Episode 338-Rethinking Diversity: Stop Fixing Minds, Start Using Them with Todd Hapogian

What if the very traits that once set your career on fire could be turned into a repeatable system that saves companies and jobs—without burning you out? That’s the tension we explore with turnaround executive Todd Hagopian, whose fifteen years of undiagnosed bipolar disorder powered massive wins and painful self-sabotage before a diagnosis forced a new path. The meds worked, the edge seemed to vanish, and then he did something rare: he bottled the useful parts of hypomania into practical tools anyone can learn.

We walk through the playbook behind multiple successful turnarounds: set audacious goals people can believe in, build calendars that don’t lie, measure profit per minute to protect jobs, and run 52 small projects in 52 weeks so momentum compounds without frying your best people. Todd’s favorite lever—orthodoxy smashing—shows how to find hidden money in “boring” industries by challenging one stale rule at a time. It’s fast, disciplined, and surprisingly humane.

We also get personal about mental health at work. Gen Z is open about neurodivergence; Gen X is still running promotions while staying quiet. That gap breeds fear and missed talent. We offer a different approach: normalize how your brain works before you need accommodations, show the strengths it creates, and design pedal-on, pedal-off rhythms that keep performance high and people whole. At home, we talk sensory overload, communication scaffolding for autistic kids, and the courage it takes to replace secrecy with clarity.

If you lead teams, crave a smarter way to execute, or want language to advocate for neurodivergent strengths, this one’s for you. Subscribe, share with a manager who needs a better playbook, and leave a review to help more listeners find the show.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Season Kickoff And Guest Intro
• 2:45 Todd’s Background And Bipolar Journey
• 6:30 From Diagnosis To “Hypomanic Management”
• 11:20 Generational Shifts In Neurodivergence
• 15:40 Building Turnaround Systems That Work
• 22:15 Sleepless Years, Alcohol, And Breaking Point
• 28:20 Treatment, Sobriety, And Rebuilding Identity
• 33:10 Home Life, Parenting, And Neurodiversity
• 38:05 Normalize Strengths, Not Just Accommodations
• 44:00 Autism, Communication, And Hidden Talents

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:00

The SJ Child Show is back for its 13th season. Join Sarah Bradford and the SJ Child Show team as they explore the world of autism and share stories of hope and inspiration. This season, we're excited to bring you more autism summits featuring experts and advocates from around the world. Go to SJchilds.org.

SPEAKER_00: 0:24

The heart of the city. Oh yeah. Stories of love and could each job to have that.

SPEAKER_04: 0:36

Welcome back. Hello, it's so nice to be here. It's a lovely day this morning. I'm I'm not sure what kind of a day it will be when this is released, but I hope you're having a lovely day, anyways. Um, go get some vitamin D and some sunshine on your face if you need a boost of energy. That is always a good helpful tip. So it's great to uh be here this morning or this afternoon, evening, whenever you're listening. Um be here today with my guest Todd. Um, I'm gonna let you pronounce your last name so I don't do it any disservice. Uh but it's so nice to have you here.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11

Thank you so much. It's Todd Hagobian.

SPEAKER_04: 1:14

Great, Hagobian. I can I can handle that. I can handle that. And what well, you know, where's that from? That's an interesting last name.

SPEAKER_02: 1:23

Yeah, there's not many of us around anymore. It's uh Armenian. So during the Ottoman Empire, a lot of them uh were were extinguished and uh and a handful of them made it over to the U.S. My grandpa actually came over here, turned right back around, fought the Ottomans in World War One, and uh and our family's been here, but there's kind of pockets of Armenians in Michigan and California. Wow. If you go to the other states, there's not really that many of us around.

SPEAKER_04: 1:49

Oh, that's incredible. And where are you at?

SPEAKER_02: 1:52

Um, I'm actually in Ohio right now. I was born in Michigan and raised there, but I'm in Cleveland running a business out here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:58

Oh, wonderful. I'm in Salt Lake City, so yeah, nice day today. And yeah, it's it's bipolar here too. Exactly what we might touch on. Um, a little funny uh weather joke that's you know, if you're worried about the weather here, you just wait five minutes and you go outside and it'll be a whole new weather. So I think that happens all over, and they just like to make jokes about every little city it's for. But um, it's so great to have you here today. And uh I'm excited to learn more about you and share with my guests kind of the um substance, if you will, that you have been through, gone through, and what you've you know learned through that process. So let's just start at the very beginning, of course. Give us an introduction about yourself, what brought you here today. Thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_02: 2:48

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. So I am a uh a turnaround business executive. Uh so that essentially is short for getting dropped into a really terrible business situation and then uh fixing it and then getting dropped into the next one. And there's not a not a whole lot super fun about it. I always say the the only fun day in a turnaround is the last day, you know, and then you get dropped into another one. But um, but what brings me here today is I uh went undiagnosed bipolar for 15 years, um, and and had quite the journey that we can talk through, but the short version is undiagnosed bipolar. Um every time I had a huge success, I would do something to you know, to sabotage it and had this kind of up and down uh role for about 15 years. And I did well and moved up in business and finally got diagnosed. And when I got diagnosed, um it worked, everything worked, the medicine worked, but but I turned from kind of like the Tony Stark to the Tony Stagnant. I just was not the same guy. I didn't have the competitive edge, and that was a real problem for me because that was what my whole ego and my whole kind of um reputation was built on was this very hypomanic type of management. They didn't know that at the time, but that's essentially what it was. And so I ended up um turning around four more businesses. But what I had to do is trick myself into managing hypomanics. I had to come up with systems that allowed me to manage like a hypomanic while staying healthy and present in my in my life for my family. And by about the fourth turnaround, I was like, man, or the third turnaround, I was like, I need to write these down because it, you know, I'd get to month 13 of the next one and be like, oh, I forgot to do this, you know, that I did over here. And and so I wrote them down and did this latest turnaround. And I was like, I think I can teach this to people because my second in commands, my lieutenants, they all learned how to do this. And so I was like, you know what, I'm finally going to come out, let people know that I'm bipolar, um, and teach people this system, but also kind of normalize and or even value neurodivergence in the workplace because it's been a problem. And for eight years, I've kind of listened to it, you know, in those rooms when we're talking about employees, and this comes up, and I listen to how people are talking about it, and it's just really interesting. It's a it's an area of diversity that has not been taught yet. Um, and I wrote an interesting LinkedIn article we've talked about uh today, actually, but it has not been taught yet, and it's just um so important. And and I thought during this book launch, you know, yes, there's a huge business app application. I talk about that on a bunch of podcasts, but I also wanted to do a bunch of podcasts like this where we actually talk about the importance of neurodivergence in the workplace, and then also the importance of how to how it needs to evolve going forward and how people need to talk about.

SPEAKER_04: 5:48

Yeah, absolutely. Um, it that's so important. And uh let's preface that by telling people Todd just recently had a neck surgery. So if you hear coughing or any kind of anything like that, um, we're giving him so much grace today to be able to do that. Thank you for coming and still doing this. We appreciate you. Um it's it's now in this day and age, so I want to say relative relatable, if you will, for so many adults um having realized a misdiagnosis, a misdiagnosis or missed diagnosis in general. Um, and I think that it's it's fascinating because the era in which we were raised, I'm assuming we're maybe within a decade of one another, um, is one of which it was um get you get it done. Keep your, you know, keep quiet, get it done. Like you figure it out on your own. This isn't uh, I'm gonna hold your hand through this process, like fall down and get up and figure it out. And it was it's like this double-edged sword of horribleness, wonderfulness, in that we really had to be on our own to figure our things out on our own. I personally am an only child, I was literally on my own figuring things out. Um, and you know, for others, the the it was just a different era of um what priorities parents had in their families. And I think the role was more providing. The the provider role was the most important rather than the teaching or um more like intuitive parenting, if you will. Positive parenting. Uh so I think that it's it forced us into situations that aren't necessarily the same today. I don't see that we and I mean, yes, there's probably a lot of uh people that grew up that still continue that cycle, but for me personally, I didn't, you know, my kids are are don't have any of those same like skills, right? And I see the deficit in that, and I also see the positive side in where I've built their um uh you know self-worth and their value and their them themselves to be a different person than I had to question my whole life. That's exactly right. Yeah, how do you feel about that? Tell me a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_02: 8:37

I think it's so interesting. I was on a youth-based podcast the other day, and what I what I thought was amazing was these Gen Z folks were like over 50% of Gen Z identifies with some kind of neurodivergence. And I was like, man, I bet you that number is five percent in my generation. You know what I mean? Like people just don't do that, they don't wear it on their sleeves, they don't go and get diagnosed, they don't do anything about it when they're struggling, you know what I mean? Like we just got through it, and um, and there is some value to that, and that's one of the reasons this whole, you know, hot method came up and all this stuff. And and but but what I think is really interesting and so important is that the folks coming into the workplace right now are wearing this on their sleeve, it's become part of their identity, they're talking about it openly, but the people hiring and promoting and whatnot are in our generation, and we don't do that, and I think there's a huge lack, and that's what I wrote that article on is there's a huge disconnect right now in the diversity training that's going on in the workplace, and it's focused on race and gender and religion, and those things are all extremely important, but also most managers know how to deal with those three things now. We've been doing it for 20 years, we understand the right and wrong, like not saying there's not problems, there's plenty of problems, but most of us understand the right and the wrong of it. I would say with neurodivergence, managers don't. It actually scares them, they don't know how to deal with it. All they know is they're not allowed to talk about it. And there's a ton of meetings that I've been in where it's like, oh yeah, that guy has that one thing, and everyone just kind of nods, and then that guy doesn't get the promotion. Do you know what I mean? Like it's just and it's just one of those things where nobody even says the words because they know they're not allowed to, but they also don't know how to talk about it at all. And there's so much value that neurodivergent views bring, um, that it really like we have to we have to evolve the way the diversity training is being done right now. And that's why I wanted to come on here because I just think it's such an important topic right now, with that whole Gen Z entering the marketplace and Gen X and older, you know, deciding their fate. You know, it's just it's uh it's a divergence of itself that needs to be talked about openly right now.

SPEAKER_04: 10:59

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I think that uh a quote that you know I have um for the FG Child show is a little bit of knowledge turns fear into understanding. And if they come in with this information, they can help the managers, the people to help better understand the accommodations or the support that they may need. And I think that we really companies really need to embrace the idea that all types of learners and and thinkers will bring a different subset of values and skills to their business that they won't have otherwise, that they will be missing out on if they don't participate in having that whole inclusive idea to to bring to the table. And of course, there's going to be some um, you know, niches or or employment that is not necessary for those types of things. Um, then you have to have, you know, like a doctor has to have these requirements or whatever. Like, obviously, there's going to be things, but there's so many opportunities that are missed. And there's so many opportunities that can be provided, but like no one knows at this point, right? It's almost like just this fuzzy cloud hanging over. Um, how do you particularly go into these businesses and help them shape and shift what they're doing?

SPEAKER_02: 12:31

Yeah, so turnaround management is is um a skill that I would not uh wish on anybody, but it is, but it is um typically pretty nasty, right? You get dropped in, you you have to make changes fast. If you don't turn that business around in 24 months, you're out, kind of thing. That's the situation that you typically get thrown into. So it is aggressive. Um, you have to trust your gut, you have to set big goals, you have to get your team aligned to that big goal. If the team is not aligned, you need a new team. You know what I mean? Like there's a lot of that stuff that goes on. It's kind of the the nasty part of management, but you but you get dropped in when that's the only option. Like you may sacrifice 10 people to save 100 kind of thing, you know, like you're you're trying to save a business that would otherwise everybody'd be gone, you know. Um, and and so you you have to get your head around, you know, that so there's a lot of things that I do um that that hypomania hypomania really helped me, you know, the bipolar aspect to it helped me. So grandiose goal setting, you know, how can I how can I set a big goal, get everybody excited, talk about it, believe it, drive it, you know, um extreme focus. So I have a couple different systems set up that's just all about making sure that your calendar doesn't lie, right? Everything on your calendar tells you what your priorities are. So the difference is is you might have four things that drive most of your business, but 80% of your calendar is other stuff. If you look in my calendar, it's gonna be all the stuff that drives the business. It's just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Uh profit per minute, you know, it's how much money can I make every minute of the day. And and it sounds greedy, but it but the way I have it in my head, right, is I'm saving a hundred jobs.

unknown: 14:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 14:17

So I need I need to make as much money as I can every minute of the day to save these hundred jobs, you know what I mean? And that's and and so people can people can kind of dog this type of management, but at the same time, that's that's what really is going through our head when we're doing it, you know what I mean? And so continuous improvement. I've got a continuous improvement kind of methodology where you do 52 small projects in 52 weeks instead of these big projects, and you design it in a way where your best guys aren't bogged down on the projects, they only are on one at a time, you know, instead of most companies take their best people and put them on all the important stuff, and then they only have half their time to actually do their job, which is also important, you know what I mean? And so there's just a lot of these methodologies that came that were born out of bipolar hypomania that I then kind of bottled up and and was able to put systems around it so that I can teach other people. But that's essentially there's a lot more to it, orthodoxy smashing, which is just like taking all the things you know about an industry that are true and asking, what if they aren't? Right. That's very ADHD, very, very bipolar. You know what I mean? Like, what if that wasn't true? How would we deal with it if it wasn't true? And and the easiest way to make money, I always tell people, the easiest way to make money is to prove that an orthodoxy is not true in a boring business. Take a completely boring business that's been around for 50 years, smash one orthodoxy, completely change, you know, one one thing that people think about that industry, and that's who makes all the money, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 15:46

Wow, that's anyway.

SPEAKER_02: 15:47

That's you know, that's the business side of it, and I don't want to spend a ton of time on it, but it does. It was born out of bipolar, all of it is kind of hypomanic management. Um, and none of it's revolutionary, but if you can systematize it and teach other people how to do it, you don't have to do all 10, but you can pick one or two for your situation, and your business doesn't have to be failing either, right? There's yeah, this huge time between growth and crisis where you're starting to head this way. And I always tell people it's so much easier to turn around a business that's still making two million dollars than it is to turn around a business that's losing five. You know what I mean? So like start early. Start early and doing smart, yeah. Very smart.

SPEAKER_04: 16:29

Well, and I I love that you let into that because I was going to say, okay, let's go to the other side of this spectrum and let's talk about the challenges that really brought this to the surface and made you seek out this diagnosis.

SPEAKER_02: 16:47

Yeah, so um, so I was probably 18, 19, you know, went off to college for the first time is when I think it started. Obviously, I wasn't talking to a therapist at that time, but that's when I essentially stopped sleeping, right? And that's and that's one of the keys to bipolar. So I basically stopped sleeping. I I, you know, I was at college, I was drinking a lot, I was having fun, I was not sleeping. It seemed all normal to me. I think what I like to say is the difference is is the guy next to me who drank all night then sleeps till 2 p.m. And I just woke up at five. You know what I mean? So, like there's just no sleeping happening. I was sleeping, I probably slept two, two hours a night for 15 years, you know what I mean? Like just no sleeping at all. And um, and and then had you know the hypomanic episodes and then the bipolar depression episodes, and that all just seemed normal. It seemed like a work hard, play hard. You know, of course, of course, I work 80 hours a week, I get something good, and then something bad goes on in my life because I'm just working that hard. Like it just all seemed yeah, like something I had to deal with, you know what I mean? When I finally got into my 30s and I had kids and I'm married, I have two kids. I I got arrested a couple of times early on and decided, like, okay, drinking is bad, but I have to do it to slow down my brain. Like it's the only thing that calms me down. So I'm gonna do it at night alone. That was my solution. Like, I'll just drink alone at night, like great solution. So, like, I mean, my wife, you know, we're married, she has no idea how much I'm drinking. She doesn't know I'm sleeping less than two hours a night, you know. All she knows is I go and work after she goes to bed, and she doesn't know how long I'm working or or you know, and so uh finally it all of course fell apart. I almost got arrested again. I had trouble with the marriage. I I I was um having trouble at work because I was starting to uh be drunk, you know what I mean, when I went in. Like I just I I as you get older, you you don't handle it as well. And so suddenly I was still drunk when I went in, you know, like and it was um and I and I finally went and got, you know, I was having chest pains and headache and just couldn't figure out what was going on, probably from not sleeping, you know what I mean? And um I went in and they threw the kitchen sink at it, they tested everything, you know, they thought a stroke and this and that. And finally somebody was like, Have you ever talked to a psychiatrist? And I was like, Why would I like why would that make my head hurt, you know? And and almost immediately they were like, Yeah, you're bipolar, like really, really bipolar. And so, um, and then I went to a second one and and kept getting diagnosed. And I was finally like, okay, and then and then they were describing it, and I was like, man, hypomania is awesome. Like, you're right. I have this, this is great, you know. And and you know how you hear something and you just want to hear the good stuff, right? So it's like, man, this is great. Like now I know about the depression. Okay, fine, I can manage it. And then the the pills that they gave me at the time were Depacode, and Depacode handles the headaches and the bipolar. So I was like, this is perfect, just give me the headache dose. Right. No, I have bipolar, I can manage the bipolar, just give me the headache dose so I am not hurting all the time, you know. And that's what they did. And for six months that worked until it obviously didn't, and then I finally, you know, was like, all right. And I talked to the doc, and they're like, You just need to you need to get on the proper dose, you need to quit drinking, you need to start sleeping, or this is not gonna end well for you. You know, you have kids, you have a big job. Um, you're you've got I was global marketing director of a big company at that point in time, like it was all going well, but it was at some point not going to, you know. And uh and I finally, finally decided to quit alcohol, cold turkey and dive into the pills. And um, and uh, and basically that's that's when my competitive edge went down and I had to build this whole system back up, and it really changed my life like pretty dramatically. Um, but now, you know, four kids, four dogs, four cats, big job, you know, things are going good. It's but but for eight years I was silent about it, you know, did it myself with my wife. My wife knew, you know, but nobody at work knew and and just kind of worked through it and and finally decided now is the right time to start talking about it. And because I think there's value in that neurodivergence, and and I don't think it's talked about enough. And I want I want people to know, but I also want to teach people, you know, how to do it.

SPEAKER_04: 21:13

So well, and who else would I be able to talk to about my four dogs and my four cats? There you go. Okay, who does that? Who does that? Nobody, holy moly, that's crazy. We're gonna have a big talk about this later. Um, but yeah, that is so funny. Only two kids, but hey, you know, there's four people in the house. That's how I get four, four, four. So that is just so funny that you said that. Um, you know, I was actually diagnosed bipolar um as a girl, as a as a teenage girl. And I now know, of course, that oh, and I I don't know, I shouldn't say that. Yeah, who knows what I was acting like to make them think that. I now know that I have an ADHD, an autism, dyslexia, depression. I have all of the diagnoses, right? Um, and for me, it really came down to um when I looked back, and this is gonna be like crazy deep parents, but um when I looked back at it all and recognized like all of the things that I had been through and and um kind of the mental um position that I took, if you will, was a lot of it a lot of it was born out of dishonesty. Like a lot of it was born out of secret keeping and like this family like don't look at these things, don't don't talk about this, don't look at this. And it was almost like I was never allowed to just be the human on earth that I had been born to be. I was supposed to pretend to be this other being all the time. And how does one absolutely do that? In you can't, it's chaos, it's absolute chaos. It's chaos in your brain, on your body, in your heart, it's chaos for everything. When I really recognize that and like stabilized all of those things, if you will, I'm not saying that the uh the diagnosis is none of that went away. I think that's crazy when people say those things. However, I have learned to manage the um, you know, I've gotten over some of the ideas that held back some of the relationships that I was having um by doing the work and letting those things go, letting go of some of the ideas that I had about, you know, um just I don't know, that's it's not for this conversation, but um I think in those things when we are when we have the opportunity to look back and we have all of the information we need to look at something completely, it gives us such a great perspective to see oh, well, this was probably caused in this situation. Uh, this is how I got through that, this is how I took that to the next thing and got through that next thing, and this is where it all went wrong, right? But uh, but I for me myself, now having this um autism ADHD, I I feel like I feel and see the ADHD in me all the time. And it makes me feel better to know. It's like this legitimizes the fact that I can leave a room and nothing in this room even exists anymore, and everything out there is now a task, right? Nothing I was tasking on is actually task anymore. Um, but it also helped to understand there was a certain sensitivity, like um sensory overload kind of sensitivities that I was having. And they would happen every single month. I'm gonna let everyone just kind of guess what that was. And every time it was this horrible, um, emotional, like confusing experience with my husband where he would feel like, do you hate me? Do you like, are you disgusted by me? Like I go to touch you and you turn away and you cringe, like it hurt his feelings. And for me, I was like, No, of course not. That's not it at all. Oh my, you know, like my mentally, my intellect and the mental part of it wasn't connected with that physical expression that I was having in any way. They had nothing to do with one another. But it wasn't until we had the real knowledge of what that was that we could say, oh, this is sensory overload. Your body is already in its own going through its own thing. All of this outside um environmental extra stuff is too much for you. But without that knowledge, all it was was a big old fight every single month with a bunch of feelings that got hurt by everybody when really it all was just this simple little thing that now can be worked around and understood and given grace to, and those types of things. And so I think it's recognizing and normalizing our real living experiences and really being able to share those, like you said, wear that on your sleeve, share it with others, especially with those that you are in close relationships with. Yeah, they need to know the most. And I'm kind of for lack of better terms, doing this experiment with my own daughter and in her relationships, and just really pressing on her and and telling her, bring up everything, anything that is bothering you, everything that you love, anything you hate, everything at all times, bring it up. Because the only thing you're doing there is creating boundaries and you're letting that other person know this, these are my boundaries. Yep. And and I think it's just brilliant. And I I love to watch it happen. Yeah. So hopefully we create a whole different kind of new human coming.

SPEAKER_02: 27:36

It's so great. And and I love that story, and I love the fact that you know the the key difference between that and work that I'd kind of like to highlight is you guys were able to have those conversations and really get deep into it and and you know, for lack of the better words, fix or or repair, you know, or or at least prepare for that when it happens, you know what I mean? The difference at work is so staggering. Um, and and I had this I was watching this podcast where this lady had a great conversation about coming out as as queer um as she put it, and um, and she she did this huge keynote, you know, in front of a bunch of uh bunch of executives and inside her company, and they all came up afterwards and just congratulated her and supported her. And, you know, we uh this is so great. And I contrasted that with when people come out with mental illness at work, and it's just so staggering because what I got, and I love my coworkers, I love my boss, they're all amazing. But what I got was, you know, how can we fix this? How can we help you, you know, like and and helping is great, but but it was more from a like, how do we turn this off? And what I want people to realize is that's not what we need to do at work. What we need to do at work is how can we foster this? How can we allow them to lean into their strengths and use some of these, you know, you to your point, when you walk out of a room and you can laser focus on the next thing, there are some great jobs for that, you know, and there are some great tasks inside of bigger jobs for that. And there's a time to use that and utilize it, and um and and that's the difference that I just uh it's uh it's so staggering to me, where it's like the difference between congratulating and celebrating diversity and trying to fix diversity. Yeah, you know, we don't try and fix color or you know, or gender stuff like and it's just interesting to me. And I don't know the answer yet, but I but I think it's a conversation we have to have because um because there's some great things between you and your husband now that you do differently every month, you know, that that allows you to have a totally different relationship.

SPEAKER_01: 29:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 29:53

And and that's you can call that accommodations, but it can also just be understanding, you know. And if you understand at work your employees and how they're going to react and what tasks they might excel at and what tasks they don't excel at, you know, that that can be a huge, that's not accommodation. That's use utilizing your team. Yeah, it doesn't mean that they can all be you know exceptional.

SPEAKER_04: 30:16

So I love no, who wouldn't want that as a boss? I can completely agree with you. And yeah, I mean, and to be fair, I've been with this man for 21 years. It took two decades. I only got diagnosed four years ago. So it literally took all you know 15 years practically, like you said, of kind of going through it and going through the motions and having this recurring situation that never had a solution. It never had a solution, and it wasn't until all of the pieces were put together and we could see a clear picture of what was happening. But none of that came through secrecy or not showing up and talking about it, like you just said, it all was from vulnerability and discussing it and feeling and knowing that we were safe to have those conversations. Um, and sometimes even putting yourself out there a little when maybe somebody's not going to respond. But I mean, ultimately, and what I'm kind of trying to get across to you know, to my kids, when you are out in the world and you have these values and these things to offer, and people don't see those things, that's their inability to see them. It's not your you don't lack value, they lack vision. Yep. So just remember that. And I think that is so true is that, but I love the all of this like bringing the conversation, normalizing our living experiences, just completely.

SPEAKER_02: 31:56

And my oldest child is 13 now and he has anxiety, and and we've been starting to have this conversation because one thing that I notice with Gen Z versus Gen X is um, and and this is something that everyone can work on at work, and this will help the diversity conversation. But one thing I notice is the um it it gets brought up in the wrong way and at the wrong times and for the wrong reason. So you only bring it up when you need an accommodation. You only bring it up when you're making uh, you know, for for a terrible word, an excuse for something that happened or or a way you reacted, and what needs to be in order to normalize it, it has to be brought up all the time in very, very general ways, you know what I mean, where you where it's out there, people know about it. It's and and then more importantly, it needs to be shown. Like when you do something that's good because of it, you need to highlight, you know, that it was attached. It doesn't have to be because I'm, you know, have a mental illness. It can be because uh this is the way my brain thinks, and and in this type of situation, that is extremely valuable, you know, and connect those things for the bosses. Because I had I had the same boss for 10 years. We've gone to different companies and turned them around together, you know, and and one of the things she asked me is like, what can I do, you know, to help to help fix this? And I'm like, we don't need to fix anything, we've we fix businesses together. It all works, you know what I mean? What I need you to do is just understand um when I might need to pedal on, pedal off, you know, think about think about a goal I might have set that was a little too aggressive because I was hypomanic and now I'm going through bipolar depression and like and like I have no idea how I'm gonna hit that number, you know what I mean? You know, like let's let's just give me a minute to to kind of deconstruct it and figure out what I was thinking and how I can get back there, you know what I mean? Like, um, but it but so for my son with anxiety, I I just tell him like because he'll say stuff like, Oh, I I got a bad grade on that test. It was because I was anxious. I'm like, don't be careful not to use it as a crutch. You are anxious, it probably did affect it, but you don't want every time you bring up your anxiety to be because of something bad. Do you know what I mean? Like, like it also makes you cautious and it makes you prepare and it makes you study differently. There's a lot of good things that it makes you it maybe not the anxiety, but the but the reaction to the anxiety makes you do things in a positive way, and you have to highlight that stuff too, so that you're not always talking about it in a negative way. Um, and and that's it's I don't know how to have that conversation yet. So I love this conversation we're having with him because he's just getting old enough to have this, you know, discussion. But I want it, I don't want him to be a 19-year-old where every time something goes wrong, he points at it and says, Well, you know, it's medical.

SPEAKER_04: 34:44

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02: 34:45

That doesn't that doesn't help you, it doesn't help them. Like you need to normalize this and you need to, and you need to show when it's a good thing because it is. We all have good things in our wiring. Our wiring might be different, but there's a lot of good stuff, you know, in in each of these disorders, actually, like ADHD, they think differently and they think outside the box. And OCD, they're super detail-oriented, and they probably make a hell of an engineer, you know, an officer. And just there's there's good stuff in everything, and you and we really need to highlight that, or it'll never get normalized, you know.

SPEAKER_04: 35:16

Isn't that the truth? And you know, you don't even know this about me or anything, but I have a profoundly autistic son who has a photographic memory, he speaks over 200 languages, he does math that's ridiculous. That's amazing. But you know what we're working on right now conversation skills. Because guess what? He can speak a bunch of languages, but do you think he can get through a conversation about pants or showering or anything like that? No, no, and it's just so fascinating. I mean, the opportunity to have a child like this is what I'll always be grateful for. It's oh, it's been such a unique experience to uh know a human being that can have such a huge amount of academic prowess, if you will, but at the same time lack that social humanic peace that is so important in our society. Um, and to be able to find a balance between those two, it is a it's an interesting task. I have been tasked with in my life. So hopefully I'm the right person to do it.

SPEAKER_02: 36:34

That's a great, and you'll rise to it, you know, you'll rise to it. And we have a seven-year-old who who has something, you know, we've we've tried to diagnose it a hundred times in the he's officially autistic, but he's you know, he doesn't talk, he has probably 20 words, and uh and we're working with a talker now, and it's just so interesting watching him learn to communicate and and um he's so smart, he's so funny, you know, he makes jokes with the talker, and it's just like it's like wow, he, you know, the personality is coming out, and it's just it's really interesting. Um, and I and again, I don't want to uh dive deep because I don't know that he's autistic. That's just the the paper diagnosis right now. It could be something else, you know what I mean? But um, but I mean, just having that challenge in your life, it it makes you think differently, it makes you talk to your employees differently. Like I am a very different manager now than I was, you know, seven years ago before him. Um, and I try to I try to take that with me and internalize it and just understand that people are thinking differently. Everyone's got their thing, you know, like it doesn't need to be a mental illness, everyone's got their thing. They might be divorced three times, they might be this, they might be that. Like they've all got something that they are working through um that either that either hurt them and helped them in different ways, you know, and it's just important to be open to those discussions.

SPEAKER_04: 37:54

So I love that. And I'm really proud of you for doing the the spelling and the reading and things with him because uh so many families, you know, even families I know now that are just starting with their 30-something year olds, you know, that are discovering this world of just amazing imagination and and communication that has just been locked away and and not there hasn't been a door that's been opened for it. So I think it's just so beautiful um that we offer these opportunities to each person and you know, and hopefully, you know, find for those that um that can't communicate ways for them to be able to express themselves. So yeah, I think it's a beautiful journey, that's for sure. This has been such a wonderful discussion. I've loved getting to know you more and really would love to stay in touch and and absolutely talk about things in the future. It sounds like we really do have a lot in common, in fact. So I think that that's so that's so funny when you like how would we have ever met in the world, you know, and and podcasting, right?

SPEAKER_02: 39:10

And it's so amazing because once you start talking about this and there's just so many people that come out of the woodwork and and want to have a private conversation with you, you know what I mean? And and it's just amazing how many people you help, you know, even just by having these conversations or people listening that are being helped, and it's just so important. And yeah, I love doing podcasts multiple times. I've got I've got three books coming out over the next 15 months. So I'll be on the podcast circuit for a while, then yeah, yeah, it'll be great. Great.

SPEAKER_04: 39:37

Oh, I'd love to do that. No, it's been such a pleasure, and um oh, before we go, let's let's talk about uh websites, uh places where people can get a hold of you.

SPEAKER_02: 39:54

This the most important stuff was the stuff we were talking about. I love it, I love it. Uh you can find me on toddopian.com. Uh so real nice and simple. Uh, we'll put that out there. And then um uh my book is on Amazon, so you can search for Todd Hugopian, but also it's the unfair advantage. So again, trying to trying to mold it as a good thing, right? It's the unfair advantage weaponizing the hypomanic toolbox and um it's it's just about taking that hypomania and turning it into something good. Uh, it is a business fiction book, uh, so it is fiction if you like fiction, but it is it is pretty heavy on the business side.

SPEAKER_04: 40:29

So yep.com it puts a little period period.

SPEAKER_02: 40:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 40:36

Okay. There we go. There we go. Perfect. Is that right?

SPEAKER_02: 40:40

Yep, that's good. So tinygopian.com and then the unfair advantage is the name of the book, and everything's on the website, but just come in. You know, if you have any questions, ping me. I don't sell consulting or anything like that. You know, I'm always available to answer questions, have a conversation, and get to know people.

SPEAKER_04: 40:56

So it's so great to have you here today. And thanks to PodMatch for connecting us. And I really do like Alex's um service he provides. He's a wonderful guy. So glad we connected with him years ago. Um, it's been so great, Todd. I really appreciate what you're doing, helping um to you know, uh sort these businesses out, and and sounds like bringing them even more value when you can um help them kind of interpret their relationships with their employees so much better. So thank you for that work and uh thank you for uh bringing us the information today to you know help anybody that's listening that might be bipolar if you want to reach out and have a more depth conversation with Todd. I'm sure he'll be open to doing that. So please do reach out to to him or myself if you want his information. So thank you so much for your time today. This has been so great. I'm excited to hear about the book more books and things coming out. So stay in touch with me so we can get you back on when those things come out.

SPEAKER_02: 42:09

Yeah, let's do it. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_04: 42:11

You're welcome. We'll stay in touch.

SPEAKER_00: 42:27

In the heart of the city, she shines bright for you.