#41 The Gift of Creative Processes (and ADHD) with John Gomez
“Life as a speech-language pathologist is not perfect...but you can have fun and make progress”
BIO
John Gomez was born and raised in Northern New Mexico. He attended Colorado College where he earned a degree in Philosophy and American Ethnic Studies. He graduated from California State Los Angeles University with a Master's degree in Communication Disorders in 2009. Presently, he works as a Speech Pathologist for the Los Angeles Unified School District. He is also part-time faculty at Cal State LA where he teaches a graduate-level course on stuttering and a course on psychosocial considerations. In 2017, CSULA honored John with the Lois V. Douglass Distinguished Alumnus Award. John also moonlights as a filmmaker. In 2012 he established Keen Eye Productions, LLC. His first feature film, WHEN I STUTTER had its world premiere at the Cleveland International Film Festival on April, 2nd 2017. The film recently won the "Supporter of People with Fluency Disorders Award" from the International Fluency Association. WHEN I STUTTER has been lauded by many organizations and associations for its ability to effectively raise awareness about people who stutter and their challenges in life. The film has won 7 awards, been an official selection in over 15 film festivals, and has been translated into over 11 languages.
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform. You can also watch the interview on YouTube.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
0:00 - 3:08 Intro
3:08 - 9:42 Mateo’s Story
9:42 - 14:17 How to Support Mateo
14:17 - 23:02 Advice from Mateo
23:02 - 24:52 When do you initiate
24:52 - 26:27 Angel Man
26:27 - 32:17 Soul Bowl
32:17 - 34:22 Film
34:22 - 37:05 Story
37:05 40:00 Pitching Stuttering
40:00 - 44:50 Where to Find Mateo
44:50 - 50:13 Mateo’s Youtube Channel
50:13 - 52:45 Where to Follow Mateo
52:45 - 57:22 Comments
RESOURCES
MORE QUOTES
TBD
TRANSCRIPTION:
John Gomez: Just for you by the way. I know. Yeah, you
Uri Schneider: look the black shirt. Look at oh, oh, oh. Cut. Okay, well take take two. This is season two of transcending stuttering. We are, we are renaming this whole thing and here's, here's the thought, and we have no one better than John Gomez with us now. My good friend and coach and.
Collaborator, Dan Greenwald, um, who was with us back in Queens when we did the screening in person 2019 with Sadiq and Dan and John and Dr. Phil and myself. So Dan has this idea, transcending stuttering, catches it all. It was the name of the movie back in 2004. Transcending, stuttering, the Inside Story.
Mm-hmm. . Then there was the sequel, I think it was in 2010, that was, um, going with the flow guide to Transcending Stuttering. And now we've got this, this framework, this online course and groups, group experiences for teens and adults and for s l training. And John, you know, where I've learned the most. here, right?
Through conversations, through conversations with people who stutter, right? With conversations with colleagues, um, there's nothing better than sitting around and spending some quality time getting real, as opposed to reading something in a textbook or downloading it and printing it. A, you know, printing it out or doing some online lecture that you kind of check in, you take some notes, then you move on.
Maybe you remember a thing or two, but within a day or two, you're doing the same thing you were doing before. Totally agreed. So this whole, this whole journey for me to be selfish for a second, is all about the r and d, right? Research and development. I learned so much from these conversations and from those meetings that we have with other people, people who stutter, colleagues and specialists, and also people outside the field of speech, language pathology.
And I'm hoping that this year we'll bring. , you know, a lot more of that. You bring a lot of facets, but that's my intro. Just to say that season two, we're starting, we're gonna call it the Transcending Stuttering podcast with Ur Schneider. And I'm basically inviting all of you who are watching now, and please share comment like.
But now you can find all of these episodes within a few days, but now 40 episodes are already up on every podcast platform. And this season two, we've got an amazing lineup, almost half the year, filled up with some amazing, amazing people. Uh, you can check it out on the website, schneider speech.com/events or on Facebook events.
We'll always post it there. Give us your feedback. Let us know what you like. Let us know what you don't, what can we improve? We've got some music intros coming in. If you wanna check out the music intro, check out episode 39 with Matthew Bea. But, um, the idea is I am driven to have these conversations to learn, to listen, to grow.
I don't stutter, but I care a lot about people who do. And the, the side benefit or the gain, as Chris Constantino likes to say, for people who stutter sometimes. And as in your film, right, stuttering can be a great teacher for people who stutter. Absolutely. It can be a very harsh, very harsh teacher sometimes.
Mm-hmm. . Um, but for those of us that don't stutter, I think no less, I think that stuttering as we were talking before we got on, is a universal, it's something people can relate to, uh, when you start to understand it that it's this invisible thing that might make you hold back. That it's this thing that's so important to you.
But not everybody realizes how significant it is to you, but it plays a big part in the decisions you make in life. It's much more for many people as they grow up, it's much more than just an interruption in the speech signal. And so I'm inspired by people who stutter. . I cry in the struggles and challenges of people who stutter.
And I also cry when I get a phone call about someone who got a job or ordered the coffee they wanted or asked out that guy or that girl or got engaged or had a child. And looking back, they don't remember that at age 17 they wondered if anyone would ever love them. They wondered if they'd ever make it.
They'd wondered if they have meaningful work. So it's inspiring and it also challenges me because if we're gonna be there to support, to help, to guide people who stutter, I think those of us who are parents, teachers, professionals, we need to be ready to do that real work ourselves. Cuz you can only give what you're ready to walk.
You know? You gotta walk the walk, not just talk the walk. Yeah. So with that being said, , it's awesome to see you brother and uh, good to see you. Glad to have everybody here. I'll do a quick intro. If you don't know the presence of greatness, John Gomez. From la. He is a speech language pathologist in one of the biggest districts, I think.
What the second biggest school district? Like the largest? Yeah, that's correct. After which one? Which is the biggest,
John Gomez: uh, you know, it's, I think it starts with an N. Um, I believe it's, um, New Hampshire, new
Uri Schneider: something. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's New York City, but uh, it's got new.
John Gomez: Okay. New York.
Uri Schneider: But that's close.
That's okay. Now John also is a professor at Cal State University. Uh, he teaches the psychosocial considerations in grad level stuttering on the side. He finds time to produce films. His feature film, when I stutter, is considered to be absolutely groundbreaking, uh, in Tom Stein's words. It changed the game.
Uh, the film has won awards. It's been translated to more than 11 languages. He was honored with the distinguished alumnus. , uh, he is just absolutely awesome and he's up to a lot of great things. We're gonna have a great conversation. It's great to have you, great to have all of you here, drop your comments, your likes and shares so that John's message and stories can reach more people.
Well, brother, it's just
John Gomez: good to be here. Thanks for having me back. And, um, again, you know what I, what I started before we, before you even officially started this, I'm like, this guy is the hardest working guy in show business right now. So, you know, I I, I'm seldom on social media these days, but I'm flipping through and if I do, I am.
I I always run into something that you've posted, but now in addition to this, you're also doing a podcast, correct? Well, this is the podcast. You're on this, no, this is the podcast, but it's, it sounds. Like I, I'm sorry. Well, I misinterpreted that. I thought it was something additional. So this is also going on to like Apple and Stitcher and all those other things in addition to being on social media,
Uri Schneider: right?
So we can talk about that when you wanted to talk to how, how do we do different things? So I'm happy to open up like the life hacks and, and the workflow that I've created. No, no, no. We're here to
John Gomez: talk about other things. I get that. But
Uri Schneider: that's important too. That's important too, I think. How do we, when we wanna accomplish things, we've gotta find ways to get things done without just adding and adding and adding to the plate.
So I do think that when you're saying John, you know, like, oh, you're doing this and you're doing this and you're doing this, and then I could say to you, well, actually, uh, this conversation is being on Zoom. It's being projected onto Facebook Live. And then, uh, that Facebook Live, because we host it. If we have the recording of it, we can pull the audio off the back Completely Makes sense.
Yeah. Throw a little intro clip on there. Maybe a little post editing for the people that are not as sound efficient and crisp as you . Um, but for the most part, I apologize for the sound quality, but that's one of the things also where I say, you know what? Good enough. And I think 20 20, 1 of the things that Dan Greenwalt has been saying to me, the lesson of 2020 is that 70 is the new a hundred.
Meaning if you can get 70%, forget about a hundred percent. If you can get 70%, it's good enough. So I'm going with the good enough model. Okay. And we just repurpose this recording. It's happening live. People can comment, question, share. It lives on Facebook. We got thousands of views on each one. It's wild.
Uh, with people's help. They get near and far. Yeah. And there are grad students that benefit. There are people in countries where there's nobody talking about stuttering and they're tuning in and they send messages like, wow, thank you for giving me access to John Gomez. I can't believe I asked him a question.
Um, Seriously, and there are speech language pathologists who feel like they're. more attuned as they're listening to people who do research or people who are really doing this work at a high level. And most of all, hearing the true life stories of people who stutter. So we just take it a content and then it's called repurposing.
We would love if anyone wants to pull out more highlights. We ran a little contest, gave away AirPods. I think Brian Christopher won them. But uh, if you listen to this and you see something you like, An email or poke it down in the comments and we'll take that little excerpt and we'll turn it into a post cuz there's so much gold.
So, uh, that's the way we do
John Gomez: it. Oh, I think that's really smart. I, I, I, for some reason I thought in addition to this, he's also doing that, but that makes Oh, that'd be crazy sense to re . Well, that would be nuts. Well, some somewhat already say your schedule is kind of crazy, but hey, uh, crazy is what makes the world go around in a good way.
There you go. Most of the time. Yeah. Yeah.
Uri Schneider: Um, so what are you up to? How are you keeping outta trouble?
John Gomez: Uh, well, I'm not, you know, cuz if you're staying outta trouble, you're not having fun. Um, but it's, it's, it's good trouble. Right. There's a, there's a documentary out there by John Lewis, uh, the Great John Lewis, uh, called Good Trouble.
And it's, um, you know, I'm, I'm staying, I'm staying busy. , which has really helped keep me sane, you know, during this time. Uh, to, to say that it's been tough on people is the understatement of the century. Um, it's been catastrophic for a lot of people. Um, for me, I've taken the time to get a lot more physically fit, which, um, was actually recommended to me by a Kristen Camilla, you know?
She said, cuz I, cuz I thought, well, you know, maybe I need to engage in yoga or mindfulness or something like that. And she's, I said, but, you know, I, I find that when I do that, a lot of my frenetic energy goes away and I don't feel as creative. And she's like, well, why don't you do something more like, you know, weightlifting, you know, and I'm like, it, it, it just, it's, it's never underestimate the power of a simple suggestion in somebody's life.
So I didn't need to go and take like this extensive exercise course or read an entire book on it. It was just really from that suggestion, I'm like, Hmm, what would happen if I started doing a few pushups and pullups every single day? So I've been staying in shape. Um, and we can talk more about this. Uh, I've been working on the next film, uh, quite extensively.
Um, you know, we, we've changed directions slightly on that and I'll share that with you cuz I think that'll be of great interest to you. And I've, I've been lucky enough to keep, you know, working with, uh, LA Unified and at the university. You know, it's just, it's, it's been a, it's been a, it's a privilege to be able to continue to work in this environment.
So I, I consider myself very lucky.
Uri Schneider: Awesome. Yeah, you're looking good and it's so important. It's, uh, it's always important to keep moving, but all the more so in the sedentary, uh, zoom schedules that many of us have are, yeah. Locked down. Depending where you are. Everyone's gotta stay safe and stay well, but you can't, you know, Basic rules of wellbeing, which like take care of your mind.
Take care of your body, take care of your spirit. So diet, fitness, emotional connection, social connection one way or another. Absolutely. Sleep is an often over overlooked one. I know that's a soft spot for you, , but just sharing. If anyone's not tuned in and you're feeling off balance, I would say check. , are you getting some sleep?
You know, like sleep is like so overlooked. Um, oh, on a very basic level, not tanking on any kind of food. That's the kind of food that's just not nutritious. Obviously do whatever you do that's good for you, but uh, you know, find the balance that works. So you recognize you're not like polishing off bags and bags of chips, , um, exercise and movement, and you've just said you can do it at home.
The New York Times just came out with an updated seven minute workout. That's one of my favorite equipment. Free doesn't require anything. Yeah, it's scientifically developed. It takes seven minutes and you get like a good aerobic workout. So it's like this high intensity interval training type of thing.
So like 30 seconds of pushups, 30 seconds of squats, 30 seconds of this. And it's just easy. It's doable. There's no strain on your body. So if you're at home thinking like, where do I start? Check out the New York Times seven Minute workout. They're also apps and timers you can do with that. And then stimulating your brain, right.
Netflix absolutely can be good. But, uh, I know, um, who's our buddy in California? I'm blanking. Talk about multitasking. Started N S p uh, meditation Work with me.
John Gomez: Uh, well, I, I know, I know The Beatles were very much into that. Are you talking about Paul McCartney? Is that what we're talking about? Cause I can go through all the mcca.
Ringo is and happens
Uri Schneider: to be my sentiment favorite. Not Ringo.
John Gomez: Keep going. George Harrison, the quiet one. Was he not John Lennon. John Lennon Really? Yeah. Oh, they, they claim that transcendental meditation actually elevated their music, which I'm sure it did. Absolutely. I'm pretty sure they got into that. Oh, go ahead.
Go
Uri Schneider: ahead. They were hanging out with my dad, . Yeah. My dad introduced them to Transcendental. No, Michael Sugarman. I had a mental block there. Michael Sugarman, you know, said that Netflix is gonna be doing a whole thing, I think with, uh, mind Space. Right. So they're gonna be doing a whole thing about meditation on Netflix.
But I'm saying most people, you know, pounding seasons of, of episodes is like brain numbing. You know, try to turn off gadgets and, and read something stimulating, listen to podcasts, um, and watch John's films.
John Gomez: Wow. That's, that's, well, it's a, it's one film right now. Hopefully two films pretty soon to, you know, to your point, I actually unsubscribe from Netflix temporarily.
to focus on the next film. Um, I, I, it's, I find it very distracting. You know, people bring up the, like I do, I need to see Cobra Kai season three. The answer is yes. Do I need to see it right now? Absolutely not. Um, so I, I can see how that is all extremely mind numbing plus, like, you tend to just kind of keep going back there and there's such a wonderful well of entertainment out there.
Um, I never went to film school and I, I don't think, doc, sorry, go ahead.
Uri Schneider: I'm just gonna interject just to recognize a couple of your friends that you'll be happy to know or checking in with us. Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah. Kristen's really happy about your lifting . Um, Steph says that if you go on the Calm app, you can listen to Matthew McConaughey reading bedtime stories.
All right. All right. All. and, uh, yeah, lots of good stuff coming up here. So keep your comments coming, your shares and, uh, back to the regularly scheduled program. So, yeah, on this new film, you were, you were saying
John Gomez: Oh, oh, yeah, no, I, I was just saying that, uh, you know, when, when you kind of veer away from things that are really, uh, prolific, like Netflix, you tend to watch the other content that's out there.
You know, like, what else can I do in my spare time? So, whenever there is spare time, uh, I decide to rewatch the Godfather series recently and be, because we always hold the, you know, if you ask somebody, what's your favorite film? Like, nine times out of 10, somebody's gonna say, the Godfather, it's in their top 10.
But how well do you actually know The Godfather? When was the last time you watched it? So I decided to rewatch all of those films with kind of an academic. can, can I repeat back the sequence of everything that's going on? Can I really see how the film is made? Really paying attention to the performances and all of this kind of helps fill in the gaps for, you know, not having gone to film school and it's entertaining a young Marlon brand.
Well, middle-aged Marlon Brando, . But we're not talking about stuttering here Now, are we?
Uri Schneider: We are more than stuttering, right? Transcending stuttering. When we're thinking about people who stutter, we look at them as a whole person. So why can't we look at us as whole people? ,
John Gomez: and this is season two. So this is, this is beyond transcending stuttering.
This is beyond, beyond.
Uri Schneider: Totally, totally. We're gonna, we're going for the, yeah, I dunno, the reverse trilogy. Maybe , I'm thinking about how to, how to frame it, but yeah, no, for sure. No, but nothing's off topic. I think people wanna know what makes John tick? What stimulates the mind? What sparks ideas? So you're saying that watching some of the classics Yeah.
With fresh eyes as a creator is giving you some, first of all, it's a mental stimulation, but it's also sparking your next creative, your next creative iteration. Well,
John Gomez: it, it does, it's, it's inspiring to hear the challenges that people have. You know, um, a lot of times my friend Dennis Ney, who's a co-writer for when I stutter, um, he said, A lot of times artists kind of get stuck in the.
The muddle of thing, not the middle, but the muddle, which is this kind of dark area in the middle of the creative process where you really can't see out. You, you, you know, you're just so inundated with ideas and you don't know where to go. And he is like, you just gotta keep going. And the interesting thing is hearing about artists at all levels going through that there are so many people who felt that way.
Like, for example, with The Godfather, part two, not, not to make any comparisons, Francis Ford Coppola is up there with Zeus. You know, I, I. , you know, he, they also felt very lost with that film. In fact, they, they considered it a disaster until somebody figured out some fancy editing for, you know, the, the second part of it and kind of juxtaposing the, the two stories of Vito Corleone and Michael Corleone.
And instead of making it one half of the movie one way and then the other half, the other way, they decided to do it sequentially, which ended up being brilliant and making it maybe the second best film of all time. But it's just interesting to hear people kind of go through these creative struggles cuz it just makes you feel not alone.
Uri Schneider: Was there something like you just described, like kind of like the second go came out even better than the original plan. Is there anything you could tell us about when I stutter or this upcoming project where the original direction was what you were like totally locked in on and then there was a shift and the shift actually turned out to be an opening.
John Gomez: Well, only that they're very different. You know, some learning happened from the first one, and the learning that happened was mostly on a philosophical level. And that's, be patient with yourself, be patient with the process. You know, you've been down this road before, you've felt stuck before. So when that happens, it's not gonna be anything new.
You know, that, that's part of the creative process. Um, but they're very different films. You know, I, I went out to camp, shout out with the intention of basically making a promotional video. So we wanted to capture all the beauty, all of the emotional tone, all of the amazing things that happened at that camp.
You know, they, they've set up such a wonderful place and then kind of have that as a promotional video for them to have on their website. And then I thought, well, you know, since I'm going out there, why don't we turn this into a short documentary? and then, um, I, I, a day into it, the, the children hadn't even arrived yet.
I started listening to some of the philosophies and the way everybody was getting along and the environment that Julie and Kristen have set up, and I thought, well, maybe this can be more. And therein lies the problem. So you know what was gonna be just a short shooting schedule turned into 18 hour days.
I was out there with the guy who narrated my film, and we talked a little bit about this last time. Ty Mayberry. Ty Mayberry. And we shot and shot and shot and. If you're gonna shoot something like that, ideally you'd want a crew of, you know, four or five people out there shooting all different angles, but instead it was us too.
And that presents some challenges. Right now when we're putting it together, there are some things that are missing, but for everything that's missing, a problem is created and you just have to solve that problem. And in being able to solve that problem, sometimes you're able to apply some creativity that you might not have had before, and it ends up being a little bit more innovative.
So sometimes these problems can lead to, to really kind of cool things.
Uri Schneider: Amazing. Yeah. Look, nothing good happens when you think about lifting. One of the beautiful lessons of lifting is that you, you shred muscle. Like it's not just a, not just on Venice Beach, when John takes off his shirt and he is talking to Arnold Schwartzenegger and all the guys over there, but yeah.
And they're like, who? Schwartzenegger, who's Gomez? You know? It's like, it's, there you go. We're shredding. We're shredding. No, but like, you've got a rip muscle. You've got a rip muscle to grow muscle. So growth happens through pressure, through strain, through pushing your limits a little bit, right? Um, but I think that's a really important thing that for so many of us, we don't, we don't wanna be uncomfortable.
No, we wanna stay comfortable. We wanna stay safe. And, uh, nothing good. Like whatever that project is, the constraints actually fuel some of the creativity and fuel some of the growth that make it great, right? If you had the six person team, you were actually totally staffed, totally set. You probably would be actually less productive.
You know,
John Gomez: that's entirely possible. Um, there's a great documentary called Sound City and David Grohl produced it and he talks about constraints you or being constrained in the creative process, how that actually leads to things being more innovative. You know, cuz the whole point of it was, sound City was this place where people went and recorded in an analog kind of way and you didn't have all of the digital flourishing that one has right now.
And he said sometimes when the possibilities are limitless, you actually kind of feel like, well God, where do I go with this? Cuz I can kind of do anything. as where when you're constrained, you're like, well, I can kind of only do this. And it actually leads to more creativity, you know? So, um, yeah, there, uh, there's definitely something to toiling.
Put it that way.
Uri Schneider: Great, great use of the word. Thank you. Totally. Yeah. So, so growth comes under pressure. I had a, I had a friend, I used to see him once a month before back in bc before Corona, and, and he lifts, uh, I don't think Kristen told him about it, but, um, she might have. You don't know . You never know.
You never know. Kristen Kamalas, you know, wisdom reaches near and far and continues to stay with me years and years after workshops and conversations that she and I That's right. Have shared. That's, and we're still trying to set up another conversation in a very poor game of email tag . But, uh, Kristen, you're it, by the way.
Um, , what I would say is that he said to me something amazing. He said, people, you know, after you lift, you feel sore. Yeah. And I know after a run, if you push yourself and you do, you're used to doing one lap and you do two or used to doing three K and you do 5k, you're used to doing two miles and you do five miles and you build up, you start to have this soreness when you're done.
Or the next morning, if you're into the exercise, you love it. If you're not yet into it, you're like, oh my gosh, I think I'm broken Uhoh. I better not do that again. And he said this amazing thing, it stays with me to this day. He said, um, you know, people confuse soreness and pain. Hmm. So sore. He said, as a lifter, he wants to feel sore.
Cause if he doesn't feel sore, he's not grow. . But if he feels pain, he certainly wants to cut back and figure out what he did that caused that pain. So I think around stuttering and as speech language pathologists and professionals, and as parents, I think we need to think about, you know, there are relationships where we may feel pain.
There are areas in life we may feel pain. Yeah. We need to know that that's not something we gotta keep doing to ourselves. And on the other hand, feeling a little bit uncomfortable is actually not a bad thing, and we shouldn't confuse unease or discomfort with like, it's unhealthy or it's pain. So I think that's an interesting thing.
Pain versus sore. Sore might be the sign that you're actually growing, which is a good thing.
John Gomez: Yeah, no, I, I, I like that analogy. It's true. And, and what I've also learned from this is that, you know, I, when things get back to normal, whenever that may be, I want to be able to, Stick with my routine. I want to be able to stay consistent because I, I haven't done anything radical.
I work out three times a week. You know, they're, they're moderate workouts. I'm not completely killing myself and I'm keeping a sensible diet, and I feel like when the world opens up again, this is something that I can parlay into my regular life, and it's just the power of the layering effect. , you know, making one little kind of change at a time too.
And yeah, you know, oftentimes there's soreness. There's a little bit of a lack of comfort. You know, you wake up the next day, you're like, oh, you know, that, that hurts, hurts a little bit. But then you're also growing. And then there's, there's days when I, I might miss, you know, may maybe I decide to work on the film a little bit more, or something kind of comes up in my life, but then knowing that the following day I can just get back on the horse and do it again.
That consistency really pays off. And I'm, I'm at the tender age of 46 right now, and I'm finally learning.
Uri Schneider: You don't look a, a day over 17 .
John Gomez: Hey, thank you. Thank you. Well, my, my lower back sometimes feels a day over 17. I appreciate that. But these, yeah, they, this, you, one can, can make these little changes in life that really add up over time.
In fact, in fact, here, I'll, I'll tell you something. You'll get a kick out of this. and remind me to, to, to tell you. Cause I, I gotta say this too. This might, this might sound a little weird. I had a, a very interesting dream about you at an NSA conference. We can talk about that later on. No, I wanna
Uri Schneider: hear as soon as you're ready.
John Gomez: Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yes, absolutely. Well, let's gonna start. Well, okay. I bought a mandolin, let me get my a d d ad brain, you know, a little bit more mandolin
Uri Schneider: was in your dream, or I was
John Gomez: playing the mandolin. Okay. Well, I started telling you the story that Im, I'm making little changes and I'm subscribing to You can make little changes and count on little improvement in life, and then know that over time that adds it to something big.
So I re recently purchased a mandolin. Wow. And I thought, you know, even if I just practice a half hour every day, In two years, I'll probably be somewhat competent and maybe I can play, you know, a song or two, and it helps organize my brain. It's just good for me in all manner of ways, and it's something that I've been wanting to do in my life.
So the, this idea of the layering effect little changes in your life has really kind of caught on for me. Not not the big goals, but that, the consistency and the layering effect. Um, and then with a d d I, um, decided to, uh, to bring up the fact that, yeah, I, I had this, this interesting dream about, I gotta ask you this.
Are you, are you a good dancer? Do you consider yourself a good dancer? . All
Uri Schneider: right. Uh, and next question. Um, look, I, as I said in a previous conversation with Matthew Bruna, my skiing, my basketball, I get the job done. You know, like I get to the bottom of the mountain. It may not be pretty so dancing. I wouldn't say, like I would go on dancing with the stars very quickly.
Yeah. But I wouldn't say, um, , you know, I, I got a little bit of something in me, you know, got a little groove little soul. Yeah, yeah. Put it this way, put it this way. Back to your mandolin point. I often listen to my playlist of Bella Fleck when I'm sitting at my desk working and getting in the zone. And I sometimes have people come over and they're like, would you stop stomping your feet?
I'm like, what? And I don't realize, but I'm like moving, I'm moving with the music. That's right. So I do have that in me. But anyway, what was I doing at the N S A? This sounds good. The rhythm just
John Gomez: takes over what, who knows how dreams work and what they mean, or what the heck is even going on. Right. And somebody's subconscious.
Um, I ju I just remember like a fragment of it. Okay. So we're, it's like the final night of the nsa. There's like the big banquet and then there's the dance afterwards. . And, and, and I'm not gonna tell it exactly how it happened in my mind cause I don't fully remember it. Thanks. So I'm up. So I'm gonna tell you how, you know, basically a construction that makes
Uri Schneider: sense.
Listen, it's early in the morning. We do have some minors listening in. So keep it clean.
John Gomez: it, this, this, it's clean. It's more or less clean. Um, you know,
Uri Schneider: more, more, more than less.
John Gomez: More than, more than less. Yeah, exactly. . Uh, kinda like o opt-in. Um, maybe that can be our new hashtag. More than less. Uh, so, so everybody's asking, you know, where's Uri?
Where's Uri? Where's Uri? There's probably a few. Where's Uri? And where's Uri? But I'm, I, in my mind it's where's Uri? And, and I'm like, why is everybody asking for Uri? They're like, because, because we can't really begin the dance until he does his special dance. Ooh. And I'm like, special. What do you mean special dance?
Like, what does this, what does this guy do exactly? And so finally, you know, and this is not you, but you show up at the 11th hour so that we can finally begin like something your plane was delayed or something happens, you roll in. Everybody's like, really happy to see you. I mean, just think of like a, a celebrity showing up or something and you go in and you do your dance.
Now the dance is a little something like you've seen Saturday Night Fever. You can't call yourself a New Yorker if you haven't seen Saturday Night Fever 25 times exa Exactly. It's, it's a little something like that. Well, that now you're doing Pulp fiction. Love it though. . Um, it's, it's a, it's a little something like that, like the, one of the first times where you see him, where, you know, like the floor has all like the different lights and everything like that.
You go in there and you just kind of break it down. Everybody has, there's this circle around you and then the dream end. So, you know, hey, uh, it, it would take a psychologist or, you know, a dream navigator to, to tell me what all that means. But, uh, just wanted to tell you about that .
Uri Schneider: I think there was that time that yeah, I'm not gonna talk about the time that we had that, that, uh, wonderful.
Yeah, we're not gonna go into the details of that showing that night, but after we showed the film, we hung out into the late night. So I think, I think maybe something happened there, but that, that's a neat story. Uh, I think my dad is, my dad has a reputation of really tearing up the dance floor at the NSA banquets.
Anyone that's got a memory of that or a picture of that, feel free to post it here in the chat, . But, um, my dad loves dancing. I would say he's a dancer. Um, I would say I'm more of a, I'll stand on the side and like, hum the tune or something. So, um, but what I would say, A d d. Let's, let's go there John. Let's talk about a d d.
Let's talk about how you get things done. You're, oh, yeah, like I said, you juggle all these things. I also relate to the a, d, d thing. Um, I think it's both a kryptonite and a superpower, you know, but for, for some people it can be a real doozy. For some people, they're scared of the name, scared of the label.
Mm-hmm. scared to acknowledge it. How does it play into, you know, everything that you're accomplishing and how you roll? Because people look at you as an international, and I'm not joking, international. Personality on the scene. A creative, a person who created a film and continues to create, in addition to doing, you know, treatment in the school district on the frontline, frontline hero, touching the lives of people in the LA school district and teaching grad students.
Now, if you look in the textbook, that's not exactly the profile of the responsibilities of a person with a d d in a natural kind of way. So how, how are you finding that the, the a d d thing fits in, and how do you kind of make sure that it doesn't run off with you in ways that would be, uh, distracting or disruptive to the things you wanna accomplish?
Absolutely. How do you juggle your stuff? Because you accomplish a lot too. That's a
John Gomez: good, well, thank you for, and thank you for all that. I, I, I really appreciate it.
Uri Schneider: Um, give a, like, if you agree with that, I mean, who doesn't love John? There's ton, you know, Anita's here. Uh, Rick Arenas is here. Everybody Oh, oh.
People I love. Yeah. Hey, John. Good seeing you. From Rick and Eva .
John Gomez: Yes. All right. Oh, Absolutely, absolutely. Mo
Uri Schneider: Puo
John Gomez: And I bet Anita speaks Spanish too. She's like one of those prolific people. I'll, I'm, that's my guess. Viva
Uri Schneider: Sweden. Listen, Spanish with a Swedish accent could be special.
John Gomez: Oh, you know it. I think you just came up with something
Uri Schneider: right there. That's like a fusion restaurant waiting to happen. You know, Swedish, Mexican
John Gomez: You wanna hear something funny? I . That's pretty good. And, and, and you're, that's the, uh, that's the other thing. You were very composed Swedish meatballs in a
Uri Schneider: burrito
John Gomez: and you know, I'm, that's a, that's a new fusion dude. That's, I'm telling you, that's gonna take off as soon as we open up restaurants. Let's not, oh, or maybe we should talk about this later on too.
This is the h
Uri Schneider: d by the way, transcending digestion. Look, look, look, look where we've gone. Look where, like this, where have we not gone? We can go everywhere. We,
John Gomez: we, we pretty much can go everywhere.
Uri Schneider: Okay, so that's, cause your film has gone everywhere. You've, you've shown your film in how many countries? Right.
We don't have time to count more countries than, than most people could name. Um, so yeah, we can go anywhere, but, but I think seriously, most speech pathologists, most speech language pathologists get into like this myopic thing where they just have their caseload, they feel overwhelmed by their caseload.
They try to juggle life at the same time. Mm-hmm. do some self-care, uh, and feel like they can't handle just that, let alone pursue, you know, pleasure projects and hobbies and interests. You're juggling quite a bit. So I think, you know, how you do that might be really valuable for people, professionals, and people who stuttered to kind of hear about that.
John Gomez: Well, uh, with regard to A D H D I mean, there have been a couple people in my family diagnosed with it. Um, my mom was a very creative person. She probably had a touch of it, you know, and I, I, I think I. Definitely at, at least have a touch of it was never formally diagnosed, and I never want to trivialize, you know, how it, it impacts somebody's life.
So this is, this is self-diagnosis here, you know, so I, I wanna be very clear about that. But I, with, with everything that is a quote, unquote disability comes a gift. And that, I don't think that's just a hack needs statement. I think that's, that's the truth. And we can talk, I, I can, I know we can both talk all day about, you know, how stuttering can be a gift in somebody's life.
Um, let's,
Uri Schneider: let's keep it real for you and me. We don't you, we don't stutter. We don't stutter. We don't, we, we don't, full disclosure, we do not stutter, but we both, for sure. And I'm not gonna reveal John's, and I hope he doesn't reveal mine. We both have our stuff. Uh, we have our peck, as we say in Yiddish. Uh, we have our thing.
Right? And, and that thing, as you were saying, so let's talk about that. You know, we don't need to go to stuttering. Everyone understands there's that commonality, right? What's, what's it like for you? What's the upside and what's the challenging side? Well, I'll, well, the
John Gomez: cha the challenging side is staying organized, you know, being able to, to stay focused.
But, and this is something that I, I came to realize in myself is that sometimes I can hyper-focus and it's actually to my detriment, to my, to the detriment of relationships in my life, um, in any manner of things. Once I get into something, I really get into it, you know, like I, I just, I've got the blinders on and it's kind of all I can see, but it allows me to really get things done and get things done efficiently and not have distractions, which kind of seems counterintuitive to somebody who is, would be labeled h adhd.
But all the experts say this
Uri Schneider: debunking myth number one about kids and people with adhd, they can't focus, right? That is like myth buster number one. ? No. They just focus on things that other people would wish they would shift their attention from . So they can focus very well on things that are high engagement and high interest.
Things that are low engagement, low interest. They have a hard time nailing themselves down, like doing taxes or studying for tests. But if it's a video game or a project or a creative, uh, assignment that they're tuned into, they can go further and longer than most people.
John Gomez: Yeah. It's, it's, it is, it is.
There's actually a really good book out there. It's called The Power of Different by Dr. Gale Saltz, I believe it is. Um, it's really good. It talks about all of the kind of hidden powers that are within, you know, learning, uh, a number of learning disabilities. Um, yeah, for me, so in addition to being able to hyperfocus, I, and I don't know if, I don't think this has necessarily anything to do with a d h adhd.
I just, I learned a long time ago that being able to, Get something done without it being perfect is still pretty, pretty good. You know, I, I mean, there's this thing again called disgruntled to perfectionism, which some, some people don't engage. This is a real psychological term. Some people won't engage in anything unless it can be done perfectly, and I was able to kind of get past that a long time ago.
You know, I, I mean, if, if I go, I give myself permission to make mistakes. I'll put it that way. With teaching, I know that every day is gonna be a little bit different. My mind is gonna be a little sharper some days than others, and if I make a mistake or I can't remember something I. Feel like maybe that's, that's a teachable moment for my students.
Okay. . You know, I, I don't exactly remember this right now and that's okay. I'll, I'll just look it up and I'll come back to you with it next time that happens in life. But I'm going to take the pressure off of myself right now to, to have to be perfect. Um, cuz that, that's a burden. The, the, the quest to be perfect in anything I think oftentimes leads to overthinking and the very thing you're trying to avoid, which are imperfect, you know, you're okay, you're a basketball player and people have talked
Uri Schneider: about this.
No, I didn't say I'm, I'm not a basketball player. I said I've played basketball, I managed to be the captain. It was all hustle on defense, but, uh, hey, defense, I call myself. Yeah, just ask John, you know, just, yeah, totally . Um, but bottom line is I play basketball. Go with that. I wouldn't they more than that, I'm not exactly like the Jewish Jordan, you know, ,
John Gomez: who would be the Jewish Jordan.
Uri Schneider: There's a guy who is the Jewish Jordan. His name is Tamir Goodman. He's from Baltimore. Look it up. There's a documentary on him. Okay. He was, he played at Townson. Yeah. And he tried to keep Shabbat and play in the, in the, in ncaa. And, uh, and then he played professionally. It was very tricky, but he ended up playing professionally and ultimately had a knee injury.
But he is still involved and he's a very inspiring guy. Tamir Goodman, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated. They literally called him the Jewish Jordan. Yeah. Okay. Yeah,
John Gomez: no, I, I shout out, you know,
Uri Schneider: I, and, and I just wanna add, he has dyslexia and he talks about, he was a ridiculous point guard, very thin, wiry guy, but his court vision and his sense of where everyone is at was, was mind boggling.
Right. So he, he talks about, when it came to reading the words on a page, I had dyslexia when it came to reading time and space and movement and you know, that kind of thing in an athletic court. He was exceptional. So I think going back to your point, The gifts, you know, sometimes within the disability or around the disability, there are superpowers, no doubt about
John Gomez: it.
There, there can be. And then just learning to be patient with yourself for all the things that don't come as easily, you know? Um, but yeah, get, getting back to the basketball. Well, two things on basketball. Well, no ki there. The picture, I love the picture you posted of us together to advertise this because what's very clear is that I'm exhausted.
Uh, we're both having a great time at the, at the NSA conference and then the height disparity. I mean, what are you six eight and how tall am I in that picture? I mean, it's, it's, it's quite, quite a height disparity. Um, listen, the truth
Uri Schneider: is there was a stool there. We were trying to. We were trying to, first you thought you'd get on the stool and even it out uhhuh than you thought it'd be funnier to just kind of recognize the disparity, put me on the stool and, and make it a fun picture
John Gomez: if, if only that were the truth.
No, you really, you really are that tall. Um, so, so the fact that you play basketball doesn't surprise me. Not to stereotype you, but you know, you, you should be playing
Uri Schneider: basketball. That was, uh, that was definitely explicit bias right
John Gomez: there. It, it, it is. But you know what, I'm just being honest. That's how
Uri Schneider: I got into basketball.
When I came in, in ninth grade, the coach looked at me, he is like, if you're that tall, you better play basketball. And I was. Me . I was a clumsy, I was a clumsy trip over my own feet kind of kid. The only thing I have in common with Michael Jordan is that I was cut from the, uh, ninth grade basketball team. I was a red shirt.
Um, but then again with hustle. And I think that speaks to hustle and absolutely incremental growth and layering the growth. And, and as Kristen loved, you know, a little bit every day, built my way up to the point that I got to be a leader on the team, just based on my grit and my effort. It wasn't based on my finesse, cuz anybody knows I cannot finger roll, you know?
John Gomez: Well, I, but maybe you can Tootsie roll out on the dance floor. I, I, I don't know. I, I just have I, or maybe this can become like a thing, you know what I mean? Like, may maybe, maybe now that I, I
Uri Schneider: tried that. I tried that, I tried to find that in my warmup pants. I tried to do the Shaquille O'Neil to do the worm.
It did not it, yeah. The, the people didn't like it. It didn't go over well. So I'm working on a move that I can do that's a little less traumatic. But, uh, but if you played in New Zealand, New York, Cody Packer's gonna teach me how to do the waa, right? Oh, the Waa. That sounds cool. Yeah, I wanna learn that.
Yeah, that's what the rugby team all black do. I wanna learn
John Gomez: that one. Yeah, man. That just, that just kind of sounds cool. I wanna learn the waa. Um,
Uri Schneider: were we talking about a d d Cuz it seemed like that conversation got derailed ,
John Gomez: which would be apropo now, wouldn't it?
Uri Schneider: There you go. We planned that.
John Gomez: We, we did, we did.
Okay, so this was all coming around to basketball free throws. I, this, this is what I was gonna bring up. Free throws. So it's, it's, it's exactly what it is. It's a time when you're unobstructed, you know, the, the hoop is 15 feet away from you. and you have a certain amount of time to, to shoot actually it's unlimited.
So you, you can just kind of stay there and focus. And yet people still miss this shot and some people are horrible at it, and it can only be a mental thing at that point. And I would imagine that the more you fear missing it, the more likely you are to miss it. So the thing is developing for myself a, a, a mindset where like, hey, you can just make mistakes, so what if you miss it?
You know? And somehow saying that allows me to perform better, you know? So for example, uh, right now, you know, something that's a paradox. It it is. Well, for me, but it's, it's, it's, it's a powerful paradox. It it, and it works
Uri Schneider: for me. Oh, it's amazing. I think it's worth highlighting. It's a paradox that we see play out to be true in so many things.
So yeah, I run with it. So if you, if you, if you give yourself permission to miss your percentage of hitting the shot goes up. .
John Gomez: I, I think I think so. Or just not, not focusing on, on the missing Your brain just doesn't go there, you know, I mean, like, let me consider what happens if I make this, but then what's the worst thing that happens if I miss this?
And it's, it goes for anything. Like right now we're meeting this, this could be something that could be very nerve inducing. Although, you know, I'm talking to a friend of mine. I, I know, I know. And, but, but you know, it's, it's going out to other people. Listen, and now it's gonna be on a podcast. I mean, my goodness,
Uri Schneider: Steph, Steph talks about Matthew McConaughey.
Forget about him. I get nervous. John Gomez. Oh my gosh. Makeup and everything. He, he,
John Gomez: well, does it look like I've got makeup
Uri Schneider: on? Because, well, it definitely worked on the hair.
John Gomez: Oh, man. Let, let's not even talk about the hair situation. Look at this. Look at that.
Uri Schneider: Stunning. That's a Johnny Depp move right there.
Well,
John Gomez: you know it until somebody there just said, you look little wait. Stick with the
Uri Schneider: free throws. Stick with the free throws. We're going with the free throws. We'll, we'll, we'll get back to
John Gomez: the free throws. I'm
Uri Schneider: getting
John Gomez: distracted. We Okay. That, that's, that's the theme. May you need to change the title of this, by the way.
Um, you, so I, I was thinking this was a little more Johnny Depp and then somebody there, they said, no, it's a little more little Nikki, if you remember that film from Adam Sadler, which kind of, you know, takes the, takes the cool out of it. Um, anyway, uh, yeah, so, so giving yourself permission to make mistakes.
So like, if I'm a, again, if I'm up in front of my class or, you know, I'm here talking to you and something doesn't go according to plan. Um, knowing that I'm okay to make mistakes or, you know, go off the rails idea wise or, you know, whatever may happen, that, that all of a sudden becomes okay if you give yourself permission to make mistakes.
And I don't know that that's something that we explicitly teach children. You know, at, at large, right? It's kind of like, you know, you need to comport yourself in a certain way. Things need to kind of be perfect in a certain way. And yet the people that, the, some of the speakers that I admire the most, some of the, the communicators, some of the, they don't, they don't always do things perfectly.
And, um, so, so that, yeah, it's, it's been a theme in my, so when you, when you ask me getting back to here's a little bit of brain organization, getting back to your major, how do I do everything? I'm okay with things being less than perfect, as long as they're competent and knowing that I'm still doing some good, even though something isn't perfect.
And yeah, I do have some perfectionistic tendencies. You know, when it comes to filmmaking, sometimes I'll look at something and when I stutter, I look at that and sometimes I only see mistakes. But if, if I had only worried about the mistakes in that film, I would've never released it. I would've never finished it.
And I feel like it's been able to do a lot of good in the world. So you, you have to be okay with things. You have to reconcile with things. And, and I've learned that that's, that's happened with life lessons and time.
Uri Schneider: I think perfectionism, when it's flexed well, right? It helps you produce great work, it helps you have good standards.
Um, and at the same time as you said, you know, nobody finds the perfect house to buy. No one finds the perfect partner in life. No one finds the perfect school for your kids. No one finds the perfect community. Um, but you look at the cost benefit, you look at the risk reward, and you make the best choice that you can.
Um, but I think having, yeah, figuring that out so important. That's been a big one for me too. Yeah, I mean this, this conversation, right? Like, I wanna come in and there are times where I want, I listen, I, I listen back cause I, I truly listen and I'll take notes. The cool thing about podcasts, I'll just share with everybody.
Also, YouTube. You could do this, you could speed up the playback. So all these conversations are on YouTube. , they're on Facebook, they're also on podcasts. But you can listen 1.2 speed, one and a half speed. You could slow it down if, if the movement's too quick. So I'll listen to it as I'm commuting and I'll literally take notes.
And as I take notes, I also notice, ooh, can believe I said that, Ooh, I should do this right? And then the next one, I try to do it a little tighter, and the feedback I get and the way I feel is not as good. And so like the natural stuff, the natural imperfections. And I think there's stuff about that also in studies of, of beauty that, like Cindy Crawford for example, had a big, you know, mole beauty mark.
There's something about you want to have a certain level of standard, but the imperfection is what makes something endearing. It makes it exciting. So I think to recognize that the, you know, as much as we shoot high, what people are drawn to is humanity. Absolutely. The, the flaws are part of what makes it so beautiful.
John Gomez: Yeah. That's what gives it the, uh, the texture.
Uri Schneider: Yeah. I'm thinking of, I'm thinking of Katherine Preston. In her book, she talks about her journey, you know, um, with stuttering and, and a whole journey literally across England and across the us And at the end she says, you know, now at networking events, like my stutter is my signature.
It's that thing, quote unquote, that difference that stands out. And people remember who I am. They may meet a lot of women that look like me and they can't remember the names, but they remember me because I have that, that thing that is my signature. And I think that's so cool.
John Gomez: Yeah. You know, it, it, it is cool and it's, it's liberating.
That's, that's the best thing, you know, without, I, I, the, the quest for perfectionism, I dunno, all kinds of things crop up. You know, you start thinking of like, superstitions. I, I, there was a time where I felt like things had to be perfect, and I'm like, well, if I do this, and it literally did borderline on superstition.
You know, if I, if I do this, then all of a sudden this whole series of things is going to happen, or they're not going to happen because I did this. And it's just no way to be. It's, it's, it's, it's a prison of the mind basically. Um, as opposed to, Hey, you know what, whatever happens, happens. And again, it's not, it's not saying that being incompetent or striving for less is what we're going for.
It's just like being, being okay. You know, just kind of being okay with, with what comes and trying to make that a little bit better, but just knowing that there's no way it's gonna be perfect.
Uri Schneider: the other. Yeah. On that, that's so powerful, right? Like high standards, shoot high, but know that it's not gonna be perfect.
And that's okay. And the liberation in that. And for me, that's always the tension. Like it always continues to be, it's not like I arrive at that place. I still want it to be better, but I also allow myself to be in the moment and just say, this is good. This is what is right. And I want to improve. But I also don't want that drive to improve, to take away the authenticity and presence in that moment.
And I think one of the things that I heard in the past year was it's not about finding a balance between those tensions. It's the healthy tension. It's the healthy tension. You ne you never get to a place where like it's all balanced. No , like, that's like a, a fantasy. It's a healthy tension to make sure the tension is, is pushing you in the right direction and not, you know, tearing you down, tearing you.
John Gomez: It's nice to hear that though, because you don't always hear that. Usually you hear about, you know, we're trying to get away from tension. We're trying not to have that anymore. And look, you have all of these philosophies, you know, some of them are just like these, you know, uh, basic, uh, aphorisms, you know, like, um, you know, the good is the enemy of the best, you know, but sometimes good is all that you can do.
And that good is good enough. It's helping. Um, I'm thinking of something like the public schools right now. You know, we have these really high performing speech language pathologists who come out of graduate school where they have these very ideal conditions, right? You know, in clinic you're just working with one person and then all of a sudden you're thrown into the second largest school district in the United States, and you have a caseload of which should be 55, but instead it's 75 and you gotta start working in these groups and you cannot be perfect.
Uri Schneider: just for people that are not familiar. So one speech language pathologist could have 75 human beings, young people under their tutelage. Just think for a second and, and just, let's celebrate the heroes who are those school-based speech language pathologists. Because they're doing a job that is absolutely herculean and they're doing the best they can and it's not gonna be perfect.
And I think that's where you're going. But for those that don't understand it or can quickly think like, why isn't my kid getting what he deserves? Or why aren't school-based speech language pathologists better at treating kids who stutter if you've got 75 kids with, with different sorts of challenges and differences?
Mm-hmm. , just think for a second. Could you schedule that? Could you figure out how to schedule and treat and do all the things for 75 people? I don't think there's anybody in any position that like has literally 75 people that they need to deeply care for, except speech language pathologists and other related therapists and doctors and stuff.
but it's mind boggling. So you have this speech therapist comes outta training from their class in grad school with John Gomez. They go into Los Angeles public school. Yeah, I know. They think they're gonna do it perfect. It's gonna be a walk cake
John Gomez: walk and, and, and it's not. And it's kind of having them reconcile with, look, this isn't gonna be perfect.
It's not gonna be the ideal circumstances that you had back in, in graduate school, but you are still touching lives. You're still helping kids out in major, major ways that are gonna benefit them for the rest of their lives. It's going to be something that is crucial in their lives. Cuz if it's not you, sometimes it's nobody.
You know, it's, it's not unknown for school districts to, uh, not have a speech pathologist at a school for a year or longer just because of shortages and those types of things. So you are there and you can connect with them every single day. You can have fun and you can make progress. And just kind of having somebody flip that switch from perfect and ideal to, I'm here and I'm doing some good in the best capacity that I possibly can, and I'm going to make mistakes.
And that's okay. That's a, that's a tough switch for people to make. You know, in academia we don't, we don't really breed that either. We ask for perfection, writing a ton of letters of recommendation right now, and it's, it's phenomenal, you know, at 4.0 after 4.0 and, you know, the, the level of dedication to having that is incredible.
But sometimes I wonder, . You know, when, when we have, when we're putting in all these people that are high achieving, and we're asking them to essentially not make mistakes and have these ideal circumstances, are we preparing them for when things aren't ideal? Are we preparing them to have some grit and deal with, you know, the, the, the, the, the drudgery of things sometimes?
And that's really what gets it done. It's, it's, it's not the, the perfectionistic element of it, it's the being able to kind of stick with it. That's, that's real life. Um, so that, that's kind of my mission in the public schools to, to get things like that across
Uri Schneider: that's so powerful. I think of one of the, you know, I said it, but I just wanna put meat to it.
Kristin Camilla, 2006 Miami Beach Asha. Pre-conference. She did a whole thing on heuristics and problem solving. . And I think that subject tell my kids it's the most important topic and subject and skill to learn in life more than physics or calculus for sure is problem solving. And I think for, for the speech language pathologists that are training, it's so important to figure out how do you kind of get your way through things.
And I think for everybody, whoever you are listening to this, you know, the idea that you go to speech language pathology and income's a broken car and outcomes, you know, totally souped up, upgraded, perfect operating machine is such not only, uh, out of touch. It's, it's harmful. It's harmful if, if for the longer that a parent is holding that or the young person or the therapist, there are certain things like lisps where they have a lisp and then they don't.
But for a lot of things, like you would never look at a kid who has down syndrome. and say, I'm gonna give him a Euro speech therapy and when we're done, he won't have Down syndrome. Right. You would never, you know, and, and we should look at stuttering in that light, that there's a chance, but it's not as a result of like, ah, that therapist, that's why we, that's why we grew out of it.
That's why we developed our way out of it. It was as a result of the impact of that individual person. Uh, or that they practiced enough. And because they didn't practice, that's why it didn't get better. So I think to recognize that in the work that we do, the subtlety, in addition to the conditions we work in, that the outcomes and the success metrics are not like there's a presence of difference.
And then the outcome needs to be the absence of difference, but rather, you know, we need to look at, um, function, life experience, social emotional experience. . Um, those are the things that really matter. And then you can measure those things and your success can be incredible. It can be phenomenal, even though you still have the presence of the challenge, whatever it is.
And it's so,
John Gomez: and if you think about it, perhaps it's that challenge that really actually lifted you, that highest place, you know? Um, kind of like you said in the very beginning about, uh, you know, Richard Alvarado from my film mentioning that stuttering can be a harsh teacher, but it can teach you a lot.
And I think a lot of challenges can, and again, that's never to trivialize how difficult stuttering can be in somebody's life. You mentioned Kristen and I, I just wanna mention the, the new film that I'm working on here.
Uri Schneider: Um, let me give you, let me give you a chance to say that. I just want to give you a quick.
Anita has a great comment here, which you'll see later. And then we've got some overseas, um, real fans. Cynthia . Oh yeah. Oh
John Gomez: my gosh.
Uri Schneider: She's, yeah. I don't know what country her flag is from, but she says, you're one of my favorite heroes. Um, and Anique Rivera Tok. To, to Mo to Mo. Another person I love
John Gomez: Fellow California.
Awesome. Yeah. Love it. These pre precious people to me, and they've helped the film immeasurably. They've been presences in my life. Um, Hey
Uri Schneider: John, thanks for telling me that I have a, I have a question. We're at the top of the hour. Can we do part three when we have more meat on that film? Could we wrap here and just we suspense give us, give us a quick teaser, give us like a teaser on what to think about that, and then I'll, I'll bring us home with another little thought about what you said about problem solving.
And, uh, yeah, let's give it a go. And this will bring us into season two. This is so exciting. Oh, no.
John Gomez: I, again, thank you so much for having me. Um, it, it's always just a pleasure to talk to you, period. Um, quick teaser is that, uh, yeah, it's, it's continues to be a collaborative effort. The focus on this film is going to be working effectively with children who stutter, which is going toco, uh, you know, uh, encompass a lot.
Uh, it's gonna encompass, you know, dealing with feelings, but also making them, helping to show them how to be effective communicators. And it's going to be something that, you know, parents can look at, hopefully SLPs, anybody who's interested in working with kids who stutter, they can look at it and say, oh, that's what I can do.
That's how I can set up a kid for communication success. So that's gonna be the focus of the film. W and, uh, you know, we're kind of excited to put it together with all the fun, flourishing, and all the production value, but also the really important lessons.
Uri Schneider: Our friend Dale Robertson says part three should focus on camp shoutout.
And I couldn't agree more. Maybe we'll get a little group together. That would be cool when we get, like, it was really cool when we had Kristen and my dad and me. It was lots of tissues and tears, but saw, uh, maybe we can get, maybe we can get a camp shoutout, you know, get together. That would be cool. Be on.
I just wanna thank you. This was early in LA time. Uh, you made it happen. You were up late working on all kinds of other things and pumping iron. So , I always, I always appreciate it, even though you make it so nonchalant and so chill and so smooth and there truly, John, there's no one I would've rather, you know, kick off season two with, so I really appreciate that.
And I wasn't prepared. I just figured, you know, what, who could I go in with and just, and I feel that you create that space. And at the same time, with all your high standards and aspirations, you inspire me to push myself further. So I hope everybody has in their life people where they can just fall in and just be, and at the same time, people who are supportive and challenge you to go further in, in good ways, please check out the podcast transcending, stuttering with or Schneider, give it a review that will help it go further.
Not for any other reason other than this topic of stuttering is so misunderstood. And the more we can create understanding and familiarity and normalize the conversation and make it okay to talk about, we can change lives and we can even transform this challenge into something that propels people forward.
And. and to get to places that they never thought they could, whether they stutter or not. So if you're interested in more, check it out on the podcasts. If you want to get free emails, if you're a speech language pathologist or a person who stutters schneider speech.com/tsa, we've got an amazing cohort for professional training starting next week.
Cohort for teens who stutter and a cohort for adults who stutter. It's an eight week group experience once a week like nothing else. Um, I'll leave it there. Check it out. Thank you, John. Thank you for listening. Share, comment like and have an amazing week. Oh, the last thing is with the politics and the news of the day.
A serious note that we didn't say at the beginning, I'll just share this. I dropped a comment with an email blast that we sent out, and I'll just say with the email blast starts off with this thought. What happened yesterday in the Capitol in Washington DC was frightening, disturbing, and for. , I think anybody in the world, and certainly for Americans, it shook us to the core.
Um, what it shows us is the incredible power that a group can do, unimaginable harm and damage in places and ways that you wouldn't even think were possible. The only takeaway that I can pull from that and extract from that is the power of group can do the same for the good. And so if we can band together as a group, we can also accomplish things we thought were unthinkable and, uh, unachievable.
And so that's the idea of these group cohorts. And I think as a community, we need to think about as individuals, as families, as schools, as communities, as states, and as countries. How do we pull together and show the world what we can accomplish individually and together in ways that far exceed? and do far more good than the harm that's done by those that will always continue to create trouble and ruckus.
So no politics, just the idea of pulling out the power of community and the power of group. And I wish everybody a really great day, great week, a good year, and, uh, good news for all of us. So stay connected, stay together, stay well. John, thank you so much for sharing your time,
John Gomez: ERI. Thank you again, brother.
Always good to see you, man. I really appreciate it. Good.