Dr. Matt Zakreski on Cracking the Code of Being Neurodivergent in a Neurotypical World

Debbie:

Well hello, Matt. Welcome back to the podcast.

Dr. Matt Zakreski:

Am so excited to talk to you again a lot has happened since I was on your podcast last time so, you know.

Debbie:

A lot. My gosh. It was such a different time. it was years ago, it was COVID. We were talking about mental health and a lot of heavy topics actually. And also listeners, I’m gonna leave a link in the show notes. If you haven’t heard that, it was a fantastic conversation. Go back and listen to that. But then you and I have become friends in the past years. We’ve gotten to hang out. We run in the same circles and get to kind of call the same group of people, friends and colleagues, which is really awesome. And I’ve gotten to hear you speak and kind of really tuned in with your bigger message. So I actually kind of want to reintroduce you to folks in my community, because if they listen to that episode or they haven’t heard you speak, they may not kind of understand the breadth of what you do and what your focus is. So would you talk about your kind of sweet spot in this space and what you do?

Dr. Matt Zakreski:

Absolutely. So, as you know, I was raised as a gifted kid in New Jersey in the 90s. And, then in high school, I was diagnosed with ADHD, which explained a lot. And even growing up, I told my parents, like, I want to work with kids like me. Like I’ve experienced the whole gifted neurodivergent gamut from the you’re the next Einstein to why can’t you make friends to what do you mean everybody else learned study skills and I never did. Like, I’ve really sort of had that whole experience and then I found my people. found my stride. And so I can authentically say to a family or a kid, like, I know what it’s like to be 16 and be smarter than your teacher and still getting a C – in class. Right. And, and then, you know, because gifted and neurodivergent people are allergic to bullshit, they’ll get like, yeah, you really do know that. I’m like, yes, I do. Yeah, like we are aligned in that way. So, you know, I often say this work is personal and professional for me, right? You try to be the adult you needed as a kid. And I get to do that for a generation of kids and increasingly adults, because, you know, I’ll test their kid and they’ll email me like, so I think about it. Do you think I’m dot dot dot? It’s like, well, we should have that conversation, right? And, you know, I mean, we’re all just riding this wave of this neurodiversity movement, right? We’re seeing it in businesses, we’re seeing it in schools, we’re seeing it in communities. I mean, you know, now I go to an airport and I see sensory rooms and I don’t even stop and look at them anymore. But five years ago, it’s like, my God, Newark airport has a sensory room. You know, so it’s really like, things have improved by leaps and bounds. And we still have a lot of work to do.

Debbie:

Yeah, that’s exactly what I’ve seen. Just in reflecting, I launched TILT. It’s been eight and a half years now. And it’s really incredible to think about how much has changed. And that’s often what I say. We’re in such a different place. There’s so many more resources available. The conversation is different. The terminology is changing. The term neurodivergence and neurodiversity is kind of ubiquitous now. And there’s still a lot of work to be done. Tell me a little bit more about the speaking that you’re doing and what your focus is, because I’ve seen you speak a couple of times and you, you know, I think you’re really gifted at speaking and connecting with audiences and sharing your story. What is kind of the core thing that you like to impart to audiences, whether it’s to kids or to parents of complex kids?

Dr. Matt Zakreski:

So I try to ground everything I say in neuroscience. Like that’s where I’m going to start because there’s still a lot of stuff out there that ADHD is too much sugar or too much TikTok. And I don’t know if you see any of this autism is badism stuff that’s floating around in some of the darker corners of the internet, know, dyslexic kids, they’re just not working hard enough, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And it bothers me. So to me, it’s like, all right, I’m gonna start with the science. So you understand that these are literal brain differences. This isn’t a kid who doesn’t want to do math. This is a kid who is desperately trying to do math and cannot kick in that prefrontal cortex to sit there focus, get the work done. And honestly, if we can get the rest of the world to understand it, stupendous. But I want the parents and the teachers and the kids themselves to understand that their brains are different and that means a lot of things. know, and sort of my new go -to expression is that it’s better to know that you’re a zebra, not a weird horse. Because there’s a lot of people out there who are walking around thinking like, gosh, I’m a weird horse. Everybody else knows how to be a horse. Why do I have trouble being this? It’s like maybe because you’re a zebra. And you know, and I kind of like that language because zebras aren’t better than horses. They’re just different. Right. And, you know, because we’re there’s still a lot of that like gifted is elitism stuff out there. And to me, it’s really, it’s just special education. It’s a question of equity. Like everybody should get what they need, whether it’s skipping a year of college or jumping from kindergarten to fourth grade, which is one of the kids I worked with recently, his school provided a radical acceleration. You know, and sometimes it’s as simple as, can we get this kid some more strategic support in art or reading or coding or soccer, right? Because that’s what’s going to help them hit the highest level they’re capable of.

Debbie:

What have you found, and I want to pivot to your book, of course I want to explore so many things with you, but what have you found in your work in the past couple years when you talk to schools and when you’re talking to communities that may not be as familiar with neurodivergence? Are you seeing more openness to experience and a more willingness to bring in different types of accommodations?

Dr. Matt Zakreski:

I think that certainly the cultural zeitgeist is shifting around it, right? The thing with hammering this and putting it into social media and having companies develop ERGs around it, it’s permeating everybody’s consciousness, right? It’s a thing that exists now. The conversation is so much more broad than it was 20 years ago, 30 years ago. You know, and that’s amazing because it means I don’t have to start at the basement. I can start at floor two, which makes my job a lot easier. You know, there’s there’s that famous line where they were asking some reporters at the Pulitzer Prize convention, know, like the science reporter and the sports reporter who has the harder job and the science reporter says, I think that my sports colleague has the hardest job because my sports colleague doesn’t have to convince anybody sports exist. And, you know, there’s still a lot of that stuff out there, but I think that the floor is rising, which means that the ceiling is also rising. So I found that I’m spending a lot less time convincing people this stuff exists and a lot more time talking about what these interventions look like in the classroom, on the soccer field, in the Girl Scout meeting. And that’s awesome because that’s really where the heart of this is, is making accommodations that work for your kid in their community.

Debbie:

Thank you for going there with me. But I do want to pivot to your book. Because it’s more for neurodivergent people themselves as opposed to people who aren’t with the program and who don’t really get this. So you have a new book. It is called Neurodiversity Playbook, How Neurodivergent People Can Crack the Code of Living in a Neurotypical World, which just full disclaimer, I got to read in advance and actually Matt gave me such an honor of asking me to write the foreword, which I joyfully did even in the midst of a move. I was like, I will make this happen. I want to do this. So I really, really love your book, but I would love for you to tell us about it. Just kind of introduce what the book is about and why you felt so pulled to write it.

Dr. Matt Zakreski:

Well, I mean, thank you for the kind words. And yes, there’s nobody better to have written the forward. And, you know, I mean, you, you are such a beacon to so many parents out there that I knew that you would speak to that, that sense of this is a meaningful tool for you to have on your bookshelf, on your Kindle, in your audio book, so you can help your kid and the kids like them in this world, because it isn’t built for them you know, and there’s a, I mean, you know, you have so many amazing gifts, Debbie, but the thing that has always struck me about you is that you have this intellectual humility. It’s like, I’m going to learn as much as I can about as many things as I can because I know I need to know a lot of things to serve my kid. Right. And that’s, I think one of the reasons you and I get along beyond a shared love of Mexican food in Reno, Nevada.

Debbie:

True.

Dr. Matt Zakreski:

The spiciest salsa that ever lived. But it’s funny because it’s a… So much of this process is a question of scale. Like, I never thought I was going to be anything more than a therapist, right? I would see my 40 to 50 clients a week. I would help those 40 to 50 families, rinse, wash, repeat until I’m 70 and retire. Cool. It’s a great life, helping a lot of people. Good job me. What happened was the more I talked to kids, the more the parents were asking me to talk to their teachers. The more I talked to their teachers, the more they were asking me to talk to schools. Schools became conferences, conferences became national organizations. So it was this, it was never part of the plan. And I say that with no false humility. It’s just people kept asking me to do stuff. And then you realize that therapy is wonderful because it’s very targeted and it’s very one-on-one, but it also is limited in its impact because it’s a one -on -one thing. So if I speak to a room of teachers, you know, I spoke just last week to a room of almost 300 teachers. Each one of those teachers are going to teach hundreds of kids that just the scope of impact, it’s not throwing a pebble in a pond, it’s throwing a boulder in a pond. Then Molly, Isaacs McLeod over at Gifted Unlimited said, you need to write a book because people need to have a pocket Dr. Matt. They need to have a thing that they can look through that isn’t pulling up one of your talks on YouTube or paying you thousands of dollars to come to their school. like, well, let’s not have them stop paying me thousands of dollars to come to their school, please. I actually like that quite a bit. But yes, for a long time, the working title was Pocket Dr. Matt. And then, you know, her publishing team was like, no one knows what that means. You need like, is that like some creepy thing? Is it an app? Like we need to shift that up. And I really wanted to write something that served as a playbook, something that was tangible and accessible because, you know, you read as many of the books and journals as I do. So many of them are either so jargony and top shelf that nobody can understand them.

Dr. Matt Zakreski:

or they’re basic to the point of like, I’ve already done all this stuff, right? I was really trying to hit that middle ground of here’s good science, here’s practical advice, here’s probably what it’s going to look like when you try it, and here’s how you roll with those punches. So it’s a combination of my favorite talks, my best therapy practices, neuroscience, and because you know me, loads of pop culture references. So many pop culture references.

Debbie:

Yes, I can attest to that. Appreciate and love them all. Because I could hear you, you know, in reading it, it was so your voice throughout. And that just made it not your average book, not your average book in this space. And just an enjoyable read. So yes, lots of pop culture. Okay, so the subtitle again of your book is how neurodivergent people can crack the code of living in a neurotypical world. talk to me more about this concept of cracking the code. What did you mean by that? And what were you hoping to provide your readers through doing that?

Dr. Matt Zakreski:

So the idea here is that four out of five people are neurotypical. So 80% of the world has largely one kind of brain, which means systems and structures and programs and organizations are built for neurotypical people because that’s the majority, right? And that’s fine. I often use a dinner party metaphor, right? Like if you were having people over for dinner, you might cook something that you know everybody can eat, like chicken, right? And then if you have a friend who’s vegan, you’re gonna make a quinoa patty for them to eat as well, right? Yeah, it’s how you balance everybody’s dietary needs. It would be inefficient to make everybody individual things, because that’s what restaurants are for, right? Like if we’re having a dinner party, we’re trying to serve to the middle a little bit. And I know everybody in my family has different dietary needs. So it’s like, I’m living that every time we have people over. But for the 20% of us who are neurodivergent, because the neurotypical culture is the monoculture, we often feel like we’re not sure what we’re missing and why. Because so much of that stuff is spoken, but so much more of it is unspoken. Right? And there’s a, you know, one of my kids who just transferred to college, he’s like, I don’t understand why I can’t wear boxers to class. And I’m like, okay, tell me more about that. He’s like, well, he’s like, girls wear pajama pants and I sleep in my boxers. So why can’t I wear boxers to class? I’m like, there’s actually nothing in the rules that says you can’t, but let’s talk about the cultural norms around who gets to wear what in American culture, right? 

And I find that if you take the time to sit down with a neurodivergent person and explain to them that there’s a reason behind the rule, most of them are like, okay, that makes sense. Or I can understand why that would help other people. It’s when we say to people like, well, that’s just the way it is, or nobody else asked me those questions. That’s when people double down and die on that hill. So, you know, I know for me, I really felt that shift where everybody was doing something that I wasn’t in middle school. And, you know, I tried to articulate this in the book, but it’s like, did they all have a meeting? Like was I out of town and they all just met the community center and talked about what it’s like to be in middle school? Because I remember coming back for eighth grade and feeling like I was miles behind and what we see, especially for the kids that we serve who are very attentive and they pay a lot of attention, the more you look for it, the more anxious you become, the more anxious you become, the more you look. Right. So now you’re sort of working yourself up into a froth and and for and all the answers I got to that question of what am I doing wrong back in 1998 didn’t work for me, right? They didn’t scratch the itch. They didn’t answer the question. And it wasn’t really until high school where I found my people and like, OK, I can be myself around these humans. This is the better path for me. Because there’s a lot of motivation out there and a lot of messaging out there that neurodivergent people should mask, right? They should go along to get along. They should pretend to be everybody else. And I think not only is that not possible for a lot of the kids we serve, but also when you try it, it’s draining. It’s exhausting. It’s inauthentic, right? And so my book is you don’t have to speak their language, but if you crack their code, you can join those conversations when you need to and then retreat to your authentic self when it’s safe to do so. So, you know, the academic term for this is code switching, right? Like I don’t need you to speak that language all the time, but you do need to speak it when it’s necessary, right? If you’re talking to the dean of your college, right? You want to look nice, you want to professionally and appropriately. You don’t want to roll up in a dirty t -shirt and jeans and be like, yo, yo, prof and chuck him a beer, because that’s gonna be a one way ticket out of XYZ University. Right? So there’s value to being able to code switch. But if it comes from a place of here’s why your brain’s different, here’s how that shows up for you. I think we’re, I tried very hard to find that middle ground between mask and don’t mask. It’s like you can code switch when you need to, but then code switch right back out of it when you’re done.

Debbie:

And be in choice about it too, right? It’s on your terms according to your goals You’re providing the information for how you may better Achieve or more effectively achieve those goals. I’ll just pull a little line from my forward. I said that you offer readers a code to unlock a world designed for neurotypical people not by prescribing a set of rules for fitting in, but rather by suggesting empowering ways for interacting with systems and communities that may not appreciate the fullness and complexity of neurodiversity. So I appreciate how you just explained that with the code switching that makes so much sense. And I’m just going to ask a question because I hear people’s voices, not in a bad way, but I hear other people asking questions in my head. When I do podcast interviews, I really do try to channel what I think other people might want to hear from my guests. And my question is, what would you say or what do you say to students and clients that you work with, who kind of feel like why should I have to be the one to change? Like why is it on me to do this extra labor?

Dr. Matt Zakreski:

And I would love to live in a world where we don’t need to do that. I think ultimately we’re all pushing for universal design where equity becomes the default, not in idealized practice. But we’re not there yet. And there are a lot more of them than there are of us. And it’s funny because one of my rationales for writing this book and giving these talks is that four out of five people are neurotypical, which means one out of five people are neurodivergent, which means if you’re a classroom teacher and you’ve got 25 kids in your room, you’ve got four to six kids who have different brains. This isn’t some fringe subculture. This is 20% of the kids who are in your building. And we know that in some areas it’s more, in some areas it’s less, but like that’s a good number. So this is an everybody problem. Right? This isn’t a like a, this is some obscure illness that only like two doctors on planet earth know how to treat. This is the thing we all got to navigate. And the way that we flip that message to our neurodivergent folks is whether you are riding in an Uber or going to class or on a dating app or LARPing, there are going to be some number of humans whose brains don’t work like your brain. Right. And I’ve never felt that neurodivergent and neurotypical is a holy war. And I know there are some people out there who feel that way. To me, it’s like we all have to learn to get along with each other. Like we all have to be able to navigate those moments. But what we see is that if you can hit those notes, if you can mirror more of that language and mirror more of that behavior, then neurotypical people are much more likely to meet you where you are. So it’s that, you know, one of my favorite expressions is the best solutions in life are third door solutions, right? Because we tend to get drawn into these dichotomies of I win or you win, right? But it doesn’t have to be a zero sum game. If we meet in the middle, right? That’s where everybody wins. So a little bit of compromise goes a long way.

And, you know, I know that one of my kids, they’re a high school senior now, they’re doing a project and they’ve slowly come out as neurodivergent over the three previous years of high school. And they’re working on a group project. And one of the kids in that group was like, Hey, do you need to like go stim or something? Because like, you get your energies all over the place. And this kid was like, Yes, I do. Holy shit. Like, like, yeah, like, it’s the neurodivergent equivalent of like, do you need a cigarette break? Like, because this kiddo needed to stem out some energy. So and she’s like, I walked back into the room and like, I had never felt so seen. But also, it’s not like everybody was looking at me expectantly. When I walked back in there, they were still working on the project, right? So I sat back down and I worked on the project. And like, I, know, you know me, like I got a little teary when she told me that story, because it’s like, those are the million micro moments that are happening in classrooms and living rooms and chat rooms all over the country, all over the world, where people are just getting a little bit more seen, a little bit more supported, which means the next time they have to do it, it’ll be that much easier. I genuinely think that we’re at sort of this groundswell moment. Like we’re reaching some sort of critical mass here and where these conversations are going to be in the biggest boardrooms and the halls of Congress and get a lot of these rights and needs seen by so much more people. And, you know, and that’s why actually the, the scope and focus of the book is not just for the neurodivergent community, right? I, you know, I, my joking tagline is this book is for anybody who is, loves, or works with neurodivergent people. And when I was saying that to my therapist, he was like, that’s cool. And he’s like, Matt, that’s everybody. I’m like, that’s exactly it. That’s actually exactly the point. Like, I’m never going to be Brene Brown. But like she writes mental health for the masses that’s informed and thoughtful and awesome. If I can write neurodiversity for the masses in that same way, then there’s not a single person of the 8.3 billion of us on this planet who doesn’t benefit from learning more about how their brains work.

Debbie:

Yeah, that’s great. And you’re making me think, I kind of want to go back and revisit Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point, because I agree that we’re at that kind of precipice right now. And it’s exciting. It’s an exciting place to be, I think. So you just answered one of my questions, which was, who is this book for? So it’s for everybody, which I love. It’s very ambitious. And I also think that’s when I used to pitch books for everybody. And my publisher would be like, no, we do not publish books for everybody, but there is value in kind of bringing everybody into this conversation because it does involve everybody, right? We all need each other. We need the support of neurotypical families to kind of be a part of this movement for it to be effective. So I love that. Tell me how you want people to use the book. The title is that it’s a playbook. So I’d love to know how you want people to use it and maybe as part of that, you went about structuring it because again, it’s so different from the other books in this space that many of our listeners might read.

Dr. Matt Zakreski:

Well, that process evolved through the editing process further. The line editor at Gifted Unlimited, she was like, do you mind if I break this up into a lot of sub chapters and points? Because she’s like, if I’m reading this book and I want to read the part about social skills, and I want to read specifically about small talk, I know it’s page 87, right? And I’m like, what a fabulous idea, because not only is I think not only is that more strategic, it’s a little bit more work smart, not hard. But I also think it’s more neurodivergent-affirming. I think if you can look at the front, it’s like, what are the parts of this book I need? Then that’s what I’m going to do. When I started trying to make it more as a professional speaker, my buddy Ben, who’s a professional speaker, sent me the book called the Referrable Speaker. And I’ve read it cover to cover, right? But there are three sections that I have highlighted that I constantly reread. And it’s all about messaging and it’s all about getting you, know, having your talk make the most impact. Because I don’t really need to do stuff like stage direction as much like that. Like it’s helpful, but I don’t really need it. And that to me is how this book should be used because a playbook, it isn’t that you have to do it as a script from play one to play one hundred six hundred one thousand six hundred sixteen. It’s OK. We are down 17 points in the second half. We need to throw these kinds of passes right now. We need to change our neutral zone trap in hockey. We need to, you know, try and hit fast breaks in basketball, whatever the things you’re changing your playbook for the things you need. So by all means, read it cover to cover. I would certainly appreciate that. But if you look through the table of contents and the subsections and you’re like, I need to know about imposter syndrome. I need to know about how to overcome failure. Then those are the sections that work most for you. And I say a couple times throughout the book, just read the parts of this that you need, right? And I think that’s a powerful thing that’s more neurodivergent-affirming. But also, I think that it speaks to the idea that nothing in this community is one size fits all. Right? The problem with trying to write a book for everybody is that you end up sort of diluting your message, right? So it’s everybody within the neurodivergent community will see themselves in this book. For anybody who works or loves someone in a neurodivergent community, they can find the sections that support where they’re having the most friction in their life, right? And sometimes that can be something as simple as, my partner cannot do small talk at all, I bring them to events and they stare at people, it’s weird, here’s how to do small talk, or you know, my kiddo has a crippling feel of failure. What do I do with that? Here’s a strategy for how to do that. you know, I I think that’s a, that was my idea, but the editing process absolutely totally turned the volume up on that and made it a better book for sure.

Debbie:

Yeah, I don’t know that I can properly even explain to listeners how different it is, but even in the best possible way. So it was a surprise for me because I do read every book in this space, as you can imagine. you know, the chapter on asynchronous development, the chapter on executive function, like the the chapter on social emotional learning. I learned so much because of the way that you presented it, because of the, I don’t know if they’re case studies, but you weaved in stories from clients and from your own personal experience and of course all those 90s references kept it entertaining. But you really kind of unfold this in such a practical way. So you bring in the neuroscience, but you’re also helping us really understand on the ground what it looks like and then how to navigate situations with the things that are gonna potentially get people stuck. So I did wanna touch upon before we wrap up my favorite chapter, which yeah, what chapter do you think it is?

Dr. Matt Zakreski:

I’m afraid to guess. It didn’t occur to me that you’d have a favorite chapter. No, tell me.

Debbie:

Well, you just referred to some of it. It’s called, I think it’s Chapter 10, although I might have an older table of contents, but it’s called, “Okay, let’s test drive this whole concept, how to handle real life situations” where you do talk about small talk. You talk about hanging out, seeing someone break the rules, leaving an event, like all of these real life things that for someone who’s neurodivergent and has anxiety and all of the complexity for navigating these things that most people don’t give another thought to. Like leaving an event, why most people aren’t like right. So can you talk a little bit more about that chapter and how you went about identifying the things you wanted to cover in it and what readers could expect from that?

Dr. Matt Zakreski:

Why is that even a thing? Right? I’m sitting here floored that that’s your favorite chapter because that was the chapter that felt the most raw to write. I mean, it was definitely the most vulnerable I got in the process because that’s real. You can hide a little bit behind a chapter in imposter syndrome because it’s like this is a thing. It’s a thing. It’s out there and it’s over there. We’re going to talk about it. But this is yeah. This is real life, but I genuinely believe that if we don’t talk about real life, then. Then the fundamental message of the book doesn’t land, right? It’s gotta be real and. So in choosing what to write about in there, I did sort of a survey of my clients, because I’ve been a practicing therapist for almost a decade now. I’m like, what do my neurodivergent clients complain the most about? And small talk always comes to the top of the charts, going through and people are like, how do you leave an event? That was totally from my clients. Because, well, I’m a mutt. But like, there’s a lot of Irish in me and my family, we’re just Irish goodbye. We’re like, all right, we’re done now. And we get up and we go, right? Which is fine if it’s at a big party or a wedding, it’s less good if it’s a dinner party where it’s like, where did the Zagreskis go? So that’s the sort of thing. But it actually, one of the anecdotes that didn’t make it into the book was when we were leaving the restaurant in Reno and I wanted to go check out the brewery across the street, but I was too uncomfortable to say it when we were at the restaurant across the street from the brewery. We walked all the way back to the bus station where I was like, I’d try to go like, and you guys are the people I feel like most comfortable around. So I’m like, wow, this is actually something I struggle with. That’s cool. That is a thing that I can see I would help people. The hanging out thing is one of my huge bugaboos because it’s a thing that parents talk to kids about. You guys should just hang out. Will you tell me what that means? Please operationalize the term for me, would you? Right? Because it means a very different thing to our kids than it does to us. Right?

It’s like when Netflix and chill became a thing and all those companies were using it wrong because like Netflix and chill means sex and like companies were like, Hey, do you want to some dominoes and chill? I’m like, do you want me to have sex with the dominoes? I, I don’t think that tracks actually. So like what is hanging out? What does that look like? How to set yourself up for success there. And the best thing about the therapy process is that it is a place to ask those questions and process that stuff. Because you may not have a person who will authentically meet you there in the real world, you know, and therapy is a place to talk about sex and money and dating and what these things mean and death and all that stuff, right? And bringing those really thoughtful, impactful conversations from the therapy room into the book. I’m like, because if this helped this client and these clients who are like that client, there’s a lot of other people out there who might not feel like they could ever ask, how the hell do you hang out with somebody? Like, what’s that all about? Versus, you know, just some people to your point from before would never think about that. You just hang out with someone. You just stay in that space, but let’s make it as tangible and concrete as possible for as many people as possible so more people can enjoy the benefits of hanging out.

Debbie:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What I wrote in my forward about what you’re speaking to is that you give us permission to embrace the full range of the neurodivergent experience while offering unwavering understanding and validation. And what you’re really doing is normalizing all of this stuff. Like the whole block is one big kind of, you know, we see you, we’ve got you. This is a safe place to explore this stuff and just normalize this experience. And I think that’s why I think it’s so powerful whether you are neurodivergent yourself, if you’re raising a neurodivergent kid, if you just want to kind of better understand the experience. Anyway, bravo. I’m just giving you a little applause over here. I really enjoyed this book so much. So before we wrap up, is there something that we didn’t touch upon that you would want to make sure listeners know about the book, about your work? This is kind of, I’m giving you the floor, anything you want to share.

Dr. Matt Zakreski:

Well, and I once again appreciate the kind words. I mean, you’re someone I respect so much. I mean, compliments are currency for me. But when it comes from somebody that you really admire, it means a lot more. So, you know, the book is one piece of, you know, the broader sort of you know universe of stuff that I offer and You know, that’s individual therapy. We’re starting our own podcast soon, which we’re very excited about And which of course I’m gonna need to have you as a guest on because that’s gonna be so much fun And The book is gonna be a part of that but at the end of the day there’s nothing I like more then going to a place and talking about this stuff in a room with people like, let’s get real, let’s get vulnerable. And the stuff we talk about in those talks and those sessions will carry forward into that book that you can once again use as a little pocket Dr. Matt, right? If the book inspires you, motivates you, speaks to you, reach out because we can continue the conversation in a lot of different ways.

Debbie:

Yeah, that’s great. Thank you. And I, yeah, I love the pocket Dr. Matt, like, now I’m gonna think of that. Every time I think of you, I’m gonna think of this little book that I can just whip out. So that’s great. And I really do like the title Neurodiversity Playbook, I think it lands better. So good call on the publisher’s point part.

Dr. Matt Zakreski:

Me too, right?

Debbie:

Well, listeners, I will have links in the show notes to all the places that you can connect with Dr. Matt. And I’m also going to share some of the talks that you’ve given that are available because you’re doing a lot more speaking and you are, you know, I think you are such a dynamic speaker. So if you’re listening and you have the opportunity to bring Matt to your community, I would say go for it. And where’s the best place for people to connect with you?

Dr. Matt Zakreski:

So the best place to find me is at drmatzakresky.com. I have a very unique name. So if you just punch Dr. Matt Zakresky into Google, a lot of stuff comes up. I’m the whole first page of Google, if you punch my name in, I’m very proud of that. Because as you referenced, I do a lot of things and I never shut up. So people link to this stuff for me a lot. And that’s the best place to start the conversation and figure out all the things we can do and what’s the right fit for you.

Debbie:

Perfect, thank you. Well, thank you again. I knew I was gonna enjoy this conversation. I was looking forward to it all day. So thanks so much for coming by the pod.

Dr. Matt Zakreski:

Thanks for having me.