In this week’s episode, Stephen Rose and Paul Thurrott talk about mental health in IT and their own personal journeys discovering and managing mental health issues. Whether you think you might be neurodivergent or just want to understand the challenges and benefits for those whose brains are wired differently, check out their interesting chat.
Transcript
Paul Thurrott
Hello everybody. I’m Paul Thurrott and I am here today with my good friend Stephen Rose. Hello, Stephen.
Stephen Rose
Howdy, how are you?
Paul Thurrott
Stephen and I have known each other for decades, back from his work at Microsoft. I think we met in the build up to Windows 7 or right after Windows 7 came out somewhere on then. And uh, you know, we’ve kind of been friends ever since. I. I think I fell in love with this guy pretty much immediately. And if you’ve ever seen him speak, you’ll know why. But. You know, since the pandemic. Work travel and I fell apart and when I had the opportunity to go to Seattle about a year and a half ago, Stephen was one of those people. I wanted to see and I had a an out of body experience with him because he was describing. A condition that I recognized all too well and myself and we kind of went on this journey where, you know, you’ve really helped and mentored me since then.
Honestly, on this kind of path to understanding neurodiversity and and what’s going on with me and with you. Right, which. Down, you know very, very interesting and personal. And it’s a little weird and. And I know for people our age, it’s a tough topic. But that’s why we wanted to get together today. And and talk to it because there’s no. There’s no shame here. And there’s no nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s just for for people of a certain age like us, you know, we grew up in kind of a different world, and that world is changing, I think, for younger generations, this is not maybe the the blocker that it is, where people are. But I think that’s why we need to talk about it and just kind of get it out. In the open and I suspect many of the people who listen to this or watch this are going to. See this in themselves as well.
Stephen Rose
Yeah, it’s interesting because it has been quite a path for me over the past few years and we’ll talk about this in a little while, but I almost lost my job and didn’t know why I couldn’t do what I needed to do. And took a step back and and went through this. And since kind of going through this, this journey and understanding neurodiversity and and what that is have met so many other people and I start to talk with them and they’re like Oh my God, that’s that’s me too. And it’s been incredibly satisfying, but I think. Right. You know the reason to do this show now is it is the beginning of the year. Many people make New Year’s resolutions. I want to get healthier. I want to eat better. Whatever that is, but a lot of folks do not make a. Pledge to support their mental health and we think it would be great to kind of talk about neurodiversity, especially since many of you in this industry are neurodiverse. When I go to a conference, I meet a lot of neurodiverse people. Yeah, cool.
Paul Thurrott
I didn’t. I didn’t know what to call it at the time, but as long ago as the mid 1990s. I recall going to COMDEX and then CES and looking out at the Sea of humanity, my college. And saying these people are my peers and I feel a little weird about that, you know, and in the in the years since, of course, interacting with Microsoft and the companies in high tech and doing a lot of these kinds of meetings in person or virtually, you see a lot of the same traits, the world, and it’s it’s very, very interesting. I’ve long sort of said without having the right words that many of the people in our industry in particular. Are on this kind of path. They’re they’re we have very similar character traits. I’ve said to you recent example. I’m sorry you have a guitar background there and that’s something I see all the time, right? During COVID we would do these virtual meetings and it was striking how many of these people I’ve known for years in some cases.
Stephen Rose
That’s right. For me.
Paul Thurrott
Now I’m seeing them in their homes. Are musicians and artists.
Stephen Rose
Right.
Paul Thurrott
In our writers, you know, and in addition to being maybe programmers or engineers or just involved in personal technology in some way, the overlap feels fascinating.
Stephen Rose
I agree. Yeah, and that I. Think that’s a good segue to bring in the slide? So let’s let’s do that. So I think this is fascinating. I, as I was doing my research and I I did some of this a few years ago because I did, we have what we call like lunch and learns. And I did a lunch and learn on neurodiversity. Everybody at Microsoft was doing it on a product. Or something. And I did this for for the office org so and I had so many people who came up to me afterwards and not only thank me for doing it but said hey, I’m neurodiverse, my son is etcetera, and they were looking for someone to talk. So interesting spectrum of folks. And if you think you know, pick one or two words that you would use to describe some of these people like Simone Biles or Jennifer Aniston or or some of these. What kind of words would you use, Paul? Well, from the outside, obviously you think brilliant, right? Top, you know, top of class in their respective.
Paul Thurrott
Fields. You know what you don’t see is the other side of that, I guess in some cases, although Steve Jobs actually are pretty, pretty familiar with the bad side of Steve Jobs. You know these these people are all iconic.
Stephen Rose
Right. Yeah, exactly. But you know our top row all had autism or Asperger’s. And if you look at guys like Jerry Seinfeld and Andy Warhol, that makes a lot of sense. Bill Gates has talked about having Asperger’s. ADHD, you know John F Kennedy and but you think about some, someone like Simone Biles, who is so incredibly focused and what she does to think about that and how her brain is run. Thing, how difficult that must be at times and dyslexia. You know, Albert Einstein had dyslexia and the folks who have come out and talked about it and how they beat it. And I think this is just fascinating cause that’s none of these are things that you would think about when you think about these people.
Paul Thurrott
No, not at all. I mean that again in my lack of language at the time, I always thought of this as you know, people who are really good at one thing, Star basketball player like Michael Jordan or Larry Bird, probably not very good at many other things. You know that you almost it. It’s tilted so far. Yeah.
Stephen Rose
Singularly program. Yeah, absolutely. So let’s talk about the term neurodiversity and neurodiversity. Covers a wide spectrum of different different things. So dyslexia, trauma, ODD, ADHD. Diabetes, depression or CD, we sometimes refer to people as gifted. You know, all the way through to things like autism spectrum disorder, Tourettes, all of these are part of what we refer to as neurodiversity. Neuro, meaning many diversity meaning different. And when you think about some of these terms, especially when you say things like Down syndrome or areas like that, there are certain things that come to mind and it can be very, very different for many people. But when we talk about the term of neurodiversity today, this is what we’re talking about. And and specifically, you know, within the terminology, there are three terms.
There is neuro whoops on too many neurotypical neurodivergent and neurodiverse so neurotypical is someone who is, you know, not on the spectrum who is not having these. They’re just. What we went in the middle. Neurodivergent are folks like Paul and I, people who are different than the rest, and a group of neurodivergent and neurotypical people together create something called being neurodiverse. So neurodiverse is the universe we live in, and what we do. Anything to add that, Paul?
Paul Thurrott
Just said it, I I wonder in your case you can you can tell me now because I I look at my wife and I think, you know, she’s neurotypical. There’s no doubt about. It we’re. So different in so many ways. Yeah. And I wonder if there isn’t something to that if.
Stephen Rose
I’m here, yeah.
Paul Thurrott
To neurodivergent, people might not be great matches necessarily. You almost in some cases at least for. My wife had been trying to get me help along these lines for many years and. Was slightly aggravated that I jumped on the chance to get help when you talked about it. But you know we but come just coming at it from completely different places. I mean, sometimes I think you need that person in your life who is not ready to run with your mania, if that’s what it. This, or let’s counter you in some.
Stephen Rose
Way although although my daughter it’s interesting because she gravitates towards neurodivergent people and her tribe is is neurodivergent because that’s where she feels most comfortable. I think in some cases I don’t think you can both be neurodivergent in the same way. Yeah. OK. I think a few different ways, but yes, it’s very, very hard for my wife having a neurodiverse. Right. You know husband and daughter and her being her. It’s it grinds on her patience on having to, you know, deal with things. They’re saying things five times or making sure they have our attention or things along that line. And all of that and vice versa. It makes me crazy that I’ll. I have to explain myself or can’t remember simple things and we’ll say hi. Can you text that to me or can we put that on the calendar cause I’ll forget about it? I know it’s important. I don’t want to forget about it. I realize this is important, but I know it will go to the back of my head. So if you do this for me, I. Focus on this the way that you would like me to.
Paul Thurrott
My my wife is a St. and and serves that role as well. I mean even to the tune of. Here’s the pill. You need to take now. You know. You remember that we have a whatever it is on Friday night, that kind of thing. But you know, the tribe is such a great word. I I that made me think of, you know, the beginning of big tech companies like Microsoft or Apple. There. I mean, it was absolutely a tribe of people of. You know, related skills and mindsets.
Stephen Rose
Right.
Paul Thurrott
And running a race together and making something happen and and maybe that did play a role in their success.
Stephen Rose
Yeah, I think you know, you attract other, you find comfort, even subconsciously, and other people who are somewhat similar to you because you get each other all of a sudden, you’re like, ohh, no, you get this. You know, I have a thing. You know, when I go to conferences. Right. I know people that stay up till 1:00 in the morning and drinking and partying. I know that does not work for me. I know that in order for me to get on stage and for lack of a better term perform because it really is. You’re not just out there speaking, you are performing, you’re educating, you’re entertaining, you’re giving energy, you’re getting. Energy and doing that and.
Paul Thurrott
Well it’s it’s reactive to you’re thinking you’re not just reading something, you’re thinking on your feet and yeah.
Stephen Rose
Right. Yeah. And if something goes wrong, right? How do you keep going? How do I set this up for the next person? How do I stay on topic? How do I gauge if the audience is with me or not? It’s exhausting and. In order for me to do that well, I tell close friends of mine who are aware of what’s going on that hey at 10:30 or 10:00, I’m done. I’m gonna sneak out to go to the bathroom. I’m gonna go up to my room. If I haven’t eaten yet, I’m gonna order dinner. I’m gonna read a book. I’m gonna do nothing and reset myself for the next day. I can’t go out till midnight or one or two. And then get up the next morning and give that 100% because my brain. Needs that opposite time. From being on and The thing is, once you’re off stage, you’re not done, people and you know, just want to talk to you and want to meet the persona that is. Paul or Stephen? Not always. The human being that is Paul or Steve.
Paul Thurrott
Yeah. I usually apologize to people when they say that if they were happy to meet me for the first time, you know, it’s sure it’s a let down, you know, but it’s OK.
Stephen Rose
Yes. All right. Let’s take a look at some facts 20% of the. Population is neurodivergent. That’s pretty amazing when you think about it. For those kind of numbers. One in seven people are neurodiverse at some level, and of course there is some very mild neurodiversity right through to, you know, dramatic life changing aspects of that, but. Right. The levels are different and some people may have multiple neurodiverse diversity issues going on, and approximately 5 to 10% of the global population has dyslexia. My daughter has dyslexia. In reading and then she also has something that an auditory processing issue, that when she hears something, it takes her brain an extra second or two to process it and put it down and she through training and stuff, has learned to read and also does music.
Which you would think someone who has diet, diet dyslexia would have problems with that. But the brain up to a point can rewire itself. And I find that fascinating how they can do that. I remember with the astronauts, they would give them this helmet that would make them see everything upside down and see how long it took till their eyes rectified and put everything right back up again. Oh boy. How the brain would figure that out. Do those sort of things is it’s kind of amazing.
Paul Thurrott
My son is profoundly deaf and has cochlear implants which help him here. And he has that same delay right where his you know, he has to process, he hears, listens kind of translates what he heard into what it means in his brain. It takes a second. You know, it’s something he’s gotten really good at over the years because it, you know, he’s had this situation since he was 2.
Stephen Rose
Right.
Paul Thurrott
Or one rather, I’m sorry, so I completely understand that, but I I also see in people that I know, including my son, interestingly, because my my daughter absolutely has. Is neurodiverse neuro divergent rather and? My son is not exactly the same. He’s kind of between my wife and I. What she would expect I. Guess, but he he just has certain aspects to it, right? Right. He’s someone who maybe needs to take notes, make reminders, and you know, that kind of thing. You see, you see parts of it. So you have, you know, right when the the problem with this is not really the problem, but once you understand the. It’s like when you buy a car and you see it everywhere. You’ll start seeing this in the people, you know, parts of it.
Stephen Rose
Right. I agree. Yeah. It’s, yeah. When you buy a car, all you know that you think no one else has. Also you start driving knows how many other people have that and you’ve never.
Paul Thurrott
Thought about. Through everyone, yeah.
Stephen Rose
Noticed it before. Yeah. Worldwide neurodiverse individuals represent 15% of the overall. What is interesting, though, is the unemployment rate for people with autism spectrum disorders. Was 34% one in three and three times the rate for people with the disability. At 10%. So it is harder for someone with an unseen issue to get a job than it is for people that have a seen issue and to think that. I have the theory of. What’s your theory?
Paul Thurrott
Well, I’m just basing this on my own personality because one of the darker things I’ve sort of had to cope with over the course of my life is this knowledge that I could get really dark and go over the edge a little bit, right. And I know even I’ve I’ve not done this thankfully. But with my wife in my darkest moments, I’ve had this. You know, I I could step over the edge here. I could ruin this relationship. Right now. You know that kind of a thing. And I wonder if that isn’t part of this, that this is I I don’t know how common that is in in this audience or whatever, but this. Inability to like you understand logically that you can’t go in this direction. But you almost can’t stop yourself. It’s the person who can’t stop from speaking up at work. Maybe, or, you know, raises issues one too many times. You know where everyone else in the room is looking back at you, which actually fixed berries. But what a weird coincidence. As I say that. I I just wonder, I was reading this earlier and I was thinking to myself, I wonder if this isn’t. You know, part of that.
Stephen Rose
And and I I I don’t disagree. And I think if you have things like low self esteem or. You’re shy in your brain and I know I’ve dealt with this cause I’ve dealt with this through therapy and we’ll talk about therapy and medication all that a little bit, but I would think I would raise my hand cause I knew something and in my head, deep down, I would think, hey, if I know these answers and I’m smart, kids will like me more realizing. No, it’s the opposite. They are gonna be crap out of me because I’m showing off that I know this and they don’t. Yeah, yeah. Right. And I’m making life more difficult. For them. So what the reality was how my brain thought as a neurodiverse individual was dramatically different, which ended up getting me beat up and causing me trauma and issues later. And and and I’ll say this I’m. I’m not happy of the bullying and things I had to deal with as a child. It’s.
People and my parents seeing me as a plugger and not really being able to identify what was going on and me struggling in school and all of this, but it has made me who I am and so many of the quality that have helped me in life have come from having to find ways to deal with all of this stuff. So I’m not saying it’s a negative. Going through it, it’s been a positive in the long run, but as you’re going through that journey, it is incredibly difficult. Especially if you start feeling like you’re the.
Paul Thurrott
Well, we’ll, we’ll get to this, but I mean, being able to compensate for these things is actually a big part of this too. You know, there are ability to kind of intellectually work around these problems. It’s definitely, yeah. Oh, yes. Yes it is.
Stephen Rose
Exhausting doing that. Adults with ADHD are 18 times more likely to be disciplined and 60% more likely to lose their job. At Microsoft, I got brought into a new role and I was unable to do what was being asked of me. I was forgetting things and having a problem prioritizing stuff in meetings. Things were coming at me so fast that things were falling through the cracks and I thought it was just me. And I’m getting older and I’m having problems. I found out. You know. Earlier that year that I had a pituitary tumor that had shut down my pituitary gland and I got surgery for that and thought maybe that was coming back. And went to a doctor and said look, I’m struggling. I can’t.
I have no energy when I get home, I’m not doing well at work. I’m not doing well at home because of this. And he said I’m gonna give you a medication. And in three weeks, either your life is gonna line up and things are gonna get better or it’s not. And it was for ADHD and it made a world of difference. OK. I’ve lived this and it is terrifying when you come home and fear that, Oh my God, I’m gonna lose my job. And what am I gonna do? And it’s not something that you can fully control.
Paul Thurrott
Do you think if you had gone to the doctor even 1520 years ago? If you would have got had the same conversation.
Stephen Rose
I don’t think I would have because it was looked at so differently 1520 years ago. I think it is really only since the beginning. Yeah, right. Really, the 2000s, but a little bit further that it has been not only acceptable, but encouraged. And we see things like mental health being added to insurance. Still not to the level that needs to be, I still pay thousands of dollars a year for drugs. I have to have. But my daughter can get a year’s worth of contacts for free. So we’re not quite at that point yet. And our system for dealing with mental health is horrible, but yeah.
Paul Thurrott
It’s evolving though.
Stephen Rose
It is evolving and it is getting better, but it’s it’s not it. I don’t think it would have made that much of a difference then. And the drugs that they had were very simplistic and sort of A1 size fits all, which I’ve learned would not have fit. Well for me. OK. Nerd divergent adults are 9 times more likely to die from suicide than other adults, and I know a bunch of neurodivergent people that deal with. Depression. I know. Ones who are bipolar, who can go from being manic to horribly depressed to. To that and you can absolutely see how if you were to have a problem like I have, how you could go down a dark hole and go. I’m not making anybody’s life better. I’m out of here and that’s terrifying.
And hopefully if you are one of those people who’ve thought about it, please reach out to suicide counseling. There are lots out there, but feel free to write either one of us. And say, hey, I’m having a tough time. I’m looking for someone to help guide me and connect me with other neurodivergent individuals who can show me that this is. It’s not just me. It’s terrifying, yeah.
Paul Thurrott
Yeah, I I mean I I mentioned the dark thoughts earlier. I I I understand it, it’s. You know, we all have this to some degree at some point in our lives, I mean. Life does what it does, but. Yeah, I I this is the this is maybe the ultimate example of this. You know dark path. Thing that I was talking about earlier. It’s one thing. Yeah, it’s it’s bad enough to ruin relationships or lose your job, you know, or whatever. But. Once you, once you’re. Yeah. Once you feel so. That your life is so unimportant, that’s. That’s. Yeah, that’s definitely get help. Yeah.
Stephen Rose
It’s hard to come back. From absolutely and you are not alone, and that’s why we’re doing this show to say, look what you’re feeling is normal and it’s not abnormal and there’s nothing wrong. And and there are ways to get help and hopefully that’s what you’ll walk away with from this episode. Right. On the other end, average or above average IQ scores occur in 44% of people with autism spectrum disorder. Research shows conditions such as autism and dyslexia can bestow special skills in pattern recognition, memory and mathematics, and we’ll talk about that. In a few moments. And you know why? Well, 1/3 of respondents indicated they would not knowingly hire an applicant with a learning disability. And that’s terrifying where they said, oh, well, this person has a learning disability. I don’t think that we can really handle them or take them. So we’re not gonna hire.
And that’s, you know, yet they would with someone that had a hearing aid, or someone who had a prosthetic leg, etcetera. So there’s still a lot of stigma around mental health and mental health issues out there. And that’s one of the areas that we encourage all of you watching to kind of take a look at and to separate yourself from and hopefully understand better by the end of this. 79% of employees perceive the amount of training and supervision for workers with learning disabilities to be greater than. For non disabled workers and there are some cases where that could be, but many cases where there that is not the case. Right. Let’s take a look this is this is the one that I absolutely love, and I’ve shown this slide a few times and had so many people going, Oh my God, that’s me.
So higher or lower sensitivity to certain sensory stimuli. My daughter does not do well with bright lights is a hard time with it or when there’s too many people talking at once. It’s really hard. Or people that are talking in a slightly louder. Right. Choice to her, it seems like people are shouting. Highly fixated on specific interests. Spending difficulty understanding social cues or fitting into social groups. I always say if you want to find me at a party, I’ll be in the back sitting with the pet, the dog or the cat, and petting them and doing that cause I. I don’t do well with social cues I never have. I don’t get it. So yeah, stimming. I have a little bit of a mild turrets. While I tend to fidget with my collar or things like that. It’s just a self soothing mechanism inclined to structure and schedules.
Yes, absolutely. I like to know what we’re doing and the order we’re going to be doing it and when things are going to happen and when that. Changes. It is very hard for me to stop and reset and set new expectations, which includes what’s the temperature going to be like? What do I need to wear? When will we be eating? Just so I know what to expect. And Paul, you and I had a conversation on this a little while. Go ahead and share your thoughts there on that. This is this is a list that could be called characteristics of Paul.
Paul Thurrott
Yes, yes, exactly. This is I am I am hitting 100% on this. And and this was the conversation. It was, you know, a year ago, July I. Guess when we were sitting, the four of us were sitting at the table and you were discussing this topic and I had an out of body experience. I I stopped hearing you for a little while. I was. Literally floating in space, thinking, my God, he’s he has a camera in my house or something. He’s describing me. You know, this is really scary.
Stephen Rose
Right.
Paul Thurrott
Even like last night where we go to a trivia night thing at a local restaurant and I’m trying not to do this now, but I do this thing where I sit there and I kind of. Rock, you know, and my legs shake up and down and my wife says, are you cold? And I said no, why? And she said. Stop doing that. Yeah, she’s like you do this every time we go out and. Yeah. And I’m like, I don’t even. I know it’s just.
Stephen Rose
If you don’t even realize you’re doing it, I can’t help it. Right.
Paul Thurrott
It’s like, are you nervous? I’m like, what? No nervous? No. What do you?
Stephen Rose
Mean, but you just have a lot of dopamine and adrenaline going through your system because you’re engaged and you’re. You’re hyper focused on the question. We’re gonna be right.
Paul Thurrott
I’m. I’m in a. Yeah, I’m in a room with 20 people. I know. And it’s it. It’s very. Yeah, I I would be surprised if most people.
Stephen Rose
Sensory intent.
Paul Thurrott
Yeah, I this is. All the stuff I’m always interested by the language, you know, and not flapping or stimming behavior, rather, was not a term I was familiar with, But then I see that I say, yeah, no, I got that too good and you know. But yeah, I can. I’m yeah, I listen. If you read anything that I write as we’re recording this. I’m. Just about to include a months long project of organizing photos that I think most people would describe as Uno.
Stephen Rose
And ranging and categorizing things.
Paul Thurrott
Oh yeah. Just, you know. Yeah, right. There’s a there’s a.
Stephen Rose
Back, but back in the days of DVD’s, I would have all my DVD’s in alphabetical order, and then in order of the releases, so the James bonds were all to get. But do you put the James bonds together or do you put them by individual title? This is something that I would struggle with and spend time on. Yes, exactly.
Paul Thurrott
Absolutely. Put them together in order of release. Yes, this was and James Bond is the perfect example.
Stephen Rose
You can’t put, you know, tomorrow never dies and T it’s gotta be with B for bond. Yeah, exactly. And you’re like.
Paul Thurrott
It’s not just that, it’s that some of them are great and some of them are not and you have to. Have all. Of them. And then they have to be very specifically arranged.
Stephen Rose
Right. Yep, that’s. And people would go nuts and then I would know exactly where movies were like. Why not put it back in any order? I’m like, I need to know exactly where to find. That thing I can’t have it in any order.
Paul Thurrott
Yeah. It’s like people you, you organize the fork and the knife at the table or it’s everything that the little clock has to be exactly in the right direction or whatever. There’s a there’s a concept I’m sure you’ve heard of called Doom Piling, which I’m awesome at, and doom piling is cleaning and arranging without actually decluttering, so it’s you could think of it as hiding, right? So people could walk into maybe my office or our house or whatever and say, wow, this place is really clean. It’s like, no, it really isn’t. But everything is put away so you can’t see it. It’s neat.
Stephen Rose
It’s neat.
Paul Thurrott
It’s been straight.
Stephen Rose
Right, I am neat but I am not clean. There’s an inch of dust on ****, but everything. Is where it.
Paul Thurrott
Mm-hmm. But it’s exactly arranged. Yeah.
Stephen Rose
Needs to be. And then when? I right and then when I go to clean, I have to when I if I take everything out I have to put it back exactly where it was at or rethink. Does this still make sense? And it’s an all day thing. Something that would take somebody else an hour that’s all afternoon. For me, I’m done. That’s it. Because I’m gonna.
Paul Thurrott
Ohh yeah, so that’s a great weekend. Honestly, it’s Yep.
Stephen Rose
Find other distract. I am not a good person to move with because I’m going to look at everything. Oh, I forgot about this and now I should move. Keep this out. It’s just, yeah. Yeah, alright. Easily distracted over focused as you can see we both are low frustration, absolutely preference for nonlinear thought or self-image preference for working or being on their own. That’s interesting. Yeah, I do, you know? Yeah, go ahead. I’m a writer.
Paul Thurrott
No, I’m just. I I work in a cave. I mean, I don’t, you know, by definition, I I don’t want to be around other people. You know, I’m a horrible person to work with.
Stephen Rose
Yeah, I have very specific ways. I like things done and the problem is, the more I work by myself, the harder it gets to break that. But I do have to work with others and have to be very cognizant of that and very accommodating. And yeah, it’s a skill I’ve had to learn and easily distracted by external stimuli. AKA squirrel. Yeah, absolutely.
Paul Thurrott
Yeah, exactly like a cat with a laser pointer. Oh, what’s that? You know? Yep, exactly.
Stephen Rose
Bad. I love this quote. This came from Harvard Business Review and they did a whole thing on neurodiversity and competitive advantage, but there was a comment that. The author and scholar and residents made and he said many individuals who embraced the concept of neurodiversity believe that people with differences do not need to be cured. They need help and accommodation instead, and we couldn’t agree more. Neural diversity is not something that we need to go find a cure for. These people and. You know that feel that way? It concerns me that they look at it the same way that we look at a birth defect or something along that line. And even then, there are certain birth defects that have helped people to become even more the amazing person that they are than.
Paul Thurrott
Like dimples, people love dimples. That’s a that’s a birth defect.
Stephen Rose
They could have been.
Paul Thurrott
Yeah. Yeah, no. Yeah, this is very interesting. I I think you know, there’s a double edged sword to nerd being nerd divergent, right. There’s a there’s a gift, and then there’s a a problem, you know, depending on where you are.
Stephen Rose
Yeah, and. Right. And this is a perfect example of it. The IDF special unit that they had a group that was there for analyzing aerial and satellite photography. They found people in the autism spectrum and they found that they spotted patterns that no one else could see and that their abilities were off the charts compared to neurodivergent. Sorry neurotypical people. Well, because they would see things that looked out of place that the balance was slightly off or something was different and they could feel it and then dig in where someone else would not necessarily see that. So the pattern recognition looking for patterns and numbers, why so many of them make great developers, that’s a big part of it. Part of of being on the spectrum and having those issues, yeah.
Paul Thurrott
Yeah, definitely. I yeah. This is the eyes in the back of the head syndrome.
Stephen Rose
Yeah, absolutely. So nergigante divergent people have the ability to recognize where they can flourish. Hey, I’m good at this. I’m not good at this. And I say to people and like, well, you could be good. I’m like, no, I know I can’t do that. I am not good at that. And I’ve tried. It didn’t work out. And I’m not going to spend a lot of time trying to get better at that cause these are the things that I am good at. And where I’m going to go. They bring diversity into projects that companies can result in really unique, interesting ways of thinking. You take a look at Steve Jobs and how he thought and the things that he came up with were. So people say out-of-the-box, but it was really being neurodivergent that allowed them to look at things and say, why not when others are saying, oh, wait, we, you know, you have to have a keyboard. Why? Why? And they would explain to me he goes. Yeah, that you’re still not explaining why I don’t need it. And and it.
Paul Thurrott
Yeah, this is the ability.
Stephen Rose
Was because of. The way he looked at things, yeah.
Paul Thurrott
Sorry, this is the ability to kind of see past tradition almost right. Sometimes we forget why we do things a certain way, and no one really questions it. You know, and years and decades go by and it it takes a brain like that to finally walk in the room and say, what are we doing here? And it could someone tell me why? Yeah, and no one’s good.
Stephen Rose
Levels of imagination detail to, you know, pay attention to complex detail per survey. You know, looking at different types of information and in the workplace they find them in these people, not only boost productivity, but they asked that question. Why? Why? And that’s such an important thing. So, UM. I’ll leave it with this and then we’ll talk about our own journeys, which is, if you can’t see while you get glasses, you’re diabetic. Like if you insulin. If you can’t here you get a hearing aid, you lose a limb, you get a prosthetic one. But if you can’t make neoprene neoprene nephrin or dopamine, you’re penalized and that’s. It’s rough or you feel ostracized and you need to feel about.
Your neurodiversity the same way that someone that just needs to go get glasses needs to do it. It is just part of your life, and one of those things that you need to do. But insurance companies make it difficult. They make you feel penalized. And I know with certain drugs that I’m on, I’ve had to wait weeks to get it and I’m forced to switch to another one. And how that wrecks my system and it’s absolutely insane. So. With that, let’s just talk you and I about our own journey and kind of what we’ve done and how we’ve gotten to this point.
Paul Thurrott
Well, rough journey for me. But you got there first. I mean, what what was the? Was it the job troubles? That was the catalyst. You got the medication? Yeah.
Stephen Rose
Yeah, that was it. It was that. So I went in to my doctor and I talked with him and he gave me Adderall and said you need to go see a therapist and you need to go see a psych. I’m like, OK.
Paul Thurrott
Yeah. How long ago was this, by the way?
Stephen Rose
But got me on Adderall. It’s about 5-6 years ago. Now and within a week. Things were lining up. I’m like Oh my God. I’m able to remember things I’m seeing clearly and removing some of the the stress that I was building up over it. That combination of the anti anxiety in that was huge. But I found that after a few months, some of the things would wear off, so it was working with my site on how do I continually balance that? It was going to the longer acting drugs or getting off of that or ongoing to something called Biovance. I also talked to my daughter who was taking some of these drugs and how they helped her and what really did well and then it was seeing a therapist. To deal with. Some of the guilt and issues and things that I was feeling and some trauma from being bullied as a child that allowed me to sort of get to a really good place where not only was I managing this, but I wanted to help others manage it because I didn’t realize how bad it was until I was completely out of it. And looking back like. Oh my God, I was being unfair to my job. Unfair to me, unfair to my family. I was. Have I come home from work and I had no energy for anything and I wasn’t. I wasn’t present and I didn’t like not being able to be present.
Paul Thurrott
Yeah, I. I I have these instances in my life I can point to now with greater clarity than I had at the time, but one example, and I believe it was 20, it was either 2016 or 2018. I was we were in Paris, it was my wife and I and our daughter. And we went to Perla Chase Cemetery, and we went in through one of the back entrances, not the main entrance. And there was a sign there was a map of the thing. And I don’t the part I don’t remember is how it was organized. But in my brain, this was wrong. And it didn’t make any sense. And I just did. What I always. Do and I I blurred it right into. Anger. Immediate, you know, explosion. Of and I said why that would you know this be blah blah blah.
Whatever. Right? My wife, who was a sane, calm person and smart said. I think it’s arranged this way because of whatever I don’t. I don’t remember the way. And I said Ohh yeah, no, I could see that. And my daughter, she’s standing back and she’s. Excuse me. Did anyone else see this? And I said what she says you just exploded and then she explained why. And you calmed right down. And to me, at the time I thought, well, yeah, but that’s my superpower. Kelly, I said, you know, I I can escalate really quickly. But when confronted by the truth or the facts or whatever. You know, I’m like I’m good. And to me, at the time I thought, you know, this is great. I, you know, cause I’m not just going off the handle like I can. You know, I can listen to reason and whatever, but I see that slightly differently now. I would. Say yeah, but you know.
Stephen Rose
I’m sorry. That structure is is so important, and that’s something where I need to know what is expected of me and what’s going to happen and when things change, it is difficult for me. ‘Cause, I’m like, I know what to do. I know where I need to be. I know the next step and the step after that and that’s what’s important for me. I don’t like being at a. Point where I’m like. I don’t know what’s next, my. We’ll say, why don’t we just go drive to this part of town and go check it out? I’m. Like, well, what’s? There because I don’t know. And I’m like, I don’t want to go there and not find something I don’t like or this and that. Let’s do some research and do it. And she sees that as me. No, you’re not any fun. And I’m like, no, I can be. And then what I’ll do is I’ll go out on my own, go research someplace, find out all the stuff that’s there. And I’ll say, hey, let’s go do a day here. And she’s like, well.
Paul Thurrott
Yeah, I’m like, Nope, you gotta get.
Stephen Rose
You don’t do it when I suggest it, and I’m like because I did some research, I found out what’s there. I know what to expect and what the weather’s going to be. How long. Going to drive places to eat two or three places that I’m gonna like and enjoy to go to as well as ones that you are going to like. So I now know what to expect. And now that I know I can dress and act and be appropriate as opposed to walking into a situation. And cold and it’s not that I can’t. Do it but it. I have a limited battery and not knowing what’s going to happen and being thrown into that situation is going to use most of it, which doesn’t leave much leftover for the things that I have to do like drive back home when we’re done or things along that line, and eating and sleeping and doing things. At around regular times for me is also important for my mental and physical health diabetic as well. So those kind of go hand in hand for me.
Paul Thurrott
I reduce things like this to pithy little phrases, you know? So my my thing is always I I hate change. You know which is a very concise way of saying what you just said in a way, right? It’s I, I I can’t deal with. The situation being different, you know, I also don’t like it when I’m fully booked, whether it’s during the week for work or for a weekend. You know we have a something this coming week on a Friday night and something on Saturday night. I’m like, there goes my weekend, you know, right, which is goofy because I’m doing things with people I love and I should look forward to that. But even though I know what the schedule is, it’s pretty clear. But I’m still like, you know, it just doesn’t. Yeah, it’s just not right for me. I don’t. Know and what’s interesting.
Stephen Rose
Is dealing with change, yet you are in an industry and you are wrapped around 8 things that are changing and are different and are progressive and telling people hi. Here’s technology you should perhaps look at and leverage and not leverage. Which is kind of the opposite about how you are on personal things and that’s what’s interesting too is you can be doing a job whether you’re a developer, these sort of things and have one set of perspectives that are completely the opposite of how you feel about those things. Sometimes in your own life, the separation is interesting.
Paul Thurrott
I that sounds like I’m a professional hypocrite, which I which I like because I am but also. I it might explain the frustration of technology for me, right. I and I expressed that as technology has never failed me, which is I say with the sarcasm, because it has always failed me. Right? But. The the fact that things never work never work properly, always work differently is not what you expect in this world of ones and zeroes, which is what attracts people like us to this technology, you know to. This field and. Confronted by the reality of it, it’s, you know, it’s a lifetime of frustration, right? I mean, in some ways, I’m in the perfect place, but in some ways, I’m also in exactly the wrong place. You know, it’s the central hypocrisy, I’ll call it or. It’s just. No, it’s just what it is.
Stephen Rose
It is so your daughter and your son. How did they and your wife as you started down this journey and started on medication and all the other things. How did you talk to your family about this and them to you? And how is your relationship with them change?
Paul Thurrott
So this actually started with my daughter. She went to college and was always tired and couldn’t focus, you know, had a big test coming up and a friend of hers. This is a classic college story. When you think about it, it said here, take this pill. This will make everything. And God bless her. She took it, but she noted, and it was either vivance or that, or I don’t remember. But she noticed that. She actually could focus and she studied. She’s great on the tests and she said I need talk, you know. Tell me. Explain to me what this is and her or not a roommate, but a friend of hers at college had ADHD and was on medication. And so she went to a therapist and then a doctor, and was prescribed this herself. And it made a big difference. And you know, my reaction to this at first was negative because, you know what? We’re we’re in the second up generation where where those middle-aged guys, we were never getting help for this kind of thing. And, you know, I I could learn to suck it up. How come you can’t learn to suck it up, that kind of thing? No daughter of mine. You know, whatever.
Stephen Rose
Right.
Paul Thurrott
And it took me a little while to get over this, but The thing is. We, my wife and I would have a conversation about this and I said, well, explain to me how we know she has this. What? What are the the traits you know? And she would list. It was like that slide you had earlier was like. But I was like. OK, but you’re describing me, I mean, I mean, what? Why does Kelly have this right, you know? And she says. No, you don’t understand. This is the same thing, and and that’s a horrifying moment as a parent, right, understanding that maybe you played some genetic genetic role in this happening with her, but yeah.
Stephen Rose
Right.
Paul Thurrott
Is a new level of guilt for everybody to consider, but. My wife spent, you know, a couple of years, I would say, trying to convince me and and sometimes being a little passive aggressive about it, I I talk about how she’s I was very good. About here’s what we’re doing, remember? Don’t forget it’s someone’s birthday or this is happening. What? I mean, she would make an appointment for me with the and come home from the doctor. Say, hey, I got you an appointment. I said hold on a second. I’ll. I’ll do this on my own time. And I think I needed.
Stephen Rose
Right.
Paul Thurrott
I needed time to kind of come to grips with it, and by the time I saw you that July and you, you know, and you were telling your story to us at the table. Like I said, I I I drifted off. I don’t know how else to say it because I I was consumed by what you had said and realizing that this was the same.
Stephen Rose
Right.
Paul Thurrott
My wife and and and to be clear, she’s being funny with this, too. I mean was upset because she had spent so much time. That’s right. You said you talked to Stephen for 10 minutes and now you’re going to the doctor. You know, so that was a funny moment, but it still took a little while, right. I’m a procrastinator that you know, that factors in.
Stephen Rose
Trying to point this out. Would not listen. I would. Ohh yeah, or text you every few weeks. How are things going? Did you see the doctor? And we got on calls once a month and this is important that if you are someone who is neurodiverse and you’ve.
Paul Thurrott
Yes you would.
Stephen Rose
Are dealing. With it is, you know, helping someone else through that and saying Yep, how are, how is this going? You may want to change your Med. How are you feeling about this? If you lost some weight because of this, how are you looking at things differently and just seeing that progress is is is huge.
Paul Thurrott
I yeah. That I I I’d have to really think about the timing, but between that July and the time I finally went to the therapist first. You know a bunch of things happened. It was a big job change where I was separating from the company and.
Stephen Rose
Yeah, you were going. Through a huge amount of change.
Paul Thurrott
Yeah, we were going to sell the house right and downsize. We you know it, these are excuses in a way because life happens. It doesn’t matter. You could pick any point in time and things are going on or whatever. But there was that, you know, there was a bunch of big stuff, but by the time we got to the middle of last year, I had resolved a bunch of different things for myself personally that are health related. I was going to go and get on top of my blood sugar. I don’t want to become diabetic. I. Just gonna get on top of my weight. I wanna lose weight and then and feel better about myself. And part of it was the the mental health aspect and we and I, you know, I my wife again to her credit and to her saintly hood. Accompanying me to the therapist each time and also to the doctor because when you go to medical doctors and and you, they ask questions and you are so they don’t trust you, right? You know how we how you know you drinking a lot of alcohol? No, I never drink at all. Right, that that’s what they used to is people. It’s kind of like. And I wanted her there to be in both cases to say no, this is what’s happening, right? Cause I’m I’m here to tell the truth. Cause I want to do the right thing.
Stephen Rose
Right.
Paul Thurrott
For myself. And so I eventually was tested. And you know, it’s one of those, you know, I’m not a I’m not a genius. I’m just, you know, an average guy or whatever, but intelligent enough that I could overcompensate my whole life for these things that were going on with me. And that’s you. This test shows this, right? She she you know, she pointed very explicitly to certain things that pattern matching like you said. Was part of it. Wrote a report which I gave to my doctor and she prescribed Adderall, which I started taking. Think about the timing of this. I guess it was July right at the end of June, beginning of July, we were in Mexico for the month. And I and I. You know, I started taking Adderall and and noticed differences immediately, right? And there were funny things and and whatever, but I have always had these kind of freak outs. Like that time at the cemetery with the map and those those instances have gone down dramatically. In fact, I honestly can’t think of any fairly recently anyway. And we were flying home from that trip and sitting in the airport. And people had started lining up at our gate, even though it was, you know, half an hour or more before they were going to start hoarding.
Stephen Rose
All right.
Paul Thurrott
And I. I said this is weird. I I said look at these guys. I’m like, why would they? Why would they go up there right now? And I was like, are you joking? And like, what do you mean? She says. She says you’re the first one in line. Every time. This is the the only time I’ve known you that you weren’t there 1st and I was like, yeah.
Stephen Rose
Right.
Paul Thurrott
OK. You know, so you.
Stephen Rose
I would rather be 3 hours early than 5 minutes late.
Paul Thurrott
Kind of. Exactly. Exactly. Yep. Over prepared is always better than underprepared. You know so. I I mean, for me, I, I’ve I’ve look. I’ve always had good moments of productivity and so forth. This has been a bonanza. Half year or whatever for productivity, it’s been good. Some real moments of clarity, which I really appreciate. Obviously I’ve had some frustrating times as well. I mean, you know you in the I I’m a writer and so you know you experience. Let’s call it right is block for lack of a better term, but this frustrating experience when it’s a hard topic and you can’t. You want to make sure you get it right and you spend a lot of time going back and forth, you know, working on that. But I’ve also had, I mean, incredible bouts of productivity, which is very exciting, you know, for me, honestly, I mean, I love.
Stephen Rose
It one of the things that it’s helped me is. Knowing when to also say this is good. Good enough for me, nothing was. I would continue to work on something until I felt it was perfect and it would never quite be there, but. Unfortunately, would then turn on and go Oh my God, I just spent eight hours on this totally long time and full three other things to do, and now I’ve got to get those done in less time. It has helped me better to get to a point where I set an. Arm I block out time to do things on my calendar. My calendar’s not just for meetings, but an hour on this. Two hours on this and I get to that point, the alarm comes up and I go, you know what? This is good enough. I’m gonna leave it here. I’ll take a look at it again in a week. But I’m in a really good place. I don’t need to continue. You with this and it comes down to, am I going to add more value if I continue to work on it and I go, I probably won’t.
Paul Thurrott
What you just said is very smart and I it’s probably not just for writing, but I you know, I approach everything from that perspective. But walking away from something and giving it time, you’ll you’ll you’ll. Your brain works in mysterious ways. Our our brains, not your brain. All our brains. Yeah. And you know, everyone has had this experience where in the shower driving like. Oh, that’s that thing. I couldn’t think of or the whatever. I do this.
Stephen Rose
You don’t think about it allows the other parts of your brain to come forward, right?
Paul Thurrott
And then you then you fix it, right? Yep. So I I don’t do this explicitly, but I walk away from something. I’m in the middle of writing. And maybe, you know, it’s night time to go to dinner or watch a movie or whatever it is. And the next morning, I sit down. I go. That’s it, you know? And then right, that thing that you’ve done, whatever it might be. Again for me it’s writing but. Is all the better for it? And you could, I guess you could have rushed it and I guess you could have belabored it for a week, but sometimes it’s just that little pause. We kind of look at it with fresh eyes and say, yeah, there you go.
Stephen Rose
Yeah. Or you know what? This isn’t working. I’m trying to put a square hanging around hole. I should just start over again. I think the other thing, too for me was sleep because of the issues I had when I would go to bed, my subconscious would continue to work on the thing that my conscious was working on during the day. So I’d get really crappy sleep. I wouldn’t sleep well.
Paul Thurrott
Ohh God yes.
Stephen Rose
Sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night with an answer or something like that, and I learned I need to spend the time before I go to bed doing something that is completely unrelated to my day, whether it’s watching. Something humorous or reading a book or playing a game or doing something, but I have to do something that is. Right. And that really led me to work life balance at Microsoft. My whole thing was I would not check e-mail after 9:30 at night unless there was something huge that I needed to keep track of. I would not respond to emails before 8:00 in the morning from Friday at 5:00 until Sunday at 3. That was my time and I would not respond. And there are of course. Exceptions to that. When I go on vacation, I turn off, Outlook stays on, but I turn off the the alarms telling me that there’s e-mail and I go in every morning for an hour check e-mail, do stuff, and then that’s it for the rest of the day, I realized how much I need to unplug and have that other time and do things that are not related to work, which is even harder. When you work for yourself, because you feel like I’m not making any money moving forward, you have. Yeah, you do. Because then when you sit back down, you have the energy, the focus that you need to do that and if you.
Paul Thurrott
Oh, there’s a huge obligation.
Stephen Rose
You are staying up till one or two in the morning and doing. You’re going to miss obvious things. You are not being your most productive and you’re running that engine at Top Gear and it will break down at some point.
Paul Thurrott
This is true of physical health as well. If you go to the gym, you’ll see people just kind of sitting on equipment. Now. Granted, some people will literally be sitting there scrolling through Facebook or something and not really working out. But there there is this notion of rest between repetitions and that that. Healthy and important, it’s the resting is in many ways is as important to what you’re doing as the actual lifting of weight. And I think that’s true of the mental stuff. Yeah, I I there. There are times when my I would say from, you know, Sunday night through.
Stephen Rose
Yeah, the recovery.
Paul Thurrott
Thursday night, we watch a couple of hours of TV at night and when I say that out loud, it sounds like, Oh my God, you, you’re wasting your time. You’re never going to. Look back and wish you had watched more TV, but there’s an important winding down of the brain activity that occurs. You’re not doing something interactive on purpose. It’s really to go from that daytime high down to a you know, where you can go to sleep and your brain. Isn’t full of ohh I got to do this. I got to do this. I got to do this, you know.
Stephen Rose
Right. And your body gets used to that it and I, you know, I watch some shows with my wife. 9:30 I go upstairs, I give treats to all the pets. We do a thing. They’ll. Jump up on the bed. I give them all to you. And then I get ready for bed. And by 10/10/30 I’m in bed. Then I watch something. I’ll watch part of a movie part of this documentary, something that I’m interested in. I’ll read a book, but nothing that has to do with my job. And I have a light that dims over the hour and when the light goes off, I’m tired. I’m yawning and I fall asleep immediately because I’ve. Trained my body. Hey, OK, now it’s. I’m in. The brain goes. Ohh. OK. It’s time to wind down. Done with all that.
And time to go to sleep. It’s hard for me when I travel to try to keep that going, because now I’m not eating at regular times. I’m working at regular times and doing that. So I’ll get some Ambien that will help me to fall asleep at that hour and get on track and do those sort of things. All right. But it’s hard, but if you set yourself up. Those expectations for your brain if you’re having problems sleeping or things like that, I encourage you to try to do things each night. Maybe it’s having a cup of tea. Maybe it’s my dad. It was doing the crossword puzzle for him. Whatever that is, but doing it the same way as many nights a week as you can, and having those rituals and having that scheduled time. It was a huge thing for me and something I didn’t even realize I was doing until I looked back and saw what was the same with each day and it was that night.
Paul Thurrott
The pattern that occur. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I try to read every night before, you know, once I get into bed, I we both read and. Yeah. And same, I try to stick to it’s hard. You know, part of it is just our brain’s been trained for shorter form content because the web and the Internet and everything. But I try to read books, right that fiction books. Just to keep that skill going a lifetime reader, but also just like you said, don’t don’t don’t worry about the work stuff. It’d be very easy in my field to. Read about tech stuff you know 24/7.
Stephen Rose
Continue to learn. Yeah. And yeah, and that’s that’s great. I encourage people to do that. But you have to separate. You have to have work life balance I. Now I realized when I left Microsoft where I’d be going into the office 1-2 days a week that I was now at home all the time was not engaging with new people. So I now volunteer for four hours every Sunday at a local zoo and I spend 4 hours with the docent and I walk around and and every time before I’m going to go, I’m like, oh, I’m not in the mood for this. And when I get done, I’m like.
Paul Thurrott
Right. Which is amazing.
Stephen Rose
I’m so glad I did that because it’s four hours of not thinking about anything except chatting with folks and talking about the animals and helping out and doing that. And it has been so great and helping me to sort of reset my brain and get ready for the week and I and that and keeping social skills going, just small talk and things. Like that, finding that gap and doing that has been a really important thing for me, for mental health, and I didn’t realize how much. Right. Like so, you know, finding things like that, finding those types of things that work well for you are that and there’s great activity books, too, for adults, for neurodiversity, for things you can do in bed, you know, list your top ten favorite, whatever.
Or what would you do in this situation that encourages you to be creative and use other parts of your brain that you can find at bookstores? I’ve seen a ton of them, and I’m like, oh, that that’s a really great idea. Things along that. What are what are two or three habits that you would recommend for someone who’s now dealing with this as they’re going through it? They’ve recognized this. They’re hopefully going to their doctors and talking about it. What are two or three things that has really helped you to get, you know?
Paul Thurrott
Well, I mean, first of all, this is not so much a habit, but you have to advocate for yourself, right? That’s the first thing. Yes, you. You talked about this briefly, but I and I, I really want to emphasize how important this was for me. You. Did not let me go. You know I you we talked in July and you kept coming back and saying, how’s it going? How’s it going? What are you, you know? And you were very good about that. And I cannot even begin to explain how important that was and and and you’ve continued right I mean we’ve we you know you you’ll ping me every so often. And say, let’s talk what’s going on. You know, you’re great about that. And I having people like that in your life is is a. It’s a blessing, but it’s so important. I mean, that’s a big part of it. In my own role.
Whatever that might be, you know, I, as I’ve always been kind of transparent and not through any plot or plan on my part, but I’ve been writing. I write sometimes, in an editorial sense, about some personal things on my own site, and I’ve written about this kind of stuff and the physical health stuff. And you know, what you discover is that there’s a lot of people like us, you know, and. They they appreciate. This being expressed in public and in a way that’s not embarrassing or you know and. Just trying to be open to this kind of thing, I think is a big deal. I I I talked to my own friends, the kid, the kids, the guys, the 50 something year old man. I grew up with and when I see them, when I go back to Boston for example, and you know we’re all going through the same life phase or whatever we’re having the same kind of physical challenges. But I’ve talked to them about the the mental stuff and. This is, you know, they’re it’s uncomfortable for them. But I I feel that it’s important to.
You know, to do that, you know, you asked me about the kids and how that’s changed. I mean, because of my daughter and her kind of trailblazing this path, really that was not a problem. But you know, Mark, as our son has been incredible and. You know they. I you know, I don’t get, I mean this. They’re my kids. Sound like they’re complimenting me all the time, but you do get those moments where they’re like, you know, nice, you know, like you’re you’re doing something. Yeah. And living by example, is it? It is. In some ways, it’s. You know, strategy, right? I mean, I can’t, we can’t change the world, right. And and look, we’re not really, we’re not subject experts per se on this topic beyond the fact that we are in some ways experts because we have it and we we understand it better now.
Right. But we can at least tell the story. And people, you know, some people are gonna be like. Yep, that’s it. This is what I needed. I’m gonna go do this now. Gonna talk to my doctor. I’m gonna see what can happen here. Some people are gonna say Nope. You know, they’re not there yet, right? And maybe they never will be, but at least, you know, putting it out there is so important. Which is why when you were talking about doing this.
Stephen Rose
All right.
Paul Thurrott
Episode I. Yeah, of course. I mean, this is this is a no brainer. If there’s anyone out there. Who? I’m. I’m not gonna be calling you like Steven called. Me. Right? But. But if this helps even like a single person, I hope it’s more than that, honestly. But you know, but just helping this helping others is just that. Would that would just make this all worthwhile, I mean. I don’t know. I honestly a lot of it’s just self-awareness. And and not just self-awareness, but understanding what it is that’s happening, right. I talked about that freak out and how at the time to me this was a a positive and then kind of seeing it from a different angle and realizing you know. There are better ways to handle this that are healthier and and better for everyone around you too, right? You know, you don’t want to have that. It’s it’s kind of sobering to realize the negative impact you can have on the people you care about the most, right? And you don’t, really.
Stephen Rose
Like no, and in therapy. So important because as I started going through this, I realized my parents say, oh, you know, he’s the C student. He’s a plugger da da. And I realized, no, I didn’t need to be a C student or a plugger. I got A’s in class as I liked and didn’t do well another way because I was struggling and my brain couldn’t.
Paul Thurrott
Or you just didn’t. You would just not engaged. It was boring, you know, right?
Stephen Rose
Worse didn’t finish no right, and it’s not my parents fault because they came from a generation that didn’t know how to deal with this. But I was thinking, Oh my God, if I would have been diagnosed earlier in life.
Paul Thurrott
Depending on the problem.
Stephen Rose
I did. I just realized how much extra effort and energy I had to put in to do things. Sometimes two to four times more than someone who was. To go would have had to do and when you think about how much more you have to do to do basic things which you just start to accept as that’s just the way that things are, it takes me longer or I’m more exhausted. You start to go, Oh my God, your brain was trying to do what equals four of these or six of these in the same time or the same space that someone else was doing that. And you finally get to this point, you look back. Right. You know. Like I’ve been working really hard, almost too hard to do simple things that now I can do much easier and have time leftover and feel good. And you just you look back, but you can’t look back with, oh, my God, if I would have known you have to go starting today, I see that things are better and I’m just gonna appreciate that and enjoy that. And not go back to, oh, my God, what if I would have done this sooner? Cause it’s the one thing that everybody says. I wish I would have done this sooner. And you’re doing it now. That’s what’s important.
Paul Thurrott
Of course, yeah. Look. Yeah. The good news here is that for people of our children’s age, the world is a much better place in this regard than it was when we were that age. And so, in a way, there’s a hole here of people our age who grew up in that era and are not being taken care of. And they, you know, and unfortunately, you have to sort of self advocate still because you’re not going to get. Externally, for the most part, although like you know, you helped. And my wife tried to help. But it’s interesting, you know, my my son, who was deaf and had cochlear implants. If you grew up with me, would have been shunted off to a special Skills Center area, we’d never I would never would have met him. You know, he was mainstreamed into the same exact school system I went to. It’s a completely different world. And that was now 20 years ago. Flash forward. Yeah. Today.
Stephen Rose
Right.
Paul Thurrott
It’s even better. And and now we’re finally hitting on this kind of mental health thing. But don’t you know, I guess, don’t feel bad that you haven’t done it sooner because honestly, there probably was no opportunity for that. And as you said with the. The drugs that were available, if that’s what you need back 20 years ago, those were terrible anyway, so it’s a better world for this now it’s the right time. And uh. You know, don’t. Don’t let it, you know, don’t keep going the same way. I mean, I at least have the conversation.
Stephen Rose
Yeah, I agree.
Paul Thurrott
Whether it’s with a spouse or family member or friend, doctor, therapist, whatever.
Stephen Rose
Yeah. In wrap up, you know, many of you have insurance plans that allows you to see a mental health professional. Sometimes who you know, direct or indirect. If you feel that’s something you would benefit from, take advantage of it, go out and there are tons of online. You know things that you can do from good sources that will walk you through and help you to understand what are the issues that you may have. Go see your doctor and talk to your doctor. Look at seeing a therapist or psychiatrist and ask, are these things normal? And I’m. Not saying that medication is the answer for everything. Please don’t get that wrong, but medication can help and it did not dull. Me or keep me from doing my job. It made me sharper and allowed me to do my job better.
Paul Thurrott
This was yes, this was the fair I had. You know, what if this? What if I take a drug and it takes away the thing that is makes me successful or whatever it is, right. That makes me, you know, and it’s been described to me in different ways. But I don’t know if it’s you or my daughter or somebody said to me, you know. It’s probably going to amplify the things that you like about you and it’s going to dull the things that you don’t like about you, right? It’s not, you know, you’re not getting a lobotomy. You know, it’s not planet of the apes, right? Like it’s. I it’s restored a sense of balance.
For me, it’s it can be tricky because for a while, especially and maybe forever, you have to kind of tweak it from time to time, you know? That’s an aspect of it I don’t like. I don’t like to take medication, for one thing. I’d like to be off of medication. All medication. I don’t want to take any medicine, but I was. I was very happy to find out that my doctor, how open she was to all of this. Not just the physical stuff with the mental. Healthcare and and she’s been great and I think that’s important. I I don’t think enough. I think people dread doctors visits. Of course they do lie to doctors. I try to get out there as quickly out of there as quickly as possible and I I have a completely different relationship with my doctor now than I’ve ever had in my entire life, and it’s it’s excellent. It’s just excel.
Stephen Rose
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I think my doctor for saving my life in a way, not that I was going to die, but I’m now enjoying life and enjoyed the time when my daughter was home more and found new success. And I don’t think the transition that I had last year working for Microsoft and going to work on my own. That I would have been able to do it in the mental state that I was in before or handle it that well and. That that says a lot. So share this. Hopefully you have found, you know within this that you’re feeling a little less alone or you know it’s giving you some thoughts. I encourage you reach out to me via e-mail. Reach out to Paul the e-mail or in the comments. I’ve read the comments Paul on some of the articles that you’ve written and you’ve called me out and I appreciate it. And some of the things that people have said. You know, help others around. Have that conversation.
Paul Thurrott
Listen you you talked about a Doctor Who saved your life. I mean, in many ways you you’ve done that for me as well. I mean, telling my wife hear. Me saying that but but. She’s a little sorry about that, but she tried. Yeah. No, I mean, you’re. It means a lot to me. You know, it means a lot to me.
Stephen Rose
I appreciate that. Thank you. Well, that’s that’s the goal and now you need to help someone else. You need to find someone who’s going through that and be there for them and that’s how. You repay that is and I share this with people. I’m like, you’re not alone. You’re feeling guilt. Don’t feel guilt. And how this is affecting. Then they come back and they’re like, and I’m like, don’t ever say I wish I would have done this sooner. You’re doing it now.
Paul Thurrott
That’s right.
Stephen Rose
And you’re doing it for the right reasons and that, yeah.
Paul Thurrott
Right. You did it. Yeah. You did it when you were ready. And when the conditions were right for you. And that’s it’s this is a lot of this is external. It’s not. It’s not just about where you’re at.
Stephen Rose
Right. Not at all, but take advantage. Go out. Let us know how your journey is and make this the year that you put your mental health first, which will help you to put so many other things in your life 1st and it will make your life better in ways you cannot imagine. And we say that from the heart.
Paul Thurrott
Gets the foundation. It’s the foundation for everything else in your life. I mean, you really can’t be successful outside of. And if that until you figure this part of it out, I think it’s so important you don’t. You may not realize it until you know until after you would have wished for it, but it’s that’s true.
Stephen Rose
So on that note, we’re going to end it. I’m Steven Rose from unplugged it and with me is.
Paul Thurrott
Paul from Thurrott.com.
Stephen Rose
Check out our other not quite as serious podcast on timely topics and it type stuff and what’s new with copilot and Windows and copilot coming to the individuals and all that other good stuff we’re gonna.
Paul Thurrott
Sure. We still do the text.
Stephen Rose
Keep doing that. Though yeah, absolutely this this was important and hopefully you found some value from it. So thank you everybody. Have a great week and from the two of us, we’ll see you soon. Take care. Thank you.