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40–Ian Mai: Mastering ADHD and Impulse Control through Inner Strength
28 Plays19 days ago
In this episode of The Unfolding Thought Podcast, Eric Pratum is joined by Ian Mai, an ADHD and impulse-control coach dedicated to helping people understand and transform their impulsive behaviors into strengths. Ian shares his deeply personal journey—from confronting internet addiction and infidelity to achieving meaningful and sustainable recovery through ADHD awareness and inner strength training.
Ian outlines the psychological foundations of impulsive behavior, describing how emotional disregulation, dopamine-seeking, and conditioned responses play crucial roles. He provides practical strategies for building emotional resilience and impulse control, emphasizing mindfulness, intentional discomfort, and honest self-reflection.
This conversation goes beyond ADHD to explore how impulsive behaviors affect relationships, career success, and self-worth. Ian’s passion and clarity around these topics offer valuable guidance for anyone facing similar challenges or looking to understand those who do.
Topics Explored:
- Ian’s Personal Journey: From addiction and impulsivity to awareness and coaching
- Understanding ADHD and Impulsive Behavior: Emotional regulation, dopamine, and conditioned responses
- Practical Strategies for Managing ADHD and Impulse Control
- Relationship Dynamics: How impulsivity impacts marriage and family life
- Transforming Shame into Inner Strength
- Cultivating Mindfulness and Intentional Discomfort to Build Resilience
- The Importance of Being Comfortable with Misunderstanding and Authentic Self-Expression
Links:
- Ian’s Company: https://www.ianmai.co
- Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-mai-inner-strength/
For more episodes, visit: https://unfoldingthought.com
Join the conversation by emailing Eric at: eric@inboundandagile.com
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Transcript
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the Unfolding Thought Podcast. My name is Eric Pranam. Today, I'm talking to Ian May, a coach specializing in ADHD and impulse control.
00:00:14
Speaker
Ian talks about grappling with ADHD-related impulsive behaviors, addiction, and moments that reshaped his life. We discuss the science and practice behind managing impulsive behavior how ADHD affects emotional regulation, and strategies anyone can use to build self-control.
00:00:37
Speaker
Listening to this episode, I expect it will be obvious to you why I wanted to speak with Ian. He's so incredibly knowledgeable about his subject and also quite perceptive and compassionate.
00:00:52
Speaker
I feel lucky to have had him join me and hope you'll find this conversation interesting. And now, I bring you May. Ian, thank you for joining me. Would you mind telling me a little bit about yourself?
00:01:06
Speaker
Yeah, Eric, thank you for having me. So my name is Ian May. I am formerly tech sales bro, ah been in the software development lifecycle space for tech sales, ah engineering into tech sales, and now have moved into a role as a life coach, specifically focusing on ADHD and and self-mastery.
00:01:28
Speaker
What led you to specialize in coaching around those things? Yeah, so this is a pretty big part of my story is I was calling it number one for myself.
00:01:42
Speaker
And so think that's a way that it happens with a lot of coaches. As you experience so many points and with the ADHD experience, it's a lot of dysregulation, ah especially with the late stage diagnosed ADHD professional.
00:01:55
Speaker
They have questions about why do I struggle to focus? Why am I always all over the place? um More so than that for me, it was struggles with internet addiction, struggles with abusing alcohol, impulsive spending, um binge eating despite being a competitive bodybuilder on the side of my corporate job.
00:02:15
Speaker
still having all of these really strong impulsive struggles, even though externally i was trying to show hyper-disciplined, hyper-performative, and having all this dysregulation. And so when I was confronted with a real desperate need to have to understand and uncover all of those underlying symptoms, they all actually pointed me to, it's just dysregulated ADHD.
00:02:37
Speaker
And the more I started learning to give that language to those scenarios, I was able to actually overcome a lot of those problems. By a lot, I mean all of those problems. And be ah able to be more regulated, more present, more performative at my job. So the output looked actually better.
00:02:56
Speaker
While the amount of intensity and kind of like aggressiveness that I put into the effort... no longer had it to be there. There wasn't any fear or pressure that motivated me. was just excitement and energy that brought me into doing more of the work that I really thoroughly enjoyed and was over-enjoyed in doing.
00:03:13
Speaker
Was there a turning point for you or a milestone where no matter what came before, you sort of accepted, I need to change? Or what happened? Was it a slow burn that took you there?
00:03:30
Speaker
Oh, it never. It's never a slow burn. It's it's a rock bottom. So depending on how comfortable your audience is in hearing this, but ah my struggle is actually a 20 year struggle with pornography addiction. It started in my ah preteen years, which is pretty common for people who struggle with that.
00:03:50
Speaker
And essentially led to all sorts of forms of internet addiction disorders, you know including cyber sex and and then infidelity. So I was confronted with the marital issues that obviously stem from that.
00:04:05
Speaker
ah And it was this amazing scenario for me. it was actually quite beautiful. And part of my journey and my journey with my wife alongside me of... I have this moment where I was confronted by this really big blaring issue that I'd kept hidden for so long and had masked for so long that now is being fully known and also still having this grace coming from her saying, despite the betrayal that she felt, hey, you got work to do.
00:04:31
Speaker
Like, you got to show me that you want to work for this. And so the this thought or belief that kind of emanated from that was, if I don't get this right, if I don't sort this out, some other man is going to see the most amazing years of my wife's life and raise my daughter. And I'm going to be on the outside looking in, wishing to have a seat at the table.
00:04:52
Speaker
It's a pretty powerful thought, right? Some people would say, that's really negative. You can't think like that. ah I don't still think that. That's not still a motivating driver. But at the time, it really um it really created a lot of momentum for me to get started, as well as just having this encouragement of, I know what I'm working for.
00:05:13
Speaker
I see this beautiful thing that I've always wanted, being a family man, being a leader in my household, you know being a strong husband and father. And now sudden, all that's crumbling apart. So all my masking isn't working anymore.
00:05:26
Speaker
um So really just forcing me to have to uncover all of those patterns and behaviors and ultimately it led me to understanding my ADHD. I imagine beyond your wife, of course, that you must have had some sort of support, whether it was from another coach, a therapist, or something of that nature because many of us in things that we work on are able to get to a point where we can kind of walk some of that journey alone, so to speak. And, you know, it's, there aren't many things that we do alone really, but I'm guessing that at this time where you had to sort of come to Jesus moment that you then had to seek support from others. Is that right?
00:06:20
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. i I definitely tried a lot of different avenues. So the first one being the easiest ah through health care and so on, trying to seek out therapy.
00:06:31
Speaker
But I really struggled in that capacity because ah oftentimes a therapist that I was connecting with didn't have any experience in the space or for that matter was using the textbook knowledge to say, hey, this isn't actually an addiction.
00:06:42
Speaker
So Um, the current scientific or not current, but the literature even five years ago was saying, Hey, this isn't an addiction. We can't even cattle, uh, categorize this as an addiction. so being able to seek help, you either had kind of science saying, this isn't a thing. you just need some self-control.
00:06:59
Speaker
Duh. Right? Like almost too cliche and obvious. Like, yeah, that's exactly why I'm here. How do I build that? um Or on the other side of the spectrum, either that or like hyper-religious ah services and and coaching.
00:07:12
Speaker
And so for me, like, mind you, I am very strong in my faith, but I had felt like a lot of blockers around going that spiritual route. Because of just the data and awareness of 60% of pastors also struggled with that. So rote memorization of biblical scripture isn't going to get me and to that healing that I wanted.
00:07:31
Speaker
So in large part, there actually was quite a few years where I kind of felt like i was on my own and in doing the work. But the difference was having this obsession and being able to use my own ADHD obsession and just directing it towards these patterns and behaviors. So I almost kind of became
00:07:49
Speaker
became the scientist as well as myself and the petri dish all at the same time and just observing thought observing behavior observing patterns and just obsessing about how can i pinpoint real behavioral root change and it from it just stemmed so many other things that i was able to start to acknowledge were also contributing and I guess then that this experience that you had seems to me at least to have led you directly to, well, if you weren't able to find people that had the right solution or had the experience, then there are probably a lot of other people in similar situations.
00:08:35
Speaker
And I guess you want to be there for them. So, ah yes, absolutely. there's there are I have to imagine there are more people who struggle in the same way. More importantly for me, though, is the fact that it was actually really motivating for me to think, if I can get this right and if I can figure this out, I will be able to serve other people in a similar capacity.
00:08:57
Speaker
And that also is a really strong driver for me. I get a lot of intrinsic motivation from knowing I can help somebody, even being able to be in a coaching position, being in a position to serve somebody else, that those thoughts very early on were actually a really strong encourager for me. Someday I'm going to get this right and someday somebody's going to look across from me and being able to say, i needed to hear this, I needed to hear your story, and I'm excited to be able to work with you to get this help.
00:09:25
Speaker
So how long have you then been more in the coaching mode? I'm guessing there was some transition time from what you were doing previously, but how long have you been doing this line of work?
00:09:39
Speaker
Yeah, so I started working specifically with men initially um about a year and a half ago. um And that was while still in my corporate job. Yes, I wasn't ready to just go full in on that experience, but was very motivated by building something on the side.
00:09:57
Speaker
That was the priority at the time, specifically for, again, this is the internet addiction disorders that was associated with it. Inevitably, though, it started to transition into really all things impulse control.
00:10:10
Speaker
So that was really the and language that i was using initially, is if you're trying to really create self-mastery for yourself, here are all these addictive patterns that I had overcome. Because as soon as I have the energy for the internet addiction, that translated to my binge eating, that translated to my impulsive credit card consumer debt spending.
00:10:26
Speaker
translated to all of these other components. And so there there's this weird, interesting period where I was essentially doing the ADHD coaching, but not using the language of ADHD.
00:10:38
Speaker
And so I actually had a coach of mine able to say, Ian, you're an ADHD coach. Like you you just need to give language to it. And that'll actually help you be more succinct in explaining what the hell you do.
00:10:50
Speaker
So that was obviously sage advice because now, you know we're going on six or seven months now of just hyper focusing on using that language and being specific to ADHD professionals.
00:11:03
Speaker
that the ability for me to go all in on it quit my corporate job and just be a full-time coach has stemmed from an ability to be very clear about who I help and how I help them.
00:11:15
Speaker
So you've had experience with ADHD and impulse control and some, you know, related and overlapping behaviors. So explain to me, i guess, from your experience yourself or with clients or your research, what are some of those core components or flags perhaps of impulsive behavior?
00:11:43
Speaker
Yeah, so i' I'll remove the the science from the ADHD and I'll dig into just the impulsivity by itself. So let's assume even for the neurotypical brain, this also equates.
00:11:54
Speaker
There's three components to it. The first one is lack of emotional awareness. So usually impulsivity is... um predicated by having some strong emotional impulse that you don't have language for, you're overwhelmed by.
00:12:10
Speaker
and because of that, you're just immediately trying to seek some type of escape mechanism to not feel that big emotional trigger. that's the first thing. The second thing is is usually a lack of objective reasoning about the impulsive behavior.
00:12:24
Speaker
And so what that looks like is usually a really big swing. And either the swing is in overly justifying the behavior, whether we have some sort of identity statement associated with it. um I'm just bad with money or or I just really like food.
00:12:39
Speaker
i'm But even even deeper, more wounded and justifications as well can also come up. The other side of it is like a big swing in the opposite direction, which is actually a really big amount of shame that we feel about the behavior.
00:12:52
Speaker
But we only feel that shame after we've already done the thing that we're trying to avoid, the impulsive behavior. And now afterwards, we're feeling this intense level of shame, which kind of creates this vicious cycle because if we don't have the emotional awareness and...
00:13:05
Speaker
emotional capacity to navigate the shame we're just going to fall into the cycle of i've developed this habit and habit and pattern and that anytime i feel shame here's the mechanisms that i use to be able to have this impulsivity impulsivity that's usually linked to and the final thing is dopamine right and this is this is actually kind of that main component that brought out ADHD coaching, but the good majority of all of these behaviors are usually traditional conditioning.
00:13:34
Speaker
Ablov's dog, you ring the bell, you hand a treat, eventually ring the bell and the dog salivates. This is a condition connection between trigger and response. problem though for most people is they don't understand that and dopamine isn't necessarily a pleasure response uh that we think of dopamine seeking as you just wanting to feel good um dopamine also is released in the brain when you feel safe and so the conditioning is not only just you trying to feel pleasure but it's also safety
00:14:06
Speaker
And you can get safety from any number of things, even repeating a thought that you've had a thousand times, even if that thought doesn't serve you, even if that thought degrades you or makes you feel bad about yourself, you've repeated in enough times that that feels more safe than saying anything else about yourself.
00:14:23
Speaker
And those patterns create like these very rigid, ruts. you know, you think about when you get stuck in a rut, it's this, your wheels are cut and stuck in this rut and pulling you along, even though you don't want to be on this path.
00:14:38
Speaker
And like, eventually those ruts turn into ravines and now every little trigger pulls you back into this ravine of habitual practice routine and patterns that all in these really big, deleterious, dopaminergic, dopamine-seeking patterns.
00:14:55
Speaker
You said that, I think you said at least, that people that are dealing, or that people that have these behaviors or dealing with these impulses or issues will feel shame after the action, but I think I assumed, or maybe it's implied in what you were saying, that there is rarely forethought or anxiety or something of that nature about, i shouldn't do this, or if I do this, I will feel shame after the fact.
00:15:35
Speaker
Does that sound right? Yeah. So this is something that often happens um anytime that you find yourself at Let's just think of it like an oasis. So you're in the desert and you all of a sudden find yourself at this oasis. And it's the oasis of pleasure, safety, all the neurochemicals that your brain wants. Oxytocin, dopamine.
00:15:56
Speaker
When you reach there, your brain is using the dopamine as a way to be able to say, how did we get here? It's like, how did we even receive all of these neurochemicals? And essentially part of that could very well be the shame that you talked about.
00:16:09
Speaker
And so the shame itself can actually be part of the trigger that puts you on this map towards this oasis of pleasure or safety. And so it's interesting about that. And again, we can talk about it from the internet addiction disorder, but this is where kinks start to form, that you can start to develop any number of patterns that like link you to and arousal template.
00:16:31
Speaker
And we're talking about sexual ah arousal in that case, But that arousal can be anything that lights up that dopamine in the brain that pulls you towards whatever that pattern of behavior is, even if it's not serving you, even if it's something that goes against morals and values and and overall alignments.
00:16:49
Speaker
Yeah. When you first mentioned shame, you know, one thing that came to mind for me is I'm a big fan of the big five, big five assessments and all of that. And I've said before on this podcast that I am in, I think it's the second percentile or something for neuroticism, which It's under the big five. Neuroticism is not Freud's neuroticism. It's not about sex or anything of that nature.
00:17:19
Speaker
It's effectively anxiety. And in the big five, neuroticism breaks down into two sub traits, which are basically anticipatory anxiety.
00:17:31
Speaker
You're worrying about what might happen when you go to that networking event or your first date or who knows what. And so that's one substrate. The other substrate is a bit more like rumination.
00:17:46
Speaker
So the thing already occurred and now you're worried about, was I weird in that conversation? Or i I don't know if you exactly could define it like this, but essentially, you know, I feel bad about something.
00:18:02
Speaker
that already happened. And so I'm in the second percentile, which if you're familiar with Jungian psychology, you know, you have these different archetypes and each archetype, even though it might sound great, often has a shadow side of it. And generally within the big five, or even if you look at a Myers-Briggs assessment or any number of other things,
00:18:27
Speaker
the stronger you are in, the further you are to the side of ah bell curve distribution, for example, the more likely it is that whatever would be the balancing factor against, you know, pushing back against that behavior or that trait just gets overpowered basically every time.
00:18:48
Speaker
And so you mentioned shame and i was thinking in part, okay, you were talking about after the fact and, you know, but what about before, you know, how do you turn the how do you build the pause perhaps to say, wait a minute, I'm on this path, you know, I'm getting primed or triggered or whatever.
00:19:14
Speaker
And then as it relates to what I was saying, for me and being in the second percentile for neuroticism, am just so far off to the side of that, that it comes with the negative sides of, I just don't worry about anything.
00:19:31
Speaker
And I will then barrel into bad situations where the more sort of, let's say average person would at least think I don't know about that.
00:19:43
Speaker
And I'm guessing with impulse control that you need to build some sets of behavior or put some frameworks together or something so that in advance, someone can just pause and ask a question or recognize what things might look like because I'm now on the same path that I get on every single time.
00:20:08
Speaker
Yeah. So this is the part that's really interesting because the amygdala amygdala plays a huge component of this. So you talk about the neuroses or neuroticism as a character trait and like what percentile you are based on what I'm hearing, right? And where you are in the percentile, you don't necessarily feel a lot of fear or anxiety.
00:20:31
Speaker
Like that stove might be hot. I might say I'll put my hand over the top of it because that might give me a reason. And you're like, no, full face it. Like, just just go for it. Why? What's the problem?
00:20:43
Speaker
Right. And so some of that is, again, like this is the second component of the lack of objective reasoning. So if I'm if I'm stuck in the first area of highly emotionally dysregulated, which usually means my amygdala is really hyperactive.
00:20:57
Speaker
That's the fight, flight, freeze. And more recently, we've started to talk about fawning, um which happens a lot, which don't necessarily need to get into detail there, but is interesting when it comes to um arousal, templating and relationship um components.
00:21:12
Speaker
The bigger thing here, though, is that when the amygdala is in control and really being driven by the amygdala, most people don't have a lot of practice in how to calm and downregulate that sympathetic response.
00:21:26
Speaker
Sympathetic being that fight or flight response. So that's a skill. So when it comes to building up what you just talked about of like, hey, you need to learn how to stop yourself and be able to have a healthy conversation about objective conversation about why this thing's not serving you, why the stove is hot, why you shouldn't touch the thing.
00:21:45
Speaker
Because that's a reasonable thing to do. That's objective. Problem is, is that the amygdala has not been trained to do that. The amygdala is trying to perceive fear, danger, lions, tigers, and bears in the bushes well before your frontal lobe or that executive function is able to decide how to take effective action rather than evasive action.
00:22:07
Speaker
This is the skill that has to be built. So you can't build the skill when the amygdala is not not firing. Right now, you and I could have a conversation. Oh, like first you have to name what the emotional experience is You have to be able to put language to what's happening in your body externally, the triggers, so on.
00:22:23
Speaker
All of that stuff, you can be like, great, I know this. Frontal lobe, know this thing. Again, rote memorization of scripture, same thing. You can know it. I can have this thing memorized. I could have every step one through five memorized.
00:22:37
Speaker
But if I have not practiced developing the skill, using the skill, and even training the skill when the amygdala is the most active, I'm not going to be able to in the moment just all of a sudden generate that skill because I practiced it in a low-intensity, low-stakes environment.
00:22:54
Speaker
So some of the skill is actually artificially inflating the amygdala in a controlled fashion. and then inviting and kind of mentally visualizing and thinking about past trigger, something that typically gets you triggered to impulsively behave.
00:23:14
Speaker
you need to practice that skill. You need to develop that. This is partly why diet or sorry, not diet. It's our home said diet, exercise, and sleep. This is why exercise, cold plunges, saunas, like all of that stuff have started to actually become really popular because in a lot of ways, those are just controlled, exciting neomygdala.
00:23:33
Speaker
And because we're able to control it, it's not, you're not actually going to die. You get in the cold plunge, your body tells you're going to die, but you're not actually going to die. You can practice in that moment of how would you regulate? Calming the breathing, slowing the heart rate down, slowing the the adrenaline, right? The shaky adrenaline, dissipating all of those things and practicing visualizing exactly what a trigger might be like.
00:23:57
Speaker
ahead of in that kind of safe environment rather than when the trigger is actually happening in the real world in real time with any exposure to a i guess safe but you know at an experience that points towards potential danger, you know, taking cold plunge, for example.
00:24:22
Speaker
Do you feel like with the popularity of things like that, that there are many people that participate in it that maybe just miss the opportunity to then go through in their head, you know, how would i react in a, in a real situation danger?
00:24:45
Speaker
I mean, first, when you have things that are cliche, like cold plunges and working out and exercising, it can get lost, for one. um People will obsess about cold plunges are really good for fat loss.
00:24:58
Speaker
No statistical evidence about that. So if you think that's what you're getting out of it, no, you're not really getting much out of it. Exercise, same story. You might be on your phone the entire time of working out. So you're missing out on the opportunity of actually being able to use this as practice to recreate the visceral experience of whatever your triggers are.
00:25:19
Speaker
That's part of the issue is that most people, even when they're the gym and they're working out, they could very well be working out very hard, stimulating the whatever hypertrophy response or fat burning, metabolic conditioning, whatever they're trying to get as a stimulus for the exercise, but not go through the mental exercises to actually learn and retrain the amygdala for these other impulsive patterns that they're doing.
00:25:41
Speaker
So behind you, have inner strength on the wall. And I'm thinking now, based on what you're saying, that you are more focused on, I guess, the inner experience or, you know, you don't seem to have a feeling about people need to engage in certain activities or have a specific level of physical fitness, for example, as much as whatever it is that you're doing, you seem to suggest that people would be well served by building inner strength while going through those activities.
00:26:31
Speaker
Yeah, so this is something that's talked a lot about in the body keep keeps the score. Very somatic perception of your body. And i mean, essentially what happens is when the amygdala is heightened, it signals to the hippocampus to take an assessment.
00:26:47
Speaker
Where is the damage coming from? Where is their damage? Where is their fear? Where is their potential things to cause this fight or flight response? And it takes a snapshot in time of the external triggers, the internal experience, all of that.
00:27:00
Speaker
it It takes a snapshot of it. The problem is the hippocampus doesn't actually put a timestamp next the shot in time. And so what happens is our body will have these associated triggers beliefs or perceptions of whatever that trigger is and it might very well be a physical trigger so for me as an example like when i'm doing my leg day workouts or calf workouts i have very specific memories of a time that i broke my leg and the feeling that i had it was on the football field and it was literally in front of the entire football team in practice and we were doing this drill that it was me and one other guy a hundred other players are watching
00:27:40
Speaker
So every time I'm training my calves, I have part of this memory that comes up and I have an opportunity then to work through the emotional experience, work through the physical experience that I'm having.
00:27:53
Speaker
side benefit is if I'm doing this correctly, yeah, there will be a hypertrophic response. You'll, you will grow muscle. And if you're eating in a caloric surplus, like other things will happen, which is great. People want that.
00:28:04
Speaker
But there's still something missing if you're not using it as an opportunity to heal a little bit, to grow a little bit, and to be able to actually use that and direct it when it matters the most. Okay, so we you have drifted in some sense from impulsive behavior, but I wanted to come back to that because having talked about ADHD coaching and ADHD more generally, how should I think about or how does
00:28:39
Speaker
ADHD, how do ADHD and impulsive behavior intersect? Yeah, so from a brain scan, we can see for the majority people with ADHD, especially people who have, well, there's six different types of ADHD. ADHD is kind of a subcategory in terms of what we typically think of as hyperactive disorders.
00:29:02
Speaker
But typically for those people in the brain scans, what we see is more often than not, they actually have a smaller amygdala than the average person.
00:29:10
Speaker
You'd think that that means that the amygdala wouldn't have as big of response, but the opposite is true. So for a neurotypical person, we might all agree that some trigger is a 10. We all agree it's a 10, but for you or a neurotypical person, they might experience that as a 10 out of 100. It's like an ant bite as far as they're concerned.
00:29:30
Speaker
But because of my size of my amygdala might be a little bit smaller and lack of emotional regulation, I experienced that 10 out 10. That is the sky is falling. Everything is in panic. And my body is responding very viscerally to we need to get safe as quickly as possible.
00:29:46
Speaker
We're very triggered by this thing. So oftentimes what that looks like for people who with ADHD, they've been told that they're very sensitive, that they're told that they're very irrational, they're emotional, they're, yeah again, impulsive. um But even for some people who don't give language to ADHD, it might very well be like, oh, you have anger issues or you're prone to outbursts. You're prone to saying things that are cruel and mean whenever you're upset.
00:30:11
Speaker
Like those are all potentially factors of lack of emotional regulation. But if you're looking at it from a brain scan standpoint, ADHD might be the culprit. that's the first component that kind of lends to that first part, first step of lack of emotional awareness.
00:30:27
Speaker
So for ADHD, that's a major component of like, how do you develop habits around emotional regulation that helps you to navigate your current brain development? Important for everybody, but all the more important for an ADHD brain that almost needs to develop more emotional regulation than the neurotypical person.
00:30:46
Speaker
You're reminding me of
00:30:50
Speaker
something I read, i forget the book, but I read a book where someone was talking about autism, and then i read some of the reviews,
00:31:05
Speaker
and One of the review writers said something about having been diagnosed with fairly severe, but not debilitating autism.
00:31:21
Speaker
You know, just they, they deal with it day in and day out. They still go to their job. They still have relationships, all that, but it's a struggle. They, would get frustrated when people would characterize autism as being in part a lack of empathy because, and I'm not saying that this person is either right or wrong. It was just an interesting question to ask.
00:31:48
Speaker
They said, if I know that I struggle with empathy and then I have to work that much harder to try to be empathetic, even if I fail, I'd just like to pose the question,
00:32:02
Speaker
of who in one sense or another is more empathetic. The person who really struggles with it and still works really hard, but maybe fails or the person that it just comes natural to them.
00:32:16
Speaker
And that seems like a bit of a, corollary, or at least what you're saying is a reminder to me of that, that you may very well struggle with emotional regulation or impulse control or who knows what.
00:32:31
Speaker
And No matter how hard you work, you still might not perform, let's say, objectively as well as someone who doesn't struggle with that.
00:32:43
Speaker
But I sure would think to one, be aware of it, and two, to put in the effort is quite commendable. yeah i i love the the story that you brought up in in terms of just being able to say i mean autism spectrum disorder is a whole other ball of wax given the fact that like one of those components might very well be being on a spectrum of how empathetic are you but to that point of if you know that this is important and you understand why does it matter for me to develop empathy
00:33:15
Speaker
We have to teach that to our children, right? You and I have talked about raising our kids and these patterns. These are all skills that for the young for the young brain, they might have some appearances of autism because they struggle with objective reasoning and some empathy.
00:33:30
Speaker
You can have to teach them, hey, look at your friend's face right now. Like when you threw that thing at their head... do they seem angry happy are they upset are they sad oh yeah i i think they're pretty sad you know i'm looking at their eyes right now and they're crying but and their lip is quivering like i think they're sad man i what's the time that you felt sad helping them like understand and start to develop like seeing an emotion and then also being able to understand it from their own perspective For the ADHD experience, it's very similar.
00:34:02
Speaker
Part of the issue though isn't always that we might feel something really big. Oftentimes what ends up happening for a lot of people with ADHD is that their brain will shut off emotionally.
00:34:16
Speaker
So if they haven't developed some of those emotional skills or emotional awareness, or for that matter, if an emotion itself has not been made to feel safe for them, like they've been chastised when they express a certain emotion, their brains will have developed the skill to shut off or create a ton of apathy when that emotion should come up.
00:34:37
Speaker
It's a big part of the ADHD experience. It isn't just, hey, when are you emotionally dysregulated, but when is apathy also showing up for you? and creating language around that. That's interesting.
00:34:49
Speaker
Do you have a position around common treatments for ADHD? And you can choose to take up any aspect you would like, but one of the most obvious to me seems like medicine to treat ADHD? You know, do you have an ideology or just general position around whether it's medicine or something else is generally not the first thing I would go to or you don't believe in X, Y, or Z?
00:35:22
Speaker
Yeah, so the second part of the brain development, it's important to note this before I dig into the the medicinal side of it. ah The other part is that you kind of have a heat map of a lot of dopamine around the amygdala and those so emotional centers of the brain and not enough or very little in the frontal lobe.
00:35:40
Speaker
Like that's where the executive function is happening. But if that part of the brain is just shut off when you're emotionally dysregulated, you're not getting dopamine through the striatum to that frontal lobe. That's where our most effective reasoning is. That's where motivation comes from.
00:35:55
Speaker
And so the problem is for the majority of people with ADHD is they need a big ball of dopamine or really strong dopaminergic thing to arise for them to feel any motivation or drive.
00:36:07
Speaker
Which is where, again, coming back to the impulsivity, lack of objective reasoning is that, hey, my brain finally feels normal after I had the huge thing of sugar. After I had the donut, now I'm getting the dopamine that my friend to love wants.
00:36:21
Speaker
I feel normal. Why would I not want to feel normal? And so this is where like we can reinforce and justify how I got to the dopamine, even if it meant I'm kind of sacrificing part of myself or part of my values to get it And so there's a whole bunch of things that happen with that, with the people pleasing, rejection, sensitivity, all sorts of other patterns of like how we feel safety to get that dopamine to that frontal lobe.
00:36:46
Speaker
So a big component of ADHD medicine is essentially giving you stimulating dopamine so that the frontal lobe is finally just getting as much dopamine as you need.
00:36:58
Speaker
So what kind of happens is it kind of becomes a supply and demand curve of now I have a ton of supply. and so I'm not impulsively trying to go seek dopamine because my frontal lobe has as much as it needs.
00:37:11
Speaker
Which now finally allows me to think in a little bit more of a neurotypical fashion, which is what are some important tasks that I can go take on? What are some things that I can go put some focus and attention to?
00:37:24
Speaker
Rather than just kind of being all over the place seeking wherever the energy pulls me to grab some dopamine here, grab some dopamine there. Don't want to work on this report or this project. I might get some bad feedback. I'm really anxious about the feedback.
00:37:37
Speaker
I'd rather go categorize my shelf A to Z. Again, it's actually not a lack of focus. ADHD designation by itself does a disservice.
00:37:48
Speaker
It's too much focus or it's a lack of focus on the right things in the right time. And so oftentimes when it comes to medicine and treatment, it's really just providing the dopamine and and noradrenaline or norepinephrine to the frontal lobe. but From my personal perspective, and this is something that I work with a lot of people on, is how can you decide to come off of medication Because oftentimes for some people, once they have so much of that dopamine or from the medicine and they either one abuse it, just like they would abuse any other dopaminergic thing.
00:38:24
Speaker
um That was me. Like, I have no problem being like, hey, if one pill works good, five must be great. Yeah. If you're just continuing to pop them like candy, the same way you would candy, no it's a really even faster way to get more dysregulated, to be more in balance.
00:38:43
Speaker
And there's a whole slew of things that happen with dopamine dysregulation, or sorry, dopamine receptor dysregulation. That's the other side of this. So a big decision to make, though, that you can be able to cultivate and create your own levels of dopamine and your own levels of norepinephrine, which often comes from diet, exercise, and good sleep regulation.
00:39:05
Speaker
I'm interested in some common misunderstandings about ADHD, but I was thinking initially about the neurotypical or average person, you know, the public, however we want to refer to it.
00:39:22
Speaker
And yet, as I'm thinking about that question, I also feel like you have touched on some common misunderstandings, common at least within the medical field that you sought, you know, healthcare support.
00:39:39
Speaker
And then, you know, we're talking about medicine, I suppose that there are plenty of doctors who have varying levels of common, again, quote unquote, common misunderstandings. So having stated that, I'm going to just come back to the general question of what are some common misunderstandings about ADHD? Yeah.
00:40:06
Speaker
Yeah, so I think right now there's a really interesting phenomenon happening because we're over-diagnosing ADHD and under-diagnosing all at the same time.
00:40:18
Speaker
So anytime we see somebody that has a little bit of fidgety energy or isn't quite focused, we immediately say that they're ADHD. Or the neurotypical person is super distracted on their phone a lot.
00:40:32
Speaker
They'll say, oh, it's I totally have ADHD. Ha ha ha, this is so funny. i And so there is something to be said about the neurotypical person can recreate a good amount of the ADHD experience in being dopamine dysregulated and lack of emotional internal awareness.
00:40:48
Speaker
Like you can recreate a good amount of that ADHD experience just by how readily available dopamine and distraction is societally. Awareness of that, great. However, it does make the fact of the ADHD experience, like I said, is oftentimes apathy towards things that are supposed to be important.
00:41:09
Speaker
And for a neurotypical person, let's say you, the average person wants to structure their day, they're going to put things on a list of important one through 10. For the ADHD person, the brain shuts off if something becomes important and then therefore risky and not like the fun risky, not like there's a big payoff risky.
00:41:29
Speaker
It's, hey, I'm, if I fill out this report, there's going to be a lot of ridicule. It's going lot of people who are going to be watching this and then they might think um I'm not any good at what I do. And you can see this catastrophizing happens.
00:41:42
Speaker
So now of a sudden my brain shuts off to the task. And it doesn't matter how much you tell me, hey it ah it might only be 10 minute task. And you might hey, just sit in your chair. It'll only take 10 minutes. It's not that big of a deal.
00:41:56
Speaker
But the payoff isn't very high. The payoff is a grade. So what? I don't care. what why do i Why does that matter to me? All my brain can think about, if anything, if not just already blanketed with that apathy, is the fear, worry, ridicule, potential risk factors. So this fast assessment of what's the big payoff versus what are the potential risks, the ADHD brain is assessing very quickly.
00:42:21
Speaker
And then immediately responding to. So what's a typical scenario when ah person highly successful or otherwise tends to decide to finally seek help?
00:42:37
Speaker
I love that question. Because that is honestly, I think the good majority of people that I work with are usually people who are late stage diagnosed. Where they start to realize they needed to get help.
00:42:49
Speaker
is they've usually reached a certain point of success and that they feel completely unworthy of it. They feel like every single minute of the day, they're just going to be found out. And every little project, every little new task that they take on is just another opportunity for them to be uncovered as a fraud.
00:43:06
Speaker
And so they'll have amassed a wide amount of trophies and accolades and success and not feel worthy of any of it. And there'll be VPs and six and seven figure earners and still be at this point of none of it matters. I don't know how to turn this on anymore.
00:43:25
Speaker
So it's usually they've reached a peak at some point and they don't know how to stay on it. Because now of a sudden, they got there because of pressure, not because of motivation and excitement for it, but just like a desperate need to just achieve without knowing why the achieving actually mattered or even having strong alignment for like what about themselves is this really aligned to that just cultivates like really deep intrinsic motivation.
00:43:52
Speaker
When you were telling your story, i think I understood that
00:44:00
Speaker
an aspect of the turning point, the turning time for you was, I'm going to lose some of the things that are the most important to me.
00:44:11
Speaker
And i think I was thinking about that as you were just talking and thinking, many people who eventually, whether they get diagnosed or they just come to a time and they say something's got to change, must not recognize for quite a while up to that time that they are afraid of that ridicule, for example.
00:44:43
Speaker
But rather, when I think about doing that report, I explain to myself, I'm a rational person, right? We all feel like we're rational, logical, whatever.
00:44:56
Speaker
And so I must have actually quite a good reason for not doing the report, for it not being a priority. And yet I come to this time where I realize something must change and I look back.
00:45:11
Speaker
And at that time, or after some therapy, perhaps I'm able to say, The reason that I stated was likely not the real reason. that the The real reason was likely that, for example, fear of ridicule.
00:45:27
Speaker
Where I think something usually changes, and so this is interesting for me too, of a good majority of my patterns like exercise and training and doing the competitive bodybuilding. I loved exercise. and i loved working out.
00:45:42
Speaker
The need to desperately be the best at it came from a place of fear and desperation. And so I achieved some things in the natural bodybuilding space. I i got a pro card. I won some shows.
00:45:56
Speaker
But I still felt this like manic or mania around it that I was just looking for the next peak experience. Eventually what I found out though is that like, oh, here are the real reasons why I enjoyed working out that didn't have to do with the stage and the other components that were coming from a place of fear, anxiety, worry, and inadequacy.
00:46:15
Speaker
And once I was able to uncover those things, I was able to say, oh, this is why I'm motivated. Not pressured, but motivated to be here on a regular basis. Here are the things that actually align very clearly with what my values are. And for me, it's being at the gym and encouraging other people who are still struggling, who are still early in their days of training and working.
00:46:36
Speaker
I very much shall get motivated by that. I love helping empower other people. When I go now do my work already, the coaching that I do, it's the same thing. It's very similar. So having more alignment now on what motivates me, like what pulls me in an excited, energetic way, I'm able to give so much more clear language to that versus a desperate need to be success because I'm trying to make a parent or a teacher or somebody else happy The outcome might have been the same.
00:47:04
Speaker
and it's like, hey, I got the A. I was ah i was a high school valedictorian. As soon as I finished that peak, as soon as I got to college, I couldn't find that same motivation. I couldn't care less anymore. I achieved the thing I told myself i wanted to achieve. and And now I have no idea how to turn that on. And I'd be blocked oftentimes in my studies and in my schoolwork.
00:47:24
Speaker
And like i I should be on this trajectory in my life. And I'm just not showing up with it. um And for me, I turned to alcohol at the time. um as many adult people do.
00:47:34
Speaker
and These are the things I think once you start to understand motivation, especially for the ADHD brain, is how do I light my brain up intrinsically? And if needed, how do I potentially need to utilize external or synthetic versions of that so I can do that at will?
00:47:54
Speaker
And so... For someone that often comes to that realization or they feel like something has to change,
00:48:07
Speaker
They must, for many people, like maybe not everyone, they must feel like they can't keep all the plates spinning or the balls in the air or and or they feel like I have realized that there's something very important to me.
00:48:26
Speaker
like a wife or whatever, that if I keep doing what I'm doing, I'm going to lose that thing or things are just falling apart and it's not working anymore.
00:48:38
Speaker
So I think, and I think I should even be more clear about that negative thought that that started things moving for me. That's good for motivation, but what inevitably turns into discipline isn't those types of thoughts.
00:48:53
Speaker
Because for the ADHD brain, if somebody else heard that, they'd be like, that would shut my brain off. The fear of losing all the things important to me, and then I would end up catastrophizing and potentially sabotaging all of those things.
00:49:05
Speaker
The initial motivation might be big, scary thought. What turns it into a discipline though is the opposite. What am I excited by What am I passionate about? And so for me in that same story of I have to figure out or I get to figure out how to become some other man who gets to see my wife's most beautiful years and who gets to raise my daughters and be celebrated as an emotional, spiritual, healthy leader in the family.
00:49:35
Speaker
And so it's actually the second part of that that I was super enthralled by. Like, I'm i'm actually excited to go create that. I'm excited to go manifest that. And the more I uncovered, the more the journey in the process became its own motivation that I could pull from anytime it got really hard. Because you can imagine that kind of betrayal trauma that my wife experienced. There was a lot of really hard days that went on for years.
00:50:01
Speaker
But now where we are in our marriage and where I'm at in my health and career and all those things, like I've cultivated all of these things. And it came from ah really healthy, excited place rather than fear, worry, panic, and like desperation.
00:50:17
Speaker
and so I do feel worthy of all of the things I've achieved now. I do feel connected and tied to it and really at peace with the nature of what I've built around myself. I do completely agree with you about you know, ah fear can help you come to some realizations, you know, and can be motivation to take a first step, to join a group, to call someone, whatever it is.
00:50:47
Speaker
But it's not sustaining. You know, i think we could point to any number of things, but I'm going to pick out one that I feel is just so easy to point to right now.
00:51:01
Speaker
You know, If you look at the interstate highway system, so, you know, the interstate highway system was built, was that about 1971, 72, I think it was.
00:51:17
Speaker
So it was a couple decades ago, nonetheless. And if I got the date wrong, I will put it in the show notes. But I think that you could list many motivations for the interstate highway system, regardless of any specifics about that.
00:51:33
Speaker
To make that kind of investment, there had to be a belief that it would be worthwhile, that we are going to get something out of it that we don't already have.
00:51:45
Speaker
If it had just been, we're going to lose something, I don't think that many people would have been motivated to sacrifice, to do the work today, to get the benefits 10 years or 100 years from now.
00:52:03
Speaker
And so I give that as an example, because I think as time has gone on, if we can keep going with, you know, what was a political decision, you know,
00:52:16
Speaker
that a lot of what we're told in or served up, let's say, in politics is not so much a positive vision of the future.
00:52:27
Speaker
You know, that we, let's say Americans, but we and a group, you know, we can do something today and get to a better place tomorrow.
00:52:39
Speaker
As a result, you mentioned the exercising a few times. You can come to love the feeling of a pump or whatever else, but I think it's generally easy to accept that at some point exercising, whether it's lifting weights or running or something, there is a very strong aspect of pain.
00:53:02
Speaker
And it's so much easier not to get out of bed in the morning or not to put in the last rep or whatever else it is.
00:53:13
Speaker
If it was diet, it's so much easier to eat what I feel like eating or eat what's put in front of me. And then it is to stay disciplined. And part of the reason you stay disciplined is because you want that look or you want to live a long life for your daughters, for example.
00:53:32
Speaker
yeah If it was just about, afraid of dying, afraid of dying. then you're going to fall off that wagon eventually and die yeah exactly and i so i appreciate the sort of like you hitting on that again because that fear is just not going to keep you taking your medicine going to the doctor or working you with your wife yeah and
00:54:04
Speaker
I sadly, I think we just don't get that at least at the broad cultural or media level in so many areas of life right now. A lot of what we get is fear.
00:54:16
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I love that distinction too, because yes, in in terms of modern media, our goal is to try to play on the things that cause people to do the most impulsive, quick change in behavior or a quick action. Yeah.
00:54:33
Speaker
which usually is the one that's the most dysregulated, that has the least um time dependency on it. And this is something for me that, to your point, having a healthy life for my daughters, I take that to the extreme.
00:54:47
Speaker
I want 90-year-old me to pick up great-grandkids. I want 90-year-old me to have healthy sexual intimacy with a spouse. There are things that I can do to make sure that happens with how healthy is my spine and my hips and my mobility and my knees that some amount of it is actually I can't continue to try to look as big and muscular as possible now.
00:55:09
Speaker
I do actually need to steward some of those components a little bit better so that 90-year-old me can get laid. And I'm intentionally using colorful language like that to paint the picture of Craychialdean bones.
00:55:21
Speaker
But I picture and I feel the gratitude from that 90-year-old me when I act and operate operate it in a way that helps him live that out. And that's the part for for me, especially when it comes to the ADHD experiences.
00:55:34
Speaker
I'm very motivated by price. Very motivated. I can't always be looking for praise as quickly as possible. That's what led me to my internet addictions in the first place was that craving.
00:55:46
Speaker
and need as many people on the internet, as many strangers to praise me, tell me I look good, all the things. But now being able to hear fewer voices, but stronger voices in a longer future, a longer time horizon so that I can say, hey today I'm saying no to the sprinkled donut that everybody brought into the office.
00:56:06
Speaker
So that nine-year-old me can move more readily and he can have some more joy in what he gets to experience and like living as if that's already happening and experiencing that comfort and peace as if it's already happening.
00:56:21
Speaker
not giving into the voices from the crowd around me being like why aren't you having a donut you know i'm just not motivated like don't need a donut right now oh come on man like why why aren't you eating with us all right the the story i'm telling myself is if i don't enjoy the donut with you that you're not going to include me as a friend that we can't be friends if i don't eat the donut help me understand is that is that going to be the case if i don't have the alcoholic beverage does that mean that we can't be friends like for some people yeah the answer is absolutely yes And eventually, though, that for the ADHD experience, if I'm just people pleasing all the time, course, i'm go have the drink.
00:56:56
Speaker
No, I'm never going to say no to the drink, in fact. And depending on who you're surrounding yourself with, they might continue to encourage you to have more than a few drinks. It's not just one drink. It's always more than you needed.
00:57:08
Speaker
And you don't know how to shut that party down. think that's how you end up finding yourself at this place of burnout. I don't know who I am because I just keep acting and operating with and for every other person around me.
00:57:21
Speaker
Who am I underneath all of that? What are the things I say that I care about? What are my values? And how do i kind of tone down the energy of every other voice and the opinions that they have? You know, I don't know that I had
00:57:34
Speaker
related these two things before, but you're reminding me of ah change that i made in my language a couple of years ago. So at one point in my life, or four or five years, I was a vegan.
00:57:52
Speaker
And i think during that time when and go to a barbecue or whatever, you know, i would use the same language that i think you hear from just about everybody. Let's go with veganism for the moment.
00:58:07
Speaker
and Somebody would say, you want a burger? And you say, i can't eat meat. And you'll hear this with religion too, you know eating kosher or whatever.
00:58:19
Speaker
He can't do X. And I do not believe that it was while I was a vegan, but at some point later, let's say it was 10 years ago,
00:58:29
Speaker
I don't think I was really conscious of the underlying reasons. I think my what I was conscious of was I was annoyed by the fact that, no, you actually can't eat meat.
00:58:42
Speaker
You're choosing not to. And then at some time I started to think, Isn't that better, you know, to be like, I can choose what I want and I have chosen to act in a certain way.
00:59:00
Speaker
So you want a burger? I'm not a vegan anymore for what it's worth, but you want a burger? i could say, i don't eat meat. I could just say no. You know, somebody, I say no. And somebody says, why? He's like, I don't eat meat.
00:59:13
Speaker
And as you were talking, I realized this does actually seem quite related. Yes, if you were an alcoholic or something, then I certainly understand the phrasing of, I can't have a drink.
00:59:29
Speaker
Because we could then explain it as, well, that sets me off down a path. You know, I'm off the wagon now, or I just know it the way that I am. going to start drinking again.
00:59:40
Speaker
In that particular case, I totally understand that you might phrase it in that way. But I hope that what you experience internally is, I choose not to drink.
00:59:52
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I even love the distinction because I would say there's still the choice being made and empowered in the choice. And I think that that is important to say, oh, I can't because again, we we might use language like I'm an alcoholic, strong identity statement associated with that.
01:00:11
Speaker
Those identity statements impact us a lot, which to me, the the identity of I'm an alcoholic means I can't trust myself. Versus even the language and the way that you put it was, oh, I don't.
01:00:24
Speaker
I choose not to. I don't drink. I don't drink. i haven't I haven't had any any alcohol since my wife found out she was pregnant with our second daughter. decided I was going to quit alcohol along with her. And as soon as baby was born, like, I just don't need this thing anymore.
01:00:40
Speaker
And I haven't had a drink since, but that does come up all the time. Like, Hey, do you want to drink? No, I'm okay. Why don't you drink it? I don't drink. Why don't you drink? Well, i I don't feel the need to explain myself, but if you are curious,
01:00:55
Speaker
I haven't had a drink in this long time. Don't consider myself an alcoholic. Prior to that, I would be okay with having one or two drinks over the course of like a month even. Like just doesn't serve me.
01:01:05
Speaker
Right. And what's interesting is I think one of the skills that we can develop is a willingness to be and misunderstood. Even just a second ago, you're like, well, by the way, I'm not a vegan anymore.
01:01:19
Speaker
Because like I don't know if that was conscious or subconscious. have Maybe there was concern about me judging you for being a vegan or what does it mean to be a vegan? And now we're going to like, good, are you doing it for cultural reasons? Are you doing it because you're opposed to the meat industry and political stuff? kind of it matter If you've felt the need to explain by all means.
01:01:41
Speaker
but I'm not, if I'm, if I'm showing a posture of like, ah, fricking vegan, are you kidding Um, mind you while I post all of my like Sunday meat photos, and social media, um, but there is, there is some of that of being able to acknowledge of,
01:01:58
Speaker
It is a skill to be able to say, I'm okay with being misunderstood. I will continue to surround myself with the right people who accept me. But regardless, I will create so much deep personal self-acceptance and belonging and connection and serve from that place.
01:02:17
Speaker
So I no longer feel the need to have to explain myself. but i'm happy i love having a conversation about it though because there are reasons there might have been reasons i'm like hey i've noticed that i have way more inflamm inflammatory responses when i have red meat and i don't like having my joints ah hurt from gout and whatever else might be the problem like great love love that conversation i'm i'm happy that i get to hear those details tell me more about that how often does that pain happen that sounds miserable.
01:02:46
Speaker
Like, what was that like for you? Right? Like there's so many things that like now all of a sudden we can connect on. I know what it's like to feel chronic pain. I know what it's like to have these things. Like let's connect on this topic rather than being like, Oh, you don't eat meat.
01:02:57
Speaker
Not one of us. Like, Hey, I'll have a steak. One of us, one of us. And you can see how quickly we can start developing this like need to feel safety through acceptance and belonging.
01:03:11
Speaker
When we start realizing that we can create it for ourselves, that's actually what happens when you unlock the ADHD brain of, I'm no longer needing to get dopamine from peer safety, from having to appease people around me.
01:03:23
Speaker
and that actually allows me a lot of room to connect more deeply with people by having conversations rather than assumptions, societal norms, and just expectations overall.
01:03:35
Speaker
Well, that was very perceptive of, you know, picking up on that statement because yes, you're totally right. There was a, i was conscious of making a statement about who I am, you know, so that at least to some extent there was not a misperception of, oh, well maybe Eric is still a vegan, which I could not care less whether someone thinks I'm a vegan or not.
01:04:06
Speaker
But that was certainly part of, oh, let me put this statement in and then, okay, now I'm going to keep moving forward. So I, I appreciate that. That was very interesting that you picked up on that.
01:04:21
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you for letting me get on my soapbox about it. No, it was great. Um, we have, know, I think it's part of your story, but then I'm guessing that The implications for couples, it is probably also part of the story of some of your clients that understanding impulsive behaviors and you know working on those things must have, must impact couples.
01:04:57
Speaker
I mean, yeah don't know if there's a question here, but I'd love to validate even just that statement. It must have, and it and it does. Statistically, you're 50% more likely to get a divorce if one or both parties has ADHD.
01:05:10
Speaker
Oh, that's interesting. So... for your clients, for you yourself, then my guess would be that, well, let's see, I'd have to do the math, but
01:05:29
Speaker
What does it look like then if I, I'm not going to phrase this appropriately, so get so give me some grace here, but what does it look like typically when, you know, for me and my wife, for example, if I have impulsive behaviors,
01:05:47
Speaker
and I get control of those things. How does that impact us beyond, of course, we stay together, but for your clients, what do they tell you or what do their lives look like a year after beginning to work on this?
01:06:00
Speaker
Yeah, so i'd I'd like to dig more into the ADHD experience, not just the impulsivity part of it. Because there's there's nuance to both. um The ADHD perspective on this isn't just the impulsivity, because that might look like being irrational very uh for some men who don't have a ah broad emotional range so the only emotions that come up are anger right which can potentially be scary pick things up throw them across the room punch holes in walls i've heard all this stuff throwing a keyboard through a wall i've heard a skateboard going through a wall i even personally used to have an old set of golf clubs that i kept in my garage and i'd snap over my knee
01:06:42
Speaker
When I'd have to, I'd have to, I didn't have to, but I would go step away and be like, I'm just so angry. Those things don't create a lot of safety, peace, connection, and intimacy in a home.
01:06:53
Speaker
So yeah, it is critical to get those things right. If you want to be respected in your families, specifically for men who care a great deal about respect in the home, being emotionally regulated, and I say regulated, not stoic, so not absent of emotions, but being able to say, like, hey, that thing that you said earlier, like, that actually hurt hurt my feelings. Like, i the story I'm telling myself is that was unintentional, but I don't want to believe that.
01:07:20
Speaker
Versus like the impulsive response being like, how dare you? You're such a POS because you said this, that you're a terrible person. but Cruelty. Like all of a sudden cruelty is ah right under the surface. You hurt me, therefore I'm going to hurt you.
01:07:33
Speaker
And impulsivity, there's no regulation to saying, hey, rationally, maybe I can just assume the best. And then this even happened at home the other day.
01:07:45
Speaker
and wife was trying to get ah sunscreen on my four-year-old and my one-year-old is in her, um... is in her pool diaper, um, which isn't necessarily very absorbing. It's kind of supposed to be the opposite. Just keep you from letting poop into the pool.
01:08:01
Speaker
She's already peed herself in a diaper and now she's walking across the floor. So there's pee everywhere. Um, and I come in, ah see this whole thing going down. And all of a sudden I just like my anxiety and frustration starts going through the roof because wife's just ignoring the problem.
01:08:17
Speaker
And ah you know, I had this like just emotional big, pretty big emotional response to it. And eventually what I realized was the story I was telling myself is she's making more work for me to have to clean up rather than setting down what she's doing and just taking care of this, this wet diaper.
01:08:36
Speaker
No, that's just the story I was telling myself. Right. And so eventually I eventually took me no time in 30 seconds, let's say, to be able to calm myself down, grab the baby and just go change the diaper myself and then come down and and sweep up the things versus like having this big emotional response to this.
01:08:54
Speaker
And so I I came back down and I said, i hey, I apologize for how i responded earlier. was feeling very frustrated with what I saw. And the story I was telling myself was you were trying to make this even harder for me to have to clean up.
01:09:08
Speaker
like i apologize if i could go back here's what i would have wished i'd done instead just exactly what i did i wish i would have done the thing but so the time between if that was only 30 seconds of an emotional outburst and i'm able to regulate that much quicker and then come back and apologize in a meaningful way ah real apology right the love and safety of that room is so much more significant And I'm making, I'm having that apology to my wife in front of my four-year-old daughter.
01:09:38
Speaker
An hour later, my daughter is coming to me like, hey, daddy, that that thing that you said, know, why why did you say this? Well, daddy was feeling frustrated. And the story he was believing was this thing. Was that story true? She's like, no, that story wasn't true. yeah, you're right. That was a story that he was making up in his mind. And instead I chose to do this instead.
01:09:57
Speaker
Wow. Daddy, like that is and an amazing conversation to have with a four-year-old. She's going to remember that, or at the very least we can come back to those types of conversations at some point in the reverse though.
01:10:13
Speaker
I very well could have been in that moment, that guy who punches a hole in the wall, throws the broom, throws the mop, gets pissed off. All of those things make it to where i'm just only adding to the negative energy in the space and the anxiety around, like, I don't feel safe around dad.
01:10:28
Speaker
That's not the space that I want to create. That's the home that we're my wife and I don't care to live in. We have this rule about being cruelty free. Um, because you're allowed to have, you're actually allowed to be frustrated. So no one ever said like, don't get frustrated. It's like, well, you're allowed to be frustrated because pee all over the floor is not a fun time.
01:10:47
Speaker
you can be frustrated by that. But what you do with that frustration is still under your control. And so when you talk about relationships, this is the part that I care about. When you get so healthy in your emotional regulation, you can share your emotion first before it becomes an outburst.
01:11:04
Speaker
The outburst is usually the thing that's manic, unregulated, potentially scary, potentially hazardous, emotionally, physically, and so on. So the more we get that right, the more effective we're going to be able to say, get to the apology, get to the, okay, there's lot going on here. i need 30 seconds. Give me 30 seconds to calm myself down and then I can help out.
01:11:26
Speaker
That's reasonable. For some people who are like, yeah, that's never going to happen for you. Well, it might if you practice these skills and develop them. The other part of it, that's the impulsivity side. I'd love to kind of highlight this other part.
01:11:39
Speaker
The other part that most couples get wrong when it comes to ADHD experience is the apathy. And I brought that up earlier of the strength of the no emotion emotion of apathy is probably the the thing that's the most damaging in an ADHD relationship.
01:11:54
Speaker
Your wife comes to you and she says, hey, have really tough conversation. Earlier today, you said this and yeah it really wounded me. I actually feel really sad about that thing. And the response that my body is giving me is apathy.
01:12:07
Speaker
Just emotionless. I don't even feel safe feeling this thing. like i don't and she's she's looking back at me, seeing this kind of numbness. Don't you care? but yeah This is important.
01:12:21
Speaker
I need you to be present with me right now. Don't don't you care? And this level of apathy, that's the part with people that they don't know how to give language to and don't know how to get right and don't know how to lean in to be able to lead with despite the apathy I'm feeling, here's still how I'm going to act and behave despite it.
01:12:41
Speaker
That's another form of emotional regulation that's just not talked about is when your brain is shut off, how do you still show up? That's really interesting. And ah identify a lot with what you're saying, especially the apathy portion for what it's worth.
01:12:58
Speaker
So... you know You reminded me of so many things as well, but I'm just going to pick out one. I think it was Socrates, perhaps, who said something like, we suffer more from our feelings about our circumstances or actions than we do from the actions themselves.
01:13:21
Speaker
And i think that there's something like that that runs through ah number of the things that we've discussed because the pee on the floor is, in many respects, neutral.
01:13:37
Speaker
It just is. Now, is it something you want to deal with? No. But again, that's feelings or your desires. And you know actually something related to that.
01:13:48
Speaker
My wife, for example, she... just really did not like dealing with poopy diapers. She would do it. She would not complain by any means. But if you asked her, she'd say, that is one of those things that I did not like dealing with.
01:14:01
Speaker
Whereas for some reason for me, it just did not bother me at all. Would I choose not to deal with poop? Of course not. But
01:14:11
Speaker
For some reason, I just thought it's just part of the job. It's just part of the reality. And I think that sort of thing, like our feelings are a major contributor to kind of the color that we put on the world or our experiences.
01:14:31
Speaker
And that seems to run through quite a quite a bit of what we've been talking about. We can create a lot of clarity for ourselves when it comes to the poopy diaper. Because if we just get fixated on the poopy diaper, absolutely, we will we will we'll get stuck.
01:14:47
Speaker
The muck in the mire, the literal muck in the mire of it, will absolutely keep us fixated and focused and then therefore stuck on the thing. For me, I was able to create a lot of clarity of the more I do the dirty diapers, the more I'm serving my wife in a way that's meaningful to her, that helps her feel loved.
01:15:07
Speaker
And then therefore, i receive praise and and adoration for Which means that the first hundred diapers of our daughter, I'm going to go change. I'm going to go obsess about how to swaddle this child.
01:15:20
Speaker
And I think what's interesting is the reverse is also true, though. As if for a lot of men with ADHD, if I'm receiving a lot of criticism about how I'm not doing this thing, right?
01:15:32
Speaker
My brain shuts off to doing the thing. So why would I change the diaper if every time I do it, you tell me I'm doing it wrong. Man, you're you're such a man. You just do this in this world. yeah such a bolder You're always getting this wrong.
01:15:44
Speaker
you you want to shut my brain off, come to me with that level of criticism and attention. And that's the thing I think a lot of couples don't understand is you need to reinforce behavior that you want to see more of.
01:15:58
Speaker
and So if you want to see me do more diapers, if you want to see me do more dishes, if you want to see me do more laundry, then you need to make sure when I do the laundry that you reinforce it, even if you had to nag me five times to get there.
01:16:12
Speaker
despite that it is important that you understand how do i reinforce behavior i want to see more of And that's hard for people because they're like, no, I feel drained. I had to ask you five times. And so the fact that you did on the sixth time, like, no, I can't give you any encouragement. You just adulted correctly. Good job.
01:16:29
Speaker
Like, am am I, are you a man or are you a child? It's like, well, but that's a big part of this. Maybe in certain moments you might have to treat me like a young boy and be able to encourage me. Oh, thank you so much.
01:16:42
Speaker
I love that you did this thing. In the future, I'd really appreciate it if you got to it earlier. How can I help you prioritize this in the future? It's a completely different conversation, right? Like that still encourages me, still acknowledges that there's something that needs to change, but doesn't completely demean and belittle me to get to that point.
01:17:02
Speaker
I, again, identify with a lot of that and also really appreciate the way that you're putting it because I struggle with many of these things. I'm sure that my wife does. Lots of people do.
01:17:16
Speaker
No matter how intelligent you are or gifted you are in any number of ways, you know we live our lives through the lens of our consciousness.
01:17:28
Speaker
And so whatever's going on in your head, You know, the way that the chemicals in your head, your hormones, whatever it is, is balanced or not has a big influence on how positive or negative you feel. you know, your past behaviors set a pattern or how you are likely to respond to you your spouse having asked you five times to just please do the dishes and then you do the dishes and they say, thanks for doing the dishes. Right.
01:18:01
Speaker
And, you know, and so to, to recognize that I guess part of what you're saying really is between couples and within the individual as well. There's always work to do, you know, and appreciate that it's not just work that I have to do on myself, but I have to do work as well to be that better spouse at the same time that my wife has to do her own work.
01:18:31
Speaker
I appreciate all that. Now, I know we don't have a ton of time left, so i want to make sure that without shortchanging it, that we talk about how people can find you and all of that. And I want to throw out there just in case you don't that people And did see recently that you've had quite a bit of growth, I believe, in your coaching practice.
01:18:58
Speaker
So congratulations on that. You know, I am actually, I'm quite impressed by you. And ae I feel like you have a lot of the, you have a lot of knowledge and, you know, you have a lot of intelligence and around these things and you're very contemplative i guess i might say very thoughtful so again i'm very impressed so would you share what people should come to you for where they should go how they should connect with you do you have an email newsletter anything of that nature
01:19:39
Speaker
Yeah. So right now the majority of modus operandi for me right now is through LinkedIn. i do have a website, ianmay.co. um there will There will be a newsletter coming very soon, especially given some of the projects that I'm working on, one of which actually is how do you navigate ADHD with couples? So I have a couple couples coaching program that's starting august 18th so if you're interested in that you heard something about hey i want to have ah marriage that is exciting celebratory and really aligned with potentially some of the biggest regulation of adhd actually have a female adhd coach and myself so we can play this part of
01:20:22
Speaker
The him and her experience of how do you navigate ADHD that might look different for male versus female, um but really very focused on serving couples and helping them build more language for everything that we've talked about and and more, right? How do we make sure that we are building a marriage that lasts despite this neurodivergence?
01:20:45
Speaker
Also, i do ah I'm starting to do more group coaching with ADHD professionals and one-on-one coaching as well. So all of those things, whether that's for you as an individual, in your professional capacity, um if it's something that's more personal and at home as a relationship,
01:21:01
Speaker
those are really the the big things that I'm, I'm working on right now. Well, thank you for sharing that for your couples coaching before we go the program that's starting, I think you said August eighteen Do you have a specific format or process that you intend to go through or is it, you know,
01:21:29
Speaker
fairly flexible depending on the specifics of a couple's situation. Yeah, it and it honestly is going to be very rigid, um not rigid, very structured. ah Rigid sounds painful.
01:21:42
Speaker
ah No, it it will be very structured. So these are essentially eight weeks that myself and the other coach Toria have honed in on what we think are the biggest movers, the biggest blockers, but also the biggest opportunities for really deep, meaningful connection.
01:21:57
Speaker
So we really want to make sure that we cover all of that. If we get too much into just going where the wind blows, ah we actually might lose out an opportunity to speak to some of the most granular details that has the biggest impact.
01:22:12
Speaker
So it's over an eight-week period and we'll very much so dig into the big eight key movers that will get you on track for your ADHD relationship. I have no doubt that there are a lot of people that are suffering.
01:22:28
Speaker
You know, there are a lot of couples that could end up better off if they just take that step, you know, if they make that commitment. And there's always more work to do.
01:22:39
Speaker
But, you know, it certainly seems to me like talking to you would be a good step for plenty of people. So thank you for sharing that. Well, Ian, again, I'm really impressed. I appreciate you being here and I hope that everyone who listens to this finds it as really quite exciting as I have. So thank you.
01:23:02
Speaker
Thank you, Eric. Hey, thank you for listening. I hope you got a lot out of today's conversation. If you enjoyed the episode, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe, and please share it with someone you know who'd appreciate this kind of information.
01:23:20
Speaker
If you want to bring this kind of thinking to your own business, check out mine at inboundandagile.com. We specialize in helping leaders with challenges around marketing, communications, and leadership so they can inspire real action in their people and audiences.
01:23:39
Speaker
Thanks again for listening, and I hope you'll come back for future episodes.