PODCAST. From COO to Executive Coach with ADHD with Antonia Bowring.

Dec 31

Written By Dave

In this episode of Wise Squirrels, Dave Delaney is joined by executive coach, ADHD advocate, and the author of Coach Yourself!: Increase Awareness, Change Behavior, and Thrive Antonia Bowring to explore the journey of adult ADHD diagnosis, its profound impacts, and strategies for managing adulthood and careers with ADHD. Antonia shares her personal and professional experiences through heartfelt conversation, shedding light on the challenges and triumphs of navigating ADHD in adulthood.

Key Takeaways:

The Profound and Practical Journey of ADHD Diagnosis
Antonia highlights the dual nature of receiving an ADHD diagnosis as an adult: a profound moment of healing and understanding, coupled with the practical realities of life. She reflects on the emotional toll of "knife nicks"—a lifetime of small traumas—and the challenges of integrating a new self-awareness into daily life.
Breaking Negative Self-Talk
Growing up undiagnosed often leads to internalizing negative messages from others, fostering damaging self-talk. Antonia and Dave discuss the relief and empowerment that comes with understanding ADHD as a different way of thinking, not a flaw.
The Heritability of ADHD and Family Dynamics
ADHD often runs in families, with an approximate 80% chance of being inherited. Antonia shares personal anecdotes of her parents' undiagnosed ADHD traits and how understanding this has helped her heal and foster forgiveness.
Coping Mechanisms: The Good, The Bad, and The Functional
From being obsessively punctual to creating systems for organization, both Dave and Antonia talk about the coping mechanisms they've developed to manage ADHD traits and their evolution over time.
ADHD in the Workplace
Antonia discusses her journey through various professional roles, from COO to international microfinance, and how her eventual diagnosis shaped her path to becoming a coach. She emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and creating systems that work with, not against, ADHD tendencies.
The ADHD Success Planner
Antonia introduces her productivity system designed specifically for ADHD brains. By focusing on weekly planning, categorizing tasks into "buckets," and prioritizing effectively, she has created a tool to reduce overwhelm and foster a sense of control.
The Importance of Reframing Productivity
Planning and prioritizing aren’t just tools for getting things done—they’re acts of self-care. Antonia encourages reframing these tasks as a way to build confidence, reduce stress, and approach the week with a sense of empowerment.
Leveraging TikTok and AI
Antonia shares her experience with TikTok as a platform for spreading ADHD awareness and how tools like AI can enhance productivity for those with ADHD while acknowledging potential risks.

Why It Matters:

Dave and Antonia passionately discuss the real-life implications of undiagnosed and untreated ADHD, including the staggering statistic that it can reduce life expectancy by up to 13 years. Both share their mission to educate others, break the stigma, and encourage those who may be struggling to seek help and embrace their unique strengths.

Connect with Antonia Bowring:

Website: Find her ebook and learn more about her coaching services at ab-strategies.com.
LinkedIn: Antonia Bowring
TikTok: @AntoniaBowering963

This episode is packed with insights, practical tips, and heartfelt reflections. Tune in to learn how to embrace your unique brain and unlock your full potential!

the adult diagnosis is what I would call like a profound and practical journey because I
mean I just got off a call with a 54 year old guy who works in sales, who got a diagnosis a year
ago and told me about job losses and things he just didn't understand why he and I'm going to use
his words wasn't normal so he's now in his early 50s and like there's this whole profound
piece that he has to integrate right that he has to make sense of that he has to heal like all
those little everyday things for a lifetime are like nicks you know a lot of knife nicks that really
add up to I'm going to use that word trauma and that's like a real profound journey and then just
at the same time we got to pay the bills we got to pick our kids up on time we got to get taxes in
we got to you know show up with the presentation ready and and you you can't let go of building up
your scaffolding to achieve those practical goals because we want to be seen as reliable responsible
human beings yeah absolutely so to me it's like this integration and dance of both parts yeah and
I think part of it too is that at least in my own case and through therapy and all that you
learned that like you've been trying to course correct your whole life unknown that you are
have ADHD right so you've been trying to and you've been told you're a failure by you know
people parents whomever schools teachers so many people that you you know I forget this
stat there's yeah you start to believe it and you hear all this negative talk and then you
develop negative self-talk as well and then and then once you are diagnosed and you receive
treatment hopefully you can start as you said like start feeling from that trauma I think I think
trauma also comes from because of how heritable ADHD is they say you know just about as almost as
heritable as height there's like about an 80% chance that one or both of your parents also has ADHD
and then you start thinking my mother for sure yeah and you start thinking if they were not
diagnosed ever and perhaps never not with us anymore as in the case of my dad you start to realize
some of the trauma that you might have experienced was in part because of their undiagnosed ADHD
and so that helps to forgetness and 100% yeah yeah 100% yeah yeah you know it's funny because I think
about the home where I grew up and I remember the fights my parents did a lot of traveling between
Victorian Vancouver yeah because of my dad's work and they would have these fights every time
because the way my mother would pack the car because she definitely had undiagnosed ADHD was like
little plastic bags with things in that she oh I forgot this I and so they would arrive with
like a multitude of small plastic bags with one thing in them right yeah right and and we could
never find Scotch tape or scissors or car keys they were now I am like obsessed with those things
living in their place you know yeah yeah it's funny though because you develop these coping
mechanisms where like I've said it on the show before to to some folks as well but like I'm
extremely punctual like anal with punctuality like I'm always on time everywhere and of course
I always equated it to my dad being punctual and like but what I've learned again same sort of
thing as a coping mechanism of like just making sure I'm not late so I'll show up places early
but it's the same sort of deal like you knowing where the scissors are knowing where the Scotch tape is
knowing that it's packed or you know if you're traveling or whatever so tell me yeah tell me a
little bit about your journey so yeah Vancouver you started in Vancouver and you're in New York now
in New York City tell me about that a little bit about that journey yeah yeah I'll make it very
brief I worked in international micro finance for a long time so I traveled all over and
but was very drawn to New York I'm sure the energy right yeah it's great and ended up living here
like on and off out of a suitcase doing the kind of Canadian NAFTA thing right NAFTA it's funny to
hear it come up these days and and ended up working here getting my green card just before 9-11
I was so lucky in management consulting and then some C-suite roles and then working at an
organization that went bankrupt and that led me into coaching because you know it's funny people
say oh you're so entrepreneurial and I'm actually not I'm I'm quite risked versus in a weird way
but it was like I was at zero and it was really easy to do this I had been very interested
like in when I was a COO what I liked most was the kind of strategic planning and strategic talent
management and I literally I would say I had a very up and down path through work the work world
and then I found coaching and it was like okay so this is what I was born to do and I felt like
very typically found out I had ADHD when my my oldest son got diagnosed and had never really
thought about it and you know you go through life just thinking well I have impulse control issues
I have attention issues and I just kind of can't hold focus for long oh I'm so flawed
and you say that to yourself over and over until it's just who you are
and then one day someone says to you well actually guess what like you just have a different
brain and it's not better it's not worse it's just different yeah so let's learn about it
and let's just kind of embrace that it's a bit of a pain in the ass sometimes but you know what
knowledge is power and and and I got to say day for me that was like like literally I almost have
a physical sensation of shame like literally washing off me and it took a while to talk about it
out loud and then I just started hearing like the most moving and sad stories of particularly adults
who really carried a lot of shame for so long and felt they were less than yeah and we know we're not
right yeah we definitely do what how old was your son when he was diagnosed he was just between
middle and high school okay so what does that make him 14 15 so a kind of late diagnosis
and you know he's even talked since and said I knew things weren't right earlier
yeah but he was very high performing but at what cost you know sure yeah yeah no I asked that too
because I was curious whether I mean I know for a lot of a lot of parents especially moms who
have a child diagnosed as they are you know helping their child through that that treatment and
learning about it themselves in order to cater to their to their kiddo that you know they often
start seeing seeing it in themselves or if they learn about the heritability traits and things
like that but I think it's also some some kids if they're older too maybe not 14 15 or maybe where
they get they start learning about it and they may call you out and say hold on mom or dad
yeah yeah guess what which is kind of like me and my mom now who's 88 and she would take us both in a
bar fight that is so funny she's very very healthy very yeah yeah she's great well but you know
it's interesting I am quite sensitive about my mother's 86 and she's starting to forget things in a
big way and what I'm really realizing this is the woman who you couldn't can never find the tape
and scissors and the car keys well guess what when you get to her point and you don't have systems
or whatever you want to call them systems habits routines of writing things down of keeping a
calendar of whatever is your system you are in so much deeper trouble because she's got
none of that like those kind of formed neural pathways to to scaffold dementia yeah you know
and it's really hard it's it's really hard you can't start learning that stuff at 86 yeah I know
you're right about that I mean I think yeah obviously not a doctor but with dementia too I mean I
think even in in my dad past of dementia and Alzheimer's and so like I think I think even with
the best preparation unfortunately with dementia that's that's gonna catch up work at some point
but I know what you're saying with and I'm curious for you like how have because you've
obviously had a really great successful career as a COO and so forth tell me a little bit about
the systems and obviously I assume or yeah this was pre diagnosis for you so how are what were
some of those systems that you had in place to be able to keep you you know focused on on the
important tasks running running businesses and teams yeah to answer that the first part of that
would be um and I'm sure you've heard this from other folks I've heard it from folks I I coach
I did really well in college and a lot of graduate schools uh two of them yeah but I think I worked
50 to 75% harder not smarter but harder than other people and at the time I didn't like I
remember these are the very old days of being in the stacks as they were called in the library writing
research papers with piles of note cards and like being unable to kind of understand that there was
a sort of strategic smart way to read books right notes put thoughts together instead I thought I
had to read every book right every note and and and so everything took me a really long time
because I was wildly inefficient which then fed into some confidence issues and we see where
that goes and um so I started by being an over worker as a way to compensate for a lack of
efficiency yeah let me let me say it that way and I would say that overworking was my main strategy
to create some organization does that does that make sense it does yeah it does make sense I almost say
like you know because I'm 52 now and and I think about like the stacks as you're saying and how
even even for the least organized person working in in that's environment I almost think it's
it's better than it is these these days because you didn't have the internet
so you know when you research when you research with a browser man all it takes is one notification
and squirrel yeah but I know what you mean like I I I went through this process working on a book
idea while back where I took years of my blog posts and I wrote them all all the titles did I
had them all I put them all into a spreadsheet and then I and then I wrote out the title and I
was like the spreadsheets not working for me so I wrote out the title of each blog post and like
category of it in brackets on a note card and then I had the stack of no cards and I'm like this
is what I need and it's like hundreds of no cards so then I put them all along I'm like what am I
gonna do with these cards so then I put them all along this bar was long table and and then started
like looking at them trying to categorize them and putting them in separate piles and then I was
like yeah what am I doing here oh Dave and now we have AI yeah yeah and you could just oh yeah
eat it all in yeah yeah yeah it's amazing I've been I've been loving yeah and as a kind of
early adopter and a lot of tech I mean I'm definitely a big fan of of using AI for a lot of the
work that I'm doing these days oh yeah also with you know there's a line that I love in technology
and innovation really which is whoever built ships built shipwrecks I'm not naive enough to know
that like we I could be digging my own grave the more I feed AI because God knows things might go
really weird one day but for now you know that's the tool so yeah yeah it's a powerful one
it sure is but to but to finish to come back to so that was sort of early and I feel like that
like overwork carried through and I would say that you know it was usually deadlines it was usually
just right on the cusp of those deadlines that got everything firing and getting the work done
you know interestingly it did change when I became a mother because I just had less time right
and I did get more efficient because I just had to yeah I had fewer hours available
and the stakes are higher and the yeah yeah but the so I would say sort of the classic
deadlines and I was constantly like triaging to do lists yes like can't and but they
but I didn't understand oh I'll do this online oh and then well I'll do this in a notebook
and then I kind of couldn't find everything and link it all and then I'd get frustrated and then
I'd start a new system which now I understand you know what we love bright shiny objects
and we love variety and like I use notion for two years and now I won't touch
I don't judge it but that's the difference it's like you know what I used it
it worked for me now I don't need it right maybe I'll go back but there's no judgment as long as I
have a system that is working for my needs yeah and you know that as you learn about ADHD you
learn to your point you know bright shiny you know we crave novelty and as soon as the novelty
runs out or runs off runs off no runs out runs runs away whatever then we run away from whatever
like solution we have found yeah I have found yeah a couple of points to to what you're saying one
oh one in particular was you know I wrote a book that was published by Pearson and people ask me
like how did you write the book with undiagnosed ADHD it's like an 80,000 word nonfiction business book
and you know first of all without my wife I never would have finished it so there's that
a very important point but to your point I signed a contract I received an advance and I had
contractual dates to deliver chapters and thank you and thank you and my next book that I've
been working on that I'm hoping to self-publish I keep thinking I'm kind of dragging my heels on it
and like maybe I do need to get a publisher a publisher just so I have a contract I have an idea
for you so I also wrote a book I had no my ADHD was diagnosed I wouldn't have finished my book
if I had not taken medication I really needed medication to kind of sit and focus on writing but
I I was published by Wiley but since it was my first book and I was totally like nervous about it
I hired my own editor so even knowing I had the contractual obligation it was very far away
like it's a year you know it that's hard so I hired my own editor
ps to anyone listening never think you're gonna make money writing a book there's other ways it
can turn into income but give up that thought right now let me get that right out of your head
and and I but I hired this editor and so I'm very like uh well it's funny
I respond a lot to authority like to feeling obliged even though I hate rules
but when I've paid someone and they're counting on me I would finish my chapter because I had to
get it to her yes because if I didn't get it to her then she couldn't read it and we had
a session booked and I had to pay her for that so that became the system that motivated
me and that's what coach so I'm with you and and working myself as as a coach I have found that
too to you know where and working with coaches in the past we're like exactly to the same point when
you pay a coach you're paying somebody to you know help you with whatever projects or things that
you're doing and so yeah if you're not gonna do the homework I mean you're throwing your money away
and I was I had a call with a prospective client today actually too uh earlier and he is self
diagnosed ADHD and we were talking about coaching and I said you know I would I would love to help
you but in order I want like and I can and I have helped plenty of people with or without ADHD
but what I was saying was you know you should consider going to your doctor and getting diagnosed
and possibly treated if if that's what you want to do because honestly if you do that you're
going to find the coaching is probably going to be more effective because you're going to be able to
focus and do the work right um yeah so you're prolific on TikTok man you are blowing up on TikTok
tell me about that oh I'm so happy you brought that up thank you that is like oh did you
are you did you follow me or whatever it's called yeah yeah yeah yeah okay good um you know
I've been doing that for oh I think it's over a year now and I it was like it's a total passion
project I have a lot of passion project and um I post every day at least once something about ADHD
that's correct and thank you oh thank you and um I don't know I just love it and you know what
those folks on TikTok they are damn smart I'm telling you because sometimes I'll post something and
I'll go no that wasn't very good and they like like you get ten likes yeah and then you post
something and you think damn that was good and you can see like they're smart they know what they
want and I've learned what do you think the two things are that they like the most the content
what would be your guess probably like like like like probably a valuable tip of some sort and then
also brevity is probably key with the TikTok people yeah I don't know I know what are you I'm a bit
like well you're yes they like specifics and they love anything to do with habit formation
and they love anything to do with what it's similar to habits but like routines and rituals
like I did something about a morning ritual of a client of mine and what he did it was kind of
fun because he would get up drink his coffee and scroll right yeah and so oh I saw that video
yeah keep going keep going yeah yeah yeah no and so we talked about okay you make the coffee but you
leave a pile of books where you drink your coffee and you put your phone in a drawer and you start
like the coffee is this kind of pleasurable reward right you sit there you get to drink the coffee
and you have the you make it so easy right like the environment just leads you the phone gets put
in a drawer and the books and you you can open them in the middle you can go back where you were
you can have fiction non-fiction yeah and it really changed how his day began that's brilliant that's
it's such a good good tip I mean yeah I think of like Glenn Gary Glenn Ross like coffees for closers
right no coffee until you've like done something so as a reward I like that and I do that from time
to time I like yeah the the what's they thinking of there oh yeah yeah so I I've been journaling
more and more and work and I try to journal and we splurged about a hot tub in 2020 when the world
was imploding and it was like the best investment ever my wife and I say that every time we get in
and I get in daily I love it and but for the longest time I bring my phone in there and the whole like
time would just fly by and I'd be like haven't done anything and so I stopped bringing my phone
and one day I as an experiment I brought it like in my journal I wrote I wrote a blog post about
this a while back I wrote I was reading a book a non-fiction book business book I'm reading the book
and I decided okay instead of bringing my phone I'm just going to write down what I would pick
pick up my phone to look up as I'm reading for like 20 minutes or whatever and so I did that and
I ended up with a list of like 10 different things or so and then when I reviewed that list I thought
okay most of these things aren't really important maybe one or two would be worth looking up but
most of them are not that important but more and more importantly though is I gauged it would be
somewhere between like three to five plus minutes per thing I looked up and so then you multiply
that by how many times so that's like you know 45 an hour of me picking up my phone and looking stuff
when in reality I didn't really need to look up any of that stuff and and instead I wrote it down
so later on I could look back at those notes and think okay yeah that one I'll look up the other
stuff is stupid I don't need to look that up who cares if Jack lemon was in gling gling gling
gross like you know huh you know it's funny in a very different way I got into this habit of
listening to the audio files the audio you know the AI voices reading the headlines and they're
like eight minute articles or whatever and it cut down on how much I listen to podcasts where
I actually feel I learn a lot more yeah and I was I was actually thinking that I needed to shift
out of that habit because I don't know news is usually pretty transactional and also
by the next day it doesn't really like does it really matter what to I can't even think something
I read today but it it really isn't that important oh I know frequent flyer mile programs
how people are using them different yeah who cares like really that but there's so many great
podcasts out there I do feel and do you feel like this is someone with ADHD that my version is
I constantly need to be feeling I'm productive yes I like the joke in our family is okay when we
watch a movie what's our mother gonna do yeah old laundry sort papers knit like I can't just sit
there because I'm sure that goes back to my childhood because my ADHD mother never stop working
right yeah like around it's it's an issue like because you know I do I have a meditation practice
and all that but I feel like I don't integrate that into the rest of my life it's like I meditate
but then I'm like chasing goals all day long yeah yeah I feel the same I definitely feel the same
way of being productive I'm I'm definitely guilty of like one or at least I mean you're better
because you're at least being productive while you're being distracted by whatever movie or TV
show you're watching at least you're doing something productive where like I would pick up my phone
right and then I'd be like looking on my phone and watching the show and I'm a big movie and TV
nerd and I love like I love quality good film good television these days especially too so I do
try to focus on what I'm watching too because I love the cinematography and the acting and the lighting
and and and all that stuff so I try to it's worth focus it's worth for me it's this is my probably
one of my big struggles for me it's oh if I can do three things yeah that's three times better
and it's not I know it yeah it is and by the way I end up doing a lot of not that well
because I wasn't focused yes it's it's like that action activation yeah and I know that feeds the
dopamine yeah but then sometimes the results are not that satisfying yeah because they're a bit
slap-dash yeah or you'll have to rewind part of the show to figure out what you just missed
because I do that yeah it's like reading the same paragraph over and over um yeah yeah and I
think yeah I think in a way it's about choosing your focus and choosing what you're gonna spend
time with like if you're investing your time in a show let's say and so like I just with my wife
and I I just watched the series for the second time this is what I do I like watch shows for the
first time and if they're good I'll convince my wife to watch it and so we'll watch we'll I'll end
up which one so I just watched disclaimer on Apple TV um which I have a watcher but I hear it's
fantastic it's fantastic and and it's definitely worth paying attention to I am very much being the
the Toronto movie nerd guy that I am I'm very careful about spoiling things so I won't I won't
I won't talk too much don't tell me but it's brilliant yeah well well can I tell you a little bit
about this ADHD success planner yes please yeah yeah yeah so I wrote coach yourself which was like
coaching frameworks but the thing people were most interested to talk about a couple of the
communications framework in it a values exercise and my ADHD journey and so when I started talking
on podcasts and in interviews about this I realized that something I was just using with clients
this productivity and planning system people were like oh we'll tell us more like well I want to try
that and one guy in particular a guy called Russ Jones he has a podcast he was like you got to write
this down like you got to share this and so I thought okay this is going to be eight pages do this
four steps in your and it's 70 pages but very spaced yeah it's it's like it's like it's like
got a lot of sparkle for the ADHD crowd and you know I'm really proud of my book the the one
published by Wiley but this ebook that I just published my you know you like an ebook available
off my website I am so proud of it because I get every email alert when someone buys it I
I need to change that I don't know how though and it's like South Africa Germany Ireland
Oregon and I'm like oh my god I am making a difference in these people's lives because this
book helps you if there's like three simple pieces to it your planning session once a week
that is self-care the weekly buckets would to do's in them that you create for the week in your
planning session and then you're to do lists yeah which becomes so easy to do the pivotal thing here
is this list of your weekly planning buckets that arc of looking at the week in a dedicated
time with your coffee or your tea or I don't recommend wine because your plan can get a bit crazy
for the week but I it's so simple Dave but and so flexible and so personalizable and it works
it's amazing yeah I definitely I haven't read it so I definitely have to
no worry I gotta grab a copy because I definitely definitely need that too for my own my own
planning because that's definitely something I'm not great at is waking up in the morning and
looking at my calendar to see what do I have in store today without thinking long term sometimes
I mean that's definitely something I'm guilty of well and and I think there's something about I
wish I had researched back this up but from my clients and and from everything I've seen
there's something about the time block of a week that is a really important organizing principle
and when you sit down in this planning session like it's laid out in the book and you go okay what
are my buckets oh one of mine for example is business admin right if that bucket usually doesn't
change what's in it each week changes and always the fourth week of the month is invoicing
is in there but there's sometimes I don't even have daily to-do lists but the power of having
collected kind of the priorities for the week but not in a laundry list in a in a categorized
manageable way is really a powerful way for my brain to stay on track during the week is it
analog mainly or digital the so yeah you can do it however you want but everybody who uses it except
for a couple of people have said that it's most powerful when they write it out yeah and I have
people like clients that have project management systems you know like complex calendars that
are color coordinated and you have to have a calendar too but then okay that's a lot right to
manage okay on one piece of paper what are my six categories what I call buckets and what's in them
that is really the focus this week yeah I've done something similar years ago that I stole from
I think was Michael Hyatt had something called my ideal week or something like that and I created a
variation of it in digital form which was a Google calendar and I had it sounds similar to the idea
here but where I would have blocks so I would have instead of like specific items on the on the
the calendar I would have like blocks of time like three hours for this and three hours for that
or two hours for that and so on and then the theory was then I would have my regular work calendar
and my family calendar and I get with Google calendar you can turn them on and off so you can overlay
them yeah so you can see what fits into what and then the theory for me was and it would work
sometimes until point which is okay moving forward okay we're going to meet to do this interview
and I'm only doing these interviews at this time of day or in this block I can see on the calendar
that it's in the wrong block and I need to move it to a different block or whatever the task is
so that it doesn't so it fits in the correct block where I start to slip is when deciding what to do
and then that thing becomes email and then email takes all day yeah because it's business development
and it's admin and it's sales and it's invoicing because it's all email right and he tips about that
like like getting lost in the inbox yeah well so one thing just responding to your calendar is
this is a classic right and this is what I try to coach people to do if you have your meetings listed
in your calendar which I mean you would be shocked by the number of people with ADHD who don't
I mean it's on I don't know how anyone in 2020 I said today how anyone in 2023 and someone was
like yes 2024 I did that on the time I don't know how anybody today exists without a calendar
you can't so but let's say if I look at my calendar for tomorrow my calendar tomorrow is literally
back to back with it like three half hours for the whole day open okay if I now after this
get off look at my here's my weekly you can't see it but that's my weekly bucket list if I start to
do a to-do list tomorrow with 10 items and then I look at my calendar and realize I have literally
three half-hour periods I am setting myself up for failure for self yeah for self-recrimination
but if I look at my calendar and go okay what's realistic in two hours of working time yeah
then I'm I can do what you're talking about I can slot in half an hour like I'm committed to
working on my book proposal half an hour a day I'll get there yeah so I'll put that in a half
hour slot I'll probably leave one half hour for email now if I have a huge deadline the next day
okay I know I what am I doing tomorrow night I might have to work but you can't put 25
laundry list to-dos when your calendar has eight hours of meetings yes yeah right now then the
question is executives will say well I still have to get all those to-dos done that's another podcast
episode yeah but the point is um like those are just very simple building blocks that also make
us feel like I feel way more in control when I get most of the things done I say I'm gonna do
but I can't if I don't set myself up for success now you're a hundred percent and the
and I think that there's so much power to analog as well like to pen it to pen and paper I do
I mean there's a I believe it's called the productive production effect or productive effect
production effect where it helps your memory remember what you're writing down so it actually
makes you more engaged because you're physically writing it down it helps you actually retain
that information too but even even just striking things off a list with with ink as opposed to
you know digitally ticking a box it's just so much more satisfying man a little dopamine this time
is racing by and I'm loving the conversation before we before we wrap up is there any anything I missed
asking you about or any questions you have for me at all I I really wanted to make sure I just
talked a little bit about like what's in this extremely flexible and by the way this is not
how I make a living right yeah yeah this is a this is the cost of a of an oatmeal latte
yeah and Manhattan right so most people you know I won't say everyone and if anyone wants
and can't afford it find me and I will give you the code and you can have it for free I think the
the one thing I want to just say is planning and prioritizing don't solve everything but they are
they need a reframe as self-care because you're not doing it to make other people happy you're doing
it to take control of your life your schedule to build your confidence to lower your cortisol
and to start the weak feeling empowered not behind the game already I agree yeah yeah I just
wanted to say that yeah no you're you're absolutely I mean I think also when you reframe like I've
found success in reframing things beyond because what happens is I I beat myself up when I'm not
hitting those deadlines or doing those that work yeah so for me I find that instead of focusing
on on my wins I if I focus on the results which are you know I trip for my family somewhere or
supporting a charity or you know someone I care about yeah like financially helping my kids get
through college god hell help us there but you don't mean like all these all these things that like
that are bigger than myself that or even just doing this podcast I mean you know I'm looking for
sponsors of trying to like make this you know to do this more frequently and so on and I'm doing it
also because after learning from you know and I've said it at Nazum at this point on the show but
learning from Russ Barkley about life expectancy for those with undiagnosed and untreated ADHD is up to
13 years less or can be oh I did not know that yeah and learning that changed this little mission of
mine or excuse me this little passion project of why squirrels to my mission because the more people
I can educate through my workshops through my you know presentations through this podcast or on
the blog or wherever the more people I can reach the more those who think they might have ADHD can
go and get tested and get the treatment they need and uh yeah because there's a lot at stake and
yeah I mean the world's a lot better with you in it yeah yeah and Dave I I that's so resonates
because I think that um for me it's about eliminating pain and shame and you know like shedding the
pain and upping the potential because everyone has so much to offer and there are so many flawed
incredibly flawed self narratives that get in the way of our ability to achieve our potential
and I really feel like this the ADHD the ADHD is so real and it causes so much pain in so many lives
and the fact that so much of it goes undiagnosed and and it's almost a bit of a joke today right
oh yeah I must have ADHD or oh everybody seems to have a diagnosis it diminishes how real it is
and I am so happy there are people like you and and I'll put myself in this category that
like feel real intrinsic motivation to get the word out to help people and to just let people know
they're not alone and they're and it's your brain is wired differently that's all yeah that
oh this has been amazing how can people get a hold of you and and inquire about your amazing
coaching and and your book and so forth so the ebook is on my website under I think it's under
ADHD it's not that hard to find um I'm on LinkedIn uh my name Antonia Barring I'm on TikTok thank
you for finding me Antonia Bowering 963 and uh yeah those are the main ways cool yeah yeah and uh
I'm just so what what a lovely conversation and thank you so much for what you're doing
thanks for joining me this has been this has been a ton of fun so yeah and I'll make sure to include
links in the show notes so folks can click on over and uh yeah book some time with you
well this has been awesome thanks again thank you Dave