Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
J.D. Barker: From Aspiring Writer to Bestselling Author and Autism Advocate
Wed, 11 Dec 2024
Send us a textDiscover the inspiring journey of JD Barker, a renowned New York Times and international best-selling author, as he shares his personal and professional experiences in our latest episode. From his beginnings as a young storyteller to ghostwriting bestsellers and eventually publishing under his own name, JD opens up about the transformative moments in his life, including a late diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome. With endorsements from literary icons like Stephen King and collaborations with Bram Stoker's estate and James Patterson, JD's story is a testament to perseverance and passion, all while challenging societal perceptions of autism.Join us as JD recounts how a suggestion from a therapist led to a pivotal autism diagnosis, bringing clarity to his social struggles and strengths. Through books, documentaries, and therapy, he embraced this new understanding, transforming his challenges into opportunities for growth and supporting others in the autism community. His narrative highlights the balancing act of managing life with autism, particularly as a parent to his daughter who shares the diagnosis, and how these experiences shape his approach to both writing and public engagements.Gain invaluable insights into parenting a child with autism as JD shares personal anecdotes and practical advice, emphasizing the importance of nurturing a child's interests as potential "superpowers." He offers reassurance to families navigating similar paths, encouraging them to view autism not as a limitation but as a unique advantage. Through his experiences, JD aims to foster greater awareness and acceptance of autism, inspiring listeners with a story of resilience and hope.https://tonymantor.comhttps://Facebook.com/tonymantorhttps://instagram.com/tonymantorhttps://twitter.com/tonymantorhttps://youtube.com/tonymantormusicintro/outro music bed written by T. WildWhy Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI)
Chapter 1: What is the journey of J.D. Barker from aspiring writer to bestselling author?
Welcome to Why Not Me? The World Podcast, hosted by Tony Mantor. Broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry. real-life people who will inspire and show that you are not alone in this world.
Hopefully, you'll gain more awareness, acceptance, and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi, I'm Tony Mantra. Welcome to Why Not Me? The World. We're honored to have J.D. Barker, renowned New York Times and international bestselling author, joining us today.
He will share his personal journey of discovering his autism diagnosis and how he leverages his platform to challenge societal stereotypes and foster greater understanding of autism through public engagement and interviews. Welcome and thank you for coming on. Thanks for having me. Oh, it's my pleasure.
So if you would, give us a little background on your writing, how it's developed over the years to ultimately get you where you are today.
Chapter 2: How did J.D. Barker's early experiences shape his writing career?
So I've been reading since I was really young. I started reading around three years old. And by the time I got into kindergarten, I'd read all the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drews. And I was kind of really taken by the fact that you could basically create a world, create people, anything that you wanted within the pages of a book. And like that completely fascinated me.
I was even writing back then, I would write these crazy little short stories and I would have a library in my bedroom. My sister would check them out, charge her late fees, the whole deal. And my parents encouraged that to a certain extent, but they also told me, well, you can't make a living as a writer. It's something that you do for fun. So they pushed me down the traditional path.
So, you know, went to high school, got my diploma. Then I went off to college. I was down in Fort Lauderdale. I was getting a degree in business and finance to pay for the student loans and all the debt I was racking up. I ended up getting a job with RCA Records and BMG Distribution. I was essentially a glorified babysitter. So if you've ever seen the movie, get them to the Greek.
That was essentially my job. So I would have to pick up a recording artist at the airport, get them to the radio station for their interview, get them to their concert, and then get them back out of town. I quickly realized I had some very famous people in the car. So I started to interview them to really date myself.
This was people like Tiffany and Debbie Gibson and New Kids on the Block, Madonna. Then the hair bands came to town. We had Poison, Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, Guns N' Roses. If I got everybody from Guns N' Roses off an airplane, kept them in South Florida for a week and got them back on the airplane without anybody getting arrested, that was a huge win for me.
But I would interview them in the car and I would take those interviews and I would sell them to like Teen Magazine and Teen People and Seventeen Magazine. I would interview one person, chop it up into a bunch of different ones. And when you work in that world, you know, you quickly realize everybody that works in publishing has a novel at some stage of development in a desk drawer somewhere.
It's always, you know, they've been working on it for the last 10 years. It's 500,000 words long. They're almost done. They feel like it needs a little bit of work. And I kind of became their go-to guy for those projects. They'd pull up the manuscript and give it to me, and I would help them with anything from punctuation and grammar to story development. I used to do that for fun.
It kind of kept me entertained while I was getting the degree. So on the business side, I ended up getting a job in finance. Ultimately, I was a chief compliance officer for a brokerage firm, which is as horrible as it sounds. And I would come home and I would write to keep sane. I did that for, I think, 23 years.
And during that time, I had six different books that I had worked on that all hit the New York Times bestseller list, but with other people's names on the cover. That gets really old after a while. So when that sixth one hit, my wife pulled me aside and she said, listen, I know you want to become a full-time author. Let's come up with a plan to make that happen.
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Chapter 3: What was J.D. Barker's pivotal moment leading to his autism diagnosis?
But, you know, it still happens with me. Like when I'm excited about a topic, I tend to talk really, really, really quick.
Okay. Yeah. I mean, that makes total sense. So you mentioned briefly that you was focused on things. That's one thing that autistic people that I've dealt with had in common is they become very focused. And when they do become focused, they tune out the rest of the world and only focus on that one thing. Did you find that that was what you'd been doing pretty much all your life?
Yeah, that's exactly what happened. I mean, it was something that I had been doing, you know, all along, but never really realized it. I just, that was my norm. That was just the way things was. But until she pointed it out and said, hey, you're doing this, you know, I didn't realize that I was actually doing it. But, you know, at that point, we basically created more or less a pro and cons list.
You know, here are the things that are negatives that we should try to work on. Here are the things that you should focus on because autism, you know, not only did it have negatives, but it also had some pretty strong positives. A lot of the things that I was able to do in the corporate world, a typical person may not be able to do.
What I do today, you know, writing books, like, I mean, you can see my desk behind me. It's more or less empty. But I'm working on eight different books right now all at the same time. And they're up here. They're in my head. Like, that entire structure is there. I used to write computer code.
If you write any type of computer code, when you write that first sentence, you have to understand how it's going to impact the last sentence and everything in between. Writing a book to me isn't different. It's another pattern that I see and I'm able to recognize.
My wife calls those superpowers, you know, like we basically, the autistic, the good things that came out of it, you know, we focused on those.
Yeah, that is just so good. I talk with so many people that have kids or they've been late diagnosed like yourself, and they often refer to their autism as their superpower. And I think that's just great. So once you started putting it all together and you started understanding what you had to deal with, you kind of knew something wasn't right, but you didn't know that it was autism.
So when you met with your therapist and was diagnosed as autistic and you were living the way that you lived, so once you got that diagnosis, how much did it change your lifestyle and the pattern in the way that you live today?
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Chapter 4: How did J.D. Barker's autism diagnosis change his perspective?
Well, I've always kept my circle of friends fairly small. I think that the ones that, you know, people that were close to me, I think it was it created an understanding for them, too. They understood why I was just a little bit different. I'm very big on having dialogue about that sort of thing. You know, so we talked about a lot of it. I explain how I perceive certain things.
My wife has been a tremendous help in all this because in a lot of ways, as an autistic person, when I'm out in public, I'm putting on a particular persona. It's almost like I'm an actor. I'm mimicking what people expect me to be, but you can't keep that up 24 seven, you know? So when I'm home, my wife sees that other side of me. That's very helpful too.
In a lot of ways, she helps me understand, you know, somebody who's atypical. So if her reaction to something is different from my reaction, she explains why. And, you know, I try to understand it from her standpoint and vice versa. So my friends this entire time, the last 30 years, they've all kind of been like that. They've been my sounding boards.
Yeah, that's a great way to look at it. That's a great way to handle it. I spoke with an autistic guy that was married to a neurotypical woman. They had a very inspirational way of looking at it. They looked at it as two different people from two different cultures living in the same house and learning how to adapt to each other. And it's been extremely successful.
Yeah, that's essentially what we do too. And I think, you know, if you're in a relationship with somebody like that where you are so different, I think that's extremely important. We've got a daughter now who's seven years old and she was recently diagnosed. We both brought certain things to the table because she doesn't have a lot of the symptoms that I have. She's got her own set of symptoms.
But, you know, I was still able to recognize some. But, you know, we're able to talk out a lot of this stuff, I think, on a level that a lot of other couples probably couldn't.
Okay, so how is she handling it? Is she thriving and doing good or is she having some difficulties dealing with it?
A little bit of both. You know, I started seeing things when she was maybe 18 months old, you know, just little things, you know, like she would build like a block tower and like if she was stopped before she finished, you know, like she would get very upset about it. Like she needed to finish whatever task she was working on. To me, that was, you know, a red flag.
But at the same time, I kept telling myself, well, you're looking for stuff where it may not be because she had no trouble making eye contact. She has no trouble being touched by other people where I, you know, that completely freaks me out if, you know, somebody touches me and I'm not ready for it. She's very good in social situations. So, you know, it's, it's a very different set of things.
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Chapter 5: What are J.D. Barker's insights on parenting a child with autism?
I'm grateful that she's not going through that, though.
Absolutely. I don't think things have changed that much. One of the biggest things that I hear from all the parents is how their kids still, unfortunately, get bullied. The second thing that they fear is the females masking it and trying to fit in because that makes things very, very tough for the girls as well. I think the one good thing is that she's being raised properly.
You've been through it. You understand it. And that gives you the opportunity to help her get through it as well.
Yeah, I mean, we're already seeing that, you know, there's, you know, if we as a family, like if we have a particular problem that or something that she's doing, you know, a lot of times I can talk to her and I can relate to her on a level that maybe my wife can't because I've been there and done that. And I can explain it to her. And I think that that's helpful, too.
Yeah, absolutely. So now that you've adapted, you understand what you have to do, you understand who you are, what do you see for yourself over the next four or five years? Do you see yourself still growing, evolving, and building upon what you've already accomplished?
Yeah, I mean, I think I've got, you know, from a treatment standpoint, I think I've got it dialed in. I've, you know, narrowed down, you know, what was an issue before. And I think I've kind of curtailed it. Where I find myself slipping and walking a tightrope is, you know, like I write books for a living. It's a very solitary thing.
I literally sit at that desk for six to eight hours or so all by myself documenting what I see happening up here in my head.
could spend 24 hours a day doing that i'm perfectly comfortable in my my own space all by myself more so than i am with other people but the flip side of my particular job is i do have to get out in front of people i was just recently in um in budapest and istanbul and had close to a thousand people that i had a book signing i had to get up and give a talk i had to shake hands with everybody i had to sign books for a couple of hours you know so i'm thrown basically into the complete opposite of what i consider to be my comfort zone
But I sort of force myself to do that because I find that the more often I do it, the easier it becomes. I could easily slip back into just 24-7 being all by myself, you know, like I was when I was younger. But by forcing myself to do these public appearances and things like that, it kind of keeps me, you know, I got one foot basically in each camp.
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Chapter 6: How does J.D. Barker view autism as a superpower?
So when I'm in a public situation and I'm forced to put on that persona, you know, to deal with those social situations, there are repercussions. There's a, you know, there's payback for that.
Right. So that actually requires a lot of energy from you where other people could slide in and then slide out and leave and not feel the effects. Many might not realize talking with people, shaking hands, meeting, greeting requires so much energy from you to do an event like that.
Yeah, I mean, any typical person can go to a party and have fun, right? They can chat it up. They can have conversations. They laugh at the jokes. It's an entertaining, fun experience for them. For me, it's really not. I'm there. I'm mimicking what I see other people doing. Somebody tells a joke, and I'm laughing because other people laugh, not necessarily because I thought that was funny.
Again, that's not something that has ever changed, and I don't think it ever will. But that takes energy to do that.
Yeah, absolutely. You just brought up an interesting topic. You mentioned that you would see others laughing at a joke possibly, and you'd laugh along because others are too. I've spoken with several autistic people that when they're around people one-on-one, and they're joking and carrying on like that, they have a hard time processing it.
Do you have that same hard time, difficulty in processing somebody that's trying to be humorous in a one-on-one situation?
Yeah, it's very, very difficult for me. And I basically want to run away, you know, and go to the corner of the room somewhere. But I've taught myself over the years not to, to just stick it out and try to deal with it.
Yeah. How do you handle something like that? I mean, you just brought up the fact that you like to get away if you can, and you have a linear way of thinking in most cases like that. Then they're making their movements or facial expressions or whatever they're doing to put the joke across. How do you process it? And what do you do so that you can get through a situation like that?
It's really through mimicking, right? You know, it's like I smile when I know I'm supposed to smile. I laugh when I know I'm supposed to laugh. But those aren't necessarily true emotional reactions. They're me flipping a switch.
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Chapter 7: What challenges did J.D. Barker face in his personal life after his diagnosis?
Yeah, I think that's great because one of the most common things I hear is when a parent first finds out that their child may be autistic is they are thrown in this world that they know nothing about. They have to kind of learn it as they go because there's no real manual that they can learn and then come back and use.
They have to live this every day and start their journey worrying every day about their kids. And it's tough.
Yeah. But the thing is, you know, some of the most successful people in the world are autistic or were autistic, you know, so sometimes it helps to seek them out and, you know, figure out how they got there.
Yeah, absolutely. There's always a path. They just have to find it. So what would you like to leave us with?
No, I think that that's basically it. I mean, if you've got a child that you recently received a diagnosis on, get out there, research it, understand what you're dealing with. It's not a bad thing. You know, autism has given me, you know, like my wife had said, superpowers. You know, like I'm doing something that I normally wouldn't be able to do without it. Your child will be able to, too.
You know, you just have to find what, you know, what is their superpower. You have to hone it. You have to help them focus on it and get them excited about it.
Exactly. Yeah, that's a great thing. Well, I really appreciate you coming on. I think this has been really, really interesting, a good conversation, and I think people are going to enjoy it. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Oh, it's been my pleasure. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today.
We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know anyone that would like to tell us their story, send them to tonymantor.com. Contact, then they can give us their information so one day they may be a guest on our show. One more thing we ask, tell everyone everywhere about Why Not Me? The World, the conversations we're having,
and the inspiration our guests give to everyone, everywhere, that you are not alone in this world.
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