Ep. 1254 Angela Pieper | Voices With Cynthia Chaplin

Coming soon to a city near you, Vineita Lee Road Show. Have you ever wondered how to attend Vineita Lee for free? Are you a wine trade professional interested in a sponsored trip to Vienie to the International Academy, or Vien Italy, the wine and spirits exhibition. Coming soon to Princeton, New Jersey, Harlem, New York, and Chinatown in New York City, Cardiff in Wales, London, in England, and Roost in Austria. We'll be giving away our new textbook Italian Wine Unplug two point zero. Find out more about these exciting events, and for details on how to attend, go to liveshop. Vineitally dot com. Limited spots available, sign up now. We'll see you soon. Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. I'm Cynthia Chaplin, and this is voices. Every Wednesday, I will be sharing conversations with international wine industry professionals discussing issues in diversity, equity, and inclusion through their personal experiences, work in the field of wine. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and rate our show wherever you get your pods. Hello, and welcome to voices. This is me Cynthia Chaplin, and today I am very happy to welcome Angela Pieffer to voices. Angela is the digital merchandising manager at Mass Yagermeister, and she splits her time between Texas and New York City. She has been a successful brand management professional for over a decade aid, but today we're gonna talk about the other hats that she wears, working to affect change in diversity and inclusion initiatives for people with narrow diverse conditions. Angela has been a workplace committee member for the attention deficit disorder association. A DEAI committee member for women of the Vine and spirits near and dear to my heart and a board member for Chad, which is children and adults with ADHD. So welcome to the show, Angela. Thank you so much for giving us your time today. Thank you so much for having me. No. It's a huge pleasure. I'm I'm sure that many of our listeners have heard of ADHD, which is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but I am equally sure that not too many people know exactly what that means. Can you give us a quick definition sort of, you know, ADHD for dummies? I know this is a huge subject, but it would be great just so that, our listeners know where we're starting off here. Certainly. Yeah. I'd like to start just making a an important distinction that I think would, you know, maybe clear up maybe some confusion for people. Many people hear ADHD and ADD and think they're two different things, but the reality is that they're the exact same condition. Prior to twenty thirteen, ADHD was called ADD. What happened in twenty thirteen to change that was the publication of the updated DS which is the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. This is the manual that clinicians use to diagnose their patients with every mental condition there is. And, you know, even prior to ADD. Historically, there's been many different names for this condition, such as some of my favorites are minimal brain damage or minimal brain dysfunction. You're kidding me. Oh my god. Yeah. And, it's also been called hyperkinetic reaction of childhood. There's been many, many different names for this cluster of symptoms, you know, throughout history. Well, I'm glad to hear the definition and the diagnosis getting a little bit more precise than that. Exactly. Yeah. Minimal brain damages, that one always tickles me. You have a very positive attitude, Angela. Thank you. But, anyway, so, yeah, some, to my definition or my way of explaining it is that ADHD is a terrible name for ADHD. It's actually an executive function disorder, and executive function is something that every single human has. It's all of these executive functions happen in the prefrontal cortex. The knowledge and knowledge is kind of in the the back side of the brain, whatever. So you had the front part of the vein, back part of the brain. Front part is I to do the thing, the back part of the brain is I I know the thing that I need to do. And what happens in an ADHD brain is those those those two things, there's a disconnect there essentially. That's kind of a very simple way to put it. So it's no matter how much I know what I need to do or how to do the thing, in many cases, it's very challenging. It's much more challenging and difficult. To to perform that, that function. I know that I need to be on time. There's kind of ADHD people experience, what we call time, time blindness. It's difficult for us to many many I I say us in a general sense. Of course, everybody experience everybody's ADHD is is is unique to them. But it it's a very common thing for ADHD people. So I have to use a lot of different strategies to make sure that I'm on time that I'm not, you know, being perceived as being rude or, you know, uncaring because or that, you know, that I don't care about somebody because I was, you know, late to their birthday party or, I was a couple minutes late to a meeting or something. It it takes a lot more to it it's it's a lot more challenging. It's a lot more difficult to just perform simple day to day tasks. This is so interesting because I think a lot of people, when they hear ADHD, you know, imagine that this is a condition that is really in the realm of children. But, you know, you're talking about it from, you know, the point of view of an adult. And I think this is something we really need to hear more about. I agree. Okay. Well, I mean, I you've you've been working in the alcoholic beverage industry for a long time now, you know, of over a decade and a half. What inspired you, you know, aside from your own challenges with ADHD? What really got you going to investigate and champion neurodiversity in the wine sector? A late diagnosis at age thirty six. Wow. So I'm forty now. I was my first year with Yagermeister. I moved to Oklahoma. I my whole family, I live in North Texas, I've torn from. My boyfriend at the time, now husband was in Texas. I had to relocate. My daughter was in Texas. Every my whole family was in Texas. I didn't have any kind of support or anything. And I was was struggling quite frankly, very, very a lot. When I moved to Oklahoma for I was I was a area manager for Oklahoma in Kansas with Diego Meister. That was my first role here. And I I realized I needed some help. So I decided I was going to hire a housekeeper just to come and just just to just to try to take some of the load off of me. And Absolutely. And a, a personal assistant. They say that with air quotes because I really just needed somebody just to help me, like, do the groceries and and things like that. I what happened was I was at, Southern Blazers won in spirits as a, spirits district sales manager before. So that the leap in the career move was really and and a lot of adults have this experience. When they reach a certain place in their career, life becomes unmanageable. Oh, I think we all know about that. Exactly. And it's just, again, it's it's one of those things that's amplified for people with neurodivergent conditions and when I my personal assistant that I hired happened to be a graduate student studying psychology. And, like, her first or second day working for me, she asked me if I had ADHD, which completely stopped me in my tracks. I was gobsmacked. And I I was, like, never thought about that. And I didn't at the time, I I understood it a little bit. I kind of knew a little bit. I have I I had some education about autism. I have some, you know, a couple family members who have autism and stuff. So I I was familiar with neurodivergence in general, but I didn't know. Lucky for your assistant, but you didn't just get mad and fire her. So Oh, yeah. Right? No. I was, like, completely, like, grateful to her. And, you know, she sort of, you know, gave me some information and stuff. And then, from there is where I I started a diagnosis from a professional clinician. So you got diagnosed. You were thirty six. Which must have been a pretty seminal moment in your life and hopefully explained things for you that have been going on before. But is that what got you deciding to, you know, really get on board with taking a look at at ADHD in adults and in our industry? Yes. I think maybe a year or two later, I was taking a an expository writing course from Harvard's extension school online, and our whole semester was about tribalism. Right. And our final paper was we could write about anything that we wanted to. So I had the most amazing databases available to anybody, and I could hardly find any information any studies that researched and talked about ADHD in the workplace. That's so interesting. This wasn't a hundred years ago. This was just a couple of years ago. Yeah. And even the ones that I could find weren't very there were other elements to the research, but that, you know, it it was just it was shocking to me how little research there was about ADHD in the workplace. So my paper that I wrote, which is actually on my LinkedIn, there's a link to it. A Google Talk was about neurodivergence in corporate culture. And that's kind of where that all began. It sparked that, that mission that that fire need to say this is this is something that really needs to be talked about. I I know how bad I struggled. And I didn't want that to be the case, you know, forever. I feel like if not me who, if not now, when? Well, bit of a backstory. The way that I found you Angela, to to come in and lure you on to voices was because of that paper. So it's it's doing its job being on your LinkedIn profile. Oh, thank you. I wonder if anybody would fit. Well, I did. If anybody wants more information, it's a very well researched paper and and very, very interesting. I'm so amazed at how open you've been about your own experience of having ADHD. And I've I've got to ask you, you've you've said in in other things I've seen that you've written that you have the MTHFR, which, you know, I'm sorry to say to my very untrained eyes. Looks like the motherfucker gene mutation. What what is that? And and how has a great start in your career development? How has how has this all sort of taken off for you once you understood what was going on? Without dragging you or your listeners into a whole biochem or organic chem class or lecture quickly as quick as I can. The MTHFRG mutation, MTHFR is in an enzyme. That you have in every every cell of your body. Depending on the genotype you have, there's three different ones. I happen to have the worst one, but it causes an inefficiency in the conversion of folic acid to its active form is methylfolate, which is k. And anybody who's had a child knows that folic acid is seriously important. Precisely. And I, no matter how much I, you know, different foods I consume or if I took a folic acid supplement, I can only my gene mutation reduces my body's ability to, convert that into its usable form, where my body can actually use it, the methylfolate by seventy percent. Okay. So so this is just complicating the ADHD that you have as well. Exactly. Okay. Okay. This is just fascinating to me. As I as I said, you know, within our wine industry, you know, we don't we don't think about ADHD as something that adults have, which is clearly just, you know, a big prejudice in in people's minds. But within the wine industry, are there particular challenges for people with neurodiverse conditions? I mean, Obviously, there are a lot of different jobs within our sector, but what challenges do people face entering wine if they're also coping with these kinds of issues? And does alcohol make the experience of ADHD more difficult? How does that play out? The challenges are It's very similar for a lot of people. It can be even just getting the job can be a challenge. Sure. Interviewing most people. Yes. It it can be incredibly stressful, anxiety, inducing. And, I've nearly not gotten a job three times. And if it hadn't been for the advocate I had that recruited me into that to apply and, interview for those positions, I wouldn't have gotten that. I wouldn't have gotten those jobs. Wouldn't be a Mossagermeister, for example. Well, And do I mean, I'm I'm assuming that you've got some support groups, some people that you know, that you, you know, can talk to about these kinds of issues. Are there a lot of people do you think within the industry who are, you know, facing the same sorts of challenges? You know, does does our industry do anything to support this? I would imagine, you know, our industry tends to be run by a lot of men, who aren't exactly young. And I can't I can't imagine that they're kind of aware of the really particular obstacles faced by people with neurodiverse conditions. You know, they're silent conditions. You don't see them. They're not obvious. How do you recommend people who have these challenges, should approach the wine business, if they wanna get into it, as you said, you almost didn't get a couple of jobs because of it. Do you think people should alert their employers, or is there still a lot of, you know, prejudice against these sorts of things, you know, bias misunderstanding What would you what advice would you give to people who have ADHD and wanna get into wine about how to handle it? I think there there's a lot to unpack there. I think going back to being an adult with ADHD. You're born with it. Whether or not you were diagnosed at six or thirty six, you're born with it. And it's not something that can be cured or, you know, you know, go magically away because I took a, you know, I took a pill what we say in the community is pills don't teach skills, and it's a combination of things to like that. Yeah. It's it's very true. So being in a and it can change from being a child to being an adult, so for example, as a child, you might have more of an outward expression of hyperactivity being physically hyperactive as they, you know, the very, the very stereotypical bouncing off the walls child. I mean, of course, that's not a pure indicator of ADHD, but as an example, And as an adult, that can sort of shift and change to into being more internal, that your brain, a lot of clinicians describe it as your brain being run by a motor that you you can't stop it. Right? My brain is nonstop constantly going. It doesn't mean that I'm bouncing off the walls. You, you know, you, you grow, you mature, and and it does affect your maturity rate, even at ADHD just because your prefrontal cortex, it takes a lot longer to develop. And that's that prefrontal cortex is what you talk about with teenagers where they just, like, you know, their brains aren't developed and they're I'm not saying that we're, you know, immature altogether. It just it just takes a lot more time for the brain to develop. For the brain to mature. That's so interesting. I think that that actual, you know, the physical development of the brain is something that we don't really talk about in terms of ADHD in general. Right. Do you disclose? I mean, would you advise people to disclose that they have ADHD or or is it you know, really is something that's still, you know, got a lot of bias against it. It's very personal decision. It it's in for everybody. It depends on many different factors, how safe you feel we talk a lot about. I've, you know, it's kind of a little bit more of a conversation corporately about psychological safety in the workplace and being able to feel that psychological safety and, and knowing that you won't be judged or looked over or reprimanded, or there's there's there's a lot of anxiety that can come up. Are you enjoying this podcast? Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel, Mama jumbo shrimp. For fascinating videos covering Stevie Kim and her travels across Italy and beyond, meeting winemakers, eating local foods, and taking in the scenery. Now back to the show. I think all of us could do with more psychological safety in the workplace. I think that's an excellent, an excellent topic to explore not only in terms of ADHD, but just in general. But, yeah, I can understand what you're saying about it being a very personal decision as as a lot of these sorts of disclosures are. I mean, I'm still quite offended that people ask your age on, you know, job applications and things like that. As if it's some indication of performance ability or something. All of that. All of that. Yeah. So in in your experience, you know, talking to employers and colleagues about it, what what has been the reaction? It's been mixed. I'll be honest with you. I've had people be dismissive or person we'll say the person no longer works here, but I have had somebody that is incredibly dismissive. And was like, everybody deals with that. Oh, right. Okay. Open open mind there. Yeah. So but, yes, that's that's one. I've had other people sort of just be, like, Okay. You know, I've had some people actually come and ask me more questions. And this is, I think this is kind of part of, when we come to work, we're not you know, you kind of say like, okay, leave it leave it at the door. I mean, I think that's kind of more of an old school way of thinking, but I can't leave my ADHD at the door when I, you know, walk in my office and and turn on my laptop. My ADHD comes with me everywhere. Of course. And I've had a lot of people approach me that their children were just diagnosed. They think they may have ADHD or they were just diagnosed. I've had I've had colleagues. I've had other acquaintances that approach me and ask me for advice and resources. And I'm always more than happy to you know, help foster their, you know, understanding and direct them to some resources that could help them. And I think it's important to keep that in mind. I you know, like you said, our our our industry is kind of run by a lot of men and Old white men. Old white men. Yeah. Let's just say it. Old white men. And I can guarantee you there's a good amount of men that probably have a child that has ADHD. That's an interesting point. Yeah. I mean, we're still people. Well, it how can companies and employers be more welcoming and inclusive, to people with neurodiverse conditions? As you said, you know, obviously, you're still people. Of course, we all are, and everyone has their challenges to face whether they're visible or invisible. But, you know, in particularly with something like ADHD, what does business culture need to do to encourage a more open, a more welcoming, a more psychologically safe environment to prevent this kind of ignorance and and discrimination. One thing I think I've seen much more in recent years is safe places for the LGBTQ community or a queer community. It's just if you'll if you will. And I think that's incredible. And I it's because organizations have prioritized that. And I think if they prioritize the same investments in educating their employees and educating themselves. That's the biggest piece. That's that's how you can affect changes from the top down. Right? You know, here at Yagermeister, we've done, many different trainings, multicultural type things. It's and it's not like a kitschy or we're just doing this to tick a tick a box. You have to be invested in it and have to walk the talk. And that's what we do here, and I that's what any organization needs to do if they want their employees and potential employees' prospects to feel safe. I think that's so true. And I've I've had a lot of deI training and education myself because of my work in education and particularly in higher education. But that training doesn't seem to have filtered down into a lot of other places. I think you're absolutely right if we could get businesses, employers, companies, to to do some of that training. I think we would find ourselves all in a in a much better place. I agree. But let let's talk about something a little more positive because I know that you've said that people with ADHD tend to be out of the box thinkers. I love that. How can we help people promote? Like, their unique selling point when they're in their interviews and and help employees see the benefit of hiring and nurturing people who who think out of the box whose, you know, brain is just not exactly the same as everybody else's average brain. How do we get the benefits of having ADHD out there? Row out the questionnaires that ask the questions rate yourself on, time always prompt and on time. Those drive me bonkers. They drive me bonkers. I have I have to say. Very outdated. It is. But, yeah, I I see from your point of view, even worse. I see I see the value in them from a development standpoint. There are some really great evaluations, it will that show where your strengths are, and they're not it's it's not a passfail situation. It's just more of a where you might need support, where you thrive. I think in interviews, maybe throwing out the word interview and just call it a meeting. And I know that's some semantics, but for a lot of neurodic version people, words carry a lot of weight and even words that a lot of people can use interchangeably mean a lot. They mean two totally different things to a neurodivergent person. Of course, that's not cross board, but it's very common thread. That's so interesting. I language is is something that has been one of my main topics for the past year or two. And how how we use it and how it can be a a door slammer or a door opener. And I hadn't ever thought of that, but I think you're right. The word interview, has a lot of anxiety tied up in it, you know, for everybody. And particularly, it sounds like it would really be a negative, you know, inhibitor to to people with ADHD. So taking a look at our language is probably, you know, something that we need to do in many, many more ways than than even I have thought of And and maybe just rethink the way that you interview, rethink the way that you evaluate prospects. Is it really that important that I should be the most bubbly charismatic person if I'm applying for, you know, a graphic designer role? Probably not. Probably not. You know, I mean, I guess, of course, you want them to be personal, fit in with the corporate culture, you know, all of that. But, you know, maybe it's a, you know, a a chat, you know, just a chat, have a chat with them. Instead of having pointed questions perhaps or, you know, maybe we've pointed questions into a a normal conversation with the your prospects or with the interviewee or, you know, let them sort of take the lead. Present their portfolio or be just think more creatively about how you evaluate talent. That's that's a really I think that's really powerful. Being more creative about how you evaluate talent in general, I think right now is something we should all be focusing on, particularly in light of the end of the the pandemic and and other things. I'm gonna get that printed, be creative about how you evaluate talent. I think a lot of people need to hear that message. So you know, in in light of that, how are you managing your own challenges in your professional life in general? You know, what goals are you focusing on for the future? I know you're working, you know, with DEAI, with women of the vine and spirits. I I love them. I I work with them as well. What are you doing there and and sort of what opportunities have you got coming up to promote neurodiversity in the in the beverage industry? Just go back real quick to your, I think, your first first question is how, you know, how I manage my challenges. I'll I'll build a really quick story. And, a couple of years ago, I was on a performance improvement plan. It was had a lot to do with my ADHD, and I was struggling to I was just taking medication and I was doing tons of research. I'm a very research. I love research. I love to, like, once I sink my teeth into something, I just, like, I need to know everything and all the things about it. And I was working on all these different strategies and tactics and things, but I was still struggling. And it wasn't lack of performance. I was late. I'll just be real honest. I was late to calls a lot. This was actually during the pandemic a little bit kind of, I think it overlapped a bit, but I worked incredibly hard to and I know a lot of There's a lot of stigma, I think, around even performance improvement plans. Like, it's like the polite, you know, exit out of an out of an organization. Our organization is very, very stern about that that's not what this is about, and and that was something that I felt through the process. But during that, I decided to hire an ADHD coach. That really was a game changer for me. I did not even know there was such a thing. What does an ADHD coach mean? Yeah. Kind they're not really therapist. I mean, most many ADHD coaches, mine is she she is a therapist and, an ADHD coast. So she did have, you know, she had both of those, but there's ADHD. There's coaching certifications that you can just get without having to be a clinician. Or, you know, an actual psychiatrist or psychologist. That's so great. Or therapist. I think those are all very different explanations. So I hired I hired her and I, you know, I've been working with her now for three years. And that was really what the game changer was, just having somebody that understood my condition and understood how to help me in ways that I couldn't do on my own. And I and that it's I'm very, very fortunate that I was able to have access to that. And I know that everybody can't do that. There's many, many resources out there on add a dot org on that website a d d a dot org on Chad as c h a d d dot org. There are just many, many resources out there that can help you find somebody or at a, you know, more reasonable cost. There's there's there's many, many, many, many resources. So I was very fortunate that I was able to work with somebody. I just use a combination of many things. And it's not just my professional life. It it's my personal and professional because it's it's all the same. It's, you know, the challenges are are there in in both worlds. My goals, right now, what I'm focusing on is since I had to take a little bit of a break last year, a very busy year last year. To take a little bit of a break from my extracurriculars, as I I like to call them, which which is a lot of my, like, sort of volunteering and and, being really active in the in the community. But this year, I would love to one of my kind of I call it, like, a, like, kind of dreams, pipe dreams, if you will, I talk about my husband, is that I'd love to, even if it's I mean, this is something that even even organizations can do just have somebody come and speak. And ask questions. Like, just a person, I would love to be able to do that just to open that door of education and curiosity and and on beginning to understand. That's yeah. Absolutely. And I I think it's really encouraging to hear that, you know, having someone like an ADHD coach, which I didn't know about, and that's amazing, to validate, you know, the challenges that you're facing. It sounds like you're really being empowered to be open and to be, you know, become a mentor, a supporter, a even just a speaker about this, and educate people about this. We just, you know, pretty hugely needed at the moment. Yeah. Absolutely. I think right now working with women of the vines' spirits, as you said, they're wonderful. Deborah is amazing. Old is this amazing. Like, those ladies are are doing some fantastic things. And and I'll I'll tell you another quick story for ADHD. I'll tell you another quick story. It's related when, that we were celebrating the international women's day. And this was a couple years ago as well. And anyway, yeah, it was still during, I think, kind of, pandemic times. So it wasn't live, and everything was you know, online. And at the very end of the day, we were in sort of the virtual, the virtual lobby, and they asked us to share what our favorite parts of the of the day were, you know, told what my favorite parts were and in the chat. And then I also said that there was one kind of glaring mist that I noticed. And I said, there wasn't any mention of neurodiversity. I mean, we talk about religion. We talk about, you know, race ethnicity on different culture. We talked about there's we talked about all of these things when it comes to DEAI, but rarely if ever here, near diversity in that group, and immediately following that was, I was asked to give a lunch, a talk for women of the vines and spirits. So that's sort of where my relationship with them began, and they asked me to be a part of the DEAI committee as a result of that. And I couldn't have been more flattered, excited, floored, like, you know, and was very excited to be able to they listened. They saw that and immediately reacted. And and Deborah, you know, I was at a a luncheon here in New York a couple months back. And it was, you know, talking about DI. There was some conversation about that. And Deborah didn't even know I was there. She didn't see me at that at that moment. She didn't see me sitting in the audience. We were just getting me rolling lunch tables and everything. And she had mentioned about neurodiversity. And it's it just goes to show that that that how much she believes that that's it it's an important topic that needs to be discussed, that needs to be uncovered, it needs to be supported. And championed. So I I can't think all of the women on and the men in women of the vines and on the committee who support that piece of DeI. I think that's amazing. I I this it's a great place to stop our our conversation because you're clearly well on the way to bringing the concept of neurodiversity out into the open and finding some positive light on it and helping people become aware of a what it means and b, you know, the challenges that people who are struggling with it have to face, but, very happy that I could get you on voices and bring neurodiversity in to my own deI conversation. It was really important to talk to you today. I'm so grateful. Thank you so much for giving me all this time. Thank you. Thank you so much. Maybe we can resume, I have another chat about it. There's so much more I'd love to say. I'd love to share. There's so many myths I'd love to bust and and share of the really, really cool, interesting ways that neurodivergent people can contribute. Well, I'm looking forward to it already. Think we should definitely plan around two. I would love that. Thank you. Thank you for listening. And remember to tune in next Wednesday when I'll be chatting with another fascinating guest. Italian wine podcast is among the leading wine podcast in the world and the only one with a daily show tune in every day and discover all our different shows. You can find us at Italian wine podcast dot com, SoundCloud, Spotify, Himalaya, or wherever you get your pods.