This is an excerpt from my upcoming Free Course: How ASD Can Get You Paid.
The Full Free Course will be an easily accessible on the Resources & Guides page.
There will be No Email Subscription, No Downloads, No Signup, No Paywalls, No Personal Data Capture, No Ads, No Affiliate Links, No Sponsors and No stupid sales funnels leading to a dumbass mastermind group or consulting upsell.
I just want to spread the information I wish I had when I was younger for free and in an easily accessible way.
Gaining Perspective
It doesn’t matter if you have no skills, education, or work experience. What matters is that in the pursuit of these things, we follow the correct path by leaning into our neurotype’s natural strengths, optimising for maximum return on investment, fulfilment and happiness.
As I learned the hard way, you do not build a career worth a damn by pretending to be someone else and specialising in things you’re not naturally inclined towards.
You build it by knowing exactly what you are good at, owning it without apology, and then finding the spaces where those skills are not just tolerated but in demand. If you are autistic, this is not optional. It is survival.
The first step is stripping away all the noise about what you “should” be good at and looking dead in the eye at what you actually excel at. You see the flaws and the fine print, the thing that will blow up in their face, the thing everyone else misses.
The 8 Unfair Advantages of Autism
In the pursuit of our interests, escapism, and masking, we develop unfair advantages. The 8 unfair advantages I’ve identified in myself and others on the spectrum are a mix of these following traits.
Forget about fitting in and masking, these are the qualities to double down on.
If you possess any single one of them, you have the foundations for what it takes in a high-power, high-responsibility, high-salary role:
1. Attention to detail: You see the flaws and the fine print. You catch the thing that will blow up in their face. Everyone else misses it. You don’t.
2. Hyperfocus: When it matters to you, you go in so deep you scare people. You stay there until it’s perfect or until it’s done, whichever comes first.
3. Unorthodox problem-solving: You don’t “think outside the box.” You set the box on fire and build something better from the ashes.
4. Strong memory: You remember what they forgot years ago. You can pull the past into the present and use it like a weapon.
5. Authenticity and integrity: You say what is true even when it’s uncomfortable. You do not play along with lies, even when it would be easier.
6. Dedication and efficiency: You work harder and smarter than most people can fake. You finish what you start. You don’t quit when it gets ugly.
7. Empathy for difference: You see the people no one else sees. You know what it’s like to be on the outside and you do not forget them.
8. Deep knowledge of Niche Interest: You know your topic better than the people working in the industry that produce it. Why are they getting paid and not you?
Now what?
Once you know your strengths, do not just sit on them. Map them to the kinds of roles where they are not just tolerated but valued. For example: data analysis, quality control, auditing, research, IT, niche consulting, engineering, policy development are places where detail, focus, and unconventional thinking are currency.
If you have memory like a steel trap, you can excel in logistics, archiving, historical data analysis, or process-heavy roles where forgetting costs money.
If you have an incorruptible backbone made of unshakable integrity and Pathological Demand Avoidance, you are the compliance officer who cannot be bought, the agent of responsibility who makes the hard decisions no one else can, the ethical consultant who says the thing everyone else is scared to, the person who holds the line in the face of backlash from corrupt peers.
This is not about fitting in. It is about finding the intersections where your strengths make you the most effective and the hardest to replace. That is your leverage. That is how you make a career work for you instead of grinding yourself to fit into one that does not.
Action steps
This is simple but hard.
- Write down your actual strengths. Get feedback from people you trust, not from anyone who has spent your whole life trying to smooth your edges.
- Map those strengths to real jobs or business functions. Learn what the market pays for them.
- Keep updating that map as you grow.
Here is the hard truth: The more you work with your wiring instead of against it, the more you stop being “the weird one” and start being the one they cannot afford to lose.
Stay Safe. Stay Hydrated. Stay Sane.
-Patient Zero