Overcoming ADHD-induced chaos with Russ Jones: Learn how to “be cool with yourself”

Hi, we are the ADHD Skills Lab podcast. My name is Skye. And my name is Sarah. And we will be your hosts, chatting to you about practical ADHD strategies you can use, the research behind some of these strategies, as well as interviewing other professionals with ADHD about how they've developed skills and working through struggles in their lives. You might know us from Unconventional Organization, where we talk about this kind of stuff all day long. So we're super excited to have you along and we're going to chat through it together. 

Hi everyone. So this week we had the amazing opportunity to talk to Russ Jones. He is the host of the ADHD Big Brother podcast. And just a little trigger warning up top, we do get into some topics of ADHD, but also depression. We talk about some heavier things there. So if anything that you hear today brings up anything for you, I definitely encourage you to reach out. and get some support, whether it's coaching or whether it's therapy, whatever you need, make sure that you're taking care of yourself. But it's a really wonderful chat with Russ. He's so open with me and just goes through all of his professional successes, professional failures. He's got such an interesting and wide ranging career and the really, really cool things that he's doing now. So I know you guys are going to love this podcast episode because I love recording it. So let's get into it. 

Okay. Well, Russell or Russ, as you're known on the internet, I'm just looking at your name and it's full on zoom here. So that's what's I always have a disconnect between what's written on zoom and what's written somewhere else. We've just actually recorded your podcast where I was, was a guest on there. So that's pretty cool. You were great. Oh, thank you very much. So we're taking that energy and we're putting it into this interview. So Russ is an ADHD coach. and the host of the ADHD Big Brother podcast. His mission is to help adults with ADHD learn the tools and the strategies to wrangle their ADHD-induced chaos so that they can live the life that they want. He does this through one-on-one coaching, his online courses, as well as the ADHD Big Brother Forum, which he created as a way for ADHDers to support each other through externalized accountability. So welcome, Russ. It's so great to have you on the pod. So why did you choose ADHD big brother? Just jumping in. I'm really interested. I love that name, but I was wondering where it came from. It really comes from, I think my, well, this is going to go weird, but it's like my oppositional nature. I really have an oppositional kind of stance for a lot of things. And I think we had touched upon the integrative wellness coach journey or that training. And there's some aspects of any kind of training. where I'm like, nah, that's not for me. That doesn't resonate with me. And I don't think that'll resonate with the people that I work with. And so I'm like, I don't wanna be called an ADHD coach, even though that's what I am. Right, yeah. But I'm like, so who am I? Because coaching, I think if you go with the coaching models, you're not supposed to intertwine therapy, right? I'm not licensed to do therapy. So I'm not gonna play in that sandbox. But it's also like, I am going to share my own life with people. And there's some aspects of these things where like, well, you're not supposed to, this is about them and you don't talk about you. And I'm like, no, I'm gonna. And so I'm like, well, who is that? That's a big brother. That's somebody that's like, Hey, I've walked the path and I'm going to share what works and what doesn't work on my path with you. And that's sort of how the word big brother came out. Yeah. No, cause it's really cool. When I heard it, I was like, Oh, this is cool. Like I don't have a big brother. That sounds fun. Awesome. So tell us where are you based? I'm in Southern California. Cool. Awesome. That is. Yeah. I know. Isn't that cool that you're on the other side of the planet? Yes. I think that's so awesome that we live in a time where I can talk to you and you're on the other side of the globe. That's super cool to me. Yeah, I know. That's why I always ask because I'm like, this is international. People are everywhere and it's kind of fun. Where are you? Yeah. I'm in the North Pole in an egg blue. Maybe one day. Yeah, yeah, they probably have amazing Wi-Fi. They probably have to. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about, I guess, your ADHD diagnosis story. Then what led you to be diagnosed? So it was late in life, which is kind of, it seems par for the course a lot of times. I was in the end of my marriage. So let's say the marriage was at the crumbling point and we were in couples counseling and the therapist had asked, have you ever considered that you might have ADHD? And I just vaguely remember just the chip on my, I'm like, we're not here about that. We're here about saving the marriage, dude. And so I go and I... You know, you Google it, you do all the things, right? You take an online quiz about what kind of an animal are you? Oh, you're a cheetah, that's an ADHD cat. You're an ADHD. Yeah, you're a Gouda cheese, that's the ADHD cheese. And so then I went to a psychiatrist. I went through the process of digging up report cards, having conversations with my family, and you kind of piece it together with the psychiatrist. People have horror stories of like massive amounts of testing and things like that, and I didn't go through that. It was more conversational, I think, and doing a little bit of self research. And then I ultimately got diagnosed ADHD, predominantly inattentive. And then that just, you know, you have that whole like sadness about it and like, oh wow, that stuff in my past, I dropped out of college, all these jobs, all this marriage, all these things that I blew and God, if I only knew then. But, uh, that's that journey. And then the depression journey was more like, it was after that. When it came to depression, I always had like ebbs and flows. I never really thought of myself as having depression. I just thought, oh, I'm in a season of sorrow right now. Yeah, it'll go away. And there was a period. I want to say it was like pandemic time, because that's when just things got off. For a lot of people. Yeah. Dark. Yeah, just dark. Yeah. And so it wasn't going away. And there was like suicidal ideations, nothing act honorable, but where you're like so past crying about life and you're apathetic about it, you're like, I don't care. So like my kids won't miss me. Nobody's going to miss me. And you're like, if I'm thinking that for this long, that's not, I don't think you're supposed to have to live like that. Right? There's gotta be a pill for that. Let's go get the pill for that. And so that's when I went and sought help for that. Yeah, because we didn't mention it at the top of the podcast, but you actually have, it'll be in the title, so probably so. But you know, you have ADHD and depression, which is, you know, that's the fun thing about ADHD. It's part of the spectrum and we all have so many different combinations of things. And so this is your, you know, flavor of ADHD. It's one of my 21 flavors. Yeah. There's so many. Yeah. So you were diagnosed how many years before with ADHD, before you had the diagnosis with depression as well? In a ballpark. Oh man, I don't know. Yeah, maybe a few years. I don't know. Yeah. That's a hard one. Hey, I'm timeline too. Yeah, I know. As soon as I said that I was like, I couldn't answer that question, so I don't know. There's no way you could. Like, you just like start piecing it together like momentum. It was July 18th, 2020. Could you have? Yeah. There are people that can do that. Yeah, that is very, very cool. Yeah. So when you had both, you went and got support for both. So what did that look like? Did you go to two different people? Did you have a psychiatrist and a psychologist? Did you have ADHD? Did you just do it all using the internet and the support provided? No, that's a good question. I've done a couple of ADHD coaches and those were short lived. And I did a lot of self help stuff. I'm just naturally one of those people that is looking to better myself. That's sort of like just ingrained in me. So I'm even prior to any diagnosis, I was getting into meditation. I was getting into philosophic, like, why are we here? What are we doing? And how do we do things? And so therapy, yes. But I wasn't going to therapy necessarily for. depression, it would have been for a breakup that I couldn't get over or for hating my job and not knowing what to do with myself. It was for specific things. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, you mentioned that the ADHD coaching was short-lived and I'm really curious, given that we both do that job. What was it about? I know, I know. I don't want to poop on it. I don't want to crap on it. I could feel that. That's why I'm asking this question. You're like, it's coming. He's going to just blow the lid off the whole game. there's a model to it that didn't work for me. And I think I got unlucky with the people because anytime someone makes me feel like, like I'm going to have to stop cause I can't afford it anymore or something like that. And they're like, you're making a mistake. Okay. You're throwing your life away. The sales tactic, you know, it's tarnishes you. And my whole philosophy about anything about helping people with ADHD, it's like come into the nest. Learn the skills, the tools, learn how to get your together and then jump out the nest and then be gone. I don't think anything is meant to be like, I'm with an ADHD coach for eight years and it's all meant to be temporary. And I think I just really got unlucky. And there wasn't the daily accountability that I think I needed, which I think I believe everybody with ADHD that's struggling. I'd say that it's needing to get their lives in order. need some kind of a daily accountability to ensure that they're reminded. I mean, we forget everything. We forget everything all the time. The model, and I was a student of the model, right? Where you would go to this session and you would be inspired. You'd be like, okay, I got this. Yeah, I'm going to do it. And then the next day you forget, and then you don't do anything. And then the day before your next appointment, you scramble to do something so that you don't look like an idiot. for the coach that's supposed to be helping you, right? Yeah. Oh God, that's not the way. That is very true actually, that is very true. And I think that's so interesting because if you're doing ADHD coaching, then the process should be very ADHD friendly. And that's the thing is like, because there is a world where you get homework. In fact, one of the things I often work with my clients is they're like. I have a dietician, I have this other person I'm talking to, I've got too much homework, I'm drowning in homework. What do I do? And, and even just figuring out that kind of stuff, it's so important to manage those, but to manage those expectations are hard because you go like, right. I've been given homework that I have to do by myself, executive functioning wise for a week, and that's, that's how it is. And I can't ask for help and I can't be like, Hey, I have ADHD. Maybe given that we're paying for ADHD coaching, that shouldn't be how it works. And, and then. Yeah. And that's a really good point is that advocating for yourself in all kinds of spaces, the only kind of exercise system that I've done for a while, I do copilot. Um, which is daily accountability for exercise. And they were like, do you want to do like two 40 minute workouts a week? And I was like, no, I will forget. Can we do one five minute a day? They were like, what? What are you sure? Like that's not what we usually do. And I was like, yeah, but like it's my thing and I have to work out more. And so this is how it's going to work for me, but it's hard to know that, especially if you're just coming in at the beginning. Oh man. There's so many like things that I call them normies, like a neurotypical, the way the systems that are set up, we need our own systems that was like the whole impetus for me making that forum is that externalized accountability. I even have a buddy who I go on a walk with every Saturday. That's my way of getting out and going on a walk because it's outsourcing that accountability. It's putting it outside of ourselves. Yeah. So I'm so curious now, what do you do in your forum for all the people who I assume, you know, they're like you, they're like, no, this is bad and I don't like this and I have ADHD and I'm here for us. Tell me what to do or don't tell me what to do. What do you do? We just bitch about ADHD. No, it's, I built it specifically to not be that it's not like a discord where everyone empathizes with everybody and says how awful it is and talks about funny images of relatability. It's for people who want to externalize accountability. There is all that aspects to it, right? There's a ranting area. There is the main reason I built it was for the external accountability, which gleaned off of back when I was addicted to nicotine. So I had like a 20 year chewing tobacco addiction. It was awful. And one of the ways that I was able to quit was through a forum. Basically, you know, like a one day at a time, it's just like an alcoholic or somebody where you go, today, I'm not going to do it. Well, with ADHD, it was like today, I'm going to do this one thing. And so every day you post a number and your username, and the thing that you're going to do no matter what, no matter how awful the day is, no matter how horrible it is, you're saying to this group of people, I'm going to do this one thing. And then you were building your accountability to yourself because it gets to a point where you're like, I'm at day 50. Oh, I don't want to lose my number. I don't want to go back to one. So you're building in that reward system. And this is actually nobody can see this, but I have a ring, which is a guy in the forum. I commissioned him to make me a ring and he made this and now I can work because I hit my 100 days. That's really, really awesome. It's just all these things that you just add, you're adding ways to feel good about ourselves to do crappy things, right? Yeah. And I think it's so cool having a forum because you can also talk about like, hey, I'm doing it but it's hard and I don't want to and other people will relate to that. And it's not just like, well, that's a you problem. There is a lot of people will ask specific questions. about certain things, struggling with this. And then it's, you know, I'll chime in and I'll give support, but I think it's also good to get collective support because not everybody's ideas are, you know, just because it works for me doesn't mean it's working for you. Yeah, 100%. I like the idea that there's multiple ways for people to be like, have you done this? Have you tried this app? Have you done this thing? I mean, that's great. Yeah, totally. No one wants to hear like, oh. It didn't work for you. I guess that's it. You've done it. You apparently suck because you couldn't make it work. Good day. That's the thing I think everyone is always afraid of. Like often we'll have people come through and they'll be like, so can you help? And we'll be like, no, we can't. Like, you know, we're not going to be like, oh, sorry, we have one system and it didn't work, so. Oh well. Yeah. I love the idea like that we're always iterating and we're always trying new things. Like I hate working out. I think it's the worst, most boring thing ever. But I have to do it. So always trying to iterate like, okay, it's no longer fun for me. I'm going to find a different way to do it then so I can slog through it. Systems will come and go. It's the idea of, well, don't give up on yourself because the system stopped working, figure out why, and then try something new, right? And the great thing is with ADHD, you know, we know from the research, we're wonderful creative problem solvers. So we have that. I love how creative ADHD people are. It's awesome. Yeah. And speaking of that, actually, you are doing this now, but I saw you also worked as a licensed realtor. You worked as a comedian and an actor, which I'm so curious about. So tell me that. Take me through your career, Jim. All the different versions of me through time. Back in 1984, I moved to L.A. to be an actor and to do comedy. And that's because I dropped out of college because. I didn't have the structure. I didn't know I had ADHD. That's my hindsight, but I was really good at acting and I was funny. So I came down to LA. I got lucky in commercials. I always say I got lucky because it is a very picky kind of a business. And I got fortunate with commercials. I played a really good office dork. Nobody played an office geek like me. And that was great for a time. And I did sketch comedy and I traveled. And that was a real peak experience in my life. But then something happens, right? Where the fire for a thing goes away. Oh, it's so frustrating. Yeah, it's sad. I still will perform. I've done comedy shows, and whenever I get an itch, I'll go scratch it, right? Yeah. The purpose of it. Like, this is my career. It went away. Do you know why? Like, kind of what? Yeah. Yeah? Oh, yeah. I can speak to it, I think. I was mostly lucky with commercials. And so in commercials, you don't really for a long amount, you act for 30 seconds. Right. But the whole rest of the day is just hanging out with people and talking and enjoying company and eating craft service and getting your hair done or whatever. And I'm doing this and companies will pay you a lot of money. You get really good money as an actor. And it's for companies that I don't know that I support. Right. I don't know. Right? And you're like, oh God. So it took the joy of. of the performance part of it, which is the joy of it, was only for 30 seconds. And really, if you're in 10 commercials a year, you're at least back in the day, I don't know how the money part works out now, but you were killing it. Wow, that's crazy. I did not know that. Is that a week's worth of work or two weeks? The work ethic about it of like, I'm not doing anything for the world. I'm not helping the world. That fire wasn't getting kindled, let's say. Yeah. Did you go from being a... actor sort of in commercials and things like that to being a comedian or was comedian just something that kind of got pivot throughout? No, it's all the same. Right. I would say it's all a performer. And so I would do stand up, I would do sketch, we made shows and we traveled with them. And then I would be auditioning and do acting and do like if you book the job, you would do the job. Okay. Yeah. And then the realtor was that kind of, well, I need to do something else. Yeah, the realtor was basically I needed to work and I had been a stay-at-home dad with my kids for their early, early years. And then when they got to school age, I'm like, I need to be doing something. And being a realtor is the easiest thing to get into. It's not hard to get a real estate license. And I cannot do, I'll say I could not do, just work, work. In an office. Like where you go, this is who you are. This is your path. This is as much as you'll ever make. And this is what much you'll ever do. And here's your 401k and b-b-b-b-b-b- And I was like, I just need to go somewhere where someone pays me for the time that I give them. And then that's how I found the stable job that I'm in now, while I'm building and doing my purposeful work, which that I all found through that book, Careergasm, which is the greatest book ever, finding like what your purpose is. And that's how I came to be helping people with ADHD. Oh, that's cool. So you have a stable job that you do on the side of what you do now? Yeah. And I actually liked that you said that I do it on the side. I think that's the better way to say it. Yeah. ADHD, the brother is not my side job. The UPS job is my side job. Oh yeah. They're paying my benefits. And for my school, will I do my real job, which is helping people with ADHD get their together? Yeah. In terms of what you said about what is a job to you, that thing that you value, that thing that makes you light up. I mean, I don't know a lot about UPS, but I imagine it's probably not out of the two, the one. Yeah. Russell's shaking his hand violently. They're listening. It is a great place for stability and for benefits, which is a big deal. Health insurance is a big deal. And they pay 100% for college. So I'm doing that and I'll have a bachelor's in psychology in 2025. Wow. No, that's cool. And I get, I, when I finished my masters, I went and worked in a bakery for a while. People are very confused. Let me see what these donuts are all about. What's up with these donuts? I was like, I just need a break. I just need to figure this out. So yeah, no, I love those jobs. Shout out to those jobs. 

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So in terms of your own ADHD strategies, just switching gears for a minute. And I think this is one of the cool things about your side gig, as you mentioned before, is like, you will have to use a lot of ADHD strategies. So tell me about the ADHD strategies. You can't live without the ones you use every day. Oh yeah. Timers, timers are, I will preach timers till the day I die. I think that they are absolutely anything where the externalization of time was such a profound. thing and a profound realization for me. And, you know, a lot of people will use timers or they'll say, I use timers and then you try to get as much as you can done. And my work with timers is based on my lack of desire to do the thing. And the reward is that I quit. I do the thing for 20 minutes. And my gift to myself is that I get to quit when the timer goes off. Yeah. And that takes the nightmare away from me. Like I can do anything for 10 minutes. Things like the dishes and doing cleanup and all these things that when I think about doing them, they feel like they're eternities. And it's such a dramatic feeling. It's like, this is the rest of my life. But real. Yeah. This is the rest of my life. I can't do it. You're like, oh, but I can do it for 10 minutes and then give up. Like I can play to that. So timer is a big deal. And then this is my bullet journal. Oh, very pretty. This is just from the actual bullet journal place. because I like how it's made, the page numbers and the index page of a bullet journal. Yeah. People should just Google it. The realization of having one notebook to rule all the notebooks of the world, it's just like my notes, my doodles, my planning. It's all in there and I can find everything. So I've given up post-its, I've given up backs of bills and random pieces of paper and it's taken such a stress off of me. Awesome. Yeah. I'm always so curious to find out because obviously you give so much advice to other people. What is the thing that drives you? And it's interesting you mentioned that idea of giving up being the reward because research, it's still theoretical research, but research indicates with ADHD, we don't necessarily attach the reward that you get at the end of doing the thing with the thing. And, you know, there's actual like evidence out there that might not be the case. So for us, it's just like, why am I doing this horrible thing? Oh, thank God it's over. Thank God it's over is the gift. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Because yeah, I'm like, give me a cookie at the end. I don't care about the cookie because the pain is right now. Yeah. Although as we talked on your podcast, a cookie at the beginning, that might help that might be good. The cookie at the beginning is genius. Yeah. I was like, give me the high dopamine up top. Yeah, I'm going to be utilizing that. I'm going to eat cookies and do my dishes like Totally. Yeah, definitely. Awesome. And then, so those are kind of the ones you can't live without. Are there any kind of other ones that keep you going? And I think particularly I'm thinking about that. Get up, go to work, do the thing, kind of keep going. Do you have any routines that kind of just help you keep moving through your week? Routines are kind of a tough one for me because they're, they're always changing. So I can just tell you the one that I have. There's a thing that I'm doing now and I tend to hit it more than I don't hit it is I wake up at 530 a.m. and I'm trying to be very good about getting seven and a half hours of sleep. That's kind of a big deal for me. But getting up at 530 and then just going right out the door for a 20 minute walk. And then when I come back, I have a cup of coffee. That's my treat, my cup of coffee. And then I just start a 45 minute work session. And typically it would be on school stuff. And then that takes me to right before the kids wake up and then get them ready for school and everything. So that's kind of the thing that gets you is that I'm gonna have a cup of coffee, I'm gonna do that little ritual and that's kind of the thing that helps you keep moving. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, it's sort of a ritual that I'm working to make it happen more. Yeah. I would love it to be the habit, right? This is what I do without fail, but that's not realistic for me. It's what I try to do more often than not, yeah. No, that's good. That's good. Yeah. Cause I'm always curious about what gets people up in the morning because that's such a thing. You know, people will come to ADHD coaching and they'll be like, I can't, I can't get up in the morning. I wait until the very last minute. And then, you know, what gets me up is the fact that I'm already late. And, you know, it's always good to ask other people. And then you find out like, when did you go to bed? Three, three in the morning. Yeah. So you're horrifically tired. Yeah. And I think there's something that I really like. about being awake when nobody else is awake. It's a peaceful time for me when the sun is coming up. So that's the reason for 5.30 for me is when I go on that walk, it's quiet. The sun kind of starts to peak up and it's that refreshing feeling of a day is about to begin. Yeah. That feels good to me and I'm hungry for that. Yeah, no, I love that. I love that feeling. We'd be like, no one is here. Yeah. I got to jump on everyone. Yeah. And also the walking. We know from the research it helps with working memory. So you're kind of like bringing everything back online a little bit in the morning as well. Thank goodness for that. So we talked a little bit about your ADHD and depression having those two coincide. Your ADHD may be having a different flavor. Does that apply to your ADHD strategies as well? Do you have any strategies that? feel may be different from other people with ADHD because of the depression. Maybe it would be the different level. Maybe it would be, when I'm not in a depressive episode, there are 45 minute work session, a 15 minute break, and there's an ADHD strategy. If I'm in a depressive episode, maybe it would be, I'm doing a 10 minute work session. And if I had to go do something, I would half ass it even more. I would be like, I'm okay with 10% is my 110% or 5% equals everything to me. And I'm okay with not finishing and I'm okay. It's really the mantra of being cool with myself about whatever I have to give, gonna be enough. That's really, really helpful and really real because no matter what kind of ADHD you have, there's those times where you're really low executive functioning and you're just like, today I'm going to find that email and then I'm gonna read it. And we're done here. Definitely. Yeah. You, everyone has those days for sure. Yeah. So what advice would you give to other people who are listening to this? Because maybe they found the title and they also have ADHD and depression and they're struggling. I know exactly what I would say. I would say to be cool with yourself. There's a thing in the world, in the culture or in the, I don't know if it's hip or trendy or whatever to love yourself. Self-care is amazing and we all need to love ourselves. I think that's a beautiful idea and I would love to be in that place, but I don't think it's real for, it's not real for me. So I'll just say maybe it's not real for people with depression to go from I hate myself to I love myself. It's a big jump. You don't like go, oh, there's a coworker that I hate. Well, you should go propose marriage and tell them you love them. Like, yeah, but I hate Troy. I don't like Troy. Maybe we can be cool with Troy. Like if we treat ourselves like a roommate, then you put up with. You know, he pays the rent, but he's annoying, but I can be cool with that. And that to me, it takes a lot of the pressure off of trying to be in a place that isn't real, which some of those affirmation things are so dangerous in my mind, because you yell, I love myself in the mirror and your brain is like, no, you don't, no, you don't, no, you don't liar. Our brains can be really, they don't mess around, especially with ADHD. So many times you're like. I don't want to do that thing. What it is. Please brain, please. So I think if you can take the pressure off of needing to get to that place and be cool with yourself, then you're in a more of a place of acceptance. You're more in a place of like, things are this way right now and this is going to be okay and I'm going to use these tools and strategies and blah, and to move my life. And then, you know, maybe someday we love ourselves. Yeah. No, that's awesome. That's really, really awesome. My goal would be to get to that place. Yeah. That'd be phenomenal. No, it sounds amazing. I'm going to close out today with some ADHD quick questions. They don't actually have to be quick. They're just my way of saying ADHD questions that I ask everyone at the end. So the first one is tell us about the professional achievement that you're the most proud of or one of them. You know, I have done one year of the podcast every Monday and that's recent since last month. Before that, I was doing it like, I'll do two now and I'll do one in a month. So the consistency of that, I'm super proud of that. Yeah. It's not easy. No, right. It, yeah. So I'm super proud that I, I've been able to do that for that long. Awesome. And do you have a professional failure that was sort of embarrassing? And how did you deal with that? I've had many, I've had so many, they're all professional failures. I've done a lot of things that I thought. were mean and I blame hyperfocus. I'm not a big campaigner for superpowers. I'm anti-hyperfocus even though it's such a brilliant gift when things go right. But I was convinced I needed to, I wrote a potty training book. I spent a year of my life reading everything about potty training and about kids crapping in the toilet because I was potty training my kids and I was so angry about the biases and who's going to write a 300 page book. on this, I'm so mad about that. Just tell me how to do it. And I did that. And I'm like, but I don't want to be a person that walks around and goes to book fairs and tells people how to, how do you train that? That's not who I am. And then I created clear polymer stamp sets because I was in a mockumentary where I played a crazy scrapbooking lady and the stamping community thought it was funny. And I thought. Oh, hey, maybe I could make clear polymer stamp sets. And so I created a whole business, clear stamp sets, and realized this is not right, and it failed miserably. And so I'm like, the takeaways on all that, they're not good. It's all depression and sadness, and I hate myself. The lessons were like 10 years later when you're like, you know what, I did make a thing. You know what, I learned what I don't wanna do. I learned what I'm not gonna try to do. Those were, I don't know if they're embarrassing, I don't know that I get embarrassed too much, but it was devastating to me in terms of like just the biggest sigh ever like again, we're here again. We're doing this again. Yeah, no, 100%. And I think that all of us with our half, I started a jewelry business. I still have a lot of jewelry. We're creative people. We are really creative people. I did that many years ago and it was fun, but again, you're like, I have to make this every week and it's the same thing, and they want consistency. Yeah, there is that thing. I think for everybody who has those businesses sitting in their house somewhere, we see you. But now you know what you don't want to be. That's why I really have a chip on my shoulder with HyperFocus, it makes you feel like you are that thing. You become completely that which is jewelry making. I become the stamp set guy. And it's hard to inhibit that. It's hard to step back and go, is this who you are? Am I the stamp set guy? Am I? Are we doing this? Maybe we take a minute. It is really hard. And it's funny because yeah, those things mostly happened prior to the ADHD diagnosis. I actually was speaking to Katy Weber, who also has an amazing podcast about this topic. And she said now what she does is she goes, okay, this is what we're doing right now. Can we fit polymer stamps into what we're doing right now? If the answer is no, then it's a no right now. thing. I think about that. I think that's so helpful is that sense of like potty training for ADHD. Like this ADHD thing is what we're doing. Like, can we make this fit? And if the answer is no, Oh, that's great. Yeah. hindsight. Oh, well, yeah, 100% hindsight and not knowing because yeah, you're just running around being like, maybe if I find that one thing, then I'll you know, and really, it's just it's the ADHD. What a great answer. Thanks so much for being honest about that. Cause it's not an easy question to answer. It's actually written because it's the one question I was always afraid of getting asked in interviews. Wait, where have you failed in life? Yeah. Well, I was just waiting for someone to ask that. No one ever did. What do you suck at? Well, like everyone says the same thing. They're like, oh no, I had ADHD and it was undiagnosed. So here's the list. This is something we've all experienced. And if you don't. hear that from the people who are talking on the podcasts. Sometimes it feels like, well, maybe they don't have one. Maybe it's just me. That's one of the tough things about ADHD too is people that are silently suffering. And that speaks to depression too a bit. That chokes me up a bit. Because when you're depressed, the best advice is like, go hang out with friends and be around people. And you're like, I'm never gonna do that. I don't have the will to do that. So you suffer silently. and alone and it's such a, oh God. So to have some voice on a podcast or some voice on a YouTube channel where you're quietly looking for an answer, I think that's super helpful, yeah. Yeah, no, 100%. So to take us on a completely different direction, what is your favorite dopamine activity? We've talked a lot about dopamine, a lot about things. What is your go-to? Well, it's sex, isn't it? Isn't that everybody's? Or my second favorite, to keep it good. and wholesome. I guess it would be that early morning walk. Yeah, because it's starting my day with getting my heart pumping a little bit. And, you know, I should speak to that walk a little bit, because there are times when I feel compelled to jog, and I'll jog, but I'm only ever walking. And then I'm only ever have to get out the door. It's that whole thing about making it super easy. And so whatever is the easiest is the only thing I have to do. But as far as the dopamine thing. Probably that's my second favorite dopamine activity. That's awesome. That's great. And then the last question is if you had an ADHD life motto, what would it be? Be cool with yourself, right? Yeah. It really is to be cool with yourself. That's, that is my mantra for everything is to be cool with myself, except myself. If I'm impulsive and I, okay. I did that. Uh, if I mess up something, okay. I did it. Yeah. I'm late. Oh, big deal. Okay. I'm late. I'm sorry I'm late, but I'm going to be okay with, or let's say this. I'm going to try to not beat myself up anymore as best I can. So be cool with yourself or try and not beat yourself up. One of those two ADHD life motto. That's awesome. I love that. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to share your story and your ADHD skills, Russ, it's been. Amazing to talk to you. I love delving into all of these different things. So where can people find out more about you and the wonderful things you do? Well, I'll tell you, it was really awesome to get to talk to you. So this has been super fun. Awesome. I love this stuff. This is great. And people can find me at ADHDBigBrother.com. People can always email me and say hi at Russ, R-U-S-S at ADHDBigBrother.com. I love hearing from people. And that's where you find me. That's wonderful. Well, we'll put all of that in the show notes along with, I think you said careergasm, the book and the bullet journal. We'll add those to the show notes as well. Oh my God. Yeah. Put careergasm in there. Sarah Bermude is amazing and I'll plug the hell out of her. I'll credit her with the reason for helping me connect my purpose to the thing I want to do, which was, oh, help people with ADHD. It was finding that that's what the book is called. finding your way to feel good work or something like that. I highly recommend that. That's awesome. We'll have that in the show notes as well. Thanks so much, Russ. 

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