Latest / Beautifully Complex / 373: Overcoming The Wall of Awful, with Brendan Mahan, M.Ed.

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373: Overcoming The Wall of Awful, with Brendan Mahan, M.Ed. · Beautifully Complex

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: There's a name for that wall that your kid hits
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: right before homework, right before a hard conversation, right before
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: anything that feels overwhelming. And once you see that wall,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: you can actually help them get past it. I'm talking
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: with Brendan Mahan, ADHD coach, consultant, and creator of The
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Wall of Awful Framework. We discuss his new book, Overcoming
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the Wall of Awful. and why smashing through overwhelm isn't
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the only option or even the best one. This one
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: gives us so much language for what's really happening underneath
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the avoidance. I'm Penny Williams, and this is Beautifully Complex.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Welcome back, everyone. I am really thrilled to have with
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: me today, Brendan Mahand. of ADHD Essentials and the new book,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Overcoming the Wall of Awful. And we're going to talk
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: all about the wall of awful because if you haven't
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: heard of it yet, it is such a great metaphor
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: for what a lot of our kids go through. A
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: lot of what that struggle is, we can better understand
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: through Brendan's framework. So I'm so excited to have you back. Brendan,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: will you start by letting everybody know who you are
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: and what you do?
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, first, thank you for having me back. Of course.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it. My name is Brendan Mahan.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: I'm a host of the ADHD Essentials podcast, ADHD coach, consultant, speaker, person,
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: creator of The Wall of Awful. I'm on the board
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: for the Men's ADHD Support Group. I'm on the board
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: of directors for ComerCon Boston. And yeah, I do ADHD stuff,
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: not that dissimilar from what you do.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: I also work with parents.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: I'm kind of heading away from that a little bit
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: and drifting over to more like corporate and entrepreneurial leadership
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: type stuff. And I spent the last, I guess, two
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: years writing this book, along with Alex Hughes-Cappell, who is
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: my co-writer.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Awesome. Let's jump right into it. What is The Wall
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: of Awful?
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: I'm going to assume that your audience is kind of
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: tuned into the world of ADHD and has probably already
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: heard of it. So I don't want to go too
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: long on the basics because they probably know them. the
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: gist of it is the wall of awful is the
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: emotional barrier that gets built when we fail regularly, right?
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: When we mess up and it is a thing we
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: have to get past before we can engage with the
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: tasks that.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: We fail at regularly or struggle with. It doesn't have
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: to be failure.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: So if I struggle to pay my bills, maybe I
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: have the money I need to pay them, but like
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: the act of sitting down and paying the bills is
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: overwhelming for me. That overwhelming feeling before you start paying
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: the bills is, That's the wall of awful. If I'm
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: someone who struggles to make friends, that overwhelming feeling I
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: feel when I maybe even think about going somewhere where
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: I might meet people, that's the wall of awful. So
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: it's just this barrier created of negative emotions that are
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: pretty sedentary. They're either kind of keeping us from moving
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: forward or pushing us away, so we kind of want
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: to go backwards away from them.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: And they get in our way when we want to
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: do the things that we need to do. Potentially, not everything.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. So it sounds like it can create some avoidance.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah, absolutely.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Which so many of our kids struggle with, right? And
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: the parents struggle with. My kid, I call him a
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: serial avoider. He was just wired to automatically avoid. And
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: the things that you're describing, those consistent failures and struggles
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: were just making that bigger and bigger challenge.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And pervasive demand avoidance is potentially in here, right?
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: It's a bigger, stronger response to the wall of awful.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: And it's not easy when our kids are avoiding things
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: or when we're avoiding things too, right? Because what I
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: see with parents a lot is the kid, let's say
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: the kid has a wall of.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Awful for doing their homework, which is pretty common and typical.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: Eventually, mom or dad, whoever's helping the kid do the homework,
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: gets a wall of awful for helping the kid do
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: their homework. So it sort of builds new walls when
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: we are struggling to help our kids. And that's an
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: overwhelming experience for us. So we have to get past
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: our wall before we can help them get past their wall.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: And often when, and this is part of the power
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: of the model, is a lot of the time when
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: we go to help our kids do their homework, what
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: we're not doing is trying to help them manage the
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: emotions that are in between.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Them and the homework. We're often just trying to help
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: them do the homework. And there's a little bit of
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: emotional stuff where we're like, this is easy. Come on
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: and do this thing.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: But that's not the same as, Hey, it seems like
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: you've got a wall of awful for this homework assignment
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: or for homework in general. Let's get past that.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: Right. Like, let's start with, this is a thing that's
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: going to be hard and it's, and you're not going
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: to like doing it. And I'm sorry that that's the case,
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: but you still have to do it. Right. You still
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: have to be able to initiate this task. Um, and,
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: As parents, we often don't want to do that because
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: we just want the homework done and check it off
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: the list or move on to having dinner together or
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: whatever the case may be.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: But if we can pause ourselves, right, then this has
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: certainly helped me. One of the things I told myself,
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: my kids are 17 now and mostly do their own
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: thing and we don't worry about it as much. We
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: had a little bit of a college essay drama recently.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: But other than that, there's been no assignment homework drama.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: For a while.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: But early on, My logic was I'm helping my kids
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: build the resilience they need to do the thing even
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: when they don't want to do the thing. Right?
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: I'm helping them develop skills.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: I'm helping them practical skills around planning and problem solving
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: and also practical skills around recognizing that there's this emotional
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: barrier and managing their emotions and figuring out why it's
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: there and how do I put a door in my
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: wall or climb my wall so I can get to
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: the other side of it and do this thing that
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: I need to do.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: So.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: It's a useful tool as a communication device with our
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: kids when we can go up to our kid and go,
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: it seems like you've got a wall of awful for this.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Do you know where that's coming from? What's going on?
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: Is it a certain part of this task that you
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: have a wall of awful for?
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Is it all of it? Where are we?
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: It's validating.
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: It's validating. Instead of saying, you need to do your homework,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: you're saying, I see this is a struggle.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: And I don't remember if it was Jessica McCabe who
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: said this or if it was someone on because i recorded.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: A youtube video with her like forever ago.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: Or if it was like a comment on that youtube
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: video i'm not i think it was jessica who said
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: it um but i might be wrong but the the
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: line that like stuck with me was it makes the
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: invisible struggles visible because like people will see will say
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: go do that thing and then you don't do it
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: and they're like oh they're just not doing anything they're
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: lazy they're avoidant.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: They're whatever yeah But maybe not, right?
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: Maybe, and I would argue probably, they're dealing with the
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: wall of awful. They're doing a whole lot of emotional work.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: But I can't see you do emotional work. I can't
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: see my kid do emotional work. Unless their face is
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: very expressive, and that's not everybody. So I may not
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: notice that they're doing all this work, and I might
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: not give them credit for it.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: And instead of thinking, oh, my kid is climbing.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: The wall of awful to get to the other side
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: so they can do their homework, I'm like, oh, they're
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: just avoiding it.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: The task. Yeah.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: We'd see it as a lack of motivation.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: You had just mentioned about climbing the wall of awful.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: And I know that you talk about some ways that
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: we try to deal with the wall of awful that
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: aren't successful and ways to deal with it that would
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: be successful. Do you want to talk about some of that?
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Like maybe what's our instinct as parents? Because I think
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: often our instincts, it's that pressure, it's that pushing. may
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: not work out so good.
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so the entire middle of the book is the
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: strategies to get past it, right?
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: It's four chapters. There's five strategies to get past it.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: Two of them don't work, so we put those in
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: the same chapter because we're not going to spend a
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: lot of time on the stuff that doesn't work. And
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: then the remaining chapters are the ways that work. The
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: two strategies that don't work are staring at it. I'm
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: just not engaging with this task, right? I'm not doing
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: anything that's going.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: To get me anywhere. I might be.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: perseverating i might be ruminating like i might be really
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: in my thoughts or my feelings about this task and
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: that's in a way that doesn't actually do anything right
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: like i can be in my feelings and suffering that's
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: not processing those emotions and those feelings so i can
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: get to the other side that's just being trapped in
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: the feelings and the same is true with like perseverating
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: where i'm thinking about this but not in a way
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: that's problem solving just in a way that's like this
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: is why i don't like this thing and this is
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: why it's.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Hard and this is why it stinks and right yeah.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: So those strategies don't work. There's also going around the wall,
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: which is avoidance, right? That's when I'm going to say, well,
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: first let me do this and then I'll engage with
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: the wall.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: And like, maybe, maybe you will, maybe you won't. I
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: don't know.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: One of the places where I see that most often
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: is with entrepreneurs. And once your kid gets to like,
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: maybe middle school certainly high school level this can start
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: happening in like assignments or especially if they have like
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: a passion project that's outside of school that they're doing
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: and what i see happen a lot of the time
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: is like there's this thing that they want to do
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: adults kids doesn't matter and it's well before i do
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: that i should really learn more about it or i
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: should the one i see in entrepreneurs is like i
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: need to get my website perfect right Like I have
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: to do, I have to get these things in place
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: before I can do this other thing. And it just
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: isn't necessarily true. The one that drives me craziest is, well,
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: I have to learn all this stuff and then I
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: can do that thing. That's true to a point. But
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: that point is much earlier than most people think when
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: they're dealing with the wall of awful. The, I need
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: to learn all this stuff is a form of perfectionism.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: It's like, I can't do this perfectly until I've learned
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: all the things. And I got a news for you.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: You're not going to do it perfectly. Even if you
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: do learn all the things, because there's a lot of
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: stuff you have to learn by doing, and it doesn't
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: matter what it is. It can be writing a book.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: It can be drawing a picture. It can be playing
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: a sport. It can be speaking another language. It doesn't matter.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Right. Playing guitar.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: I can learn all there is to learn out of
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: a book about how to play a guitar. But until
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: I play a guitar, I don't know how to play guitar.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: So I really encourage parents to pay attention to their
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: kid if they're stuck in that.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: I have to learn and learn and learn to have
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: them go do it.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: And also parents don't trap your kids in like tutoring
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: services forever about or training or coaching or whatever. Let
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: them go do the thing and let them mess up
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: and let them fail and let them learn from failing
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: because we learn a lot from failing.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: And that doesn't mean you shouldn't have coaches and tutors
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: because certainly they're useful. But pay attention to where you
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: are in this growth period for your kid. It might
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: make sense to have them go make some mistakes, figure
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: out where their deficits are, and then circle back to
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: the tutor or the coach. Yeah.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: We never stop learning. Like there's never an end to
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: the learning. I can continue to think that I have
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: to learn more and there's always going to be more
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: to learn. It's kind of this never ending loop that
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: they'll get stuck in.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: It's a constantly open loop.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Hey there, it's Penny. Real quick, I want to tell
• 12:00
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• 12:03
  Speaker 1: over a decade of work with families like yours. If
• 12:07
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• 12:11
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• 12:15
  Speaker 1: the executive function coaching, here's what I've learned from experience.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: And yes, also nerding out on the neuroscience. None of
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: that actually works until your kid's nervous system feels safe
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: enough to let the thinking brain come back online. That's
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: the piece that almost every school program skips. So here's
• 12:35
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• 12:39
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• 12:45
  Speaker 1: apart before you even get to breakfast, homework that gets
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: done without that nightly battle, and an evening where there's
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: actually something left over for your kid and for you.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Sounds kind of fantastic, right? My next live group cohort
• 13:01
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• 13:06
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• 13:10
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• 13:14
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• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Now spots are capped.
• 13:16
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• 13:19
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• 13:23
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• 13:27
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• 13:32
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• 13:45
  Speaker 1: So then what is a healthy, you know, sort of successful,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: effective approach to the Wall of Awful?
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Let me, can I do the one that's kind of both?
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: That's sort of great and sort of not so great?
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: So the one that's sort of great and sort of
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: not so great. It works, but it's not healthy. It's smashing.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: So the wall of awful is made of all these
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: sedentary emotions, right? I said earlier, they're sedentary, they're pushing away,
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: they're slowing us down. When I take my anger or
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: my frustration or my anxiety related to this task and
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: use that to activate and push through the wall... use
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: that to push through these sedentary emotions because anxiety and
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: anger and frustration are activating. Sometimes they activate and send
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: us forward and sometimes they send us backwards. But if
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: I activate and go forward into the wall, I'm smashing.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: And I call it smashing because it does damage, right?
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: Like I'm using this like a hammer, right? Like a
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: blunt force, anxiety, blunt force, anger. And I end up
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: doing damage as I crashed through this wall because there's shrapnel, there's.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: Bricks flying all over the place, right?
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: And that's going to hurt me if I use my anxiety.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: If I'm like, why do I suck? What's wrong with me?
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: How come I can't just do this? I stink, I stink,
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: I stink, I stink, I stink. But I'm using that
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: to get myself going, right? Because I don't want to stink,
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: but I keep repeating it over and over again. I'm
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: hurting my self-esteem.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: If on the other hand, I get angry with my
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: mom or my dad for asking me to do this
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: chore that I hate doing.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, shut up. I'll do it. Fine. Get
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: off my back. Leave me alone. I'll do it. Now
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: I'm damaging my relationship with my mom or dad.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: Or my friend or my boss or whoever it happens
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: to be. Yeah. So that's the way that is not
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: so great. But it does work. And there's times when
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: that's the best choice. But it's the least skilled option
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: that actually gets us to the other side of the wall.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Not sustainable.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: It's not. It's going to lead to burnout. Yeah.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: And the reason it's the least skilled is because we're
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: still in like the limbic system in the amygdala when
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: we're doing that.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: It's fight.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: It's the fight response of fight, flight, and freeze. And
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: going around the wall is flight and staring at it
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: is freeze. So those three are our body's stress response.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: It's just how we respond to stress. They're going to
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: be less skilled because we can't bring our executive functions
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: and our higher order thinking skills to bear when we're
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: in fight, flight, and freeze. And again, that doesn't mean
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: that sometimes you don't want to have that fight because
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: every now and then it's like, I just got to
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: get this thing done.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to push through and raw, right?
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: And there's a little bit of smash happening, but it's
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: a controlled smash. It's like, I know what I'm doing.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: I'm going to limit the damage and I'll be able
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: to move forward. The two that get past the wall
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: that are healthy and effective, but effortful, I don't want
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: to make it sound like these are necessarily easy, right?
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: Are putting a door in it and climbing it. So
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: putting a door in it is about changing our emotional state.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: It's about utilizing things that motivate us to get going.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: And I'm not a big fan of relying on motivation
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: as a way to get past anything, to start anything.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: I'd much prefer that we either make the task easier
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: or up our skills or resources to be able to
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: do the thing more readily, reduce the barrier to entry.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: But it's a choice, right? Like I can play with
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: the dopamine response and play with Bill Dodson's in-cup model Right.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: But he talks about the interest based nervous system of ADHD.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: That model is putting a door in it. Like if
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: we follow that model and we're looking at interesting, novel, challenging,
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: urgent and passion are his. That's what income stands for.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: I tend to think interesting and.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Passion are like two peas in a pod. Right.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: Like I think of interesting is like cognitive and thinking
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: and passion is emotional, but they're both kind of the same.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: Like I'm engaged with this thing. The only one of
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: in cup that I wouldn't like lean.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: On all the time is urgency.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Cause that's kind of smashing, right? Like I don't have
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: enough time. I got to do this.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: Ah, like that's, that's an emotional response, but I find
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: this interesting. I find this novel. It's unique in some way.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: I find it challenging and that's an engaging thing. It's
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: not overwhelmingly challenging. It's compelling or I'm, it's connected to
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: stuff that I'm really passionate about or connected to my
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: values and.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: All that stuff is great. All that stuff is super healthy.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: So that's putting a door in it is finding the
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: things that are going to get me to those areas.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: That might mean that I go and work in a
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: new location. I've been doing that. I just finished up
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: the workbook that's going to come out in February to
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: accompany the book book that comes out in September. And
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: I started hitting a wall eventually working in my office.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: I was like, I just, yeah, I'm done.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: So I went places. I found coffee shops that I'd
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: never been to. I wasn't even going to places I
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: usually went to. I was finding other spots. And all
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: of that added some novelty and helped me engage more
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: readily with the stuff that I was already interested in,
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: but I was struggling. And it also like, I worked
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: really hard to make interesting activities in the workbook too.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: And that was a challenge, right? So that kind of
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: kept me motivated and moving forward. And I don't know
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: that motivation.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: Is necessarily the right word here, but it's the word
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: I'm using. It kept me engaged. It is probably a
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: better way to put it.
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: When it comes to climbing, climbing is about sitting with
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: those emotions and processing them. And people are like, we know, Brendan,
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: we heard, we saw the video. I've split climbing into
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: two different categories in the book. The book expands on
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: everything pretty significantly. One of the ways that I expand
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: on climbing is that I split it into active and
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: passive climbing. So active climbing is the stuff that people
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: have heard me talk about. I'm going to validate my
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: emotions around this task. I'm going to say out loud
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: what the task is and what I have to do.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: I'm going to engage with it in a way that
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: helps me break it down into small, more manageable tasks.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: I'm going to make that first step as easy as possible, that.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Kind of stuff.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: Passive is different. Passive is really using our mind-wandering mode
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: and our default mode network to do some emotional processing
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: in the background when we're not even engaged with this task, right?
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: I'm not even necessarily doing it. And that is important.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: It matters, right?
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: We don't get into our default mode network often enough
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: because our phone's crowded out.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Back in the 80s, like I'm an 80s and 90s kid, right? Pre-smartphone.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: I would stand in line at the grocery store and nothing.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: I'm just standing in line at the grocery store, right?
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: You go to the dentist or whatever, you're walking somewhere,
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: whatever it is, you're kind of just, your mind is wandering.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: You're in that default mode network. And as a result,
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: I was processing emotions and solving problems subconsciously.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: We don't have that opportunity as much anymore.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: And one of the things that is problematic there is
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: we do have more anxieties now because we don't get
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: to process them in the background as much as we
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: used to. So the default mode network and mind wandering
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: can lead to rumination really easily. It can mean we
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: get stuck in these negative thought spirals and things. But
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: we can steer it. We just don't always do it.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: Like I just listen to some music while I'm doing
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: this and it gets me going in the right direction, right?
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Do I need to be thoughtful? Because that's going to
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: be one kind of music.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: Do I need to be kind of revving myself up
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: to get going for an interview or to write the
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: workbook or something? That's a different soundtrack to my life, right?
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: So I'm a big fan of music as a way
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: to sort of help that process along. And I'm also
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: a fan of walking. especially in the woods. I really
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: like walking in the woods with or without music. It
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: typically steers my thoughts pretty well. And if I end
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: up ruminating and I don't have music, I just pay
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: attention to it. And maybe I add music or maybe
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: I stop and look around and observe the world around
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: me for a little bit and hope that breaks me
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: out of it. But it's called soft fascination is what
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about here, sort of being in awe of
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: the world around us, even if it's just a small
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: amount that we don't get enough of because the phones
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: are in the way. So I recommend putting the phone down,
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: even if all you do is leave it in your
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: car when you go to the supermarket and you're walking
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: the aisles and you're just walking the aisles and your
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: thoughts go where they go.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Being present.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: It's important stuff.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I was just wondering the other day, like, how
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: did we get through all of these boring things back
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: when we didn't have anything to entertain ourselves? But we did.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: We knew how to be bored.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Remember that now it feels foreign now to think about that.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: It's kind of crazy.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: This actually isn't in the book, but one of the
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: things I've been playing with recently in the past six
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: months or so, I call it analog doom scrolling because
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: I don't have a better name. But I was talking
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: to a client one day and he was like, yeah,
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: I just doom scroll too much. And I was like,
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: what did you do? I sort of asked him for
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: both of us. I was like, what did we do?
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Because we're about the same age.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: I was like, what did we do before we doom scrolled?
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: We're old enough that we're both pre-phone.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: What did we do?
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: And he and I just sort of talked that out
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: for a little bit. And came up with what I,
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: for lack of a better term, is calling analog doomscrolling,
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: except there's no doomscrolling in it, right? Because back then
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: we had like coffee table books and things that were
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: interesting to flip through and look at, but you're not
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: really super engaged with it. It's just passing the time
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: and letting you think about things. For me, I read
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: a lot of role-playing game books when I was a
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: kid and comic books and that sometimes I was reading
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: them to read them and sometimes I was just looking
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: at the pictures and flipping through stuff and mildly thinking
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: about what this is. And I think it's important that
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: we get back to that to some degree, is figure
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: out what did you do, if you're our age, what
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: did you do when you didn't have a phone to
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: doom scroll on and impart that to your kids, right?
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: If you're pre-phone, and I imagine most of the parents are,
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: when you were 10, what were you doing instead? And
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: can you give that kind of a strategy to your kids?
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Making room for processing. We're making room for processing.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Processing emotion, ideas, all that sort of stuff.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: And doing one thing at a time. I would sit
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: in my room and listen to an album. And that
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: was all I did. I don't know that that's how
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: music gets consumed anymore. At least not for my kids
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: and their friends and the people I know. It's usually
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: the music is being played in earbuds while they're doing
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: something else. Or you could just being part of the
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: music and take the earbuds out of your ears and
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: let it fill the room that you're in.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: That's why I love to go see live music because
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: it's immersive. There is no space, no draw to be
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: looking at your phone or doing anything else. You're just
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: surrounded by it in a way.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about the parents
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: role here? And like, obviously the parent, the adult, can
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: have their own wall of awful. But if we are
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: trying to help a kid who has come up against
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: their wall of awful, I think sometimes we push, which
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: is more like trying to smash the wall, right?
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: What do we need to be aware of? What is
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: our role in helping them with their wall of awful?
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: One important piece before we go to that, one important
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: thing is Make sure you're not giving your kids the
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: gift of your walls of awful. Right. Like you're probably
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: going to. But just be mindful of whether you're doing
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: that or not. And if you have done that, tell them.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: I have a wall of awful.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Less so now.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: I was on here earlier, like a little while back.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: I talked about all the OCD stuff that my family
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: went through. The sheer bananas level of anxiety that my
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: family was going through. A couple of times during those years,
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: we dealt with some tech stuff, like you would expect, right?
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: Printer breaks, you get a new phone, those sorts of things.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: And I was not in.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: A place to handle that well or effectively. Forgot a password, whatever.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: One of my kids got a wall of awful for
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: anything tech-related.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: In those veins, right?
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: Figuring out his email password is a total anxiety spike
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: for him. And I know it's my fault. I know
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: it's because I... And if I had, if we hadn't
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: been going through what we were going through at the time,
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: I don't think I would have cared. I would have
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: been like, this is annoying, but it's not the.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: End of the world.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: But at the time I didn't have space for annoying.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: There was too much stress in our house. So I
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: gave him these walls of awful. And I've said that
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: to him. I'm like, dude, this stress is my inadvertent
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: gift to you. And I want to help you put
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: it down. I want you to give it back. Like,
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: I want you to return that.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: Because you don't keep it. Let's get rid of it.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: So if you've given your kid a wall of awful,
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: just be transparent with them. Like let them know what
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: the wall of awful is. Talk to them about this
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: concept and then talk to them about the stuff that
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: they don't need to carry because it's really your issue,
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: not their issue.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: And the same is true.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: The reason I started there is because there's also that
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: to a smaller degree when we.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Go to deal with their walls of awful, right?
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: If they're stressed about doing homework, let's say they're doing
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: some math homework and I don't have any issues with math.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: But I do have a wall of awful for my
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: kid doing homework and getting past their walls of awful.
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: If I go into that help session elevated and escalated
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: or dysregulated, if my emotions are flying a little hotter,
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: I'm potentially adding bricks to their wall when I don't
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: need to be. So the more I can keep myself
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: balanced and center myself and be the rock in the
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: storm that they can cling to, the better off everything
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: is going to be.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: The whole situation.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: So that's really the primary thing is like, before you
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: go to help your kid, get yourself square and then
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: help them. And it's not uncommon that parents see the
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: kid is struggling, worry about the kid, feel their own
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: wall of awful starting to build and then smash.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: Like they're on, I'm just.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: Going to smash through this because I have to go
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: help my kid right now. They feel that urgency and
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: that urgency may or may not be true. But the
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: urgency leads to smash because now I'm least skilled option
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: that gets me to the other side.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: And when I smash, even if I don't smash inside
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: of them, right? Even if it's like I go into
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: my bedroom and I got to make sure my kid
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: gets some stuff done, right? And then off I go
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: back to the kitchen to help him. My energy is
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: not good.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're bringing it with you.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, my vibe is aggressive. It's more pushy than it
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: needs to be. And I'm just adding bricks because now
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: my kid is like, I can't make mom or dad happy.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: They're always mad at me or they're going to be
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: mad at me because I don't do this. We're already
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: fighting and they haven't even said anything to me yet,
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: but I can tell. They're reading our emotions just like
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: we're reading theirs. So the more we can anchor ourselves
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: and get ourselves centered before we engage with this stuff,
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: the better off we are.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: And talking about emotions, I think we don't do enough
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: of and then they're not processing them. They're avoiding... avoiding
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: the emotions that have built this wall of awful that
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: they need to find a way through right and yeah
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: so much good stuff there i know that there's a
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: lot more detail to it and we're out of time
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: already so if you'll let everybody know where they can
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: find you online where they can find the book, and
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: I'm going to link it all up in the show
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: notes as well.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: So I'm published through Hachette book group in their balance imprint.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: So the book is anywhere you buy books, wherever you
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: buy books, go and buy the book there.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: The website is wallofawful.com. Okay. Nice and simple.
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: It'll take you to places like on all of the sites, right?
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: It'll be like Books a Million and Barnes and Noble
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: and Amazon and like wherever you want to order it.
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: And the rest of the stuff is in the like
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: navigation bar up at the top, right?
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: So it'll send you to the podcast. It can send
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: you to me and what I do.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: But the Wall of Awful, there's a whole page for
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: it with various endorsements and some freebies that I'm going
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: to be giving people when the book is out who
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: order it.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: And yeah, that's all you need to know is wallofawful.com.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Perfect. And like I said, I'll link it up for everybody.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: And I encourage them to pick up the book, find
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: your podcast, find your YouTube. You will learn more. There's
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: so much more to learn from Brendan. I've learned a
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: ton over the years. I always enjoy our conversations. I
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: feel more hopeful after I talk to you. Like, okay,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: there is a plan. There is a way, right? Like
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: these things can change and I needed that as my
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: kid was growing up. And so I really appreciate that
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: from you.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we talked, Alex, my co-writer and I, talked at
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: length about the importance of infusing the book with hope.
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: Because it's a hard topic, right? It's a difficult thing
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: to talk about. So we're like, we got to have
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: hope in every chapter.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Love that.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: So I appreciate that.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. I'll see everybody next time. Take good care.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Visit beautifully-complex.com for more resources, coaching, and parent training. And
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: help another kid by sharing this with someone who could
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: benefit from listening.