Mike and Chaya sit down with Derek Crager to discuss his journey of being late-diagnosed AuDHDer, how embracing his neurodivergence led him from the manufacturing floor to building transformative accessible AI tools for the neurodivergent community, and what it truly means to create human-centered technology that actually fits.
Mike and Chaya sit down with Derek Crager to discuss his journey of being late-diagnosed AuDHDer, how embracing his neurodivergence led him from the manufacturing floor to building transformative accessible AI tools for the neurodivergent community, and what it truly means to create human-centered technology that actually fits.
"I wore my diagnosis like a badge of honor. Embracing who I am allowed me to communicate authentically—something I never had before."
"Knowledge is key to the universe. When we put it in the right hands, at the right time, it's a platform for belonging and growth."
"The best tech doesn't replace humans; it empowers us to be irreplaceable. If we thrive, so does everyone around us."
Derek Crager is a neurodivergent entrepreneur, voice-first AI strategist, and the founder of Practical AI and the community hub AIforAutistics.com. With a background in industrial reliability and training, Derek spent decades feeling misunderstood in professional environments. At age 50, a late diagnosis of autism, ADHD, and dyslexia provided a new lens through which to view his life and career, explaining his innate ability for pattern recognition and systems thinking.
This personal journey became the catalyst for his professional mission. His flagship product, Pocket Mentor, is the world's first voice-based AI mentor designed for hands-free, real-time industrial support. It addresses the critical problem of "tribal knowledge" loss—where valuable expertise disappears when a key employee leaves—by transforming that knowledge into an on-demand, scalable resource accessible through a simple phone call, with no app or login required.
Through AIforAutistics.com, Derek creates a space where neurodivergent individuals can harness AI to create, earn, and build sustainable, independent lives. He is a passionate advocate for inclusion through innovation, blending emotional vulnerability with deep technological insight to empower a community where difference is a strategic advantage.
Mike 00:31
Hello there, I'm Mike.
Chaya
I'm Chaya.
Mike
And today we're joined by Derek Crager, the founder of Practical AI, a neurodivergent entrepreneur diagnosed with autism and ADHD later in life. Derek is on a mission to transform how we work and learn. He leverages his unique perspective to build human -centered AI tools that empower teams, solve critical knowledge gaps, and create inclusive opportunities for the neurodivergent community. Derek, welcome to the show.
Derek Crager 00:58
Well, thank you, Mike. It's great to be here. I appreciate the invitation.
Chaya 01:03
Thank you, Derek. Why don't you start off with your background, where you're coming from, and your diagnosis, and the wealth of information all of that has brought to where you are today. All
Derek Crager 01:20
right. Yeah, certainly.
Derek Crager 01:23
Came out of high school and tried to go to college, university at the same time as eating. And I had a little bit of monetary trouble. I ended up going to a trade apprenticeship, stuck with the trade apprenticeship and went through industrial manufacturing and construction. Ended up spending five years in building big manufacturing plants. And then I spent 15 years in automotive manufacturing. During that time, I went from working on the floor to engineering to process engineering. And as I continued, I ended up in learning for my last three major roles. My last big role was at Amazon, where I was part of their learning team on RME. And RME is Reliability, Maintenance, and Engineering. And I was just about three months into that role when I was diagnosed at age 50. with autism, ADHD, and dyslexia. And I got to tell you, I cried for two weeks. It wasn't really cries from pain as much as cries of clarity and just... felt like a lot of pressure was released so i i embraced that diagnosis and i i wore like a badge of honor and put it on my signature on the corporate email and all that and i really believe that uh by doing that and and i was able to uh it gave me the power i ended up my feather in my cap at amazon was i built the highest employee training program in company history and i think The success there was really from the empathy that, you know, our people, our tribe have that extra empathy, the ability to see multi perspectives, you know. For the elephant, you know, you've got the story of the six blind men at each end of the elephant. So it really came down to communication and embracing who I was allowed me to communicate authentically, where I don't know if I was able to do that in the past because I was always trying to impersonate somebody better, quote unquote.
Chaya 03:35
Yeah. So you noticed that you noticed there was a gap when you were working at Amazon that you created this. training program. What, what did you see there and what did you build to solve the problem?
Derek Crager 03:50
Oh, certainly. I, I was tapped on the shoulder really last minute. So I think they probably asked a few other people to build this training program before me. And, and everybody else was probably smart enough to say, no, I don't want my mind, you know, my name on, on a failure because just waiting to the last minute was something that. Amazon doesn't really do. But I built a program. It took me about 30 days before my very first class, and we really did start from zero. But the foundation of the program, it was an onboarding program for the managers and supervisors of the engineers and the maintenance team that was going to teach others. So there was a couple layers to this. And our program started out as a two -week training. I'd pull them off site to a hotel someplace, and we'd just sit eight hours a day just learning and having fun. And the secret sauce was really the very first day we spent time just getting to know each other and learning about each other. certified PMP. And one of the things they tell you as a project manager, you have no power, so you have to wield words of influence, which I thought, oh, no, I'm autistic. I can't wield words of influence.
Derek Crager 05:08
But I understood the concept, so I leveraged that. And so day one, really the secret sauce is getting to know ourselves and getting to know each other, usually through some personality or behavior assessment.
Derek Crager 05:23
There's over 2 ,000 of them out there that I've heard of. So we just picked one, and that allowed us to divide the classroom, the learning body into four different groups and say, oh, wait a minute. I have other people like me and then, oh, there's other people that are not like me. And so we just talked about that. So it was really identifying having an opportunity for respect and to build these relationships. So trust and respect is really the foundation that built that success.
Chaya 05:57
Thank you for sharing it. I think it's important to realize there are so many ways of communication and it's not just through. words just body language to recognize someone is our type there's so much just observing teaches us and i think you leverage that to build something that was so powerful
Derek Crager 06:25
Yeah, it really helped. And I actually told my wife just recently, I said, I feel like I'm an adult for the first time in my life because I spent the last few years, you know, embracing who I am and leveraging those. So it really puts a different shade on my growing up the first five decades of my life where I was trying to be everybody but me because I didn't know who I was.
Chaya 06:54
I think I was in training. My soul was in training mode to one day be here and deliver.
Chaya 07:03
So I feel, I'll bet you feel the same as well.
Derek Crager 07:07
Yeah, yeah. It's good to feel like I've arrived at some place.
Chaya 07:12
Yes, we have arrived. You mentioned trying
Mike 07:14
on a lot of different faces, a lot of different masks before your diagnosis and like the experience of that trying to fit in. Common one that we all definitely deal with of putting on different suits and trying on different modes and saying like, oh, which one of these will help us? It ingratiates into the community around us. But post -diagnosis, post -discovering neurodiversions, what sort of impact did that have on that self -identity and cultivating that self -identity?
Derek Crager 07:44
Well, about 10 years before I was diagnosed officially, I suspected and I leaned into that, but it's still... didn't push me over the wall of understanding or accepting. But yeah, after the diagnosis, I felt like I think all humans like to be categorized. I put me in a category just so I don't feel alone. And just knowing that I had people and I had the official flag of our people, you know, through the diagnosis, I was able to be myself. more often and accept myself. And instead of, I had the ability now to engage rather than to come out in a defensive posture, right? Kind of turtle up. And because I'm afraid of, I used to be afraid of saying something that doesn't go across and then I'd have to defend why I'm different. But now it's just, hey, it's me. I do that. Let's go on to what's important now. Yeah.
Chaya 08:46
I think when we accept ourselves,
Chaya 08:49
we also start showing up for our strengths. And I was exactly the same. I was always like, I don't know, my thoughts are so different. If I blurt out something, I'm not going to fit in. Nobody's going to understand where I'm talking, what I'm talking about. And then I'll have to explain myself. And oh my God, I don't want to do that. But that very thing is your strength and superpower. So when people recognize that and not shy away from the diagnosis, it starts showing our strengths, which are so unique, even amongst us, the neurodivergent, everybody's strength and power, superpowers, whatever we want to call that is so unique to them. And we are loaded with our own experiences.
Chaya 09:47
The strengths also have our own personal experiences with our environments all rolled into it. So it's very, very unique. It's not like going to a class and getting a certificate.
Chaya 10:02
There's so much more to it.
Derek Crager 10:04
Yeah, agreed. And us being able to talk about it with each other, I think was the kernel that allows us to talk about it outside of our group. And it's becoming just the awareness.
Derek Crager 10:16
The world awareness is good for everybody because whether we have a diagnosis or not, looking to find oneself has been a mantra for eons with humans. Who am I? Where am I? What's the meaning of life stuff? And it's tough enough to consider the meaning of life when you don't know who you are. So, yeah, that's a starting point.
Derek Crager 10:43
And when we have a system, when we have this organization of knowledge, and I think knowledge is super duper important. You know, there's correlation between education, knowledge, having that, and those that do have it, they live longer, they live better lives, they have a higher quality of life, and they're healthier. So my mission right now is really tied into knowledge, being able to give people knowledge when they need it, what they need, and only. what they need. It's like the Asian proverb about the teacup, where the wise man, you know, starts pouring and it keeps overfilling. And the man that's looking for the value of life here is to stop. It's going to overflow until you dump out your misconceptions and then start anew. So I think the value of knowledge is so important here because it gives us a solid foundation to stand on so that we can be ourselves.
Mike 11:42
What are ways that you would fix the system so it was built in an accessible way for autistic people, neurodivergent people?
Derek Crager 11:52
Well, I think by giving us a...
Derek Crager 11:57
Someone to talk to. And a lot of times the best person for us to talk to is ourselves. And that's something that I've been doing this past year is I'm leveraging AI and I built a voice interface with AI. It's not an app. It's not Wi -Fi. It's not Internet. So to truly make it accessible to everybody everywhere, I put this telephone front end. on AI, on knowledge. And I'm able to empower groups. I'm able to empower people, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and to truly deliver the right knowledge at the right time. So I think we're at a singularity point in that iteration aspect. If we can converse, like... You and I are
Derek Crager 12:47
conversing now, Mike, is
Derek Crager 12:49
we can iterate like boom, boom, boom, boom. And that's where AI is helping us. We can talk with ourselves about a certain subject at our own pace and not feel judged by talking to another human. And, you know, sometimes that other human's in our group and sometimes it's outside our group or tribe. And I told a story last week that sometimes I'm 50 ,000 feet in the air and I can't find the details. I'm just, you know, the details, I can't connect with them. But if I can talk to my own AI, duplicate myself, I can have a conversation where the AI doesn't know. So I can ask myself to tell me about the details or can you organize these into details or highlight the high points and vice versa. If I'm stuck in the weeds and I can't get out, I can ask my higher self, say, hey, give me a bird's eye view of this. What am I really trying to do? And it's really not just having the knowledge, but knowing what to do with it and to leverage that knowledge. I really do think it's all about knowledge. Knowledge is key to the universe. Knowledge is key to our understanding ourselves and our people.
Chaya 14:10
I totally agree. Knowledge is accessible with AI now. It's at our fingertips. And we were denied that knowledge because of our challenges and disabilities. But now we can all catch up and use that.
Chaya 14:30
to get to where we want to, right? It's all about how we use the tool. And Cher, how are people benefiting from what you've built, the access to that knowledge base? It's
Derek Crager 14:45
given them peace of mind. There's, I think, one of the psychology magazines or the New England Journal of Medicine, for one, has a report that humans are more, comfortable speaking to AI than they are a human, whether that human is a coach, a therapist, a psychologist type of thing, or a teacher for that matter, because we're all afraid to ask the dumb questions. Even though at the beginning of every lecture they say there are no dumb questions, we still feel like we're going to be judged. And a lot of times we're just judging ourselves. When we connect to AI, it's really a machine. But the conversational anthropomorphization with this voice interface that I built allows people to receive that knowledge one -on -one. We used to build the world in one -size -fits -all.
Derek Crager 15:48
works to a certain extent, but now in this age of technology, we're building this world that's one size fits one. And that's what we've done here is to build a tool that will adapt dynamically to the caller, to the human, just like a good therapist or a good teacher or professor would adapt to a conversation with you. So you're speaking each other's language. Not everybody is good at that. And, you know, quite frankly, AI is not good at that. unless it's trained psychologically on how to be good at that. So the real benefit that we're seeing is not from connecting the technology, but it's from connecting it in a way that the caller feels like they have a friend. And it could be, in a company example, it could be 2 a .m. on a Saturday morning where somebody has a machine down at work and they don't know how to fix it, and nobody's going to come in until Monday. So the machine is just going to be down and this person feels like they failed because they can't fix it, but it's only because they lack the knowledge. In that circumstance, we have people phoning a friend, so to speak, and they're talking to our device called Pocket Mentor because, you know, we keep our phones in our pocket and say, hey. Ask the question, I've got this problem and can you talk me through it? Just like you would your favorite human. Hey, I have this problem. Can you talk me through it? And so that is the business side of it that we're helping. We just started working on a pocket tutor, which helps pay through 12 students. Ask questions about topics after class because teachers are so burdened. that they work 12 hours a day and they still don't get to teach as much as they want. And there's not enough time in the classroom for the students to have a one -on -one conversation with a teacher because there's usually 19 or 29 other students in the class that also need direction. So we're building this one -on -one for the students just to go down their own rabbit hole. And it's interactive. It's engaging. It's not, let me go to chat GPT and build a paper and I copy, paste and click. Well, I've created my report for school. Now I'm going to do something else. There's no knowledge transfer because it's just a. cut and paste. But because we restrict this to just voice, we have to be engaged in that conversation. And so the knowledge doesn't go click, click, computer to computer document. It goes from seemingly a human to a human. And then from that human, they're actually in a place now where they can engage the information. And what do I do with it? They could type it out. They could write it down. They could push a button. They could just
Derek Crager 18:39
talk through problems, and it's very beneficial that way. So both the emotional and the knowledge support is really helping them.
Mike 18:50
Yeah, that's fascinating. I love the idea that it's voice only, so it's actually engaging within the information you're getting instead of, like you said, copying and pasting. I mean, that's the problem that when it comes to things like schools or some people who even utilize it for work, there's no... as you said, knowledge transference there. It's part of learning experience and being able to play off of somebody. I think you've said that AI should more or less serve human intelligence instead of replacing it, because obviously there is that very understandable and very real possible fear of AI taking jobs, taking creative roles, seeing people, unfortunately, in the space attempt to do things very much like that, while you're aiming, of course, increasing workforce capabilities schooling capabilities personal capabilities it's not replacing the purpose of another person but creating an extra space for people to learn and grow and be able to integrate with their basic day -to -day lives and so how are you threading that needle between this actually adding to the human psyche instead of being able to piggyback on it
Derek Crager 20:02
Certainly, that's a good question. And I'm of the philosophical mindset that when everybody is going one way, I should go the other because there's probably opportunities there. And so here, I don't only see an opportunity, but I see alignment with my value. And that's our vision and mission and value statement here all in one is that we are here to empower the individual, to make them indispensable, to make the individual irreplaceable. And if we do that, then the individual is going to feel better. They're going to perform better. And then the side effect is if it's a work situation, the company is going to benefit because they have happier employees. And if we're looking at just the employment numbers that are out there, people that work for money on the surveys out there, they say, why do you work this job? And money is, I think, ranked fourth now. So there's three other items above money why people work the job. And a lot of that focus is on personal accomplishment. I want to have value. I want to feel like I have value. And that's where a lot of that benefit comes in, is having that value at that point in time.
Derek Crager 21:20
Our company, right on our website, we state that we're here to empower humans, not take jobs away from humans. And there's huge opportunity there. We had a company call, a corporate call two days ago, and the person representing the company, they said they had five people on their learning team, and they're just so frazzled because there's not enough time in the day.
Derek Crager 21:50
And she said she's like all in. She wants to adopt this as soon as possible, not to replace her people. And she was very adamant about that, not to replace her people, but to give those five people higher value, higher responsibility. to grow the individual to higher points and let the repetitive, mundane items be taken care of automatically. So there's such a great return because we're working at one level, but by making knowledge transfer more accessible, to the human race, the benefit to everybody that uses it increases a certain amount. And that overcomes so much more than what you could say by eliminating a job or two.
Chaya 22:41
I think it's like a stepping stool and you have to climb over it and then grow from there. So I don't think it'll ever replace the human, but we have to use it diligently. And that's why You're here for us to be able to trust it. So you're serving students and adults. So is it anybody?
Derek Crager 23:10
Well, it's at the early stages of any company, you have to find other companies to spend money on stuff so you can continue development. And that's where we're at. That's where we started. But last month, we already started reaching out and giving. donating time and technology to non -profits and small family therapist groups, and we're working there. There's a family therapist. She said, Derek, I'm stuck at 39 families. It's families with autistic children is her specialty. And she has a program that helps. It really helps. And a lot of that is conversational. And she said, Derek, right now, I can't get beyond 39 families because there's just not enough time. in the day and she said if i could just have something that could converse and interact with 80 % of the questions and processes that take up the time, then it would allow her to spend more time human on human. So we built for her, actually, we just released it this past Monday for her. And this is just private for her. And she's not paying for it. We're sponsoring this because we believe this is the direction we should go as a human race. And it allows her,
Derek Crager 24:40
clients for patients to have a telephone call in the middle of the night if they want or the middle of the day and or sometimes if if you call somebody to help they're not available it's it's scalable so now she's able to she said soon she'll have being able to bring in and help more families so she could have that higher level one -on -one that, you know, right now only humans are going to be skilled at because it's humans that program the technology. So the technology might equal humans at some point, but it can't surpass them. We still need the humans. So she said, Derek, instead of helping 39 families, she thinks she can help 70. five families just based on just her early numbers. And this is just her first week working with this. So we're looking for feedback. Now you asked, is this going to help everybody? I'd love to see it help everybody. We, Bettina Thompson that I'm working with, she actually spent 10 years at Amazon and she was a founding member of PW. D, which is people with disabilities, the neurodiverse network within Amazon and also mental health initiatives. She sponsored and founded those three. And so she's now working with me and our company. And we're our goal is to build something that we can have available to the public. We're working on how to take care of the expense. We're just looking for covering the technology itself, and then we're going to give that away to everybody that we can. So that type of device, we're beginning in the neurodiverse.
Derek Crager 26:32
spectrum with that one size fits one role and we've got a couple prototypes out right now that we're testing and we're really looking for partners out there to help spread the word. to adopt it to certify it to verify it just to interact and improve it because again it's all about the psychology and the framework of language it's not so much the knowledge it's how we present that knowledge so that's the threshold we're working through so um in answer to your question uh yeah we're we're pointing in that direction we just don't have a public let's say telephone number that everybody can call at this point. We're working our way up step by step. Use your step up analogy there. I
Chaya 27:25
love the fact that you are going to certify it or you just mentioned it. And I'm thinking in my head, if you get some kind of a certification, somebody validates it and puts a stamp on it saying you can trust this.
Chaya 27:40
It would be so helpful because I think the fear is what keeps people from being able to trust it. I see a lot of actually neurotypicals finding it hard to trust AI. And I mean, I have no problem just because I always reconnect it to my own heart and my own instincts and my instincts are strong. I know where to trust, where not to trust, how to validate it.
Chaya 28:13
But a lot of people have that fear in them. So some form of a certification for the skeptics, I think would be very helpful. Yeah,
Derek Crager 28:26
that's 100 % on point because there's so many solutions and fixes for our people that were enacted just to check a box on the corporate list. We found out that during our time at Amazon, even as forward thinking as Amazon is, it's huge. So there's whole pockets of things here. But what Bettina found out was that there were solutions being provided. Let's do a lunch and learn for autism. Let's do a lunch and learn for ADHD. And the people putting together those projects, they didn't stop to actually ask somebody on it. spectrum to give input and um within our own realm i know there's uh um you know some people like and some people dislike the puzzle piece are we really a missing piece of puzzle you know and that's that's personal thing um and it's uh it's getting us as to align on what neurodiversity even is is a is the starting point because there's so many competing Competing tracks, competing knowledge. And I think it was Dr. Nancy Doyle of UK who is the founder of Genius Within. And she talks about something called spiky profiles that says, hey, even those of us that are on the spectrum that fall under this neurodiverse title or category. Think of an X, Y axis where if we talk about skills plotted on an X, Y axis,
Derek Crager 30:05
The neurotypicals might be plus and minus a one up and down, but they all hover around the median or the average there of how good they are at a specific skill. And the defining.
Derek Crager 30:19
characteristic for us that are you know fall under this neurodiverse umbrella is that you know we might have one that's in the middle but then we might be like a 10 instead of a one on one skill set and that could be analytics or programming and then we might be a minus 10 on
Derek Crager 30:38
communication, talking in front of people, presenting our ideas to a board. And so we could invent something. It's, oh, yeah, we're applauded. Now present it to our board and tell us what it is. And it's, well, I can't present it because I don't have those skills. So now it looks like. I'm the dummy, quote unquote. And then at some point in time, that up and down of our skill set representation in an employment situation, it just rubs enough people the wrong way that somebody comes along and says, hey, you're great. We're just not a good fit. You know, you don't fit as part of the culture or something like that. And those of us on the spectrum have the lowest employment rates and highest unemployment rates out there when you align demographics. And it's all about just a lack of communication. and lack of being able to communicate with ourselves and others. So this is just aligning on who we are and what we are in a way to define it in as succinct manner as possible is a start. So it begins by understanding who we are. And that's the platform that we're giving is offering this dynamic one -on -one chat with ourselves to start. And then even when we're accessing a knowledge base, we're still, that knowledge base is programmed to interact with the way that human is. It
Mike 32:04
just reminds me that a lot has been said that one of the interesting aspects of AI is how it actually really aligns with the neurodivergent brain and why those who are neurodivergent anywhere on the spectrum have a very different experience interacting with AI than a neurotypical does. Obviously, there has not been huge, you know, ways or studies yet into how exactly that works. It's very interesting to me to even kind of look at it from afar, but even my own experiences interacting with AI, they're just very different than whenever I hear someone I know who's neurotypical talk about how they utilize AI and then how I utilize it and the kind of conversations we get back between them. What would you say is how those neurodivergent perspectives which, as you mentioned, of course, never get brought into the conversation, even when it's supposed to be about neurodivergent people, how they shape your creation of these tools?
Derek Crager 33:03
Yeah, ideally. I look at AI as not just artificial intelligence, but autistic individual. I classify them together so much. And I think we're at the point that technology has allowed the neurotypicals to understand the autistics more so. through due process. And that process with AI is there's something called prompt engineering. It was big words a couple of years ago. Become a prompt engineer. Make a lot of money. Be a prompt engineer. And the whole thing about prompt engineering is that when, let's say, a neurotypical would go into AI and type out a question, clickety -clack, clickety -clack, and then it would spit out an answer. No, that's not what I'm looking for. So they try another question and then it spits out an answer. And it's like, oh, that's not what I'm looking for either. And then by the third or fourth time, we have all these descriptive terms. And suddenly there's value in the words that we use because a neurotypical is asking. a computer question and they want an answer that falls in topic. So I say, let's turn back the dial a bit. And that's the way it works when neurotypicals interface with autistics or really many people on the neurodiverse spectrum is that we get in these conversations where a neurotypical asks us a question. And what we see is. the basics of their questions using the word as as let's say defined by encyclopedia britannica we see what's there at the front we don't see the intent social impact from behind on that question so we get asked these questions and we answer them based on the words that they use and choose and they look at us like we're crazy which that's reminiscent of how uh people interact with ai they look at ai well ai hallucinates or ai this or yeah that it doesn't answer the questions and that's the whole courtesy of prompt engineering here is that if you frame the question correctly you're going to get a relevant response and i reach out to everybody across the world and say hey whether you're talking to somebody that's that's autistic or not if you take the time and you phrase your question in a proper manner, then whoever's answering that question is going to have a higher chance of responding according to what you're looking for. It's going to give you an appropriate answer. So the prompt engineering doesn't make the headlines like it did a couple years ago, and that is because we've learned that the people who, you know, program the LLMs and train and all that at the big companies, they learn that they say, hey, they have to get past this this this prompt engineering we want to make it
Derek Crager 35:56
That's a human factor, a psychological human factor. And we need to build this so it's easier to use. I mean, that's the way businesses run everywhere in technology. We need to make it more easy to use so more people adopt it. So what they're doing, they're actually taking into that.
Derek Crager 36:13
We have the golden rule that we used to talk about in school. And I used to teach the platinum rule when I was at Amazon. And the platinum rule is treat others as they would want to be treated. And in essence, that you start with their language. So if somebody has a language pattern, if you understand the language pattern, you're going to get off on the right foot if you match that language pattern. So the LLMs today, and because there's less of this advertised need for prompt engineering, is because they've changed the input to. account for the differences in our assumptions. And I think that that's nothing but going to be beneficial for the human race because now neurotypicals, if they take that as a blueprint and a consideration when they speak to us in our tribe or just anybody in general, take the time to connect at the human -to -human level, and then your questions and your conversations will stay on track rather than going off track.
Chaya 37:16
What a beautiful answer and explanation. It's that communication gap. And you said it so correctly. There's that gap between the neurotypicals and the neurodivergents. And we have to work on lowering that gap. And I think that we are there now. And that's exactly what you described. with the prompt engineering, it's that gap. And we are narrowing that gap. And I think we are there, right? We're there where we can actually freely connect with one another. For
Mike 38:00
sure. As someone who's started this business while dealing with your own neurodivergent traits, what advice would you give another neurodivergent individual who... He has a business idea and wants to get started as an entrepreneur and wants to get started with the greatest startup in a more or less a system that is in no way built for them or easy to access for them. What advice would you give them?
Derek Crager 38:28
Well, from a couple of different points, I have a nonprofit community called AI for Artistics that brings together people that are looking to create their own gig because of our. obvious problems to stay employed very long. I've invited people to our community, again, at AIforAutistics .com, and we just talk about things like that for sure. An answer for the show today is that don't try to do everything yourself. There's a book titled The E -Myth, and then I think a follow -up, The E -Myth Revisited, and the E in that case is entrepreneurship. And it was written for the masses, but it applies to us as well. Maybe more so it applies to us is that don't try to do it all yourself. If you want to create something cool on the technological side, which is a lot of where all of us, a lot of us fall into. By all means, build it, but surround yourself with people that can give you input on the social aspects and connect. And now that we have talked about AI for a minute here, there's these LLMs are actually introducing ways to keep our lives online. And I use a combination of perplexity that allows you to have perplexity spaces where you can talk about your topic. So if you have a business idea, create a perplexity space and talk about it in there. Or if you have Chad GPT Plus, which is the $20 a month, there's a thing called Projects within Chad GPT. And Projects is really just information that falls underneath one topic. And it's really helped me. I put my business plan in there.
Derek Crager 40:18
our process our ideas our mission our vision and i can go in there and ask it a question on let's say the marketing side which is being autistic i've always failed on the marketing side in in previous companies because hey i see something that looks there's a connector there but the majority of people. And when you're spending dollars for advertising, you do want to speak to the majority of people is that it just didn't hit. It just didn't connect. So you can leverage AI to create those advertising and marketing models from your idea. So that's a good partner. And then on the free side. There is Notebook LM, which is a Google product. And Notebook LM is they allow you to do something similar. It's like DaVinci had his notebooks that he wrote notes in. Notebook LM allows you to create as many notebooks as you want. And you can take a notebook and put all your topic in there. You can point it to YouTube videos. upload documents, audio files, and it's a way to teach yourself things, but it's also a great way to store everything that's on your mind and retrieve it when you need it. I know that being autistic and ADHD, I've had trouble trying to deliver on demand because it's like, oh, I need that information. Where did I put it? and right now i can go into notebook lm or chat gpt or perplexity and because i'm using that as my business diary i can ask the question and it automatically pulls it out so um that's i think that's my my best uh my best value here is one connect with humans and then two leverage ai out there to store your information and uh ask yourself questions when you're creating uh the marketing and the uh product fit, and those types of answers that you'll be looking for.
Derek Crager 42:17
Smooth out the spiky profiles. There
Derek Crager 42:19
you go. I like that. Yeah, smooth out those spiky profiles. Make them tens all the way across.
Chaya 42:23
I think what you talked about connecting with other humans is so important. I think with that, we bring consistency, which neurodivergent lacks sometimes. I mean, I myself had trouble with consistency, but now the energy of all the amazing people that I have here at SparkLaunch. We are able to tap into each other's energy and create that consistency. So I truly believe we all have our own role and our purpose and we align with the right people and you bring all that wisdom and the passion together. You can create what you desire to create, your own company with your vision.
Derek Crager 43:14
Yeah, well said. It's a way for us to look at it this way. We should be judged by what we do well, not what we... don't do well. And part of project management is there's terms that they throw out there like cross -functional teams and cross -department teams and cross -skill set teams. That's just another way to say, hey, if I do A really well, but I don't do B, C, and D really well, well, I'm going to call up Jaya and say, hey, you do B really well. You come join my team. And Mike, you do C really well. Come join my team. That way, all of us are working. on what we do best. And we're not really stepping on each other's toes because we know that there are certain things that we don't do best. So that's what makes for great partnership. I
Chaya 44:04
agree. We have one life. We might as well live in our strengths and not our weaknesses.
Mike 44:10
Yeah, true. So as we wrap up, I like to always kind of ask people who discover their neurodivergence a lot later in life, if you were able to go back and tell your undiagnosed, unrealized, younger self one thing, what would that be?
Derek Crager 44:28
Wow. So an odd duck talking to a younger odd duck.
Derek Crager 44:36
You know, I look back, there was the story, you know, the ugly duck thing, which was written a long time ago that, you know, talks about, you know, how we finished up the discussion here. It's like, be your best self and hold on to that. I would say I tell myself just to embrace who I am. I don't know if I believe me, but I've had a mantra that all of us in life should be the world's best at one thing. Whatever that one thing is, it doesn't matter. But if we're the best at something, and it doesn't have to be the best in the world, it could be the best in the country, the state, the house, but it's way into a conversation. And for those of us that find it difficult to make our way into a conversation, if we had just one item that we can wear with pride, it helps align with ourselves and says, hey, know, we aren't worthless. You know, we are good at something. And that could be, you know, how to win a bingo every week or it's how to spell words backwards. It doesn't have to be, you know, I'm the fastest athlete in the world. It can be anything in any situation. I would say find out what that is for you and just hold on to it and and water it. It's a seed now. It will grow and it will help you develop your identity and and realize your identity. All
Mike 46:04
said. And just great advice for anybody at the end of the day. Like you said, just water it and watch yourself grow. And I think a lot of times we stifle our own growth out of fear or what society kind of paints us as. We both, as a culture, celebrate and stamp down on uniqueness in equal measure, which can get very confusing. So if you are able to stay focused on yourself and growing yourself, that's what's... most important. So how can people connect with you and Practical AI and AI for Autistics and anything else?
Derek Crager 46:43
Yeah, thank you. You see my name on the screen or under the show notes. You can find me on LinkedIn and I welcome, connect with me, ask questions, answer questions. I love to connect and just grow.
Derek Crager 46:59
PracticalAI.app, so just phonetically like it sounds. PracticalAI.app, like Apple, Paul, Paul. And AIforAutistics.com, like it sounds, all letters, A -I -F -O -R, or AIforAutistics.com. And you can connect with our community there. So appreciate that opportunity.
Mike 47:22
Awesome. Thank you. And I will include as much as I can to the show notes that are, of course, on sparklaunchpodcast.com. And you can find the show everywhere you get your podcasts, as always. But thank you, Derek, for coming on the show and talking to us about this. It's always fascinating to hear people a lot smarter than me talk about these things. It gives me an interesting perspective. So I'm sure people listening got a lot of value out of that.
Derek Crager 47:47
Well, it was great being here. Thank you all. And if you're listening to the show now, just invite one person. We can double listenership overnight.