Nature, Nurture, and Neurodiversity w/ Dr. Jeff Karp (Season 1 Finale)

Mike Cornell: 00:00:31

Hello there. I'm Mike.

Chaya: 00:00:32

I'm Chaya.

Mike Cornell: 00:00:33

Welcome to the season finale of season one of Spark Launch.

It's been a really fun ride with you all and to bring the season to a close and everything we've kind of discussed, I think we have the perfect guest for that. I want to welcome onto the show Dr.

Jeff Karp, a distinguished biomedical engineer, professor at Harvard Medical School and mit, and a pioneering advocate for neurodiversity and innovative education.

With a PhD in biomedical engineering from the University of Toronto, he has developed groundbreaking medical technologies, and his unique journey is shaped by his personal experiences with ADHD and hyperfocus, informing his commitment to empowering individuals through understanding and embracing their unique Strengths. With over 175 papers published and over 100 patents, he has authored life ignition tools and is a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

Inspiring audiences to rekindle their aliveness and ignite action, emphasizing the interconnectedness of all beings.

Jeff Karp: 00:01:41

Hey, so great to be here.

Chaya: 00:01:42

Welcome, Jeff. Just listening to your accomplishments, my jaw dropped, and we are truly honored to have you here.

And one thing that really stands out, knowing that you have ADHD and then this list of accomplishments, is that you are extremely resilient and your determination is what has taken you this far. So we want to dig into your secrets.

Jeff Karp: 00:02:15

For sure, for sure. No, I'm happy to share everything. I, I love sharing my insights. And, you know, I, I think that for me, it's. It's been quite a struggle along the way.

And, you know, I feel like I was the kid who always had to work, like, two or three times harder than everybody else.

And, you know, I was a C and D student early on, and had it not been for the support of my parents and, you know, my mom actually going up against the school system and demanding that they take a look at my case to get special accommodations because the school, you know, back then, for whatever reason, they didn't have the resources.

They, they, they, they, they weren't, you know, the ADHD wasn't well known or sort of discussed and, and other types of, you know, learning differences. And so my mom, you know, went up and actually demanded that they. They consider identifying me as having learning differences. And they did.

And I got special accommodations. And that was a huge turning point for me. And I think, you know what.

What I think is maybe even more of a bigger turning point was despite the struggles that I was having early on and, you know, getting all the labels that.

That neurodiverse kids typically get, like lazy and lost cause, you know, at one point the someone asked me, oh, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I think I said, a doctor. And they said, oh, you better set your sights lower because you don't. You don't have what it takes to do that.

I was compared to my sister a lot, who was, you know, straight A student. And, you know, I recall someone even once, say, with teacher saying, you know, why can't you be more like your sister?

And so despite all of those things, which, which were. Were quite emotionally challenging and, and, you know, just like trying to fit in as well socially, there were a lot of challenges there.

But the one kept me going is my mom. There were these speech competitions in my. In my school, I think, starting in like the fourth grade or fifth grade.

And my mom actually wrote the speeches for me, and then she started coaching me and to memorize. And I was horrible at memorizing.

And, you know, but she started with like one word and then two words, and it's sort of like, you know, this idea of you can memorize one word, you can memorize two, and you can memorize a sentence and a page, paragraph. And she just kept at it. And then she would coach me on how to say it. And it was a painful experience, I remember, but, like, it was not easy at all.

And I kind of wanted to throw in the towel pretty much every day. But I eventually, you know, I became the kid to be in these speech competitions, and I started to do perform really well.

And to me, you know, sort of like a key message, I think, is that, you know, kids just need that one thing, and it doesn't matter what it is just one thing where they're constantly making some progress. And it can be incremental progress, but that they feel like they're putting in some effort and it's translating into something.

And it's, you know, some evolution is taking and some expansion of their mind or their capabilities, their abilities. And that's what I think really stuck with me and it's been a cornerstone in my life, is that just that cultivation of that one thing.

And it really doesn't have to be school related. You know, it can, it can be outside, could be a sport, it could be, could be anything.

But I think, you know, we tend to put too much focus on the like school and sort of thinking inside that box that every kid needs to perform well in school. But I don't really think that way.

I think there's other things that we can do and especially the system, the education system is so sort of anti neurodiversity and it has really created a lot of problems for a lot of kids. And I think, you know, it's really sad.

And I think that whatever we can do to support children to, to have just that one thing, help them find it and help them cultivate it, I think that makes all the difference.

Mike Cornell: 00:05:56

It's unsupportive, right? Yeah, it's very unsupportive.

And like all being told all those things growing up, you know, it's at that point it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, you know, when no one's truly supporting you. And I don't think the traditional education systems really offer a lot in the way of support and cultivating interest or knowledge in any real way.

It took, you know, thankfully your, your, your mother was there to, to help build that out and that was the kind of support that was necessary to get the ball rolling instead of just admonishing which just ends up hurting self esteem. And a lot of times you just end up thinking, well, I guess I'm literally just not good enough. Because that's what everyone keeps telling me.

Jeff Karp: 00:06:39

Yeah, that filled. I mean that, that's what I thought. I, I really did, you know, like I.

We moved out to the country when I was in the third grade and I just remember getting off the bus and just you know, feeling exhausted, demoralized, you know, walking along my driveway and actually in the, like my driveway was actually 1,000ft long.

It was, we were really in the country, you know, and it was like this, this carve through a forest and had to walk over a bridge and there was like, you know, like a farmer's field, my backyard and sheep farm beside us and all that whole thing. But I remember just getting off and just being exhausted.

But another thing that really helped me a lot was, you know, there are no phones, like cell phones or anything like that back then. And so as I walked along this driveway, I would just look into the forest because you know, there's nothing else to do really. Right.

And I would look and I would just, I Would feel better as like every step I took, I would feel a little bit better and I would just become mesmerized with what I saw around me and the sounds and the scents and you know, I would kind of see different things every day and started to notice the nuances and I started to feel like nature, that embrace from nature, that.

And I think that's another key thing that has really kept me going is that just knowing that nature is always there for everybody and, and that, you know, it's it. You need to actually have an active strategy and maybe rituals and practices to get yourself out into nature these days, but it's totally worth it.

And I find that, you know, we have two dogs and I take them on long walks and that's, you know, one of the best parts of my day because I'm outside and I'm sort of noticing the nuances around me and feeling that embrace.

Chaya: 00:08:15

That's so many topics to talk about here. But I want to bring back the attention to school and what it does to the confidence to neurodivergent children and my own journey.

My confidence was taken away from day one and I was not diagnosed until like I realized I had adhd. But I believed that I was not smart enough. And it played out throughout my career because I couldn't speak speak up what I thought.

So it would go up to my throat and just go down. I wouldn't speak up because the schooling had killed my confidence. Because about others I believe that I was not smart enough.

And especially with the out of box thinking, you need that confidence to speak out, the out of box nature of the thought process and all of that would go up through my throat and just go down. But I had to embrace that authenticity and confidence by just focusing on the intentions. If my intentions are pure, then I'm going to speak up.

Yeah, right. So. So with, you know, what your mother was for you, I think we need to be that for the children.

And they might not be our own children, but however we can do that, build that confidence in them, it's going to make a big difference as they grow up as.

Jeff Karp: 00:09:49

Yeah. And yeah, I mean what you said just totally relates.

I think the other part of this, you know, there's all these struggles depending on, you know, the aspects of neurodiversity and you know, I think. And then what happens is, is that it gets misinterpreted. Right.

So it gets misinterpreted as being that you're lazy, you're not working hard enough, but the reality is. Is that you're actually working harder than everybody else because you're sitting there trying to figure out the world 24 7.

Like you're trying to interpret the cues and you're trying to do pattern recognition and what people are saying in different situations. And you're actively trying to code your own brain to get yourself out of this and just to, to, to be like everybody else.

And then you start getting these labels like you're lazy and you know, you, you need to do this and that. And it just becomes so overwhelming.

It creates a cycle of self shame because people around you are shaming you and, and it just becomes a lot to, to deal with. And I think a lot of kids, you know, I mean these.

It's just so sad, right, because they like, you know, as, as adults, it's hard enough to deal with these things.

These kids, it's even harder because of just the social pressures to fit in and just the lack of tools, you know, that, that you have is as, as children.

And so, and that's one of the reasons I'm actually really excited about the, you know, the artificial intelligence or augmented intelligence, however I want to refer to it.

But like just this, the ability to more, to have more personalized approaches to be able to tap into what kids are really experiencing and what, where they're making their efforts and what really interests them and where they're at at a particular moment.

And then experimenting with strategies that can be personalized so that, that can help find like what works for that child in that moment and then when it stops working, be able to, you know, so I'm just really excited about what the innovations that are happening in education right now.

Chaya: 00:11:51

Yeah, me too. I don't, I don't think we were here before that. Right.

It's only with, with AI coming into the picture we are able to talk about this because really, you know, to have personalized information is challenging in a regular school system. So it's taught for the general public. Right. And we are the outliers. But important for.

To consider the neurodivergent community in current school system.

Jeff Karp: 00:12:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean there's so many things, right?

Like that just like one thing that I noticed today, I've been using like ChatGPT and Gemini and just like experimenting with them and everything. And I find that I really think these are tools that can help people who are neurodiverse in just incredible, incredible ways.

And you know, one of the things that I do is like, I'll say, you know, I could Ask it like, okay, list five things that are, you know, could even just be like, what are the top 10 challenges that people with ADHD face? Right? And it gives you a list. And I just sort of thinking about it, it and then. But my mind will focus on one thing, right?

Like at the end I'm only thinking about one and I can't hear the other ones. So then I can say to it, I can say, okay, say it again, but change the order, right?

And it's sort of like when it changes the order, it kind of puts my brain into this higher energy state and then I can pay more attention to some of the others.

And you know, it's like there's all these little tricks that we can do to better learn and to recall and, you know, store information and sort of work with it. And so I really find that really, I'm just really excited about the whole space of AI for people with neurodiversity in terms of being.

And even writing, like, I find like writing. It's so hard for me to write like a first draft, but I sort of have ideas. It's like there's like.

And this could be, I don't know if it's ADHD or other aspects of learning differences that I have, but like, I find like, I have sort of thoughts in my mind, but I can't get them onto the paper, you know, and so I find, but I know when I get there that it's where I want it to be. And so it's like I can just have this conversation and be so, you know, iterate over and over and over again.

Once I, I'm, I'm much better, I think, at looking at something that's written than writing something from scratch. So it's been really helpful for me in that regard too.

Chaya: 00:14:13

You had talked about the power of question. And so I, that's the only way I've ever learned in my life.

And, and with ChatGPT, I'm constantly talking to it because nobody else, no other human being can keep up to the questions that I have. And when it answers, I'll have like 10 more questions. So it's amazing.

Jeff Karp: 00:14:36

It's incredible. Yeah.

One of the ways that I, you know, and it did before there was chat, GPT and other other large language models, and I still do this to some, some, you know, in some ways is when I got to graduate school, like, you know, I felt I was actually pretty good at asking questions because questions became a survival tool for me. I realized that questions could actually slow Things down, right?

Like, if, let's say, a teacher was teaching about something and I missed something, I can ask a question. And it was almost like a rewind button, you know, to kind of go back and then. So I use questions a lot, like, as a tool for that.

And I also realized that whenever I asked a question, I could hyperfocus on the answer for a few moments afterwards, and then I could store it and recall it later. So questions were helping me to hyper focus and imprint memories of what was being said in my mind.

And so I sort of clued into that very early on as I had this transformational experience between the second and third grade that sort of opened things up for me, and we can come back to that. But one of the things happened when I got to grad school, I just.

The people around me, I found, were just asking these unbelievable questions, you know, these weekly or monthly seminars that we would go to. And I was just thinking, like, why aren't any of those questions coming to me?

You know, like, I almost started to shame myself, and I started to think, you know, I'd spent so much time doing pattern recognition, trying to observe behaviors and things around me, and. And sort of. I got to this point, and again, I think this is actually really.

It could be really important for some people is this idea that when we're not good at something, we tend to shame ourselves and say, I'm not good at that. And then we just. That's it. We just put ourselves in a box.

But because I've been not good at pretty much everything I've ever tried, and I've had support, you know, from my parents and things like that, what I've realized is that it's not because I'm inherently not good at it, but it's because I am not engaging a process that works for me, and that there's probably some other process out there that someone else has that I need to borrow and try on and, you know, see if it can do better. And so what I started to think was I was trying to think, like, with these questions, how can I ask better questions in grad school?

University of Toronto. And I thought about it.

I sort of came up with this idea where I went into the next seminar, and everyone was focused on what the speaker was saying, but I was focused on something completely different. I was focused on the questions that people were asking, and I wrote them all down.

So I would just go to seminars and write the questions down that people ask, and after a couple months, I started going over them. And, you know, a few days I would look over them and.

And all of a sudden I recognized that all the questions that were asked in these scientific seminars could be placed under, like, 5, 4, 5, 6 different categories. They could all be categorized. And when I noticed that, it was such a light bulb moment because I understood the rationale behind the questions.

And when I understood the rationale, that sunk into me because it was such a profound thing. Like, I was like, wait a moment. I understand why they're asking these questions.

And when I understood the why, the questions they were asking started to come to me. And so I think that that that really simple tool of sort of waking up one day could be tomorrow, right.

Or today, and going through the day and sort of just listening to the questions that people around you ask and then write them down and sort of take a look at them later on. And I think you'll find questions that you don't ask, but you want to ask because you like them.

And when you start looking, focusing your attention on that, those questions become your questions. And it just has a way of opening things up.

Mike Cornell: 00:18:19

Yeah. Comparing neurodiverse people to AI in an interesting way is the same way that I think we learn very, very visually and by.

By example, in a lot more ways, even things that come naturally to us. I like creative writing a lot.

And when it came to that, sometimes to get the juices flowing, I would literally just open up a thesaurus and start looking at. And just, okay, here's a word I would like to use in this paragraph. And let me just, like, go down the rabbit hole of where this word comes from.

And like, all this, and for some reason, seeing different words start to jumble together in my head would start to move things a little bit the same way AI, you know, you continually feed it questions, and it learns the. You know. And it's the same way with this is example of how things are.

Certain things are done, or like, it's all there in my head, but for other people, it comes very naturally. Like, they're able to just spit those things out. I need a little bit of, like, a motor going for it.

I need to be able to picture it and visualize, like, almost myself saying it to understand what the purpose of it is.

Jeff Karp: 00:19:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think what you're saying there is so profound and so important because it's like.

I think a big part of it is people who are neurodiverse especially have difficulty in general getting in touch with what works for them and what is not working for them. Right.

And so when you start focusing your attention on that and you start to realize that you start trying things on and experimenting and you start to realize sort of like where is your brain sort of most activated and most excited and most sort of, you know, where it's the gears start turning the fastest. If you can figure that out, even just in a small way, you can use that for everything.

And you, it's, it's like this, it's like beyond just self awareness. It's, it's, it's almost like self empowerment because you start to realize, oh, if I, you know, and I, I did the same thing.

Like I used to go to the, there was all these, I forget what the, like the, there were these thesaurus websites, you know, that I used to go to all the time. And, and you know, and even like rhymes like, you know, you can do like there was like a rhyming one you could do.

And you know, so I was, I would play around with that quite a bit as well.

But by figuring out what excites your mind and what helps it to sort of move things forward in the way that you want to, it just opens everything up because then you start to realize for everything there's probably something else out there. They're like, just like an equivalent, a parallel of a thesaurus that you could turn to that might, you know, sort of spark your mind.

And so part of it is like, how do we get, how do we help people get on these journeys of, of self empowerment, self efficacy by discovering the ways that their brains work the best. Right. And get excited and what are the sort of like the hiccups or the challenges and how to sort of navigate, navigate that.

And sometimes it's just ignoring that part and just focusing on the things that excite you. And. Right. I do that a lot.

Chaya: 00:21:26

I think one thing that is common among all neurodivergent individuals is that they deeply need to resonate with it. So they can't really blindly do things which other people are successful. It's called the importance based nervous system.

They can do it even though they don't really resonate, but they can do it because it's important. But I think for us, we need to feel it in our bones and our blood and veins and all of that.

Because, because it, it has to make that connection to it. And that's the frontal lobe. I'm thinking that is what they're cleaning about.

I think in the, in the science world maybe you can explain better it's that connection to the frontal lobe. Once we get that, why. Why are we doing it? Why do I need to study? Why do I need to get good grades? And once we get that, why, we'll show up.

But we need to understand that.

Jeff Karp: 00:22:25

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that, again, is. It's so important that. That point. Because I think that a lot of the education system is about. In many.

I don't know, just as I see it, it's like, how do we force ourselves to do something we're not excited to do? Right? And when you do that, you're not like, activating your mind and getting all these positive neurotransmitters.

You're actually creating this, like, cycle in your mind of, of. Of. Of sort of just turning things off and, and being frustrated and, and it sort of starts to.

The world starts to get smaller, you know, and when, when that's all you do. And I think that when we. And that's why I sort of go back to that one thing.

If we all need that one, hopefully it's more than one, but it doesn't need to be, you know, just. It could be just one thing. And when we find that one thing that just lights us up and that we're really, you know, the thing.

And one of the ways we can sort of figure it out and a metal detector kind of, you know, like, analogy is, is what are the things that we hyperfocus on, right? Like, we can just kind of go through our day and try to develop an awareness of, like, where, where.

What are the things that either just excite us or what are the things that we find.

We're just so zoned in, like, we can't hear other people talking to us, you know, and my daughter, for example, was diagnosed with ADHD a few years ago. And there's, you know, so many times when I'm.

She's doing something and I'm talking to her and I know there's nothing getting through, you know, like, she's just so hyper focused. And so it's sort of like, okay, well, what, what. What are the things that really excite us?

What are the things that we find that we hyper focus on throughout the day and that can give us clues and cues, you know, for, for maybe some of the. The interests that we might. We might want to pursue that can become our passions?

And I think that's a big thing about, you know, we talk about in the neurodiversity community about finding superpowers.

And I think that's a big part of it is that once you sort of can connect with what you naturally hyper focus on what naturally excite you and that you don't have to force, that's to me where the magic starts to happen. And if we got to find ways to cultivate that.

Chaya: 00:24:34

And it's so individualistic, right?

So your interest is so different from what your daughter's is and, and as parents and that's it's so important not to push our interests over to them, especially with neurodivergent children.

Jeff Karp: 00:24:49

Oh my God, huge.

That point is so big because I think that, you know, parenting is so difficult because I don't know, just speaking from my own personal experience because, you know, I'm on my own self evolution and I'm going through my own struggles and I think, you know, ego is, is sort of like, I see as like a pendulum is kind of, you know, coming in and out, you know, of the situation.

And I think that it's the tendency, I think, is to be so wrapped up in your own struggles, you know, speaking of someone with ADHD and other learning differences that when, let's say I try to parent, I'm not always thinking, I'm not always putting myself in my daughter's shoes. I'm not always seeing things from her side. I find I'm sometimes saying things to her that people said to me that were not the best things to say.

You know what I mean? Like, it's sort of like it's really hard and it's.

And that's why that kind of motivates me even more to get on this process of, you know, these steps of self evolution and trying to create more of more pauses and more reflection and more observation rather than saying things. You know, it's almost like less speaking and more just observing and, and sort of, you know, trying to lead more with curiosity and.

And I'm doing my own experimentation with my daughter where I'm like just observing and sort of like, okay, if I say this, what's her response? And then trying to remember the next time, you know, so I can try to navigate that and be as supportive and present as I am.

But you know, a lot of time it just comes back to these basic things about, you know, just being present and not, not trying to force anything or say anything in particular, but just being there and just sort of like in this, just almost like trying to get a sense of like what's the energy of in the room, what's the energy of my daughter and how can I sync up with that energy rather than Sort of try to get her to sink to my energy.

Chaya: 00:26:43

Yeah. Because before I had this awareness, what you just described, I tried to force things onto my son and it backfired big time.

So I'm really grateful for my son to have awakened me to this journey because I realized I still had to work on my anxiety, which is what took me to my own spiritual journey. And I was able to conquer it through meditation. And if I don't meditate every day, I'll go back to my old ways. So that's my secret.

And it's so frustrating when you're parenting. I mean, this is talking about the old me, not the new me. But is, is because you have the answers.

You're a grown up, you figured out a lot of things and you just want them to figure it out too. And you want to save the trouble of them making mistakes.

But one thing I've realized, the only way you're going to learn something quickly is through self realization. So you have to allow for them to, to experience a little bit of pain just to realize.

Jeff Karp: 00:27:54

So true.

Mike Cornell: 00:27:54

Yeah.

Jeff Karp: 00:27:54

You know, it reminds me of. There was this book that came out many years ago. It was like something like the seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Is it like Stephen Covey or.

There used to be these stores in the mall and stuff. Right.

And I remember that one of the things he said, I remember listening to that when it came out, I forget if it was on a tape or where it was, but. And he said something like, slow is fast, fast is slow. Right. And it was kind of like that really just stuck with me, like this sense of.

And I think you just nailed it.

You know, like when, when we're with our kids, we, we've had these life experiences and we've learned things and we, out of the goodness of, you know, it's good intention, we want our children to not have to learn the hard lesson that we learned. We want them to be able to learn from us so they don't have to go through that painful, tortuous process.

And yet in the process of doing that, we're actually creating distance with our kids.

And we're also sort of, you know, slowing the process down for them to actually learn it because now they're turned off by what we're, we're telling them. And because, you know, we forget when we were kids that, you know, self reliance is this rapidly evolving energy. Right.

And you don't want to be told what to do, you want to figure it out on your own.

And so I think that's the challenge of parenting is how do you give your kids enough guidance but also sort of hold back on, on, on a lot so that they can figure it out on their own and not have to feel like, you know, because they want to become their own person. They don't want to become, you know, like a duplicate of a parent.

Mike Cornell: 00:29:32

Skipping to the last chapter of a book doesn't make it. Make it that you read the entire book. You know, I think that's, I think that's the same thing of just like life experiences.

It helps to have somebody there to assist you in maybe turning the page or explaining a couple concepts. But you actually do have to unfortunately go through it on your own in a lot of ways.

Talking more about the 12 tools that you've kind of developed and spoken a lot about. What are, what are ways that, like, those can be applied to a lot of daily life for, you know, parents or just individuals as well?

Jeff Karp: 00:30:07

Yeah. So the tools are from a book that I wrote that actually came out in April of last year called Lit Life Ignition Tools.

And these tools are really all about intercepting patterns to actively think and decide versus just jump in with habitual responses. And you can kind of think of them as like, as on ramps to intercept our thinking or our behaviors.

Mike Cornell: 00:30:30

Yeah.

Jeff Karp: 00:30:30

So these, these tools are, they're very holistic and in the sense that you can use them together and they're just really powerful. And I use them all the time.

And they've been incredibly helpful for me to continue this path of self evolution and really to try to intercept these behaviors and, you know, thought patterns. So one example is there's a tool press pause.

And you know, I think we all can sort of appreciate that pausing can be good for us, but the challenge is how do we actually do it?

And that's one of the challenges that I faced a lot is, you know, I've gotten so much advice from reading or from, you know, podcasts and things like that, but then it's like, what's the process that I can try? Right. Because a lot of times you get like, advice, but there's no process like, okay, pausing is really good.

Meditation is really good, but how do you actually engage it? How do you embrace, how do you do it in a meaningful way?

And one of the ways that, that I do that is so let's say, you know, often what I did kind of early on in my career is I would have these back to back meetings, right. And I get to the end of the day and I feel like, oh, you know, I've done so much work, but there's something wasn't feeling right.

And I was sort of like. I felt like I was missing things.

Like there were things like all these meetings I had and all these conversations, they seem so rich, but I come away from them and just like be like, oh, they said so many important things, but I. I don't remember. Like there were things I just forgot or, you know, like. And that would just really bother me.

And so what I did was I started to create a pause in between meetings. Like 10 minutes or 15 minutes, you know, and you can do this by scheduling.

Instead of scheduling our meetings, you can schedule 45 minute meetings, right? Maybe it goes to 50, but then you have like a 10 minute break. And in that time, you know, I don't do text messaging or emails or anything.

I just either close my eyes or just go for a walk and just let. And I think what ends up happening is that our brains actually need time to process information and experiences. We need to.

So, you know, there's a lot that goes into our subconscious mind that needs to kind of swirl around our brains in order to go into the conscious mind and for us to sort of frame it and place it, you know, so we can recall it later and connect it to other things. And what I started to realize is that when I actually did those pauses, I would. I would remember, I'd be like, oh my gosh.

Someone I met like two, three months ago said, this is very similar, or you know, synchronizes with what that person I just met with said, maybe we should all get together, you know, and then I would set up that meeting and we'd get together and it would lead to something really great. And that would never have happened had I not press pause, right? And so to me, it's sort of like once if you.

To me, the process is finding a way to pause where it connects with something that actually is meaningful, something good happens, because you pause.

And when you do that and that happens, you have this immediate appreciation for the pause and you immediately are incentivized to find other places in your life to incorporate that pause. And so it's really just about like, for example, I do this, I did this like yesterday where it was like, okay, I was.

Whatever I was doing, and I was like, okay, I'm going to go on to Instagram or whatever it is. And I was like, okay, well, let me just pause and see what comes through, right?

And I was like, I don't really want to, but like, you know, because I feel this pull of like, you know, social media and going on, and I paused and then I just sort of sat there and I just, you know, I was with the dogs.

And then a thought came in my mind that was really interesting, you know, and I wrote it down and it sort of led to something else that I did later in the day. And it's like, had I not paused, that thought wouldn't have came through. And so to me, pressing pause is. It's not just about pausing.

It's about finding a way to pause in your day just for a few moments here or there, and find and connecting it with something that actually is positive for you. Right.

So it actually maybe, maybe it's just like you feel a sense of calm, a sense of clarity, maybe some thought comes through, maybe you make a connection you wouldn't have made, but sort of really tuning into that and realizing how important it is. And once you do that, it becomes much more easy to incorporate in your life because you have a rationale that, you know, that it benefits you.

Chaya: 00:34:49

The way I see that is creating boundaries. We need to disconnect from our previous interaction. After all, we are all energy bodies.

And I think neurodivergent individuals have a hard time with boundaries. It's a learned skill for me. And so we have to consciously disconnect. And that's the pause. That's how I'm connecting with what you're saying.

And I need to do that even, even after our podcast record, before I get on to my next thing, I need to flush out the energies. It's. It's a wonderful conversation, but then I don't want to carry this over on to the next thing. So that's the pause.

And I can even do like a quick 30 second meditation to just ground myself and just put all the energies onto Mother Earth, however we want to do it. Right. Or go for a walk.

Jeff Karp: 00:35:48

Yeah, I mean, there's so many ways. And the thing is, I, you know, I sort of put a lot of thought into this and, and to me, you know, I've tried a lot of types of meditation.

A lot of them don't work.

I did find one that worked quite well for me called Transcendental Meditation, where it's like one word and you're in a mantra, you know, and, and you repeat it over and over in your mind and, and just sort of become aware of the thoughts that come in and that you, you get distracted from the mantra and then you come back to it and that's like really interesting because every time you're able to come back to it, it's like a bicep curl, you know, for, for your brain. And.

But, but the one thing that really sort of strikes me is that it's really tough hearing other people talk about, let's say, meditation or mindfulness in their lives and how useful it's been when it hasn't been useful for you.

And so you kind of, in some ways it almost like invokes the self shame and just sort of speaking from personal experience, it's like, oh, why isn't this worked for me? Why is this not? Why is this so challenging? Why is this, you know, what's the problem kind of thing?

And to me, again, it's like it always comes back to, okay, what's this really simple actionable step that I can take where I can just experiment a little and get some feedback? And I think to me often that, you know, that's what's missing from my perspective out there in a lot of the sort of tools.

I think there's all these amazing tools, but we need the tools just to be a little bit more actionable in terms of like, what's something really short that I can practice? And even when, you know, usually in mindfulness we say, okay, you know, focus on the breath, right? Or is that, you know, just feel it or whatever.

And to me that's even like just personally that, that could work with a lot of people. But for me that didn't work because it was just sort of like, I don't know, it just didn't seem.

But then when it was like, okay, focus on the breath and focus on the thoughts in your mind and just notice how they change and how your focus on your breath leaves and comes back. And like then that becomes kind of starts to get a little interesting, right? Like it's almost like a game.

And then when you start connecting it to a benefit or something positive in your life, like you're able.

Like for example, one of the ways I've used meditation is for transitions because I realize that when I'm working often I'm in a very hyper focused state. I'm in like, I'm in flow. And when, if I then have a social situation, go do something with my family, my brain is still in work mode.

It's still in hyper focus mode. I can't social like, you know, I'm not receptive to social cues. I'm not really flowing and they have the right energetics, you know.

And I find that often I will need. If I'm doing some intense work, I'll need a period where I just am doing nothing and letting my brain sort of get into this transition mode.

And something that actually helped me a lot is breath work. And, and in particular. And again, it wasn't just breathing. It was actually putting a ton of effort into the breathing. So I did these.

Is these breathing exercises where when you inhale, you're. I mean, you're just, you're. You're going for it, right? It's almost like you're. You're at the gym and you're lifting weights.

Like, you know, that's how I feel.

Like, when you, when you put that energy into breath work and you get into this rhythm, it just has this unbelievable ability to just calm the body really quickly. But it's not about just breathing and noticing your breath.

It's about, you know, for me, at least, like, really aggressively breathing in, breathing it all out, breathing in and getting into this rhythm. And when I, I did that, every time I do that, it just, it's like a light switch.

Chaya: 00:39:20

I think when you breathe out, you're just releasing all that energies that are held in your body. Right. It needs to leave your body. And meditation can be anything for anybody.

And this is where we, we have to detach from the methodologies that's working and personalize it. Personalization is the only way that works for neurodivergence individuals. We need to understand what works for us. Is it.

Is it going for a run, going for a walk or breathing or. I do heart chakra meditation. For me, it's all about the chakras and the energies. So, so if we detach from the methodologies, it's.

It's good to be aware of them, but, but then you, you know, we need to personalize it for what works for us.

Jeff Karp: 00:40:06

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, yeah, and have these, you know, kind of short, actionable steps and really focus on the changes. You know, like when, when I.

Let's say I do the breath work, like, I really notice, like, I could be. My mind is all over the place. Then all of a sudden I'm calm, like, almost I'm about to go to bed. You know what I mean?

Like, when I have that much of a dramatic change, it's so noticeable, and it's just like, wow, like, and I got there in three minutes. You know, it's like, that's incredible.

You know, and then I think one of the challenges, though, is like, even once you experience that, the other major challenge, at least for me, it's sort of like the shoulds, right? Like, oh, I should do this multiple times. I haven't done this in a while. Why haven't I done this in a while? It really benefits me, you know, I.

And then, and you get into this cycle of shame that is hard to get out of. And, and to me that's where one of the tools I've been using a lot recently is what I refer to as the pendulum lifestyle essentially.

Or you know, pendulum theory, which is to really picture things on a pendulum. And so almost everything, right? And so you can imagine sort of swinging back and forth.

And so let's say in the context of breath work, there's going to be times where I'm going to be really into it and it's going to be really helpful and there's going to be times when I'm not going to be into it, you know, and when I'm not into it, I may want to go back into it. But it's not about, it's sort of recognizing where I am on the pendulum and then thinking what's one step?

I can just move it a little bit towards that direction versus trying to swing it all the way over. So if I'm not doing the breath work and I want to be doing it, it's very easy to think, okay, how do I get to do it three times a day, right?

Or five times a day, you know, like, how can I get there? But if I think about it from the perspective of okay, how can I just do it today once, who cares about tomorrow if I don't do it tomorrow?

But I just today just going to do it once. Even in this, I'm just going to find two minutes. I'm just going to do 30 seconds, right?

Like just set a super, super low bar and then you do it and then you can start to bring the pendulum back to where you want it to be.

And it's sort of how do we do that in a way that just is really, you know, because otherwise what happens is we start practicing not achieving our goals because we set the goals to be so grandiose and we just never achieve it. And then we get even more into the cycles of self shame. So we need to find a way to practice achieving goals.

And so that's why I like the pendulum is sort of like, okay, where am I on the pendulum? And, and you could do it for anything. Like energy, for sleep, for just like anything in your life.

Like, you know, like if you're all your pendulum for sleep, you Might find times when you're sleeping really well and sometimes you're just, like, exhausted and, you know, getting depressed. I get depressed when I. When I don't sleep. You know, like, just my mental state just starts to decline really fast.

And so when I tune into that, it's like, okay, what's the one step? Okay, maybe I can just not look at my screen 30 minutes before bed. Or maybe I can, you know, put on some soft music before I go to bed.

Or maybe, you know, one of the things I've been doing, actually, one of the tools that works incredibly well for me is I visualize myself standing as a tiny creature, like a tiny version of myself standing on the back of creatures in nature. So, for example, like, I'll stand on the back of, like, a bumblebee, right?

And as my head's on the pillow, I'm, like, lying there because otherwise my brain's ruminating. It's going all over the place.

What are the emails that I forgot to send, the people who haven't responded to me, the deadlines that I'm not close to, you know, all these things I'm thinking, thinking about relationship issues, whatever it is.

And so when I think about standing on the back of a bee and then I'm activating all my senses and I'm like, okay, well, what would it feel like on my feet? Bare feet, standing on the back of a bee, right?

And I sort of like visual, like I'm sensing that and like, what would it be like to go into the flower and come out and another one and feel the wind from the wings and, you know, just like the visuals and the hearing and the touch and like, the sensations would just be unbelievable. Like the buzz sound, right? Like, you'd just be going in and out and it would be going on and off.

So when I start doing that, it requires a little bit of energy to sort of think about that. And that is, in a way, it's kind of almost meditative because then I stop ruminating, I'm focused on this bee, and I fall. Fall asleep really quickly.

It works pretty much every time I've tried it.

Chaya: 00:44:23

That's so amazing what you described about the bee. And I was so into your story that I now have to pull myself out of it. But it's. It's magical. Whatever works, right?

We have the power within us to be who we want to be and figuring out our own tools and actually doing it. A lot of it. Sometimes we. We listen, we get inspirations, but we don't take action.

I feel action is where we change, shift our energies from being a victim to getting on the other side of being in inner strength, inner power, living, living to our fullest potential. And I'm not talking about career, I'm talking about inner happiness.

Jeff Karp: 00:45:13

Yeah.

Chaya: 00:45:14

You know.

Jeff Karp: 00:45:14

Yeah. I mean the world is so externally focused.

You know, like humans are very externally focused just in terms of like oh, the deadlines and the projects and the perfection and the, you know, it's just, just kind of everything, the promotions and the, the financials and you know, it's like we're all so focused on, you know, and, and when we sort of, we lose sight of the, the sort of the beauty of life. Right. And the fact that, you know, there's so many things about our biology that can be just like awe striking. Right.

Like it's, it's, it's like how, how is it that you know, that just like how can our DNA create these three dimensional structures and get our organs and tissues and all the systems like you know, our bones and our blood vessels and nervous systems and you know what I mean? Like we have all this, we don't have to think to breathe, we don't have to think to digest.

We have all these unbelievable processes happening within us. And then when we go into nature, we feel this, like the data shows, we feel this sense of like calm.

Our heart rate goes down, our breath rate goes down, our blood pressure goes down, our sense of well being goes up. Like we have this interconnectedness that's just there.

And if we turn our attention to it, even just for a few moments every day, to just recognize and even like one of the things I do to move in that direction when I'm outside, I'll cycle through my senses. So I'll say sight and I just focus on sight. And I'll look around me and I'll look at the texture of the bark on the trees.

I'll look at the clouds and the shapes of the, the, the tops of the trees. Then I'll say sound and I'll hear the rustling of the wind, you know, from in the leaves and other sounds.

And then I'll say touch and I'll feel a clothing on my skin. I'll feel my heels hit the ground and I'm focusing on individual senses.

And I found that when I do that, even just like a few times, I start to notice the nuances more. I start to notice that different trees have different, you know, the trunks of different shapes and bulges and different textures of the bark.

And you know, and I start to notice the nuances around me and I start to connect with it. I'm not just observing, I'm actually connecting with it. And now as I walk around I'm actually.

My eyes are like glued for a few more moments to what I'm looking at, you know, versus when we're on these screens, our eyes are constantly moving around. You know, all these suggestions that are being in pings and all these things going on.

Their tendency I found is when you go outside, your eyes are just kind of going all over the place or my head be down just ruminating. But if I cycle through my senses, it's like a way to act, access the, the world in a very connected way.

And not just the world, external world, but the internal world. And I think there's all these practices and rituals that we can engage in and learn from each other.

That's one of the things that I'm trying to do actually with my website right now, which I'm in the process of.

Everything's up there, but I'm iterating it now to sort of create more of a, a framework for people to come and learn about practices and rituals and strategies to engage in, have, discuss, share so that we can all learn from one another about these really simple tools that we can just do every day.

And it can help us to really I think get out of these cycles of self shame and really get into these, you know, feeling more connected to, to everything.

Mike Cornell: 00:48:39

We are millions and billions of cells competing for dominance at one specific moment.

And the cell that's us one and we always look for miracles outside of basic life experience, I think and never stop to remember that we ourselves are miracles. And in turn then everything we do, everything we see, everything we experience is equally a miracle.

You said just seeing what nature is beholding at any particular time. So thank you for, thank you for coming on and reminding everybody of that very fact.

Jeff Karp: 00:49:14

There's so many facts like that by the way. It's like, you know, like majority of the, like the major atoms in our body were created by stars, right?

And so we have trillions of neutrinos and muons, these subatomic particles going through us and they're going through our houses by the way, every second, right? Like there's all these fascinating things, right? Like it's like the universe is expanding. What's it expanding into?

Like, like, you know, it's like there's these wild concepts, these things that are real, like they're, they're like, you know, like they're and again, there's all these miracles happening around us. When I think that, you know, at the individual level it's a choice if we choose to start to get on a path of recognizing them.

I think that it just opens everything up and it's really a path to liberation and a path to self efficacy and a path to more fulfillment in life and more connection and, you know, just raising that baseline. And that's the path that I'm choosing and trying to share with others as well.

Mike Cornell: 00:50:18

Yes. As I always say, there is significance and insignificance and that's what I think is the beauty of the universe.

Jeff Karp: 00:50:25

Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I like that.

Mike Cornell: 00:50:27

Before we let you go, how can everybody find you track down your book?

Jeff Karp: 00:50:31

My website's just my name, jeffkarp.com and so you can go there. There's links to the book Lit Life, Ignition Tools and I also have a newsletter that I recently started that you can subscribe to.

Where every week or two or three depending on when inspiration strikes. I plan to release one this week.

But yeah, I share tools and strategies that I've been practicing and some inspirational quotes that I've read and just things that I think can be really helpful to a lot of people, especially those with who are neurodiverse.

Mike Cornell: 00:51:03

Awesome. That's great. And I'll be sure to include all those in the show notes and your book and everywhere else you can be found.

Thank you again for joining us. This has been a perfect ending to our first season and really dream guest to have. So cannot thank you enough.

Jeff Karp: 00:51:19

Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity.

Chaya: 00:51:21

Absolute pleasure. And you'll have to come back again to talk about other tools. And thank you.

Jeff Karp: 00:51:27

Thank you both so much. Thank you.

Mike Cornell: 00:51:29

We will see you next time.