942: Mental Health Q&A w/ Dr. Courtney Tolinski

Wes and Scott talk with Dr. Courtney Tolinski about supporting neurodivergent teammates, navigating workplace dynamics, and recognizing strengths beyond labels. They explore ADHD diagnosis and treatment, productivity mindsets, burnout, AI in mental health, and practical routines for focus and balance. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 00:09 Meet Dr. Courtney Tolinski 01:46 Supporting neurodivergent team members 12:26 Should I disclose my ADHD diagnosis at work? 17:21 Characteristics of autism and ADHD 22:37 Seeking diagnosis as an adult developer 28:04 Brought to you by Sentry.io 32:18 Uncoupling identity from productivity 38:06 Is overtime ever “worth it”? 42:34 AI as a mental health tool: hope or hype? 46:32 Will therapists be replaced by AI? 49:29 Burnout warning signs in high-performers 55:15 Sick picks + shameless plugs Sick Picks Courtney: Bentgo Glass Containers Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Wes Bos?

  Welcome to Syntax. Today, we have Dr. Courtney Tolinski on. Scott, can you introduce Dr. Courtney Tolinski?

• 0:09Scott Tolinski?

  Yes, joining me in studio is my esteemed and lovely wife, Dr. Tolinski.

• 0:18Scott Tolinski?

  Court, do you want to give like a little bit of a background on who you are and you know what you're doing?

• 0:24Speaker 02

  I'm a licensed clinical and educational psychologist and work mostly with kids, but I've been on here a few times and I'm always happy to share my knowledge and thoughts with you all.

• 0:36Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah, it's always great to have Courtney on because, I mean, she's even selling herself short here. She's a doctor of psychology, right? So your education is...

• 0:45Speaker 02

  Did I say that?

• 0:46Scott Tolinski?

  No, but I'm saying like you're not, you're not just like just working with kids or whatever.

• 0:50Speaker 02

  No.

• 0:50Scott Tolinski?

  You have, you know, deep expertise and it's always great to be able to bring someone on to talk about things that honestly Wes and I are not equipped to handle. I'll just say that. So we have some questions from the audience. We're going to read them all anonymously. So if you submitted, then the questions will be anonymous and we're just going to kind of dig into this, almost like a potluck episode and just talk through some mental health questions. Get Courtney's feedback and ideas and utilize her expertise here. This is really funny. I've never recorded with another person at this desk like this. So forgive us if we're like shuffling around here. Courtney said she's not going to shuffle, but I feel like I'm going to shuffle.

• 1:34Wes Bos?

  Oh, that's great. All right. Should we, should we just get into the first question then?

• 1:38Scott Tolinski?

  Let's get into it.

• 1:39Wes Bos?

  All right. The doctor is in. You submitted the questions and Dr. Tolinski is going to provide the answers. First one is about supporting neurodivergent team members. So as a manager of two neurodivergent devs, autism and ADHD, I find myself spending a lot of time helping them manage stress, communications and misunderstandings with other teams. They're amazing at their job, but high touch. What tips do you have to better support them while still being fair to the rest of the team?

• 2:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, so this is a good question, and I would imagine that pretty much everyone is working with someone who is neurodiverse and maybe it's just not apparent to you. But you know, it's about 10% of the population, roughly speaking. So chances are, one in 10 people is neurodiverse, right? And one of the things that I think is really important to understand is that neurodiversity is often on a spectrum, right? We talk about like autism being on a spectrum, and I think everyone's really like comfortable and familiar with that. But ADHD is kind of also on a spectrum too, in terms of like its severity and how it shows up. And it's important to consider that not everyone with autism or ADHD is the same, right?

• 2:53Speaker 02

  There's still unique people with unique strengths and challenges, but it's on a spectrum.

• 2:58Scott Tolinski?

  I guess it took me a long time to understand my ADHD, right?

• 3:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:04Scott Tolinski?

  But even seeing how it presents in different people that I know or have been around, like, I don't think most people experience it the way that I do. Or, so for me, that makes sense. And I never considered that. I always, like, growing up, I always thought it was like a switch. You got it, or you don't.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And I don't think a lot of people understand that. They think, oh, everyone with ADHD is hyperactive and they can't control themselves. But it's just not true, right? Some people with ADHD have the inattentive type, where they struggle more with organization, and which we'll talk about executive functioning skills or time management. And it's not obvious on the surface, or like just looking at them. But as you work with them, you see like, oh, this person needs like a lot more structure and support than other people, right? So that might be someone that's struggling, or neurodiverse.

• 3:53Scott Tolinski?

  So, so how do you support those people at work?

• 3:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the biggest thing is to provide structure, right? As much as possible. So if you're giving like, a big project that has like a ton of deadlines, maybe you're shortening those. So you're giving like really explicit instructions. If you're emailing them requests, the emails are not like paragraphs long, right? They're like, to the point, couple of sentences, not a lot of like, not a lot of...

• 4:25Wes Bos?

  Sorry, I'm laughing because I literally have on my website, if you're gonna contact me, please give me bullet points of very clear things that you want from me, because I'm not gonna read this huge book. So, sorry, go ahead.

• 4:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, right, right. And I, I think a lot of people respond to that anyway. Like if it needs to be more than a couple of sentences, it's probably worth having a conversation and not sending it over email. Right? So keeping that in mind for everyone, but um, yeah, just breaking things down. Having like if, again, if there are deadlines and this person has a hard time meeting their deadlines, maybe having a conversation, you know, pushing their deadlines up a little bit, but I think the big thing is talking to them and seeing, you know, what works best for them because people usually know, like by the time you're an adult, you have enough like lived experience to understand what's helpful for you and what's not. And let's not just assume like because they are neurodiverse

• 5:18Speaker 02

  that they need support. They might not, like a lot of intelligent people who are neurodiverse find workarounds and strategies that help them. Um, but having a conversation and asking, you know, what types of feedback do you respond to the best? Um, what types of mentors or leaders do you respect the most? Like what's been most helpful for you in your previous jobs? Um, what would you like to see from me? You know, asking those questions and being open and honest, I think can have you both be like at the same um, communication level and have like a better understanding of each other. The other thing that I really like is having, if you are like the boss of a team,

• 6:00Speaker 02

  um, having open office hours if you can. So just having like a dedicated time on your calendar where you're available, whether that's virtual or in person. And so maybe it's like an hour every week on Thursday. I'm available if you want to book this time and talk to me and let them know like, hey, if you're struggling or you want to have like a one-on-one, like use this time and book it. You know, so I think being available, letting your team know that you care and having like those open and honest conversations about what would be helpful for them is usually best.

• 6:32Scott Tolinski?

  As someone who, um, being you, as somebody who regularly manages somebody with ADHD being me, what are some things that you've like put in place in our? Relationship and marriage, I guess, that like you

• 6:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:48Scott Tolinski?

  found helped me in my, my issues.

• 6:51Speaker 02

  Well, thi- this is tough and, and I totally empathize with whoever wrote this question, whoever is, you know, managing other people, you know, who have neurodiversity because I, I do understand it is a lot more work, but there's also a lot of pluses with it too. So when you are neurodiverse, you tend to be more creative because your brain is not following the common pathways or like roads, so to speak, that most people are, right? So because your brain is following different pathways and I'm being like really like simplistic here, it lends itself to creativity, right? And that's probably why there's so many people who are neurodiverse in like engineering and, you know, tech, et cetera. But it is, it's very tough because when you have, like, we'll just take ADHD.

• 7:36Speaker 02

  And most people with autism end up having ADHD too. You're not interested, like generally speaking, in time management. And if there's like a task that you really don't want to do, it's really hard to motivate yourself or to like get it done in a timely manner, right? There's like that avoidance of tasks that are like not engaging or just seem like too much. And we have a son who has ADHD as well. So, you know, I, I understand this on like many different levels, but it's really hard and you can see just like at an eight-year-old level, like how hard it is to like do tasks, like clean your room. Like, he doesn't want to do that.

• 8:17Scott Tolinski?

  I mean, what, what kids do though, but sure, but still like it is different. It is different with him than

• 8:22Speaker 02

  Right. It's like a big meltdown and like, oh my gosh, this is the end of the world. Like,

• 8:28Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  it's the biggest deal ever.

• 8:30Scott Tolinski?

  It's not a bummer. It is a catastrophe.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  It's like pick up 10 things on the floor. Like, this is what we're talking about here. But to him, it's like a mountain, right? Because he doesn't want to do it. And it just seems difficult, you know? So that's why you have to like really break tasks down. For you, I just stay on top of our deadlines. So I tell people like, you need to email me, like, don't email him because he's busy. Emails sometimes get lost.

• 8:55Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah, things get lost. I think the worst things for me are scheduling.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:59Scott Tolinski?

  Scheduling and deadlines. Yeah, those are the in in holidays. I don't know.

• 9:06Scott Tolinski?

  No, it's not. It's not. It's not actually like doing things for holidays. I'm good at that, but like knowing what day they are. I'm asking like eight hundred times.

• 9:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:13Scott Tolinski?

  So but that goes along with the planning and events. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know when anything is, and I I super rely on our calendar, which we we've had to do pretty intensely.

• 9:22Wes Bos?

  Yeah, me too. Like, like the my wife will just be like, yeah, it's every Tuesday you have ballet. And I was like, I will never remember that until it's in the calendar, you know, like I need the system to to see it because I there's no chance I'm gonna ever remember that without looking. I look at the calendar every single day. I have it on my watch. Sometime you could probably see it when it's sometimes when we're recording. If people have paused and zoomed in to my watch sometimes, but it'll show exactly what's what's coming up next.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. So if if someone is like chronically unreliable with that, like maybe stepping in and taking over that responsibility or just finding tools that can help them, and you could probably speak better, like what tools do you use?

• 10:04Wes Bos?

  Yeah.

• 10:04Speaker 02

  Performance.

• 10:05Scott Tolinski?

  Oh, yeah, mostly I I live and die by my to do list, which I I have to be completely on. Everything I do goes in that list and I check it off and I I it's like the number one tool I use. I use tweak dot SO. We've talked about on the show numerous times. And then for doing tasks, I need my inbox and my email to be clean at all times. And everything that is in my inbox is something that I have to do. It is essentially another to do for me. Otherwise, if stuff just stays in there, I never do it. So I'll use snoozing. So that way, like the email goes away and then comes back on a specific date when I it's like I know that I can handle it or whatever.

• 10:47Scott Tolinski?

  Because that's the one thing I hate about text messages. I have a friend I'm working with who insists on text messaging me all of the to dos and all this stuff. And I've said, please email, man, because in text message land, they go into the thing, I see it, and then I forget about it. It's gone. It's out of my brain. Yeah.

• 11:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know why they haven't invented that, the reminder for the text.

• 11:09Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah, right? Yeah.

• 11:11Wes Bos?

  Yeah, the snooze it later. That would be would be kind of nice. I don't need another system, though. That's that's the thing is having the system in place is nice. I I use things as a to do app as well, and I'll often. Just dump everything that needs to be done in there and then I'll sort of bubble them up and down, like reorder them based on like excitement and energy is really important, but also how much something is like making me anxious. Cause I often find if I put that like the anxious thing at the first thing, you do that and you go, that only took three minutes. Why have I been putting this off for, for three weeks? And then you get the, get the momentum and the ball rolling and everything is a little bit better.

• 11:51Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah.

• 11:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's often the anticipation of the thing you don't want to do, right? The anticipation and then the putting it off. And, and I like the concept. I think we've talked about this here of the eat that frog.

• 12:02Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah.

• 12:02Speaker 02

  Just like you're saying, do the biggest or least preferred thing first, just get it over with.

• 12:08Scott Tolinski?

  I like that. So tips are systems in place, communicate, let them know, you know, that you're available, office hours, those types of things, but let them know that you're willing to work within however it works best for them and set up systems, right?

• 12:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:25Scott Tolinski?

  Cool. All right. Uh, next question. Uh, I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. Should I tell my employer? What if they don't understand or still carry a stigma? I had no idea. I have no idea. When I read this, being like a manager, I have no idea what the answer to this would be.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 12:42Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah.

• 12:43Wes Bos?

  Yeah. I, I was thinking that and like, maybe I'll add on to this as well. It's like, if you have a coworker, you can't just be like, hey, you got autism. That's not something new. Just go and ask. Like, how do you navigate that?

• 12:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, you know, obviously you don't need to tell your employer, you know, there's lots of like legal regulations around this, right? But you don't, you're not required to tell your employer that you have any type of like, neurodiverse learning profile or disability, right? Um, if you feel like, like you have a close relationship with your boss or your employer, and you want to disclose that because you feel like that information would be helpful for them and they can like, respond to it, respect it and work with you in like a collaborative and empathetic way, then I think maybe, you know, telling them could be okay. If you feel like the need to do that for those reasons, but you certainly don't have to.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  And what I like to do is just talk about, you know, your strengths and challenges, just kind of globally. Right. Because everyone has strengths and challenges, you know, I don't have ADHD, but I have things that are harder for me, right? And it could be helpful for an employer to know those things, you know, but I don't necessarily have to put a label on it. I think the label is more for you to understand and to give you like identity and support and an explanation as well as to give you access to like resources like medication and therapy and things like that. Right. The label is helpful for those tools. It can be helpful for other people to know, but it's not a requirement. I think it's like a very personal thing.

• 14:21Speaker 02

  So what you could say is, you know, if you're having trouble with time management and organization, you could say like, I'm really creative and I'm really great at like going deep on things that I'm really passionate about. But it's much harder for me to stay on task or to meet my deadlines. You know, so just talking about your strengths and challenges in more of like a global way, rather than like, I have ADHD and I can't focus. Right. Because that only, it frames it in a positive light, but it also gives like direct tools and support to help your employer understand you rather than I have this thing. Right?

• 14:57Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah. That I, it's funny, as a, as a manager and somebody with ADHD, I would say like, it would be helpful for me to know, but in the same regard, I wouldn't expect everybody to feel comfortable.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:10Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  But you also have a small team.

• 15:12Scott Tolinski?

  Of a small team.

• 15:12Speaker 02

  And you're very close with your employees.

• 15:15Wes Bos?

  You understand ADHD. I'm sure there's a lot of managers are being like, uh, so you're just, you're taking speed all day. Like, yeah, right. You know, just, just put your head down and do the work, you know, I guarantee there's just as many managers that think that way. So I agree with, with Courtney, it was just like talking about how you work best is, is probably most important.

• 15:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, and if you suspect that like a teammate has a has ASD or ADHD, I would not call them out on that, right? But you can talk about it in that same framework like, hey, man, I've noticed like you're you love to talk about things that you're really interested in, or you have such deep knowledge about CSS. And I don't know if you're trying to give constructive feedback, then maybe, you know, but it's harder for you in like team meetings to talk about things that are going wrong or whatever. Like if you're trying to go that approach, but use that same type of framework rather than like, are you autistic? Right? Because you don't know like how people feel about it. Do they even know that they're on the spectrum or they are neurodiverse? And then there's so many different ways that people, if they

• 16:24Speaker 02

  do have autism, that they own that or speak about it. So it is such a spectrum in that regard, too, and it's probably safest and most helpful to just talk about like strengths and challenges more globally.

• 16:34Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah, I remember I was having a lot of trouble connecting with a teammate at one of the first jobs I had back when I was in my early twenties. And I was telling Courtney about it and she's like, he's he's probably autistic just based on, you know, what I was explaining about how he behaved around me. And then she said, well, find out like one of his like mutual interests and connect with him deeply on that mutual interest. And instead of like doing anything other than that, I just started talking about the thing he liked. And then like, next thing you know, he's he's my buddy, you know? And it was like, oh, I just needed to understand that a little bit more. But thankfully I had you. Otherwise, I would have been like, this guy's such a jerk to me. I don't understand why.

• 17:17Scott Tolinski?

  And it's because I was like messing up his systems and like the way he liked to work.

• 17:21Wes Bos?

  What are the other other tells? You know, you're working in a job besides how you react? Like, how do you know someone might have autism?

• 17:30Speaker 02

  I'm smiling. I don't get the joke, but I'm smiling.

• 17:35Wes Bos?

  It's it's a JavaScript framework that I use that Scott hates.

• 17:41Speaker 02

  Oh, I see. It's a very like comprehensive process. I do these evaluations. So I'm very skilled at like looking for the markers, but it is a very comprehensive process. And I don't think like anyone off the street should like certainly be diagnosing people, right? And that's like a big movement I see with like teenagers and young adults.

• 18:00Wes Bos?

  Oh, yeah, diagnosing themselves.

• 18:02Speaker 02

  Yes, I get a lot of young girls who are like coming to me and they're like, I think I'm autistic. And it's like, as we do more digging, it's like, well, no, you're just really anxious and you're looking for something else. And so many things can mirror autism too. Like anxiety can ADHD. So you do have to be careful with that. Uh, but just generally speaking, things that you're looking for are social and communication challenges. Right? So difficulties with like having good friendships or like having like a back and forth in conversations. A lot of times it's centered around like what they want to talk about or what their interests are. And it's hard to do like that perspective taking of what might someone else want to talk about, or I should ask them about their day.

• 18:46Speaker 02

  Right? Again, this is on a spectrum, but um, those things are challenging. Uh, being able to like pick up on social cues. And a lot of it's like subtleties, like if someone's being sarcastic, they might interpret that as like either they totally missed it, or they've gone like the other extreme sometimes, like, oh, they're being a jerk, or I'm going to take it literally. Right? So a lot of kids get like teased or picked on, um, because they're taking some of these things literally.

• 19:14Wes Bos?

  Yeah.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  Right? And then, you know, they're a target for bullying.

• 19:17Wes Bos?

  I hit that all the time. Especially on like on social, I know, I like, I hit this on social media all the time where like I have jokes and sarcasm and like, like, like very niche jokes. And a lot of times people don't get them at all and they get very upset. And you have to, at first I was like, this person's being a jerk, but then you realize, oh, they probably aren't understanding the sarcasm behind all of that. And then it's also compounded when things are. People don't necessarily have English as their first language.

• 19:48Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of nuance in like sarcasm and communication that neurotypical people tend to take for granted.

• 19:57Wes Bos?

  Yeah.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  Right? Because you're not sitting down and teaching people like, this is how you look at someone in the eye when you talk. This is how you use gestures. You know, those things are not taught. They're modeled, right? So we should, we do them and then kids pick up on them over time. But kids on the spectrum are not necessarily like picking up on those things. So it's harder for them to develop those skills and they have their own like pathway that they're following. So using gestures, um, being able to like point to things or like connect other people to like where they want to go. Like, look at that over there. Like, as an adult, like you pick up on that, but you see delays in that for kids. Um, and maybe sometimes they're over relying on explaining things verbally, but not using like all these hand gestures like I'm using, um, to help with their communication.

• 20:42Speaker 02

  So sometimes you see like challenges there. And then when they were kids, a lot of times kids, um, skip over like the imaginative play. And they just go like straight into like role playing, like scenes that they've seen in movies. Or like they play like the same thing over and over again, or like with parts of things. So there's like components of like imagination and like that modeling piece that are missed. Uh, but generally you're seeing, I think in adults, difficulties with perspective taking. The kind of like the, the awkwardness, like physically and maybe, um, verbally, as well as like changes in like tone of voice and things like that.

• 21:23Speaker 02

  And then the other piece of it is having like restricted interests or like repetitive behaviors. So things like, um, having like really narrow interests that you have like an extreme depth of knowledge about. Or being like really rigid and like only wanting to do things like a certain way or your way, or having trouble just like adapting and being flexible when things change. Um, I think those are the biggest things that you see in adults as well as like sensory sensitivities. And sometimes for adults that can be like being overstimulated and like crowded or loud or busy. Environments um and needing like time away to themselves or getting like overly agitated and upset. So those are like tells that you might see and people that have ADHD often struggle with some of these.

• 22:06Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, there's so many overlaps, cause I have like weird sensory stuff.

• 22:10Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 22:11Scott Tolinski?

  Like I definitely, I can't, I can't listen to people chew. Yeah, misophonia. People are eating on a podcast, I like shut it off immediately. But like too many loud noises over time, like can definitely get me like really out of sorts. Yeah, it's interesting. It is, well, the more I learn is like the, the collection of different things that I, you know, I experience. They're all connected in different ways and like you said, on a spectrum of various aspects here. This person wrote in saying, I suspect I have ADHD and dyslexia. In the US, what is the best way to seek a formal diagnosis and how do I talk to a doctor without being dismissed?

• 22:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I think, you know, we just talked about like the over diagnosing phenomenon that I'm seeing and I do think that's present. Uh, but I also think it's important to trust your gut and your instincts. If you feel like something's wrong, then it's worth having a conversation about. Um, and I know like for you, having the diagnosis was like life changing.

• 23:06Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah, yeah, I didn't, I didn't get diagnosed until I was what, like thirty five or something?

• 23:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, recently.

• 23:12Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah, which I think we all knew, uh, but I, I, you know, especially dyslexia. The only person who clocked dyslexia for me was a teacher in high school. I had one teacher being like, Hey, have you ever gotten tested for dyslexia because um, I've noticed these patterns in all of the, the papers you've turned in? And at that point I was just like, no, I don't, I don't, no, I'm not dyslexic and I didn't know nothing about any of this stuff. So I just blew it off. Um, and sure enough, like, you know, over the course of time, it's like you understand more and more, but through understanding, you know, myself through Courtney. Like just amount of things in life that have been present for me the entire time, whether that was in school or beyond.

• 23:55Scott Tolinski?

  Um, and just clear how, based on the, uh, the way that I act in, in general, that, Uh, we knew that I, I was probably, you know, somebody who had ADHD. And so it was like, okay, well. Now let's get a diagnosis because then maybe we can look into, you know, augmenting that with medication and see how that can can help me if it can. And what did we do? We found a psychiatrist, but how? Yeah.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I I think, I mean, you could go a couple of different routes in the US and Wes, I'd love to hear what happens in Canada, too. But you could talk to your primary care physician and say, hey, I'm wondering if I have, this was ADHD and dyslexia. So I'm wondering if I have ADHD. I'd love to see someone or get a referral to be tested for that. And sometimes like the primary care can handle it there if they have a good understanding of ADHD. But usually they're referring you to a psychiatrist because they have more in-depth knowledge of ADHD. The psychiatrist can't diagnose dyslexia necessarily. For that, you would need to see a psychologist. So someone like me, you would go through like Psychology Today or ask your primary care for a referral for

• 25:08Speaker 02

  a psychologist who does adult testing and specializes in ADHD and dyslexia. And it it's usually out of pocket. Some places do take insurance. But it ranges, you know, anywhere from like fifteen hundred up. What they do is they will put you through a series of tests. A lot of times they'll do like an IQ test. They'll look at your academic skills and then they'll look more specifically at skills that apply to reading. So like phonological processing and oral reading. So they'll do all that testing. And then for ADHD, they sometimes they'll ask for like old child report cards because you have to show that it's been present since or before the age of twelve. So that's really important, too. It's not like you've lived your life and all of a sudden at twenty one,

• 25:53Speaker 02

  you have ADHD, something else is going on, right? Whether you're anxious, you've had trauma. You know, you've spent too much time with fifty tabs, you know, whatever it is.

• 26:04Scott Tolinski?

  Or or what currently I have six AI agents working simultaneously. Is that a problem here? Can we share the results of my IQ test? Because I did have, you did my IQ test.

• 26:16Speaker 02

  I don't have your results. I just know like generally, he like Wes, he did not have an actual IQ because he's so like all over the place. Like this is very fitting for him. But his visual spatial skills. So like, if you imagine Tetris or like puzzles, right? Putting together things were like in the 98th percentile. So this dude can like bag groceries that you've never seen.

• 26:40Scott Tolinski?

  I can pack the trunk. Let's just say that. Yeah.

• 26:44Speaker 02

  Can figure out, I just throw stuff in the bag. He's got it down, but his memory is terrible.

• 26:50Scott Tolinski?

  Dude, the worst.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  Terrible.

• 26:51Wes Bos?

  So you don't have an IQ at all? Like you're undefined IQ?

• 26:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, because, because you have to show, there has to be, this is getting technical, but like a certain amount of point difference. It's like in the range of 25 points, something like that, between like your highest and lowest score. And his was like a 50 point difference. So, so I, I, an IQ would be an average of extremes. So therefore it would be valid.

• 27:17Scott Tolinski?

  I think that was very present in my ACT scores as well. When I got like a, you know, high 30s on math and did well on science, but got low, low numbers on the English and reading parts.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. And well, often when you see that split, again, this is getting technical, but that's a sign to me of like a neurodiverse learning profile, whether it's a learning disability, ADHD, or both. And that clearly applies for you. But getting back to that other question. So you, you want to do like a thorough evaluation with a psychiatrist or a psychologist, especially if you're wondering about both. And then from there, you know, you can take that information and consider either therapy for like ADHD or medication, which I know has been helpful.

• 28:04Scott Tolinski?

  And if you want to see all of the errors in your application, you'll want to check out Sentry at sentry.io forward slash syntax. You don't want a production application out there that, well, you have no visibility into in case something is blowing up and you might not even know it. So head on over to sentry.io forward slash syntax. Again, we've been using this tool for a long time and it totally rules. All right.

• 28:29Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah, I'm on ADHD meds as of like a year and a half ago. And for me personally, it has been life-changing in regards to accomplishing tasks. Because I wouldn't be able to like sit down and accomplish a task. I'm on my phone, I'm over here, I'm over here, I'm over here, I'm doing this, I'm standing up, whatever. And it like has allowed me to really dial in on things, for sure. And I was a little unsure about it, but it like, it was my choice and I made that choice and man, it has greatly improved my life, so.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, and what it also helps with is emotion regulation too. I don't think people like understand like the correlation between like getting like overly angry or overly worried or sad that comes with these neurodiverse learning profiles like ADHD or autism. Where you can go from like zero to sixty really quickly. Not everyone does this, but it does happen and you just get overly upset or overly mad.

• 29:31Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah, I get irritated as hell.

• 29:33Speaker 02

  That down, yeah.

• 29:34Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah.

• 29:34Speaker 02

  Right, and you can't like cope with it because it just kind of like takes over that like prefrontal cortex, which like up here is like the main area that's affected by ADHD. It's kind of like all-consuming and it's harder for you to like deal with life's challenges and problems. So medication can be one tool to help with that.

• 29:52Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah.

• 29:53Speaker 02

  Or mindfulness, which I keep trying to get you to do and he's.

• 29:56Scott Tolinski?

  Mindfulness. Come on, who's got time for mindfulness?

• 30:01Wes Bos?

  What does mindfulness look like?

• 30:03Speaker 02

  It's thinking about something, kind of like relaxing your brain. And you can do like a guided meditation or visualization. So I use like Headspace or Calm, those are two really popular apps where like a calm voice will walk you through like a meditation. And really, you're just trying to focus on the present and mostly your breathing, right? So you can do different things like progressive muscle relaxation where you're like tightening and loosening like different parts of your body at a time. But it's really like being focused. And if you catch your brain like going somewhere else and thinking about something else, then you just like bring it back to center. And it's hard because everyone's brain goes this way. And it's, it's just that concept of like actively training your brain to stay present.

• 30:48Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah.

• 30:49Wes Bos?

  Cool.

• 30:49Scott Tolinski?

  Did you have to do a computer test for your ADHD diagnosis, Wes?

• 30:54Wes Bos?

  What, like, like, use a Word document?

• 30:57Scott Tolinski?

  No, I had to like press a key or something whenever a specific letter flashed on the screen.

• 31:02Wes Bos?

  Oh.

• 31:02Scott Tolinski?

  And I was telling Courtney, like, I'm a competitive person, so I really wanted, I really wanted to do a good job on it. Like, she asked me how it went. I was like, oh, this test was so stupid long and like, I was doing really well on it until about like halfway through and I just like couldn't keep up or I couldn't. And she was just like, yeah, that's what the test is for. Like, that is like.

• 31:22Speaker 02

  No, that's, that's the Connors Continuous Performance Test. And it's designed to be like 14 minutes long and to be frustrating because letters flash at different intervals. And sometimes the intervals are long and so you lose interest. So it's looking at like impulsivity or like lack of sustained attention.

• 31:40Scott Tolinski?

  I was getting so mad at it. Yeah.

• 31:42Wes Bos?

  Oh, yeah. Mine, mine was more just like, like questions about how you approach different situations and how I interact with coworkers and, and how I, what, what I have trouble with. All right. Like I didn't, I didn't take my meds today and I'm just sitting here. I would love to do a, like a time lapse of me sitting at my desk a day I'm on meds and not.

• 32:02Scott Tolinski?

  Oh, yeah.

• 32:03Wes Bos?

  I'll go upstairs like 30 times and like moving around and, and like having all these monitors at once is maybe not a good idea, but yeah, it's, I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna do a, a time lapse of.

• 32:15Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah.

• 32:16Wes Bos?

  Me moving around, bopping around.

• 32:18Scott Tolinski?

  Okay. Uh, let's get into the next section here. We asked some questions on productivity and that kind of thing. Why do so many developers tie their self-worth to commit history? I'll explain that to you. Or shipped features? How do we build more resilient self-esteem, especially in fields that measure output? Does journaling help? So, uh, commit history is like every time you, you're saving and writing code, you commit that code. It's like basically committing it to record.

• 32:43Wes Bos?

  It's like your Snapchat score for being a developer.

• 32:46Scott Tolinski?

  Snapchat, what year is this?

• 32:48Wes Bos?

  People still use Snapchat. Oh, my gosh, you're getting old. You're getting old, Scott. Snapchat's huge still.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  They do. The teens do still use Snapchat.

• 32:56Scott Tolinski?

  The teens do. Insane.

• 32:58Speaker 02

  They do.

• 32:58Scott Tolinski?

  Okay.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 33:00Wes Bos?

  But yeah, everybody in this whole software world puts so much worth on shipping, you know, like actually putting, make it writing code and getting it out there.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I really like this concept of called acceptance and commitment therapy. I've been trying to use it just for my own like general wellbeing, but it's this idea. It's well, it's a therapeutic approach. It includes like mindfulness components along with like values. I'm being really simplistic here again, but I think it's a good idea to have a concept of like, what things in life do you value the most? Like what describes you and your interests and your motivation for like success or happiness? You however you want to define that the most. And you can search for it's it's just ACT, so ACT values.

• 33:57Speaker 02

  And it gives you like a whole list of different values. But you know, my values are things like family, being loyal to my friends, being supportive, just being like kind to others, you know? So I have a good understanding of like what my values are. And anytime that something bothers me, it's helpful to stop and like pull yourself back from it and think like, does this like concern align with the things that are most important to me? My values, I in theory, if it doesn't, you should let it go.

• 34:31Scott Tolinski?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:31Speaker 02

  If it does, then you want to like problem solve that and work on it, right? So if you're a developer, is is one of your values? What would you call this like productivity?

• 34:43Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah.

• 34:43Speaker 02

  Or work output?

• 34:44Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah, output, yeah.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  So is that one of your values? And if it is?

• 34:50Speaker 02

  Then, you know, maybe it is worth thinking about, but if it's not, then you have to let it go because you can't let every little thing like define you and consume your time. It burns you out and it wears you out. You know, so it's helpful to have that understanding. Of course, things like journaling can help, but I think, you know, having resilient self-esteem and having like that act mindset can be really helpful to like, think about, does this align with the life that I see for myself and my values, does it not, right? And there's a couple of ways you can like, let it go. So they have this concept of like, the visualization component of maybe you put the word or the thing that you're imagining on a boat

• 35:32Speaker 02

  and it goes down a stream and like off in the distance and you can no longer see it and it's gone. Right? You could like crumple it up, throw it in the trash, you could set it on fire. Ideally, not something like dramatic or like anger inducing. Or we've talked about, you can give it like a name. Yeah. Like Oh, yeah. Some kind of name that's like, oh, that's just like Judgey Joe speaking to me, right? I'm not like Giving a name. Ignore him and let it go, right? Because you do, you have this like inner critic or like voice in your head that's always is trying to protect you from danger, right? And danger can be anything like physical or like perceived danger and hits to your self-esteem or or being vulnerable, those types of things like emotional damage

• 36:16Speaker 02

  is dangerous, right? And so your ego, your inner critics always trying to protect you from that. It's helpful to externalize it and think about like, is this like my inner critic? Is this something that I actually value or is this not worth my time, right? And then trying that practice of letting it go, um, which is hard. And then the third step is being kind to yourself, right? I don't think we do enough self-compassion, like myself included. We can be so hard on ourselves and maybe Wes, this doesn't apply to you. Because you've seen time, nothing phases you. But for the rest of us, like being self-compassionate is is so important to saying like, hey, this thing about productivity.

• 36:59Speaker 02

  It bothers you because you care about doing a good job at your work, right? You know, it's okay that you're having a hard time and we can try to work on this or we can do better next time or whatever it is, right? But just being kind to yourself and trying to let go of what you can and having a good understanding of what's really important to you and what you should really spend your energy on.

• 37:19Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah, can I also just say, just like Instagram or any of the things that people might compare themselves, developers on Twitter are lying. They are lying to you about how much they do, what they're doing, you know, their output. People are doing that for engagement. And so like comparing yourselves to people who are just like bragging about the stuff they accomplish or whatever, like it's, it's hard to do that because you do see so much of it, like people output all. And there's obviously there's, there's 10x, they call them 10x developers out there who are doing 10 times the work. But like the reality is, is most people are just doing a good job at their job. And like, if that's, if that's what you like, want to be doing, like that's, that's A okay.

• 38:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's helpful to know.

• 38:04Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah, don't fall for the engagement bait.

• 38:06Wes Bos?

  Next question we have here is, is overtime ever worth it? I worked overtime on a government project that could literally save lives. I still feel guilt over lost time with my family. Is there ever such thing as justified overwork?

• 38:21Speaker 02

  I want to hear from you too, because I mean, I have been in professions where I'm like working overtime, but never to like save lives. Like, so I mean.

• 38:31Scott Tolinski?

  You're closer to saving lives than we are, I'll say that.

• 38:34Wes Bos?

  Oh man, are you kidding? Of the one wrong use effect could end it for somebody. So don't, don't sell yourself short there, Scott. I, I have thoughts on this. I think that there are times in your life and in your career where going absolutely nuts, going all in, working like weekends, working evenings, just being consumed by it. I think that that is fine. And I've had several times in my career where I either just wanted, I couldn't peel myself away from it, or I simply just like, I was just learning so much and I had so much work to do. Those are very formative times in your career. And I think that it's, it's good to have those things at some point.

• 39:17Wes Bos?

  That it is not good to have that. Absolutely, all the time, right? Like if you look, go look at my commit history. I am very proud that my commit history has a blank Sunday and a blank Saturday, right? And then I have solid green in the middle because I'm an absolute machine coding, right? So Scott's showing his, his Git commits history right here as well.

• 39:41Scott Tolinski?

  It's a 3D printed Git commit history and you will see on this thing so many Saturdays and Sundays, completely nothing. There's a nice little couple of valleys in here where I took a week off here and there. So yes, there are some days that are high, but uh, yeah, not every day.

• 39:57Wes Bos?

  Somebody gave me a mug with my commit history on it once and it, you can clearly see where one of my children was born. And I'm, I'm really proud of that, that I, I stopped and took time off for that. So like, yeah, I, I think is overtime ever worth it? Absolutely. Especially for saving lives. But simply if you're just trying to get better at your career, there are times in your career where you can go absolutely whole hog. Um, and, and you might look back at that and be like, good. Like you shouldn't have these hard and fast rules of like, I need to always spend this time working and always spend this time with my family, which is like a rule that I have, right? Like nine to five, I, I code. Sometimes I dip outside of it. Sometimes I go to conferences and whatnot, but that's just where I am in my, in my life.

• 40:41Wes Bos?

  When I was young, uh, I was coding fricking 12 hours a day, working 10 to 10 and just, just going whole hog on it. And that was, I look back at that very fond time in my life and my career as well.

• 40:52Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah, there was times that going whole hog, uh, was advantageous for me as well. Like, uh, we had somebody like it let go because they had a bad review. And then we had to pick up their Slack and there was executives and a coworker and I spent like two full days, like, like 48 hours straight of like rebuilding this project from scratch because there was a Ford Motor Company executives coming in to see it and like, we knocked it out of the park. And because of that, it basically made us like safe for the rest of like our employment there. It was like, all right, you guys saved the day. And because of that, so like very worth it in my mind to like absolutely destroy yourself for

• 41:35Scott Tolinski?

  that that period of time to get that work done. But when I had level up tutorials as my full business, it was like happening all the time. It was it was crushing me. Yeah. So since doing syntax full time, it's been nice to be able to shut it off and not have to worry about that. Like, is the business going to collapse while you are away?

• 41:56Speaker 02

  Right. Yeah, I think it's so helpful to have like the boundaries and the time that you're dedicated to work, as you said, Wes, like being in a flow state, obviously, can be helpful, advantageous, provide like life satisfaction and things like that. But you can't be in a state of like constant overwork forever. Like that will lead to burnout and other things like depression and you'll see deterioration of like, you know, your family, you know, dynamic and your hobbies and just your whole life quality. So it is, it's important to like, really think about, like, how long can I sustain this for? And then, like, at what point do I need to like, reevaluate and reconsider what I'm doing?

• 42:34Scott Tolinski?

  Um, I have a question for you, and this is something that's a topic that a lot of people talk about, and I want to get your thoughts on it. AI as a mental health tool. How do you feel about using L L Ms like Chat G P T is mouth, mental health support or diagnostics, like as a professional?

• 42:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, I I would imagine we use it in a similar way that you all use it. Like, so we as therapists, diagnosticians, whomever, we're using it as like a guide or, you know, they tell us to use the word copilot, you know, to double check your work, reconsider things that like maybe you hadn't, or, you know, other ideas, solutions, et cetera, but never in replace of the work that you're doing. It just helps you to become like a better therapist and it frees up things that would take a lot of time and nuance, and allows you to do other more important work, like spending time with clients and developing connections.

• 43:39Scott Tolinski?

  Special models or tools, right, that have like a HIPAA or whatever, I don't know.

• 43:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So you're not using ChatGPT.

• 43:48Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah, that's like a whole industry, Wes, that we don't know anything about. Yeah.

• 43:52Wes Bos?

  I was on a call this morning with some folks from Google talking about like local models. And I was like, like healthcare and law are like two areas that are interesting there.

• 44:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:01Wes Bos?

  So like, maybe this is a different show.

• 44:04Scott Tolinski?

  Bastion.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:06Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah.

• 44:07Speaker 02

  It's, I don't think it's as great as ChatGPT. Obviously, it probably doesn't have as much training and.

• 44:12Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah.

• 44:13Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 44:13Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah.

• 44:15Wes Bos?

  Yeah, you would probably set your house on fire.

• 44:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I, I think it's good as a tool, but it can't ever replace the need for human connection, right? And that's like the whole thing in therapy. That's why you go, right? Is to have human connection, is to have compassion from another trained human being who can like understand and provide support and empathy, who can pick up on like the things that you're not saying, like ChatGPT, you're typing in a prompt, but

• 44:45Wes Bos?

  Yeah.

• 44:45Speaker 02

  therapists are looking for things that like you are not disclosing.

• 44:49Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah.

• 44:49Speaker 02

  They're gently pulling it out of you. You're guiding the ship, but they're steering it, right? And helping you to get to where you need to be and also like challenging you on the things that maybe you don't want to do or the areas you don't want to go. Uh, because that's where the growth and development happens and ChatGPT is not doing that.

• 45:07Scott Tolinski?

  No.

• 45:08Speaker 02

  It's a people pleaser.

• 45:09Wes Bos?

  I think, yes, I could see how that would be hard for you. It's very agreeable.

• 45:12Scott Tolinski?

  Exactly.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:14Scott Tolinski?

  It's agreeable for sure. And like the number one pro, not number one, but like the meme right now in the web developer space is that if it gets something wrong and you tell it like, no, you got that wrong or whatever, it goes, you're absolutely right. And no matter what you say, even if you're providing it like fake information or whatever.

• 45:28Wes Bos?

  Yeah.

• 45:29Scott Tolinski?

  It's always responding, oh, you're absolutely right. So like, it is going to like ultimately confirm biases and like, yeah, yeah.

• 45:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I just think we need human connection more than ever. And that's just going to continue more and more as we rely more on AI and how that transforms throughout life. But we are social creatures and you need that for happiness and life satisfaction.

• 45:51Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah. And you just sent me something on Instagram yesterday that was like talking about in the age of AI, like human will become more valuable because the technology has become uh, so available and cheaper and ubiquitous or whatever, that like the value of human will rise and like, that goes a lot like, uh, On Monday, the episode that I recorded with Dr. Sarah Bird, she said her sick pick was Japanese pottery because it was imperfect and like she works so much with AI that like imperfection was like really charming to her in that way.

• 46:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:28Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah, I've been thinking about that a lot.

• 46:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:30Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah.

• 46:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's very poignant.

• 46:32Scott Tolinski?

  Okay, so in that same regard, like AI topic, my wife is a nurse studying to be a therapist. With AI's rise, will we need more therapists or fewer? It's like more or fewer. What's the future of mental health care in an AI world?

• 46:48Wes Bos?

  Oh, man. Some of the code that I have to fix that this thing kicked in, I think we're gonna need more therapists.

• 46:54Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah, it's a, it is funny to think about like the parallels here between developers and stuff, yeah.

• 47:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm sure it's similar, but I mean, I, I think the answer is similar to what we just talked about. You know, I think we'll need more. I think there is a loneliness epidemic. I think that's been identified, at least in the United States. And I just see that getting worse, especially as we rely on more virtual tools, you know, for things like support. So I think, you know, good people are always needed in professions and especially in like human driven profession. I don't see that going away and who knows, you know, what it will look like over time or how AI will develop. It will have a face and a persona. I don't know, but it's just the feeling of like coldness and there's like a lack of soul and like true empathy.

• 47:45Speaker 02

  Um, I don't see that ever replacing like an actual connection with like a therapist who understands you and is trained. So I would encourage her to still go for that.

• 47:55Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah, it is interesting. I think once you have the curtain pulled back in how LLMs work, I think that removes a lot of the, I could use this as a tool to help my mental health. Cause like you know, like how it's producing the text that it's giving you, like it's not like, it doesn't have all the answers. You know, it's not like it's a prediction machine. Yeah.

• 48:19Wes Bos?

  Yeah, it's, it's math, like it's, it's mathematically trying to guess what the next word will be given the inputs. It's a pure function, which is wild and it's not just this magic box.

• 48:31Speaker 02

  It is wild, but I don't think like I didn't understand how it worked.

• 48:34Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah.

• 48:35Speaker 02

  And most people don't.

• 48:37Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah.

• 48:37Speaker 02

  Like you all do, but most people don't. I can see you falling prey to like that trap of relying on it as as a girlfriend or like a therapist or whatever. And that's a whole nother conversation. But you know, I do think having like an understanding of how the tech works is really helpful.

• 48:53Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah, there's a podcast from Wondery, Flesh and Code, that talks about a AI like girlfriend or boyfriend app. And it is like, man, it's a wild podcast to listen to, but also like they changed the model ever so slightly. And everybody was having like panic attacks and there were people having like real mental health crisis because like my wife in some cases is now a completely different person overnight. And it's like, oh, man. Yeah, it's a it's a tough listen, but uh, one day it's hard to stick your head in the sand about these days, I guess. Yeah. All right, we got one more question here. This is from a professional athlete.

• 49:33Scott Tolinski?

  As a developer who's a pro athlete, I'm scared of burnout, but find it impossible to mentally shut down. I've tried all the standard tricks, nothing works, what now? So is this this person is a developer and a pro athlete? What's interesting is that like, I have seen a number of pro athletes recently in the news for being web developers. So if you're out there and you're you're actually a pro athlete in one of the major leagues, hit us up. I want to hear about that. But let's talk about the burnout piece. How do you mentally shut down? Like, how do you how do you how do you handle that?

• 50:08Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, I I can imagine it's hard because you probably have like adrenaline, like, you know, more frequently going through your body. Um, and it is, it's hard if that has escalated to bring that back down. Um, and I don't know like what type of developer they are, but don't you have like periods of like adrenaline or frustration?

• 50:29Scott Tolinski?

  Let me tell you, let me tell you, when I'm getting, when I'm deep into solving a problem.

• 50:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:35Scott Tolinski?

  Like, and I have not solved that problem, I find it so hard to go to sleep. I'm like so like, ah.

• 50:44Wes Bos?

  So consumed by it. Yeah.

• 50:46Scott Tolinski?

  Consumed by it. I was having an issue, Wes, where like a URL uh in a CloudFlare worker wasn't updating and I'm like, I'm going through my ENV variables. They're all set correctly. I'm going through my code base. There's no mention of this string of this URL. Where is this being stuck? I've cleared the caches and I'm like rebuilt and redeployed like eight times and I was just like, this is something I can solve. Uh, this is a stupid bug. Like where is this coming from? And I couldn't, I was so angry about it. I just could not fall asleep. Yeah.

• 51:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. So it seems like there's a lot of parallels there. I personally think having like a cool down or calm down routine at the end of the day just signals to your brain like it's time to relax and shut off like work mode.

• 51:31Scott Tolinski?

  How do you enforce that? Cause I, that's what I can't do. Yeah.

• 51:34Speaker 02

  Well, it's, it's hard. I mean, you have to be like diligent.

• 51:38Scott Tolinski?

  Hey, can somebody else force that for me?

• 51:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. So you know, I have friends that have like timers, like just a standard timer on their phone for like every little thing. And there's a text reminder on there. So at seven o'clock it will ring and say like, why downtime or whatever it is, you know, so you could have something as simple as that.

• 51:58Speaker 02

  Well, then that's your choice, you know, and nothing's gonna change.

• 52:01Wes Bos?

  You gotta actually work at this stuff. Like it's

• 52:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 52:04Scott Tolinski?

  What? Can't just be automatic?

• 52:05Wes Bos?

  Diagnosis, but then like, if you want to get better, you gotta put in the time, right? And like, I'm not just saying this to Scott, but like, I think sometimes people just use their diagnosis as an excuse. Um, for not being able to do things and like, you still have to work to get better in life at everything.

• 52:21Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 52:22Speaker 02

  Right. Right. It's helpful to know how to change, but it's not going to actually make you change having a label. Yeah. So doing things like taking a hot bath with like Epsom salt. I know you like doing that.

• 52:34Scott Tolinski?

  Big fan of the hot bath with Epsom salt.

• 52:36Speaker 02

  I could imagine if you're a pro athlete too, like that would help calm your body, your muscles and just help you relax. Doing like all the standard, you're better at this than I am. Like the phone, the, what is it? The dark mode on your phone?

• 52:50Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah. The like the sepia mode or whatever.

• 52:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:54Scott Tolinski?

  CJ turns his phone to be black and white, which makes him want to use it less.

• 52:59Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 52:59Scott Tolinski?

  Which I think is pretty, uh, I think that's a pretty cool idea.

• 53:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:03Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah. If, if I was rich, I would put a sauna in our house and I would go relax in a sauna. Yes.

• 53:09Wes Bos?

  Yeah, I wanna, I wanna do that so bad. We have a spa in our house that would be perfect for a sauna. And I've been watching sauna YouTube videos.

• 53:17Scott Tolinski?

  You know what? We have a, we have a bathroom in the basement that does, nobody's ever used it. No one's ever using it. So it's already kind of like got fun or whatever.

• 53:26Wes Bos?

  Or steam shower maybe in there?

• 53:28Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah.

• 53:29Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 53:29Scott Tolinski?

  We could just turn that into a sauna.

• 53:31Wes Bos?

  Moisture. It's hard.

• 53:34Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah, right. Yeah.

• 53:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, but doing things like a bath, stretching, actively decompressing, listening to calm music, maybe putting your electronics away when you can't access them. I know that's hard for you.

• 53:49Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah.

• 53:50Speaker 02

  I mean, I, I think they're like classic explanations for a reason.

• 53:54Scott Tolinski?

  Yeah.

• 53:55Speaker 02

  Classic tools for a reason because they work.

• 53:57Scott Tolinski?

  That's the hard part about.

• 53:58Speaker 02

  Are you actually using them?

• 53:59Scott Tolinski?

  Hard things is that a lot of the times there's no shortcuts, you know, with stuff. Yeah.

• 54:04Speaker 02

  Right. Yeah. So for you, stretching, the sauna or the bath, doing yoga, doing things that don't require a screen, like reading a book.

• 54:14Scott Tolinski?

  Going to dance or hitting the gym. Yeah.

• 54:17Wes Bos?

  That's a really important one is like, don't just replace it with things. Because a lot of times the answer is to like doing these things is don't do X, Y, and Z. But like, sometimes the answer is like, well, if you, if you pick up salsa dancing, you're not going to be on your phone as much or, you know, like just replace it. Go to the gym or whatever.

• 54:37Scott Tolinski?

  I think going to the gym is for me like.

• 54:39Speaker 02

  At night?

• 54:40Scott Tolinski?

  Uh, not like necessarily at night, but I like to go to the gym after work. And that can, that can be the bridge for me. That's like pulls me away from my computer. That is of course, if I manage to not bring my computer into the gym.

• 54:55Wes Bos?

  Well, you gotta babysit the agents in between sets.

• 54:57Scott Tolinski?

  Right. Oh.

• 55:00Scott Tolinski?

  Oh, this is, yeah, it's a problem.

• 55:03Speaker 02

  It's a problem. But yeah, I, I like that idea, Wes, of swapping it out for a replacement behavior. I thought this question was for at night. I didn't realize it was.

• 55:11Scott Tolinski?

  Oh, I think it is for at night. But yeah, no, I know. I'm, yeah.

• 55:15Wes Bos?

  Uh, let's head into sick picks and shameless plugs. What do you got for us today?

• 55:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I've been on like a health kick in the kitchen and I read this article about like microplastics being everywhere. And I had no idea, like in your tea bags, in like, obviously, plastic containers, in like, plastic spice containers. And I've been like, really thinking about that and swapping out some of our kitchen things. So there's some good, um, Benko glass containers at Costco that I really like.

• 55:44Scott Tolinski?

  Like Tupperware?

• 55:45Speaker 02

  Yes. Yeah. But swapping it out for like a good glass container. We swapped out any like, plastic, like a utensil, like a spatula, like the black plastic.

• 55:56Wes Bos?

  The black plastic ones, yeah.

• 55:57Speaker 02

  Supposed to be really bad. Yeah. So we swapped that out for metal. And then I was like, looking at tea bags and spice things. Also, we got a really good colander that goes like, over the sink and it expands to like, the width of your sink. It's pretty clutch for like, especially if you have kids. I was like, washing grapes in there and stuff. And then you don't have to like, we don't have an island, unfortunately. So you like, carry the colander like, over to the other side. And the water gets everywhere. It's just a pain. So.

• 56:25Scott Tolinski?

  The amount of stuff that gets on the floor between the, the oven and the sink or whatever. It's like outrageous.

• 56:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's not great. So we've been thinking more intentionally about like, the kitchen, especially with like, the holiday season coming up. We're hosting Thanksgiving this year, you know, so just doing those like, little swaps.

• 56:42Wes Bos?

  Beautiful. I like it.

• 56:43Scott Tolinski?

  Is there anything you'd like to plug while you're here as well? Do you got anything to plug?

• 56:47Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 56:48Scott Tolinski?

  Nothing to plug? Okay, let's just get back. Cool. Well, thank you, uh, so much, uh, Courtney. It's like, um, I don't know. I talk to you every day, so it's always, it's always something easy for me to be like, get these answers from you all the time, but I always forget that, you know, how, how amazing it is to be able to, you know, share this with the audience. So thank you so much for coming on and sharing your, your expertise. And again, folks, if you have any additional questions, drop them in. Uh, she lives with me, so she can come back anytime.

• 57:19Wes Bos?

  Beautiful. All right. Thanks again. Peace.

• 57:24Wes Bos?

  You have to give us a peace, Courtney.

• 57:26Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 57:28Wes Bos?

  Say "peace."

• 57:29Scott Tolinski?

  There you go.

• 57:31Speaker 02

  Peace.

• 57:32Wes Bos?

  There we go.