ADHD Time Warp: 2017 Insights & 2024 Previews
Envision this: Anaheim, the land of Mickey Mouse, transformed into a buzzing hive of ADHD discourse. Pete and Nikki, our intrepid podcasting duo, are on the ground, soaking up the wisdom at the 2024 International Conference on ADHD. But before they regale us with cutting-edge insights, they've unearthed a time capsule – a 2017 episode recorded post-Nikki's return from the Atlanta conference.
Now, you might think, "2017? Ancient history!" But hold on. This isn't just nostalgia. It's an archaeological dig into the evolving understanding of ADHD. Remember, intellectual progress isn't a smooth upward trajectory. It's a messy, fascinating jumble of breakthroughs and backtracks.
So, join Pete and Nikki as they rewind the clock. Nikki, fresh off her Atlanta adventure, unpacks her five key takeaways. But here's the thing: this isn't just about revisiting the past. It's about understanding how far we've come. How have our perspectives shifted? What assumptions have we shed? What new questions are we grappling with?
This episode is a double-layered exploration. It's a glimpse into the ADHD landscape of 2017 and a primer for the insights to come from the 2024 conference. It's a reminder that the conversation around ADHD is ongoing, ever-evolving, and always ripe with potential for unexpected discoveries. So, buckle up for a journey through time, a conversation about language, and a deep dive into the ever-fascinating world of ADHD.
Links & Notes
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Pete Wright:
Hey everybody. It's Pete, and we're not really here this week, not even a little bit, not at all, because we are headed to Anaheim for the 2024 Annual International Conference on ADHD. It's going to be fantastic. If you are... If you happen to be here, as you are listening to this in Anaheim, find us, look for us. We are walking around. Nikki will be presenting on Saturday afternoon. Make sure to check that out. I'll be in there wandering around. Apparently, that's my job. I've been told, "Pete will be there wandering around."
So I can't wait to wander around and see the great speakers and catch up with however many of you all happen to be hanging out in LA. It's going to be very, very exciting. In order to celebrate, we thought we would go back in time a little bit and, this week, give you an episode out of time. This is our 2017 episode that we recorded when Nikki got back from the International Conference on ADHD in Atlanta, and there are lessons in here. We've got some feedback. We've got some... Nikki's five big takeaways from 2017. I'm going to be honest with you, I have not actually listened to this episode yet.
I don't know what we talk about or how we talk about it, but I did scrub through it, and I think I sound like a 12-year-old. Something has happened just since 2017, and it's hard to listen to. I don't even know what to make of that. Anyhow, very excited to be able to come back next week and tell you what we learned at this year's International Conference on ADHD. But for now, let's take a trip back in time and see what we thought about ADHD in 2017. I wonder if it's different. Thanks, everybody. See you next week. Hello everybody, and welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast on RashPixel.FM. I'm Pete Wright, and I'm here with World Traveler Nikki Kinzer.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's right. Hello everyone.
Pete Wright:
How are you feeling?
Nikki Kinzer:
I'm a little tired.
Pete Wright:
You got the jet lag, the old Atlanta jet lag?
Nikki Kinzer:
I do, yeah. In fact, I don't know if... Did you see my post yesterday on Facebook?
Pete Wright:
I did not.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, yes, so I was going to do a Facebook Live yesterday.
Pete Wright:
And you did not?
Nikki Kinzer:
No, because... I did it this morning. No, because I just completely hit a wall.
Pete Wright:
Oh, yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
My last client ended at three o'clock in the afternoon, and my plan was I'll work for a couple of hours. I'm going to do this Facebook Live around 5:00 PM. And then I'm going to go coach my daughter's volleyball team at six.
Pete Wright:
You coach volleyball?
Nikki Kinzer:
I'm an assistant coach, yeah.
Pete Wright:
Good for you. I did not know that.
Nikki Kinzer:
I don't know.
Pete Wright:
Oh.
Nikki Kinzer:
It's good for... I don't know. It's fun, but I don't know if it's good for the kids. I hope I'm teaching them something.
Pete Wright:
I think it's fantastic. That's awesome.
Nikki Kinzer:
But it's fun. I really enjoy it. But I'm an assistant coach because the head coach is the one that she really knows what she's doing.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Right.
Nikki Kinzer:
But anyway, I thought this was all going to work out. This was my plan. I had a plan. And then, at three o'clock, I just hit a wall at because it's the end of the week now, and I've been... I traveled for... Let's see, I was gone for four and a half days, and when I came home, I just went straight into work and being a mom and all of that stuff, and so yeah, I just really hit a wall, and so I wrote a little post on Facebook and said, "I can't do it today. I'm just too tired." And we had a couple of comments of support, which I really appreciate. I thought-
Pete Wright:
Oh, it's...
Nikki Kinzer:
That was really sweet.
Pete Wright:
Yes.
Nikki Kinzer:
And I took a nap, and I went to volleyball practice, and it was great, and so I was really glad that I took that time for myself. And so if you have a chance, jump on Facebook because I did a Facebook Live on Friday, November 17th, and I talk about why that's important, and I break a myth about meditation and mindfulness, so check that out.
Pete Wright:
Ooh, suspense.
Nikki Kinzer:
I know. I'll talk about it a little bit later today too on the show, so you're going to get...
Pete Wright:
Good. I was going to say, I...
Nikki Kinzer:
If you follow me on Facebook and listen to the show, double repetitive information, but it's good.
Pete Wright:
Excellent, excellent, excellent. Well, we do have a lot to talk about today.
Nikki Kinzer:
We do.
Pete Wright:
We've got follow-up from your experience at the CHADD Conference. We've got-
Nikki Kinzer:
CHADD/ADDA.
Pete Wright:
CHADD/ADDA. Sorry. Sorry.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's okay.
Pete Wright:
[inaudible 00:04:48] my apologies. The CHADD/ADDA Conference and we have some follow-up from folks who've been writing in. Because of our recording time warp, we missed a couple of questions, and now we're going to get to them today, and actually I think that's it. Just follow up and your experience in... at CHADD/ADDA. CHADD/ADDA.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, CHADD/ADDA.
Pete Wright:
Before we do that, head over to takecontroladhd.com. You can get to know us a little bit better. Listen to the show on the website, subscribe to the mailing list, and make sure you get an email every time a new episode is released in Nikki's fantastic newsletter. You can connect with us on Twitter and Facebook @TakeControlADHD and leave us a voicemail at 503-664-4ADD with your questions as well. Now, we've talked about our favorite new site of support, patreon.com/theadhdpodcast.
Thank you those of you who have already jumped in and are supporting us there. We appreciate everyone who has done that or is considering it, throwing us a buck or three or five a month to help us continue to grow and do the show and start making more public appearances and doing more things to the ADHD community. We appreciate your consideration there. Patreon.com/theadhdpodcast. It's just like public radio. This is listener-supported podcasting right here. There you go.
Nikki Kinzer:
There you go.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Okay. Shall we start with follow up?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, let's do it.
Pete Wright:
All right. Caitlin. The fantastic Caitlin has written us, and she says, "One of the things that has helped me change my language away from binaries..." This is in reference to our Binary Language podcast. Was that last week or the week before?
Nikki Kinzer:
I think it was the week before.
Pete Wright:
It was the week before. Yeah. She says, "This is something that Brené Brown says in Rising Strong." Fantastic.
Nikki Kinzer:
Mm-hmm.
Pete Wright:
She says that, "When faced with binary language, the first step is to ask who or what benefits from the binary pair. By asking myself this question, I find that, often, it is shame or a negative view of ADHD that benefits from my mindset and the binary language that is expressing that mindset. The strategy has helped me realize the false narratives of binary pairs, and now back to continually improving my awareness of binary language."
Nikki Kinzer:
Love that.
Pete Wright:
I do too. That's a great bit of awareness and awesome that Brené Brown listened to our podcast and started talking about binary language and writing it in her book-
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. You think that's what happened.
Pete Wright:
... before our podcast two weeks ago. Wait a minute.
Nikki Kinzer:
She's inspired by Nikki and me. Yeah, right.
Pete Wright:
Love her.
Nikki Kinzer:
I like how you threw that in [inaudible 00:07:23]-
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's amazing. Awesome. Well, I have another comment about language. This struck a chord for people, which I think is great because it really does continue the conversation, so I think that's fantastic. So this came from a past client of mine actually, and her name is Elaine. And she sent me an email saying that, "I wanted to share with you this comic."
And it came from Upworthy to give the right credits, and we will go ahead and put this in the show notes. And it's kind of more of an illustration than it's a comic because it's not funny. It's more of an illustration, but the point is to not say you're sorry but to actually say thank you. And so just a couple of my favorite examples, if you want to say thank you for your patience, say that instead of don't say, "Sorry, I'm always late."
Pete Wright:
Oh, yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Isn't that nice?
Pete Wright:
Oh, that's great. Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes. If you want to say thank you for listening, don't say, "Sorry, I'm just rambling."
Pete Wright:
Oh my God. I do that all the time.
Nikki Kinzer:
I know. And my...
Pete Wright:
So you needn't do whole shows on this stupid topic and now I'm really... I still don't catch all these instances. That's beautiful.
Nikki Kinzer:
It is, and I see that with my clients all the time because we'll be in a session and I'm like, "I'm so sorry, I'm just rambling." I'm like, "No, no, no, no. Don't be sorry." If you want to say thank you for having hope in me this whole time, don't say, "Sorry, I'm such a disappointment." I know, right.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
So this is good. And something that I just want to throw in there. As part of my coaching groups, we have this rule. I may have mentioned this before, but we have this rule that we don't say we're sorry about anything, and if we catch you saying you're sorry, then you have to put a nickel in the nickel jar. Now, we don't really have a nickel jar. It's all made up in the cloud.
Pete Wright:
Cloud nickels. Oh, I love it.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, but it's really kind of cool because it really does stop you... it stops yourself from saying you're sorry, and then when you do by accident, you get called on it because you can believe that either me or somebody in that group is going to call you on it-
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Right.
Nikki Kinzer:
... because yeah... So anyway.
Pete Wright:
Because it's a matter of front-of-mind awareness, and sometimes you need that. Just hearing, "Thank you for listening. Sorry, I'm just rambling," that binary pair is... that's a huge one for me. I can't underscore that. I do that every day. That's big. That's big.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Thank you so much.
Nikki Kinzer:
Good stuff. Absolutely.
Pete Wright:
Caitlin and Elaine, thank you. And our last bit of follow-up is from David. Oh, I love this one. David says...
Nikki Kinzer:
I know you do.
Pete Wright:
He says, "I'm 47 years old, diagnosed with ADHD three years ago." He says, "In episode 318, Pete mentioned that he's working on a novel. I've been stuck in the middle of that process for what seems like an eternity and would love any advice from a fellow distracted writer. I completed about 90 pages of a first draft, largely through discovery writing, and then worked backwards to create a very messy outline. After not working on the book for several months, I made the mistake of continuing the project on a program called yWriter.
This program allows me to work on all different elements of the novel separately. For example, I can create a document for each character, scene, setting, and so on. A much better program would be Scrivener, but I've heard that Scrivener is best on a Mac, and I'm a PC now. I feel more disconnected to the project than ever before. Even when I find time to work, I don't know where to start. I don't know if my ADHD is the reason yWriter is such a bad fit for me or if it's the product itself.
Either way, I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed and discombobulated. Any tips for me on getting and staying on track?" I do have some tips, and it starts with the great Somerset Maugham who says, "There are only three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." I'm sorry, Dave. I'm sorry that I have to lead with that. The trick, I think, is you're onto it already. You've selected a writing tool that has way too much stuff for your brain because it sounds like your brain is like my brain. It's just too much stuff.
And you mentioned Scrivener, which is sort of the de facto standard long-format writing tool. It is designed specifically to write books, textbooks, and novels, whatever. It has all the features you need to manage your research to manage chapters to manage, and then export in many different formats at publishers like or self-publishing. You can dump it straight into Kindle format. I mean, it's a really fantastic tool, but for writing the first draft, it can be a disaster. It was for me. I used it for many years, and I found I had to scale back.
Now, I use a tool called Ulysses on the Mac, and it's fantastic. It's only about two years old, but it only works on Mac and iOS. But if you are a Mac iOS writer, for those of you out there who are not Dave, you should check it out because it is fantastic. It's simple. It supports Markdown, which is the writing system that I use, which you should also check out. Link will be in the show notes. And it allows me to write very, very, very simply. There are no page numbers. There's no formatting.
It's just a text editor. And I strongly recommend if you're trying to get through a first draft, get out of the super writing tool, get out of the tool altogether. You really, I mean, you want to get as close to a pencil and paper experience on your computer, I think, as you can to just vomit the words out on the screen. So the tools that I have... I've been doing a little bit of research this morning, and I found the tools that work for a lot of people. There are two on Windows that... Windows or Linux in the first case that actually seem to be highly recommended.
The first is called FocusWriter from gottcode.org. Link in the show notes. G-O-T-T-C-O-D-E.org. And it is a distraction-free writing environment. It's designed to strip all of the toolbars, all of the menus, everything else that gets in your way to just allow you to focus on the words. It looks pretty customizable, does not support Markdown, so it's... it wouldn't be a good choice for me. But just working in plain text, you can use it in partnership with another sort of Markdown previewer that would allow you to see what you're doing. You can actually absolutely write in Markdown.
But the tool that actually seems to come even more highly recommended and seems to be a closer comparison to Ulysses is WriteMonkey, and WriteMonkey just had a... it looks like a beta release is ready as of September 2017. It's under current development. It's donate what you want kind of an app, and it looks... it supports Markdown supports all these... the tools you need just to get words out on the paper with timers, so you can set how long you want to do writing sprints and then timers for breaks and goals and targets.
But it is very, very simple. When you look at just the straight writing page, it's just text and that is a... that's your goal. So my experience so far this month in writing this novel, so we're talking right now, it's the 17th, and so we're just over halfway through National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo, where we endeavor to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. I am currently sitting at about, oh, just shy of 36,000 novel... [inaudible 00:14:54] 36,000 novels, 36,000 words, which is I'm-
Nikki Kinzer:
Wow.
Pete Wright:
... ahead of par, so to speak. We need to write-
Nikki Kinzer:
Congratulations.
Pete Wright:
Thank you. Honestly, I attribute it to, largely, to the way I've had to change the way I think as a result of this show, right. Because I've been doing this again for 14 years, and it's never been this easy. And part of it is because I've embraced what has usually been a massive stumbling block for me, and that is I write until I reach a point of choice where I have to solve a problem somewhere in the novel. I have to solve something to get the narrative moving forward or some sort of character decision, and then I'll stop, and I'll freeze.
And we call that whatever you want, writer's block, whatever you want. But if your goal is to actually turn out a novel, you can't afford writer's block. And so what I've had to do is say, "Okay, I've hit a point where I don't know what to do here. I'm going to go start a new chapter. I'm going to go write from a new perspective later in the book. I'm going to go write the next scene that actually is in my head," and my work then will be at some point to connect these things together.
The effort there is actually really interesting. First of all, more words pour out. Instead of sitting down to a 1,600-word session, I'll end up writing 3000 words or 4,000 words, but also, the act of skipping around the narrative a little bit in this first draft allows me to solve problems in new ways that I never actually would've considered before. Now, this is me writing with ADHD, right.
This is jumping around and embracing it and celebrating it and using it as a creative force rather than thinking, "Oh my God, my ADHD is telling me to jump around. This is terrible. This is terrible. I'm never going to finish. How am I possibly going to finish?" And this is the first time I've ever really seriously sat down to tackle a project quite this big and embraced it, and it's amazing. It is-
Nikki Kinzer:
Yay.
Pete Wright:
... an amazing feeling. I'm telling you. It is so great.
Nikki Kinzer:
You just shared a success story.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, I did it. It is-
Nikki Kinzer:
Congratulations.
Pete Wright:
... a success story.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's awesome.
Pete Wright:
I've been thinking about it since you've been gone. I really am excited about just the... about embracing because I don't...
Nikki Kinzer:
Embracing.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
It's such a great word.
Pete Wright:
Because how often do you sit down with a goal to do something that's going to take somebody 10 hours to read 15 hours? So at this point, I'm on track. I'd say I'm about halfway through the story, and that means I'm probably shooting for 70, 80,000 words and I'm really on track to hit that this month. And so I think to Dave's point, I really like this because I know at the end of this first draft, it's going to be miserable. It's going to be very difficult to write.
But as so many writers have said, the one rule that Somerset Maugham has left out here, "Real writing starts with the second draft." So whatever you have to do, whatever crap you have to turn out to get the first draft done, the second draft, you'll be able to unlock the secrets that you weren't even aware you had as a result of all these blocks and these challenges. So I strongly encourage you to summarize that.
Find a writing tool that is as absolutely simple as you possibly can make it, as barebones as you can make it. Totally distraction-free. Turn off all the alarms, turn off everything but your screen and your keyboard, and then just write. Whatever comes to your mind, jump around, write wherever, whenever in the narrative you need to, and I'll bet you're going to kick out those blocks and get your creative motor churning again.
Nikki Kinzer:
Awesome.
Pete Wright:
There you go.
Nikki Kinzer:
Great.
Pete Wright:
All right, so there's a follow-up. Thank you, Dave. Thank you everybody who wrote in, and I hope that helps. And now, Nikki, to you. You want to share with us your big takeaways-
Nikki Kinzer:
Ugh.
Pete Wright:
... from CHADD/ADDA? CHADD /ADDA Atlanta?
Nikki Kinzer:
CHADD/ADDA. It's so hard to do this because I actually took an extra day at the conference. I did the pre-conference sessions, and so I really was in class, let's see, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and half a Sunday. So it was three and a half days full days of just ADHD. And it was so awesome. I loved it. I loved being able to meet people. I met experts. I met people that have been on our show. I met parents who have kids with ADHD or adults who were just there because they have ADHD and they were looking for information.
So it wasn't just professionals. It was also parents and adults and kids. There were some teenagers there with their parents attending this conference. And so first of all, I just have to shout out that it was very organized. They had so many different options. It was hard to choose. I'm going to go back and actually end up paying for some of the recordings of experts that I didn't get to see because I had to choose between one or the other. It was just a really good experience. So if you ever have a chance to do it, I know it's not cheap.
It's an investment, especially if it's not in your hometown, but I really think it's transforming and it's a place for people... It's safe. I can't explain it. It's like you're in this session with 50 people, and people are raising their hands asking questions, and everybody's just nodding their head, "Yes, yes, yes." I get that. That's me. It's like, it's your tribe, it's your people. And there was a lot of emotion too, right. Because it's like this isn't a light topic, but it was great.
So what I want to do today is there were a few things that just really resonated and stood out for me, and that's what I want to share on the show. And the first thing that I've got to say is there is this pattern in almost every single class that I took around the of mindfulness and meditation, and I think this is happening because they're doing more research. And I think that people have just automatically assumed that if you have ADHD, you can't do either of those things.
And we know that's not true, but there's still that stigma that people believe. But what they're finding is that when you practice mindfulness and meditation, it really does help you navigate your ADHD and lessen some of those symptoms and be able to kind of stop that chatter in your mind. So there was three specific areas where this got brought up. The first person I have to shout out to is James Ochoa. Oh my gosh. James, if you're listening, I love you.
You're one of my favorite speakers, one of my favorite professionals in this field because the work he's doing is so important. We had him on earlier in the show. He is... Or, I mean, earlier in the year, he is going to come back. He has told me he's going to come back, and he's going to talk about this internal safe place that we have in our mind. I'm not going to talk about that today because I won't do it justice. I want you to hear it from him himself.
Pete Wright:
Excellent.
Nikki Kinzer:
And we're going to have him come back next year to do that. One thing I do want to bring up, and I did talk about this on the Facebook Live today, is that it is a relationship that we're building when it comes to meditation and mindfulness. It's never going to look the same way every day. It's never going to necessarily be consistent. And that's okay. We need to figure out how it can work for us, and it's a chance for us to reset and basically just to reset and center ourselves.
So I can't wait to have him come back on to talk more about this internal safe place. Another area that I found mindfulness, something that she said that really resonated. There's a speaker. Her name is Jane Messengill, and she does a lot of work with Rick Carson, and I've talked about Rick Carson before because he's the author of Taming Your Gremlins.
Pete Wright:
Absolutely.
Nikki Kinzer:
So these are those... Yeah. Those are gremlins, those beliefs that we tell ourselves. Well, one of the things that she did in her session is she had us actually just stop for a second and look around the room and just notice.
So you just had to sit and look at things and notice things that maybe you didn't notice before. So I noticed that there was a telephone on the wall, which is weird because you don't see telephones on the wall very often-
Pete Wright:
Right, right.
Nikki Kinzer:
... anymore. And I was noticing the shadow from the light on the wall and the curtain and everything, and she had us go around and kind of talk about what we noticed. And it was just a really interesting practice of when you actually just take a second to just notice things. And that's that mindfulness piece because it really does get your mind away from whatever's spinning to being present.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, there's such value to that. I struggle with that in my own office. I'm trying to notice right now, and all I'm noticing is my God, Nikki, there are cobwebs in every corner. How do I not notice that I'm a filthy person? I need to clean my office.
Nikki Kinzer:
You're not a filthy person because that is negative talk, and we don't want to do that.
Pete Wright:
But it's not binary. It definitely has an opinion.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's right. That's right. The other thing that mindfulness came into was this session that I took on impulsivity. And this is a show. This is a show. So I'm not going to... Again, I'm not going to go into great detail about what I learned in this particular course. I will talk about it later. But part of managing being impulsive is being mindful.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. It's like the other side of that coin, right. That's fantastic. Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
It is. So we will talk more about that. Another thing that really resonated with me, and this was a session that I took that is based off of Brené Brown's work. It's interesting how all these people kind of circle back in my life. It was a session really about shame, and it was specifically based off of Brené Brown.
The woman that spoke is a trainer of hers, or she's trained under her. However, that works. But one of the things that she said is that we get into this habit of providing joy. And when she started talking about what that meant, I'm like, "Oh my gosh." So me, it's like you get to that point where everything's going well, but you're just waiting for something to go bad.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Where's the other shoe? I'm sure it's going to drop. Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
I can't be this happy. This just isn't... This isn't going to work. Or you're in this great relationship, and you're just expecting that the other person is going to end up being this... He's going to cheat on you, or she's going to cheat on you. You're just waiting for something bad to happen and... But she was saying that the way to curve that is that we practice gratitude.
And they had this video of Brené talking about this, and she was talking about how her teenage daughter is driving, and of course, this is an exciting thing for her daughter, right. She's getting some freedom. She's going into that kind of next chapter of life.
But as a mom, she's like, "Oh my God, this is the worst thing. I can't believe she's going to be on the road. Watch out, people." But she was saying, "But instead, I had to sit there and say, 'Okay, I'm so grateful that she has a car, a safe car that she can drive, and I'm really grateful.'" She's kind of-
Pete Wright:
Oh, dear.
Nikki Kinzer:
... talking to herself about how she's going to be grateful about this experience. So it was just a really interesting example, but I really just took away from the fact that I know I do this where I don't just sit in the happiness. I kind of expect it to go wrong somehow.
Pete Wright:
Sure.
Nikki Kinzer:
And how we really just need to practice gratitude on that happiness and sit with it and be present with it.
Pete Wright:
That's pretty beautiful. I think that is the other side of the thing I call backpocketing success, right.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
It's where you keep this... your potential. You never really execute on the projects you want to execute because... and you keep it in your back pocket. You don't share it with the world. You don't tell people what you want to do and how you want to contribute to make the world a better place because you are so terrified of that foreboding joy, right. You're terrified-
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
... of the fact that what if it goes well. Oh God, that's almost worse than it going badly.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, yeah.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
That's great stuff.
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely. That fear of success probably is kind of how that works. So this next takeaway was a really personally affected me. It was the same workshop with Brené Brown's work, and we were talking about the difference between perfection and thriving for excellence.
So I want to share with you why this hit home for me. We were recently at a parent-teacher conference for my son, and it was going great. I mean, he's doing great in school. So I was a happy mama. But one of the things that the teacher said is she said, "Jaden is a perfectionist."
Pete Wright:
Oh.
Nikki Kinzer:
She meant it as a compliment.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. But I can tell you didn't take it that way.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, no, because immediately my... the little hair on my back kind of stood up, and I was like, "Huh." But I wasn't going to say anything. I didn't say anything.
Pete Wright:
Because she thinks she's trying to give a compliment to you.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. And so when we had this conversation about the difference between perfection and thriving for excellence, I thought, "Okay, I've got to share this with him because this is really important that he understands this, what the difference is."
And how they explained it was that perfectionism is coming from a need to basically please someone else. So your fear is you're trying to make it perfect so they won't make fun of you, or that it will be good enough, or that you won't get criticized. Like your drive, your motivation is not internal. It's more external.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. It's almost also a codependency too, right. You can't be satisfied until somebody else around you who is in a seat of some sort of judgment is also happy.
Nikki Kinzer:
And it kind of goes back to foreboding joy.
Pete Wright:
Right.
Nikki Kinzer:
We can't just be... This can't be just good enough because we're worry... we're thinking that it's not, right.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right.
Nikki Kinzer:
It's not good enough. So, of course, Brené Brown's work all kind of circles around together, and that's why it all makes sense. But the difference between thrive... thriving for excellence is that that's an internal motivation, and that's hard for ADHD is to have that internal motivation. And so that's why you tend to be more perfectionism or more of a perfectionist than being able to just thrive for excellence.
So this is awareness that you can kind of see in yourself where you might fall and what maybe shift you might be able to take to go more to the Thrive for Excellence, where it really is that internal, "I want to do the best I can. I want to show up. I want to know that I did the best I can before I turn this in, but I'm okay with it being the way it is. It is good enough."
Pete Wright:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Nikki Kinzer:
And there's nothing easy about this, but man, when we were talking about it, aha moment for me, I was like, "Okay, write this down, highlight it, and do something with this because this is important."
Pete Wright:
At what point do you think about going back to the teacher and sharing your experience, like now that you've had a chance to process it?
Nikki Kinzer:
I haven't talked... I haven't really thought about going back to the teacher. I have just thought about how to share it with my own practice, with my own clients.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, sure. Okay. That's interesting.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. Yeah. One of the quotes that she shared from Brené Brown, which I think a lot of people are going to relate to, "When perfectionism is driving us, shame is riding shotgun and fear is that angry backseat driver."
Pete Wright:
Ugh. Brené is awesome.
Nikki Kinzer:
Got perfectionism, shame, and fear and...
Pete Wright:
I wish she was my sister. She's the best.
Nikki Kinzer:
I know. She really is. I love her work too.
Pete Wright:
I love her so much. Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, I love her. I love Brené Brown.
Pete Wright:
Ugh, Brené.
Nikki Kinzer:
Okay, so my last takeaway and this is so cool. I just... I have never heard this before, and I don't know why because it just makes perfect sense. I was in a session with Terry Matlen, and she does a lot of work with women and ADHD.
She also has a book on organizing, and she is just a fantastic lady. I worked with her a little bit last year, and she's great. So she did this session on women and ADHD, and it's really about, oh, chores and things that we hate to do.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right. All these things that we have to do. She said very clearly, "Accommodations for ADHD are not luxuries."
Pete Wright:
Ugh, that's so good. That is so good. And I don't... I mean, I hear you talking about that it's... she was speaking toward women, but man, that rings for me. That checks a lot-
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely.
Pete Wright:
... of boxes.
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely. And it does ring for a lot of people, and that's what she's saying is that we are trained early on that we have to do everything. We have to cook, we have to clean, we have to raise the kids, we have to work, we have to be in charge of this and vacations and bills and pets. And I mean, it is exhausting to even me say that out loud.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
Right.
Nikki Kinzer:
Everything as adults, adulting is hard. And so one of the things she was saying is, "As soon as we can let go of that guilt that we need help and that we don't have to do everything, and I shouldn't have to be able to do everything and nothing is wrong with me, then those accommodations are not luxuries. They're ways for you to have a happy life.
There isn't any fault for me wearing glasses because I need them to see, and there isn't any fault in somebody hiring a house cleaner, a laundry service because they hate cleaning and they hate laundry, or even a personal assistant or doing the online grocery shopping. I mean, all of these things that can help us and make our lives more joyful, they are accommodations. They're not luxuries." And I just thought that was awesome.
Pete Wright:
Boy, thinking about that really with my own kids, as we're talking about the potential of a 504 an IEP, and you occasionally run into busy teachers who you can... you feel like the response is not, this is something that's going to help the kids succeed on an even playing field, but that this is just something that's going to make it easy.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
And that is not... that could not be farther from the truth.
Nikki Kinzer:
No.
Pete Wright:
So this is really-
Nikki Kinzer:
So true.
Pete Wright:
... important. That's a really important thing to internalize.
Nikki Kinzer:
So those were just a few things that came to mind that I wanted to share. Of course, there was so much more, but I don't... we're supposed to be kind of a shorter podcast. But good news is that I am planning on doing some podcasts, or I'm doing some content planning right now for next year. And like I said, I know that James Ochoa will come back. I'm hoping to have Jane Massengill come back or come for the first time to talk to us about Taming the Gremlin.
We will definitely be talking more about meditation and mindfulness because it was such a trend and pattern throughout... like I said, throughout the whole conference. And, like I said, too impulsivity, I definitely think that's worth a show. So if there are ideas out there, things that you want us to talk about, now is the time to let me know. I don't do content planning for the whole year, but I do try to plan ahead so that I'm not just winging it all the time. Although sometimes that's what we do. Pete, for the most part.
Pete Wright:
I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about.
Nikki Kinzer:
I know. For the most part, I do try to do a little bit of planning. So if there's something you really want us to talk about, now is the time to send that email and let us know so that I can put that at in the next three months. I don't know if I'll go anything farther than that, but...
Pete Wright:
That's perfect. That's perfect. Definitely do that. Call us. You know the number 503-664-4ADD if that's an easy way for you to do it. Just call us while you're listening, just call the line at a stoplight, or pull over the car and leave us a quick voicemail if there's something you think you'd like to hear us talk about, whatever works for you.
We'd love to hear your thoughts as we go into the next year. Lots of good stuff still to talk about between now and the end of the year, though, so we're going to hang it up now. Thank you, everybody, for downloading, listening. We appreciate your time and your attention. On behalf of Nikki Kinzer, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll catch you next time right here on Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast.
