Neurodiversity Affirming Business with Pippa Parfait
What does business actually look like when it's built for your brain? In this episode of A Trauma-Informed Future, host Katie Kurtz sits down with neurodivergent business coach Pippa Parfait (she/they) of Disobedient Business Co. for an honest, validating conversation about why so many neurodivergent entrepreneurs feel like they're failing — when really, the systems were never designed for them in the first place. This is for anyone who has or is currently masking, conforming, and trying to squeeze their neurodivergent brain into a business model built on neurotypical norms. This episode offers a glimpse at what a brain-friendly business actually looks like in practice: flexible systems that work with your nervous system, not against it and a radically simple approach to starting a business that ditches the obsessive niche-drilling in favor of just getting out there and connecting with humans. This episode is for anyone who has ever looked at conventional business advice and thought I know this should be working, so why does it feel so wrong? because the answer might not be you. It might just be the blueprint.
Learn more about Pippa:
Pippa Parfait (she/they) is a coach and mentor for ADHD and Autistic business owners, and co-founder of The Disobedient Business® Co. Having spent years in corporate and public sector leadership before retraining as a coach in 2016, Pippa brought her systems expertise and strategic thinking with her — and quickly realised that almost all of her clients were neurodivergent founders who needed a completely different approach to business. Her own late AuDHD diagnosis made everything click into place: what had always been labelled disobedience was just her brain working in a system not designed for it.
Through the Disobedient Business® Mastermind and brain-friendly digital tools, Pippa helps established ADHD and Autistic business owners build strategy, structure and self-trust so they can create a business they can actually live inside. Always armed with an inventive swear word, an 80s/90s reference and three drinks on the go. Fair warning: if she says "lovingly", a truthbomb is incoming.
About The Disobedient Business® Co
The Disobedient Business® Co. exists to make business actually possible for ADHD and Autistic founders — in a way that works with their brain, not against it.
Founded in 2016 by mother-and-spawn duo Pippa (she/they) and Lucy Parfait (they/them), DBCo. was built on a pretty simple (and apparently radical) premise: that the reason so many neurodivergent business owners are struggling isn't a personal failing. It's that they've been handed a neurotypical blueprint and told to get on with it.
Through their high-touch Disobedient Business® Mastermind and brain-friendly digital tools, Pippa and Lucy help established ADHD and Autistic business owners build the strategy, structure, and self-trust to create a business they can actually live inside. Momentum without burnout. Priorities that stick. Plans that don't gather dust.
Strategic, unmasked, wildly effective, and disobedient on purpose. Based in the Southwest of the U.K.
Connect with Pippa:
Website: https://disobedientbusiness.com/
https://pippaparfait.com/
https://disobedientbusiness.school/IG: @disobedientbusinessco (IG and Threads)
Show Transcript:
Katie Kurtz (she/her): Hi everyone, and welcome back to a Trauma-Informed Future podcast. I am so, so happy to be in conversation with one of my dear friends. Pippa. Hi. Welcome. Welcome. Hi. How are you? Yeah, how are you today? I'm so happy to have you here. I am always delighted to be in your presence and to be in conversation with you.
I know this one will be juicy, spicy. Wonderful. And I just wanna start by having you introduce yourself. How are you arriving here? Tell us who you are. I hope your dreams, all the things.
Pippa Parfait (she/they): I'm gonna give you the logistics and say that I'm arriving here from a relatively sunny, which is always worth mentioning when you're in the UK. Wednesday afternoon, I'm looking out into the garden. It's very peaceful. I can see a sleeping orange cat, so my nervous system is in a very happy place. Arriving to you today. Probably not what you needed to know. So I'll give you the, I'll give you the bits about me. The bits about me is I'm [00:01:00] Pippa, my, I'm Pippa Parfait.
My pronouns are she, they, I am a neurodivergent human who is A DHD and also suspects, they are also autistic. I'm a coach. I'm a long time systems nerd. I've got a fairly. Intense Airtable obsession. And I've spent the last, I guess, few years deep in the land of helping neurodivergent business owners kind of build out brain friendly systems, structures, ways of working that are specifically tailored to the way that they are so that we can try and kind of flatten this intense peaks and the intense troughs of being a business owner, particularly one with a neurodivergent brain.
So that's me.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): I love the brain friendly. Like you said, then I was just like, yeah, , it really is. Yeah. Thank you. I just wanna put into context. I think when you start a podcast, at least from my perspective, I always just think about all the people [00:02:00] I get to talk to and know, we've known each other a long time and my brain is relational and collaborative, and so I'm always like, who can I talk to? Who can I bring in? Like, how can I work more with the people I love and admire and do amazing work in the world?
And so the podcast is obviously just this selfish reason to be in conversation with people. But you know, for people in all areas of my life and a lot of course new people, but for us, our journey began when we did our coach training program and and we got to meet in real life in San Francisco the day after Trump was first elected.
I feel like there was a little bit of , a kind of a low key trauma bond happening, and it. And we've just sort of walked alongside each other in our businesses. All the iterations, all the seasons of life.[00:03:00]
Yeah. And you have also, I've had the joy of working with you and your and Disobedient Business Co. For just my own support and I, it's been always so supportive that brain friendly is like. Has been like a soft place to land a, a really human place to be, to figure out logistics that overwhelm my relational, very relational brain when it comes to organizing and thinking and systems and all this stuff.
So I just really needed to name that and acknowledge that, and I love how we're just continuing to intersect as we go,
Pippa Parfait (she/they): yeah, , the safe place to land is possibly the biggest compliment you could pay me. So thank you so much.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): Of course. So I would love to just get started with you sharing a little bit about your current business specifically, just like , the name and like that journey because I was pondering, like before we kind of hit record.
The term [00:04:00] disobedience is often a negative connotation. Right. Especially if we, like a lot of us will initially think of it as like back to like school days or like growing up, like being disobedient, disobeying, mm-hmm. Rules of our parents or the systems, but yeah. Disobedience is really also very rooted in social justice movements.
And we think of the civil rights movement of like civil disobedience and also this like saying, I see what's going on and yeah, I'm gonna do it another way and. Trauma-informed care is disobedience. I mean, we're going against the culture. We're saying no, we're gonna think about humans first.
Mm-hmm. And my little rebel heart just loves, like, that's what gets me fired up and that's also what keeps me hopeful and keeps going. So I'd love just for people to hear a little bit about your journey. And I know you don't always like, identify as trauma-informed but just how it's. All [00:05:00] connected and how disobedience is possible in our business, like we can do business differently.
Those are 14 questions. So you start, which, whatever one you want.
Pippa Parfait (she/they): And I didn't write any of them down, so we'll see which bits of it I remember or which bits of it I answer. Shall we, what should I do podcast? Yeah. Or should
I do the typical politicians thing and basically answer the question that I think I decided I want to answer.
That's fine too. Okay. So. Yeah, so the disobedience, I could give you the the proper business answer to this, but I'm actually gonna give you the super honest answer to this to start off with as well, which is I as you rightly said you and I trained in the same coaching academy. We graduated in 2016.
How has it been? Almost 10 years. That's also a thing, 10 years next year. It's wild.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): It's wild.
Pippa Parfait (she/they): And I spent the first. Three or four years of my business so early warning of Pippa swearing Pippa's. Quite a swearer. So apologies advance. It's everybody. I mean also, sorry, not sorry. [00:06:00] Yeah. I spent the first three or four years of my pissing around kind of, been lfie coaching, bouncing from this perception of niche to this perception of niche and so on and so forth.
And I worked with some fabulous people and it was absolutely brilliant. It was kind of late 2019, beginning of the dark days. I mean, I suppose, dark now. Are they beginning of the COVID and lockdown and so on, that it started to really land for me that I had become so anti. All of the things that I had run away from all of the kind of corporate spaces, all of the and how in the UK I had to be a certain person in order to belong in those corporate spaces.
And I had drunk all of that Kool-Aid. I had absolutely conformed and decided that this was the this was the part I was gonna play in those situations, and I'd become so blinkered. In those three or four years. And I absolutely convinced it is part of the journey and the evolution for [00:07:00] myself to bring the myriad skills and experiences and knowledge that I had from being in those corporate spaces or management, public sector management, that kind of thing.
In terms of business development and systems and structure and strategy and that those things were absolutely that kind of. Tech Geek Systems Geek Logic Geek Bit was every bit a part of my personality. Which of course in more recent years, autism is the realization of a lot of that. However, I didn't realize that at the time, and there was a real light bulb moment where I kind of went, oh, I'm all of those things and I don't have to build a business.
As a skipping along the beach with blo, blonde hair, flowers in my hair with castles and so on and so forth. Life coaching business, A because there are many life coaches that absolutely do not conform to that stereotype. And B, because I had all of these skills and I was allowed because I was a human that got to make my own decisions and I didn't have to live up to any kind of stereotype or expectation, I was allowed to bring all of those things [00:08:00] and bring them all together.
And a combination of that realization and convergence and understanding. And my eldest Lucy coming into the business and I was kind of looking at what the business was all about. That's where the disobedience started to come in because it was around. I think that was probably the a big turning point in my life apart from anything else of kind of realizing that.
I, if you'd have asked me 10 years ago, I would've told you I was a real rebel personality. I did things differently. I am I buck the system, all of the kind of things that I very much live and breathe now. Actually the reality of my life and the three or four years of my business up until that point, was absolutely cloaked in conformity.
It was absolutely cloaked in assimilation and doing it the way that society, culture, business, patriarchy, capitalism, et cetera, told me explicitly or implicitly that I was meant to. And there's a real, when you start to unpick it, there is a real [00:09:00] cognitive dissonance in there when you have been showing up for 20, and I really do mean 20 years of your adult life conforming when your absolute core, you are a misfit, rebel, disobedient, et cetera.
Any other synonym that you can come up with in that wheelhouse? That's who I am. It took quite a bit unpicking and there was probably a bit of therapy in there as well to be fair. And then the business kind of came from that rebel quite apart from being a very over, the rebellious business.
This and so on and so forth. Felt quite overused even five-ish years ago. But it didn't for me. We might be talking semantics now 'cause we all, anybody listening to this could have different interpretations of these words, so I can only speak from my own experience. For me, disobedience was around the difference between a disobedience and rebelliousness , or even maverick misfit and all those kind of things.
All of which are super cool words. I'm very down with all of them. There was intent. In disobedience. There was [00:10:00] a, I fully understood the situation. I fully understood the status quo. And you likening it to the civil disobedience movement. Yeah, I completely, we were trying not to be appropriate, if you like, that's not a verb, but it'll do , in the use of that language.
But there are some lines there that, that kind of go, there's an intent there. It's not that people were just acting out for want of a better expression. There was a. A true understanding of the system and of the rules and the what they were and what the expectations were, implicit, explicit or otherwise, and a deliberate, determined intention to break them.
And that's why disobedience was the right word, vibe, et cetera, for the business rather than many other words that arguably are just synonyms. Of the same thing. If you ask me that question now, which you have. It would take on a slightly different flavor. And that's because of the fact that we work with autistic and A DHD business owners.[00:11:00]
There's very few of us that didn't have the word disobedient or disobedience leveled at us as children. Certainly now I look back, my particular flavor of disobedience was, always being the one person to answer in class, always talking, being fairly, involved on it. Having an opinion.
Far too many opinions for a, a young girl in the nine, late 1970s, early 1980s said, spoke far too much all the time, always had something to say, et cetera. And whilst I definitely don't think I came away with a, the big kind of label of, well, dis being badly behaved child, I know a lot of us did, a lot of us that my brain operates differently.
And as a child I haven't developed the masks and filters and things that sadly we tend to develop through, formative years and, growing into being an adult and what have you. So we say what's on our mind or we fidget [00:12:00] or we act out, or we do all of the things that actually I now end up working with people, whether that be I do some life coaching still, whether that be from a life and a leadership coaching point of view or from a disobedient business coaching point of view that we spend all of our times having to unpick and pull away and giving ourselves permission to show up in our wholeness.
Come to a call and have the camera off if we don't want it on. And, fidget incessantly because that's what keeps our brains still. And to be finding spaces to kind of bring this back to the trauma informed conversation. 'cause that's literally what we're talking about. To find and be in spaces.
And for me to be able to create spaces where that wholeness of. As human beings are working through that unmasking and that being able to be in spaces that they can feel fully themselves. And I don't just mean that in a kind of hashtag authenticity kind of way. I mean that in a, I can be the fullness of me and that if that means stimming in my PJs on a call, then that means stemming in my PJ's on [00:13:00] a call, and that is totally acceptable and nobody is going to bat an eyelid because at least one other person's doing it on the call as well.
So that for me is the essence of, I mean, there's so much more to trauma-informed than that, but that's one of the ways that we want that to manifest, if you like, in, in the way that we do business.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): Yeah. I mean but that is what trauma-informed care is. That is being able to understand that how we're showing up right now.
Isn't just this surface level paper cutout of a person. There is so much complexity and history and all of that influences how we build relationships, how we do business, how we do everything. And if we look back, and I love your, I love what you said about conformity, because I think that is in its essence what.
What we're doing here is that like we are all, we've [00:14:00] all been conforming to these systemic and societal expectations, which are all centered around whiteness and this, making everyone conform to a very specific, white, cis male, whatever. Yeah. And, archetype and. How and then we think, oh, I can't do that, or I try to do that and I can therefore I am not worthy, I am wrong.
And especially for those of us who are neurodiverse and growing, like what you mentioned about like how we show up in childhood and that being labeled, that starts stories, it's certain narrative. It starts narratives within us that can often. It's obviously stressful. That's just stressful, but it can lead to exhaustion and burnout and even trauma and those, that's why we say, and we have a previous podcast with Tali from the restful app of Tali Han, about how trauma-informed care is neuro neurodiversity [00:15:00] affirming care.
Because in essence what we're doing is , we're recognizing that we are all human. We have a lot of shit. There's a lot. Like we, we have our lived experiences. We have our health, which includes our mental health, our neurodiversity, our positionality, our social location, all these things that influence how we relate, build, trust, and how others relate and build trust with us.
And so they aren't they're all connected. And when we use trauma-informed care, similarly, it is aligned with what you were sharing with disobedience in that like. We're not gonna conform with these sys the systemic belief that we have to put profits over people or we have to, that trauma's a bad word or that like ignoring the fact that virtually everyone on this planet will or will have.
Trauma like, no, we're going to, it's countercultural. And it feels that, and I always tell people it's gonna feel different because you've never [00:16:00] been treated this way. You've never, and I think just having done your work and been in your spaces and working with you and Lucy, like it can feel really wonky to choose to do your business differently than how we were, how we, whatever we were told or what we're.
Supposed to be like, quote unquote supposed to be doing.
Pippa Parfait (she/they): Yeah, I completely agree. It is definitely something, and I mean, you'd have to ask clients in our mastermind, et cetera, but it, I think it takes some getting used to being in a space where you can trust that the other participants in that space have.
Your best interests at heart as much as they have your own, as they have their own. And that whilst none of us always get things right all of the time because, hashtag humans, that there is that level of care both by the facilitator, which is [00:17:00] mostly normally me but also by the participants, that kind of shared care agreement of how we show up in that space.
Who we are in that space, both explicitly in terms of how we lay that out, as part of the the group, but also in the way the individual people show up.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): Absolutely. My most favorite trauma-informed tool is space agreements you can call it whatever you want. I use the term space agreements 'cause it's more encompassing.
I teach this in the trauma-informed trainings and consulting. I do, I teach it in my graduate school classes. I teach group work, and I always tell people like they're always afraid, like anyone running groups, there's a lot of fear, right? When you bring humans together, there's a lot of risk, right?
There's a lot of risk of exclusion. There's a lot of risk of harm. Of not knowing like, well, what if this happens? And that happens. And I always say like having shared space agreements that are transparent and clear, you're creating shared expectations for you, them, and the space you're sharing, [00:18:00] whatever that space may be.
And it doesn't eliminate risk, it doesn't eliminate arm, but it really reduces the what ifs. Because if someone says something or does something. You go back to the agreements, you're like, oh, well here were here are agreements and here's, we have a plan of how to address it. And everyone knows it because you talk about it all the time.
And it helps create the security and stability of whatever container you're co-creating with people where care can exist. And I'm glad you brought up the word care 'cause I've been on a. Hyper focus of this word lately because so often we think of care of just like giving. But I think it's more of coming back to what you said of like the intent.
And I love what you've talked about with the intent of disobedience, of like care is just like giving a shit, like caring, like I care what happens to people. I don't have to know them, but like I care that, random people in the world are experiencing harm or atrocities or [00:19:00] like, I care that just care.
It's an intent. It's empathy, but , it's more than that. And we show care through action. And I'm just, my brain just went down a hole that I'm not gonna go down because I could talk Yeah. And go on a rant about that. But I, to your back to your point, I think that's so important. And again, how kind of this disobedience and like trauma-informed care intersected are that we.
When we are neurodiversity affirming and we're creating spaces for people to show up as they are, not just like hashtag authenticity, but like, what are your needs? What do you need to be present? What do you need to be yourself in this moment? Like. Even basic, just basic needs that is trauma-informed.
Because we're allowing for choice and consent, we're centering people's self-determination on autonomy. We're collaborating and sharing power, not just saying like, you have to be this way, not my way, not your way. It's all the same [00:20:00] principles and strategies. And the good thing is like we don't need to know about anyone's tr if they have trauma or not, because everyone benefits from that.
Mm-hmm.
It's a win for all.
Pippa Parfait (she/they): Makes me think. Katie about a, so it's been a many years that we've had a question at the bottom of any kind of onboarding type form. And I don't just mean that for things like masterminds and stuff. So when people are joining free spaces, for example, so we, we run like a twice weekly coworking type thing for folks, which is completely free.
And we've long since asked in the, in all of those kind of forms, which is essentially what they are. Entirely confidentially in between, you and Lucy and I. Do you have any additional needs or any, anything that you would want? I don't think we even use the phrase additional needs anymore. Is there anything that you would want to make us aware about you that would be helpful to be able to support you in these spaces?
And I've lost track. The reason I've mentioned that is, I'm not so much showboating yay me. Look at the fact that we've done that. , It's kind of the bare minimum folks. But what I find remarkable is the bearing in mind, the vast [00:21:00] majority of people that enter our spaces are neuro divergent in some way.
We are neurotypical friendly, so if you're listening, if you're, you will be included If you're a neurotypical person, however because the vast majority of people that are filling out those forms, you will probably not be surprised. But I think some people will be surprised just how many times I see.
There's some people that share things and what have you, and that's fantastic. And, thank you for courageously sharing something with us, but the amount of times I see someone say a variant of, thank you so much for asking, it's so rare that I get asked this question. Yeah. We need to do better with that kind of stuff.
I think is, that's kind of basic. We don't have to be sitting there saying, right, tell me everything that's ever happened to you. 'cause that's not the question at all. It's just like. Sometimes you're going to, you're gonna find showing up in the spaces that we host in anything other than easy peasy, no problem at all, no drama, which is essentially nobody.
If there's anything that would help us help you, we're in a bit of a Jerry McGuire moment. [00:22:00] Ask your parents, folks then let us know what they are and we'll do our very best to meet you where you are.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): It's so simple, right? And I think that simple question, and this is where I think. People get really tangled up in their brains here, and that's why I always say like, this isn't complicated, but it is a choice.
You're not a therapist. We need to literally burn this idea that asking people or listening or validating them is some like therapy wizardry. Like that's just being a human. That's care and action. Right? Hey, do you need anything to show up and ma make this experience really good? Just let us know. So simple, right?
Like there's no. You're not asking them for a full-blown medical, physical, therapeutic review. That's none of our business. That's not what this is. And I see people get so focused hyperfocused because of the underlying fear of causing harm, that they [00:23:00] get stuck to these extremes and they're like, well, what if I ask this and I say this, and I'm like, it.
That's it is your intent to get their full blown life story. Mm-hmm. 'Cause then I would have questions as to like, why and what you're doing with that. But simply asking someone, Hey, what do you need? Just let us know. Mm-hmm. It's not that deep and it actually is. And I do the same thing where people are just like, oh my gosh, I've never been asked.
It's like, oh, that kind of hurts my heart that no one, and we should just get into the habit of asking each other, Hey, what do you need to show up today? Especially not just because of our neurodiversity, but like. The hellscape we're existing in right now, we're gonna need a little extra care and time and cushion to get by.
But that simple question is so, so powerful to see and hear and validate someone and affirm their experience and actually see if you can help them make [00:24:00] their experience successful in whatever successful means to them.
Pippa Parfait (she/they): Yeah. And it doesn't have to be, this massive I completely agree with you.
I think people are scared of being even if they don't ask the question in this way, and full disclosure from time to time, somebody will ask that, answer that question, and they will give me, because they are living a life and living in a body that has multiple challenges that, that get in the way of existing in, in the simplest of ways.
And they're used to being, pathologized from want of a better expression, and they will fill out that, that pay, that, that little section with a great long list of, and I have this and I am that and the other, and so on and so forth. And it could be as a service provider or anybody for that matter, overwhelming to receive something like that.
But I always bring it back to. If I'll see something like that because I, I'm alerted when that particular box gets filled in. I'll just message the person and just say, thanks so much for sharing that, that, that sounds like that could be quite challenging. What I'd really love to know, is there any, is there anything that we can actually do that makes it easier?
[00:25:00] Or just better for you to show up in the spaces that we're hosting. Absolutely, and that'll normally get, you know that because that's my responsibility in this situation. I don't have to pick through the list of diagnosis and everything else at all, because that's not my job. That's not what I do.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): That folks is trauma-informed care in action. That is trauma-informed leadership, the most beautiful example of it. So simple, so, so powerful. And repeatable, and it's just a na, it's just organic, right? But what's so powerful and why that's trauma-informed is that you're offering the choice, which gives them the consent to share or not you.
It's open-ended, so it can be. A life story. And we have to remember, and this is where that recognized strategy of trauma-informed care comes in, that people people who tend to overshare, sometimes our judgy human self is like, oh God, like [00:26:00] overshare dramatic. Like, oh, that's too much information, whatever.
But if we pause and be like, maybe this person's sharing that because that's the only way they could ever be heard.
Mm-hmm.
That's the only way they could ever get what they need. That's the only way they could ever be. To exist in a world that wasn't designed for them to get their needs met. And when we pause and reconsider those things, we can then say like, exactly what you did, you paused, you read it, and you said, thank you so much validation.
Thank you so much for sharing this to me. How that must be, that's a lot to deal with or a lot of things to. Or whatever the response is that's pausing, validating, and what I always tell people is validation is simply seeing and hearing the human before you. It doesn't mean you have to agree.
It doesn't mean you have to have the answers. You don't have to fix judge yourself. Simple [00:27:00] validation. Yeah. With a pause is how we. Just say, I see you, I hear you. You don't have to have anything else and exactly what you did say. Yeah, just let me know if there's something specific in this program or reach out if anything comes up along.
And that's it. And that's all you did. You communicated that I see you and hear you. This space is for you. I'm open anytime along the way. Just let me know. Three trust points already with that individual that is leaning towards safety and belonging in your mastermind, your membership, your client, which could lead to that client staying with you, joining other programs, telling their friends, like, I don't think people under, like, I wanted to highlight that because of the ripple effect from one simple question on a Google form.
Pippa Parfait (she/they): Yeah, I oh no, never a Google form now. Oh no. Sorry. Stop now. Sorry for stop. Oh, come on now. Don't use that kind of language.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): An egregious mistake. I'm so sorry. [00:28:00]
Pippa Parfait (she/they): That's fine. I'm kidding. I what's interesting is, yes, I agree with you. And whilst it sometimes feels in congruent to talk about trauma informed care or in talking about inclusion or any of those kind of things as a marketing strategy.
At the end of the day, when it comes down to, may maybe as a deliberate marketing strategy, that's got some ick attached to it, but at the end of the day, marketing or sales or any of those kind of things, whether the people are already in your spaces in a paid or a free capacity or not marketing, all the gurus will tell you that it's all about no like and trust.
So they're gonna get to know you. They're gonna get to like you. Well, so how do you not just talk about trust? How do you do trust? That's how people, that's how people do choose to don't want to work with you or whatever. I think something else that I see more and more and I hope to do more and more of is that it's not just about the potential or actual client getting [00:29:00] to trust us and, our containers and that kind of thing.
It's also quite often one of the teeny, tiny steps, and this is part of our work. To help them rebuild their own self-trust in meeting their needs, not having to, in that example that I gave of somebody feeling that they needed to account their long list of pathology and what have you is quite often the few times that's happened the circumstance when we've had a conversation about it has been along the lines of, I'm just so used to having to account for myself, to kind of show up and go, these are my things.
This is like, I have to advocate for myself so much that I show up with this paragraph of stuff, that this is how I do it. And that kind of yeah. Okay. That, that I hear you. That I, that's really tough. In this space, you're you're good. All of your stuff is welcome.
We, you don't have to account for it. You can just show up in whatever way that you're at and that's fine. And that is one of the teeny tiny threads. In the, not just trusting us, but in the, trying to rebuild that trust that a lot of people have lost with themselves.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): [00:30:00] Exactly that. And that's another one of those ripple kind of effects.
And it's also. 'cause you're saying like, yeah, I trust you. I trust you with your experience and how you're gonna show up in this space and that you're gonna utilize the tools and if you need something, you'll tell me. And in a lot of spaces, especially in business oriented spaces, because there is this power over dynamic of like authority or hierarchy that we and especially in traditional coaching, how we create that power dynamic that we.
We don't trust the client. And I think we're slowly getting out of it, but it's also like resurfacing in other ways. But to say like, yeah, I trust you. It's like, oh, and that's where it can feel so counter-cultural because it's like, where do we go into spaces where people are like, yeah, I believe you. I trust you.
I mean, think of every system, healthcare, government, all these systems we exist in. Where do, are, we encouraged to trust ourselves. And so I love [00:31:00] that emphasis because it truly is, even again, even though you're working on people, with people for business systems or getting their business started, you're still helping them trust themselves.
Which I will say as a, an entrepreneur going on 10 years, which I can't believe that's the case it's, it brings up every. Yeah. Oh my God. It brings literally every, all the shit. All the shit, like it's unreal. It's still come and it's still coming up and I've just come to the fact like it will, but like I always tell people I haven't, like being a business owner has been the most wild healing journey I've ever , been on, but it.
I've also had a lot of , my self-trust eroded in my time as a business owner due to working within coaching relationships , or working with partners that, there was betrayal , or harm occurring. And that not just distrust occurred, [00:32:00] but it then it's like we go within. And so every time we can build trust with people, it helps build our own self-trust.
So I love that piece. And I'm curious if you can kind of along that lines talk a little bit about like, okay, we're. We know there's a different way possible to do business. Right? And you've created a such a, an incredible model, especially to support people who are neurodivergent, a DH, DDHD, autism, whatever.
And also in those systems, you're giving the choice, you're giving, you're really truly right. You're a space for. So then what does that look like? Can you give us some examples of like what is actual, like what are you helping people do? What does disobedient business tangibly look like? Like if we're [00:33:00] so used to doing business one way, what would it look like to do it another way?
Pippa Parfait (she/they): Yeah, just a few examples maybe just to give people some context.
Yeah, no, I get that. I, once upon a time, I probably would've given you a fairly soundbitey trite answer, which is, it's about finding your own way to do things, all the rest of it. But the what then falls out of that is , that's lovely Pippa.
But like how, like what and the honest answer is it's about, and this is the phrase that gets thrown around so much, and I don't think a lot of people that use it really understand what , they mean when they use it, which is that meeting somebody where they're at. And in order to be able to meet somebody where they're at, you've gotta understand what's going on for them.
So in a practical sense, when somebody comes into our mastermind, for example, I will spend time understanding where they are in their business. So one of the things that I've developed and I say developed as if it's some kind of grand methodology type situation, it really isn't. But it's something that I would.
Kind of ostensibly call [00:34:00] the department method, which is basically looking at a small business. So we're talking a solo business owner or maybe they've got one or two team members, et cetera. But that kind of vibe and looking at it through the department lens. And it's very rare that I head back to a corporate space and go, yay, let's use the corporate space.
But it can be really helpful in this situation. 'cause if you think about a big corporate, few million upwards, et cetera, in terms of revenue. They will have departments, right? They will have an HR department, they will have a finance department, they'll have an they'll have a sales marketing, and so on.
And so the department method has at its core, a let's look at your business through the lens of the activities, the kind of stuff that goes on in the HR department. And even if you are there is just you in your business, you don't even have a VA or anything like that. Let's look at how the HR department is helping you.
What have you got in place? How is it? The HR department is making sure that you are in a safe environment, in a cared for [00:35:00] environment, that you're getting breaks, that you're taking your holiday, those kind of things. And you could extrapolate that out to the IT department, the market department, the sales department, and we'll do almost, I don't wanna call it an audit, 'cause that makes it feel very, eh.
But we'll almost do an audit of where are you at when you look at your business through the department lenses, and we'll come up with a plan that both factors in where you want to go with your business. So it's that notion of, right, so in the next quarter I'm hoping to launch this, or, I'm gonna start a podcast or whatever.
So that's the stuff, that's the stuff, bit of the business, the I want to achieve X, Y, and z. Obviously that's always going to exist, isn't it? So we work on that, but alongside that, we'll pick somewhere between one to five. It's normally more like two or three things that live within the departments that you want to be better or easier or require less spoons to use the sort of spoons model from you in terms of your energy.
And we'll be working on those in [00:36:00] tandem. So in a practical sense, so within the mastermind e everybody gets a one-to-one call and then we have weekly hot seat group calls, et cetera. And it is true masterminding. So yes, I facilitate the call. Yes, there is a group coaching aspect to it, but it's much, much more of a, we throw our collective minds together and we talk through something.
If providing somebody is open for it to be discussed in a bigger group. And, again, trauma informed, we check in and make sure that, that somebody is happy to have that bigger discussion. And that's, it is as varied as it could possibly be. Sometimes it'll be about planning.
Other times it'll be about I'm coming into the summer holidays and I've got my kids at home now for eight weeks. How the actual fuck am I gonna make this work? And in a real practical sense, it'll be, pen and paper out and like, how do I carve out the gaps? I've tried this, I've tried that.
There's a real spirit of, experimenting because one of the common threads with a lot of neurodivergent brains particularly autistic and a DHD folk, [00:37:00] is that there is no one strategy. And I don't mean there's no one strategy that works for everybody, definitely don't mean that there's no one strategy that works for me because something that might work really well for me to do with being productive, for example, this morning, might not work this afternoon or even one hour to the next.
So there's a real spirit of. Having a pretty big toolbox and a spirit of, I'm not attached to this particular way of doing things. I'm very happy to have a hundred different ways of doing things because I need to be able to to come back to that phrase, I need to be able to meet my brain where it's at.
And I would love to say that I was the what's the right phrase, the driver of my brain. But I hate to say sadly, my brain is the driver of my brain and my brain is going to wake and arrive in the morning, the afternoon or otherwise. However it feels so inclined as opposed to, me thinking that I can have some kind of control over what I what state it's going to be in this afternoon.[00:38:00]
Katie Kurtz (she/her): I love that idea of the department that really, like you were saying, then I was like, oh, that like really resonates with me and, I think that's such a great example of meeting people where they're at because I agree, like, I think we say that a lot, but it's like, what does that mean?
Like where are we meeting people? What actually is it? And it's, okay, how do we make this tangible? How do we actually create these little, these check these trust points that are bidirectional, that can. Create trust within relationship, but trust within self to say like, yeah, I can how I show up this morning is gonna be different than how I show up tomorrow morning and here's what I can pull from.
And then it becomes, okay, this is the practice, right? That practice. And I know you work with a lot of new business owners and people who are just starting out and. I just, I'm like so excited for them to learn this way.
I'd love for [00:39:00] you before we kind of wrap up to talk a little bit about how you support new business owners or people who are transitioning and how this is such a great way to get started. Like, I wish I had this, like when I was get getting started and , I'm like, no regrets, but like it's, yeah, we've gone through all of it, right?
Again, you and I have been through the iterations over the last 10 years and like this, it. And you and I have talked extensively about how like we tried all those like traditional ways and it never felt good. It never felt good in our brains, the bodies, but like ethically values. Like it just always felt like, am I doing this?
Like the questioning, the doubt where it comes up and to know that there is choice to do things differently, but it is. It'll feel maybe a little wobbly.
Pippa Parfait (she/they): Yeah.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): So I'm curious, like if anyone's listening who is new, who wants to pursue either new and [00:40:00] pursuing business, but also just wanting to pursue a different way of doing business is there anything you would like to say to them?
Pippa Parfait (she/they): Yeah, well, so , we have two significantly, we have two programs. I also still do some one-to-one work from time to time, both with businesses and with individuals. But within the DB code predominantly we have two, two programs. One is a mastermind, which is very much for established neuro divergent folk who are in that area that you've just described of.
You know what, they know what they're doing. They know where they're going. They know how to make money. To put it in, into the simplistic of context is, but actually it's about smoothing those peaks and troughs. It's about finding ways to actually honor them. It's about using the department model to see where some of the challenges are and that kind of thing.
We also have the disobedient business school, which is for newbies. It enrolls all year round. We took it in a sort of all year round thing about four or five months ago. So that's cool. Rather than having to wait round until September. And that very much is for newbies and we focus very much on this [00:41:00] concept of building a basic bitch business, which is just language that I really find I just love.
So, , you'll find most of our languages got swearing in it in some way, shape or form. The idea of a basic bitch business, it's entirely count, counter-cultural because most folks out there are going to tell you, and I'm not saying they're wrong they're gonna tell you that you need to drill into the minutiae eye of detail about your ideal client.
You need to be so super specific about your niche. You need to be hitting your pricing exactly right, and you need to do lots of customer research and all the rest of it. And I'm not saying that any of those things are not true, and I have cycled back as you have, I'm sure cycled into those things again and again over the years, et cetera, and I've kind of moved and we've evolved and so on and so forth.
If you ask me to show you my very first website or my very first understanding of niche and ideal client, you would literally push yourself laughing. However, when you are starting out, you do not know what you do not know. You have not worked with any clients yet. So [00:42:00] someone just tells you to sit down with a bit of paper and work out your ideal client in your niche.
It's just bullshit. It's just like, you're just making stuff up. So the approach we take with folks, particularly we, and we work with service-based businesses, predominantly product-based businesses, is definitely not my zone of genius. Is that. You learn through doing so. Sure. We have this concept of using the word enough.
So figure out your ideal enough client, figure out your, I, your clear enough niche. Get your good enough price together. And then move through that ship really quickly. Let's not hang out there in the wallowing pond of I'm not, I've not nailed, I've not nailed anything. We're not trying to nail anything.
I mean, god, that's the worst language in the world. Nailing things like what's the nail of the thing? Let's just get out there. Let you already know the first three people that are gonna pay you. You either know them or you know them through knowing someone. So find the first three people and we really focus in on kind of client what we call client connection activities.
[00:43:00] So it's sales by any other name, but it's just going out there and being a human with other humans and talking about the stuff that you do until someone goes, you know what? I'm interested enough, I'd quite like to pay you. And yes, that's likely to be really low cost price wise to start off with. Every single person you work with, and you will know this from a coaching point of view, Katie, every single person you work with, you get another bit of information, another data point about the work that you do or really don't want to do.
You know those, the clients that teach you that stuff are just every bit as helpful, if not more so than the ones that teach you exactly what you do want to do. And then down the line, you can get clearer on your niche and clearer on your ideal client. So that's how we work with it. Well, to be honest with you, that's the essence of how we work with lots of things, but that's how we very much how we work in the school is that if I had put a quarter of the time that I put into trying to figure things out in an empty room with no humans.
Then four times as much time as I did do into connecting with other humans that potentially could pay me [00:44:00] money, I would've had a financially, because there's many ways to define success, a financially much more successful business, much sooner. Had I not got so hung up and I see this happen again and again.
I had not got so hung up on. Being absolutely crystal clear and being able to represent my brand appropriately and getting my website right so that the words are correct and this font, that font, this color, that color, all of it was distractions from actually just getting out there and meeting people and figuring out as I go along.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): Yeah, I love that. I think that such again, a great example of. Everything you said, like that's what trauma-informed business is, and whether it's called that or not, it's human first and it's human centered in that it's centering the human delivering whatever the service is and the humans you're working with.
And it does feel countercultural, but it shouldn't because we like. [00:45:00] We live in capitalism. We have to have money to pay our rent. We have to have money to exist and survive. And so no one's saying that money is like it's wrong. It's just , we need to get out of this either or thinking that it's people or profit, it's people and profit, but never profit at the expense of people and they can coexist and we can do business.
We can just do it in a way that sort of reorganizes it. And when we do, for the people who do give a shit, who do care, it can feel so much more aligned, which means you're gonna show up and be able to do your craft or whatever it is you do even more clearly and grounded because it's all the other bullshit's well, I don't have to worry about it.
Right. And that in, in this time, 2025, we're only eight months in. Seven months in, however, like it feels like [00:46:00] seven years, we need for our own sustainability and just for the sake of humanity to choose this kind of way. Because the more people who choose it, the more it's just like, yeah, that's just how business is, right?
It's not trauma-informed as, but it's just, this is how we, this is the expectation, not the exception.
Pippa Parfait (she/they): People need to experience that more for that to be the expectation, fortunately.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Anything else you wanna share with folks before we move into our gentle spritz of questions?
Anything you have coming up or, I know you shared a little about the mastermind and the the DB stool, but anything else you wanna share?
Pippa Parfait (she/they): No. No. I mean, I think the only thing we've got significantly, I say the only thing we've got significantly, so I've very recently launched our first. Significant digital product for Neurodivergent Brains, which is something called the Get Shit Done Hub, which is, I am so bold over with this thing.
It's been like a year in the making. It's a, it's at its heart. It's an Airtable [00:47:00] template, but it's a task management, project management, capturing your genius ideas, but not going down some kind of rabbit hole on them and, deciding that they're gonna side quest you straight away.
And it's been so popular, which has blown me away. I mean, I kind of knew it was gonna land, but you know, when you just kind of launch something and just go, wow, people are really excited about this and it's being born out. It's only been two weeks now. I'm, and I'm starting to get feedback now of, oh my God, I'm loving it.
It's fantastic. Oh, this is gonna be a lifesaver. So that's exciting. But I think the thing that's just happened the thing coming up. Is that we will be, we'll have spaces available to join towards the end of August and into September to join the Mastermind. So that's where my focus very much is at the moment.
So if anybody resonates with the kinda things we've been talking about, have a conversation with me, reach out.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): Please do. Everything obviously is in the show notes. And Pippa, you and Lucy have supported me so much over the years and you especially just as a [00:48:00] peer support and friend. I. Highly recommend checking out disobedient business code.
So many good resources. Especially like, like you said, for people starting off, for people who are in it and just want to choose, make that choice of doing things differently. Yeah. Okay. Are you ready for our gentle Spritz? Go on then.
Pippa Parfait (she/they): Give me a gentle spritz. That's about the only kind of sprint I can deal with.
Anyway,
Katie Kurtz (she/her): a little spritz here. So if you could describe trauma-informed care in one word, and if you have more than one, that's fine. What would it be?
Pippa Parfait (she/they): Courage.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): What is your current go-to for nervous system care and support?
Pippa Parfait (she/they): This one's a really easy one to answer. I am one of these wild swimming wanker, so it's wild swimming.
It's being in water, particularly wild water and wild not wild as in rapids kind of water, but wild as in not a swimming pool. And particularly with a trusted pal. Where we can leave it in the lake for want of better expression. So not is there the, [00:49:00] not only is there the body nervous system regulation going on, but there's the, just download the stuff that needs to not stay in your brain beyond the swim and just leave it in the sea.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): I love that so much. I know you're a wild lake, ocean, sea swimmer and. , I want, I aspire to include that in my future care because I love it. I just love that idea. It's a little different to Swim in the Sea versus a great lake, but love that for you. And what does a trauma-informed future look like for you?
Pippa Parfait (she/they): Yeah, I think it's everything that we've been talking about today. It's that it's not feeling so surprised. Not feeling like it's almost jarring to arrive in a space that where you get to be yourself, where you get to be considered, where you get to be cared for, and that becoming more of the norm as opposed to a slightly weird situation when you arrive and kind of go, Ooh, okay.
That's just, like I said, almost [00:50:00] jarring because nobody normally looks, considers me like this.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): Yes. Oh yes. To that. Thank you so much for being here with us today. It's always such a delight.
Pippa Parfait (she/they): It's been an absolute honor. Oh, like you said, always a delight to talk to you, but this has been fantastic.
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