HubSpot AEO

Picture this. A buyer opens ChatGPT and asks for a recommendation in your category. Your competitor's name comes up. Yours doesn't. And that buyer never makes it to your website.

That's happening right now in markets everywhere. And most teams don't know it's happening because it never shows up in their analytics.

HubSpot AEO shows you exactly where your brand stands in AI search, where competitors are getting recommended instead of you, and tells you specifically what to fix. No expertise needed.

Try it free for 28 days. Just $50 a month after.

What Is "Active Listening", Anyway?

We're usually taught that active listening means eye contact, nodding, and repeating things back.

For a lot of us, that's a performance, not actual listening. Real active listening is about understanding and retaining what someone's said, not how convincing you look while they're saying it.

Why It's Harder Than It Sounds

Here's the bit people don't get: for some neurodivergents, the sound reaches our ears on time, the meaning turns up a second later. There's even research showing a measurable lag in how some neurodivergent brains process auditory information, so no, you're not "not paying attention."

Your brain is just doing the work on a different timer. Add attention regulation into the mix, and following someone in real time can feel like trying to catch water.

At Work, this gets overwhelming. Now put that in a meeting where you're handed three tasks verbally, with no recap. By the time you've processed sentence one, sentence three has already gone.

It's not that you don't care. It's that the system you're being asked to use wasn't built for your brain.

What Actually Helps

1) Get it in writing

I ask people to confirm tasks over email. Not because I'm being difficult — it lets me process at my own speed, primes my brain before I start, and means fewer mistakes. Research backs this up: written instructions reduce the load on working memory in a way spoken ones don't, especially when there's more than one step. It's not a workaround. It's just a better interface.

2) Processing info in a way that works for my brain

I keep a digital notepad for moments when someone says something, and I’m conscious that asking questions on the spot will make me look stupid or lazy. Writing things down helps me:

• gather my thoughts,

• follow the thread, and

• process what’s been said, sometimes with help from AI.

Also worth saying, sometimes people communicate badly. That's not your fault.

3) Store what you've heard

For me, active listening is a verb — a doing word.

Pay attention, process it your way, then store it somewhere retrievable (like Microsoft OneNote, Google Keep). As an ADHDer, this is the step that changes everything.

We hear something, don't note it down, and then we've "missed a deadline" or "weren't listening", when really, it just went in and straight back out again.

Writing it down and filing it somewhere findable has been the missing piece for me and a lot of others.

Final thoughts

This system helps me

• Actually listen

• Pay attention

• Get better outcomes

• Even get a hit of dopamine when it clicks.

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In other neuro-related news…

• Brain scans just uncovered two completely different biological types of autism — one "hyper-connected" and one "hypo-connected"

• Big Danish study explains the rise in ADHD & autism diagnoses: it's mostly broader criteria, not higher genetic risk

• 2026 Neurodiversity Index shows employers think they're doing great — but employees feel the inclusion gap widening

Lastly,

Stay Different,

The AuDHD Exec

Disclaimer: I am not your psychiatrist, coach, doctor. Neurodiverse Diary does not provide medical services or professional counselling and is not a substitute for professional medical care. Everything I publish represents my opinions, experience, not advice.