Living Beyond ADHD

Hello, everyone. This is not Dr B. This is Maya Brewer, and it is Dr B's 100th podcast episode for Living Beyond ADHD.   So, I am here with Dr B.  I'm a student and a freelance writer.  And when I say student, I mean student of Dr B's ADDventures In Achievement Program.  So welcome to your own show, Dr B. Well, are you ready?  I'm ready.  Let's do it. Awesome.  So, it is y...

In episode 098, I talked about being the Gifted Underachiever and the 5 pivotal elements to become the Empowered Achiever.  While I was creating that episode, it occurred to me that there are many traumatic life experiences, big and small, when we don't have well-developed EF skills.  We need to acknowledge them, in light of our underdeveloped EF skills, so that we can embark on our extraordi...

When I refer to "gifted" adults, I am not talking about I.Q.  I am talking about something more important, which is gifted temperament.  Additionally, a lot of the challenges you experience could be due to being a gifted adult, since there are many similar challenges with ADHD as with giftedness. According to Reis and McCoach (2000), gifted underachievers typically have low self-esteem,...

Did you get up this morning and have to stop and remember who you are?  Like in the movie "50 First Dates" where Lucy had to watch a video of her life every morning because her memory was damaged from an accident?  Most likely not how your mornings start.  Habits are great when they are shortcuts that save us time and benefit our lives.  When they are destructive and remnants from the pa...

If you've ever been disappointed or frustrated with the information or care you've received for your mental health and well-being, stay tuned. Carl Jung said, "I feel it is the duty of one who goes his own way to inform society of what he finds on his voyage of discovery." Jung's quote inspired this episode.  I feel it is both my duty and moral obligation to share with you...

80% of the new students coming into the ADDventures In Achievement Foundational Skills program feel powerless over their current behaviors, are filled with self-loathing, and feel like an impostor - having lived with so many challenges their entire life.  They constantly look over their shoulder least they be found out. In today's episode, I'm focusing on feelings you're probably fa...

The title of this episode is a real question I am posing to all of my listeners.  If you knew that you would not fail once again to achieve your desired outcome, what would you do?  Would you tell yourself that's not possible because you always fail?  Or, would you be curious about what makes that opportunity different from all the other ones – to wonder how is it possible that failing isn&ap...

Achieving your goals is connected to how well-developed your EF skills and strategies are, and if they're not well-developed, well, you know the rest of the story. And I get it.  Getting the right help for yourself is a Catch-22.  It's challenging because the very skills you need to help yourself are the skills you're missing.  And, there's plenty of resources in the world that...

Hearing that ADHD is a gift is hurtful and confusing to many adults.  In my Facebook group, whenever we create a post about ADHD being a gift, many members are angry because they don't experience their ADHD as a gift at all. And, they are right.  Without well-developed Executive Functions skills, the gifts of ADHD aren't available.  If you don't take steps to more fully develop your...

I have something a little different for you today.  I did a live video last Friday, and people said it was great, so I turned it into a podcast episode so you all could benefit as well. As you may have heard me say before, you don't have to have a diagnosis or even suspect ADHD to have under-developed EF skills.  The developmental energy that was intended for their development could have gott...

It's true – goal setting can be detrimental to your success…if you set goals the way most of us have been taught to set them.  If you're intrigued, stay tuned. Goal setting is typically an external process, where you are targeting something outside of yourself that you want to achieve or change.  All of your focus and attention is on achieving your external goal.  One example could be, &...

When you set a goal, you are setting a direction for yourself.  And setting a direction can change the course of your life; it depends on the goal that you set. In my 50s, I wrote a goal on my flipchart one day that I wanted to have a positive impact on the lives of at least a million people in my lifetime.  I had no idea what that goal really meant nor how it would unfold when I wrote it that day...

If you could get yourself to focus when and where you need to AND could shift your state or feelings so you feel like doing things you've planned, when it's time to take action, would having those skills change your life?  If you're like other adults I've asked over the years, the answer is a resounding yes.  But how? You are where your attention is.  What you focus on grows. ...

I pursued an ADHD diagnosis with many professionals, only to be refused an assessment with two and granted an assessment with one who decided there was nothing significantly amiss with me – just a little anxiety. Seriously?!  The two that turned me away said it would be a waste of time (whose time?) to assess me and the one that did, asked questions and did testing that would never have confirmed...

You may not know if being free of negative self-talk is going to be right for you.  You may not know if you're going to be SO happy with your new-found freedom that you'll have to email me and tell me about it.  You may not know if this transformation is going to be really fun and exciting.  And, if it's not as wonderful as others have experienced and you want your previous negative...

So many of us grew up without the opportunity to become the person we want to be.  Whether our homes were filled with trauma or addictions or those who raised us were just missing the essential executive function skills to be able to pass them on to us, we didn't get them.  And so, it goes.  Generation after generation of kids are growing up with under-developed executive function skills; the...

There's a lot of trauma that occurs as a result of not knowing what the source of our challenges are. And then so many mixed feelings when and if we get diagnosed, everything from a huge sense of relief, and having an explanation for entire life experiences, to a deep sadness over the missed opportunities. And we're left wondering what could have happened if we had known sooner?   What i...

Forgiveness is a gift.  We can give this gift at any time - to ourselves or to others.  It's our "get out of jail" gift card – releasing each of us from a prison of our own making.  When we refuse to forgive, and choose to hold onto mistakes and use them against ourselves or others, we are setting ourselves up for a miserable life.  How many times do we need to relive the pain of th...

Jim Rohn said - "For things to change, you have to change." It seems very obvious when you think about it, for things to change, you have to change. I've been thinking about this quote a lot lately. And it's taken on a much deeper meaning for me, because he didn't say, for things to change, you have to change things. What he said is for things to change, you have to change...

Feeling overwhelmed isn't automatically a positive or a negative experience; it depends on the emotion and on the meaning you give to the emotion you're feeling.  You could be overwhelmed with gratitude and self-love or overwhelmed with grief and shame. The meaning I give overwhelmed is that it implies "too much" or "more than someone can comfortably handle."  Is that...

Being an Achiever isn't just about developing your EF Skills; you also need to become the person who is the Achiever, instead of thinking of yourself as the person who is the ADDer.  Saying "I am an Achiever" is the first step to taking on an empowering new Identity, just as saying "I am an ADDer, is a step that reinforces keeping the same old disempowering Identity.     Are yo...

According to government statistics, last updated in 2018, there are a lot of unhappy people that are suffering in the world.  In the U.S. alone: 32 million people suffer from anxiety 17 million suffer from depression Around 12 million suffer from PTSD And, according to Forbes magazine, the Self-Help industry generates over $11 billion annually. What I find interesting is that many of the self-help...

I have something a little different for you today.  In case you missed listening to my interview with Meredith for Real:  The Curious Introvert, she was kind enough to share the episode with me, so I could share it with you all directly.  I love responding to questions and thoroughly enjoyed my interview with Meredith. If my podcast show is the first time you've been hearing about the differe...

I love responding to questions and enjoyed being interviewed by Meredith for Real so much that I decided to change the format of my show to focusing on a topic and responding to questions about it.  If my podcast show is the first time you've been hearing about executive function skills and strategies, you are not alone.  If you're an adult who received a diagnosis of adult ADHD, executi...

For those of you who don't know me yet … Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, " Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid ." That was me; living the majority of my academic life believing I was stupid, and chasing degrees to prove I wasn't. The degrees never resolved the feelings; only...