How Parenting an Autistic Son Humanized Me as a CEO

Sean Weisbrot: Ken Cox is the president of ION and the host of Clicks and Bricks podcast. As an entrepreneur, Ken has built successful career creating safe and happy workspaces for his employees, providing critical IT services to companies, navigating privacy in the digital age, and HR strategies for the modern workplace. I am interviewing him a second time because when we were doing our first interview about Digi uh, digital privacy, it became clear that he has a son that is autistic and I instantly knew I had to do another interview with him about what it's like having an autistic child as an entrepreneur. For multiple reasons. One, as you may be aware, I recently interviewed Diva Diaz, who specializes in helping people with autism, especially entrepreneurs, and she's autistic herself, and the conversation was fantastic. So if you haven't watched that, go do that now. But as well, with my own background in psychology, I wanted to know more about what it's like because I have a neighbor whose son is autistic, but I never really had. The opportunity to get to know her son who is nonverbal. And so because with this podcast, I talked to entrepreneurs from all walks of life who are living all different kinds of situations. I knew that this would be a great opportunity for me to learn more about autism and what it's like living with someone who's autistic in. A way that's more than just, oh, I'm sorry, your, you know, your child has autism. Want to actually know what are the positives of it? What are the negatives of it? What are the, what's the daily experience? What are the things that you need to know? If you're friends with someone who is autistic or has a child that's autistic, or you work with someone, or you hire someone, or you are employed by someone, or you've invested in someone, just what? Your life could be like if you take the time to get to know this person and the person that's special to them and their life. And so this is a really personal and very heavy on psychology, so I. I hope you like this. Thank you. So can you have a child with autism? We mentioned it briefly in the last time. Uh, we did an interview together and it was something that I didn't know when we were going into it, which maybe it's not something you just go by the way. Um, but it did come up and I thought that it would be interesting to talk about it in a separate interview because surely there are other entrepreneurs out there who have children that are autistic. And so it would be important, I think, for them to hear about your experience and hopefully there's some advice there for them. Well, I hope so. So, so what's. I guess let's start with what's been the most rewarding thing about having a son with autism?

Ken Cox: I mean, the most rewarding thing is no lines at theme parks. I mean, that's like, that's, you know, when you, when you gotta pull the A card and you get to park up front at the theme parks and you don't have to wait in line to go on the rides, that's, that's pretty rewarding. Um, I know that's super shallow, but I, I think the most rewarding thing that it really forces you to look within yourself really deep and. When you're raising a a, i, I only have experience from raising a son with autism, not a daughter with autism. Right. And they're not that raising a son or a daughter is dramatically different, but your expectations are different whenever you're a father to one or the other. Um, sorry, I'm getting. I'm, I'm talking in circles at the moment. So, um, I, I think just the, the thing for me is that I had to, to be the best father that I could be for him, I had to change a lot about myself, a lot of my own perceptions of what being a father was. Um, and that was pretty rewarding at the end of the day.

Sean Weisbrot: Do you have any other children?

Ken Cox: I have a 16-year-old daughter.

Sean Weisbrot: Okay. So you, so how did you have to change yourself? Because obviously you said, uh, sons and daughters may not be terribly different, but,

Ken Cox: right. So when I had my daughter, the, the things that you would have, uh, you know, the stereotypes that you have of what it's gonna be like being a father to a daughter played out. Right. The, I'm worried about you dating boys and, you know, um, you know, having. You know, being fearful of a, of a girl in the world, knowing that predatory practices of men, right? And uh, so those normal stereotypes played out very typical for me with my daughter, right? She's an awesome kid, loves school. She doesn't really like the media much, so we don't talk about, I don't talk about her very much at all. But then when I had my son, nothing stereotypical played out. Right. There was no catch in the front yard. There was no bonding the way that you would, that, um, I think most dads want to bond with their son, right? That didn't happen. So I had to find new ways to be the best dad that I could be for the son that I had, not the sun that I thought that I wanted. Um, you know, because if you have, I guess if you have a picture in your head of what your life's gonna be like with the sun. You create a picture, you think that that's what you want.

Sean Weisbrot: So how old was he when you got the diagnosis? He was two. He was two years old. Were

Ken Cox: there any signs, sorry, were there any signs beforehand? We knew something was different about Joe at six months, right? Yeah. And I would say like at six months we knew that that Joe was different. And right from birth we could tell, man, this kid's. He is not like our daughter was right, super calm by himself, didn't really want to be held, was completely okay just sitting in the crib and dozing off into nothing. Um, you know, he didn't have a lot of the, you know, neediness, I guess that a newborn child. Would have.

Sean Weisbrot: Why do you think that is? I don't know. I figured it would be the opposite. I figured that might be more needy.

Ken Cox: Yeah. I mean, well, and I guess emotional need and closeness need to another human,

Sean Weisbrot: so he's, he's lacking that.

Ken Cox: He lacked that at birth, right? So the coddling, the holding, the rocking, all those things, he would much rather write from birth, be. Put in the crib and left, left on, left on his own.

Sean Weisbrot: What was it about that that made you feel like he was different rather than maybe he just is cool being like by himself?

Ken Cox: In the first six months, that's what we thought. Right. But then when, at the six months mark, you know, you're starting to expect eye contact a little more. You're, you're starting to expect more out of your child. That, um, on the, the bonding side, right. The, the emotional bonding side. And that just didn't happen with Joe. Like the, you know, goo goo gagas looking at each other's eyes, playing with the face, those kinds of things he just was never interested in.

Sean Weisbrot: And what would he do instead?

Ken Cox: Sit, watch tv, um, play with his fidgets, right? But other people were not, um, a concern to him at all, or desire to be around.

Sean Weisbrot: And so when, uh, how long was it from when you started to talk to doctors until you got the diagnosis?

Ken Cox: So at six months we started talking with his pediatrician, um, saying, Hey, you know, we think something might be off. She's like, yeah, we think something might be off too. It's a little early to get the diagnosis. So, um, he didn't start walking until he was two and he and he still didn't talk. And I don't think it's untypical for somebody to not start talking until they're after two years old. So we got the diagnosis at two, two and a half years old, somewhere around there. Um, when, when we thought that we could get, um, a real diagnosis other than just some weird anomalies of, oh, they're not old enough to, to be able to do these things anyway.

Sean Weisbrot: So what was the process of, uh, getting the diagnosis? Like

Ken Cox: It was challenging. Um, it was really expensive. The, the insurance didn't pay for much of it, I think. Um, the full diagnostic cost for us was about five or $6,000. Um, to get the full, the full thing, it was two days. Um, and we were, I mean, we get, we went home, but it was two eight hour days that we went to an observation place. Right. And then basically he just played and did things while they observed him playing. And we had two doctors watch him and do different tests and things like that. And he got, um, coming outta that, we got a diagnosis of educational and medical autism, which I think is really important for people on the diagnosis side. You can get a medical diagnosis but not have an educational diagnosis or vice versa. And having the educational diagnosis. Was huge for us in the public school system and getting him into the special school district, um, and getting the resources that we needed for him to have, uh, the proper education moving forward.

Sean Weisbrot: What's the difference between the educational and medical?

Ken Cox: I don't know. I, I would assume that if you have the medical, you automatically have the educational. Um, but it, I think it's just the learning disability part of autism. That they would also have,

Sean Weisbrot: it feels like those things are combined. If you have autism, then it'll be harder to learn. Uh, in a traditional sense.

Ken Cox: I don't think we know enough about it to, to, to know. And that's just the, I think, the political way of doing things in, in America. Um, I don't know if it's right or wrong, but I just know that that's what they told us.

Sean Weisbrot: And so how did you feel after you got the diagnosis?

Ken Cox: A little relieved. Um, because now we have, we know what, we know what's going on. Right before it was, man Joe's pretty weird. Uh, he does things different than other kids. He doesn't seem to, to have, um. At the time, he had zero acknowledgement of consequence and zero fear, right? So walk right off cliffs, jump right off of things, um, you know, you know, run with steak knives. So there was just no concept of consequence. At all.

Sean Weisbrot: Why were you giving a little boy steak knives? I wasn't,

Ken Cox: but you know, he can climb. Once he started walking, man, it went off. So our house today is ridiculous with locks and keys. Like everything is under locking key. Our drawers, our refrigerator, our oven, um, everything is, it has to have something, some kind of buffer between Joe and it.

Sean Weisbrot: Do you feel like those things make it easier for you to control? I guess eating. Like I know my brother, he, he'll put the, he has a key for his cupboard and he'll put the key in a box that has a timer so that he can't eat anything because the key is locked until a certain time. Do you feel like that makes it easier?

Ken Cox: I wish it did. That's not what helped control my eating lots of therapy helps me control my. I mean, if, you know, if there's a bowl, if there's a box of fruit loops and it's readily available, my hand's going in and grabbing a handful. Like it's just, that's the way it's been my whole life. I don't know if that's gonna change for me. Um,

Sean Weisbrot: I have a similar issue where if I see something that's like, let's say there's candy in a little like bowl. Yeah. And it's at a restaurant. I'm gonna take like 10 of them

Ken Cox: probably. Yeah. I'm just gonna pop my mouth and eat 'em or put something in my pocket and eat 'em on the way home. Exactly.

Sean Weisbrot: So he's making his own food. So clearly he's spatially aware, he's capable of moving around the environments Yeah. In that regard. Oh yeah. How, what kind of food does he make?

Ken Cox: Um, so we, we actually, we go to the grocery store every day. Um, so primarily like hot dogs, chicken nuggets, you know, the, the, the staples. Um. And every night we go to the grocery store and he gets a can of, most nights, he gets a can of SpaghettiOs, um, at the grocery store and a, and a treat. So like a, a can of SpaghettiOs, um, like a little, like a little Debbie cake or a hostess cake or something like that, and a drink. And it's, it works really well because we get to socialize him, go to the grocery store, he gets to walk around, pick his own food for that night, and then we go through the checkout and then he gets to practice all those things. So that's how we've. Um, or that's how it just naturally happened for him to do his grocery shopping and he likes it. It's a nice activity at the end of the day. Um, and then we don't have, 'cause if we had 12 cans of SpaghettiOs, he would eat all 12 cans of SpaghettiOs that day. It's so, um, it tends to work out pretty well for all parties.

Sean Weisbrot: So he opens the can by himself, puts, no, we gotta open it and dump it in,

Ken Cox: but then he'll throw it in the microwave. And then cook

Sean Weisbrot: it and he knows like, okay, I want a minute at like. 50, 50% power, whatever.

Ken Cox: No, he just does 32nd runs until it's where he wants it. So he just hits the, you know, we have a start, the start button puts it 30 seconds, so he just keeps hitting the start button until it's where he wants it. So he is figured out his own method of doing that.

Sean Weisbrot: But the, it seems like the chance of him having his own kind of privacy and, and space, like him living on his own is probably not gonna happen.

Ken Cox: Probably not. Um, we, we try to give him, you know, you, you try to give. A boy is normal. What hell that means Life is possible. Right? So it's obvious at the age of 12 that he's, he's wanting privacy, right? He's, he's in the midst of puberty, which puberty's tough enough, plus being autistic would be just a wild challenge, I'm sure. So we can see that he's seeking these, these private moments and things like that, and we do our best to give 'em to him. Um, as long as we know that the environment's safe. Right. And we've, we've gone above and beyond to give him, um, you know, I'm not a huge fan of authority, but I like guardianship. Right. I like the, the mindset of we've created a safe place for him to roam as free as he can and maintain safety at the same time. Right? So we invested in a big, you know, six foot privacy fence with locking gates and all that stuff so that he can freely go outside and use his trampoline. Without having to talk to us. Right. So we're trying to give him that freedom within some kind of, um, safety boundaries. Okay.

Sean Weisbrot: I guess he has like a tablet or a phone or something he can, like, play with. He has multiple

Ken Cox: tablets. So the, the way that Joe primarily communicates, he communicates him, um, a couple of different ways. The, the main way that we talk with Joe is binary. Joe, would you like to go to the store? Yes or no? And he points to a hand, or I do this a lot, right? Yes or no. And then he'll be giving me that motion. Um, or he'll point to both if he doesn't know. Did you know that was wrong? Yes or no? Right. And he'll, he'll give you the motions back. And we do a lot of binary communication that way, and that works really, really well for us. Communicating to him. He communicates us in either physical ways by grabbing your hand and pulling you where he wants to go. Like Lassie would. Um, or the more appropriate way is he has a tablet that is his communication tablet. It's only thing that it does is communication. It's got a program called Prolo Quote, um, which has all of his I want, I need, I have to, you know, all those things. And then, um, you know, the next line of questioning, most of the time it's, I want Jeep Drive market. Is, is what he says 90% of the time with that tablet. Um, but he can use it to do more things. If he wants something specific, he'll go through. So if he wants, if we don't have chicken nuggets and he wants chicken nuggets, he'll find chicken nuggets on the tablet and say chicken nuggets.

Sean Weisbrot: Okay. That's interesting. So I had a neighbor growing up, my mom and and her, so it's my mom's friend's son. I think he's 26 now. He's also nonverbal, and I never saw him communicate. Maybe they didn't have tablets. I don't know, maybe tablets didn't exist back then, but, um, I, I never, it, I am curious about it because I never had a relationship with him. Um, I did know that he loved toys. And I knew that there were times where he would get frustrated and he would start to be verbal about his frustration. He would, he would utter vocalizations, grunts or, um, kind of screams where he just, it felt like he was trying so hard to communicate and that was his goal. And there was nothing else. It wasn't like, I'm afraid. Or anything. It was just like, hear me, listen to me, please. I'm trying to tell you something. And like he didn't know how else to, to do it. So it's cool that at least he's got a tablet that he can try to say, I want this thing, I need this thing or anything. Um, does he ever. Approach you, like you said, he, he pulls your arm, he tells you want to go somewhere. Does he ever like walk up to you and just hug you? Does he ever have that sort of physical at all?

Ken Cox: No. So the in, you know, I, I'm a firm believer in, um, that humans need physical touch, right? In connection of some kind. I think I, at least me as a human, I need that and it's important to me. So we make a pretty big effort to put that into Joe's life. But if we didn't make that effort, um, I don't, well, no, I'm wrong. I'm, I'm looking at this from my perspective, his ability to have physical, um, touch with other people is there, like, he tries to hug his sister. Right? And he likes to sit on the couch and cuddle with him. With her. Uh, he likes to sit on the couch and cuddle with grandma's, right? But with me, it's, he likes to wrestle, right? So. My wife when we, when he was little, actually when my daughter was little, my wife has a, a small tattoo of a, of a star on her wrist. And we turned that into a little, like a little gotcha button with my daughter. So when my daughter would touch it, it was Gotcha, gotcha. Um, and that turned into the tickle button. So now Joe, when he wants somebody, when he wants to wrestle in roughhouse with somebody. If they have a tattoo, he will walk up to them and touch that tattoo. And that is his, um, way of saying, Hey, I want to be rambunctious with you. Um, I have tattoos, and that's what he does to me too. So. They'll walk up and touch my tattoo, and then I know that it's time to wrestle.

Sean Weisbrot: Hey, just gimme 10 seconds of your time. I really appreciate you listening to the episode so far, and I hope you're loving it. And if you are, I would love to ask you to subscribe to the channel because what we do is a lot of work, and every week we bring you a new guest and a new story, and what we do requires so much love. So that we can bring you something amazing and every week we're trying really hard to get better guests that have better stories and improve our ability to tell their stories. So your subscription lets the algorithm know that what we're doing is fantastic and no commitment. It's free to do. And if you don't like what we're doing later on, you can always unsubscribe. And either way, we would love a, like if you don't feel like subscribing at this time. Thank you very much and we'll take you back to the show now. And that was he, he learned, he wasn't explicitly taught that. He just observed and, and copied.

Ken Cox: I think he probably observed his sister touching it. And got tickles and then he touched it and got tickles. And dopamine reward system is pretty strong.

Sean Weisbrot: Right. So we would, we would call that, uh, I believe it's opera conditioning, so he, he was conditioned, so, okay. So it's a normal response. That's interesting. Yeah. I'm trying to like, 'cause I, I've, you know, I, I studied childhood development and I studied psychology and I studied how the brain develops. And so I've only ever really observed children that aren't autistic. Okay. And so I'm just trying to see where are there similarities and where are there differences, um, from my experience.

Ken Cox: Yeah. So for me, my biggest similarity with Joe, um, you know, and I have a couple of these diagnoses that are un diagnoseable as well for myself, right? I have, I suffer from disassociated syndrome. Um, and a lot, a lot of his issues, I see the similar similarities to what the doctors have told me that I have. Right? So disassociation between your mind and your body. Um, it's very clear to me that he doesn't always have that, right. He doing things. He doesn't always have the,

Sean Weisbrot: an associ, he's not always associating,

Ken Cox: he's not always associating his, his thoughts with his body. Right? So, um,

Sean Weisbrot: how, how does that play out as a, an outside observer?

Ken Cox: Unfortunately, I think, um, well from an outside observer that under that has some of the same issues. Um, the self-injury is a big part of that, I think.

Sean Weisbrot: Meaning like what? Just lack of aware of surroundings and therefore you end up getting hurt by accident.

Ken Cox: No, the, so Joe has a couple self-injury is things, and they're much better now under the proper medication. Uh, so he doesn't bang his head anymore, you know, so, oh,

Sean Weisbrot: yes, I've,

Ken Cox: but then the, the biting himself now is the biggest one, and I think that that's a way for him to associate this is really happening, this is my body and I am in, and I can control some aspects of it.

Sean Weisbrot: Something that was really interesting, possibly off topic, but maybe linked, um, was LockedIn syndrome, where. In the past, people believed that if you're, if you're in bed and you can't really move, you're basically a carrot, you're brain dead. But it was later discovered, no, actually we've been pulling the plug on people that are totally there. They just can't physically move or talk. There's just something that's preventing them from reconnecting their mind to their body and, and being able, and, and even possibly the people who are in comas are still capable of processing outside information. They just have no way to communicate back. So that's, it's interesting and, and like I look at my dog sometimes and I know that he can process, he can process certain things very, very well. Yes. But he can't speak and so well, he can't speak in a language that we can

Ken Cox: understand.

Sean Weisbrot: Right. He can't speak English. Correct. He can understand English, but he can't speak English back to us in a way that we understand. And so sometimes I wonder. What he's actually thinking. And I wonder if maybe it's something similar with him where you're like, I wonder how aware you actually are of Right. What's going on in your life and, and where you are. Because you said that if, if he's biting him himself or if he's banging his head against the wall trying to associate his mind and his body, what if he's like, dammit, I wish, like what if he was aware that he. Uh, had autism. What if he was aware that he was unable to communicate the way he wants and he gets frustrated by that inability?

Ken Cox: I, I 100% believe that's the case, Joe, under, like we can have conversations at depth of things that I know that he understands, right? And this binary system that we've created of yes, no, this, that, if this then, um, very clearly tells us that. He is aware that he has autism. He's aware that that's a problem. He wishes that he could talk, right? He knows what a wish is.

Sean Weisbrot: Um, so if that's the case, like surely there's a way to, and this could be controversial in itself to correct for that one would hope to repair that. I, I feel like some people go, oh, how dare you try to change someone's like. But if they're aware and they know that there's, there's an issue and they're not happy with it, and they're frustrated by their own situation, shouldn't we try to like help them?

Ken Cox: We try and, you know, unfortunately there's a lot of snake oil on the market, right? Um, but we try a lot of things like we, we try a lot of different things and we, we communicate with Joe about it and we ask him, Hey, do you wanna try this? Do you not wanna try this? I wish that we could try more. Right? I wish that the laws allowed us to experiment more with Joe, right? But they, they currently don't. So we're, we live in a world of, of high prosecution, so we don't, um, but we are looking for other things that will help Joe. Gut health I think is a big part of it. Um, you know. I, I don't, I'm not a vaxxer. I don't believe that Joe got a vaccine one day and it turned him autistic. I don't believe

Sean Weisbrot: that. You mean you, you mean you're not a, not an anti-vaxxer.

Ken Cox: Um, true. Yeah. I'm not, I have no, I have no horse in that rodeo at, at all. Um, I don't believe that Joe being vaccinated caused with autism. I, I, I've never thought that, but I do believe that, um. 4 billion years of life, of, of evolution, or whatever you want to call it. Um, and the past couple hundred years of pollutants, the additional toxins in our diet, the additional plastics that we in ingest on a daily basis, um, the pollution, all of those environmental factors have a play along with. You know, some DNA that, along with me and my wife, that maybe have a potential for having a higher potential for having an autistic kid. Right? I believe that all the variables lined up to create the perfect storm to have, um, Joe, which at the end of the day, I, he's a, he's a wonderful boy. He is. He can be. Um, I believe that he has the ability to be a successful member of society.

Sean Weisbrot: How do you think that could happen? Um, because it sounds like he would be independent

Ken Cox: if he were, I I think he could be. I think he could be group home long term, like, um, in a, in a small community of like-minded people. But, um, repetitive work, artwork, um, companionship, you know, all those things are, are needs with. AI and robotics going where it's going. You know, I, I believe that we have a, you know, without going too political, I mean, we have an opportunity to allow people to exist and just live a life that's happy and healthy. That doesn't demand a 40 hour work week.

Sean Weisbrot: Hmm,

Ken Cox: right. I, I'm, I'm hopeful for that.

Sean Weisbrot: I think a lot of people are hopeful for that.

Ken Cox: Yeah. So it just, it, it's gonna, it's gonna be interesting. Um, you know, I'm hoping I have at least, at least 20 more years on this planet with him. Get me near my seventies would be a delight. Uh, and what's gonna be the next 20 years? Who knows.

Sean Weisbrot: I think in the next 20 years there will be a complete understanding of autism. My hope is there would be a cure. And again, maybe that sounds horrible, but it's not saying we're killing him. It's just going. We're enabling him to regain the ability to communicate like verbal communication.

Ken Cox: It, you know, I can look into my son's eyes and I can look into other autistic people's eyes and I could tell, or I, I feel like they know things about life inherently that we don't understand how, so they just seem to have a calm with the universe that is different than other people that I've met, a knowing about what life is about differently than, than what I do. So I don't know that it's, um, definitely there's crippling pieces of autism, right? Non-communication. Not being able to communicate with your, the people around you has got to be wildly frustrating. Um, especially when you're young and you have needs that aren't being met because you don't know how to communicate what you need. That's gotta be wildly frustrating. So. I, I believe that, you know, we already have interfaces that can take the energy from plants and solid material, any material, and then turn that into the frequency. Um, we've already mapped, you know, um, non-human communication, right? The, we have mushrooms, plant light can have, has of like 50 words that, that they're communicating back and forth with each other. I feel like we. Yeah, so I, I believe that there's, there's gotta be an interface that we can map individual language from the frequencies that are coming from their brain. I don't know how to do that.

Sean Weisbrot: There is, there, there's actually something that, I can't remember the name of it, but there was a study that came out recently, like the, the results of an experiment. There's several of them. One of them was. We can have an AI review the brain patterns while you're sleeping and visualize your dream, which is freaky. Right? And then the other is, or another one is we can use AI to look at the sounds and the movements that chickens and other animals make and interpret their emotions, right? Which is one step away from what are they saying to each other, which is cool. And I think that those two things together may be able to help with this.

Ken Cox: I, I, I think so. I'm very hopeful for that. Right? And think about we, we know that people that have overcome trauma in their life have different skill sets, right? And. Could you, I can't imagine being locked in my own body, not being able to communicate and getting myself to the point of calm and going through the day and dealing with people and not being able to say anything that that has to be a reserve of something inside of the person. That just doesn't make them completely that breakdown and cry all the time.

Sean Weisbrot: Well make some great listeners.

Ken Cox: Hopefully, right. Um, and on top of that, you know, the sensory disorder, uh, Joe is primarily, um, uh, sensory avoidance primarily, right? So sitting in the calm headphones on avoiding sensory, but occasionally he needs that impact, right? So I have to believe. Without him being able to talk to us. He's hearing everything around him. He is feeling everything around him. He is seeing everything around him at a much higher rate, processing way more data than than you or I. Right. We're processing dangers, arousals, hunger, you know, the, the fundamentals of life. And I think he's just getting it all with no filters and having to, and having to manage that.

Sean Weisbrot: You think that's what autism is? Is hyper, hyper or hypersensitivity?

Ken Cox: I think that autism is a bunch of different things. Um, and I think that's the, that's my perception or observation of my son's autism.

Sean Weisbrot: Hmm, interesting. So, what has been the hardest thing about having an autistic child?

Ken Cox: Um, the, so the initial hardest thing was getting over. You know, I have a boxing school. My son's not gonna be a boxer. We're not gonna play football. We're not gonna have Friday night tailgate parties. You know that. That was the hardest thing originally to overcome. Now the hardest thing to overcome is, you know, we don't get the family vacations the way we would like to get them. Right. We can't just easily go places we have to it. It takes a lot of preparation to. To do something outta the norm. Right? That, that's probably the biggest challenge today. So a lot of times, and my wife is an amazing woman. She, she do, she crushes so many things, but I like to travel. She doesn't necessarily care to travel. So it's this situation to where, um, you know, something that's desired for part of the family doesn't happen because another person isn't overly desired to do it. And we have these additional challenges. Right. So if those additional challenges weren't there, I think the family would, would have more of those kinds of vacations. At the same note, we get to have a different kind of life from other people and um, get a different awareness about something. And humanity I think is really, at the end of the day, what we're getting a different understanding of.

Sean Weisbrot: How has this impacted your life as an entrepreneur?

Ken Cox: Um, and, you know, as an entrepreneur, um, it gave for a long time, it gave me an excuse to keep my head down. Um, it probably kept me in alcoholism longer than it should have by far, which also let me keep my head down, um, and, you know, work through things, um, as an entrepreneur. That I probably would've felt wild. I probably feel really guilty about them now if I sit and talk to my therapist about it. Um, but it let me disassociate from the family more than I probably should have and focus on the businesses.

Sean Weisbrot: Has there been anything about it that's been positive for your businesses besides the head down sink? 'cause it could be positive or a negative, depending on how,

Ken Cox: um, in some cases. Connecting with people. Um, you know, I work in IT and I'm in the data center a lot and I work with computers and I work with codes. So I'm not by nature the most personable person in the planet. Hmm. Um, but it has helped me be humanized to other people very, very quickly.

Sean Weisbrot: Why is that?

Ken Cox: Um. I don't necessarily know. I think, you know, the, the, the, the one comment that I get, that I dislike the most is when they find out that I have a son with autism. They're like, oh, I'm sorry. I'm like, well, I have a son. He happens to have autism. There's nothing for you to be sorry about. Right. Um, and I don't quite understand that it is a disability. Um, but it's, you know, I get a, I'm sorry. Almost like it's a, a wasted life. And I just don't feel that way.

Sean Weisbrot: Is there anything else that you feel like you need to say to kind of help other people, whether it's understanding autism or, or you or, yeah,

Ken Cox: it's, it's about them. It's not, has nothing to do with you as a father, a business person, or anything like that. Make, when you're with them, make it about them and what's gonna be best. For them where they're at. Right. So you gotta,

Sean Weisbrot: you're talking about the autistic person.

Ken Cox: I, I guess the biggest thing it probably did for me is I dropped all assumptions. I don't make assumptions about most anything anymore. Right. I'm dealing with, um, it helps you live in the moment for sure, because that's where you have to live. Right? You have to live in the, right now, right here, because you don't know, there's zero way that I'm gonna predict what Joe's next move's gonna be. 99% of the time it's gonna be the straight line that he does every other day. But there's that 1% of the time that he'll, you know, e every single school year he has escaped from the school every single school year. You know, he is 12, um, and he just, they were on a field trip the other day and they have what they call paras. Um. Which is, so Joe's always one-to-one at school, and his handler or his para always has a walkie-talkie at all times. Um, and they were at a field trip the other day and he saw a giant field and he wanted to run in it. So he did. Um, still way, it's just the way it is. So, um, yeah, so if he can, living in the moment is always a must, regardless of how consistent the daily routine seems. Uh, because when it goes off it, it could be fatal and it can be fatal really quickly.

Sean Weisbrot: What's the most important thing you've learned in your life so far?

Ken Cox: That it will be okay. Everything will be okay.