Ben: 0:03

Welcome to real man, hug a podcast for men and the women who love them. I'm Ben and I'm Jim. Welcome. Welcome to the show.

Jim: 0:13

Well, um, welcome. Come one and all neurotypical neurodivergent and otherwise there's a place for you today. I don't know what would be in between neurotypical and neurodivergent, but if that's you, welcome, we are so excited to have Dr. Matthew Zekreski, a. k. a. Dr. Matt, joining us today. He's not just a psychologist, he's also a seasoned speaker and does a lot with neurodiversity. He also runs a private practice called the neurodiversity collective. He's got articles in psychology journals, and even recently was quoted in the New York times, an article about us, millennial parents. So excited to have on the show today, dr. Matt, thank you so much for joining us.

Matt: 1:07

Thank you. I, I have. The good fortune to be on a lot of podcasts, but this is one I'm really looking forward to. This is who I am. Real man hug. Like, yes, let's do it. Let's talk about this.

Jim: 1:19

I'm curious to ask. How you got into the field that you're in, from everything that I know about you, it sounds like it's a passion for yours. So why neurodiversity, why the public speaking? It seems like it's really a passion for you. And I can't imagine there's not some specific personal anecdote behind what drove you to do that.

Matt: 1:41

we're going to talk origin story then, right? Let's do it. I was diagnosed as gifted in second grade, right? That's when they identified me. And a lot of American kids get identified as gifted in second grade. And I was so smart that nobody realized I had ADHD until high school when the work got harder than I was smart. Right. All of a sudden you couldn't forget about the test and study for it. Seven minutes before the class and still get a 93 because that nobody cares. Nobody cares that you had bad practice. If you get an A, they're like, Oh, and all of a sudden I was just underwater. And I remember thinking like, there's gotta be a better way, but you've got to learn study skills and organization skills and asking for help. on the fly in high school when the stakes are very high, when your neurotypical peers spent elementary school, middle school learning those skills. So I was like, let me step into that from a academic understanding space. But the more I got into it, the more I realized that the things that really made my life challenging as a kid was the social emotional. Sure. And I realized I was perfectly positioned as somebody who could help kids develop those skills. I think like a lot of neurodivergent kids, everything was badly bullied. You know, eighth grade was just hell on a plate for me. You know, I remember saying to my parents, both of whom are clinical psychologists, if I ever do what you guys do for a living, I'm going to do my best to make sure this doesn't happen to anybody else. It is a passion, right? It's personal and professional for me.

Jim: 3:20

Since we kind of teased at it a little bit, that article that you wrote about millennial parents. In the article, you were quoted talking about social media, having some of the answers, but it's also part of the problem. I won't go and read the whole thing, but you're basically talking about that circle of comparison is getting bigger. We just talked about that in our last episode about social media and how much different it is to parent today. So let's start there. I'm kind of curious to hear a little bit more from you on that.

Matt: 3:53

It's great that we have as much knowledge as we do, but sometimes I wonder if it's more. Bandwidth than our brains can handle because you've got this brain that has a finite room of information, but then you're seeing 97 different parenting accounts just on bottle feeding and then 109 parenting accounts on how to maintain that spark with your partner and 2916 about the right kind of preschool for your kid and it becomes analysis by paralysis, right? I mean, there's too much information. Not to mention that comparison effect. I was talking about this with my wife earlier, and there's this aggregate data that happens in social media because our brain, our brains take one chunk of social media time as a single iteration. So if you're flipping through your Instagram feed, and you see 11 of your friends are on vacation right now, now you might have 6000 friends on Instagram. But your brain's going 11 different friends are on vacation right now. How come I'm not on vacation? Why are all these people in Aruba? Why am I not there? Because we have more access to more information. Whereas that was the thing that 30 years ago, when we were kids, you would have found out on the first day of school, like, dude, you went to Aruba this summer? No way. And then you thought about it, right? So this sort of real time data, it serves as an aggregate, right? We're comparing our lives to what everybody else is doing. And it's hard to do that and not find yourself in a power down position compared to everybody else.

Ben: 5:30

Is the answer then to just turn off social media, or how do we exist in a world where that is so prevalent?

Matt: 5:39

We should all throw our phones in the ocean. Uh, no, that's not possible, right? You know, and as primarily a child psychologist, right, one of the things I talk to parents a lot is screen time limits. It's a whole thing because you cannot be a student in 2024 without a laptop, right? Whether it's a Chromebook or family computer, right? You need the internets to do homework. The problem is, is the internet also has Minecraft and Overwatch and. The chat rooms and Reddit and discord and a gazillion other things, right? So the solution is also the problem. And the harder we work as parents to try and keep that stuff away, the more our kids are inspired to find them. How do you coexist? it's kind of about learning to accept an uncomfortable date time. I use my phone for social media. Yeah. For things that enhance my practice, enhance my speaking options. It's like, oh, that's a pretty cool conference. I should apply to that one. And sometimes it's like, oh, that inspires me or motivates me. I'm feeling it. But over time I've gotten much more aggressive about curating my feed. And it's like, listen, I don't need to see, you know, the doom and gloom. I don't need to see these heartbreaking accounts or people who don't align with me politically, socially, morally, whatever that might be. You know, so if there's a benefit to the feed, it's that we get choice in there. It's about being intentional about what you consume and when. I've set up a little rule for myself. During the first Trump administration, I found myself doom scrolling a lot. Just there's gotta be good news. There's gotta be good news in here somewhere. There's gotta be good news in here somewhere that I set myself up a rule that I was like, I can be on this site for as many minutes as there are letters in the thing. So for cnn. com three minutes. If I can't find it on CNN in three minutes, it's not worth knowing right now, it will absolutely come up, right? Instagram, eight minutes. Facebook, eight minutes,? And thank God they changed Twitter to X. I'm like, Oh, I owe you one minute. Like Chris Evans said today, Oh, that's very clever. Okay. And I'm out of time. Right? That may not work for you, but just having a metric in your head builds a framework about how we engage with the content with intention. And the intention is the biggest thing I think that drives, Maintaining sane limits around the content where we're sort of fire hosing. Cause otherwise I think it's going to swallow us whole.

Ben: 8:25

Comparison is the thief of joy. And Dr. Matt, what you were saying about social media, I would take it a step further and say, social media is the thief of joy, because honestly, that's so much of what it is, is comparison. You're comparing perspectives on news, on different media outlets, like Jim talked about on the previous episode, frankly, it's exhausting.

Jim: 8:50

For sure. Really, that was the heart of this podcast, not specifically social media, but just how Ben and I are talking as friends and trying to figure out how do we fit in this world where it seems like everybody else is telling us we should be something else or doing something else and falling short on some of those comparisons. So what do you do with kids? This is speaking from personal experience with me. And now I've got two gifted kids and in some ways they are very mature for their age and then. In other ways, as they're trying to develop from a social standpoint, there's a little bit more refining, obviously that can happen, but something that I actually have talked to them a lot about is adults don't treat kids like adults. And I know that sounds like a funny thing to say, but I, I mean, to extend that beyond almost like, They don't treat them human or like they have thoughts or rights or whatever. And so my kids sometimes get pushed aside because they're treating them like someone who's developmentally at that age and they get so frustrated because they're not given the time or respect or dignity that they feel like they deserve. You have that grandma that, that wants to hug you or someone who says, Hey, now we don't. Speak that way, but then they turn around and do it. There's a hundred different ways that adults are really hypocritical with kids. How do you help some of these, whether it's gifted or neurodivergent kids that just feel like, not only do I not fit in, but now I have to play by these hypocritical rules that these adults are throwing at me.

Matt: 10:40

You're not to be pedantic here, but because I'm gifted, it's very easy for me to be pedantic. Giftedness is a neurodivergence. That's a relatively recent finding. And we know the gifted brain is different, right? And one of the ways it's different speaks to exactly what you're talking about. So a neurotypical person develops synchronously. So if they're 10 years old, they're 10 years old, academically, intellectually, socially, emotionally, and physically, they sort of hang together, right? The more neurodivergent you are, your brain develops differently. And since there's only so much energy to go around, what you see is some parts of the brain are hyper advanced. Some parts are age typical and some parts are below, but if you are 10 years old and you're intellectually 15, being socially 10 is going to feel like a deficit. Because even though it's where you're right, where you're supposed to be, you are so far afield in something else, it feels that much worse. You know, the example I often use is the basketball player, Shaquille O'Neal, Hall of Fame, basketball player, won an MVP, won multiple championships, right? The guy couldn't shoot free throws. And it was the sort of thing like his career stats and in free throws are actually not as bad as you'd think. The narrative writers were like, oh my gosh, he can't make them at all. He had about 60 percent for his career, which is a little bit sub average, but not catastrophic. But because he was so good at everything else, it felt like a deficit. So the trick here when you're parenting a neurodivergent kid or working with a neurodivergent employee or dating a neurodivergent person is you have to meet them where they are in all the places where they are. In gifted education we usually call this the rule of five. Every gifted kid is five kids because that's the asynchrony levels, right? So that 10 year old is going to be intellectually 17, academically 15, socially 10, physically nine, and emotionally six. Wow. I figure out how to intervene with that kid in all of those levels. And when I do workshops on this, I do the birthday party test. I'm like, if your kid got invited to three birthday parties and they all have strengths and weaknesses. What birthday party would you send that kid to based on which parts of your kid you're trying to emphasize? Right. And that's parenting really freaking hard when it comes to racing.

Jim: 13:12

Wow. No, you, you just blew my mind because you probably were already thinking ahead when I said, I feel like my kid is, you know, really mature in some areas, but not so much in others. I already was kind of cluing into that. But when you said that there are different ages and levels, emotional, academic, physical, I love how you put that that way that, wow, that's, I'm going to run home and tell my wife about that one. Listen to this episode, Melissa, because it's going to help you understand

Matt: 13:43

all your episodes, but you're like, no, but really listen to this one.

Jim: 13:46

Wow. That's awesome. Thank you for that insight.

Matt: 13:52

There's something amazing about telling a kid, the things that make you different are not reflective of some fundamental flaw in who you are. It's literally your brain works differently. Yeah. And, and we can point to that on a brain scan. We can say, here's what that looks like. One of my favorite quotes. in this diagnostic space, is to tell someone you're a zebra, not a weird horse, right? There's a lot of people out there walking around thinking they're weird horses. Cause horses kind of look like zebras and they kind of eat the similar things. And you wouldn't think they need different things, but zebras need a different environment. They eat different food. They have different predator. Horses require different environments, different foods as well. Being able to understand the differentiation. allows you to adapt your environments to set you up for success rather than trying to continue to jam that square peg through a round hole.

Ben: 14:51

That's good. what advice do you have for those individuals who may be the zebras, but they're married to a horse? I was diagnosed in adulthood with ADHD and it's made so much sense. But I'm married to a woman who is not. And there are times where I feel like I just cannot relate to her. And she has the hardest time understanding where I'm coming from in certain things.

Matt: 15:21

Neurodivergence Is always context, but it's never an excuse. Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, honestly, I should print bumper stickers. Uh, it was like, if you're an ADHD adult married to someone who's not ADHD, your ADHD is always going to be a context for how you communicate as a couple, how you guys co parent, how you shop for groceries, how you do yard work, everything. Cause our brains control everything we do. And your wife might be sitting there like, why are you putting away the pots and pans when you need to mow the lawn? You're like, well, here's how it's going to work. Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. Now your wife might say, that's bonkers. Why would you put away the pots and pans if you need to mow the lawn? But if she can understand how your brain works, then it allows you guys to have a conversation. Within the same parameters, Because a non neurodivergent person doesn't have what I like to call galaxy brain. Let's go forward with the example, I'm putting away the pots and pans because if I put away the pots and pans, then I can clear the counter space. When the counter space is cleared, I'll know what things I need to buy at the grocery store. And the things I buy at the grocery store, one of those things is grass seed. Because I know there was some patches in the grass that need to be done. And once I mow the lawn, then I'll put down the grass seed. So it's like a logical thing, but most neurotypical people look at things in a microscope, not a telescope. So we're looking at it like a galaxy brain, whereas our poor partners are like, just mow the freaking lawn, dude. I would all interconnect. So. So it's the sort of thing, if you can explain that kind of thinking through the lens of this is how my brain works, I'm not saying your partner is going to love that, understand it, throw you a ticker tape parade, but at least they know what's going on and you can have a reasonable conversation about it.

Ben: 17:21

One of the things I try to stress for my daughter, who's also neurodivergent, is that. The world isn't always going to be,, coming at you with kid boxing gloves. They're gonna have their real world boxing gloves on and you need to know how to exist in the world. how do you raise a child to thrive in that kind of a world?

Matt: 17:44

fundamentally, every good relationship, whether it's work or, or romantic or sexual or parenting, whatever it is, it's about communication, specifically what I like to call meta communication, talking about talking. What we can do is to code switch, right? I can speak fluent neurotypical if right? When we got the mortgage for our home, I was like, hello, I am a person who runs a business and makes money. And I will sign these paperworks, even though I'm screaming on the inside, because this is boring as hell, but I can do, I can do the thing. This is why I wrote my book, right? It's like, it's actually, it's all about this idea. of cracking the code, If neurodivergent people can crack the code of what neurotypical people are saying, thinking, doing, then we've got a fighting chance not to sell ourselves out and become neurotypical because we can't do that. That's not possible. When you name the thing that's about to happen, you give both people a fighting chance to acclimate to what's about to happen. I'm sure you guys at some point in your life have gotten a text from your boss or your partner we need to talk, trigger the rejection sensitivity dysphoria immediately. Like what did I do? But if you got a follow up text, not a big deal. I'm just wondering about the X, Y, Z. When you do that, everybody does better. You're putting the words in context, right? Everybody wins when we do it that way. That's good.

Jim: 19:21

It's interesting the way you put that. If you are neurodivergent in that way, you always have that sort of feeling of panic, whereas someone who's not, it can be a trauma response where, because I got fired. Out of left field. Now, anytime a boss texts me, I'm worried that it's the start of that conversation again, but you're indicating there that,, for folks with that galaxy brain, that's every time they get a text,

Matt: 19:56

the majority of them one of the sort of soft rules about this is. Neurodivergent people tend to be really good at things that are hard for people and really bad at things that are easy for people. My autistic client, they're like, just go make a friend. Just go on a date. They're like, how? How do I do that? But it's like, Oh my gosh, this is a 5, 000 piece jigsaw puzzle. I have it done by lunch. Yeah. And it's the sort of thing like there's nobody better in a crisis than an ADHD kid because they're like instant dopamine burst. I'm locked in. I don't know if you guys watch Futurama, but it's like the episode where fried drinks 300 cups of coffee and he's moving at lightning speed and puts out the fire and saves everybody. That's what being an ADHD or in a moment of crisis feels like. God forbid my kid fell down the stairs. I'd be like, I know what to do. But if my daughter can't find her shoe, I'm like, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. It's so hard because it triggers our brain's function if it opens the file folder of every single time we've screwed up like that in the past. Which means all those feelings tidal wave us and it's, It can be completely debilitating.

Ben: 21:13

As a neurodivergent person, I've noticed in myself the tendency to interpret any and almost all input and feedback as being critical. I mean, I can look at conversations that I have with my boss, Hey, can we chat real quick? Immediately my brain goes into, what did I do wrong? And nine times out of ten, it's something that I did right. Or it's just a, hey, could you quick adjust this? And with my wife as well lately, we've been moving, which is insanely stressful. There's boxes everywhere, and I'm having a hard time with executive functioning. When I'm stressed, anything from her comes across as feeling critical. Is that a neurodivergent thing, or is that just a stress thing?

Matt: 22:12

It's probably both. But if there's one thing that unites all pieces of neurodivergence, it's intensity. We are intense of thought, intense of feeling, intense of relationship, intense of speech. We are just intense humans. Whereas somebody else might go like, Oh, I wonder if my wife is mad at me, your brain's going to go. My wife's going to leave me,, And that's tough, right? Because what we're doing in is we're spending emotional energy fighting battles that either haven't happened. Or don't exist. Yeah, absolutely. One thing I can say is one ADHD or to another focus on what is not what if. So you're walking through the house, you're like, I didn't put those boxes away. My wife's going to be so mad at me. Another time I screwed up, look at me being such an a hole, all this awful stuff, that's all what ifs. That's all you're creating a fight that hasn't happened yet. Stop. And then you'd say, honey, I didn't put the boxes away. Now she might say, Yeah, I asked you for the buses away. Much more likely she's gonna pivot into a Okay, well, it's fine. Get it done as soon as you can. Then you're moving to what is not what if And the thing that are our anxiety centers of our brains try to do is they try to protect us by mentally Okay. Rehearsing and refreshing all these different outcomes are brains like you're gonna be so safe. You're gonna be so prepared because our brains can't tell the difference between theoretical scenarios and things that are actually happening. It costs us real emotional energy to deal with those things. So if you can step into that space with communication, be like, Hey, I screwed this up. I didn't get it done. Or, you know, I know there was something I was supposed to do and I don't remember what it is, right? Then you are stepping into that space, you'll get the answer, and you're moving from what if to what is. And then you'll be able to marshal your energy to solve the problem, rather than solutions that may not actually ever come to pass. Sure. And you're like, Oh, great. Well, I just repainted the den and brought us new begonias. But my wife wanted me to go buy salt at the grocery store because you're spending all that mental energy solving problems that you don't know what the actual target is. The technical term for this is rejection sensitivity dysphoria. Know what RSD is. Name it. Well, in psychology, we say we name it to tame it. You start to ramp that up and you're like, Oh, that's my RSD. There it is. It's like a bad penny. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Ben: 24:50

I'm writing that down as we speak.

Jim: 24:55

When we were talking about this beforehand, I was kind of joking, this might be a great, a great opportunity for a therapy session for you, Ben, like with the ADHD. But again, in our last episode, we mentioned the kind of emotional permanence thing. Yeah. Yeah. Facebook reel or something like that, where someone compared it to object permanence, but that is different than rejection sensitivity disorder. One is those feelings go away. If not immediately presented, you're talking about something different here. Now, are those two things related? Are they always present in the same individual or kind of distinguished those two for me and our listeners?

Matt: 25:36

It's an old exercise that I do when I'm working with younger kids. Take a piece of paper and you write your name on it. And then for every negative outcome that happened to you that day, you get yelled at by your mom, the bus driver was mean to you, you got bullied in the hallway, crumble the paper a little bit. You're gonna end up with a ball of paper. Squeeze it really tight. And then think about all the nice things that happened to you. And for every nice thing, you smooth the paper out a little bit, you unball it. Now, the reality of this situation is that you're never going to get the paper flat and straight again, right? It's always going to have those creases. Now, if you're 97 percent as good as you used to be, that's still pretty good. But the more neurodivergent you are, the more you feel those creases, the more you feel those crinkles, those tears, because of our emotional intensity, because of this sort of inherent Since we're walking around with where I don't fit into the world, we, we get cut deeper and it's one of the toughest parts of being neurodivergent because if our emotions are aligned with the people we want to be, then there's nothing better than experiencing those emotions. I always joke, like you want to bring an ADHD person to a wedding as your guest, right? Because they're going to be at a 13. It's going to be the best DJ, the best open bar, the best desserts, the best dresses. My suit is fantastic. Everything is wonderful. That's when our emotions are aligned in a positive direction. But unfortunately, the other side of that sword does cut you. Where neurodivergent people don't get sad, they get despondent. They don't get angry, they get furious. They don't get anxious, they have panic attacks, right? It's just, we're feeling those feelings a lot deeper. any feedback is going to on its own cost a little bit more, but because they cost more, they tend to stack up it's never just one thing that gets you. It's the 11th thing, right? But for a typical person probably can put those 11 things in 11 different boxes. neurodivergent person is probably putting those maybe eight in one box. By the time you get to the third one or the other box, you're already in trouble.

Ben: 27:59

Right. In times of stress, in my case, that's moving, for the neurodivergent person, they hear messages of, Well just practice mindfulness and that'll calm your anxiety. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's that simple, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it makes it worse. What are some of your recommendations for those who are neurodivergent? What's the best way to handle and hopefully eliminate stress to some degree.

Matt: 28:34

Don't set your expectations on elimination. In in mental health, we always talk about things through the lens of what we call the big three frequency, intensity and duration. It is impossible to have zero stress. True. What you want to do is have stress less often for shorter periods of time, especially when the context is something stressful, like moving. You know, one of my clients is in the process of getting divorced right now, and she's like, I am so stressed. Why am I so stressed? I'm like, you are getting divorced. Doctor, it hurts when I punch myself in the head, but our brains tend to skip those steps, So we're going to stop reset, I'm going to answer your question about mindfulness with a great quote. Everybody should meditate 10 minutes a day unless you're really busy. And then you should meditate an hour a day. Now, I think it's a great quote because when we get busy and stressed, our self care things are the first thing to go out the window. My college kids right now, they're like, Oh man, it's like. finals, man. Like I can't shower. I've got finals. Like you need to shower more. Cause it's fine. I promise you it's a thing. And it's the sort of thing, like the more stressed out we get, the more we're going to skip those steps. So those things have to become sacred. They have to become, I'm going to shower. I'm going to eat three meals a day. I'm going to do whatever my self care thing is. One of my long term clients, he came to me once. He was like, everyone tells me I got to do yoga. I got to do freaking yoga. I got to do yoga because yoga is going to calm me down. I was like, that's cool. Do you want to do yoga? He's like, no, I hate yoga then. And here's the crazy thought don't do yoga. It's not the yoga. It's the, I've set aside a space where I'm doing a thing that is calming my brain down, right? For me, it's going for a walk. I put on the music, usually a podcast. Last time it was you guys. So that's great. Awesome. Play a little Pokemon go. I have a great, you know, about a mile loop in my neighborhood. I can do two of those loops in a half hour, come back to my house, have a drink of water, see my next therapy client. Bing, bang, boom. My tank is much more filled for going on that mile walk. And it would be doing 30 minutes of yoga because I hate yoga. Now for the people for whom yoga is great, keep doing it. Just give yourself permission. If it's Tai Chi, let it be Tai Chi. If it's martial arts, if it's painting, if it's. If it's going to a rage room, one of my clients and they're very financially well off, they go to a rage room every Friday at one o'clock and, if you've got the money and the wherewithal, do it, right? And that's the thing. That's more therapeutic than yoga would ever be for that person. Any good intervention starts with the intersection of interest. What are you interested in, and what is available to you? You might be like, Ah, yes, I'm interested in rock climbing. I'm going to go climb a rock wall. If there's not a rock wall within 40 miles of you, probably not the best intervention. What could we do instead? How do we supplement that, right? That's where we start being creative and clever. That's how we solve the problem.

Jim: 31:58

You said a couple of things that triggered in me, the disparity between neurotypical and neurodiverse, because I find a lot of times. The difference in response from neurotypical is just what is socially normal and acceptable at the time. A lot of people, if you told them every Friday, I go to a rage room, they would think, wow, you're crazy. Like, right. What kind of rage do you have in you? Or as a great example, you just talked about Pokemon go, you stinking nerd. I can't believe that you would waste your time going out and catching Pokemon. And yet the person who said that is the same guy who has all the stats of his favorite football players memorized down to the T and, uh, It watches every single time it's on and is reading all these different articles, way more nerdy and immersed in football than you are in Pokemon. And yet you're the nerd and they are celebrated as a man. There's that hypocrisy in society that I actually came back at somebody like that one time. I'm like, how is what I do any different than you? Painting your chest and go and do a Vikings game. And he's like, why are you so sensitive, dude?

Matt: 33:22

In high school, I did high level soccer and I did musical theater, you know? So I was Finn Hudson before Finn Hudson was Finn Hudson. And that's right. I just get a glee reference. Hot topical pop culture guys. Um, yeah, you're on it. And I'm telling you, like. I wish my small town growing up to have the arts. It wasn't until I got to high school where I was able to do this and people would be like, dude, so you're gay. I'm like, ah, yes, because I'm a guy who does theater. Therefore I'm gay. I was like, first off theater girls are very pretty and they're very flexible because they're all dancers. And they're also like just wildly aroused all the time. But no, no, no, please go take the field hockey girls. Like you're stupid. Right. But it was the nineties and gay was a slur, right? It was like, Oh, you're gay, very clever. But it was like, you couldn't fit in that space. I used to sit on the bus. With my disc man, Cause it was the 90s. Of course my mix is right. Um, but they were like Broadway mega mixes and I was terrified that people would hear them. And then I would be mocked or thrown in a river or whatever. You didn't realize like, yo, man, you catch that new Lincoln park. I'm like, first off, I love Lincoln park. I think the park's awesome. And sometimes I was listening to Linkin Park or Jay Z or whatever. But most of the time, the thing that was getting me the most hype was the Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Megamix. And screw you if you're not down with that. Now that's 40 year old me. Well, my nerdiness, 16 year old me crawled in a hole, Oh, absolutely. And, and so we say this to the men out there who are secretly listening to showtunes. Or won't admit that they LARP on weekends, or, you know, have nine unfinished Harry Potter fanfics in their hard drive. Those communities will welcome you in a more authentic, meaningful way than being in your company's fantasy football league ever will. And you don't have to choose. No one's asking you to pick a side, but give yourself permission to do the things that make your soul happy, because that's going to pay for itself a thousand times over. In a way that going along to getting along never will.

Jim: 36:00

We said it on an earlier episode. Everybody needs to go to a Ren fair at some point or another,

Matt: 36:05

Why would you go to Ren fair? It only has sharp weapons, wagons of mead and corsets. You're right. That's not for anybody. You should definitely not go save more Ren fair for me. Right. That's right. Right. My goodness.

Jim: 36:20

Turkey legs. You forgot the turkey legs.

Matt: 36:22

I forgot about the turkey. Sorry, usually I just go deep into the flagons of mead. And you, you'll get used to the word flagon enough. It's a very good word. You're right. The more we let masculinity be defined by the monoculture. The more we lose the diversity of thought, feeling and experience that makes the world more interesting and more meaningful. And frankly, if you're listening to this from a business perspective, more productive. Yeah. Do you want every man in your office to be like, you got it boss. We should put a clock radio in it boss. You know, let's get an app for this boss. It's going to be the atypical guys who are like, listen, the gay community is never going to buy this because of this reason that I know, cause I'm gay. Or, you know, Hey, if you made this small tweak, you would tap into the nerd market and nerds have money to burn. That's the diversity of thought? That's why neurodivergence is evolution, We are moving in a direction of, of not just only eating vanilla ice cream. But somebody who's putting bacon and maple and bourbon and ice cream. And I want to put that guy on the express lane to heaven. Right. Cause it's like, yes, why did we not do that earlier? And those are all really good. Right. So that's the thing. That's what makes a more robust and interesting and productive world.

Ben: 37:50

You were talking about the different kinds of ice cream and mixing the bourbon and the different flavors. So when you go to the gas stations. What kind of slurpee are you getting?

Matt: 38:00

Well, as a proud New Jerseyan, I let somebody else pump my gas and then I go in and get the thing. Um, I've never shared this publicly. You do 80 percent coke, a splash of Sprite, and then the rest cherry. Absolutely. The lime in the Sprite picks up the cherry, and then you get the best cherry Coke. You may take that with you, share it with your friends, paying a small royalty fee of 99. 99.

Jim: 38:26

You've, you've said a lot of valuable things here today, but that one may be the most important.

Ben: 38:31

I'm telling you. It's true. I figured you were a mixologist when it came to that gas station machine. So I'm glad to see I was proven correct.

Matt: 38:41

And I, and I was a bartender for many years and I was very good at it. And it's the sort of thing where part of being neurodivergent, right, is putting yourself in situations that play to your strengths. So as a gifted ADHD or who's very social, bartending is like the perfect job for me. No kidding. Cause I'm small talk. I'm talking to people. I'm throwing drinks. I'm great at it. And then one summer, I was 20. everybody else quit or got fired. And the owner came up to me, he's like, you're managing the bar. And I was like, I'm what now I'm 20. I, I couldn't sign for the liquor deliveries, right? Like, because I was old enough. We talked about something that doesn't play into my strengths, organization, scheduling, ordering. It was terrible. And thank God they found somebody pretty quickly. Maybe the bar would have gone under. I would have been like, okay, new policy. Everything is free. I'm very scared. So if you're out there and you're like, I hate my job. This is not making my soul happy. It's probably because it's not the right fit for you. Neurotypical people can sort of do more stuff. They have a wider band of tolerance. Our bands of tolerance are narrower, but they're deeper. So if there's the thing you love, you can do any version of that thing. Give me an ADHD or who's in outside sales, right? They're just like, I'll go to that conference. I'll go, I'll go to a networking event. I'll go talk to that stranger and they're going to get you business. But if you have that person working in the freaking mail room, then they're going to be a less happy employee. They're going to make you less money and you're probably gonna have to replace them sooner. So it's like, wow, why would we not do this?

Ben: 40:27

Are there certain career fields that. Neurodivergent people typically excel in. Is that a thing? What are your thoughts on that piece?

Matt: 40:36

Once again, it starts with interest and availability. What I find is that if you move along the pathway Of the things that interest you, the opportunities that become available are much more aligned with the person and professional you need to be. In my twenties, I thought I was going to be a standup comic, I did improv exercises. I did a lot of standup in Boston. Thank God YouTube didn't exist then. That's all I'm going to say about that. Oh man. Being around theater people has always made me happy and it made me a better public speaker. And, you know, a decade later I'm opening rooms where I'm talking to 1800 professionals fall all over Europe and thinking to myself, like, thank God I did all that standup. Cause you know how to use a microphone, you know, how to use silence, you know, how to use a stage, you know, you may never make it as a professional cosplayer. Though I would argue the barrier to entry to that has never been lower. Thank God for the internet, but maybe Star Trek isn't the thing that pays your mortgage, but maybe your interest in Star Trek makes you the best science teacher ever, or maybe you keep your job as an accountant, but you volunteer at the sci fi museum on weekends. You don't have to center your interest in your life, though. It's obviously great if you can, but there's room on the table for all the different dishes. And I think that's the thing that a lot of people forget, like starting a podcast just just to pick an example out of the sky.

Jim: 42:08

That's right. It's filling a need for both of us for sure.

Ben: 42:11

It has, yeah, in ways I didn't necessarily expect. It's been really good. Over emotional ness. Talk to me about that because it's something that I experience pretty often. You mentioned the intensity earlier. That's very much what it is. It's like I feel the emotion, but then I feel it reverberate and it ripples into absolutely every aspect of my life. I just feel things very deeply. And sometimes the amount of time, it's almost as if I, I feel things for too long, according to how others may feel and interpret experiences. So what's the. the cause for that over emotional ness and, what are some suggestions on how to harness that and, keep it from spilling over too much into one's life?

Matt: 43:12

Great questions. Let me ask you this. You know anybody who's lactose intolerant? Uh, yes. So would you say that they can't eat the right amount of milk or dairy? Sure. Right? I mean, I mean if they did, it would just cause unpleasant experiences. Absolutely. So you wouldn't come up to someone who's lactose intolerant and say like, dude, you don't need enough ice cream. It's kind of silly, don't you think? Sure. Can you tell I've used this example before? So when people say you're overreacting or you're over emotional you're layering in judgment into an emotional experience. If you take one thing away from tonight, guys, I want you to think about this. Get rid of the word should. Get rid of the word should from your vocabulary because should is all the possibility of could plus shame. Say things like overreact or over emotional. What you're saying is my emotions are wrong. No emotion is good or bad. Emotions are comfortable or uncomfortable and that comfort is based into their fit to the environment. Now you might You might be walking down the street and see a squirrel get hit by a car, right? And you might be like, oh man, that sucks when that happens. But then Jim might be like, boo hoo! I found a dead squireel! It would be out of sync to your reaction. But the best thing about feelings is they can't be wrong. You can say, I wish my feelings weren't so big. I don't understand why my feelings are so big. But your reaction is your reaction, and it begins and ends that sort of self compassion, and you can start there, then you're in great shape. That's a sort of, the broad, that's the psychologist in me talking. Sure, yeah. The brain nerd in me goes, okay, so we have a limbic system in our brain, it's our emotional circuitry. And then a prefrontal cortex in the front part of our head, that's essentially the brake system on the engine that is our brain. The one of the things that almost all neurodivergences have in common is a weaker prefrontal cortex. And prefrontal cortex, among its many jobs, it's all about behavior inhibition. So it's stopping before you start. You know, the ADHD brain isn't ready. Aim. Fire. It's ready. Fire. Aim. Yep. Right. That's your not doing its job. So when you've got a neurodivergent brain, and this applies to gifted kids too, is you have these giant feelings and these giant feelings lead to thoughts and those giant thoughts lead to behaviors. And the part of your brain that's supposed to say, hold on, is that a good idea? You've already run past it. You bang your head against a, against a doorframe, go and punch a wall as hard as you can. And somebody goes, why'd you do that? And you're like, I don't even know, because big feelings lead to big behaviors without that thought check in there. The coolest thing is that the prefrontal cortex is like a muscle. the more we work it, the stronger it gets, the stronger it gets. More inhibition skills will get back and you can regulate yourself a little bit more and be more successful in managing that stuff.

Jim: 46:33

Some of the conversation you were having over masculinity in our society and how you really want to see this more neuro diverse world be something that's accepted. Now you're talking about this analogy of lactose intolerance there, where there's even giving ourselves grace for just being different than other people. I know kind of your main stated goal is just making. The world more friendly towards neurodivergent people. So outside of starting a podcast to help talk through some of these issues, what are some ways that you can do that with the society that in a lot of ways really is resistant to accepting that power? Everyone isn't neurotypical.

Matt: 47:20

The best thing I can say there is you can't make other people get it, but you can consistently present them with that information, right? So if at that point, like if they don't read the PowerPoint, if they don't read my book, if they don't listen to the podcast. That's on them, but you have pointed them in the direction of the information they need. I tell every parent I work with and every adult I work with in the workplace, make a little one pager about your kid or yourself. Here's my strengths. Here's my weaknesses. Here's where I do well. Here's how I don't do well. These are the things that motivate me. These are the things that make me shut down. And if you can hand that to your boss, HR manager, teacher, principal, whatever, you're saying I don't know how much you're going to follow this. But this is the cheat sheet for me. This is the way to work smarter. Not harder with me. Early on when I was dating my wife, my best friend was like, Matt doesn't get angry often, but you can tell he's angry when he gets really, really quiet. That's true. If I go quiet, you know, I'm angry. And there was a couple of weeks after that, I was like, stomping around angry about something. My wife is like, This is what Mitchell is talking about. You're mad. I was like, I am mad. Oh no. I've been spotted. Damn it. All we can do is educate and then you find the environments that are the most affirming they can be. And that might be changing jobs. It might be. advocating with HR or your child study team at school. It might be going to work for yourself. It might be you white knuckle it through the week, but on Friday night. You guys get together and you play Settlers of Catan for six hours and then all that angst melts away because you found a way to be back with your people. One of my colleagues, she describes it as the take off your bra moment. She's like, no woman wants to wear a bra. We have to, for reasons, but you get home and you reach in, you yank it off and you thring it across the apartment. And that's when you know, you're back amongst your people. But for me, it's, it's the take off my tie moment. And it's like, I'm back to being me. I've taken off my costume. Yeah. Then taking that energy and plugging it into people who also don't want to wear ties or bras. Yeah, you get to benefit from all that social grace without having to play as much of the, of the game driving society.

Jim: 49:52

I think we've got an episode title there, Ben fling off your bra with Dr. Matt,

Ben: 49:56

there you go. There it is.

Matt: 49:58

That was my dating profile.

Jim: 49:59

Uh, we want to give you some time to plug your book or if you have an ask of our listeners or if you have just an insight that you want to share as a ending thought for our podcast listeners,

Matt: 50:14

I will say this, the thing that gives me the most hope for the future is that this generation has normalized more ways to be more things than I think existed when we were kids. There are more ways to be masculine, there are more ways to be feminine, there's more ways to be a person. And that's awesome. But if you're sitting there watching this new generation thinking it's left me behind, it hasn't. We can ride in that slipstream, right? Be the person you want to be. The best time to start something was 10 years ago, the second best time is right now. So if you've been putting off learning Klingon or playing the theremin or learning how the theremin goes, then today is the day,? The old ways are broken and you don't need to play those games anymore,? And that's, that's the way that you're going to be the best version of yourself. Whatever that thing is going to look like. And if that message and the other stuff we've talked about today resonates with you, then please do buy my book. That would make me and my publisher very happy, but really my favorite thing is to go out and give talks in the community. I mean, I've spoken to schools and companies and conferences all over the world, and there's just nothing better than getting in a big room full of people and saying, here's a story. We're going to laugh. We're going to cry. You're going to leave with some techniques and strategies. If I can make your life a little bit better, then that's what gets me out of bed in the morning. There's lots of ways to interface with me, whether it's for therapy or buying my book or, having me come out to your organization, but please feel free to reach out and we'll find out what's the best fit for you.

Ben: 52:01

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for reaching out. Just on a personal note of curiosity, I know you and Jim spoke towards the beginning of putting all of this together, but how did you hear of Real Men Hug? Was it just an internet search, or how did we get here today? I was on another, I think, I think I was on the Men's Therapy podcast. And, and he shared out that he was a big fan of you guys. And I was like, Oh man, well, if y'all are good enough for him, then I should reach out. And it's since I reached out, you know, a lot of people I like and respect personally and professionally have been like, they're up to something really good here. So it kind of makes me feel like I got it on the ground floor. You know, it's like when you see the local band. And you're like, oh man, they signed to a label. You're like, I called it. Right. So don't forget me in three years when you're, you know, leading Spotify chart. You can have me back.

Jim: 53:07

If we're leading charts, we'll have you back on for sure.

Ben: 53:12

It's just so crazy to hear you say that because I feel like we should be saying that to you. You've got all of this exposure and connections and whatnot. So to hear you speak of us as highly esteemed, it, it's. It goes a long way. Yeah. So thank you. Appreciate it.

Matt: 53:29

As I'm fond of saying, it's easy to say when it's true and, uh, As a guy who's trying to navigate in a world that feels increasingly hostile to guys like us, I want to amplify this, whatever platform and strength I have, because more people need to hear the stuff you guys are talking about. Cause there's a lot of men out there who are just thinking the way the world is, isn't for me, but what other way is there, right? I mean, why do we think the suicide rates are so high for middle aged men? Yeah. Is you realize. I'm not the high school football star or wrestler or whatever that I was. I don't want to be that guy anymore, but what else is there for me? That's why this stuff is so important. I'm always going to be a child psychologist first. But men's mental health is a huge concern. It's a rapidly increasing problem and we're not throwing resources at it because there's still this idea that we should rub some dirt on it or buck up. And if men out there are hearing three men being vulnerable and open, then, we might not just be changing hearts and minds. We might be saving lives.

Ben: 54:42

Yeah, that's powerful.

Jim: 54:44

Dr. Matt, we are definitely going to stay in touch and I'm excited to see more out of you and share and listen to some more of what you have to say. I am not just saying this. I am excited to purchase your book as well. I don't know if that's I don't know if that's already out yet or not, or the, it said September on your web page. So I'm not sure if that's still the case.

Matt: 55:05

So pre orders are going to start in about a month and then physical copies in September. And I'm going on a bit of a book tour this fall. I'll be doing state gifted conferences in Alabama, Tennessee, Indiana, and Illinois. and maybe Texas and we'll see what, you know, where, where else my travels take me.

Jim: 55:26

Awesome, I think we're gonna wrap up.

Matt: 55:29

Let's do this again sometime. Seriously, you guys are so easy to talk to.

Ben: 55:32

Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you again.

Jim: 55:34

For sure. Thanks so much.

Ben: 55:36

All right. We'll see you, Dr. Matt.

Jim: 55:40

Wow. I honestly was blown away. Actually being able to sit down and chat with him. That's the first time where I have hopped onto my phone and written something down. Cause I wanted to remember it for later. I'm like, I got to talk to my wife about this.

Ben: 55:56

It was so good.

Jim: 55:57

So good.

Ben: 55:58

There were so many things that I wrote down and Jim wrote down. So Dr. Matt, thank you for joining us. That was just an incredible conversation. Real men hug and they also apparently drink coke because even Dr. Matt was drinking a coke

Jim: 56:15

was he

Ben: 56:15

he was see this is my neuro divergence. I don't miss a beat I remember everything

Jim: 56:24

real men hug, but they also move from what if what is That was phenomenal. Oh my gosh. Mind blowing. Dr. Matt, you get to listen to some of these comments at the end that we don't edit out and just hear us fangirling over all of your knowledge. So thanks so much again.