Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Welcome to disability Empowerment now season four. I'm your host, Keith Mafia Giginsini. Today I'm talking to my friend Nathan Klein, who is a artistic college student who is studying heart racing. Nathan, welcome to the show.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Hello everybody. Thank you for having me on, Keith. It's much appreciated.
[00:00:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
I can't believe we've only known each other for about a year. It seems a lot longer. I remember that the event I met you at, I would show out of it that the only thing I really remember I was out of it because of fatigue and sleep issues. Not I would not parting hard trudge, maybe the hey, you never know.
But the only thing I remember about that third meeting is being very captivated by your major that you're studying in college.
So let's start there. What's your major and how did you get into it?
[00:01:55] Speaker B: Okay, so my major is, the technical name is animal sciences with an emphasis in racetrack industry. But that really, I think that really sells it short because really what that major is is majoring in the sport of horse racing. Now how I got there goes all the way back to when I was about five years old, when I was a very rowdy kid. Like I had bitten a kindergarten teacher. People used vests on me to like restrain me because I. They didn't understand how I worked and operated as a person. And one of the many suggestions that my parents had given me to help me out was therapeutic horse riding, which is very common. And I will always stand by because it helps so many people connect and like help out like therapeutic writing centers.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: I can join you in that. I have cerebral palsy and my gait is severely affected.
But it one of the reasons why I'm able to move the way I am able to, it's because of equine therapy.
It's a remarkable.
I can't say enough about how remarkable that therapy is. So please continue.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: Thank you. Yes. So while I didn't have as many physical dislike inhibitors as someone like you would, it was most definitely a lot up here and in the throat area because of how I needed to learn how to speak, which is funny now because now I'm a total motor mouth and absolutely garrulous. But I was described as someone who actually took longer to learn how to talk.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: Same here. When did you start speaking?
[00:04:06] Speaker B: I don't know exactly, but I know that the general timeframe was, I think especially what I think I started speaking around like maybe one or so. But the big thing was that I didn't learn other similar tasks as quickly. So I had to use, like, I had like speech therapy in school and reading was difficult. I had trouble really learning how to like, read throughout kindergarten, like first grade and second grade and so on and so forth. So that was definitely where I took longer to develop as a person was learning how to read and learning how to speak more coherently, but also in a way that was presentable to people, because while I could talk, it wasn't necessarily in a way that people could understand because either I would talk too fast or too loudly. So I had to learn a lot about the inner voice, which I still struggle with from time to time. But, you know, that took a long time to really figure out. That was definitely where most of the effort went into to help me as a person was learning how to talk in a way that I guess is normal, even though there is no normal.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: Correct.
So, Wendy, you first remember being told you were artistic and how. What would your lead reaction to the nudes?
[00:05:44] Speaker B: So I was told what autism was when I was about five or six years old, but it took me a long time to truly understand what it is like. There was a lot of things that I was told when I was younger that I just did not understand. So for me, I didn't understand what it was. All I knew was, I am me, I am Nathan, and apparently I have this thing, although I don't really know what it is. So it took many years longer to actually know that this is autism or this is ADHD and so forth or so on and so forth. So I can't really tell you what I thought because I didn't know either way what it really meant. And thus I couldn't say I was devastated or I was thrilled to know more about me because it was just kind of there.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: We all should share a very important fandom.
We've been to lunch several times, and most of the time we're just geeking out over Sonic the Hedgehog and all the related media of that franchise. Tell me, how did you first discovered Sonic and what attracted you to the franchise?
[00:07:11] Speaker B: So, for me, I have a weird relationship with Sonic the Hedgehog as a franchise because I grew up playing video games like Super Mario Brothers because we had Nintendo consoles, but I never grew up playing the Sonic games because a lot of the Sonic games from that time period were on Xbox or PS3, which I did not have. Now I know there's Sonic and the Black Knight and the Secret Rings, but I never got those. What attracted me to Sonic the Hedgehog originally was when I first saw a Pic a poster of him in the Olympic Games, the Mario Sonic Olympic Games crossover over. And that's when I got familiarized with the characters. And I was like, well, these are interesting designs. But what really kind of captivated me was the Internet. And through the Internet, I was able to find these cutscene movies where you would take all the cutscenes from video games and make it into some semblance of a story.
And I first discovered it through Sonic Unleashed, which actually kind of freaked me out as a kid because of the horrific transformation that he has to go through when he gets the Chaos Emeralds sucked out of the Chaos Energy sucked out of him and turned into the werehog.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great intro. I. I can imagine how that would freak someone out.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: Oh yeah. Especially with no knowledge of the franchise. But eventually I persisted forward because I think there was something about the voice acting. The way that Jason Griffith plays the character was so. Made the character so noble in similar way that I had grown up to idolize the voices and appearances of other childhood classic characters like Luke Skywalker or Lightning McQueen, which is. It's a funny sentence, but it really is true. The voice really does tell you a lot.
And later, down the road, I also found the cutscenes for the infamous Sonic the Hedgehog 06 games, which, despite the fact that the game is objectively flawed and bad, the fact that the way its story was told for some reason spoke to me in a way that I can never fully grasp. But something about it just scratched all the right parts of the brain and also further introduced me to my favorite Sonic character, Silver. So Silver was. That was always my favorite of the Sonic characters for no particular reason. I just liked the name. I just thought the name was catchy. And I liked that he was a little off brand. I always liked picking characters that were not necessarily the main characters, but just kind of like the sidekicks or the side characters that had something different to offer. And having the power of Psychokinesis is pretty dope in my personal opinion. But now for the big thing about Sonic that has kept me a fan for all these years, despite it not being the video games. I've since played some of the video games like the classic Genesis Trilogy or. Or Sonic Mania. But what has always kept me interested and in love with Sonic is the soundtrack. All the songs. I mean, heck, a few weeks ago I sang, I. I sung Live and Learn at the karaoke bar I go to every week, which was absolutely spectacular. I wish they had more songs, but I think something about the soundtrack, the fact that it's this kind of 2000s metal usually or rock and roll has always spoken to me in a very unique way. Especially the chord progression and just the design of his world. And all the renditions have always hit me in a very different way than other music. It also helped that I grew up with other similar rock and roll stuff like New Metal like Lincoln park or Skillet which was my first introduction to Christianity in a very funny way or Lincoln park through YouTube AMVs. Just the beginnings of the Internet introduced me to a lot of my favorite types of music.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: So I, I got hooked on Sonic in the early 90s with Sonic 2 and the classic era. And that ed music up and toward the Dream Cats was mainly like trying to go which would inspire my own musical forte into the arena much later on. But I fully agree with you with in regards to the music of Sonic the Hedgehog, there is no bad music.
Sonic 06 is a dreadful flawed game and so it's Shadow the Hedgehog that followed it. Although they're not a sequel in any way.
But the music of those two games that are reviled in fans minds, the music, if you just listen to the music, they are fantastic rock symphonic albums that you can hardly tell all video game soundtracks. And so I completely agree with you. The music is almost as better than the actual games. And that's coming from someone who grew up on every single game.
But yeah, so we met on the UA campus at our church called Damascus Road, Tucson. I always pronounce that word. Sully Hall.
How. How did you find Dr.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: So Damascus road and my introduction to that all began in actually the beginning of my college year. My. The beginning of my college career all the way as a freshman. So the first, one of the first things that it stuck out to me in a very bad way was that there were these people who would bring a detachable repairable cross and they would use it to basically just yell and debate at people which at the time, as someone who was kind of bitter about religion and its all existence, I thought well this sucks. That's underwhelming.
And I had talked to them and all I got was just more bitterness out of it because I just hated how they came off. They came off as people who were. Who thought they were better than others and took almost pride in the fact that people who were not like them would burn in hell, for lack of a better word. You know, offering like fake 100 bills that had like repent or you will burn forever or something like that. Just like a bad stereotype. People who use, you know, God's glory for all the wrong reasons. But as someone who likes, who likes to be fair, I wanted to see if other similar Christian groups, because there's more than one on campus, which is actually really cool, there's one for everybody.
And also for other religious groups, which I think is equally as important overall that other religious groups get their clubs and ways to express themselves. You know, this is a free country.
So the way. So I wanted to see like give this a shot because I thought it would be unfair to just generalize off of one very loud minority. And I turned out to be right because one of the first I ran into was doctor who offered me water, which was very nice. A nice polite talk with Devin and Tyler, two people that you know very well. And eventually it just kind of kept on adding on. First they'd be like, hey, you can join and play with us during board game night. And you know, we play some board games. But then they're like, hey, we have this club meeting. Would you like to join? And I decided, look, if I'm going to be so sure in my commitment to not to like not be a part of this, I might as well see what it's like first. Turns out it's not that bad. It's pretty nice. And it's giving me some of my best friends, including the people that I'm literally sitting next to right now and their delightful dogs.
[00:16:14] Speaker A: Oh, hi, Ally.
[00:16:17] Speaker B: Keith says hi.
[00:16:19] Speaker A: Yeah, so.
So I had a similar introduction several years prior.
I had met Renee Ryan and I think Dave had a big nude students event.
Renee talked my ear off and about a few days later I would taking classical dance at Shall We Dance?
And unfortunately I would the only one who didn't have a partner. So.
But I'm very curious about dancing and foot technique given my gait attitudes. And so there was this what I assume to be a older brother helping his younger sister out for the prom dance.
And so I'd spend most of the evening circling them, staring at their feet. Could they really had it down pat and.
But we didn't say anything because how do you start a conversation with people? You're literally staring at their feet in circling them.
And it wouldn't.
It was two weeks later that I stumbled into Dr.
By Chance and the badster came up to me and knew me by name, but I was him wearing a name tag. So I would like, wait, how do you know who I am? Oh, me and my fiance met you and Joey dance a Few weeks ago.
So that is literally how I met Ryan. And then Megan Trejo, now Megamilla.
And that was right as they got engaged. AWA engaged.
And so. And I always liked to tell that story Kurds.
No one in my mind but God could have orchestrated that meeting, that connection, and have the church, but particularly Ryan Miller.
Be such a phenomenal thought spiritually and otherwise in my life for over a decade.
So that's how I came to Dr. And I'm not sure I told you that before. I'd certainly have not voted on the pod cats. But since you shared how you joined. I shared how I joined, yeah.
[00:20:31] Speaker B: You never told me that story, but that's actually really cool. I had a similar kind of faithful run in after a club meeting where one of the other club members, Joss, who you know very well, reptile lover and photographer lover, he thinks that it was state that he really ran into me outside of class because I was walking and he had moved to the other side of the street to take these light. These shutter light photos. Like basically, if it takes a bunch of different pictures at once and you can draw light shapes with the flashes and it's kind of like a fun guess. You can draw lines of light in photographs. But he moved over to the other side for no reason. He just felt like he needed to. And he thought, well, this isn't helping. These pictures don't look any better. The other side was better. But through that he ran into me. So for the next hour we were taking light pictures. And then we went on our first adventure down to Gates Pass. And ever since then we've, you know, hung out, you know, done routine meetups, whether that's just to read parts of the Bible like Romans, or to hang out and watch a movie or hang out with all of his lizards, scorpions and amphibians.
[00:21:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember the third lunch we had. We always go to the same place, your favorite haunt on Campage, Snakes and lates, I believe it's called.
I one of the first questions I asked you because I'm always curious about this. I had, if not a full beard, then enough facial hair.
And I'm terrible with judging ages. And so that's why I always ask. And you really made my wig judge you that I would still in my mid-20s, which is not at all true, but a lot of people have test the same thing, and that's judge genetics. But it makes me chuckle all the same knowing that I can still pass for a college graduate.
But yeah, getting back to you because, okay, so we covered equine therapy and high school. You had told me at a lodge launch that you were also into acting and you almost got into directing, I believe, in high school to some extent, yes.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: But the reason why I almost got into directing, quote, unquote, is because how the theater curriculum in high school worked is the first two years were theater one and theater two were about acting. But by theater three, you were tasked with directing your own play that you picked. And for the fourth one, you ran your own theater company, and you actually used real money in order to run shows and have it like a full semester program. It's a lot to ask for people who are not even adults yet. And that terrified me, so I backed out.
I had done theater since sixth grade because I had always had a thing with expressing myself. Like, when I was younger, I'd make home movies. They weren't good, but I'd make these home movie skits with, like, toys that I have around and express myself through that. And I had also been in, like, a movie making camp to kind of express myself physically. So I was already getting into acting. And through middle school, it just got better and better because I kept on doing more and more plays. The highlight being I got to be Sandy the dog in Annie, which is hilarious to think about.
But after two years of acting in high school, I, you know, we were getting ready to pick our classes, and I knew that everyone was going to get in and get ready to direct their own plays, and I was terrified. So I said no.
I backed out and decided not to take theater again. What happened actually, though, is that I had picked my classes literally, like, only a few weeks before the COVID lockdown. This was like late February, March of 2020. So by doing this, I had dodged having to take theater during quarantine. And that is such a sigh of relief, because theater in quarantine does not work. You have to physically.
You have to physically be there. And also, wearing masks covers up your facial expressions. It's not impossible to express yourself with partially your face covered. But when you're a young, budding actor, it's way harder and something that you shouldn't really be asked to do, in my opinion.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I. I eventually saw that. Saw acting come to fruition in a positive way during the quarantine, when the theater company I work for in New York City virtually put on short play readings and actings of new plays via zoo, which was really the last taboo of live theater. Because it's supposed to be live, the performance, it's supposed to be for that time period only.
How can we adapt to the new medium? Well, we did and one data company now count led data companies did it.
And I don't think have we not had the pandemic that Theta would have been forced to adapt and evolve in the way that it did.
And so that covers high school.
I'm interested to know more about H racing and particularly the UA involvement because I didn't even know that was a major and so tell us more about how you discovered it, what you enjoy about it, what you find challenging, does it give you purpose, can you see it as a professional job, etc. Etc. A lot of questions, but they all go together.
[00:28:48] Speaker B: I'll do my best to answer. So it starts out, it started out with me as a sophomore. So originally I was never really super eager to go to college. My parents were actually worried about me because I seemed so I despite school so much and I was so stressed out because of school that I didn't see a future where I could deal with four more years in college. So originally my substitute plan was to do this two year program in Kentucky because I thought that was the closest thing to a horse racing school. But then, excuse me, then my mom found out about the racetrack industry program in the University of Arizona. The racetrack industry program has been around for 50 years now, since 1973 and has. And, and despite the fact that it is a small program, relatively 10 to 15 people take it every year, which in a 40,000 person school it makes sense that not everyone has heard of it. But despite how despite the small numbers, those people go on to be superstars in our industry, there are many examples of people who have gone on to do great things from that. But when I found out about this four year program, I knew immediately, okay, I've got to go and see this now. We visited both college campuses just to be sure, but I knew as soon as I stepped foot in Arizona and got introduced to everything that this is where I needed to go. To the heartbreak of my friends who wish that I was closer because I live in North Carolina. Otherwise, which is on the other side of the U.S. but RTIP itself is, yeah, it's a four year program. It falls under the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. So it's a. So it's technically an agriculture thing, but that's kind of a name only through the classes you can take, you can take multiple directions. You can focus on the veterinary aspect of it, which is more, you know, life sciences and stuff, but you also can Take more business related courses that focus on managing a racetrack or learning how to.
Or becoming a, like an entry clerk, taking entries for people doing other menial business. Office jobs. I shouldn't say menial, actually that's a little that, that undersells it. Like you know, doing. There's a lot of jobs in the industry, whether it's taking care of the animals or doing the business side of it. Because horse racing is an industry of gambling. So you have to learn how to manage your flock, take entries for people. If you can, you could hustle. There's a million jobs that are available to horse racing and you can learn about each one through the racing classes that you take. Like a great example is this one class I took which is ACBS345.
Through this class you get multiple different assignments to the perspective of a racing secretary who's basically the guy who runs an entire track, giving people the jobs they need. And you learn about all the different roles that people have in the racing industry.
Like there's a guy who does, who like weighs the jockeys before races so that they can like they're light enough to be on the horse and stuff like that. But. And then you do assignments and you can. And one of the craziest assignments I've ever had to do is making a condition book, which is basically a fancy way of saying that you create an entire menu, an entire menu of all the races that you can enter your horse in. Because some horses like different competition throughout the entire race meet. And you have to outline all of that through five pages of Microsoft Excel sheets. And then you have to draw it out on a literal piece of paper that is segmented. That's just one example. The point is, is that the way it's formatted is that you can take classes about whatever part of the horse racing industry you want and you can label your own journey. And because it is so small and so lesser known, it actually means that you can be individually accommodated. Because every person has a different thing they want to get out of the racing industry, which is perfect for me, who is someone who has been raised with individual accommodations. I get that out of the gate, just no pun intended.
I get that out of the gate because there's so few students that the people who run this racetrack industry program can focus their energy on me or this other student. So for me I want to be a racetrack announcer. The guy who tells you who what's going on during the race is like a commentator. Because of that, I've been set up with opportunities to do just that. I've called Races in Phoenix. I was, I've called Races in Tucson at Reed, a race course which is currently defunct. But I had a great time the one to year I went and that was just my journey. Some people, their journey was to be a veterinarian, some people work in the office. Everyone has their own quest and that was mine that I'm currently working on and undertaking. So I couldn't have asked for a better program for somebody like me. And even then they also give you the chances to go on field trips to like racing to racetracks, to see the inner workings. And they'll set you up with summer internships. Even when you're not at school, they're always there to take care of you.
[00:33:55] Speaker A: So how has your social life been in relation to your disability?
[00:34:08] Speaker B: So the social life is definitely interesting because in some ways I have almost.
[00:34:13] Speaker A: Been able to have it. I, I really mean that. Do tell.
[00:34:18] Speaker B: You got it. So in some ways my social life is almost easier than some people because depending on the environment and the ability to be myself, it is actually really easy for me to really click with people. But there are, but there are definitely times and this comes with everybody, even an outgoing, extroverted human being such as myself where it is hard to really click and get along with people. And you end up just wondering what the hell am I doing here.
So like, like any college student I've partied before, you know, like I'm not ashamed of that. And at the parties I stood out because instead of wanting to drink alcohol and do all that other shallow stuff, my main motivation was to express my myself through dance. Which is funny, but like you had mentioned getting to know dancing better. I've always liked dancing, so I've always liked dancing at parties, whether that was at a wedding reception or at a college party. And that was my own unique thing. And for a little bit I even got accommodated by these people who knew that I didn't drink alcohol and that I preferred to dance.
So they would get me apple juice instead, which I still proudly drink to this day.
But they're willing to. But they're willing to accommodate some of my more quote unquote childish qualities.
Despite being at a very adult venue. As a example, which I still carry to this day when I go to a carry, the karaoke bar, even though the karaoke bar shuts is shut off to people 21 and under after 10 o'clock and it starts at 9, giving me only a one hour window, everyone knows me there as the guy who just goes to sing. They know that I have a different motivation, but they accept me for it. And when I ask for like a free mixer, like some orange juice or cranberry juice, they oblige. So that's definitely the best of it, being able to be in very adult situations. But people are willing to accommodate me socially, whether it's something as simple as a cranberry juice or letting me express myself in my own way. At worst, it comes in the form of just overthinking everything. There are a lot of times where during interactions with people, I will be horrified at one little mishap that I had when the other person doesn't care. Like people don't aren't that detailed in finding out everything you did wrong when talking to somebody. But I've almost. But in some cases I've almost conditioned myself to think that way and it'll worry me to bits.
But that's definitely at its worst what it's like socially, people still, at most of the time, people will just see me as, oh, that's Nathan. He's him, he's just a Nathan. That is what he does. Whether. And that can mean a million different things. But people have said that I'm kind of hard to describe in one sentence. But I'm happy to say that a lot of it has been relatively good. But there are people who will be like, Jesus Christ, that guy is annoying. He's such a smart alec.
He comes off as a bit of a know it all. So you can't, you can't please everybody.
But during college I've done a. I think I've done a pretty good job.
Handling the stresses of school can be hard. There are definitely times where what comes off as normal for other people is harder for me to deal with. Like chemistry labs was a random example, but I had a harder time really completing a chemistry lab compared to my peers. Like what took one person 30 minutes would take me 45 minutes, especially with the wrong group, sorry, Cosmos licking my knee. So that caught me off guard. But like, especially with school assignments that don't play into anything that I am passionate about, I have had to learn through many, many years in order to just battle through it. Even though my brain will not naturally process the information unless repetition is involved. And once the test is over, throw it out. Because unless it's something that I really care about, I don't really keep it.
Or the other reason why I keep things in memory is because they freak me out.
It's easier to remember the bad stuff. But in terms of like social life, it's. It's the most broad way to say it is that some things are harder for me and some things are almost easier. But no matter what happens, people know me as Nathan and they know that I'm not like everybody else. And most of the time it's a good thing. Sometimes people see that as a bad thing. But you know, they can step in a puddle with socks on. I don't really care.
Well, deep down I do a little bit. But you learn to persevere through it.
You're first.
[00:39:05] Speaker A: No, if you are going to continue, please do.
[00:39:10] Speaker B: I think it's just more repetition of people know that I'm a little out of pocket. Sometimes I say things that people are baffled by. Like I'll bring up a dark fact about something really morbid and only vaguely connecting to the topic at hand. Like someone will talk about chimneys and I'll say, you know, one time a person got stuck in a chimney and died.
Like, it's vaguely similar, but it's also super dark. And a lot of people are like, did you really have to tell us that? And I'm like, yes, yes I did.
Or like one. Like sometimes I have a back and forth with a mentor of mine who helps teach me race calling and he's this middle aged British guy, so. But he's a completely different person than I am. And when I'm talking, every once in a while I'll bring up a dark, weird fact like that. Like, have you ever heard of this rare unique condition that changes your body parts? And he's like, your parents must be so proud of you in a somewhat sarcastic way. And I was like, you know what they are, in a weird way, they are very proud of my odd little factoids.
[00:40:16] Speaker A: So how did our faith community, how have you found the social life there? Because it's a very close knit community.
And I'm curious because when I joined I. I very much felt like the, for lack of a better term, the disabled paragon or the disabled representation. Now did I know that for sure?
No, I didn't. I just felt like it.
But that was more than several years ago.
How.
How do you feel that members of our faith community have reacted to your autism?
[00:41:25] Speaker B: I think that unless I told them, I don't think people necessarily know that I am autistic. But I think that the way that people notice and see me is they see me as a different human. They don't know necessarily what it is, but they know me as a different Person with a very bold personality.
Some people think that I am morbidly fascinating in the sense of how do you always have such a weird and sometimes out there statement to say, no matter what we're talking about, just the way that I respond to things will always get people laugh. Not because they're laughing at me, but because of the things that I do tell people and they're like, wow, you know, that. Or like, I would have never connected those two things together to make that joke. Since I like, I'm a bit of a wise cracker.
I like to think that they have accepted that they have accepted me.
They've always told me that no matter what happens, you know, they'll be happy for me, they'll pray for me if needed. You know, they're. They want. They only want me. That's actually one of the sweetest things that has come out of it, is that people at Damascus Road have told me that we only. We want you. We want the person that you are and we don't want you to change for us just so that you fit in and join us. We want you, Nathan the human. We just want you to be the best version of you you can be in the eyes of the Lord.
[00:42:55] Speaker A: Well, you read that age pretty darn sweet.
And so after college, are you planning to stick around and do you see horse racing as your calling?
[00:43:21] Speaker B: Yep, horse racing is my calling, both literally and figuratively.
I'd say that where I head is 100% going to be based on horse racing. Horse racing is something that while it is not as widespread as it used to be, it still is in more than half of the United States. There is horse racing to some extent in more than half of all United States. And because of that, I have a lot of different places that I can hop to.
And I think that that's going to be where I start as soon as I really leave college. I don't. I'm not going to stay in Arizona because Arizona doesn't really have the greatest racing industry. It used to have more stuff, but now the biggest thing is in Phoenix. And I don't see myself staying there for very long because I know that I'm capable of more than that. So I know that, like, that there are some tracks that I'm more closely knit to, that they know me very well and they're like, oh, that's great, you can work for us.
But I think that's just going to be. I don't know exactly where I'll end up, but I know that I'm going to be bouncing around a few states to a few racetracks and just kind of finding my own nest, kind of like a bird migrating and finding the right environment and racing, especially because racing seasons are not all yearly. In fact, they're more often than not only for like let's say three months. Because of that, you can have three or four different jobs at three or four different racetracks over the course of an entire year, putting you in possibly three to four states over the course of the entire year. Like you're hopping around.
So I don't know where I'll be able to really settle down and find one place. But I know that and I've already kind of put my test of the waters when doing this that I'm going to be hopping around. I'm going to be traveling and finding all these different industries, all these different local state racing places and seeing where I belong. I know that Virginia really likes me and you know, I've been well liked in Arizona as well. And those are on two different coasts. How I don't know where else, I don't know where else I'll become hopefully beloved in the racing industry, but I know that that is where it, that the racing industry is going to take me, hopefully across the laurels.
[00:45:38] Speaker A: Yeah, it's really your passion. It's.
Correct me if I'm wrong in my assumption. It's really your pageant. It's not a job. You would do drugs for the payout.
[00:46:04] Speaker B: Absolutely not. No one, almost no one in horse racing does, does the job strictly for money. Definitely the higher ups, of course, but the higher ups for any business, of course they do it because they get paid the best.
But for people who are just going to three to four different race meets over the course of the year to make sure that they always have a job, that is because they love it. Horse racing is definitely not a booming industry right now. It's one that is gradually shrinking to some extent, which is unfortunate to admit, but it is the truth. And because of that there is no incentive to necessarily join racing. It's not like I'm striking when the Gretel is hot. The Gretel is a bit colder than it was 10 to 15 years ago. But I know that there is no other thing that I love. And I know that if I play my cards right, I can make money and I can support myself doing stuff that I same joy. Which harkens back to the great phrase, a person who loves their job doesn't work a day in their life.
And I'm trying and I'm trying as close as possible to do that because I know that's the only way that me, the human, can function and really make the most of life. I couldn't do a corporate job that pays well because I would be miserable. I'd be bored. I'd be hearkening to learn about stuff that I care about, which is why school at some point is difficult. But when I'm doing something that relates to what I'm passionate about, you know, in horse racing, even just the history of horse racing, I always look up and find new things, which is how I know a bunch of random facts about it. You know, like just sucking in all this knowledge, like a sponge sucking in all that knowledge while also getting paid and entertaining people through my voice or just working in the vicinity of beautiful creatures.
That is a good life for me.
[00:47:57] Speaker A: Very well said.
Do you find faith in hardships or the spark of the divine?
[00:48:13] Speaker B: In hardship, see the spark of the divine. I think in some ways horses speak to us in ways that humans can't and give us the ability to do things that we otherwise didn't know we could.
I do think that horses really are silent vessels that teach you the values of life through respecting your fellow teammates, even when they speak a different language, which can be a not so subtle metaphor for how we treat people different than us.
So I think that there is something like that in horses.
If, like if God put me on this earth to spread the knowledge and history of horse racing and entertain people through my voice, then I can 100 believe that that like just the way that I've always been so enraptured by it, so in love with it. It could be destiny with just how much I'm obsessed with it. And I've used it to carve out a unique life that people look at and say that is cool. It may not be something that I would have thought to do with my life, but because this guy is so passionate and so willing to go the whole nine yards to do this thing that he enjoys. I am happy for him and amazed and wish that I could do that myself or I do that myself with a different type of job.
[00:49:37] Speaker A: What would be some advice you would give to advocates, people interested in getting involved more with hard sids, either through hearts racing or something that we both love, equine therapy.
What advice would you give those groups on how to advocate and have an outlook of caring compassion for not only their fellow men, but their fellow animal? Because we are all are at the end of the day animals and we are all on this planet together.
[00:50:39] Speaker B: I think the most simple way that I can summarize it is that if you want to get into the industry of horses or work in horses with any way, it's very simple. But a lot of people have genuinely forgotten this in my opinion, especially higher ups who run the company side of horse related events is that you need to do it for the horse. People sometimes do things like that with animals for themselves, whether it's what the animal can offer you and make, you know, profitability from because horses are a big. Are a real deal. They can make you hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions. Like you can win $10 million from winning one race in Saudi Arabia as an example. But if you want to be successful in the industry, whether that's making, whether that is making money or having a satisfying career, you have to do it for the love of the creature and not necessarily for yourself. Of course you are to some extent doing it for yourself because this is what you love. But you use that energy mostly towards the animal because without the animal we have no industry and thus we need to put it in the highest order, which some people tend to forget. It's. I'm surprised it sounds a little weird when from an outsider looking in but it truly is the best advice I could think of that the horse does come first or has to come first.
[00:52:05] Speaker A: So I like to think that both lynch and viewers with disabilities and those who have yet to embrace or discover their own disabilities leds in view that hard cats I would be naive to thank that both groups take away the same things from each episode. So ads my dads, what do you hope that fellow people with disabilities take away from everything we've discussed? And what do you hope that people who have yet to discover or embrace their disabilities take away from?
[00:53:09] Speaker B: Okay, so I have a great. So my takeaway from this comes from one thing that a person once told me last year that really stuck with me and it went something along the lines like this.
If you think that you need to reduce how much you, how much you're being yourself around people or you catch yourself trying to do that, don't be 100%.
Again, very cheesy. It is very cheesy to say that, but it's something that we all do because we all have had to mask or through our education we have, I mean to some extent things like speech therapy and stuff like that. While it is ultimately to help us and communicate better, it also is to make us a little more normal.
Or presentable, quote unquote, to people who are neurotypical to some extent. And because of that, it's important that as you learn, as you become more socially apt and capable, that you don't lose who you are deep down inside. No. And I know, especially with people with autism, masking is painful. Masking is very hard, and it's something that we all have to do. So when you catch yourself or think that the only way you're going to get out of something is by being 75%, shoot for 100%.
There's always a way to be a hundred percent, no matter what situation you are in.
[00:54:44] Speaker A: Very well said, my brother. I look forward to seeing you soon and thank you for agreeing to do this interview. Have a great summer and I will see you when I'd see you. God bless and love you.
[00:55:07] Speaker B: Thank you very much. It was my pleasure to be on the show. I can't wait to see you again. Take care.
[00:55:22] Speaker A: You have been listening to Disability Empowerment Now. I would like to thank my guests. You are listener and the Disability Empowerment team that made this episode possible.
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