505- ADHD Is Awesome: The Holderness Family Guide to Thriving with ADHD

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Speaker B
Welcome to the Attention Deficit Disorder Expert podcast series by Attitude magazine.

Annie Rogers
Hi everyone. My name is Annie Rogers and on behalf of the Attitude team, I am so pleased to welcome you to today's live conversation and Q and a titled ADHD is Awesome, the Holderness Family Guide to thriving with ADHD. Joining me today are two very special guests, Kim and Penn Holderness. Kim and Penn stole our hearts more than ten years ago with their endearing video Christmas jammies, which went viral on YouTube. Since then, they've chronicled their whole lives, marriage, parenting, pickleball and much more with funny music videos, blogs and skits.

Their videos have resulted in more than a billion views and 4.5 million followers across social media, some of the most popular, including where's my phone? You might have ADHD and ADHD, the under the sea parody classic. Aside from regaling us on YouTube, Penn and Kim have their own production company. They host a weekly podcast. They shape product launches and marketing campaigns for clients.

They have also won the amazing race. Yes, for real. And if that's not enough, they just released their new book, which is their second, titled ADHD is awesome, a guide to mostly thriving with ADHD, which we will dive into today. Finally, we do have a sponsor today, and that is inflow. It's so easy to beat ourselves up for our ADHD that we often forget about all the great things about neurodivergence.

Inflow is here to celebrate your victories, big or small, and remind you that your ADHD can be a strength developed by leading clinicians. Inflows CBT based program is your starting point to managing your ADHD and embracing neurodiversity. Click the link on the screen to get your ADHD score today and kick off your journey with inflow. Attitude thanks our sponsors for supporting our webinars. Sponsorship has no influence on speaker selection or webinar content.

Okay, so without any further ado, Penn and Kim Holderness, thank you so much and welcome to the attitude community. Thank you for having us. Yeah, I've been. This is like first time caller, long time listener. I have used your resource for many, many years, including just like getting some thought starters when writing this book.

Penn Holderness
You guys are fantastic. And I should mention that you mentioned the book. Congratulations. It just hit number two on the New York Times bestseller seller list last week. So round of applause.

Round of applause to people for believing in it and buying it. Like as a community. Like who thought people with ADHD would actually have the wherewithal to buy a book. So we're really thrilled with the response and people seem to be getting through it, which is also really nice to hear as well. We tried to make it very readable.

Annie Rogers
Well, I will say that I have both the print copy and I listened to the audio version and the print copy is absolutely designed for an ADHD brain. It is dynamic, interesting, filled with factoids and breakout boxes and I would recommend it to anyone listening today. It is a book you will consume joyfully and the audio version is full, I feel like, of little Easter eggs and hidden tracks, bonus tracks, things that you don't get in the book. They're both very special. And it is really funny because the book was released last week and it took years of, you know, research and writing and rewriting and formatting and all this stuff.

Speaker B
It took years and to do. And then the fact that people in less than a week have finished it, it's like fast, but it's great. I love hearing that people thought it was really digestible and even with ADHD. So it's been great and thanks. We don't mean to spend this entire hour.

Penn Holderness
We'd love to get to. Absolutely. So I wanted to launch out and say, you know, before I even read the book with a title like ADHD is awesome. I was very prepared for the positive energy and practical solutions that I found in the book. Ways to fuel your success, that you found trips and tips and tricks, all that good stuff.

Annie Rogers
But what I was not maybe as prepared for was kind of your raw and truthful retelling of some of the challenges that ADHD has posed. Penn, in your personal and professional life as well as in your relationship, I imagine it was somewhat painful to rehash some of those stories. I'm thinking of the car keys on top of the car. I'm thinking of Dale Earnhardt. Sorry.

And why did you think it was important to pair the awesome with the real in this book? Well, let's start with this. Awesome has two definitions. It's the first thing in the book. Awesome means both great and awe inspiring and possessing great admiration.

Penn Holderness
It also means scary, terrifying, difficult to comprehend. That was the way they used that word in the days of yore. Like, they use it in the Bible all the time, and it meant, like, something different from the way that we use it. So I wanted to stay true to the definition of awesome because it can be great and wonderful, but it also is scary as hell. And there's a huge community of people, millions of us, who make mistakes all the time because of what's going on in our brain, especially in the world that we live in.

And we get really ashamed about it, and we don't really talk about it. Sometimes we talk down to ourselves. I certainly did. We feel like there might be something wrong with us. What I've learned over the last five years, thanks to a really helpful partner, is that if you do some work and get the right systems in place, you get the better side of the awesome.

You get the creativity and the spontaneity, and wonderful things can happen. But none of that works unless you get real with what's going on in your life and you're honest about it. And in fairness, you're saying, wonderful partner. You mean like the research that went in and, I mean, I was supportive in that, but I didn't come up with these systems. I didn't do.

Sure. Well, but you were patient and gave me grace and, like, you supported me through all of this. And you, like, you know, at the right times, you were forgiving, and then you also held me accountable at times when I should have been. So. Yeah.

Anyway, that was a long answer to your question. But the answer is, you've got to be honest about these things because everyone is feeling those things. And that's the connection. We are not alone. We're all going through this.

Annie Rogers
Yeah, honesty. I'm wondering. I am anticipating that. We have a few questions from parents out here who are saying, you know, as one does, I want to help my child see. See the truth in the matter.

Be honest with what's going on, but not deflate them. And as parents, can you offer some advice for those who want to head down this road of meeting ADHD head on, but to do so in a way that empowers, I would say this. That we've had the pleasure of doing two book signings now in person and at both. There have been moms in the audience who said, when we got the diagnosis for my son or daughter, it came. It was this very somber.

Speaker B
It was almost as if they were getting diagnosed with a terrible illness. And so they left the office feeling that gut punch. And let me tell you, we had the same situation, and it really did fuel us as parents because our son was diagnosed two years ago, and it was even knowing, because Penn had already started doing research on this, even knowing how powerful ADHD can be. I still. I cried, you know, and I had long suspected that my son had ADHD, but I just knew it.

Think life was going to be harder for him? I will say knowing that it does take work, and just as soon as we got him to realize there are things that are going to be harder for you, but in exchange, look at this brain you have. There's research that's been done that shows the ADHD brain is statistically more creative. And these are the people that are coming up with, they're problem solvers and they're coming up with they are just inherently more creative. So, yes, like, getting through school is tough, and we've done the behavioral interventions, we've worked with the school.

He has a learning plan and making those changes, we just had a level set for him. It's going to be harder. Like, there's just no easy way out of that. But I think he's owned that in our experience. Yeah, I think that we reframing it, you know what I mean?

Penn Holderness
We're not saying it's going to be harder. We're saying there's some work. I think one of the things that really he connected with was when I told him, you know how you're really good at basketball and you're really good at solving, like, quick problems? Like, there's certain things that come really easy to you on the other side of the coin. There are going to be things that are hard to you, that are super easy to most people, like remembering to brush your teeth when you go to sleep.

And I think you have to reframe it to say, let's just admit that that's tougher for you. And once he gets to that point, it's easier for him to do it. He doesn't feel ashamed or like there's something wrong with him because he understands the dichotomy of his brain. Right. It reminds me of a point you made in the book that I really loved that I'm not going to.

Annie Rogers
I'm going to paraphrase this, but you can't teach creativity and ingenuity. You can teach how to use a timer, how to use a checklist, kind of workarounds for your executive functions. Right, right, exactly. So you have an innately. You have some innate gifts.

Penn Holderness
Depends. Like, again, there's different. People with ADHD have different gifts, but the gifts are there. There's. I mean, you ask anyone, if you have this type of brain, there's going to be some sort of gift once you realize it on the other side.

And the rest of the stuff just takes work that can seem tedious. And then. So then it's just all about, you know, finding a way to incentivize them without, you know, giving away money or whatever.

Speaker B
A lot of checklists, and a lot. Of times they just incentivize themselves because they understand it better. Right. So I'm wondering, you know, as I mentioned, we got to know you with Christmas jammies, and then it was a few years before we got you down with ADd, which is, you know, instant classic. And I'm wondering if there was a conversation between the two of you about whether and how you should talk to the world about.

So that's a great question, because I don't. I don't know. Well, I remember. So I just remember telling my friends that I had ADHD, and they were like, yeah, duh. It's really obvious.

Penn Holderness
And then I made it a point. Anytime I was talking to someone, they'll say, like, by the way, like, I have ADHD. And the answer every single time was like, yeah, we know, dude. It's, like, super obvious that you have it. And so to me, like, by the time we wrote that song, I just assumed that everyone knew that I had ADHD.

I think there were even some comments, like, from other videos, like, boy, that dad's got ADHd. It's. I think that I just. I exuded a little bit. And so it was.

Speaker B
But it wasn't like, there wasn't a, like, okay, here's how we're gonna, like, hard launch this into the universe. It was just. It was just like, I think this is a really funny way to talk about it in a way that he. What he did say, though, I do. I do remember parts of how we were framing it is that it is not all bad, that, like, there are some great.

Like, he wanted to make sure he was talking about, you know, some of the positives of it. Mm hmm. And that leads into my next question. I found it illuminating to learn, Penn, that your dad was a minister and that you had considered a similar profession, because, really, in my mind, what you're doing is sort of like, preaching the good news of ADHD, and I wonder what's right. Go ahead.

Annie Rogers
Sorry. But I'm wondering, like, do you feel like that, your positive energy, your positive take on ADHD and the way that you talk about it, was that a conscious decision, or do you feel, like, sort of baked into who you are? I would answer sort of just baked in. I don't think that he had a, like, a business plan, and this book happened out of genuine natural curiosity. We just.

Speaker B
In the work we were doing in our relationship, so. But if I can talk about my parents. My dad was a very energetic, high level ADHD. Yes. Who never got diagnosed because he was born in 1939.

Penn Holderness
And by the time he was retired, that was barely even a thing. And his big part of his ministry was helping other people and getting in front of them individually to try to help them out. And then my mom was like, somehow she had all of this. She knew what to do, and all these interventions. She just figured it out because she spent so much time with me.

She was kind of this ahead of her time person who helped at least get me through until I went to college, and then I flamed out completely different because my mom wasn't there, because mommy wasn't there. Yeah, but you did. You did eventually develop the systems. I did, yeah. But she, like, she really helped me in high school like that.

I got diagnosed in college because my mom was not there. Like, that was the main reason, and the class sizes got bigger. A lot of these things happen to people with ADHD when you're not in a smaller class size and you're in a big auditorium and there's distractions and there's beer and, like, all of those things that, yeah, they didn't have in high school. Right now, I'm looking through. We have quite a few parents who are actually watching with their kids right now.

Speaker B
Oh, hi. Yay. So, I'm wondering if this is, like, a rare opportunity, maybe a piece of advice for the middle and high school students who are listening in about setting themselves up for success when they leave the house. Okay. Well, first of all, you are not the only person in your class who has ADHD, there are quite a few people.

Penn Holderness
You just may not know it. You are not alone. There is nothing wrong with your brain. Like I said about my son, some things are going to seem a little bit harder, like getting through the end of a class without spacing out. I still do that and I still struggle with that.

There are systems that you can put in place the number one thing I would say if you can sit in the front and center of every class that you're at, because the way that our brain works, if you're in the back, you see the back of people's heads, you see the window outside. The teacher is a smaller target. If you can get as close as you can to the teacher, it's going to really help you out and also. Get really curious about when life is. When life is going great.

Speaker B
Like, what are the classes or the activities that keep your focus and maybe follow those curiosities and just get really, like, follow a fascination and just get curious about that because there, I'm guessing there are things in your life that you're doing that you're just. You're killing it, you're loving it and just try to. Try to follow that.

Annie Rogers
Great. Okay, so I'll back up a little bit. I just notice the kids who are on the line, so I want to come back to awesome. To awesomeness. Were you concerned at all in naming the book about minimizing the struggles that people face?

Penn Holderness
Right. So you're talking about toxic positivity and, like, everything's fine. You're going to be totally okay. It's fine. It's great.

Speaker B
There's nothing bad. Yeah, I understand that. And it. But the definition of awesome is twofold. It's scary, hard to comprehend, but also worthy of great admiration.

Penn Holderness
So I think we make it very clear on page one what we mean by awesome. Here's the other thing, though. I'm okay with it. If people want to come at us and they have by saying, like, look, you are. You're really, like, you're really doing something toxic when you're minimizing what our difficulties are, I think I get you.

I understand. And I'll say that, like, I know there's different types of ADHD, but also this is one. Like, this is one of the most poorly branded things in the medical community that there is right now. And it's a bummer for everybody who has it and it doesn't necessarily have to be. So I think, like, most people with ADHD could use a little bit of encouragement and I think that's important.

I think that's almost more important than. The other side, and I think it would be hard. So, yes, as somebody that doesn't have ADHD, I was aware that it could come off as, like, some toxic positivity, but I challenge you to read through, like, the introduction or through chapter one and then say that we had. That we were, you know, that there was, you know, talks of positivity in this book because, you know, so much of it deals with what happens when life sucks with ADHD. So I think that if anybody reads it, there would be.

Speaker B
It would be tough to criticize that. But to be completely honest, yes, I was worried. I like the title better than ADHD is often difficult, but mostly manageable and occasionally really positive. That's just too long of a title. Definitely rolls off the tongue a lot easier.

Annie Rogers
Awesome. Yeah, for sure. Well, and I alluded to that, the raw honesty with which you discuss some of the challenges that you faced, and one that was really eye opening to me personally was your description of your physical and psychological response to boredom. And I wonder, Penn, if you could. If you could kind of give us some of that.

That insight that comes through in the book, because, to me, that was really very eye opening. Yeah. I'm trying to look around to see if there's anything on my desk that I can actually show you, but I just cleaned it up for you guys. I usually have, like, a bunch of napkins that have been shredded into little, tiny bits. Yeah.

Penn Holderness
Because my hands don't stop moving. Oh, my gosh. This is so weird. I chew on my shirt collar when I. When I'm trying to concentrate or I get bored.

I, like, I don't. I don't need more, but when I was a kid, I had, like, a ring of saliva going around. And he describes boredom as it's like. It causes him, like, physical pain to. To be bored.

Speaker B
And even, you know, we talked. Doctor Ned Hallowell was quite quoted in this, and he was sitting in a seminar, and he actually, like, he was so bored, he jumped out of a window. It was the first floor. But, like, that. Penn will do anything to, like, not be bored and, like, the sensations in his body that he describes it.

Yeah, it was very eye opening. So if. If we're going down a road and there's a red light, there's, like, an immediate question, like, is there a way that I can take a right on red, work my way around and get to the other side of this faster instead of having to sit at this light. And that is innate. That's not something that I learned.

Penn Holderness
That's the way that my body responds or my brain, I guess, in that situation. Am I answering your question? Yes. Yes. It was the fact that really the physical, not even discomfort, but almost pain and primal need to avoid boredom, which is, I think it's like we need a new word, right?

Annie Rogers
Because boredom, I think, is undervalued. It's Borcher. There you go. Done. We did it.

Penn Holderness
Borcher. It's Borcher. Borture. And I mean, evolutionarily, there have been, there's science that, you know, ADHD, it benefited because, you know, there's a whole hunter gatherer, you know, sort of evolutionary theory that people with ADHD survived more because of, you know, they were finding different, you know, berries and seeds and things like that. So you get that.

Speaker B
But in current day and the, the year of our Lord 2024, it is hard to really, I mean, those kids that experience forture get labeled as troublemakers in class, right? Because especially if they're super smart and they know exactly what the teacher's talking about and they have to pace back and forth. That's, that gets really tough to deal with. He's an adult, he's a grown man, so he can, you know, chew on his shirt and tear paper. But it is really hard when you're.

Penn Holderness
A kid and just to fully lift the veil. I'm already thinking about different ways that we can merchandise Borcher. And I've stopped paying attention to what you guys are talking about. No, we're not. We're not making Borcher t shirts now.

Annie Rogers
Well, no, I think inadvertently by bringing that up, I think it kind of illustrates what I'm seeing in the comment box right now, which is validation. So many people saying, oh, my God, me too. And I'm wondering if this is this really like the chorus that you hear in the comments on your videos. The best part about the comments is when you hear. When you hear me too, or I gotta change that.

Penn Holderness
That's not a good term. I as well. Yeah, like, when you hear me also. Same. So when we hear samesies, it just, what it does is it just reinforces the fact that it's not talked about enough and then it's very hard to be vulnerable and real and raw about what goes on with ADHD.

And that, to me, like, I feel that person is feeling seen and that person has said something out loud and that has started the journey into, like, really improving your life. Right. And we hear that you know, at attitude. And we're seeing that here, as well. And several parents have written in to say, basically, thank you for bringing ADHD out into the open and making it something that is not a cause of shame or that anyone feels they need to hide and that that has had a positive impact on their.

Annie Rogers
On their kids and also on themselves and kind of undoing some of the stigma that perhaps was planted, you know, in the eighties or earlier. Yeah, that's great to hear. We did have someone write in and say, how does Penn do it? How does he stay so positive? I'd love to hear how Penn and Kim keep the joy, fun, and perspective when things get hard or don't work out.

Speaker B
Can I also say that you see us three minutes at a time? That's right. So there is a lot of. There are a lot of different hours in the day when it is not always 100% truthful. Yeah.

Penn Holderness
There's never been. I've never been on camera when I've flooded, like, emotionally. And, like, we. We talk about the emotional side of ADHD in the book. It is very real.

Um, our brains, because of the way that they work, uh, things can snowball. Like, when one thing happens, it makes it feel like the entire world is a certain way. And I have. I'm 49 years old, and it still happens to me. It happened to me last night trying to get carry out, um, for mother's day, and I.

I got so bummed out. Well, I was letting you down. It was a very. Okay, we're gonna tell the whole story. Okay, we have.

Speaker B
We have a second here. So, we have been on the road a lot, which I love, because we've been able to talk about this book. But I said, for mother's day, I do not want to leave the house. Let's get Carrie out. I don't want to do a dish.

I don't want him doing dishes. Like, we're gonna get carry out. And then my fault. I was yapping, and I did not. We didn't order soon enough, and it is not this restaurant's fault at all.

But. So Penn went into. He was like, curbside pickup. So he didn't wear shoes to get there. But then he ended up having to go into the restaurant to pay, so he.

He didn't. And that is one of those things. And we talk about it in this book that, like, a neurotypical brain would be like, huh. Maybe I should bring shoes just in case. You never know.

What if something happens? I need to get gas. I have a flat tire. My cue to getting the car is grabbing a pair of shoes. His brain is like, no, I don't.

Penn Holderness
Have to get out of the car. And no shoes needed. So he didn't have shoes. Adhd people don't care for shoes. I don't know if that's true, but let's just say this one doesn't.

Right? Okay. And so he didn't have shoes, and he needed to go in. So he's barefoot, walking into this nice restaurant, and people recognize him in town, and so he's barefoot in town. But then also, they charged a dollar 50 handling fee, which was extreme.

What is it? What is a handling fee? Yeah. Anyway, so he flooded. I'm, like, barefoot in a fancy restaurant, and they're charging me a handling fee, and a guy yells, nice shoes, pen, and I get in the car, and I am livid.

And I was in an awful mood for about 25 minutes. This is way too long of an answer to your question, Annie. I'm sorry, but I'm just letting you guys know. It was, like, I was curious. It was not always positive.

Yeah, I was curious. And then I got home, and I ate one bite of the food. And another thing that happens with ADHD brains is even though everything's clouded, if, like, some food gets in you or something helps you redirect, you can quickly forget about everything else. So I was fine. But it was, like, an intense 25 to 30 minutes.

Speaker B
It was. It was intense. So I will say I do love that what we put out is joyful, but it is not. To be clear, it's not always joyful. And perhaps it would be a better service if we shared that stuff.

Like, if we shared. I was saying words not for the children who were watching this. Yeah, but it's not always so joyful. Well, newsflash. You did just share it, and now we.

Annie Rogers
I can. I can quantifiably confirm that people with ADHD hate shoes, because everyone in this. Why? Why shoes you, like, have to find them and put them in different places. We should all work in yoga studios where you don't need shoes.

Speaker B
And I just, like, I just. Bare feet make it or just weird to me, so I just, like, I never, like, I always have shoes anyway, so it was a very strange, strange ADHD evening for us. Well, someone is ready to start the barefoot ADHD club in here, and someone else has a great hack that they always keep just extra shoes in their car. Oh, always extra. Wait, so hang on.

Penn Holderness
So this person has actually had a similar experience where they've gotten in their car with shoes, not thinking that I have to get out. Oh, my gosh. I assume that's. Yeah. See?

So I'm in the club. I want to join. Yeah. Yeah. Just.

Speaker B
Just a cheap pair of flip flops. We'll put them in the. Okay. Yeah. And.

Annie Rogers
And as another sign of proof that the ADHD brain is amazing at brainstorming, someone has already wrote, written in with your tagline, which is, when given Borcher, we reply with bortitude. Oh. See you guys. We need to come up with a t shirt company, you guys. Fortitude.

Speaker B
Yeah, fortitude. So, like, getting through the boredom. Yeah. Yeah. You guys are so.

They're so creative. Okay. Annie told me I can't look at the q and a because it would. It would adhd me out and I wouldn't be listening to her. But I really want to click.

No, I told him he can't because it's too distracting. Okay. I promise we will share it with you afterward. That's like, the reward. We'll share it with you.

Annie Rogers
Yep. And I do want to honor the borcher that may, you know, that an hour long webinar may hold for some people. So I'm stealing one of your ideas right now for an attention maintaining game that I like to call smells like ADHD, the Gen X edition. Okay, I'm going to quote a song lyric related to ADHD. Some of these might be, you know, tenuous connections, but just go with me.

You will earn one point for naming the artist, one point for the song, one point for the album, double your points if you can get the year it was released. I encourage everyone at home to play along. Ok, are we. Are we gonna. We need to, like, write it down because we can't blurt audiences.

Penn Holderness
You're getting competitive about this? I'm very competitive. So that's our next book. No. Jimiscompetitive.com.

Annie Rogers
I am also competitive and thought about this, and then I thought, no, you're just being overly competitive. Maybe just don't get too caught up. All right, so Kim's got a pen. I do also. Okay, let's go.

Okay. All right, everyone. Are we ready? Here is the first one. It's going to take a lot of self control for me to not sing this in.

No, that's to make it too easy. Okay. Oh, I got you. All right. There's a city in my mind come along and take that ride it's all right, baby it's all right oh, I stumped you too early.

Okay, here we go. There's a city in my mind come along and take that ride it's all right, baby it's all right what is this? So, Annie, we've had kids for 17 years, so if this isn't something from, like, baby shark, there's a chance that we're not gonna know it. Or from. If it's from 19, Taylor Swift.

Okay. Let's take a pass on it. Tell us what it was. You gotta let the other people get points. I guarantee you other people got points.

Penn Holderness
Yeah. Okay, let me scroll into our q and a here. Oh, yes. We've got at least. At least two winners here.

Annie Rogers
Who got the artist, which is the talking heads, and the song, which is road to nowhere. Yeah. Now. Yeah, I know. Now, the album and the year are much harder.

It's from the album. Little creature. Oh, little creatures. Okay. Okay.

And the year. Do you want to take a guess? In the year 1988. Yeah. I was gonna say five.

Penn Holderness
No, I wasn't. Okay. There you are. All right. Ready for number two?

Yes. This one's short, but I think you'll get it. We're one but we're not the same we get to carry each other oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got it. I got it.

Are you seriously looking at mine? I'm so bad at this. So I know the song and I know the band, and I'm trying to think of what the album is, and. I'm gonna guess, I'm so bad at this. We're gonna play charades, and then I will be so good.

All right, I am going with.

Speaker B
What are you writing? The year. Okay. I'm going with. It's one by u.

Penn Holderness
Two. True. And Octung baby, 1992. Oh, you. Yes.

Annie Rogers
Octung baby, one year off. 91. That's. Holy crap. That was great.

Three solid points. Way to go. My brother was a huge YouTube fan, and he. Yeah, he probably would have gotten the right ear. Yes.

Penn Holderness
That's a good sign. Okay, now, this next one, I'm going to see if you can get it with the first line. I think I'm going to go with the whole quote, though. This is. This is a bit of a deep cut, so apologies in advance.

Annie Rogers
Kim. The waiting drove me mad. I'm going to keep going. You're finally here, and I'm a mess. I take your entrance back.

Can't let you roam inside my head.

Penn Holderness
Is Annie like, a music buff? I'm going to sing it. Are you ready? Yes. Yes.

Annie Rogers
Wait. This is a lot of high pressure.

I am regretting this decision already, but here we go. Okay. The waiting drove me mad. You're finally here, and I'm a mess. Take your entrance back can let you roam inside my head I don't want to take what you can give oh, thank you.

All right. It's. I know the band. Okay. That's a point.

Penn Holderness
And I think I know that the album.

Speaker B
And I can guess, like, writing like that, just so everybody knows he's writing as he's looking up, like, he. Why isn't he looking at his writing? Just like, just to let you know, like, it's Pearl Jam. Yes. Right.

Penn Holderness
But all of their songs have weird names, so I never know the names of their songs. It might be, I don't want to take what you can get, but it's probably called weird lady at a grocery store or something. That's how they name their. Their bands. I'm guessing vitalogy 1997.

Annie Rogers
Oh, so correct album. It's a little earlier than that. 94. And you are 100% right that the name of the song does not appear anywhere in the lyrics. It is.

It is corduroy. I'm sorry. That was tough. I don't know why Eddie names the songs the way that he does. I love the songs.

Speaker B
Oh, Eddie. Yes. So, okay, let's go back to the Q and A. If we have time at the end. I've got.

Annie Rogers
I've got a few more for you. But if you got a perfect score, let Annie know so we can recognize you. Please do, please do. And for anyone who is not really into eighties and early nineties rock, I am sorry.

Okay, so here we've got a heartwarming comment from one of our listeners who said, I want to thank Kim and Penn so much for being on the amazing race. When our twelve year old was watching them, they kept saying, I think I might have ADHD, which we had just started wondering ourselves. You gave him such a positive image of it, which helped so much in the process of getting diagnosed, and we want to thank you for that. Aw, that is so sweet. That is so sweet.

Penn Holderness
I hope he also saw the part where I stared at a clue for 45 minutes and overthought it, which is another great ADHD trait. So it's not all. It's not all smiles and sunshine, but, you know, I want to, like, give some credit to the network and to the editors of the show, because they hadn't really adjusted. Like, they hadn't really addressed mental health until that season. They really didn't.

They like, when people freak, you know, when they freaked out or, like, panicked. They just were like, oh, you lost your cool. And they. Not just with me, but also with Kim and some of her experience with anxiety. They let.

They kind of let us talk about it, and they made it part of the narrative. And so I'm so glad that they did that. And if you watch. If you keep watching the show, they're doing more of that now. That's really.

Annie Rogers
That is wonderful. And what an. What an audience they have for it in kind of an unexpected way. But I loved the story of Penn, the way that you were able to dial in with the. Was it the priest telling you about the saints?

Can you tell us that story? Because I think it just illustrates wonderfully how things can click to, like, an nth degree. Yeah. So hyper focus is just like everything else. It has good sides and bads.

Penn Holderness
Bad sides. You can get hyper focused on something and completely miss out on something else. That's very important to you. But if you point this amazing brain in the right direction and it's something that you care about, which means you have attached some sort of emotional valence, like, this is very, very important to me. Amazing race is a good example.

There are cameras all over the place. Everyone is watching me. There's a million dollars on the line. They create this world that's kind of perfect for an ADHD or to channel their hyperfocus. So that was the start.

But it's, for me, it's like, no matter what the task is, it is like everything else. It's the opposite of regular ADHD. Everything else disappears and you. It's like the first scene in a James Bond movie where there's a circle and everything else is dark, and you can see that one thing, and it's not always sustainable for a super long time. But if it's something that is challenging and that you care about, then that ups your odds of being able to do it.

And I feel like my brain is working at a million miles an hour and effortless at the same time when this happens, because people with ADHD actually have an abundance of attention, not a deficit of it, if you can channel it in the right direction. That is the definition of hyper focus. So the task at hand was. There was this. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B
There is this. It was an actor, I'm 90% sure, who was playing the role of a priest who did a 15 minutes sermon on all of these greek orthodox saints. And then Penn had to. Then he was quizzed on it by taking really, you know, there was maybe 25, 30 images, and then he would. He would had to pair the person they all looked very similar.

They were all like old men with beards and with very slight differences. And to kind of match, you know, the story for this quiz at the end. And the producer, the producers and, you know, production assistants, they test these challenges over and over and over again just so they can gauge, like, how long, like, how long do they think it would take? Nobody got it in one try, and he got it. It was a 15 minutes lecture.

It was a five minute quiz. We were out of there in 20 minutes. They thought it was going to take people 2 hours, and it did take some people 2 hours. We got done so fast that they weren't ready. They weren't ready for.

So we won that leg of the amazing race and we got there so fast, they weren't ready for us. They were like, whoa. The cameras weren't even set at the end. So when you see us rushing to the finish line, we had had to wait for a few minutes from the setup here camera, which was very funny. So.

But that was a. If I had to do that, it would have taken me with my normal brain that I actually think I'm pretty smart, but it would take me two or three times through that. So you have to listen, and you had to listen to it. 15 minutes, the whole thing. You couldn't just listen to five minutes of it.

So I would have had to go through it, like, probably two or three times, which is why they thought it would take at least an hour and a half, 2 hours. And so you talked about the fact that, yeah, the hyper focus kicked in in part because it was like the novelty of the challenge, the urgency, like the passion. But you also talk in the book about, like, the fact that you really thrive when you have routine and that those two things can sometimes be a little diametrically opposed. I'm wondering if you can share some of the ways that you have tricked your brain into following a routine, you know, into just getting things done when novelty and interests are not as high as you would like them to be. Yeah.

Penn Holderness
So it comes down to dopamine for me and how to get it distributed around my brain. We're kind of adhd people are dopamine junkies. It's this just little hit that comes out of your brain when something cool happens or when, you know, the best example for a kid is if you make it to the next level on a video game or if you get a good grade in a test or if you eat food. Like, that's another thing that triggers it. But for me, I have to attach some sort of reward when I get something done.

And that's like, I really don't want my wife to have to give me a reward or incentivize me. I don't want the world around me to do it. I'd like to make this self sufficient. So the biggest way that I trick myself into getting stuff done is I make lists and I make them on a piece of paper, not on my phone. Because if you make them on your phone, like, if you want to cross it out, you just delete it, which is not very fun.

If you make it on a piece of paper, you put a little check next to the thing that you're doing and when you check it off, it feels awesome. I don't know why, but, like checking things off on a list, it's like a little mini dopamine hit for me. So if there wasn't that checkbox right there, I don't think I would ever do any of the things on those list. That's probably the best example of staying motivated for me. Yeah.

Speaker B
And he finds little tiny way. I mean, he is, he is more spontaneous than I am, but any finds the little tiny ways to keep it interesting. I sing when I'm cleaning sometimes. Yeah. So he'll, he'll figure out a way to, he'll play, he'll make, he'll gamify anything, you know, at dinner table, there's like, okay, top ten list.

Top ten. You know, I think when the actors named Tom, you know, so he'll kind of gamify the everyday. Oh, my, oh, my gosh. Here's another thing. People with ADHD, like, we really want to eat the good stuff on the plate, right?

Penn Holderness
Like we want to, like, if you get a plate, like, there's a salad and then there's, you know, all this, all this other stuff there. So instead of eating a salad for lunch, I think this is gross. I take a handful of spinach and I cram the entire thing into my mouth all at once and like, with my hands, and then I get it out of the way and it's done. Like, I've, so I've eaten my spinach. Eat your spinach, kids.

I know, like, that's kind of gross, right? But like, if no one else has to watch, like, kids, you can just run in there. Spinach isn't bad, especially if you eat it all at once and you just cram it into your mouth. There's going to be a lot of interesting dinner table. Better not to do that at the dinner table.

It's better just like going to the fridge. But no one's like, yeah, yeah. Well, this does lead into another question that we've gotten, which is, um, actually people with both children and spouses with ADHD, advice that you may have for talking to that person to in a positive way to help them understand how maybe their ADHD behaviors are affecting the people around them.

Speaker B
I have to say, we talked about this book. Came out of the work we were doing between us. Yeah. As a married couple. As a married couple, because I think, you know, Penn's ADHD, he found a job that sort of rewarded his brain, so his ADHD symptoms didn't really bother him much.

So I have to say I'm very thankful that he's self aware enough that when I talk to him, I think he recognized it and took that very well. But I would say that just because the interactions we get and the emails we get, I do know this is a very real issue. A lot of partners, because there's a lot of women with ADHD, and it is so hard to be a woman with ADHD just because of the societal expectations heaped upon them, and they have a. All over the place anyway, it's very hard to partner with that. But I think talking in a very open and honest way in creating a connection, because I do think it's quite possible that your ADHD is not aware of the impact they're having.

Penn Holderness
It was interesting, like, we got some good advice from Doctor Marcy Caldwell, who helped us write this book. And she, like, she's very into the strengths based kind of coaching model. A lot of people that we talked to are, you know, Kim talked about, like, when are you really. When are you really crushing it? So maybe part of the conversation could be, man, I've noticed that you are, boy, you are really productive and doing a great job in the mornings, and then it seems to be like tailing off at night.

So you're not just saying, hey, we're noticing something wrong. It's, hey, we're noticing you're really good here, but you're struggling here. And a lot of times that lets the partner, the child, whoever it is, it gives them an opportunity to see that before perhaps even admitting or explaining some of what goes on. Like, coming from a place of positivity and love is never a bad thing. But I also think.

I also think if someone is, you know, if the person who loves a person with ADHD, if they're being effective and it's really affected and it's really causing them some trouble. Then, like Kim said, I think honesty is important as well. You can do both. And it's complicated by the fact that, as you know, ADHD often brings with it something called rejection. Sensitive dysphoria.

Annie Rogers
Right. And so it's like another, another manifestation of kind of the emotional dysregulation. But hearing your faults all the time is only going to make that worse. And I think it's such an important reminder for parents and significant others, loved ones, that to lead with positivity, it's hard. It takes patience.

Speaker B
It takes, I mean, that part of the learning I had to do. And that's kind of my contribution to this book, just to talk about my perspective on it. But I'm sort of a recovering perfectionist. So it's very instinctive for me to point out the things that need to be picked up and the things that went wrong. And offering connection instead of correction was not a natural state for me.

But what I didn't realize what was happening already is that, and this only works if your person is self aware, right. If this person knows of what's happening. I didn't realize he was already. He was already beating himself up over this stuff. Like, he was already beating up.

So me heaping on in that moment was not helpful. So that was the hardest suggestion. But it was a game changer. When I came to it with a little more empathy and offered connection, that was a game changer. It's funny, someone just asked you, Kim, how do you balance your own anxiety and the maternal reflex to want to fix it or to set pen and PC up for success?

So it's hard because my brain works best when, you know, the desks are clear and everything is organized and it is. But I see it's so funny because he's a grown man, right? So he handles it. But when I see, when I, you know, I would be just be on PC, it's like you forgot your water ball. You have to put your shoes on.

You feel like if I'm in that correction mode, I see him just deflate. And so that's the game changer right there is that. It's, at the end of the day, it's. He'll figure out where his shoes are. He'll figure.

But it is. That is the work on my part, just to kind of being comfortable and releasing. And it does help to lead with positive. I mean, that is something real we do in our house. And as you said, often the harshest critic is inside their own head.

Annie Rogers
Yeah, yeah. We don't need to lump on that. Yeah. I will go to a more positive note. We had a question.

It is clear from your work and from our conversation here today that you know that you have both found a calling that really accentuates the best things about your brains and a lot of both adults here and parents who are looking for some advice about how to find their own passion or to help their children find that passion that is going to hold the novelty and the interest and really bring out these great ADHD qualities. It's been really interesting hearing stories about people who have used their ADHD as a positive in just about every walk of life. We got an email from a doctor who said that it really helps him with codes like life or death situations. And he admitted how difficult it was for him to get to that point because he had to go to medical school for several years and do a lot of things that weren't ADHD is ADHD friendly. He probably had extreme intelligence to help.

Speaker B
I just want to read part of. That, get him through that. But one of the best parts about this book is that we've been getting some good advice and suggestions. So an ER doctor, and then it's so funny, I talked to a buddy of mine, he's like, yes, every single ER doctor has ADHD. So this is.

It was a really long email, but he said, this might sound contradictory. You might think that a code. A code that's like when a person is crashing and dying is the worst place for ADHD, but actually, I do just fine. For one, it's literally life and death. So it captures my attention.

Distraction is actually an asset, too. When I'm running it, I look at the whole room, seeing every person, every number, every part of the patient. I don't even have to try to notice, I just do. And he just. He lists, like, why his ADHD is an asset in that field.

We talked to doctor Mary Claire, who is the number one book right now in the New York Times bestseller list, and her children, her daughters have ADHD. She's pretty sure she has ADHD, but she was talking about how that hyper focus helped her study those people who have interest in medicine, obviously. Yeah. But I wouldn't let it limit you. I wouldn't let ADHD limit.

Penn Holderness
Here's how I would limit it. I would not ever look for a job that's easy.

There are people who look for jobs that are easy, and easy jobs for us are hard. I'm telling you, like, the easier jobs are going to be harder than you think. The more challenging jobs are going to be more fulfilling and might be easier. I know that sounds bonkers, but every easy job that I've ever had, I've struggled with, even when I got to a job and it started getting easy for me and I had nothing else to challenge me. That's when I really started to struggle.

Speaker B
Yeah, I would imagine, like, law school or, like, being a lawyer and reading contracts all day would be hard for you, but there's probably an ADHD lawyer out there who is thrilled with the novelty of every new contract every single day. So, like, yeah, they like it. Like, I would. I. I would have gone into, like, space engineering, which could be super boring to some people, but to me, I'm like space.

Penn Holderness
Like, I'm obsessed with space. So it needs to be something that you really care about or adjacent to something that you really care about, and it needs to be hard. And don't you love that today? I mean, my. My daughter always jokes because she's a junior, and there everybody asks her what she wants to do when she grows up and she doesn't really know, and she'll say, like, oh, I want to be a cake tester.

Speaker B
I want to be. I want to taste test cakes for a living. I'm like, I feel like that's. You could make that a job now. You could be the person who makes and taste test cakes and make an Instagram account.

Like, you could probably make that a job now. So you really could follow your curiosity and what lights you up in a way that even, you know, in the nineties when we were going, like, high school and college, like, that didn't really exist. I just have to share with you one of the best comments of the day. We've had so many. But someone just wrote in to say, it's me.

Annie Rogers
Hi, I'm the ADHD contract lawyer. It's me. Oh, yes. See? And they probably find it, like, very thrilling.

Speaker B
And every day there's a new challenge and problem and they clearly know that. We'Re Taylor Swift fans. Yes. I love a good contract lawyer. Thank goodness there's contract lawyers, because I don't know how to read them.

Penn Holderness
So that's awesome to have a conversation with him or her or them, because I bet you they care about something inside of that. There's something like. Lights them up inside something about that job works for him. Yeah, we're getting flooded now with the lawyers on the line. They're the only ones who made it through the entire thing.

Annie Rogers
Yeah, they are. The lawyers are the ones listening to people for a long time. That is fascinating. That is fascinating. How many ADHD lawyers there are.

Speaker B
That's amazing. It really is. And they really run the gamut from contract law to someone who represents people on death row tax law. Yes.

Annie Rogers
That seems like torture. So I'm very. I think you mean Borcher. Borcher. I did.

I'm sorry. Slip up. Flip up.

Oh, goodness. Okay, back to business, because we do have quite a few more. We had a bunch of follow up questions, Kim, to your last answer, asking if maybe both of you could give some examples of connection before correction in both a parenting and a husband. Yes. Yes.

Speaker B
So when Penn. And we talk about this in the book, he left the stove on, fire alarm, smoke alarm went off. I was out of the house, got the call from the alarm company. He had gone, and our neighbor went over. Dog escaped.

You know, so there's a fire alarm going off. Our dog escaped. Our neighbor chased down our dog because she's so sweet, and she tripped and cut her hand on, like, a sprinkler. So she's bleeding. So there's, like, an escape.

Dog, bleeding neighbor, house full of smoke. And I. It was a lot. He was. He was.

He was in tears. And I knew in that, like, we had to have a conversation about, like, okay, obviously we need a system, but I knew that wasn't a time. And so I said. I just said, this is really hard. I know this is hard for you right now.

This is just a really hard situation. This is. This must be really hard for you right now. And I just, like, just acknowledging that, like, this was really hard for him, I think was one of those where I had to fight back. Like, I can't believe you didn't.

You know? And then later, when emotions were regulated, we say, okay, what are we doing now? So that never happens again. And if you can get to an ideal space, which it was for us, I'm the one who's bringing up what can I do now? So.

Penn Holderness
And here's. This is kind of the cycle that I hope everyone reaches, which is your. Your loved one shows you grace and shows you empathy, right, which she did. And then you feel loved, you feel appreciated, and in a lot of ways, you feel beholden to that person in a good way. Right.

And so that takes you down the path of, okay, you've shown me this grace. Now I want to work my ass off to make sure that this doesn't happen again, or at least get closer to making sure things like this don't happen again. You're never going to get it. All right? You're still going to screw up.

You're still going to get something wrong. But that grace and empathy that she shows me leads me to want to do that work. And then she sees the work that I'm doing and continues to show grace and empathy because she appreciates the work that I'm doing. And it's a nice little positive circle that goes from there. And I would say on the parenting side, the things we struggle with are, like, the forgotten things, but also schoolwork.

Speaker B
You know, my son is so smart. He does have the thing, like, where he's not going to super, like, turn the test over to see if there's questions on the other side. He's not going to triple check that the homework he has finished. Hang on. Careful that he's turned it in.

Penn Holderness
Careful. And so you'll see this super bright kid who either didn't turn the test over to see that there was more questions or did the work, but didn't turn it in. It is, um. It is hard, but I will say, hey, tell me about what happened, and you can tell he'll be very upset. Like, that sounds really hard.

Speaker B
And he's like, okay, next time. Like, I just offer, like, it sounds like you were really struggling. It sounds. And then it just, you know, just allowing that space for him to. And he's.

He's not thrilled with it either. But I think I also am lucky that I have two very self aware adhders. They are very aware. So I think that we can both come to the table if he were really flippant about it. We always stay in our house.

It's an explanation, not an excuse. If you were like, well, I can't help it. It's my Adhd. That's a different ball of wax entirely. Yeah.

Annie Rogers
A lot of people here are saying that that's the key, is. Is a willingness to, to work on it. Yeah. And you know what? On both sides, like, I think it's very valuable people to hear that it is hard work to be the person who extends grace, and it is also hard work to be the person who needs to receive that grace.

And everybody has to put in their best effort, and then it feeds on each other, so it does get easier. Right? I mean, I'm putting words in your. Mouth, but you just, like, summarized an entire chapter of our book, which is not. It is not easy to be the one that has to be extending grace.

Speaker B
But then I also, and I, we talk about this, too. I am not always a picnic. To live with either. I bring my own anxiety and some OCD, which is, like, super fun. So, like, because we can, like, match that level of empathy.

He is so. He is the world's best. If I'm having a just kind of like a high anxiety day for no particular reason, he's like, I got you. What do you need? Okay, you go lay down or you go for a walk.

I got you. I'll pick up the kids. I've got dinner. I get. He is stepping up in a really amazing way, and I think that's just because we are both really self aware about it.

Annie Rogers
Wonderful. Well, I am bringing the very sad news that we have run out of time. But Kim and Penn, thank you so much for joining us today and for contributing your voice to the attitude community. Well, thank you for having us. This has been great.

Penn Holderness
And thank you again for your website and for the messaging that you guys have put out there for. It's got to be a decade now, right? It's been a while. You guys are some of the Ogs of this movement. Attitude actually just celebrated 25 years.

Holy crap. Yeah. Really? I guess I did celebrate ten years ago. That's amazing.

Annie Rogers
We can get a rental car. That's how old we are. Yes.

And thank you. We appreciate that. It is a labor of love, and we're so happy that we can be here and that we can also have your voices be part of our community, because I know that you have made a positive impact on so many people's lives who are listening today and who will replay later. If you are replaying later, I'll throw this in. This is podcast number 505.

You can go to attitude bag and search for that. You will get the recording. You will get the slides. Replay mode. Please share this.

Podcast, podcast and webinar replay far and wide. And I also want to make sure I thank our sponsor one more. That was inflow. And next week we will have another webinar. This month is women's health month, so we are focusing next week on taking an in depth look at PMDD and its connection to ADHD.

And we're going to have doctor Dara Abraham on for that. So please join us for that. In the meantime, Penn and Kim, thank you again so much for joining us. And thank you for putting up with the music trivia. Yeah, it was great.

Penn Holderness
Is PMDD, is that like a perimenopause? What is it? It's pre menstrual dysphoric disorder. I have that diagnosis. Okay, you haven't told me about that.

Speaker B
No, I did. Yeah. You never used those terms before. The PMDD is. Yeah.

Penn Holderness
Okay, I gotcha. Yeah. It's severe and life. Yes, yes. Life altering.

Annie Rogers
And it's very telling it. Most people who don't have it have never heard of it. And that is why we're having a webinar next week to help raise awareness because it is very highly comorbid with ADHD. So a lot of women have awareness of that. Yeah.

Speaker B
There's so many diagnoses that I came out of the office with that. So that. Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry.

Annie Rogers
We're all learning things, new things here today. Awesome. Well, thank you again so much. Congratulations on the book, and we hope everyone gives it a listen and gives it a read. Really was a really wonderful and uplifting read.

Speaker B
Well, thank you so much for having us. This has been fun. Thank you. All right, take care, everyone. Have a great day.

Bye. For more attitude podcasts and information on living well with attention deficit, visit attitudemag.com. that's a d. Dash. Dash.

505- ADHD Is Awesome: The Holderness Family Guide to Thriving with ADHD

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1. Introduction

2. The Power of ADHD

3. Challenges and Strategies

4. Parental Perspectives

5. Conclusion and Q&A

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