Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- Episodes
- 570
- Released
- weekly
- Latest episode
- Nov 12, 2026
About the podcast
Nikki Kinzer and Pete Wright offer support, life management strategies, and time and technology tips, dedicated to anyone looking to take control while living with ADHD.
Episodes 570
DIY Accommodations: When They Say No, or You Never Ask
What do you do when you ask for an accommodation and the answer is no? And what if you never asked, because you read the room and decided it wasn’t safe?In this conversation, Nikki and Pete take on both sides …
Show notes
What do you do when you ask for an accommodation and the answer is no? And what if you never asked, because you read the room and decided it wasn’t safe?
In this conversation, Nikki and Pete take on both sides of that story, starting with a client who was denied exam accommodations twice, psychological evaluation and all, and how she found a way to keep moving toward her goal. From there: what the ADA does and doesn’t require, why requests get turned down, the survey numbers behind why most people never ask, and the way a denied request can start to feel like a verdict on who you are.
Then the part you can use tomorrow. Accommodations you can give yourself without anyone’s sign-off. Two tools Pete leans on for meetings and reading. A five-minute breathing technique with Stanford research behind it. And a listener’s addition to the garden metaphor, for anyone who’s just been told they have to grow radishes.
Nikki’s new download, My Accommodation Map, is available right here!
Links & Resources
- Job Accommodation Network (Ask JAN)
- CHADD: Asking for Workplace Accommodations
- Understood.org Neurodiversity at Work survey (2024, The Harris Poll)
- Stanford Medicine: Cyclic sighing can help breathe away anxiety
- Wispr Flow
- Speechify
- Todoist
- Support the Show on Patreon
- Dig into the podcast Shownotes Database
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (00:51) - Become a Member at Patreon.com/TheADHDPodcast
- (02:15) - Accommodations
- (27:24) - The Reframe
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Saying the Hard Thing in Real Time
Ever leave a conversation and realize, somewhere on the way to the car, exactly what you should have said? There’s a French term for that feeling, and ADHD brains know it intimately.This week, we explore why …
Show notes
Ever leave a conversation and realize, somewhere on the way to the car, exactly what you should have said? There’s a French term for that feeling, and ADHD brains know it intimately.
This week, we explore why saying the hard thing in real time is so difficult with ADHD, from the blurt-or-freeze problem to the research on variable reaction time and emotional dysregulation that makes it make sense. We get into how pace gets used against slower processors in an argument, and how to claim the room you need without walking out.
Then the practical side: naming your state, five “slow sentences” to keep in your back pocket, the Gottman rule for taking a real break, and a trimmed-down version of DBT’s DEAR MAN that you can actually remember when it counts.
Links & Notes
- Support the Show on Patreon
- Dig into the podcast Shownotes Database
- Kofler et al. 2013, reaction time variability meta-analysis
- Anker, Ogrim & Heir 2022 summary
- Shaw et al. 2014, emotion dysregulation in ADHD
- Ben-Dor Cohen et al. 2023, J. Attention Disorders
- Gottman: flooding and breaks
- Gottman: repair attempts
- Lieberman et al. 2007, affect labeling and ScienceDaily write-up
- DEAR MAN overview
- Wordorigins: l’esprit de l’escalier
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (02:08) - Saying the Hard Thing
- (21:51) - Asserting Your Slow-Downs
- (30:43) - DEAR MAN...
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The Age of Agents • Placeholder
I once printed my computer’s contacts onto paper sized to fit my Franklin Quest binder. I loved that binder enough to make a computer work for it. Keeping the system current was practically a hobby, which was …
Show notes
I once printed my computer’s contacts onto paper sized to fit my Franklin Quest binder. I loved that binder enough to make a computer work for it. Keeping the system current was practically a hobby, which was convenient because it required quite a lot of my participation.
Decades later, I still enjoy arranging software. I have less enthusiasm for remembering to check every place I’ve put something important. The personal AI agents I’ve been using can carry an assignment between conversations, with ongoing checks where I’ve set them up. That has started to change my working day. I can teach them what matters, correct a misunderstanding, and find that the next round of help reflects what I’ve explained. So far, the useful work has substantially outweighed the mistakes. I’m getting things finished that I’d been putting off.
This public edition is a taste of Placeholder, our member-supported show about the tools we use while we wait for something better. Join us on Patreon for the full episode and to help keep The ADHD Podcast going. I’d be glad to have you there.
- (00:00) - Welcome to Placeholder
- (00:20) - The Fancy Binder
- (03:14) - The Things We're Handing Over
- (04:56) - Introducing Muse
- (09:19) - Become a Supporter at Patreon.com/theadhdpodcast
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Receiving Help Without Losing Yourself with James and Jules Ochoa
We’ve talked plenty about asking for help. This week, James Ochoa and his son Jules join us to take on the other half: what happens when someone actually helps you, and why that can feel so much harder.Jules …
Show notes
We’ve talked plenty about asking for help. This week, James Ochoa and his son Jules join us to take on the other half: what happens when someone actually helps you, and why that can feel so much harder.
Jules has spent the past year rebuilding James’s practice from the inside, which means James has been on the receiving end of a lot of help he didn’t ask for. In this conversation, we explore why unrequested help can feel like an accusation, where the imposter voice comes from, and how to tell the difference between gratitude and the debt ledger so many of us carry. Jules shares what he’s learned about how to help someone with ADHD without triggering the walls, and James is remarkably open about how much of this still gets him, 30 years into the work.
Plus, Jules calls his dad out live on air, and it goes about how you’d expect.
Links & Notes
- 11Q Your ADHD, the free yearly reflection tool from James and The Life Empowerment Center
- The Complex, the audio drama Jules wrote and produced with James
- Support the Show on Patreon
- Dig into the podcast Shownotes Database
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (00:54) - Become a Patron!
- (02:50) - Receiving Help with James and Jules Ochoa
- (07:07) - What Happens to the ADHD Brain on Receiving Help?
- (13:26) - "If I ask for help... it means I can't do it."
- (28:34) - The Ledger
- (41:18) - How do you open up to help?
- (49:47) - Learn More
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Reading, Audiobooks, and the ADHD Comprehension Problem with Misty Stinnett
Most of us have a stack of self-help books we fully intend to get to. Our friend Misty Stinnett, co-host of Go Help Yourself, has read hundreds of them for her show, and she joins us to talk about reading when …
Show notes
Most of us have a stack of self-help books we fully intend to get to. Our friend Misty Stinnett, co-host of Go Help Yourself, has read hundreds of them for her show, and she joins us to talk about reading when your attention has its own plans. Misty is quick to say she isn’t an ADHD expert, but she has years of practice getting through a book she’ll have to explain on a microphone a week later, and plenty of what she’s learned carries over for the rest of us.
Her favorite permission slip is that the book works for you. You aren’t on the clock for it. If one idea sticks and changes how you see something, the book did its job, even at 500 pages. Knowing what’s at stake for you before you open a book helps. So does putting it down without guilt when it stops connecting. There’s room for the slow road too: visiting a hard book a paragraph at a time on the days that’s all your brain will give.
The members version includes the pre-show, with a face-blindness mystery thriller recommendation and the origin story of “bless the baby.” The after-show is packed with listener questions: whether to reread, how to remember what you heard in the car, why a single paragraph can wear you out, and the old guilt some of us carry about reading for fun. It ends with a book recommendation that brings us full circle. Join us patreon.com/theadhdpodcast and see what you’re missing!
Plus get the companion guide, Let the Book Work for You, with reflection questions and reframes for the thoughts that keep a book stuck on the nightstand. Grab the guide right here.
Links & Notes
- Go Help Yourself
- The Visit with Kourosh Dini, MD
- Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
- Reading Without Eye Movements (Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 2025)
- Support the Show on Patreon
- Dig into the podcast Shownotes Database
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (02:26) - Introducing Misty Stinnett
- (07:20) - Learning to Read Self-Help
- (10:00) - Chunking
- (14:22) - The Visit
- (25:56) - Audiobooks
- (33:34) - How do you know the book is GREAT
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Plant Yourself in the Right Garden: Environment as Strategy
Last season, Dr. Kathleen Nadeau described a lot of ADHD struggle as a planting problem, and we've been thinking about it a bunch. This episode is about environment, and how much of what gets blamed on ADHD …
Show notes
Last season, Dr. Kathleen Nadeau described a lot of ADHD struggle as a planting problem, and we've been thinking about it a bunch. This episode is about environment, and how much of what gets blamed on ADHD comes down to where you are and who you're with. We break it into what we're calling the three gardens: the right job, the right room and the right people.
A lot of the classic willpower research is shakier than its reputation. The marshmallow test turned out to say more about kids' home lives than anyone expected. The idea that sugar refuels your self-control ran into trouble when people who only rinsed with sugar water did just as well as people who drank it. If you've been telling yourself you need to try harder, we’ve got you.
There's a coffee shop where a book got written, and a college move-in where getting a few pictures on the wall was what finally eased the overwhelm. If you're wondering whether your job still fits, there's a useful question in here: is this still working for me? Asking it that way leaves room for the job to have changed, so you don't have to start from the assumption that you failed.
The members version includes the pre-show, where we catch up on our kids' new college apartments and John Green's new novel. The after-show has the story of how Pete's mom's rose garden ended up in the Smithsonian, plus headphone advice for anyone stuck in an open-plan office. It also has a live demo of FocusFlight, an app that turns a work session into a pretend flight.
Links & Notes
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (01:13) - Support the Show on Patreon!
- (02:55) - Environment as Strategy
- (21:15) - The Three Gardens
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The Unreliable Narrator: Self-Observation for ADHD
You'd swear you sent that email. You can picture yourself writing it. And then you find it, unsent, still marked unread.This week, Pete and Nikki borrow the literary idea of the unreliable narrator to explore …
Show notes
You'd swear you sent that email. You can picture yourself writing it. And then you find it, unsent, still marked unread.
This week, Pete and Nikki borrow the literary idea of the unreliable narrator to explore why ADHD makes us shaky witnesses to our own lives. They look at how working memory, time blindness, and mood bend the story we tell ourselves, and at research showing how far self-assessment can drift from the record. Then they turn to practical ways to get a clearer picture: asking the people around you what they see (RSD and all), capturing moments while they're fresh, and letting the data you already generate tell you what you actually accomplished. Along the way, Nikki shares how coaching helps clients notice their own patterns, and why a log should help you see instead of grading you.
Links & Notes
- Accuracy of Self-Evaluation in Adults with ADHD: Evidence from a Driving Study, the 2005 Knouse, Bagwell, Barkley, and Murphy study Pete discusses
- The Fragile Dance of Memory and ADHD with Dr. Daniella Karidi, one of the three episodes referenced
- ADHDtime, Daniella Karidi's coaching practice
- Join our Patreon community
- Join the Discord
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (01:43) - Patreon!
- (03:14) - The Unreliable Narrator
- (11:21) - Moods
- (21:33) - "Just Notice"
- (27:11) - Feedback and RSD
- (36:23) - Feedback and Grading
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The “Fine” Mask
You say it a dozen times a day. Somebody asks how you're doing, and before you've had a chance to check, you've already said you're … fine.In this conversation, we pick up a thread from our earlier episode with …
Show notes
You say it a dozen times a day. Somebody asks how you're doing, and before you've had a chance to check, you've already said you're … fine.
In this conversation, we pick up a thread from our earlier episode with Dr. Sharon Saline on masking and follow it somewhere much smaller. Not the protective mask you choose in a hard moment, but the everyday one that's been on so long you've lost the off switch. We talk about what the gap between the performance and the truth actually costs you in energy and loneliness, why nobody offers help to someone who looks fine, and what happens when you say it to the people at home who genuinely want to know.
We also get practical about lowering it: how to pick one safe moment, how to resist the urge to reassure everyone that it's all going to be okay, and why your body usually notices you're performing before you do. Plus get the companion worksheet, Where Am I Wearing Fine?, to help you spot your own pattern.
Links & Notes
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (00:58) - Support the Show on Patreon
- (02:23) - We're All Fine Here
- (13:07) - What does it look like when fine cracks?
- (21:41) - Reflection Questions
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Approach Motivation, Round Two with Ari Tuckman, PsyD
Are you doing the thing because of what you'll get, or because of what you're afraid of? Both get the task done. Only one of them is sustainable.This week, Dr. Ari Tuckman returns to talk about approach and …
Show notes
Are you doing the thing because of what you'll get, or because of what you're afraid of? Both get the task done. Only one of them is sustainable.
This week, Dr. Ari Tuckman returns to talk about approach and avoidance, and why so many of us have only ever learned to start the second engine. We get into why avoidance works just well enough to become a habit, why "not as bad" is a ceiling rather than a goal, and what actually changes in a life that runs more on what you're moving toward.
Along the way: the difference between shame and embarrassment and why it matters more than it sounds, what to do at 8 a.m. on a Monday when everything on the list feels equally urgent, and the case for disappointing people early instead of late.
Links & Notes
- Get the “3 Reasons” Prioritization Worksheet Right Here!
- ADHD & Marriage: Learn to thrive in your relationship with Ari Tuckman, PsyD, MBA; Rachel Ban, LICSW; and Melissa Orlov!
- Support the Show on Patreon
- Dig into the podcast Shownotes Database
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (00:56) - About the Show
- (02:25) - Introducing Ari Tuckman
- (14:38) - The question of shame
- (22:00) - Approach Motivation
- (29:04) - Approach versus Avoidance
- (37:28) - Find Ari
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Misattunement: The Through-Line of ADHD Relationships with Dr. Dodge Rea
Last time Dr. Dodge Rea was here, we set up a conversation in two parts and only got through one of them. This week we finish it, and the half we left hanging turns out to be the trickier one. What happens when …
Show notes
Last time Dr. Dodge Rea was here, we set up a conversation in two parts and only got through one of them. This week we finish it, and the half we left hanging turns out to be the trickier one. What happens when the person you're most out of sync with is yourself?
Attunement asks you to stay in touch with another person while staying intact with yourself, both at once. Most of us are better at one than the other. For a lot of us with ADHD, the outward half arrives early and never leaves. We got good at reading other people young, and never got the same practice on ourselves. So we say yes to things before we've checked whether there's anything left to give. And then we swing all the way to the far end, so far inward that a simple request from someone we love feels like an ambush.
There's research behind why that break hits so much harder than it looks from the outside, including a well-known experiment with mothers and infants that is difficult to watch. The share of the time we have to get attunement right is far smaller than you'd guess. What happens in the remaining time is pretty important, turns out.
There's also shame, and why it works so well as armor that some part of us would rather keep it than find out who we'd be without it. And there's a mantra Pete grabbed onto in the middle of the conversation and hasn't put down since.
Links & Notes
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (01:11) - Support the show -- Become a Patron!
- (03:57) - Attunement
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What Recovery Actually Looks Like (Beyond Sleep)
Rest, relaxation, recuperation. Three words we reach for when we're empty, and all three have collapsed into the same meaning: stop doing something. The older meanings point somewhere far more interesting …
Show notes
Rest, relaxation, recuperation. Three words we reach for when we're empty, and all three have collapsed into the same meaning: stop doing something. The older meanings point somewhere far more interesting, toward getting strength back rather than simply halting some energetic drain.
This week, Pete walks Nikki through research from occupational psychology that helps explain a frustrating experience most ADHDers likely know well: taking the time off and still coming back exhausted. There are four distinct kinds of recovery, they don't substitute for each other, and picking the wrong one is why a whole weekend of rest can leave you no better than you started.
Along the way: why sitting still can make mental noise louder, why your hobby might be the most restorative thing on your calendar, why the scroll fails every test, and how to match the kind of rest you choose to the kind of tired you are.
Links & Notes
- The Recovery Experience Questionnaire
- Support the Show on Patreon
- Dig into the podcast Shownotes Database
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (01:32) - Support the Show on Patreon!
- (02:54) - On Rest and Recuperation
- (13:56) - The Big Four
- (26:42) - Fake Rest
- (29:20) - Match the Drain to the Recovery
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The “But I Have To…” Trap
You look at the list. You look at the calendar. You already know there isn't enough day for what's on there, and somehow the first thing out of your mouth is still "but I have to."In this conversation, Nikki …
Show notes
You look at the list. You look at the calendar. You already know there isn't enough day for what's on there, and somehow the first thing out of your mouth is still "but I have to."
In this conversation, Nikki and Pete follow last week's capacity conversation down to the reflex underneath it. Where does the have-to feeling come from, what is it trying to protect, and what changes when you stop treating every task as though it weighs the same? They get into the five D's from Casey Dixon, why Pete has fallen hard for the one called disappoint, and the difference between deferring something and quietly hoping everyone forgets you agreed to it.
Also: what to do when the list actually is too long and no mindset shift is going to fix it.
Links & Notes
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (03:20) - The I Have To Trap
- (19:26) - The Raw Power of Disappoint
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The Gap Trap!
There's the version of you that exists right now, and the version you're pretty sure you should have become by this point. In this conversation, we get into the space between them, what Nikki calls the gap …
Show notes
There's the version of you that exists right now, and the version you're pretty sure you should have become by this point. In this conversation, we get into the space between them, what Nikki calls the gap trap, and why that space fills up with shame so fast for ADHD brains.
We talk about freeze as a nervous system response rather than a character problem, and about what it costs a fully grown adult to say "I don't know how to do this." Then Nikki offers the smallest possible way back in, along with three questions worth keeping close for the next time you're stuck.
Nikki's new download, When You Feel Frozen: A Guide to Restarting Without Shame, is available now.
Links & Notes
- Get the “When You Feel Frozen” Guide
- Support the Show on Patreon
- Dig into the podcast Shownotes Database
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (03:05) - The Gap Trap
- (21:07) - Restarting with no Shame
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A Revisit: Breaking Down an ADHD Challenge
We're on summer break, so this week is a Revisit: a favorite conversation pulled back out of the archive. In this one, Pete and Nikki put on their detective hats to break down an ADHD challenge.The idea is …
Show notes
We're on summer break, so this week is a Revisit: a favorite conversation pulled back out of the archive. In this one, Pete and Nikki put on their detective hats to break down an ADHD challenge.
The idea is simple. "I can't focus" or "I can't follow through" is too big and vague to solve, so the episode is about investigating what's actually getting in your way and finding the specific roadblock underneath. There's a memorable South Park metaphor involved, plus a practical, low-pressure approach to trying one strategy at a time and keeping track of what works. An encouraging, useful listen, whether it's your first time or a return trip.
Links & Notes
- Dr. Dodge Rea's podcast, The Change Paradox, on TruStory FM — and Nikki's guest appearance, Nikki Kinzer and The ADHD Paradox.
- How to ADHD with Jessica McCabe — the channel behind the motivation video that sparked this conversation (YouTube).
- Come join the ADHD Discord community.
- Support the show on Patreon.
- Tools mentioned in the episode: OmniFocus, OmniGraffle, MindNode, Todoist, and Day One.
- South Park's "Gnomes" — the origin of the underpants gnomes.
- (00:00) - Welcome to The ADHD Podcast
- (02:20) - Check out Nikki on The Change Paradox
- (03:48) - Skunkface
- (08:19) - Listener Question: Striking out as an Entrepreneur?
- (15:28) - Breaking Down an ADHD Challenge
- (23:38) - Underpants Gnomes
- (28:36) - Discerning the "Why"
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A Revisit: Change Your Vocabulary, Change Your Mindset
We're on summer break, so this week is a Revisit: a favorite conversation pulled back out of the archive. In this one, Pete and Nikki dig into the words we use and how much they shape the way we see …
Show notes
We're on summer break, so this week is a Revisit: a favorite conversation pulled back out of the archive. In this one, Pete and Nikki dig into the words we use and how much they shape the way we see ourselves.
Working from Alicia Dunams' book I Get To, Nikki walks through a few simple language shifts that hit differently when you have ADHD, from "I have to" versus "I get to" to catching the negative "what ifs." They also get into the power of the pause and staying curious instead of judgmental. It's an encouraging, practical listen, whether it's your first time or a return trip.
Links & Notes
- I Get To: How using the Right Words Can Radically Transform Your life, Relationships & Business by Alicia Dunams
- The Resilience Factor: 7 Keys to Finding Your Inner Strength and Overcoming Life's Hurdles by Karen Reivich
- “Six Surprising Benefits of Curiosity” by Emily Campbell
- (00:00) - Welcome to The ADHD Podcast
- (04:14) - Change Your Language: "I Get To: How Using the Right Words can Radically Transform Your Life"
- (10:50) - How Rewards Impact Language
- (12:39) - A Brief Aside on The QUIT Center...
- (15:02) - What do you THINK you can do?
- (18:52) - Facing the Impossible Situation
- (19:42) - Why not? What if?
- (27:17) - The Power of the Pause
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A Revisit: Celebrating What We Do
We're on summer break, so this week is a Revisit: a favorite conversation pulled back out of the archive. The idea takes after Dr. Kurosh Dini's concept of the visit, showing up to something with curiosity …
Show notes
We're on summer break, so this week is a Revisit: a favorite conversation pulled back out of the archive. The idea takes after Dr. Kurosh Dini's concept of the visit, showing up to something with curiosity rather than judgment.
In this one, Pete and Nikki talk about celebrating what you get done, and why so many people with ADHD give themselves almost no credit for it. They flip the usual deficit thinking on its head, dig into some very practical self-compassion, and share a simple exercise you can start tonight. It's an encouraging listen, whether it's your first time or a return trip.
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (04:42) - Celebrating What We Do
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A Revisit: Attacking the Gremlins with Jane Massengill
We're on summer break, so this week is a Revisit: a favorite conversation pulled back out of the archive. The idea takes after Dr. Kurosh Dini's concept of the visit, showing up to something with curiosity …
Show notes
We're on summer break, so this week is a Revisit: a favorite conversation pulled back out of the archive. The idea takes after Dr. Kurosh Dini's concept of the visit, showing up to something with curiosity rather than judgment.
In this one, we talk with coach Jane Massengill about the negative self-talk that so many people with ADHD carry, why it can run louder for us, and a simple practice she calls word watching for catching it in the moment. It's a warm, useful conversation about learning to be kinder to yourself. Whether it's your first listen or a return trip, it's worth your time.
Links & Notes
- JaneMassengill.com
- The Gremlin-Taming Institute
- Taming Your Gremlin: A Surprisingly Simple Method for Getting Out of Your Own Way — by Rick Carlson
- (00:00) - Welcome to The ADHD Podcast!
- (03:28) - Introducing Jane Massengill of the Gremlin-Taming Institute
- (08:37) - Why do some people struggle when others don't?
- (16:01) - About the Book and Jane's History
- (19:55) - The ADHD Internal Dialog
- (24:23) - Word-Watching
- (31:51) - Word-Watching Exercise
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How to Notice Progress Without Measuring It
At the end of the day, when your brain starts tallying everything you didn't finish, where's the credit for everything you did? In the Season 32 finale, we close out the season on the quiet skill that gets …
Show notes
At the end of the day, when your brain starts tallying everything you didn't finish, where's the credit for everything you did? In the Season 32 finale, we close out the season on the quiet skill that gets buried under all that mental accounting — noticing your progress instead of measuring it.
The unfinished stuff is loud: the laundry pile, the twenty-item list, the messages still waiting. The progress is silent, and a lifetime of report cards and performance reviews has trained us to see only what's left. We get into why that happens — with a detour through a 1927 psychology experiment that explains a lot about the ADHD shame loop — what self-compassion actually looks like in a real day, and why the answer isn't a shinier scorecard. Plus a family-dinner ritual worth stealing, an optical illusion that makes the whole point, and one of the more memorable cold opens of the season.
It's our send-off into summer break, and a reminder that sometimes the entire practice fits into one word.
Links & Notes
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (01:33) - Join the Community! https://patreon.com/theadhdpodcast
- (03:04) - Progress Without Measurement
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You’re Not Broken. You’re Contextual.
You can lose six hours to the thing that lights you up, then completely stall on a task that takes three minutes. Same brain, different room. In this conversation, Pete and Nikki get into why ADHD shows up hard …
Show notes
You can lose six hours to the thing that lights you up, then completely stall on a task that takes three minutes. Same brain, different room. In this conversation, Pete and Nikki get into why ADHD shows up hard in one setting and nearly disappears in another, why "broken" is the wrong word for any of it, and what changes when you stop asking how to fix yourself and start paying attention to the rooms where you do your best work. It's the capper on a season-long conversation about living with ADHD instead of fighting it, and a grounded look at the context, fuel, and environment that make hard things doable.
Links & Notes
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (01:41) - Check us out on Patreon
- (02:44) - You're Not Broken. You're Contextual
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Self-Trust Is a Nervous System Skill with Dr. Tamara Rosier
You can have the perfect planner, the right system, and the best intentions, and still not follow through. It isn't a caring problem. After enough broken promises to yourself, some quiet part of you simply …
Show notes
You can have the perfect planner, the right system, and the best intentions, and still not follow through. It isn't a caring problem. After enough broken promises to yourself, some quiet part of you simply stops believing the plan. That's where this conversation with Dr. Tamara Rosier begins, and it reframes self-trust as something closer to a nervous system skill than a mindset you can think your way into.
Dr. Tamara Rosier has written the books and built the center and stood on the stages, and she still wakes some mornings and reminds herself, deliberately, that she is a trustworthy person. The belief underneath — the one she's carried since she was small — is that she's a person who screws things up. ADHD feeds a belief like that. It chips away at your sense of who you are, one forgotten thing at a time, until distrusting yourself stops feeling like a wound and starts feeling like good judgment.
So much of that, it turns out, is happening in the body. An ADHD nervous system can spend its whole life braced — fight, flight, freeze, appease — switched on and calling it normal because it has never known the alternative. For years Tamara sat frozen on the couch, melting into the cushions, sure she was resting, when she was really stuck somewhere below the place where rest actually lives. There's a narrow band where you're calm and awake at once, and a lot of us have never spent much time there. Hearing her describe it, you may quietly start to wonder whether you ever have.
The way back looks like catching yourself mid-loop — Tamara tells it through the week she lost one of her chickens, and the refrain that trailed her around the house, I failed her, I failed her, I failed her — and then learning to talk back to it, to move your body, to put on the Motown, to do the next small thing that nudges you up out of the freeze. It looks like noticing the clever ways we avoid all of that, too: the new app, the next fix, the dopamine that keeps us busy on the surface so we never have to turn toward the thing underneath.
And the hope here is almost disappointingly ordinary. No system is going to fix you by Thursday. What there is, instead, is the small correction, made again and again, the way a sailor nudges the tiller rather than wrenching the whole boat around and tipping it over. There's learning to read your own weather, hour by hour. There's accepting that you may always need the timer, the Post-it, the reminder, and letting that be fine rather than shameful. Self-trust grows in that soil — in the quiet, stubborn belief that whatever goes sideways today, you'll know how to repair it.
Links & Notes
- Dr. Tamara Rosier — our guest's author site, where you can find her work and stay connected.
- ADHD Center of West Michigan — the coaching and support practice Tamara founded in Grand Rapids.
- Your Brain's Not Broken — Tamara's book on navigating your emotions and life with ADHD. A new edition for teens and young adults is on the way.
- You, Me & Our ADHD Family — her book on cultivating healthy relationships when ADHD is in the house.
- ADHD Coaches Organization (ACO) — the professional body for ADHD coaches; their directory is a solid place to start if you're looking for one.
- HeartMath — the heart-rhythm coherence and breathing tool Tamara leans on to drop into a calmer, parasympathetic state.
- Vagal nerve resets — Tamara's advice is to find the one that fits you; she points listeners to the many free walk-throughs on YouTube rather than any single "right" technique. Clicking that link saves you a search in YouTube.
- Join us on Patreon — early, ad-free episodes, extended editions, the post-show Q&A, the Discord community, and a seat in the Wednesday morning live stream.
- Dig into the podcast Shownotes Database
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (02:57) - Introducing Dr. Tamara Rosier
- (04:25) - Self-Trust and the Nervous System
- (12:32) - What are our beliefs doing in our bodies?
- (32:55) - Learn Your State
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Rewriting the Rules You Inherited About Worth
There's a rule most of us signed before we could read it. It decides whether we're worth anything, and it tends to set the same terms for everyone who carries an ADHD brain: you're valuable if you perform, if …
Show notes
There's a rule most of us signed before we could read it. It decides whether we're worth anything, and it tends to set the same terms for everyone who carries an ADHD brain: you're valuable if you perform, if you keep every plate spinning, if you never let anyone down. Live under that contract long enough and it stops feeling like a belief and starts feeling like a fact — written, as the metaphor goes this week, in permanent ink.
Where did the rule come from? Often from the earliest lessons — the pulled-out-of-class, extra-time, here-are-your-accommodations lessons that were meant to level the field but landed as proof you were different. The gap they leave behind doesn't shrink with age. There's research suggesting it widens. The assumption that everyone else has this figured out turns out to be the lie that keeps the rule in place.
Links & Notes
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (01:17) - Join the Patreon!
- (03:13) - Rewriting Rules
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What It Means to Be “Good Enough” With ADHD
"Good enough" is a phrase that can land like permission or like an accusation — and for ADHD brains that have spent a lifetime being told we're not trying hard enough, both feelings often arrive at once.This …
Show notes
"Good enough" is a phrase that can land like permission or like an accusation — and for ADHD brains that have spent a lifetime being told we're not trying hard enough, both feelings often arrive at once.
This week, we're untangling that knot. Why does a phrase meant to release us so often feel like settling? Why does the ADHD brain hear "good enough" and translate it into "not enough"? And what would it actually take to reclaim the phrase as our own?
This is really all about intention — the difference between walking away from something because you've been defeated by it, and walking away because you've made a choice. One leaves you smaller. The other builds something. We talk about the standards we measure ourselves against (almost always invented), the freeze that comes when nothing feels possible, and the small, almost invisible acts that count as progress even when they don't feel like it.
By the end, we land somewhere unexpectedly tender: a reminder that the way we build trust with ourselves isn't by finishing things perfectly. It's by finishing them at all.
There's a free download this week — five questions to help you decide what's good enough — linked below.
Links & Notes
- Download the What Does It Mean to be Good Enough? Worksheet!
- Support the Show on Patreon
- Dig into the podcast Shownotes Database
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (01:25) - Patreon.com/theadhdpodcast
- (02:56) - What does it mean to be good enough?
- (21:51) - How do you know it's good enough?
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Permission Slips You Keep Waiting For
There's a kind of waiting most ADHDers know well — waiting for someone, somewhere, to say it's okay. Okay to rest. Okay to stop masking. Okay to take the accommodation. Okay to want what you want without …
Show notes
There's a kind of waiting most ADHDers know well — waiting for someone, somewhere, to say it's okay. Okay to rest. Okay to stop masking. Okay to take the accommodation. Okay to want what you want without justifying it.
In this conversation, we get into the permission slips we keep waiting for, often from authority figures who may not even exist anymore. We talk about why ADHDers wait — the research-backed link between years of childhood correction and adult reliance on external validation — and what that has to do with decision paralysis, rejection sensitivity, masking, and the exhaustion of performing a version of yourself that you didn't sign up for.
Plus the swan, self-determination theory, and a small concrete first step you can try this week.
Links & Notes
- Download The ADHD Permission Slip!
- Support the Show on Patreon
- Dig into the podcast Shownotes Database
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (01:26) - Patreon.com/TheADHDPodcast
- (02:36) - Your Permission Slips
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Why Advice Stops Working When You’re Tired
We've all been there: someone offers a perfectly reasonable suggestion, and instead of taking it in, you bristle. You're tired. You're cranky. The last thing you want is advice. This week, Pete and Nikki tackle …
Show notes
We've all been there: someone offers a perfectly reasonable suggestion, and instead of taking it in, you bristle. You're tired. You're cranky. The last thing you want is advice. This week, Pete and Nikki tackle what happens when ADHD meets fatigue — and why the strategies that usually work suddenly don't.
This isn't laziness. It isn't a character flaw. It's what happens when executive functions are already running on a deficit and you pile fatigue on top. Pete brings the research, including a study showing 62% of adults with ADHD meet the criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome — a reminder that "everybody gets tired" is true, but ADHD brains get tired in a different and vastly more significant way.
The conversation moves from the science to the lived experience: the guilt loop that keeps you from resting, the way fatigue distorts reality until small tasks feel like moral referendums, and the rewiring required to treat recovery as part of the work — not a reward you have to earn.
Plus: why "I don't wanna" might be a capacity check in disguise, the four categories of recovery that actually work (hint: sleep is only one of them), and Nikki's insight that the recovery muscle is built through trial and error, not advance planning.
LINKS & RESOURCES- Past episode referenced: The Opportunity Cost
- Past episode referenced: Capacity conversation with Brooke Schnittman
- Support the Show on Patreon
- Dig into the podcast Shownotes Database
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (03:10) - The Tired Problem
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Why “I’ll Deal With It Later” Is an Energy Leak with Ari Tuckman
We've all said it. "I'll deal with it later." And somehow, later never comes. The thing just sits there — not in your calendar, but in your head. It pings you in the shower. It shows up right before you fall …
Show notes
We've all said it. "I'll deal with it later." And somehow, later never comes. The thing just sits there — not in your calendar, but in your head. It pings you in the shower. It shows up right before you fall asleep. That's an energy leak.
This week, Ari Tuckman returns for his sixth appearance to unpack what's actually happening when we tell ourselves "later." What is the ADHD brain doing in that moment? Are we making a real decision, or just kicking the can? And how do we tell the difference?
We dig into:
- The two flavors of procrastination — not feeling the future vs. avoiding the discomfort
- Why "later" needs a "when," and what specificity actually changes
- The difference between a task that needs doing and a decision that needs making
- How to close an open loop that's been open way too long
- Going toward positives vs. avoiding negatives, and why one of those is more sustainable
- Time estimation, and why some things aren't knowable until you start
- Ari's new book, the ADHD Productivity Manual
Guest Spotlight
Ari Tuckman, PsyD is a psychologist, author, and international presenter specializing in ADHD. He's given more than 600 presentations and podcast interviews across America and nine other countries, and is the author of four books: ADHD After Dark, Understand Your Brain, Get More Done, More Attention, Less Deficit, and Integrative Treatment for Adult ADHD. He chairs the CHADD Conference Committee. This is his sixth appearance on the show.
Links & Notes
- Ari's website: https://drarituckman.com
- Ari on Instagram: @AriTuckmanPsyD
- Books by Ari Tuckman:
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (01:13) - Join us over on Patreon!
- (02:13) - Introducing Ari Tuckman
- (03:06) - "I'll do it later..."
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The Schedule That Bends Without Breaking
You've heard it before, probably said it yourself: time blocking doesn't work for me. Every block that slips becomes one more piece of evidence that you've failed the system — or that the system has failed you …
Show notes
You've heard it before, probably said it yourself: time blocking doesn't work for me. Every block that slips becomes one more piece of evidence that you've failed the system — or that the system has failed you. So this week, Nikki and Pete try something different. They change the word.
Nikki walks through three terms that get thrown around in planning circles — intentional planning, time blocking, and the one she's been reaching for more and more lately: flexible scheduling. Pete pushes back (gently, mostly) on why we need a new word for something that was never supposed to be rigid in the first place. And together they unpack the real reason so many ADHDers bounce off scheduling: it's not the strategy, it's the story we tell ourselves when the strategy bends.
Along the way: the dangerous allure of hyperscheduling and why it only really works if your livelihood is measured in billable minutes; why time blindness isn't a reason to skip time blocking (and why estimation was never the point); the spoon theory and scheduling around energy instead of just hours; and Pete's brand-new metaphor — age of time — for thinking about margin, buffer, and what it feels like to live three weeks ahead of yourself instead of one day behind.
Plus, Nikki drops another download: Your ADHD Schedule Starter, a short, practical guide for building a flexible schedule step by step, with a reflection section built in so you can keep adjusting as you go. Link in the show notes.
Links & Notes
- Your ADHD Schedule Starter (free download)
- Unapologetically ADHD by Pete Wright and Nikki Kinzer — the book behind the framework
- Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
- GPS Planning Membership — Nikki's coaching community for planning, capture, and workflow
- Support the show on Patreon — early ad-free episodes, livestream recordings, members-only Discord
- Dig into the podcast Shownotes Database
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (00:46) - Patreon.com/TheADHDPodcast
- (01:59) - Talking Schedules
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What to Look For in a Planning Tool
There's a moment every ADHDer knows: you open the task manager, see the sea of red, and close it again. This week, Nikki and Pete sit with that moment — and with what it's actually telling you.The instinct is …
Show notes
There's a moment every ADHDer knows: you open the task manager, see the sea of red, and close it again. This week, Nikki and Pete sit with that moment — and with what it's actually telling you.
The instinct is to blame the tool. Something's wrong with the app, the planner, the notebook. Time for something new. But what if the tool is doing exactly what it's supposed to do, and the thing you're really avoiding is something else entirely?
Nikki walks through the two non-negotiables of any planning toolkit, why hybrid systems quietly fall apart in the in-between stages, and the one thing she asks every new one-on-one client to do within a week. Pete confesses to running four systems at once, lays out his tool-finding intestines on the table (his words, not ours), and makes the case for why your app isn't just an app — it's a lifeline. Plus: FOBO, task rot, the moral weight of a few simple minutes, and why the best tools are the ones that ask you to pay for them.
Stick around for Nikki's brand-new download, Your Planning Tool Finder — a short guide to the questions worth answering before you pick your next tool. Link below.
Links & Notes
- Your Planning Tool Finder (free download)
- Unapologetically ADHD by Pete Wright and Nikki Kinzer — the book behind the framework
- GPS Planning Membership — Nikki's coaching community for planning, capture, and workflow
- Support the show on Patreon — early ad-free episodes, livestream recordings, members-only Discord:
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (01:44) - Patreon.com/TheADHDPodcast
- (02:34) - Talking Tools
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When Productivity Advice Ignores Capacity with Brooke Schnittman
Most productivity advice was built for brains that start on demand, stay consistent, and prioritize logically. That's not us.This week, Brooke Schnittman returns for her third visit to the show to dig into one …
Show notes
Most productivity advice was built for brains that start on demand, stay consistent, and prioritize logically. That's not us.
This week, Brooke Schnittman returns for her third visit to the show to dig into one of the most frustrating disconnects in ADHD life: the gap between what we think we can do in a day and what our actual capacity will allow. Pete and Nikki walk through the familiar trap — fifteen red-line tasks, two hours of actual focus time, and the stubborn belief that somehow we'll get it all done anyway. Brooke names it for what it is: magical thinking backed by people-pleasing, propped up by shame.
Together they explore why ADHD brains need to plan to plan, what "sampling the no" actually looks like in practice, and how masking shows up in our task lists in ways we rarely notice. Brooke introduces her STOP framework for sorting the week — Stressful, Time-consuming, Ordinary, Passionate — and makes a case for the kind of white space most of us have been taught to see as failure.
There's also a frank conversation about burnout: what it looks like for neurodivergent people, why it lasts longer than we expect, and the 1% action that can keep momentum alive when everything else has stopped. And a reminder that if you're showing up at 40% battery, then 40% is your 100% for the day — and that's enough.
GUEST SPOTLIGHT
Brooke Schnittman, MA, PCC, BCC is a nationally recognized ADHD coach and the founder of Coaching With Brooke. She's the author of Activate Your ADHD Potential, a roadmap for high-achieving ADHDers who are tired of running fast and getting nowhere. Brooke trains ADHD coaches through her 3C Activation System and is passionate about bringing ADHD coaching into universities to support students directly. This is her third appearance on the show.
LINKS & NOTES
- Coaching With Brooke
- Activate Your ADHD Potential by Brooke Schnittman
- Support the Show on Patreon
- Dig into the podcast Shownotes Database
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (02:51) - Intentions Versus Expectations
- (09:20) - Productivity and People Pleasing
- (20:03) - The Complicated Question of Capacity
- (31:16) - Burnout
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Why Your Plans Fall Apart
This week kicks off a three-part series on planning, and it starts where every planning conversation should: with honesty about why plans fall apart in the first place. Pete opens with his own cascading …
Show notes
This week kicks off a three-part series on planning, and it starts where every planning conversation should: with honesty about why plans fall apart in the first place. Pete opens with his own cascading construction disaster at home, where raccoon damage set off a chain reaction of disruptions that has bled directly into his work life. Nikki’s diagnosis is both simple and profound: when you make a plan, you’re trying to predict the future with the information you have right now. When that future doesn’t cooperate, the real problem isn’t the plan failing. It’s that we treat plan failure like a personal failure.
From there, Nikki walks through the full spectrum of executive function challenges that make ADHD planning uniquely hard: time blindness that operates at every scale from individual task to entire month, working memory that drops the ball the moment you turn around, prioritization paralysis where everything feels equally urgent, the cognitive inflexibility that turns one bad morning into a ruined day, emotional regulation struggles and the sharp edge of RSD when disappointing someone is unavoidable, and sustained attention that evaporates the moment your environment gets interesting. At the center of it all is what Pete calls “fantasy Pete,” the imaginary version of himself who wields time like a saber and never lets anyone down, and whom nobody would actually like at a party.
The antidote isn’t a better system. It’s moving from shame to curiosity. Nikki’s framework: instead of asking what’s wrong with you, ask what your brain actually needs. Find the friction. Learn your own flavor of ADHD. Build in margin so that when things go sideways, you have something left in the tank for recovery. The episode closes on Pete’s central paradox, the one he returns to with clients again and again: it’s not your fault, but it is yours. You didn’t design this brain. But you’re the one who has to work with it, and building that muscle, one honest conversation at a time, is exactly what this trilogy is for.
If this episode hit close to home, we made something to help it land a little deeper. Your Planning Reflection is a free companion guide—just four honest questions to help you connect what you heard to what's actually happening in your own life. No productivity exercise. No grade at the end. Just a quiet moment to start paying attention.
Links & Notes- Lattice by Pete D. Wright — Pete’s new science fiction novella, now available on Amazon
- Unapologetically ADHD by Pete Wright and Nikki Kinzer — the planning book behind this trilogy
- Your Planning Reflection worksheet — Nikki’s four-question companion to this episode, available now!
- GPS Guided Planning Sessions — Nikki’s membership planning program
- The ADHD Podcast on Patreon — early access, Discord, and live stream recordings
- The Spanish Prisoner (1997, dir. David Mamet) — Pete’s most underrated film, home of the worry quote
- Ricky Jay — magician, actor, and unwitting aphorist: “Worry is interest paid in advance on a debt that never comes due”
- Support the Show on Patreon
- Dig into the podcast Shownotes Database
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (00:41) - Introducing Pete D. Wright... Struggling Author of Fiction
- (03:31) - Patreon.com/TheADHDPodcast
- (04:34) - Why do your plans fall apart?
- (09:37) - Were you taught how to plan?
- (31:17) - Today's Reflection Worksheet
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Later Life Diagnosis: The Relief, The Regret, & The Reality with Linda Roggli
Here’s a story a lot of women know. You’ve been getting by — maybe not perfectly, but you’ve been getting by. And then something shifts. Suddenly the coping strategies that used to work don’t. The brain fog is …
Show notes
Here’s a story a lot of women know. You’ve been getting by — maybe not perfectly, but you’ve been getting by. And then something shifts. Suddenly the coping strategies that used to work don’t. The brain fog is different. The irritability is new. And nobody around you — including your doctor — seems to have a particularly good answer for why. For women with ADHD, the answer is often estrogen. And for too long, that connection has been wildly undertreated.
Linda Roggli has been living this story and researching it and coaching women through it for twenty years. She’s the founder of the ADDiva Network for ADHD Women 40 and Better, and she joins Pete and Nikki to trace the whole arc: what estrogen actually does for the dopamine-depleted ADHD brain, what happens when it starts its perimenopause roller coaster, why the Women’s Health Initiative study scared a generation of women away from hormone therapy that could have helped them, and what the science now says about timing, delivery methods, and who it’s actually for. It is a lot of information, delivered with the kind of warmth and hard-won clarity that only comes from someone who has personally been told by a doctor, “You’re not in menopause” — and then spent decades making sure other women don’t get that same non-answer.
Links & Notes
- Linda Roggli — professional certified coach, award-winning author, founder of the ADDiva Network for ADHD Women 40 and Better
- Driven to Distraction by Edward Hallowell and John Ratey — the book Linda’s therapist recommended at her diagnosis; she read it in the bookstore on the way home
- Women’s Health Initiative — the federal study whose 1990s findings caused a generation of women to stop hormone therapy; Linda explains why the study was fatally flawed
- Dr. Patricia Quinn — ADHD specialist whose research on estrogen-only therapy for ADHD women
- Support the Show on Patreon
- Dig into the podcast Shownotes Database
- (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
- (01:08) - Patreon.com/TheADHDPodcast
- (02:11) - ADHD Aging, Hormones, and More
- (04:34) - Linda Roggli
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