Latest / Thick No More / They Gave Me Dot-to-Dot Books Instead of an Education | Darren Clark

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They Gave Me Dot-to-Dot Books Instead of an Education | Darren Clark · Thick No More

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  Welcome back to Thick No More, the podcast that shines a light
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  on real stories of resilience, hope, and Euro diversity.
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  Today, I'm joined by someone who's lived through exclusion,
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  misunderstanding, and labels like myself.
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  He's turned every single one of those into a fuel for change.
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  Darren Clark grew up navigating dyslexia, ADHD, and autism in a
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  school system that didn't always see strengths.
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  He's been excluded, overlooked, and underestimated.
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  But Darren didn't just survive, he's thrived.
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  From working in places places like Kenya and Bali to becoming
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  a global advocate for inclusion in both business and education,
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  Aaron has built a voice that challenges the status quo and
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  inspires action. In this conversation, we'll
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  explore how he went from being written off to becoming a
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  leader, a mental, and a massive change maker.
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  We'll talk about turning points, the lessons learned and his
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  vision for a world where neurodiverse people aren't just
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  accepted but celebrated. Darren, it's an honour and an
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  absolute privilege to have you here.
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  Welcome to the show. God bless you, Jay, and thank
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  you so much for everything you're doing for the community.
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  It's an again, likewise. Thank you so much.
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  Now, thank you. OK, so listen, I don't know if
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  you know or you've listened to any of the podcast, but always
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  ask everybody the same question, mainly because music is my is my
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  thing. So you walk into a room and a
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  theme tune starts playing every time.
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  What's? What would the song be?
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  So I love this question and I love listening to to other
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  guests talking about this. So mine's changed over the
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  years, but I guess that the song that really sticks with me is
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  Emily Sande. Read all about it Part 3.
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  Now, when you listen to the actual lyrics of this from from
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  a dyslexic point of view and, and this is how I resonate with
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  it, it's incredibly powerful because it's all about the the
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  voice and speaking your true values and having that voice
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  that's hidden inside you. I'm getting goosebumps just
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  talking about it. The song literally moves me
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  every single time. Amazing song.
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  And she's such a powerful singer.
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  I mean, yeah, I love that song so much, really do.
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  And yeah, I've never, ever, never listened to it like that.
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  But now, now you've said that. I totally take on board what you
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  mean by that. It's a great tune.
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  Yeah, there's OK. So.
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  Brilliant. Gone.
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  Sorry, I was. Just saying the lyrics are
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  brilliant if you if you just yeah, they.
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  Are yeah. So I always what we do is we, we
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  kind of go back a little bit. I'm trying to highlight to
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  people, children, young adults, parents, educators, tech gurus,
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  that it's okay, you know, it's okay to talk about things.
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  So I want to take you back really to school years.
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  Give us a bit of an insight what it was like for Darren growing
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  up and when was it when, when did you kind of think to
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  yourself, maybe I'm a little bit different or maybe things aren't
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  quite right here? Was there a point that you
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  noticed? Yeah, no, absolutely.
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  Thank you, Jay. I kind of 48 now, so I kind of
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  went to school kind of is early 90s.
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  I grew up in a sort of a large council estate in the school
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  that I went to was quite a tough school to be honest, primary
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  school for me. So was was brilliant.
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  I really enjoyed it. But the minute I went to a
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  secondary school, I knew that I was different from the very
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  first day. So when I actually was, I was
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  very excited to go to the school.
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  I kind of knew where I was going.
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  We all joined as our friends. We all walked to the school the
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  same day. But it was when I got to the
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  actual hall, the assembly hall, and they were reading out names
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  because obviously you have to do like a pre test to see where
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  you're going to fit within the classes.
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  And I always remember it was a sort of a, see, you went from a
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  school where there was only, you know, about 100 people to
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  hundreds of people. And I always remember when they
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  were reading out the list of names of where they were, which
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  tutor group you were going into. And I always remember just right
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  there, and every single one of my friends got up and gone to
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  different places and everyone else had left.
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  And there was only four of us left in the hall at that point.
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  I knew that it was going to be a tough five years.
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  The segregation started and I was put in a thing called the
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  unit for pretty much five years, which was a porta cabin in the
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  middle of the playing field and just given color and in books
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  and dot to dot books to pretty much do for five years.
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  Really, I had probably near on over 200 teachers.
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  And during that time and what I realized is it wasn't teachers
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  as such. It was just people that was
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  there to look after us to make sure that we were obviously
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  safe. So that was my first kind of
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  instinct of of school. That's just as I'm sure you
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  know, you, you know, you can listen yourself.
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  We had to. We had people on that have
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  talked about these kind of things and every time it it
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  chokes me up because, you know, it takes you back and you
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  remember those moments where you what you realize.
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  But I mean, yeah, that's that's a lot of people and almost
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  almost kind of indicates really that then they still didn't know
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  how to how to look after people like us, what to do.
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  And it like you mentioned, they're just there just to make
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  sure. I guess you were in the room
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  really totally crazy. Yeah, they were kind of.
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  Yeah, absolutely. And, and.
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  And it was very difficult. You know, within secondary
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  school, all you want to do is kind of fly underneath the radar
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  and you know, not to kind of stand out.
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  And the difficulty from the separation point of view is, is
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  how you know, that's the time when you kind of grow as a
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  person and make friends and learn life skills and, and be
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  the segregation side of it was very difficult because as soon
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  as the school bell went, you would then leave the border
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  cabin and then go into the playground and try and create
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  some sort of friendship Group A. Difficult when you pulled apart
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  from the people that you know, like you say, your friends that
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  you started a school with. So you know, I've read about you
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  and soon you're talking about being excluded from what kind of
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  impact on your confidence that that have as an individual.
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  Yeah, I think it was. I mean, for some reason I've
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  always been quite a positive person to see, you know,
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  thinking what does the next day bring?
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  And even to a point where I, you know, we everyone was due to sit
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  there. GCS, ES, I was allowed.
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  I actually thought for some reason that day when I was sort
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  of skipping into school, so to speak, that I was actually going
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  to be able to sit them until a teacher is sort of told me that
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  it would be a waste of paper and to put me through them.
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  With regards to the confidence side of it, my confidence I
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  guess was quite shattered really.
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  Yeah. In that sense, and it was made
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  even more trickier to when you leave school, you haven't got
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  any GCSEs and you're struggling to read and write.
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  Getting the job was very difficult, but it wasn't until I
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  went into the workplace that my confidence started to grow.
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  Interesting. So did it.
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  So was it? Was it then the, you know, was
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  that a turning point where you started to see, you know, maybe
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  I can make something out of this neuro diversity?
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  Maybe it's not such a weakness. Maybe there's something I can
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  tap into here. When did that kind of start
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  triggering in your mind? Yes.
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  So up until the age of 36, I was diagnosed with dyslexia at the
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  age of 36. So it was a very kind of late
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  process for me. So I hadn't up until then I
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  hadn't even heard of the word dyslexia.
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  I didn't, I didn't even know it, you know, it had existed.
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  And up until that point, I'd been able to grow a very
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  successful, you know, corporate career.
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  It was a, but I always knew that I was different.
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  And I always knew there was a struggle there.
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  And I had to present differently.
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  I had to do my reports differently.
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  I had to kind of be in meetings differently.
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  I knew every single time that every single day I'd have to do
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  something different to everyone else.
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  And I just did not know why. I was just sort of, you know,
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  rattling my brain and it was just exhausted.
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  So, yeah. So I up until that point, I
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  hadn't even known, you know why there was a difference.
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  Yeah, it's funny because speaking terms, I've known you
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  for a few weeks. Obviously visually, I've known
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  you for a while because I see you on LinkedIn.
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  But it's funny you mentioned there about you needed to do
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  things slightly different. You taught me something and
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  you're going to laugh now when I say this.
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  But, and you probably know what it is before I even say it, but
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  it shows how you learn from people.
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  Like hold button on LinkedIn to leave a voice message.
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  But I, you know, I, I didn't even know.
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  Yeah, it's, it's, yeah. As soon as I knew that you could
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  hold down. And I guess this is the dyslexic
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  mind that you for me, you know, any, any kind of shortcuts or
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  any, any ways that I can find a different way of doing something
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  was absolutely fantastic. I do think they could lengthen
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  the, the, you know, the, the size of the LinkedIn message so
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  you don't just get a minute so you end up sending 30.
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  But yeah, anything like that. That's kind of been pretty much
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  my life, really trying to find different ways around.
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  I don't know, I think they might have to pick who they give that.
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  If they didn't choose to extend it, they might have to pick who
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  they give that functionality to. My friend, I just want waffle on
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  for hours trying to get to the point.
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  I know I have friends who get WhatsApp messages from me and
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  they they say, yeah, I got your podcast because I literally just
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  ended up going on forever. Yeah.
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  So I want to talk about something that I saw on a few of
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  your posts about working in places like Kenya and Bayan.
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  And is this this kind of like ticked a little box in me and
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  and pushed me back in in time, my father worked as a mechanical
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  engineer and travelled the world and I spent about 16 weeks in
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  Africa. So the last years of my primary
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  school. Now the ironic thing about this
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  is when I came back to the UKI was six weeks in front of all of
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  my classmates school wise and was made to sit in a corner and
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  wait until they caught up. So and obviously the tutoring
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  there was more individuals and maybe that suited the way I was
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  at the time. But what, what are attitudes
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  like in Kenya and Bali towards, you know, diversity, you know,
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  how does it compare to the UK and what, what are the
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  different? Well, how does it differ I
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  guess? Yeah, no, absolutely.
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  So. So yeah, the way I got into that
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  kind of work really was after the diagnosis I had, I wanted to
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  understand myself and how my dyslexia, you know, affected me
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  good and bad. But I also wanted to know how it
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  didn't just affect me, how it affected the person in the next
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  down the road or the next city. And then I then thought to
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  myself, well, how does it affect people in different countries?
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  And, and that's kind of where it set my journey.
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  And for four years, I kind of set a goal really of trying to
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  connect with as many different organizations as possible.
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  So I've become an ambassador for the BDA to the British Sex
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  Association, a global partner for the International Sex
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  Association. And I started reaching out.
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  It was, if you go to the IDA's website and scroll to the very
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  bottom, you'll see all of the different partners, all the
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  different organizations that are affiliated with it.
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  And what I did is I wrote an e-mail and see six different
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  organizations just asking the questions.
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  And look, I'm a businessman. I mean, it would have sounded
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  the most bizarre e-mail ever, but I'm, you know, I've run a
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  few businesses. I'm trying to raise awareness
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  for dyslexia. And would you be interested in,
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  you know, is there anything I can do to support this is, you
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  know, it was all self funded. I wasn't asking for any money.
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  And two sisters came back who run a school in Kenya, and they
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  asked and literally said, yeah, we'd love you to be involved.
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  And it's funny, when we set a goal in a mission, within four
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  weeks of that e-mail had sent out, I'd flown over there and
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  we'd arranged a literally almost like a little mini conference in
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  this massive kind of sort of cow shared just like that. 4 weeks
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  later. 4 weeks and we had over 100, about 200 parents and
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  teachers from different schools that all came probably to 250.
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  It was the most hottest but the most incredible day.
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  And we did a whole talk and then we directed those people to the
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  school that they they had there. And then that then just sort of
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  springboard, springboarded on to the work that I started doing,
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  travelled, actually went to, I went to Malawi a month and I
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  literally with some leaflets and a pop up banner with two of the
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  hosts there. And we traveled from one end to
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  the other of Malawi, going into villages, into churches and
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  schools, into anywhere that would take us to try and start
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  talking about dyslexia. But what my findings were in if
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  we, if we say Malawi at the point of we're talking sort of
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  four or five years ago, even if you put in you Googled dyslexia,
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  Malawi, nothing would come up. And when I say nothing, I mean
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  literally nothing thing. So, so it got to a point where
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  these, this incredible lady who runs the Able Foundation and we
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  did, like I said, a whole month of campaigning and she's, she's
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  now put a little school together, which is phenomenal.
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  And if you Google it now, then her organization comes up.
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  And, and that's been incredibly rewarding to see with regards to
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  how dyslexia is seen there. It's very, I guess the culture
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  side of it is very religious. I've heard some stories that,
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  you know, children are not allowed to go to school if they
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  have dyslexia. You can bring shame to the
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  village. And I've heard some, some, some
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  harrowing stories and, and obviously some incredible
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  stories of, of resilience as well.
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  But I still feel it's very, it's very still unknown.
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  And it's, it's, it's if you do have a child with dyslexia in
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  that, then it does bring shame. So that they're almost really, I
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  guess where we were in the 70s there, they're a good what,
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  30-40 years behind us still, which is scary.
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  Did you bring anything back from there that kind of like, you
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  know, made you think I'm going to try and lead with this?
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  Is it anything like you bought back that you wanted to sort of
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  implement here or is it just it was just so different?
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  It was, it was incredibly difficult, different.
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  And I think, you know, when we talk about having tools and
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  accesses here, I mean we think to ourselves that there is still
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  so much to do. If we talk about the UK, there
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  is still so much to do and so many laws that need looking at
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  and different tech and everything else.
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  But but generally, if you look how many different organizations
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  we have in the UK, not just the British to sex association, but
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  the small little ones as well that do a phenomenal job.
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  And then we have the, you know, the fantastic amount of tech
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  that that is there, all of the assistive tech, everything else
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  that's there. We are actually in a pretty good
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  place in the sense of what what we've got.
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  That's not saying that still there are people struggling and
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  there's so much to do. But if you revert and you take
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  someone like Kenya, for instance, where they don't have
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  that those assistance, so they have to try and either outsource
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  them to people to, you know, to fund them in or they have to use
• 14:23
  different other different tools to do this.
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  Do I do think it's amazing to see how advanced we are with
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  with with the difference that we can make, but it is vastly
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  different and it's almost like going for a bit of a time warp
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  back to how it was. Yeah, it's crazy, you know, and
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  you're right. You know, we are lucky.
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  Tech is changing all the time. I mean, you get to say I get to
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  see it, and we're privileged enough to see things before
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  they're even kind of released in some circumstances.
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  And it does feel, you know, when you're on the inside, it kind of
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  feels in the UK that it's still a long way to go.
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  You know, it was still, it's still not right.
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  But I guess that probably opened your eyes seeing actually how
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  far we have actually come. And that's where we were, you
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  know, and you know, you, you were not, not that far different
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  age to me. And I know what I was like at
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  school and there was nothing, absolutely nothing.
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  And then I see my children now, you know, the tech that they're
• 15:20
  offered for assistance is incredible.
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  I think when I see you talking and I hear you, you come across
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  amazing and you've definitely a huge voice in the business and
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  education communities. Give me, give me if you can.
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  It's probably not a particularly easy question to answer, but
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  give me one change that you'd like to see, I guess in schools
• 15:39
  and employers. If we can make Wave a magic wand
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  and make it happen tomorrow, what would that change be?
• 15:44
  So, so I think that if we look at the kind of the in business,
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  we always talk about the customer journey.
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  If anyone was to talk about, you know, you know, launching
• 15:53
  something, they'd say, OK, what, what does a customer journey
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  look like? So what does the child's journey
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  like? What does a human person's, you
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  know, what does the, the human effect does it look like from
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  that journey? And what I'd love to see, So
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  what generally happens is we'll have a child that is in school,
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  in primary school, and if they are diagnosed with dyslexia or
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  something else from a neuro diversion point of view, then
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  they will then get some support. So if we just said from say
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  primary school they were able to get some support, then if that
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  support then leaded over to the secondary school and the support
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  was given and continued, that's fantastic.
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  Then we're looking at college and university.
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  If the support for them is continued on that, that's
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  phenomenal. And then what would be the
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  golden ticket is then they go into an inclusive workplace.
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  So that is the perfect, perfect scenario.
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  Now, when we say support, we don't mean, you know, that we
• 16:47
  definitely need, you know, to to be LED off of things or we need,
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  you know, to special treatment in this way.
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  When we say support, we just need people to understand
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  exactly how, you know, how our brains work and how we may come.
• 17:00
  You'll have a problem and we may solve it in a different problem,
• 17:02
  a different way. And that's accepted.
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  The problem we found in a lot of workplaces, if we're just
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  talking about, you know, the way that I've lived with some
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  incredible workplaces and they're doing some phenomenal
• 17:12
  things. But what generally happens is
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  somewhere along the chain, the support, and this is if someone
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  had support for school, if they had no support in school and
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  then suddenly they're being unsupported in the workplace,
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  You're in a whole, you know, host of different problems.
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  What I, what I'd love to see really is more, much more
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  understanding from literally from the early ages.
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  And I, I would love it if organizations would adopt
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  different ways of thinking and not just put the homeless onus
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  on someone that speaks up about the dyslexia.
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  And then that suddenly that person becomes the, you know,
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  the spokesperson for it, which is great.
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  But then the pressure is then put on that person to then sort
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  of lead the company with this. And I've seen that many, many
• 17:55
  times happen before. Yeah, that's spot on with that.
• 17:59
  I mean, we, we had, we had a gentleman on this week's
• 18:04
  podcast, last week's podcast who talked about when an individual
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  finds, you know, their ADHD and understands what it means,
• 18:14
  that's when real change happens. And I think, you know, you see
• 18:18
  all these stats floating around about businesses, you know,
• 18:22
  being disabled, fingers in the air, disability ready.
• 18:25
  And then you actually look at the figures and it's not .3% of
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  businesses in the UK are there is a lot of change that needs to
• 18:31
  happen. But I totally agree with you.
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  I think it's, it's about embracing it and, and, and you
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  know, giving that, giving those individuals the opportunity
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  because we are, you know, I put us to our community.
• 18:43
  We are, we are, we're embraced in one way and in other ways
• 18:47
  we're almost not shame, but we're almost like kind of pushed
• 18:49
  to one side a little bit thinking, well, maybe maybe you
• 18:51
  haven't got a relevant point of view on this because your
• 18:55
  ability to understand or your ability to read or your
• 18:57
  concentration levels, it would be good to see that happen.
• 19:00
  We got a, we got a lot of a lot of parents listening.
• 19:05
  It upsets me some of the messages.
• 19:06
  Again, I'm going to be honest with you, but I'd love to give
• 19:08
  you, if it's a parent who feels the system's not working for
• 19:11
  that child right now, can you give them a message of support?
• 19:14
  What would it be? Yeah, absolutely.
• 19:15
  I think it's just, you know, understanding your child and
• 19:19
  just having those conversations and giving them space to, you
• 19:22
  know, to kind of breathe and just just kind of be able to,
• 19:26
  you know, talk about how they're feeling and, and, and not get
• 19:29
  too kind of concerned about how the system is working.
• 19:32
  And I know that's really difficult because you're
• 19:35
  effectively sending your child to a school and you're feeling
• 19:38
  they're not getting the actual support.
• 19:40
  But there is, there's a lot of that you can do when the child
• 19:42
  comes home and also speaking to the school.
• 19:46
  I think communication is the biggest key.
• 19:48
  Finding things that a child would, it would enjoy outside of
• 19:51
  school as well as inside of school.
• 19:53
  I think that's and, and again, using the communities and
• 19:57
  surrounding yourself with incredible people.
• 19:58
  I think the communities that I've from a dyslexic community
• 20:04
  point of view, from a neurodivergent point of view, I
• 20:06
  think there are some phenomenal people out there that that are
• 20:08
  always there to just answer a couple of questions.
• 20:11
  But I think communication is absolutely key.
• 20:13
  As you can get as a parent, you can get really bogged down.
• 20:16
  I mean, I constantly looking at my children, looking to see
• 20:20
  something that's probably not even there, you know, but we're,
• 20:25
  we're in, we're in the, we're in the bubble, you and I, we know
• 20:28
  what's available. And I can't imagine what it must
• 20:31
  be like for a parent. I had one contact me yesterday
• 20:34
  and yeah, I look, it's going to be OK.
• 20:38
  You need to embrace it. And like you said, just there is
• 20:42
  there is a network of people available to support you and
• 20:44
  help you. What about what you mentioned
• 20:46
  businesses a bit ago? What about a business?
• 20:49
  If you've got a business leader listening right now, what should
• 20:51
  be their first step to making their workplace truly neuro
• 20:54
  inclusive in your opinion? I think really just kind of, you
• 20:58
  know, even if this person sort of booked themselves onto a
• 21:00
  session or had someone come in and talk to them or just
• 21:03
  anything where they don't just expect it's down to the kind of
• 21:07
  the HR position. You know, when we worked with
• 21:10
  HSBC for five years and we worked with, you know, across
• 21:14
  all of the different countries, you know, with thousands and
• 21:16
  thousands of staff, that was incredible because we actually
• 21:19
  got to speak with the CEO of HSBC.
• 21:22
  We're able to, you know, to kind of articulate how, you know,
• 21:25
  inclusion should be for that side of it.
• 21:27
  And I think this is what from an organization point of view, it
• 21:30
  should be. Every single person within the
• 21:31
  organization should know and it's not a tick box exercise.
• 21:34
  This is this. If you're working with people,
• 21:37
  then you need to know how to support people.
• 21:40
  And it could be the most smallest things from, you know,
• 21:43
  it could be, you know, where even where a position person is
• 21:46
  positioned at their desk and you know, are they facing people or
• 21:50
  someone back-to-back and they're looking over their their
• 21:53
  computer, which you know, which can cause, you know, confidence
• 21:57
  issues could cause, you know, anything.
• 21:59
  The meetings. There are so many things.
• 22:01
  The best thing to do really and what we did is, is breakdown the
• 22:04
  entire kind of structure of a business in the sense of what
• 22:07
  does your recruitment process look like, What is your
• 22:10
  onboarding session? And then you can then once
• 22:12
  you've got the internal side of it, you can then look how do
• 22:15
  customers interact with our organization.
• 22:17
  And I think that's the key thing to be able to help and support
• 22:20
  not just the individuals in the business, but the people that
• 22:23
  purchase and use your company. Yeah.
• 22:25
  And I, you said that about HSBC and the CEO.
• 22:28
  I think he's also potentially getting the buy in.
• 22:31
  You need those people at the at the top to to be.
• 22:35
  OK. Yeah, tell us, explain to us.
• 22:38
  We're listening. And I think if you've got that,
• 22:41
  that helps as well. You know, we have people speak
• 22:45
  speak to us all the time and kind of go, oh, you know, we're
• 22:47
  looking to make a change. And one of those questions, I
• 22:49
  always say to them as well, is this, is this a complete change?
• 22:52
  Is everybody buying into this? Is this, is this for everyone?
• 22:55
  And it's lovely when they go. Yeah, everybody, everybody,
• 22:58
  everybody wants this. So yeah, I agree with you,
• 23:01
  right. A bit of reflection and hope for
• 23:03
  everyone now. So let's start with you.
• 23:05
  So again, magic one time it would be great if we had this
• 23:08
  magic one, wouldn't it go back to 10 year old Darren?
• 23:11
  What would you tell him? I would I would say, you know,
• 23:15
  the next few years are going to be quite tricky.
• 23:17
  They're going to be quite rough, but to really kind of just
• 23:21
  understand the true value that you offer the world and that you
• 23:26
  the gift that you can give to the world and the world can give
• 23:29
  to you and just hang in there. Really, it gets me quite
• 23:32
  emotional thinking about a 10 year old Aaron, to be honest,
• 23:36
  because I just know what's coming.
• 23:39
  And I think it's just that sheer resilience and just have that
• 23:43
  surround yourself with incredible people and have fun
• 23:46
  and smile and just go with it. Now that's beautiful and the
• 23:49
  tissues are out again. That's every week now.
• 23:51
  OK, so I only asked this on the first episode and then I, I kind
• 23:56
  of, I've asked it ever since. So it seems to be another
• 23:58
  question that's getting us to everybody.
• 24:00
  And I think I'm going to ask it to you as well.
• 24:03
  The phrase thick no more. What does it mean to you
• 24:05
  personally? Throughout my entire life of
• 24:08
  school sort of young life, you either called thick or you felt
• 24:12
  like you were thick. And I think the most
• 24:14
  exhilarating thing is when you realize that you're not and that
• 24:18
  trauma of people putting you into that box and thinking that
• 24:22
  you are. And when you actually break free
• 24:24
  from that, it is the most rewarding feeling ever because
• 24:28
  you just realize how special. And I mean this in the sense of
• 24:31
  how how much you can give and serve when you realize that that
• 24:35
  label just doesn't fit you anymore.
• 24:36
  That's lovely. That's a really, really lovely
• 24:39
  way of answering that, yeah. And you're absolutely spot on.
• 24:43
  I couldn't put it by myself. I I think that for me, it was a
• 24:47
  label for me and it stuck and it stuck for a very, very long
• 24:50
  time. And a bit like you mentioned a
• 24:52
  bit ago about the 10 year old, that's when it was really most
• 24:54
  prevalent for me. So yeah, it's a lovely, lovely
• 24:58
  way of wording it. Thank you.
• 24:59
  Right. So what about what about you for
• 25:01
  you now? Then give us an insight into
• 25:03
  down as well. What's next?
• 25:04
  Any big projects that you've got your eye on or we should keep an
• 25:07
  eye on LinkedIn for you or any of your media?
• 25:10
  What's next for you? Yeah.
• 25:11
  So, so although I've done a lot of advocacy work for for many,
• 25:15
  many years, I still feel I'm only sort of 5% into what it is
• 25:19
  I want to kind of achieve. We're still going to kind of be
• 25:22
  pushing the new adversity stories, which is going to be,
• 25:24
  which is going to be fantastic. And then just working on a lot
• 25:27
  of more advocacy work with potentially a lot more different
• 25:31
  countries and raising. So there's, there's still so
• 25:34
  much more to be done. And I'm just, yeah, I'm just
• 25:37
  very excited to try and connect with even more people on a
• 25:39
  global scale and, and. So if anyone wants to get in
• 25:43
  touch with you, what's the best way for them to reach out to you
• 25:46
  to to express interest in getting you involved?
• 25:49
  How can they get in touch with you?
• 25:50
  Absolutely. Is it literally the best thing
• 25:52
  to do really is to come through me on on LinkedIn?
• 25:55
  So Darren Clark on LinkedIn, and please do check out new
• 25:58
  adversity stories, if that's OK. And yeah, that is literally the
• 26:01
  best way and I'd love to. Amazing.
• 26:04
  Darren, listen, thank you so, so much for sharing your journey
• 26:08
  with me. Thank you.
• 26:09
  Through the school years, which which really, really touched me,
• 26:12
  and most of all, the incredible work that you're doing around
• 26:14
  the globe. And you've shown me and anyone
• 26:18
  listening that neuro diversity definitely isn't a barrier, it's
• 26:21
  a strength. And to anyone that is listening,
• 26:23
  I hope you can take Darren's story as a reminder that no
• 26:26
  matter what challenges, there's always a way forward.
• 26:28
  As as Dan has just mentioned, you can reach out to him
• 26:31
  directly on LinkedIn and follow his work and any of our projects
• 26:35
  that he's moving forwards with. Darren, honestly, thank you so
• 26:38
  much. It's been an absolute honor.
• 26:39
  I can't thank you enough. Thank, Thank you so much, Jane.
• 26:42
  Thank you for everything you're doing for the community and
• 26:44
  thank you for creating this amazing in space to hear amazing
• 26:48
  people. So thank you.
• 26:49
  Thank you.