Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Temple Grandiin: Unleasing the Power of Autistic Minds in Society and Industry
24 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What is Temple Grandin's journey with autism?
Happy holidays. Want to give your host a gift? Consider subscribing, rating, and reviewing the show this holiday season. It really helps the show grow. From all of us at Believe, have a Merry Christmas, everyone, and a happy holiday. Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide. Hosted by Tony Mantor. Broadcasting from the heart of Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee.
Join us as our guests share their raw, howlful stories. Some will spark laughter. Others will move you to tears. These real life journeys inspire, connect, and remind you that you're never alone. We're igniting a global movement to empower everyone to make a lasting difference by fostering deep awareness, unwavering acceptance, and profound understanding of autism and mental health.
Tune in, be inspired, and join us in transforming the world one story at a time. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing autism and mental health worldwide. We're taking a break over the holidays and want to share some of our favorite moments from the past couple of years. With that said, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.
One of my favorite episodes was with Temple Grandin, the first of a two-part series that launched my second year of podcasting. It's a true standout, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. As many of you know, Temple is one of the world's most renowned autistic women with a remarkable list of achievements.
We don't have time to cover them all here, but it's an honor to feature her on this show. So before we dive into our episode, we'll be back with an uninterrupted show right after a word from our sponsors. Thanks for joining us today.
Thank you so much for having me.
Oh, the pleasure's all mine. So one of my first questions I'd like to ask is, you was diagnosed at an early age, and it was about, I think, three years before you could start talking. What's one of your first childhood memories, and what does it mean to you?
Well, I actually got into therapy by two and a half years old.
Okay.
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Chapter 2: How does communication impact non-verbal children?
So how was the transition from high school to college? How did that work out?
Oh, way much better. My science teacher when I was in high school got me motivated to study. Now, I couldn't do higher math. I'm one of these visual thinkers who can't do higher math. I failed the SAT in algebra. I went into college on probation. But at this point, I had decided to turn it around and study. I was motivated now to study.
And when I failed my first math quiz, I got tutoring, and I managed to get through it with a ton of tutoring. And then I majored in psychology to avoid the math classes. And I had some bullying even in college.
Wow.
And one of the things that helped me was I think it was my junior year or so, there was a big variety show that my college put on. I went to small college and only had 500, a few hundred students.
Okay.
And I went in this variety show. That they had, and I made scenery for it, and I sung a silly song. That helped my social life a whole lot.
Okay.
Again, that's a shared interest. I can't emphasize that enough. And then I went out to my aunt's ranch. That got me up, but I was going out there even when I was in high school. But I can't emphasize enough exposing these kids to enough different things so they can get interested in the things that could become a career.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Temple face during her school years?
Save a lot of jobs.
Okay, that's great. So now I'm really glad that you brought up the topic about jobs. I was speaking to a person just last week, and he was telling me that in the autistic world, at least 70 to 80% are either unemployed or underemployed.
That's true.
So what can we as a society do to help them integrate into the workforce and show these people that are actually hiring that autistic people can contribute to their bottom line?
Well, autism comes in three types. Right. The fully verbal. The object visualizer like me, who thinks in photorealistic pictures, which are shown in the movie. We're good at mechanical things, anything mechanical, art, photography, and animals. Then you have a mathematical type.
Okay.
That thinks in patterns. And then you have a word thinker that's very, very good with facts about their favorite subject. Now, I worked with a lot of people that were definitely autistic, owned metal fabrication shops, and they were inventing mechanical equipment. But these are people my age, my generation.
And I have granddads and grandmoms come up to me all the time where they were employed in good jobs because they learned how to work at an early age. They had paper routes.
Okay.
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Chapter 4: How can autistic individuals thrive in the workplace?
Okay.
And all the stress-related health issues, I had colitis and stuff cleared up. And I would recommend if you have a lot of anxiety to read the chapter and hear about the medication because I don't think I'd even be alive today. if I hadn't gone on the right medication. Now, way too many drugs are giving out to little kids. It's disgusting.
Absolutely.
But a little bit of the right thing can sometimes really make a difference because my problem with the constant anxiety was biological.
Okay.
And my fear system was just turned on for no reason.
Right.
Biological.
Right. So now I'm really glad that you brought up the anxiety because that kind of leads me into my next question for you. This concerns a very serious issue and unfortunately affects a lot of autistic people around the world. The numbers are staggering on this and we have to do something about it because if we don't change this, then everything we've talked about doesn't matter.
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Chapter 5: What skills are essential for autistic individuals to learn?
As a society, we need to figure this out because everyone needs to learn and understand more. I've always said that you can accept something because you're aware of it, but just because you're aware of it doesn't mean that you understand. And that's the biggest problem because if you don't understand, you can't relate to it. So how do we bridge that gap for understanding?
Well, that's what I've tried to do in my books. I always write a lot of practical stuff like, okay, don't burden the autistic person with long strings of verbal sequential information. Make pilots checklists.
Right.
Let's keep them out of the rapid multitasking chaos jobs at a takeout window.
Right.
and things like that. Get rid of the LED lights that flicker. See, those are very, very basic things that you can do.
Right.
Having been somebody that worked in a very high-end skilled trades.
Sure.
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