The Juice with Jeff #96

On this episode of the podcast, Andrew Pass conducts/co-produces an awesome audio interview with me thru Zoom, and this is the first time that Andrew makes his debut as an interviewer/co-producer in The Juice with Jeff family.

 

After Andrew and I give our introductions during the first 3 minutes of the podcast, we brought up the following topics:

 

1. Andrew brings up the subject of bullying and shares a story about how he was bullied as a kid. Then he asks me to talk about how I have dealt with people throughout my life who have seen differences which we have and somehow have been intimidated by those difference. I discussed with Andrew about how I was bullied frequently by a small number of people as a kid. And Andrew asks me what kind of advice I would give to an 11 year old kid who is bullied. I offer my thoughts on bullying, the importance of self-esteem, how extremely important it is for us to speak up and speak out against bullying/bigotry/etc... and how crucial it is that we love/accept/respect someone as they are for who they are. And during this part of the interview, I talk about my being autistic, how it has affected my life, how important it is that we promote Neurodiversity and Autism ACCEPTANCE (Not Autism Awareness).

 

2.  Then beginning at the 16 minute mark of the podcast, we then talk about our Camp Ramah in Wisconsin days. Both Andrew and I were a part of the Ramah Wisconsin community for a while, and Andrew starts off this part of the podcast by talking about how the best experience he has that has shaped who he is professionally and that helped him build his business is being a staff member at Ramah Wisconsin. Andrew asks me to talk about my Camp Ramah in Wisconsin experience and what impact my years at Ramah Wisconsin has on my life. I talk with Andrew about how being at Ramah Wisconsin as a camper (between the summers of 1989-1992) and as a staff member (between the summers of 1994-1997) has given me the opportunity to: a. make additional friends and improve my social skills, b. how Ramah is one of the main factors that has led me to take my Judaism seriously every day of the year at all times and how it helped me make the decision to become a religiously observant Jew, and c. how working at Ramah those 4 summers shaped the skills I have with what I do for a livelihood. Even though the job I had at Ramah Wisconsin didn't involve any management or supervisor requirements, it did shape what kind of style I tried to follow in doing my job and interacting with the camp community where I did my best to maintain a balance between being "Polite" AND being "firm". This portion of the podcast lasts around 16 minutes.

 

Then for about two minutes, Andrew asks me to talk about if there are aspects of my daily life today that are similar in terms of maintaining policies where I sometimes have to say NO for the good of the whole. And I explain how there are plenty of times where I have to say No to people and maintain a balance between helping out/caring about others and practicing self-care. I also mentioned during this part of the podcast about how I work for a sleep medicine clinic in the Des Moines area as the Chief Medical Records Scanner.

 

d. And then we spend the remaining 14 minutes of this episode talking about these "The Juice with Jeff" podcasts. Andrew asks me to talk about various aspects of the podcasts including: What are my goals for The Juice with Jeff, the history of the podcasts and how they came to exist, and about the funding I get from a couple people to financially afford being able to continue having these podcasts produced/recorded. I also talked during this part of the show about how I had experience in audio/video production by being on KWDM radio at Valley High School during the 2nd half of my high school years, by being in the J-School at Drake University for 4-1/2 years and having a significant amount of opportunities and experience in working on both audio and video productions. And I elaborate on how doing these podcasts allows me to continue to use my audio production skills.

 

This interview was recorded thru Zoom on Monday October 11, 2021, and it lasts for 50 minutes. As is the case with all of  "The Juice with Jeff" podcasts, funding for this podcast is provided by Realty With Ahart and RandomKid. Enjoy!!