👨‍🏫 Guest Masterclass: Practical Tools for Working with Adult ADHD w/ Jesse J Anderson

Hello. Hello. Hey, Steve, Tim. Hi there, Mark. Good morning. Good afternoon, everyone. Diana. Hey, Nancy. Hey, Parminda. I'm gonna answer your question today, by the way. I haven't forgotten. Thank you for being patient there. Okay, we'll give everyone else another couple of minutes. In the meantime, if you'd like to share in the chat, what is your experience in three words? Hello to those of you just joining. We starting in just under a minute or so. If you'd like to share in the chat how you're feeling in three words. Are there, Nancy? Okay. All right. Well, welcome, everyone. I am excited to welcome Jesse J. Anderson to this session. Jesse, I think you're on mute. Oh, there we go. Welcome.

Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, I love. I love the. I love the calm intro. That's great. It's the opposite, I think, of most Zoom meetings, so I love that it's.

Kind of become the soundtrack. Yeah, I just like it as well. It's calming. So, Jesse, people stuck in the waiting room. We are going to be exploring all things ADHD today. Jesse is the author of Extra Focus, and I believe you're also a designer and developer, which is your main job. But this seems like a big passion of yours, and this is an area that I'm also really curious to learn from you in this as well. There's a lot that I don't know. I think there's a lot of things that. A lot of myths around adhd, a lot of things that people don't understand or people get wrong. And perhaps by way of setting this up, if you've got your video on or you're in the room, would you raise your virtual hand if you are someone who identifies as having ADHD or some form of neurodivergence? Just out of curiosity, how many. I'm not raising my hand here, but Marshall, Ashley Lowe, Karen Parminda, Michelle, Sam. Yeah, nice. So I would love for you guys to ask as many questions as relevant today. Hopefully, this will be. We'll begin with just me and Jesse talking, and then we'll kind of shift into Q and A format and. Yeah, I'm really curious to see what comes up here. I think there's a lot of overlap between the stuff that we've been exploring the last five weeks and the things that Jesse's been teaching, too. So with that in mind, Jesse, would you like to give, like, a brief, brief intro to yourself and, like, why did you write this book? How did this book come about? Um, and then maybe we can shift into the. Into the little presentation you've got as well.

Yeah, yeah. So it's awesome that people raising their hands in here. If you'd asked that like, you know, six or seven years ago, no one would even know what you're asking. Like neurodiver, like, what does that even mean? So it's really cool to see how that awareness of it has grown. I was diagnosed about eight years ago. I was in my mid-30s. That's when I found out that I had ADHD. And they really didn't give me much information. They kind of said like, hey, do you want to take medication? And at the time, like, medication's fine, but I was like, I'm not really interested in medication, like, what else is there? And they kind of didn't really have any information for me. I kind of had to seek it out on my own. And so which I did, like a lot of, like, I was trying to find any resource I could to learn about it because I was like, this is my brain. I'm going to be a student of my brain now. Now that I know this whole new like, lens to view how my brain works, like, I'm going to learn everything I can about it.

Yeah.

And so I did that for like four or five years, just like diving and learning all, all I could. And I have three kids and all three of them also have adhd. And so that became like another motivating factor for learning as much as I can about this. And then about, about three or four years ago is when I started kind of sharing online about my own experience with ADHD and kind of growing, you know, kind of community audience through talking about it that way. And then I, I was like, I should write the book. I'm learning all these things. And I had to figure it out by kind of trial and error and just like bouncing between resources. I want to make that like quick start guide to adult adhd. And so that sort of started the journey about. I think it was two and a half years ago after I had been writing some online where I was like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do the book, I'm gonna do this just out of.

Curiosity, like, did the diagnosis itself because I know for some people it can be almost a double edged sword. Some people love having that label and other people, there's like a resistance to it. Did you find it useful?

I found it extremely useful because like growing up with ADHD and not knowing I had it, it was just like I knew I had all these weird things about me. I had you know, different ways that my. My brain didn't seem to work with other people. You know, like, people would talk about common sense, and I was like that whatever anyone else is referring to as common sense is not common for me because that is not how my brain works at all. So for me, it really helped give a. A label to learn more about what was going on. And also, just like growing up with adhd, there was so much shame involved. There's so much just like shame and self blame and what is wrong with me? Why can't I do this? Why is everyone else doing fine? I kind of continue to struggle. And so having a label let me know that, like, I'm not alone. There's a lot of other people that are having these same experiences. And that really helped, like, with the community, like finding other people and being able to talk about. I was like, I'm not alone. I'm. I'm not the person that, you know, the only person that's. That's late to everything no matter what they try. Like, there's. There's a lot of that community and like that. That be. That was found because of that label. So I, like, I get that some people are like, oh, why do you need a label? But for me, it was extremely valuable having that label. It really helped me understand who I am a whole lot better than I did before.

I love that. I love that. Well, I have a ton of questions, but maybe to begin, why don't you start by sharing the brief presentation that you've got and that can kind of give us a lay of the land and then we can go off piste from there.

Awesome. All right, cool. Let me go and share. Oh, where's the share button? Okay, here we go. Y' all see that? Okay, perfect. Thumbs up. Okay, cool. So who am I? I'm just gonna give you a quick preview of who I am based on the things that my teachers used to say about me when I was growing up. Who is Jesse? Jesse has so much potential but doesn't apply himself. Jesse is messy and disorganized. Jesse keeps getting in his own way. Jesse is too sensitive and gets offended easily. Jesse is smart but lazy. Jesse does great work but never hands it in on time. Jesse disrupts the rest of the class. Jesse is always in his own world. Jesse is a lot. And Jesse isn't living up to his potential. So that. Those are a lot of the messages I heard growing up that let me sort of know that something is different. Like, something like what is going on with me. I'm not. I. I'm trying to do all the right stuff. I'm trying to, trying to be a good student, a good, you know, a good son. As I got older, like, trying to be a good employee. And all these difficulties kept happening in my life and I didn't really know why. And so that's why, like, for me, like, finding out about ADHD really gave me this framework, this understanding, like this label was like this great gift to me of like, this explains all those, why I was getting all these messages that kept saying, like, I should be doing better than I'm doing. Like, that was the message I kept hearing. Hearing is like, you're real smart, you're real talented, you're real gifted, you have so much potential. But I'm failing at everything. Like, why is that? And so that really helped give me a framework. So quickly. I'm going to kind of go through kind of four main things that. How ADHD affects my life, particularly because we live in like a neurotypical society. Like most. First, society is built in a way to support most people, the neurotypical people, as opposed to supporting neurodivergent people. And so because we live in that sort of society, there's kind of four things that people with ADHD will struggle with. And I'm going to kind of go rapid fire through these and then we can go back to any of these later, obviously. But time blindness, memory deficits, emotional dysregulation and motivation. Um, so time blindness. There's actually a really well known researcher in the adhd world called Dr. Richard Barkley, and he says, like, time blindness is essentially what ADHD is. And the idea of time blindness is it's almost like there's a sense in your brain of understanding time and people with ADHD just don't have it. And so what does that look like for us? Time is either now or not now. And so if it's now, like, I know it's like urgent and I'm working on it now I'm doing the thing. But if like somebody gives me a project and says, hey, this is due in like, you know, two weeks versus two months versus two years, all of that to me is just like, well, that's not now time. That's for future Jesse to deal with. And it's really hard for me to even feel what, like a difference between those. It's all just like, future, not now time. Because of this, like, I'm late to almost everything. I've been late to really, really, really important job Interviews. It's so difficult for me to be on time. And it's something I struggled with. Like, I was late to school almost every single day as a child. I was late to most jobs I've ever been at. I've definitely been fired before for being late too much. And I put in here or early because some people with ADHD have such a, like, negative response to that experience that they overcompensate and they show up like an hour early to events because they're so afraid of being that person that's labeled as being late. So. But showing up on time, that's like the one thing we can't do. We can show up super early or we can roll in fashionably. Fashionably late, but on time, not so much. Another really common thing, forgetting important dates. Like, I can't tell you if it, like, is it early April? Is it late May? I'm not even totally sure where I am. Luckily, I can look in the top right corner of my desktop right now and see it's April 24th. But if I don't look at that date, I can lose complete track of where I am in the month or the season or the year. I actually briefly. I live in Washington State now, but I briefly lived in California in a really nice city called Carlsbad. And it's sunny all year round. And. And that made. I had no idea how important the seasons were for my understanding of the time of year. Like, when I look back the few years I lived in California, all my memories are like, I have no idea when that was. Like, that could have been the middle of December. It could have been July. I have no scope of what that timeframe was because I didn't have that context clues of, like, seasons moving on anyway. So forgetting important dates is one of those big difficulties over committing. This is a really big one because I'm saying yes to, like, exciting opportunities that are all, like, in future, not now time. Those build up until suddenly they all happen at the same time because I've overcommitted to all these things, not realizing they're going to crash into each other later. There's a great Parks and Rec episode where April schedules all the meetings for her boss for March 31st because she thought that March 31st didn't exist. And then it ends up he has like 90 meetings that he has to take care of on that one day. And that's what my life is like. I feel like I have many, many March 31 that happen throughout my year as, like, what do I Commit to this week, what do I have to take care of? And then difficulty estimating how long tasks take. I was, as Johnny mentioned, I was, I'm a designer and I did some freelance design for a while and that was so difficult. I had such a hard time estimating how long different projects would take. I would say that, oh, I don't know, like six hours and it would take like 30 hours or something like that. And my time estimation is kind of in line with like another TV reference from the Good Place, like, oh, it shouldn't take long between an hour and 11 months. And that's kind of about my ability for estimating time. And then finally just struggling with like long term deadlines. If you tell me again, like you tell me it's due in two weeks, you tell me it's due in two months, that all feels the same. And so it doesn't feel important until it's imminent. And then it's like, oh, I'm doing my entire, like, you know, I had six months to work on this paper and now I'm doing it all, all the night before because I didn't get to it beforehand. Excuse me. So that's a bit about time blindness. Memory deficits. Memory is tricky because people kind of have different, there's different labels within like scientific community or the, you know, psychiatry community or whatever. But some one label is like working memory. And so working memory is however you define it. It's kind of like the stuff you're storing to use in the moment. So you're having a conversation, someone's telling you, hey, can you do this and get this done? Oh, and don't forget this third thing. And I think of memory as sort of like a shelf. And so when you're having that conversation, you're taking those important bits they're telling you and you're putting them on the shelf. And you can only fit so much stuff on the shelf. And when you have adhd, you have really limited shelf space. We just have a much smaller shelf for those things that we can store. So we'll be having that conversation. And by the end of it I'm like, I don't remember who Sally was that you mentioned at the beginning. Do I have to talk to Sally? I'm like losing track of all these things. And so that can make things really difficult, especially because I might not even know that I forgot the first part of your conversation because it feels like I should be able to remember that. And that's, that's again where some of that shame can come from, because it feels like I should be able to do these things because other people can. And that can be a big struggle. And that's also why people with ADHD in particular can respond really negative to, like, you breaking their focus. Because it's like, I carefully arrange this shelf of things for what I'm working on right now, and you coming and talking to me and telling me a few things real quick and just, like, knocked everything off the shelf. And now I feel like I have to start all over. And another type of memory that's not talked about very much, but it's called prospective memory. And this is essentially remembering to remember. And so this is like, in the middle of the day, you're like, oh, I got to grab milk on the way home from work today. And then later you get in your car and your brain goes like, hey, don't forget the milk. That's your prospective memory working. And studies have shown that people with ADHD really, really struggle with that. There was, like, a study where they. People told, like, some researchers what their plans were for the week, and then later in the week, they were supposed to call back and let them know which of those plans they had actually done or those, like, intentions they had followed through on. And most of the people with ADHD in the study, like, forgot to even call back. And so once they. The researchers called them and finally were able to talk to them, they found that most people with ADHD were forgetting a lot of those sort of intentions. So that's a look at kind of memory, another one which is maybe particularly relevant for this group, but emotional dysregulation. And Johnny and I were talking a little bit before everyone joined the call, and this is something everyone struggles with. And I think a lot of these things with ADHD is like, there's a lot of things in ADHD that most people can relate to. And so it's. It's more about the degree to which it sort of affects your life, because when you have adhd, it's like, yeah, but all of these are affecting me, and all of them are affecting me to sort of, like, the extreme degree. But particularly with emotional dysregulation, there's something that Dr. William Dodson, who's another leading researcher in the ADHD field, he calls rejection, sensitive dysphoria. And the idea of this is, as I've kind of mentioned, the shame that kind of comes with adhd, like, hearing all these like, you should be doing better and then not knowing why. And just, like, there's Been like there's a, was it a study? I, I think it might have been a doctor that was estimating that people with, that children with ADHD hear 10,000 more negative messages than their peers by the age of 12. And so there's just this onslaught of negativity that you're hearing with adhd just like, hurry up, why aren't you done with that yet? Why aren't you doing this? Like, come on, like get, you know, get your homework in on time, like just like non, nonstop every day. And so this idea of rejection, sensitive dysphoria is like almost this internal deep seated fear of any sort of like rejection or withdrawing of love. And so like for me, I'll experience it having a conversation with my wife and she'll say something that upon reflection later I can see wasn't that big of a deal. But because like deep inside of me I have this extreme fear of, of rejection. What it feels like in the moment is like betrayal. It feels like my wife's just like completely betrayed me in this moment. And, and it's such an extreme, devastating, painful response that most people do describe as, as feeling like actual physical pain that there's kind of two big responses. For me, what this often looked like, especially when I was younger, was extremely blowing up in anger, like that's what. And it felt justified. So I would respond really big, really angry, loud. And when I was doing that, it did not feel like I was being over the top. It felt like you did the big thing and I'm just responding in kind. But upon reflection, now that I know about this, I can see that it's like this small trigger that causes like, you know, all the neurochemicals to fire and make me feel like I should be really angry. And other people have the opposite response when they feel this rejection where they'll just like collapse inward and just sort of like close, close in and maybe burst into tears. They kind of have like the just like closing, trying to protect sort of shape. So that's rejection sensor dysphoria that can often lead to a lot of people with ADHD default into people pleasing and overachieving. And this is because they're like, I'm going to do anything I can to avoid rejection, so I'm going to try to design my life so there's nothing anybody can say anything negative about or that they can like criticize. And so that's really common for people with adhd. This can also lead to shame spirals or like one little thing goes wrong and Then suddenly I hear all those 10,000 negative messages. So it's like, oh, I forgot this little detail. I always screw up this detail. What is wrong with me? Why do they even hire me for this job? I'm sorry. Such a failure. What is wrong with my life? And it just spirals so quickly from this tiny little mistake into suddenly I'm feeling, you know, decades worth of shame, all in that moment. And this, I think I mentioned him earlier. Dr. One of the, one of the researchers I mentioned before, he says, like, ADHD isn't a mood disorder. Oh, Richard Barkley. That's what it is. Dr. Richard Barkley. It isn't a mood disorder because in a mood disorder you have moods that differ from other people. Like your mood. You ha. You're having kind of the quote unquote, wrong mood for the situation. And with adhd, we have the same mood, but we struggle to regulate it. And sort of the example that he uses is like when you're, if you're in a meeting with your boss and your boss says something like, hey, you're all, you all have to come in and work this weekend. Or like something negative, everyone is at the table is having a negative response to that in their head. Like, everyone's like, this sucks, I hate this guy, or whatever. But the person with ADHD might like attack the person or might start shouting at them or like fail to hold back that response. We just like quickly fire to that response. So it's, it's not. So we're having the same mood as the people around us, but we fail to regulate it. There's just like that movement to response can be so fast. And then really with all this is just like we often wear our heart on our sleeves. Like when you know someone with adhd, you probably usually have a pretty good idea of how they're feeling about things. Like, this is haunted me. I have a really hard time in like social situations. Like if I meet someone and I don't like them, everyone in the world knows that I don't like them. And I wish that wasn't the case. I wish I could put on like a show and just be cool. Cause I'm not trying to be a jerk. But it's just like everyone knows they'll be afterwards. Like, wow, you really don't like Steve, do you? Like, you could tell I had no idea. And that's just like all of my emotion is just like really obvious and yeah, kind of worn my sleeve. So those are kind of the first three. I'll try to go through this kind of quickly because those went a little longer than I intended. But this is motivation and this is one that really plagued me for a long time because I, it's like early in the like 2000s, like getting things done was like everyone was doing all these different productivity things with getting things done. There's 43 folders for some old timers that remember that like I do. Like there's all, there's all these like blogs and people are trying to share all these like motivation tactics for how, how to get things done better. And I was like all in trying to get these to work for me. And none of them ever did. I always. And that would lead me back to the shame spiral because I would like try these systems and, and it seemed like it was working so great for everyone else and it would just fail for me. And the big thing, I think what's interesting about adh, ADHD and like motivation and like struggling to get stuff done is other people, like neurotypical people will try to help, like in a good way. Like their heart is in the right place. They're trying to help us know what to do. Like, have you tried doing this? Have you tried doing that? But the problem is like, it's. We know what to do. Like we. It's not that I don't know what I should be doing or what, yeah, what I should do. The problem is that I don't actually do what I know. And it's the same sort of thing with like the, like, I know I should be able to like remember the milk when I get in the car at the end of the day, but I don't, whatever blocker just happens in my brain and I don't do that. And a lot of that comes down to the difference in the way motivation works for people with adhd. So neurotypical motivation, and this is somewhat of an overgeneralization, but generally the three main factors that motivate most people are importance. So something that's really important, like a job, job interview or like something you're doing for work that's really important, or maybe it's something that's really important to your, to your, your partner, your wife, your husband or whatever. And then you have like that second degree importance. You're like, I'm gonna, I'm motivated to do this thing because it's really important to them. And that's kind of like a chief motivator for most people. And that's why like with getting things done with that whole like philosophy, a Lot of those productivity systems are about surfacing. Like what's the important thing? What's the important thing I should be working on right now? And that'll motivate you to do it. And then the other two are what we hear about a lot, rewards and consequences. And so in general these are kind of the main things that motivate most people. But when you have adhd, like these don't actually motivate us at all. Like importance does not motivate me. I know when something, again it's like, I know, I know that it's important, I know that I should be doing this thing, but I can't. There's like this blocker from motivating myself to actually move forward on that thing. And the same with rewards and consequences. Like, like consequences in particular, I, I remember as a kid my dad would like be trying to get me to do my homework or whatever and he'd be like, you know, if you don't get that done in the next hour, you're grounded for the weekend or something like that. And that wouldn't help. So then he would say, you're grounded for a whole week, you're grounded for a month. He grounded me for a whole summer one time for some really tiny little thing. And it was terrible. But it didn't actually there was no motivation that came from that raised consequence. And so this is what Dr. William Dotson calls the importance based nervous system. And that phrase nervous system is like maybe not how you're using it here. That's how William Dodson refers to it. It's basically importance based motivation. And Dodson says that people with adhd, instead we have an interest based nervous system. So the things that motivate us are related with interest. And this is I think the importance based nervous system, how most people are motivated. That is true for most people for motivation. But I think the things in interspace nervous system that I'm going to talk about in a second, that is helpful for everyone, it's particularly helpful for people with ADHD because those importance, rewards, consequences, like those aren't motivating. But these are factors that I think can help anyone whether you have ADHD or not. Oh, someone's mic's gone. I thought that maybe that was a question jumping in. All right, so I've taken kind of what Dr. William Dodson defines in the interspace nervous system and I call it the four Cs of motivation. Just to make it like really easy for me, me to remember and what those are, are captivate, create Compete and complete. And these, I'll. I'll cover what these actually mean in a second. But these, I use this like a mantra. Anytime I'm having something and I'm struggling to get it done, I go through it in my head, like, captivate, create, compete, complete. How can I use one of these to help give me motivation for this task, this problem, this thing I'm trying to get done? And so let's go through those. Like Captivate. This is kind of the more obvious one. Like anything that's interesting to me, like I'm. I'm really interested in a hobby like, that's going to be motivating. Like, I have no problem finding motivation for, like, organizing my board game collection or something, because that's interesting to me. And like, the things that are interesting are really easy to find motivation. So a lot of using captivate is how can I make this task or this project that I need to do more interesting? The second one, create. This is about creativity and novelty. And so this is again, like, how can I make it more creative? Because I'm drawn to things that are creative, like brainstorming. I love brainstorming. I love coming up with new ideas because those are. That's novel, that's new. I'm getting to, like, create something brand new. So I have so many, like, random business ideas. I own way too many domains because I always have all these great ideas. And that's super motivating at the beginning when it's the creative side of things. The third one being compete. This is all about both competition and challenges for me. I don't like being directly competitive with people, but I love taking on a challenge. So, like, the example I like to use, I remember there's like different math classes you would go in, and at the beginning of class, the teacher might write on the board, like, some difficult problem. And they'd be like, oh, no one solved this problem for, you know, the last, like three semesters or something like that. And I'm like, well, I'm going to be, you know, goodwill hunting and that's all I'm focused on. I'm going to, like, be the one to prove that challenge and take that on. I'm not going to do any homework or anything else, but I'm going to get that challenge done. And other people get really into, like, competitive sports, things like that. That's where a lot of people with ADHD find themselves drawn to. And they. It's almost like they just realize that, like, oh, I can motivate myself that way, because I'm competing with someone, so I'm going to really lean into that, whether or not they know what's actually going on. And then the final one is complete. And this is all about due dates and deadlines and, like, trying to cause that urgency, like making things feel like they're now versus not now. And that's probably one of the strongest motivators, I think, for people with adhd. Like, when something is urgent, nothing else matters, then I can. I'm just all focused on that urgent thing. So, yeah, so Those are the four Cs of motivation. Captivate, create, compete, and complete. And yeah, so that's it. I will just mention I do have my book, Extrokas the Cross Quickstart Guide to Adult ADHD and online. I'm adhd, Jesse, but, yeah, open to Q A or whatever I want to talk about now.

Amazing.

And happy to go back to any of those as well if you wanted any questions for any of that sort of stuff.

Yeah, that was so good. Thank you. Thank you, Jesse. I have a bunch of questions, so maybe we'll start here and then we'll go to the. Go to the audience because I imagine there'll be a lot of people who have curiosities as well.

Awesome.

The thing that just most struck me in that last part was the difference between. I consider it intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. And it seems like people with ADHD are highly, highly intrinsically motivated. And so I'm wondering to what degree has that been a superpower? Because I could imagine many situations where neurotypical people would have a higher tolerance for bullshit. Maybe that's a job they don't like, or maybe it's a certain person and they could actually be stuck.

I have the lowest tolerance for that.

Yeah. I mean, I could see it being challenging in the short term, but in terms of, like, designing a life that you really love that is kind of revolves around things that intrinsically light you up, that that's ultimately what I think all of us are seeking, neurotypical or otherwise. And so I'm wondering, like, do you consider that to be a socially challenging superpower in some ways? Or, like, how have you. How have you worked with that?

Yeah, that's so interesting. It's. It's really common for people with ADHD to have lots of jobs, and I think that is a big reason for that. I will quickly jump into a job and, like, sometimes it fails because the. The emotional dysregulation. I'm like, my boss says something I don't don't like. And I'm like, I'm just not going to come into work tomorrow or whatever it is, or I'm going to blow up and then feel like, well, that was really embarrassing because I basically like yelled at my boss. I don't want to see him again. Like, that's going to spike my anxiety. So I'm going to avoid that. But a lot of it is also just sort of discovering, like, kind of like you said, like when I'm at a job and there's just like BS rules about how like timesheets and stuff like that this is not the place for me. Like, I can't, I can't handle this. Like, this is not going to work out. And so because like, I've probably had like, probably 35ish jobs in my life just because I just jumped to. And then because of that I learned I'm like, well, that type of job is not going to work for me. So I'm just like slowly and now like, I'm in a job. Like, I love the work that I do and it's because of that, like, I think I've found out the places and then quickly moved on. I'm like, this isn't going to work for me. I'm out of there. I'm out of there. I'm out of there. And then sort of like slowly building sort of this list of what is a good work environment for me and then sort of slowly kind of focusing in on that. And yeah, I find that's definitely really common for people with adhd. Like, I know, uh, yeah, a friend of mine, we do some like, ADHD courses and stuff together. And she was, she's the same. She's had like 40 jobs and like we've known each other for two years, two or three years. I think she's had like five jobs in that time. So she's, she's still sort of seeking that one for her. But yeah, definitely common that. Yeah, that's great. I just, just no tolerance for kind of that, that BS or any sort of like justice, justice insensitivity or justice sensitivity is another big thing for people with ADHD and just sort of neurodivergence in general. Like the. When things aren't feel like unfair and not for any good reason, just like unfair because of like corporate BS or whatever it is, is like, I'm out of there. This ain't going to work for me.

Yeah, that's so great. So there's one more thing that I want to touch on and then we'll start taking questions from. I see hands. The curiosity is just as raised in the, in the, in the group today.

So.

So on the emotional regulation piece, I also really loved the frame of ADHD being more of an emotional regulation kind of disorder or challenge, and that being one of the key pieces. One of the studies that I have read about ADHD is that typically people with ADHD have very low interoception levels. They score kind of less than 20 on the Myer scale, which basically means less ability to track and sense internal kind of sensations and feelings. And I'm wondering what has your journey kind of working with that baseline, lower level of emotional regulation as well as the kind of amplified shame and fear of rejection? Like, what has that journey been like for you and what have you found to be most helpful in your specific case?

Yeah, I'm not sure if this is totally related, but kind of on that.

The.

My emotional responses are so fast and I don't, like, I don't know if it's exactly what you're saying, the interoception, but, like, it's. I don't.

It.

It feels justified because it just feels like who, like, who I am. Like, it's just like immediately now I'm here and I have to respond to what I'm feeling now, like what I am. And it feels like, like it feels like I'm doing the right thing in that moment. And I know, like, one thing I. There's been a few things I've tried to kind of like, help with that IM response that usually gets me in trouble. And like Barkley, again, he like, suggests, like, literally putting your hand, like, in front of your mouth before responding. Like, if you feel like you're going to say something and you're not, or you're not sure how to respond, just like, and just that, like giving that little extra time. It's like letting your brain catch up with what the chemicals are doing. Like, trying to catch up with what, like, with what your emotion is, because your, you know, your brain's like, always just trying to predict what you should be doing next. And it's like, it feels like with adhd, like, my prediction engine's just like, off. And so it makes some really poorly miscalculated predictions. And sometimes it takes like, I need to give my brain a little bit of time to catch up, to think logically. I'll say, like real quick, like, with the rejection sensitive dysphoria in conversations with my wife where we would get in sort of like Heated conversation. And I would feel that rejection sensitive dysphoria where I feel like I need to get big and loud, because that's how it feels. That's how it feels. Like she acted to me or whatever with that. Once I knew again, like, the power of labels. Like, once I'd read about rejection sensor dysphoria in the moment I recognized it, I was like, this is. I think this is. Like, this is that thing I just read. I think I'm feeling that right now. I want to respond really strongly. And I don't know if the situation actually calls for that. Like, hopefully never calls for that. Like, what is going on? And so I basically, like, it didn't make the feeling go away at all. Like, I still felt like that extreme, like, fight or flight kind of feeling in my body. But by having that, like, label, I was able to recognize. And my wife and I just, like, a few weeks prior watched, like, a video about it. And so I was able to say, like, hey, I think I'm feeling that rejection sensitive dysphoria thing. Can we take a break and sort of like, like, connect again, talk about this again later? You know, at the time I said it through gritted teeth because I was just like, all, like, amped up. But we did. We took a break. And then I was able to use sort of a few things to, like, reevaluate the situation. Like, one, I could look back and just see, like, what did she say again? Does that make sense? Like, does that. Is that that big of a deal? And I'd. We'd been seeing, like, a therapist, and one thing my therapist recommended that was super valuable was, like, you. When you have that moment happen and then you have a break and you're able to evaluate it, like, think about, like, does it make sense? Given the history of this whole relationship, does it make sense that right now, in this moment, they're trying to backstab you? And that really helped because then it was just like, it was really obvious. Like, no, that makes no sense. Like, we're married for 16 years, we're happy. Like, it does not make sense, given our whole history that right now in. In the kitchen arguing about whatever, that now is the time she's deciding to betray me entirely. And so that giving. Giving it space and giving that moment, that framework of, like, does this make sense? Does really helped me to sort of identify that. And I think that was the last, like, time where it was almost a really big deal where I felt it extreme. Since then, it's become much easier for me to recognize, like, I think I'm respon. I'm. I'm feeling that thing again that doesn't actually add up if I evaluate the stuff. And then again it's the, like, put the hand over the mouth if I don't know how I'm going to respond or whatever. Or even just saying like, like let me think about that or give me a moment like something to allow my brain to catch up with what my body is feeling. I found that to be super, super helpful.

Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. There's a lot of overlap here with what we've been teaching with the three Cs and just kind of increasing that space between stimulus and response and then shifting your state a little bit, like allowing the emotions to move. And then from that place you can be like, oh, is this a disproportionate response? And is there an underlying emotion that's know, tied back to a previous experience I've had that is completely unrelated to the human in front of you?

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, so I'd love to begin taking a few questions from you guys. There's been a bunch in the chat and then looks like Jason and Ingrid, you guys have your hand raised. So Jason, welcome. Gonna add you to the spotlight here.

Thank you. Yeah, I think can hear me. I just, you know, find this area fascinating, first of all, because I'm not, I can't say I'm actually really here on understanding what adhd. I'm pretty sure I have it too, but to what degree? But I just wanted you to focus down on one point and that is when you talk about jobs aren't for you that require you to do timesheets, the admin, I struggle with that too, big time. I get it done, but it's like I say, it's the last minute. I don't enjoy it. You know, you wonder what's the whole purpose. You're trying to leave a digital trail. Productivity. But yet if you speak to the customers, they're all happy. So that should be the gauge of productivity. But anyway, what is it? Because I struggle with that. Right. So I'm trying to figure out how much I have adhd. How much Are you talking about the fact that like when you have adhd, you can't even do the time sheets. Because I can do them. But it's like Friday at 5 o', clock, right?

Yeah.

And it's. Or maybe Saturday morning, you know, just in time for the week other because I have to roll it up on the weekends to report it on A Monday. But it, I dread it. But is that, is that not everyone's. I'm just trying to label in my life areas I've got and like expenses as well. Right. You know, they're due once a month every, you know, I haven't even done my yet this month. It will, I'll get them done on the 29th. So the fact that I'm leaving these boring tasks to the last minute. Does that mean I have adhd? Is. Is my question.

Yeah, I mean I, I'm not going to diagnose you right now or anything for sure. But like I, there's sort of. And I, I saw in the chat someone mentioned like kind of high functioning and there's definitely a, you know, a wide spectrum which, like that word's definitely more associated with autism. But the idea of like, there's a wide variety of what kind of ADHD can look like and it varies greatly. Like, I've worked in the jobs that have the timesheets and expense reports and stuff like that and it's just like the most painful thing. Like, like I would rather do something like, like stressful and dangerous or whatever and do something that's boring. Like, boring is like death to me. And so I avoid those things at all costs. And sometimes it's about finding like, maybe there's a degree of that that you can deal with because you have like an understanding with like I, I've very openly kind of talked with managers I've had about ADHD and learned like, how can we make this work? Because the other stuff of the job is great, but the, this part just like is a constant struggle for me. Is there another way to sort of like deal with it? Like maybe it's like one thing for boring stuff like that. Like, I don't know if you've done body doubling before or if you've heard of that. So body doubling, the idea of that is basically just working in the presence of somebody else. And so there's like different apps online that do this like Focus Mate is one and there's another one called Suka and there's a few different ones, but the whole. So virtual body doubling, basically all you're doing, you're getting on like a zoom call like this and then like if we're, if we were doing it right now, I'd be like, hey, I'm going to, I've got to do some taxes. It's tax season, so I'm going to work on my taxes for the next 40 minutes. And then you would be like, okay, cool, I'm going to do my expense reports. Okay, cool. Mute the, mute the call but keep the video up. And then that being in presence of someone else and knowing that at the end of 40 minutes I got to tell you how I did on the taxes can really help with those really boring tasks. There's something about like for me, when I was a kid, when I was a kid, I never cleaned my room. I really struggled with it. Unless like my parents finally figured out like, hey, if I ask by. Ask Jesse to clean his room while his friend is here, his friend was sort of, sort of help them. And then Jesse will be much more motivated to do the thing just being sort of in the presence of somebody else. Um, and so that's something I'd highly recommend. I. It's something I wish I did more because every time I've tried to do it, it's been effective. I've. So I highly recommend trying out body doubling and I think Focus Mate in particular they have like a free. Like you can do it a couple times a week for free or something like that. Yeah. It looks like Michelle's mentioned Cave Day. That's another one I've heard of.

These are great. Yeah, I'll just. In closing, I'll let someone else I'm just. Because I wait to the last minute. I can for that two hours sit and do my expenses and press submit.

Right. That urgency.

But it has to be urgent. It has to be the very last day of the month. And. But does that in. It means I'm somewhere on the spectrum or. I know that word's kind of.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But. But it's.

I mean possibly there is. If it would be valuable I could go through there like in the. There's a DSM 5 which has sort of like a list of the symptoms. So I could possibly go through that. And. And that's sort of. It's not perfect. But I would recommend looking at the DSM 5 symptoms list because it's kind of like. I think it's 10, two groups of like 10 symptoms and if you match like five of them, like that is sort of like enough. Actually I can. What is it called? I can send it maybe to Johnny later and he can share it with you. There's actually a self evaluation scale that you can do that's pretty good for doing that and that'll. It's not perfect like you should see a professional to do diagnosis. But it's like, it's usually really obvious when you go through it. If you have adhd, you're going to be like, oh, check, check, check, check, check. So yeah, Johnny, remind, remind me. I can send you that later. The self scale.

So it looks like someone might have just put it in the, in the chat. Jason might have just.

Yeah, I found something that Jason found pretty good.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, I think I'll go through that. The DSM 5 ADHD checklist. That looks like it's for schools and children, but I'm sure it really.

Yeah. So that is the. Oh, here I just. Okay, I'm googling while we do this. I just found. So this is the one where you can, you can take it online and it uses like the DSM and it's just like a quick online check thing. And there is some stuff because there's the history of like myths with ADHD of people saying, oh, only kids have adhd. I was like, that's not true. When you have adhd. Just recently there's a study that came out that back backing this up. Like ADHD you have for life, like it doesn't just go away on your 18th birthday or anything like that. Like it can like as you get older, you learn more and more coping skills or things like that that help you, you know, live better with it. But the ADHD itself, like doesn't really go away.

Okay.

So. Yeah, but I think if you take that test, it'll be it. It'll likely be obvious. That's been my experience at least.

Perfect. Thank you.

All right, awesome. Thank you, Jason. Hi, Ingrid.

Hi. Greetings. Just thank you so much for saying all these things. Literally that entire presentation I was like, I feel so seen. I was diagnosed like late last year and like the fact that I lived like 35 years of my life not knowing this is just mindboggling. Also I realize like women are, are a lot less like.

Yeah.

Diagnosed in general. Just cuz like my whole life I just sort of coasted along. So like now being like in kind of a state where I could actually like do things and like get things done is kind of. Is kind of nuts. But I just want to say like I, I mean I am also a designer and in the spirit of adhd, everything I'm about to say is just pretty scattered.

But.

But I was wondering like, so right now I work for a startup and I kind of feel like startup life is like sort of ADHD in and of itself. Like can be if you don't have, like, if you also have leaders that are just sort of all over the place.

I'm Actually, I'm starting a new job at a startup next Monday. So, yeah, startup life is all for ADHD for you.

But I was wondering, like, you mentioned you had, like, 35 jobs. Like, what would you say are maybe like, the top five, like, things that you took from those, like. Like, what did you pick and choose out of those things that you're like, yeah, this is probably what I need to be doing. Because I asked my psychiatrist, I was like, do you think I just. I'm doing the wrong thing? She was like, I plead the fifth because I'm not going to tell you that.

I was like, yeah. I mean, a lot of it is the, like, finding those things that are boring and just like, because it. It sounds. When you don't have adhd, like, that sounds so silly. Like, oh, yeah, find a job where there's nothing boring, where it's like, you don't know what it's like, how difficult boring things are and how, like, it'll derail everything with this, like, looming task that's boring that I'm just, like, avoiding at all costs. And so, like, that is, like, that's definitely big. Like, I cannot have, like, timesheets. Like, anything that's, like, tracking my time to time. Like, that's not gonna work either. Because the way when you have ADHD like, you. You work. You often work in, like, sprints. Like, I'm not consistently working. Like, I might be doing, like, if you talk to me like, six hours into the day and ask what I did, I'm like, I don't know, maybe nothing. But at the end of the week, I got a ton of stuff done because I'm kind of like, working in bursts, like, throughout the week. And so that's another thing. Like, I need to have a job where that's kind of like, if not understood, at least like, okay, that I'm not having someone that's, like, trying to, like, count. Like, I'm doing code. Like, counting my lines of code that's coming out every. Every day or whatever. Like, that's not going to work for me because I just don't work that way. Another thing, I had another job that I ended up leaving. I had a boss that was like. I had a job where I was sort of like a creative director at a place and I was. Had my hands on a lot of things. I was doing a lot of different stuff, which, like, looking back, I was like, that's probably. That's a problem because there's way too many little details that I could forget and at this job, what had happened was I forgot a lot of little details. And for me, because of like memory, when I forget that thing, I'm never going to remember it again unless something prompts me to remember it. I'm not going to be like next Tuesday be like, oh, I didn't do that thing last week. It's like that's gone forever. Unless I see like some email or some piece of paper or something that reminds me of that thing. And so what had happened at this job? I had been forgetting these little minor things and my boss was noticing them and writing them down on a list and not telling me. And so he was just like, it was like my worst nightmare. He was just like building up these lists of all the things that I had done wrong for like a year and then had a meeting and like shared this list with me. And it was, it was the worst day of my life.

Oh my God. I like feel that one. That sucks. That fudgeing sucks.

Yeah, it was, it was awful. But now like, that's another one of those things that I learned. Like I, whatever job I'm at, I talk with my manager and I'm like, I need to know at the end of every single week that were cool, that everything that I'm doing what you think I should be doing. And so that was something I established. Like any job I had since then very specifically talked to my manager. When I changed managers, I talk to the new manager and I say, I need to know at the end of every week that we're on the same page. Like, don't assume I'm going to figure something out, like if you want to wait a few days because it's not a big deal, like, whatever, but you can't, like weeks can't go by without you telling me that you see something is wrong because I want to be able to fix that as soon as possible. And so that's like another one of those things that was like unfortunately born out of the worst day of my life. But, but now I know that that is a really big important thing to make sure that I'm aware of those details that are passing.

So yeah, that's just kind of reflecting on that. I told my boss basically that kind of same thing. I was like, I really need to know, like, what you need me to do better at. But then they become like these huge long term projects and then it's that thing again of like, I, I don't know when this will ever end, if I'm ever going to be like Actually good enough. And so I think that's like part of, I mean, personal struggle at work. But you did longer term.

Longer term projects can be really difficult. Like it helps to try and break those up as much as you can. So you can have like more urgent deadlines along the way rather than just the big looming one later.

Yeah. You mentioned something about courses on ADHD that you were taking. Could you suggest any?

I'm currently working on one. I don't have it now. I'm currently like recording video for video course that should be coming out. So if you. I have a. I have a newsletter, Extra Focus.com and if you sign up on that, I'll be letting people know about that soon.

Yeah, can't wait. Awesome.

Thank you.

Thanks, Ingrid. That was great. Okay.

Hey, I'm here. I love your book as well.

Oh, thanks.

Which I got after. I was yet another one of those women late diagnosed with ADHD in my late 30s. And I feel like I'd been on the relatively high functioning side of the spectrum and I definitely agree that it feels like a big link to emotional dysregulation. So I've been working on the emotional front and really finding that beneficial. I was curious, I guess from your experience interacting with other folks, like, have you seen a big gender difference in terms of the sort of tools and practices that seem to help women more than men or vice versa? And secondly, especially for folks with high functioning adhd, I think we've all learned to mask so effectively in some sense that I find that my reactions tend to be the opposite of the ones that you talk about in terms of impulsivity. I find that I'm on the other side of the spectrum where there's this really strong link to restraint, but so much so that it find that I find it hard to sometimes activate that get up and go and try things energy when I need to. Again, I'm curious about any advice that you've heard for people who tend to be on the opposite end of the spectrum from you in some sense.

Yeah. Yeah. So first on sort of like the gender gap thing, there's. There's a lot going on there in particular, like there's societal things that really lead into that. There's also. I didn't go into in sort of the presentation, but there's different presentations of ADHD which are primarily there's like the hyperactive, impulsive presentation which is more in common with what most people think of when you think of adhd. That's kind of the outwardly hyperactive Moving, talking fast. So I have definitely a bit of that. The other, the other one is. Oh, I just. It just the name went out.

See?

Hyper. Hyperactive, impulsive. What was it? Yes, thank you, thank you. Word went out of my brain. Yeah. Inattentive. And that, that is the much more like internal sort of stuff that's going on. And, and then there's also combined presentation. But that, that inattentive presentation is more common in females. And so because of that it's a lot less likely to be noticed like growing up because instead of being the kid that's like running around causing a ruckus or whatever, they're the kid that's like quiet in the corner, like dreaming of kind of their own land or just it's. And that's a little bit stereotypical. But that because more women are the inattentive type that like just from the early stage they're less likely to get diagnosed just because they're less likely to get noticed. And then also because of that, it's more often people with inattentive presentation are going to be diagnosed with anxiety and like other sort of like related things rather than adhd. And I think that is starting to get better now that there's like growing awareness of adhd. But yeah, so there's a lot of kind of issues there. And I hear, and there's also just again, kind of societal thing I hear from a lot of women where they will go to their doctor and say, hey, I think I might have this thing, this adhd. How can I? What's the process? And then basically kind of getting dismissed from their doctor, the doctor saying like, oh no, you, you have, you have a job so you can't have adhd or you graduated college, you can't have adhd, you're successfully doing a business, like all of these things that don't really make any sense where they quickly sort of dismiss that. And so that is like, yeah, so that is a huge bummer. And I hear about that sort of thing all the time. So I definitely, I always recommend like, like prepare as much as you can before going to the doctor. Like have all the ammunition, like you really need to go in and be able to self advocate very strongly for yourself. Because like I, I got dismissed when I first brought up with my doctor and I have a lot more societal things on my side for me to have been heard. And so when you have those things against you, like, you really have to be as prepared as possible to kind of advocate for yourself. So. Yeah, and then you mentioned like just some of the. No, I just blanked was. Remind me again the kind of second half of your question.

Yeah, I was, I was curious about any tools or practices that you've seen that work really well for people who are in the other end of the impulsivity.

Oh right.

Especially for folks who, for whom I suppose rejection, sensitive dysphoria tends to act up less to anger and more in the form of like, I guess like a really high self critical voice, for example.

Right, right. Yeah, that's. That. That is another thing which I think as you mentioned is also more common for with women and because of societal reasons, the masking that happens and can be like a real big issue. And so for me I'm very outward with my expression of adhd. And so when you have like kind of pressures that lead you to the masking, it's very, very different. It's very kind of closed off and then it. And it's like you're on the extremes and it becomes really hard to move to the middle especially because of the people pleasing that comes up there, which can be really, really difficult. I don't know if I have any specific strategies or advice on the top of my head for people pleasing other than sort of knowing like for me, kind of related with that is the idea of like, I don't know, this is sort of related. I might be tangenting if that's a word, but like the idea of like success amnesia where so a lot of times I forget about anything that I do that goes well and I just sort of like bury that and then when new, new things come up, I'm not, I'm not using that success to like help me take on new challenges and it makes things even more difficult because I'm, I just always feel like I'm a terrible person no matter what good things I've done. Like I never remember any of the things I've done well. And so I do like a lot of the strategies I use are trying to remind myself of like things I've done well and things that people have said about me to sort of encourage me, encourage me. And yeah, I'm realizing that that is not answering your question at all. But hopefully that's somewhat helpful for some people. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

Thanks, Jesse.

And it's awesome that you've read the book. That's. Yeah, I love hearing that. So thank you for that.

Hey.

Hey, Lorraine.

Hi there. So I, I was, as I was listening to you, I was, you said something about that you're really out There. And so my question was, because I was diagnosed 15 years ago after. In my 30s, after my divorce, and I've been unmasking. And so in the last 10 years, like, I had this job for 15 years in the same company. And then after I unmask, it's like, been. Every year I have a different job, right? I'm toggling back and forth where I tell them that I have adhd. And it doesn't go well because now they have these insecurities. Can she do the work? Can she manage her job? And because I'm hypersensitive, I can feel that. And so now I'm insecure about myself. Not really. It's not really my insecurity, but I'm feeling them. And so. And then I'll go on the other side where I don't tell them, but I feel like an imposter and I can't do my work. So I'm like, going back and forth. And each. Each job is different because one time I got let go and I told the manager, I have adhd. I'm sorry. She's like, I wish you would have told me it would have been different because she had it, her son had it. And there's, like, this initiative I'm noticing in companies. The last company I was in had a neurodiversity group, employee resource group. Yeah, they're all big on that.

And.

But the challenge is, is that I feel like I'm connecting with people that have adhd, too, and that's why they bring me in. But they're in the closet, and I feel like my ADHD makes them insecure about their. So it's like, how do I. How do I get into a job where it's like, I can stay there and it's good, you know?

Yeah, it's so tricky because it, like, you're kind of saying it's so dependent on the job because you should be able to just disclose anywhere you go. And there's like. Like, ADHD is considered a disability under the, like, if, you know, if you're in the U.S. the American disability act and stuff like that. And so you should be able to say it without it. It affecting your job or anything, and being able to even get, like, workplace accommodations and stuff like that. But the reality is, like, some places you say it and they're going to treat you differently. And so, like, with that, it. It's like, there's not an easy answer. You really have to sort of, like, feel it out. I've been really lucky in that I, Like, I didn't even know to think about whether I should say it or not. I found out about it, and I immediately, like, told my manager. I was like, I found out about this sort of thing and then. But I had a really great relationship with my manager, so I was able to do that without any fear of it really changing anything. And I do think, like you sort of mentioned, it does feel like as the awareness is growing about ADHD and other neurodiver. Neurodivergent conditions, there are companies that are really starting to. Especially, like, bigger companies like a Microsoft or something like that. There's really been sort of a movement to sort of have some sort of established support of that and resources and things like that. Unfortunately, there's not really a good blanket answer, but it really kind of is the, like, it really does depend and kind of having those conversations. Like, if it were me, I probably wouldn't generally disclose it. I would. It would depend a lot on my manager. My, you know, direct relationship with my manager. Like, does it feel like this is somebody I can really trust, being open with that sort of thing? And if I don't feel like that way, well, maybe that's another problem worth sort of, like, exploring. But, yeah.

Thanks so much, Lorraine. Great questions. Rachel. Hey there.

Hi.

Hey. Oh.

Okay.

There we go.

I'm back. Hi. Yeah, I got diagnosed with adhd, like, back in high school, like, early high school. And something like, I resonated with, like, a lot of the symptoms that you were talking about. And I'm curious if, like, one of the. One of the main things that I struggle with is, like, when I am in, like, a flow state and I'm. I'm talking to someone and there's, like, background noise or. Or like, I hear something, like, it can throw me out of that flow state. And I'm curious if, like. Like, I know for me, like, meditation helps so much, but it's still, like, one of the, like, main things that I struggle with. That. That. That. Yeah, it's just hard. So I'm curious if you have, like, any tools for that or. Yeah. Anything that's helped you with that.

Yeah, it's really interesting. The whole. So the idea of, like, flow state, particularly with adhd, there's sort of a different version of it called hyperfocus. And, like, I didn't know this was a thing. So, like, when I first heard, like, when someone first had suggested to me that I might have adhd, I was like, I. I can't have adhd. Because I have no problem focusing on the things that are interesting to me, which is like, yeah, that's. That's adhd. That's hyper focus, where you can get so focused you lose track of everything. Like you lose track of time. I forget that I'm hungry or thirsty or need to go to the bathroom. Like all of those are like blocked. I'm just solely focus on that one thing. And it can be difficult because kind of like what I mentioned with like the working memory shelf sort of thing, like when that focus is broken, it feels like impossible to get back. But one thing I've noticed with sort of like hyperfocus versus flow state, like with hyperfocus, a lot of the time I'm like, it feels like a compulsion. It feels like I'm like, I have to do this right now or I'm gonna like lose whatever this focus energy is. But a lot of times later I'll realize like, I was focused on something that didn't really matter. Whereas like flow state is much more. You're getting something done that you should be getting done. And hyper focus is like sometimes, but you. Is really hard to know in the moment if you're kind of focused on the thing you should be focused on. So for me, like, I find that the. When hyper focus is broken, that's actually a really good time to sort of re evaluate. Like, is this something I should be doing with my time? Is this the thing I want to be focused on right now? Yeah, yeah.

These are like when I'm like on client calls or like doing things that I like, need, like, you know, things that I like, but also like, it's my job, so.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's. It's definitely like noise can like kind of just like take me out and it'll take me a moment to like come back in the center. And I'm curious if like. Yeah. Do you have any tools around that or like.

Or.

Yeah.

Have you experienced something similar?

I'm not sure if I've experienced it quite the way that you're kind of describing. I feel like for me, when I'm hyper focused, when I break out of it, I don't usually kind of feel the like. For me, it's the resistance is like I'm afraid to get out of it because I'm like, I don't want to lose this energy that's going. But getting back into it I don't think is something I specifically kind of relate to. One thing I do that's maybe sort of related Because I can't feel time passing. I do a lot of, like, pomodoro timer, where I'll just like. Even if I'm like, I want to work on this thing for four hours, I'll set a timer for, like, 30, 40 minutes, just so I can break out for a moment and just sort of, like, have, like, like, okay, reevaluate. Did I get distracted? Did I spend 40 minutes, like, focused on the wrong thing or getting pulled off or. And so that's one thing I do that, like, I almost always have, like, timers going in some respect just to sort of, like, help me get outside of myself a little bit and be able to take, like, a, you know, bird's eye view of, like, what am I doing right now? Is this what I should be doing or what? Like, should's not the best word. But, like, is this what I want to be doing with my time right now? And sort of taking that established, which is. Yeah. Not quite what you asked, but that's been kind of my experience with that.

Yeah. Yeah.

Cool.

Yeah. Sweet.

Awesome. Thanks.

I. I did see someone mention, like, ask about stimulants, and for me, like, I was prescribed all of the things, like, and none of them worked, and they all made me feel like. And eventually I ended up in the hospital because I overdosed on Adderall when I was just taking, like, the prescribed amount. So I don't. I don't like stimulants, but that's just my own experience.

Yeah. Like, quickly, like, not a doctor, not a psychiatrist or any of that, but my experience, I. I didn't have anything really negative, but I did. I. I have. I eventually tried, like, six or seven different medications that were, like, prescribed, and none of them really did anything for me. But I do have. I have several friends that have adhd, and for them, meds were, like, life changing. So, like, they're like. I don't know how I could even, like, function in my job without my meds. So that's, like, definitely something where I've heard sort of both. Both, you know, both sides of that sort of situation. So I think that's. That's definitely kind of case by case, but my experience, not. Not as extreme as yours. I didn't end up overdosing or anything, but I did have, like. I was like, none of this is doing anything for me, so. Yeah. Cool.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you, Rachel. Hey, Marshall.

Hey.

Hey, Jesse. Thanks for somehow accomplishing, writing a book and finishing a thing. Adhd.

Yeah, thanks.

Yeah. So you Know, I strongly resonate with a lot of the things in here and in diagnostic ADHD and, you know, the extent of, like, forgetting all the things and whatever. And it's really helpful to have, like, specific things to look at and say, like, you know, different types of motivation or, you know, separating the things of ADHD from time blindness or remembering to emotional dysregulation and such. So thanks.

Yeah.

Awesome.

My real curiosity right now in this conversation is like, how has knowing, now that you've done years of research of all this information, how has it really impacted your, like, deep relationships or romantic life? Like, is there more communication around that? Have you understood yourself better? Has your partner understood you better? Like, how has that really had an impact? Yeah, you just weaponized all these things and now attack your partner with them, Right?

Yeah. So huge impact on my marriage. So when I got diagnosed, we had been. My wife and I had been married, like, I want to say, like, eight years, something like that, or actually, I guess, yeah, about eight years. And it was like, whoa, this is like, this is a pretty huge thing we didn't know about that has definitely affected our marriage and more obviously to my wife than to me, because I didn't realize any. Any of this stuff that was happening in particular. One story that I like to tell, the. That doesn't paint me super great. But before I got diagnosed, my wife, like, pretty much every night, you know, I'd be, I don't know, sitting on the couch or whatever, and my wife would say, like, hey, babe, can you take out the trash tonight? And I'd be like, yeah, sure, no problem. I got it. And when I said that, I believed myself. Like, I thought, like, yeah, I'll take out the trash. It's going to take, like, a minute. That's no big deal. And literally every single night, I forgot, like, she would tell me, I'd say, yep, I got it. And then I'd get off the couch. That memory is long gone. You know, my prospective memory not working. And so I would get up and I'd go straight to bed and never take out the trash. And so that does not communicate what I want to be communicating. Like, my wife's feeling like my husband's just, like, a lazy jerk, and he lies to me every night, says he's going to do the trash, and he never does. So once I finally got diagnosed, that was something that we, you know, we immediately. I was seeing a therapist. We were kind of doing this worked really well for us, so I would maybe recommend it. We were kind of seeing, like, every other one. My wife would come with me to the therapist, and that was really great because I was learning a lot about myself. But then we were also, like, trying to kind of, like, repair a lot of the things that were going on in the marriage at the same time. But one of the things the therapist recommended was, like. Like, she was asking, like, what things have helped? And we kind of strategized, and then she ultimately suggested, well, what if you put a whiteboard in, like, a prominent location? And then. So we did that. So we put this whiteboard up right in this spot in the kitchen where I would walk past it every night before going to bed. And then my wife would say, same as before. She'd say, hey, can you take out the trash? And I'd be like, yep, sure. No problem. And then she would go and write it on the board with a little, like, box to check. And then that was the only difference. But then I. When I would get up, I would see it was just in this really prominent spot, and I would see it right away and be like, oh, yeah, that's the thing I said I was gonna do. And then I would take out the trash. No problem. Real quick, check off the box. And then we did that every single night. So every night she would tell me, and then she write on the board, and then I would go and I would take out the trash and check it off. And it was actually this, like. It's this tiny little thing. But it was a really huge moment for our relationship of, like, it made it real. It was like, oh, this is. This really is not me just being this, like, lazy jerk. Like, because once we did that method, I always did it. It wasn't like, I sometimes now do it. It was like, no, I always do it because when I remember to do it, I have no problem doing, like, the task. And so it was a really pivotal, pivotal moment for us in our relationship. And it really helped sort of, like, establish the foundation of, like, oh, this stuff is real. And we just need to figure out, like, how can we function knowing about the ADHD now? How can we function in a healthy way for our family and for our relationship and stuff like that. And then it did take several months, but eventually it just. It finally became part of my routine. And we. We haven't done the whiteboard in years now, and I just, like, take out the trash, and she doesn't even tell me anymore. It's just like, it's locked in as part of my routine, which is great for her. To not have to remember to. And like. And there is a lot of things with ADHD that I think in the moment can feel silly. Like it feels like I'm, I'm 30 years. Like I'm 37 or whatever it was at the time. Like I'm in my 30s and I have to have my wife like write this thing on the whiteboard like I'm a child. Like it's a little bit embarrassing and it's a little bit silly, but it freaking works. And when stuff works, like, I'm all into leaning into, like I do all sorts of silly strategies for getting chores done. Like with like doing the dishes. I know you asked about relationships, but now I'm on the dishes. Chores are really important in relationships. You got to do your, your, you know, fair share of the chores. But for like dishes, like just doing the dishes, so boring. Like I don't want to do that. So I use that, like captivate, create, compete, complete for doing the dishes. Like, how can I make doing the dishes more creative? Well, it's not a very creative task, but what if I go through alphabetically or what if I like go through and I stack everything on the dining table first? I'm like going to move all the plates out and put them into a stack and then put them away and little things like that, which are like silly differences but enough, but can bring up enough novelty that it makes it easier for me to actually find the motivation to get it done. So yeah, so that whiteboard, that was a huge thing for a relationship and just sort of like knowing those difficulties that are going to happen and being willing to come up with silly solutions. Just kind of like not trying to figure out like what's the thing that works for everyone else. Just think what's something that could work for me and making that work. Yeah, awesome.

Thanks, Jesse. Despite having five hours more worth of questions, I think it's someone else's turn.

Awesome, thank you.

Cool, thanks, Marshall. It looks like we've got a couple more questions left and we 12, 13 minutes to go. Hey, Steve.

Hey Johnny. Hey Jesse, how are you?

Hey, Good, good see you. Steve.

Good to see you. So we've talked a lot about some of the disadvantages of having of being add. What about the advantages? I heard someone make a good case that to survive in this increasingly hyper frenetic world in which change is just accelerating, it's actually an advantage to be add. What are your thoughts?

Yeah, so there's definitely like some. Well, I do want to caveat real quick. Like There's. It depends on your life situation. Some people, like, if somebody is, like, struggling, like, working two jobs, like, barely making it by, like, ADHD is not going to be an advantage for them. It's going to be difficult. Like, they're not going to be able to see, like, there's been some people that'll say, like, ADHD is a superpower, and I can see that. But, like, if you're living in a. Like, if your daily life is, like, surrounded by kryptonite, you're not going to see that superpower. You're going to be struggling. So I want to caveat that of, like, some people, it's purely a struggle. But that said, there definitely can be advantages to having adt. Like, I. Despite the struggles, I love, like, my brain. I love having adhd, and I love how, like, particularly I find that my ADHD helps me be. Like, I'm a. I'm very creative. I'm very innovative. Like, I love solving problems. And I think that there's this idea called leaping where, like, it'll happen in. In your brain, leaping to, like, the solution to a problem. And a lot of times I'll solve something, but I won't be able to explain why. I know that's the answer. And I kind of have to, like, I kind of have to work backward, and I'm like, okay, this is definitely 100% the answer. I can't explain it yet. And I have to kind of work backward to figure out why I know that's the answer. And there's something actually within the brain that is causing that where it's like, I don't remember the exact science behind it, but it's. It's a thing that's been shown for people with adhd, this sort of leaping ability that can happen. And so that's something that I definitely pride myself on. I actually, there was, like, this is several years ago, but there was a meme somebody did that was like, the ADHD iceberg or something. And it's just this graphic, and it's showing, like, here's what people think ADHD is, and here's what it is, really is. And it's listing a lot of, like, struggles with adhd, which is helpful. But I did, like, an alternative version, which I called, like, the ADHD strengths iceberg. And so if you search that, you'll, like, it's like a purple bluish image. And I put a lot of the stuff in that, like, I think people with ADHD really strong as entrepreneurs. Like, there's Been studies that show like, like, something like general population is somewhere between like 5 to 10% they believe is ADHD, but entrepreneurs is like 30%. It's like a big chunk of people that are entrepreneurs have adhd, which makes sense because they're really good at, like, creating these new things, like wearing tons of hats, getting lots of stuff. I. I like to say I like juggling chainsaws. Like, that's kind of how I like. I love adding new projects because that actually, that gives me motivation to tackle all the things that I'm doing. And there's a limit. You can't. You can't. You know, you can't juggle infinite amount of chainsaws. But I want enough of them to be, like, exciting so that I have a lot of energy to get all the stuff I'm working on done. And I think people with adhd, like, not that there isn't difficulties because, like I mentioned before, like, details that can get lost, but I can be generally managing a ton of stuff if I have, like, especially if I have some sort of person, like an assistant that's able to sort of, like, help catch those details. I can get so much stuff done. And I think that's a big strength with a lot of people with adhd. We can really, like, take on a lot of stuff in the right situation, and they also. People they need to really thrive. Well, not all people, but a lot of people with ADHD thrive in, like, crisis situations. So as like, EMT workers, like, that's. That's a big field for people with adhd, like performers, like, as, like, like actors and stuff like that, because there's that adrenaline of the moment, and that's when, like, a lot of people with ADHD really thrive and really excel. So, yeah, that's. That's just sort of like a few of those off the top of my head. But yeah, there's definitely. If you, if you search for ADHD strengths, iceberg, you'll see that graphic which lists like, several more of those.

Awesome.

Yeah, because it was funny. I graduated from year, year in, year out.

It's the top.

It's either the number one or the number two accounting program in the nation. University of Texas at Austin.

And congrats.

But.

Well, yeah, but you know what? I hated it when I got out.

Right.

So it was like, I love the intellectual challenge because it was very challenging. But then when I got out, I was horrible. I hated it. So I. I got out of the field entirely and.

Right. Yeah. So that challenge was like, motivating and then it went away. And you're. It went away. Yeah. Yeah.

And.

But I just would. It would be great if we could. If we could reframe the conversation more frequently to focus on how to leverage our superpowers and, and, and then, but. And to minimize the problem, you know.

The, the, the handicaps.

Because, like, I, I recognize it. Like, for me to stick to a to do list is incredibly challenging.

Right.

Yeah. So anyway, so, yeah, it's funny you mentioned, like, the challenge thing. That's a big. Another area where there's a lot of, like, ADHD representation or whatever is, like, in the Olympics. Like, because there's that competitive angle. Like, people with ADHD are drawn to that. That's, again, that's one of those, like, motivators. And so. And it can actually be. There's a lot of. A lot of people will, like, be really into, like, high school sports, go into college and be, like, really, really into, you know, the college sports and everything. And that's like, the competition is driving them as well as, like, just the, you know, the neurochemicals and all that's involved with, like, doing a lot of, like, you know, that activity. And so what happens for a lot of people with ADHD that are into sports, they won't have any problems at all. And then they'll graduate college and then get, like, some normal job. And then they're like, life sort of falls apart a little bit because they're like, what happened? And it's like that competition went away kind of. Like you mentioned leaving the thing. It's like, oh, now this is, like, really boring or whatever that I can't find that motivation anymore.

You know, what's funny is not to derail too much, but I just got this thing, it's the AI pen. And I think I'm going to return it for a long story, but something like this that I can wear on me, that would. Could be my, you know, could remind me to do the more mundane things would. Actually, I think there's a good niche there. There's the right AI product for ADHD people.

So I, I am pretty AI pro. And yeah, I think there's a lot of really exciting kind of potential there for sure, because there's a lot of, again, those little, like, detail, like, I wish I could have something that I'm just that I'm telling. That could be like, my second brain that, like, being able to sort of remember those things, those details that I might miss and stuff like that. So, yeah, I'm. Yeah. I'm. It's definitely early days, but I'm excited for the potential there for sure.

Okay, thank you.

Awesome. Thanks, Steve.

Thanks so much, Steve. So, Sam, do you have a question?

Yes, sorry.

I know my hand went up and down a little. I was just trying to think about all of the different things. But I guess my question is. So I, like when I went to my therapist, the way that my therapist kind of described my brain was like, there's a bowl of spaghetti. There's a lot of things in this bowl. And like in order for us to figure out which one of these things is actually affecting you in these ways, we have to like pull out noodle by noodle and figure out what each one is. And so when I was talking to her, a lot of what she said was like, there's this combination and especially in women I think of anxiety with adhd, with depression, and you kind of have to navigate like which symptom is which, where is it coming from, why? And I think with my background or even my brother, I think we're both pretty neurotypical. And I think we've spent a lot of the past couple of years trying to. And I'm only like 23, so I'm like now beginning to see like the post effects of put like I'm out of college systems. I'm actually like on my own routines. I'm like witnessing what it feels like to actually have ADHD affect my life on a day to day basis without the like the fear of trauma or like that being the number one thing that I'm thinking about all the time. And I think one thing that I get super frustrated with is just like, okay, I have this bowl of spaghetti. It's clearly affecting my life. I'm doing my best to pull apart the pieces, but there's a like almost this overarching narrative of like we have to deal with the trauma or the anxiety or the depression before we can decide that it's adhd or like before we can truly address what it feels like to have ADHD and the way it manifests with you. And I think that has just created this question of like, okay, where do I start? Because I don't want to wait to like figure out all of the, the things that I need to figure out with, with everything else in my emotional well being. Like, it's kind of like, okay, I know I struggle with this. I know, I know that there's these moments that like, they must be adhd. I don't know what else they could be And I also think I have, like, such an intense fear of relying on medication because I was. So many people in my life have tried to prescribe me different antidepressants or anxiety meds, and I just kind of was like, I know my brain is neurotypical, but, like, I. I want to make sure that I don't ever strip that those superpowers away, which I think are what all of us kind of can recognize, which is this, like, this very creative side. Like, I. And I think my fear is backsliding into, like, okay, if I take a medication, then what if I lose that? And so I've been trying to look for, okay, like, where do I start? And also, where do I start that's not medication, whether that's natural supplements or whether that's different, like, exercises and practices. And I've been. I think I've been trying all of these different things with, again, like, this idea that it's a bowl of spaghetti. So I'm trying all these different things, trying to apply them and seeing, like, okay, which one does it actually work for? But I guess just, like, with that, like, if you had to. If you had to take that and start somewhere, like, where would you start?

Yeah, so it's tricky. I've heard that from people before where. That I haven't heard specifically the bowl of spaghetti, but that idea of, like, well, like adhd, it's. Some people say, like, adhd, like, often comes with friends because it's highly comorbid. Which means, like, you. If you have adhd, it's very likely that you also have, like, another neurodivergence. Like. Like autism, like anxiety, as you mentioned, like, depression. Like, a lot of those. It's like this. The stats are staggering. Like, it's something like 70% of people with ADHD also have one of these other conditions. And like, 40% of people with ADHD have two or more of other conditions, which, especially if you're kind of early in that conversation, it's hard to sort of parcels out because there are overlapping symptoms and stuff like that. The thing I would recommend is just educating yourself as much as possible. Like, books can be one thing, but I know some people with ADHD struggle with books, which is why I'm like, quickly, I'm working on my audiobook to get that out soon. But another thing there's. I don't know if you're aware of Jessica McCabe. She has a YouTube channel called how to ADHD, which has a lot of great videos. Her videos are great. They're all short. They're all like eight minutes or less. And that can be a really great way to like, inform, like, to learn about what ADHD is. And then you can really sort of like, start to apply those learnings without necessarily, like, the diagnosis can be great. It can help if you did want medication, it can help with getting like, workplace or school accommodations, but it, you don't need it to put other, you know, other strategies or stuff into practice. And I will mention you, you mentioned like, exercise that is outside of medication. A lot of, like, the leading, you know, experts in ADHD say, like, regular exercise is like the next best thing you can do to like, help with your. With ADHD symptoms. And so that could be a path worth exploring as well. But yeah, like, I, it may, I don't know anything about obviously your. Who, who you're seeing, the therapist or whatever, but it might be worth looking to see if there's somebody that specializes in adhd. In my experience, like, of those, those three, like anxiety, depression, and adhd, ADHD is going to have an overwhelming effect on like, your life and, and affecting those others as well. So I would really, if it were me, I would want someone that really knows ADHD really well, if possible, which obviously it's not. But outside of that, I would definitely, I would just say like, the trying to educate and learn as much as you can and just sort of putting those into practice and maybe bringing those to your therapist if, you know, if he or she is kind of open to hearing stuff that you've learned about it. I hope that helps. Yeah.

Yeah.

Super helpful. And I think that exercise thing is a, is a great point. I think I started lifting about two years ago and it's, it's honestly changed a lot for me, but super helpful.

Thank you.

Yeah. And there is, there is an author. I can't remember the name of the book, but the author's name is John Ratey, which is R A T E Y. And he has a book specifically about ADHD and exercise. I can't recall the name of it right now, but that, that might be worth looking into too, to get a little bit more solid information specifically about how that can help. Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Awesome. Thank you, Sam. And I wanted to just add to that as well. Any from this is coming from my friends who've had ADHD as well or have ADHD and embodiment practices and also working with somatic practitioners or somatic therapists as well has been hugely helpful for, for many of them. And just ways of Coming back into the body and then also working, working with the emotions, like the emotional fluidity stuff we've been doing in week four, I, I believe would be supportive as. As well as these things too. Okay. Wow. Well, we pretty much ended on time. Good stuff.

Yeah, that's perfect.

That was great.

Awesome. So many great questions.

Yeah, this. This was so, so good. I mean, I learned a ton. There's a. Probably the most active comment thread we've had to date. So many resources. We'll compile that. Put that in the replay for everyone. Thank you so much, Jesse. So for people who want to learn more, want to dive deeper into your work, extrafocusbook.com I think is the.

Yeah. So they. Yeah. So the book, if you go to extrafocusbook.com that has all the information in the book and it's. Or you can just go to Amazon or anywhere else. Bookshop.org is a great place to kind of independent bookstores, but anywhere you can get books, you can get Extra Focus. And then I also have. I have a. I'm a weekly newsletter where I talk about adhd. And that's just Extra focus dot com. And then you. You can also follow me. I'm on, like, I'm addicted to all the social media, so if, if a new social media app comes out tomorrow, I'll probably be on there. And I'm available at adhd. Jesse at. Pretty much.

I think I saw you joined Air Chat the other day. I followed you.

Yeah, I'm on Air Chat too. Yeah. Gotta get on the new. The new one. So cool.

Kid on the block. Well, thank you so much. This was fantastic. I think everyone had a great time. So why don't let's everyone unmute and say thank you so much, Jesse. And Jesse, you can record this and save it in your folder where people say nice things about you.

Nice. Yeah, I love that. Thank you so much, Jesse.

Thanks, Jesse.

Appreciate it.

So helpful. That feels amazing. This is great.

You're the best.

Awesome. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me, Johnny. This is awesome. And very, very active participants, which is great. So many good questions. So. And you. If you have more, feel free to reach out to me on social media and stuff. And I'm glad to chat about. I think it was. Marshall said he had like several hours more of questions so you could hit me up on.

I can put you guys in touch if you want to.

Yeah. Yeah. All right.

Good stuff. Have a great day.

Cool. Thank you.

Bye.