Julia Armet is a mighty force
“I’m here to liberate the potential within our power structures, so that we can harness that human capacity towards something greater than ourselves.”
- Julia Armet
Julia Armet, founder and CEO of Higher Playbook
I met Julia Armet when I put out a call for neurodivergent women’s stories. My friend Eden, whom I met when our kids were in daycare together, said, “You’ve gotta meet this woman, Julia — she just ran an amazing neurodiversity training for my company.”
From there, it took approximately 12 years (or two months, but it felt like a long time) for Julia and I to sync up our schedules, but when we did, hoo boy, the wait was worth it. Turns out, more than getting companies talking about neurodiversity, Julia’s mission (through her company, Higher Playbook) is about liberating people to be truly seen at work, in service of deeper team connection, in service of more meaningful social impact. A skilled workplace facilitator and deep systems thinker, she has a compelling perspective on the kind of transformation that’s needed inside companies right now if they are going to meet the moment.
What follows is an edited transcript of our conversation, in which we talk about disrupting power structures, carving your own path in school and life, discovering your neurodivergence, and much more. Learn more about Julia’s offerings on the Higher Playbook website, and/or set up time to connect with her.
Screen shot of the Higher Playbook website
As you’ll see, we got right into it:
Amanda: I was just talking to a friend who has ADHD, and she’s one of the people who really inspired me to get so interested in this. She was 45 years old when she realized she had ADHD. Same thing with one of my best friends from childhood; she found out in her 40s that she had ADHD. And in both cases, it was because of their kids' diagnoses. And they’ve both had such a grieving process. They’ve spent their whole lives thinking, frankly, “What the fuck is wrong with me?” So now, they’re learning to love themselves through this new lens; they’re realizing, “Nothing is the fuck wrong with me — the world is just not optimized for me.”
Julia: I think it's a beautiful way of framing it: learning through a new lens...it’s like finally you're seeing yourself through a frame that makes sense, versus viewing yourself through a frame that is potentially continuing to reflect back, “Something's broken, something's wrong, something's not working, work harder.”
Sometimes external blocks actually get ingrained in the way people behave, because societal limitations then are experienced through that person's everyday life as their own limits.
“Sometimes external blocks actually get ingrained in the way people behave, because societal limitations then are experienced through that person's everyday life as their own limits.” - Julia Armet
Amanda: I really like how you put that — that we internalize societal limits as personal limits. I think that's so true for women in general, right? Living in a patriarchy, particularly women of color — it's so hard and stressful and anxiety-producing for women to raise their voices and speak up. Well, that's not because you're a weakling, it's because you've been receiving messages your entire life telling you to shut up, telling you to stay small and quiet and nice and skinny and sweet. And then you beat yourself up, like, “Why am I not putting myself out there more?” Well, gee, I wonder…
Julia: Exactly, when you have the wisdom to realize it's not a personal limit, but a societal limitation, you can then zoom out and see what's happening collectively. In a society that's designed for the neurotypical, people who are not fitting into that box are going to feel like their heads are hitting a wall, and that head hitting the wall hurts. So to see the societal limitations really is a big part of being able to become your own advocate and not feel so powerless within existing power structures.
Amanda: Well, and also, it's not even like the world is necessarily that well designed for neurotypical people! I mean, it's not like this council of really intentional and skilled designers sat down and were like, “Based on our deep understanding of human beings, let's design the optimal education system.” No, that system’s design was very much driven by the needs of the industrial age.
I've heard Melinda French Gates say something that I really appreciate, which is that so much of what's wrong with the world is that way because we designed it that way. The optimistic message there is: that means we could design it a different way.
Julia: I'm really glad you highlighted that, because it isn't about divergent versus typical. It actually is more about, “Where’s the framework coming from?” If we’re coming from an outcome orientation and wanting to get efficiency, we're going to design the education system in a way that is many ways logical, but not necessarily intuitive to the experience of learners. If we come from a user-centric model, and we put the student at the center of the classroom, then we bring more awareness to what to provide, what accommodations, what ways to enhance the space.
But then if we zoom out more, and we actually think about what's going to be a broader, holistic approach for education, we might not even have a classroom — we might break that script.
We're talking about in the education system, but the same kind of thinking can also apply within the workplace, which is what I'm really passionate about — given that, just like in school, our success is determined by how well we integrate into the system.
Amanda: Say more about that. How did you first get interested in reconsidering the paradigm of work, if that feels like a fair way to describe it?
Julia: I love that. I always question the system....When I was growing up and I was in the Massachusetts public school system, which is an incredible school system, I conformed to the track. And as I kept going and progressing, it became harder and harder on me, and I became very self-destructive internally, while outwardly I was succeeding; I actually graduated valedictorian.
That dichotomy of outward success/inner struggle caused me, when I went to NYU, to move into an individualized track; through the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, I experienced what was possible when you as the student design your own educational journey.
So just seeing that contrast there, opened my eyes to my own autonomy in shaping my path. And so stepping into my professional career and not necessarily listening to voices that said, “Okay, you start here, you climb the corporate ladder” — instead, I followed my own line of thinking.
Amanda: And where did that lead you?
Julia: I did about five internships in the corporate world: VH1, Seventeen...literally being in the cubicles and saying to myself, “I don't belong here.” I recognized I did not belong. And so after that, my first job was actually working in community with NYU Athletics. And I loved that, being in community, having ongoing opportunities to meet people...
So when I was like, “Okay, well, what's a great way of meeting people? And what's a way of making a lot of money? What's a way of having exposure to people and the wider world?” Those were the questions back then. And I put myself in the hospitality industry in midtown Manhattan, working as a server at the Royalton Hotel on 44th Street, where I literally mastered the steps of service and operations.
And from that experience, I was so conscious of the way in which social relations happen on a micro level, but also I saw this reality that after a long day of work, everybody would be so exhausted, letting loose, having drinks — and it struck me, what that actually says about people's satisfaction with work. I think that fed into me knowing so early that fulfillment is truly what mattered to me in shaping my own career...
And then once I got into hospitality, I saw that it was also a way to learn more about social interactions.
Amanda: Tell me more about that.
Julia: I had this manager who was like, “This girl, she's so smart, but why is she here?” I would spill water on people, or somebody would say something really nasty to me and I would say something back that was just direct.
It’s really funny to view your life in retrospect and kind of laugh at all these little moments that were just showcasing what happens when you put somebody like me in these worlds...I was naive, but I also had such a different, unique way of navigating the space, which struck people.
I was constantly learning through the reflections and the mirrors and the feeling of, “Why am I messing up? Why am I not understanding? What am I missing?”
And then I think, as a safety valve, I developed a little bit more self-consciousness, and began to internalize and realize, “Okay, I’ve got to play a part.” And that playing a part became a way of operating, not just within that world — playing a part was a feeling that I had for probably a decade of my career, thinking, “Okay, I can't go too much into my authenticity because if I become too authentic, I'm going to be ostracized.”
And so when we look at all of that from the vantage point of neurodiversity, yes, those are things that people experience in the everyday censorship and masking of being a neurodivergent person. I didn't have the language, though, to know that's what was happening. I just had this strong safety valve of censoring myself.
“Okay, I can't go too much into my authenticity because if I become too authentic, I'm going to be ostracized.” - Julia Armet
Amanda: I want to talk about that more, but for now, let’s stay with your career trajectory. What came next?
Julia: When I was 24 years old, I found an opportunity in the gig economy at an emerging technology company called Tawkify. And from their early beginnings, I got a chance to actually build an ecosystem from the ground up. Ecosystem awareness is something that I naturally have — I'm a systems thinker as an autistic woman. To express that systems thinking, and to actually create a technology company that was rooted in the social interactions across different layers of the ecosystem, gave me both an understanding and, I think, interest in: What are the ways in which we can actually all benefit within shared worlds? And what are the ways in which we can all connect in these shared spaces?
And so some of those questions definitely influence this recognition of the limits and limitations that emerge for people when they are operating within power structures. And with that, I also believe what's emerged for me is this advocacy to consciously disrupt the power structures, to liberate people’s potential. My interest in shaping systems is so foundational to who I am, and it's very much, I think, my life's work — being somebody who is consciously creating the structures of our world and being that architect definitely brings me joy.
Amanda: I love that so much.
Julia: Working at Tawkify, that was my “higher purpose” training ground that gave me so many of the skills — including facilitation and all the culture and business development skills — that go into the workplace experience and the workplace renovations that I do today.
Amanda: Ok, so now, going back: Where in your life journey were you when you realized you were autistic? And then how did that shift, or did it shift, the choices you were making in your career?
Julia: So I remember in my late 20s, I began to see certain themes. And one of the themes was that I was attracting a lot of people, friends, with ADHD. And when I look at it now, it makes perfect sense, because ASD (autism spectrum disorder) and ADHD are very compatible.
And as the years went on, you could kind of just see it from more of an evolutionary perspective, where I started to actually integrate this possibility: “Yeah, Julia, you're probably autistic.” And I would read the DSM, and one day, after I had experienced a major loss — COVID hit, I got laid off from my company — I confronted the core wound of, “What's wrong with me? Why don't I belong?”
“I started to actually integrate this possibility:
’Yeah, Julia, you're probably autistic.’” - Julia Armet
And I was just sitting in my apartment during COVID, trying to make sense of things and heal, and serendipitously, a neurodiversity coach had seen me doing all these videos to bring virtual communities together. And she said, “Julia, let's talk about your brain.” (laughs)
And so she starts talking to me, first about ADHD, then she starts mentioning ASD, and she says, “I want you to take these ADDitude assessments,” which is a magazine. And I did these online assessments and scored extremely high for ASD. And then because of that, I said, “I really want to explore this.”
So I started to explore it, not through a medical lens, but more through the lens of, “Well, what would this mean about my identity?” And I started to just learn more about the gifted brain, understanding that I am twice exceptional [Note from Amanda: “Twice exceptional” is a term used to describe people who are both “gifted” and have learning differences; learn more here]. And as I started to gain all of this understanding of self, I said, “You know what? I might as well go receive the medical validation.”
So I went and I did about 15 hours working with a diagnostician on a lot of really cool activities to see how your brain works. I found it very fun, and I found it very validating, and I found it very interesting. And at the end of it, I got the validation of a lifetime.
And it was so liberating because when I was able to come out and say, “I'm autistic,” what I already stood for professionally was to make your work and impact inseparable. I was modeling that myself. And so I really do feel that identity work is the cornerstone of what I do professionally.
I’m bringing identity work into the workplace, where there's this elevated social consciousness and this recognition that in order for us to sustain some of these major shifts that are underway, it's up to us to consider how we can all work together. And that requires each individual to have such a deep understanding of who they are. And that understanding of self translates to understanding of one another and the ability to advocate and converse in ways that can strengthen the whole.
The incredible cosmic irony is when I went to NYU, I majored in identity. My whole undergraduate experience was studying identity through the lens of media, through the lens of history, psychology. And so it's like all of these little clues that kind of come together where you can say, “Yes, of course, I invested my whole life to arrive at that moment of self-understanding.”
Amanda: Did you design your own major?
Julia: I did. The Gallatin School of Individualized Study is honestly the perfect environment for individuals who are twice exceptional and looking for a stimulating learning experience that gives them the freedom and flexibility to choose. I think choice is such a big part of what allows for people to thrive, not just within the education system, but choice is also very, very powerful when we're looking at the workforce and how people shape their careers.
“I think choice is such a big part of what allows for people to thrive, not just within the education system, but also when we're looking at the workforce and how people shape their careers.” - Julia Armet
So yeah, I feel like the Gallatin School is such a powerful story and institution to inspire the way that we can all define what our paths look like. And what's so valuable is seeing the stories of people who went through the Gallatin School, you can see the contributions to society. Just like I talked about the tech company I worked at being my “higher purpose” training ground, Gallatin School is a higher purpose training ground for contributors — people who genuinely care to make a contribution to our society.
Amanda: This resonates so deeply. I yearned to design my own major in college. I didn't know it was a thing a person could even do until it was too late, and it was not common at my school, but that's how I've always been oriented. Also, what you said about how it prepares people to then create their own path beyond school — if college is about sort of a training ground to prepare you for life on your own as an adult, what better gift than to teach people how to make intentional choices about how they want to be spending their time?
Julia: And it's incredible how if you think about the choice of where you go to school — a lot of people don't have that choice, but if you have that choice to pick where you do go to school, I feel like that plays such a pivotal part in the evolution of your career. The Gallatin School gave me an interdisciplinary perspective, which gives me so much benefit as an entrepreneur now.
The climate right now within organizations is honestly kind of like blank slating — leaders are leveling organizational structures and asking themselves, “Well, how do we set people up for success in this new normal?” And I think that approaching career development the same way that Galladin approaches individualized study is a tremendous opportunity if we're thinking about, “How do we liberate the potential of people, set people up for long-term success within their careers, and empower people to really bring their best ideas to work?” There are definitely a lot of lessons we can learn from education, that kind of pull into the professional world.
“How do we liberate the potential of people, set people up for long-term success within their careers, and empower people to really bring their best ideas to work?” - Julia Armet
Amanda: I agree completely. You mentioned this earlier the idea that a neurodivergent person experiences a lot of feelings that they don't belong. I posted something on LinkedIn recently about how, when we talk about inclusion, there are other levels of identity that really we need to make a point of including beyond gender and racial identity, or sexuality.
And so I wonder, how did your Unmasking Neurodiversity at Work training come about? Tell us about that a little bit. And also, what are you seeing in terms of what's working when it comes to including neurodiverse people in our workplaces, and what are some of the blocks you’re seeing?
Higher Playbook: Unmasking Neurodiversity, created by Julia Armet, ACC, ELI-MP
Julia: The thing that struck me when I was just looking at mainstream approaches to DEI is the fact that so much is geared toward “how do we support, how do we accommodate, how do we meet the needs,” and very much replicating a deficit paradigm of sorts. I said to myself, “Okay, on a broader level, what really needs to happen is for us to disrupt this construct of ‘people need helping,’ and instead level the playing field and create these open spaces where people can actually see each other, recognize each other's gifts, and understand where each other is coming from.” And so I see “Unmasking Neurodiversity” as one expression of just the conscious disruption of power structures.
(Contact Julia to learn how to bring her Unmasking Neurodiversity workshop to your organization.)
If one of the things that is preventing people from understanding each other and coming together arethese invisible differences that people cannot see, or they're having difficult time understanding because there's not enough time or space to talk about it — I thought, “What would be possible if I were to open the conversation, to invite all identities into a space to talk about their brains, to talk about who they are”? And through that experience, empower disclosure.
Ultimately, I believe that right now the true opportunity within this world of DEI is empowering disclosure, whether that is in the way we shape policies, whether it is in our processes like hiring, whether it is in the everyday practices and the ways in which we facilitate people and culture. So that ultimately, empowering disclosure is what I believe is so foundational to what I do — not just a disclosure of neurodivergence, but truly that ownership and that ability for everyone to self ID and say, “I am ________.”
And when you can confidently identify and be in spaces where it's normalized, then we can see where each other is coming from more clearly. So that's truly my reason for facilitating “Unmasking Neurodiversity,” and facilitating all the culture work that I do: It's to bring people and culture closer together.
Amanda: It sounds like you're talking about creating a sense of psychological safety where no one needs to mask. People can unselfconsciously be authentic. Am I getting that right?
Julia: Yeah, I feel like psychological safety is a condition, in the sense of, “Here I am being super intentional in creating psychological safety for a greater outcome,” and for me, that outcome is professionals truly being able to make a contribution to the world. I’m here to liberate the potential within our power structures, so that we can harness that human capacity towards something greater than ourselves.
“I’m here to liberate the potential within our power structures, so that we can harness that human capacity towards something greater than ourselves.”
- Julia Armet
It's up to us to really disrupt the power structures to liberate the potential of people. And so I liberate identities through being a psychologically attuned facilitator who prioritizes psychological safety in my space. I'm not here to say, “Let me teach you how to create psychological safety”; I am here to be psychological safety. I am here to uphold psychological safety, because that's a condition for the true liberation of people within the workplace.
Amanda: I'm buying everything you're selling. But I'm curious, when it comes to actually selling it, what do you think motivates companies to bring you in? I don't know a lot of leaders who would say, “I wanna liberate my people from the power structure.”
Julia: So if I were to translate everything I just said into marketing language, it would be about investing in social innovation, and investing in progressive people and culture programs designed to harness the potential of people within the non-localized workplace.
Companies hire me because they’ve made these big commitments, to truly these big missions of impact, potentially to the Sustainable Development Goals. And so the work that I do supports overcoming the embodiment gap between these aspirational missions and the reality of daily operations. And so the work that I do supports the overcoming of that embodiment gap. And it's very much about being at the forefront, advancing accessibility, and driving forward impact. Now, more than ever, it's up to business to truly play their part in not just sustaining our planet, but also shifting the tide, so that we're creating new solutions — solutions that have yet to exist.
"It's up to us to really disrupt the power structures to liberate the potential of people." - Julia Armet
So my business, Higher Playbook, is geared toward facilitatingthe broader paradigm shift toward building a more human-centric workplace, where the workplace experience is designed to activate a sense of purpose and be an incubator for impact. And I facilitate creating measurable demonstrations of that impact.
Amanda: You've talked a lot about disrupting existing systems, and I love it. And I want to hear more about your vision of how change happens. What’s your vision for how an intervention or workshop at a company can translate into broader change — so that people don't, for example, have a profound transformative experience with you during a 90 minute workshop, but then they go back to their cubicles, and you're not there anymore... What have you seen, or what are you hoping for, in terms of how that ripple effect happens?
Julia: So we're modeling interconnectivity. And when we are literally deconstructing an aspiration like an interconnected workplace, one in which what happens inside an organization translates to the world, the way to prototype that is through specific impact projects or purpose projects that serve different intentions.
First, I'm gonna talk about a purpose project, then I'm gonna talk about an impact project. A purpose project is a prototype of an experience where each individual is able to truly express their purpose and their connection to the team; the outcome of that is we have this optimized, internal potential. And then the next project is bringing that potential into something bigger than themselves, which could be an external commitment that's made towards advancing, let's say, a goal like education.
If education is the goal, and there's a community service project — in the past, it could have been conceptualized as employee volunteerism. Now, what it really is, is a company tying what they stand for to the projects their teams are invested in internally, and through these projects being able to generate measurable impact and then demonstrating that impact - whether that's through a milestone moment of public relations, releasing an impact report to make key impact metrics accessible to the market, or simple being more accountable internally to advancing their impact goals.
What we're essentially doing is creating demonstrations of impact by harnessing individual potential, building relationships, and then applying that raw potential into that prototype so that we can create truly measurable data that speaks to the missions that these companies are standing for.
Amanda: I love that. So basically, you have a hypothesis that there's this link between inner work and outer work, and you've designed a way of engaging with companies that helps connect the inner work to the outer work?
Julia: Yeah — it's a journey that’s individual, relational, and cultural. So when individuals are able to truly feel safe at work, and feel connected to who they are, then teams are able to see each other in ways that they hadn't before, and understand each other's contributions and working styles — to establish a level of synergy that they didn't have. And then through that teamwork, they can move their energies towards something that matters to them.
So if they're applying their energies towards a specific impact project, that outcome of people at work being able to experience that milestone together, it creates a memory within their career. And it creates a link to the company, a link to the purpose. It's like the embedding is happening through this model, so that when we are considering, “How can our workplaces meet the higher order needs of people?” — it's truly through creating that interconnectivity between who people are, what they do, and how they're contributing to the world.
Amanda: I love that so much. I mean, God bless you, and I hope a million companies hire you. I really believe in what you're doing, and it reminds me of work I do with organizations to help people on a team craft the story of the work that they do. And I also work with individuals to equip them with the skills for sharing their own stories in an ongoing way.
The old way was, a company would release a white paper, let's say, and someone would write the social media copy for promoting the white paper. And everyone in the company would cut and paste the same message on LinkedIn — you know, “Thrilled that my company has released this important white paper.” And you know they're not thrilled; I mean, they don't seem thrilled. There's no sense of thrill. And if you happen to be connected with three people at the company, you see them all saying the same thing.
By contrast, it's so much more powerful if an individual has gotten some support and some training to feel like they know how to express themselves effectively, for example, on LinkedIn, and they can speak from the heart about, for example, all the research that went into this white paper. “The thing that stands out for me most is this conversation I had with one person....” Or, “Of all the findings, this is the one that I hope most of you pay attention to, because I think if we applied it, this could happen in the world.”
Connecting, exactly as you're talking about, their identity and their inner life with the work of the organization and with external impact.
Julia: I want to highlight what you're saying and just echo it, that lip service isn't going to cut it within companies these days. And to actually foster those authentic connections to what we do and empower that level of self-expression about why you're proud to work for your company or why you're proud to be involved in the cause, that isn't going to actually happen through workplace training; that's going to happen through workplace experiences.
We're not going to teach them, “Here's what it means to be connected.” We're going to actually create a moment of connection. We're going to create a moment where they actually move through that full emotional journey of, “I am here on this stage speaking from the heart, my purpose, presenting my purpose project,” taking all of the things that they've learned through the identity exploration of the workshops beforehand... We're not here to give them a curriculum, we’re here to shape experiences that allow for people to really liberate their self-expression and potential.
Because you know what happens when people story tell? When people actually sit in that power of claiming what they believe, and they build that courage and confidence to show up? We're actually shaping a generation of leaders who are responsible for the decisions of tomorrow. So it's incredibly inspiring and hopeful to see companies investing in your experiences, investing in my experiences, which are aligned with and essential to the current climate of our world.
Amanda: That seems like a really beautiful place to end our conversation.
Thank you for reading Mighty Forces Express. This post is public so feel free to share it.
Learn more about how Julia helps teams do the inner work to strengthen outward impact , and/or set up time to connect with her.
And if you’re inspired to learn more about neurodivergence in women, Julia recommends the book Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World that Wasn’t Designed for You by Jenara Nerenberg; I just started listening to the audio book, and look forward to hearing what you think!