A Rare Morning And Birthday Reset

James Guttman 0:00

It's the journey made with... Pod. Hi Pod I'm Dad. Hi Pod, it is James Guttman. It is HiPod I'm Dad. It is Friday. It is mid-July. Uh smack dab in the middle. Thank you so much for finding me on any streaming service, Hypodom Dad.com, yada yada yada. Um, there's a movie that I love, and I've talked about it on here before. It's called Falling Down, starring Michael Douglas. It came out, I think, in the 90s, where he goes crazy. He's a regular dude driving to work, loses it. And the idea of the movie is that he goes out and he kind of you know confronts all these things that annoy him. But there's a line in this movie that I think about sometimes, and it was um he's sitting on a hill in the middle of this gangland area, and these two guys from a gang come over to confront him, and they're trying to get him to you know give them his money or whatever. And he sits back and he smiles slightly and he goes, Listen, fellas, I'm having a really rare morning. And then he goes crazy. I love that line because honestly, I'm having a real rare morning. In fact, I'm having kind of a rare week, uh I guess you could say. So I wanted to bring things back a little old school on the podcast. Uh, for those of you who have been following for years, you guys know that there have been times in my life I've come on here, I've talked about personal things, about life lessons, things that I've picked up on. It's not always about just autism or parenting, it's always a part of it. Uh, but I haven't really done that in a while. And we're gonna do that this week. And do you know why we're gonna do it this week? Because it's my birthday this week. That's right. That's right. And it's funny because I don't really, I'm not a big birthday guy. I don't do birthday. It's my birthday week, it's my birthday month. I don't do stuff like that. I just kind of, you know, you go out and you celebrate, you see people that you care about, you have a piece of cake, you smile and you get older. But maybe it's because my birthday is in July, right in the middle of the year, that I always use it kind of to reflect on where I'm at. And it's so helpful because what ends up happening is the new year comes and you start, you know, I'm gonna do this this year. And I and I genuinely make changes and things I want to do. But the midway point is always helpful because you could look back and say, what have I done this year that's been

From Wrestling Career To Real Writing

James Guttman 2:10

good? What do I want to do going forward? And I have to tell you guys, I don't know if it's all connected or if I just happened to start it when I did, but the time in which I've been writing this blog, which began February of 2017, has been major for me. My whole life has changed. When we first started this, I was married, I had two kids, I had two cats. Um, I was still searching for who I really was and what I wanted to do. I I spoken before about I covered pro wrestling for years. I started in 2002, September 23rd, writing about Monday Night Raw, and it just became this avalanche of content and just wonderful things that happened. I ended up, you know, working for WWE and you know, working for TNA Wrestling, and you know, my stuff was pretty. I loved it. I loved doing it. I remember I was so proud the first time I had gone on vacation. We went to Arizona and I walked into the supermarket and I was like, let me show you something. And I ran over to the magazine section and I opened a magazine and my name was in it as one of the contributors. I'm like, my name is in this random supermarket across the country. And to me, that was the coolest thing. That was that was what I had always wanted to do. I wanted to write, I wanted to contribute. But what ended up happening was I was losing my passion. I wasn't, I wasn't loving uh the wrestling business. Don't get me wrong. Look, wrestling is uh is a favorite of mine since I was a kid. I've watched it since Hulk Hogan and all that stuff. Um, but eventually you meet these people. I met Hulk Hogan, I met, you know, all the top wrestlers, and you start to see who they really were behind the scenes, kind of the, you know, all the bones and ligaments that hold the business together once you get beneath the surface. I don't know. I just I had done enough, you know, I felt complete. So I was lost when I first started writing this blog. And I gotta tell you, it found me. Getting to write about Lucas, getting to write about Olivia, even just getting to write about my life and the things around me. That's my passion. And by combining these two things that I'm passionate about, being a father and writing, this has been by far the defining, you know, experience of my career. You know, and I did a lot before this. There's other things I've control. Even while doing this, I've done that. As you guys know, I do other writing work. I've written about, you know, the stock market and health and travel and just tons of stuff. My third book was about pregnancy. It's it's been a lot of important stuff, but getting to do this has been the greatest experience of my life. I've gotten to share with people stories of Lucas, who I love so much, my daughter too, that I might not normally be able to tell people. And I think I had said in the beginning when I first started writing these that one of the problems was I would tell people stories about Lucas that I thought were cute and funny. But people were still fixated on the fact that he didn't speak, he's nonverbal. So the faces they would make when telling these stories that were humorous to me would sometimes be a little like, oh, all right, it made me feel a little bit bad. So I started writing these and I can tell you guys stories about Lucas, about anything in my life, and I get to tell you the whole story. I don't have to stop because you're making a sad face at me. I can't see your face, read it, you know? And that was great. And that was a big change in my

Heart Surgery Divorce And Betting On Me

James Guttman 5:31

life. And I've talked about my heart surgery at a quintuple bypass in 2012, out of nowhere. That may be, well, that is the defining moment of my actual life, not career, the day that I thought that I was going to die. I was positive I'm gonna die today. I had no notice on this thing, you know, and I've I'm not gonna go back to the whole story again, but for those of you guys who don't know, I had been having heart attacks. I didn't realize they were heart attacks, went to the emergency walk-in. They told me it was a heart attack. I got carted off to a hospital where they discovered that I was substantially blocked. They couldn't believe it. Uh, 35 years old, 90%, 80% blocked across the entire spectrum. And then that night, three hours later, my first surgery, quintuple bypass, and I woke up as a new person. But it took a while to figure out who that person is. And in many ways, I'm still doing that. I'm still working on myself and figuring it out. So it happened in 2012, and as time went on, I started writing differently. My life changed. I got divorced in 2020. Um, and it became an entirely new world for me. And it bugs me out sometimes to think about it because I'm it's unlike anything that I was before. And I'm gonna be honest with you guys. That's what I'm saying. We're gonna go old school because I bare my soul. I don't lie, I don't make stuff up, I don't try to make myself sound better than I can tell you guys, you know, everything, all the bones and all, as they say. So I was scared to do this. And I think a lot of people in my position will be scared to do this. I I got divorced. Um, and yeah, and outside of my kids and at the time, you know, my in-laws and all that that I had at the time, I have no family. I don't, um, and I don't talk about it a lot, but you know, people ask, like, oh, you don't bring up your parents, you know, because they're not, I haven't talked to these people in a long time. It's been an estrangement. I don't go into detail on it. I'm not doing that. I feel like I have this big platform. So the last thing I want to do is go out there and start telling stories out of school and making people look bad. That's not the point. The point isn't about what happened, the point is about what's going on. And doing that, stepping away and doing what was right for me and for my life, even in the face of what felt like, you know, a lonely future, I did it anyway. And I did it because I bet on myself. And that's what I've been doing for the last 10 years. I've been betting on myself. Everything that happens, I look at the big picture, I don't worry about things. And that's a byproduct of the Quintuple bypass. There's no more stress, there's no more worries. I spent 35 years worrying about things that never happened, and then the thing that almost killed me, I never even thought about. So what's the point? So I don't worry. But I was taking a big step. But for some reason, I just knew it's gonna be okay. I knew this is where I'm supposed to be. Does that mean that I've been completely confident every step of the way that it's happened? No, there's been times that it's knocked me down a little bit. But for some reason, I don't know if maybe my brain is broken from all this, but I'm definitely in a position where if I say to myself, we're gonna do this, we do it. And that's it. And that's what happened. So I started from scratch. I started building up not just this blog that I was writing, but also like my writing career outside of it. I was doing side work, I was meeting people, networking. And in that time, career-wise, it has led to just this boom that I've been so proud of. You know, getting to write the Huffington Post and stuff's been on Yahoo and Autism Speaks and Jubilee and all these things I never would have dreamed of are not only happening, but they're happening and allowing me to share the most important boy in my life, Lucas, with the world. And in many ways, Olivia, too, my daughter. My daughter grows up, she's neurotypical. I don't want to embarrass her, I don't want to tell all her stories. I should become a teenager, but I get to mention her. And now as she's getting older, she's 18. I could tell you guys a lot of stuff about her. She's great too. Love my kids, and I've had this opportunity, and I couldn't be prouder. And I never would have done this if I didn't take that leap of

Trolls People Pleasing And New Boundaries

James Guttman 9:49

faith. And it took a leap of faith to write this blog. My concern when I first started doing it was that I was going to get negative feedback from people. And I thought to myself, I can handle negative feedback. I've had it for years. I write about pro wrestling. If you guys want negative feedback, write about pro wrestling and accidentally name the wrong WrestleMania in an article. People will tell you how stupid you are. And I got that for you, but I'm like, you know what? If I write about my son and people say terrible things, I'm gonna flip out. And nobody did. Especially the first one. It was all positive, it was all positive. Now, in that time period since then, have I gotten trolls and negative feedback? I absolutely have. Did I flip out?

unknown 10:28

No.

James Guttman 10:29

I didn't. And I think that's a big sign of evolution and of maturing. Because I would have 10 years ago. I would have freaked out. Like, what are you saying? But now I'm just like, all right, people have their own thing. And I start to understand people. And that's really the lesson that I've come out of all this with. I've learned about people. And I've learned what affects me and what I do to affect others. And I it's I think about this to myself too. Like we often, here's what I would always do, right? For those of you guys who don't know me. I used to be more of a people pleaser than I am now. Don't get me wrong, I like to, I like to make people happy. I enjoy knowing that I brighten someone's day. But I've also learned to identify when someone takes advantage, when people don't appreciate it. Um and because of that outlook of wanting to do for others, I've attracted great people in my life. I have great people in my life, but I also have attracted people who take advantage of that, who are mean-spirited or, you know, entitled and felt that I existed to serve them. And this has been, you know, a number of times has happened. Um and the way my brain works, and the thing that I noticed is I will have a situation happen. Things will fall apart. And I will blame myself. Or I did. I would always blame myself and try to figure out I must have done something to this person. If I had, let's say, a relationship that fell apart, no matter how terrible it is, you don't they yell and they scream and they're mean to me, I would always leave it thinking, what did I do? How did I do this? Why did I make this person who cares about me so much, loves me so much, treat me this way? I must have done something. This is on me. And I would think about it and I would beat myself up. And for a long time I used to just stop there. That's where I would stop. Maybe I'd go back, try to talk it out. If I could just explain this to this person that I didn't do the things they're saying I did, maybe they don't understand, maybe they're mad at me, but they don't get it. And then I would go back, talk to these people, and it would always be this big swirl of nonsense, right? Where you'd be halfway through and I'd be like, this is not helping. I don't think this is really on me. And it takes a lot to be able to say that. Honestly, it takes a lot to be able to say that. To be able to look at a situation and be like, you know what, I'm not all to blame for this. I know what my part is. That's what the most important thing is, right? Like, some people can't take any accountability, and some people take all the accountability, and that's where I was. I was taking all the accountability in every single situation, even ones where like I felt like I was going crazy because it didn't make any sense to me. I want to be happy, right? My whole goal in life is to be a happy person. So I don't create drama. I don't get angry about things that even in some cases, maybe I should get angry about. But I don't. Now, one of the main themes of the writing that I've done is that there is lessons and beauty in everything. Even things I go to that are negative, even things that I look back on, I go, I didn't cause this, I didn't do anything to make this happen. I try to examine what did I do to get into that position, what did I do to do that. But everybody is a lesson, and every situation is a lesson. And the people that we meet and the people that we run into test us on those lessons. Now, again, we're going old school. I haven't really talked too much about things outside of uh parenting, but I've run into the same people over and over again, only they have different faces and different names. And I'm a firm believer that the universe will send us someone or something as a lesson to learn something. What don't you do? What don't you allow? How do you want to be treated? All those things. And it takes a while to figure out. I had one, it took me a long time to figure out. I don't like the way I'm being treated. I don't like being in this situation, I don't like this person in my life and how they treat me. And that was, you know, like a roller coaster back on, back off, back on, back off. But what ends up happening, and this is the beauty of it, is that when that was over, I have run into that same type of person. But I can identify it early on. I could see it, be like, I don't like this. I don't like the way this person speaks to me. I don't like that. I'll tell you, maybe this is you, maybe it's how you are. This is not how I am, but one of the things that I don't like is when somebody thinks it's funny to kind of have that mocking, sarcastic adversarial relationship with you. If you don't know what I mean, it's this. If somebody tells me their favorite movie and it's just how I am, I'm like, oh, that's cool. Now, if I've seen it and I don't like it, I'd be like, yeah, I'm like, I haven't really like I've seen it, but I don't know, I didn't really get it. I'll say something like that, or like, you know, oh, that sounds great. I'd love to see it. But there are some people that are conditioned, and I've, again, my whole life run into people like this to mock it. You turn to them and be like, they're like, What's your favorite movie? And be like, oh, I don't know. I like Goodfellas. And they make this phase, like, oh, okay, okay, Goodfellas, oh my god, I don't know. And then it's always followed up with me. I I have to watch something smart. I have to watch like documentaries. I don't, I don't sit around watching Goodfellas all day. And you're just like, why did I tell you anything? What is this? What is happening? And this literally happened like a week ago um with somebody where I was just like, seriously? But now when that happened, as opposed to the early days where I'd be like, oh, my movie might be stupid. Maybe no one likes it. I was like, oh, I know who this is. I've seen this person before. Wish away into the cornfield, gone. And so that I think honestly is one of the things I'm proudest of myself in the last couple of years. One of the life lessons is that I no longer allow things in my life that I know I don't want in my life. And it sounds so stupid, and I know, and please don't be like, oh, I mean, but if you get it, you get it. If you know, you know. Um we invite ourselves back into the same situations over and over again. And I used to get offended. I when I was going through my uh my separation, I was going to therapy like years ago, and I remember they would always talk about how sometimes we find, you know, things that remind us of abusive situations we've been in. And I would get offended. Like, like, well, you know, if if if you grow up and people treat you like this, you're gonna find a partner who treats you like that. I was like, what the? I would get so hmm, that was close. I would get so mad and be like, what are you because it sounded like they were blaming me? It's my fault. I'm looking for somebody who's gonna scream and yell at me. I'm looking for somebody who's going to mock me and say terrible things to me. I'm looking for that. And my therapist said, and I know it sounds pretentious when somebody says that sentence, but I just said it. So my therapist said, uh, and he goes, No, no, no. You didn't seek it out. But what happens is A, it's comfortable. But also, if you go your whole life missing something, and then you find someone later in life, and that thing is missing, you don't know that it's supposed to be there. It's like to me, it was normalcy being yelled at and screamed at, being told terrible things. And I've been in situations more than one, man. Like, like everyone's like, hmm, whatever you're thinking, you're thinking, but it's happened. And now I don't stand for it. I don't. And it's weird because the first time over the last year, I have boundaries. There are certain things I allow, certain things I don't allow. I don't fear anyone. Right now, I don't know if this requires explanation too, but this is another part of my new outlook. I'm the most honest person you're gonna meet. Like, I swear, and I'm not even just saying this as like, you can trust me. Like, I mean, like I made a decision. I'm not making things up. If I feel a certain way, if I did something, you're gonna know it if you ask me. I mean, I might not volunteer information, hey, guess what I did today. But if you say to me, did you think this or do you think that? I'm gonna tell you the truth. For a couple of reasons. One, I'm not afraid of anybody, right? So, like, why would I lie to you? I'm lying to you because I'm afraid of the consequences. I'm not afraid of any consequences. This is what you got. If I made a mistake, I'll admit to it, I'll apologize. But I'm not gonna be like, I don't know who did that. Like, I don't do that anymore. I don't want to do that anymore. For me, for myself, I'm a grown man. You know, you're gonna take accountability. So I do the things that I do.

What Lucas Teaches About Being You

James Guttman 19:06

But it was Lucas, really, that um has made me this way. My boy, he see, and now you're gonna get the idea of why I do this blog and how easy it is for me to write it. But my son is one of the most uh intriguing and amazing human beings I've ever met. And it's simply for who he is, right? Lucas doesn't speak words, Lucas doesn't do a lot of things within our world, right? Like he won't draw a picture and he won't build a house or like with a box or anything, or he won't color. So all those things doesn't happen. I just watch him go about his day as he is, and he inspires me to be a better person because Lucas uh knows himself. And Lucas never apologizes for who he is. If he's excited about something that he likes, he's gonna jump up in the air and scream and clap. He doesn't care if you're looking or if you can't doesn't care, just does it. And there is such beauty in that, in that confidence in who you are. Now, does is it confidence or does he not like understand that people? I don't know, but it doesn't matter. He does it, and I love him for it, and I want to be like that. So when I write that in these blogs, it's not like some catchphrase where you're gonna put it on a meme, like, I want to be like my kid, and then everyone's like, oh, so cute, and they all think it's like, you know, flowery nonsense. It's not flowery nonsense. It sounds nice, but it's true. I want to be like Lucas. I want to be able to just be myself. And if you like it, you like it. If you don't, you don't. And that's that. And I've been living like that. And I have to tell you, I am beyond proud of what I've done for myself and where I am right now. But I'm also impressed because it's it's required courage for like the last 10 years. I've I've really had to step out there and be like, all right, we're gonna do this, we're gonna take care of it. Um, and I don't know. I just it just happens. And I credit, I credit Lucas, I credit you guys, this blog, getting to do this, getting to share with all of you. I don't think so. It's funny is I talked before about how I don't have a family, I didn't have a lot of support, um, especially during the during the divorce. I try to explain this to people because there are people in my life that stayed too long and people be like, Why didn't why did you keep them around? Well, the problem was that when you go through a divorce, usually you have family members who are on your side and they go, Oh, don't worry about it, you deserve better, blah, blah, blah. I didn't have any of that. I had nothing. So I had people that were in my life at the time, and some of them were not the most helpful. Some of them made life a little bit more difficult. Um, but that was my support. That's kind of What I had to go through. And again, just like my therapist said, if you don't know what's missing, you know, you don't know. And um I went out there and I did what I had to do. And I pushed forward. And I've brought myself to where I am now. And a lot of it, you know, there were things that were planned out. Career-wise, I planned a lot of things out. I reach out, I network all that stuff. But when it comes really to just me and my growth, this has been on-the-job training. This has been like epiphanies in motion as we're going. I've learned lessons from people who would never believe it. There are people who I'm sure think that they've had this profound effect on me that I barely think about. And there are people who thought they had no effect on me that have been major life lessons. Um I move forward. Life is about moving forward. I would always run back. I would always try to recapture things. Like I said before, make people understand. Uh, but I don't do that anymore. I don't stalk social media and I don't, I don't live in the past. The cornfield is becoming a one-way ticket, as you guys know. And I talked, I'm I'm referencing it, you know, from Twilight Zone, just wish them into the cornfield. And I couldn't be happier and I couldn't be healthier. And you guys have been a big part of allowing me to get a lot of this out. And I think if we go back through the blog pages and we look at it, you'll see all these changes I've made in my life, these major changes, have all happened during the time I've been writing this. My divorce, coming to grips with my sons, uh, autism, all sorts of things that I normally would have been going through alone. I went through with you. And I appreciate that on a level that I can't even begin to explain. To be able to sit at a computer and just type out my feelings and publish them, and they don't go away when I do that. But I've said before that I had these stories in my head, especially about Lucas, for years that I would think about and go over again. And once I started writing them, it would kind of take it out of my head, right? And it doesn't erase them, I remember them, but they don't swirl around as much because I got to tell the story and put it out there. So you guys, just simply by by reading, by supporting, by following, by listening, you've helped me reach levels that I didn't think I could. And there is such an appreciation for you from me for that. Um you've helped me be a better father, you've helped me be a better writer, and you've helped me be a better man. This has been one of the greatest journeys I could have ever made. And all of it has been incredibly unexpected. Uh if I could rewind the clock, you know, 10 years and be like,

Old Dreams New Future Thanks

James Guttman 25:05

do you know what you're gonna do? And I would not. I mean, I was writing about, you know, Triple H hits him with a sledgehammer. Uh so getting to do this thing that was my dream. And when I say it was my dream, it's funny to say I'll I'll end it on this. I feel like sometimes I can go on for hours and hours. But um, as a kid, I always wanted to be a wrestling writer. You know, I wanted to write about pro wrestling, whether it was like the shows or the magazines. And I've said a billion times I made my own WWF magazine and I would sell it when I was like 10 to kids in school for a quarter. I still have one. I would draw the wrestlers' pictures and stuff. And I grew up and I eventually wrote for that magazine, and that was a big deal for me. But, and this is the crazy part, and uh this is the part that makes me smile uh on my birthday as it comes up. When I was writing about wrestling, especially towards the end, a couple of bad situations, not bad situations, but people that I don't know, it's uh attract some strange people in this business, uh the wrestling business. And sometimes it would leave me with a bad taste in my mouth. Um, but I remember thinking that my dream was just to write about something that wasn't wrestling, something that I love. And I didn't know what it was. This is before you know Lucas was even a consideration to write about. And um I remember the thing that I said I wanted. And it was, I said, I want one day for people to know me as for my writing and say, Did you know James Gubman used to write about wrestling? And at the time it sounded like such a far-off thing because everything was wrapped around writing about wrestling. That had been my industry, that my business, all my stuff, all the things that we Googled me. And um here we are. It's 2026, and I feel like somebody's saying, Did you know that James Gubman used to write about wrestling? It's not that far-fetched of a comment to make. And yeah, that's something I'm really proud of. And it sounds like a weird, you know, it was a weird goal, but that was the exact goal, and it's pretty true. And so again, like it's been unbelievable. Um, I love getting to do this. I love all of you for allowing me to do this. I love my kids, I love my life, and I'm just I couldn't be happier. And uh, there's plenty more to come. I mean, we're not stopping. I don't know what tomorrow brings. I think that's the most exciting part, too, is that as you guys may have noticed, I I make changes a lot. You know, I wrote about wrestling, I wrote about this, right? And it's changed my my writing and my future. So who knows what's life is gonna look like in 10 years from now. All I know is that it's it's gonna be good. And do you know why? Because it's been good so far, whether it's dealing with, you know, a divorce or you know, raising a child with autism and the fear of all that stuff, everything's fine. And it's gonna always be fine. Because I know that I can do the things that I set myself out to do. If I believe in it and I want it and it's important to me, it gets done. And that's, I don't know, the best birthday gift I could give to myself. I want to thank you guys again, one final time, for listening, for being a part of this. I want to ask you to go on Monday. I wrote, I wrote something on Monday. Yeah, I wrote about uh Lucas kissing the mirrors. It's really cute. Read it on Monday. It's on hiblog ondad.com. It went up last week. We have a new one on Monday, brand new blog uh podcast next Friday. Social media, hi James Gutman. You guys know all the all the stuff, but if nothing else, thank you. This has been an amazing journey, and I couldn't be more excited about what's to come. Till next week. This is James Gutman saying, be well. Byepod. I'm dad.