Gustavo Serafini (Creator) interviewed by Fei Wu (Producer)
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Hey it’s Gustavo, creator of the Enabled Disabled Podcast and Project.
Some of you have been asking me to do an episode about me and my journey with disability. Fei Wu, my producer and host of the Feisworld Podcast, interviewed me a few weeks ago and we took a deeper dive into my story.
If you want to learn what being born with PFFD looked like in the mid 1970’s, how I navigated my way through school and college, then this is the episode for you.
As a bonus, we also explored podcasting, what it's like, what I've learned and why I'm doing it. If you're enjoying the show and want to help us be sustainable in the long run, the best thing you can do share the Podcast. with one other person you think will enjoy it. Thank you and enjoy the episode.
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S01E20 Gustavo and Fei.mp3 - powered by Happy Scribe
Welcome to the Enabled Disabled podcast. I'm your host, Gustavo Serafini. I was born with a rare physical disability called PFG. My journey has been about self acceptance, persistence and adaptation. On the show, we'll explore how people experience disability. The stories we tell ourselves can both enable and disable our vulnerability is the foundation for strength and why people with disabilities can contribute more than we imagined. I hope that leaders, companies, clinicians, families and friends will better understand our capacity to contribute to the world and help enable us to improve it.
It is really, really cool that we are doing this today. You are on the Enable Disabled podcast. I thought it would be a phenomenal opportunity for the listeners to hear from you, the producer, and really the the instigator like you are the reason why I started this podcast. Right. It was appearing with B.J. and Rebecca on your podcast. But behind the scenes, we had so many conversations for so many months where you were just nudging me and nudging me.
Gustavo, you have to do this. This is so important. I think it's brilliant that you're taking the time to come on the show and give us your perspective of how you see enable disabled, what you've learned so far from the guests. And we can talk a little bit more about why you thought it was so important to start the show.
Absolutely. Yeah. What a great opportunity to do this. I feel like I encourage anybody who's watching this with a show to also interview their producers, their editors. It's the type of content that even I find myself very engaged with on YouTube. So, you know, I am so thrilled for you, Gustavo. We had only been doing this since April. Twenty twenty one. As we're recording this end of June, I cannot believe how long you've come.
I'm not surprised. But at the same time, the the just the volume of excitement is just there permeating every single day. We're exchanging emails, text messages. New people are coming on the show. I mean, it just people are volunteering every kind of stories out there. I'm having so much fun. Like, is that the energy you've been feeling lately as well?
Absolutely. It feels like it's just snowballing and growing and building. And I'm. It's like it's surprised me how fast it's happened so far, but I know that there's still so many more things that we want to do and so many relationships that we want to build. So to me, it's like we're just getting started. But I'm amazed at how fast it's developed.
It's going really fast. And then we talked about this before. I think having my show since twenty fourteen, which has been seven years when we started this project, it was so clear to me how I was able to kind of bypass some of the mistakes I made. But I also knew very intimately well that for you it's going to be a very different journey. For one, the nature of your show is so focused, it's niche in a really good way, addressing acknowledging to a group of people that literally every second I feel that their voice is truly missing and they're not having for the group of people with disabilities or identify themselves as with disabilities, their voices are missing and it hurts me.
Frankly, I wasn't as aware before I was somewhat aware. But working on this project with you now I have even more urge to push them, push you, first of all, to the forefront and acknowledge your contribution. And I'm not even referring to which school you went to, the degrees you've had the companies build. You've done all that. But I almost feel like your stories are missing, that people need to hear your stories, the mundane, everyday stuff.
That's what gets me really excited.
Interesting, what what do you think has I'm curious to know. Your work with childhood cancer. You were doing that before we started enable disabled. Did that have like a did you make a connection there? I know they're different subject matters and there are some key differences there. But did that help you in some way kind of crystallize or say, no, this is really important. We need to do this, enable disabled podcast as well?
I absolutely, definitely. And I'll give Adam Leford a shout out who has been kind of in conversations with you. And it's part of our team as well to nudge you. You know, I am, frankly, for me, I was going to take a back seat to say let's wait until Gustavo's ready, whereas Adam is like he's ready now. We need to enable this thing. We need to be fully supportive of it. And also for Michael Villas-Boas, who is the founder of Childhood Cancer Hall of Champions, is a very unique message, is not focused on the illness, the cure.
It's about telling stories again. And he wouldn't mind me saying this. It took him about two, two and a half years to finalize, settle on. I'm doing this. And last conversation I had with him was probably twenty, eighteen, twenty, nineteen. And finally, during the pandemic in twenty twenty, he emailed me, we gonna call you like I'm doing this no matter what. And we build a website and did everything right before the Childhood Cancer Month Awareness Month, I believe it was in September.
So he I remember this timeline. He got in touch with me early August. We had the website ready to go for September in less than four weeks. Well, with stories, yeah.
That's amazing. What do you think it was like in listening to the interviews and meeting some of the guests and exchanging the emails, what is there something that has surprised you in the episodes that you listen to?
Yeah, first of all, I am surprised by how the desire and the willingness of them to jump on even without knowing much about our show at the beginning. We're reaching out to people with just a story that we had and our mission. Sometimes that's much harder to convince people without seeing the first, I don't know, like one hundred episodes or first 10 episodes. I remember when you and I joined the Abilities Expo and you and I, I mean, I just basically dropped the message there to say I'm a producer, I'm not a person with visible disabilities, but I'm working with Gustavo Seraphine on this.
Would you join us? I was completely shocked at how quickly people responded to it, the trust and the ability to book their appointments. I mean, we had two to three guests who were the quadraplegic and so paralyzed from the neck down and they were able to book through our Kalani calendar within five minutes, maybe two minutes. I remember sending the email and getting back before I even went downstairs. And I think about that's what struck me. I think about all the people.
Sometimes I send emails out to people without visible disabilities would struggle to use these softwares and plug in. I found that a little ironic and shocking, but they're the stories that I've heard. I realize how cheerful maybe is not really the right word, but how it just, you know, people, perhaps many of them that we interviewed had a moment, not just a moment, maybe years and decades to reflect on what they've been living through. Some folks we interview were born with a disability.
Some were in these very traumatic accidents, many of them. And they have moments to reflect. And I have not heard a single person to say, this is not my body. I don't like my body or I they are kind of very content with who they are in in the certain, I guess, the type of content that I haven't quite experienced on a regular basis with the so-called able community. So.
Interesting, yeah, I was I was really one episode that comes to mind is Harley's episode where I think literally like two minutes into the conversation, she says when she first got injured, you know, I think within. What was it, 18 months she was doing public speaking, motivational speaking, and meanwhile she's struggling with depression and out and wasn't going through alcoholism. We had literally spoken for a grand total of forty five minutes. And for her to have that kind of courage to just come on and share that was.
Incredible. It wasn't easy, but it was it was incredible and the trust, I think the trust level that people are putting in us to come in and tell their stories has been. Really, that's what's taken me probably the most surprising thing for me is they've taken that leap of faith, but I think you're right, they're hungry to tell their stories. They're they're aching to tell their stories and to share and for us to understand what we're all going through, because it is so different to write.
Everybody's had a different experience of what it's like living with a disability.
And that's that was actually going to be my question back to you, because neither one of us could anticipate how it's going to happen. And also, we talked about the different types of disabilities. These people are different ages, ethnicity. It was something that we couldn't say that we had so much experience managing and engaging with this community. We didn't know what to expect. Were you or are you still shocked by how open people are, how trusting they are of you to show up on a in an Zoom and just like pour their heart out and tell you everything about their lives?
Absolutely, yes. I mean, it's shocked. Shocked no. At this point. But definitely it's still it still amazes me every time. Like, I haven't gotten over that. I don't know the by the time we released this episode, the episode with Julie will be out. Julie Sawchuk and Julie told me, I think during the recording, but also offline, how comfortable she felt like we're creating a safe space. We're creating a space where. People feel OK to share those things, we're not, you know, brushing away the difficulties or the the dark side, so to speak.
Right. The challenges of having a disability, we want to show what that is. And so we're creating those safe spaces for people. But we're also we're also not sitting there and harping on that the whole time. Like when you talk about you've heard a bunch of interviews with BJ where B.J. Miller where for forty five minutes, that's all they want to talk about, what happened in your accident and this and focusing on just that element of it so that the fact that we're not doing that, that we're showing more than one side I think is refreshing for people.
Very true. And I think because you identify you, you identify as someone with a disability. And when we put your name, your face on the outrage, it has a built in credibility. And I don't say that's just from a branding perspective, but I think it is necessary. And, you know, recently I must say that I've had experience that on my end where I've become so open about childhood cancer, palliative care, but in particular I find my passion about the topic of disability.
Sometimes people just they have to pause and be like that confuses them. As in like how does this why does this matter to you? Oh, OK. You have a podcast, but it's I feel like it extends much beyond that. And one thing I you asked me about the parallel between our show enable disable versus childhood cancer. At the beginning, I felt like it's the voice that's missing. And gradually I realized the parallels are there. I've seen our most recent story with a young 16 year old girl after her cancer treatment.
I can't even pronounce or even fully understand the the just the massive number of cancers out there. I feel like I know just the basic terms, but this young young woman stepped out of the car with one amputated leg and the other one seems to be not as impacted with a smile. And I never knew, like we talked about this, that amputation is so much of the journey that I've seen many instances with our children on on Childhood Cancer End.
And then I look at my mom who's approaching some of these. I look at her friends. I look at my own friends as we all age, as serious illness struck us, that we lose a lot of the abilities that we were born with, we're used to. So this is not an isolation. And lastly, and most recently that I read the stats yesterday when I was joining the the webinar online, even though as for WordPress, developers had to drop off, I learned a surprising number of I think 15 percent of the US population has identified with a type of disability.
So that is a lot you know, the numbers the numbers are way bigger than we we like to think of it. But you drew it. You made an interesting point that. I think is another another focus as we move forward of the show, right, and again, Julie made this point in the podcast. She was injured in her 40s. She had a spinal cord injury. And one of the things that as as a society, we we should come to terms with is that.
Where we are today, if you're non disabled or even as the for example, for me, where my body is today is not where it's going to be in five years and three years, maybe even tomorrow, we don't know. So to look at disability and start to understand it and confront it is really beneficial not just to get more comfortable with it, to understand it, but to also see that if something does happen down the road, that there are people who have adapted.
There are people who are still OK. There are people who are still thriving even with that setback or even with that that condition.
It's exactly like you said, it is a learning and mindset and awareness lesson more than anything else that we are so used to in the society to put people in boxes and categories, people of color and certain ethnicity, backgrounds, income. We love putting people in boxes, and that is to our detriment for us to now realize what we are capable of together for. For me, I remember I work working in advertising and to learn about an employee, our colleague who made the transition from being a man to a woman.
I actually, number one, I felt a sense of wow, like what she's gone through, like all these many months working on my team. Couldn't tell anybody we could see part of the transformation. But you know what? She must have felt really all alone. And, you know, that's what I realized. Like, the worst thing that could happen to us is when we feel alone. But we were really not freaking alone. We're never alone.
And everything that we're living through, it is impacting hundreds, millions of people. You you will not meet. I mean, today, when I was sitting here, a friend of mine living in San Francisco just sent me this message to say literally starts with my dad has cancer. And, you know, since my dad passed 12 years ago, nearly a lot of people come to me for books, for advice, for services, and you become the hub.
So I feel like that's what we have become, unable disabled to become a shore where people can come to a club, a friendly place, not a cult, where people can voice and share their own stories and and be OK with their differences. Yeah.
I know we've kind of touched on this before, too, but I think it's interesting to look at it from another angle as well, is you and I both. Did the MBA program and we both went to the the gathering in person, right in Yonkers, New York, for that weekend and. I think it's interesting to point out two things we learned we learned a lot that we can on what it was like to create a safe space, a comfortable space.
I've never felt that comfortable in front of strangers in my life. So I think that we're bringing some of that intentionally to enable disabled. And I think you bring that to your podcast and to all the projects that you do. Can you and you talk a little bit more about that experience and what what those takeaways were, because you felt the same you felt the same thing there, right?
I absolutely did. I mean, for people who don't know, it's Seth Godin's Temba, which started in twenty sixteen. I waited even though I still wanted to be cohort number one. I wanted to be special, but I'm glad I waited. Otherwise I would have not met Gustavo in time for that. And even during the during that time we decided to work together rebuilding your website for pure audio video. So exciting. I had no idea what to expect at Younkers because it's a place I'd never been.
It is not New York City. People are traveling from all over the world. Most people stop and I have never met because our ruby covered for that session was only 40 people then. We didn't interact much from numbers from previous sessions, but we showed up and literally you just felt like you're with your own people. When Seth said people like us do things like this, that's how I felt. And what what does it mean to be things like this?
People like people like us do things like this. And I wanted to put specific scenarios into that is when you were walking by Gustavo like you, even though you were different perhaps than people who were there, maybe I was different. And for being not white or and we were all in this gathering together. Yet I feel like just we're a family like we can we can share. Nobody's looking or staring or sitting next to each other. We're all excited to be there.
It's very strange for a gathering of two hundred people to feel like we're a family. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I remember we were sitting in the we got to the the auditorium early, so we got to sit in the front row and you were like, oh my God, look, it says that he's there kind of on stage. And then he kind of saw that we were looking at him and he literally comes over and sits down next to us and just starts chatting and like like it's all good. And I think that that set the tone for the for the whole event.
And he consistently did that the whole time. So it was it was a beautiful thing. But I think when we met as well and this happened with our friend Helena that I talk about as well. When we had never met in person, we had obviously only seen each other on Zoom. Again, there was no there was no strangeness there. There was no like there was no awkwardness there. It was it was such an interesting phenomenon that I have never experienced before.
Right? Absolutely. I mean, sure. I mean, we didn't, like, interact with every single person there. And I'm sure that there are people I didn't quite keep in touch with. So there were still operating in slightly different little universes and and all that, which is fine. But I agree with you, the comfort was almost there instantly. And I think there's certain expectation when it comes to this community because, you know, when you I've worked in corporations where it went from really cool to like one person, one bad apple shows up and it literally changes so many people around them rapidly within months is what we're talking about here.
And I thought to myself, like, how is this possible? There's a book called Like A No Asshole Rule. And I used to laugh about it and I realized that, you know what, one bad apple could ruin a whole bunch. And this is no joke, whereas I feel like it all. Tumba I also notice in my old taekwondo school that there's a certain level of confrontation and responsibility that comes with the group. And when I'm talking about a taekwondo kids of four or five years old, they'll say whatever it's on their mind and they can bully each other if they choose to.
They do it in school. They can also do it at those young as well. And our instructor, Michael Malti just wouldn't allow it. The moment you come in here, you put on this uniform, you bow, you step in. You cannot be that person anymore. We don't want you to be that person at all. But even if you have certain behaviors that are acceptable, quote unquote elsewhere, it is not acceptable here. So I felt that with all Tandia and is I think it's as a result, it's hard for bad behaviors to penetrate into and present themselves in a community like that.
It's highly it's highly curated and the ground rules are super clear, but what ends up happening? Is it like it liberates you almost in a way to have all these amazing friendships, interactions? Just this community that, you know, you can always reach out to and if you need help or if you're looking for something and there's going to be a generosity there that you don't find in many places.
So true. And when you have experience that the other side, when you have come come through or come from the dark side, you notice that even more. And for me, coming from advertising, which was OK by deep business consulting, it was a pretty dark experience of what people are willing to do. Everybody is trying to survive on three to four hours of sleep, going after the next title and all that. It's very sharp, tanky and and to then see you meet you to it was this very life changing.
I mean, I'll mention this because I don't think we've talked about much before. I remember still Temba are a lot of type people there. Let's face it, a lot of very accomplished people. We're not talking about super chill, go with the flow necessarily. And so everybody has very vocal and very forward. And I remember you being one of the five Zoom windows. And you always listen. You always listen first and then replied, you always listen.
You're the only person, I would be honest, who always listen before speaking. And that was that really changed my perspective because I found a really effective Maust more soldiers than being polite.
Yeah, that's interesting. And I don't I think before all Temba, I definitely wasn't like that. But reading those kind of community rules and the kind of the expectations that were set, I said, you know what this is this makes sense to me. I am going to I am going to listen first, seek to understand and then and then be understood so that it made a lot of sense to me with that approach. And I'm glad that it had a positive impact.
Mhm. I'm so glad. And if it's OK, Gustavo, with you, I also think people may be interested in for us to talk about the creation journey, what we find to be really difficult with still find as difficult how people can actually help us out without just oh you know, money and donations. I feel like those can be very limiting, but there are multiple ways where people can get involved. So maybe we can go there a bit more.
So I think three three things come to mind. The first one is sharing the podcast with other people, exposing them to it. That's a huge thing to help us grow and to impact more people. The second thing that comes to mind is. Telling your story so you don't have to be if you don't like being on on a podcast, you don't like being on a recording and hearing yourself, that's fine. Share your story on our website. That's hugely important and that helps so many people.
The third thing that comes to mind is just. Maybe reaching out to if you know somebody in your life that you said, you know, at this guess, would this person would be amazing to be on the show, invite them like connect them with us? We're happy to we're happy to make that connection, to meet those people and and see if they're willing to be on the show. Is there anything. What do you think? What have I what have I missed?
What do you think we should be adding so good.
I mean, the last thing you said about connections, I mean, really, we're living in a connected world or connections economy more so than ever. I mean, I heard about these terms 20 years ago. It is very true, very present in China for a variety of reasons where I grew up. But these days I think about like we're able to make a lot of the things happen because of connections. I am very proud very recently, literally in a Women Leaders Association webinar, there are thousands of people in that webinar when the chairman of Sotheby's, Lisa Dennison, mentioned literally, I think in less than five seconds, oh, you know, as part of the I our caregivers group really have seen a lot of progress and they really feel like they belong.
I think that small group helps a lot of people out. And I instantly reached out and connected. Dr. B.J. Miller. I never thought that would be possible. In fact, for people who are listening to this, it's OK if these connections don't always work out, because I want to make sure that you know that. Yeah, that was really exciting. I'm still very excited, very proud of it. But if you introduce us to someone, an organization, and they don't end up responding or, you know, what we discuss as a project doesn't quite turn out, that's OK.
And is the asking part is the intention and the action of doing something that counts. Right. Like I have, quote unquote, embarrass myself or bring people together or mentioning a project and the other person to say not right now, not interested. You know, for a millisecond I feel like a little bit of a stab in the heart, but I got to cut people break. I need to understand that not every relationship, not everything else. The work.
I do want to mention that. But I also I love you know what? I also love good stuff. I want to hear about what you the moments maybe you love the even the moments that happen on enable disable for me. I love when other people retell our stories and when they say retell our stories, that means when Gustavo interviews so-and-so, Rebecca, B.J., Dan, like when other people retell these stories, share these links with their own reflections.
And they told us, I love when you're getting quality, which you have in multiple times, and I quote cards and I look at it and I go, oh my God, because I said that because I don't remember, like, you know, you just listen to the whole thing. And maybe that's not even the part I was paying attention to. But then it resonated with me. And that bring me that just brings me tremendous amount of joy and that works to reach a bigger audience.
It does. That's interesting. And yeah, some of those quotes that you've shared have been it feels really good. And again, those were not moments that I remember that I would have thought of in that particular podcast. But they're there and that that shows that, hey, where you never know what's going to resonate with people you're trying. And the fact that it is is immensely rewarding just in and of itself. But I think the. The upcoming conversations, I think the podcast is it keeps improving.
I think we still have a desire to keep keep getting better, keep telling better stories, having better conversations. I'm really happy, I think exploring things with Rebecca were really interesting about language, about ableism that we haven't touched on before and what that means, I don't want to give that away too much, but I think there's a lot more exploration there. I think there's there's going to be really interesting conversations about. What does it mean to have a body, what does it feel like to be in a body and how does that how do people with a disability feel in those bodies and also how non disabled people feel in the bodies?
Because if you look at Bernie Brown's work, there's a lot of shame and a lot of a lot of guilt that everybody experiences. And it's going to be really interesting to explore that some of the more. That we focused a lot on physical disabilities, I would really like to branch out and go more into some of the different. Mental conditions, right, like autism, epilepsy. There's there's so many things to explore there and learn from that, I think I'm just really excited to see what we're going to what we're going to uncover in those stories.
Absolutely. And then the educational part is so important. Word choices, knowing how to approach people. I can see I mean, we're kind of having a little bit of brainstorms here and we talk about these things before. I love when you brought up what everyday people should know, like what my neighbors should know, what people at work should know, like the basic training. Unfortunately, it's not it's not been normalized that we haven't really talked about it and having a ban or policy at work and things like that, it's not the same as truly being educated and have an open conversation about it.
I can see opportunities where Gustav Eila would be amazing for our next milestone, our next phase for you to consult people, maybe people in leadership to understand truly what the diversity, equity, inclusion actually means. And I know that we don't represent all of the categories. Typically, those are women caregivers, the black community, people with disabilities. And, you know, and even in the Asian community as well as I would love for you to lead some of the conversations, for you to maybe hand-pick Rebecca, someone else to come in and not just lecture people, but to have these honest conversations, you know, like frankly, like when you mention the epilepsy, it's it's something that I witnessed for the first time, like you.
It's not something that, you know, immediately about one person. And it happened for the first time in front of me when when the gentleman had to when the kid had an episode in college. And I remember his friend was there, he knew exactly what to do. Because what happened to me was I went home as international student. I just I went back to my apartment. I just cried. I couldn't help it because the student was also an international student, like I and I just I saw the start of the episode and the end of it and how embarrassed he he looked at the end of it.
And I just yeah, I realize I couldn't like who can I talk to? There's a lot it's very triggering and it's a lot of information I didn't have or didn't know how to process it.
Yeah. You're so you have a lot of. Empathy and sensitivity and Yifei, and I think that's amazing, and I love that you you're so open to sharing that. But you did. You were you was was the crying coming from just I think do you think a lack of understanding or just the. You were just. Not was it was the lack of understanding or was it, you know, you felt bad for the person like what? What caused that?
What caused those emotions? I think it was in retrospect.
Yeah, in retrospect. I think it was a lot of things. And some of the reasons may even be selfish. Not even I think could be. I I felt a little shocked to my system of there realizing there are certain conditions or disabilities that are not visible right away where you don't know what to expect. I wasn't mentally prepared, so there was a shock to my system and I felt particularly empathetic because the student was an international incident. I know it was.
I know I can be a very emotional sometimes. And I think if we can open it up, I think in my culture, the way I was brought up, I held it inside for a long time. So I remember quickly doing one of the consultation with Vijay. There were other Michael and Anna where there are two. I just I burst into tears, but immediately I'm like, this is a Zoom call not recorded. I just stop myself.
And I remember Vijay asking me like, do you feel comfortable feeling emotionally in front of other people? And I said, No, not really. I wasn't really allowed to do that, you know, crying by yourself. It's kind of a signature in some of the cultures of being one of them. And and I also felt really I felt scared and alone as another international student who witnessed this and I question myself, you know, what are some of the things I don't know about me?
What if you know who is going to be there for me when something happens? I mean, I was very much like young single that you think, oh, I'm young and invincible. Then something like this happens. You think about what can I do for this person, for this community? And yeah, it was it was not very comprehensive feeling, but yeah, it's good to reflect on that.
Interesting, I've never experienced experience that. But it's interesting that you mention that because. We talked about this in the Velar episode is. I with her husband, Dan, who has who has a speech impediment, speech impairment, I'm sorry, e I had always had some. Difficulty, right, I think just being patient enough to listen and when I heard Dan's story. It's completely like it was like a 180, my perspective, my understanding shifted where I said no, like his his act of communicating, of speaking is an act of courage.
It's an act of wanting to connect and saying, you know what, this impairment isn't going to stop me from doing that. I can still communicate. I can still. Be a contributing human being, and once I understood that. I mean, I actually I enjoy listening to him speak, I enjoy listening to what he has to say because my perspective shifted.
Yeah. By the way, we're talking about Viola and why I'm laughing as you're describing this. I'm sorry for being so insensitive. I think of them as this funny couple. I actually laughed really hard watching a few of their their YouTube videos they recently put together to kind of like for this picture. They did a promo promo for channel. We called a channel intro video. They put in their heart and the soul and God knows how many hours into it.
It was hard work, but one of the scenes were like they're introducing their channel, the importance of understand disability or and meanwhile, Viola shifted the camera and you literally see look at that lovely bird in our backyard. And the bird just took a huge shit like right in front of the camera. And then and then then she turned the camera towards the end and just go. She just like it was just, you know, there was I laugh so hard because you know what he's going to say.
But it was in slow motion. And I think of people, people like myself with a personality of pretty much a rabbit who talks and works at like a thousand miles an hour. I love I find it sexy. I find it really interesting to see people who are slowing things down. I know Dan is not doing this on purpose, but for him to communicate in such a way, it slows me down together. I literally could feel my blood pressure, my everything changes.
And for me to see, I think he experienced everything in real time, like at the speed of everybody else. But his speech will come in a little bit later. And that was a very magical moment to to really to live in that amazing reflection.
I hadn't thought of it that way.
So much fun. Our community is fun.
Yes, it is. Absolutely. Absolutely. We're also goes back to he hasn't been on the show yet, but maybe somebody from his team will. But it goes back to what Chris Voss talks about when you're negotiating. Right, is to slow down the late EFM, late night FM deejay voice is what he calls it. And he starts slows down the tempo and his pitch goes lower and it calms you down. So, yes, the ability to do that, it makes sense that Dan has that a similar kind of reaction, a similar effect on you when you listen to him and think about how long you can hear him say, I love you.
That would be the you know, like we avoid certain things where we whispers certain things I know, especially growing up, certain things you don't want to do or you don't want them to hear is like, oh, yeah, I'm just like totally like pieces of chocolate. I remember showing my mom's like, how much chocolate did you I said to just one more piece, I actually literally did this. And I life so much of life. We're trying to avoid or trying to change the tone to manipulate.
But I feel like with we're talking about Dan to make Viola so proud, but it just it changes my perspective. I think you talk about perspective and it's interesting for me to hear that Gustavo, like you were you were born with these special abilities and now you enter into the world. It's like this kaleidoscope for you to pick up pieces and knowledge and information to experience in many different ways. I feel like we are not limited in our abilities, but as a result of starting an able disabled, I feel like I literally have picked up more abilities, more senses than I have before.
Back in April, which was two only two months ago.
So, yeah, absolutely. I'm it's I'm getting more clarity on. My experiences in reinterpreting them, but I'm also looking at things like we haven't I haven't mentioned this yet to any guests. So this is this is new. But I'm also looking at things like when I dream, how do I see my body? It's something that I never even thought about before, but it came up because of the podcast. And then I'm starting to ask certain people, how do you see your bodies when you dream?
So for me, I had never made the connection. I don't see my body as the way I am in in my awakening state. So I'm not non disabled, but I'm not I'm not the way I am either in real life. So, like, I don't walk with a limp, but I have one arm sometimes. Sometimes I have to. My body is kind of like this amorphous shifting thing depending upon. The idea was that I was dreaming or the type of dream that I'm having now, it's not really consistently the same.
I think there's some really interesting things to explore there. But I'll ask you the question when you dream, how do you see how do you see your body and yourself?
I'm always flying for some reason, always like I feel like so much of my dream, especially the ones I can remember. I'm always flying and not so much like we're getting it. This is so interesting when you sort of please to ask everybody, we should do like a compilation of people answering that question. And I remember exactly like I'm not flying like a bird, like flat, like a plane, but I'm always walking on air and I'm sometimes bouncing, like, without touching the ground.
But it's like I'm creating kind of almost like this sine wave in a certain way, like I'm always up in the sky and I can go very, very far. And I always remember having that ability that how would other people look at me, and especially I, I always want to be a detective since I was a kid like very like martial artist, detective, like CIA, that sort of thing. And I always thought, like, you know what, I would need to have the run away from people.
The ability to fly and walk on air will be very helpful. And then of the vision, as it turned out, is not only shared by this, not just me, but this is why I recently got really into Hayao Miyazaki. I encourage you to check it out. Then Miyazaki MSRA, Miyazaki films from Totaro to a lot of aviation films, but there is a constant theme of all the I was 80 percent of the character at some point or walking around like landing like in the sky.
And I just go I get a giggly like when I see that I get all excited. That's kind of how I see myself in my dream. Yeah.
So I never told you this, but I'm a big Miyazaki fan. I love Miyazaki.
What are your favorite? I mean, the names are kind of weird, but what are some of your favorite films?
Goodness, I think because it was the first one that I saw. Yeah. What was the names are all they're weird. They're also amazing. But Princess Mononoke was the first Miyazaki film that I saw. And so that was just like is near and dear to my heart. And I haven't watched it in a while, but I do want to watch it. Howl's Moving Castle was incredible. Oh, goodness, there's there's so many of them, but definitely Mononoke was was my personal personal favorite.
Oh yeah, absolutely. I know all the names are, like, impossible to remember. Beautiful. Beautiful. And recently I watched Panio the first time. It's like the super cute. And then she runs like she's like, I love you. And it just like so cute, very expressive. But even Ponyo was like walking and jumping on waves. So she's a fish. But you can see as she's running with like, like girl dresses and stuff and she's like bouncing on the waves, I don't know, something just connects.
Like when I look at it, I literally think about my dreams, my body in more connected than ever, like in other situations, think putting on makeup, dress and get on stage like I feel disconnected to my body in those moments.
If you feel that way. I mean, that's an amazing ability. I've never cultivated the ability to consistently fly in my dreams. I've had plenty of them, but I don't have that yet. But I'm going to work on that. Do you feel that way at times in your waking life? Like are you does your body feel do you feel that lightness of it, like that airiness as you move or as you as you're doing?
Taekwando Yeah. I think martial arts definitely cultivates your yourself in that way. And we have when I say we, I mean, you know, out on myself, all my instructors over the years have pod people and we've worked with people with disabilities, which is really fascinating because martial arts are so strict and it's old school. And how you prepare your arms is very, very, very specific, like you're not supposed to move an inch. And when we work with people with one arm, then it changes the whole dynamic.
Right. Like your instructors may not tell you what to do, but you supposed to figure that out. I know that wasn't your original question, but I find that I engage with my body more so like during very focused but relaxed meditation exercises, which I do usually into the evening, I, I try to do that. I really enjoy doing that before I go to sleep because I fully relax. I try to do in the morning, but on a busy day is always kind of get in the way.
And what, what else. And that's such an interesting question. Am I you know, the one thing maybe is a little bit of a pivot, Gustavo, is when I just feel like when things I don't know how you feel. I'm kind of interested in your answer to I. My upbringing went from having the perfect parents who understood me, who is just so loving, caring, fun until the age of six. Then I was sent away to live with my grandparents for four years where I know I had suicidal thoughts.
I was very depressed. And, you know, in those moments I felt like between the age of six to ten, I went from having everything be the love and the attention of everybody to having nothing at all. And for me, you know, I felt I can't really say that I felt like I had a sense of disability, but I very much lost a sense of myself entirely like and in those moments, there were a lot of very magical moments happened in those four years.
And one thing I don't know, if you ever experience these almost like supernatural moments where I was playing, I remember a number of scenarios, but one of them being I was playing cards with my older cousin, who was ten, and I told him I was six years old. I said, I can guess every single card that you just and he would just like show me and I will repeat one, two. And after seven or eight cards, I literally I was just so focused as if I'm in a frigging cartoon.
After seven to eight card, he ran to my grandma and said, Faye is a liar. She is a witch. She's she's you know, he was so pissed and I knew what happened. It freaked him out. And I, I would love to kind of pitch that question to you. I actually heard, you know, maybe not directly from our audience, but my friends with different types of disabilities that they do have. I don't know special senses, abilities in other areas of their lives.
I've had those experiences occasionally at some years of my life, it's stronger than others. Yes, I don't know what it is, but it's there. So like. Frank, who's a friend, and he is the project manager for pure audio video. He'll get kind of weirded out sometimes because I will. He'll come into the office and I'll just start singing a song that has nothing to do with anything. And he'll be like, Dude, I was just listening to that yesterday.
Or, you know, I'll say I'll say something like some movie, some random movie reference. And it's the same thing as like I just had that experience yesterday. There's no connection whatsoever. I remember when I was pretty young, too, there was a gentleman that he was a patient of my father's. My father was a doctor and we were having lunch. And he had he had this ability to kind of like you like he knew the cards, but he knew like it came and went and he knew when it came and went.
And so he showed us. Yeah. And then I tried it and I, I felt it too. I felt it like I had it for a little bit and then it left. Yeah. So, you know, there's just but I don't know if that's I think we all have that to some to some degree maybe I'm wrong, but that's, that's my sense of it is we all have these. Interesting abilities that just don't fit into any of the boxes that were taught or that we're supposed to we're supposed to acknowledge, and so we just kind of we just kind of bury them.
Yeah, I think we're talking about, say, good in a way to label them psychic abilities. And it's really interesting. And I have never really as an adult or even after those different incidents, like I never really read so much into it or embrace them. But these moments are really interesting. I know precisely what you're referring to. Right? They do come and go. But I truly think and I look back on our our experiences together noticing you.
And for the longest time, I didn't realize that you had a disability at all. You know, we are on Zoom screens for this show. But I knew even before I knew you, you were born with PFG that you had a special ability of engaging with people. And I think even though I don't have visible disability, I felt like those four years of my life having gone through severe depression now, knowing to what it was like, I, I tried to I don't talk about it very much in front of my mom these days.
Like we've come to terms when I was 30 and she regretted sending me there. She doesn't she can't really fix it. But the other day she I describe I said I felt like when I was there, I felt like a little girl. I was a little girl in the middle of the ocean. And by myself, I didn't have a boat. I was just struggling and, you know, and it was just very scary, actually, for anybody who has experience standing next to an ocean.
What it's like pitch black. It is very, very scary. You feel like you just get swallowed whole even when you're on the beach, on standing on the sand and just felt like very suffocating. And then I didn't go into that many details, but I realized that because of those moments, I was also very focused. I felt like I was a worrier. I have to be very focused. I have to leverage everything I had in moments.
Those are my my cousin, who is four years older. I have five bucks my mom put in my pocket. Sometimes my grandpa just take it and I had nothing. And then so when I can focus on fewer things, that I had a better sense of psychic ability. Whereas these days, frankly, I'm so distracted and so overworked, I lose a lot of those connections.
And I didn't know that about you. And I think that's that's a you should talk more about that because that's that's a powerful experience that must have so many things about you both, I think, for the positive now. But obviously, when you were going through it, that's I can imagine that incredibly difficult.
Well, thank you, Gustavo. It's it feels good to be able to talk about it and not feel like, oh, it's a burden, don't talk about it. And a life is OK now why are we still talking about it? And once again, I think enable disabled community. I really welcome people to check out these phenomenal stories. It is not what people think, right? You never listen to it. People are like, oh, don't don't go there.
Why were you like, why are we talking about cancer when you don't have cancer? You know, at a certain age it seems like everybody has cancer or how come I don't have a disability? Why should I care? I encourage to think twice about it really, or three times about it. There is so much hidden gem. There are so many things you're going to learn that's going to really brain your day and I think make you think about your life very differently in a way.
You know, you aren't people who have not lived through it. They're not blessed with the opportunity to actually experience it and become the person they, you know, that they would otherwise have like a better person. So it is. Yeah, it it is. I don't want to I don't mean to be supermodel dramatic, but these are the things that I have learned while working with you.
Thank you. And I to build off of that. We're not what we're not doing is taking. A profound story, right, and we're not trivializing it, we're not making it superficial, we're not saying like, hey, look at how inspirational we all are and how amazing. And everybody should just be like, wow. And that's not the that's not the goal. If you are non disabled, I think just the act of engaging with something that you don't understand.
Right. And taking that small leap of faith and just saying, I want to understand another experience. I want to understand what other human beings are feeling, thinking, processing, going through in their lives. It's an opportunity for growth. It's an opportunity for understanding. It's an opportunity to appreciate the unbelievable variety of human experience that we don't get to appreciate. Right. Hollywood, let's pick on Hollywood for a minute. I love movies. I love Hollywood, and I hate them at the same time because they put it all into these little narrow, constrained boxes of what we're supposed to look like, what we're supposed to feel, what stories are acceptable and which ones aren't.
And that's another great topic that I hope we can get into. But expand your horizons, expand your mind, expand, expand what you can, the different lenses that you can see the world through. I think it's incredibly valuable.
Yeah, I mean, I'm laughing because literally three hours ago I went live with the founder of Old School of Old School, so. Oh, could be oh, we're orgasm. And she talks about the same thing watching movies which mass media of the United States are known for has conditioned us for all these since you were a baby and through different channels, more channels than ever today. And she asked me like, yeah, you know, we learn about all the sex education comes from either Planned Parenthood or PornHub or Hollywood movies where you see these men and women, often heterosexual people, shirt off and then so easy kissing orgasm in three minutes, always at the same time is just like then you look at your life, it's like something is very wrong with my life.
And that's kind of the experience we're looking from. Aside from the sideline, if you ever witness any of your neighbor, you assume that people with disabilities are struggling, they're always struggling, they're always in pain. You know, part of that may be true, but there are so many things you don't know about their lives. Frankly, I have friends who spend all day Saturday and Sunday at home, got a tummy ache. They're just home watching TV.
Whereas when we interviewed Ryan, one of our guests, Ryan was Ryan's quadriplegic and he flexibile like dial down, join the Zoom meeting is. Hey, guys, I got about forty five minutes after this. I'm going to the beach and like three more things I'm doing. He's active by himself, you know, and that is again, perspective changing for me about contribution, you know, even just daily activities and routines. It's very different than what you assume.
One hundred percent agree, one hundred percent agree. Thank you very much for listening, everybody, and say thank you very much for this, just for everything you and Adam. I couldn't have done it without you both. And look forward to what the future is bringing.
