Episode 233 - Autism Rocks Forever! with Sam Mitchell

well parents I need to tell them it's not death sentence people forget I've said this in a lot of podcasts there's a whole Spectrum not one autism so like there's this population of autism where they have the mindset of a three-year-old right yeah they can never brush their teeth on their own they can't go to work there's a lot of support they need yeah which is true and there's some people like that they forget about people like myself who can go to college and do work why are you ignoring us and thinking we're incapable y and even if we were those with the mindset of three-year-olds we're still capable of doing something absolutely hell yeah I mean we're not B can we get up in the morning still no matter where we lie on the autism spectrum yes welcome to playing with perspective the suspended animation podcast where we hear real stories from real people and we tackle all sorts of fun topics in the areas of business marketing entrepreneurship mindset the Arts and well life it's self it's amazing what you will pick up thanks for joining [Music] me welcome back everyone it's episode 233 of playing with perspective the suspended animation podcast I have a fantastic guest here today The Sensational Sam Mitchell is with me all the way from the us and we're going to be chatting about autism and how autism rocks forever how you doing Sam well thank you very much good to be here my friend awesome now of course Sam does lots of different things he runs a successful podcast called autism rocks and rolls he has autism and his podcast has exploded to become very successful over 18,000 downloads just some of the big names on his show include Armani Williams the first NASCAR driver to be open about having autism and American Idol rocker James Durban who has autism and tourettes Dr Temple Brandon professor in animal science at Colorado State uni and autism activist just to name a few Sam is also a motivational speaker entrepreneur writer and blogger and he published a TED Talk called sold structure love it he has made it to the top 10 in the People's Choice podcast Awards placed second in the state of Indiana for the Jag entrepreneurship project was selected as the best business at the CEO trade show in Indiana and is in the top 200 podcasts in all of of Canada while also being a current Davy Award winner so Sam is a high functioning human being on the autism spectrum and he's on a mission to show people that he is not broken doesn't need to be fixed and that there is no normal in this world he wants to celebrate the successes of all people he Embraces who he is and feels that everyone should do the same absolutely brilliant well done Sam man you've been busy oh good lord you don't know how busy I am I'm starting back up with college it's getting a little more busier absolutely wow so mate tell us a bit more about you your background all these amazing things that you do okay well I run the podcast as you mentioned autism rocks and rolls it's a podcast about autism and how he cope with daily struggles that you may or may not understand I ran it since October 2019 some of my amazing guests I've had are you said temple gred Mick Foley but through the podcast it's gr so much I Dev sponsors a board of eight I'm an event in United States and Indiana is where I'm from and I've also done speaking engagements I've spoken in Oklahoma Orlando three times hanada twice Stuart Florida and Washington DC man you're doing fantastic though you're doing better than me I want to speak like that I guess it's just a pile of luck what can I say Well done and how do you find all these great guests for your show I just ask like sometimes I'll hear out through connections sometimes I done my digging on them and then I think all right they'll be a good fit nice so you just reach out to them or you DM them or something and they just say yep no worries uh sometimes sometimes I gota go through their publicist like Kane was a big guest he's the mayor of Knoxville County Tennessee wow and I had to talk to a scheduling team and Kane looked into and he thought what was pretty cool and he decided to come on nice man nice and so why did you start the podcast in the first place it starts joined my high school's media club and I fell in love with it so much I decided to start my own podcast I didn't want to wait till College to expand the skills I already had and that was when autism rocks and rolls was born I love it and so what made you fall in love with it like what do you love about it so much well I mean the editing I like the editing a people oh God are yeah Ducks but I'm one of those odd Ducks who likes the editing it's part of the ADHD and calms me down a little bit wow I post and I also like the fact the podcast Community is very supportive there's no competition in my eyes I agree I mean I was on a great podcast this morning with a fantastic podcaster in the US we had an amazing conversation and it was extremely collaborative like the podcast Community is all about let's work together it's not about my show is better than yours or my guests are better than yours or my download numbers are better than yours it's let's all work together it's we're all in it for the same thing right no point of bragging about who's the better show yeah why are you doing that 100% And so how many episodes have you done I think you mentioned you lost count yeah I lost count bu but I've done two full seasons I'm on my third one right now fantastic fantastic and how do you generally go about your show is it particularly structured or do you just kind of free flow how does it work oh it's big time structured so I usually pick the topic or the person I'm going to interview I have an intro sometimes it's a certain intro but then sometimes a lot of times if it's a person I'll ask them their favorite songs for an intro and outro and then I have to always make a disclaimer tell them where I got the music from the credit I have a Miss interview with all everyone which is the mission of autism rocks and rolls is to take the stigma off of autism and other conditions that M your disabilities people at spect are not broken and do not need to be fixed those with conditions or want be pity there's nothing to be sorry about and then I also have a 15 second slot on my show which is called paid for the following I do some thank yous and then I usually have an ad in the beginning and then some content maybe an add in the middle and then more content and then add in the end and then we're wrapping it up sweet and the ads like I sponsored spots people are paying you to advertise yep oh that's fastic well done outstanding amazing manate and so what do you want to actually do with a podcast obiously to create awareness around autism but anything else that you want to achieve with the podcast well I mean let's get it just where people are accepting of autism y they're not saying that oh I'm incapable of doing nothing yeah they just kind of bring more awareness and make it more mainstream yeah and more accepting more accepting more accepting y because I agree with hly so stupid we had to have an Autism acceptance month autism acceptance month all year around I 100% agree with you to me you know what I was just about to say like normal is everything there's not even a spectrum of normal we're all normal it's just we all have our own gifts and we all have our different strengths and I don't believe that a lot of the time these days we're just labeling things because we need to find labels but we're all here on this Earth together and we've all got amazing different makeups and we're just all here sharing the experience so you know we don't have to have any labels I love that when you just said different makeups yeah I mean right I mean no one was born the same despite the fact that you looking like Mur and practical jokers there is some differences on you that's right man we all just all like all these ingredients mixed up to make different dishes and we all exist in the world and we're living and sharing the world together that's basically it yep but um what do you feel autism has given you in terms of certain secret powers a creative mind nice I probably want to be able to do a podcast or come over these ideas if I wasn't on the autism spectrum the ability to hyperfocus I mean I'm a gold Geren person when something's going to get done trust me it's going to get done it's gonna get done love it the determination I'm not a person who likes to shut up and won't stop till I get what I deserve in my view and then punctuality I don't like making a mistake at work I had the privilege do an internship at wqrk 105.5 in Bedford Indiana and I loved it there but I was very punctual and I probably was terrified to make a mistake and I think they saw that and they could see I was a very good employee nice so you have the ability to be super focused and super creative as well yes sir y do you explore creativity in any other areas of your life well I mean I'm definitely a writer and I've wrot some blogs before I just can't write all the time just due to getting busy y but I'll write a blog here and there and there's there's about my life and I can up the ideas through music Big music fan like rock and roll music and a big professional wrestling fan too very cool I can second you with rock and roll music but I've never really got into wrestling oh it's okay don't worry it's not everyone's cup of tea I love it man and so in terms of your podcast do you always work with the guest or do you sometimes just do a solo episode how do you generally go about that so the solo is an ACR called eight so the a stands for autism behaviors y a couple ones ago was an A and that was about humor and how those on Spectrum perceive humor and then the one before that was how we budget money which I'm not the best at interesting and then P's perspective or interview so I've interviewed several people on the show I mean I've interviewed my latest one was with Jake the Snake Roberts from professional wrestling yeah but then e was entertainment so sometimes I'll go out of the box and compare something to autism I compared pinball to autism airplanes to autism and one of my favorite things from childhood game shows to autism really I love that I love that I'd love to hear a bit more about that like maybe can you give us an example of how you compared one of those things to autism that's fascinating well for example one of them was the prices right and I compare the prices right to autism because of our struggle with budgeting money yep yep Mak also game shows gaming structure because the whe Fortune never changed its air time it's still running at 700 p.m. EST is it I'm surprised it's still running at all it's still going Wheel of Fortune my God yeah I think Pat sj's gonna give it up though soon he's retiring but his daughter's gonna take it over wow that's crazy man that's crazy let's kind of move one step further and I know that you're a big advocate of mental health in general and that some of the speaking you do is about that as well I'd love to get your take on mental health and some of the advice that you would give other people to to maintain their mental health right so I am a mental health Advocate and the best advice I can give is take time for yourself I mean as much as I hate doing it I it needs to be done and I say hate doing it because I have ADHD Y and I cannot sit still for the life of me I have a hard time with literally relaxing and watching a movie do it anyway and not watching a movie just get on your phone for a little bit right just be be have a bit of distraction then come back to it yep exactly but then as you say with things like editing and and um podcast production you can actually Focus for hours doing that it's just so certain things just allow you to focus more than others yeah it's crazy man it's crazy isn't that crazy that's crazy I mean I I'm the opposite when it comes to editing I've done so many episodes and I started editing them all myself every weekend all I was doing was editing so now I start to Outsource it because I just can't be bothered editing anymore but let's explore that even further in terms of health and looking after yourself what are some of the things that you think are really important to do that well I think what you need to do is not only just look out for yourself but I mean mental Advocate is to advocate for others I mean autism at the end of the day is a mental health condition and it comes with other coexisting conditions I mean ADHD example I have anxiety sometimes I wonder if I have an anxiety illness disorder not a hypochondria just terrify being sck siop phob Z call not a thobe and it's real the struggle is real people need to see it people still think we're being actors Y no we're not no way absolutely you know everybody's mental state is extremely real to them and a lot of people just can't see what's going on behind the scenes but do you Advocate sleeping well exercising eating well um any particular regime that you think is important I think really what I advocate for is just kind not to judge someone based on their appearance have a conversation with them first and then see who they are I like that very very cool and so tell us a bit more about some of the other stuff you do in your business ventures I'd like to hear more about that well I mean the events is something we do we just got done having a motorcycle Poker Run and I just got the phone with an person who wants to partner with us there's a potential we will be doing a Polar Plunge with them and having breakfast with Santa Polar Plunge so what's a Polar Plunge apparently what you do is you this is this is crazy but I'm not doing it I just hope I don't have to you get in your shorts or swimming trunks in the middle of the winter oh my God you take a nice dip in the coldest water alive for us it probably be a late that's crazy it's almost like you know the new trend now is ice baths everybody's taking ice baths well I'm just saying that's a one cold ice bath I'll have to take I do I much prefer my hot shower and so what what are you going to be doing at this event what are you what are you actually putting this together well this is this is our first one so we don't know like we talked to the lady literally yesterday and we haven't planed out the big events yet that's one coming up right and if I had to guess what's going to happen is take the dip for take the dip sometime but then at this other one with the breakfast we're GNA have pancakes and waffles and then the kids can take a photo with Santa whoever Santa is hey cool I love it so it's gonna be for people of all ages yeah I would say so everybody families whatever yep y just start building on the Christmas spirit yeah I'm not much of a Christmas spirit guy I mean I like to get and stuff clearly but and I not the most Christmas spirit is I don't like holiday cookies and all I want like him it's just that I don't get into it much yeah yeah yeah but I've always wanted to dress up as Santa just because of that's just who I am it would be kind of fun so I'm hoping maybe I can pull the strings and it'll let me be Santa this time yeah why not man try and uh put in your dibs early yeah I got the belly for it so it works I love it have you got the costume I haven't got the costume yet they don't even know about this part yet I haven't told yet alome say set up events like that and any other events that you're setting up well we had a motorcycle Poker Run in August so well much Harley Davis and motorcycles came by and took on a nice little cener rake run my dad's a motorcycle guy really grew up so makes sense to have one you always have a gallon April which means just a big fancy dinner with ke speaker typically or something y usually I speak too and then I just have some speaking engagements coming up I'm coming to Daniel's West Virginia in November and possibly Houston Tex Texas awesome man and and what are you gonna be talking about so Houston Texas is an autism conference um the behavioral health conferences for parents and caregivers so I'm going to give those type of people some advice cool part is with Daniel's West Virginia is on keynote wow how do you feel about keynote speaking do you get nervous on the stage yeah I've been so many times in my life at this point I don't really care wow and so in terms of parents what advice or what Insight would you give parents of people with Autism or anyone on the Spectrum from your experience well parents I need to tell them it's not death sentence people forget I've say this a lot of podcasts there's a whole Spectrum not one autism so like there's this population of autism where they have the mindset of a three-year-old right yeah they can never brush their teeth on their own they can't go to work there's a lot of support they need yeah which is true and there's some people like that they forget about people like myself who can go to college and do work why are you ignoring us and thinking we're incapable Y and even if we were those with the mindset three-year-olds we're still capable of doing something absolutely hell yeah I mean we're not p r can we get up in the morning still no matter where we lie on the autism spectrum yes anything else that you'd give parents in in terms of advice and then for parents I would also say you got to be patient with them yeah no matter what even if they're not the most patient person be patient or it's going to be a dreadful day for both yeah yeah too true too true and now what about your Ted Talk I heard you've done a TED Talk yep called Soul structure why need structure love that and so how did that come about did you approach them or they approached you well they I got nominated a couple times we had do it virtually due to co but it's still qualified as a TED Talk oh yeah and just in January and then it went great and it's now out and about that's awesome I've I've got a good friend that's just done a TED Talk and he said the whole process was really really grueling like it's not easy to go get through that whole process to get a TED Talk out there a lot of preparation and practice not but I got nominated twice wow but tell us a bit more about sold structure what was that actually about why those on Spectrum need structure it's crucial to have structure in my lifetime or I want to understand life it's just knowing when things are I mean I know at 5:00 a.m. later this morning I will be on an interview nice what are you studying at the moment broadcasting are you studying broadcasting yes sir wow and so for how long is that course uh I this is my senior year of college and I'll be wrapping it up soon soon sweet and and so that's where you're learning how to edit as well and play with all the tech yep some stuff audacity is what I mainly use I'm learning a lot about Adobe I learned a lot about sound frequency yesterday oh wow I learned about razor and how to cut video how incorporate video how to make a music video I did that oh sweet when I first started getting into podcasting I started playing with audacity but then I I don't know how I stumbled onto Protools and um I had to get someone to teach me how to use it and so I can do some really basic editing and cutting in Protools which is fun but nowadays there's all this great AI software that does all this great stuff for you that's and it do better than me yeah it's pretty cool one of my favorites is when I have to record here Adobe sound enhancer yeah it really makes the voice of you and your interviewer a more of a professional sound it get rid of background noise so if I made like that yep it would get rid of it definitely yep and then there's the video side of it as well do you do you do a video version of your podcast or just audio mainly audio but I'll just upload the raw version of interviews so Jake this example his interview is up audio the edit but there's the raw version that's just video and all of my mistakes so you can hear me stumble there sweet sweet but also you can see what he looks like too nice yeah yeah great love it well Sam that's absolutely brilliant man I I just love your energy I love all the things you do I love the fact that you have embraced all these different parts of your life and you're exploring them all and you're really learning and growing and you're playing with all the technology and it's just it's just awesome you know it's inspirational so I hope that a lot of people can take note and take inspiration from all the stuff that you're doing as well well thank you very much for having me on thank you Darren and well if you listen to this you could take something from me if I was helpful for everyone absolutely how can we find you if people want to find you your favorite media platform y so you can find me on pod Spotify YouTube not hard guy to find if you Google me something will pop up nice are you do you have your own website or anything yes my website is autism rocks and rolls.com sweet sweet sweet well Sam now I always like to give my guest the last word so what would you like to leave the audience with today uh thank you and have a nice day ah I love it man very nice well Sam it's been an absolute pleasure I'll make sure that we get this out in the next couple of weeks and everybody can celebrate all the great stuff that you do and uh I wish you a great day mate and we'll catch you very very soon thank you thanks again for joining me for another episode of playing with perspective the suspended animation podcast if you would like to join me as a guest on the show I would be delighted to collaborate just reach out via www.s supended animation. comom also remember to click on the link in the show notes for loads of great podcasting resources webinars courses and opportunities to help you on your podcast Journey many of them free have a great day and I'll see you next time