ADHD | Dr Mike's Life with ADHD
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Welcome everybody to another episode of Dr. Matt and Dr. Mike's Medical Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Mike Todorovich, and I'm joined by my co-host, Rupert Murdoch. How are you today, Rupert? I was going to tell you a joke today about ADHD, but I knew you wouldn't pay attention long enough to hear the punchline. Sorry, what was that?

Now, you might be sitting here listening to this and go, that is insensitive for people with ADHD. It is not, and I'll tell you why it's not, because I've got ADHD, ladies and gentlemen. I gave Matthew permission to tell that joke. He's allowed to tell it because we're talking about ADHD, and I've got it. I think everybody who probably listens consistently to this podcast or watches the YouTube channel knows that I've got it. I think all my students have probably realized by now I've got ADHD, and I've

I thought it would be a good time. It's the start of the semester at the moment for – In Australia. In Australia at least. Good point. So for the vast minority of you, it's the beginning of a new semester and

But I think it's important because I did a very quick post on Instagram the other day. I didn't plan anything. I've been thinking about my ADHD and what it means to me as an academic, you know, and I thought, you know, people might want to know what it's like being a professor, an associate professor in medicine and what it's like having ADHD because you don't usually –

see those two things together. Right. And I thought, well, let's give some insights. I just spoke to the camera for a couple of minutes, posted up and great traction. A lot of people engaged with it. A lot of questions, a lot of people wanting to know more. And I thought, okay, well, Maddie, why don't we do a podcast about my experience having ADHD as an academic, as a, as a professor and how it's been and what it's currently like and what it was like. And,

And all the in between. All right. What do you think? Well, I've got a series of questions. Oh, okay. I'm going to throw at you. Yep. So you did allude to just a minute ago with your academic work and your background and so forth. Before we jump into your experience with ADHD, can you just set the scene for the listener what your academic background is

generally yeah and what do you do day to day oh okay so i am an associate professor of medicine uh in australia i day to day so bond university bond university queensland australia beautiful place beautiful campus beautiful university wonderful students great colleagues love the place what i do so you started university doing what

Okay. This is a great indicator that I've got ADHD because you're going to continually focus my attention on what you've asked. So, yes, when I finished school, I did an undergraduate degree in – well, I went to Townsville first and did an undergraduate science degree. Not Queensland? No.

North Queensland? Yes, that's right. To try and get into marine biology, realised didn't care too much about fish, left Townsville, came back to Brisbane and did an undergraduate degree in – it's basically an undergraduate degree of science but then it was called a Bachelor's of Biomolecular Science.

Right. So Townsville, Queensland, North Queensland, on the Great Barrier Reef, you realised that fish had a greater attention span than you and you decided to go south to Brisbane and do biomolecular science. Yes. With an honours.

And then you embarked on a PhD? Did a PhD. Took me a few years longer than I probably should have. Neuroscience? Yep. Clinical neuroscience. Looked at Parkinson's disease and some of the genetics associated with Parkinson's disease. Yep. Right. And then you, this is where we met. Yes. School of Nursing, Griffith University, teaching A&P and biosciences. That's right. Yep. I finished, as I was finishing my PhD, I started doing some teaching.

...for a friend and previous colleague of ours... ...who unfortunately has now passed away, Amy Johnson. And... She's a legend. Absolute legend. She...

She gave me some teaching I'd never taught before. I absolutely loved it, fell in love with teaching and then in typical me or ADHD fashion, jumped headfirst into teaching and I did that and pretty much forgot about my PhD. I just taught, taught, taught. The school of nursing that we met said to me, we will give you a tenured position at the university if...

You finish your PhD in the next six months. And you put up with Matt. And you have to put up with Matt. And I went, no, not Matt. So no, I did my PhD. I got it sorted. And then you and I were colleagues at Griffith for a decade. Yes.

Alright, so there's your academic background. Now, what's the process of your diagnosis with ADHD? I kind of am aware of this because I went through it with you to some degree. Can you explain what the process is clinically? How you achieved a diagnosis of this? And then we'll talk about why I decided to go get a diagnosis? Yeah, together. Answer both. Oh, okay. So I always had an inkling that I had ADHD.

attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Should we define ADHD or not yet? Sure, let's do it. I've got it written down here because I didn't memorize the DSM-5. So that's the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health. Did you say Testicular Manual? Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition. Okay. So in this particular category, this is neuro...

What category would it be under, do you think? Neuropsychiatric? Yeah, maybe not. Anyway, it doesn't really matter. But ADHD has kind of two broad categories to it. It has, or the definition would be a persistent pattern of inattention and or hyperactivity or impulsiveness that interferes with function and development characterized by one or both of these kind of categories.

categories. Yeah. So I'm going to read the categories and they have subcategories. They have nine subcategories below it. Okay. Okay. And generally for a diagnosis, you'd have to have six or more. So six of the nine or more. Okay. Shall I tick the box? Yeah. So I'll read them and you kind of say yes or no. Okay. Okay. So this fits under the inattention category. So the first one is overlook in detail and makes careless mistakes. To a degree, yes.

Yes. You're pretty good in some areas though. Well, this is the thing. When I did the test, which they asked these things, I've figured out tips and tricks and hints, which we'll talk about today, on how I get over that. So if it's about my default, then yes, the answer is yes. My default, yes, I do. But I don't know. So I'd say in an academic sense.

...standpoint from my experience working with you. You're pretty good with attention to detail. That's because I've... Maybe not doing emails, you're terrible with that. That's true. But generally speaking...

you fix up my attention or lack of attention. That's true. But it's only because I know that that's one of my things that I can't do very well and I force myself to be able to do it. Next one. Struggles to sustain attention in tasks and activities. Sorry, what was that? That's a tick. That's a tick. Seems not to listen when someone speaks to them. Yeah, again. Again, yes, that's – yep. Yep.

I think listeners of the podcast will agree to that one. Fails to follow through on instructions or finish tasks. Correcto, yes. Finds it hard to organize tasks and activities. Yeah.

Okay. Avoids or dislikes tasks that require sustained mental effort. Oh, absolutely. That's a big one. Frequently loses items necessary for tasks like books or maybe keys. Yeah, yeah. All the time. Easily distracted by external stimuli and unrelated thoughts. Yes, that is a big one. Yes. And lastly, forgetful in daily activities such as chores or appointments, things like that. Not so much because...

And we can talk about this. You've worked your way around it. I've worked my way around it. And I think for a lot of people with ADHD, I saw a meme on Instagram which said, nothing ruins an ADHD person's day like a 3 p.m. appointment. Because...

Your mind is either you either forget about it entirely or you focus so heavily on it because you don't want to miss it that the entire day is gone. And this is one of the reasons why I'm always early to meetings by at least. And you get angry at me for being late. Yes, because Matt will always leave to get there right on time. And that to me is anxiety inducing because either I'll be super late or forget it or I have to be very early. And I think this is a common thing for people with ADHD. Yeah.

All right, so that's the inattention part of the ADHD. Yeah. But this is now in the category number two which is hyperactivity and impulsivity. So again, you need to have six or more of these. Hey, can I just say for the audience?

Us doing this podcast isn't to diagnose you. This is not us giving you protocols on how to live your life with ADHD. We're not telling you anything about you or, you know, we're not here to diagnose. We're not here to do any of that. Again, that's not our capacity. This is simply just about giving you some information about my lived experience having ADHD. That's it. And if you hear some things that are relevant to you and might be helpful, that's awesome. But again,

These are not prescriptions, right? Sorry, go on. So this is for hyperactivity. Let's see if I've got hyperactivity. Oh, yeah. Okay, first one. Frequently fidgets, taps or squirms? Constantly. What was the thing you said you do also?

Before the podcast, you say you do this occasionally. Stimming? Stimming. Yeah, stimming, where sometimes I'll just make... Can you give an example of that? Okay, so if I'm particularly anxious, I will make noises like... Or...

Or I'll start singing a da-da-da-da-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. I'll start doing something along those lines, which is called stimming. And for whatever reason, it brings me back down. It sort of like releases the valve of anxiety a little bit. And I think, again, people with ADHD would understand that.

Okay, next one. Often leaves the seat when expected to stay seated. Yes, I was in a meeting not too long ago. I stood up. You walked out. No, I was just – people were asking why am I okay because I kept standing up and walking around when everyone else was staying seated. Just for that 15-minute meeting. I know, it was like a two-hour meeting. But –

I remember being a kid. I remember being in primary school and we had to sit on concrete ground for assembly, right? School assembly at the beginning of the week. And I remember thinking to myself, this is so physically painful to sit here. Why isn't anybody else?

having problems. I was moving and moving. Teachers would be like, stop moving, stop moving. I had to kick because it physically feels like it's painful to sit there. It's like torture. And we'll go into more details as to why that is the case. Okay, so this one's probably more for kids that runs and climbs continuously. But for adults it's more likely to just be restless legs. Yeah. Yep.

Unable to play or relax quietly. Always on the go. Talks excessively. I think that you would find that that is correct, Matthew. Blurts out answers before the questions finish. Can't help it. Difficult waiting for your turn. Yes, absolutely. Is that true? Well, again, I've worked on it. That's why you get in fights in airport queues. In conversations, right? If I already know what I want to say in the conversation and that person hasn't finished...

It's so hard for me not to just interrupt.

I just want to jump in and say, again. This is the next one. Often interrupts or intrudes on others. Yes. Such as conversations or takes over. Yes. I think you would find that in the podcast. Yes, in the podcast, I would do that. So I think you'd find I tick the boxes here. So I have had a formal diagnosis. This was, I'm turning 38 years old, right? Very soon. Can I ask one question with those? Because there's two categories. Did you get diagnosed with both? Textbook, he said.

Textbook was the word that he used. That's what he called you. Yeah, he goes, you're a medical textbook. You're bloody smart. So I'm turning 38. I only had this diagnosis two and a half years ago. So this is pretty recent for me, but I was pretty confident that I had it for a long time. So what made you want to get the diagnosis then? All right. So...

I have ticked all those boxes throughout my entire life. But like many people with ADHD, I have developed strategies to work around. So it hit a point in my life, particularly when I had kids, that my strategies no longer were as effective as they used to be. And this is because, again, this is my impression of it, people with ADHD...

ADHD is both their superpower and their kryptonite. And the one thing, the one thing that people with ADHD really can't handle is boredom, being bored. That is, they would rather do anything than be bored, right? And so...

knowing that throughout my entire life, I've had to, you know, you do the stimming. So you distract yourself. I would have my mates would joke with me. Like they wouldn't want to come to the cinemas because they're like, cause I would stand up. Right.

And they're like, sit still, sit still. Couldn't sit still in a movie, right? So I would rarely want to go to movies because of that. But I would do workarounds. So coffee helps me focus my attention. That's a stimulant. I would do intensive bouts of work and then I'd stop. I would take constant breaks. There would be times where I just have to do nothing for long periods of time and then there would be times where I'm just so intensive. So I'd figure those things out. But I had control over those things, right? Yeah.

Then when you have kids, when I had kids, that added degree of chaos, I had to do things that I wasn't interested in doing or didn't want to do. Or when, for example, so people without ADHD tend to, and me specifically, I don't know, I'm sure other people like this, were either 100% or 0%.

And I would be doing so much stuff that I would exhaust myself. So I'll go to work and I can't just do 50% of my energy at work and then come home and have the rest of my energy to do stuff. I'm 100% and then when I get home, I'm buggered. Every scrap of energy is gone from me. And then I come home and then I've got kids. So can you do like a workout after work in that regard? Like can you still do physical activity? Yeah, because it's mental. It's entirely mental because what –

What we end up doing is we're constantly thinking there's no – and I know that everybody's constantly thinking, but we're constantly projecting into the future or constantly throwing ourselves back into the past and going through every single possible scenario of everything that's ever happened or ever going to happen and we exhaust ourselves and we focus so much attention on doing particular things that we drain ourselves. And when we drain ourselves, we're done. We're gassed. Battery, 0%. That's when it needs to be plugged in.

But then you go home, you've got kids you've got to look after and you have to do it. And it was pushing me over my edge. And with kids, you've really got to follow their routine. You have to follow their routine. I couldn't use my little tricks that were helpful, right? And it made me burn out because burnout isn't –

you just working too hard. Burnout is you working too hard and you don't have the time or energy to recuperate and you don't get the acknowledgement and self-worth and so forth. So between what was happening at work at the time and kids and everything like that, I burnt out. And so my mental health just went through the floor. Right.

and you know you and i were obviously hanging this was only a couple years ago we've known each other for a decade so you knew exactly what this was like so i thought okay i'm gonna go to the psychiatrist i'm gonna get a formal i'm pretty sure i've got this let's see what happens now i've always been anxious i've always had anxiety um it's really interesting because i've always had social anxiety which i know makes which you always go makes zero sense because you're the opposite socially it

Well, it seems like it, right? When we're in a social event, I'm usually the person who will go talk to everybody and become friends with people and just chat about whatever. But I think that's a compensatory mechanism for me to take control of the situation. So either if I'm passive in it, then I'm at the whim of what's going on. I don't control it. Anxiety goes to the roof or I control the situation by controlling the conversation. That's how at least I intellectualize it.

All right. So you got the formal – is there anything? Well, I was just going to – yeah. So –

I had to go to the psychiatrist to get the diagnosis. And was the questionnaire generally around what I just read out? Well, yeah. So basically what you read out was part of a survey that I had to do. Now I had to do a survey. So I met with him three times before I got a diagnosis. Okay. So I met with him. He told me the process, gave me the form to do the survey, did the survey. Completed that, good. Completed, yeah. Well, this is the sort of...

In a way, ironic thing about people with ADHD is that to get the diagnosis, you've got to make the appointments and continually go back three times and people just don't. They drop off because they lose attention, right? Or lose interest with it. Same with medication. They forget to take the medication because we forget stuff all the time. So three times I did the survey. I had to get a parent to do the survey about me as a kid. I'm confident my father has ADHD because... We'll come back to that in a second. Yeah.

And he had to interview my wife as well about what it's like being with me just to get another perspective on it. And then he said, yeah, look, textbook. He gave me dexamphetamine as my medication, low dose dexamphetamine. I'm going to be completely honest about this. I took the dexamphetamine on the way to work one day and bawled my eyes out in the car, cried, cried because it starts working pretty quick.

And it's not like you feel necessarily any different, but the noise in my head just got turned down to close to zero. That was the first time I had ever been quiet in my mind in my entire life. And I cried because I said to myself, oh, this is what it's like to be normal. I can see why people have so much energy in the evenings because I can just drive the car. I don't have to continually think about...

The traffic or what I have to do when I get there or parking or this or that when I get home and then the weather and then what's going to happen tomorrow. And those things just disappeared, dampened down. And so the medication was hugely helpful. And it was interesting because the psychiatrist said to me for a lot of people,

medication is often sufficient enough to help with their ADHD. Some people might need cognitive behavioral therapy plus the medication. I think I'm one of those people. I think my ADHD is quite severe. But it seems like you've already developed a whole lot of strategies. Heaps of strategies. So that would just work well with the medication. The one thing I found out which I didn't realize was that I knew, like I was mentioning before, I've always been anxious. I've always had anxiety about things.

like I said, social anxiety, whatever it might be, and had the ADHD, I thought they were two separate things until I took the medication and realized that when the ADHD and all the thought processes dampened down, my anxieties went. So my anxiety is intrinsically linked to my ADHD. I don't know whether that's the case for most people or a lot of people, but for me at least,

That was a blessing because I thought I was going to have to take some anxiolytics or anxiety-based medications. So just quickly, with your diagnosis, which you said was three years ago? Yeah, close to that, two and a half. Has anything changed since that diagnosis in terms of how you understand ADHD or how –

you know, how you view it. Yeah. Yes. Prior to, and I think a lot of people who have been diagnosed agree, you feel like you're a weirdo and you feel like you're broken and you feel like things don't work prior to your diagnosis. And then when you get the diagnosis and you go, oh, you fit within a category that a big chunk of the population also fits within, it is comforting to know that you are part of a quote unquote normal population of people, you know? Yeah.

It's part of... And there is indications that maybe the terminology here is it's not really a disorder. It's just part of the continuum of being a human, right? Yeah. And it's just...

you know, the diversity we are. And I can see why so many people do have ADHD from an evolutionary perspective. And again, this podcast is not because we've delved deeply into the literature. This is just my perspective as somebody who has it. But I know that, as you know, I'm the type of person that if, for example, you said we need to create a lecture, right?

I'll spend eight straight hours making a lecture... ...which a lot of people wouldn't have the time or energy to do that. I wouldn't go to the bathroom. Eight hours on one slide. Possibly that can happen. But I wouldn't go to the bathroom, wouldn't eat food. I'm hyper-focused. You jump into that hyper-focus... ...and you can see how that would be beneficial...

Historically, evolutionarily, you need to go and kill a gazelle. Somebody with ADHD will go and they will not come back until they've got a gazelle regardless. They're hyper-focused on the task. So these are people who there are – like I said earlier, it's my kryptonite but it's also my superpower as well. So you asked me are there things that I discovered since the diagnosis or things that have changed since the diagnosis. Or even the way you view it.

Yeah, so one of the ways I view it is I'm not so angry with myself or frustrated with myself, thinking I'm weird, I'm odd, what's going on? I'm more forgiving of myself, which I think is a big step forward if you need to forgive yourself because you just think, oh, I'm so terrible at all these things. And that I've been doing a number of things that I do off medication, but

illogical, irrational, ADHD based and I just thought it was normal, regular things and then you take the medication. You can't see what you're doing wrong when you're inside the box but the medication allows at least me to take a step back and then I can look inside the box and go, well, that's not right. I can't believe I did that. Why would I say this? Why would I act like that? And it allows for you to have that perspective. So it gives you a different perspective as well which I think is good because then you

Through your own efforts and through the help of, you know, again, medical help, cognitive behavioral therapies, you can help start to slowly tweak and change those things. Okay. Now I want to jump back decades. Okay. So in retrospect. Back when I was in my 30s. Going back to say your early life, your school years, what was your experience like?

in those areas. Well, it's interesting because remember when we were kids, right? The kids that had ADHD? Maybe. Like they...

That would be seen, and I'm going to use a terrible term, but that would be seen as the psychos. You know, the psycho kids. Oh, they're psychotic. They're nuts. They've got too much energy. They're hyperactive. You can't control them. Like, you know, you're kids. And these are all the horrible, silly terms that we use. And saying that, part of the… They're all the naughty kids, right? You think kids with ADHD, they're the naughty kids. I wasn't naughty.

Like I didn't really get in trouble at school. I did well. So academically you did well? Academically I was fine because I was smart and I relied on my intelligence. I never studied. I never prepared an assignment I did the day before because I could and I knew I'd get a good mark doing it the day before. Why would I do it a week before when I can get the same mark doing it or a good enough mark doing it the day before? What about in class? Were you getting up, walking around?

That was hard. That was hard. I was always doing, I would always ask to go to the bathroom so I could just get up and walk around. I would always be talking to my friends. So would you distract them? Oh, yeah. My mate always said, he goes, you're like the mob boss. You would whisper into our ears and say, hey, do this. Hey, you go over there, do that. Hey, say this to that person. And then you'd sit back and just watch the chaos unfold and then you're entertained. Yeah.

And you wouldn't get in trouble, but we all would get in trouble. And that was pretty much what it was like. So that was a coping mechanism. That was my coping mechanism. I couldn't sit still, but I think part of it for me was, yes, I couldn't sit still, but I also didn't want to get in trouble. And then there was this thing where it was like,

I would rather go through the pain of sitting still than get into trouble. Okay. So I just gritted my teeth and did that. Or if I really need to get out, I'll just go to the toilet and I'll just do a lap of the school and then come back. So that was the way. So when you go and get a diagnosis, right, they often ask for your previous diagnosis.

Because often a sign is, oh, you academically did poorly. I didn't do poorly because I was smart. Do you know where the problem came though? When I went to uni and couldn't just rely upon my smarts, you have to study. Okay. That was going to be my next question. So how then does it impact you in your university life but now your academic career? So when I was at uni doing an undergraduate degree, I didn't,

Because I'd never learnt the art of studying. And as you know, studying is an art form. You can't – you're not just – no one's born good at studying. You have to learn how to do it. It takes a long time. I went to uni, no idea how to study. No idea. Because we're not taught it at school?

Well, if we were, I didn't pay attention to it, right? I don't think we were. I think you sort of have to figure it out yourself. And I never figured it out. So I did the same thing I did at school where I did all the assignments the day before. When an exam came along, I loved exams because I could remember stuff, right? So I would study the night before.

So I would study from 4 p.m. till about midnight. Then I'd go to sleep and then I'd wake up at 3 a.m. and I'd study from 3 a.m. till about 9 a.m. and then I'd go to the... Heaps. Then I'd go to the exam and I'd get a fine enough mark to get through. I didn't fail anything at uni but never did spectacularly well, which goes to show that, you know, at school I did well...

And then at uni I did okay. And then I did – So were there any aspects of university life studying that you did struggle with? Any types of assessment? Any forms of learning? Or you could just cope? I was so lucky that I could just do it. I was smart enough to just do it in the sense that I was smart enough that I could just read it when I needed to the night before and

Do it, then I forget about it. Okay. Right? But I understand that there are students out there that aren't fortunate enough who have ADHD that can't do that. So they fall to the wayside because they can't figure out. So with ADHD, right, this is one of the things is that time management, terrible, right? We've got no good internal clock. So if you say something's due in six weeks, it might as well not ever be due at all. It means that's meaningless six weeks away. Yeah.

24 hours away, 12 hours away? I know what that means. I understand that deadline. All right. Well, with that said then, in your undergraduate, which is course-based degrees with a lot of assessment items that, like you said, have distinct time submission points, what about then going into your honours and PhD where it is now you're the manager of this project, you have to come up with the…

the timeline when things are due, when things need to be done. There's a lot of stuff to do in the lab which sometimes is quite boring and repetitive. Did that part become more challenging? Yeah, there's nothing worse for a person with ADHD than a PhD, right? There's nothing worse for one initialism to be followed by another initialism because like you said, PhDs are a marathon and I was not good at that. So I did...

I was going to say I did terribly in my PhD. I didn't do terribly. I excelled at certain things, which is –

Conversing with people, presenting at conferences, doing those things. The actual research, so boring, so boring. And I just had to do it because, again, I had the anxiety and stress of getting called out for not getting my work done by my boss or my supervisor, I should say.

And I, so I would get the work done. Always last minute though. Always last minute. If it's, so we would have a fortnightly lab presentation, right? And I would get all that lab work done the day before, the night before the lab presentation. If we didn't have those fortnightly lab presentations, probably wouldn't have done as much work, right? Because I needed the deadline. And so this is the thing again with ADHD. And again, particularly with me,

It's anxiety that pushes us to get some things done. Either passion because we want to do it or anxiety. A deadline that's six weeks away, like I said, is meaningless. So we wait until the anxiety builds so much that now we've got the motivation through anxiety to get it done because, oh, there's repercussions now.

And why would I put my energy into something now that's due six weeks away? It's really hard to chip away. Now, I'm saying this as a person then, right? My PhD was like 10 years ago, close to 10 years ago. I'm not like that now.

As much. I shouldn't say. I haven't totally... I haven't got rid of my ADHD. My default is all those things. But there are strategies that I put in place so that I do tick things off bit by bit. And we'll talk about that in a second. Yeah, yeah. Sure. Has there been any moment that you can recall in, say, your academic studies or career where the ADHD really had a significant impact on your life? Good or bad? Either. I think...

I truly think that one of the reasons why I'm so successful or we're so successful but I'm going to say me because of – we're talking about my experience – is because of my ADHD. I have such passion and drive to do the things I love

which is making YouTube videos and doing podcasts and learning to teach. That was another trick that I figured out. Don't study for yourself. Study for others. Study so that you can teach somebody else, right? Because then you've got the motivation. It's like, oh, I'm going to do this so I can teach somebody else. So my ADHD has been my biggest superpower for my career, right?

Because people go, wow, Michael, I can't believe, you know, you and Matt have successful YouTube channel and podcasts and you've written a book and you go and you do all these presentations and you do this and you do that and you do this. It's only because I love doing those particular things. They don't see that I didn't do that five-minute email that I was supposed to do, right? And that's probably the biggest downfall is that academia is an extension of a PhD in a way. It's a marathon. For those of you listening that...

An academic such as Matt and myself, right? At least a balanced one. Yes, at least a balanced one. You think that we just go and teach, but that is not a big percentage of what we do, face-to-face teaching. In actual fact, we probably only teach a couple hours face-to-face a week, right? A handful of hours a week.

maybe a little bit more depending on the week. The rest of our week is filled up with research. So reading papers, meeting with PhD students, either doing research, writing papers, publishing, reviewing papers. Applying for money. Applying for money, grant applications. But also service. So it's really like three jobs in one. Yeah, so service might be you're on a panel at the university, interview panel. You might run a program. You might –

Do whatever. Coordinator program. Coordinator program. So you're right. It's like three jobs in one that we do a lot of hours in each of those areas, right? And for somebody like me, multitasking is impossible. In actual fact, I think you're probably worse at multitasking than I am. But I mean in the moment. You know what? Matt, and I'm just going to direct it to Matt. If Matt's doing something, he goes deaf, right?

If Matt's on his phone, I could be yelling in his ear, he won't hear me. He won't hear me. I'm not like that. But if it's very hard for me to change task mid-bloody, midday. Like I tend to have to do, if I want to work the best, I'll do one task a day. I've changed that. I'm going to slightly transition into another kind of area question to you about your coping mechanisms and strategies. Can you talk to...

this particular strategy that you spoke to me about, I think this is, you either started it towards the end of last year or you're introduced it this year with the timer and changing tasks. Yes. So first thing is, and I'm not the one that came up with this. I heard a psychiatrist say this. I don't know who it was, so I apologize. But ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, it shouldn't be called attention deficit. We don't lack attention.

It should be attention allocation disorder, right? Probably not even disorder, but we've got problems with attention allocation, putting attention where we probably need to, or probably more accurately, putting attention where people want us to put our attention. We're not good at that. And so as an academic, as you know, Maddy,

We have like, you know, you'll wake up in the morning and you'll say, I've got 12 things to do today, right? You probably only want to do two of those things or none of them, right? But they need to get done. Now for me...

It's really, really difficult to get the drive to just start something I don't want to do. Like it feels like it's virtually impossible. I think I've described it to you before. I said, I know this sounds weird, but to just do a simple five-minute email, which intellectually I know is easy. Yeah.

It feels like I'm tied down. I can't do it. I can't do it. Physically can't do it. Right. Can't explain it any better than that, but that's how it feels. I think a lot of people probably nodding their heads listening is like, it's exactly how I feel. I know it's easy. So what I do, and I think one of the- So with your tasks, let's just say you had a sheet of tasks that you needed to do in the day. Yeah. Do you triage them and go, that's very easy. Okay. And then hard ones you go, I'll drop this to the bottom. Okay.

These are my two major life-saving things that I now do, right? To help me with exactly this. And this includes the timer, so I'll get back to that. Because I've got a thousand things in my mind and they go in, I go, oh my God, that needs to be done. I get anxious. Two minutes later, if I walk around a corner, I've forgotten it, right? And then I get anxious about it 20 minutes later because I've remembered it again. So...

Oh. Wouldn't. Uh...

Because you love wasting money as a way to punish yourself because your mother never showed you enough love as a child? Whoa, easy there. Yeah.

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Notes on my phone with me at all times and I will anything that comes into my head that needs to be done I must write it down straight away because I've got terrible working memory My phone or notebook acts as my working memory and it's working like a poor working memory fairly common. Yes Absolutely. We yeah, you explain what you mean by working memory. So in the moment

I will, things will jump into my head. I'll be able to intellectualize them, understand them. But if something else jumps in, it takes the place of the previous thing. Okay. And I can't hold the multiple things in my head at the same time. It either becomes overwhelming or it just can't do it. Okay. So, you know, I can't walk. If I had something in my head, this is no joke. If I'm on the phone to someone that says, can you do this? I'll say, yes, I can absolutely do that. I'll do that as soon as I get off the phone to you.

If the phone hangs up at that point, I can then go do that thing. If they bring up one other topic, it's gone out of my head. I'll totally forget. What if you get off the phone and someone comes in? Oh, I'm done. It's gone. It's gone. It's totally gone because I have to pay attention. Because of my attention issue, I have to pay attention to what that person in front of me is saying, which means I have to give them 100% of my mental energy.

Otherwise I give them 0%, right? So I have to have a notebook that works for me as my mental energy. So my notes at the end of it. That's cloud-based. Yes. So I will write down everything and I have to write the details. Like I'll have a meeting with someone that goes for an hour. Mike, can you do this? We need to get this done. You have to do this, this. And by the end of the meeting, I'm like, got it. I can do that. I can absolutely, the details, da, da, da, da, da.

24 hours later, I've totally forgotten what we spoke about in the meeting. Totally forgotten. So I have to write down the specifics in my notes on my phone. So by the end of a day, for example, I'll have a number of things I've written down that need to get done. So before bed, what I do is I take that notes list and I write it on a physical thing. So I create a list to empty my brain and unburden myself of all the thoughts because when I lie down to go to bed,

my thoughts of tomorrow and what I need to do will just start spiraling. And then I get anxious and then I get stressed and then I'm not tired and then I can't sleep. So I will write a list of things before bed every single night. Every single night I go to my whiteboard that's in my office, in my house, next to my desk, and I just spill my brain, not in any particular order, blah, blah, blah, blah. What needs to be done, whether it's tomorrow or next week or even next month, I just have to empty it.

unburden myself. Then I go to bed, hopefully have a good sleep, wake up the next morning and then I triage the list. Okay. What needs to, so then I have separate lists. I've got what needs to be done that month, what needs to be done that week, what needs to be done that day. And I write all those things in and then I just focus on the things that need to be done that day. Okay. And with that list of the day, do you further triage those or do you just kind of? No, a hundred percent. So I'll look at them and go,

Let's say there's four things. One of them is to create a lecture on blood pressure. Another one is to write a report on student engagement. Another one is to send a three-minute email to a colleague about a difficult situation that a student's experiencing. And the fourth is pick a ball. And the fourth is pick a ball, right?

As in like you've got to create the workplace pickleball competition. That's right. Well, so if they're the things, I will look at them and go, okay, well, pickleball, that's at 4 p.m. That's a task that's going to get done at a particular time. That's fine. I'll schedule that for 4 p.m. I can put it aside. It's in my calendar now. I won't forget it because even though I'm running it, I'll forget it.

Then I'll have a look and go, oh, that lecture, that blood pressure lecture, it's going to take a while, but I like doing lectures. I'm going to do that. But then I'll end up doing that for the whole day. The whole day is gone. So those other things that I could have ticked off that day, I don't do. So what I have to do is I go, all right, I'm going to spend, this is where the timer comes in. So this is a strategy you use now. So I've got a timer in front of every computer that I own at work and at home. And when I start work. Like an egg timer?

Yeah, like an egg timer. It's sort of just one I got online. It's just a digital timer. Oh, a digital one. Yeah. So I set it to 20 minutes and it counts down. And I press start and then I start the task regardless of what the time. It might be a task that will take five hours to do or it might be a task that takes five minutes to do. It doesn't matter. Set the timer, start.

Then I now know that there is an end date for that, an end time for that task, which means if it's a overwhelming task like the three-minute email but it's a difficult thing, this might lead to more emails, this is hard, I need to figure out how to word it, oh God, I don't have the mental energy to deal with this. It doesn't matter. 20 minutes. I've got 20 minutes and it's finished.

So I know that. So that mental delineation allows for me to get that done. But wouldn't that be infuriating for the task that you like doing and you just kind of got into the meat of it and then the alarm goes off? Yep, absolutely. So what I do then is if it is a task that I don't have to go to another task and this one needs to get done, I still set it for 20 minutes but I take a break.

So the alarm goes off, I go for a walk or I go grab a drink or I do something. I might get on my phone and check social media or something but I have to take a break because I need to break the hyperfocus because even though that is my superpower...

It can be detrimental because my posture is bad for a long period of time, haven't gone to the toilet, haven't had a drink, haven't had lunch. All those things are actually detrimental. So it breaks it up for me and allows for me to step back. Like there's been times where I've been at my computer at home for seven, eight hours and my wife's tapped me on my shoulder. And no joke, it feels like I've zoomed back into reality and go, oh, what's going on? She's like, you've been standing here for seven hours. You should probably get off now.

I'm like, oh, what? Have I? Because time is meaningless, especially in hyperfocus. Five hours can go past. I have no – it could be five minutes. Wow. Yeah. So with these strategies you spoke about in terms of the task dumping and the evening, the use of notes, cloud-based notes, the timer, how in addition to these has medication improved?

Oh, so medication allows for me to, it makes everything easier. So that mental hurdle of having to get started, that hurdle's disappeared. So while I figured out strategies on how to get over that mental hurdle, there are some days that all those strategies I just said still don't work, unfortunately. There are some days I'll wake up and I will be, and I'll go, I can't do anything.

Can't do anything. And it's really hard to. There's other days I wake up and I go, I can do everything. Is there any pattern to that? No. No.

Alcohol doesn't help. Alcohol is probably a big negative regulator of this. So alcohol the next day. So with the depressants like alcohol or, I don't know, maybe cannabis, does that have an opposite effect as the stimulant medications would? Yeah, so this is one of the things at least I've found is that because you're so high strung and anxious throughout the day and your mind's constantly on things often work associated, right?

You get home and you're like, I need to stop thinking like this. I need to get out of this. I need to start relaxing. And it's very hard to just do that, just switch yourself into relaxation mode. So people often drink. They'll get an alcoholic beverage and that's a signal to say, work's over, relaxation time has began, right? So then they take the drink and they go, ah, this is great. Alcohol's now... So is that more behaviorally... I think so. But then the alcohol changes...

your neurochemistry, right? Well, your biochemistry, right? It changes it. And because it's a depressant, yeah, you do relax and loosen up and all that sort of stuff.

But people with ADHD, it's the stimulants that work for us, right? That's why we take the dexamphetamine. So the next day, and again, this is just a personal experience. I'm not talking about what the literature says. But the next day, I'm probably worse, I would say. With alcohol. Yes. Next day after. And it's not like I would drink a lot. That's maybe two drinks. And then the next day, I'll be fine.

less motivated than I was the day before. Right? So with the medication, the stimulant, the dexamphetamine, that takes the noise away, allows to improve some of the focus. Has there been any downsides to it? Yeah, definitely. So...

Again, quickly, upside, it takes away the hurdle for me to be able to start things. So the anxiety associated with, oh, no, this task is overwhelming, which you don't think that, but that's just sort of the thing, right? That's the thing that holds you back. You take the medication, you're like, okay, let's do all these tasks right now. Right? So there's that. That's super helpful. Okay.

it allows for you to focus your attention while you're doing the task. So if you hear a noise, I'll get, you know, like Homer with the squirrel outside the window, right? That's me. That's, and a lot of people, you don't get as distracted as easily when you're on the dexamphetamine. So all those things are big ticks for us. For me, at least,

Once the medication wears off and dexamphetamine is short-lasting so it's pretty quick. But you can get longer-lasting ones. You can get longer-lasting ones, yeah, slow-release ones. I find, I'm not speaking for other people, is that the dip that I'm probably getting in, whether it be dopamine or noradrenaline or the monoamine dip that I get off the end of it, off the back end, I get a bit...

I'm irritated, irritable, just internally. I find it hard to settle, which is so strange because you'd think on an amphetamine you'd find those things hard to do. But off the back end of it, I find them hard to do. And is that gradual or is there a point where it just kicks in? It's – I don't know. I think it's gradual. Things get a bit more frustrating for me. I don't know whether it's just –

The evening and I'm tired or whether it is off the back end. Again, I'm just talking about personal experience. Sleep. Oh, yes. So sleep. So probably the first for me, the first two biggest side effects, which probably a lot of people notice is.

from the dexamphetamine is sleeping's difficult or at least... Just impacted. It's impacted. So the way I would describe it is that I still get tired and I still fall asleep but I like wake up five minutes after I fall asleep. So I fall asleep then wake up and then fall asleep then I wake up and fall asleep and wake up. So that's how it was when I... But you sort of... Or at least I did got used to that and then sleeping was fine but for some people they don't get used to it. But...

So you're not hungry. You don't eat. So when I first started taking it, I had to set a timer for lunch and dinner. I wasn't hungry. Is it just the desire to want to eat? Yeah, you have no desire for it. I didn't have desire for coffee. But when you're eating, it's okay? Oh, yeah. When you're eating, you go, oh, man, I am hungry. Okay. Right? So it's not like you – again, this is for me. But –

I would go, yeah, I'm not hungry. Then I'd start eating and go, yeah, I'm actually quite hungry. So there was that. For me, I wouldn't drink. I wasn't thirsty. And people I've spoken to haven't really said that that was one of their things. But for me, my desire for wanting to do the things that either distract me or

keep me going, like have a coffee that sort of disappeared, which is a good thing, the desire for alcohol that sort of disappeared. But then once your body gets used to it, they come back. At least for me, the desire for alcohol came back, the desire for caffeine came back and so forth. So that's why people end up having to up, one of the reasons why they have to up their doses because your body gets used to it. So yeah, look, there's a couple of downsides with the upsides as there is with many things.

Going to the final set of questions, I did... I was going to ask you questions around, you know, the strengths of having ADHD and limitations but I think you really answered those to some degree. So I want to kind of finish in the last set of questions around advice, advocacy. So what would you say to more so students...

But also you can add academics in there. So in more university space, because this is where you work, what advice would you give to students or academics with ADHD on improving their functionality? Now, this is probably coming from a privileged position, but if you can pursue a formal diagnosis, you should.

...if you think you've got ADHD or anything that might be impacting you psychologically in that sense. It's expensive and it's time consuming and sometimes the wait periods are a long time, right? But for me it was the most beneficial thing I did. So that was one, seeking formal diagnosis.

Sit down and reflect upon yourself and the things that work and what are the things that you're potentially putting into place to cope or what are the things you're putting into place to distract you because of the symptoms? Remember...

The one thing that people with ADHD can't stand is boredom. And that might be we're bored in conversation because we already know how the person we're having a conversation with is going to finish the sentence. Hurry up, hurry up. You're boring me. Like this is what's going on there. Hurry up. Come on. I know what you're going to say. Yeah. That's why we finish the sentence for them or interrupt them and go, yeah, right. So sit back and relax and reflect on those things.

I think the biggest and best bit of advice I ever got was that people with ADHD, we know what our weaknesses are. We know. And we feel bad that they're our weaknesses. Because, I mean, a lot of people are like, oh, I'm not good at X, Y, or Z, right? So what I want to do is I'm going to work on X, Y, and Z and be better at them because they're my weaknesses and you always have to be better at your weaknesses. For people with ADHD...

it's not going to work very well. You can get a little bit better, but you're going to spend inordinate amounts of time working on your weaknesses. And because you don't care about them, you're not passionate about them, you're never going to get great at them. So for me, the best bit of advice was to be strength focused. Sit down and go, what am I great at? What do I love? What am I passionate about? Because people with ADHD, they're

These are CEOs. These are novel thinkers. These are people that are, you know, they drive things forward. They're very creative individuals and they're driven. ADHD is not a problem with motivation or drive. We have it. It's just with specific things. So be strengths focused. And you might sit back and go, I hate my job though. How can I be strengths focused in my job? You need to reframe, do these tips and tricks, right?

I love my job, but I don't love everything about my job, but I have to do those things I don't like. So do a timer, do a list, but reframe it. Who are you doing it for? Don't go, oh, I'm doing it because I need to get it done. Go, you know what I'm going to do? Like give yourself like a little competition, make it a competition or a goal because that's what we love to do, make things competitions or reach a particular point, right? And go, okay, I'm going to try and do this task in time.

Four minutes, right? If it's just something that needs to get done, if it's a quality task, then you go, I'm going to make this such a high quality task that I'm going to do these three things. I'm going to do these three things really well, better than anybody else. And you can do it like that as well. But be strengths focused. That was the biggest thing. Get a formal diagnosis if you can. Be strengths focused. Talk to somebody, talk to other people about how you're feeling. Be open.

If you're a student, hopefully your university has counsellors that you can speak to who often they're trained psychologists, speak to them. At Bond University, I've been fortunate enough to be able to speak to some students who are neurodiverse like me in this sense about ADHD and they're like, I can't study. And medicine is not about how smart you are. It's how good at studying you are. Okay. So what are you instructing them?

So I'm telling them lists, timers, right? Don't feel guilty for taking a break. We can do things in four hours that would take other people 10 hours because of our hyperfocus. So if you do three hours of high quality study, pat yourself on the back, go play some PlayStation. Often we don't have to do 10 hours of study as long as it's quality. So don't feel guilty that you go and take breaks. So quality of a quantity in that regard. Rest, sleep, get your sleep.

Get your sleep. Outlets? You need to find... What you enjoy doing outside. 100%. You have to find your outlets. And does that become a reward for you? It does. And it's a really hard one because we get so hyper-focused on the things we love that we become obsessed with it and we do it all day, every day. We just don't stop doing it. That's why we get really good at things that we're passionate about because we don't stop doing it. But if you can make it something that I'll only do that thing at 4 p.m. But leading up to 4 p.m., I'm studying. I'm working. I'm doing this.

So try and see it as... I'm just doing... This is just my perspective. It might not work for you. This isn't a prescription on how to live your life. I'm not a psychiatrist. I'm not qualified to tell you how to do these things. This is just my personal perspective. So you spoke about at the university what can be available for students as support. What else could, say, university or institutes do better to support individuals with ADHD? That's a great question.

For once, you've asked a great question. I think all universities should have a, I don't know what you'd call it, a neurodiversity representative. And, you know, the term neurodiversity, I've got, I get it, but we're all neurodiverse in many ways. And I'm not saying that we're all ADHD because we're not all ADHD in the same sense that, you know, we all experience rain and

And it rains and then it's sunshine and then it rains and then it's sunshine. Which means that, yes, everyday people will experience certain symptoms of ADHD every now and then. But the thing is, people with ADHD, it's storming all the time. You're in the storm. And sometimes there's a reprieve in the storm.

and not, but it's always a storm. And I'm not saying using the term storm to mean a negative connotation, but it's always there is my point, right? So while people might have some symptoms of ADHD, it doesn't mean they have ADHD. You need somebody that understands the lived experience. Like myself, for example, I am able to talk to students often

It's just about listening to them and just going, so what are you finding hard at the moment? And it's the simple things often. Again, medical students are smart. They're smart people and they've gotten into med school. So they've got the capacity to do all the things that they need to do right now but that motivation to do the things that they don't want to do, it's nearly impossible to be able to jumpstart it. That's why formal diagnosis medication is super helpful but just doing these things

Things. Try and get a routine of things and just do it without thinking about it. Routine is everything. Going for me...

You probably know I'm set with a routine. I wake up 4 a.m. every single day. I leave the house at 4.30. I go to the gym every single morning and I train. Whether I want to or not, I don't have to think about it, which is great. It fills my mental cup because I don't have to think about it. Anything that I can do without thinking fills my cup. And do you think that exercise stimulation helps a bit like the medication? It allows – yeah, in a way, for me –

The exercise allows for me to, when I'm done, I'm not as agitated or fidgety and I can focus more of my attention definitely. And I think other people with ADHD would agree that they use it for that reason. I mean exercise is good for everything, right? Yes, yes, yes, for sure. All right, one final question. All right.

If you were to – well, you know your diagnosis now and you know what it means. But if you were to take yourself back, time travel back to like late primary school, early high school, what would you tell yourself? I would say to myself, don't be so hard on yourself. And I'm still hard on myself. I would just say –

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Relax. You're normal. You're fine. Like everybody, you're different in your own way. And you don't have to be so...

socially anxious because everyone is in the same boat as you. And I think as you get older and more mature, you realize how human everybody is. So for example, I went to the gym this morning at the university. It's just filled with students, right? These are like 18-year-olds. And it's so interesting to just watch the dynamics of 18-year-olds as a nearly 40-year-old man, right?

and how awkward they are talking to each other. How they're all like the guys are always looking around because they're anxious about what the other guys look like and what they're doing. And the girls are always making sure that they're doing a thing in a particular way. And, you know, they're also mindful of the social norms

hierarchy in the local environment right and they're so mindful of all that and it must be so anxiety inducing just to be in the gym environment for these people because they everything's sort of like a threat or a potential opportunity in one way and you know what i mean like there's so much from their perspective psychologically there's so much at risk

in every interaction with another 18, 19 year old. Then you get to 40 and you're just like, it doesn't matter. We're all losers. We're all, yeah. You know, when I say we're all losers, I'm saying that, you know, we've all got our hangups. We've all got the things that we are good at and bad at. And we're all just trying to get through the world as best as we possibly can. And so I don't think that's anything you can teach. I don't even think that's wisdom that you can pass on. I think that's through experience. Yes.

But it... That really goes to all teenagers, really. It's a very strange time in your life. It is. Where at some level, at least I feel boys more so, lose a part of their brain and they are just, I don't know, like they're trying to fit in, like you said, to a hierarchy, but at the same time not...

have your head sticking out. Yeah. To not have that vulnerability, but also just doing strange behavior. Yeah. To people that you don't, you won't really have any,

you know, degree of relationship ever again. Yeah. So you're trying to impress a whole cohort of people that 99% of them you'll never see again. Absolutely. So it's just very strange time. And so you're adding then, like you said, the complexities of ADHD on top of it. Yeah. Like when I was 18, I hated going to clubs.

Hated it. Hated it. Because of the social anxiety. Because I'm constantly thinking about the environment, constantly looking around, constantly trying to evaluate. What kind of dancer were you? A very good one, obviously. Only I would exclusively just do the robot. The robot dance.

The running man. Yeah, the running away from all these social situations. But again, you know, I sit back and I go, oh, yeah, I can see that. I've got social anxiety and the medication helps with that and also growing up and maturing helps with that. I don't – like you said earlier, right, ADHD is a disorder. I don't personally see – like it's

It can be a disorder because it can really negatively impact my life. It can be the most horrendous thing. But at the same time, it is just part of the diversity of the human experience and the human brain. So, you know, is it a disorder if such a large number of the population have it and it's there for a reason?

I don't know the answer to this. So would that be your one takeaway for the listeners? What? That it's really not a disorder. It's something to contend with, a challenge... ...but at the same time something that makes things easier, more manageable. Yeah. Something that you need to work with and understand.

Yeah. You know, there's a saying that says the treasure you seek is in the cave you don't want to enter, right? And so meaning that often you get benefit from the other end of a challenge. And ADHD is a lifelong challenge. And it's very easy to shut down and do nothing and sit on the couch and just watch TV because it's mind-numbing because you turn your brain off. And that's our relief because we're constantly thinking. So we just want to drink and turn our brain off often for a lot of people. But...

If you can find a way to take that way that you're wired and find a passion, I truly think people with ADHD need to find their passion. I don't care what it is. Find that passion, focus your energy on it. You'll be the best in the world at it.

This is the thing. Yes, it can be so depressing. It can be anxiety inducing. It can be hard. It can be. And that's why we have health professionals out there. That's why we have friends. That's why we've got family. That's why we've got medication. You know, yes, I'm not saying that you can turn something into something it's not.

But I'm saying that you can leverage aspects of ADHD to your benefit. I've been able to do it. I don't see why other people can't. That might be a very privileged perspective for me to have. I get that. Totally get it. Just talking about my experience. I just hope that I can give some tips or tricks that people might find helpful. Oh, it's been great. Thank you so much for sharing all your... I want to ask you a question though. It's not about me, mate. Well, what's it like working with me? Yeah.

Do we have another hour? Because I think it's important. I think the best thing that I saw that sums up working with you. Did you? I actually sent it. No, I posted it when I was more active on social media. There was a Twitter post of two guys and there's one guy is like sprinting full-paced and the other guy is trying to keep up with him whilst doing things like having a conversation, doing a meeting, take notes, drink coffee.

Let me guess, you're that one? You're the latter? You're the one doing all the... I'm trying to keep up with you sprinting down the road. Yeah. But tell people about like on like a maybe daily, weekly basis, right? Because you recognize how I am and I know that that can be extremely frustrating for you.

But talk about what is it about my behaviors that are frustrating and how do you deal with that to make – because we've got a business together and we're friends. How do you deal with it to – because you have to significantly deal with it to maintain one – a good business relationship but also a good friendship. I know I can be a pain in the ass and that either is me or my ADHD or both. I don't know. It's very hard to disentangle me and my ADHD because we're one and the same. But –

What are some of my behaviours that are difficult and what do you do? Well, first of all, I guess we speak on the phone every day. That's true. So we communicate. I speak to you more than I speak to my wife. Yeah, we communicate a lot. And my wife Sabine says the same thing. You talk to Michael more than you talk to me. But saying that, I think we have a good ability to be able to share information

that are currently happening, what's required, what we need to do, what we need to get done and try to make sure that's transparent. So the expectations on both of our behalves are understood. Probably a challenge that I've experienced more so with you is, what is it, impulsivity? Like where you would have an idea and then you'd want to share it and then implement it.

And execute it all at the same time. Yeah. Needs to get done. Needs to get done. I've got this idea. It's great. Let's do it. Yeah. And then what do you say? Well, I know I'm infuriating to you. In the moment. Because my response is usually, okay, relax. Let's talk about this. Let's think this through. Yeah. And that I'm sure that resistance is very difficult for you. But at the same time, I'll hand it to you. You do respond well. Maybe over the years you've developed resistance.

Yeah, honestly. A mechanism of that annoyance. I've said to you and I truly think it's the case that our friendship, you have helped me become a better person and be able to handle and reflect better on all of these things because I'll have an idea which I think is the best idea on the planet and for the business I'll call up and go, we've got to do this. This is what we're going to do. We're going to do it now. We're going to do it fast. We're going to do it soon. Otherwise we're going to miss the boat, you know,

And you go, okay, so let's just think about it. Let's, yeah, look, I'm not opposed to it. Not a bad idea. Couple of things. What about this? What about that? And what I hear in that moment is nay say, nay say, nay say, nay say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Any excuse to not do it. You know, this is what's happening in my head. Yeah. Okay. Whatever. You're just lazy. You just don't want to do it. You just don't want to get it done. And then, but I don't, I know very quickly, very like that might be my reflexive thought.

to minutes, sometimes hours or days later, I go, yeah, he's right. He's right. We've got to think about the best way to do this. This doesn't make sense. I haven't thought about that. Is it smart to do it right now? What other things need to be put into place in order for us to do this? So I totally understand, but I know it can be hard and infuriating for you because you probably just pick up the phone and go, here's another half-hour conversation of me just trying to shut him up.

and calm him down for all of these. But you know what? But saying that, I think a lot of the things that we've done, you know, the YouTube channel, the podcasting has resulted from that where you've had that idea, we've wanted to do it, you've wanted to do it

And we were like, from my point of view, it'd be like, oh, let's think about this more thoroughly, blah, blah, blah. But I think in those two regards, it was like, well, let's give it a shot. Yeah. And let's just get started. And we've just kind of slowly built from it, right? Yeah. And if we didn't have that kind of,

to want to start it from not maybe completely thoroughly thinking it through. A lot of this maybe never happened. So I think in that regard it's been very beneficial. Yes. And it's been beneficial for the business to have you because you are level-headed, you know, you're steady, right? Yeah.

And so there might be some peaks and troughs with me, but you're that steady ship that's always sailing through. And so the things get done that need to get done. You know, Matt will say, here's the timeline. This is when it needs to get done. You have to get this done. I'm like, shut up, man. No, I'll do it. I'll do it. Just shut up. I'll get it done. But I know that without his deadline, it won't get done. And I'll speak to that quickly. Probably the only time I got frustrated with you, extremely frustrated with you, was a project that we're,

You know, still developing. Yeah. But something we're going to maybe release to the public soon. Yeah.

I'm not sure if you want to... A book? Okay, all right. Yeah, we'll write a book. I wasn't sure if you want... We've written a book. It's just under the editing process. Yeah, so we hope to have a book released towards the end of this year, which is about the human body. But in that, you know, the construction of that, there was, you know, deadlines that we needed to, you know, work with the publisher. We have to get this done by this particular date. Are you okay, Michael? Yeah.

We need to be at this point, blah, blah, blah. And so we got to the point where, all right, so the deadline is a week away. I'm done with it. Where are you up to? And you're like, I haven't done it yet. And you're like, we'll just delay it next year. Yeah. Because we'd already had that conversation. And I was annoyed. And you had said, maybe we should delay it next year prior to that. And I said, no, no, no, we'll get it done. But this is part of that. I don't have, I don't, time.

Time doesn't exist. I can't understand timeframes. I can go, yeah, I'm smart. I can do things. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's say yes to 80 things. I'll figure it out when I get there because I always figure it out. Right? And it's part of it but then I freak out and then, yeah. So anyway. That was probably the out of the 10 years I've known you, that was probably the ones that I was really frustrated. But do you remember me calling you after the conversation? Because the thing with Matt is that –

He was – I could tell he was frustrated but he by no means was angry, loud, yelling, annoyed. He was adamant about his points but by no means would anyone think that he was annoyed or frustrated. I could tell because I know what he's like. And I remember getting off the phone to you and calling you back and

very soon after. I don't know if you remember. Just apologizing. I'm so sorry. I know this is my fault. This is horrible. Yeah, my bad. We'll get this sorted. And then saying that, you tuned in your ADHD and hyper-focused and got it done in a week. Correcto. But I would have done a better job of the book if I didn't do that. So...

It's going to be a great book though. I'm very excited. Hopefully coming out end of the year, everybody. Yes, we'll give you more details. Yes. All right, Matty. I think we might leave it there. Anything else? No. I mean like there's a lot of things that we could continue on with but we have to keep it under. And this – again, this is my perspective unlike the other podcasts, you know, we're

I didn't do any research here. This is just... The research I did was my life experience and just being honest about how I live it, what I do, what I found helpful. By no means this is me telling you what you should do. No, I think the listeners would appreciate to hear your experiences and some of the suggestions. And your experience because I think it's important for people with ADHD to know sometimes how they act affects others. It's important because we think...

I think I'm going to stop saying we, but I think that in the moment I'm right. I'm smart. I got this. I'm right. I'm right. So if you don't agree with me, it's because you're either not smart enough. We haven't thought about it. I know. And then after the fact, I'm like, I'm an idiot. I was incorrect. I was totally incorrect.

And then I'd acknowledge fault. So thank you, Matthew. Thank you, listener. Let us know what you thought of this particular type of episode. Yeah. It's different to our regular one. And if you would maybe like more about us. Yeah. What about Matt's experience having red hair? That'll be an interesting one. Matt's experience living in – where did you live? You lived in the US for a while. You backpacked around the world. We haven't done any episodes on who we are. This is the first episode on a big part of who I am.

We've got to do one on you. Maybe more in the future. What are your underlying issues? All right, it's time to go. Okay. We're out of time. See you.

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