Work in Progress with Sophia BushFor online content creators Penn & Kim Holderness, the saying, "the couple that works together, stays together," is spot on!
The couple, who have been married for over 18 years, are best-selling authors, podcast hosts, and Season 33 'The Amazing Race' winners. They join Sophia to discuss their new project, taking on the stigma of ADHD with their book "ADHD is Awesome."
The power couple opens up about Penn's ADHD diagnosis, reframing how people think about ADHD, dealing with 'time blindness,' the viral video that jump-started their company and the lessons they learned along the way!
Hi, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress.
Whip Smarties.
Today, we are joined by two guests that I just I don't even know if I have the words to describe how excited I am that they're here. I'm such a fan of their work, their sketch comedy, They're award winning videos. I mean me and you know eight million other people who follow them across their social media platforms and the two billion people who have watched said videos. I'm not exactly new on the discovery here, but I am long on the adoration. Today's guests are Kim and pen Holderness. They have been married for eighteen years, and over the past decade they have become incredible online content creators, and now they are on a mission as a duo and as parents to reboot how we think about ADHD. They are bringing their trademark uplifting humor, which you probably saw on The Amazing Race here on their podcasts, have read in any of their best sellers, or you know, listen to on their videos. They're bringing that humor and their personal insights plus five years of research, which you know makes my brain feel excited to share their experience with a condition that affects millions of people around the world, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Penn was in college when he was diagnosed, and although the signs of having a brain that worked differently had been there since he was a kid, he still had to go on quite a journey to figure out as an adult what coping with his neurospicy brain looked like. And as he researched how to do that, he realized he wanted to write a book. So they wrote this book together. They are sharing it with fellow adhdars and the people who care about them. As you know, one of the estimated ten million people in America with a neurospicy brain.
I am so excited that they are here and so excited to ask all of the questions. Let's get to it. Well, Hi, guys, welcome, Thank you so much for joining me.
Today, Thanks for having us for excited.
Well, gosh, I mean, you guys have obviously so much history. You've been married for nineteen years, and as you say, you have a news background, you have this whole incredible life you've created, and the things that you make and the content that you produce. I want to like, I want to go back before we catch up to where we are today.
How did you two first meet.
In a bar?
In a bar in North Carolina at Florida? We were Alada.
Yeah, so we were reporters opposite stations in Orlando, Florida.
Oh the competition.
Competition, and everyone says that were just so funny, but like we were the only people awake. Yeah, Tuesday night and it's twelve o'clock and you know, it's midnight and we finally get off work. So thank god there were other stations so we could like talk to other people.
Yeah, yeah, this business is actually very incestuous. So yeah, I met him at a bar. Then, you know, a few months later I saw him. We kind of connected, and then I saw him during the worm on stage and I was like, this man is mine, Like that said it's done. Yeah, that's that's him. Yeah, So that was it, and then we got we were engaged and married, Like we were engaged within nine months and then married nine months later.
So yeah, incredible.
When y'all were growing up, did you envision being public figures? Like, can you sort of see a through line from your childhood dreams to what you do now? Or has everything just taking five left turns and you can't sort of believe this is where we find ourselves today.
I mean, you do have that poster I did stand out in front of The Today Show when I was in high school that said like future NBC News anchor, and Katie Kirk signed it when she was on.
The Today Show.
Oh my god.
You know.
I grew up in a small town in Florida, and I always wanted to be a writer, and I didn't know and I loved comedy, but I just didn't really see a path as a writer besides a newspaper writer or some sort of like television reporter. So I just didn't see a path any other path. And I always yeah, and I always kind of pictured myself behind the scenes on things. So this is weird and a thousand left turns.
I wanted to be a musician for a long time, but I didn't really have the patience to learn a lot of the inside the music. But I felt like I had like a creative side to it. I played in I was part of a lot of music theater growing up in high school, and so that got me into doing a cappella and in a band in college. And I was like, oh, maybe I should be in a band, and my parents were like, what are you talking about, No, you can't be in a band. Go find a real job. And so the closest I could find to a real job that didn't bore me to death was working for a local TV station, which had no real, real musical element to it. But I did. I did that for almost two decades before we started this next just bizarre left turn into the internet, where you can really do whatever you want.
So how did that happen?
How do you go from working in the news to having this digital career?
Yeah, so we question, Yeah, all right, so we I didn't see my kids. I just could. The way that local news works, you either work from three to twelve, like three am to twelve noon, or you work from three pm to midnight. And when your kids are younger than not really going to school, and they're just like balls of you know, skin rolling around everywhere, it's like, well, like I can see them whenever. It's fine, I'll like see them for a long time. But then when they start going off to school, you really don't see them. And so Kim had started a career where she was doing video production for other entities.
Like shooting videos.
Yeah, and well, and because I'd been in sports and in journalism for almost twenty years, I had some experience shooting and editing. And she was like, look, maybe we could just make this work. Like I was a news anchor at the time, but like instead of being a news anchor, you know, I know you know how to shoot and edit, Like you could be my shooter and my editor. I offer you zero benefits, a share of what we make with no salary. What do you think And I was like, great, let's do it.
And so to set the scene there, we had two months in savings, we had two young kids. We were giving up like benefits and a good job, but I was so it was just like a miserable existence. And so that Christmas, so the first video we did.
Our kids were six.
Or and six, and they weren't really sitting still for Christmas card picture. So we decided to make a Christmas video and we would send it around and hopefully like my mom would share it, and then like his aunt would see it, and then maybe local companies would hire us to do their video production. And we he wrote a parody song and it was like in my Christmas Jammis and it went like crazy viral and it was on all the news shows and all that stuff. So that video, actually that changed our lives because after that, it still took us several years to figure out how we're doing what we're doing now, But that we got like ten thousand emails for people who wanted to hire us for our company.
Yeah.
Well, we put our email on the video, like, hey, we want to if you want to work for us in a while we're dancing work with Doma's car, hire us. Here's our here's our email address. And then so we're so stupid we thought like maybe our you know, parents, We put our home address on it, our driver's license, you know, was our car license plate was on there. So like a lot of our personal information was on this video. They got somewhat million people, and so that sucked when we had to figure out how to Yeah, we learned some lessons, but it also.
Learned some lessons and probably moved.
Yeah we moved, but but it it did allow us to start like a new direction of just being creative on the internet. However, we wanted that's not cool, not being beholden to eleven pm deadlines.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's also so interesting to me. Two things that really stand out that you've said knowing about the new book is then you said that you never had the patients are in the instruments. I'm like, oh, the graveyard have failed hobbies, were never executed? Hobbies that exists all over my home, the stacks of books, oh dear. And then you also said it's taking you a it took you a couple of years from that video to sort of figure out what your thing was. And for folks with ADHD, like not knowing what it is immediately or not being really good at it right away can be the reason that we quit things. So I'm fascinated that you were able to take some time.
Did that feel like.
Did that time feel like an exciting journey, almost like being at a TV station and learning something in real time? Or was it torture for you? And she kept you on track? Like how did that work?
Yeah, it's so interesting. So I think that I really never found the way to see the world from thirty thousand feet above, you know, like a good project manager would do. I just kept doing, like, oh wait, I did something that worked, squirrel, what's the next thing that I'm going to find and do like I'm just repeat, repeat, I'm gonna do this again. And in some ways that worked. It helped build our audience up, but we didn't do it with a ton of consistency, and we were still doing all the things we promised people on that video that we would do, which is like make videos for the dentist office down the street, but.
We made videos like we weren't in them, but we were like behind the scene producing commercials for like companies and brands.
But we had the most fun when we just put everything down and we figured it, this is just going to be like a free thing that we're not going to make any money on because we didn't know how to monetize videos like hey, let's do something about let's do another parody. And those parodies kept doing well and they kept you know, making national news and they kept building up our audience. So for me, really what it was was not taking a minute to stop and say where are we going with this? The question of death right exactly.
Yeah.
I would ask him like where do you see yourself in five years? Where do you think this is going? And he's like, oh, Vicky, like I don't want to answer that I don't know. Yeah, so I think it's the fact that he didn't allow himself to zoom out. And I didn't know. I mean, who knew ten years ago that the internet would look like it does today? So like I didn't have I wasn't smart enough to know what sort of platforms would exist.
So that's so interesting.
We'll be back in just a minute after a few words from our favorite sponsors.
And how did you guys.
Now when you kind of look at what you've built, how do you determine.
Where your boundaries go?
Because, like you said, that first video went in all these places you didn't think it would.
People figured out where you lived. You literally had to move.
What what is the kind of filter that you pass opportunities through or or that you make decisions on what to share, what not to share? How much of your life you know, especially because it's like to your real life, it's your personal life, it's your marriage, it's your family. You you love this stuff, but also it's a weird world out there. How do you make sense of that tornado?
Well, we quickly set boundaries around our children. We were aware that when this video went out and our kids were on it that we didn't give them a choice whether or not they wanted to be in a twenty million via video because we didn't know it was going to have that many. So that was the start. You see a lot less of them as if you look through the ten years we've been doing this as time goes on. For a long time, it's been they have to either well they have to want to be on it. Uh, And a lot of times that's always been yeah, that's I mean, yeah, that's always been the case. In addition, like if they asked to be on it, a lot of times we'll say this isn't really appropriate, like this isn't this is too much exposure. But a lot of times are these brand deals that come to us and they're those are, to my in my opinion, like a little more harmless. And those videos they get paid and so they have they have a really nice college fund now because they've been is part of their living. And my kids spoiler alert kids really like money money.
So I will see they get a paycheck from us, and they always have. So like that first video, once we finally realized how to turn on monetization, like they have Coogan accounts, you know, what I mean, like they have so I'm sure we've screwed our kids up. Oh yeah, hundred percent.
Everywhere everybody does. That's not that's.
Yeah, it's but I will say they're gonna have bank, they're gonna be able to pay for therapy. So they are I joke, they're coin operated because when they get low on cash because they're now fourteen and seventeen, they're like, oh, they're pitching videos to us because they know they have a baseline of money they make just because they are in existing videos. But they're like, hey, mom, what if we did because they just want to make some more money. So it's but the other boundaries, it's a really good question because we had none and didn't know how to really do that in the beginning because I don't think we were. We weren't thinking big picture enough. We weren't thinking about any of this, And I have regrets around that. I have regrets around how much my kids were in videos and all of that. We've deleted some, we've hid some, but now like we don't we very rarely show our bedroom we're using like a guest bedroom. We're very there's like spaces in our houses that are in our house that are private that you'll never see, but again, it is our house, so it is super weird. We close the laptops around like five o'clock and that's it, and it's like no work talk. We try to really limit that discussion in our marriage, Like we went to marriage counseling and that was one of the things like we needed to shut like it is like product is our life and it's very authentically us, but that can't be driving what our conversation is on a date night. So definitely work in progress and we had a lot of work to do on that.
I think that's really beautiful though, because at the end of the day, there's no guidebook for this. And when you talk about like, oh we regret fill in the blank from early days, like I feel that in my bones. And something I've also learned as an adult diagnosed with ADHD PEN.
Is that like the justice complex.
That can come with being a little neurospicy, I love that about myself, Like that that makes me an activist, It makes me a good journalist.
It does all these things.
But that obsession with truth when I was like when I'd been twenty one for nine days and then I got on a TV show, and I went from like co sharing a philanthropic thing at my college to like being on television.
I had no idea what I was doing.
I didn't know I didn't have to answer everybody's question ends and interviews. I didn't know that I shouldn't just be open about my personal life, Like I didn't understand the business of any of it, and that the obsession that that created that I sort of got like used as product for for an early aughts TV show, like as an adult person who has done all of the wonderful things.
I've done and like you know, built schools.
And interviewed vice presidents and like just the things that I'm so proud of, Like the the personal life obsession chases me because it makes money for tabloids and I'm like, there is so much more interesting shit that I do. But like, okay, so when you talk about that, like, oh, we regret this and we try to shift it, Like I have the same thing. I regret that there was no crash course to teach me what I didn't know, because I have to kind of retroactively trying to go back shift, refuse to answer questions like redirect conversations that I'm like, man, if anybody taught any of us who were getting into the world of media that loves to feed on our personal lives, like if anybody gave us like a ten page guidebook, it would have been great.
But don't you think like early Oughts, especially that is when like the Perez Hiltons of the world were coming up, like you didn't know it yet, there was no guidebook.
It was bad because that we.
Didn't we didn't know as consumers that that, Oh, that's really inappropriate for us to see this and know this about this person. I think it's maybe it's better now, I mean, I but like I know, I know with kids are better, but there's some things that it's just Yeah.
So you started that conversation by talking about this sort of like inner voice, this InterVoice of justice that you have.
Yeah. Do you have that too?
Yeah? Yeah, but I want to know for you like that when I have it, I it conflicts with the part of my ADHD that I think I've learned to control but not completely. And that's like the emotional flooding when I get really really upset about something where I get like fixed by something emotionally, what was it like for you when you were twenty one?
Oh?
What was the emotional slud? Like?
It was so hard and and you know, being for us. I talk about this a lot with my best friend from my first job. You know, she had a little more experience because she'd been hired in college as a VJ on MTV. She was going to school in New York, and so.
She kind of got to know the music scene. So she came into our show with like a little bit of knowledge. I was like, bitch, I came onto.
Our show three years after I graduated from an all girls school with fifty five girls in my graduating class, Like, I didn't know anything about anything, and it you know, it's interesting for us because the thing we had in common was that we were you're expected to be so professional, like you're the lead on a television show, and so I kind of just followed a lot of what she did. I was like, that's a mark.
Okay.
I stand on the thing with a tape on the floor shaped like a tea, Like, all right, which color is my mark?
Okay?
You know you there was this sense of like I can't let anyone know I'm just a kid, because I'm twenty one, damn it, and I'm an adult, and so there was a lot that we didn't even know to ask for help on. And I think the folks who realized they could make you know, so much money on naive kids loved that they could be like, well, this is how it goes, and we'd be like, okay, it wasn't really we had no idea. It wasn't really until later jobs where we were like, oh wait, this set, this functions very differently than where I come from. This feels like professional. What do you mean the writers want to meet with me to talk to me about my story arc. You're not just going to like hand me a script on a Tuesday and tell me to start acting it on a Wednesday. Really, like, there were all these things that we just didn't know, And so I think that's that for me. Is what comes up when I think about your question, Like the emotional flooding, I think I could excuse with oh, well, of course, I'm really overwhelmed. This is really overwhelming. I just went from taking college classes to filming eighteen hours a day on a TV show, Like, of course, I'm really overwhelmed. I moved away from my parents and every single person I know, and I barely have time to talk to anyone who knows me. Of course, I'm overwhelmed.
Like I didn't.
I didn't get the difference because there were so many things that I think could excuse the big feelings. Yeah, and when you go to work, you get trained, like to perform well, to be a good soldier, to like always be cheery and whatever. So especially for me understanding how that these versions of neurospiciness present differently in women and often are easier for women to mask because we've been raised being told to mask our emotions, our whole lives, to be good girls. I was like, oh, man, we really like us ADHD girls get really set up to fail. And then I was sort of it really blew my mind in a good way as an adult, to go, Oh, the things that I feel so much shame about in my life are actually not indicators of my willpower, my strength, my intelligence, any of it. It's hard for me to see time as linear. I see it as a vertical stack, and it's very overwhelming to me. Oh, okay, that's why to do lists can feel hard to tackle. I don't know what's the most important thing I have to talk through it and reorganize my to do lists into chunks, and like some of my friends just don't have to do that.
But it took me a long.
Time to learn that I wasn't too sensitive or biting off more than I could chew, or too smart for my own good. Because I am a language person. I do like when you said, I don't like to zoom out. Where I zoom out is on like politics, policy, society, justice, activism. So I can zoom out and stay in my like nerdy little data land all day because then I don't have to really feel my feelings either. Oh so the whole Like, now that I see it all, it's kind of like someone gave a kid who who can't see a pair of glasses.
I was like, oh my god, is this what leaves look like on trees?
Yeah?
I just thought it was like a green blob. Like now that I get it, I get it.
Yeah.
Yeah, I've felt that way since working on this book. Just like that learning about how my brain works. Right, because most people you explained to women, you know, they are trained to and are very good at internalizing their difficulties. They go undiagnosed three times more than men minorities same, a very similar situation. So of course it's like the loud you know, white kids running around that getting all the medicine. I ended up being like more inattentive than hyperactive, So I wasn't diagnosed until I was much older either. But when I learned, Okay, the reason why I am unable to make it through a task is because my brain is it has a bunch of on and off switches. They're not dimmers like on a light mixing board that you can bring up like twenty percent of each one of them in a perfect composition of all these eight lights or things going on. I've got a bunch of on off switches and when I turned one of them on, the rest of them turn off. Yeah, and I got to go find them. They've left my working memory and just like living for forty five years because even when I got diagnosed, no one explained this to me. They just handed me some Dexadron, which, by the way, is like, no, it's like meth They speed God like, that's what they gave them. A little is not good for you.
Well, it got me through college and then I took myself office.
Yeah, I took myself off of it after a little while, but I never really understood it. So I interview a gajillion psychologist for this book. They explain that part of my brain and it's just like you talking about putting on glasses. Holy crap, that's how this works. Okay, Now, what like, how can I get to work to keep the systems in check so that the other part of our brains sofia, which are wildly spontaneous and creative, and the reason you've been so successful not only in your former acting career but in your ability to express yourself in this new career. Those things come out now that you're able to keep the other systems in check and also keep your emotional flooding in check.
M h, Well, it's even a thing for me, like learning the I am so motivated by so many things, Like I've had to visualize my career into a couple of buckets, and then I try to apply my creative skills to them instead of feel like I'm just not quite capable of doing any one thing. It's like, no, my superpower is actually that I can focus on a bunch of different things and be additive to all of them. So I have my day job, I have my film and television career, and now that I'm also producing things that I act in, Oh my God, like music to a ADHD person's ears. And then I've got this political bucket of you know, causes big and small that I love to work on. That's really what led me into the financial activism for women and working with the first Women's Bank and running this fund with my best friend, Like I have figured out how to when those switches turn on, build system around them that help keep me going, because if I try to do it all alone, like people whose brains are wired like us, we are not lone wolves.
We are not. That's not for me. I need my humans.
So it's like I produce TV with two of my best friends now, and I do this financial work with my best friend whose son is my godson and like the literal light of my life. And I have my team that I do political work with. And when I work in cohort with my humans, it's it's like my brain is being stimulated really well all the time. But having folks who see time in a linear fashion as opposed to a vertical fashion like me, means they can say, like, don't get overwhelmed. This is the next task, And I'm like, great, if you just tell me what it is, I can go do it. But if you ask me to pick, it's like it's like putting a person without a driver's license in one of those Parisian roundabouts, Like.
Good luck, there's nine roads in.
A certain How in God's name do you expect me to know how to navigate this? Like I realize other people have intersections and I have roundabouts, and that's okay.
I've never heard someone say they the vertical? Is that how you see time?
I definitely don't see it linear.
I call it time blindness.
Yea, but that, oh big time.
He doesn't And your list, your to do list? He put forty seven things on a to do list. I'm like, the laws of space and time still apply to you, Like you cannot get to all of these things, like he he is blind, love you, babe to the amount of time things will actually take.
But I've never heard somebody say vertical.
And that's such like a cool way to like talk about the differences, like of course it's a straight line in front of you, but no, it's not at all for you.
Yeah, and time blindness is so real.
Like this is going to sound wild, but I have actually so that my brain can understand. Like, if you look at my calendar, it's horrible to look at there's too much going on. But because of that, like if I see a blank space in the calendar, I'm gonna fill it.
So I have had to even start.
Like when I do a day like today and I block podcasts, I will put an eight minute break in between the two interviews in my Google calendar. And people are like, why are you doing that? Because if I don't, I won't pee and I won't eat.
Yeah, Like, I have to do that.
If I have a meeting and it's not on Zoom, I put the drive time before and after the meeting in my calendar because if I don't, I will think I can do something during that time and that's not physically possible because I can't teleport.
Yeah, you need to probably the drive. That is a good strategy. You need to put drive time in your calendar.
It really helps.
Yeah, because hell, the meeting will be at two and again we live in Rawleigh and we don't live in LA but it'll be one fifty seven and he'll be like, I got it.
You do not got it.
You don't got it.
You do not gotimes sometimes at it, but I do know the times you do not got it.
Yeah, And what I did, like I don't know if you love to color code things, Penn, I do like I have one color in my calendar, like in the drop down of you know, twelve colors you can pick. That's just for real time, so like driving a food break, so.
I know, I'm like, no, no, no, that is real.
Like if it says on my phone it's going to take me twenty seven minutes to drive to a meeting. I put thirty five minutes in the calendar just in case, and it's just in there, and I know that it's like a way I can push back against my inner adolescent.
That's like I could beat that.
And I'm like, no, because my inner thirteen year old is combative and I'm forty one and I need to be responsible.
So I want to talk to you about that because that that's been one of the biggest breakthroughs for me over the last couple of years. And I think that a lot of adh people struggle with this, and if they're listening, obviously accepting the fact that easy stuff is going to be hard for us. That inner thirteen year old is always combative, right, and sometimes that lasts all the way until you take your dying breath. Just like I'm not going to make a calendar. I'm not going to make a checklist, mom, I'm not going to make a list of brush my teeth at the end of this is for say, like a ten year old kid, but I do. It makes it easier for me to accept that the easy stuff is hard for me when I remember that our type of brain, a lot of times the hard stuff is easy for us. So exactly the other way.
We'll be back in just a minute. But here's a word from our sponsors. Well, and that's the thing is, I've had to realize that it's a ratio game and everybody has it. And in the way that I can remember data political fact, explain to you how an injustice here is tied to an injustice here, and it all traces back to the nineteen sixties. Because of this, and did you know what happened with women in Iceland in nineteen ninety four when they did the walk out of work? And people are like you are like a freaky genius. I'm like, sure, that's my superpower. But I will forget to drink water if I carry this. I literally brought props for today.
I'm friends at home.
This is a big, solid metal water bottle that I'm showing my lovely guests. If I carry this around, this has been full for two days. I won't drink it because I can't see it. I don't know how much water is in there, and it might as well be that could be.
It could be a lamp. Yes, but Mason.
From Home Goods changed my life because this is thirty two ounces of water and I've had two of these today because I can see it, and if I'm looking at it and the water has been at the B line for two hours, I know I'm not hydrated.
This is why the magnets work so well.
So he has a magnet he has on top of his car well because he's a giant and he can see the top of his car. But it doesn't actually hold anything. But it's just a visual cueue of don't put my coffee cup there, because we were losing coffee cups on the daily because you know, you like just you're caring.
All set it down and then you forget yeah.
And there's a there's a magnet on the dryer of like take my he has to take his inhaler and chaps to stick out before he's doing lunching like those like visual cue, extreme solutions smart.
So part of what really helped me crack that my brain was wired a little differently because again I think, especially for women, we we are so good at masking that we often don't get diagnosed. And you know, and I don't say this to be like ooh, amazing, like, because one thing I've also learned about ADHD is the intense shame spiral.
Like nobody's meaner to me than me, to be clear, So anyone.
Who thinks what I'm about to say is like egotistical, I'm like check that, check that at the door. But the level of intellectual capacity that I have, my love of language, eloquence and you know, memory for facts was also People were like, you're way too smart to have a learning disability. But I cannot remember those simple little things. I don't know where the car keys go, I don't know why I picked up my phone. I'll walk into a room to do something and it's gone. And something that actually helped me start to hack it years ago.
I read that book.
Atomic Habits, Yeah, James Clair, And when James Clear started talking about habit stacking, I was like, oh, and the visual queuing. If I fill up a mason jar with water and I put it next to the sink on my way to bed, like from the kitchen, I leave it in the bathroom, I go to bed, then as soon as I brush my teeth in the morning, I'll drink a jar a water because drinking water is really hard for me to remember. And that seems so silly, but like it has health impacts.
Yeah, no, yeah, like the easy stuff is hard.
Yeah, that's it.
And so then it got to be really interesting. And that was a clue for my doctor, who was like, oh, the visual clues are a that's a key hole for you to look through. And that was one of the things that really helped lead us to a diagnosis for me, because you know, they have to add up all the things and see if it sticks. So how do you decide, I mean decide or maybe Kim, you said you should get checked out for this, Like how did it happen? How did you start to figure it out?
Well?
I got diagnosed when I was in college, oh, you said that.
That's right.
But but it's like I can answer your question because there were kind of two phases of my ADHD. Phase one was college. I was on academic probation twice at we'll name drop Katie Correct at Katie Couric School a little bit younger, but like it just didn't work for me, these big auditoriums where I wasn't in front of the class, like you know, I'm always one of my biggest hacks in high school was I sat front and center or else I would space out. And it's possible in college. And so I'm starting to think maybe there's something that I need to I need to talk to a doctor. And then my grandmother died. I was at her funeral and the family was all sitting around talking about what are we gonna do about our beach trip, you know, our family beach trip. And I was getting sad and thinking about that, and my aunt Zell goes pen, this is a really emotional conversation. I can't concentrate because you're chewing on a fly swatter right now. So I had a used fly swatter in my mouth and I was chewing on it. Wow, And so I'm like there's something that needs to get checked out. So that was your habit, your habit stacking mine was I was chewing on a fly swatter when talking about a difficult subject in My psychiatrist was like, that's emotional dysregulation, that's fixation. That's all Like he's you've got ADHD. Congratulations, here's this medicine. This will help you with emotional regulation, This will help you with conversations, this will help you with everything. It did all the things that he said it would do. I took myself off of it after about a year because I felt personally like the side of my brain, the creative side, which really specialized in taking everything in and not keeping it out, like letting it come into me, was the reason that I was able to create musically. So I took myself off. And all of that is to say I took medicine. I took myself off of it. I found a job in television where like micro deadlines really help and they're good for an ADHD person. I did nothing to put any systems in place. Right when I first met Kim, I lived in a house that had one towel, And you want to talk about the towel.
Well no, it's like, well, you use it, you're clean when you get out of the tower. It's like self cleaning. Why would you need more than one towel. I think that's less ADHD and more just poor hygiene.
Okay, maybe no.
I do think that his ability to kind of his I think a lot of our success is tied to the fact that he allows all of the and his brain allows him just like you like all these ideas on everything. Try telling him he can only do one thing, but that's not going to happen.
And and you have this.
So Penn also has this crazy memory. He can if he looks at something, he can remember it. And so ADHD folks, they don't have a lack of attention. They have an abundance of attention. It just has to be something they care about. So for you it's your activism and the politics and the history of it. And for Penn it's like weird movie quotes and music.
So it's a lot of it. So that was phase one. Phase one was college, got through it, managed to somehow marry a woman way above my way whatever, out kicked my whatever it was. And then like really the second phase was when we started a company together and I was kids and my executive functioning redline. It really did, like stuff started falling through the cracks. I was leaving stoves on as I left to drop my kids off at school, and like almost burning the house down. I was forgetting he's leaving him in the cars, realizing that like if you do that, someone could not only break into your car, they could get into your house. Like there were there were danger issues with my IDOHG because I was getting overtaxed. And so that was like I think our next step where you were asking if Kim did something, I think when when we decided to write this book. I think Kim knew that this was going to be a form of therapy for me earn what was going on in my brain, to understand it, and that that would empower me to put those systems in place that you just talked about, those sort of sorts of a time habits that can help get the most out of my brain. I just spoke for you.
I'm sorry, yeah, do it. Man's plain away.
That's not like man's plainning.
No no, no, no, help me out.
With man's planning. I get accused of man's planning.
Sometimes I don't know it as a joke because you okay, good, You're good.
Well.
One of the things I've learned too about the way our brains work is that it often comes with a desire to over explain, to make sure that other people understand what's going on in our brains, where you're like, no, no, I get it, Like I know I'm the odd man out, but I'm also.
In on it. So let me tell you this thing.
And I feel so lucky that you know, some of my best friends have been on this journey with me. Every so often we'll look at me and go, I must stop you there, I get it, I'm with you, and I'm like, okay, I'm going to stop talking because I'm just still talking. It's yeah, I'm like, I just want to make sure we're on the same page, because I know I'm always on another page and people are like, you're.
Fine, has calmed down, You're good.
But I find it funny on that topic, like I love watching the way you guys banter together and talk about this, And also that you knew that this would be good for both of you writing this book, because Kim, You've said that so many of the things that you were initially and are attracted to about Penn were because of his ADHD. So like as a neurotypical partner of a neurospicy human, like, what is what's your perspective? Like what do you think those positive qualities are? And how do you work around the fact that you're human is wired differently than you?
Great question.
Yeah, I mean he's spontaneous and hilarious and he was interested in so many things which made him interesting to me. So like all of those things, sign me up. And yeah, when there was like we had two kids and people would joke, oh, it's like you have three kids, I'm like, that isn't actually not funny, not at all. He's he's a very good partner, I will say I in doing the research, this took us five years, and doing the research, I think the most impactful thing I learned was about the adh deer's working memory. So I used to get very deeply offended when you know, we went on vacation one time and we were all kind of sitting all over the plane. It was at carry on suitcase situation. We get off the plane in Florida and he didn't have a suitcase he's like, Babe, I just left it in the boarding area I have I have no idea where I put it. So like things like that would happen. We would find the milk in the pantry and the keys and wherever, and I'd get offended and really.
Pissed off, right so rightfully.
So I learned that the adhders like things aren't stored in your working memory the same they are in mine. So he walks in the door and one shoe goes here he sees food because he wants food now, and that's the priority.
The other shoe goes I don't know the key in the pantry.
The keys get left in the refrigerator because he's taking like the rotisserie chicken out to like eat it. And one time I walk downstairs and there was like a rotisserie chicken carcass on the counter and his pants were on the ground, and I'm like, I'm just trying to, like CSI recreate what happened last night, and he's like, I'm done with my pants, I'll take them off and leave them here. But none of that entered his working memory, so he has no memory of leaving the keys in the fridge, like it doesn't exist in his memory because so he can remember all these really big hard things, but not where he put his keys.
See, when I learned that there.
Was actual science to back that up, I could offer grace, and so I deal with some anxiety and OZD. So he offers me grace around that. But when it comes to him not being able to find his inhaler for the day, like it's an explanation, not an excuse, I don't like run and jump in and act as his executive funk all the time, but I could offer grace around the situation because I just understand it more.
Yeah, it's funny.
It's like I think people can who can make space for each other in that way probably really level up as a duo. Like you start to do that thing where the unit is greater than the sum of its parts. And I find that to be really inspiring. And it also makes me think, like I actually think maybe this is just because I've been rewatching the West Wing. I'm like, God, people with ADHD would probably make such great like presidents because they could be in charge of all the big thoughts and then they'd have like all the chiefs of staff like handing them the things they'd leave behind them otherwise. I'm just like, I'm like, maybe Martin Sheen.
Had ADHD, didn't have ADHD.
She has to write and like, yeah, he's he's so freaky, like freakishly smart that he must That's what it is.
That's obviously what it is.
Let's diagnose them.
It's yeah, okay, great, And now a word from our sponsors who make this show possible. I find it really fascinating too, because like, y'all have to figure out how to navigate this stuff together. And I love that you frame it as being awesome, as being kind of a superpower, because I actually think it is, you know, and when we realize that for us as adults we're figuring this out. I also know thanks to you guys, that you know, more than one in ten children in the US are being diagnosed with ADHD, and I know your son has ADHD. So I'm really curious what the experience is like for you guys as a family to help him hack this stuff earlier, to maybe not have to do a round two as like a husband, to figure out in your adult life how to manage it, but to grow up with tools and because you're helping him grow up with the tools that you perhaps didn't have. How it makes you look at like the school system and what he needs not just in your house but outside of your house.
Well, starting just with him. I think it's really weird. Very early on, when I suspected that he had ADHD, I fell into a trap. I don't know, like maybe I need to go see a therapist about this of being like not wanting him to do what it was that I did, because this was before I went down this journey five years ago, like, oh, he may have this brain like, dude, stop chewing on your shirt. It's like it because I have this thing where I would chew on it was apparently an ADHD esque thing because of your fidgetiness. When I'm concentrating, concentrating, I chew on my shirt and get like.
A huge when he was a yes, and I'd never seen cheek yeah okay yeah, And so I see my son doing it, I'm like, dude, I stop.
And then you know, I realized many years later that that's not that's not a bad things. It's our way of releasing some nervous energy. It's also a way to stave off distraction and stay focused on something, and so all of these things, like you know, he still did it after I learned this, all of these things that I learned as a parent about like the right way not to punish someone for the way that their brain is. That'll help out a little bit. We've been very open in all of this book studying, and we've written a book that we think is readable by a fourteen year old kid, maybe even a ten year old kid. We have eight year old who reading the book because we put a bunch of color and a lot of graphics and a lot of brain breaks into it. Having said that, I know that there's going to be some times that he struggles, and I know he's going to be guilty of being his own worst critic, like you said not too long ago. So those are the things really trying to keep in check, right.
I will say that when we were in the office and got his official diagnosis, we were already doing the research for this book. So I'm already thinking, yeah, ADHD has many downsides. It can totally suck. But I was like, no, it's awesome. We're gonna we're gonna reframe this. But I got the diagnosis and it came to us as if it was like this really hard medical diagnosis and we left the office kind of bummed out and sad, and like when you're thinking, oh my gosh, my son's life is going to be hard, like what is going to be This is going to be a struggle for him. And we really had actively as a family re train and reframe our brains even though we were already living it and already already doing that work. But this shame spiral, I like, my heart breaks when he starts to feel that shame. So like, yeah, something that was taught to me and we learned is to offer connection instead of correction. So he's a brilliant kid. He would do his homework but not turn it in yep, And I would get pissed off and I'd be like why you know, and I'd snap and he off, Like the shame spire would start. Now it's hey, that must be really frustrating to have done all that work and now you're not going to get credit.
What do you think we can do?
Like, I've offered connection and our relationship has totally softened because he feels safe with me to be like mom, can you believe it? He'll call me from school like, Mom, I forgot my lunch again today. I'm like, I got you buddy, Like he feels safe to talk to me about these missteps.
Yeah, instead of trying to hide them.
Instead of trying to hide them. Yeah.
And there's two ways the spiral can go right, like the downward spiral. You mess up, your parent or your loved one gets mad at you. You get ashamed. You mess up again, you're already feeling bad about yourself, you know, get more ashamed and more ashamed than it's all downhill if you. If you mess up and someone gives you grace and gives you encouragement, then you're much more likely to work hard to keep it from happening again and things start improving. Yeah, and that's a way better spiral.
Absolutely, And by the way, that's true for everyone, no matter how you're wired.
That's true.
But the idea that you could offer someone, hey, that's okay, what if we did this instead of what are you doing?
Yeah, Like, nobody.
Likes likes option B, but we don't. We certainly don't handle it well because we internalize it. And that's another thing, Like I just sort of always assumed everybody felt this way, and I think it certainly made me resilient because I was like, well, better get on with it, Like I've got shit to do.
You know, I'm gonna go make.
A TV show, in a movie and a thing, you know whatever. Like I've done so many things that I'm so proud of.
And like, oh, maybe I didn't need to white knuckle through all of.
That so hard. Like I probably could have done just as much cool shit without feeling like I was on the receiving end of a like a fire.
Hose most of the time.
But you still have so much more of your life to enjoy without the well.
And that's it, and that's absolutely it, and that's why I think, like, you know, the book is so exciting. I think it's so cool that not only you know, did you guys as a family unit choose this as an undertaking, but you know, you did what you do with so much of your work and your profile and your platform in general, which is welcome us into it and like offer things to others. I find it to be so incredibly generous. So bless bless our Saint of Katie Kirk for bringing us together here on.
This podcast today.
I would love to ask you my favorite question to ask everybody, which is whether it's personal, professional, big small. From where you sit today, what feels like your work in progress?
You go listening, I want to be a better listener. I have this brain. It is a wonderful brain. It is constant. So my brain is the neurotypical brain is like a VIP party with like a bouncer and one of those velvet ropes, and it knows how to keep out things, let in certain things at certain times. My brain is Coachella. It's an open air party. You can feel the wind and the rain lightening, and everyone's invited and it is a wonderful place to be. So really, most of my time when I'm awake, I am bouncing from fascinating possibility to fascinating possibility. Ding ding ding. Yeah. I think about space and asteroid mining in the universe at least six times a day, and it's my favorite times in the day. Sometimes it happens when someone's trying to tell me something really important. Yeah, and I and so I know that I have to work on it. And I also know that all of these wonderful things that I'm thinking of are great and they're the reason for creativity in my job, but I could really enrich my life if I knew more about the people around me. So I should just like, it's not that I'm talking. I should shut my brain up every once in a while and really work hard at trying to listen more and learn more, because is really the best part of the world are the other people that are in it, not asteroids.
That's cool, but.
You really did circle babe five five.
You're in the state of flight and you landed the plane.
It's you know, people with ADHD, they can be like about to land. Yeah, they just.
My work in progress so much. I mean, I've found a new therapists, so there's a lot of what I'm working on. But my assignment from my new therapist is I'm going to not I have this habit of I say it's fine, it's fine, everything's fine when it's not fine. So I'm trying to label and name emotions. I'm feeling like, I'm happy and excited, grateful to meet you and other Yeah, I'm trying to name that.
So that's what I'm working on.
I love that sures.
Oh gosh, you know, it's interesting that you say the thing about listening, because listening is one of my favorite things to do, and I think because of my job, like I find artistry in really being present and having an emotional reaction to the unexpected thing I hear. I don't struggle so much with like a random topic distraction though I literally have like a symbol from the Golden Record tattooed on my arms. So if you want to talk about space obsessions, we're going to.
Have a follow up, let's say we'll go off one.
But but what I have is hard time with which now I understand to be like part of this sort of neuro wiring is if you say something and I have something to share, which that for me, fosters connection.
I don't want to interrupt.
But I really, really really want to tell you the thing that you made me think of because of your great story, because to me, that's like real connection.
But you're not done.
Talking, and so to be able to take a deep breath and wait and be okay with risking that by the time you finish your story, I'm probably not going to remember this thing. I'm so excited to tell you because you'll have made me think of something else, Like that's really okay. What I'm excited to tell you, it can be a blip or it can be a thing that gets said, And like, honestly, either outcome is probably not going to change your life, and it's probably not going to change mine either. Like it's all right. And I have had to learn that my love of connecting with people does not need to supersede the normal cadence of conversation. Because when I do that, and when I get into like a very neurospicy like yeah, yeah, and do you know or I heard this thing or I read this article in the Atlanta last week and you're really gonna like it, people are like, what.
The fuck is wrong with her? You know?
And and it's I just have to like take a breath, and it's all good. We're already here, we're already talking. I don't have to prove anything. We're fine.
Well, without even meaning to, You've really helped me out there by explaining that because I'm guilty of the same thing.
For sure.
He heard whatever space tattoo and he's like, oh my gosh, I have to tell her about Yeah, he.
Read Kim knows what I'm about to do it at dinner and she just jams.
It's just.
A couple because I find interrupting people incredibly.
I just find it.
In some cases, sometimes it's a fun continuation, like kind of kinetic energy. I love that too. But sometimes I'm like, we're just we're just meeting these people.
Yeah, just wait, Yeah, that's It's like I've trained enough puppies through the course of my life to know that when you say something and I want to tell you why, I know something about that, or basically say, oh my gosh, me too, Like that's like the excited puppy. That's like sitting there begging for a treat, and it's like you just have to wait your turn, small end, and like being able to kind of for me at least a sign a metaphorical identity to my puppy response and also to my like rebellious, sassy thirteen year old that the minute it hits ten thirty one pm, and I was ready for bed at ten twenty six, but ten thirty is my teenage witching hour, and I'm like, nobody can make.
Me go to bed.
I'm going to watch a whole show till five o'clock in the morning. Like I can't let her drive the car. She needs to be put to sleep.
She needs go to bed, like.
I have to put I me adult Sophia has to you forcibly put thirteen year old me to bed every single night, every night.
Yeah, I mean by my my trainer Kim has to shock Coller me under the table talking that puppy metaphor was actually hit for you.
Yeah yeah, And like if you think of it, if you think of that thing in you as like a sweet little puppy, it's adorable and you can have, like at least for me.
I won't generalize. I can have. I can have.
Empathy for it. And I think being in healthy partnership does it too. Like the number of times a day my partner will grab me by the face and be like you sweet little adhd baby, like I love how quirky you are, and just kiss me. And I'm like, okay, I know I'm so weird. And she's like, you're my favorite kind of weird. I'm like, okay, all right, all right, well look at that, like there really is a shoe for every foot, and like you need your yours to like jab you under the table to calm you down, and that's okay, that's love.
Actually, him, my human gold and retriever though, because he is very excitable and he'll probably lick you. No, I'm kidding, but he will, yeah.
Energetically.
And metaphorically, not right on the face. Yeah, like this is we're coming to a really weird landing. It's the kind of landing I like to get back.
I like the world would be without these spicy brains.
I mean, yeah, you just did something for me.
I didn't interrupt earlier when I really wanted to, and I didn't because, first of all, I figured you'd read it, but you reminded me how boring the world would be.
When we were talking.
About the stats around diagnosis, it made me think. I think it was maybe last month. I don't know if it was the New York Times or Popular Science or whatever, but an article hit about how scientists now think that ADHD was an evolutionary change, like a superpower for hunter gatherers to survive, and.
I was like, see, we are humans. I got very excited. So you know, the world does need us, or maybe we would all starve.
We're probably here today because of some ADHD people who are like, I see those berries, those look kind of weird.
I'm not gonna eat those. I'm gonna go over here.
Yeah yeah, so thanks guys.
You know you're welcome. Guys, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been so much fun. Next time I'm in North Carolina, we all got to get a meal.
I would love that.
I would love that
Assass
