December 30, 2023 • 32 mins
In this episode of My Time, Tony Hernandez Pumarejo will be talking to us about what this year 2023 was like from his perspective. We wish everyone a nice and prosperous new year 2024!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Tony Hernandez Pumarejo, writer and author, professional and motivational speaker, TV
(00:17):
presenter, life coach, and international ambassador for autism and mental health.
He is proud to invite you to his podcast, My Time with Tony Hernandez Pumarejo.
(00:39):
Hi, and welcome to this new episode of My Time with Tony Hernandez Pumarejo. And this is your
host, Tony Hernandez Pumarejo. And I'm truly grateful to you to participate either watching
me or listening to me in this podcast. If you haven't done so yet, please subscribe to my
podcast, subscribing on my YouTube channel, Tony Hernandez Pumarejo. You can also subscribe
(01:04):
in different platforms, Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon, and many others. And if you also haven't
done so yet, please follow me in all my social media platforms. And I really appreciate all
your support, especially relaunching the podcast a couple of weeks ago, the feedback, the comments,
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and the support that I receive, especially since the relaunch has been amazing. And I want to thank
you all for your support because without your support, I would not be here right now. And today
I have a very important guest, for me the most important guest of them all. And that's you,
the guest. You who listen or watch my podcast, you who have supported my work throughout the years,
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that have been doing this for autism, special needs, and other causes in which I believe in.
I'm truly grateful for your support. And I think that if somebody comes to me
in terms of how I would describe this year, it can be described in just one word, gratitude.
(02:13):
And I'm going to explain as to why I describe this year, 2023, as gratitude. This is the end
of the year episode for my time. This is going to be more of a reflection. I'm going to share my
thoughts about what has this year been for me. And so, to share my perspectives, the things that
(02:40):
I was not able to do, the things that I did, what I learned, what I continue to learn. And hopefully,
you learn something for this and you can apply to your life in preparation for the new year 2024.
So again, thank you so much. When we start a new year, each of us have what is called expectations.
(03:05):
We pull our goals or the most famous one, New Year's resolutions in all areas of our life.
Things we want to get, a new job, buy a house, get a girlfriend, especially the one in relation to
health, gaining fit, lose weight, get healthier, get more money. Some of those goals and resolutions.
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I personally steer away from the resolutions. I've been doing that at least for a couple years.
And my focus has been on goals, my life goals, my long term, my short term goals, my vision of life.
And that's what I've been working on for many years to get to those goals.
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So I look in terms of how I have progressed towards those goals each year.
And the key here to remember is that the goals in your life are not going to be accepted.
The goals in your life are not going to be exactly the same. They may be, but it is not always the case.
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Because as life goes on, as you grow, as you grow up, your perspective of life changes.
Because you go to different experiences, positive and negative experiences.
And you know, circumstances in your life. For example, I set my first goals back in 2008.
In fact, when I was in my last year of high school, and I set goals of things I wanted to do back then.
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And there's differences compared to the goals that I have right now.
Obviously, the main goal has always been the same financial freedom, abundance,
to live a life in which of independence and abundance. And I can be a provider and take
care of the people that I love, my family, community, and continue to make the difference.
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Travel the world. That has been a goal that I've had with me since forever.
And that's a goal in which I've been working on to find a way to create a position or a job
that will help me to go to more places, to more countries around the world.
And yes, relationship goals, which I have to be honest, I've not been successful as of yet.
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The love of my life, my girlfriend hasn't arrived yet. But it's been a process.
I set different goals and those goals have evolved. For example, 10, 12 years ago,
I didn't have a goal in which I was going to appear on television.
Or I was going to have a television assignment on television. I didn't expect that until 2019,
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which when my book was released, I did my first ever interview on television.
Using that as an example. So life is changing, but the principles, the values that you carry
are for you for life. And that's the most important. And I have expectations for this year.
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And I can say that this year was mostly ups and downs. Maybe that's very common to hear.
But an area in which I struggled the most this year was my relationships with people.
In business, in friendship, in life, the relationships that I have with people.
Since appearing on television a couple years ago, I met more people in my life. And I'm trying to
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do collaborations for businesses, causes for especially autism. And I'm trying to make friends.
The thing that I've always wanted the most is to have great friends and obviously to get better
myself as a true friend. But I realized that when things are tough, unfortunately some of those
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people didn't show up at all. And that disappointed me. And I think it's very common to hear. But it
hurts. I mean, it hurt my self-esteem. And I had to realize and technically what happened is that
I forgot a lesson that I thought that I have learned many years ago in my life. But unfortunately,
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I failed in that lesson, which was to don't have expectations of people. No expectations,
no disappointments. And I put too much expectations on different people. And that was a mistake.
I mean, that was an error from my end. I cannot blame the other person or held the other person
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responsible for not being a true friend because I didn't set the boundaries. I was not strong
enough and to be able to be clear in terms of boundaries. And I let myself lower my self-esteem
so that way I can get the attention of different people that I thought that I was not.
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I let myself be a friend of other people that I thought that were friends or could be friends.
And I failed in that. And as a result of that, I paid about a price this year. And I've always
tried to be the best person I can be. Not perfect with my defects as a human being, but tried to be
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a friend. And making friends, and only making friends, but maintaining long-term friendships
has always been a problem or challenge for me. I can sure mention this is related to autism or
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Asperger. I was first diagnosed with autism and then Asperger or high functioning autism,
which you know the big challenge is that people on the autism spectrum have difficulties in terms
of interaction or relationships with other people. That could be. But I don't want to blame autism
or Asperger or any condition for the struggles that I had making friends. I have responsibility too.
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And I always struggle, okay, what I had to do to keep friendships or am I looking for the right
type of people in my life in friendships? What am I doing right? What am I doing wrong? And
that's something that I've struggled with for years. Is this something within me? And yes,
I had to find ways to get better. And I know that making friends is not easy, even for a person,
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a normal person. Especially as you grow older, especially after college, it gets more difficult
to make friends and to keep friends because different people, all of us go to different
journeys in life. I mean, people move to other countries, other places, you know,
you know, other people, most people, they get married, they start a family and their focus is
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their family and they're, yeah, and they have difficulties in making, you know, making time
for friends. Career, especially here in the US. I mean, we're a career during, you know, place and
we can get busy. I mean, that's like, you know, and I have people that I care about, that I,
you know, that I deeply care about, that we keep in touch, even though we have busy lives. So I
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believe that sometimes being busy, it depends. I mean, you know, it depends on how committed you
are. It depends on the bond with other persons. So that's the key. You know, I have one friend
who I've known for years, seven years, in fact, she's married and she has her business, but we
always keep in touch, you know, and that's, you know, and that's something that is not easy to do.
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And I'm the first one to see it. But that's one thing. Another thing is if you put in the effort
and there's no response or the person calls you, if you only need something that I don't see that's
being right. I think that's more of a transaction, which unfortunately, and I've, and I accept
responsibility, I fail. And I create a lot of transactions instead of friendships. And
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I'm paying the price for that. I mean, I'm paying the price for that. And that's a lesson
that I'm learning the hard way and trying to find ways to differentiate between collaboration,
business and friendship. That's the most important thing. And yeah, it's been, you know, struggles.
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You know, a lot of times I felt alone. This is not new. You know, sometimes I didn't have these
people for a certain project. And, you know, I felt a lot of times burnout. I did this on another
episode, you know, the last episode, in fact, of the podcast, I talk about burnout. I mean, being
tired, always people reaching out to me only if they need something, you know, burnout with social
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media, autism advocacy. I felt, and I felt like, you know, when I do videos, I feel like I'm not
being true to myself because people may see how you're happy, you're successful, you have everything,
but they don't know what you're going through behind the scenes. And a lot of times, since I
don't have a deep connection with somebody, I feel like this, then it makes me more difficult
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and gets me depressed. You know, I will, you know, I always say something that's truly valuable.
So somebody to have somebody there, they can listen and to understand in life. That's truly
valuable. A lot of times I don't feel like I have that. But I feel like I have to be able to
not get me wrong. I have people that I care about. I'm grateful to have them in my life. But sometimes,
you know, sometimes I feel like they may not understand me or what I'm going through. And
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that's the reason why sometimes I can feel alone. And other people, of course, then, you know, they
only reach out to me if they need something. And other people that have left life for different
reasons. You know, but at the end of the day, in terms of my relationships with people, I can,
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the only person who is responsible for my well-being and happiness is myself. And I had
to be better. I had to find ways to be a better person each day to the best of my ability with my
faults. And that's all I can do. And obviously, I have trust in the most important being in my life,
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which is God. You know, an area of faith which, you know, I have not been able to go too much to
church recently. That doesn't mean that, you know, I stopped praying and believing in God. I believe
in God right now more than ever. You know, I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior. And
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Christ, you know, is my friend. Jesus is my friend, the only true friend,
most important friend that I have in this world. And I pray, you know, pray to Him and, you know,
praying for everybody, my friends, my family, of course, community, and this world. I pray
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and that His will gets done. Just trying to do the best I can each day to fulfill the mission,
to do the purpose that He has for me in this world. And that for me is the most important thing of all
of this. And yes, you know, I'm just reflecting because I feel like right now, because I mentioned
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that I have different goals, I feel like a failure sometimes because I feel like in some areas,
I'm in the same position that I've always been in terms of making friends, not able to keep
friendships. And also not only that, but in terms of finances, not be able to have a higher income
that I have right now. And, you know, it's my responsibility because I screw up. You know,
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I screw up in so many things that I frustrate myself. You know, I get very frustrating,
get hurt on myself. And those are things that I struggle with, the low self-esteem. You know,
letting others set a value on me and who I am as a human being. And just trying to do the best I
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can each day. And that's something I struggle with, especially this year. And, you know, I always,
you know, my goal right now in life is, especially in the last couple weeks and months, I've been to
find myself, to know who is there for you in the good and the bad times. Know who you
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look for in terms of friends. I've been to personal development since I've been, you know, age 20.
And this has been set to different leaders of personal development, different story,
you know, different studies. But, you know, one of my mentors, he said one time that
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you're the average of the five people that surround you in your life that you hang out with
or are with in your life. And, for example, if you're in a group of people in which all they do
is party, they drink, and they don't work, then that's going to influence your life.
If you're in a group of people in which they're overweight, they don't take care of themselves
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health-wise, that's going to impact in your life. But if you're in a group of people that,
you know, that they have fun, don't get me wrong, they have fun, and I'm not discriminating against
all those people. But if you're in a group of people that are persevering, they are faith-based,
they have God first in their lives, and that they don't settle, they go above to be able to achieve
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those goals, then those are the people that I'm looking forward to be with. Those are the
people that I want to be with, and that's what I'm looking for. And I need to work, but I need to be,
I need to improve myself, to be a better friend, a better human being each day,
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recognize the things that I have done, and be grateful for the experiences, good and bad.
That, for me, is the most important thing of them all. And yeah, that's something that, you know,
sometimes, you know, something I struggle with is, you know, sometimes I feel like this year's been
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a failure, other times I feel like it's been a success because I've done different good things
in this year. I mean, you know, I have expanded my work in the autism community, I have done,
I have opened a new podcast for autism through Autism Speaks in Spanish, in which I was able to
interview top people, not only in autism, but also in society, the political leaders from,
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you know, from Congress, Puerto Rico, the resident commissioner of Puerto Rico, and also, so far,
definitely, so far, the highest profile interview that I had so far has been with Aneue AA,
Aneue AA, which, you know, I even released, you know, recently, we published it a couple weeks ago,
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the unedited edition of the interview with Aneue AA, and it was tremendous. I got to almost, so far,
84,000 views, and I never got that many views, and it was truly amazing. I got more subscriptions to
my channel, you know, I'm able to meet different people this year, different collaborations. Obviously,
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I'm trying to do different things to get to my goals, take care of myself, you know, health-wise,
eat better, exercise, be a better person, trying to learn a new language right now, Portuguese,
which I started a couple weeks ago, just trying to find everything to get to, you know, what I want
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to be in life, and for me, the most important thing is that as long as it's God's will, that's
the most important, because I'm just trying to do His will each day, and that, for me, is the most
important thing of all, and that's something I wanted to share with all of you in this podcast,
so far. And yes, the places I've traveled, I wish I would have traveled to other countries, but, you
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know, I traveled to New York for the first time, New York City, Puerto Rico for my mom's 60th birthday,
so, you know, it's been ups and downs, different situations, but, you know, if you can describe me
this year, it's been, you know, it's been, I would have called it a process, you know,
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I would describe this year, but I would call it gratitude. Gratitude, I'm grateful for all
the experiences that I had in my life, especially this year, and how to move forward in my life.
But again, it's been, you know, right now, I cannot give up, you know, I'm alive,
you know, I have one day here, and my focus is to get to what my God wants me to get, so,
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you know, I'm trying to get ahead, I'm trying to pay off my debt, I just finished paying off my
student loan, more, you know, taking care of myself, and more important of all, trying,
there was something that I've been trying to work on, which is something that I struggled with,
not only this year, but for many years, which is a something that has negatively impacted my life,
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and especially the sense, you know, the area of pleasure, and it's been, you know, it's been an
addiction that I haven't talked about publicly, it's not drugs, it's not alcohol, so no worries,
but it is something that's hurt, really, has hurt me, destroyed me, destroyed my self-esteem,
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and my health, and I stopped doing that recently, and I'm trying to work, I'm getting better at that,
I'm not going to say exactly what it is, I would like me, I can talk, I will talk about that in
some other time when I'm more comfortable, but that's something that's been, that I believe
has been the reason as to why, perhaps, I'm not saying it is the reason could be, but I feel like
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that's the reason why I'm not being in a relationship, you know, so far, one of the things,
there's many other things, but one of the things that caused me not to be in a relationship, and
I'm trying to get better in that, you know, dealing with frustration with the FMO, which is fear of
missing out, that you're missing out the travels, you know, envy, social media, that's another
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addiction as well, social media, that's an area that I need to get better, because we need to
because we see the best stories, the highlights in social media, and you know, in society in general,
but there's so much that I can do, and you know, this is where I am, where I am right now,
all the decisions that I made got me to this point, good and bad, and my focus is right now,
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how to get to where I need to be, that's it, and you know, the relationships, you know, the person,
the love of my life hasn't come yet, but I had to get better, I had to love myself, to be the best
person that I can be in a relationship as a boyfriend and potential husband, and same with
friendship and relationship as well, and that's what I need to focus on, and not just talk about
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this, but to do it in action, for example, another thing that had to work come better, had to be more
outspoken, less fear about talking about the things that we believe in, especially as we get to this
year 2024, you know, a lot of times I talk about different issues impacting our world, you know,
the issues that may seem controversial, but this reality what is happening, and some people say,
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oh, that you like politics and all, but these are issues that are impacting our society, the war,
education, health, divisions in society, the attack on children, to education, to gender, you know,
to attacking gender ideology, which again, I'm not against the LGBTQ community, but the attacks on
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children, the divisions, the attacks against life, you know, the corruption in government, the media,
especially what happened in the medical field, the interest, especially after COVID,
what's happening with the pandemic, the vaccines, a lot of things, politics, I mean, there's a lot
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going on, which is making our world more stressful, especially here in the U.S., especially in the U.S.
with an election coming up, a presidential election, which there's a lot of stakes are high,
we don't know what's going to happen, those are things I want to talk about more, you know, too,
but I think that, and you know, we have the media, you know, pitting us against each other,
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divisive, division everywhere, and there's different challenges around the world right now,
and very tough situations, you know, the situation of mental health, the mental health crisis,
you know, that is happening in different parts of the world, human trafficking, the violence,
the wars, and they're happening in different parts of the world, different things going on,
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and I need to be more outspoken about this, and no matter what other people say,
and I'm going to be more spoken about this, whether you agree or not, because I don't want
you to agree with me or not, I want you to do your research, to think for yourself, and that's it.
Oh, and let's not forget about autism. I mean, what's next for autism? You know, a lot of things,
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sometimes I feel like we are right now on a plateau in regards to autism, awareness, acceptance,
but with the languages, neurodivergent, first person, third person, the therapies, this is bad
therapy, identity, a lot of things that divide the autism cause that I'm getting sick of it,
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sick of that crap, and I have to be blunt like this, but it's the reality.
We need to talk about that for autism as we move in 2024, and in this podcast, we're going to talk
about that, about the dark sides of autism. We're going to talk about the good sides, don't worry,
because autism has wonderful things, but there's dark sides as well. We need to talk about that,
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and we're going to hit hard in this podcast, and I always, not only this is not new, I've always
asked people to think for themselves, to think for themselves, and yeah, and that's what I'm trying
to do as an autistic self advocate through my work, and yeah, those are things I wanted to share,
I mean, I can spend here hours, but I just wanted to give you my perspective, you know, what I've
(26:36):
gone through up to this point, and how to move forward as we start a new year, but despite
everything, I'm very confident in the future, and the thing here is to never give up, to never give
up in achieving your dreams in life. So, you know, in regards to projects, again, expand the
podcasts, I appreciate, and I love all that, especially those that have supported me throughout
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the years, and you know, I want to greatly appreciate the support, you know, projects,
you know, my podcasts, my speaking engagements, my consulting, I want to write my second book
eventually, expand my work with my autism organizations, and do other things in life.
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I want to do so many things, as I mentioned, of course, learning the language, but I think
the challenge is, you know, to be a better friend, to be a better person, to be in the right
relationship with the woman of my dreams, and yeah, there's a couple of things coming up, and travel.
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I travel to more places, so I have so many things I want to do, and I think I'm going to be able to
do that. I think that despite what's happening, there's great opportunities, I believe that the
future is bright, and that the most important thing is to not give up. That's the most important
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thing. And don't get me wrong, I've been through the negative gloomy, doomsday conspiracy theories,
you know, side before, so, but I know people can get frustrated, and I talked about this before,
with everything that's going on, but at the end of the day, you can take care of yourself first.
You have to be the change that you want to see in this world first. You need to start with yourself,
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then your family, then your friends, and your community. Wherever you are in the world,
regardless of who you are, where you are, your sex, religion, ethnicity, cultural background,
no matter who you are, you can start from where you are to make that difference in the world.
And that's where you start. Get educated about the different topics, collaborate,
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meet the other friends, and have fun. That's one thing I want to do more, is to have fun in my life.
Smile, you know, that's what I want to do. So, so yeah, I just want to share this as we conclude
the year. I was still debating as to whether I wanted to do a video or to write a blog about
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the end of the year, but you know, I just, you know, I have difficulties in writing blogs.
You know, recently I need to really push hard in writing blogs, and yeah, so many things,
and you know, I'm continuing to fight every day. So, I just want to leave this final message before
we end the year. Regardless of, you know, who you are, if you're watching me, or you're listening to
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me, this may not have been the best year of your life, or maybe it was the best year of your life.
You know, maybe it's been ups and downs for you, your family, your loved ones. Maybe you lost a job,
you know, you're more not able to get that position, or you have a difficult situation in your life.
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You know, divorce, losing, especially losing a loved one. You know, whoever you are,
that you've gone through this year, I just wanted to say that there's hope.
That no matter what's happened, there's always hope. And I ask you to, you know, to put in faith in
your in God, because he's, you know, we need to put trust in him. He's there for us. He will never
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leave us, you know, leave us, you know, you know, it will always be with us. And my message for this
year is, you know, to reflect, focus on what you've done, grateful for the experiences,
as you move forward to the new year. And I wish you and I just wanted to wish you and your family,
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and your loved ones, the very best in this new year 2024. We got this, we're doing this, let's make
2024 the best year of our lives. And I'm here for you. Any questions, any comments,
please, again, please subscribe to my to my podcast to all the platforms. And thank you all
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for your support. And again, I just wanted to share this perspective and let's go for it. Let's make
it 2024 great. So thank you. Thank you so much for being able to participate in this episode of My
Time with Tony Hernandez-Pumarejo. And I wish you and your family a great year. And I wish you
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and your family a prosperous, healthy and wonderful new year 2024. So thank you so much. And you have
a wonderful night, afternoon or good morning whenever time you're watching this podcast or
watching this podcast. So God bless you. God bless your family. Until next time. Bye bye.
(32:08):
and autism unscripted life. You can purchase it on Amazon or any book selling platform.
You can also obtain a copy through his website. So until the next time you mean,
thank you and have a wonderful day. Blessings.
Tony Hernandez Pumarejo, writer and author, professional and motivational speaker, TV
(00:17):
presenter, life coach, and international ambassador for autism and mental health.
He is proud to invite you to his podcast, My Time with Tony Hernandez Pumarejo.
(00:39):
Hi, and welcome to this new episode of My Time with Tony Hernandez Pumarejo. And this is your
host, Tony Hernandez Pumarejo. And I'm truly grateful to you to participate either watching
me or listening to me in this podcast. If you haven't done so yet, please subscribe to my
podcast, subscribing on my YouTube channel, Tony Hernandez Pumarejo. You can also subscribe
(01:04):
in different platforms, Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon, and many others. And if you also haven't
done so yet, please follow me in all my social media platforms. And I really appreciate all
your support, especially relaunching the podcast a couple of weeks ago, the feedback, the comments,
(01:25):
and the support that I receive, especially since the relaunch has been amazing. And I want to thank
you all for your support because without your support, I would not be here right now. And today
I have a very important guest, for me the most important guest of them all. And that's you,
the guest. You who listen or watch my podcast, you who have supported my work throughout the years,
(01:52):
that have been doing this for autism, special needs, and other causes in which I believe in.
I'm truly grateful for your support. And I think that if somebody comes to me
in terms of how I would describe this year, it can be described in just one word, gratitude.
(02:13):
And I'm going to explain as to why I describe this year, 2023, as gratitude. This is the end
of the year episode for my time. This is going to be more of a reflection. I'm going to share my
thoughts about what has this year been for me. And so, to share my perspectives, the things that
(02:40):
I was not able to do, the things that I did, what I learned, what I continue to learn. And hopefully,
you learn something for this and you can apply to your life in preparation for the new year 2024.
So again, thank you so much. When we start a new year, each of us have what is called expectations.
(03:05):
We pull our goals or the most famous one, New Year's resolutions in all areas of our life.
Things we want to get, a new job, buy a house, get a girlfriend, especially the one in relation to
health, gaining fit, lose weight, get healthier, get more money. Some of those goals and resolutions.
(03:31):
I personally steer away from the resolutions. I've been doing that at least for a couple years.
And my focus has been on goals, my life goals, my long term, my short term goals, my vision of life.
And that's what I've been working on for many years to get to those goals.
(03:51):
So I look in terms of how I have progressed towards those goals each year.
And the key here to remember is that the goals in your life are not going to be accepted.
The goals in your life are not going to be exactly the same. They may be, but it is not always the case.
(04:18):
Because as life goes on, as you grow, as you grow up, your perspective of life changes.
Because you go to different experiences, positive and negative experiences.
And you know, circumstances in your life. For example, I set my first goals back in 2008.
In fact, when I was in my last year of high school, and I set goals of things I wanted to do back then.
(04:44):
And there's differences compared to the goals that I have right now.
Obviously, the main goal has always been the same financial freedom, abundance,
to live a life in which of independence and abundance. And I can be a provider and take
care of the people that I love, my family, community, and continue to make the difference.
(05:09):
Travel the world. That has been a goal that I've had with me since forever.
And that's a goal in which I've been working on to find a way to create a position or a job
that will help me to go to more places, to more countries around the world.
And yes, relationship goals, which I have to be honest, I've not been successful as of yet.
(05:36):
The love of my life, my girlfriend hasn't arrived yet. But it's been a process.
I set different goals and those goals have evolved. For example, 10, 12 years ago,
I didn't have a goal in which I was going to appear on television.
Or I was going to have a television assignment on television. I didn't expect that until 2019,
(06:01):
which when my book was released, I did my first ever interview on television.
Using that as an example. So life is changing, but the principles, the values that you carry
are for you for life. And that's the most important. And I have expectations for this year.
(06:22):
And I can say that this year was mostly ups and downs. Maybe that's very common to hear.
But an area in which I struggled the most this year was my relationships with people.
In business, in friendship, in life, the relationships that I have with people.
Since appearing on television a couple years ago, I met more people in my life. And I'm trying to
(06:52):
do collaborations for businesses, causes for especially autism. And I'm trying to make friends.
The thing that I've always wanted the most is to have great friends and obviously to get better
myself as a true friend. But I realized that when things are tough, unfortunately some of those
(07:15):
people didn't show up at all. And that disappointed me. And I think it's very common to hear. But it
hurts. I mean, it hurt my self-esteem. And I had to realize and technically what happened is that
I forgot a lesson that I thought that I have learned many years ago in my life. But unfortunately,
(07:39):
I failed in that lesson, which was to don't have expectations of people. No expectations,
no disappointments. And I put too much expectations on different people. And that was a mistake.
I mean, that was an error from my end. I cannot blame the other person or held the other person
(08:00):
responsible for not being a true friend because I didn't set the boundaries. I was not strong
enough and to be able to be clear in terms of boundaries. And I let myself lower my self-esteem
so that way I can get the attention of different people that I thought that I was not.
(08:21):
I let myself be a friend of other people that I thought that were friends or could be friends.
And I failed in that. And as a result of that, I paid about a price this year. And I've always
tried to be the best person I can be. Not perfect with my defects as a human being, but tried to be
(08:43):
a friend. And making friends, and only making friends, but maintaining long-term friendships
has always been a problem or challenge for me. I can sure mention this is related to autism or
(09:04):
Asperger. I was first diagnosed with autism and then Asperger or high functioning autism,
which you know the big challenge is that people on the autism spectrum have difficulties in terms
of interaction or relationships with other people. That could be. But I don't want to blame autism
or Asperger or any condition for the struggles that I had making friends. I have responsibility too.
(09:30):
And I always struggle, okay, what I had to do to keep friendships or am I looking for the right
type of people in my life in friendships? What am I doing right? What am I doing wrong? And
that's something that I've struggled with for years. Is this something within me? And yes,
I had to find ways to get better. And I know that making friends is not easy, even for a person,
(09:53):
a normal person. Especially as you grow older, especially after college, it gets more difficult
to make friends and to keep friends because different people, all of us go to different
journeys in life. I mean, people move to other countries, other places, you know,
you know, other people, most people, they get married, they start a family and their focus is
(10:15):
their family and they're, yeah, and they have difficulties in making, you know, making time
for friends. Career, especially here in the US. I mean, we're a career during, you know, place and
we can get busy. I mean, that's like, you know, and I have people that I care about, that I,
you know, that I deeply care about, that we keep in touch, even though we have busy lives. So I
(10:37):
believe that sometimes being busy, it depends. I mean, you know, it depends on how committed you
are. It depends on the bond with other persons. So that's the key. You know, I have one friend
who I've known for years, seven years, in fact, she's married and she has her business, but we
always keep in touch, you know, and that's, you know, and that's something that is not easy to do.
(11:02):
And I'm the first one to see it. But that's one thing. Another thing is if you put in the effort
and there's no response or the person calls you, if you only need something that I don't see that's
being right. I think that's more of a transaction, which unfortunately, and I've, and I accept
responsibility, I fail. And I create a lot of transactions instead of friendships. And
(11:24):
I'm paying the price for that. I mean, I'm paying the price for that. And that's a lesson
that I'm learning the hard way and trying to find ways to differentiate between collaboration,
business and friendship. That's the most important thing. And yeah, it's been, you know, struggles.
(11:44):
You know, a lot of times I felt alone. This is not new. You know, sometimes I didn't have these
people for a certain project. And, you know, I felt a lot of times burnout. I did this on another
episode, you know, the last episode, in fact, of the podcast, I talk about burnout. I mean, being
tired, always people reaching out to me only if they need something, you know, burnout with social
(12:08):
media, autism advocacy. I felt, and I felt like, you know, when I do videos, I feel like I'm not
being true to myself because people may see how you're happy, you're successful, you have everything,
but they don't know what you're going through behind the scenes. And a lot of times, since I
don't have a deep connection with somebody, I feel like this, then it makes me more difficult
(12:30):
and gets me depressed. You know, I will, you know, I always say something that's truly valuable.
So somebody to have somebody there, they can listen and to understand in life. That's truly
valuable. A lot of times I don't feel like I have that. But I feel like I have to be able to
not get me wrong. I have people that I care about. I'm grateful to have them in my life. But sometimes,
you know, sometimes I feel like they may not understand me or what I'm going through. And
(12:55):
that's the reason why sometimes I can feel alone. And other people, of course, then, you know, they
only reach out to me if they need something. And other people that have left life for different
reasons. You know, but at the end of the day, in terms of my relationships with people, I can,
(13:16):
the only person who is responsible for my well-being and happiness is myself. And I had
to be better. I had to find ways to be a better person each day to the best of my ability with my
faults. And that's all I can do. And obviously, I have trust in the most important being in my life,
(13:41):
which is God. You know, an area of faith which, you know, I have not been able to go too much to
church recently. That doesn't mean that, you know, I stopped praying and believing in God. I believe
in God right now more than ever. You know, I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior. And
(14:04):
Christ, you know, is my friend. Jesus is my friend, the only true friend,
most important friend that I have in this world. And I pray, you know, pray to Him and, you know,
praying for everybody, my friends, my family, of course, community, and this world. I pray
(14:25):
and that His will gets done. Just trying to do the best I can each day to fulfill the mission,
to do the purpose that He has for me in this world. And that for me is the most important thing of all
of this. And yes, you know, I'm just reflecting because I feel like right now, because I mentioned
(14:51):
that I have different goals, I feel like a failure sometimes because I feel like in some areas,
I'm in the same position that I've always been in terms of making friends, not able to keep
friendships. And also not only that, but in terms of finances, not be able to have a higher income
that I have right now. And, you know, it's my responsibility because I screw up. You know,
(15:18):
I screw up in so many things that I frustrate myself. You know, I get very frustrating,
get hurt on myself. And those are things that I struggle with, the low self-esteem. You know,
letting others set a value on me and who I am as a human being. And just trying to do the best I
(15:44):
can each day. And that's something I struggle with, especially this year. And, you know, I always,
you know, my goal right now in life is, especially in the last couple weeks and months, I've been to
find myself, to know who is there for you in the good and the bad times. Know who you
(16:07):
look for in terms of friends. I've been to personal development since I've been, you know, age 20.
And this has been set to different leaders of personal development, different story,
you know, different studies. But, you know, one of my mentors, he said one time that
(16:28):
you're the average of the five people that surround you in your life that you hang out with
or are with in your life. And, for example, if you're in a group of people in which all they do
is party, they drink, and they don't work, then that's going to influence your life.
If you're in a group of people in which they're overweight, they don't take care of themselves
(16:50):
health-wise, that's going to impact in your life. But if you're in a group of people that,
you know, that they have fun, don't get me wrong, they have fun, and I'm not discriminating against
all those people. But if you're in a group of people that are persevering, they are faith-based,
they have God first in their lives, and that they don't settle, they go above to be able to achieve
(17:12):
those goals, then those are the people that I'm looking forward to be with. Those are the
people that I want to be with, and that's what I'm looking for. And I need to work, but I need to be,
I need to improve myself, to be a better friend, a better human being each day,
(17:33):
recognize the things that I have done, and be grateful for the experiences, good and bad.
That, for me, is the most important thing of them all. And yeah, that's something that, you know,
sometimes, you know, something I struggle with is, you know, sometimes I feel like this year's been
(17:53):
a failure, other times I feel like it's been a success because I've done different good things
in this year. I mean, you know, I have expanded my work in the autism community, I have done,
I have opened a new podcast for autism through Autism Speaks in Spanish, in which I was able to
interview top people, not only in autism, but also in society, the political leaders from,
(18:19):
you know, from Congress, Puerto Rico, the resident commissioner of Puerto Rico, and also, so far,
definitely, so far, the highest profile interview that I had so far has been with Aneue AA,
Aneue AA, which, you know, I even released, you know, recently, we published it a couple weeks ago,
(18:45):
the unedited edition of the interview with Aneue AA, and it was tremendous. I got to almost, so far,
84,000 views, and I never got that many views, and it was truly amazing. I got more subscriptions to
my channel, you know, I'm able to meet different people this year, different collaborations. Obviously,
(19:08):
I'm trying to do different things to get to my goals, take care of myself, you know, health-wise,
eat better, exercise, be a better person, trying to learn a new language right now, Portuguese,
which I started a couple weeks ago, just trying to find everything to get to, you know, what I want
(19:28):
to be in life, and for me, the most important thing is that as long as it's God's will, that's
the most important, because I'm just trying to do His will each day, and that, for me, is the most
important thing of all, and that's something I wanted to share with all of you in this podcast,
so far. And yes, the places I've traveled, I wish I would have traveled to other countries, but, you
(19:55):
know, I traveled to New York for the first time, New York City, Puerto Rico for my mom's 60th birthday,
so, you know, it's been ups and downs, different situations, but, you know, if you can describe me
this year, it's been, you know, it's been, I would have called it a process, you know,
(20:18):
I would describe this year, but I would call it gratitude. Gratitude, I'm grateful for all
the experiences that I had in my life, especially this year, and how to move forward in my life.
But again, it's been, you know, right now, I cannot give up, you know, I'm alive,
you know, I have one day here, and my focus is to get to what my God wants me to get, so,
(20:43):
you know, I'm trying to get ahead, I'm trying to pay off my debt, I just finished paying off my
student loan, more, you know, taking care of myself, and more important of all, trying,
there was something that I've been trying to work on, which is something that I struggled with,
not only this year, but for many years, which is a something that has negatively impacted my life,
(21:08):
and especially the sense, you know, the area of pleasure, and it's been, you know, it's been an
addiction that I haven't talked about publicly, it's not drugs, it's not alcohol, so no worries,
but it is something that's hurt, really, has hurt me, destroyed me, destroyed my self-esteem,
(21:35):
and my health, and I stopped doing that recently, and I'm trying to work, I'm getting better at that,
I'm not going to say exactly what it is, I would like me, I can talk, I will talk about that in
some other time when I'm more comfortable, but that's something that's been, that I believe
has been the reason as to why, perhaps, I'm not saying it is the reason could be, but I feel like
(21:59):
that's the reason why I'm not being in a relationship, you know, so far, one of the things,
there's many other things, but one of the things that caused me not to be in a relationship, and
I'm trying to get better in that, you know, dealing with frustration with the FMO, which is fear of
missing out, that you're missing out the travels, you know, envy, social media, that's another
(22:22):
addiction as well, social media, that's an area that I need to get better, because we need to
because we see the best stories, the highlights in social media, and you know, in society in general,
but there's so much that I can do, and you know, this is where I am, where I am right now,
all the decisions that I made got me to this point, good and bad, and my focus is right now,
(22:47):
how to get to where I need to be, that's it, and you know, the relationships, you know, the person,
the love of my life hasn't come yet, but I had to get better, I had to love myself, to be the best
person that I can be in a relationship as a boyfriend and potential husband, and same with
friendship and relationship as well, and that's what I need to focus on, and not just talk about
(23:10):
this, but to do it in action, for example, another thing that had to work come better, had to be more
outspoken, less fear about talking about the things that we believe in, especially as we get to this
year 2024, you know, a lot of times I talk about different issues impacting our world, you know,
the issues that may seem controversial, but this reality what is happening, and some people say,
(23:32):
oh, that you like politics and all, but these are issues that are impacting our society, the war,
education, health, divisions in society, the attack on children, to education, to gender, you know,
to attacking gender ideology, which again, I'm not against the LGBTQ community, but the attacks on
(23:53):
children, the divisions, the attacks against life, you know, the corruption in government, the media,
especially what happened in the medical field, the interest, especially after COVID,
what's happening with the pandemic, the vaccines, a lot of things, politics, I mean, there's a lot
(24:15):
going on, which is making our world more stressful, especially here in the U.S., especially in the U.S.
with an election coming up, a presidential election, which there's a lot of stakes are high,
we don't know what's going to happen, those are things I want to talk about more, you know, too,
but I think that, and you know, we have the media, you know, pitting us against each other,
(24:36):
divisive, division everywhere, and there's different challenges around the world right now,
and very tough situations, you know, the situation of mental health, the mental health crisis,
you know, that is happening in different parts of the world, human trafficking, the violence,
the wars, and they're happening in different parts of the world, different things going on,
(24:59):
and I need to be more outspoken about this, and no matter what other people say,
and I'm going to be more spoken about this, whether you agree or not, because I don't want
you to agree with me or not, I want you to do your research, to think for yourself, and that's it.
Oh, and let's not forget about autism. I mean, what's next for autism? You know, a lot of things,
(25:24):
sometimes I feel like we are right now on a plateau in regards to autism, awareness, acceptance,
but with the languages, neurodivergent, first person, third person, the therapies, this is bad
therapy, identity, a lot of things that divide the autism cause that I'm getting sick of it,
(25:46):
sick of that crap, and I have to be blunt like this, but it's the reality.
We need to talk about that for autism as we move in 2024, and in this podcast, we're going to talk
about that, about the dark sides of autism. We're going to talk about the good sides, don't worry,
because autism has wonderful things, but there's dark sides as well. We need to talk about that,
(26:11):
and we're going to hit hard in this podcast, and I always, not only this is not new, I've always
asked people to think for themselves, to think for themselves, and yeah, and that's what I'm trying
to do as an autistic self advocate through my work, and yeah, those are things I wanted to share,
I mean, I can spend here hours, but I just wanted to give you my perspective, you know, what I've
(26:36):
gone through up to this point, and how to move forward as we start a new year, but despite
everything, I'm very confident in the future, and the thing here is to never give up, to never give
up in achieving your dreams in life. So, you know, in regards to projects, again, expand the
podcasts, I appreciate, and I love all that, especially those that have supported me throughout
(27:01):
the years, and you know, I want to greatly appreciate the support, you know, projects,
you know, my podcasts, my speaking engagements, my consulting, I want to write my second book
eventually, expand my work with my autism organizations, and do other things in life.
(27:21):
I want to do so many things, as I mentioned, of course, learning the language, but I think
the challenge is, you know, to be a better friend, to be a better person, to be in the right
relationship with the woman of my dreams, and yeah, there's a couple of things coming up, and travel.
(27:42):
I travel to more places, so I have so many things I want to do, and I think I'm going to be able to
do that. I think that despite what's happening, there's great opportunities, I believe that the
future is bright, and that the most important thing is to not give up. That's the most important
(28:03):
thing. And don't get me wrong, I've been through the negative gloomy, doomsday conspiracy theories,
you know, side before, so, but I know people can get frustrated, and I talked about this before,
with everything that's going on, but at the end of the day, you can take care of yourself first.
You have to be the change that you want to see in this world first. You need to start with yourself,
(28:26):
then your family, then your friends, and your community. Wherever you are in the world,
regardless of who you are, where you are, your sex, religion, ethnicity, cultural background,
no matter who you are, you can start from where you are to make that difference in the world.
And that's where you start. Get educated about the different topics, collaborate,
(28:47):
meet the other friends, and have fun. That's one thing I want to do more, is to have fun in my life.
Smile, you know, that's what I want to do. So, so yeah, I just want to share this as we conclude
the year. I was still debating as to whether I wanted to do a video or to write a blog about
(29:09):
the end of the year, but you know, I just, you know, I have difficulties in writing blogs.
You know, recently I need to really push hard in writing blogs, and yeah, so many things,
and you know, I'm continuing to fight every day. So, I just want to leave this final message before
we end the year. Regardless of, you know, who you are, if you're watching me, or you're listening to
(29:34):
me, this may not have been the best year of your life, or maybe it was the best year of your life.
You know, maybe it's been ups and downs for you, your family, your loved ones. Maybe you lost a job,
you know, you're more not able to get that position, or you have a difficult situation in your life.
(29:54):
You know, divorce, losing, especially losing a loved one. You know, whoever you are,
that you've gone through this year, I just wanted to say that there's hope.
That no matter what's happened, there's always hope. And I ask you to, you know, to put in faith in
your in God, because he's, you know, we need to put trust in him. He's there for us. He will never
(30:20):
leave us, you know, leave us, you know, you know, it will always be with us. And my message for this
year is, you know, to reflect, focus on what you've done, grateful for the experiences,
as you move forward to the new year. And I wish you and I just wanted to wish you and your family,
(30:41):
and your loved ones, the very best in this new year 2024. We got this, we're doing this, let's make
2024 the best year of our lives. And I'm here for you. Any questions, any comments,
please, again, please subscribe to my to my podcast to all the platforms. And thank you all
(31:03):
for your support. And again, I just wanted to share this perspective and let's go for it. Let's make
it 2024 great. So thank you. Thank you so much for being able to participate in this episode of My
Time with Tony Hernandez-Pumarejo. And I wish you and your family a great year. And I wish you
(31:24):
and your family a prosperous, healthy and wonderful new year 2024. So thank you so much. And you have
a wonderful night, afternoon or good morning whenever time you're watching this podcast or
watching this podcast. So God bless you. God bless your family. Until next time. Bye bye.
(32:08):
and autism unscripted life. You can purchase it on Amazon or any book selling platform.
You can also obtain a copy through his website. So until the next time you mean,
thank you and have a wonderful day. Blessings.
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