The Neurodivergent Professor

As I move toward Episode 50 and what I hope to be a major shift in what I'm working toward with KEW, I realize how important Unlearning is.  How do we KNOW if we REALLY know what we THINK we know? Well, we don't. But we can think about it. And unlearning comes in to play as a necessary 'next step' for those of us who have ever asked this kind of question. Or questions like: Who...

It is my pleasure to introduce you to Bernhard Kutzler (www.bernhardkutzler/en/). After a lifelong career in mathematics, Bernhard went off the grid in a very huge way. He spent nearly 3.5 years in total isolation: away from his phone, tv, people, and all interactions. He forced himself to face his mind in an effort to ask the 'big questions' about being human. Who am I? Why are we here?...

Beliefs are things we see as truisms in our lives and regulate the decisions we make. In Episode 9 I talked about Old Beliefs . These are beliefs we learned as kids that protected us in some way, but no longer serve their purpose in our adult lives. The problem is, the old beliefs have been habituated and we continue to implement them. Many of us become aware of our old or limiting beliefs in adul...

For the seventh installment of the KEW Curiosity Interview series I had the pleasure of talking with Dan Tassone. Dan was introduced to me by our mutual buddy, Brian, who basically told me 'this is one of the most curious cats I know. You HAVE to interview him'. Well, Brian knows me pretty well because Dan was awesome and we hit it off quickly. Dan went to school for a long time (as we d...

In just about any kind of self help endeavor you will be asked to identify your values. While this sounds pretty easy, the process is far from simple. Turns out we like a lot of stuff. We 'value' many things. The trick is determining your top 3-5 values that truly drive you to live your life.  Over the course of ten years of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), or talk therapy, I read and...

Doing these interviews has been so much fun, and meeting new people (especially during the pandemic) is very nourishing. Getting to meet Dan Faill was no exception. Dan is exuberant, funny, has a lot of wisdom to share, and isn't afraid to be real about it.  For years Dan's directed Greek programs for colleges and you can tell he has a direct connection with young people (and he's s...

In Episode 32: Work/Life Balance I shared my thoughts about how to find time to meet all the various needs we have. In this episode I want to focus specifically on balancing time spent working toward our careers with time spent with our families. And for those of you without spouses or kids, your family can be your parents, siblings, friends, coworkers or any other people you value and spend time...

I hope you are enjoying this interview series as much as I am. Dana reached out to me because talking about curiosity sounded interesting to her. And she has some new and interesting points to make about the importance of curiosity in our lives. It's so much fun to listen to other peoples thoughts about how being curious is important to them. We are all unique, and even a simple topic like cu...

I am currently working on a larger project that will connect my background in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology with personal growth, psychology, and finding more joy and fulfillment in our lives. In Episode 43 I introduce some evolutionary evidence that every individual human is born to discover their uniqueness (despite how 'woo woo' that sounds), and how NOT doing so goes against evolu...

David McRaney is the host of the podcast "You Are Not So Smart", the author of a book by the same name, a follow up book called "You Are Now Less Dumb", and is writing his next book about how humans change their minds. His website https://youarenotsosmart.com is so FULL of content that it would be something you'd want to take to a desert island because you'd have a li...

As y'all may know, I have always felt a little different. Like an outsider. People in the 80s may have called me a 'nonconformist'. But as an adult I have learned that many people feel this way, at least some of the time. And, like I say in Episode 20: We all feel different (But we're all the same) , we all suffer from the imposter syndrome or feeling like we're out of pla...

I met DJ Doran when he reached out to interview me about my podcast. We hit it off rather quickly, and of course I had to have him on to discuss Curiosity. In fact, the whole Curiosity interview series was inspired by DJ! See, DJ told me my podcast made him curious, and he's a very curious guy as you'll see. And I realized that I am driven, in large part, by curiosity. It's in my da...

Recently I discovered, or I guess RE-discovered, my 13 year old self around the time I moved from Georgia to Ohio. I figured this was an important time in my life and have always wondered how it might have affected me. By exploring my feelings and thoughts, from my heart instead of my mind, I remembered my bedroom and what it represented. I realized that I had created this spot, at least partly, i...

Mandy Napier resides in Australia where she shares her thirteen years of experience as the 'mindset alchemist', a high performance mindset and executive coach (and via zoom, obviously). She has represented Australia in the international Iron Man competition in Hawaii. After being forced to give up her sport, she focused on getting herself unstuck. She now shares how she did it directly w...

Just checking in this week with some observations about KEW. It's been almost a year and over 40 episodes. I've learned a lot and am doing my best to deliver the highest quality content. If you are enjoying this content, please tell your friends.

We, as humans, are comprised of three key components; Head, Heart, and Gut that interact to make up a whole person. When these parts are out of synch, we experience cognitive dissonance - the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change. A simpler explanation is just to say we are 'out of whack'. Though I...

One of my greatest character flaws is being resistant to people. When I meet new people I often assume they won't like the 'real me' and this often prevents me from developing deep relationships. Sometimes this is protective, because some people might ridicule you or react negatively to who you really are. But the worst result from this type of approach is not giving people a chance...

With respect to economics, people often say that you have to grow to stay in business. I heard this a lot when I tried to run my business at a static level of production (i.e., no growth). I found that we actually HAD MORE MONEY left over when we controlled expenses and held production at the level of demand. I discovered that we spent so much money on growth that we were more profitable when we d...

Because I grew up without religion, I always thought faith was something you only had for religion things. Later I came to understand faith is something we have when we don't have enough information. Or we don't know the outcome, but we desire a certain outcome. Faith is believing. When I was becoming a scientist, I realized that faith even had a place in that world. Because science rare...

One of the things I think bout most often is how we have to have a job to earn money to buy the time we want to live our lives. It's like the life we're born with is secretly conditional upon participating in this loop. I'm not angry about it anymore, but I used to be. This forced agreement seemed unfair. Not that I didn't want to work, I just felt violated having my life be co...

After my divorce I did some serious soul searching (and therapy) to figure out what happened. I accepted that both parties played a part in the divorce and wanted to understand what happened. Multiple lines of evidence support that my ex-wife became narcissistic and I became codependent. Now, I'm not saying 'she is narcissistic' or 'I am codependent', but our relationship...

Before I 'retired' to stay home with my kids I was an academic research scientist. I taught classes, advised students, and led a research lab. I was pretty successful. The only reason I share that is to say I feel like I've earned the right to explain what science is, and what it ISN'T. In Episode 1 I shared a bit about what science is, and now I want to talk about what it is n...

WHO are you? WHAT are you? WHY are you?  On some metaphysical level we are awareness. We occupy a body on earth that abides by the laws of physics and biology, but what goes on when we think? When I meditate, or even when I'm just making decisions in my day-to-day life, I FEEL like 'I' (whatever 'I' am) comes from a spot in my head that encompasses my brain and my eyes. Th...

Do we have a soul? If so, what is it? Is it God? Is it Awareness? Though I learned a lot recording this episode, I still don't have a definition. But I think that's because the Soul is beyond human comprehension. We simply don't have the sensory hardware nor the vocabulary to describe it. The Soul is beyond this Earth or these bodies. But I find it SUPER fun to think about. Making t...

Have you ever felt like a slave to the 40 hour workweek? I know I never signed up for that, but I learned early on that to do the fun stuff I want to do I have to work for money to do it. Sure, I've had some hippie friends who tried a different tactic, and I even tried to pretend I could live on very little if I just didn't spend much. But, yeah, then I got married and had kids and, well...