I have followed this rule for a long time. No matter if it is promises from managers at work, relationships or when people talk about showing “understanding” for neurodiversity.

If you talk the talk, do you walk the walk?

As we all know: talk is cheap.

This doesn’t mean I expect people to succeed on everything they promise or say. But it means that I either need to see the efforts you are making if there isn’t any direct results yet.

Like if you in one meeting says that you try to be accommodating for my ADHD. Then we have three possible situations when some ADHD trait is visible in me

• You give me shit / grief about it in some way
• You acknowledge it without making it into a negative thing for me
• Or you try to use it as an opportunity to understand what’s going on and ideally figure out how for the both of us to deal with it in the future

The first one shows me that you just like to say things like that without actually doing anything to back it up.

The second one is better, but not ideal depending on the situation.

The third is what I prefer, however if we have done a lot of this in the past, the second could be the better situation if it is what we have agreed on.