Focus Forward: An Executive Function Podcast

Wow, I can’t believe it. This is the last episode of our second season of Focus Forward. We started the season off with Rachel Hulstein-Lowe who joined me to talk about transitions and how to make them a little easier. We explored memory, college students, grief, cognitive flexibility, and much, much more. You supported us by downloading our new episodes, reviewing us on apple podcasts and Spotify...

Last week, I had a blast hosting another free webinar for Beyond BookSmart that was all about ADHD. Amy McDuffie, an Executive Function coach and ADHD expert, joined me to explore how the ADHD brain works and what the roles of medication, therapy and executive function coaching are within the larger umbrella of ADHD treatment. We also took some time to cover some of our coaches’ favorite tools and...

Resilience is a topic I've wanted to explore for a long time on the podcast. After all, how can we continue to work on ourselves if our progress is always getting cut short? So in this week's episode, we're going to explore 6 tips for becoming more resilient in your life. When I started doing the research for today’s episode on how to handle sliding back when you’ve made some progress, something a...

In this week's episode, we explore the fascinating world of the human brain and its impact on stress management, parenting, and relationships. We had the privilege of inviting Dr. Alison Roy, a licensed clinical psychologist, and a bona fide brain enthusiast. I first heard Dr. Roy speak during the pandemic, and her insights on the brain, trauma, stress, and parenting were truly impactful. In our c...

You may or may not know this, but in addition to hosting our podcast, I recently started hosting the free webinars Beyond BookSmart offers to help teach people about executive function skills and related challenges. We have panelists who add their insight and perspective and we cover a wide variety of topics but in a live setting, it's such a blast and I really love being able to connect with more...

Okay, so today we’re getting real. Recently, a coworker shared with me how her friend has long struggled with working as a nurse while also having ADHD. This friend was lucky enough to find a position at a hospital that truly supports and embraces her, but many are not as lucky. And although ADHD is commonplace in the healthcare space, its challenges are often stigmatized and swept under the rug -...

If you’ve been listening to Focus Forward for a while, you know that many of our episodes so far have been focused on teens and adults - but what about the younger kiddos? While we tend to think about how Executive Function skills impact us later in life, these skills do start developing in infancy. I thought it would be helpful to explore what Executive Function skill development looks like in yo...

When it comes to helping students learn more efficiently, Executive Function skills are the greatest tool teachers have at their disposal. Yet, many teachers aren’t aware of their value, and the ones that do often don't know how to support them in the classroom. For example, we had one teacher ask us on our Facebook page how teachers can support their own Executive Function challenges while also m...

Although each and every Executive Function skill is essential for success in today’s world, one that’s too often-overlooked (if not forgotten entirely) is cognitive flexibility. Whether you’ve heard about this skill or not, cognitive flexibility is critical for adapting to difficult situations and just overall feeling like we have control over our lives. I really wanted to explore it in its own ep...

Have you ever wondered if you're spending too much time on your phone or computer? Well, then you're certainly not alone. Screen use behaviors are top of mind for so many people these days - and for good reason. Over the last few years, our world has fully transformed itself around this technology to a point where spending a majority of our day looking at a screen has become the norm in much of ou...

On this episode, I’m taking a look at how grief and emotional trauma impact our Executive Functioning. Grief and emotional trauma are really hard to talk about. Even though grief and emotional trauma are part of being human, they're both really hard to talk about as we all have experienced or will experience some form of each within our lives. However, not only is everyone’s reaction to grief diff...

Through a series of fortunate events, I was connected with Nancy Armstrong, who is the Emmy-nominated Executive Producer of "The Disruptors," the first comprehensive documentary about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and its effect on kids, adults, and their families. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Nancy to have a conversation about her experience raising her own children w...

Whether it's the first day at daycare or preschool, the beginning of kindergarten, or the transition to middle or high school, sending our kids off into the world at any age is a scary thing. But for college, it can can be downright terrifying. According to both the experts and the people in my life, it’s the biggest leap of faith of all - especially these days with the high rates of depression an...

On this week's episode, I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with Dr. Sherrie All, who is a neuropsychologist who specializes in memory. She and her colleagues at the Centers for Cognitive Wellness in Chicago and the D.C. area support people who have memory challenges or are experiencing cognitive decline. Sherrie also wrote a book (which you’ll hear me gush about) called the Neuroscience o...

Establishing a school, writing an acclaimed book, starting a successful company - these are all extremely difficult achievements in their own right... but accomplished together by one person? That may seem near impossible for many of us, but for Michael Delman, they've just been necessary steps toward one singular goal: making Executive Function skill development more accessible to all. So how did...

In today’s episode, we're exploring the Executive function skill of time management. Peg Dawson, my favorite executive function guru and a former guest on Focus Forward, defines the skill of time management as “the capacity to estimate how much time one has, how to allocate it, and how to stay within time limits and deadlines”. She continues by arguing that this process starts with one simple insi...

October is ADHD awareness month, and given that half of our clients have ADHD, I knew there was something important we could offer the ADHD community this month with the podcast. From educators to parents, mental health specialists to doctors, too many people in all areas of society may not be fully aware of just how much ADHD can impact an individual’s life in ways both good and bad. So in today’...

We’re back! Didya miss me? I missed you all and it's so great to be back with new episodes of the podcast. As this new season of Focus Forward begins, I’m diving right in to tackle the difficult subject of transitions, its impact on personal growth, and what can be done to better cope. To inform this conversation, I invited Rachel Hulstein-Lowe, a licensed independent clinical social worker in the...

People often think of procrastination as a time management problem, but studies show that it's actually about something much different - avoiding uncomfortable emotions. In 2013, procrastination researchers found that people procrastinate to regulate their emotions in the short term and let their “future selves” deal with the consequences, somehow believing that their future selves will be able to...

Despite being a common diagnosis, many people with ADHD may go most of their lives without ever officially being diagnosed. Although there are a number of challenges that this presents, one of the most frustrating is that the longer ADHD is left untreated, the more difficult it becomes to change our habits. Even so, that doesn't mean it's impossible - and our guest today proves it! For this week's...

In today’s episode, we’re looking at another set of helpful skills - especially for teens and young adults - and those are coping skills. The transition to college or work from high school has its own special set of challenges and practicing some coping skills can really help feel more successful during this time. The executive function skill of emotional regulation, which is also called self-regu...

Something we've wanted to explore more deeply on the show is how much of an impact Executive Function skills can have on our social lives. All of those EF challenges that can make aspects of school or home life hard can also really affect how easily we can make friends and our ability to maintain those friendships. To learn more, I sat down with Nadine Briggs - a social skills expert. CEO of Simpl...

Support based around Executive Function improvement promises a lot, but is there any evidence that you can actually improve your Executive Function skills? And if you can, what does the process look like and how can you truly measure you or your child's Executive Function improvement? In today's episode, we explore these questions and more with thought-leader Peg Dawson - an esteemed psychologist,...

When we look to a professional for support, we may be looking to improve our mental health or confidence, but at a fundamental level, we're really hoping to change our lives. So what does that mean when it comes to Executive Function support? In past episodes, I spoke with parents of kiddos who are in coaching now and have made great progress in their own executive function journeys. If you’ve lis...

*Mental Health & ADHD/Executive Dysfunction section starts at 20:21* When we talk about Executive Function, we also need to talk about mental health. Taking care of our mental health is important for everyone and studies show that there is a connection between executive function challenges and mental health diagnoses like depression and anxiety. There are many, many ways that executive functio...