Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ? - Lynne, The Awesomism Mom: Nurturing Resilience and Sparking Change for Autistic Adults

Episode Date: March 6, 2024

Send us a text Every parent's journey comes with its unique milestones and hurdles, but when you're raising a child on the autism spectrum, those experiences can redefine the very essence of resilience and discovery. Join me as I sit down with Lynne, the Awesomism Mom, who opens up about the rollercoaster ride parenting her son Peyton has been. From recognizing the early signs of autism to the evolution of "Awesomism," Lynne's story is one of unwavering love, adaptation, and the pursuit of a life where her son's abilities are not just acknowledged but celebrated. The conversation takes a hopeful turn as we explore the groundbreaking strides of Team Awesomism, the virtual academy Lynne pioneered to champion the cause of autistic adults. The academy is more than a learning platform; it's a beacon of empowerment, illuminating paths to essential life skills, employment, and independence. Lynne shares how Peyton's unique learning journey inspired the academy's ethos, and we delve into their mission to equip these adults for a world that often overlooks their potential. As we wrap up our heartfelt dialogue, we confront the broader issues that touch the lives of those on the autism spectrum, such as the pressing concern of housing. Lynne's activism in advocating for appropriate living solutions for autistic adults paints a vivid picture of the challenges and the need for systemic change. Our discussion serves as a clarion call to embrace a "Why Not Me" mindset, to not just listen but to join the fight for awareness, acceptance, and real-world solutions that uplift and integrate the autistic community into every facet of society. https://tonymantor.com https://Facebook.com/tonymantor https://instagram.com/tonymantor https://twitter.com/tonymantor https://youtube.com/tonymantormusic intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild Why Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI) The content on Why Not Me: Embracing Autism amd Mental Health Worldwide, including discussions on mental health, autism, and related topics, is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not reflect those of the podcast, its hosts, or affiliates.Why Not Me is not a medical or mental health professional and does not endorse or verify the accuracy, efficacy, safety of any treatments, programs, or advice discussed.Listeners should consult qualified healthcare professionals, such as licensed therapists, psychologists, or physicians, before making decisions about mental health or autism- related care.Reliance on this podcast's contents is at the listener's own risk. Why Not Me is not liable for any outcomes, financial or otherwise, resulting from actions taken based on the information provided. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Why Not Me The World Podcast, hosted by Tony Mantor. Broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will make your laugh, some will make you cry. Real life people who will inspire and show that you are not alone in this world. hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance, and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi, I'm Tony Mayanour. Welcome to Why Not Me the World. Today's guest is Lynn, and she's known as Awesomeism Mom. Her story is just so great. She's got so many stories. So let's get into this. Thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it.

I listen, I'm super excited about this. Yes, me too. It's always great to have good conversations. So you have an autistic child, correct? Yes, I have a 24-year-old son who's autistic. So what led you to believe that he might be autistic? Okay, so when Peyton was born, he was my youngest of four. Okay. He was very different than my other children. He didn't have the connectivity to me that my other kids, you know, they usually are very comforted by your voice because they hear you the whole time they're in the wool. The close cuddling that my other children wanted, he didn't want, and he would only sleep in a swing. Wow. I started seeing things and I went to my pediatrician. There's something wrong with Peyton. Okay. Now you've got to remember this 24 years ago before we were really talking about this.

Right. And she said, there's nothing wrong with him. We all have something wrong. He's just different. Okay. And right there, that helped me because I no longer looked at it as, oh my God, You know what I mean? Sure. She said, well, tell me. She is legitimately one of the best pediatricians on this planet. She's still in business. And I'm, you know, my oldest is almost 40.

Okay. That's how long she's been a pediatrician. Wow, that's good. Yeah. And she sat me down and she said, look, let's go by that he is autistic. Because at the time they would not test him until he was four. Okay. And she said, this is what's going to happen.

She said, if you go by that, he's autistic. But she said, no one will ever tell me that a mother's instincts aren't the best. Because she said, you guys can always, you know, she's a mother herself. Right. She said, you always feel things. And she knew I was very in tune with my children. So she said, let's, I want you to go by that he is. And if he isn't, she said, you will never get up in the morning and say, why didn't I?

I should have. Oh, if only I had. Right. You will say, I am so glad I did. That was great advice. Wasn't it? And especially 24 years ago. Yes.

You know? And so, and I just saw her a few months ago, and I talked to her about that, and she really hugged me. And I said, you were such a game changer for me. Because had you said, well, you know, and kind of put your hands up and, you know, and acted all stress and didn't give me that advice. When I got the diagnosis, I would have gone to bed for six months crying and saying, what I would I do? Instead, it was just a blow. And he was because when he started to walk to,

I saw him go on the balls of his feet. You know, he was doing all those things. And his speech was delayed. And other people wouldn't say to me, well, maybe the speech is delayed because he has three older siblings and you, when you all, you guys all speak for him. And then when he started talking, he had his own language. and only my third child could understand them. Okay. So we would always say, Preston, my third child's name is Preston. Preston, tell us what Peyton is saying. So he would come and tell us what Peyton was saying.

And Peyton would look at us like, how do you not know what I'm saying? Because if Peyton said he was telling us. Sure. But there were things like he couldn't say Apple, but he could get on a computer and figure out how to find a bunny to color and print it. Right, right. Okay. And so it was like I realized his brain was working differently.

Okay. And rather than discourage that, I encouraged it. And I've told Peyton that he has awesomism, not autism, because I told him God made him the awesome one. Sure. And the rest of us are the same. I knew that society was going to treat him differently. I wanted him to go into it with a positive view of himself. That's definitely a great way to look at it.

And then I went through a horrific divorce, long time custody battle. And I ended up getting remarried. And I was still in my custody battle. And my husband now said to me, listen, I think you should start blogging, even if nobody but one parent reads it just to feel what you felt being a parent who homeschooled all their children. Because I was a strong homeschooling activist for years. Okay. I was homeschooling before anybody was talking about homeschool.

Like I said, my oldest is almost 40. Okay. He said, give your viewpoint on things. And if it just helps one person, because when Peyton was little, there wasn't anywhere near the conversation about autism that there is now. Right. So he said, maybe it'll help one parent. Well, my blog blew up.

The founders of Flipboard found my blog. They flew us out to Palo Alto to talk to the tech giants. and it was just, I was overwhelmed. I'm like, why is anybody reading my blog? All I'm literally doing is chatting like I'm having a cup of coffee with somebody. Right. People took to it. I have always taken the approach of, I'm an autism parent.

This is my autistic child. He has a voice. I have a voice. His siblings, his father have a voice. But we're going to tell you what we've experienced. It doesn't mean that what you've experienced is the same thing. And it doesn't mean we're right and you're wrong. It means, let me tell you what worked for us.

If it works for you, great. If it doesn't, at least maybe I have given you a little bit of comfort that we all are on this journey together. Yeah, that's good. That's kind of what my podcast is about. People telling their stories, you can ask the same question to five different people and get five different answers, which is good because that way the listeners can hear those five different answers.

And hopefully one of them might help them get through something they might be going through at that point. Exactly. Like with Peyton, we had the hardest time getting him to read. And I bought everything there was. I bought him every one of the little electronic things back then, leapfrog, you name it. Okay. We would put pictures up on the refrigerator with a big A and a picture of an apple. We'd put an A next to the apple. I always had an apple basket. And we'd say, apple, A, apple, nothing. One day we're driving at the time I lived outside of D.C. And we're driving to Wegman's grocery store. And he's reading signs. And I thought, okay, he's memorized. He memorized these signs. Okay. So it's me and my daughter in the car.

And we get to the grocery store. And I said, Peyton, what does that say? And he reads it. And I'm like, well, you couldn't memorize that because we've never bought that. So we figured out he would always put the close captioning on all the TV shows that he would watch. And we would get frustrated because he always had the cold caption. But he was listening and reading. Oh.

listening and reading and he taught himself to read through the closed captioning. Interesting. That's good. Yeah. So I've had a couple of their parents come to me because they've heard me tell that story or read my blog and said, we tried it. It worked. Thank you. And I'm like, you know, if I just help one other parent not go to bed at night bawling their head off and one other autistic have a little easier life, then that's what we do. And so I did the awesome as a mom. And I've, you know, like this past last April, I went to Dubai, spoke at ICANN. They picked 70 top autism activists from around the world.

Temple Grandin was the keynote. Dr. Carey Magro was at it, Tom Island, all those guys are very famous autistics. Right. And I was honored to be asked to speak. Wow. And yeah, I was really honored. And they wanted me to talk about team awesomeism because we have. put together a virtual academy that is basically just for autistic adults and it's to help them

with life skills, social skills, soft skills, fun skills, because a lot of them get very stressed, they get nervous. So we have some videos on there that are just funny so that they relax. And we help them with everything. And they're on videos because, let's say we're doing a cooking video. If they mess up, it's live. Sometimes they hyper-focus on the fact that they missed a part of it and then they missed the whole thing and give up. They can stop the video. They can loop it. They can run it a hundred times. They can do what they need to do to learn from it. And so we did that. But I found that so many people didn't really understand our concept because I invented this concept. And the reason why this all came about was I met a young man, though he's now 45, a few years ago, sweetest,

kindest, gentlest person, he's autistic, blinded in one eye, death, and one of you. Wow. He got on Twitter one day and said, I need to set up a go fund me for $10,000. So I called him, I said, what's going on? He said, my mom has to go to court, and I'm afraid we're going to lose what little we have. His dad had died. And so this was his stepdad. Long story short, they basically, through no fault of their own, ended up in a very bad situation.

They won their case, but their house got destroyed. They were in a mobile home. That's such a sad thing to hear. So me and some other people stepped up. We bought them a home. Wow. They bought him a brand new home. Well, his mother unfortunately died during this time.

Oh, no. And so I noticed he was regressing some because he didn't have his mom there every day. Sure. And I started thinking about it because autistics can regress if they're not positively stimulated. Okay. I said, boy, I would love to do something like an online academy with videos where they can watch them if they want to watch them at three in the morning or whenever and just have everything. Music on there, come and you name it. My husband's like, yeah, that would be awesome.

I said, I wouldn't even know how to do that. Two months later, my son, who is autistic, says, come here, I want to show you something. and he had built the entire academy. Wow. Yeah. So we did that. And then when I went to Dubai, I became very good friends with the company that does apps and other high-end technology

in the special needs world. And they offer to build us a state-of-the-art custom design, custom-built app that they're doing right now. Oh, that's great. This will be the most amazing. and what we will have on it is it will be called the teammates. It's going to be Team Awesomeism, Teammates program. That people will subscribe, will have three different levels of subscription. They will subscribe to that, and that will fund the academy

because I will never, ever, ever charge a no autistic adult to be on the academy because those who can afford it at the least can need it the most, and I want to do that. So I decided to take this way bigger, and we're going to have roundtables. Chris was actually on our first roundtable. We're going to have roundtables where we have every discussion you can think of. We're going to have doctors on there. We're going to have lawyers. We're going to have people who have hired autistic adults. We're going to have, you name it. Wow. That's just so great. We will have extremely important topics like,

should I set up a special needs trust? We'll bring on an autistic adult, a parent, a couple of attorneys, and a finance guide, but we'll do four of those roundtables so that you, like your podcast, which is what's so great about your podcast is you get many different viewpoints. Because so often you go like to one attorney and they go, this is what you need to do, but maybe that doesn't fit you. Right. So we will have this. We're also going to have podcasts on there.

We're going to have blogs on there. We're going to have music on there. I'm a massive country music fan. I eat sleep and drink. country music, even though I'm from Chicago. Okay. So I've got a couple of country music artists who let us use their music. They'll, their music will be on there.

Nice. My goal is this. We travel the country, and this makes me emotional. We traveled the country for five and a half months. Okay. This past year from June to October, the end of October. And we spoke to so many families and autistic adults in their families. and my suicide rate is very high.

Yes, it's very high. Very high. And we had one young woman. We had on her autism shirts me and my son and my husband. And we were in a bakery. And she came up to me and said, you work in autism. And I said, yeah. She said, I have a brother.

He's 27. And he sat me down a couple months ago and told me when mom dies, I'm killing myself because society doesn't accept me. And she said, please help me. I don't want to lose my brother. That's tough. It's very tough. And I'm going to.

mom grabbed me in the hotel lobby because she saw my shirt and she just started bawling and said my son killed himself this summer because he felt so out of it. Yeah, I just did an interview with a guy that tried to commit suicide. He failed, thank goodness. Now he's on the other side of it and he can actually talk about it. So we talked about what led him to get to that point, how he is after that point. The one thing that he told me and he goes, it's a daily struggle. That's their mind. trying to cope with what's going on and still be able to live from day to day without thinking or contemplating ending their life. So it's very, very tough. A lot of people don't know this, but it's the second most cause of death amongst autistic people around the world.

Yes, that I know. It's really something we have to address. I completely agree. And that's part of the reason why we have team awesomeism and we're excited about the app as well. Oh, I like that. Thank you. I want to make a community where they get and they come in and feel like they are awesome. We do care. You struggle with this. You can go and find a roundtable and every single roundtable, we plan to do 15 a month, and every single roundtable we do will have an autistic adult at that roundtable.

Because I want autistic adults to know that there are people out there like you, like me, who want to hear their voice, that we respect what. what they're saying, that we appreciate what they're saying, because I have legitimately had people stand with me at an event, with my son standing right there. He's high functioning, he's totally verbal, okay, and talk like he doesn't exist. Wow. And I've said, he's right here. Speak to him. Why are you talking to me? Last fall, I had Sam Huber on my podcast. He told me about his autism and how he got to do public speaking. I've had people. come up to me and say, I didn't realize autistic people could have kids. This is what people

don't get. So this is the beauty of people being able to talk about things because they can open up, they can tell their stories, and then hopefully other people can hear those same stories, kind of like what you're doing. And hopefully you hear other people that's gone through the same things that they're going through or possibly going through. It can maybe ease that pain or stress a little bit. Oh, 100%. And you know, it's so funny. I had somebody say to me one day, well, what are you going to do somebody else kind of copies your, you know, idea. I go, I'm going to clap. I'm going to do backflips and I'm going to thank the Lord above that they did because,

you know what, there's 8 to 10 million of them that we know of, okay, because a lot of them as adults are getting diagnosed as adults. Right. There's no way I can reach all 8 to 10 million. So if there's a hundred of us, like you're with your podcast, us with our stuff, we're not competition. We're standing hand to hand going. we're out here fighting this together.

Absolutely. I had the same thing said to me because from what I gather, I'm the only podcast out there that's like my podcast. When I started deciding that I was going to do this, I started listening to some podcasts out there that was about autism and Asperger's and all that. I was listening to it. I knew nothing about what they were talking about

and it was way over my head. And I'm going, if I'm a parent right now, just finding out that my son or daughter is autistic and I'm listening to this podcast, I'm more confused. than I was before I started. So I decided that this had to be a podcast that people tell their stories.

And then if they're telling their stories, other people will hear it. And then if they can kind of see similarities, then it might help them. I love it. See, and that's what we need because I can tell you as a parent who found out their child was autistic,

when you can't find something or someone, I had a mom come to me the other day. I had moms all the time of little ones come into my DMs and say, and sometimes I don't even know they have an autistic child. They follow me on social media. And all of a sudden, they've been following me for two or three years,

and they'll come into my DMs and they'll say, I just want to thank you. And I'd one the other day and I literally sat on my bed in tears. I woke up in the morning to a long text from her. And she said, I just want to say thank you. You make autism in everyday thing. You show how it's a lifestyle. It's every part of your life, whether you're cooking, you're cleaning,

you're at a sporting event. autism doesn't come and go, it doesn't stop at 18, and you talk to us like you're having a cup of coffee with me. And she said, you have given me hope because of Peyton and the way that you have approached it. And I thought, that's all I'm trying to do because I see too many people. I saw an autism mom of a five-year-old and this really angered me. Okay. She put out a post one day and said, if you're not doing this and this with your child, you're not doing what's right for your child.

And I had to read that like five times before it really sunk in, how horrible that was. And I thought, how dare you tell other autism parents that if they don't raise their child the way you're raising your yours, first of all, you haven't even begun on this cycle yet of dealing with them when they're in their 12, 13, 14, 15 year old stage or their 18 year old stage or their friends are driving and they can't drive where they're afraid to drive. like Peyton's afraid to drive, or some of them don't want to ride bikes. How dare you tell other autism parents this? That's why the stories are important. I just interviewed a lady that's a special needs teacher that has an autistic child, and she talked about how she thought she was going to be this awesome mom. She goes, and until you're a mother of autistic person, you don't realize, even though you teach them,

and I always ask at the end, do you have any final thoughts? And the one thing that she said that will resonate with just what you said is that don't listen to other people because they're always going to try and tell you what you're doing wrong and you know your child better than anyone. That's exactly right. She is 100%. And that's what we try to do with Team Awesomeism too is offer a wide variety. You know, we try to show that's why like we had the roundtable that Chris was on and Peyton was on and a young man by name of Martin who's awesome. He's an autistic adult. I love Martin. Martin. It's a great podcast interview to Martin. And then two women.

Okay? We had two women. All of them were autistic adults. All five of them had complete different stories. Right. All five of them had complete different life experiences. And I love that because we were showing the world. Here's five autistic adults and every single one of them approaches things differently.

Every single one of them has had different experiences. Right. Stop trying to put it in this time. little box that they're all rain man. That was one of the things we heard when we were on the road trip was from autistic adults. Stop calling us rain man. Yes. Now my slogan for my podcast is autism awareness, acceptance, and understanding because that was another part of the research I did is I saw that they have autism awareness and acceptance month, but I'm going, the more I started getting into this, the more I started understanding and being able to carry on conversations with people about it.

and I'm going, you know, they left out an important word in that phrase. So I put that in mind, that's kind of what I try and do, is bring better understanding to other listeners and other people about what autistic people and their families have to go through in just day-to-day living. Exactly. That's exactly right. And that's why, too, I always hashtag autism acceptance and autism activism. Because when I speak, one of the things that I always talk about is I always tell this story.

If I'm sitting at my desk and I see an elderly person fall on their bite and that person is hurt and I just sit there, I'm aware that they fell and that they're hurt. I'm not helping. If I accept that they're hurt and I accept that I should do something, I actively get up. I go out there. I call 911 and I help them. So we have to get past this awareness and stop just saying autism, and keep talking about, like, I love your word understanding. When people understand that autism is a spectrum, that they all have a very different life story,

that they all come from different walks of life, then they will understand how to address autistic adults. I mean, I had a woman, Peyton and I ran an event, and there was a woman, and she was representing one of these, you know, newer type senior 55 plus communities. indoor apartment complex type thing where they have the big, you know, joint area that they can eat breakfast together and stuff, okay? I went up there and I said, I was wondering if you have any autistic adults that live in your building. And she said, oh, we don't take autistic adults. I said, I'm not talking about low functioning. I'm talking about high functioning.

I said, because she said, we're not nursing home. I said, I'm not talking about ones that you have to coke for and clean and do those kinds of things. I'm talking about, and I said, like my son here, she completely ignores my son. And she starts saying, well, we don't really want them because they can't cook. I said, my son cooks. He cooks, he makes his own recipes. He's actually the brand ambassador for a barbecue seasoning company. Yes, he knows how to cook.

And she's just still ignoring them. She said, well, they never drive. I said, actually, they do. And she just kept giving me all these stereotypes. Yeah. And I finally said to her, just curious, have you ever heard of a man by the name of Elon Musk. Just going to throw that name out there. Right, right. And she goes, of course, he's the richest man in the world. And I go, and he's autistic. He could buy your company 150 times over, and he's

autistic. And then I walked away because I was so mad. And I would throw home white, knuckled angry, you know, Peyton's like, calm down, you know, she just doesn't get it. And I'm thinking, how sad is this that he's so used to that behavior? Right. So we get home, I tell my husband, and I said, I'm so mad. I feel like going on social media. just absolutely lambasting that company. And he said, no, that's not going to do any good. He said, what you need to do, find out who owns that company. Yeah.

Call their corporate, have a conversation with them, and tell them, this is not right. So long story short, we did. Okay. And they had me come and speak to them about it. And guess what? They had autistics living there. They didn't even know it. Yeah, you know, and that's one of the big things that I haven't tackled yet,

even though we've talked about it in my episodes. I've got a lady here in Nashville that runs a place and it's basically for autistic people and special needs, and that's housing. That's a big issue across the country for autistic people is housing because they just don't have it out there yet. No, they don't. And I'll tell you, part of what we do with the Virtual Academy

and we will raise the awareness on the app, but what we do with the Virtual Academy is this. we teach cooking on there and we show them to that if they're afraid of a stove or an oven because not all of them want to get you know use the stover oven you can use an air dryer you can use a crack pot you can use the microwave we teach them how to clean like we have a video just about cleaning the toilet how to organize your closet and this is something that I say everywhere I go if I'm going to put my trial because people will tell me that have no connection to autism. Well, they can go live in an assisted living. My dad lived in an assisted living. He can afford it. And I

rather than argue with people, I say, well, yeah, how long is your dad there? Well, it'll probably be there five years. Okay. Now, let's look at this from the autistic standpoint. Right. I'm 63. My son is 24. He's the youngest of four children. If I die at 85, which is a ripe old age, my son is still going to be in his late 40s. Right. Okay. So if he lives to 75, he has to live for 30 years. Now, I'm lucky I have three other children who fight overtaking him. But let's say I didn't. Okay. If he goes into an assisted living and it's those are five to 12,000 hours a month. Right. If the parent leaves them a half a million dollars because the parent has had to live off of their retirement and everything too, okay? really half a million dollars, they get Social Security.

If they have to cover the difference between what they get in Social Security and living their $5,000 a month, that's $60,000 a year, not counting medicine, not counting their clothing, not counting everything. Okay? So they're out of money in 10 years. Yeah. If they're 35 when they go in there at 45, who's taking care of them? And that's a huge thing that comes up in a lot of my episodes.

they are so concerned on what happens to my child if I'm not here. Exactly. And this is one of the biggest reasons why we did the Team Austinism Virtual Academy. If I can take some of them, teach them how to cook, how to take care of themselves better, how to groom, how to shower, how to do these kind of things, then if they go live in an apartment with another one or two other autistic adults, we work with the therapy dogs, we work with a woman by the neighbor. A.J. Cullen. She's one of the best dog therapists out there. You have a dog or two. So you have the

therapy and service dog, the technology, and then they can live there. And guess what? That 500,000 hours now has them taken care of for 50 years. They can stay there. This is one of my biggest things with the Virtual Academy is every skill set that we can teach them, every time we can show them that they don't need to be overly stressed. They don't have to have the anxiety, that they are, that they can do things. Because you know what? Then the ones who can't take care of themselves, there's way more, there's more beds for them, so to speak.

Because if we put them all in there, there's not even enough for my age group in nursing homes in my age. So how do people get in touch with you? People going to hear this and some that might need some help. How do people get in touch with you so that they can go? over some of the things that you do. Okay, you can go to our website, Team Awesomeism, and it's A-W-E-S-O-M-I-S-M-D-com.

You can go to that. You can follow us. We're on all social media, or you can email me at Lynn atossomismmom.com. You can go to that website. I am always available to people if they need help. If they want to sponsor an autism family

for the app, We have all the stuff on there. If they want to be a sponsor, if there's small business or an individual, they want to be a sponsor on the app. Part of what we'll have on the app is also going to be listing all of the autism-friendly businesses. Like your podcast will be listed on there. It'll be in the podcast area so that you have even more of a group to listen to your

podcast because what you do is exactly what we want. If I could stand on my roof every day and just scream at people and say, all you have to do is give one hour a month to help someone in the autism world. Would you do it? I guarantee you most people would. They just don't know what to do. That is so true. People don't understand it. They talk with all these people and they don't realize it. All you have to do is just talk to this person. Now, granted, there's a huge spectrum on autism. It's like the old saying, you met one person with autism. You met one person with autism. That's the same in the neurotypical world because we're all different. Get to know them, understand them,

find out what they're about, and then you might have a little more empathy for them because you're understanding what they're going through. Exactly. And the other thing, too, is we have a 75 to 85% unemployment rate among autistic adults. This is completely unacceptable. And I also feel like, wants people to use your word understanding or my word of activism, let me give you an example. We had a gentleman come over and look at our hot water heater.

and he was a independent plumber, super nice guy, really good guy. And we were sitting there talking, and somehow we started talking about autism. And he said, oh, he said, you know, I was in special needs learning when I was growing up. He said, I was a very slow reader. And he said, you know, I'm older. I'm in my late 40s. And he said, I, you know, I've always kind of, he said, my parents started homeschooling me because I couldn't keep up. And I said, well, can I ask you something?

I said, would you consider like, and I was talking about team autismism and what we're doing? And I said, would you consider maybe interning an autistic adult? He said, 100%. He said, I totally understand that. He said, they probably would actually focus on what we're doing. He said, I can't hire people. People don't want to go into the trades. People, everybody wants to go work in the business and be the billionaire the next week.

And they don't want to, you know, He said, they don't want to do all these things. He said, I'd hire someone in a heartbeat. And it got me thinking, good. Here's another thing we're going to do on roundtables. Here's another thing we're going to do with Team Awesomeism. We're going to teach trades. I'm going to bring experts in trades in.

Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, that is. That is really good. I really appreciate you coming on. This has been great. I mean, just a really good conversation. I love it. Listen, I love your practice.

I love your concept of it. I love everything you're doing. I think it's phenomenal. And you can count on me to be one of the, your biggest fans in promoting it. Thanks. I really appreciate that. And I have to say, I really truly enjoy what you're doing as well. So thanks again. Thank you so much. It was such an honor to be on here. And I really, really enjoyed it.

It was my pleasure. And thanks again. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today. We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know anyone that would like to tell us their story, send them to tonymentor.com contact then they can give us their information so one day they may be a guest on our show

one more thing we ask tell everyone everywhere about why not me the world the conversations we're having and the inspiration our guests give to everyone everywhere that you are not alone in this world Thank you.