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May 23, 2025 12 mins

James Gutman makes a major announcement about his upcoming book "Hi World I'm Dad: How Fathers Can Journey from Autism Awareness to Acceptance to Appreciation" being released as an audiobook on June 19th, 2025. He shares personal reflections on recording the audiobook and his authentic approach to parenting his son Lucas.

• The audiobook will be available on multiple platforms including Audible, Amazon, Spotify, Apple Books, Google Play, and Kobo. It is available for pre-order now.
• James describes his initial hesitation about recording the audiobook but ultimately enjoyed the experience
• Authenticity is key to his approach to parenting and advocacy
• He emphasizes finding joy in everyday moments with his son rather than lamenting challenges
• James shares touching anecdotes about his relationship with Lucas, including why he can never stay mad at him for more than five minutes
• The book demonstrates his journey from autism awareness to acceptance to appreciation

Visit HiBlogImDad.com every Monday and Wednesday for new blog posts and follow James on Instagram @Hi_JamesGutman.


It's Here! Get the book – “Hi World, I’m Dad: How Fathers Can Journey to Autism Awareness, Acceptance, and Appreciation” on audio, digital, or print.

Follow Us On Facebook and YouTube. Follow James Guttman on Instagram.

Also, be sure to read the blog that started it all - Hi Blog! I'm Dad.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I want apple juice.
Lucas wants apple juice.
I know I heard him say that.
Can I have apple juice?
Yeah, you can have apple juice.
Can I have soda?
Yes, you can have soda.
Can I press that button?
No, you can't press that button.
Why?
Because that's going to playthe theme song.
I'm not ready to start the pot.

(00:30):
Hi Pod, I am Dad.
He's not just Hi Dad, he's mydad, james Gutman.
Folks, it's James Gutman, it'sHi Pod, I'm Dad.
Welcome back to another editionof the podcast.
Another friday, it is may 23rd.
This is being posted on may23rd 2025.

(00:53):
I appreciate you guys taking thetime to check it out.
We're on all the streamingservices.
If they stream it, we're on it.
Thank you, um, like subscribe,all the good stuff you're
supposed to do.
I appreciate it.
This is the episode.
This is the edition of thepodcast.
I've been talking about this forlike weeks and weeks and weeks
about the big announcement.
There's more to come about thisbook and we already announced

(01:14):
the book, june 19th 2025, highWorld I'm Dad how Fathers Can
Journey from Autism Awareness toAcceptance to Appreciation.
Talked about it, unveiled it.
What else is there to do, right?
Well, this is the announcement.
Now.
Hopefully, it'll be anannouncement to you If you did
not read the title of thepodcast, in which case don't
read.

(01:34):
Don't.
Why are you reading it now?
Don't read it.
The announcement is this HighWorld Omdad how Fathers Can
Journey from Autism Awareness toAcceptance to Appreciation will
also be released on June 19thas an audiobook.
That's right.
There will be an audio versionof Hi World I'm Dad, available
on all the major platforms.
I'm talking Amazon, audible,spotify, apple Books, google

(01:55):
Play Books, kobo.
I don't know what Kobo is, butit's on Kobo.
So yeah, if you have Kobo, nice, you can check out the book.
This has been it's been crazy.
So I've known about this for awhile, but we didn't even do
anything with it yet.
Right Like now, I was toldwe're gonna do an audio version
of the book.
I don't know much aboutaudiobooks, truth be told, and

(02:17):
this kind of blows some peopleaway.
I know things.
I know about literature and Iknow different things like that,
but I'm not a huge reader perse.
I always feel kind of weirdreading other people's writing
because I don't want to writelike them.
I don't know, maybe I'm justlazy.
Whatever it is, I don't reallydo a lot in the literary
community in depth like that.
I'll read something if I wantto read it, but for the most
part, no.
So I don't really know a lotabout audio books, much less how

(02:40):
to narrate them, which is whatI would be doing, and that's
right.
I spent three different days atParadise Studios, new York, out
in Massapequa, new York.
Bobby helped me along.
This was fantastic.
It was a process that worriedme.
The idea was I was going toread my book out loud into a

(03:00):
microphone from beginning to end, and that was the narration and
I.
There's not one part of thatwhole idea that I could wrap my
head around, for a couple ofreasons.
First, I don't like to rereadthe things that I've written.
I always kind of feel weirdabout it and people are
surprised by that.
But to go back, especiallyrecently, to something I've
written, I kind of I don't knowLike I feel like I thought it

(03:22):
already.
I wrote't know Like I feel likeI thought it already.
I wrote it already.
Plus, I think of things I wantto change.
I don't like this.
I use this word too much.
What am I trying to say here?
What is this supposed to mean?
That kind of stuff goes throughmy head.
So I do that.
So there was that concern.
Plus, I don't know, maybe youhaven't noticed I'm kind of

(03:47):
winging it here this way.
The whole time I've been doing Iused to call them audio shows.
If you ask anybody from theWorld Wrestling Insanity Days, I
used to call them audio shows.
It was before podcasts that Istarted doing audio online to
the point where no oneunderstood it.
Check this out this is how oldI am and how long ago the story
goes.
My first audio that I recordedfirst podcast was in 2004.
He goes my first audio that Irecorded first podcast was in

(04:07):
2004.
It was for the Pro WrestlingTorch.
It was the first place that Iworked for.
I wrote for them, I got my bookdeal when I was with them.
It was really.
It was the experience thatbegan everything for me and we
did audios on that site.
So I, how do we do these audios?
I asked I would call intoessentially, an answering
machine and just record my audio.
And that was the audio.

(04:28):
And oh my God, I mean you talkabout being freaked out.
Here you are.
You know that everything you dois going to go right on there.
You can't edit it, you can'tchange it.
So I wrote everything down, sothat first audio I have it
somewhere on there too.
I'm like hello everyone, thisis James Gutman.
It was really so I like to dothat.
I try not to do that.
So I do this.
I'm just like, hey, what's up?
I tell you a story?

(04:49):
Hey, how you doing?
So I have to sit there and readword for word Kind of bugged me
out.
It was weird.
End I got to tell you I likedit, I like doing it.
I'll tell you why I like doingit.
It gave me the opportunity and Irealized when I started
speaking that it was my ownvoice anyway.
So it wasn't like I was readinga book verbatim.

(05:10):
I was reading you my thoughtsverbatim, and my thoughts are my
own thoughts.
So to say them is kind ofsomething I've already done in
my head.
So I knew how I meant it, Iknew what I wanted to say.
So that was pretty cool.
I got to tell stories.
I got to, I don't know, I dovoices sometimes.
You guys know that.
So every once in a whilesomething gets a little
accentuated by a little like youknow.
He said he was like so there'sa few of those in there, I don't

(05:33):
know, maybe a Ray L and autismappreciation and writing about
raising my son with the mindsetthat I do it's that it's
authentic.
And when I say it's authentic Imean there's a simple reason
for that.
It's because it would beimpossible for me to sit here
week in and week out, twice aweek, and talk about seeing my

(05:56):
son and the way autism affectsour family in such positive ways
.
There'd be no way for me totalk endlessly, I mean come on
endlessly about this stuff andnot see it and feel it.
These stories come about andthese points of view that I
write about come about by meobserving them.
So to observe these powerfuland great and wonderful moments

(06:17):
and not like what I live them.
I live these moments.
I hang this thing up.
We stop doing the podcast.
I go inside, I hang out with mykid.
We laugh, we just hang out.
I sit next to him.
I'll tap him.
What are you doing?
What are you doing?
We drive in the car.
I reach behind me, I grab hisleg, I fist, bump him.
I don't know.
I look forward to when he andyou know, everybody sees the

(06:41):
challenges, everyone sees thework, everyone sees, because
people will say they'll hear.
It must be hard and it is.
There's hard parts to raising aboy like him.
There's hard parts to all oflife, right, all of us have
different things that go on.
But the thing about Lucas ishe's worth it.
And he's worth it because thetime that I spend with him, that

(07:05):
I enjoy, far outweigh the timesthat are difficult or the times
that I have to take care of him, and not for nothing, man, but
like that's kind of the pointfor me.
I don't know, maybe I'mdifferent, maybe I'm whatever.
I always thought like your kidsare your, that's your thing.
When you have kids, you takecare of your kids.
Everything is for the kids.
Everything you do is for thekids, and I try to do that.
I try to make everything I cando for my kids happen.
But you don't want to spoilyour kids, right?

(07:25):
So my daughter is anneurotypical 17-year-old.
I don't want to spoil her.
So when she can do something,if she can make her own you know
, sandwich or whatever make yourown sandwich, do that.
But if my daughter couldn'tmake her own sandwich, if it was
impossible, if she struggled,if I knew that there was like, I

(07:48):
would make her a sandwich everyday for the rest of her life.
There are things that my soncan't do he struggles with.
He'll never be able to do it,and I will do those things for
him as long as I need to do them.
I'll do them with a smile on myface.
I'll do them with a smile on myface because A yeah, it's my
responsibility and it's my kid.
I'm supposed to take care ofhim, but I love my son and I
want him to have all the bestthings he can have, just like

(08:10):
you want your kids to have allthe best things they can have.
So if my son doesn't use a forkappropriately, does he never
eat macaroni and cheese?
No, we go hand over hand.
Macaroni and cheese, yeah, Iwant him to have everything that
he's supposed to have.
So I do these things.
So even when I'm working, oreven when somebody sees me at a
restaurant, like, oh, we have tofeed this, I'm smiling because

(08:31):
we're sharing this moment.
This is what we do.
We just we hang out Like it's.
It's different than most peoplethink.
It's not.
I'm not constantly lamenting aboy who's not here.
My boy is here and I, like theboy who's here.
I've never been mad at my sonfor more than like five minutes.

(08:53):
I swear like, how do you staymad at them?
I can't.
I've tried to explain that too.
Like he'll knock something over, he'll break something in his
room, he'll spill a plate offood, and I get so mad and he's
just kind of like he's jumpingaround, he's smiling, he's
laughing.
Now there, there was,especially when he was younger,
that initially, what do you getmad?
He cries and you realize like,oh, this isn't helping, this

(09:16):
doesn't do anything, this isjust making him sad.
So now I don't know.
He tries not to do it and Iteach him with.
With Lucas there's neveranything naughty.
He doesn't register the idea oflike, oh, this will piss off my
dad.
He doesn't even think like that, he just kind of does his thing
.
So I show him whatever.
Even just now we had a thingdownstairs, right he has.

(09:37):
My son is the only kid in theworld that's got spill proof
cups.
Spill, proof, spill proof cups,those old like metal, they're
kind of like kitty cups.
I really gotta get new cups.
I know if you guys saw them inthe pictures.
They're kind of old.
They're supposed to not spillunless when you put them down,
you just put them down, facedown on the couch and that's
what he does all I don't knowwhen he got used to it.

(09:58):
He likes it, so he does that.
And when I see I'm like lucas,and he goes, he takes his little
finger and he goes no, no, no,with his finger, like that, and
I'm like, if you know, no, no,no, and it just becomes a back
and forth.
He's not doing it to get to me,he just does it I don't know.
So it's hard to stay mad at him.
It's easy to get mad in asecond at something like oh my,
what did you do?
It's not easy for more than twominutes.

(10:28):
He's smiling, he's lifting yourhead up, he's kissing you.
He's literally kissing the topof your head as you clean up all
the potato chips he spilled onthe floor.
What are you going to do?
Come on, what are you?
The Grinch, this kid's awesomedude.
And that's my story and I'msticking to it.
So if you want to hear like thestories like this and things
like that I don't even mean toget off on this tangent, but
it's all included.
This is what I'm saying.
I'm excited because I know, assomebody who's not a huge reader
, I might check out the audiobook.
So hopefully, if you're not ahuge reader, you'll check out
the audio book.
Hi world, I'm dad.

(10:49):
How fathers can journey fromautism awareness to acceptance
to appreciation.
The audio book available onaudible Amazon, spotify, apple
books, google play books, kobo.
It's for pre-order, pre-save iton Spotify.
It's all there and it will bereleased also on Amazon via

(11:10):
paper.
Shout out Dunder Mifflin onJune 19th, worldwide, everywhere
.
Guys, thank you.
This has been an excitingjourney.
I want to get your feedback whenthis book comes out.
When things come out, pleasedon't hesitate, let me know.
I'll try to set something up.
I always have these ideas.
Oh, get everybody's feedback.
I don't even know what to dowith it.
We're going to figure it out,but a lot of big stuff literally
is on the way, and now you knowwhat a lot of it is.

(11:31):
So excited to share it, excitedto hear what you guys think.
That does it for me.
Do me a favor Be onHiBlogOnDadcom Monday, wednesday
, new, new blogs every singleweek.
Uh, new podcast here.
Hi, pod, I'm dad, and follow meon on instagram.
Hi, james gutman.
Hi, hi, james got me.
We're on facebook, we're on.
We're on lots of stuff.
It's a good day.

(11:52):
Thank you guys once again forall your support, until next
time.
This is james gutman saying bewell, bye, pod, I'm dad.
Thank you, I'm out.
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