Kelly Gordon | How a Professional Communication Coach Navigates Life on the Spectrum

Srini Rao

Kelly, welcome to the unmistakable creative. Thanks much for taking the time to join us.

Kelly Gordon

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here today.

Srini Rao

It is my pleasure to have you here. So I was introduced to you by way of one of our former desks, Christine McAllister, who told me that you had a story that the minute I read the description, my immediate reaction was, holy shit. And hell, yes. I want to have Kelly as a guest. Um, so I wanted to start by asking you what did your parents do for work and how did that end up influencing where you've ended up and what you've done with your life?

Kelly Gordon

I love this is why I love you like it's a whole thing. Okay, so My parents my mother when I was born was an RN and then the enabled intensive care unit and my father at the time Was in construction my mother quit her job and didn't work again after I was six and my father had his own business Where he moved from construction to antique restoration into custom cabinetry so for me

Srini Rao

I'm out.

Kelly Gordon

And we might get into some of this later on kind of drop all of this now, but like we when Everything hit like in 2008, you know and earlier than that like that was the big one and then before we lost everything We lost the house. We lost the car. We lost everything and For me the driving force

in my entire value system and why I get up every day and do the things that I do, is that I'm never ever in that position ever again. So that is what they did and then what they did not do shaped me in every way.

Srini Rao

How old were you when that happened?

Kelly Gordon

14.

Srini Rao

So at the age of 14, you're obviously in adolescence at that point, old enough to understand everything that's going on in the world around you, very different than it would be if you were like a three-year-old. What did that do for your own perception about the value of money and wealth and success?

Kelly Gordon

You know what's interesting is I am gonna go back a little bit farther because ever since I was really little I want To say you know my mom would like send me into the store to get something so I was old enough to do that Right, but not enough to do anything else. I was like hyper aware and

I don't even know the word, that I didn't have enough money to buy whatever that she wanted me to get. For example, if she wanted me to go in and get a piece of bread or a loaf of bread, I would not go in with anything less than a $20 bill. Like I was scared or embarrassed or whatever that I wouldn't have enough money. So that I think was super entrenched early on. And as I got older, it kind of morphed in really weird ways that we don't have any money. People with money are not generous or kind. Or, you know, that they're

bad people in some way that they're not sharing it, that they did something that we're not going to do to do that because we're more moral than that. And that was really entrenched my entire life from very early well into adolescence and early adulthood.

Srini Rao

Yeah. I mean, to build a successful business, I think any one of us has to change that narrative, right? And there's always a quote about money that Seth Godin says in one of his programs that always stayed with me. He said, money is a story. It's a story for investment bankers who make $3 a second and peasants who make $3 a day. And I wonder, have you overcome that scarcity mindset? And if so, how? And how do other people do it?

Kelly Gordon

I would like to say now I have overcome that. I had a recent experience where I was testing, like sending a new contractor a payment or something, and to test it, I just sent a test payment, not everything that I owed them, right? I chose, interestingly in my brain, to send $100. And when he said, like you were testing it, it worked, but I don't know why you didn't just send a dollar. And...

And at that moment, I was like, I overcame the scarcity thing, right? Like, I was not overly emotionally attached to the other $99.

Right? That it just was like, hey, we're just going to test this, we're going to send that out. So for me, I think it's going to be a probably a lifetime, maybe even everybody to have to focus on that in some way and not tie any sort of intrinsic value or emotion to money that it is a tool. Right? It is a story. I love how Seth put that puts that. But I would like to say that I am over it, or at least over the hurdle, the biggest hurdle of it and moving to the other side. But I coach a lot of people, you know, beginning entrepreneurs, and that is such a big thing. The way that it raises its head, which is so interesting to me,

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

No.

Kelly Gordon

an early entrepreneur, I teach digital agency owners, but is what they charge, that they are only willing to charge what they are comfortable paying, not what it's worth, and it's such a low number, right? Like it's, but it's all rooted in this same place that everybody's on a different spectrum of that journey, but it raises its head really big there, and we do coach through it, that has to be, that it is, kind of the way that I put it is like,

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Kelly Gordon

If, you know, say you owe me $1,000 and that seems like a lot. Well, what if we call them coconuts? What if you say, this is $1,000 coconuts, right? And you, okay, you don't have $1,000 coconuts. That's cool. There's for some reason less of an emotional trigger with, hey man, I just don't have $1,000 coconuts to give you for this, right? Then, I don't have $1,000, right? Like even saying it out loud, like I can feel it in my body that it feels different. And it's, like that is such an interesting thing to me

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Kelly Gordon

I think struggles with or tries to overcome in their own way.

Srini Rao

Yeah, well, I mean, I grew up in an Indian family where my dad drives an $80,000 car. And now, because he's a tenured professor and has done well for himself, but he'll drive across town to save $0.15 on gas.

Kelly Gordon

Mm-hmm. Because that mentality just doesn't go. I think you have to actively be aware of it and then work to understand why it's there. I don't think that we can stop behaviors. I think we have to replace them. But that can only come from understanding of why it's there in the first place.

Srini Rao

you know, which is...

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm. Totally.

Srini Rao

Well, that's the you know, my dad and I will have this debate when he'll ask me to do stupid chores around the house. And you know, like my cousin, who's a postdoc at Boulder, you know, and a hardware engineer, who just got a job interview at Tesla, that poor kid spent the entire Christmas vacation cleaning my parents garage and helping my uncle and I told my dad, I was like, I'm not gonna help you for shit. I'm like, I will do the job. But I will put an Adam Craigslist and I will get a teenager in here.

Kelly Gordon

I'm going to go to bed.

Srini Rao

who's in high school to spend the week doing this. And he's like, that's not how you're supposed to think about these things. And I was like, I'm an entrepreneur. I delegate shit that I don't want to do. Like my time is worth more than that. And so that logic really didn't compute for him. But it's funny, you bring up this whole idea of how much to charge, because this is a conversation I've had with people in my own private membership community where I encouraged each one of them to raise their prices by 20%.

Kelly Gordon

Right.

Srini Rao

Even though they were all scared shitless, the minute they did, some of them came back and said, we just paid for the cost of being part of this program because of what you told us.

Kelly Gordon

Mm-hmm It's huge and you know my thing is and people argue with me it's a whole thing, but if you are talking to the same person and they Believe in what you're doing. They trust you you've told them the plan. They know the outcome They're not gonna not work with you for 20% more It's not gonna happen like it's not going to be a hurdle that hurdle is internal. It is not an external one

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Srini Rao

Well, I think the reason that this had always struck me was because Dan Kennedy actually in his wealth attraction seminar mentions that he routinely when he takes on a client, he institutes a 200% price increase and everybody pushes back on him and being Dan Kennedy, he also institutes a commission as part of his, you know, working with them. So naturally he benefits tremendously when he does that. And they're all apparently stunned when somebody actually pays it.

Kelly Gordon

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Gordon

Okay.

Kelly Gordon

Mm-hmm. Stunned. Like, cannot believe it. It's a whole thing. I don't... I do find it interesting that they could sell it being so shocked, right? But I hope that it... and the people I work with too, like, in their brains, that if they could sell something and not believe in the price that much, that it literally had nothing to do with the price.

Srini Rao

Yeah, I mean, I remember I got paid just what was an absurd amount of money, which I won't mention on air because it sounds obnoxious to basically show up over zoom, like over a virtual meeting for a conference for a pharmaceutical company and literally spend five minutes basically as the MC introducing the speakers. I mean,

It was one of the biggest paydays I'd ever seen from a speaking engagement. And I was kind of stunned, but then I did the math in my head. I was like, all right, let me get this straight. This is a pharma company. Let's say they have 10 drugs, $30 a month for every person who takes this drug, you know, spend, you know, and put multiply that times a million people. And that's not counting what the insurance companies are paying. I was like, okay, these guys are printing money. This is pocket change for them.

Kelly Gordon

Mm-hmm. Oh, it's huge. I'm glad I'm not the only person that does stuff like that, by the way. So I go out in the world and I'm like, hmm, I wonder what this is, and try to do some of the math backwards. And I'm always, I love to...

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Kelly Gordon

I mean as entrepreneurs like I'm, you know, I have my office and I'm in my office now and I spend time in here, but I try to get out in the world because it really does remind you A, what's available in the world just in general, all of the creativity and things, but also how much money there is in the world, right? Like if you're not getting your piece of it.

Chances are it has something to do with knowledge, access, or confidence. Knowledge and access can be solved very easily, and then the other is going to take a little bit of time, depending on who you put yourself around. But it's a solvable situation.

Srini Rao

Hmm.

Srini Rao

Well, speaking of solvable situations, I think that it makes a perfect segue to the main reason that I wanted to have a conversation with you. When Christine referred me to you, she said, you have to talk to Kelly. She is a communications coach who was diagnosed with autism and overcame it. And I thought, wait a minute, those two things are the most unlikely combos ever. How in the world does somebody...

make a career out of something that literally is the thing that is, you know, almost, you know, defines their challenges. So first, let's talk about sort of, you know, one, how old were you when you, you know, you realize this or, you know, your parents realize this, how did it affect your relationships growing up? And then, you know, we'll get deeper into it. But let's start there.

Kelly Gordon

So I always knew that I was different, I just didn't know why. And so I was homeschooled from sixth grade on, and so I was isolated in that way. I competed horses. I'm an inventor, or was. And so I was really isolated in that way and took a... I'm a super late bloomer, so that's the whole thing.

And I never really realized why things were so hard, but I did realize through like trying to communicate in certain ways or being reprimanded in certain ways that I didn't think that other people were struggling in the way that I was. And I knew that their brains didn't work in the way that I did, but I didn't have any vocabulary for that.

my throughout my whole life. So I'm 35 now and it wasn't really brought up as a diagnosis. I was 33. So I didn't know what it was. I was just in a situation of trying to

Srini Rao

Wow.

Okay.

Kelly Gordon

get through and do the things that I needed to do. This was actually even after my father died. He died of pancreatic cancer really quickly in 2019. And my mother went into a nursing facility where she is now still. So all of this was after lots of things that happened in a really difficult 18 month period of my life which sent me to therapy. So based on that, that's really kind of where that came from. She was...

realizing I think some of the things that was making my brain really different and the way that I Mostly understand it now is it makes me really black and white gray spaces are really difficult for me And which is probably why you're like, how do you communicate right? How does that even correlate here? my mother's borderline personality and only was diagnosed in that same period so only a couple of years ago and We just knew my mother as being her right

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao

Nah.

Kelly Gordon

But after my father died lots of things happened learned lots of things that the family calls what happened quote The changes happened in her at five so this has been lifelong for her struggle She has not tried to get any help, so I was raised in that kind of chaos I'm not sure how much you understand about borderline personality anybody listening here, but just Basically it is that they are

extremely emotional all of the time and have zero ability to control themselves. And it's a very volatile situation all of the time.

And it's really difficult, actually recently met somebody whose mother was borderline and we instantly connected because nobody understands what's happening or how to even describe what it could be like to be raised in such a volatile situation. And it could be whatever set her off today wouldn't tomorrow. So it also was very unpredictably volatile, which has its own set of

Srini Rao

No.

Kelly Gordon

issues for children, right? I'm also an only, so it was just me. Um

And there's actually a television show called Lie To Me. I'm not sure if you've ever come across that. Love it. Oh my goodness, love it. Always have. I'm re-watching it lately. And there is a character, it's the Monica Raymond character. And similar to her, she was raised in a very volatile situation. And she learned how to essentially, Lie To Me is about, can you detect if somebody's being deceptive in any way? And for anybody that's wondering about it,

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I've heard of it. Yeah.

Kelly Gordon

Watch that, it kind of explains it a little bit. But because I was in a state of needing and feeling like I was in a survival state all of the time, I can tell the second that something changes in someone else, their, the way that they feel, their energy, their, I can tell from a look that something has happened from a tune change, the way that they've stopped using their hands or started using their hands or what they're touching or just the fact that something has changed.

I can tell it instantly. Now you don't know necessarily why, right? And that is a little bit harder for me because of the spectrum issues for me, that is still a bit of a mystery. But I know that it's happened. And sometimes I can know it, sometimes I don't. But it can set you off internally because that is a gray area, right? I don't know why that happened.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao

No. So, I mean, well, what I wonder, there are multiple questions that come from that. So, while you and I are having this conversation, do you have sort of an ability to just inherently sense where my energy is at and how engaged I am because of that?

Kelly Gordon

Yes. And if it changes, I'll know it.

Srini Rao

Wow. Now, if it were to change, if you suddenly picked up that something just is off here, so he doesn't seem engaged or it looks like he's distracted by something, you mentioned that you wouldn't necessarily know why, you would sense it. What would your typical reaction be if that happened? Not that that's happening now because I'm completely captivated by you. Yeah.

Kelly Gordon

No it's not, you're super engaged. I go into what's called over-functioning. And so this is really, again, lots of therapy, it's a whole thing. But because I was trying to make it better or stop it or keep it from happening, I can and do try to then pull you back in a way that you might not necessarily feel.

Srini Rao

Okay, interesting.

Kelly Gordon

So, interestingly, this whole skill equates really well to sales, by the way, but because I can feel it and then bring it back. Again, I don't know why. Like, I can't see you. It would be different if I could see you, right? So I might know why. Hey, you just looked at his phone. He just got something, right? Or, you know, something happened in the background. I can't see any of that. So I will just know that something happened. And then I'll try to bring it back.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao

Yeah. OK, so this actually raises a question about sort of what, you know, most people who, you know, only kind of experience what it means to be on the spectrum through sort of media portrayals and books we read misunderstand about it. Because I don't know if you've ever seen the TV show Parenthood, which is probably one of my favorite.

Kelly Gordon

No, I have not.

Srini Rao

TV shows of all time. So, you know, one of the families finds out their son has Asperger's when he's, you know, five years old. And watching the development of that character is probably one of the most, you know, intriguing parts of that entire show because, you know, they have to basically figure out all sorts of ways to work with him. And it turns out that, you know, he's got all these sort of, you know, weird quirks, some of which make him brilliant at certain things and, you know, socially, like very difficult to deal with.

Now, you mentioned that you can instantly sort of tell if something changes in somebody. And you know, from what I'm told, that one of, you know, at least as I understand it, and this is why I wanted to ask this question, one of the challenges that people on the spectrum have is being able to read facial expressions and emotional cues.

Kelly Gordon

Mm-hmm and that's so that for me again through lots of therapy and things like that is understanding that was created from my childhood That it is a survival technique that I learned but interestingly I may or may not so Let's just say for arguments that you could do the same thing right you would probably have a much stronger idea of why I Probably don't know why

I have a hard time distinguishing if, like what is causing it because of, again, that's a gray area, of understanding maybe, hey, maybe you told me something earlier, something might be happening. I might not go back to that. I might not know that because I am now in that survival mode and I can't think out of it other than to make sure that you're okay so that I can then feel okay again.

Srini Rao

Yeah, so that's what I was wondering like so if you said something and it didn't land well You would know that something has changed, but you wouldn't necessarily know why

Kelly Gordon

Right, sometimes I don't know why. And some of my friends say, you know, Kelly, for a lot of the things that you understand and you're smart and you know all of these things, how did you not see that? That comes up in my life all of the time. And it's because I'm on the spectrum. I didn't see that. That was not something that I might have understood or could have seen coming or understood about somebody's behavior. Human behavior might not understand why.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Gordon

Right? So I just can understand that it happened.

Srini Rao

Right. Yeah.

Yeah, you mean, so let's talk about this whole idea of a spectrum, right? Because in my conversation with you, I mean, you know, you and I were talking off the air here about an episode that, you know, we aired with somebody who was on the spectrum and, um, it ended up, you know, have been, we had to take it down because the person was so upset. Uh, so, you know, there's sort of a wide range because like, as I'm talking to you, like, if I didn't know this backstory, nothing about the way you're communicating with me would make you seem like you're a person on the spectrum.

Kelly Gordon

So interestingly, when I...

Srini Rao

So why is that perception like created? Like why do we have this perception of sort of, you know, it's kind of Rain Man or something, you know, like Elon Musk.

Kelly Gordon

I think media has a lot to do with that. The spectrum is a really long and wide place. There's lots of reasons why things may not be, but also things similar to my childhood that might have affected how something has been developed or something that might have been developed in a hypersensitive way that may not have been in others. So I think that that, you know,

TV, media, things like that, movies have a big impact on where that lands. And we're all so different in how we were raised, what we came in contact with. So like, when I went, this was early teens, well into my 20s, I would carry a notebook around with me. When people do this, they mean that. When this happens, it's this. Like, I spent an incredible amount of time trying to learn what was going on.

because I didn't understand. And still now, like again, I might recognize that it happened, but I still may not know why. I could go to a close friend of mine and say, I don't understand this. And that's when I get the response. I mean, they'll tell me, they're kind, right? But like, in their brains, you're like, I don't know how you can do that and not this.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao

Yeah. So that's what I, what I wonder then is, you know, how does this impact your, you know, your friendships, your relationships, all of that, uh, you know, when you communicate like, what is it like for you to form a deep bond with somebody versus somebody who's not on the spectrum?

Kelly Gordon

Interestingly, two of my closest friends are on the spectrum. And that just we didn't know that about each other until later. It just I'm actually want to say maybe three are kind of in that same place. So we're resonating with each other on a level that we didn't understand at the time. I am again, I think because of the fact that I am on a spectrum, I am as upfront and honest as a person probably comes because I can't live otherwise.

Srini Rao

Hahaha! Yeah.

Kelly Gordon

Right? It just doesn't, it doesn't compute for me. I don't know how to live in that space. So when it was a joke from actually when I came out many years ago that everybody knew but me. So instead of me saying like, hey.

you know, guys I'm gay, it was, hey, now I know, right? And so like when I came, when I was telling them about, you know, that I've been diagnosed on the spectrum, it was similar, hey, now I know, right? Because they understood, they were not shocked in any way, the people closest to me. And interestingly, you brought up some scenes that we were talking about off air. One of them was a little bit of the alter ego effect, you know, and there's a book about that, that in certain situations, we can become this person. So who I am in my professional life,

you're talking to now of course is the same person as I am off camera and offline but to an extent I have learned how to live in this space in a way that I can communicate in this way that doesn't I wouldn't say always at all co- correlate to personal life

Srini Rao

Yeah. Wow. So.

You know at the age of 33, man, I think it sounds like to me like you sort of inherently knew this for a very long time But what does it do to your sense of identity when you were actually told this? They were you know, you get this, you know formal diagnosis or label because you know often once somebody labels as a something We can you know sort of give into that Pygmalion effect and say, okay, that's you know who I am So, you know, I'll give you an example I have no natural musical aptitude at all and I had a you know band director who the day I picked

of the tuba literally the day I picked up the instrument said you're gonna make all-state band for no good reason I have no idea why the hell he said that to this day and I did you know and it kind of was just him planting that seed made me want to live up to that expectation but then there's you know the situation for example like you get diagnosed with autism as a label or being on the spectrum as a label and I wonder like how that shapes your sense of identity for better or worse

Kelly Gordon

I think I'm glad that I didn't know it when I was younger. Because at this stage of my life, I know who I am, and I think if I had that, it would have potentially, of course, we'll never know, but it could have made it different. A crutch of some sort.

that I might not have gotten to the success that I have been able to get to because I didn't have that. Interestingly, also my brain doesn't work in that way. So if we want to start calling off labels, it's like, hey, my childhood was emotionally abusive and traumatic. I'm an alcoholic. I've been sober for eight years. I'm gay and I'm autistic. But I don't go through every day at all thinking of any of them.

because I'm just me and I know that there's things that I can do in the world and I just continue forward. I actually attribute that to the spectrum behavior of literally just not caring.

Srini Rao

So, okay, most people are incredibly sensitive to things like that. You know, when we get told certain things by our parents, you know, my parents of my entire life told me that I'm absent-minded, which to some degree is true until I got diagnosed with ADD. I was like, oh, cool. Now I have an explanation for all of this behavior. So how do you, you know, if you're not somebody like you who just doesn't give a shit, how does somebody begin to disconnect, you know, these limiting labels that they, you know,

Kelly Gordon

Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao

basically get from people around them from their sense of identity.

Kelly Gordon

I think that, you know, given everything that happened in my life and some of the things that did happen throughout my childhood, a big thing does stick out that if I ever wanted to do anything, the question that my parents would ask was, is there anybody else in the world doing that thing? And if the answer is yes, then of course you can. And if there isn't, then you just might need a little bit more time. So...

To me, that's just how my brain has always worked, that I don't see anything that is me as that limitation because people are doing it, so of course I can. I just have to figure out how. And I, you know, a lot of the time, I try to spend with my coaching clients and consulting clients is we talk a lot about grit and resilience and how to get to those things, right? For me, I think...

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Gordon

trying to overcome all of the things that I've tried to overcome. I have those things and I can sit here at my computer and did for a long time uh... to get to where I am day after day after day failing and not making the money that I should you know all these things but it is rooted in that grit and resilience which I think has something to do with how I think about it but I want to and spend a lot of time trying to teach people how to get there it's just a really hard thing to do when they're trying to overcome things that have happened to them or what they think about themselves

Srini Rao

Well, let's talk briefly about coming out. I've had a handful of guests here who have been gay or not straight, and each of them had a very different experience of coming out. Some of them had just overwhelmingly positive experiences, and others literally became estranged from their parents. So what is, for somebody like me who is straight, who doesn't understand this experience, what do you want me to know about the experience of coming out?

Kelly Gordon

It's funny, I've been asked this before and I don't think that I'm a good person to tell you that because mine was completely uneventful. I told my mother sitting at the island, you know, in the kitchen, I was about 23 or 24, and she said, okay, go tell your father. And I did and he said, I love you. And that was it. That was absolutely, I have never once in my life felt marginalized by my sexuality. Which is...

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Kelly Gordon

Abnormal and arguably maybe it's just because I don't pick up on that right like maybe that's the spectrum you stuff being like I don't know what that is, but it's not this because that's not a thing. I have no idea But have plenty of friends who over the years have experienced You know a wide range of that from what I experienced all the way to you know having to go to quote get the gay out camps right like that's still a whole thing and being strange from their families, so

Srini Rao

Yeah, I saw a documentary about that about a Christian cult about that literally, you know, tries to get I don't remember that there was a, you know, documentary on Netflix about this and we're like, holy shit, this actually exists.

Kelly Gordon

Thank you.

Kelly Gordon

Yeah. Right. No, it's still a thing.

Srini Rao

That is unreal. Like here we are in 2021 on the version of 2022 and something like that still exists.

Kelly Gordon

Mm-hmm. Isn't it crazy to think about? I think, you know, I guess I'm isolated or the people that I hang out with It's just not a thing, but that stuff still exists in the world

Srini Rao

Yeah. Okay, so I think the thing that, like I said, struck me most is the combination of two things you would never imagine going together, being diagnosed with being on the spectrum and becoming a communications coach. How in the world did you find your way to that, and what is it that you have that enables you to be so good at that, that somebody who has a brain that doesn't work like yours wouldn't necessarily have?

Kelly Gordon

So we'll start with how I got here. So I actually went to school for web design development and programming, and when I got out of school, I started working at local companies and then started my company in 2008, when the whole economy was down, it was great. But moved from website development into marketing, now our lead generation company, my agency is, and it's just been moving forward since then. And from that point, to get me here,

Now I work with some digital agency owners and things like that and I started my coaching program to teach them how to do the agency thing, right? But then during this coaching program, we're sending out these forms for them to fill out, like, what do you like about it? What did you think that it was? What was it? What's keeping you here? All of these things that we wanted to know about the program and I started getting back.

responses from lots of people in very different countries, different positions, things like that, that I want to learn to communicate like you. And I'm like, huh.

And so this started years ago, and so that was kind of the first time where I came into contact with, okay, maybe this, I didn't understand it at first, but I knew that they were there for that, that they wanted to learn to communicate like me. So we got them all in a room, started talking more about it, and trying to figure out what that meant, because that was still kind of a great space for me, like I didn't have any definition of what that meant. And from the lens that they were talking about at the time, it was client management, say

you know, talking to employees and contractors in a way to get things done in a efficient manner while that person still feels...

Kelly Gordon

empowered and happy and I guess he may be even resilient through the process and so that this kind of has Morphed over the years where now I'm asked to speak to other, you know coaching groups and things like that about emotional intelligence connection communication and how Those three things can fuel anything that you want to do I think in life honestly, but at the lens that we're usually talking about it It's through business, right?

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Kelly Gordon

you can have any sort of understanding of those three, you are going to be so far ahead of anyone else, it's gonna be crazy.

Srini Rao

So your clients, when they came to you with all of this, did they know that you're on the spectrum?

Kelly Gordon

No. Cause I haven't been diagnosed yet. I mean, they might have had their thoughts. I'm not sure.

Srini Rao

Okay.

Ah, okay. Yeah.

Well, let's talk about that. I mean, you take something like being on the spectrum and you turn it into a combination of emotional intelligence, communication, persuasion, all the things that enable you to accomplish things that everybody here probably listening wants to be able to accomplish. How do you cultivate all of those things? Because I remember there's a class in business school that you take called organizational behavior. And it's funny because half of those things are the books that I read now and many of the guests that I have in the podcast.

you know, in our first year, it's like, this is a bullshit class. It's the most sort of soft, you know, class with the least concrete things. And then you get out of business school and you realize that was the most important class you took.

Kelly Gordon

Mm.

No, that is probably, I wish, I can't remember who I was having a conversation with, but somebody about how they wish that there were more, like at the time you didn't know, but then as they were graduating and going into managing companies, that they wish that they had more of that knowledge or training or information to be able to be in roles where we were trying to look after people essentially.

Srini Rao

Yeah. So talk to me about, you know, the process that you, you know, walk people through to enable them to be more effective in all these areas.

Kelly Gordon

So my biggest thing, and it comes up in our coaching programs, but they're like, I want to communicate like Kelly, and I'm like, I don't want in any way ever for any reason to make a bunch of me's running around. I want you guys, right? Like, it's just not a thing. But I want them to understand how to think around things. So the way that I start them off, and this is, even for me, still a process that we're all still learning in how to do this. Because I'm trying to take.

Srini Rao

You and me both.

Kelly Gordon

part of my Spectrum-y stuff that I might not understand why it's still there, and you know, that decade or more of carrying a notebook around, of trying to figure this out and reading all of the things. How do I take all of that and teach somebody? Well, in this, in the people that want to communicate like me, that I was communicating about, they, it's overlaid on business. So I try to every time they come to me with something.

try to outlay and have them verbally outlay the steps that got them there and to look around it and find any open door that they possibly can. It might not be the right path, it might not be the best thing, but how many different ways can you look at this thing? That, I think, comes from my, you know, autism and spectrum that it's, it's trying, I'm trying so hard to figure things out all of the time because I don't understand them, that I try, I can see lots of different sides of it.

And then if you can see lots of different sides of it, then like the more I get to know you, the more that I would know which one of those would suit you more, right? And then I can tailor that to you. Okay, well his brain works in this way. Because I could never control how mine worked and it didn't understand, but I could in a very black and white way try to understand how you did. And if I could understand how you did, then I could communicate with you. And then when you get good at it, you can do that.

to other people as well. And you get better at understanding there's certain types of people and how these types of people do interact and engage. And once you can put people into a, kind of a finite number of buckets, then you know how to then communicate with them.

Srini Rao

This is something I meant to ask you about the notebook. You know, all these things that you write down, do you have them sort of encoded in your brain at this point?

Kelly Gordon

Mm-hmm. I would say so. Yeah, I actually went through this whole process and I burned all of the books After it was years that I hadn't used them and I was like I feel like I've kind of made it You know, it's like one of those like rites of passage kind of things. I think And I burned all of them and felt like okay like, you know, I'd made my business I you know people working for me. I was successful I'm not saying that I don't learn every single day, but I do I just I'm not that person anymore

Srini Rao

Well, I mean, outside of the fact that you don't understand, you know, why people react the way they do sometimes, even though you instantly know something has changed, what are the challenges that you face, uh, in communicating with people? Like, what are your biggest ones?

Kelly Gordon

So this, I think, kind of comes down to the difference in me, like, business-wise and personality-wise, or personally. Like if you change, I'm probably not going to take it personally or think that something's going to go wrong in our relationship, right? But if it was a personal relationship, it triggers that instability because of my early childhood. It's coming from that, that if something changed, it meant that love was being taken away. So the alter ego that comes in business doesn't fear that.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Kelly Gordon

It's not a thing, we don't have that. But in personal relationships it does, which is why I behave differently.

Srini Rao

So then how do you resolve conflicts in your personal life? Like what is that experience like for you?

Kelly Gordon

Learning every day, the communication is hard. I find that I struggle with the, kind of what I recognize as being the autism side of feeling everything extremely all of the time. And that is hard to manage when you have emotions like that and to control yourself and be.

aware of the other ones while you're being triggered probably by the other person anyway, that for me is the biggest struggle. And I do find that that...

When people say, like, or ask, you know, what's the biggest thing that feels, you know, like you are on the spectrum, you're autistic, it is that everything that happens, that you feel all of the time is so intense, and how to chill that out to have any idea of how to move forward or how to communicate. You have to settle that down, and that can be hard for you and for whoever you're talking to.

Srini Rao

So it seems to me like that also could have some profound benefits as well in terms of being a creative person, because my sort of instinct with creative work is, you know, sort of how does this make me feel? Everything is sort of driven by that. My sort of default rule when I write something or share something and, you know, when I cut an interview in the middle, it's basically because I was like, if I'm not going to feel it, nobody else will.

Kelly Gordon

I find that to be the hardest thing to teach and I do even wonder if you can teach it.

Srini Rao

Yeah. One other thing I wonder, you know, we kind of have referenced parents, yours throughout this conversation, you know, for parents who are listening to this, who might have, you know, kids on the spectrum. I mean, given that you've overcome what seemed, you know, almost impossible odds. What what advice would you give them? You know, especially if, you know, that they're severe or not as severe.

Kelly Gordon

This is gonna you're gonna think this is so weird one of them But two of the things that may have made the biggest impact in my life like to date as a 35 like we're talking about a lot of time here, right is Going to therapy having the ability to talk through things might

The first couple of times that I went to see my therapist, she was like, I'm hearing a lot of I don't understand. Like, yes. And the anxiety that can cause, the stress that can cause, can permeate lots of things. But I was so stressed out all of the time.

because of not being able to fully understand, I think, myself or trying to be potentially even a person that I wasn't and being able to, I think, kind of goes back to the labels. Not necessarily that I felt labeled, but it made me feel more comfortable that it was defined, if that makes sense. And...

massage therapy that I've been going, I get a weekly massage, I have for the last, I don't know, three, three and a half years, every week without fail. Um, as, cause I'm also somebody that's like, don't touch me, right? Like I don't, I don't, I don't want to hug you. I don't particularly want you to touch me. You know what I mean? Like that's just, that's just not something that I'm going to do, um, or want to happen in any way, very spectrum-y. Um, and so I avoided it forever. I'm like, I don't want that cause I don't want anybody to touch me, right? But

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Gordon

Having that allowed muscles that don't get to relax to relax and you know have that very therapeutic time Changed my entire life

Srini Rao

Wow.

Yeah, no, I remember reading the book, The Body Keeps Squaring. I had no idea that massage was such a powerful thing and touch was such a healing thing.

Kelly Gordon

I think that people...

Kelly Gordon

Mm-hmm that is an excellent book Anybody like that is so true. I read that I want to say about a year after I started getting massage therapy and Like now I can identify like okay, you know, there's certain parts of my body that gets super tight my neck and shoulders. It is Ridiculous how tight that they can become and it's just the stresses of things And I think you know again the maybe not

feeling completely comfortable, though I can...

I sound like I'm completely comfortable, right? Not so much. If you could see my face, it's bright red. I can feel it, it's hot. And there's this heat thing that happens, but I can modulate my voice. I've learned to do this in this professional way, right? So that just trying to be transparent for people that think that everything's completely fine and normal, it's not. But the body keeps a score is understanding that these things happen and that we do have traumas and those emotions are stored in certain places. And being able, you know,

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Heheheheheheheheh

Kelly Gordon

I do like deep tissue therapeutic massages, but it really helps release some of that and it's amazing what you feel afterwards, even from somebody that's like, no, please don't touch me.

Srini Rao

Well, we touched on it briefly, and I want to kind of bring us full circle. We kind of alluded to the fact that our sort of media portrayals of people on the spectrum are things like Rain Man. We have that show on Netflix dating on the spectrum. And then I think the only one that I think in my mind, I feel does a really good job of not sort of painting this awful picture is a show called Atypical. I don't know if you've seen it. They've done a really good job.

Kelly Gordon

I actually have seen that one a couple of times. Yeah.

Srini Rao

Yeah. So, you know, as somebody who is on the spectrum, you know, what do you think that people who create media about this need to understand and misunderstand and those of us who, you know, consume this media, misunderstand and you know, what would you want to change about how we portray all of this in the media?

Kelly Gordon

So I can equate it to being gay and seeing gay people being portrayed in media. It's a little bit better now than it was, but it's always this very stereotypical, hyper-focused thing, right? And it's the same way, I think, for people on the spectrum. Because like I mentioned before, it's so long and so wide that you could be anywhere on it.

for any reason, right? And to be able to portray that in a way that people I think who don't experience the thing or know somebody who is can understand that, I would at least like to think they're doing the best that they can, but I think that it's still very hyper-focused and stereotypical. I think that's the way I see it.

Srini Rao

Wow, well this has been absolutely incredible and just filled with riveting stories and all sorts of funny nuggets and wise moments. So I wanna finish with my final question, which I know you've heard me ask. What do you think it is that makes somebody or something unmistakable?

Kelly Gordon

How they make somebody feel. For me, I don't think it matters anything else, but how it is that you show up and how it is you make people feel.

Srini Rao

Wow, well, I think that makes a really fitting end to a very thought-provoking conversation. Where can people find out more about you, your work, and everything else you're up to?

Kelly Gordon

Definitely. So the easiest way to find me is to go to TheKellyGordon.com. Find everything I'm doing over there.

Srini Rao

Awesome. Well, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share your story and your wisdom and insights with our listeners.

Kelly Gordon

I thank you so much for having me. The conversation, you know, you try to understand how it might be or, you know, what are we going to talk about? This went in a direction I absolutely love and how upfront and honest and transparent everything is.

Srini Rao

Oh, well thank you.

Srini Rao

And for everybody listening, we will wrap the show with that.