2024 ADHD Conference Recap: Community & Connection
Burnout, frazzled nerves, and the daunting task of remembering the future: sound familiar? Join Nikki and Pete, your ADHD Sherpas, as they recap their experience at the 2024 International Conference on ADHD, armed with insights, new strategies, and a touch of the conference crud.
Pete, a conference newbie, marvels at the instant connection with "his people," recounting chance encounters that blossom into deep dives on everything from queer issues to ADHD. It's a fishbowl, but one brimming with empathy. Nikki, a conference veteran, shares stories of attendees finding solace and validation, highlighting the power of shared experience.
This isn't just a recap; it's a toolkit! Nikki unpacks Tamra Rosier's wisdom on the ADHD nervous system, that high-strung racehorse veering between hyperarousal and shutdown. Discover strategies to regain control, from the five-four-three-two-one grounding technique to the surprisingly soothing "head hug." They even explore the intriguing world of EFT for anxiety relief.
And there's more! Pete explores ADHD-friendly personal finance and the SAVER model offers a path to financial sanity, emphasizing streamlined systems and, crucially, engagement.
So, grab your tissues (allergies, we promise), and join Nikki and Pete for a conversation that we hope is both insightful and relatable. It's a reminder that even amidst the chaos, there's a community that gets it.
Links & Notes
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Pete Wright:
Hello, everybody, and welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast on TruStory FM. I'm Pete Wright, and I'm here with Nikki Kinzer.
Nikki Kinzer:
Hello, everyone, hello, Pete Wright.
Pete Wright:
Hi. We came off of a fantastic event, we're very enthusiastic about this event, and I come to you not enthusiastic. I got conference sick, Nikki, and I'm trying to talk through a very bad sore throat. It is very prickly right now. So if I sound under the weather, I am under the weather, and I'm sorry about that.
Nikki Kinzer:
I know and-
Pete Wright:
That should not detract from the awesomeness that we experienced this weekend.
Nikki Kinzer:
No, it shall not. And I am still sick because I was sick-
Pete Wright:
Oh, you've been sick for like six months at this point.
Nikki Kinzer:
It hasn't been that long, but I did have a cough going into the conference, and I still have that cough and a little bit of stuffiness. So yeah, we're both winging it here. All right, but we do have some good things to share and talk about.
Pete Wright:
We do, we have good things to share, and we're talking about all of those things. Before we do that, head over to takecontroladhd.com to get to know us a little bit better, you can listen to the show right there on the website or subscribe to our mailing list, and we'll send you an email each time a new episode is released. There's lots of good places to find us, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest @takecontroladhd, coming very soon, Blue Sky because that's the thing right now, we need to have a Blue Sky account, we like it possibly better than the rest, so we will be on Blue Sky and that's very exciting, and also Discord, that's where the main community lives. And if you head over to takecontroladhd.com/discord, you will be whisked over to the welcome introduction page, the sign-in page, you can create a Discord account or just sign in with your existing Discord account and get into our server.
But if you really want to reach out and touch us, weird, don't do that, but really, but metaphorically touch us, head over to patreon.com/theadhdpodcast, that is Patreon, that's our Patreon account, it's listener-supported podcasting, with a few dollars a month, you can help guarantee that we continue to grow this show, add new features, and invest more heavily in our community. Visit Patreon again, patreon.com/theadhdpodcast to learn more.
All right, Nikki.
Nikki Kinzer:
All right.
Pete Wright:
2024 International Conference on ADHD, how'd we do?
Nikki Kinzer:
I think we did really good. But before we go into that, I want to know what you think because this was your first time going to a conference. I've been to many. I think my very first one was in 2012, and I felt like a complete imposter. And I remember being really nervous about going because I didn't really think I belonged there, but I did, I did belong there, and I kept going after that. So I'm curious to know what you thought, Pete, as a first-timer at the ADHD conference.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, boy, I'll tell you, it's a fishbowl, it's a real fishbowl, and I loved it, I had a great time at it. It was wonderful to see all of our people, even people I don't know, they're still so instantly our people. The number of times I would sit down kind of in the lobby area just to catch my breath and have other people just sit down and start talking that I've never met was extraordinary. We have a potential future guest on the show who just sat down and talked to me for two hours about queer issues and ADHD, and it was fascinating, and they're a wonderful psychotherapist and they looked at me and said, "I love being on podcasts." So we very well might have them on the show.
It was just that kind of synchronicity was everywhere. It's like around every corner at this conference. There's just nobody who isn't welcoming and warm. I'm sure that's how I got sick because there is a lot of hugging at this conference, I mean, so much hugging, and that's just the norm, and that's great, it's awesome, hugs are great, and also there are consequences in the form of sinus distress.
Nikki Kinzer:
So true, so true. Yeah, it is. And one of the things that Ari Tuckman, who's one of the co-founder or co-leaders of the conference, and so is Tamara Rosier, which both people have been on our show before, but they are both co-chairs, that's the word I was trying to say, for the conference.
One of the things he says at the very beginning is that this is a friendly place, and if you don't want to talk to people, then this is not the place to be, this is not for you to be shy or to stay in your hotel room. He really encourages people to reach out. And they do. I mean, everybody is so friendly, like you said. You'll be standing in line for food, and somebody will just come and talk to you and, "Hey, who are you, and what are you doing here?" And it's fun, it's energetic, as you can imagine. You're definitely with your people. I highly, highly recommend that if you are able to go to a conference when it's in your state or near you and you're able to do it, to try it, to at least try it because it is a special spirit that you won't get anywhere else for sure.
Pete Wright:
Because it's such a mix, it's a mix of coaches, of medical professionals, therapists, mental health professionals, and ADHDers, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Right, just there to learn.
Pete Wright:
That's the really interesting thing, just people there to learn, and that mix creates kind of a special chemistry. So it's not too highbrow and yet still incredibly informative.
Nikki Kinzer:
No, and what's really cool about it, I met this lady in the elevator, it was her first time there, and she was telling me that she was there for her adult daughter who was 25, who was diagnosed with ADHD not too long ago. And then she was surprised, also diagnosed with ADHD because that is sort of how it happens, right? But she was there to learn more about ADHD for her herself, but also for her daughter, perfect example. I mean, this was just someone who wanted to know more about how this affects people, and she was there.
And then we also met a girl who was there for her ADHD, but her husband was a doctor and was there for those purposes. And one of the things that she said to us when we were at dinner, Pete, is she was saying that her husband now has a better understanding of what she's going through because he's seen everybody talk about how they relate to each other, and it normalized it kind of for him that she's not the only one. I doubt he thought that, but it really just sort of affirmed her on what she's going through. And that's what it's about, right? It's about education, and it's about awareness and really hoping that people will get that kind of empathy out when they're attending these sessions and listening to people talk.
Pete Wright:
For sure, for sure. So I think before we get to the our stuff, you stuff, book stuff, let's just do a quick run through the sessions we did attend, because I think, at least from my perspective, I took a lot of pictures of slides and contact information of really interesting people, and I'm excited to kind of work through our editorial calendar for next year...
Nikki Kinzer:
I know, right?
Pete Wright:
... and start working some of these people into the show. There's some really interesting things going on. You want to start?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, sure. So one of the very first presentations I went to was ADHD and Burnout. This was presented by Nate Page, and we just did a burnout episode not too long ago, just a couple weeks ago, right? Melissa will know the episode number and all of that. We'll put that in the show notes.
Pete Wright:
Well, it actually, it hasn't gone live yet. We recorded it...
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, okay.
Pete Wright:
... a little while ago. It's Overcoming Burnout and ADHD with David Greenwood, and it releases on December 5th.
Nikki Kinzer:
All right, there we go.
Pete Wright:
An episode out of time.
Nikki Kinzer:
So this is the thing, I have learned that we need to have a lot more discussion around this topic, bottom line, because from our conversation that we had with our guests and then from listening to this presentation, ADHDers are at such a high, high risk of burnout, and of course mainly due to the executive function challenges, and this is not going to be a surprise to anyone, but they mask and hide their struggles, especially at work, and pushing themselves really, really hard at their own expense.
And the thing from this particular session that stood out for me that I really wanted to share were the six drivers of burnout. I think that sometimes we assume that it's only a work thing, but as we know from our conversation that you're going to hear on December 5th, I believe, right, is that it can be in anything situation. And some of the audience members were talking about just like parenting, you can be burnt out by being a parent, but then that feels horrible because you're a parent for a lifetime, and what does that say about you if you're having a hard time being a parent?
So there was a lot of things that came out of this discussion, but these six drivers I thought were really interesting. Of course, the first one is the workload. You do have too much to do and not enough time to do it. So that one we kind of already assume and understand.
The second driver was the lack of control that you might have in your job or whatever is burning you out. So for example, it could be that you're being told a lot of what you have to do with no buy-in or without any kind of opinion. It could also be more on a personal level where you're dealing with a special needs child or whatever it might be, and there's a lot of lack of control of that, we can't control those situations, we can't necessarily prevent them, there isn't anything that we can do, so that feels bad and can burn us out.
This one I thought was really interesting, insufficient rewards. If you're in a position where you're not being appreciated, you're not being thanked, you're not being recognized, that can lead to burnout. And I can see that definitely from a parent standpoint, right? We're never thanked about being a mom or a dad or a whatever, a sister, I mean, anything. It was just really interesting to hear how important that recognition is not only on a personal level, but obviously also in a work environment too, that what you're doing is valued. And if you're not feeling that way, it can lead to burnout, especially if you've got the lack of control and the huge workload.
Another one that I thought was really interesting that we don't talk about is the breakdown or lack of community. So if you're feeling isolated, I think this was probably especially true for those times during COVID, if you're really used to being in environment with a lot of people, you have that community, and now you don't have that, or for whatever reason, that's breaking down. I know that even as a parent, my community of other parents was really important, especially when my kids were little, watching games and events and plays and things like that with other parents and cheering our kids on. That was a really important piece of that time of my life. So I can imagine not having that community or having it break down could definitely lead to burnout.
The next one they talked about was the absence of fairness, which I think is really true, right? If you feel like you're not being treated fairly or somebody else is not being treated fairly, that injustice gets in the way and gets us upset and can definitely lead to burnout.
And then of course, the last one, which I am actually working with another client about this right now, is conflicts with personal values. He's working in an organization that he doesn't necessarily share the same values, and he's at this crossroads because he likes his job, he likes what he's doing, but he's not really sure if this is the right fit for him because of this.
So I just thought it was a really interesting way to look at what these drivers are and where you might fit if you're starting to feel that burnout. Maybe all of them, maybe two of them, maybe only one of them. But I just thought it was a really interesting and good awareness to go into, is this exhaustion or is it burnout? And that was really kind of the definition too, is he said burnout, and we learned this in our other conversation, is going to have that chronic stress, that physical sickness, your body's going to start to shut down. Where exhaustion, you really can go on a long weekend or a vacation and feel better, that's Just being more exhausted than it is that actual burnout. So there's just so many blurriness lines here that we need to figure out.
Pete Wright:
That's a good one. And this is our strategy was we went to different sessions so that we wouldn't overlap too much. So I didn't see any of that, and I think Nate page is a target.
Nikki Kinzer:
I think so too.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. All right, who else you got?
Nikki Kinzer:
All right, so one of my favorite people and favorite people, a guest on this show, Tamara Rosier, such a lovely woman and so knowledgeable. She just has a new book coming out that I want to make sure people know about, You, Me, and Our ADHD Family, brand new. Yes, we both have it in our hands. We'll put this in the show notes as well. She did an excellent presentation about respecting the nervous system that you have, strategies for stressful times, and I would definitely love for her to talk about this on the show. It is in her new book. And so I'm going to try to do this in a very distinct way.
Pete Wright:
Succinct.
Nikki Kinzer:
Succinct way. See, I can't even get my words right. Okay. If you're a first time listener, I'm really sorry, we're both sick, so please bear with us.
Pete Wright:
Bear with us.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, this is not how it always is. All right, so what is the nervous system? And I'm reading this, so again, I apologize. This is not my stuff, this is Tamara's stuff, and this is what I learned. So your nervous system is made up of your brain, spinal cord, and nerves. It works by sending messages between your brain and all other parts of your body, keeps track of what's going inside and outside of your body, decides how to respond to any situation you're in. Oh, it regulates complicated processes like thoughts and memory, and plays an essential role in things your body does without thinking like blushing, sweating, blinking, those kinds of things.
So when you have an ADHD nervous system, you are highly sensitive to sensory input like noises, lights, textures, you're prone to rapid shifts in automatic responses like the changes in your heart rate, breathing patterns, and you might be hyper reactive, quickly shifting between heightened states of arousal and low energy.
So this is what we're going to talk about is she has this window of tolerance, and the window of tolerance is your optimal functioning. It is when you are aware of yourself, your time, your space, and others. So this is a great place to be, right? This is what we are all aiming for is when you're feeling calm and you're feeling good. But then what happens is if you're not in the window of tolerance, you're either at hyper arousal, which is the danger alert zone, this is that fight or flight kind of thing, and you have that physiological stress response and hyper alert.
Pete Wright:
That's the amygdala hijack we've talked about before.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes. And then below, if the window of tolerance is the shutdown response, which is the hypo arousal, and that's when we shut down, we're exhausted, we're tired, we're slow, we're lack of motivation, we're avoiding everything.
So you can imagine that ADHDers typically are spending a lot of time either in the hyper or hypo arousal, not as much time in the window of tolerance that they would like, right? So what she talks about is how to get out of the danger alert zone, the hyper arousal, and how to get out of the shutdown response of the hypo arousal. And these are the things that I want to share with you today. So for the danger alert zone, when you're in that fight or flight and you're in the hyper arousal, one of the techniques that she talks about is the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 technique. You're touching four things, right? What else? You're hearing three things, you're tasting two things.
Pete Wright:
Two things, touching.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, so...
Pete Wright:
Well, there's seeing...
Nikki Kinzer:
... you're seeing...
Pete Wright:
... smelling...
Nikki Kinzer:
... smelling...
Pete Wright:
... tasting...
Nikki Kinzer:
... tasting...
Pete Wright:
... hearing, touching.
Nikki Kinzer:
... hearing, touching. Okay, so those are the five senses. So we're doing whatever those in order that you want to do. So that's actually helping your nervous system come down, right? So because you're paying attention to these other things, it's helping your heart and starting to kind of feel more calm. Now, she's a big advocate of EFT tapping, so I would love to have her come on the show to talk about tapping.
Pete Wright:
Emotional Freedom Technique, is what EFT stands for.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes, yes, and it helps ease anxiety by combining acupressure with other techniques from cognitive therapies. So you're tapping on specific pressure points, it lowers your heart rate, your blood pressure, and reduces levels of stress hormones like cortisone.
And she had us do a couple of exercises, and one was the hand to your head where you just put the palm of your hand on top of your head and just hold it there. And she says, it's like giving your head a hug. And I love that, I love that. Who doesn't need a head hug?
Pete Wright:
I need a head hug right now.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right? Yeah. And so I really want to look more into EFT tapping because she also had us do this butterfly, and it's really hard to explain, but you have your hands in front of you, and I don't know, how do you explain this?
Pete Wright:
Yeah, you lock your thumbs.
Nikki Kinzer:
You lock your thumbs, and so it almost looks like your hands are like a butterfly, right? You can see your fingers, and then you put that on your chest, and then you just tap your chest like a little butterfly. I don't know what it is, but this calms me down. So I love it. I'm definitely looking more into this.
Couple other things that she said that were really interesting is to hold ice when you feel like you're in the hyper arousal mode, hold ice, heavy blankets, nature, exercise, I mean, all of those things we know about, but the hand to the head, the head hug, the little butterfly exercise, hold ice, those were things I'd never heard before.
Pete Wright:
And I have the order for you now. That's five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste.
Nikki Kinzer:
There you go, perfect.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, that's the whole thing.
Nikki Kinzer:
Okay, so then how do you get out of the shutdown response? So this is the hypo arousal where we're shutting down, we're avoiding, no energy. Again, EFT tapping is one of her strategies.
The other thing that I got from her is really getting your heart rate up. So of course, exercise, but skipping around the house, listening to update or upbeat music, dancing, all of these things can start to get you moving and start to get you out of that shutdown mode.
Aromatherapy, she also mentioned too, she mentioned peppermint. I know that that also helps with headaches and focus if you're into aromatherapy.
Balancing on one foot, I'm not exactly sure what the reasoning is on this, but let's try it. I'm willing to try anything, so there's that. And then drink cold water. So it must be something to do with the holding the ice and the drinking the cold water. But we're going to get her back on the show, and we're going to ask her all these questions because-
Pete Wright:
It's like stimulus shock, right? It's like something to shake your system out of its current mode.
Nikki Kinzer:
Exactly, exactly. So absolutely loved it, and we'll definitely be having her on, and she said she would come on anytime. So that is something to look forward to.
Okay, so one more that I have to share is How to Remember the Future. This was presented by Danielle Karidi.
Pete Wright:
Karidi.
Nikki Kinzer:
Karidi.
Pete Wright:
Karidi.
Nikki Kinzer:
Okay. She was lovely. Met her out in the hallway as well. So this was really around perspective, memory, and ADHD. And what perspective memory means is the ability to remember to execute previously formed intention. So you're basically remembering to remember. So for example, if you're driving by the mailbox, that is a cue to remind you to drop your mail. And she had-
Pete Wright:
I have to take the dog to the vet tomorrow morning. I have to remember to give him his meds before he eats.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes, yeah.
Pete Wright:
That kind of a thing. Like this is the night before. Yeah, I run into that all the time, we all do.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes, yes, yes. And difficult with ADHD. And so giving you some of the key strategies because I'm just going to go straight into it.
Pete Wright:
[inaudible 00:23:42].
Nikki Kinzer:
She says, define the memory task with specific and actual details. The more clear you are about what you have to do and what that next step is, the better it is, the more likely you are that you're going to remember this. So be very clear, use words that work for you, that matches your life, that you relate to, write it down, say it out loud, and then also reduce any kind of reliance on working memory. So that's where the writing it down helps, this is where reminders help, if you have to take your medication at eight o'clock every evening, having an alarm that goes off every evening at 8:00 AM, we don't want to rely on our memory to do that, right? So being very specific, actionable, being very clear, write it down, say it out loud, and reduce the reliance on working memory.
She also talked a lot about using cues. And so one of the biggest takeaways that I got from this is that you don't just have to have one cue, you can have as many cues as you need. So having one sticky note on the bathroom window or bathroom mirror to take your medication, that's one cue, but you might also have another one on your coffee cup, take medication. So that's okay. We need to have as many cues as we can.
Again, the distinctiveness is very important here. We want to make sure we're very clear with our cues, that we know what they mean, and that we're not mistaking them for something else. They need to be highly noticeable. Out of mind is out of sight or out of sight is out of mind, so we want to make sure that we see these things.
And we also have to have some contextual relevance. So she said that if you're doing something and you need to remember it a year later, that's not going to work. But if you have to do something and you have to do it tomorrow, or you're doing it every week, the closer it is to when you do it again, the more likely you're going to be able to remember what to do. So we want to keep that in mind.
Consistency with daily routines, she talks about how this is important, that location matters of where your cues are. So if you're trying to take your medication, remembering to put it next to a water bottle in your bathroom because that's where you take your medication. So just being really consistent, as much as you can be, but having those cues and being in the right location makes a difference so that you can be consistent and be in remember to remember.
So that's it, that's what I walked away with, and hopefully gave you guys some ideas and some quick little tips and tricks on burnout, remembering, and your nervous system.
Pete Wright:
Okay, I've got four now.
Nikki Kinzer:
Okay, let's do it.
Pete Wright:
So I'll be really quick though. The first one, ADHD-Friendly Personal Finance with Christine Hargrove, Caroleen Verly, and Simi Mandelbaum. So two things came out of this. The thing I liked the most was their SAVER model, their SAVER scorecard where they came up with these, it's like, what is it, the goals, smart goals? It's like they came up with this acronym, they didn't know it spelled saver when they wrote it. It was a really funny bit of realization.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, that's funny.
Pete Wright:
So the first thing to know is that your finances need to be streamlined. It's easy for me to know what to do and when to do it, right? So this goes in our planning model, it's like simplify, simplify, simplify. How can you simplify your finances? It needs to be accessible, I have to have the information I need when I need it. If I rely on a process of scanning all my receipts, but I never scan my receipts, then it doesn't matter if I go into my online bank and there are no receipts there, it's useless. So things have to be accessible. Whatever that system looks like for you, it needs to be accessible. It needs to be visual, I need to see what's going on and where this plan will take me. So graphs, charts, things that are visual, not tabular data are better. We got that.
Engaging, I can stay interested in what I'm doing with my finances, right? I don't get distracted because it's finances and I hate doing finances, I can still get engaged. And for me, that was all YNAB, like finding the tool that allowed me to visualize my finances in a new way, keeps them engaging. And then realistic, I can stick with my system even on bad days. And this is something we talk about a lot, right? Your systems, you'll fail down to the level of your system. So if you have a good system, then you can rebuild your process. So I really like that, the SAVER model. I think it's really great and useful, and we'll be talking more about that.
The other one is this sort of guided visualization that they led us on where you close your eyes and you envision what it looks like to achieve financial success. And then you draw a detailed drawing of your vision, which includes the five senses, sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. What does your financial success taste like, I guess?
Then of your drawing, you highlight four items. Draw a circle around the four areas that most represent symbols of your success, and then color your progress, color each part of the circle to show how close you are to achieving that part of your vision. And then use that visual guide to set priorities, label them number one for most important, number two for what's next. And for each circled item, list one small step that you can take to visit your goal, my word, thanks to Dr. Dini, but to get closer to your goal every day, right? It doesn't have to be put a thousand dollars in a savings account. It can just be keep it in mind, touch it, feel like what's next, right?
So I liked that. I thought it was kind of a whole mind way to look at finances. So we'll be talking more about personal finances.
Tired but Wired? Solutions for the Sleep Challenges of ADHD with Sarah Hergett and Marlee Boyle, two delightful Canadians. The thing about this one that I took away, a lot of things came out of this one, and people are very interested in sleep challenges, but many questions came back to how people get to sleep in particular using THC to get to sleep, like taking a weed gummy, a marijuana gummy to get yourself to sleep. And people who take Tylenol PM or Advil PM because there's a chemical in there that slows you down. Apparently I've never done it, but that's a thing people do.
And she said, you have to remember that taking something before you go to sleep is sedation not sleep, right? It cuts the very valuable REM sleep cycle to help you re-energize and rebuild yourselves and your brain while you are asleep. So it just was a reminder of just how important building good sleep habits are rather than taking the shortcut of, "Hey, if I'm unconscious, clearly I must be asleep." They're not the same thing.
And what I don't have an answer to, and I'm sure somebody is going to ask it is what about melatonin? Melatonin is a natural chemical released. If we don't produce enough of it, we can goose ourselves by giving ourselves a little bit of a dose before bed. I certainly do that, but they didn't answer that question and I forgot to ask it, but I thought that was really interesting. So sleep, we'll be back on sleep.
Connecting ADHD, Binge Eating, and Diabetes: Breaking the Cycle. This was our friend, Nicole DeMasi Malcher. The highlight for me is this, we talk about blood sugar, and with ADHD, we tend to eat a lot of impulsive snacks, right? You eat a lot of corn, a lot of sugar, a lot of salts, a lot of sweets. And she said, "Diet is just one factor in blood sugar." And the audience said, "Okay, so what is the other one factor?" And she said, "There are 41 more factors..."
Nikki Kinzer:
Wow.
Pete Wright:
"... that are involved in blood sugar, and fixing your diet may not in fact fix your blood sugar. There are environmental factors, there are physiological factors, there are all kinds of factors that actually play into how your blood sugar appears at any given point in time." And so I thought that was a fascinating thing to look at.
And sadly, her presentation was light gray, fine point text on a white background, and nobody could read it. And I have not gotten the actual presentation in emails, so I can't even tell you what those 41 other factors are right now. But rest assured, we're going to be talking more about those too.
Last, Mindfulness and ADHD: Reflections on What Works and What Doesn't from Lidia Zylowska and Mark Bertin, your best friend, Mark Bertin.
Nikki Kinzer:
I had the honor of having lunch with Ari Tuckman, Dr. Roberto Olivardia, and Mark Bertin. They just happened to be behind me in line, and I was going to eat by myself, and they graciously invited me to eat with them, and I did, and it was lovely.
Pete Wright:
Oh, so lovely. And he is a catch, this Mark Burton. He's an intellectual catch.
Nikki Kinzer:
He knows what he's talking about.
Pete Wright:
Oh, my goodness. So the big thing that I walked away from his part of that presentation was about minding the gap. And it's something I've been thinking a lot about as we've been talking about RSD and how we deal with negative stimuli. And I think it's worth spending more time talking about this. It is the gap that exists between experiencing a negative event and being able to move through that negative event. And RSD is the sort of capital letter label of that gap, right? But what are the things that trigger us to fall into it, and what are the things that allow us to get out of it, and how can we shorten that experience? Doesn't mean we're not going to experience negative things, but how do we shorten it so that we're not perseverating on it? And I think he had some really interesting thoughts on that. So Mark Bertin was great. Expect more about that topic.
So now we have one more presentation to talk about very briefly or very longly, and that's yours.
Nikki Kinzer:
I presented at the ADHD conference, yay, which was exciting and for a lot of reasons because I've done a lot of presentations, I've done a lot of summits, a lot of paloozas, a lot of things online, but I don't do it in person very often. It's been a long, long time since I've actually presented in front of people. So I was nervous, but excited and pleased with the outcome because it really isn't that much different to present in front of people than it is to present online except for I get to actually have that interaction with people in person, which I actually really thrived on. I loved the energy in the room and being able to see people face-to-face and talk to them, but the presentation was-
Pete Wright:
We have to say real quick though. There was a guy named Ross.
Nikki Kinzer:
Ross.
Pete Wright:
Ross was the best. And I think we met Ross. I met Ross orally in Penn's keynote because every time Penn said something great, Ross would scream woo.
Nikki Kinzer:
Woo.
Pete Wright:
And he would carry through the entire conference hall, and you knew where Ross was if you were in a... I couldn't see him ever, but I knew where Ross was because he was the woo guy and he was the most enthusiastic audience member. And he happened to be sitting exactly opposite me in your presentation, and I was on fire with joy for you that you got Ross in your presentation.
Nikki Kinzer:
I was too, I so excited because as soon as he did a woo in my presentation, I'm like, "You are the woo guy, you were at the Penn Holderness keynote." And he's like, "Yes." And so yes, it started it off very well, you're right. And I was very honored to have him there because he really set the tone of the energy, the energy in the room.
Pete Wright:
And we didn't expect anybody to show because our other sessions that were going on were ADHD and sex, so we didn't expect any men to show up, and ADHD and women, so we didn't expect any women to show up, and then ADHD influencers, so we didn't expect any young people to show up. And it turns out you had almost a full room.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, yeah, which was very exciting, and such an honor that they chose that out of all of these other great sessions that they could have listened to.
Pete Wright:
Totally.
Nikki Kinzer:
So it was awesome. So the presentation was called Stop Apologizing, Start Owning Your Day, and it was really the mission that I wanted for this presentation is for people to walk away about how important it was to or is to partner with your ADHD when you're planning your day. And a lot of people when they come to my membership, they plan like they don't have ADHD. And what happens is we get too full of schedules, too long of to-do lists. We're not accounting for any of the ADHD things that happen in our day, like distractions, transitions, interruptions, all of these things that can happen. And so the whole point was to really understand why it's important to partner with your ADHD and understanding your flavor of ADHD and what does that look like for you.
So as part of the PDF that I gave them, and we'll put this in the show notes too so our listeners can do this exercise. Part of the PDF is understanding your own ADHD and doing a tracking exercise of how you're using your time, what kind of distractions are you dealing with during the day, and also looking at your emotions, how are you feeling during the day?
So we're trying to figure out more about your energy levels, how you prefer to work, what kinds of things are you looking forward to, which ones do you tend to avoid? All of these things that this data, and we talk about this in the book and Unapologetically ADHD as well, all of this data can help you become more of an effective planner, which is so important because instead of coming at the end of the day feeling like you didn't do anything when you actually did, you can now set more realistic expectations about what you can get done and celebrate that, and hopefully break that shame spiral a little bit and have more acceptance of your ADHD.
We also talked about the work box, which we talked a lot about in our series when we talked about Unapologetically ADHD on the podcast. And we talked about really how those planning tools work together, how a sticky note can still be part of your work box, how notes on a notebook pad or paper can still be part of your work box. And then we ended it with strategies for flexible scheduling, which is otherwise known as time blocking and some of the pros that you can get from that and where to start and how to maybe look at it differently than you have in the past. So a lot of it-
Pete Wright:
I think that was really good, and I think people were legitimately swayed.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, I think so too. I think that there were people that definitely walked out thinking it didn't work for them, and now they're willing to try it in a different way. So I got great feedback. It felt really good. I'll do it again. I really enjoyed presenting, if they have me. But yeah, that's sort of a rundown. A lot of the information that I talked about we have either talked about on our podcast series when we were talking about the book or in the book of Unapologetically ADHD. That's really the inspiration was from the book.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, well, and we should say special day, very special day.
Nikki Kinzer:
It is a special day.
Pete Wright:
As we record this, Unapologetically ADHD is available or becoming available as an audiobook. It's out in a number of the bookstores, it's on Spotify, it's on Apple Books. When we checked right before the show, it wasn't yet on Audible Amazon, but it's coming, and so that's very exciting. And I know a lot of people have been waiting for the audiobook to show up, and now it is. That wouldn't have helped us at the conference because we did a book signing of the hardcover book, which was so fun.
Nikki Kinzer:
We did, we did. It was fun, it was fun to talk to people and sign those books.
Pete Wright:
Sign books, get them out there, super fun. So I guess that's it.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's it.
Pete Wright:
I guess that's the big report from [inaudible 00:41:14].
Nikki Kinzer:
The next conference is in November of 2025. It's going to be around the same time. I think it's like November 13 through the 16th or something like that. But it is going to be in Kansas City, Missouri. I've never been to Missouri. This will be my first trip.
Pete Wright:
Good music town, Kansas City. I think it maybe more-
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. And I hear they have a good football team.
Pete Wright:
I wouldn't know.
Nikki Kinzer:
I know a little bit about that, and they do.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, yeah, all right. Well, this was really fun. Thank you for shoehorning me into your travel plans because I really enjoyed the conference. [inaudible 00:41:53].
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, I loved having you there. I loved having you there and I hope you come more often because it was really fun to experience that with you.
Pete Wright:
For sure, worth it. And thank you all for downloading and listening to the show, we appreciate your time and your attention.
If you have anything to contribute to the conversation, we're heading over to the show talk channel in the Discord server. And you can join us right there by becoming a supporting member at the deluxe level or better.
On behalf of Nikki Kinzer, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll see you right back here next week on Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast.
