Breakout Session-Blake Baumann

Never go to college and never basically have a normal life. And that's what the doctor told her. And I know the doctor thought he was probably doing what was right and what was best for the mom, but it's a good thing that mom did not listen, because not only did the daughter, and her name is Ellery, not only did Ellery go to high school, she graduated high school, she went to college, she graduated college, and she even gave the opening remarks at her college fall commencement ceremony. And I know that many times we've probably heard similar words. Maybe it wasn't from a doctor, maybe it was from a teacher, maybe it was from a family member. Or maybe it's just that little voice that sometimes is in our. Our head that is wondering if our child will ever be able to manage this. This predictable or this unpredictable world. And I know that there is typically one question that keeps us up all night, and that's going to be, you know, what will happen with my child when I'm no longer here? Will they be okay? And so I stand here, you know, here in Texas today, but standing up with you all is that not only have I worked with families who fought those battles and won, but I've also had those same fears as well, because I have multiple autistic children myself. And I want you to know that you're not alone. Your child is capable of greatness. And so today, I don't want to focus on any of their limits. Instead, I want to focus on what's possible for them. And because your. Your child's story isn't written yet, I don't care if they're an adult yet, you still hold the pen, and. And so we can write that story together. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to take you through the five areas. And these five areas are where I see that most of our young adults really get stuck. And if we can master these five areas or help them along in these five areas, it will make them future ready. And each of these areas absolutely builds off the other. So identity is the most important. And then we move to motivation, future structure, routine, and independence skills. And so with our identity, you know, our identity is something that's made up of a whole bunch of factors. But I want you to know that we're going to focus on these four that I consider part of the framework. And with their identity, think about it as the strongest force in the human psyche is the need to stay consistent to who we believe we are. And so a way of describing that is like a thermostat. So there's a thermostat on the screen, it's set to 72. Well, what happens when it gets up to 80 degrees? The air kicks on and it cools us down. Right. And so our kids have this kind of thermostat which we call our identity. That's why like one third of all lottery winners go broke within the first three years is because their identity doesn't match up to being a wealthy person. With our kids. Think about their identity. If it does not match up to being somebody who can work, what happens? Well, they get into the job, their identity is set at 72. Well, the job is like at 80 degrees. So what happens is their anxiety kicks in and instead of helping them, it's hurting them because their identity didn't match up. And then they start either self sabotaging or it just starts becoming so overwhelming that they start getting to that point where they have to quit. And so our identity is, like I said, the four areas that we're going to focus on are beliefs are the first thing. And belief is just simply acceptance of something that's true, whether it's factual or not. And it actually leads to the perception of our world. So when we talk about the identity, there's really four pieces of the identity that I want to target. The first one is belief. And belief is really the acceptance of something that is true, whether it's factual or not, and it eventually leads to our perception of our world. So with a lot of the young adults that I start coaching, they have a belief that they're not good enough. And if they have a belief that they're not good enough, guess what action they're going to take. They're not. Right? They're not going to try. And so what we have to do is we try to have to shift those beliefs to getting them to believe that they're capable of doing something and then tying that in and helping them take movement with roles. Rules are, you know, what our kids create to really protect themselves and guide themselves. And if somebody has a belief that, like I have a client that says that they had a belief that people like them don't succeed. They had a rule that said don't take action because it's going to lead to failure and pain. So again, that is something the beliefs tie into the rules which tie into the habits and the stories with habits. Habits are essentially the repeated actions that directly reinforce our identity. And so if you can think about, do your kids have any kind of habit of Procrastination. And if they do, you know, and most of them do, they're running what we call is an anxiety habit loop, which basically reinforces that they can't do it or they should stay away from it. And so something I would strongly encourage you to do if your kids are procrastinators, is to try to create a two minute action that they can do per day. So it's just one minute, two minutes, something they can do per day towards whatever they're trying to avoid. And it doesn't have to be big, but what that does is that sends a different message to their brain, that instead of them being somebody who's an avoider, they're now a manager. And that helps reinforce their identity and starts making a small shift. The next element is stories. And our identity is shaped by the stories we tell ourselves or the ones that we hear from others with regards to us. So think about your kids and what stories they're hearing. I don't know if y' all have ever heard the Thomas Edison story. It's a real quick short story, so I'll share it. But basically, Thomas Edison was sent home one day from school with the note to give to his mom. And essentially he asked her to read it to him. And she read it, and it said, hey, your son is a genius. He's too smart. We don't have anybody here that can teach him. Please homeschool him. So Thomas Edison went on to be this great inventor. There's things that we use to this day. Well, after his mom passed away, he was going through her things, and what he found was that letter. And he opened it up to read it again, but it said something quite different. It said that your son is mentally deficient, that he's not capable of keeping up with the other students. And so you need to keep him at home. He's expelled. So imagine what would have happened if he would have heard that. We probably wouldn't have half the inventions that we have. Think about Ellery's mom. Imagine if she would have taken that doctor's advice. She probably wouldn't have graduated high school or gone to college. And so this is just critically important. And so I'm going to teach you one quick strategy that you can start implementing today with your kids. And it starts with the thing called the reticular activating system. So if y' all are not familiar with this, I'm going to tell you it's incredible. It's the way to start building the brain's identity and creating that Success, identity. And what the reticular activating system is, is it's the brain's filtering system. So right now you're getting about 2 million bits of data per second coming at you. Well, we can't handle that. We'd be overwhelmed. And so what it does is it filters it down to about 40 to 50 bits of information per second. And so it controls our focus, it controls our attention, and it prioritizes what we notice. So, for example, if any of you ever went out to buy a car and you started shopping for a certain car, then you get out and all of a sudden you notice that car everywhere on the road, or maybe you wanted a certain book, and then you notice that book showing up at coffee shops or people are talking about it. That's your reticular activating system, focusing in on it. And it shapes our identity. And so the, the example I'm going to give you or the. The tool is called a victory jar. It's really simple to do. What you should do is you should have your child write down three victories per day on separate pieces of paper, fold them up, put them in a jar, and you want to do the same thing. You want to write down at least one success that you see for your kid and put that in the jar as well. Couple things from this. The act of writing it alone is rewiring their nervous systems to start seeing success. Number two is when they see those victories pile up in that jar, all of a sudden it is adding something. That's what was intangible, is adding a tangibility to it so they can look at, wow, I was successful. And then what we did as a family before my kids moved out is every New Year's we would dump out the victory jar and we would go through it as a tradition. And that's just something that is incredibly important. Now, the second thing that we're going to talk about are the motivators, right? You always want to know, how do I get my kids motivated? So these are the intrinsic motivators, and they are the underlying emotions needed that keeps our kids from doing things or, or to do things. And there's six of them. And the first one is the need of certainty. This is the need to feel safe, to feel secure, to feel comfort. And they're focusing on avoiding pain or stress. The second one is variety. This is the need for change. This is need for surprises. This is the need to do things differently. It's the need for excitement. The third is the need of significance. This is the need to Feel unique, to have, you know, to be recognized for our, our talents, to feel valued, to feel important. The fourth is the need of connection. This is need to belong, to have companionship, to feel love, to have friends. The six or the fifth is the need for learning. It's the need for improving. It's the need for evolving. It's the need for expanding our knowledge and our capabilities. And then the sixth is the need of contribution. This is the need to help. This is the need to give. It's the need to make a difference. Now, when something meets three or more of our needs, it becomes a habit or it becomes addictive. So the number one question I get from parents of teens and young adults is, how do I get my child off a video game? And you have to know that that video game is meeting some or all of these needs for that child. And so what you have to do is you have to find a replacement that meets those same needs. So I'll give you an example. I had a client named Michael. And Michael played video games for probably somewhere around seven to eight hours a day. And so in working with him, we found that video games met the need of certainty. He knew what to expect when he joined that game. It met his need of significance. He was incredible at that game, and other people recognized him for that. And then it met the need for connection. He wanted friends, so when he got on the game, he got to play with other people. And so in working with his parents, we had to redirect him towards something. And of course, they wanted it to be career focused. And so we found something that would meet those needs. And for him, it was the job. He was incredible at math. It was the job of his enrolled IRS agent. And so that met the need of certainty. An enrolled agent's job is very structured. It provides clear rules and. And it's repeatable processes for significance. Being an IRS certified tax expert gives him the prestige, and people saw him differently and they treated him differently. And then from a connection, it was able to help them connect with people, but do it in a very structured way. And so when you're looking for ways to help your kids shift from one thing to another, you got to know, what are those needs that are being met. There's a QR code here, so if you want to download a form and if it doesn't work, just let me know. But it should work where you can download some questions to ask your kids to uncover, you know, what their needs are. And while you're doing that, I'll just Give you another quick example of how this can apply. So my eldest daughter is a child protective investigator, and for her to move up in her career, she needs a master's degree. And she was trying to decide whether she was going to pursue this degree or not to, but her job is so unpredictable. She can go 41 hours without a break. And so she wasn't sure she would be able to balance this.

Hold on one second. They're all trying to take your QR code. Yeah, everybody's phone is out at the moment. Hold on one second.

Okay.

Are you getting it? Okay. Yeah. You could do it off my laptop. It's clearer.

And if not, I can send it to you, Cindy, and you can send it out to everybody.

Okay. Are we all good? Okay, go ahead.

Yep. And so I was just sharing about my daughter and that she needed a master's degree to move up. And so she was trying to decide whether she wanted to do it. And usually I don't get involved now that they're young adults, but if they come to me, I get involved. And so she came to me and she said that, hey, I'm trying to decide whether I do this. I knew she was driven by significance. That is her number one driver. So I just simply asked her a question. Wouldn't it be great for you to be the only sibling and cousin that has a master's degree? And that's all it took, was that little tap into her intrinsic motivation for her to pull the decision. And so she decided to do it. She completed her first semester just this past year. And so if you ever wonder why your kids do things or don't do things, it comes down to those intrinsic motivators, what and how they're meeting them. Now, the next thing is the compelling future, but you have to have the identity set for this one. If you don't have the identity set, what happens is, you see right there is the person in pain. And many of our young adults don't like thinking about the future. They because they have a strong sense of anxiety. They don't have a confident identity that aligns with it. They see the future as a fear of failure. And they think about the future can be overwhelming to them or they lack real world exposure. So if you want to help them to really build a compelling future, you have to shift their identity, and you have to tie into the intrinsic motivators to help them. And to start this process, I call it basically future focusing. And what this is, is this is talking about how we can help them be proactive versus reactive. So I have a favorite quote, it's by Abraham Lincoln. And it's the best way to predict the future is to create it yourself. And so if we can teach our kids that they can create a future themselves, then it's going to decrease the anxiety. And the way I do this is I begin the process simply. I don't worry about a five years out, I don't worry about three years out. Sometimes it's not even a year out or a month out. I look at what my kids capability is and it might be five days out, it might be five, you know, hours out, or it might be five minutes out, I don't know. And, and, but whatever it is, I start making what I call is a future micro goal together. And it can be as simply as deciding when we're going to go to the bookstore or what we're going to have this week for meals. And from there we build off that and we push it out a week or a month or a quarter or a year. But what I want them to take away is, is the more they take ownership of their future, the more they can control what's going to happen to them. And that should reduce their anxiety around the future. That should give them clarity, that should give them direction, that generally helps with motivation and it definitely strengthens executive functioning skills, especially around planning and decision making. So that's something that is incredibly important. Number four is structure and routine. Now many of the young adults that I work with that have the greatest struggle is because they don't have structure in their lives. A lot of them, school brought that structure and once school ended for them, they lost the structure and they no longer had needs to be up at certain times. And so what that led to is that led to their going to bed a little bit later and then later and then later. And now a lot of the parents I work with, their kids are waking up, are going to bed at the time the parents are waking up. And so that dysregulates their sleep cycle. And when it gets compounded is when they don't have anything to do, it actually increases their anxiety. And because their brain is searching for what should I be doing? It starts over analyzing, it goes to overwhelm and it can actually lead to depression. And so what happens is they start gravitating towards what I would say is something that's going to bring them structure and routine that meets those intrinsic motivators. And for many of them that's video games and staying in the room. And so having Structure is paramount for our kids because it provides them the framework for long term success. So structure equals freedom. It reduces their anxiety, it improves their daily functioning, it helps them transition into a new environment like jobs or independence living. It reduces their burnout and their decision making fatigue. And essentially as they're going through this structure, they're also building independent skills. And whether you're a young adult realizes this or not, the structure brings predictability which creates a sense of safety and control allowing them to function more efficiently and effectively. And that just overall leads to a better well being for them. So I have a little five step process that I would encourage you to do to start adding structure. If they, if they're missing structure, number one is start with what already exists. And that means look at their current routine, don't try to change it yet. But what we want to do is we want to stack one small habit. So for example, if there are people that play video games at 6pm, then introduce something right before that. Say take five minutes and either get the laundry out of your room or take the trash out or apply to a job. And then step two is as we go along, we only want to make small gradual changes. So we only want to start with one habit per week, but we also want to let them have autonomy within that habit. Right. So it could be would you like to take the trash out when you wake up? Or would you like to take the trash out right before you start gaming? And then step three is link the new habits to personal interests or their intrinsic motivators. So for example, if they're a gamer, I might say, how fast can you get the trash out? Let's keep a scoreboard of your personal best and let's see if we can beat it each time. Or if they're an intrinsic motivation is connection. I might tell them how much I appreciate what they did of taking the trash out because that's going to build that connection that they see, hey, I do. And it helps with the connection element. And then number four is we want to shift responsibility over time. And what that means is we want to go from managing the process to being a self managed process by our, our teen or young adult. And it starts with like gentle nudges like hey, were you able to get the trash out? Then it moves to skills like having an alarm set for them where they have a timer or they have an alarm that goes off that says take out trash. Or maybe there's a visual reminder somewhere for them around their gaming that says take out trash. But then Ultimately it moves to self reflection, which is asking them how do you think today went? What worked well? And then number five is create weekly check ins versus daily pressures. So many of our kids sometimes have PDA which you know, is mentioned a couple different ways, but pathological demand avoidance. So daily pressures causes anxiety. So if we can move to a weekly check in where it's scheduled and it's something we keep as parents because that's incredibly important and it doesn't have to be long, five to 10 minutes max, but we have to be consistent with it because if we're not consistent with it, we can't expect our young adult to be consistent with it. And essentially we want to know what successes they had, what went well, what didn't work and what we can do differently to adjust. And so if you do that, it's going to start adding the structure and then you build it and make it longer. The last area is independent skills. Now I'm a big believer on the 8020 rule. From this perspective, 20% of our actions equal 80% of our results. So when I take a look at the independent skills categories, these are the ones that I look at under mindset. By far this is the most important one. It's confidence. I won't spend much time on it since we've already really kind of covered it in identity. But confidence in this capacity is a skill. It's the skill of taking action. So if they don't have the skill of taking action, none of these other skills will really work well. So we have to have confidence as a skill. The second one is executive functioning. And for executive functioning, what I look at is I look at time management, I look at planning and emotional regulation are kind of my, my key ones that I like to hone in on. Planning is essential because you got to know what to do and how to get it done. Time management, you got to know how to prioritize it and when you're going to get it done and get it done. And then emotional regulation, it's about handling stress, problem solving under pressure and building resiliency when we have setbacks. And then for social skills, I think of active listening. Active listening by far is the hardest skill for our young adults and teens to learn. But it's the skill that will make the biggest difference for them in, in communication. And active listening is being fully focused. It's understanding, it's responding thoughtfully, it's and it's being engaged, present and intentional about conversations. And when we do these things, it can be the difference between Our kids, making a friend, getting a job or being taken advantage of. And so one of the things is with active listening, there's several different parts of it. So I would tell you to have your, your teen or young adult just focus on one part at a time. So for example, I'm working with a young man right now. And part of active listening is we have to turn off the internal dialogue so we can hear what the other person's saying. But we also have to notice body language, right? The non verbal cues. And he says, well, how am I supposed to process the non verbal cues if I can't talk to myself? And so we talk about how to practice that. So for his example, I said go on YouTube, you know, find a couple movies that you can watch scene wise, mute it and see if the body language matches up to what you think. Because once you practice this enough, then it's going to be unconscious to you and you won't have to think about it and. But it takes practice. So just making sure they're focusing on one thing at a time. So all these skills I'm talking about just one thing at a time. From the career side, I can't tell you how crucial it is, is that you consider the strengths, the skills, the talents and what intrinsic motivators it meets for your teen or young adult. Because what that could do is that could prevent them from getting the wrong job. Because if they get in the wrong job that doesn't meet those things, they're either going to get burnout or they're going to get fired and it's going to damage their identity. So if you can get it right, what it leads to is longevity and happiness. And then the other thing as parents, what I would try to tell you is if we can give our kids a way to gain work experience. And it starts simply with chores. But if there's volunteer activities, if there's things that neighbors need help with, if you own a company or a business that you can hire them to do little things for, you start getting them some form of work experience and that's going to help them. And then with the basic life skills, you know, I look at money management, household management and self care, those are the key ones. And for many of these skills, what I would tell you is if you can start practicing these skills inside your home and it's going to make a tremendous difference. So I'll give you a couple of examples of how we did it at our house is we are big believers that anything over a certain amount of money Like a cell phone or tablet, we're not going to pay for it, but we will give our kids the opportunity to earn, to be able to buy their own. And so setting them up to be able to find opportunities to work within the house, to earn those things, you know, teaches them the balance of giving value to what you get back in return. Another thing that we did to help, like, with planning and money management a little bit, is we plan staycations, but we gave our kids the opportunity to plan them. So we gave them each a budget, and we said, you get X amount of dollars, you got to account for six people. And it's all about fun and food. So you got to make sure we have fun and we have food go. And they would come up with creative things. They had to do research. They had to find how much does food cost, how much does a ticket to the zoo cost? And they had to pull all of this together. So that taught them things as well. And then lastly, something that we did that I think really helped with the conflict in the household, because when you have six people, you have a lot of conflict, is basically treatment agreements. So we had, like, a little workshop where we went in and we said, okay, we're going to come up with ways that we all want to be respected. So how can you treat your siblings, and how can they treat you with respect? And so we created those rules, and we hung them around our house, and then we created rules to how to solve problems before it got to mom or dad. And that eliminated 80% of our friction in our household. And so what I will tell you is I will say that no matter.

Hold on one second. Blake, hold on one second.

Yes.

Okay. Okay, thanks. Okay, go ahead.

Yeah, so I was just going to finish up with saying that with this, no matter what you do, the more you can practice inside your house, the easier it is going to be for them to do it outside your house. And that's going to be a major key. And so I will kind of just kind of bring us back so we can have some Q A time. But, you know, with these identities, these are the. Or with these skills, these are the. The major skills. And if we can master these major skills for our kids, what this will do is this will get them future ready. And then, you know, I just. I. I started off with this story about Ellery a little bit, and I just want to kind of complete it. So in working with Ellery, you know, this just recently happened last year, is she got proposed to. And you can see the pictures of her getting proposed to. You can see the guy giving her the ring and what the ring box looks like. And so she just got married, and she is living her happily ever after. And what I want you all to remember is you shouldn't listen to anybody else but your own mama's heart, because you know what your kid is capable of, and you know what's possible for them. And so what I will leave you with is that the decision is yours, and you set the tone for your young adult through the expectations and beliefs you have in them. And so I will. I'll end it, Cindy. And I'll. I'll stop sharing my screen. And. And we can do any kind of Q A that you'd like to do.

Awesome. Anybody have questions? I'm sorry. It came late. I loved your presentation. Do you have a book, or. How do we. Do you do any counseling? I felt we just skimmed over the topic. I'm very interested. He does do counseling. Yes. Go ahead. So did you hear her question?

Coaching. So I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna clarify real quick. I'm not a counselor. They. They're whole to different regards, so I just want to make sure. But I do work with families, and I do work with teens, young adults, and I have multiple people on my team. So as far as a book, I'm actually finishing up writing a book. It'll probably be completely written and here in about two weeks. And if you're interested, I'd love maybe your input and feedback as I go through the review process.

Yeah, you can send me the info on the book, and then I'll send it out in an email to everybody.

Perfect.

Can you. Can you coach out of state or only in Texas?

No, I coach from all over the world, so I have clients in Australia, England, Spain, Canada. I have 50. The only place I coach in the US is Alaska, but I've coached out of every other state, and the majority of my clients are out of state.

Sorry. Somebody keeps trying to call me. Something else is going wrong. I have a question, if you have.

A question, if you can move closer to the computer, because I won't be able to hear you.

Okay. Sorry. So we have an only child, and my husband is more overprotective and cautious, so I'm on board with having my son develop skills, but my husband's more limiting. He thinks. So you can't do it. And I'm. I don't know how to handle that.

That's a tough one. Right. And. And. And I will say that's just giving you stats. That's why most marriages end in divorce with autism with autistic children is because of the two different belief systems. The way I would approach your husband is I would try to find out what his biggest fears are. Clearly he's trying to protect your son or your child. I. I think you said son, but, yeah, trying to protect your son. And it could be his own personal beliefs that are getting in the way. I would ask him a question. What happens when we're not here to protect them? Now is the time to let him go through those experiences. Why we can pick them up and dust them off and keep them going in the right direction, and everybody's future looks a little bit different. And so with your husband, I would really hone in on, you know, those intrinsic motivators that we talked about. I guarantee you, if that's your husband's challenge, is he's driven by a lot of certainty. And so it might be coming up with the plan of how we can take tiny steps to push them versus these big steps, because that's what your. Your husband's fearful of is, is harm coming to your son. Does that. Does that make sense? A little bit.

I think my husband, Some of his own experiences influence what he thinks is going to happen with our son. Yeah.

Yeah. And that. That absolutely does. So remember that we talked about those rules with identity is we. We keep on forming them. And basically what's probably happened is because of an experience in your husband's life, he has a rule that he's not going to let this happen to a loved one of his. And so until he realizes that rule is holding his son back, it's probably going to stay there. And so I would definitely have you speak to, you know, maybe a counselor or coach with him and talk about your son and. And maybe get a third opinion on the evaluation to see, you know, what your son's capable of. He thinks he knows what he's capable of, but maybe having a third party to kind of share with him, that can also help with his beliefs.

I'm gonna turn this around.

Sure.

So he could see you. Thought that would be nice.

Yes.

What if your child has, like, these amazing grand plans and he doesn't want to hear or doesn't understand the process like you're talking about? Because I have tried to do that with him, and he's just. He's moving to Florida. He's finding. Oh, first girlfriend moving to Florida. He doesn't want to be in cold New Jersey. He's gonna get married, have kids, and make a lot of money.

Okay, what is your challenge with that? Let's start there, because that sounds like a great life. So I'm. I'm wondering what it starts with, your challenge. Because sometimes us as parents, we hold our kids back. And so now part of that is understanding that, you know, there might be some things that need to be input in place to keep the rails on to help him achieve that. But I absolutely believe I'm. This is my philosophy. I believe we should lean into what motivates them, and we should be able to help put the guardrails up or the safety net under, just in case. But if we steal that idea or that dream away from them, it's actually going to do more damage than it is good.

Yeah. He doesn't want to have the process of it.

Sure. So a lot of times they have grandioso plans, but they don't understand how to execute those plans to make it happen. Right. And so many times what I will do is I try to find a mentor. I try to. So, like, when I. I have a lot of young adults that I work with that parents, you know, they come to me and they say, hey, my son wants to be a Hollywood producer or voice actor or this. I say, great, let's do it. So I go find a Hollywood actor or a voice actor, and I have them do informational interviews so that they can understand all the things that you don't get to see. So, for example, I had a Hollywood producer come on, and we were talking about script writing. Well, this young adult got to hear all these things that went into script writing that he never even imagined. And he made it a different decision for the direction he wanted to go. And so I think that is so important is if he has a plan of how to. He wants to make his millions, let's find somebody that he can do an informational interview with, because that person could turn into mentor. So I'll give you a different example. I have a client. Her. Her name is Nye. She wanted to be a music producer and a dj. You're looking at me. So, you know, I probably don't have those skills, but what I do is I know how to find those people. So I said he, hey, let's go out to the top DJs in the world, and let's just ask to see if somebody will allow us to interview. Well, there was a guy, and he's from Canada, and he's named Dead Mouse. Pretty popular. I don't follow music so as well. But he's a top three DJ in the world. Not only did he allow the informational interview, he took her and he mentored her for 30 days. That allowed her career to just take off. She got a job doing DJing. She went out to the Icon Collective School of Music in LA from Texas and was able to meet music producers of companies like Iron Man, Marvel's Avengers. She ended up traveling the world. She ended up relocating into South Dakota, which was interesting, but that's where the love of her life that she met along the way lived. And she started her own music production business and she recently just got filmed by Tony Robbins Co. To be one of their case studies. And so it's all because, you know, for her we didn't kill the dream, we just found a way to help them achieve the dream. Does that give you a little bit of, of hope or insight? A little bit.

It does because I, you know, he's just, he's like moving out, he's doing these things and I'm like, no, we can't do that yet, but we can do. And I think the way I'm saying it to him and plus his, his limitation of any process that's involved in anything, but I feel like I squash it like every day.

And, and part of squashing it will put up resistance for him listening to you about anything else. And so you want to support him and you want to find out even if you believe it's a bad idea, you want to find a way to support him so that he can learn from natural consequences. And that sometimes is the best thing that can happen. So, you know, I'll give you an example is myself. Before I got into coaching, I thought I wanted to be a life insurance and a financial expert. And so I got my life insurance agents. I went to take my financial test and I missed it passing by one question. And so then you had to wait 30 days? Well, in that 30 day range where I was feeling miserable, I had an opportunity to coach somebody that shifted me. Now I own my own business and I'm doing much, much better than I could if I became a financial agent. And for me I'm getting to help people in a way that's special to my heart because I'm autistic myself, my kids and just it seems like a lot of people are, are caught in that trap where they're not quite, you know, low enough and I high enough needs and they're caught where they don't have support. And so I kind of helped fill in that support. And it's. It's been a special journey because I've gotten to see kids that went from my. One of my very first clients, he had hair all the way down his face like this. You can only see an eye. He only answered yes or no, and his mom never thought he would be able to have a normal life after. And. And when I say this, I'm not claiming this result is typical. Okay? After working with him for eight weeks, he had a job, a girlfriend, and he had plans to move out. Now, that is not typical. So I just want y' all to know that right up front. Not typical, but what we were able to find out is we were able to find out what his framework was with his identity, his intrinsic motivators, and help him build a future that aligned with it and showed him how to do that, and he was able to do the rest. And so our kids are so capable of their own magic. Sometimes we as parents just have to get out of the way. And I know we have the greatest intentions. We have the greatest intentions, and it's hard. It's hard.

Thank you. I'm on the opposite spectrum with my son. He's 24, and I basically pushed him to do too much. Pushed him to community college, which he didn't succeed in, Pushed him into a job which they didn't call him back into for a second season, and now he's crushed. And I don't know how to get any intrinsic motivators in him because he's thoroughly depressed.

So that is. That is. That is difficult when they've gone and they've gotten pushed and. And my first question is, do you think he's in burnout?

Yeah.

Or do you think he's just kind of depressed and. And broken? Spirited?

I think it's everything.

Okay.

He's very angry now. He doesn't want to talk about anything. I can't get him motivated. It's really sad. And all his friends have pretty much blossomed, and he's, like, stuck. Very. It's very disheartening to see.

So in. In that case, I would say you're probably going to have to push him a little bit again, but just a tiny bit. And it's going to be towards things that give him hope, and it's going to be to start recognizing that victory jar. I'm telling you, it's a game changer if you can get your young adult to do it. And sometimes you have to start first and just start writing victories that you see in them. And you putting it in the jar. We used to do ours at dinner. And part of the thing is before they could leave the table, they had to write down a victory because in the beginning they none of them wanted to. But as it got better and better, they started writing down victories for themselves and their siblings. And so what has happened is think of, think of the reticular activating system as a lint filter. So you know what happens with their dryer is it has all that lint on and if we don't change, can burn the motor. It can won't do as well drying, but it can start a fire as well. So lint may stand for letting in negative thoughts. So L I N T letting in negative thoughts. And so what we have to do is we have to clean it. And the way you start cleaning it is just baby steps of getting them to write down victories. And it may be you calling out the successes for them in the beginning and you assisting them in the beginning. It is. So I would say that they're a great place to look to for resources. And it's a. N e dot org is their website and they changed what it meant. So I don't, I don't remember what it means now, but basically incredible resources. I'm more than happy to speak with any of you and your children, but I will tell you I'm not a fit to work with everybody. And so I know the, the ones that I do well with, and those are the ones that I coach, the ones that I don't. I either have teammates that coach them or I re. I refer to different coaches based on their needs as well. But A and A and E have they call them life map coaches. So they're specifically trained on autism, so they could be an incredible resource for you as well.

You ever work with counselors to teach them your methods? And.

I, I've not worked with counselors to train them. I've worked with counselors to partner. Partner on clients. And a lot of times they anchor in things that I, I am teaching. And so I, I assume they adopt some, but I, I don't know. But I do partner with them to try to help clientele move forward for sure. So it, it's, it's important because. Takes more than me. I mean, it takes the parents, it takes any of the support network to make them, to get them, not make them, but get them to the point where they're moving forward consistently. And I believe therapy and counseling are crucial pieces of the puzzle.

Kathy, hold on a second. Yeah, we have the contact information. Can I just ask a question about you personally? Like you said you, like, you seem like the most unauthoristic person I've ever met. Like, and I'm not kidding everything about the way you communicate. You're a self starter. You have all of these. So I guess my question is like how. I don't know. Did you. How does your autism manifest? Because it's, it's invisible and just. I don't know. I mean I get it's a spectrum, but you're not even on it. Like you're the opposite of it.

I don't know if my wife was, if I could see my wife in view, I would call her in because she will. She's a gifted education teacher and she says, nobody knows you have autism unless they live with you. So basically I was diagnosed with Asperger's when my. And I found out later in life. But when I was in my 20s, things were horrific. So I, I got into the first relationship anybody showed interest and it was abusive relationship. I ended up having kids and I was very fortunate that I had a mom. And I believe behind every great guy there's an even greater woman. And my mom was the principal and so she was very structured and, and helped me and I went on a mission. So I guess my special interest was, was self help. So I went on and I read easily a thousand books in probably about a three year period on everything. So I'm the perfect masker. If you want to go the masking route, I'm the perfect masker. But what I've learned is I learned the difference between identity and masking. Masking is pretending and faking. I no longer am. I become what I wanted to become. And so. But the anxiety that led into talking to y' all was massive. The anxiety that, you know, it took me probably 12 hours to figure out what I was going to talk to you all about, even though I do this every day. But see, these are the things that people don't see. These are the things my wife gets to see. She goes, you coming to bed? I said, no, I hadn't figured this out yet. And so I studied communication. I. Everything. I'm a big believer in modeling. And so I studied it to a fine tune that I feel like I walk on both sides of the spectrum in a sense. And that's how I feel like I, I definitely relate to a lot of the challenges your kids have. And I have stories for almost every single challenge they've been through because I'm 20 years advanced to most of them, but yes, I. I have. I have. It shows up for me. It's hard to get things out of my head. I can see it, I can't say it, and I can't write it. So, you know, writing a book is taking a lot, lot longer than it should. And. But these are things that nobody gets to see and then nobody sees what I practice. I get up at 4:30 in the morning and I start practicing all these certain skills so that when the public hits me, I'm able to display it. But as soon as I get done, like social events, there's a 45 minute timer. I'm out after 45 minutes because I got to go recharge. And I. And my wife calls it decompressing. We. We had a role in our house where our kids couldn't talk to me when I came home from an event because I get angry. You know how people get that hangry feeling? Well, when your battery gets depleted as an autistic person, all filters come through. And I get mean and nasty, and that's not who my character is, but that's how I get. And you would think I could control it, but it's just not that way. So I get it. When our kids come home from school and they want to yell and scream at the people that love them the most, it's because they trust you as well. And so that's. That's the stuff people don't get to see. And so I. I appreciate what you said, but it, It's. It's the internal demons that people don't get to see everybody because we present in a different way.

Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you, Blake.

You're very welcome. You're very welcome. All right, so if you.

If you all go on the website, Robbie's WorldBook.com. okay. That I walked you through this morning and the schedule. If you scroll down, you're going to see the picture of Blake and it's got his contact info, it's got his website and contact info. So just. You can find him that way. Okay. All right, that was awesome.

All right, see you all later. Thank you all.

Only bad on my end with was the sound. I apologize about the sound.

All right, we'll see you later, Cindy.

All right, Blake, thank you so much.