When the 9–5 Breaks You: Burnout, Identity & Neurodivergence | Office Space [Ft. Dr. Han Ren] - Different Spectrums Podcast ™️

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Attention Welcome to the Different Spectrums podcast.
We dive into the wild world of mental health discussions.
Get ready for profound talks, a sprinkle of humor and sarcasm,
and a touch of colorful language.
Just a quick heads up, our show reflects our individual
opinions, which may not align with the standpoint of the

(00:21):
podcast, our featured guests, orany related corporate entities.
Our mission? To illuminate through laughter
and satire because everyone needs a good chuckle.
Chill out and don't stress over the small stuff.
Legal troubles? No thank you.
Cancel culture, please spare us.We'd rather keep this space

(00:43):
lawsuit free, So buckle up, havea good time, and join us as we
navigate the vibrant realm of mental health on the Different
Spectrums podcast. Hey everybody, we back again.
Hey, we're back and we're live. I'm Spencer, your Co host and

(01:06):
that's our licensed clinical therapist, Nas.
Doctor Nas, you know, blood, blood Sugar's under control.
Doctor Nas, you know, I got the shot.
I'm on the shot. Good, I'm glad.
So good I'm. Not going to die.
Wow, I'm sugar die. I'm.

(01:28):
Invisible. Anyways.
Remember, don't take us too seriously.
Or do. It's completely up to you there.
You go also don't forget to run up those likes for us.
We'd really appreciate it. All right, so for today we have
a very special against. Our guest is a licensed clinical
and school psychologist, educator and speaker based in

(01:51):
Austin, TX. She specializes in liberation
oriented, anti oppressive and culturally informed mental
health care. Through her work, she addresses
the pursuit of collective healing, particularly within
historically overlooked communities, including Asian
Americans and children of immigrants.

(02:12):
Please welcome Doctor Han Ren tothe show.
Hello. Hello, thank you for having me.
Nice to have you nice to. Have you thought she was
Mexican? OK.
Not quite. Not quite.
No, you just live in Texas. Live in Texas, Yeah.
Close. So close, so close.

(02:32):
Used to used to be part of Mexico.
You know, back in the day, bringthat up.
You had to bring that up. We're still hurting from that
guy. Land back, land back.
Don't give a shit homie. Oh my.
God impression anyways, today we're going to be talking about

(02:54):
the movie office space. The classic by not only has a
great gas, but it's actually by Mike judge and if you don't know
who Mike Judge is you you know who he is because he's done king
of the hill. So you've watched that before
and he's done plenty of other great shows.
But some of the things that we're going to be talking about,

(03:15):
we're going to be talking about working from home and how
productive or unproductive we can be when we're working.
Motivation, purpose, looking down on those who maybe have,
you know, certain ailments and then also rewarding those or as

(03:36):
we call it, failing upward. Those are some topics that we're
going to be covering. Nas anything before we get into
the show. What's the what's the main guy's
name from King of the Hill? The the main, the main guy.
Ink. Ink, I saw someone's ass today
look just like his ass. His ass?
Who like who looks like his ass?You know, I saw an ass look just

(03:56):
like his. It's just, you know, ass.
On ass, I told. My dad, I said.
Look at that ass. Yeah, he had to have the butt
pads. He.
Just how you just sloped like that.
How that looked a lot plumper than before.
Don't it. Don't.
How's it inverted? You know he.
Needs to do some squats. I just.

(04:17):
Hank Hill doesn't do squats. All he does is propane and
propane accessories. That's it.
That's it. Excited to do the pod.
I hit you up a while ago when found on your content.
Like I told you before, love thevibe, love what you talk about,
love how you show up on the space under into VEB.
Today we're going to get into some neuro divergent stuff too,
right? Some autism stuff.

(04:38):
We're going to talk about milk staplers and also just kind of
being shit on that work. Then also just burnout.
It's kind of actually pulled outa stapler.
Why do? You have a stapler at your desk?
Are you fucking? Stapler.
Who doesn't have a stapler on their desk dipshit bro?
Everything's online. I can't staple shit.

(05:00):
What do you need that for? Why do you have an?
I live in the. Physical world.
I don't live online. I know that's hard to believe,
but. You're not part of the matrix
yet, OK? Weird you got.
A. Stapler you guys staple.
Old man's over here cosplaying but not really excited about

(05:21):
today. I didn't even think that we were
going to talk about corporate culture or just having your jobs
existential, like shit related issues, depression, and you
know, we're going to talk about some suicidality.
So let's get into the show. Let's chop it up.
Let's have some fun today. Whoop, whoop.
Whoop, whoop, whoop. Whoop.
Hey, look at you appropriating. OK, I see you.

(05:43):
Stole our whole flow there. I can follow along.
I can. Jive I can jive.
You want to talk about me being old jive?
I know Jive Turkey. Jive all right.
I got the skills. A dynomite.
Girl got one pair of Jordans, thinks she's black.

(06:05):
You only need one I've. Got two.
I've got 2 pairs of Jordans. Oh, that's cute.
Don't get it twisted, I. Got my first pair when I was
like 2 years old. It's fine.
Facts. Let's be real dumb little kid,
Jordans are the cutest shit I'veever.
Seen they are. I bought some for my little my
friend's kid or nephew, a littlebeau and the cutest shoes.

(06:29):
Cutest shoes are. So cute.
Yeah. Awesome.
All right, let's do the. Show anyways that.
Was hilarious. Oh yeah, the mask comes off the.
Mask fucking John Cena bra. Some baby shoes are cute as

(06:50):
hell. They are.
Every time I've seen them I almost like.
Monica, you hang them in your like, rearview mirror, you know
are. You Mexican?
Now what are you? You need a You've been around.
You've been in Texas? Too many colored people.
We're in our lowriders, what else are we supposed to put on

(07:10):
there? Girl, you get that dark eyeliner
not. Seeing the.
Dark. Lighter.
Oh God, that's the worst. Shit, ever.
Looks better. Looks like a Peter Gibbons.
Oh, there you are. We just talking about you.
You must be Peter Gibbons. Terrific.

(07:32):
I'm Bob Slidell. This is my associate, Bob
Porter. Hi, Bob.
Bob, pretty much go ahead and grab a seat and join us for a
minute or two. You see, what we're actually
trying to do here is we're just we're trying to get a feel for
how people spend their day at work.
So if you would, would you walk us through a typical day for
you? Yeah, Great.

(07:56):
Well, I generally come in at least 15 minutes late.
I use the side door. That way lumber can't see me.
And after that, I just sort of space out for about an hour,
telling space out. Yeah, I just stare at my desk.
But it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another

(08:19):
hour after lunch, too. I'd say in a given week, I
probably only do about 15 minutes of real, actual work.
Peter, would you be a good sportand indulge us and just tell us
a little more? Oh, yeah.
Let me tell you something about TPS reports.

(08:42):
The thing is, Bob, it's not thatI'm lazy.
It's that I just don't care. Don't don't care.
It's a problem of motivation. All right?
Now, if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units,
I don't see another dime. So where's the motivation?
And here's something else, Bob. I have 8 different bosses right

(09:03):
now. I beg your pardon?
8 bosses, 88 Bob. So that means that when I make a
mistake, I have 8 different people coming by to tell me
about it. That's my only real motivation
is not to be hassled that in thefear of losing my job.
But you know, Bob, that'll only make someone work just hard
enough not to get fired. Would you?

(09:24):
Bear with me for just a second, please.
OK. What if, and believe me,
hypothetical, but what if you were offered some kind of a
stock option equity sharing program?
Would that do anything for you? I don't know.
I guess, listen, I'm going to go.
It's been really nice talking toboth of you guys.

(09:46):
Absolutely. The pleasure's all on this side
of the table. Trust me.
Good luck with your layoffs. All right?
I hope your firings go really well.
OK. Excellent.
Great. Looks like you've been missing a
lot of work lately. I wouldn't say I've been missing
it, Bob. Good one.
Oh, that's. Terrific.
Peter, I, I'm sure you, you've, you've heard some of the rumours

(10:08):
circulating around the hallways about how we're going to be
doing a little house cleaning with some of the software
people. Well, Bob, I have heard that and
you got to do what you got to do.
We're going to be getting rid ofthese people here first, Mr.
Samir. Not going to.
Not going to work here anymore anyway.

(10:29):
And Mr. Mike Bolton, everybody'sgoing to miss him.
You're going to lay off Samir and Michael?
Oh, yeah. We're going to bring in some
entry level graduates, farms andworkouts.
Singapore. It's usual deal.
What standard operating procedure?
Do they know this yet? No, no, of course not.
We find it's always better to fire people on a Friday.
Studies have statistically shownthat there's less chance of an

(10:51):
incident if you do it at the endof the week.
Anyway, Peter, what we'd like todo is put you into position to
have as many as four people working right underneath you.
This is a big promotion, Pete. It's huge.
So you're going to fire Michael and Samir and you're going to
give me more money? Wow.

(11:13):
Off he goes home and tries to kill himself by running the car
in the garage. Is he dead?
No man, check it out. That wife of his comes home
early from work and catches them, so he tries to play it off
like nothing happened. I was having.
Some trouble with the shifter here.
It's jam. I I couldn't get it in to drive.
I I I mean I mean reverse. You OK, Ty?

(11:35):
Then as he's looking at her, Yeah, he decides he wants to
live. Yeah, I think I'm OK.
All right. Seems to be working now.
See you later, honey. Love you.
But then as soon as he backs outof his driveway, he gets slammed

(11:56):
big time by a drunk driver. Is he OK?
Sort of. He broke both his wrists, legs,
couple of ribs, his back. But check it out.
He's going to get a huge settlement out of this, like 7
figures. He's getting out of the hospital
tomorrow. He's going to throw a big party
this weekend to celebrate. We're all invited.
No. Hi.

(12:17):
Could you turn that down just a little bit?
But I I was told that I could lift him to the radio at a
reasonable volume from 9:00 to 11:00.
Yeah. No, no, I know you're allowed
to. I was just thinking maybe like
a, you know, personal favorite with I I I told Bill that if, if
Sandra's going to listen to her headphones while she's while
she's falling, then I should be able to listen to the radio

(12:39):
while I'm collating. So I don't see why I should have
to turn down the radio because. All right, I enjoy listening at
a reasonable volume. Thanks.
From 9:00 to 11:00. What's happening?
I didn't receive my paycheck this week.
You're gonna have to talk to payroll about that.
I did. And.
And they said, Mel, we're gonna need to go ahead and move you

(13:02):
downstairs into storage B. We could have new people coming
in, and we need all the space wecan get, but there's no space.
So if you could just go ahead and pack up your stuff and move
it down there, that would be terrific.
OK. Excuse me.

(13:24):
I believe you have my stapler. Happy.
Birthday to you. Happy birthday this tomorrow.

(13:44):
Happy birthday to you. That left terrific here, Peg.
You want to get everybody started there?
Oh, that is terrific. Just terrific.
Thanks everybody. Really, I, I really, really

(14:05):
appreciate it. It's very special.
Now, Milton, don't be greedy. Let's pass it along and make
sure everyone gets a piece. OK, but last time I didn't
receive a piece and I was told. That I just pass.
OK, but this this I I can see the the cake.

(14:26):
There's lots of cake. They raise you up, people to
cake is too many cake the cake, the cake the cake.

(14:51):
The cake, the. Excuse me, Excuse me, senor, may
I speak to you, please? I asked for my tie and they
brought me a pina colada and I said no salt.
No salt for the Margarita, but it had salt on it.

(15:12):
I won't be leaving a tip becauseI could.
I could shut this whole resort down, Sir.
I had to take my traveler's checks to a competing resort.
Let's write a letter to your photo tourism.
And I could have this place condemned.
I could put. I could put.

(15:33):
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Rodney Dangerfield and we're back again.
They show us no respect. We're back and we're live.

(16:19):
I can only think of Ronnie Dangerfield right now.
Oh, rest in peace. Rest in peace, King.
Comedy. She had a mouth, had a look like
I had a hook in it. Oh, Caddyshack, great film.
Anyhoo, we have a great guest today.
Honrin, once again, thank you for coming on to the show.
My first question to you is how did you start your mental health

(16:42):
journey? Could you walk us through that?
Yeah, let's start with that. I mean, how does any therapist
start their mental health journey to find out if they're
normal, if their family is normal, What's wrong with their
family, right? We are all kind of traumatized,
hella traumatized. I don't know.

(17:07):
But but seriously though, I, I grew up in a very culturally
stigmatized time when it comes to mental health.
And it was not something that people talked about.
And I could also see how everybody in my community was
suffering. And I thought, man, when I grow
up, I'm going to do something about this.

(17:27):
I'm going to like talk to peopleand figure out why we are all so
fucked up. And then I did it, so here we
are. Did you know from the giggle you
were going to do this Psychologyor I?
Knew I knew from a pretty young age that like I was like,
something's not right. And I was always just like

(17:48):
really curious about humans and brains and how people functioned
and why people were the way theywere.
And like, you know, why people couldn't just say what they mean
and mean what they say. Like, you know, there's, there
were signs early on that there was some neurodivergence and
then I like really did a deep dive into it.
But part of it is really destigmatizing mental health for

(18:11):
my community and starting the conversations and getting people
to examine and talk about their experiences in a way that wasn't
just performance. Do you feel like you got like
pushback from people in like your own community when you
started going on this journey ofmental health?
Or was it kind of just like it was like, that's nice, all

(18:33):
right. Go, go.
No, I mean, I was like, hey, that's nice.
Everyone's like, what? Why would you do such a thing?
Don't watch. You want to be a real doctor.
Was this was a fake doctor? Like, I mean, it was, it was, it
was a lot of pushback. And then even now, you know, my,
my mom's like, OK, well, you do that like shrink shit.

(18:53):
Like, I don't need to go see histherapist.
It's all, you know, it's it's still like she she can accept
that this is what I chose to do with my life and like, watch
from a distance. But, you know, it doesn't really
apply anything to her own life. There's still still a lot of is.
She happy or proud like I'm sureyou got a good family and things
are good you have I. Think, yeah, I think she's, I
think she's proud. Yeah, she's proud.

(19:15):
But she's also just like, don't talk to me about it because I
don't get it. So yeah.
Is that a big thing in the Asiancommunity or no?
Totally. That's a lot about saving face.
It's a lot about, you know, the collective and filial piety.
It's about performance and achievement and success.

(19:38):
Like people in the Asian community really struggle to
decouple success from happiness.People would check all these
boxes and reach all these milestones and then they're
like, why am I still so miserable?
Everything feels so hollow. Or they'll, you know,
professionally do really well, but then like in their personal
life, like have no idea how to like ask someone on a date or
make friends. So there's there's a lot of

(20:01):
splinter development when it comes to, you know, what success
looks like. And for your clients, do you
feel like it's easier to talk with them because they are
talking to somebody who's from their same community and like
they open up better? Or do you still feel that push

(20:22):
back when you're talking to them?
It takes a minute, it takes a minute.
And I think it also depends on, you know, people's generational
immigration stories, like first generation people will come in
and just really try to be like symptom reduction.
Let me let me just like fix the leak and beyond my merry way.

(20:43):
I don't want to do any sort of deep dives.
I just want to like learn some breathing techniques or
whatever. But then like second generation
or people who really lacked thatemotional achievement and have
felt that because their friends or their peers, families had a
very different experience. They really seek to do that
deeper level excavation work where they really want to

(21:04):
understand themselves and their family and their generational
trauma and like their legacy. And so yeah, it depends.
But I I feel that a lot of children of immigrants
especially, are really hungeringfor that emotional attunement
and that deeper dive. If you don't mind, for everyone
that's listening right in the reels and everything is going to

(21:25):
be produced. What is your ethnicity?
What is your background? I am a 1.5 generation Chinese
American immigrant, so I came tothe US when I was five.
I was born in Shanghai, China and I immigrated to Ann Arbor,
MI. Ann Arbor, MI.
I guess he's from Michigan. That's hilarious.

(21:46):
You still live. In Michigan West, don't you
know? Don't you know?
That's more here. So.
So do you turn? Michigan so just.
Like it's all. Midwest.
Oh, here we go. You people are all the same.
Here we go. Jesus, You heard it here.
Yeah. Oh, you were.
How do you say Saturday? How do you say Saturday,

(22:08):
Spencer? Saturday.
Saturday. Saturday.
Wow, I'm having such a good Saturday.
Give your balls a tug, Jesus Christ.
Do you say? I'm check ass.
I actually do. I do.
Sometimes I do, I'm not going tolie.
To you on YouTube. That's our thing.
That's our thing here in Minnesota.
We say hope. Hope, hope so you where do you

(22:32):
still? I know it's different.
That's a different section of people.
You still live in Michigan now or no?
I do not. I live in Texas, I'm in Austin,
TX. Oh, that's right.
Yeah. You said Texas at the beginning.
You know, You know, I'm slow. I don't know.
And my stomach hurt. Danielle, that's.
All I know, you know you're listening.
How much yogas? I didn't have much yogas.

(22:56):
How long did you live in Michigan for?
I was there from age 5 until 21.I did my undergrad at Michigan
Gold Blue and then I moved to Houston and then Texas or Austin
for grad school and stayed in Texas there.
You go nice. Did I know?

(23:16):
It's probably still hurts now, but remember, you're remember
you're a little interview with Michigan and you talked about go
what was it? Gold.
You say gold. What would you say?
Golden blue. Golden blue.
Golden Blue. It's.
Amazing. The colored motherfucker.
That's a fool group. Fuck y'all bougie ass man.

(23:39):
It's some bullshit. It's gold to me.
Shit, some corn, some corn coming out my ass or some gold.
I didn't get that job. Yeah, sorry, sorry, bring that
up, but that was hilarious. It was funny, dude, and I'm from
Michigan and I know this right, but I froze and I was like gold

(23:59):
and blue. You're.
From Michigan too. Yeah, I'm from.
Flint and Saginaw, MI yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's the spot.
Hold on now. It is a roof behind now.
Oh, now you. Know any who?

(24:21):
So you describe your approach asa liberation oriented and anti
oppressive. Could you explain what that
means in practice and how it differs from traditional therapy
models? Yeah, I think so much of
traditional therapy, it's very Eurocentric, it's very
individualistic. It's very like, you know, what

(24:42):
can you do to shape your own life as you know, mental health
being a personal problem and from a liberation anti
oppressive approach, it really is very systems informed.
It takes into consideration where did you learn this?
How did you learn this? What systems and infrastructures

(25:03):
in your life maintain this? And what do you have to be aware
of even when you're shifting yourself?
Because even if you want to justbecome a different person, the
systems in which were embedded does not allow for that a lot of
the times. And that is the source and cause
of a lot of the main mental anguish that so many people
experience. And I think, you know, more and

(25:24):
more conversations are evolving around this now when we realize
that systemic problems trickle down and so much of people's
suffering has to do with societal ills rather than an
individual falling or failing. So when you're working with
clients and IA lot of Asian folks, right, you said you're

(25:46):
working with your population, your folks, your people,
perfectionism, success, money, get the right job, right?
Because I work with a lot of Asian folks too vastly different
working with my Hispanic population, my air population
versus Asian and East Asian, vastly different cultural
dynamics. And so how do you help deprogram

(26:08):
some of this systemic or what society views?
How do you help them do that? Because even if you help them do
that, they still have society fully attacking them all the
time. Oh, totally, totally.
And they have to, not only is itlike Western dominant society,
it's their own immigrant cultures and their own family of
origins that very much still values collectivism and, you

(26:29):
know, feeling of piety. And you can't just set
boundaries and expect people to respect them, right?
Like, there's no, there's so yeah, there's there's no
boundaries. There's no boundaries.
Like, I mean, I feel like sneakyboundaries.
Sneaky boundaries where you knowyou like do what you need to do
and you like maybe put a different reason in As for your
why, but you still say what you need to say and do what you need

(26:52):
to do. And what was I saying?
You're good. Well, that's the ADHD.
Look at that. So how do you help people
deprogram some of this? How is it working through there
and do you find success? Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of
it is an integration because I think people are so
compartmentalized, right? They have their like family of

(27:12):
origin self, they have their work self, they have their
friends self, and then these different selves don't get too
intermingle. And so I help people understand
like where did you learn this? How did it serve you then and
does it still serve you now? What parts of it do you still
want to take with you into your life today?
And what parts can you leave behind?
And really understanding and integrating the systems of power

(27:35):
and oppression and family dynamics and immigrant culture
and generational trauma and all the ways that people's families
needed to contort themselves in order to survive gives people
the perspective like, well, maybe I don't need to control
myself as much, right? Like I have outgrown some of
this. My, my positionality does not

(27:56):
require this as much. And so how do I become more
authentic, become more free in the way that I show up?
And that's, that's constantly a,a, a pendulum that you get to
toggle like it's, you know, youridentity isn't fixed.
It's fluid throughout the spacesthat you occupy throughout your

(28:17):
lifespan. Freak someone out saying it's
fluid, right? No divergent.
Like I need to know this is who I am.
It's like, no, this shit's ever changing.
My God, it's ever changing. Yeah, it's uncomfortable.
It's uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable.
So you have done a Ted Talk, no?No, you know, Ted, Ted, Ted

(28:45):
Teddy bear. Ted X Ted X It's not the big
Ted, but it's. A Come on now, Ted's Ted.
All right. Ted, Ted, Ted.
Ted, Ted. Ted.
Ted. Ted's a white guy, right?
Is Ted an actual white guy or does Ted stamp for something?
I don't know, I don't know. The blackest man we've ever

(29:05):
seen. He black as hell.
Yeah. Ted.
Anyway, we'd love to know your experience doing that talk and
just how did like, how did your public speaking really prepare
you for that? Because it is, it's a big deal.
Not only are you being seen by acrowd of people, but you're also

(29:27):
being very well seen on the Internet too.
So how did that, How'd you get prepared for that?
Yeah, I really love public speaking.
I think it is the place where I feel the most powerful.
I feel really alive and it, it was such a great experience

(29:49):
because the crew that I was with, because we're all
neurodivergent and we're all like, you know, disability
justice focused. We were like, let's let's all
normalize the use of note cards,which like, you know, it's not
against the official Ted rules. Like even for the big Ted stage,
you're allowed to have note cards, but people kind of like,

(30:11):
you know, Pooh, Pooh that they're like, oh, if you have no
cards, then you're not like a real Ted speaker and like, sure,
yeah, you can do it without no cards.
And the one person who did and like talk messed up without the
no cards, but the rest of us hadno cards.
And so that that was that certainly helped.
But it was also just like, OK, there's a formula to it, right?

(30:31):
It's like 17 minutes or less. It's there's some takeaways.
There's definitely, you want people to remember certain
details, so you have to like formulate your talk very
specifically based on that. And then there's other like
stage presence things. There's the big red dot.
Where do you walk in relation tothis big red dot?

(30:52):
So it was, it was great, like training, I think it was, it was
helpful for just the rest of my public speaking career.
Yeah. Do you, do you have a favorite
like public speaking event that you've done ever?
Like my moment? Yeah, moment or just like it or
the crowd itself, like maybe youwere talking from your old alma

(31:13):
mater. Maybe you're talking from people
that you really love in your life.
I don't know, like is there is there a favorite moment or place
that you've done that You're like, this is this is my.
Favorite. Oh, what a great question.
I've never been asked that before. 11 moment that, yeah.

(31:35):
Go ahead. No, no, go ahead.
Go ahead before you lose it. Go ahead.
Go ahead. You got it.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah. You know, when I was
interviewing for internship, you, you like go to all these
different places and then you rank them afterwards and they
rank you and then like wherever you've ranked, you match.

(31:56):
And so like, I ranked this placeas like my top place and like
they didn't rank me as my, their, as their top person.
So I did not match there. But then a few years later
they're like, Hey, will you be our keynote speaker for a
conference? And I was like, Hey, I was not
good enough to be an intern for you, but you want me to be the
keynote speaker for your conference?
OK All right. Yeah, we can do that.

(32:17):
We can make that happen. What did you talk about?
That was satisfying. I think I talked about what I
always talk about, you know, like I, I think I talked about
like anti oppressive care and shame.
Probably I talked a lot about shame.

(32:37):
Shame. Every time I look in the mirror.
You watch Game of Thrones and you're like, I like that, I like
that. I want that bell.
Give me that Bell A. Lot.
Of shame, Shame. So what was it that you think
you liked? It was like, it was like kind of
like the Vengeance or you finally got even more swag after
that too. I mean.

(32:58):
Both, both. I mean, I was just like, that's
right, That's right, Like I wasn't good enough for you then,
but. That was your glow up.
What do they call that shit after you?
Your revenge bod. That was your revenge bod
moment. That was my revenge bod moment.
It was satisfying. I'm not going to lie, it was
really satisfying. Story art.
That's awesome. Nothing wrong.
People say that pettiness is nota good thing, but there are

(33:20):
moments where pettiness is very fun and it's very satisfying and
that seems like that would be one of them, right?
So. I had someone recently, Spence,
that rejected me from a job but then they referring clients to
me now. So you rejected me to work for
you within the school and but now you're sending me humans and

(33:42):
it's like I don't what's happening there.
I just hate people. I don't I'm going to take care
of that human that they sent me,but I still kind of hate you.
I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to take this out
on the, I'll just take this out.You got to you got to pick your
battles. It's just weird, man.
So it's a nice little moment there too, right, Is where you

(34:04):
get to like, I am doing really good.
And it is kind of petty, but it no, it's for real.
Sometimes it's folks that are marginalized this and that, and
you're not going to get this job.
You're not good enough. You don't get picked for the
team that, you know, those aren't your friends.
And then you get these other markers and then you see like
that look in their arm. You're like, oh shit, you are
smart. We are successful.
You did have to glow up. And they're like, oh, I wish I
had you. It's like, yeah, with too late

(34:25):
now, you son of a bitch. It's.
A great moment doing other things.
Yeah, I know. So question parlaying off of
Spencer's, a lot of folks have alot of like performance anxiety,
like just talking anxiety, a lotof neurodivergent folks.
Milton, what would be your advice for some of the folks,
some of our followers, many of our followers that struggle with

(34:47):
social anxiety or struggle with just like speech giving or just
articulating themselves and feeling confident in it.
What would you be about? You can walk through any type of
case scenario. Just don't overthink it.
Just just say the thing well there.
You go. It's.
Dumb like truly just don't overthink it.
Like when who does it serve whenyou overthink who does it serve
when you feel like you are not good enough, when you're trying

(35:09):
to like perfect yourself. Like it's probably not you.
It's going to serve the system or it's going to serve people
who want to confirm their preconceived notions or
judgments about you. Like you can always circle back
and like course correct, You know, I mean obviously have like
a little bit of a filter, but you know, when you overthink,

(35:33):
you come off as neurotic and anxious because you probably
are. And so just say the thing.
Just say the thing. Don't overthink it.
Question, do you think it's acceptable to tell people in
interviews or before certain speeches of the audience that
I'm super nervous right now, just to put it out there that
way? Yes, I think so.

(35:55):
I think it's so much power to you got to name entertainment.
You have to just say the thing and then that defines it and it
loses some of the power and thenyou're like less anxious and
people are like, Oh well, I get anxious sometimes too.
We're just alike. Everybody gets anxious, yes.
Celebrities are just like us. And they're just like us.

(36:16):
They poop too, bro. I guess.
So many clients that are in their interviews right after the
PhDs, they're graduating, all this stuff, and it's terrifying.
I'm like, hey man, you can tell them that you're anxious, but
you're supposed to be anxious. The job market is extremely hard
right now. You're an international kid.
There's a lot of fucking writingon the line on this right now.

(36:37):
So I think it's OK to tell people.
I told people that I'm a little anxious, a little nervous.
And everyone's like, chill, man,we're good.
Like we're, I feel like it takesthe pressure out of the room.
Totally. But again, I come with a
different set of intersections compared to others.
So you say name entertainment. I like that.
I'm trying to convince my other clients to maybe do that at
smidge. Don't tell them your whole

(36:58):
anxiety story and how you're like blown out the bathroom
right before they got into the interview.
So they don't need to know that.There is such a thing as TMI.
Yeah, yeah. How's your day?
I just dumped out before this. There's also such thing as IBS,
so you know, gotta a. Lot of my clients.
They go hand in hand. Hey, hey, you know, so love to

(37:24):
know you are working on a book called the Hyphenated Life,
Bridging the in between spaces, intersectional identities.
Could you share what inspired this and then also what people
can expect from it when it comesout?
Yeah, so many of my clients and also my own lived experience

(37:45):
revolve around this idea of feeling too much.
Not enough. Too much for this space.
Not enough for that space. 1 foot in either world belonging
to neither. And I think especially with the
more intersectional identities that you occupy, the more you
feel like I just don't have one space.
You know, there's parts of me that fit in here, parts of me
that fit in there, but where do I belong?

(38:08):
And so the book is really about,you know, unpacking and
navigating some of that based onlike a lot of it's like the
immigrant story and what it takes to, you know, find your
place with that mentality. But then also just like, how do
you find your people no matter what spaces that you occupy, how

(38:28):
can you feel like you are alwaysenough and never too much?
And I, I think there's so much about the this like hyphenated
identity that revolves around like generational trauma because
we inherit it from places. We don't just come up with it
out of nowhere. And then our relationships to

(38:49):
shame, guilt and complex trauma stories, histories around like
what our parents were and weren't able to give us.
And so a lot of times people show up as perfectionists and
people pleasers and overachievers, you know, like
my, my whole therapeutic niche is overthinking overachievers.

(39:10):
And they don't realize like, oh,it's all just complex trauma and
trying to find your your place in the sun when you have one
foot in or one limb in multiple worlds.
So for you, is this your story that you're talking about,
right? You're the overachiever, the the

(39:31):
one that's kind of like feeling at everything but also good.
And also, are you too much because you're not too much for
me and Spencer. I feel like me and you, me and
Spencer have been a little too much for you today, but I feel
like you've been handling it well.
I. Don't think anyone's too much
for me. Oh, OK, OK, OK.
Because I would say you've been roaming with it and I've been
surprised I'm like this. Is a Tuesday.

(39:54):
Let's do it humble. Humble, crazy.
So have you. Are you an overachiever?
I mean, you got a PhD, so I would assume that you are.
And are you a big time overthinker as well?
Well, totally. You know, it's like research and
research, right? They go man, in the end, yeah.
I mean, I, I work best with people that I see myself in
where, you know, it's like, Oh yeah, you're a little nerve

(40:16):
divergent. You're, you know, trying to
figure out who you are and the tapestry of life.
Yeah, the chaos, right? You start pulling on one thread
and the whole thing unravels. Do clients know?
Are you off? I assume you are, but are you
authentic in a way where that you present as like this
unperfect person or do you present as the model minority in

(40:39):
the higher educated soasticated like this is what you're going
to do? Have you seen my social media
content? Come on.
And you know. I mean people on social media.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, but then like if this is my fakest hell,
then like I must be like a real mess.
Girl, you could be. Surprise, I'm a white woman.

(41:03):
What? What the what?
The Rachel does sail that. Shit.
Shout out to her only fans. Oh, she's the only fans.
Yeah, she did. I don't know what she does.
It did. Black women.
Blessings, Blessings. Yeah, nothing against the only

(41:25):
fans. It's just funny because.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's more about, you know,
trying black, anywho, you know, got Rachel real fast there, but
hey, that's a good thing. Got to have these conversations,
right? So, you know, talking about kind
of that intersectional, just that, that part of for me, I'm,
I'm biracial, so is Nas. And so coming up when you have

(41:51):
your identities, you're not sticking to just one group and
everything like that, because, you know, depending on where you
grew up in, you know, you, you pick different groups.
And so how would you say how canpeople navigate finding
themselves when especially nowadays, it's growing even more

(42:11):
and more just interracial relationships and things like
that? Like how do you, how do you find
yourself? How do you find these groups of
people when you know you're not just one group anymore, You're
multiple things now. Yeah, like you said, it's a lot
because there's too much to choose from.
So how do you help people navigate that?

(42:31):
I think there is a, a commonality where people who
really occupy intersectional identities find themselves like
satellites when it comes to friend groups.
You know, there's instead of having like one group, they
belong to lots of different groups.
And I think that's actually a superpower.
Like you get to utilize your ability to mask and code switch

(42:54):
as a superpower. And yes, there is a toll that
there is, you know, negative connotations to all of it.
And sometimes it helps you survive and that's OK.
You get to toggle that shit in away that works for you and you
don't have to be at your fullestexpression in order to be
authentic. I think people believe that like
I have to be like at a dial it up to 11 in order for like

(43:18):
authenticity to apply. But you can be at A2 and still
be authentic. It's just, you know, different
parts of who you are. And that's one of our
superpowers is that we have lotsof different parts that we can
play up in different scenarios. We just have to be really honest
with ourselves about, like, whenwe show up as which parts and

(43:39):
why and how. And that takes a lot of self
knowledge. That takes a lot of honesty and
humility to be like, yeah, I do play up certain parts of myself
in certain dynamics because it helps me get further in life.
And that's OK. But you know, there are people
who also have the same experience of this, like, hyphen

(44:00):
identity, where they have lots of intersectional identities and
they're more likely to be your people.
And I think it is important, no matter like what spaces you
occupy, that you find your people, as hodgepodge or
satellite as that may be, because you, we all deserve to
have spaces working and just be like, unabashed and messy and

(44:20):
like loved and adored not despite of it, but because of
it. We've seen a lot of good shifts,
fans, you know, she knows the two things.
Still one or two. She knows the whole you know,
couple gems in there. You know that that internship
that didn't pick you fucker? Yeah, fuck.

(44:42):
Wherever that, wherever that place was, fuck.
He's a white man. Yeah, I said it.
Every time. God damn white man.
Every time, yeah. You can spill the tea here, it's
fine. Nobody's.
Watching it's my state plan. I love what you said.
Hopefully, Spence, we can make get some good clips out of that
that hyphen life is tough. But also, I love that you said

(45:04):
the coach switching and like, even if you don't have to be
full 100%, like turned on on that identity to identify with
it and also still be very authentic.
I think a lot of my clients, youknow, with no divergences
depend. There's a million different ways
on how it fucks us up identity wise because you know, there's
so much code switching or if it's biracial, if it's economic

(45:24):
and then you go to college, but you're leaving back the hood and
all that shit, it's it can fuck you up a lot.
And like all your identities areall authentic.
Very rarely will they all merge together at once because that's
just not how it works. But they're like, Oh, I'm faking
being with this people and this population.
No, you're still real. That's still really you.

(45:45):
I love that you said that. Hopefully a lot of people will
listen to that. So, and I mean, just speaking
from like the black community from my side, I mean, there's
just so much that goes into likewhether you're black enough or
not. And even people who I know who
are fully black, fully black, and they sometimes they have

(46:05):
those intersections where they maybe not seen as black enough
or they've seen as white and they have to play with their
identity and be like, am I blackenough?
When in reality, being black isn't just about your, just your
background and just it, it's more than just the optics of

(46:28):
being black. It's not listening to hip hop.
It's not just being from the hood and growing up from there.
A lot of people, a lot of intersections grow up in the
hood. It's just a fact.
And. No group in the monolith.
Yeah, no. And, and unfortunately, like our
group of people get very stuck on that and they think like
that's the only thing that can happen.
That's, you know, and then people who think they're not

(46:51):
black enough think that they aren't enough and they need to
do more for that. When in reality, you just have
to be there for your people. You just have to support them
when they're needed and not justhave to focus on, you know, the
optics of it. Just focus on, you know.
Stereotypes. It's just a lot of bullshit
stereotypes. It's like you can just show up

(47:13):
and be you, and then you're still black, you're still
Mexican, you're still Arab, you're still Chinese.
Just because you're American, orjust because you like you may
talk a certain way that might bemore white adjacent, doesn't
mean that you also lost your roots or your heritage or you
disavow your people, even thoughtechnically all the water in
America is poisoned by racism. But that's a different point for

(47:34):
a different day. So interesting thing.
And then we'll pivot to maybe the last one or two questions.
Spence's there's a big thing that happened in the in women's
basketball the other day. Spence probably saw it.
Caitlin Clark hit home girl Angel Reese and then Angel Reese
went back and pushed her and allthis shit right.
And so that's not even the big thing.
The big thing is a lot of peopletalking about it.

(47:55):
I love listening to Robert Griffin the third love him.
And so he said some shit and Ryan Clark, who may or may not
come on the podcast super famousAthlete on ESPN, he calls out
Robert Griffin, right? And he calls his, you know, he
don't know shit because his wife's white and he doesn't know
he doesn't respect black women and all that.
I was like, whoa. So Robert just posted a whole

(48:16):
thing like you can't just enfranchise my entire entity and
family's existence of being black because I'm partner and
have kids, mixed kids. And we were talking about like,
that's way out of bounds. Like, I get maybe, you know,
Robert spoke out of, you know, maybe he's not taking the full
totality of Angel Reese and all that, but I was like, they'll
attack him and his family and then like, oh, you're

(48:37):
whitewashes, You're with a whitegirl.
Calm. What?
What? What are we doing?
Around calm down calm. Down.
Yeah, yeah. What are we doing?
So I just want to bring that up.Spence, did you see all that
shit that happened? I haven't seen that, but I mean,
that's a thing that a lot of people have been talking about
forever now, for forever and ever, especially when it comes
to black men being with white women.

(49:00):
They think that then they lose their identity within that,
which is hilarious to me becausemy my dad's black and my mom's
white and that neither one of them lost their identities.
They've always been who they are.
And just because you're with a certain partner, yes, you may
pick up certain traits from them.
And it goes both ways, goes bothways.

(49:23):
But at the same time, you also know that in these
relationships, it is you are your individual selves.
And just because you're with a certain person doesn't mean that
you're fully that or you're fully that everybody is
themselves. And the fact that it's 2025 and
we still have to have this conversation about this is

(49:46):
hilarious. Or.
So now. Yeah, it's wild.
It's like this, you don't understand black women because
you're with a white girl. It's like calm down.
And it's not even like he's justdating her like they got babies
together like doesn't. If he.
Was with black women then if he said the same comments with that
exactly so it doesn't matter. Either way, so I wanted to bring

(50:09):
this up because it's still very relevant now.
It's the hyphened world in whichwe live in, and everyone still
sees you. And so a lot of people will see
those hyphens or your mixedness or your neurodivergence or your
ability to be. Creative based on what's
salient, right? Like people will reduce you down
to what you're presenting in themost visible form.

(50:34):
Like, you know, I'm married to aman, but I'm not straight.
But people be like, oh, you're married to a man, you are sis
hat mono, right? That's the assumption.
And yeah, no matter what qualityit is.
Like we want to put people into boxes, and humans are just more
complex than that. Motherfucking box UPS making a

(50:59):
killing on this shit. Brown shirts, all right.
You know, they don't even sell boxes.
I don't even know why I said that.
Go to FedEx. Who's selling box?
They don't sell. They don't.
FedEx says boxes. Yeah, they got boxes.
I don't have people for my boxes.
UPS also sells boxes. But you know it.
We're it's alright. We're, it's alright.

(51:19):
We're it's, we're good. We're good.
I'm Bill, you know? Alright, go on, keep it.
Let's go, alright? So you know you've grown a
significant following, whether it be on Instagram, TikTok.
How do you use those platforms to make mental health education
more accessible? You know, when I first started,

(51:40):
I was really trying to reach thepeople who could not afford
therapy, who, you know, maybe did go to therapy, but then
they're realized something was off but didn't know what.
And like, helping people vet their therapist and like, better
understand, you know, this is what a good fit looks like, how
it feels. And how do I really find someone
who can get me beyond sort of like the Eurocentric traditional

(52:03):
psychotherapy paradigm? But I think as I have grown and
evolved in my platform, I realize so many of my followers
are therapists. And like, I speak more to
therapists now than like, you know, people who are trying to
just access the mental health content.
And part of it is because like Iget really nerdy with that shit

(52:23):
and people, you know, like what's accessible to different
types of people, right? There's people like other
therapists like are like, wow, this is this, this scratches my
brain. Whereas the layperson might be
like, I don't know what you're talking about, but I think
that's really exciting because it's kind of this train the
trainer model where you know, I have like, you know, split off

(52:44):
into workshops in like CE us fortherapists where we can talk
more about like, what does it look like like to be an anti
oppressive, anti racist clinician?
How do you, you know, conceptualize non monogamy as a
liberatory praxis? What do you do when it comes to
yourself disclosure that can be a liberatory way of relating to

(53:09):
your your work in your craft. So that's been really exciting
to me because with every therapist I touch, they have
their whole caseload. And so I feel like the reach is
so much greater because of that.Yeah, have have you enjoyed your
time doing content creation or has it been a burden and burned
you out at times? I mean, both, right?

(53:31):
You know, these days, like I have not been crunching out
producing content the way that Iused to because so much of my
creative energy is just trying to like finish this book.
I've been really just trying to like focus on that.
But also, you know, it's, it's aweird time for content creation
because of like this recognitionof how like, you know, these

(53:52):
platforms and corporations, you know, censor certain topics and
it's, you know, late stage capitalism at its worst, always
like TikTok shop. Like, you know, there's, there's
a lot of X to it, but I mean, I don't really know what the
solution is because like, I think so people are just like
splintering off and be like, oh,join my Patreon or like

(54:12):
subscribe to my sub stack. But like there's still something
to be said about these centralized places to get
information that I don't feel like I can completely divest
from if I want to be accessible to the people that I truly
really want to reach. So I haven't really figured that
out yet, but you know, it has been such a source of joy and

(54:35):
community building and connection.
Like I've met some of my best friends because of content
creation and it's, it's been great like over and I've been
doing it for a long last time. It's been 4 1/2 years.
I started October of 2020. So yeah, like it has really had
lots of iterations in in this time.
You know, I posted every single day for two years, which is like

(55:00):
crazy to think about. Girl, what you was talking about
I. Don't even know hey.
Guys, I like the color red and I'm.
Basically. Today on Gay as Hell.
You didn't have ChatGPT to help you you.
Really. I know you didn't say this shit.

(55:21):
Yeah, I mean, and I, and I think, you know, at this point,
like I value my time, I value mycreative energy more where I'm
just like, OK, I don't need to be like crunching it out in
order to like stay relevant. And I think that's something
that like a lot of content creators are fearful, right?
Whether no matter what your craft is, whatever your medium
is, it's like, am I going to matter?
Am I still going to be relevant if I don't produce at the same

(55:44):
rate, if I'm not controversial? And I, and I've seen so many of
you know, my, my cohort, my, my fellow content creators who like
have been cancelled or fallen down some like lunacy deep dives
because they're trying so hard to stay relevant.
And I think that is a betrayal to yourself.
Like, you know, it, you have to ride the waves of energy and

(56:08):
creativity. And if sometimes that means you
got to like dial it back, you got to dial it back.
Yeah, another wave. Red wave.
It's coming as a joke as a Republican.
Joke. Oh my God, it's.
Already here. Speaking of content creators

(56:30):
taking a break, there was this one guy who just like was out in
the wilderness, Like his whole content was him out in the
wilderness all the time, just doing camping, whatever it was
hiking. And he actually took a
retirement from his channel because he was like, it was I've
gained too much popularity and my family is no longer like

(56:50):
anonymous anymore. And so he was just like, I have
to take a break now because I'vegotten too big.
And I think a lot of people, when they take that step, that
next step when it comes to content creation, it's kind of
selling your soul like a little bit.
Like you really do have to like sell your soul, not even on

(57:14):
religious shit, but just metaphorically.
Like you really have to give up yourself in a way in order to
take the next step. Available for consumption?
Yes, Yes, and. I mean, we've seen it before
where like people like are aboutto hit that mark, like Dave
Chappelle, he was about to hit that mark where and he said, you

(57:35):
know what, I hit my mark already.
I'm going to go away and I'm going to go for a while and I'll
come back. I'll come back at some point.
But for him, he knew that he wasabout to hit that point because
his show was amazing. It was about to be even bigger.
He's about to get $100 million left that on the table.
And then he was like, I'm out. Because sometimes when you lose

(57:56):
yourself, you either make that choice.
You're like, I'm just going to go all in on this, or I'm just
going to go, I'm just going to go away because I don't.
Like I think about Frank Ocean, right?
Frank Ocean is like such an epitome of that because like
Frank Ocean versus Drake, they were like neck and neck.
And then like Drake did his thing.
And you know, like Drake is not doing so well these days, but

(58:18):
Frank Ocean is known for this quote.
He's like, yeah, it's not that hard, man.
You just got to be OK with making less money.
Yeah, it's like that. That's really what it's about.
Like it is. Yeah.
And to be honest, hey, Frank Ocean, love his work and it.
I always wanted him to make moreprojects and things like that.
But I'm also like, hey, do what you got to do, man.

(58:41):
Keep your sanity if you need to,you know, especially in this
industry. Yeah.
I feel like this is going to tiein really well to what we're
getting ready to talk about withwork and work culture.
Yeah, Yes, yes. Are you OK doing a little pivot
here? Yeah, let's do it.
I'm going to. I'm going.
To read the synopsis for Office Space because I think it's
hilarious how they did this. So all right, corporate drone

(59:05):
Peter Gibbons. He's his sole killing job at
software company in a tech Whileundergoing hypnotherapy.
Peter is left in a blissful state when his therapist dies in
the middle of their session. Holy shit I forgot about.
That yeah, he refuses to work overtime, plays games at his
desk, and unintentionally charms2 consultants into putting him

(59:30):
on the management fast track. When Peter's friends learn they
are about to be downsized, they hatch a revenge plot against the
company inspired by Superman 3. The end.
That's what we're getting it. Leaves you lacking.
That's like, not. That's an incomplete synopsis.

(59:50):
It's so terrible. What the hell?
I don't know what happened there, but they were just like,
you know what? Fuck it, we're done.
Fuck it. That's enough.
Yeah, it'll be. A GPT back then?
No, no. Like.
A real person wrote that anyways, so the first thing that

(01:00:11):
we're going to be tackling is it's Peter.
And like I said in the synopsis,he is in this meeting with these
two fellas and they are downsizing people in the
company. And so Peter, and like, he's in
this blissfulness of this hypnosis, he doesn't even dress

(01:00:34):
for work anymore. He doesn't do the whole button
up, tuck your shirt in, all thatshit.
He doesn't do it anymore. He's just relaxing and chilling.
And somehow, someway, this man, this white gets a promotion and
he also looks good in front of these two higher ups and tells
them about his day and how he doesn't do anything.

(01:00:57):
He does 15 minutes of work and that's it.
If any of you've been this predicament, I know I have.
Especially in my past job I had,all I did was work at my desk.
I literally did my job in like 1520 minutes and I was done for
the day and all I had to do was look like I was working.

(01:01:19):
It was great. It was fantastic.
Push the button, push the. Button.
It was so great. Have any of you?
Been in this, I know like, you know, your therapist and you got
to, you know, you got to do workand stuff like that, you're
helping people, but you know, inany of your past jobs where you
just like, I'm just going to just going to chill for the.
Next. Yeah.

(01:01:42):
I mean, all my clients, you know, when they talk to me about
their, their corporate jobs, I mean, it's just corporate
America. That's just what it is.
That's what it looks like. That's what it feels like it is.
You know, and, and, and The thing is like we all think, oh,
yeah, I want a job where like all I have to do is 15 minutes
worth of work and then like putts around the rest of the

(01:02:04):
day. But that's really not
satisfying. Like, people feel guilty, people
lack meaning, and that is, you know, fast track to depression.
It's not what it's cut out to be, what you think it might be.
You ever I've mailed it in at other jobs.
I ain't gonna lie. I mean, even this job as a

(01:02:24):
therapist have Purdue something when that can't, when a client
cancels or knows shows, I'm like, I'm going to take a nap.
I'll lay on my floor, my big ass, and I'll be out like people
will be like, Oh, you just love talking to people.
Like trust me, I'm in there baying for someone not to show
up. I'm like, please, I don't want
to see Bobby today. And it's not because of Bobby.

(01:02:45):
It's because I just hate workingthere because I know I'm being
underpaid for my services. I'm being devalued for how I
show up being, you know, inappropriate or too hood for my
office because that's the shit that they say.
Why don't you be friends with everyone?
Because I'm autistic as shit andI don't want to leave my office,
Jeff. Like I don't just leave me the

(01:03:06):
fuck alone. I saw the clients, everyone's
happy. I love my clients.
I don't need to love my whole entire staff members.
And so, like, it'll lead a lot of people to this soft quitting
where now they start zoning out.So he talked about in that
scene, Spence. Like I just zone out for like an
hour and I just stare at my desklike, what the fuck am I doing
here? My dad would be like you all

(01:03:27):
picking in them fields today, ain't you, boy?
Because he my job feels like such like slave fucking labor.
I fucking hate it and now that I'm pretty much done, that's
just a bunch of vacation days. It's so liberating.
Sleeping better expense, I'm waking up better, I'm
exercising. It's like amazing how you feel
when you finally fucking are notoppressed and disrespected.

(01:03:50):
Totally. It's wild.
So I really love this fucking scene because he's just like he.
Just says it like it is, you know, like, I mean, that's
what's like 95% of corporate America would want to say.
Like, yeah, I spend a lot of time zoning out.
I spend a lot of time scrolling or like online shopping or
whatever. It's, you know, people don't

(01:04:11):
actually work 40 hour weeks. No, no, it's.
Still, we need breaks. It's hard to work 40 hours a
week in certain jobs, certain jobs, right, because you just
you can get work done fast. It's then that's how they make
it. They make it so you can fast
track work and then you're like,well, now you have to be
productive with the rest of your.

(01:04:31):
I'm like, first of all, you're not going to get me with that.
If I'm making 40 grand a year, that's not like it's just not
going to happen. Why would I do that?
You need to incentivize me. And it's like, and, and now
where I'm at in work, it feels like now, even though I'm not
making much more, I'm also working harder because I
actually like the company I'm working for.

(01:04:53):
It's in the industry where I really love being AT.
And that's an incentive for me is just keeping into that
industry and keeping it from there.
And, and I think although I remember in school they talked
about how like, money wasn't a great incentive for people to

(01:05:14):
actually work more, it's like, yes and no.
Because yeah, you do have to love what you're doing.
But at the same time, if I'm providing even more and I have
even more cushion to where I don't have to worry financially,
that helps a lot with my decision on where I work as
well. She talked about something
called the golden handcuffs. What the hell is that?

(01:05:36):
That's that's the inverse of that.
You know where you like, you can't leave because you get paid
too well and you don't work thathard.
And then you get stuck, even if you're miserable, even if it
feels meaningless because you'rejust pushing a button and it's
not tied to any sort of, you know, your value system.

(01:05:57):
Yeah. And and that's also a big part
of what so much of corporate America is dealing with is
they're like, well, you know, the job market is shitty.
People are unemployed for a really long time.
And so like, I hate my job, but I'm going to stay here because
it's better than not having one.What was that thing you said?
I can't get to my notes because it's behind the screen.

(01:06:19):
Because it didn't write on the fucking white board this time.
You said moral. Something like the moral?
Yeah, Moral injury. Yeah, Yeah.
Like what they do? So a lot of times people we're
all familiar with the concept ofburnout, which is, you know, you
work too hard and you don't haveenough work life balance and you

(01:06:40):
are really just exhausted in this domain of your life.
But maybe you don't hate your job, you just like are working
too much for too little pay. And moral injury is when it goes
beyond burnout and you are feeling like the work you're
doing goes against your personalmoral code.
It goes against your value system where you are, you know,

(01:07:03):
helping corporations make more money while exploiting people,
right? Or, you know, it was really a, a
term that was coined around war veterans where they have to go
into war zones and like kill civilians or just like kill
people in general. And they felt like that was a
violation of their moral code. And then from there it really

(01:07:24):
extended to healthcare workers during COVID and and beyond,
right? Just like the healthcare system
itself is really fucked where wehave to like triage and like,
you know, insurance pre approvals and people cannot
actually access the care that they need and deserve because of
profits and healthcare workers. I mean, it's, it sucks, you

(01:07:46):
know, like even as a mental healthcare professional, like I
would love to take more insurance and make it more
accessible. And also like, I cannot do that
with the degree of taxiness of this work and expect to like
have anything leftover for myself or my family.
But you know, in the past like years, I mean, especially in

(01:08:09):
2025, since, you know, January 20th, we are seeing this with a
lot more industries, right? We're seeing this with tech
workers where they're feeling like, Oh my gosh, you know, I
always thought that this was a aligned field, but here is my
CEO, like, you know, going to different places that don't feel

(01:08:30):
aligned and with, you know, government workers where they're
getting acts left and right and they don't know when or how.
And so it's really hard to feel motivated and like you're making
a difference and you're aligned with the work that you're doing
when there are a lot of elementsthat are explicitly against your

(01:08:54):
value system. Yeah, your value system, when it
comes to a bunch of different things, it could be political,
it could be monetization, it could be oppression.
But also sometimes the value system is like the work and
effort that you're putting into the actual work, work versus
your family. And then you're like, what am I
doing to my family? What am I doing to myself?

(01:09:15):
And so now, but then you're obligated.
It can get really messy really fast with a lot of, you know,
divergent autistic folks, ADHD folks, OCD folks.
They go a lot to feeding into the machine they want to make.
They want to make their employerhappy.
And they think that they're going to get that raise.
But then a lot of us never get that raise.
And then you just get more and more depressed.

(01:09:37):
But then you just keep trying towork harder.
And then you may not get those accolades.
So it might be like a Milton vibe where they just kind of
shit on you and like, oh, maybe they're finally going to notice
me. And will you get rewarded with
more work? No more money, more work, no
more respect. So it really sucks when now you
get into that moral ethical obligation to you and your

(01:09:57):
family. And that's when a lot of my
clients started to get very existential and very suicidal
because what does life come to you now?
Am I just going to work, be tired as fuck?
And all my autistic people are like, I don't want to do this.
I don't even like going into work, but you're saying I have
to do this to make money so I can eat.
So there's no, I might as well just fucking die because I don't

(01:10:19):
want and I'm like, but I get it and I tell them like I get it
and like this shit sucks. They're like, does it get
better? I'm like, get I don't fuck it at
all because you don't have the degrees to get these easy ass
jobs. Like you're working hard, shitty
jobs where they are working 40 hours.
So that moral shake it is. I liked when you said it the
first time I ever heard that. Yeah, I mean, it's so real

(01:10:42):
because people think they're burnt out, right?
They're like, well, I should just take a vacation and how
come my two weeks didn't do anything for me?
Or even with burnout? Burnout takes a lot longer to
heal from than we want to admit.Like people like, oh, yeah,
totally. Like take two to four weeks off.

(01:11:04):
No, no, no. You take like 6 months to a year
off, you know, to really, truly heal from burnout.
But like, if you don't have moral injury, then it doesn't
even matter if you take six months to a year off.
Like if you go back into that system, it's still going to be
demoralizing. It's still going to be soul
sucking and you're going to hatewhat you're doing because it's

(01:11:24):
still going to be misaligned with your value system.
And I think that's the, the, thefork in the road that I think is
really hard because people are having to decide like, do I
maintain my values and my moralsand like try to find a way out?
Or do I need to shift my entire moral value system in order to

(01:11:48):
have less dissonance in how I'm living my life?
And I mean, that's really heartbreaking to see because I
think a lot of people are doing that, you know, in in recent
months, given the, you know, thevibes, you know, what the the
state of the world is that people are having to betray
their entire moral value system because it's what allows them to

(01:12:12):
live a little bit easier. And like, it's both so
disappointing and also like, I can't really blame them, but God
damn, I don't know it's. A tough spot.
Life is, yeah, hard. Life is not as easy as people
like it. Life is hard and I always
prepare my clients. Life is a motherfucker.
I'm trying to be depressing. It just.

(01:12:33):
It is what it is. Yeah.
I think this kind of leads us into the second scene.
And then do you got anything else you want to talk about this
scene, Hon. Also like if Peter wasn't a
white man, would he have gotten that promotion?
Would he have? See, and that's that's going
into the next scene, you know, Peter, you know, Peter gets his

(01:12:57):
promotion and they're also telling him that they're going
to downsize his friends. So he's like, well, not only am
I getting promoted, I'm also taking the money that my friends
had and I'm also taking that as well.
And that's when they scheme thisplan to steal from in a tech
which goes horribly wrong because of a decimal point or

(01:13:19):
something like that. But so we are talking about how
this how just Peter, he gets promoted for doing less right
and even talking bad about the company.
Is this really a comment on privilege in the workplace?
Do you think, do you also think that like or how do you think

(01:13:43):
that internalized expectations differ across people who you
know, across race, gender, class?
What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, when we think
about imposter syndrome, I like to call it or no, no imposter
phenomenon, not imposter syndrome which situates it

(01:14:04):
within the individual, right. This is my syndrome, my problem.
Whereas imposter phenomenon is more of a systems problem
because who does it benefit, right.
When you when people feel like they are an imposter and they
are under qualified, they're going to compensate and work
harder. And when like who benefits from

(01:14:24):
that? Who can pay less to get the same
amount, if not more worth of value and work?
Yeah, yeah. Like I, I think it's it you
can't extricate, you know, the privilege from the system.
And when it comes to individualswithin the system, like there
are people who are going to be rewarded so much more simply

(01:14:48):
because of who they know, what their background and their
connections are. And like, sometimes it's just a
personality. Like, gregariousness gets you
really far when it comes to yourprofessional life, but really
it's who you are and how palatable that is to the system
at large. So you're saying be a kiss ass?

(01:15:11):
Be a kiss ass. You too.
I look. I know, I know.
It sucks. I can't do it.
I really can't. Like I can be professional but
I'm not also going to go out of my way.
Stop nuzzling your God damn mic.Jesus Christ.
Like trying to kiss her man. Laugh trying yeah.
Anyways nothing wrong with that anyways.

(01:15:34):
And you're talking about just work in general.
And for me personally, I just, Igrew up with my mom, single mom
who worked her ass off, who alsois not like kissing ass at all,
does not like doing it. I grew up in that household.
And when it comes to that, I canbe as professional as I need to

(01:15:55):
be. But there's a point, there's a
point where if you try to go toofar, or if you try to make me do
work that is out of my bounds and what I is is deemed in my
contract job description, then that's when we have a problem.
Because if you're not willing topay me more for more work, then

(01:16:17):
I'm not going to do the work. That's just how it is.
And in this case with Peter, he's doing less work.
And yet they love how just non just confrontational he is about
just speaking. About nonchalant.
Nonchalant, and they love that. And they're like, you know what,
Here's everything. Unfortunately, that's not going

(01:16:41):
to happen. Ever.
If you're not a white man. Not a white man or a white
woman, let's be honest. Yeah, yeah, OK yeah, a lot of
white women let's. Stay on this now, yeah.
They up there too. But, and, and I just think that
unfortunately, especially when we talk about people who are on
on the spectrum, who are neuro diverse, they're not going to be

(01:17:04):
able to do the ass kissing or the smoothing of other people
because a, they're probably not people, people like they're not,
they're not interested. Some of them might not.
Be Yeah, yeah, Some of them and others, they just, they just
want to do their work and go from there.
Put your head down and do your work.
And unfortunately, you don't getpaid more to do more work.

(01:17:24):
You don't, you don't you get more money for the people, like
you said, the people you that you know, you don't get more
money for doing more work because then you get more work,
more work, more work. Oh, well, you know, we were
going to give you that position,but you know, you just, you're
not very tactile when you talk to people and we just don't like
how you speak sometimes. So we're just going to go with

(01:17:47):
this other person that we reallylike.
So sorry, but we're you're goingto keep the same job.
You are too good. You work yourself into being
irreplaceable. So then you there's no upward
mobility because you're doing two people, three people's worth
of work, because you're that good.
It's not profitable to promote you.

(01:18:10):
So a lot of my folks of color, specifically women of color,
really struggle with this imposter syndrome, AKA imposter
phenomenon. We're learning new shit because
it's that system that projects the shit out to them and they
need, they need to be that, thatsmart kid, that reliable kid,
because they're facing all the racist shit that race society

(01:18:31):
has said. You're trash, you're garbage,
you're unintelligent, you're lazy as black and Hispanics,
right, your mooches on the system.
And so a lot of us are fighting that.
And so we go in there full throttle and we're trying to do
our best. Some of us, we got the imposter
phenomenon because the parents put this on that shit.
The society has put this on us and so we're never happy like
you talked about. And you're always trying to get

(01:18:52):
towards this bigger, bigger goal.
And eventually, like, I fucking hate my life.
You've been stripped of all yourhumanity and things that make
you feel good specifically for money.
And then you realize that doesn't even make you fucking
happy. It just makes you not poor.
So this phenomenon is a son of agun and and with some folks,

(01:19:14):
there is a deficit. So when you see Milton, he ain't
about to get no job promotion. He ain't about to because he
just doesn't have those skills. So a lot of my clients, a lot of
my humans fall in that range where they don't necessarily
have the skills to articulate themselves.
Or some of my clients, they don't have the whiteness, the
adjacent, the professionalism, we call it.

(01:19:36):
And that's where I fall into that place.
But if I give up what's me and Spencer talked about multiple
times and my father and my mentors if Nazir, if you act
because they always call me Nazir, my mentors.
If you act like this, then you will lose all your health and
well-being. Like you will become morally

(01:19:56):
like depressed. You will be in this fucking
horrible place. You won't be acting like
yourself and your clients will know and your clients won't.
And then you won't enjoy your clients.
They won't enjoy you. I'm fucked.
I'm all about the bond. As long as the bond is tight,
we're good. And so I feel bad knowing that
he gets the promotion. Because I think it's like all my
bosses and he has 8 bosses, Spence.

(01:20:17):
And then motherfuckers just be delegating work, delegating
work. And then it's all these little
grunts like me they're doing in the fucking field work.
It's interesting in in the trenches, it's interesting in
the mental health field that it's so many women.
So it's like 90% women, majoritywhite women, but all the
supervisors are white dudes. Like I will never understand

(01:20:40):
that. Even at my place of work now
it's all women and all the bosses and except for one are
white dudes. I'm like how is it possible when
the entire building is is women?Yeah, it's like chefs, right?
All the chefs are white dudes orjust dudes.
And then like, who's who's cooking for their families?
Women, Yeah. Same.

(01:21:01):
Be real with you, there's going to be a lot of Mexican women in
there, back there cooking. Don't be disrespecting my boy
Gordon Ramsay. Right, Right.
He wanted to do one. Hey, hey, from the hood of
England. I don't know where the hell that
is, but you know, I don't know. Whatever.
No, but it's just wild. So the lot of folks will fail

(01:21:21):
upwards. I've recently had some talks
with some folks that have quit my place and they said certain
people, which I'm not going to name on the pod, but certain
people get a lot of the accolades, which other people
did the work for. It's very interesting to always
see what that identity is, and it's always the same.
It's always the dude. Yeah, and, and it's like if that
is not your jam and that is the expected script, like there's so

(01:21:46):
much dissonance too there, right?
Like if you are a person of color and you are, you know, a
full time employee at a company where most of the work is done
by like contract workers and you're just expected to take
credit for it. And you're like, that's not,
that's not how I roll. Like, there's, there's so much
moral injury and dissonance there because the expectation is

(01:22:08):
that you're going to beat your own drum.
You're going to manage up like all these buzzwords around like
taking credit that may or may not be yours.
It may not have been earned. And maybe you haven't even done
anything or maybe you did everything.
But you aren't good at beating your own drum, right?
Like it's, it doesn't matter what you do.
It's who you knows about what you did and what they, you know,

(01:22:31):
think about your contribution. It's it's the optics.
Yeah, Spence, real quick. And then we can get to the next
scene. So I got a bunch of new bosses
now, right? And a lot of them, I think they
can start telling me what they're doing.
Shit, we've been having some really interesting conversations
with people. Really.
I'm like, look at here, boy, youain't telling me shit.

(01:22:55):
It's been really interesting because now everyone like, oh,
OK, so no, you coming at me now?This is weird, man, Because
there's people, they got these cliques, you know, at work.
And I'm really cool with this guy's wife that's now like, you
know, third in command now. So I'm going talking to his wife
at the front desk and all that. We're just kicking out of the
blast. He comes out of his office,
stands behind me. She just shuts up.

(01:23:17):
I said, oh, So what did you tellyour wife?
You told your wife not to talk to me, huh?
Ain't that about a bitch? So we was best friends and now
you told her not to talk to me because you're the boss, man.
I said, this ain't right. Dad is some bullshit.
Now I lost a friend. Won't she won't even talk to me
now. But we was best friends two
weeks ago and then he got a promotion.
She just ignores me. OK, so I ain't that autistic.

(01:23:38):
Something's going on, you know? It's wild bro.
I feel. It I feel.
Politics was politics. Politics like oh, don't talk to
Nas, he's a troublemaker You he was best friends last week wild,
wild girl. I'll let you have some of my
dad's beef Stew last week for group therapy.

(01:24:00):
That's. Probably why they don't talk to
you no more. I got.
Sick. They got diarrhea.
I had to dump out. He ruined us anyway.
My marriage is over. Damn.
From Stu. Jeez, any who.
So now we're talking about Tom, right?

(01:24:20):
So Tom lost his job at Initech, and he decides that he was going
to take his life into his own hands, right?
And so he starts his car in his garage and was going to pretty
much suffocate himself. But then his wife finds him and,

(01:24:44):
and he's like, you know what, never mind, honey, everything's
going to be all right. Then he gets hit by a car, and
then he gets some money from it,though he got some money.
He's fine. He's living and he got some
money, a few broken bones, but what are you going to do?
But we wanted to talk about how in the past and, or at least for

(01:25:06):
the most part in the past, it was a lot more that was
happening back then of where if you lose your job, then
essentially you were just like, this is it?
I'm done now. I can't provide for my family,
and now I'm considered a loser. What do you think happened in
these last few years where that hasn't, where when you lose your

(01:25:31):
job, it's not as much as a detriment to your health as it
was back then? Yeah.
I mean, I think there's been so much in this like workers
revolution of decoupling your sense of self, your sense of
worth and value from the buttonsthat you push during the day
from, from your occupation. And also like layoffs are so

(01:25:53):
much more normalized. It's just happening all the time
depending on your industry, Likeif you're intact, like, yeah,
I'm sure you've been laid off atleast once in the past three
years, if not more. And it's just, it's no longer a
reflection of your skill set or your value or your worth.
It's just something that happensin, you know, as a cog in the

(01:26:14):
machinery of late stage capitalism.
And I think in a lot of ways it's been really positive
because people are able to decouple who they are from what
they do. And at the same time, it's like
the morale is so low because people are always ready to get
axed at any time. And sometimes people really want

(01:26:34):
to be axed because they want that severance package.
And who can blame them, right? Like they are miserable.
They know they're in the golden handcuffs so they can't just
quit by themselves and get nothing.
But if they are laid off, they get like a nice little sweet
package. So, you know, it's, it's a
double edged sword in a lot of ways.
It's great that people do not feel like their entire identity

(01:26:58):
is their professional identity and at the same time, you know,
morale is. Yeah.
So I have a question. Do you think it's still healthy,
even though you may love your job, love the people there, love
the company, everything like that?
Do you think it's still healthy to decouple from that, even

(01:27:20):
though it is something that you're happy doing?
I, I don't think any human should have one realm that
defines them, whether it's theirwork, their children, their
roles, their relationship, you know, whatever it is.
We are all multifaceted multi dimensional creatures and we

(01:27:42):
need lots of different inputs inorder to feel whole.
And so I think it's healthy to situate work as one part of your
whole, even if it is satisfying and gives you life and it
satisfies the meaning making it can't be the only source of who
you are. No dimension of your life is.

(01:28:06):
If you were, if you were a creature, what creature would
you be? A meerkat that.
Was so quick, God damn why? Can we ask why?
Why? Why Meerkat?
Curious they they OK, they are a.
I need, I need to be your pumbaa.

(01:28:26):
Can I please be your fat best friend?
I need to be your fat boy friend.
I don't know who our Simba's going to be, but see some
gorgeous motherfucker, I'll tellyou that right now.
With. Really good hair.
Really good hair. I'm going to be a warthog for
sure. Oh my God, I told one of my

(01:28:49):
clients. I said sometimes I was like,
girl, you're literally like Simba when when his dad dies,
she's like, what are you talkingabout, Dad, Dad, because she's
just trying to get this motherfucker to do anything in
their marriage. She's like, dad, can you?
She's like, can you not give me that image?
I'm like, I'm so sorry, girl. It's.
Like he's dead. He.
I. Know well her partner is kind of

(01:29:10):
he's checked out. Emotionally.
He's emotionally Oh, So what, Meerkat?
Because they're just in Quizia. What are you going to?
Say they're patriarchal, they'rematriarchal, they're not
patriarchal. The one society.
Just like I love the Patriots. The whales.

(01:29:37):
Hey, Congress. Progress Hey, but, but but
they're they're they're inquisitive, they're curious
like, I mean, I'll be honest, I became a therapist because I'm
nosy like I want to know all thehot Goss about everybody.
I don't care if I know you or not, I just want to know the tea
so. OK, what are warthogs known for?
Are they? Are they just they're?

(01:29:57):
Just they fart a lot. Right.
I think they're just like Lion King.
You watch The Lion King. I think they end their fastest
shit, they're actually like they're fucking fast.
I saw one like trying. He went from like trying getting
chased by like lions to hyenas outran them all.
It was crazy. I was like, whoa, where were?

(01:30:17):
You when you saw this? Look, the Internet's a crazy
place, OK? All right?
You can see anything on the Internet.
It was an ad during my porn die.Like what's this ad?
Put that lotion down anyway. Am I hungry for fucking big pork

(01:30:41):
jobs? What would you mean?
You would be? You would be Scar.
I wouldn't actually be. Funny.
A murderer uncle no, I wouldn't be Scar and brother no, I'd
probably be I like the great white shark.
I've always loved the great white shark.
Yeah, I would go shark. Great white shark, because

(01:31:02):
they're just. Top of the food chain?
Top of the food chain. But then also like, nobody fucks
with them, you know, Nobody fucks with them, OK.
And if you do, you're going to get eaten.
I'm going panda. Well, the real time I'm going
panda. I just want to like eat and just
fucking play in the fucking tree.
I just I just like. True, nothing wrong with.
That. Bamboo.

(01:31:23):
Bamboo just chilling. You know, I'll be honest, if I
was like, if it was actually, it'd probably be a sloth, not
going to lie. Just slow moving sloth, slow
moving meerkat. Meerkat.
Mouse looking thing. OK mouse.
Jungle mouse. OK, so random, I'm sorry.
They're like Gophers, essentially.

(01:31:43):
They're like the African Gopher.I mean, you know.
You a black Gopher? I knew he was black.
Oh my God. This stuff.
Back on our side. Next to you coming to the gig
out girl. So we have the which is the
preacher scene. That's just, that's just a fun
scene. You know, that's, that is what

(01:32:05):
it is. That's just one of those, that's
one of the classic moments, right?
Everybody spoofed this moment. Family Guy, probably The
Simpsons, everybody's done it. They've spoofed it.
Just a great moment. And just, you know, we'll
probably use it more for reals than anything else.
But yeah, it'll be a real Yeah. Hannah, have you ever wanted to

(01:32:26):
smash anything like after you left a business or Oh yeah of?
Course, right? Like who does it?
Was there anything in the company, Anything specific in
the company or people? Don't say that.
OK, don't you don't say that it.Doesn't say that.
I mean, I feel like what I want to smash is ideology.

(01:32:48):
There you go. Tangible.
Like I wish you could just be tangible.
There could be representations of it, but like it's ideology,
you know it's. She says so many big words.
White supremacy, patriarchy, catch them all.
The trifecta, yeah. My brainerds.
I know. Good luck with your book.
Your shit's never gonna get intothe libraries in America.

(01:33:11):
Intricacy. Just one big word.
You're like fuck this. Yeah, they're like hyphen, no.
Don't know what that is, sorry. I don't.
I don't wanna. Who did?
You it's probably gonna be a best seller, not even gonna lie.
It's probably talking about I'm not even lie.
It's probably gonna. Be probably I mean y'all better
buy it. Y'all better buy like 10 copies.
You're gonna give us a free copy?

(01:33:32):
What the fuck I understand, giveme a copy.
People and then buy it. And then?
Buy it. I'll give you an advanced reader
copy. So you want to type it up and
then like preorder? I tell people all the time to
like, we got a lot of people that do books and we do promote
all their shit and then they're like, oh, we'll send you a copy.
They never do really. But I can't promote your sheet

(01:33:55):
if you don't send it to me. They're like, just buy it.
Like that ain't how this work, honey.
If I'm going to promote you to 50,000 people, I'm going to
promote you to like, let's be real.
At least give me a synopsis of it.
God damn well it ain't nothing. My guy sends me a picture of him
and all his books. The mad guys that are asking
whatever I'm like is my book in there like I don't.
No, you can look at the books from.

(01:34:16):
The picture, you can look at it.Yeah.
This is for the white people. What?
Oh my God. So I don't know.
You would smash ideologies. I think there's a few computers
I would like to smash that neverfucking worked and always
crashed. And you're like, oh, plates for
me, it's always computers. It's like.
And then you got a line of people.

(01:34:37):
Oh yeah, no, I ain't trying to break.
No shit. Now I'm I'm not that type of guy
that like crashes out and like breaks things.
I'm like, no, this shit costs money.
You're crashing out. No, you ain't Mario.
Where you ain't been poor enough.
Y'all ain't been poor enough. That's a scenario where you
could break anything. It doesn't matter.
All my shit. Paper plates.
Let's be real, it's paper platesin his house.

(01:34:57):
You. Just RIP it.
You just RIP it. No smashing.
That's less satisfying. That's less satisfying.
That's so boring. Bro who would you smash?
Man, there would. Let me tell you, in my last job,
they was all like, the offices were all like glass windows.
Oh my gosh, You could just the sound of those breaking would be

(01:35:20):
hilarious to me. Terrifying.
It'd be great. It'd be great.
Just take a little, you know, take a little bat right to it.
It'd be great if anything happens to those office doors.
It wasn't me, by the way. Just there you go.
Just in case. Just in case something ever
happens. It wasn't me.
I haven't been to the office in a while.
We don't condone any violence towards any humans or objects on

(01:35:42):
property that's not yours. Good explanation for that
disclaimer. Yeah.
Yeah, that's important. Very important.
We should put that into the disclaimer of our show.
You should condone. We don't condone violence on
people or objects in places we don't know.
But go to a rage room, they havespecial places for this now

(01:36:03):
where you go and like smash out dated shit and they give you
safety wear goggles. And this sounds like you gotta
take out your anger. Is this grinder they give you
safety wear you smash out on things?
I'm like, what are you talking about?
Damn it it. Sounds like a good night.
Jesus Christ. Let's keep it moving.
Swinger party anyways. That's a different podcast.

(01:36:31):
You can have me on that one too,but that's a different.
Podcast. Oh shit, pause, no pause.
I was watching some real studio and so one of my friends sent me
one and it was like a storage closet like a storage wars and
they bought they spent $300.00 on on the storage and he
unzipped the bag and it just dildos fucking.

(01:36:55):
Hilarious dildos are expensive. I don't.
Know are they? Yeah, like you spent $100 on
one. So if you get a whole bunch of
them, that's OK. Get your.
Money back $100. Fuck this.
You're at the grocery store, youknow what I'm saying?
What the? Fuck if you want an analog one,

(01:37:16):
hey. Analog one we talking about
mechanics. Hey, hey, hey, go go, old
school. Like I got something for you we
don't want. Spencer and his carry?
I don't know. It's green.
Let me tell. You Why is it smell?
Is it rotten? Don't.
Worry. Don't.
Don't worry about it. A turtleneck.

(01:37:37):
Let's keep it going. This is getting cancelled.
I'm circumcised anyways. Oh my.
God, what is this podcast? I'm Catholic.
What anyways? Milton.
Milton. Milton.
So Milton is the quiet, the quiet, productive worker who

(01:38:07):
always just get shitted on, right?
We talked about a few times on this show already, but that's
Milton essentially. And he just every time his boss
talks to him, it always seems togo worse for him, even though
like all he wants is a stapler and all he wants to do is play
his music. That's it.
Nothing much. Milton's a very easy going guy,

(01:38:30):
but, and that's kind of the problem, right, Unfortunately,
right, If you're easygoing, if you're an easy target, even in
the workplace, you're still a target of bullying and also
being taken advantage of. And so that is Milton.
He is somebody who's taken advantage of.
He doesn't advocate for himself because he doesn't know how.

(01:38:54):
And who's there to talk for him?Everybody just like doesn't like
him because he's a quiet to himself guy.
So he can't go to HR, he can't go to his bosses, he can't even
go to other Co workers really, because they're just like
whatever Milton, he has nothing,right?
And so as the movie goes on, he just keep it just keeps getting

(01:39:16):
worse, right. So first they took a stapler,
then he gets sent down to a boiler room and then but it it
ends well for Milton, right? Because he's in a fit of anger
and a fit of rage because it's building up.

(01:39:37):
It's been building up in the whole movie.
You can see it's been building up inside that whole time.
And he's just been getting his rage built up over and over.
And every time he gets disrespected, he doesn't get
cake when it's birthday cake. Let's be honest.
That one woman to his left should have kept passing the
cake on, but she didn't because she wanted a piece of cake.

(01:39:57):
Want to be selfish? And he just keeps saying
disrespected. But Milton at the end of it.
So kind of have to explain a little bit.
But the three guys who stole themoney?
They tried to put the money backinto the boss's office to be
like, hey, here's all the money back, no harm, no foul.

(01:40:18):
And Milton finds it. He takes it and he burns the
whole office down. And then he goes on a long trip
to an island in Mexico. So then they can't find him.
It's a great, great character toreally showcase, like you said,

(01:40:40):
of advocating for yourself and speaking up at certain times
because guess what? Now all the time people are
going to be able to do that for you.
You're going to, even though it's nice to have people in your
corner for the most part at job spaces, you're not going to be
able to have people on your side.
And you really do have to talk for yourself and make sure that

(01:41:02):
you're not being stepped on likeMilton and or also, it's a great
it's it's great show for employers also to treat your
employees with respect because they could fuck because they
could fuck up your business if you fuck them around.
Burn the shit down. Hey, hey, hey, do.

(01:41:24):
You want to see a little autistic meltdown?
Yeah, that's one right there, I'll tell you that.
Yeah, and, you know, stop putting your employees in a
corner. Stop pushing them to that far.
They actually stopped. And not only did they make him
work, they stopped paying him. They're like, oh, he was fired
actually a couple of years ago and there was a glitch in the
system and he just kept getting paid.

(01:41:45):
And so they were like, Oh yeah, we fixed it.
And so now he's just, nobody told him that he's working for
free. And so he kept working, working,
working and just kept on going. So like I said, great character
and it's, I think it's a great chance for employers to really
make sure to keep your employeeshappy, right?

(01:42:09):
Totally. But also like recognize
neurodivergence, right? Like this movie was made before
we had a broader representation of what neurodivergence and
specifically autism looks like. Like clearly Knowlton is really
autistic and that's great. And people at this workspace did

(01:42:31):
not recognize that and did not celebrate the ways that he does
add value. Correct.
So instead of going through all the scenes, we're just going to
wrap this up because, right, we run out of time and I love how
Spence did that. Thank you.
So have you had any clients thatmaybe resemble Milton at all or
some aspects of Milton and how did you help them out?

(01:42:54):
Yeah, I mean it. And it's always like multi
dimensional, right? Because it's like you're
autistic, but you're a person ofcolor and you come from a
collectivist background and you're queer or trans or
whatever. You know, they, it's, it's like,
you know, it's very rarely it's just like 1 dimension of
identity or, you know, marginalization.

(01:43:15):
And I think there's so, so many gifts that each of these
identities offered you. And we don't see it when we only
are so deficit focused. So I help, I try to help people
be more like aligned to who theyare and like recognize the gifts

(01:43:35):
that they do possess. Like there is a lot of
superpowers associated with neurodivergence more broadly,
but like autism more specifically.
And even if, you know, social skills are difficult, there are
some things that can very much be beneficial to what whatever
you're doing. Yeah, the company like you, but

(01:43:55):
you have to find your, you have to find your role.
You have to find your spot. And sometimes it's a mismatch,
right? Like the, the job that you are
assigned to do is not a great fit for your skill set.
So then you need to find a placewhere those skill sets will be
celebrated. And it takes some trial and
error. We got to like kind of, you

(01:44:15):
know, fuck around and find out to figure out where we belong
sometimes. Facts him being overlooked
Spence really hurt the characteris funny and I think I used to
really laugh at it. Now it kind of makes me like
really sad, like extremely sad to see how he gets your shit on
because me being you know, low support needs right.

(01:44:36):
I don't need much and then but Ipicture someone like Salim and
moderate needs or someone that high support needs and that's
them getting fucked over, that'sthem getting abused, that's them
getting taken advantage of. That's some of my very naive and
innocent kiddos that get taken advantage of in horrible ways,
financially, physically, sexually, emotionally.
And I'm just like, damn. And so many of my kiddos, they

(01:45:00):
can't talk, you know, and maybe they're non verbal or maybe
they're just, it's just a bunch of hot mess that comes out.
And so I'll send them to places Spence to, to, to go get help
from this place, that place, this office, that office, and no
shit on my kid and tell them to go away.
Oh, you didn't say. And then my kid comes back to me
traumatized because they're always told they don't make any
sense or they're not getting to the point or my kids has too

(01:45:22):
much trauma to even get to the point.
I can understand them, It's fine.
So I just write fucking kids letters now.
I'll say here's the here, I'll write you the letter.
You e-mail the people you show up to the meeting, you ain't got
to say shit. Just have them read the letter.
And I've continuously had to do that more and more now, and I'm
not trying to take anyone's autonomy away, but when they're
going to doctor's office, the Dean's office, professor's

(01:45:43):
office, and they're getting justfucking railroaded, that's not
helping me and my client. So we talk about what they want
to say. I write this shit down because
they get kind of anxious about it and they send it.
And then that allows them to have the conversation that's
much more structured. So I think of Milton and I just
get sad. And it sucks that, you know,
some folks in these workplaces will take advantage of him or

(01:46:04):
hurt him, but betray him, belittle him.
I think of other folks that are like queer or trans that are in
that same position, which might be more bullied or targeted.
And then you see him become likethe villain at the end or the
bad guy at the end, but he's still so autistic on the beach.
Like didn't have too much fucking salt.

(01:46:26):
Right where I don't understand. He's like, I'm going to write a
letter. I'm going to write horrible
reviews. I'm going to fucking tank this
place. And take my traveler's checks to
a competing place. And I love it, I do love it.
And I think this is a really good representation of not
expensive. What did we talk about on the
last pod for the accountant of like this certain type of autism

(01:46:48):
that they always show that's like extreme fucking geniuses
and all that. And like they don't really talk
about masking where we got this guy that's probably not masking
a shit ton. He's just being him.
That's autistic as hell, but he's being hurt and bullied.
Instead of all these other shows.
They're kind of affirming them and like celebrating them.
Like we see the other dark side of like autism or

(01:47:09):
neurodivergence. That's the dark side.
Which I think is a good place toactually show two I think
nowadays as well. Yeah, representation, right.
I think when you think about neurodivergent content creators,
they're generally pretty articulate or attractive or
there's something about them that is not representative of

(01:47:31):
most people's experience with that neurodivergence.
And I mean, Milton truly stays true to himself, like, to the
bitter end. Like, he's still just, like,
railing about that salt on his Margarita.
And yeah. I don't want salt to make.
I may drink. I I don't understand why.

(01:47:52):
Why would you put salt on my drink?
I don't understand. I'm going to write a letter.
No. I'm done.
That's great, but that's how legit, that's how my friends act
and think. And the echolalia will kick up
and the stress kicks up and nextcould come the full meltdown
because they'll be sitting thereNas and they'll be rocking so
much students and they're telling me and they're telling

(01:48:13):
me I got to pull them out of that because I can see them
fucking spiraling. If I don't pull them out of it,
they're going to tank. So then the next thing is how do
we figure out like, you know, identified when we're starting
to spiral and like put in some speed bumps and some stems and
some other things. And I'll tell the clients
sometimes, you know, I'm like, you know, I'm distracting you,
right? By like talking about other
shit. They're like, I know Nas.
I said I'm just making sure, youknow, I didn't randomly just

(01:48:35):
talk about fucking Pokémon cards.
Why not? Why you were having a meltdown?
Why not? What the?
Fuck, you should all right, charts.
Are Meerkat. So it's I I love the character.
I'm glad that we did this. This is one of the reasons why I
was excited to do this film, because of that character in the
realness in the dark side, whichwe don't ever see in movies or

(01:48:57):
shows. Yeah, I would also, I, I do have
a question, especially about when we talk about applying 2
jobs, right? And when we apply 2 jobs, you
know, they have that one form where you can say out like all
the disabilities and your identities and things like that.
We're going to talk about this too, in another show about

(01:49:17):
Boston Legal and about 1 character who's autistic and he
actually gets fired from his jobfor different reasons.
But I'm with everything going ontoday politically, do you find
it difficult to really put thoseidentities and disabilities into

(01:49:42):
these applications, even though they are needed and you want to
have as much clairvoyancy or youwant to be as careful as you can
while you're filling out these forms?
But at the same time, you also want to make sure these
employers know exactly like what's going on, too.
Do you find it hard to talk about those certain things?

(01:50:05):
And like, what are your takes onpeople filling out these forms
when they talk about their identities, disabilities, things
like that? This is something I talk about a
lot when it comes to like note keeping and what do we document
and what do we even ask clients for?
Like do we even ask for their pronouns?
Is it going to come back and bite everyone in the ass, right?

(01:50:25):
Like we just got to a place where these, the the very real
implications of your lived experience and your identities
is like being recognized and like being celebrated in a lot
of ways. And now it's like, you know, 100
steps backwards. And I think about how all of us,
we still exist, We are still in this world, we are still trying

(01:50:48):
to make it through and we just have our more marching orders to
say what we need to say and keepour jobs right.
Like we, we are still doing the same thing.
We just need to call it something a little bit
different. And it sucks.
It sucks that we have to do that.
And we see the very real implications of not doing that.

(01:51:11):
And not everyone has the privilege to be able to say
like, I don't know, free Palestine loud, right?
Like people are getting their degrees revoked.
Like it's just, it's very real horrible implications of all of
this stuff. And at the same time, like we're
all still out here, we're still existing.

(01:51:31):
So it's just going to be more subversive, I think.
I think we're all just trying tofigure out how to like, you
know, like test the waters in a different way, you know, dog
whistles, whatever. Like, how do we assess and vet
the safety of, you know, the people around us without having

(01:51:52):
to be as transparent or as vulnerable?
For Spence, for the the applications, I always advise my
clients that if it's disabling enough to be picked up in the
interview, then you need to document it.
That way it's not held against you.
If you are functioning enough towhere it does look like you're
neurotypical, everything's fine.Don't worry about it.

(01:52:15):
I said we'll fill out the paperwork and we'll go to HR
after you get the job. I'll fill out all the
information, the forms, we'll get you accommodations.
So to me, when it comes to that subsection, not just us as
clinicians and what we document and all that is how how good are
we are are blending in or masking or how disabled are we
by whatever we got going on. If there is like a stammer

(01:52:37):
stutter, if there is immediacy that's intense and we zone out
to some dissociations, high anxiety, it just depends eye
contact, then I will have them identify things if needed.
But in these times, Spence, it'sscary.
But I have to have them documented because I don't want
to be held against them. Right?
Yeah. So it's it's it's case by case.

(01:52:58):
Yeah, and I think that's perfect.
And I think that's going to go well with people to know that,
especially if they don't have somebody there to tell them
these things, right. Because maybe they do fill out
their applications and they keepon getting rejected from these
jobs, whether or not they they put in certain disabilities or
identities into the application or they leave them out and then

(01:53:19):
they get to that stage. And then they're like, why am I
not getting the jobs that I knowI'm qualified for?
So I think that'll also go a long way with this too.
Yeah, I've got, I mean. You have to know your rights,
right? You have to know your rights and
what is protected under law for now.
And it's also not the worst thing to learn how to mask these

(01:53:41):
days. And I hate saying that.
I hate saying that, but it's a survival tactic.
It is. So yeah.
I so badly want to click it and I was working with the client
today just to failed insurance because I'm trying to help them
get insurance and there's certain things he's like, should
I click this? I'm like, Nah, Gee, we ain't
clicking that. It it it's it's interesting.

(01:54:03):
It's always changing these days too, you know, So it's, it's
hard to, it's hard to know what the right answer is.
So let's, let's do a little pivot and get out of here.
So what, what, what, what do yougot going on?
What do you got to promote? Like you got a book going on.
Do you currently accept clients?Because I got a, a, a place
where I refer people like what's, who are what do you got
going on? And how can we support you?

(01:54:26):
How can we support you? Well, I have a group private
practice and we are taking clients.
I'm personally not taking clients because I'm a little
hyper fixated on finishing this book, but I do have a fellow
clinicians who are all side packed, you know, so they see
clients telehealth across like 40 states.

(01:54:47):
I have people who specialize in OCD and their divergent and
anxiety. I also have an assessment
psychologist who does autism andADHD evals in a neural
diversity, neural divergent affirming way, you know, so if
we need to keep things on the DL, like that's OK, we can make

(01:55:08):
that happen. But she's also doing long COVID
neural psych evals, which is really cool because, you know,
we're seeing the implications ofthis mass disabling event and
how that affects people's mentalhealth and neurological health.
And other than that, I'm promoting my book, which will is
currently stated to be out in June of next year.

(01:55:31):
And, you know, we're not, we're not quite at like the pre-orders
phase yet, but we will be soon, yeah.
Very nice, very nice. We will definitely be promoting
your book as soon as you have pre-order whatever.
And then yeah, I think so, yeah.And yeah, we loved having you.
So hey, come back anytime. OK, I'll take you up on it.

(01:55:55):
Yeah, Yeah, we're. Going to have to do Lion King
now. I just.
That's what we're going to thinkabout Dad.
I mean, if I can like really embody to moan during it, like
count me in. I'm I'm.
I'm there. I'm there.
You got to be your best Nathan Lane.
You're just like, here we go, OK.

(01:56:16):
Yeah, I'm telling you. The legend.
I love it. Nathan Lane.
All right. Well, thank you again, Doctor
Hahn Ren for coming on. We really appreciate you.
I'm Spencer. That's not a different special
packet all. Right everyone, thank you so
much. Remember to take care of
yourselves, or don't, it's completely up to you.

(01:56:37):
Peace. Eyes twitching.
Good.

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When the 9–5 Breaks You: Burnout, Identity & Neurodivergence | Office Space [Ft. Dr. Han Ren]

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}When the 9–5 Breaks You: Burnout, Identity & Neurodivergence | Office Space [Ft. Dr. Han Ren]