Are you comforted by squeeze or steady pressure?Readers of my book Look Me in the Eye will recall my chapter about sleeping in piles, where I talk about how it’s comforting to have the weight of another person or a pile of pillows on me when I rest.  My friend Temple Grandin has her squeeze mac…

How about that for a headline?  With the help of our friends at Bentley Motors, we are about to make those words a reality . . .Many of you already know about my childhood struggles with school, and autism.  Today autism is one of the things that makes me a gifted expert on Bentley and oth…

What now?In the aftermath of this election there is some celebration but for others there is tremendous angst, fear, and unrest. The election map shows what a bubble those of us in the northeast and west coasts live in relative to the rest of the country. I saw that clearly last week, when I spoke i…

Next week I set out for two weeks in Australia, talking about brain stimulation and the SWITCHED ON story.  I hope to see some of you there!Friday Sept 2 - Sydney6PM Welcome dinner for the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Sydney Opera HouseSaturday Sept 3 - All over AustraliaABC Radio National - Al…

Thoughts on the role of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, from an autistic person.  Note that the views in this essay are my personal opinions only, and not the views of the committee or any government agency.  One role of this committee (IACC) should be to serve as a bridge b…

Thanks to everyone who joined us for William & Mary’s summer weekend neurodiversity course.  The course was held the same weekend as the Washington DC Pride Parade. There was a lot happening at Dupont Circle! I was thrilled to see a non speaking autistic person among the attendees.  To…

Switched On has gone on sale today, and people are already reading and talking about it. The book tells the story of my participation in experiments where Harvard neuroscientists used high-powered magnetic energy to “switch on” the ability to see emotions in other people. One effect of the experimen…

One of the things that’s seldom mentioned is the role of philanthropy in autism.  By directing their donations, private philanthropists have significantly shaped the direction of both autism research and the public image of autism.In 1977, Nancy Lurie Marks found nowhere to turn when she looked…

You’ve arrived in some distant land, and you have a few days to come back with an array of publishable images.  It’s easy if you want to photograph people in common tourist locations.  But what if you are out for something different?  If you are like me, you’ll want to shoot nature wi…

Want to get Wild About Work? Check out my new blog at www.wildaboutwork.com. It's aimed at helping you create an energized, impactful, heart-based career. What's not to love about that??Source: The M.A.P. Maker

Do you want to change the world? Want to live an energizing life? Then you just might be a Ripple Revolutionary! Come join me at the Ripple Revolution blog. The Ripple RevolutionTM is a movement to change the way we think about making a difference. It is founded on two simple ideas: You have the ab…

Ask most anyone why they work, and their answer is most likely to be some variation of "for the paycheck."  Money is clearly a huge motivation for those of us who forgot to hit the independently wealthy button on the way out of the womb, but when we see it as the only thing we get from our work, it …

For most people, saying no to possibilities seems to be an ingrained response. "No, that won't work. No, that's not realistic. No, I can't do something like that."  In the last 10+ years of helping people create careers that energize and inspire them, here's one thing I've learned about that initial…

As you embark on the new year, you might be tempted to use it as an occasion to make wholesale change in your life. My advice? Don't! Wholesale, grand scale change almost never works. You run at it fueled by an initial adrenaline rush, maybe feel that first blush of successful change, and then almos…