Speaker 1: Hi, I'm your host, doctor Lori, and welcome to Universally Unique,
Speaker 1: Exploring the neurodiverse world of the extraordinary. This podcast foster's
Speaker 1: curiosity and understanding about neurodiversity while empowering individuals with tools
Speaker 1: for acceptance and inclusion in classrooms, the workplace, and communities.
Speaker 1: Featuring shared stories of neurodiverse life experiences, it sheds light
Speaker 1: on navigating a world not designed for diversity. Universally Unique
Speaker 1: starts now. Hi, this is doctor Lori. Welcome to Universally Unique.
Speaker 1: My guest today is doctor Ethan Margolis, and he is
Speaker 1: going to take us through his journey as an individual
Speaker 1: who is neurodiverse and probably a little mixed in with
Speaker 1: some of his professional experiences, and I think kind of
Speaker 1: bounce off of that. But before we get started, we're
Speaker 1: going to take three box breaths. I'll count us through those,
Speaker 1: and then we'll hear Ethan's story. So we'll start. We'll
Speaker 1: breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out for four,
Speaker 1: hold for four, and start again. So breathe inn two
Speaker 1: three four, hold two three four. Breathe out two three four,
Speaker 1: hold two three four. Breathe in two three four hold
Speaker 1: two three four, breathe out two three four, Hold two
Speaker 1: three four, breathe in two three four, hold two three four,
Speaker 1: breathe out two three four, hold two three four, and
Speaker 1: a nice side at the end. All right, So, doctor Marcolis,
Speaker 1: is it okay?
Speaker 2: If I call you Ethan, I'd prefer that, Yes, okay.
Speaker 1: So if you would maybe give us a little overview
Speaker 1: of your journey as an individual who is neurodiverse. I
Speaker 1: think pieces of it are probably shorter and longer than others.
Speaker 1: But if you would take us through kind of when
Speaker 1: you got a diagnosis, how that worked out, and where
Speaker 1: that's kind of brought you to.
Speaker 2: Sure. First things first, I began my career in a
Speaker 2: small private elementary school KA eight. It was called Buckingham
Speaker 2: Friends' School, so it was the whole school had Mike
Speaker 2: graduating class from eighth grade, had fifteen students in it.
Speaker 2: It was one of those places where we learned Latin,
Speaker 2: we learned Greek, we learned French. We had a whole day.
Speaker 2: Thursdays were spent cleaning the property. It was when we
Speaker 2: did science classes. We went down to the creek when
Speaker 2: we wanted geography. There was always somebody in the community
Speaker 2: who had lived in a particular place or knew somebody
Speaker 2: in a particular place, and they would come in and
Speaker 2: we would learn through them. So it was a lot
Speaker 2: of hands on exploration. Every single morning started out with
Speaker 2: a journaling exercise, and it was what we had done
Speaker 2: the previous day, what we'd learned from it, and what
Speaker 2: our goals were for today. I was a unique experience
Speaker 2: because I didn't realize that I had any anything that
Speaker 2: was different than anybody else, because the whole place was
Speaker 2: geared around the idea that everybody was a unique thinker
Speaker 2: and learner and a lot of there was no rote
Speaker 2: memory involved in the whole process. It was all a
Speaker 2: lot of questions, and so everything always started out with
Speaker 2: a question and everything usually went from there. So that
Speaker 2: was I spent my first eight years in school there,
Speaker 2: and I knew everybody in the school, and everybody knew
Speaker 2: me because it was a small school. When I reached
Speaker 2: high school age, my parents were starting to save for
Speaker 2: my sister gone off the cop was going off to college.
Speaker 2: I was going to be next in a few years,
Speaker 2: and then my brother. So they decided it was time
Speaker 2: for me to go to public school. So I went
Speaker 2: from a school where there were fifteen kids in my
Speaker 2: graduating class to my to a regional high school where
Speaker 2: there are three hundred kids in my freshman class.
Speaker 1: It's a bit of a shock.
Speaker 2: It was. To say it was a culture shock was
Speaker 2: the understatement of the week. It was. I mean people
Speaker 2: were moving from We didn't move from. We moved when
Speaker 2: I was in elementary school. We moved to different buildings
Speaker 2: where things were going on, but we didn't really change
Speaker 2: classes in the formal sense of changing classes. Suddenly I
Speaker 2: was changing classes. I was using a locker, I was
Speaker 2: doing stuff that I had never done before, and I
Speaker 2: didn't get it. I didn't understand the culture. I didn't
Speaker 2: understand the process. I suddenly went from a place where
Speaker 2: everything started out with every morning started out with journaling,
Speaker 2: every day ended up with journaling, to a place where
Speaker 2: it was all wrote memory. So every single teacher would
Speaker 2: ask you'd have to memorize all these things. I had
Speaker 2: never done that because in the past, but didn't make connections.
Speaker 2: We didn't learn it. So everything was designed to make connections,
Speaker 2: and so I would ask questions like why are we
Speaker 2: learning this, and they would say, you've got a problem.
Speaker 1: It generally cheapers don't like students like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was so very and why why
Speaker 2: did you just fail this test? Don't you? Aren't you studying?
Speaker 2: I didn't know how to study because I had never
Speaker 2: had to study it, just learned. So it was a
Speaker 2: unique experience in the sense that so my freshman year,
Speaker 2: my mother was absolutely beside herself. She didn't know what
Speaker 2: to do. So she took me and I had They
Speaker 2: evaluated me, and they decided I had ADHD, which I
Speaker 2: knew I had a d D, you know, DHD most
Speaker 2: of my life because it was one of those people
Speaker 2: who just never sat anywhere, always was moving and finding
Speaker 2: things and fought in a different way than most people did.
Speaker 2: And I didn't realize that until I got to high
Speaker 2: school and I would see connections that other people didn't see,
Speaker 2: and they would question and why I'd made that connection,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't in the books, so therefore it wasn't right.
Speaker 2: So it took a while for me to realize that.
Speaker 2: I mean, four years of high school were probably the
Speaker 2: most stressful time in my life. I mean, it's stressful
Speaker 2: for any kid to go through puberty and go through
Speaker 2: all that. For me, it was doubly stressful because I
Speaker 2: just didn't figure it all out. I finally started getting it,
Speaker 2: like my senior year, you know, I would get things like, well,
Speaker 2: he did well in the test, but he didn't do it.
Speaker 2: He hasn't turned into any homework well, because I didn't
Speaker 2: see any sense in doing the homework because I already
Speaker 2: understood what was going on, So why should I be
Speaker 2: doing something that I didn't need to do. So I
Speaker 2: would have arguments with the teacher and they would explain
Speaker 2: to me that that's the way it worked here, that
Speaker 2: you do your homework and then and homework is part
Speaker 2: of your grade. And I would ask, why is it
Speaker 2: part of my grade? If I if you're going to
Speaker 2: evaluate me on a test, just let me learn this
Speaker 2: stuff and I'll come back and tell you. So I
Speaker 2: was probably going to spend another year as a senior,
Speaker 2: except I went in and my mother came in and
Speaker 2: she had a conversation with the with the with my
Speaker 2: physics teacher who was going to fail me, and she said,
Speaker 2: what happens if let's he learns differently than other people do?
Speaker 2: What happens if you if I if you give me
Speaker 2: him the book, let him go home? And not turn
Speaker 2: in your homework and take the test. If he takes
Speaker 2: the test and he fails it, then you can fail him.
Speaker 2: If he takes a test and he passes it, then
Speaker 2: you then you'll agree to give him a passing grade.
Speaker 2: And he said, in no way and whatever that he's
Speaker 2: going to pass it. Sure, why not? What I got
Speaker 2: to lose? So I went home, I took the book,
Speaker 2: I read it. I came back. I got the second
Speaker 2: highest grade on the test. This was the final, so
Speaker 2: he had to give me. He said, well, I'm going
Speaker 2: to give you a D. And I said, wait a minute.
Speaker 2: Everybody else who got this grade got and a Oh come,
Speaker 2: I'm getting a D. Well, you never turned into any homework,
Speaker 2: I said, you already, So I said you He said,
Speaker 2: you are You can't possibly get an I said, but
Speaker 2: I passed the test. And that's how you said you
Speaker 2: determined it because it was you know, I was in
Speaker 2: New Jersey, so they weren't region's tests. They were, but
Speaker 2: it was a state test. So I said, I did
Speaker 2: really well on it, and he said, so we we
Speaker 2: negotiated to a BEE. So I got. I graduated high
Speaker 2: school anyway.
Speaker 1: But your mother was so smart though.
Speaker 2: That was not It was was how do I inscribe her.
Speaker 2: She was not a nurturing individual, but she was tiger
Speaker 2: mother for her kids. So she went to bat for
Speaker 2: all of our kids. But don't expect. Always expected you're
Speaker 2: going to get a kind word out of her, but
Speaker 2: you're going to get support where you need it. Both
Speaker 2: of my parents were that way. I mean they were
Speaker 2: they were care They loved their children, but they didn't
Speaker 2: know they It wasn't a huggy relationship. It was you know,
Speaker 2: you can do it. And my father was a farmer,
Speaker 2: so I mean it was just like, you do the
Speaker 2: stuff you need to do. When you get it done,
Speaker 2: you get the job done. So if somebody's showing up
Speaker 2: at ten o'clock, you're there at nine forty two, so
Speaker 2: there's no question. So there were skills that he gave
Speaker 2: me that really helped me because normally what I would
Speaker 2: do is wait till the last minute and score around
Speaker 2: with it and then get it done. That only works
Speaker 2: a little bit of the time. It didn't work, and
Speaker 2: I didn't realize until I went to college. So I
Speaker 2: went off to college and went to the Regity of
Speaker 2: Pittsburgh for my freshman year, and I just abot failed out.
Speaker 2: And why I did was because they said you don't
Speaker 2: have to go to class, so I didn't go to class.
Speaker 2: They said you can read this stuff and you can
Speaker 2: come and take the test. I did that, and it
Speaker 2: didn't work for me because I did need to be
Speaker 2: a class and I didn't realize it. So while I
Speaker 2: was there, I realized the first thing I was going
Speaker 2: in to be an engineer, and there's no way in
Speaker 2: God's green earth I was going to be an engineer.
Speaker 2: But I liked the stuff and I thought, Okay, this
Speaker 2: is interesting. I can do this. And I came away
Speaker 2: realizing that wasn't me. So I transferred to schools. I
Speaker 2: went to Fairley Dickinson, which is in New Jersey, and
Speaker 2: I became a triple major. I had Latin American studies, history,
Speaker 2: and hotel and restaurant management.
Speaker 1: It's quite a combo.
Speaker 2: Well you didn't quite know what to do with it
Speaker 2: because it was so diverse, but I figured I sat
Speaker 2: down they were College was a lot different. I mean,
Speaker 2: I went out of high school thinking I was a
Speaker 2: total idiot. I'll be honest, I did because I didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't get it. I didn't get the grades. I
Speaker 2: didn't know the answers in the class because they were
Speaker 2: wanting me to stand up and say, you know, fourteen
Speaker 2: ninety two thirty thirty. You know, it didn't make any
Speaker 2: sense to be so I didn't bother learning it. I
Speaker 2: go to college and I'm sitting in classes in there.
Speaker 2: It's really interesting. These guys know a lot about this stuff,
Speaker 2: and their show say, well, you know what, if you
Speaker 2: read the footnotes on the bottom, then you could even
Speaker 2: get more information. And I went, oh, and that's so.
Speaker 2: I It's like I would go off on these aroundous
Speaker 2: tangents and I'd go to class and somebody would say,
Speaker 2: you know something about Galileo and I'd say, well, it's
Speaker 2: not quite there. If if you read the footnotes he
Speaker 2: did you have. So I would take books that it
Speaker 2: was like, oh my god, somebody opened up the whole
Speaker 2: world to me that I didn't know existed. So I
Speaker 2: loved college. I absolutely loved it. I loved it because
Speaker 2: I picked my classes. I had one of those screwy majors.
Speaker 2: I go off to the work world and I realized
Speaker 2: as I'm graduating that firstly, I don't want to most
Speaker 2: of the people who were like, you know history Latin
Speaker 2: American were going to law school or become in the
Speaker 2: farm service. That wasn't of interest to me. So and
Speaker 2: I had this program in you know, hotel and restaurant management.
Speaker 2: I'd worked in restaurants through college, so I said, I
Speaker 2: think I want to go do that. So I got
Speaker 2: a job working for AR Food Services, which is a
Speaker 2: large food service corporation and they ran hotels and programs
Speaker 2: throughout the whole world. So I went to work for them,
Speaker 2: and I worked in Venezuela in Macuto, and they sent
Speaker 2: us there because the the hotel had been owned by
Speaker 2: Hilton originally and the company the country had nationalized it
Speaker 2: and suddenly bus boys became managers and they ran it
Speaker 2: right into the ground. So they went so they went
Speaker 2: out and looked for bids. So Aar said, sure, we'll
Speaker 2: come and run the hotel. We want all the money
Speaker 2: up front, and we'll send our team. Well, our team
Speaker 2: was eight young guys and ladies who this was our
Speaker 2: first job. So we went there and we were there
Speaker 2: to suppose to help to train them so that they
Speaker 2: could become run the thing themselves. Well, they weren't really
Speaker 2: interested in training. They were interested in other stuff, so
Speaker 2: we ended up having to run the hotel. So I
Speaker 2: spent a year there living in the hotel, not seeing
Speaker 2: a heck of a lot of Venezuela or Columbia. So
Speaker 2: a little bit on some breaks, but basically I just
Speaker 2: worked there and put the money aside because I was
Speaker 2: not spending any money because I wasn't going anywhere and
Speaker 2: I was living in an hotel for free and eating
Speaker 2: for free. So after a year that the contract was
Speaker 2: ready to end, it had not worked out well. The
Speaker 2: company was ready to just the contract ran out. They
Speaker 2: were having trouble collecting the rest of their money from
Speaker 2: the government, and they said, come on home, we're going
Speaker 2: to well reassign you all. And I came home. I
Speaker 2: had to set down. I had a conversation with my
Speaker 2: father and I said, I effing hate this job. I
Speaker 2: have no life. A lot of the people I'm working
Speaker 2: with our total jerks. It's not something I want to
Speaker 2: do for the rest of my life. He said, well,
Speaker 2: you've got a lot of money because you've been banking it.
Speaker 2: You haven't done anything with it. Take some time off
Speaker 2: and figure out what you want to do. At the time,
Speaker 2: I had a girlfriend who was this who who is
Speaker 2: a special ed teacher teaching At the time, they called
Speaker 2: them rehearted individuals. No, we don't use that term. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we don't use Yeah. Well I went into work with
Speaker 2: her because I had plenty of time I was hanging out,
Speaker 2: and I really loved it. I loved working with the kids.
Speaker 2: I loved explaining to the kids how things work. I said,
Speaker 2: this is something I ever think I want to do,
Speaker 2: So I got a job. I did that for a
Speaker 2: couple about two or three months, and I got a
Speaker 2: job working teaching special education and running a program. They
Speaker 2: called it resource room, but it was not a resource room.
Speaker 2: It was basically a self contained program for high school
Speaker 2: students in Wildwood, New Jersey. Now wild Wood in the
Speaker 2: winter is not We used to call it dead Wood.
Speaker 2: It's not a place you really want to spend time.
Speaker 2: But it was a great learning experience for me because
Speaker 2: number one, I hadn't gotten through any I hadn't taken
Speaker 2: any coursework. Yet they hired me because I was big
Speaker 2: and the kids were emotionally disturbed, and I said, I
Speaker 2: really want to do this and I want to do
Speaker 2: it right. So I was I went back to school
Speaker 2: and went nights and the state of New Jersey at
Speaker 2: the time where they were paying for the for you
Speaker 2: to go and get certified because they really need a
Speaker 2: special ed teachers. So I went and got certified. At
Speaker 2: the end of the year, I realized that there's something
Speaker 2: I really wanted to do, and I moved to a
Speaker 2: different job. That led to a whole bunch of may
Speaker 2: b I think I was in that was in middle
Speaker 2: school job, and I was working with kids who had
Speaker 2: learning issues. In those days, it was they weren't as
Speaker 2: well defined as they are now, but so it was
Speaker 2: a conglamoration of everybody under the sun. It was kids
Speaker 2: who had social emotional problems. It was kids who had
Speaker 2: severe learning issues, it was kids who had led a
Speaker 2: capability to learn specific task. So it was all that
Speaker 2: stuff thrown into one place. But it was really fun
Speaker 2: and it was exciting. So that led to me saying,
Speaker 2: you know what, I want to go and do more
Speaker 2: and I so I went on and went to graduate
Speaker 2: school and I went to the University of Florida in Gainesville.
Speaker 2: While I was in Florida, and it was there were
Speaker 2: so many different opportunities to learn and grow, So it
Speaker 2: led to a lot of other I got it. I
Speaker 2: was in a program for training special administrators and and
Speaker 2: also learning disabilities at the time, so it was a
Speaker 2: it was a good program. I went from there my
Speaker 2: first when I completed my first internship, which was at
Speaker 2: the Latchua County because in Florida all of the school
Speaker 2: systems are county based, Wachua County school System and I
Speaker 2: was worked with the director of Special Heed at the time,
Speaker 2: and that was cool, but it wasn't It didn't require
Speaker 2: a lot of my thought process. That required a lot
Speaker 2: of just make sure you cross all the t's and
Speaker 2: dot all the eyes.
Speaker 1: That's the part that I mean, you can do.
Speaker 2: That, but it was something I learned how to do that,
Speaker 2: but I never liked it, so I said, this is
Speaker 2: not something I want to do. So I went back
Speaker 2: and met with Chuck Forgnan, who was my advisor at
Speaker 2: the time, and he had worked for the federal government
Speaker 2: for a lot of years and came to Florida and
Speaker 2: he got me a job in the in the Department
Speaker 2: of Education. So I went to Washington to work on
Speaker 2: it with a in a program called Aid to the States.
Speaker 2: And what aids to the States was. It was a
Speaker 2: program to help school states, not school districts, but states
Speaker 2: implement PL ninety four, which was prior to IDA and
Speaker 2: prior to the special head laws. So I learned a
Speaker 2: lot there for just.
Speaker 1: A second, and for folks who are not coming from
Speaker 1: the same background that Ethan and I do, those are
Speaker 1: the original laws that got students with disabilities a guaranteed
Speaker 1: public school education right.
Speaker 2: And my job really when I first began, my job
Speaker 2: was basically I was on the phone, calling and talking
Speaker 2: to parents and people who were trying to figure out
Speaker 2: how to manipulate the system. More work through the system,
Speaker 2: but more negotiate the system. And I heard horrendous stories.
Speaker 2: I heard stories about kids literally being locked handcuffed to
Speaker 2: a radiators and locked in rooms, and I mean the
Speaker 2: schools didn't know what to do with the kids, so
Speaker 2: they were doing everything they could and rubber rooms, the
Speaker 2: whole routine. But it was a real eye of when
Speaker 2: I realized how much that particular program was needed, and
Speaker 2: it gave me an opportunity. I watched Tom Irban, who
Speaker 2: was the director and had been the original author, along
Speaker 2: with with Noel who was who was a state center
Speaker 2: from Connecticut, and so I had a chance to talk
Speaker 2: to all those people who were involved in that and
Speaker 2: watch it, and it was just amazing. It was amazing
Speaker 2: to watch them. It was amazing to watch people get
Speaker 2: involved in things that they always knew were wrong. We
Speaker 2: didn't know how to fix. This provided them the opportunity.
Speaker 2: And Jimmy Carter was I mean, I've heard lots of
Speaker 2: nasty things about him as a president, but I have
Speaker 2: to say he was probably one of the smartest, nicest
Speaker 2: people I ever met. And while I was there, I
Speaker 2: mean he would come through ever regularly and just talk
Speaker 2: to us and say, you know, ask us how it
Speaker 2: was going and what we needed to do differently. So
Speaker 2: it was a real life when it for me. So
Speaker 2: I was there for two years a half a year
Speaker 2: as an intern, and then I spent a year and
Speaker 2: a half providing services for students who were in US
Speaker 2: protectorates and helping and working with the Department Defense in
Speaker 2: their schools helping them implement it. So it was a
Speaker 2: great job, but there was a lot of traveling and
Speaker 2: it was real I was not making any connections I
Speaker 2: was making. It was an amazing job, but it wasn't
Speaker 2: something I knew I wanted to do. For the rest
Speaker 2: of my life. And most people who went to there
Speaker 2: didn't stay forever years.
Speaker 1: It's a person that's a job for a single person,
Speaker 1: a person who doesn't really want to settle down, doesn't
Speaker 1: want to get to know people, doesn't want to have I.
Speaker 2: Know, I think there were there were family people there,
Speaker 2: but their families were all in DC and they made
Speaker 2: it work. And plus I met my wife at the
Speaker 2: time too, which sort of added to the excitement.
Speaker 1: But it reminds us though, how immensely disenfranchised individuals and
Speaker 1: disabilities were. You know, people didn't know what to do.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people were afraid of these folks, but the reality
Speaker 1: was is they were treated horrifically and in ways that
Speaker 1: were so massively incredibly inhumane. And you know, one of
Speaker 1: my one of my current worries, quite honestly at this point,
Speaker 1: is that we may be going backwards instead of forwards
Speaker 1: in the services that that we have the potential to provide.
Speaker 1: Hopefully there are enough people who have been on the
Speaker 1: front lines doing the work who understand how this needs
Speaker 1: to happen that we're not going to We're not going
Speaker 1: to reverse ourselves back to something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with you, and I think it's it's hard,
Speaker 2: but there's some things I learned along the process. And
Speaker 2: for that, I mean I watched the institutionalization, which never
Speaker 2: worked out correctly, but which basically, just for people who
Speaker 2: don't know it was really removing. For many years, people
Speaker 2: with severe disabilities were housed in large institutional settings and
Speaker 2: they thought that, I mean, they had workshops and they
Speaker 2: had things going on, but they thought that was the
Speaker 2: best method. And we realized it was not the best method.
Speaker 2: But it took a lot of work to figure that
Speaker 2: all out. But so I left there and I went
Speaker 2: to work as a director of special education, and I
Speaker 2: did that in four different districts. I was an assistant
Speaker 2: to the superintendent, I was an assistant superintendent, I was
Speaker 2: a director. I did that for many years and worked
Speaker 2: in Stanford for the end of my career. Prior to
Speaker 2: that had been Edgemont, which to Scarsdale and New York
Speaker 2: and a lot of other places, but East Brunswick, New Jersey,
Speaker 2: you know, a whole bunch of places. But and that
Speaker 2: was cool. I mean it was because I was a
Speaker 2: problem solver and I love problem solving and I don't
Speaker 2: work real well for other people. That's no secret. So
Speaker 2: I always had bosses in the fact, when I would
Speaker 2: do an interview, I would interview because they were looking
Speaker 2: for people with specific skill sets and I had that
Speaker 2: skill set. I would interview them as well and say,
Speaker 2: you know, this is not going to work. What day
Speaker 2: he wants me to do? I want? I can't do.
Speaker 2: And it took some hard learning to do. I had
Speaker 2: a boss, a superintendent who I absolutely loved. It was
Speaker 2: the smartest, kindest person you ever met when I worked
Speaker 2: in Edgemont, and he retired for a lot of different reasons.
Speaker 2: And the new person who came in was not none
Speaker 2: of those things, and I, you know, and he and
Speaker 2: I had a major discussion because he was He didn't
Speaker 2: He saw his role as bypassing a system that had
Speaker 2: a specific purpose. Kids were identified for a reason. They
Speaker 2: weren't identified so they could get an extra time on
Speaker 2: it taking a college board test. The kids who needed
Speaker 2: services shouldn't be denied those services. And we need to
Speaker 2: not always be looking at the bottom line. We need
Speaker 2: to always look at the bottom line, but we need
Speaker 2: to look at the bottom line and how do we
Speaker 2: best service people and not how do we save a
Speaker 2: few bucks here, a few bucks there so we can
Speaker 2: turn it into put it towards the football program.
Speaker 1: We're getting a little closer to the end of our
Speaker 1: time together. But I think one of the things that
Speaker 1: I find that people don't understand is that the money
Speaker 1: you spend educating students that have a variety of different
Speaker 1: disabilities when they're in K to twelve situations is money
Speaker 1: well spent because when they become adults, whether they are
Speaker 1: people who continue to need assistants or whether they don't
Speaker 1: need assistants, they will always need less than what they
Speaker 1: would need. If we don't give them what they need.
Speaker 2: K to twelve totally will go on.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a piece that people sometimes are forgetting.
Speaker 1: I mean, I spent a good portion of my career
Speaker 1: except for the time that I was teaching at the university,
Speaker 1: which I was still doing some of the stuff. Anyways,
Speaker 1: with adults that have disabilities, people will be adults with
Speaker 1: disabilities potentially significantly longer then they will be school age folks.
Speaker 1: But if we don't do the right thing by them
Speaker 1: school age as adults, they will be very expensive.
Speaker 2: It's no question about that. Plus, they have a better
Speaker 2: quality of life than the people around them have a
Speaker 2: better quality of life.
Speaker 1: So the oh yeah, yeah, family, yeah, everybody, everybody benefits
Speaker 1: from it.
Speaker 2: You know how many other questions you want to ask me?
Speaker 1: Well, I do have one question, and this is partially
Speaker 1: biased because you and I know each other, but you
Speaker 1: kind of you have a little bit of a superpower,
Speaker 1: you know, a sort of contextual strength. I used to
Speaker 1: get emails at I don't know what godly hour of
Speaker 1: the day it was. Here's five articles I read, and
Speaker 1: I thought you might be interested in them, But in
Speaker 1: five minutes, I think you read those five articles. You
Speaker 1: have an incredible capacity for absorbing a large amount of
Speaker 1: information in a really short period of time and synthesizing
Speaker 1: it to something that's useful. Do you think that's part
Speaker 1: of your ADHD?
Speaker 2: Totally. I think it's two things. I think it was
Speaker 2: my training when I was little, meeting in elementary school.
Speaker 2: And secondly, is it's stuff interested me? So then I
Speaker 2: read it, and then I say, oh, my gosh, Laurie's
Speaker 2: interested in this and she was talking to me about this,
Speaker 2: And then here's another article I just see here that
Speaker 2: so yet to answer your question, it's my It's definitely
Speaker 2: part of my I wouldn't say it's a disability, I'd
Speaker 2: say part of my makeup. Yeah, No, I think I'm
Speaker 2: not sure it's a superpower. Sometimes it's pain in the
Speaker 2: buttets people around me, sometimes because I'm moving in places
Speaker 2: that they aren't there yet. And that was one thing
Speaker 2: I really had to learn when I went into doing
Speaker 2: administration in public schools was to slow down and take
Speaker 2: a deep breath and realize that not everybody was going
Speaker 2: to be where I was going to be, and how
Speaker 2: do I help to bring them along? Because a lot
Speaker 2: of times once you bring them along, they add stuff
Speaker 2: to it. You know. People used to joke about the
Speaker 2: fact that I was a big idea person and not
Speaker 2: great on details. I mean, I knew how to do
Speaker 2: details than to my father, because you don't grow up
Speaker 2: on a farm and learn not to do details. But
Speaker 2: I always hired people or have brought people along with
Speaker 2: me who were detail oriented people because they're very important.
Speaker 2: They're the people that make it happen, and that's not
Speaker 2: something I do as well. And I bless my wife.
Speaker 2: I always say my children were raised by a single
Speaker 2: powerent Karen, because I would say let's go on a trip,
Speaker 2: and she'd say, okay, well, did we do Blake blog,
Speaker 2: Blake Boygan? What are we gonna do with the dog d?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: And that's Karen, you know.
Speaker 2: So the answer is yeah, so yeah, just sort of
Speaker 2: summarize it. There's probably if I say there's what's the superpower,
Speaker 2: I'd say learning the word no. Through my my earlier
Speaker 2: part of my life, meaning high school, I was always
Speaker 2: trying to fit in, trying to figure out a way
Speaker 2: to fit in, trying to work around, trying to fit in,
Speaker 2: trying to do stuff that I couldn't do because I
Speaker 2: wanted to please people. And I realized after a while
Speaker 2: when people ask me to do things that I knew
Speaker 2: weren't right, or I didn't fit into who I was,
Speaker 2: or I couldn't see a purpose for them, I learned
Speaker 2: to say no, you know. And I had bosses who
Speaker 2: would come to and say to me, you are the
Speaker 2: biggest Pia in my but you get the job done
Speaker 2: and you care about kids, and that's really what it.
Speaker 2: Know who you are, know where you're working, where you're
Speaker 2: going to and always. I mean that journaling stuff was
Speaker 2: wonderful because what it taught me to do was think
Speaker 2: about what I did today and think about what I
Speaker 2: need to do tomorrow. And that's a lot of what
Speaker 2: it would It is when you're whether you're diverging in
Speaker 2: one way or you're divergent in another way, as long
Speaker 2: as you have a play, you have some kind of roadmap,
Speaker 2: and you don't and you don't move off of that roadmap,
Speaker 2: meaning not I'm not talking about being inflexible. I'm talking
Speaker 2: about understanding that you might have to go to go
Speaker 2: to Pittsburgh, you might have to go to Miami, and
Speaker 2: somebody else will go directly to Pittsburgh. But while you're
Speaker 2: going to Miami, you're also stopping and learning about Cajun food,
Speaker 2: you know, or whatever. So it's all a matter of
Speaker 2: how do you get there and where do you go?
Speaker 2: And a lot of kids, unfortunately walk away feeling that
Speaker 2: they're failures or that there's something wrong with them, when
Speaker 2: actually there's something wrong with the system that's there and
Speaker 2: they so they need to learn those skills of saying no,
Speaker 2: realizing who I am, and also realizing that they have
Speaker 2: something to add to the picture. If they don't feel
Speaker 2: like they have something to add to the picture, they
Speaker 2: do all the stuff. I worked at a crisis intervention
Speaker 2: line for a number of years, and a lot of
Speaker 2: those people when you would talk to them on the
Speaker 2: phone or we'd go out and go out as a
Speaker 2: team to meet with them, they didn't see any solutions
Speaker 2: they saw because nobody had ever helped them to figure
Speaker 2: out that there are solutions. All they heard was learn
Speaker 2: from your failures. Well, guess what if you're an average
Speaker 2: I have four kids, and some of them they would
Speaker 2: quickly they would figure out. I always describe my daughter,
Speaker 2: my oldest daughter, Andrea, she'd take a test and if
Speaker 2: she didn't get one hundred on it and she got
Speaker 2: a ninety eight, the first thing she would say is
Speaker 2: what what what's going on with this? With the two
Speaker 2: points I didn't get? And what do I need to learn?
Speaker 2: My youngest daughter has a has a learning disability. She
Speaker 2: would say I failed again because she when you fail
Speaker 2: a lot, you don't learn from your failures. You can't
Speaker 2: if you failed one or two times, then you say, okay,
Speaker 2: this is how I change it. So the biggest trick,
Speaker 2: like we spend a lot of time teaching Erica that
Speaker 2: guess what there are other solutions, and guess and you
Speaker 2: are not a failure. You are you're a success. In
Speaker 2: your own right. She is right, and she's an adult
Speaker 2: and she's done quite well. But so that's the other
Speaker 2: thing we need to walk away with kids who are
Speaker 2: divergent learners or or thinkers. Is it's okay to be different.
Speaker 2: It's okay to say no. It's okay as long as
Speaker 2: you know where you're going. Don't say no just for
Speaker 2: the sake of saying no. Say no if it doesn't
Speaker 2: fit into where you need to go and where you
Speaker 2: yourself think you need to be. And if that doesn't happen,
Speaker 2: it's it hurts them, it hurts people around them, and
Speaker 2: they don't walk away from them winning and they walk
Speaker 2: away and losing.
Speaker 1: I think you know, a role that parents and professionals
Speaker 1: really have for these folks is to help them find
Speaker 1: find their spot, find their find their find what it
Speaker 1: is that works for them, and have them really capitalize
Speaker 1: on them. So I really appreciate you spending this time
Speaker 1: with me. I think I say this every single time
Speaker 1: that I do a podcast. The time always goes incredibly fast.
Speaker 1: But I really appreciate you taking taking the time to share,
Speaker 1: to share your journey with us. Think it's a it's
Speaker 1: a good example of the fact that things don't always
Speaker 1: quite go in the line that folks thought that they
Speaker 1: should have. I think that we need to reproduce that
Speaker 1: elementary school program that you went to because it sounds
Speaker 1: pretty effective. And you know, I'm very grateful for you
Speaker 1: for you taking the time to spend with us.
Speaker 2: So thank you for It's always enjoyed talking to you, Laura. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we do a lot of talking, so.
Speaker 1: So all right, well, thank you and thank you, and
Speaker 1: thank your daughters for the fact that you've now dropped
Speaker 1: their names into the into the podcast. Hopefully down.
Speaker 2: They're used to it.
Speaker 1: Okay, take care, Thank you, are we good? Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening to universally unique exploring the neurodiverse world of
Speaker 1: the extraordinary. Join me doctor Lourie on trans Information Talk
Speaker 1: Radio every second and fourth Monday at eleven thirty Pacific
Speaker 1: time as we continue to explore navigating the world not
Speaker 1: designed for diversity, for advocacy and support for individuals with disabilities.
Speaker 1: Let's connect. Learn more about consulting and life coaching at
Speaker 1: Notopallisticconsulting dot com.