I think it should only be in relation to what your growth is and your capacity to lean in, to learn about yourself and what your greatest strengths are.
Sarah Kernion:So when I realized that I was being told over and over again you know, okay, this milestone isn't being reached. Early intervention is going to, you know, help to sort of try to correct that. And I thought to myself if these practitioners are trying to correct this, yet we're still growing. Why am I being seen and told that my child's failing? Because, honestly, it didn't. I felt, if anything. I thought, oh my gosh, I'm doing the right thing by intervening and knowing that the plasticity of the brain is so high under the age of five, like this is great, like let's celebrate that.
Sarah Kernion:You know, at one month of early intervention, my daughter didn't want to touch Play-Doh because the sensory was just so overwhelming to her and in two months she was able to roll the Play-Doh. Now you take a parent of in, you know, princeton, new Jersey, who has three perfectly developing children, they're going to probably internally roll their eyes and say, oh my gosh, like a Play-Doh snake, get those. Before I even opened the Play-Doh jar. But for me, I thought to myself holy smokes, we can now experience textures. This is huge. We just completely jumped into a different realm of learning because she can touch this texture.
Sarah Kernion:And it was like, why am I the only one celebrating this? The woman next door whose child got diagnosed, I want her to celebrate this too. So that's where my keynotes came in and I realized I had a platform for this is like giving this power and this celebratory thing back into these parents who feel so shamed by what their child isn't doing that they're failing to miss what they are doing, and it this inchstone over milestone mentality has been huge. John Boyd's interaction over isolation has resonated more than I can even express to you when I talk about it, and people are shocked that it comes from a military man.
Ponch Rivera:Yeah, and for us, we look at it or at least I look at it as warfare right and fifth generation warfare.
Sarah Kernion:Yeah, it's fascinating.
Ponch Rivera:The brain-gut connection? I'm curious about that. Yeah, and the reason I'm bringing this up is my daughter, one of my daughters. She was falling a lot playing basketball. One minute in a game. She fell four times in one minute and it's a balanced thing. So we went to all the doctors and they were all trying to give her prescriptions and stuff. I'm like, hey, let's not inject anything in there yet, let's figure out what's going on in the environment. So we looked at food and food. You know. We found some allergies in there. Mild allergies changed her diet. She went on a very tough diet and she's been on it for a while and her balance is fantastic. Now she's very athletic, can compete. And then my other daughter is very sensitive to texture on different foods, right. So I mean we all sense things differently, right, right? So question to you is is there a brain-gut?
Sarah Kernion:connection in autism at all. I think there's a sensitivity for sure. I, as someone who is in this, you know my life, I'm completely immersed in the autism world from you know, sunup to sundown. It's a battle. It's a choice of what you want to focus on in the moment of the education. The proven ABA therapy and occupational speech therapy is, at the start, really, really the most important. I do believe that there is a gut brain behavior component to it. I'm not sure how much it would. I would lean to saying that this could, like cure the sensitivities or cure the receptive process of things, but I do think it's worth exploring more.
Sarah Kernion:And I and I'm, I'm, I'm very sad. I will say this I had a pediatric allergist tell me when my, my daughter, was first diagnosed that there's no, there's, there's, no, there's no diet that's going to change. You know, millie becoming who she is, and I think that that's the that's the biggest sadness here is that I'm not looking to change her. I'm not looking for her to not become, not not be, autistic anymore. I'm learning. I want her connective responses to just be um more aware and not like a cloud.
Sarah Kernion:I've been told by neurologist that the gut brain is connections and what you can do with diets is less about rewiring the circuitry and more about turning a light switch on to the circuitry. So the circuitry might be there but it's just dimmed, and that if you change the diet, there might be a glow, like the glow might come back to a, so the room's like this, and then it lights up a bit. That that was the, that was the descriptive to me, so I can see that being the case. You know if, if I remove gluten you know, listen, as someone with ADHD if I, if I don't eat gluten, I feel great, I feel better than I may just do. And you know if I have high protein and, you know, vegetable oriented, with the sweet potatoes being my only starch. I mean it's yeah, I feel great and I it's. That's also really, really tough. It's a really tough yeah.
Ponch Rivera:Yeah, it's very tough in the house to to maintain that. You know we're eating as much gluten-free as we can. Yeah, I don't drink that much alcohol anymore. I have one beer, one beer a week, and it's sad that we grew up in a culture of fighter aviation where you have a joke. He crawled, crawled into a bottle in round 21 and crawled out of it.
Sarah Kernion:Wasn't the Marine Corps founded in a bar? I mean, that's what I think about, like, yeah, we as a culture. I mean that's a whole nother can of worms, because there actually is. I read recently there was a study that came out talking about neurodiversity and an increase for addiction, which I totally can see. Oh, yeah, I can, totally can see that because you know, if you have the ability to numb some senses, that's probably that probably might feel really good if you are severely autistic and you just want to rest, you know it's going to take a lot. It would take a lot longer to get a dopamine hit, um, through running, learning to run a marathon as an autistic individual versus housing a six pack. So there's that. That. That whole, that whole thing's fascinating to me as well. Um, but then I think you know you just mentioned a beer. I'm like, well, it's gluten, though.
Ponch Rivera:That's also, you know good point, yeah, yeah, all right, so our listeners can get in touch with you on your website and LinkedIn. Yeah, your website is. Give it to me again.
Sarah Kernion:WWW Dot Saturday story dot com.
Ponch Rivera:OK, Some context on that please.
Sarah Kernion:I began my writing career as a mommy blogger, became a mom in New York City, joined the ranks of moms trying to just create community and I have always had a deep love for Saturdays. I loved New York's love not loved, continue to love New York City and all the opportunities that you have on a Saturday in New York. And it just became Saturday story and I love. I've always been drawn to the stories of humans. I've when humans of New York came out that book I mean I couldn't read it fast enough. I love hearing about and learning about the interactions and the lived experiences of individuals and one-on-one conversations like this are exactly what I love and I'm drawn to.
Sarah Kernion:My degree is in uh uh, multiple advertising and PR, but also communicative arts and sciences, which is a fancy way of saying relationship science, and I found that stories of individuals are just fascinating to me and what our choices are. And Saturday and plus the story you choose for yourself. I kept Saturday's story and it has evolved obviously into being Millie and Mac and our autism journey. But I kept Saturday's story because I do believe in the power of each of our individual lives and our lived experiences and the stories that we share to amplify to others what you've done and what they can also do. Which is my biggest mission here is to put the power back in these special needs parents to get out there and encourage interaction, because it's only going to allow for a better life and, I believe, a better corporate environment down the road for children like mine.
Ponch Rivera:So question are you writing about the OODA loop on there at all?
Sarah Kernion:Not yet. You know, I, I no, I have not. I think I've mentioned, I have mentioned John boy, but it's it's more of my in my live talk, so I'll keep you guys posted on that next big one that's great.
Ponch Rivera:And then on LinkedIn uh, how else can our listeners get?
Sarah Kernion:LinkedIn I'm on. I'm on Instagram. I share more of the personal side to autism parenting on on on Instagram at Saturday story, which is my handle on Instagram as well, and really giving that um that uh, that direct, very personal look as to what the day-to-day is like with them. I talk a lot about the resources that have benefited me, as well as just answering. I do a lot of Q&A to vocalize what it's like to be me and I know that I'm not, I'm just one of thousands of of autism parents but, um, being able to use my voice to answer about what it's like to live my experience Um, I do a lot of that on Instagram as well.
Ponch Rivera:That's great. The uh, the medium that we're using now with podcasts and and um blogs, uh provides access to uh folks that uh have similar needs and wants and desires.
Sarah Kernion:So if I can, if that can, that's the biggest thing. If I can put the power back into an autism parent in any capacity where they choose to interact with the world and feel confident that their experience is valid and that they have the right to engage with the world just like any typical individual, I've won the lottery in terms of a job. If I can put that power back into someone and you talk about John Boyd and living simply, if I can live off of peanut butter and apples if necessary, yeah, it's the mission. It's the mission.
Ponch Rivera:It's the mission. I appreciate the mission. It's the mission. I appreciate it. Well, great connecting with you, sarah, you as well. This has been fun. It's amazing how time flies in these things and I like the open form approach. It's kind of like it's you know if you're not.
Sarah Kernion:I'm sure you feel this way when you're engaging with corporations and such. If people are not living around neurodiversity or autism or ADHD or you know, the military, all these things, they're just not sensitive, they're, and it's not a, it's not wrong, you can't fault someone for it. If you're not around autistic kids, you're not around them. But if, if you can talk about it and make it so that, like, neurodiversity is just part of the um, part of the fold of the environment, it just makes it so much more peaceful to go about leading my child to be the best version of themselves and I think it frees. I think it probably frees individuals like you and I as well, because then it makes us seem less, less of a spark and just more of a part of the part, of the part of the solution, I guess, and just more of a part of the solution, I guess.
Ponch Rivera:All right, well, once again, thank you very much and our listeners will have links to Saturday Story and your LinkedIn profile and anything else you want Wonderful. But thanks again for being on no Way Out and I'm sure we'll have you back to go a little bit deeper into some of these topics.
Sarah Kernion:Awesome, thanks, punch.
Ponch Rivera:Thank you.
