My Takeaways From Brant Hansen's Interview

I know I’ve been bringing this up often lately, but I recently got to interview one of my heroes, Brant Hansen! He’s on the autism spectrum like me, except he’s older and wiser than me. He’s the author of several books including The Men We Need, Blessed Are the Misfits, and Unoffendable, and he’s the host of his own radio show The Brant Hansen Show. You can also check out his podcast The Brant and Sherri Oddcast.

If you hadn’t gotten to listen to my interview with Brant (or see it!!!), you can listen to it here or go watch it on YouTube here! If you’ve already watched it or are going to, you probably won’t notice that at one point during the interview, I was actually…fighting back tears. I wasn’t just overwhelmed by the fact that I was getting to talk to one of my heroes whom I’ve listened to for several years and read several of his books, I was also blown away by how similar our interactions with each other were. I’ve talked to a good handful of autistic people before. My wife is autistic. It’s not like I’ve never spoken to another person on the spectrum before, so why did this feel so…special?

Part of it had to do with the fact that even though he’s much older than me, he reminded me a lot of myself. Nerdy, of course, but also a deep thinker, has a dry sense of humor and loves making people laugh, and he has tics that he can’t control but has accepted as a part of himself. Another thing that struck me was how good of a listener he was. I felt like I could share more about myself with him than I ever imagined to before sitting down. One of my biggest hopes is that when I’m as old as he is now, I’m more like him. Still struggling with a ‘shadow’ that follows me around, perhaps, but stronger against it than I am now, wiser than I am now, more at peace with myself than I am now, and more comfortable in my own skin than I am now. I didn’t get to just talk to someone I’ve admired and get his own insight into the autism spectrum. I feel like I also caught a glimpse of the kind of man I can be.

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Email me at vanzotmedia@gmail.com if you’d like to submit questions about autism or autistic marriage and I may answer them on my podcast!