Steven Pope

And I knew I was talented.

I knew I could do the job, but I couldn't get across the finish line for whatever reason.

Might've been my Asperger's and my inability to understand politics or how to persuade people or whatever.

Probably some major deficits there, which are now my advantages because I can do a lot of things as a business owner that many other people can't do.

It can be super transparent without squirming.

I can be a really good leader and talk about tough issues internally, externally, without missing a beat.

I can do a lot of things with my Asperger's.

And the social construct rules that don't make a lot of sense to me, I can practice those and read 100 books.

Sometimes it takes 100 books for me to really understand, like, okay, this social norm makes no sense to me.

How do I operate this thing?

And I haven't talked a lot about the notion of autism level one, a la Asperger's, in my business.

But I think a lot of you might have guessed that about me by now.

If you haven't, you haven't paid attention as much as others, I'll tell you that.

But being good at video games and not being good at people skills, but knowing how to run a system to make...

people operate well despite not having good people skills is something I'm incredibly good at.

And I can go and find people who are okay at my lack of niceties, right?

So I'll call up my employees and I'll go write the business.

And then I'll be like, wait a minute, I should probably ask them how their life is going.

I should probably ask, you know, how their kids are doing.

I have to consciously make that decision and I almost never lead with it.