ADHD Expert: "You Are Never Going to Be a Successful Adult" Unless You Own It | Ep 12

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Trailer
I love that I have ADHD. If someone could take it away from me, I would never let them. Because when you can overcome the debilitating symptoms, all of the gifts rise to the surface.

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Trailer
I'm worried that this is changing who I am.

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Trailer
It's making our ADHD worse. About 90% of ADHD  is rooted in emotional dysregulation. So are  our brains wired differently. Yes. does. It help us at all to use that as a crutch? No, it's an explanation so that we can understand where to start to fix the problem. You just need your own personal owner's manual. Your brain works fantastic when you know how to work it.

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Trailer
A lot of people probably feel that way and they just think they're crazy.

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Trailer
It doesn't matter if you have ADHD or you've been through a lot of stress and trauma in your life. No employer has to put up with someone who can't show up and do the work.

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Brady
What is the line between just being easy to get distracted and actually being ADHD?

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Brady

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Jheri
Oh, that's such a good question because

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Jheri
today it's like if you can't focus, everyone says, oh, that's my ADHD. I don't have ADHD. I just like might have ADHD or something like that. You know, the thing with ADHD is it's so much more than just being distracted. And I think that's where because there's a stigma around being hyper, not being able to focus, we think that's ADHD.

00:01:24:09 - 00:01:46:19
Jheri
And what I teach all of my clients is that ADHD is 90% emotional dysregulation. I mean, your your brain is actually wired differently. So if you have ADHD, it is true that when it comes to accessing, you know, good executive functioning skills like being organized and following through and staying motivated, ADHD ers will struggle with that more than the average person.

00:01:47:01 - 00:02:13:18
Jheri
But underneath all of that is emotional dysregulation. ADHD ers have an interest based nervous system, meaning the things that turn on a neurotic brain. It's really just like something that's important or something that's going to get a reward afterwards. That usually does almost nothing for an aid brain. So when we say things like, oh, if you can't focus, you must have ADHD.

00:02:13:20 - 00:02:36:12
Jheri
I mean, we're just like barely scratching the surface. It's really a misunderstanding. Like that might be a symptom of ADHD. It not being able to focus is not ADHD. So when you look at what turns on an ADHD brain, it's things that require your prefrontal cortex to be online because there's an emotion that's there. I have an acronym for this.

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Jheri
wired this is an acronym I created, but it's based off of the work of Doctor William Dobson. Doctor William Dobson was able to identify that ADHD have an interest based nervous system. So think about what that means. If you're interest based, it means the emotion has to be right to get your brain engaged.

00:02:53:21 - 00:03:20:05
Jheri
So the acronym I created was wired. And so it stands for the W is for want. So anything that you are passionate about that feels fulfilling to you. I as for interests that one's obvious R is for race or rivalry. So think of like challenge or competition and then he is for emergency or anything that feels urgent. That's kind of like an ADHD person's equivalent to being in something, being important.

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Jheri
And then the D is for anything that's different or novelty. So one of those five things has to be activated for the ADHD brain to get engaged. So what that means is every time as an HD person, we can't get our brain engaged, we can't focus, we can't follow through, or we act impulsively. We are experiencing an emotional escape.

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Jheri
We want to run from things that are boring and overwhelming, or we're chasing stimulation towards things that are interesting and novelty.

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Brady
It feels like everybody is talking about ADHD, and almost no one's qualified to talk about ADHD, because what it goes really in one of two ways. People use it as a scapegoat to justify not getting anything done in their life. And they go, oh, whoopsie poopsie. Like I just have ADHD. And then there's people that probably legitimately struggle with it and profoundly unaware because they just assume it's this thing's fault.

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Brady
And to a degree, I think it is. This thing is constantly hijacking our dopamine systems, but ADHD over time, what went from that's a cop out that seems like an excuse now has a ton of sound science around it. There's just a lot of people self diagnosing.

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Jheri
Oh yeah, well, and there's a couple different reasons for that. I mean, one, now it's all over the internet and people are relating with a lot of these symptoms, but also to, you know, in my community program people will ask, can I be here if I'm self-diagnosed? And the answer is yes, because I don't trust the diagnosis. I mean.

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Brady
What do you mean?

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Jheri
Well, I mean that like, according to Doctor William Dobson and this was like years ago, he said that like 91% of psychiatrists today have absolutely no idea how to treat ADHD at all. So if you look at right now, we're at in the DSM five, right. That's how we identify what are the markers for ADHD.

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Brady
what is the DSM five.

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Jheri
The DSM stands for the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Disorders. So in other words it's not just for ADHD when you're going to get evaluated for almost anything these days, you know, like it could be bipolar disorder, anxiety, depression. We're looking at the most recent DSM in the United States. It's the DSM. And so right now we are on the DSM five.

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Jheri
So just to give you an idea of how this is changing over the years. Years ago we believed that girls couldn't have ADHD. So when a new DSM comes out there's new criteria. Now we've learned some things. We're changing basically the rules. So back in 2013, we were still in the DSM four. And back then as an example of how much this changes, we were told you can't have autism and ADHD together.

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Jheri
It's one or the other. Well then when the DSM five came out then it was like, oh yeah, you can it's called HD. So these things are changing

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Jheri
frequently in my opinion. It's like changing all the time. And then eventually they get around to updating the DSM. Well now in the DSM five. So this is what a psychiatrist or whoever is doing the evaluation is going to look to.

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Jheri
There's about 18 behaviors. The DSM five for ADHD is not based on adult criteria. It's based on children up to the age of 16. And it's really based towards boys. So that means if you're an adult and you're going in to get evaluated for ADHD, you would have to meet the criteria for probably a boy between the ages of eight and 16 years old, which is usually hyperactive, not doing well in school, can't focus at all making impulsive decisions.

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Jheri
This is one of the main reasons that it's missing girls. And now, because we have so much information and people are specializing in ADHD, so they're learning how to do better evaluations, their understanding what rejection sensitive dysphoria is. Now the average age of diagnosis is 31. So we no longer think of this as a childhood disorder, even though the criteria still focuses on children.

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Brady
So if I understand what you're saying, the way that they have diagnosed ADHD professionally for a while now was using a yardstick that was designed to identify ADHD in a 15 year old boy, and they've been using that same yardstick. And once in a blue moon, they hold it up to an adult and they go, oh, you don't match the profile of ADHD because you don't have all these other things.

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Brady
But it's like, well, yeah, but that yardstick is also looking for me being a spaz because I'm 15 and I've got my hormones. So that's why it's not been accurately diagnosed in people and in girls.

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Jheri
That's right. That's absolutely right.

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Jheri
other thing is, is that symptoms start to look different from children to adults. So there are still adults out there who were diagnosed with ADHD when they were children and believe that they have grown out of it.

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Jheri
I mean, there's just such a lack of information, and this is why I tell people, if you're going to go get evaluated, because there is so much overlap between things like autism and ADHD, which is very common. And there's a 60% likelihood, if you have added, that, you will have at least one comorbid condition, that you want to go to somebody who has a lot of experience in ADHD and other things, probably someone who has ADHD themselves.

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Jheri
Because when I was when I was talking to Doctor Dodson and I was interviewing him, he was just talking about the lack of training that, you know, medical students or professionals are required to have when they graduate from medical school. So unless they decide on their own that they really want to dive into this, you know, they're going to have very little knowledge.

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Jheri
And because in most states like we have here in Arizona, there is absolutely no requirement by law for teachers, administrators, even special education teachers to have formal training and neurodivergent. So it's just it's it's a huge problem in the medical community, I would say at least 50% of the time, if not more. The clients that I'm working with

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Jheri
They're being diagnosed for co-morbid conditions. They're trying to figure out what else they can do. They've been misdiagnosed in the past. They're just so frustrated. You really have to find somebody who understands ADHD inside and out so they can explain. Oh, no, this is what's going on. But there's a co-morbid condition here, or this is just ADHD and this is why it hasn't been managed.

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Jheri
I feel that most people are pretty frustrated because they're like, okay, I have ADHD now what?

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Brady
how does it most often manifest in people? Because I would probably self-diagnose as having ADHD. It'd be one of those people. And in my opinion, what that looks like in my life is there's like a little gremlin that sits in the back of my neck and tells me the thing that I know I need to do today.

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Brady
That might be the worst thing. Maybe we shouldn't do it, but by the way, if you don't, everything's going to explode. That's what the Gremlin does in my head. It's like, here's all of these things. You're very aware of what they are because you've got this perceptive mind. Here's all the stuff you got to do. And then there's something that just, like, sits on me and goes, but don't do it.

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Brady
Like we had Janelle Lamb, who is Sheriff Mark Lamb's wife. She came in and her version of this was she can't check the mail. She goes and gets all the letters, can't open the letters. And I was like, you know, that's not my version of it, but what is it? It's dread. It's like, on the other side of opening this mail is some series of decisions or chain of outcomes I now have to commit to.

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Brady
So if I ignore it and don't open the mail, then I'm not beholden to doing the set of actions that come with it. So I'm going to throttle all of that, but not doing it. And then I'm going to distract myself and rearrange the bookshelf.

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Jheri
And but do you hear what you just said? You said, what is that? That's dread. So not many people are talking about this. And this is really where my program is different than almost any program out there is. I feel like I'm talking about the 90% that most people are not. I teach that focus follows feelings. So usually we're separating these categories like here's this executive functioning disorder, right?

00:11:01:14 - 00:11:26:17
Jheri
I can't focus, I can't pay attention and follow through. And then also now we know there's RSV. So RSV is being taught as this episode that we have when we feel rejection. And it is that. But what I'm teaching is it's actually hiding beneath everything. Let me give you a little example. So I was coaching I do live coaching with the members of my cohort once a week, and there was a woman who was being coached and she was super excited.

00:11:26:17 - 00:11:42:17
Jheri
She joined this new team. She had nothing but great things to say. It's this awesome opportunity. Everybody loves her, right? So she's working on this project and she said, Jerry, my ADHD brain will not let me focus. Next thing I know, I'm scrolling my phone looking at real estate and and I'm not even in the market to buy real estate.

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Jheri
Right. And that's that is. So anybody.

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Brady
Listening here can relate.

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Jheri
To know I.

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Brady
Got something to do. I am in my reals.

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Jheri
But if you have ADHD what do you talk it up to? I have ADHD and have a hard time focusing. Yeah, it's my brain. My brain is broken and it can't focus. So I'm asking her, okay, what were you thinking when it was time to do this project? I wasn't thinking anything. I was thinking I kind of didn't want to do it, but she had nothing.

00:12:07:08 - 00:12:27:20
Jheri
She had nothing but positive things to say about the group and the team and her project. And after about ten minutes of just asking questions, the thought came out and it was, well, I was thinking, I'm a little bit worried about my project and the presentation because I am new. My experience is different than everyone else is on the team.

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Jheri
What if they don't like it? They're all leaders and I'm new. It's like, there it is. There's the emotional dysregulation that you don't even know you're having because a lot of ADHD ers feel somewhat regulated. They're not walking around like having these adult tantrums every day. So they're not really relating with the idea that I'm emotionally dysregulated all the time.

00:12:48:04 - 00:13:06:05
Jheri
But when I think of emotional dysregulation, I think of your prefrontal cortex has gone offline and you don't have access to all of the logical thinking and the ability to get your brain to do what you want it to do. So we talked about if she would have thought something like, they're gonna love this, this is gonna be awesome.

00:13:06:10 - 00:13:26:01
Jheri
Sure. ADHD brain probably would have hyper focused and she would have forgotten to eat. She would have been so excited to complete that project. And that's the difference when we talk about ADHD or being able to hyperfocus. Yeah, there's something emotionally clicked. And when we can't focus or follow through or get things done, we are experiencing an emotional escape.

00:13:26:03 - 00:13:51:10
Jheri
So that Wired acronym that I shared with you, it's life changing for a lot of people to learn that about their brain, because I will tell people all the time, you just need your own personal owner's manual. Your brain works fantastic when you know how to work it. But if they have just the Wired acronym, which is where most executive function coaches will start, then they're like, okay, but then how do I get myself off the couch to use the Wired acronym?

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Jheri
Yeah, that's where the emotional dysregulation comes in. You have to start with your thinking. You have to start with what you believe. You have to get to a place where you're not emotionally dysregulated, and then pull in the things that you're passionate about, interested about the challenge. They have to work together. And that's been the missing piece for most people.

00:14:10:04 - 00:14:28:01
Brady
So my prefrontal cortex, when that's offline, because the thing in front of me that I got to do, I got some reason at the bottom of it that I don't want to do it either because I'm not emotionally in it, or there's some secondary gain or there's something I'm worried about, but like, maybe I'm not even aware of it.

00:14:28:06 - 00:14:34:00
Brady
Because of that, my prefrontal cortex goes offline and I'm just like, what? Physically unable to do it?

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Jheri
Yeah, for ADHD years. It's like like I'll get this a lot, you know, because I'm online, I get a lot of different comments. People who don't have ADHD see ADHD or is lazy. It's like we all don't want to do things we don't want.

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Brady
To do. They're very dismissive.

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Jheri
Right?

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Brady
Right. Like boomers today being like, well, what's the problem? Just go get a house,

00:14:50:23 - 00:15:05:00
Brady
there are factors I don't think you're aware of. You got your house for a wheel of cheese and a firm handshake. Okay, so don't lecture me about not buying my avocado toast. All the tropes. I'm like, it's just it's their divorce from the reality.

00:15:05:01 - 00:15:25:10
Jheri
don't like the hate that ADHD ers get, but I could I can understand and appreciate that if you don't have ADHD, it might be confusing why someone who has ADHD can't just do the thing because most ADHD ears are quite bright there. They're out of the box thinkers and they are creative, and they see solutions to a lot of problems before other people, and they can hyperfocus.

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Jheri
And so it must be very confusing to look at this ADHD person and think, you're so smart and you have so much talent, why aren't you just doing it? Yeah, they can't understand what that feels like. But you know, for someone with ADHD, I think we feel just as frustrated as ADHD is. Like, I know I'm smart, I know it needs to be done and I'm not doing it.

00:15:45:06 - 00:15:53:15
Jheri
I'll use like a scale with my clients as far as like capacity goes. And so whenever I meet with them, I'll say, okay, let's just check

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Jheri
in on your capacity because I want them to be very aware of how am I doing today? ADHD ers tend to be pretty bad at self appraisal.

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Jheri
They can't tell how they're doing in the world, how much progress they've made, even though they're very aware you know they're like good at pattern recognition. And they have really good sixth sense intuition. They tend to not be as good at figuring out them and how they're doing in the world. And so capacity becomes a very important topic for ADHD, or is because they'll beat themselves up for not being able to show up 100% every single day.

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Brady
Very self-critical.

00:16:26:21 - 00:16:43:09
Jheri
Yes. Very self-critical. Right. Lots of shame. How come I didn't do this? I was able to do it last time. What's wrong with me? Right. I should be able to all the shooting on themselves. And so with the capacity scale we'll talk about like, well, your capacity is just the resources you have, minus the load that you're carrying.

00:16:43:09 - 00:17:01:13
Jheri
So did you sleep last night? Did you eat? How much stress is on your plate? Is there a problem with your finances? Are you fighting with your spouse or are you worried about a child? There's all these things that come into play. So where are you on the capacity scale? If you are over a five, like you can probably handle criticism a little bit better.

00:17:01:13 - 00:17:19:18
Jheri
You can handle whatever's going on in your day, but when you're under a five you're like kind of just holding on. You lot more likely that you're going to have an actual rejection sensitive dysphoria episode. If you hear something you don't like, you can't handle much of anything. And so understanding day to day so that we can have more grace for ourselves.

00:17:19:19 - 00:17:40:09
Jheri
But one of the things I'll teach is if you're under a five, your only goal is to get regulated again. When you're in neutral is the word I'll use. You don't even have to feel motivated or excited if you're just in neutral. You have access to all of the logical thinking. You can make better decisions. You can decide how to use that Wired acronym.

00:17:40:11 - 00:18:01:09
Jheri
Maybe I'll break it up into to you all time chunk it. Maybe I'm going to use this different resource as a competition, whatever it is. But when you're dysregulated, our our prefrontal cortex goes offline. And we don't have the ability to do that. So how quickly can we become dysregulated. Depends on what's in front of us. It depends on how our whole day has gone.

00:18:01:10 - 00:18:18:15
Jheri
All I know is that this is true for every ADHD, or that as soon as something's in front of you and you start to think this is going to take forever, I do not want to do this, I hate taxes. I'd way rather be doing something else. I mean, think about all the side quests will go on. Oh yeah, I call it procrastinating.

00:18:18:18 - 00:18:23:14
Jheri
It's like we're productive, but we're procrastinating. The one thing like doing our taxes.

00:18:23:19 - 00:18:25:20
Brady
Like, now laundry sounds really fun.

00:18:25:22 - 00:18:31:15
Jheri
Yes, we get we actually get dopamine hits throughout the day because we're like getting stuff done, but we're just avoiding the one.

00:18:31:15 - 00:18:32:10
Brady
Thing, one thing.

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Jheri
Side quests actually help us feel better. It's still an emotional escape when you are not doing the thing in front of you. It's because you don't want to feel the way you feel when you think about doing the thing.

00:18:44:20 - 00:19:06:19
Brady
So a lot of people listening to this probably can relate to side questing instead of doing the thing that's right in front of you that you know you need to do right. And so do we. Side quests because we're looking for some second like fulfillment where we go because also like the laundry doesn't sound fun too. If the thing was laundry, I would then find another thing to sidequest on.

00:19:06:20 - 00:19:08:20
Jheri
But if it was taxes, you'd probably go do your laundry.

00:19:08:20 - 00:19:10:00
Brady
Then the laundry sounds awesome.

00:19:10:02 - 00:19:10:19
Jheri
Yeah, what I'm.

00:19:10:19 - 00:19:11:06
Brady
Saying is.

00:19:11:07 - 00:19:13:06
Jheri
Or worse, that's exactly what I'm saying.

00:19:13:07 - 00:19:16:14
Brady
I sound like a crazy person, but I do this all the time.

00:19:16:18 - 00:19:32:09
Jheri
No, no, this is the real thing. This is a real thing. Like, ask me how many months I sit with, like, a bag to take to goodwill in the back of my car. And then when I finally drop it off, I'm like, that took seven minutes, seven minutes. And for four months I've been beating myself up. You know, this is like a real thing.

00:19:32:10 - 00:19:52:15
Jheri
But why? It's the dread. It's the overwhelm. It's the thoughts that I'm telling myself. It's the not wanting to do it. It's the emotional escape. So when you're engaging in procrastination, as I call it, and that's different than just sitting and scrolling on your phone and melting into your couch, which we do too. But when we're talking about procrastinating, there's some good things that happen.

00:19:52:15 - 00:20:06:18
Jheri
When we engage in procrastinating, we get to feel good. We actually got things done on our list. So an example of this would be like if all week long I'm telling myself, okay, I'm going to do my taxes on Saturday. It's getting done. It's all my calendar. I don't have to worry all week.

00:20:06:20 - 00:20:08:09
Brady
Which by the way, the deadline is tomorrow.

00:20:08:12 - 00:20:25:04
Jheri
Oh, why did you say that? Okay, okay. Anyways, we're not talking about that today. We're not talking about that. But all week I don't have to feel bad because I already have it in my calendar. I set the whole day aside on Saturday. Saturday comes and I'm like, okay, I got to do. But you know what? I had neighbors move in a couple of weeks ago.

00:20:25:04 - 00:20:37:14
Jheri
I have never taken them cookies or even said hello, and my whole family would appreciate it. If I can whip up cookies in less than an hour, I'll just do it real quick and then I'm going to start on my taxes. It's a great thing I should do. And then when I'm done, I'm like, oh, you know what?

00:20:37:14 - 00:20:40:13
Jheri
I didn't run that errand. It's so important. I've got all day.

00:20:40:17 - 00:20:54:03
Jheri
to do my taxes. Right. And so this goes on and I actually believe I'm going to do it. I believe that I do this all the time. I believe I'm going to do it. But what's happening? I'm getting quick little dopamine hits because I'm getting things done that I couldn't get done all week.

00:20:54:06 - 00:21:16:15
Jheri
I feel productive at the end of the day, I can justify, well, I didn't get my taxes done, but I cleaned my bathroom, I paid my bills, I picked up my dry cleaning, I made cookies for the neighbor like I got more done than I usually get done on a Saturday. So I get to feel good. And all day I escaped the feeling that I didn't want to feel to have to do my taxes.

00:21:16:17 - 00:21:23:05
Jheri
But I go to bed still feeling shame because I didn't get the one thing done that I promised myself I would do.

00:21:23:09 - 00:21:42:05
Brady
Okay, but I'm kind of hearing like a hack in this because if you know, that's your whole thing is like understanding yourself, understanding where you're at your capacity, and if you have the ADHD, you still need to get the cookies and the laundry and the bills paid. The one thing you didn't get done, so is could you just flip this on its head and kind of turn this into a strategy, like a hack to get things done anyway?

00:21:42:07 - 00:22:02:00
Jheri
Oh yeah, I mean, absolutely. But that's why it here's here's what I'm teaching my clients is that there are so many hacks and strategies out there. There's always a new planner. There's always a new way to like, externalize time. There's a new app out there. Most of them weren't great. Like there's just so many choices out there. So how come?

00:22:02:01 - 00:22:23:11
Jheri
They're not working for anybody long term. They work for a week, and then they stop working because the novelty wears off. Because our back to a point I was making earlier is that, like, nobody really likes to do things they don't want to do, but because ADHD ers are all they already struggle on the regular to stay regulated, we have lower baseline levels of dopamine.

00:22:23:13 - 00:22:47:18
Jheri
So when we give ourselves artificial dopamine, we like spike high and then we crash lower than baseline. It takes us a little bit longer to come up. And we have this huge influx of emotions all the time. So when it comes to avoiding and not wanting to do things, we have an interest based nervous system. So we are led way more than the average person by our emotions and what we're interested in and what we're not interested in.

00:22:47:18 - 00:23:09:00
Jheri
this is why I'll tell my clients. Like, the executive function tools are great, but we don't start in what I call our action line. It doesn't work because we're not addressing the emotional dysregulation. So the new hack of the week, the new app that just came out like ADHD is, are known for like throwing money at things and then they don't show up to the course or the thing.

00:23:09:02 - 00:23:13:21
Jheri
We have to fix this part first. We have to understand what our brains looking for.

00:23:14:02 - 00:23:31:15
Jheri
I would say about 10% of ADHD and this is just me talking here, but I think, you know, there is some that's biology, like our circadian rhythm being off a little bit, getting a burst of energy when the sun goes down, struggling to settle down for sleep, hormones, you know, like there's some stuff there, the way that we feel time.

00:23:31:17 - 00:23:32:05
Jheri
But

00:23:32:05 - 00:23:47:23
Jheri
about 90% of ADHD is rooted in emotional dysregulation. Wow. So our brains wired differently. Yes it does. It help us at all to to use that as a crutch? No, it's an explanation so that we can understand where to start to fix the problem,

00:23:47:23 - 00:23:58:10
Jheri
fix the emotional dysregulation. First, pay attention to like I'll tell my clients, pull the emotion out when you can see yourself not being willing to get up off the couch or do the thing.

00:23:58:16 - 00:24:14:21
Jheri
Identify right away and not just the emotion. That's not enough. What are you telling yourself right now? I don't want to do it. No, but what are you really telling yourself? It's going to take me forever. I'm probably not going to be very good at it. It won't make any difference anyways, because it's a ten hour project and I only have an hour to give to it today.

00:24:14:23 - 00:24:21:15
Jheri
What is the thing you're telling yourself? That's the reason you feel the way you do, and that's the reason you're running from it.

00:24:21:15 - 00:24:23:16
Brady
let's go into that scenario, okay?

00:24:23:18 - 00:24:41:17
Brady
It's a Saturday. I'm on my couch. I have been sucked into reels for 40 minutes and I. Know fun. Yeah, I kind of does. And then, of course, you don't remember anything, right? I know I need to get up and get done. What should I do first to get over that, that hurdle, because I'm clearly emotionally dysregulated.

00:24:41:19 - 00:24:45:01
Brady
I know I've got three things I need to do. I don't want to do them. What should I do first?

00:24:45:02 - 00:25:01:20
Jheri
Okay, so the first thing going to be a little picky here is like, we're not going to say I need to have to or should because you think about like when people talk to us, if somebody tells you, Brady, you should absolutely be getting this done this morning. What's the first thing you think?

00:25:01:22 - 00:25:03:00
Brady
Don't tell me how to live my life.

00:25:03:01 - 00:25:08:01
Jheri
Exactly. Especially if you're ADHD. It's like, well, now I'm not going to do it like I.

00:25:08:03 - 00:25:09:13
Brady
How dare you? I'm aware.

00:25:09:15 - 00:25:31:13
Jheri
Yeah, well, at the same thing happens when we say it to ourselves. We don't really think about that a lot. But like, the whole shitting on yourself is really a thing, so I, I really work hard to, not say to myself that I need to have to or should do anything that day when you give yourself a choice like, okay, it's morning, I could do this, or I could do that, like, hey, Brady, you know, I know you got a lot going on today.

00:25:31:13 - 00:25:36:12
Jheri
You could do this. And I think it would make a big difference in our business. What do you think? Do you want to do that today?

00:25:36:16 - 00:25:38:04
Brady
This is what I'm telling myself in my head.

00:25:38:05 - 00:25:46:21
Jheri
Yeah. Or me asking you, like I just said, you should be doing this. Like if I present it to you that way, like, what do you think? Do you think this is something you could work on today? Does it feel a little bit lighter to you?

00:25:46:23 - 00:25:55:11
Brady
Yeah, it feels more open ended instead of, I don't know, like there's an expectation behind this, you know, and then like, if you don't do it, you'll be letting me down. If for some reason that really that really gets to me.

00:25:55:16 - 00:26:20:01
Jheri
Just the just feels words make a little like or make a huge difference. And when you think about neurodivergent we have PD a and odd. We have a lot of research to show. Odd is oppositional defiance disorder. It's associated with ADHD and PDA is pathological demand avoidance. And that's associated with autism, although they're changing the acronym. And both are just symptoms of not wanting to be told what to do.

00:26:20:03 - 00:26:37:05
Jheri
They're a little bit different. But my point is that we really search for autonomy. If we're neurodivergent individuals, we don't want to be told we'd like to be independent. We like to make our own decisions. And so if you wouldn't like someone telling you you have to get up and do this right now, then don't say it to yourself.

00:26:37:05 - 00:26:38:11
Jheri
That's the first thing.

00:26:38:13 - 00:26:43:11
Brady
Wow. Okay. That is what's the second thing that actually makes a lot of sense?

00:26:43:12 - 00:26:57:15
Jheri
Yeah. You want to you want to have choices. And I'll remind adults because they'll be like, oh, I have to do this, and I have to do that. I'm like, no, you don't. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to pay your taxes. You don't have to take care of your kids. There might be consequences, but everything you do is because of the person that you want to be, the person that you're becoming.

00:26:57:15 - 00:27:11:10
Jheri
because I'll work with a lot of clients that maybe they have a lot on, not just business, but like, oh my, my significant other doesn't help me very much. And I have to do this for the kids. And that's like, no, you're doing that because of the mother that you want to be or the, the, the owner of this company that you want to be.

00:27:11:10 - 00:27:18:15
Jheri
So stop saying I have to or I need to. You don't have to do anything. You're doing it as a choice because of who you are. That's empowering.

00:27:18:17 - 00:27:34:10
Brady
So it's entirely self-imposed because you have a version of yourself that you're trying to be. And so the way that that's kind of shown up in our heads is we then go, so here's a list of shoulds and needs and must because of the person that you are in Italy, that's who you're trying to be. You're not a crappy mom.

00:27:34:10 - 00:27:39:16
Brady
And so you want to do all of these things. They're just not things you technically want to do. You just want to be that person.

00:27:39:22 - 00:27:55:23
Jheri
But, but and therefore you want to do it. Like if you ask me, do I want to, I don't know, drive my son like something as simple as a carpool. It's like, no, I don't want to do it, okay. You don't. So why don't you stay home? Well, no, I want him to go to this thing because it's going to be really good for him.

00:27:55:23 - 00:28:10:18
Jheri
Oh, so you do want to go? No, I don't want to go. But I want him. It's either yes or no. Do you want to drive him or do you not want to drive him? Yes, I want to drive him. It will eat me up inside if I'm not driving him and he's not going to this thing, then you want to do it.

00:28:10:20 - 00:28:16:19
Brady
Then once you reconcile that dance there, you become emotionally regulated, then willing to do it.

00:28:16:20 - 00:28:35:20
Jheri
Well, yeah, I think that that's part of it is just acknowledging the truth. There's usually so our brain is is even if you're not ADHD, the research shows that that we have between like 10,060 thousand thoughts a day for years is probably a lot higher. And 80% of our thoughts are negative and 95% of those thoughts are repetitive.

00:28:35:21 - 00:28:56:15
Jheri
And so then like ADHD is probably worse numbers. But what that means is our brain is constantly scanning for danger. And when you think of danger, it's like anything that makes us feel uncomfortable. So it's not just don't walk down that dark. Elliot's scary. It's also that's going to be hard. That's going to take forever. The male, the male like you don't want to see those numbers.

00:28:56:19 - 00:29:16:08
Jheri
Yeah. So your brain wants to protect you from all of that. So your brain is constantly feeding you thoughts that really are not helpful. Right. They're not useful. And so when a lot of the thought work I'll do with my clients is recognizing that most of what your brain is telling you isn't true. Your job is to sort through it, like be the TSA for your brain and figure out what's actually true.

00:29:16:10 - 00:29:30:19
Jheri
This isn't actually true that I don't want to do this. I very much want to do this for my son. I just don't feel like getting in the car right now. Well, those are two different things. You cannot feel like it, and you can actually want to be the person that's doing this for him or with him.

00:29:30:21 - 00:29:40:22
Brady
So I'm on the couch. Number one is don't use need should or must. Number two would be identifying the thing that you have to do and then reconciling whether you actually really do want to.

00:29:40:22 - 00:29:42:11
Jheri
Do the thing that you want to do. Okay.

00:29:42:12 - 00:29:43:11
Brady
Yeah. And then what would I do.

00:29:43:11 - 00:30:00:01
Jheri
After that. Well, so here's the thing about ADHD brains. It doesn't matter how many times I clean my kitchen, for example, every time I walk in and it's a mess, I think this is going to take me the rest of the night, like it's going to take me all night. This can take forever. ADHD brains again. Think of emotions.

00:30:00:01 - 00:30:08:00
Jheri
We get very overwhelmed and and it's usually a little dramatic. And so ADHD brains want to know okay what's involved?

00:30:08:00 - 00:30:19:05
Jheri
What am I going to be done. You know, like what do I have to do? And if you can identify that, if I go into my kitchen and I see it a mess, I'll just complain. I was like, probably walk away and do something else.

00:30:19:06 - 00:30:22:14
Jheri
But if I say to myself, okay,

00:30:22:16 - 00:30:35:20
Jheri
I want to get this done because it's going to feel great to relax the rest of the night. And it's not that I want to do things solely for other people, but sometimes I like the idea of my husband coming home from work and the kitchen is clean, so that's not my sole reason.

00:30:35:21 - 00:30:50:02
Jheri
Like he'll be mad at me if I don't do it. But whatever makes you feel motivated, like I like that it will be done, I like it, it'll make my happy, my husband happy when he comes home from work. I have a couple of reasons why that's my why. Then I can change my thought around like it's not true, that I don't want to get the kitchen clean.

00:30:50:02 - 00:31:11:14
Jheri
I just want to get it clean quickly. So then I'm like, okay, okay, dishes. That's probably gonna take me 20 minutes sweeping and mopping. That'll probably take me another whatever, right? Like 15 minutes. I'm going to clean off the counters. That's five. And then this thing over here will be five. Now, I just showed myself that this isn't going to take near as long as am I.

00:31:11:18 - 00:31:33:05
Jheri
My 80% negative thought brain was telling me that it was going to take. And so this is why time chunking and breaking things into either task chunks or time chunks is really helpful for brains. I have to stop every time. I mean, I'm almost 50 years old and I've cleaned my kitchen a million times. Every time I have to stop and go, this is going to take this, this, this.

00:31:33:05 - 00:31:46:06
Jheri
Got it. Because if I don't do that, my brain just lies to me. This is going to take forever. Why are we doing this right now? I shouldn't have to be doing this. No one's helping me. Where did all these dishes come from? I mean, my brain will just take off, so I just. It's like. It's like I'm parenting someone.

00:31:46:06 - 00:32:04:09
Jheri
It's like my brain's a toddler, and I'm just telling. And that's what I think of. I think of a toddler with a knife. Like just telling me things like, this takes forever. Eat the cookie. Like, no, that's not true. Here's what's actually true. But if I don't show it to my brain, my brain just continues with the same negative narrative.

00:32:04:13 - 00:32:07:04
Jheri
that's just one of the pieces of the Wired acronym.

00:32:07:05 - 00:32:28:22
Jheri
So one of the things I'll do with my clients to show them how to use the Wired acronym is, I'll say, okay, pick a task that you've been putting off. Now let's go through the Wired acronym. Is there anything that you can inject into this to make this feel fulfilling or that you're passionate about? Like many times the answer might be no, but then let's move to the next to the next letter interest and then challenge and competition.

00:32:28:23 - 00:32:47:06
Jheri
So this is just a simple example, but I had a client, she's in my cohort and she was trying to take care of like a stack of paperwork like this. And it was a turny paperwork and stuff like this. Yeah, exactly. And she could not get herself to do it. And so she just decided to incorporate some interest and novelty in there.

00:32:47:09 - 00:33:09:16
Jheri
She lives in Hawaii, first of all. So it's like, yeah, why aren't you doing it outside? That seems obvious to me, right? But she's like, so she took the paperwork outside and she decided, okay, instead of just going through paperwork like this. Sounds terrible, right? She just decided to make a quick, rapid decision. What I'll do is I'll just start organizing everything by date.

00:33:09:17 - 00:33:26:21
Jheri
And so whether you put on a timer or not, it was like, now she wasn't just going through a pile of paperwork. Now she was making rapid fire decisions. Now, this won't work every single time, but it will work the first or second time. And that is the thing that can be a challenge at times with ADHD years.

00:33:26:21 - 00:33:46:13
Jheri
But once you get the hang of this, you can continue to change things. So they're novelty. Just a version of this. Like this time it's rapid fire decisions by date. Next time it might be some other kind of system. Sometimes it's using a timer, sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's just changing your environment. Going to the coffee shop, working outside in Hawaii, adding your favorite drink.

00:33:46:19 - 00:34:04:16
Jheri
Like you have to experiment with this stuff. But the Wired acronym works. So figuring out we know that one of those five things will always be present when your brain is activated and moving. So your job is to figure out which part of that acronym do I bring in to this task?

00:34:04:18 - 00:34:06:04
Speaker 1
Who the fuck is this guy?

00:34:06:07 - 00:34:26:08
Speaker 2
Fair question. Sorry comment section, but I'm not an industry plan and I'm not CIA. I directed the video production for Mr. Beast, where my work has about 10 billion views, and now my team and I produce shows just like this for founders all over the country. Listen, if you're a founder and you've built a real business, you are the best kept secret in your industry.

00:34:26:08 - 00:34:40:11
Speaker 2
So if you are done with being invisible outside of your company, book a call with us on the link below. My team and I will show you exactly how a show like this could change everything for you and your business. All right, back to the show.

00:34:40:13 - 00:34:56:05
Brady
Okay, so an easy one in my head then if I'm trying to solve this would be my kitchen's a mess. If I get it cleaned up then I will reward myself with a coffee. But after a while that also might not work. So then you need to go to a different incentive point in the wired framework.

00:34:56:07 - 00:35:19:22
Jheri
That's right. And I want to point out like for some ADHD or they'll say that won't work for me. I would just give myself the coffee and not clean the kitchen. And then for some, that's why reward doesn't always work, right. But then for some ADHD years it does work. A different version of that might be, like maybe there's a course you want to finish or there's a goal you have by the end of the week and pulling in your significant other and saying, I want you to hold me accountable.

00:35:19:23 - 00:35:33:18
Jheri
I really want these new shoes, or I want this thing. Do not let me purchase them. In fact, I want you to purchase them for me, but only if I meet my goal at the end of the month or the end of the week. Are you on the same team with me? Because now you can't just go get yourself the reward.

00:35:33:18 - 00:35:52:20
Jheri
I mean, hopefully like if you have the conversation. So it's finding ways to make it work with your brain. I have some ADHD clients that timers don't work for them for multiple reasons. Where timers work great for most ADHD or so, you do have to experiment a little bit with what really activates my brain. What part of this acronym acronym works best for me?

00:35:52:21 - 00:36:12:10
Jheri
When I was interviewing Doctor William Dodson, he talked about a medical student, and he said I was lucky enough when I was going through medical school to sit behind the biggest jerk in the class, and I vowed that he was never going to get a better grade than me. And so just that competition alone caused him to like, study and work really hard because he was not going to let that guy do better than him in class.

00:36:12:12 - 00:36:17:06
Jheri
So there's lots of different ways to inject one of those five things.

00:36:17:08 - 00:36:21:23
Brady
You mentioned a emotionally invested nervous system. Is that how how do you say.

00:36:21:23 - 00:36:23:12
Jheri
That interest based nervous system.

00:36:23:13 - 00:36:37:10
Brady
An interest based nervous system. So you said 90% of ADHD is all kind of hinged on an interest based nervous system. For someone who doesn't have ADHD, what kind of nervous system do they have and what does it look like?

00:36:37:12 - 00:37:01:02
Jheri
Well, it's I don't have that nervous system, so it would be hard for me to explain what it feels like to be them. But what we know about most neurotypical individuals is that if something is important, they can just get their brain to do it because it's important. There's a deadline coming up next week. Something like, I don't even want to use the word urgent.

00:37:01:02 - 00:37:22:07
Jheri
It's just I don't even know what it feels like to do something just because it's important I that that has no effect on me at all. It doesn't matter how important it is until it becomes urgent. My brain doesn't turn on to do it. So I don't know what that feels like. I just know that a neurotypical brain it think of it as having a completely different wiring.

00:37:22:09 - 00:37:42:18
Jheri
When there's a task in front of them, it doesn't matter if they don't want to do it, they just have the discipline to do it. Where ADHD is, it's it's not about having discipline. That's not the thing that helps our brain get engaged. It's that our brain has these five triggers of want interest challenge, that that's how our brain turns on.

00:37:42:18 - 00:37:59:11
Jheri
And I don't know why they work so differently. I just know that they do because I look at people who don't have ADHD and it's like, wow, how did you get yourself to just sit down and do a boring task? And they're like, well, it needed to be done does not compute for my brain. I like, okay, I yeah, I needed to be done.

00:37:59:11 - 00:38:15:07
Jheri
But how did you get yourself to do it. They lack it's not that other people can't be emotional or they're not tied to their emotions, but they lack that part of the wiring were for me. Something has to be emotionally connected for my brain to do it. It can't just be important.

00:38:15:09 - 00:38:35:17
Brady
argue, like a lot of people probably feel that way, and they just think they're they're crazy or like, what is wrong with me? So if you can then just point it to, well, what's going on is you have a, you have a narrow, divergent attention span, your prefrontal cortex is not engaged. And so you're literally not able to get up and do that thing.

00:38:35:19 - 00:38:54:22
Brady
It's not because you're a lazy sack of shit, it's because there's just this wiring that you need to account for. Yeah. Which is so crazy. Do you think? Is this like an age thing? Because the reason I ask is there are generations older than me, and they would look at kind of my internal like issues with this and be like, just get over it and do it.

00:38:54:23 - 00:39:18:05
Brady
So then sounds like they have that typical wiring where it's just like, there's the thing I need to do. It's important. So I'm just going to do it. What do I care? Eat the frog. And I'm sitting here at times like I literally don't know how to motivate myself. So is this an age thing? Because on the other side of that, I feel like a lot more Gen Zers and Gen OFA and a lot of millennials have all raised their hand and said, I, that's exactly what I'm dealing with.

00:39:18:07 - 00:39:33:22
Brady
And I kind of don't know what to do. I have a handful of instances where I have shown myself, look how capable you are. But for the most part, I really don't know how to like, jump that chasm. So is this older generations had no problem just doing hard things, and then newer generations now have problems doing hard things.

00:39:33:23 - 00:39:35:12
Brady
Like what happened there? What is that?

00:39:35:15 - 00:39:54:19
Jheri
Yeah. Well, so when you were talking, I was thinking, well, first let's talk about older generations. Like this was also a just tough out everything. You know, it's like we don't do medication because, you know, there are people who really suffered with disease, like OCD ran in my family. And it was like, no, no, you just you just basically keep it to yourself and keep moving.

00:39:54:23 - 00:40:18:16
Jheri
So it causes a lot of pain and things of that nature. So I think we know that that's been happening. You know, there is a lot of talk about I see online all the time, like ADHD comes from screens or ADHD comes from bad parenting or trauma creates ADHD. We know that that's not true. But also the symptoms can be the same.

00:40:18:16 - 00:40:36:17
Jheri
And so that's where, you know, like I am not qualified to diagnose someone between the difference of just the environment that they grew up in. They grew up on screens and they don't really have ADHD. But can it create similar symptoms? Yes. If you truly have ADHD, it's more than just not being able to focus. As we said at the beginning,

00:40:36:17 - 00:40:39:10
Jheri
there is an emotional dysregulation component to it.

00:40:39:11 - 00:41:05:22
Jheri
It affects the way that we learn. It affects the the way that we process information, the way we experience the world, the kind of sensitivity that we have to other people's feedback and commentary about even the expectations that they have of us. I mean, it's a completely different nervous system. It's not just focusing, but when you look at the I totally agree that in today's world, it's making our ADHD worse.

00:41:05:22 - 00:41:30:01
Jheri
So trauma will absolutely amplify ADHD symptoms, being addicted to screens, same thing. And so when I have people asking me, well, like how do I know the difference? As someone who can't diagnose them, I will ask them to go back and like, can you recall any kind of symptoms when you were younger? And we will talk about maybe like what some of those symptoms could have been even as a female.

00:41:30:03 - 00:41:30:19
Brady
What would those be?

00:41:30:20 - 00:41:54:12
Jheri
Well, like like if you were someone who wasn't hyperactive, did you notice that you just had a hard time paying attention? Like when somebody is talking, would your mind just wander? Would you miss the instructions for school? For females, it's like, did you have to try twice as hard for half the reward? Like, yeah, your grades were keeping up or you were making it in school, but you were masking so hard just trying.

00:41:54:14 - 00:42:13:08
Jheri
Usually it's like a habitual people pleasing. You'll just do anything necessary to get your teacher to like you or to get approval from your peers. But inside you're in so much pain you almost feel like a chameleon. Some some ADHD ers do. Or neurodivergent individuals like, I just had to be what anybody wanted me to be. Otherwise they wouldn't have liked me or I wouldn't have been enough.

00:42:13:10 - 00:42:19:04
Jheri
There's a lot of that most ADHD ers will struggle with some form of self-confidence.

00:42:19:04 - 00:42:46:14
Jheri
confidence is different than self-confidence. So when you're confident, you have proof that you're really good at something and you can do that thing. But self-confidence is completely different. That's something that you're not born with that you have to earn from yourself, and you have a lot of confident people walking around that still feel a lot of imposter syndrome, still are habitual people pleasers, or over perfectionistic because they have been masking for so long that they believe they have to do these things to get other people's opinion

00:42:46:15 - 00:42:50:17
Jheri
or approval. And that's very different than just having a focus problem.

00:42:50:23 - 00:43:19:10
Brady
Fascinating. So a core pillar in your coaching and your mentorship too, is identifying if someone has ADHD or if they're autistic. And so autism is just a fascinating conversation. You know, this latest administration has really shown a spotlight on it. Whereas before it was it was a little bit more obfuscated, but I was Robert F Kennedy said when he grew up, it was something like 1 in 3 000 people would be diagnosed as autistic.

00:43:19:11 - 00:43:26:03
Brady
Now, on average it is 1 in 33, which is insane. Something changed.

00:43:26:04 - 00:43:36:15
Jheri
I've even heard numbers that were worse than that, like 1 in 16 males or something like that. I haven't kept up with the latest numbers, but it's it's a shocking number either way.

00:43:36:18 - 00:43:52:15
Brady
So and there's a lot of things that are attributed to it. I mean, there was the joke about the Tylenol that came from the administration, like, oh, mom took a little too much Tylenol and she was pregnant. But, I mean, there's a few other extenuating factors. I want to cover them all just to like, extend grace or being as a clinical about this as possible.

00:43:52:17 - 00:44:13:06
Brady
Part of that number is potentially being skewed by what we're uncovering, which is a lot of fraud in California and in other places. If you can create a survey in, the participants barely know what it is that they're answering and they go, oh, do you identify with these symptoms? Then the people pulling the survey can say, oh, see, there's so many people, they must all be autistic.

00:44:13:06 - 00:44:27:21
Brady
We can go to the state and say, there is this much demand for an autism center. So therefore give us government funding. They can then build an autism center there. This is all coming to light like right now, like the whole Nick Shirley phenomenon. Hey, just overturn a stone. You might find out. Yes, there are people with autism.

00:44:27:22 - 00:44:51:21
Brady
And also that is a pipeline to government money. This could be a an infrastructure for fraud, which is the case. So I'm saying that to say autism has exploded. And also there's a world where some of those numbers may be fabricated because there's fraud and financial interests you can pull from the state. So setting the table autism does seem to be much more prevalent today is that it's a spectrum, though, right?

00:44:51:22 - 00:44:57:13
Brady
So it's not just walking and not being able to communicate what are like some lower end symptoms of autism that maybe people have.

00:44:57:14 - 00:45:12:17
Jheri
Right. And this is a great I'm glad you asked me this question. So I specialize in autism just as much as ADHD. So and just for some context here. So I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 40. My husband's on the spectrum and six of my seven children are on the spectrum. All seven are neurodivergent. So yeah.

00:45:12:17 - 00:45:45:16
Jheri
So I've had some experience here and it's been really interesting to me. So to watch my family because, you don't you don't figure it out. It's not like, oh, one child has autism. And so now I know how to parent all of these children. They've been very different from the way that they are able to, show up in a school setting, whether it's with friends or grades, how well they learn sensory issues, like some of my children do not want to be touched, and others are very affectionate, and they're all on the spectrum, and they all came from the same parents.

00:45:45:16 - 00:46:07:11
Jheri
And so you don't ever want to compare for that reason, because it can look so different from individual to individual. Some of the things that like, I want to really focus on what's going on up here more than the behaviors. I think you really focus on behaviors when you're looking at level like three autism, for example, which is.

00:46:07:12 - 00:46:08:04
Brady
What's the peak.

00:46:08:06 - 00:46:42:02
Jheri
Which most people think of as, as like back in the day. The reason there's such a stigma around autism is because we might think of like mental retardation, being nonverbal, you know, like really not being able to function in society very well, having a caretaker, like a lot of people think of that when they hear autism. That's why so many men, especially who are being diagnosed today, are like so offended by the fact that they might have autism because there's this stigma that I'm really trying to get rid of because most people don't mind saying they have ADHD, but they don't want to say that they have autism.

00:46:42:02 - 00:47:00:15
Jheri
And I'm like, why is it like you think one is better than the other? I mean, when you think about, people on the spectrum who have been high achievers, it's like your engineers, a lot of your doctors exist on highly, highly intelligent people who are analytical thinkers.

00:47:00:17 - 00:47:05:01
Brady
I don't know if they're diagnosed, if I just, like, on camera diagnose, like, well, got.

00:47:05:02 - 00:47:22:23
Jheri
On the internet, right? Like, I mean, yeah, that's that's what we hear. That's what we hear. I mean, the common belief is that they do. And so I'm more interested in the way that they process information and the way that they think than I am just specific behaviors, because behavior is just going to vary from one person to another.

00:47:23:00 - 00:47:42:15
Jheri
Some of that's just genetics, family environment, like, you know what I mean? But when it comes to like, what are we looking at for autism? One thing I wanted to highlight was that, I've had I've had different clinicians tell my clients things like, oh no, you can't have autism. You understand sarcasm like they're serious or.

00:47:42:17 - 00:47:44:08
Brady
That's kind of reductive.

00:47:44:10 - 00:48:09:09
Jheri
You have friends and you're too outgoing to have autism. It's just like, what? What are we talking about? So there's this misunderstanding because there is a lot of information out there that people on the spectrum struggle in social situations. And my son, who was diagnosed at age nine, he did experience that. He was kind of your like stereotypical autistic.

00:48:09:09 - 00:48:27:18
Jheri
I don't like the words high functioning, but a lot of people can understand that. Well, autistic child, he was highly intelligent. We had him tested at the school. By the way, don't ever ask the schools to test two different times. They're like, oh, no. He tested highest in the district. I didn't know what I know now. That should have been the first sign he might be on the spectrum, right?

00:48:27:18 - 00:48:50:18
Jheri
Like he's smarter than everybody in the district in kindergarten. How? We're not working with them at home. Not much. Right. Like, let's just be honest. I didn't teach him how to read, so. Okay. But, it is the idea that they are introverted and not good at talking to people. Like that could be the case for some, but it's not the case for many.

00:48:50:19 - 00:49:17:03
Jheri
It's more about the way that they are experiencing the world. The majority of clients that I have that are on the spectrum will express that. They typically think that other people don't like them without doing work on themselves. They're walking around believing that people are judging them or they don't like them, that they are doing things wrong. They you most of the time will experience a large amount of anxiety.

00:49:17:06 - 00:49:38:15
Jheri
They are rigid thinkers. And so there's like black and white thinking. There's a way that things are supposed to be done. Now it's interesting because I'll have these conversations and sometimes my clients will think like, no, I'm not really like that because they're not judging other people. But then when it comes to the way that they're performing, it's like, yes, they're full of shame because they should be a different kind of mother or father.

00:49:38:16 - 00:49:51:06
Jheri
They should be better at their job, or they should have made more money by now. And so they're still very black and white rigid thinkers, but sometimes not in the way that they're even thinking about when they're when they're being asked. These questions

00:49:51:06 - 00:49:57:13
Jheri
a lot of shame. And I would say that they're allergic to pressure. It could be pressure that other people are putting on them.

00:49:57:13 - 00:50:20:05
Jheri
It could be pressure that they started putting on themselves. More often than not, they have these high expectations for themselves that they will never meet because the expectations are so high. Many of my clients have said they'll wake up every morning with just overwhelming thoughts of all the things they're doing wrong, or that they're not good enough to ever really succeed in their business.

00:50:20:07 - 00:50:48:10
Jheri
And it feels almost impossible, almost as if they have OCD. To overcome this negative thinking and overwhelming anxiety. That is more. And so then also they're misunderstanding the context of things quite often. So I actually made I'm all I'm always into creating new tools and worksheets for my clients. I'm kind of known for I have a new new worksheet tool, but this was so common among my clients on the spectrum that I actually made worksheets that said, okay, here's what you heard.

00:50:48:12 - 00:50:55:09
Jheri
Your brain said this. Somebody asked you, are you tired? And your brain heard? They think I look terrible. They

00:50:55:10 - 00:51:04:01
Jheri
don't believe that I went to bed when I said that I went to bed. And here's all the things they probably meant. Do you need a rest? Is this a good time to talk to you?

00:51:04:05 - 00:51:26:05
Jheri
And lots of just basic statements and questions like, oh, why did you put that there? Are you hungry? Are you finished? For the day? Their brain will automatically go to defense. Their negative talk is so overwhelmingly heavy that they're immediately experiencing a threat from people around them. They don't think I'm good enough. They don't think I can do this.

00:51:26:05 - 00:51:45:13
Jheri
They don't like how I look. They don't believe me. So there's this pressure that they're putting on themselves. So then when they get extra pressure from a boss or a significant other, it's almost too much to handle. And most of the individuals I work with on the spectrum, they just completely shut down. They suppress their emotions. They are they.

00:51:45:14 - 00:52:08:17
Jheri
Most of them have something that most of my clients have experienced alexithymia, where they're not super in touch with their feelings or they don't know how to articulate them very well. So they have strong opinions. They know what's going on in here, but if they're approached with an argument or any kind of confrontation, they'll just shut down and not have it because they can't even express what they really want to say.

00:52:08:17 - 00:52:13:03
Jheri
And they know they're not really great at the argument.

00:52:13:05 - 00:52:14:22
Speaker 3
Wow.

00:52:15:00 - 00:52:32:21
Brady
It also is kind of being worn as a badge of honor. Like, it's like a like putting your pronouns in your bio, like it signals to somebody else that I'm in this arena of conversation or thought like, oh, like I'm, I think I'm autistic. Whereas like it used to be. To your point, men would be diagnosed with that.

00:52:32:21 - 00:52:48:04
Brady
And I can totally see wanting to reject that like the hell I am. Like, no, I'm not. I'm not walking and stimming like I can conversate. But you're saying that downstream of that, there's such a broad range of ways in which people can experience some form of autism,

00:52:48:10 - 00:52:52:21
Brady
and without it being to this extreme thing where you're paying your head against the wall, like, literally.

00:52:52:22 - 00:52:59:02
Brady
and I was homeschooled Mormon kid. And so if my environment didn't dictate that, I.

00:52:59:06 - 00:53:00:01
Jheri
Didn't tell me.

00:53:00:01 - 00:53:21:00
Brady
Yourself, man, like, I know autistic kids and I felt like I exhibited some of those behaviors, but it wasn't to the point where, like it overrode certain patterns. I was like, I can tell I'm a little bit different from all of the kids in my friend group that went to high school or regular school. Like, I could tell that there was a real gap between like, the way that I think and operate and kind of my awkwardness or lack of self-awareness, like visibly.

00:53:21:02 - 00:53:37:19
Brady
And the way that all of them, like they had these street smart, they had the savviness, they knew how to, like, get along. I didn't really know how to make friends. And I saw, like, legitimate. Then I was like, there's my weird version. I saw the extreme version of it as well. So friends that I had who were also homeschooled, we had like a group of a couple of hundred kids, different families all across Texas.

00:53:37:19 - 00:53:59:20
Brady
We had this little community. It was pretty cool. But in that you would meet like almost every family had someone that was profoundly autistic. And then on the extreme end, there was one family that A loved them so much. They had three kids. All of them are going to require care for the rest of their life. They were walking, stimming.

00:54:00:00 - 00:54:16:13
Brady
They could easily get upset. You could communicate with them. I remember I was doing a sleepover at their house and they were with the family, and so you just kind of plug into their world for that day. And the three kids, you something could set them off, and then there would be kind of a shrieking or screaming fit and they would talk to themselves.

00:54:16:15 - 00:54:33:21
Brady
And it was very interesting to observe. It's like I can have a sometimes I could like, have a conversation with this person and then sometimes their presence would just be totally gone. So I'm like, there it is. That's the that's really kind of the upper limit downstream of that. There's a whole variety of symptoms. But they can also be autism.

00:54:34:01 - 00:54:56:23
Jheri
Yeah, absolutely. I mean like just using my own kids as an example. I mean, this is why I don't focus on behaviors. I also am not the person evaluating them. But more often than not, when somebody comes into my office thinking they just have ADHD, I'm finding there on the spectrum as well. They're ordered and they've been evaluated 2 or 3 times because in the screening, they're looking for behaviors.

00:54:57:01 - 00:55:09:20
Jheri
And a lot of individuals on the spectrum aren't they're not having these behaviors. They're having anxious thoughts. They're having hyper fixations that they can't let go of, you know, things like that. They're having problems in their relationships.

00:55:09:20 - 00:55:23:10
Jheri
it's interesting to me that ADHD ers, they know that their brain does things differently, but I don't ever have someone with ADHD come in and say something like, I'm just different than everyone else.

00:55:23:10 - 00:55:45:06
Jheri
My brain works different. And there's just I'm just different than other people. That's not usually something they'll say, but but the majority of individuals, whether they're 18 years old or my oldest, my most mature client right now is 82. If they're on the spectrum, they'll say that I've always been different. My whole life, I've always felt different. I've just known that I'm different.

00:55:45:06 - 00:56:04:10
Jheri
I don't know what about me is different. And if they don't know they're on the spectrum, they'll say, I think my ADHD is just different than other people's ADHD. They're smart. They know that there's something different because their pattern recognition skills are usually even more hyper attuned than ours with ADHD. And so they'll they'll notice everything and everybody.

00:56:04:12 - 00:56:30:10
Jheri
They'll notice tones shift in your tone and your voice that you won't even notice in a conversation, which is why they always think people are mad at them. Or how come you sound that way? Very sensitive to yelling in towns. They're just noticing everything. And so there's a lot of pain there for recognizing like, hey, the person over there or in my family, they're they're really excited about this trip, and I know I should feel excited, but I just don't really feel anything yet.

00:56:30:11 - 00:56:53:18
Jheri
What's wrong with me? Why? Why do I do that? Or how come when there's something really sad going on, how come I don't really feel that sad? Because with Alexa, Timea, the emotions are in there, but they're not always super in touch with them. So many times there will be like an emotional delay. Something could happen. My son had a breakup on a Monday when he was in high school and he was sad, but then he was like, I think I'm okay.

00:56:53:21 - 00:57:13:04
Jheri
He went to school every day. He was fine. Then on Friday he called me and he and in the parking lot and he said, and he's not a crier. He said, I'm crying for no reason. Can I please come home? He would have never put together like, you're crying because of your breakup on Monday because it's Friday. So there are a lot of individuals on the spectrum who will feel that way.

00:57:13:04 - 00:57:33:13
Jheri
I just woke up and I'm in a funk for no reason. I just feel really sad and depressed for no reason. So one of my tools, my worksheets, helps them identify just a simple text that they didn't give a lot of attention to, or maybe an event that happened over the weekend, or their routine was really thrown off, and 2 or 3 days later they're feeling these overwhelming emotions.

00:57:33:13 - 00:57:55:04
Jheri
And to them, it seems like it's happening for no reason. Now, does every person on the spectrum experience this? No. And this is why, again, you don't want to compare yourself. Like if you hear a symptom or two and you think, oh, I don't do that. Well, yeah, it's a spectrum. You may not do that. And if you have ordered, if you have autism and ADHD, you're constantly like a walking contradiction.

00:57:55:04 - 00:58:13:13
Jheri
It's like, I love people and I want to be out with people. And I also want to isolate and functions overwhelm me. You know, it's like you're experiencing those things. It's like I'm disorganized and I can't keep my house clean. And also I need order and I'll spend six hours cleaning out this closet like autism and ADHD is doing this all the time.

00:58:13:13 - 00:58:48:22
Jheri
So there's a lot of overlap, which again, is why it's so important that you seek out somebody who really knows what they're doing. Because I personally and, and, and this has just been years of experience that I've learned and from having, you know, my own family that just everyone's neurodivergent learning how their brains think and the emotions that they're going through and, and what they're trying to express that they can't, that I've been able to help my clients in a way that people who just have a basic understanding and give out medication may not really be able to properly evaluate and diagnose a neurodivergent individual.

00:58:49:00 - 00:59:10:12
Brady
So I'm curious. Most of my team, my employees are Gen Z and some of them are just phenomenal executors. One of them is producing the show right now. It's pretty great. She's freaking amazing. And then I have other ones, candidly, and I've had a lot of people come and go through my company where they do have these kind of emotional impediments and you can tell like, oh, they're struggling to execute this task.

00:59:10:13 - 00:59:35:13
Brady
I see this a lot in creatives because there is something about the creative brain that managed to stay intact that maybe didn't get totally worn out by the public school system or whatever. They tapped into something that really sparked their creative juices, and then they continued into adulthood and kept nurturing that. It's pretty uncommon. It's probably more common now because there's more screens, there's more media, so there's more people on average, getting interested in creative, starting the interest early, nurturing the interest early.

00:59:35:13 - 00:59:54:23
Brady
But I would say in general, creatives typically are a minority, and their main issue is that they have a hard time, self-motivated. And so I want to then try and be understanding of that. But I'm an employer, right. And so I want to go, okay, you may be dealing with ADHD, you may be dealing with a version of autism, but I'm paying you right.

00:59:55:00 - 01:00:12:18
Brady
You have to do your job. So how is it that like we kind of meet halfway on that? Because I don't want to be dismissive of it. I recognize that it's a real thing contributing to how their brain is working, but they also have a job to do and like to anybody listening, if they're Gen Z, you have to now go get a job.

01:00:12:23 - 01:00:27:15
Brady
You have to or create a company. Good luck with that. But you have to get in there and work. And they on average, this generation seems to deal with this a lot more than other previous generation. Oh, I got to do a hard thing. I go and do it.

01:00:27:17 - 01:00:44:23
Jheri
Okay. Can I say something real quick before I answer this question I think is important. So I think that we are kind of I think the pendulum has swung too far in the, in the wrong, the opposite direction of where it was. I think it's good that we know so much about neurodivergent now. This is great. We used to shove it under a rug and say, tough, just deal with it.

01:00:44:23 - 01:01:04:08
Jheri
And now we know so much and we know about RSV and we know that our brain is different and things are harder for us. But if you look online, there's a lot of this. Well, this is hard for me. This is who I am. You know what? If you you have a lot of TikTok and Instagram telling you if something's hard for you, you don't have to do it.

01:01:04:08 - 01:01:05:12
Brady
You don't have to do.

01:01:05:14 - 01:01:09:09
Jheri
To honor yourself. You need to take care of you. And it's.

01:01:09:09 - 01:01:10:13
Brady
Really works.

01:01:10:14 - 01:01:32:06
Jheri
Listen, listen, this is the thing. Taking accountability for your diagnosis doesn't mean, well, I guess it's not even taking accountability. Understanding your diagnosis doesn't mean zero accountability, right? So it's like you can recognize even like, let's take it to an extreme. Like if I'm someone who struggles with RC as I used to, I would I would struggle.

01:01:32:07 - 01:01:49:13
Jheri
But I know at the workplace I couldn't just go off on someone at work, but I might do it in a personal relationship. But let's say that I just struggle with D. I think today's tense here. Sorry. I'm just like grouping them all together. But you see a lot of like, well yeah, I did that. But I have d that's why I did that.

01:01:49:14 - 01:02:13:21
Jheri
Like in other words, you need to forgive me and be more understanding that this is the thing that I can't control. I will never buy into that narrative. It doesn't mean zero accountability. So we want to get better at once. We understand what's going on. We want to get better at understanding how our brain works, what it needs, how to advocate for what we need, but then also be able to show up and take total accountability and also be good at repair.

01:02:13:23 - 01:02:29:07
Jheri
Own what you did and own how you're going to do it better. So if I blow up or I make a big mistake instead of, well, I have ADHD and you know, that's hard for me. Instead of that, you know what? I can see where I made a mistake here. I can see how I could have done that better.

01:02:29:07 - 01:02:48:02
Jheri
I'm going to work on that. I apologize for how I showed up. That is something that's really missing, like the communication and repair part. And I you know, it's not that I don't blame them for their own actions, it's just that there's so much on social media telling them that this is acceptable. And if people don't get you, you go find your people, right?

01:02:48:03 - 01:03:08:02
Jheri
And it's like, no, you are never going to be a successful adult if you can't take ownership. It is not your fault that you have the nervous system that you do. But now that you know that the next best question to any of this is always, what am I going to do about it? It is not other people's responsibility to fix you, to hire you, to accommodate you.

01:03:08:02 - 01:03:09:12
Jheri
I feel strongly about that.

01:03:09:12 - 01:03:27:10
Jheri
you know, me. You know, I'm open about this. I've had two children attempt suicide. I have been through it with my family. I have had kids that have struggled, who have been bullied, who have been trying to figure themselves out and and teaching them tools and skills. To be successful is always going to be the way out of that.

01:03:27:11 - 01:03:48:07
Jheri
Telling them, I'm so sorry your life is hard is just going to keep them, you know, handicapped and and and feeling like they are debilitated because of ADHD or autism. So I just want to get that out of the way that when we can use neurodivergent as an explanation and not as a crutch, I love that I have ADHD.

01:03:48:09 - 01:04:15:04
Jheri
I would if someone could take it away from me, I would never let them. Because when you can overcome the debilitating symptoms, all of the gifts rise to the surface. I couldn't have done what I've done in business. I couldn't have raised my kids. All of the things that I'm proud of, I think come from the the awesome, amazing, creative brain that I have the ability to take risk, that the things that I see that people around me don't see.

01:04:15:06 - 01:04:36:10
Jheri
But it's almost like I had to heal the part of my brain that wasn't firing correctly, that was getting so easily offended, that couldn't focus, that was so easily distracted. I had to get really good at regulating my nervous system so that the gifts could come to the surface.

01:04:36:12 - 01:04:54:05
Brady
That's exactly what I'm worried about, is by acknowledging it, it turns into a get out of jail free card. And I don't want that. I want to see that you're going through this thing. I deal with some of it, too, but it's not an excuse to not work. And the real problem is, is it's crabs in a bucket.

01:04:54:07 - 01:05:13:01
Brady
If you can find a group of people that will sympathize, you can find a Reddit forum like at the risk of being reductive here. And they'll be like, yeah, see that your employer is the bad guy. It's like, no, he's just an adult who has taken a lucid and unemotional snapshot of the situation, which is we're all probably dealing with something.

01:05:13:02 - 01:05:17:01
Brady
Hey, you might be dealing with more than me. It does not change the reality of things.

01:05:17:02 - 01:05:17:15
Speaker 3
Right?

01:05:17:16 - 01:05:20:00
Brady
So I just I love the way that you said that.

01:05:20:01 - 01:05:26:20
Jheri
Let me tell you this. So I, I have a pretty decent online presence and I'm posting things all the time. And I also.

01:05:26:23 - 01:05:41:07
Brady
By the way, you had 150,000 followers on Instagram. You had a YouTube channel growing and I don't know where. I don't know where your account got banned. So anybody at Instagram if you're looking to help? That's right. Bring her old account back. Jerry South. It was really good.

01:05:41:09 - 01:05:46:13
Jheri
And I didn't get that emotionally dysregulated about it for that long. That's how I know I found a long way.

01:05:46:14 - 01:05:48:11
Brady
Out of freaked out.

01:05:48:13 - 01:06:12:01
Jheri
Well, it was so depressing. I did for a little while, but what I want to say is. So I'll post a lot of content online, and I also offer a community that it's it's it's it's awesome. And it's for people who actually want to change their lives and, and be awesome at ADHD adults. Right. And and so I'll look at the commentary on there.

01:06:12:01 - 01:06:35:19
Jheri
And you'll always have like two main camps. It's like ADHD is in a superpower. People are really triggered by that. And then there's people that are like, yes, it is. I've learned ways to overcome this thing in that thing. And and it's not that I don't want to help everyone, but just as an example, my own community, I don't want the people that are going to spend all day arguing with every person in the comment section that ADHD isn't a superpower, because at the end of the day, that's what matters.

01:06:35:19 - 01:06:42:13
Jheri
I was having a back and forth with someone recently who was saying, oh well, you keep your mindset, I'll keep my facts. I'm like, but actually

01:06:42:13 - 01:06:49:23
Jheri
mindset changes the facts, right? He was like, no, science changes the facts. Like, I'm glad I don't wait for the science to change, for me to change my life.

01:06:50:01 - 01:07:17:03
Jheri
Actually, mindset changes the facts because when we can get people to see themselves differently and learn how to operate their brain differently based off of mindset, they start performing at a higher level and the facts start to change. And that's the point that I'm trying to drill home. And so to answer your question about hiring somebody and what happens if they're having these issues, I mean, I think for any employer out there who's listening to this, I think the first thing is to figure out what exactly am I hiring them for?

01:07:17:05 - 01:07:35:00
Jheri
And like, what is the cost I'm willing to have for this person? Like, they're so good at this thing. Like Kate, she's probably going to love that I threw her name out here, but and hopefully she doesn't mind that I use this as an example. She is so ADHD. She's all over the place. She is like editing the real right before she's posting it every day.

01:07:35:01 - 01:07:52:11
Jheri
And, you know, like she's. But she's so good at what she does. And so I don't care that we don't have as organized as a system as other social media managers have had, because she's so much better than everyone else I've ever worked with at putting my content together. I never have to double check what she does. She gets it.

01:07:52:11 - 01:08:10:12
Jheri
She's awesome. So there's always like a cost that you're willing to pay outside of just money for whatever it is you're hiring. So that's the first thing you got to figure out is like, how worth it is it for me to have this person and then have the conversation that you need to have ADHD ears do really well with step by step instructions in front of them?

01:08:10:12 - 01:08:29:21
Jheri
Are working memory at times, you know isn't great. So I don't like saying those things out loud. But we do know that that's a part of our wiring. And so, like always have things written down so that they can refer back to it many times ADHD ers, they don't want to have to ask again or they're embarrassed that they forgot, or there's confusion over what they've been told or given.

01:08:29:23 - 01:08:48:10
Jheri
And sometimes it can be hard for them to have to ask for clarification. So you want to be as thorough and clear as possible from the moment you have the contract. Here's the expectations. Here's your your duties. Because ADHD ers don't always pay attention to the details. So they read it and they think they know they're like, oh, I didn't even know that was part of my job description.

01:08:48:10 - 01:09:04:14
Jheri
Or I didn't know you were expecting that of me. And they can grow resentment in their mind because they're asked to do something that was in their contract that they didn't know was there. So you want to just be very clear. Here are the expectations. And then if you're noticing some issues, it's like, what are the accommodations that you can give.

01:09:04:16 - 01:09:27:11
Jheri
Can you I would, I would give ADHD ers very clear deadlines because urgency is what makes their their brain kick into gear. So instead of like, hey, this is due at the end of the month, if this person if you value them and you want them to work with you, then just be willing to put a little more effort into give them a deadline at the end of each week, even if the deadline isn't for a month, so that they have an urgent reason.

01:09:27:11 - 01:09:50:11
Jheri
Remember that Wired acronym to check in with you at the end of the week? Their brain will get engaged if they have a deadline. Right. And so there's there's just things like that that you can be doing as far as check ins, when I'm working with someone with ADHD, I'm not going to care about how organized all of their processes and systems are, how messy their desk is, if they even show up five minutes late, if they're good at what they do.

01:09:50:12 - 01:10:10:18
Jheri
I don't care about that. What I care about is what are the results that you're producing and what what can I do to help kick in interest, urgency or competition and passion? Because if I can help their brain kick into those things, so get to know them a little bit better. What are the things they're interested in? What makes their brain really turn on?

01:10:10:21 - 01:10:31:05
Jheri
Does it help to have more regular check ins? Because at the same time, the reason you want to have that conversation is ADHD is immediately pushed back when they feel like they're being micromanaged. And so finding the line between ask them what would help you stay on task, what would kick urgency into gear, and then do that thing.

01:10:31:07 - 01:10:48:08
Jheri
Have the conversation. Don't just assume that you know and you decide to put the process in place and they feel micromanaged. If an ADHD person feels micromanaged, they will spin out so quickly you won't get anything from them. Right? We're independent. We want to have like we want to be hired and we want to be. We want to be leaders.

01:10:48:09 - 01:11:04:21
Jheri
We want to feel important. We want praise, right? And we want to know that we can use our brain to create. So if you give them a place to do that, they'll usually perform. But just give them the check ins and but talk to them about what that's going to look like. So they're on the same page.

01:11:04:23 - 01:11:10:15
Brady
can't help but again think as an employer, right. This is my business now. It's my whole life.

01:11:10:17 - 01:11:32:14
Brady
I talked with other guys who owned businesses, other people and they'll look at people with ADHD, you know, or more broadly like just kind of broad strokes say Gen Z. And they just go, oh, they're unemployable. So we just look for other talent. But what you're saying is people that have these symptoms, that have these tendencies didn't ask for it, but they have them.

01:11:32:16 - 01:11:53:21
Brady
And if you can figure out how to work with them, for one, you're going to get probably some amazing results because they have phenomenal minds, creative intuition, and they're usually like pretty fun to be around. Yes. You know. Yeah. Like even if they, I don't know, fly off the handle or whatever, like generally they're going to be the life of the party, so long as maybe they don't have like the conditions where they, they're destroying themselves internally.

01:11:53:21 - 01:12:05:17
Brady
Generally speaking, I have seen that they're a lot more fun to be around there, extraordinarily creative. So when people go, oh, like there, I got to jump through all these additional hoops, like rub some dirt in it, be employable. You're you're saying is

01:12:05:17 - 01:12:20:23
Brady
they are. And if you're willing to kind of go the extra mile here, which may be more achievable in a small business like mine, you can come up with little scaffolding and frameworks that will allow this otherwise unemployable person to actually be in an environment where they can crush.

01:12:20:23 - 01:12:41:20
Brady
They just need a couple of little extra things from you. And I think that's probably the solution, because if somebody is taking inventory themselves and they go, I have ADHD or I have autism, based on what you've explained or what I identify myself, I have it well, I can't go throughout life living off of like trees and berries like I you can't eat a tree, but I can't.

01:12:41:23 - 01:13:00:02
Brady
I can't go through life just eating bread and sticks. I find on the ground I have to have a job, but I have all these internal conditions and issues, so hopefully the employer will have the wherewithal or the manager to say, this person is really talented, they've got something, but it appears to me that they have some need for me to create some structure around them.

01:13:00:02 - 01:13:25:02
Brady
So if that person is willing to do that, the ADHD or Gen Z or can actually thrive in the workplace, but it does require that additional consideration. And if that person, that manager is not willing to do that, they don't have the awareness, then it's just incumbent on the person with ADHD, with the distraction to find a way to make themselves work employable, cooperate.

01:13:25:04 - 01:13:37:11
Brady
I mean, it's incumbent on them to then figure that out because it's your life. Like, what is it really like we're talking about here? Zoom out 35,000ft picture. It is radical like accountability for yourself. No one's here to save you.

01:13:37:15 - 01:14:01:02
Jheri
Absolutely. And I mean, everyone's dealing with stuff, and ADHD is not a curse. You just have to learn how to, like, actually have an owner's manual. A big book for my ADHD students, if you will, clients, because that is what they're doing, is they're learning about their own unique brain. They come into the cohort believing that they're broken and they just can't do the things they want to do.

01:14:01:02 - 01:14:20:06
Jheri
And then when they're done, they've learned what are ADHD boosters? How do I implement those in my day so I don't get burnt out? What are the triggers that just drain my energy right away? That I want to stay away from? What triggers my D? What is my daily capacity? What's my energy mapping look like? All of that might sound overwhelming back to back, but what it really is, is they're getting to know themselves.

01:14:20:07 - 01:14:40:18
Jheri
Because if everybody had ADHD, then they wouldn't be a problem in the workplace. It's because ADHD is are being asked to conform. They're being asked to sit still and focus for long periods of time and be on time and not interrupt like all the things that we hate. Right? And it's like, if you're going to hire somebody because they're creative or they're talented, then it's like some of the small things can't matter.

01:14:40:19 - 01:15:04:12
Jheri
You know, it's like, if it's a problem, fine, it's a problem. But the small things, because what happens when an employer feels like an employee isn't doing all of the things they they start to control more, they start to put in more rules, more oversight. And that's just killing the spirit of the ADHD person. And usually if you have someone with ADHD showing up that way, they don't understand how to operate their brain at all anyway.

01:15:04:12 - 01:15:37:02
Jheri
They don't know about the Wired acronym, they don't know about the emotional dysregulation, and so they don't know how to fix this thing. And this is why they feel broken and shame because they keep ruining relationships or losing jobs. It's like it starts off great and then people don't like working with them. You know, I think that a neurodivergent individual can be one of your biggest assets if you I mean, I also think employers take some responsibility, like if you want a really creative person to come in and do awesome things for your business, you you would do well to learn a little bit more about neurodivergent.

01:15:37:02 - 01:15:53:07
Jheri
How can you be a better boss? And that's what I'm I'm preaching this all the time, whether it's a parent coming to me or a spouse or a boss, if something's not working, start with you. You know, if your employee isn't performing, start with you. How are you communicating with them? What processes have you given them? Are you being too controlling?

01:15:53:08 - 01:16:13:00
Jheri
Do you understand their brain? So I think it's it's good for all of us to kind of take inventory about what we know versus what we thought we knew, and how can we show up better for this person. It brings me back to was actually an example Doctor Dobson gave about a guy in medical school, but he was like failing.

01:16:13:00 - 01:16:31:03
Jheri
He was the professor came to him and said, you're going to fail out. You know, if you don't do better. And there's a little bit of a story there. But by just this professor taking him under his wing and seeing how smart he was, he graduated second in his class and all he did was he injected part of that Wired acronym into his assignments.

01:16:31:03 - 01:16:42:13
Jheri
And the way that he was learning, he was brilliant. And so I think of a good employer as someone who's able to see those kinds of things and figure out what they're going to do to bring it out of somebody.

01:16:42:15 - 01:16:50:04
Brady
Not to the exclusion of that person, like doing the work on themselves, because that's what a lot of people are going to hear, by the way you go, oh, see, it is my boss's fault.

01:16:50:05 - 01:16:51:11
Jheri
Oh, no, I don't believe that.

01:16:51:17 - 01:17:02:13
Brady
Start with you. But hey, we'll probably get more ground if the boss manager employer is aware of that, and you yourself are also doing the things that you can to manage your symptoms.

01:17:02:14 - 01:17:21:15
Jheri
Yeah, I'm totally about responsibility. Yeah. I'm just like, if a, if a boss really wants to keep someone around because I'm of the mindset, like they do not have to hire you, they don't have they just don't have to. They don't have to put up with it doesn't matter if you have ADHD or you've been through a lot of stress and trauma in your life, no employer has to put up with someone who can't show up and do the work.

01:17:21:18 - 01:17:31:03
Jheri
It's just that if you have value and you're working on yourself, an employer can see that it could be a dynamic relationship and partnership, right?

01:17:31:06 - 01:17:34:21
Brady
I love that. Okay, so my very last question for you.

01:17:34:21 - 01:17:43:17
Brady
what is this doing to my attention span? Because I know it's doing something. My attention span is not what it was. And I feel like even with the latest model that I got, it got worse.

01:17:43:17 - 01:17:58:15
Brady
I remember having an iPhone 13 for a while, and then I was like, I had this suspicion where if I upgrade to this new model, the screen is going to have a different type of pixel. The front facing camera is going to inject different types of infrared. Light is a fact. You can look it up and it does rewire your neurology.

01:17:58:15 - 01:18:12:08
Brady
Your eyes are the most programable part of your body. That's why you can go to a movie and come out with a new personality downloaded because you're watching it through your eyes. Your eyes directly rewire how your brain works. So I'm worried that this is changing who I am.

01:18:12:11 - 01:18:33:08
Jheri
then you you add neurodivergent onto that where we tend to hyper focus or hyper fixate on things, especially like they were doing some studies around autism, showing that it's very common to hyper fixate on 1 or 2 things, like for my son when he was ten years old, it was football. He knew every stat for every football player on the Cardinals team.

01:18:33:10 - 01:18:55:22
Jheri
You know, within weeks, it's like he had to know all the useless information to there's a hyper fixation. So what they found is that especially individuals on the spectrum, their phone becomes their hyper fixation. So already it's a huge problem. But because neurodivergent individuals will hyper fixate. And that's the thing. And the only thing that they care about, it's incredibly challenging.

01:18:55:22 - 01:19:14:16
Jheri
I mean, hyper fixation can be so strong that all have teenagers and young adults come in and they'll have a boyfriend or girlfriend that's treating them terrible. I mean, saying mean things, telling them to their face these horrible things, and they're like, I can't explain it. I just have to be around this person. That's how strong hyper fixation is.

01:19:14:18 - 01:19:36:09
Jheri
And they're finding that this is what's happening to their phone. Like they actually believe they can't live without it. They're getting headaches if they don't have it because they're so hyper fixated. It was interesting because outside the world of neurodivergent, just our phones in general, and I think this was like probably ten years ago that I found this video and I was showing it to the teens I was working with at the time.

01:19:36:12 - 01:19:53:06
Jheri
They did a study with rats, and they showed them screens for like they had, you know, two groups, and they showed one of the group of rats. They had them sit in front of a screen over that works for something like two hours. And then they had them do the maze. The other rats could complete it in a matter of seconds.

01:19:53:08 - 01:19:56:13
Jheri
The rats that sat in front of the screen, they couldn't complete the maze.

01:19:56:14 - 01:19:57:00
Speaker 3
What?

01:19:57:02 - 01:20:14:07
Jheri
Yeah, it's like ten years ago. I was like, it was a problem back then, you know? So I just. When I think of neurodivergent, everything is amplified. I, I hate my phone. It goes off all the time and it's just a long to do list. I'm not a huge fan of social media, even though I have to be on it and I'm still like on my phone all the time.

01:20:14:07 - 01:20:38:21
Jheri
Pick it up. It's it's like a habit. Now I just have to. We have so many apps and we're multitasking. I'm usually listening to music and having a conversation and researching something on Google and checking my emails all at the same time. I mean, no wonder we can't sit still. ADHD was already. Most of us experience debilitating symptoms of not being hyperactive, but having hyper arousal where we're hyper on the inside.

01:20:38:21 - 01:20:55:10
Jheri
So what is that? It's multiple thoughts at one time. It's overthinking. It can be a little bit of RSV spirals, trouble sleeping. So then we add the phone into the mix where we're constantly multitasking and and struggling to focus and regulate. Anyways, it's a huge problem.

01:20:55:12 - 01:21:07:04
Brady
What do I do? Because I can tell that my ability to have a longer attention span has been greatly diminished. I think it's short form. There's a lot of studies that are showing it's basically short form.

01:21:07:06 - 01:21:26:03
Jheri
Yeah. Well, so like most people will say meditate I'm not going to say that because I don't like meditating I just, I don't it doesn't do a lot for me. My thoughts go everywhere. I know it works really well for some people. So I'm not. Don't come at me. I'm not like saying meditation is bad. I'm just saying, as a 50 year old woman, I've really never been able to meditate successfully.

01:21:26:03 - 01:21:43:13
Jheri
I've been to a lot of retreats, and I've had a lot of really great experiences where it didn't do a lot. But I do think if you're that person and meditating has not been easy for you, just finding like, going on a hike and not taking your phone, being able to just sit like I love to sit with music.

01:21:43:13 - 01:22:01:08
Jheri
I find that very relaxing. If I sit in silence, the reason that's a problem for me is because my thoughts take over and it just causes my to do list starts going. I have found that my best ideas don't come in silence. They come when I'm listening to my favorite motivating music. My mind is actually clear and I can hear all of my thoughts.

01:22:01:08 - 01:22:27:17
Jheri
So I don't think it's a problem to sit with music. A lot of people probably say, no, you need complete quiet. What I struggle with is being still, being without my phone, sitting and just or lying down and not feeling the need to get up and do something. I'm very restless and so more time practicing that either time away from the phone or just sitting and not opening up a screen and not looking at your to do list and not focusing on what needs to be done.

01:22:27:17 - 01:22:48:10
Jheri
But like, I like I like to do a lot of like manifesting type thoughts. Things like that are very empowering for me, but it's just being still and I consider hiking if I'm alone or I'm not on my phone and there's running water can also be a still moment for me where I'm just exiting the noise. ADHD is just constantly have no choice.

01:22:48:11 - 01:23:10:12
Jheri
It's this. It's also a very impulsive part of ADHD. We're acting on that noise. I need to do this. I need to do that. I'm escaping emotions. It's always going, going, going. What are the activities where you're not doing that? And if the phone's not in the room, if it's not in the car, if it didn't go with you on your activity, I mean, just notice, go do that and then notice how much peace you have that you you can't check your phone like in the beginning.

01:23:10:12 - 01:23:25:19
Jheri
You'll get a lot of anxiety. Like I can't check my phone. People are going to get hold of me. I have things to do. But after a while it's like, I need this. I need this in my routine every week that I just don't. I don't have to answer to anyone because most ADHD is are experiencing a lot of 80 d burnout as well.

01:23:25:20 - 01:23:43:03
Jheri
It's because we never stop. And I'll tell ADHD. Or is burnout for ADHD or doesn't usually come from a lack of sleep? We feel tired, so we're like, oh, I need, I need rest. It will take a Sunday and we'll just kind of like lounge around the house and clean our kitchen and do some laundry. And then on Monday, we don't feel rested or I shouldn't say rested.

01:23:43:03 - 01:24:06:03
Jheri
We don't feel rejuvenated. We're just not ready. It's because you have already a lower baseline dopamine level. And to avoid ADHD burnout, we have to be doing things that actually increase dopamine. And so that's usually no pressure. It's it's just doing selfishly what we wanted to do for us. And most ADHD ers, if they're honest with themselves, they don't do a lot of that.

01:24:06:03 - 01:24:33:00
Jheri
And if they are doing something they enjoy, they've taken kids with them or somebody else is counting on them to be there at a certain time. There's no pressure. It's just solely for you. Most ADHD ers don't do that. And that's really how we get out of ADHD. Burnout or prevent it in the first place is you're just taking time for you, not necessarily sleep, but like indulging in something that is good for you that you wanted to do that nobody else required.

01:24:33:00 - 01:24:33:21
Jheri
You do.

01:24:33:22 - 01:24:39:05
Brady
saw you talk about how people with ADHD are typically more drawn to alcohol. Why is that?

01:24:39:07 - 01:25:05:22
Jheri
Well, because we are dopamine chasers. We're constantly looking for stimulation. So again ADHD have a lower baseline level. So already we're like searching for more just to get us to normal whatever that is. And so when it comes to alcohol or substance, we know that ADHD is are 3 or 4 times more likely to become addicted to substances because we're constantly chasing that feel good, feeling that we never feel like we have enough of wow.

01:25:06:00 - 01:25:10:18
Brady
And so then they get that dopamine hit that just creates a fulfillment, and then that creates a loop around it,

01:25:10:20 - 01:25:17:21
Jheri
the ADHD brain that's already struggling constantly to keep itself regulated. Let's say you add alcohol into the mix,

01:25:17:21 - 01:25:22:10
Jheri
it's going to spike dopamine, right? It's like that artificial dopamine that you're looking for.

01:25:22:11 - 01:25:42:18
Jheri
The problem isn't necessarily the spike that feels good. That's the fun part. The problem is the crash afterwards. So what happens is we would kind of expect like I have a spike and then I just kind of come back to the level that I normally sit at, even if it's lower than baseline level, but it actually crashes way farther than that.

01:25:42:18 - 01:26:03:13
Jheri
So it takes it can take 24 to 48 hours to really come back to like your baseline level and so many ADHD years after, like a really exciting time, even a trip, they'll express that they feel somewhat depressed the entire next day because they're in their crash. Like a lot of people can just come home and it's like, oh, that was fun, I missed it.

01:26:03:13 - 01:26:25:14
Jheri
And then after an hour they're like, okay, let's get back to things. It's fine. Like you can say, oh, that was so fun. But ADHD is actually will feel at times that they've gone into a depression. And so when you have a nervous system that's already struggling to regulate itself constantly and you're adding artificial substances and you're spiking and crashing and spiking and crashing, I mean, that brain of yours, I call it the toddler with a knife brain that's like, do.

01:26:25:14 - 01:26:45:18
Jheri
The thing is, just screaming for more because it never wants to experience crash. Think of ADHD in this context. It's like you're just constantly trying to escape negative emotions. You don't want to feel overwhelmed, bored. And so as soon as you come down from whatever it was you were on, whether you were smoking weed or you're drinking alcohol, what is your brain doing?

01:26:45:20 - 01:26:57:19
Jheri
It's spiraling. It needs more. So this is why ADHD has become addicted so easily. They're below levels and they're constantly trying to stay above levels. That crash is so big.

01:26:57:21 - 01:27:07:06
Brady
That's illuminating. I know a lot of people probably when that describes exactly you know what I'm going through. Jerry, you are incredible. This has been enlightening. Where can people find you?

01:27:07:11 - 01:27:23:05
Jheri
Oh, thank you for asking. So I'm at Jerry South on social media. Hopefully I'll have that Instagram page. Somebody give us the way up here, please. Yeah, but you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. And also I have a website. It's just Jerry south.com.

01:27:23:10 - 01:27:39:04
Brady
And so if people either themselves are struggling with ADHD, coming up with a system for it, or they have a child who is struggling with ADHD or autism. You have coaching programs, you have one on ones, you have mentorships. You're we've met quite a few of your clients doing your show. All of them just rave about it.

01:27:39:04 - 01:27:58:07
Brady
It's so cool. They're like, my life felt like out of control until they implemented the systems that you've been able to cook up. And lucky for them, you had seven kids to experiment on. Bless yourself. And then you became a professional and certified in all these ways. So it works really well. So if you're dealing with ADHD, if you find yourself having a hard time locking in, you need a system.

01:27:58:07 - 01:28:08:04
Brady
Don't know where to start? Highly recommend it. It's the reason we brought Jerry on the show. She is the best of the best. So thank you so much. This was this was seriously awesome. New neural pathway for you guys.

01:28:08:06 - 01:28:10:17
Jheri
Thank you Brady love the conversation. Thanks for having me.

01:28:10:18 - 01:28:11:10
Brady
That was fun.