I want to thank you for listening and for subscribing to Faster Than Normal! I also want to tell you that if you’re listening to this one, you probably listened to other episodes as well. Because of you all, we are the number one ADHD podcast on the internet!! And if you like us, you can sponsor an episode! Head over to https://rally.io/creator/SHANK/ It is a lot cheaper than you think. You'll reach... about 25k to 30,000 people in an episode and get your name out there, get your brand out there, your company out there, or just say thanks for all the interviews! We’ve brought you over 230 interviews of CEOs, celebrities, musicians, all kinds of rock stars all around the world from Tony Robbins, Seth Godin, Keith Krach from DocuSign, Danny Meyer, we've had Rachel Cotton, we've had  the band Shinedown, right? Tons and tons of interviews, and we keep bringing in new ones every week so head over to https://rally.io/creator/SHANK/ make it yours, we'd love to have you, thanks so much for listening!  Now to this week's episode, we hope you enjoy it!

——

Aubrey Hirsch is the author of Why We Never Talk About Sugar, a short story collection. Her stories, essays and comics have appeared in The New York Times, Vox, The Nib, American Short Fiction, Black Warrior Review, and elsewhere. You can learn more about her at www.aubreyhirsch.com or follow her on twitter @aubreyhirsch.  Today we’re talking with Aubrey about Imposter syndrome, embracing criticism, and enduring the word “no”, amongst other sweetnesses of the creative life. This is a goody, enjoy! 

——

In this episode Peter and Aubrey discuss:    

2:14 - Intro and welcome Aubrey Hirsch!!

3:35 - Tell us about growing up, how you became a writer, and how you learned to embrace hearing the word “no”.

5:40 - On becoming a professional writer.  Ref:  Duotrope

7:40 - One is a number. Oh yes it is! 

8:00 - How long have you been a full-time writer? Ref:  Aimee Bender

9:15 - On how it’s still sort of a “This is how it’s always been done” society. Ref:  “Black Boy” by Richard Wright 

11:03 - On getting over the Sophomore jinx

11:52 - On her teacher Maureen McKeil’s contextualizing rejection and keeping perspective

15:50 - Illustrations on Imposter syndrome 

16:50 - How do you deal with rejection and Imposter syndrome?

19:24 - The story of Peter’s first condo purchase

20:40 - On the battle between yourself- and You yesterday.

22:57 - How do you let yourself enjoy the successes you have achieved?

24:52 - What do you do to shut off, get away and unplug?  

How can people find you?  @AubreyHirsch on Twitter  INSTA and via her website www.aubreyhirsch.com  Her book “Why We Never Talk About Sugar” is OUT NOW!

26:11 - Thank you Aubrey!  Guys, as always, we are here for you and we love what the responses and the notes that we get from you. So please continue to do that, tell us who you want to hear on the podcast, anything at all, we’d love to know.  Leave us a review on any of the places you get your podcasts, and if you can ever, if you ever need our help, I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterThanNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 

27:13 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits

TRANSCRIPT: 

—

Hi guys. My name is Peter Shankman. I'm the host of Faster Than Normal.  I want to thank you for listening, and I also want to tell you that if you've listened to this one, you probably listened to other episodes as well of Faster Than Normal.  We are the number one ADHD podcast on the internet, and if you like us, you can sponsor an episode.  Head over to https://rally.io/creator/SHANK/ It is alot cheaper than you think. You'll reach... God about 25….30,000 people in an episode and get your name out there, get your brand out there, your company out there, or just say, thanks for all the interviews we brought you over 230 interviews of CEOs, celebrities, musicians, all kinds of rock stars all around the world from we've had... God, who have we had...we've had Tony Robbins, Seth Goden, Keith Krach from DocuSign, we've had Rachel Cotton, we've had  the band Shinedown, right? Tons and tons of interviews, and we keep bringing in new ones every week, so head over to https://rally.io/creator/SHANK/ and grab an episode, make it yours, we'd love to have you, thanks for listening.  Here's this week's episode, hope you enjoy it.

Hey guys, Peter Shankman welcome to our episode of Faster Than Normal. I hope you've been enjoying the summer. FTN has taken a bit of a break uh, to really just sort of get our brains back and do some travel and, and, and, uh, get outside and get some fresh air. It feels like about 16 months since we've gotten some fresh air. So it's nice to have done that, but we are thrilled to be back. And so glad that you stuck with us, although you probably just, this probably just auto downloaded and you didn't really have a choice as to whether because I mean, who knows how to unsubscribe to a podcast, it's the most annoying thing on your phone; they just show up and you dismiss them because come on, we don't have time for that. 

 

Anyway, either way. I am still thrilled that you're here and I want to welcome our guest this week. Aubrey Hirsch. Aubrey. I found Aubrey on Twitter because she's actually very, very funny. And she's one of the few people on Twitter who make me laugh without rolling my eyes and that is a feat of, uh, no small regard. So Aubrey is the author of Why We Never Talk About Sugar, which is sort of story collection and she's right. And she is a graphic artist. Her stories, essays and comics have appeared in the New York times, Vox the Nib, American Short Fiction, Black Warrior Review, and elsewhere. She lives online @ www.AubreyHirsch.com She is on the interwebs @AubreyHirsch, and Aubrey is joining us today from California, where hopefully the weather is better, actually. It's getting sunny out. All right. So maybe the weather is the same. Welcome, Aubrey. 

Thank you for taking the. Thanks for having me on.

No. Cool. I was amazed. You responded, you responded so quickly to my, I was, I was DM-ing you? Um, when I, when I say to the DMS that, Hey, I'd love to have new podcasts. I was actually on the Peloton bike and so my endorphins and everything were like sky high, which is why I sent you like seven messages in a row. Each one continued just a little bit more info, as opposed to just sending you one with everything. So apologies for that. Um, but yeah, you responded really, really fast and I really appreciate you taking the time. Um, so w we're going to dive into imposter syndrome. The, the, the, the, the, the, our conversation is going to center on that, and I'm entirely in that.

 

It's going to be some of that. Tell me about your sort of growing up, becoming a writer per se. Writers and, and are right up there with salespeople as, as being, as at learning the word, no at a very early age and learning to deal with it. So, you know, I'm assuming you were in school when you were pitching and you were, you know, getting out of school and you sort of writing, you sort of pitching your stuff and you got, uh, When I was doing it in college, I'm probably a little older than you, I would get at least a courtesy of a reply. Cause we had to do these by mail. Right. We'd have to send out pitching for weeks by a mail. Now it's just email. So, you know, the, when they don't respond to, they say no it's much quicker and in your face and more hurtful. So talk about, uh, what it was like starting out and how you sort of learned to embrace it.

Sure. Yeah, those were definitely some hard learned lessons for me. Um, like you, I started in the mailing era and how I got started is in college. I was actually was a chemistry major for the first couple of years and I took a writing class. Um, as a core requirement and for the final project of that writing class, our professor made everybody send a short story out to a literary magazine. So we had to learn the process. We had to put the cover letter together and we had to put it on an envelope and give it to her. She would look at it, you know, give us our grade and then she put them all in the mail. So I waited patiently as you do when these things happened by meal and definitely expected to know, you know, she told us everyone will get rejected, but that's how you are going to learn to get your first rejection. But, uh, I actually got an acceptance in the mail and was like, oh my God. You know? Well, this was like six months later. So it's like a different school year. And I told my professor and she was like, oh my God, you know, that's never happened before. That's so exciting. And so now of course, I feel like I'm some sort of genius, like who sells their first story that they've ever submitted. Like obviously, um, So, uh, I changed my major. I decided, well, maybe I hadn't better be scientists. I got some advice about, uh, getting an MFA degree, which is a degree I'd never heard of. And then of course I headed into like five solid years of nothing but rejections left and right. Like, not even like a positive thing where you get the rejection slip, but it appears that a human hand has touched it. There's like a little bit of ink on it somewhere. Or like, it's like the corners slightly bent and you're like, oh my God, like someone, uh, put this rejection and thoughtfully. No, it was all just like, we hate you. You have no talent. We wish you were dead. Don't ever talk to us again. It was like that. For many, many years, um, until I kind of figured out how to get like a little bit more strategic with it. And I found, um, do a trope, which aggregates statistics from writers who are accumulating rejections. And they'll tell you about like, Acceptance rates from different magazines and things like that. So I started targeting ones that had really high acceptance rates, figuring it'll just be good to have something in my bio because nobody knows these magazines. Like nobody knows them. All right. They don't know like one small literary magazine from another. Um, so as long as you just have something to say in your bio, I think that's helpful. I also started publishing poems. Um, because they're shorter. And so they take up less room in the magazines and magazines can publish more of them. So I published a couple of those. And then when I had a bio that started to look like maybe I was actually a writer, it became easier to get like generous reads, I think from staff. And then, you know, you can, like, I can remember seriously creating a course called pitching the strategy because that is. I've never. And I think that's probably the science side of you, uh, that, that comes in and looks at this as a, you know, as a, as a, as a, as an experiment, like, all right. My, my thesis statement is this, I'm going to test this.

 

I love that. But you went and looked at who has higher acceptance rates, and then use that. I remember. When I turned 30, uh, as I say, years ago, I wanted to, um, throw a party and I convinced a company, one company to sponsor it. And then on that strength, that one company, I send emails out to 100 different companies and said, I have a number of sponsors on the premise that one was a number and that's what you have to do. Right. And so, so it works. 

That's awesome. It is. 

So how long have you been to, how long have you been writing now and, and calling yourself a writer and, and pitching and getting kind of gets easier. I mean, over time you start to develop the relationships with the editors and things like.

Definitely. Yeah, it gets easier. And people start to like, know you a little bit and you start to have people who ask you for work. Um, which is great. I, that's a good question. I mean, I, I always liked to write when I was little. I think I just, I thought, you know, because in school we, we never read writers who were alive. You know, until I got to college. So I kinda thought like, saying that you want to be a writer was like saying one should be like a blacksmith. Like, it would be fun, but you missed the window, right? Like that's, that's done now. The books have all been written. So you have her find something else to do and no more books to write, sorry, that's it it's over. And then when I was in college and I read like Aimee Bender and so I was like, oh, damn, like, oh, okay. Like chicks do this. Oh, that's cool. And then like, you could do this now and you can do it like, so it sounds like more interesting. And you're talking about like more, um, current topic. Like I know that like, sweet. Uh, so it started in like a more concerted way then, like in college. And then I went right from college to my MFA, which is a funny story also. And then, um, you know, it kind of went on. I think that's one of the problems that you've, you've touched on the problems is that is that we are still very much a that's the way it's always been done type of society.

 

Um, you know, I can list every single book that I was required to read in junior high or high school. And then on a much shorter list, I can, I can remember every single book I was required to read in junior high or high school that actually touched me. Um, you know, and I remember, uh, the, the one that did and still to this day does, was Black Boy by Richard Wright.

And I have probably read that. A dozen times since I had to read it in high school. And, you know, I mean, I love Shakespeare and I read ByroN and things like that. But, but to look at, um, the stuff that we were sort of forced to read it, put, I think every student has, it's very rare to have a student that doesn't get that bad taste in their mouth because they're forced to do it.

Right. And they're forced to do it. People that died 300 years ago. Any words that aren't spoken today? Um, you know, I remember, uh, when I was, I think it was in college when, uh, Bosler, mins, Romeo and Juliet came out with Claire Danes, Claire Danes, who now is the mother of my daughter's school friend, which is just weird shit because she's two and nothing else, but I'm in my head but you know, I remember watching that movie and hearing Leonardo DiCaprio speak in, in Shakespearian. Okay. Okay. Now it makes sense, right? Because when you're reading something by a 400 year old dead guy, everyone in there, no matter how, you know, Juliette was 13 by, she sounds like a 400 year old dead woman and so it takes that, you know, you have to sort of look, I don't think we're smart enough at that age to sort of put that into perspective. So, so you have been doing this for years and let's, let's move on. Let's talk about the concept of rejection because you said, yeah, I got my first hit and then nothing for fighting.

 

I mean, that's actually, I went out on my own for the same reason. My first job with America Online was fun. And when I got laid off from there, I got my second job, assuming it would be fun. And every job after that sucked and like, that's okay; you, you experienced the, not the norm to begin. So that knocks you around a bit because you're like, wait, this is supposed to be easy.

 

It was easy. The first. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely did have the, the very, very, very deep seated fear that like, oh, maybe I just only had that one bad story in me. Like, did I, did I peak? Did I write my one good story when I was 19? And then that's it. That's all I got. I got nothing. Um, and that, that was hard, you know, it didn't feel good, obviously. Luckily for me, I had a very, very good undergrad professor Maureen McKeil a science fiction writer. She's the one who had us do that final project to send out a story. And because she wanted to get out in front of it and insulate us from the terrible feelings of rejection, she put it into perspective. In a way that when I was teaching, it was like my only goal as a professor was to do that same, give my students that same gift of like contextualizing the rejection to say, this is not personal, this is not a comment on your talent, this is not a prediction of the future. This is one particular reader on one particular day. And that one particular magazine took a pass. You know, it's not that deep and you shouldn't take it like it is. That was incredibly helpful for me. And I think it allowed me to like kind of power through all those years. And I also think those years are really important too, because when I wrote that first story, I didn't have any foundational fiction writing education. I was just. Writing it, you know, I was just writing a thing that was in my brain and I put it on the paper. Right. Then I had the unfortunate experience of getting a lot of creative writing education.

That were like you no, no, no, no. Showed on towel. Like, no, no, no. Not with that. You know, like this is too fast, this is too slow. Um, and also this like constant. Forcing into us of like the quiet domestic realism of the stories that you read in graduate school. Right. Of like the, the man at the bar smoking and like the, the guy in the unhappy marriage, uh, at home breaks his glasses. And that's the huge, like pivotal moment of the story, like the broken whiskey glass, you know, or whatever the thing is. And that was just not, I think what I was supposed to be writing, but I was trying, and it was not good. So it wasn't until after graduate school, when I kind of like. She was able to shake that off and no longer had to give my manuscripts to 10 other students who were in the same class and think about, you know, what they were going to say. It's like, you can almost run the workshop in your head and you're writing to those people. I was just writing it, you know, for myself that I kind of rediscovered the kinds of things that I wanted to write about. And that was when I started getting published. Freer. I mean, a lot of what I remember. 

Uh, you know, when I first started, cause I have, I have a journalism background as well, I mean, I, I went to BU as a Journalism major, and I remember that a lot of what I was dealing with at the time was writing things in a very specific way that they wanted to see them, even if it didn't feel right. And when it didn't feel right, I had a really hard time getting it on paper. Um, I have my editors now for all of my books and they're like, We we know exactly what you want to say, we just need to clean it up a little bit, but you know, how did you, how did you come to the point where you just got it down? I'm like, I literally just, I, I booked a flight somewhere, sat down for eight hours and rode, I vomited out for eight hours and here's, here's the result. Um, but yeah, you, you, you are, you're taught, I think the same thing also as a kid in like math class. Showing my work was always horrible, but I was never going to show you my work, but I could get the right answer in my head and that should be worth something that's going to, if I ever start an education, like a cult, it's going to be even not having to show your work; that's something I think, um, talk for a second. So, so, you know, getting, and I'm sure you still get rejected from time to time, right? We all, we all have that, um, you know, going after a speaking gig, someone else gets it. I wanted it, whatever. So the teacher gave you that brilliant, brilliant insight, the concept of not taking it personally. And I wish someone had told me that the same way. I mean, it's still, uh, it still stings, right? It doesn't sing anywhere near as much. And I've worked really, really hard. And I, you know, with a wonderful therapist for like 20 something years, I'm about nine you're saying, but the concept of imposter syndrome is all too real no matter what you do, it is an existing thing. It, it exists. It's there. Um, It is. I find it's very easy. Uh, when it comes to imposter syndrome to go down a spiral where, you know, you start with one thing and then you happen to notice another thing and you happen to all of a sudden you've, you know, it's like when you see a red car and then you see 50 red cars, all of a sudden you've seen every single, uh, insult or, or, or response to a tweet or whatever. Um, you haven't seen any of the positive ones because you're not looking for them because you're so now focused. On the negatives and assuming you're the absolute worst person in the world. Right. So, and, and, and for guys, you got to see what, what, what, what Aubrey tweeted? Um, a couple of, I guess we, couple weeks ago it was from money Python. It was the, uh, oh, it's just a flesh wound. It's the, guy's getting his legs cut off in his arms, cut off. It's brilliant. And it's exactly that it is how you feel, but you get enough of those slush wounds and, and you're gonna die. Right. And so what do we, so what have you learned. That you can share with the audience in the world? How do you deal with it? Because you know, as talented as you are sometimes, we are not going to please everyone. Definitely. 

 

I mean, well, like, first of all, for clarity, I definitely want to say it still feels terrible, you know, it's, it's always painful. It doesn't feel good. And I think especially now, like in the age of Twitter, you're on there for five minutes, get consumed with professional jealousy. You know, it's like here here's, everyone's like publisher's marketplace screenshots and oh, look, I'm an indie bestseller. And like, oh look, I'm a finalist for this award that you have never even heard of. And like, can't wait to go into my writing residency. Yeah. You know, whatever fancy it's, it's really hard. It's just, it's all in your face all the time. And of course not enough of us are talking about. The rejections alongside of those things. Like, it's not like here's my one tweet about my birthright writing residency, and here's my 15 tweets about the ones that rejected me for all these years. And some people do. And I always love seeing that, but you know, we have to like, keep that in mind for context also, I think like it's helpful to. I always think about the most insidious part of imposter syndrome being the kind of like moving goalpost. I did a panel at AWP one year about imposter syndrome and one of the questions they asked us is like, when did you start to feel like you belonged there? And I was like, um, I'm still waiting. I don't know. I remember going, I remember going there like as a grad student and being like, well, I, you know, I've only published one thing, so obviously I don't want it. Then once I'd published many things, it was like, okay. I post many things, but like, I, I don't have a book. I mean, you got to have a book. Right. And then I had a book and it was like, well, it's short stories. It's not a novel, you know, I haven't published a novel, so I don't really go on here. It's like, I have a teaching guide, but it's not tenure track. It's like, well, okay. I have a tenure track job, but you know, I'm not like the fit and you can't, you'll never get it. Like, it's always, the next thing is. I'm going to make you feel secure in your identity, your professional identity. And I think like the sooner that you can come around to that idea that it's not real, the easier it is to kind of live in the feeling of your professional identity that you have now. Um, and that kind of like makes me feel more comfortable.

That’s a brilliant way to think about it. It was funny when I sold my last company. Um, I've never told this story before, and I can tell you because you'll, you'll appreciate that reference. Um, I sold my company around the same time that someone, the person who owned media bistro sold hers. Um, and we all know who that is. Lovely, lovely person invited me. I had just sold my company and it was about a year later and I had just bought my apartment and we were in touch and she invited me over to her house or her apartment in the city was she had just bought as well. And I was all excited cause I had this, I bought this two bedroom condo and man in New York city a two bedroom condo means you've made it! And I walked in and she had bought a floor. And the top floor and it had roof access and she's like, oh, you gotta look at the outdoor shower… and when I got home I remember walking in and saying I hate this fucking apartment and just three hours ago it was the greatest purchase of my life. Yeah. And that is literally what we do. And, and, you know, I had someone, a friend of mine said, dude, there's always gonna be a bigger, yeah. He goes, where is the apartment you're in now bigger than the one you're in 10 years ago. He's like, start there, you know? 

 

And that's, that's a good way to think of it, but you're right. There's always going to be someone. And, and what you mentioned about seeing everything online, of course, no, one's going to post their crap days. 

I, you know, I'm training for a big iron man triathlon right now. And I post, you know, after every run, I, I post a great run with a great times as opposed, to the eight fucking two times I used to even stayed in bed all day. You know, we don't share that stuff. So I think that the battle has to be between you, and you yesterday. Between you and everyone else. 

Yeah. I think that's a great way to look at it. And I also think we describe other of people's successes to like their talent and hard work.And we just, we describe our own successes to like a lucky break or like a weird, like, I remember when I would always read Modern Love in the New York Times and be like, oh my gosh. And I would see people Facebook status, like. I would be like, oh my God, I'd be like consumed with like jealousy and burning inside. And then I published a column in Modern Love and I felt very much like, oh man, I don't know how I snuck in there! Haha! Like, like no, and people would be like, oh my God, I'm so jealous. And I'm like, really? It's like, it was nothing, you know, it was just like a weird, random, like lottery draw. Right. But of course, when it's you, it feels like that when it's everyone else, it doesn't feel like that that's phenomenal.

I mean, the story that I tell to everyone is every morning I wake up and I'm sure that today's gonna be the day that the New York Times has a front page story on how I'm such a fraud. And it's all love every day when they don't well obvious, obviously, because I'm not important enough because you know, time to do a front page story. It is literally every single day. And, and, and somehow we wake up and we put on the face and we, we, we, you know, Get dressed and we get out there and we do it again. But yeah, it is, it is brutal, um, in that regard because it is very, I think that the more success you have, the easier it is for imposter syndrome to reel its rear its head, because you just get there, the more success you have, the more you're surrounded by other successful people. And if you're believing that yours is the only one who's fake and everyone else is real, it's constantly become, why are they letting me to this club?

 

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And there's always going to be the thing that's going to, you know, prove it to yourself. And then when you achieve that thing, the next thing is just right there. Just out of reach. So talk to me to two more questions. Talk to me. Number one about how do you let yourself enjoy the successes?

 

Yeah. Oh man. Yeah. That's that's tough one. I don't know. I mean, I definitely do. I definitely do enjoy them. You know, like whenever I have a piece go live, I get excited. It feels really good. You know, like I tweet it and then I, I like very excited to watch my notification. To get that sweet, sweet internet validation that we all need. Um, you know, I have gotten to a place like where I really truly hate to say this out loud because I sound like an asshole, but where I can kind of like see it for its own thing and feel good about having made it, you know, like all be like- I'm proud of myself because I made this thing and it looks really nice or like, oh, my drawing skills are getting better or like I'm getting faster. You know, that's the thing I've been working hard on too. It's like making a comic in a shorter amount of time and having the quality of it. And it's kinda, it's like a nice place to be where you can get like a little bit and, you know, don't worry. Like I still definitely run on Twitter likes, but I have like a little bit of, uh, internal validation happening.

 

That's phenomenal answer. 

 

You know, it's the ones that I post that I don't, that I think are just whatever that wind up getting, you know, 15,000 likes. And then it's the ones that I really worked hard on to fight you. People are idiots, this is gold all the time. Totally. You can't predict it. Like there'll be a comic 30 hours making it and like, I've researched it like crazy and I think it's like so good and brilliant. And it's like 18 likes and two stars and then it's like you post a selfie in the car where the light is really good and it's like 3000 likes. You're like, what the fuck? What are we doing here? 

Last question I want to ask you; I want to respect your time. Um, tell me about. What you do to shut down? What do you do to shut off? Where do you go? How do you get away? Cause it's it's it does seem like us like me like that. You're you're, you know, you live online. So when you shut down, when you shut off, where do you go? What do you do? How do you make that a part of it? 

 

Hm. Um, yeah, that's a good question. Well, I don't have a ton of time to do that because I have two small children and as I'm sure, you know, there's still childcare crisis going on. Um, but I do like, I'll play like dumb games on my cell phone just to kind of like spend some time associating or I will, um, binge watch, terrible television. I have watched. I'm not too proud to say that I have watched two full seasons of Bachelor in Paradise from beginning to end, the whole thing I've watched. Um, yeah, it's really not. It's really not. Or like, I'll watch a movie that I've already seen before, you know, that's just like a comfortable place to be. And I know that I know exactly what it's going to do to me emotionally. It's not going to, there's no surprises there. You know, I can just like fold laundry and like, let that kind of wash over me. 

Very cool. This has been a lot of fun. I really appreciate you taking the time.. 

 

Guys talking to her Aubrey Hirsch. She's the author of Why We Never Talk About Sugar, a short story collection. Uh, you can find her at www.AubreyHirsch.com and she's on Twitter where I found her @AubreyHirsch  She's a very quick responder, I'll give her that already. Thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it. This was wonderful.

 

Thanks so much for having me. Next time you have something to promote. You have a story out. We'd love to hear. Awesome.

 

Guys is always Faster Than Normal. If you like what you heard, we'd love it if you left us a review, everyone does, you should too. You don't want to be the one person who hasn’t done it, but you can find us on www.FasterThanNormal.com you can find a single podcast. You can find us on Spotify on Amazon. You can even find us on Alexa. You can literally say Alexa, play fasterthannormal.. Crap. My Alexa is just totally gonna play that now click on the.. cancel!@ but it'll do it. And any way you want. And if you have a guest that you think would be as cool as Aubrey, let us know, you can send me an email. Peter@shaman.com DM @fasterThanNormal or @petershankman and we will get that guest on the air. Thank you so much for listening. Our producer is Steven Byrom. He is awesome. We love him. [He loves We too even though this transcript may not be 1million percent perfect]. Have a wonderful day. We'll see you next week, ADHD, and all neurodiversity are gifts, they are not a curse keep reminding yourself of that! Talk soon.

——

Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at petershankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by byrom.squarespace.com/musix">Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week.