Making friends as a neurodivergent adult is harder than anyone tells you — and there are real, brain-based reasons why. This isn't a willpower problem or a personality flaw. It's a wiring difference that nobody ever explained to most of us.

Caroline Maguire is a social-emotional learning expert, TEDx speaker, and neurodivergent person herself — ADHD, dyslexia, and learning disabilities. Her new book, Friendship Skills for Neurodivergent Adults, is the practical, science-backed guide most of us needed years ago.

This is Part 1 of our conversation — the personal side. We get into why friendship feels so unintuitive for ND brains, the mindsets that quietly sabotage your connections before you realize it, what flooding and anxious overcorrection actually look like in practice, and how to stop masking your way into rooms that will never be right for you.

Part 2 — workplace friendships, trust, and navigating ND social dynamics on the job — drops next week.

What we cover:

• Why the "friendship should be easy" myth hits differently when you're late-diagnosed
• How your past experiences are secretly running your social life right now
• Finding what actually fills your connection cup — and stopping what doesn't
• Masking vs. authentic connection, and why masking costs you the friendships you want
• Flooding, triggers, and the "writing a story" spiral after a social event
• Anxious overcorrection — why we send 45 texts explaining the thing
• People pleasing, rushing in, and the fortress mindset

📖 Get Caroline's book: https://bookshop.org/a/108800/9781538773086z

Getting promoted because you're good at your job is the easy part. Most AuDHD professionals find out quickly that the role they were promoted into requires skills nobody taught them and nobody mentioned were part of the deal.

Brett sits down with Dr. Bowen Marshall, PhD, a licensed psychotherapist, author, and career coach specializing in ADHD, Autism, and neurodivergent career development. Dr. Marshall works with ADHDers, AuDHDers, and Autistics to help them build systems, workflows, and leadership approaches that work for their brains at work and in life.

The conversation starts where a lot of AuDHD careers start to get complicated: outperforming everyone around you, getting promoted because of it, and then discovering that managing people is a completely different job than doing the work. Dr. Marshall introduces a Harvard Business Review leadership framework that describes this pattern specifically. From there they get into the unwritten rules most corporate environments run on, how warmth and competence function as the two factors that shape how you're perceived at work, and what happens when you're four steps ahead of the room and keep getting dismissed for it.

The conversation closes on a distinction worth understanding clearly: the difference between masking and code switching. Most people treat these as the same thing. They aren't, and the difference matters when you're trying to figure out where your energy is actually going.

This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Part 2 covers late diagnosis, burnout, and the decision of whether to disclose your diagnosis at work.

Connect with Dr. Bowen Marshall:

Substack: https://substack.com/@bowentylermarshallTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drbotyler YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DrBoTylerInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/Drbotyler

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction

02:33 Technical skill vs. leadership skill

03:55 The Pacesetter Leadership Style

06:35 From expert to teacher

07:48 "Don't be too good at your job"

09:00 Unspoken corporate rules

11:59 Warmth and competence

12:42 The Cassandra Effect

15:03 Calibrating what you share at work

16:13 Masking vs. code switching

19:36 Companies and neurodivergent brains

20:56 Burnout and entrepreneurship

ABOUT AUDHD BOSS:AuDHD Boss is Brett Whitmarsh's channel covering ADHD and Autism in the workplace. Brett has over 12 years of leadership experience and a formal diagnosis of ADHD and Autism.Substack: https://substack.com/@brettwhitmarshWebsite: https://audhdboss.com

Most neurodivergent employees don't know what accommodations they can ask for — and without that, the process stalls before it starts.

In this episode, I walk through the 10 most commonly requested AuDHD workplace accommodations according to Job Accommodation Network data, with the exact functional limitation language and scripting you can adapt for your own request. Each accommodation includes the framing the JAN recommends, plus real-world context from someone who spent over 12 years in corporate leadership — including as a VP — before their own late ADHD and autism diagnosis.

We cover quiet workspaces, noise-canceling headphones, remote work, written follow-up after verbal instructions, flexible scheduling, structured check-ins, structured breaks, advance notice of changes, assistive technology, and neurodiversity coaching through an EAP. For every one, you'll hear why it works and exactly how to say it.

Free resource: The AuDHD Accommodations Prep Guide — Know What to Ask For and How to Say It is linked below. payhip.com/b/j0rvk