This is a section that has been, like, really screamed out for, if I'm honest. Like, it's so important, ADHD in couples, and particularly helping a a couple thrive. And I'm very excited about it. And so, yeah, let's bring in Jonathan.

Hello, Henry. Hello.

How are you? Great to see you.

Great to see you.

And it's wonderful. So, obviously, this is really jumping. You were in the crossover Australia to UK, and you are in Australia. So it's lovely we've got this crossover. And again, talking about how global this is, I know we've got people in Australia and New Zealand as well as The UK, so across across the world. When we last did a shout out, we got, yeah, almost every continent. Well, I think every continent checked in multiple times. Was wonderful. Tell us what tell us, yeah, what your plan is.

Like, what are we how are we doing this next section? Well, first off, I wanna say I'm I'm on the lovely Gold Coast today because Monica and I were down giving a talk, and I wanna give a quick shout out to the distracted ADHD group run by Amanda Gorman down here on the coast. It's a wonderful education group, and we were very proud to go and and give a brief talk there the other night. So I'm staring out at the most gorgeous ocean and fluffy white clouds, and I wish I could turn the camera around for you. But normally, I'm in Brisbane. Now today, I am oh, and I also wanted to add too. Sorry, Henry. I also wanted to add too. It was very nice to see all the Australians online because I was once a board member of ADHD Australia.

And so it's wonderful to see all the great work that they continue to do and continue to deliver. So very, very nice. It's a bit of a old time week for me watching the conference, believe it or not. So today, I wanted to talk to you about couples and ADHD because as a coach, it it's a very challenging area because you end you often have two people coming to you who are feeling quite injured and and struggling and and generally don't know how to get out of it. And one of the big problems I wanna one of the issues I wanna talk about is that I think that there's too much focus on let's fix the person with ADHD rather than let's fix the relationship with ADHD as a feature in that relationship.

So I wanted to share a little slide deck and talk through that with you today if that's okay.

That's absolutely wonderful. I think that's that's absolutely wonderful. I'll get that up. And we've also got Monica coming in later in the.

Yes. Yes. Yes. She's lurking in a bedroom in the apartment we're in. So we seem to don't distract each other.

Right. I think you've got your slides. So are you going to.

Yeah. Just try them. I'm trying to get them up right now. Window. Oh, here we go. Okay. Share. Oh. I just like oh, I've gotta update my permissions for the recorder and the browser. The joy of, like, sort of doing trend yeah.

The joy of a a technical thing. I'll let you I'll let you you along. And if that doesn't work, email over to me. So I'm gonna let him just do that very quickly and talk some of the comments we've just had coming in after the ADHD and law section talking about, you know, some messaging is still at work, no open plan, no attempt to help me get into work. It's hard enough for me to get a desk facing a wall instead of the whole room, and this isn't guaranteed. It's only if I manage to get to that desk on that day. Like, it's just a really, yeah, really, really tough. And Michelle talking about there needs to be an access to a version of access to work, help people into work being it is true. So there's a huge issue that people.

You can get access to work to help you in the workplace, but getting so be it once you're there, but getting into it or like you don't get your support through the sort of job center and they don't have the same sort of levels of support. And it's very clearly a missing thing. We've got senior members of the Conservative Party labeling us as just sort of benefit scroungers. That's a which is outrageous. It's yeah. It's it's know, you're looking at like, there's there's a place where you could make make a difference helping people into work with ADHD. There's a program to help people once they are there, but clearly getting them there is a big part of it. Do please donate. Like, you've got the things up here. And.

James a Roberts has the award for the the highest donation. It's a 120. You see a board coming up on the left as people do donate. And if you donate over 19 pounds, you get a confetti thing and over 50 pounds. It's well, we just want to celebrate you so you get fireworks. Right. Jonathan shared his screen. So welcome him back. Welcome his screen back. Okay. Over to you.

Thank you. Thank you. Alright. So as I was talking speaking about earlier, I want to talk a little bit about couples and ADHD and how it's important that we we find a way of keeping focus on what's going to help the most in a relationship. So if we start with the premise that we both changed, and when I when I first meet a couple, that's usually one of the first questions I'll ask is, do you feel you're both who you always were or wanted to be? And invariably, the answer is no. We're not. We're both changed because there's been this thing in our relationship which has actually pushed us on a course we weren't expecting. And I should add at this point, let's let's not forget, it's not always just ADHD.

There can be other things going on for both partners. But in this case, if we just keep it simple and say, well, okay, ADHD is the one extra thing that we're looking at in this relationship, what we see is that the act of living with ADHD in the relationship for both the person with ADHD and for their partner actually pushes them both into places that they don't want to be. So if we start there, we first need to understand how we got there. And, you know, this is very much a generalization, so please forgive me if this is not your experience. But very consistently, what I hear from my clients is it started with explaining that the person without ADHD just assumed that the thing that didn't happen was because the person with ADHD.

Didn't have all the information because that's sort of what happens with adults. Right? So if an adult doesn't do something they say they're gonna do, it's usually because they're missing some info. So we start off by explaining to each other. Then over time, it sort of happens again and again, and it shifts into something a little bit more directive. And often, this is where it starts to feel a little bit parental, where the partner without ADHD says, well, okay. They're they're still getting it wrong. So maybe I need to not only give them the information, but also give them some specific direction. Now as you can imagine, for people with ADHD or for anyone, it's not always particularly enjoyable to be directed.

But this is where we're at. And you can see we're already starting to push ourselves off course. Then that evolves into down because what happens over time is the partner without ADHD notices something interesting, that the person with ADHD can do amazing things. We can pull rabbits out of hats if we're interested in it or if we've got a strong enough emotional push to make us pull the rabbit out of hats. In other words, our partner notices that if we like it, we'll do it, or if they get upset enough, we might do it, which leads to the conclusion of, hey. We made a minute. This is a choice because it's not like you can't do these things. It's that you're inconsistent with them. As we know, that's a feature of ADHD.

Being consistently inconsistent. And this starts to evolve into a lot of resentment on both sides, on the partner without ADHD because they say, well, if you cared enough about me, you'd do this stuff or you'd try a bit harder. And the person with ADHD, because they're not delivering the way they wanna deliver, but they feel like that, you know, their intent is being overrun, that that it's being assumed that they don't care or they've they've got, you know, ill intent. So we end up with both of us in a place we didn't wanna be. So that's where we need to start from, to start to redirect and start to resolve these issues as a couple. Then, very often, rolls into perspective because it's quite often that someone will be diagnosed.

As a result of declared problems in a relationship. Now the ADHD becomes this big focus. Oh, if we just fix the ADHD, we'll be all fine. And it puts an inordinate inordinate amount of pressure on the person with ADHD. And it also is incredibly frustrating for the partner because they can't change it. They need their partner to do it. I'd wanna propose to you, though, that the ADHD absolutely exists, but that's the person with ADHD's journey they have. For the partner and the person with ADHD, the relationship needs to be about how do we successfully adapt because guess what? We haven't been. Boom. So what if we reset our focus?

What if we remembered what we were attracted to in each other in the first place? Because you know what? People with ADHD can be pretty attractive people. We're usually pretty interesting. We can be very engaging. We can have a 100% laser focus, particularly on partners when we first meet them and are getting to know them. And our partners are pretty attractive and engaging too. Otherwise, why would we be there? We need to remember what we wanted as a couple. Think back. Where have we are now with however many kids and jobs we've gotten wherever we're living? What do we want as a couple? And I mean, what do we want as a relationship for that couple? Let's reconnect with that. And then let's think about do we want to grow together?

Because that's what this is gonna be. In fact, that's what life is. Right? Except the difference is now we're gonna understand that invisible component in our relationship. We're gonna resolve what that's doing to our relationship and find a far more effective way of adapting. So there's a couple of, I mean, key concepts I really wanna make sure we get across before we launch into this too deeply. First one is people with ADHD do have great relationships. It's just simple as that. It may feel like you're in a dark place. It may feel like how do you ever make this work for either partner. But I can tell you now and certainly from personal experience that we do.

That we need to own our own experience. Both partners have to own what's going on for them, what's triggering them, and what what they put out there in the relationship as well, and we'll talk more about that later. We need to learn to share our relationship experience. So everything that happens as a as a accumulative effect of the relationship is on both of us. So we need to be able to share in the responsibility for that, but also take time to enjoy the fact that we're in this relationship. To achieve change, we must embrace it. Now this is a recurring theme I have in coaching, and I say to everybody at some point, doing something new will feel clunky and weird.

That's just the reality of it. Now with ADHD, we sort of like things to feel intuitive and natural and easy. But the reality is we're learning new systems, and those new systems are really going to support us. It's particularly important to think about these systems and how we're going to use them to affect our lives when we're looking at that as a really key component of how we're going to not only improve our ADHD or the effect of ADHD on us, but improve our relationship. And most importantly, we need to think that our intent is who we are. What we intended to happen is who we want it to be. Our actions are just attempts to meet that intent.

Now, ideally, we want those actions to match our intentions or deliver them. However, that's one of the traps of ADHD. We know that our actions don't always deliver what we intended. So let's focus first on what the intent was because that's actually the tough thing. If good intent is there, and it usually is, then actions are just things we did that we can adapt, but they shouldn't be reflections of who we are. So what are we gonna need to do to keep this focus? First, we have to redefine trust as reliability. And I'm gonna talk a little bit more about each of these things as we go through. So when I work with couples, very commonly, people come and say, I don't trust each other anymore for whatever reason.

What they're really looking for as a solution to that trust is reliability. I can trust you if you do what I expect you to do. We need to find a new way of talking to each other because without exception in couples I've coached, the communication is a core part of the problem in that we're not good at hearing each other and really understanding that that experience is real for that person and starting from that point. So we'll talk a little bit about that. We need to address dealing with the damage because, you know, we've been together for a while. There's gonna be damage. Sure it wasn't intended, but it happened anyway. So we've gotta make sure that we don't just think we're going to sweep that away. We're not gonna carry it as a cross.

But we need to deal with it. We have to remember who we wanna be. We have to commit to our individual journeys. We have to create systems that will support that reliability I mentioned, and we have to make a particular focus on being connected as a couple because, after all, that's why we're here. So let's talk about reliability and trust. One of the common things I I experience with clients is when they walk in, the partner without ADHD often has a shopping list. And that shopping list is of all the things that need to change to prove that that the person with ADHD is now doing the right thing. But when we talk about it and drill down into it, really, it comes back to this trust and the reliability bit. So the list is.

You know, let's understand the partner without ADHD. They've been struggling alongside their partner with ADHD. It's just struggling on either side of the fence. So when they create these lists of, oh, if they could just do this, if they're always on time for picking up the kids, which, by the way, we really should try to do that. But if I'm creating a list, I'm looking for a way of validating that there's change. I'm actually looking for trust. I'm looking for security. For the person with ADHD, that list is a mission of failure. You give me a list of things that I have to tick off, I guarantee I'm gonna fail at one of them. You know, who who wouldn't? So what's the point?

If instead we change it and get rid of the list and say, well, let's go back to what we're really trying to achieve here, which is reliability and trust. So we need three simple things. Do what we commit to. So, ideally, if I say I'm gonna do something, I clarify first that I am committing to doing it because remember, with ADHD, we verbally process. So we can sound like we're committing to stuff when we're really not. We're just thinking it through. So we need to make sure that we're very clear about what we're committing to and what we're not committing to. And then when we are, it's our mission to go and figure out how we can make it happen. Now, obviously, this applies to our partner as well.

But from the perspective of ADHD, this is often challenging. The second part is that guess what? Sometimes it won't happen. It's not not the intent, but sometimes it won't. When it doesn't, we need to be able to own that it that it that it didn't. So we have to think about, well, okay. How can I be able to accept that, yep? Hey. I'll put it in my hand. It didn't happen. I wanted it to happen. And by the way, reflecting first on the intent, I really wanted that to happen, is makes this a lot easier. The second part is, well, let's talk about the actions that didn't did or didn't get in the way. And the third one is we've got to accept best intent from both sides.

If we both come into this with the idea of I'm accepting you want it to happen, I'm accepting that that that this is not how you wanted this to go if it didn't work, then you're gonna find it's much easier for people to own their mistakes and be able to resolve them and fix them whether they've got ADHD or not. We have to create a new way of talking. Now this is one thing I get every couple to do and badger them into doing. Encourage them to understand it. Because one of the first questions I often ask is, when was the last time either of you've truly felt heard by your partner? Often, there's tears at that point, people say, well, I can't remember the last time I felt heard. Maybe when we were dating.

And this is not just on the on the part of the person with ADHD not hearing. It happens from the other partner too because they're not understanding the experience and they go into this telling mode, which, again, we can understand why. We talk through that. But either way, we find both of us are not really hearing each other. We're walking around our own bubbles bouncing off each other. So we have to focus on catching the experience. And this is a little tool I use. You've probably heard multiple variations of this over time. It's often referred to as the talking stick or something similar. I stopped referring to it as the talking stick once I sat down for lunch with a couple of clients.

And they were holding a large pepper grinder rather aggressively. And I said, well, let's not let's not call it that anymore. The listener has responsibility of making the speaker feel understood. So that means the listener paraphrases, asks probing questions, acknowledges feelings and experiences, in other words, what coaches do pretty well every day, but goes in without an agenda. The idea is not to have a plan for or a solution for what's going to happen. We are there to accept what is what they're telling us is real for them and accept the impact on them as real for them as well. It's not our place to solve it. It's our place to stand beside them. And my favorite analogy, being Australian, is that if you have someone lost in the bush.

Or forest, for those in Europe, and you're rescuing them and you can hear each other, you don't tell them to walk towards you because they're probably going to fall off a cliff. What you do is you get them to keep calling out, keep telling you where they are, and you go to them. Now once you're standing beside someone and seeing the world through their eyes, you're gonna find not only is it is it do they feel a lot better, but they generally start solving the problem themselves. So we want to acknowledge, be open, and most of all, be patient. It may take a little while for them to get the words out of help us understand. And, again, this applies to both partners. For the speaker, they also have a responsibility.

They don't just have the floor. They've got a responsibility of making themselves understood, which means we need to be constantly reframing and rephrasing what we're saying so that the person listening to us gets it. This is another thing coaches do repeatedly, particularly with ADHD. We're constantly reframing how we say things to see if we can get it to connect with people. We need to adapt to the listener. Now I know we're technically talking about couples here, but for everyone with kids, take this one home. We need to remember who that person is and most importantly, where they are right now. So.

Don't just say this if I've said the same thing a thousand times, you've probably all heard this. If I've heard that said the same thing a thousand times, it's not the listener that has the problem. It's me. So we need to be aware that our partner is present. We need to be aware that the partner is available to us. Then we need to make sure that the language is in a form that's gonna make sense then, which will mean refinement. And once again, patience. We need to bring patience and kindness to our language so that the person feels engaged even if they're not getting it straight away.

Now I tell couples if they do this every day, I will know within two minutes of them coming to the next session because I can see a difference in how they're interacting with each other, and it's as simple as feeling heard. So we gotta deal with the damage. It happened. It impacted. It is important. So we gotta remember first why people carry around the impact and and damage in a in a relationship. And, again, this cuts both ways. I wanna keep reiterating that. This affects both partners that they're basically concerned it's gonna happen again. Things in the past don't tend to keep helping us and hurting us unless they're particularly traumatic. But, generally, we're trying to stop, make sure it's not gonna happen again. So let's do that.

So we gotta look for reliability. We've gotta own triggers and actions. So if I'm getting triggered by something, I have to own they're my triggers. Right? And I have to think about what I wanna do about that. I can tell my partner that I'm being triggered by that action, and, they'll be kind enough to wanna modify their action to help me support me in doing that. But the other things too is I'm the one being triggered. We need to connect. We need to make sure that when our partner comes at us with something, and again, from either side, when a partner comes at us and says, I am hurt because of this, and you did it, well, that little listening exercise is a wonderful way of subverting that feeling from I'm now bad to.

I'm standing beside you. I can see how that had an impact on you. And, obviously, we can always double back on the intent, point as well. And finally, we want future focus. We want a design change. My partner has a wonderful saying. She repeats again and again and again often to me. It's the past is just good information. Let's design what we want to happen next. And for our partners, if they've had an impact and we've been in any way responsible or or part of that, what they're really wanting to hear from us is tell me how it's gonna be different. Because just saying it won't happen again often doesn't prove to be true.

So but if we can talk them through and say, you know what I'm gonna try and do? I'm gonna try and do this next time, and this is how that will happen, and then we can review it. We'll often reassure them that not only do you care, but you're designing a a different way of getting it done. So we have to be who we want to be. I started off this talk by saying that we're both not being who we wanna be. So let's get back to who we wanna be. So start off with three steps. One, yourself. You have to go. Both partners have to sit down by themselves and think about who do I actually wanna be and capture that in a reasonable amount of detail that they can share. Then, obviously, we're gonna use that talking stuff.

To share with each other, acknowledge each other, accept each other. Even if your partner says, oh, you know what? I really think I'm the adventurous type, but you know they haven't left the living room in ten years. Acknowledging, accept it because that's who they wanna be. And make a point of using that good communication technique to really understand what they mean in terms of this design of who they wanna be. And finally, together, commit to creating point number one, who they wanna be for each other. So it's not your responsibility to make your partner who they wanna be. But if you love and care for somebody, you want to be invested in supporting them getting there any way you can.

It'd be pretty hard not to be in close sync with a partner if you're doing that. Part of that will be, I I I wanna be on top of my ADHD, which brings us on to committing to individual journeys. Now one of this is it's really common that we see often the partner without ADHD will wanna be helpful and jump in and study up on ADHD and and and say, oh, you should be doing this, that, and the other. And a very common complaint I hear is, my partner with ADHD isn't doing the reading I'm doing. Now understandable frustration, and it's admirable that they want to problem solve in a way that makes sense to them. However, again, a big coaching tenant is we have to be with people on their journey. We can help them be aware of opportunities.

And directions to take, but, really, we have to be comfortable to let them take the lead with that. Because when they do, they will do it reliably and far more successfully. So as a couple, if my partner has ADHD, I want to support them, which means I want to understand the journey. I want them to think about what they want, how they need to go. If they need input from me, I'll give it to them. But really, it's their journey. I'm here to support it. If that means I clear the day so they can attend a wonderful conference like this, then that's what's going happen. If they want me beside it so I get it too, that's what's going to happen. Likewise, my partner without ADHD, if they really don't want to go into depths and detail with ADHD.

I've got to support that too. So we have to be responsible for our own journeys, but we also have to be responsible for our journey as a couple and take every opportunity to support each other's journey. Next, systems to support reliability, and this is very much an ADHD thing. Right? So until we get systems in place, usually, these these are just good ideas. And we have lots of good ideas. Let's face it. We've we have many of them. We're like fire hydrants of good ideas. But until they get manifested as actions in time, they're just that.

And they won't change anything. So we've got to have some agreed systems as a couple. And here's a few areas that, know, obviously, each one of these could be a talk. But we want to talk about that reliability bit. How are gonna be reliable with each other? How are we gonna talk about reliability? How are gonna commit to reliability? How are we gonna follow-up and check-in on it? How are we gonna communicate, as I said earlier? We've got that that approach with that connect time that I talked about. But there's also how we're gonna, you know, make sure I pay attention. So in other words, it might be, I if you wanna talk to me, I'm gonna turn off the TV, or I'm gonna mute it, or I'm gonna make sure we've got eye contact.

Or maybe I'm gonna check-in. We need these little systems set up so we can make sure we're supporting each other to get the right communication. We need problem solving. So problem solving has gotta be about, well, how are we gonna sort our problems? Melissa, who's a wonderful author and expert in couples and relationships and ADHD from The States, often talks about intimate conflict. How are we going to be able to be in conflict with each other and disagree and then still solve the problem even though we still disagree. It's really important. And, again, that could be a whole talk. And we need to talk about how we're gonna commit to supporting each other and how we'd like to be supported.

And, of course, we need systems for how we're gonna flag ADHD stuff. You know, for example, one of the things I often encourage clients to do is to tell their partner if and how they would like them to alert them to what they perceive as a problem. So in other words, if I've committed to doing something and my partner sees me not doing it, I don't want my partner to have to struggle for the words in fear of me snapping and getting crossed because I don't wanna be corrected. Instead, I'm going to say, please, if you see me going off track, flag it to me because I mic'd off track. But this is the way you do it, and I give her the words.

So, hey, just checking you're doing what you wanted to do might be a phrase I'd give her. Now she knows she can use that phrase safely with me because they're my words. Right? And I've already committed to not I'm not gonna react to that. And then she's gonna walk away and leave me with it, which means she's off the hook, and I've had the benefit of someone who cares about me flagging something that I've missed. Last but not least, being connected. We're here to enjoy each other. You know, there's a reason we form these relationships. You could argue the long, long biological evolutionary reason that we figured out a long time ago that if we gang up, we can pretty well kill anything.

But a more romantic version of that is that when we have a partner for life, we have someone watching our back. By the way, I can see some wonderful questions coming up now. I will respond to them when we get a chance. Remember, at the crux of it, this is about enjoying each other. So it's about intentional intimacy. Let's be intentional about our time together. You know? What do we wanna do? What do we want that intimacy to look like? Acknowledge and celebrate each other daily. Make a point of acknowledging, hey. Thank you for doing the dishes or, hey. I love how you made the bed. That's seriously, my wife does that, and it makes me make the bed better every day. Celebrate.

Each other. Wow. You look great today. Or, hey. I really love the way you spoke to that person. Or, hey. You directed those tradesmen really well. Connect reliably. So in other words, let's not just leave support to chance. Let's actively plan how we're going to connect and support each other. Let's look at systems for reliable connection. So in other words, remember, with ADHD, we can get lost in time, so let's not be afraid to book in stuff. There's a reason date nights have worked over the years, but we can think of other things we can do too. So I get to the point now where I'm asking, what would you do? Because this is what it boils down to. It boils down to a couple both committing.

That, hey. Yeah. Let's take a big shot at this. Let's change it. It's worth it. So to action it, here's what my recommendations. Firstly, commit to who you want to be. And I mean seriously committed. Write it down. Tell your partner. Tell the world. Create those connect times where you're going be an active listener and an active speaker. Learn from the past and design the future. Agree. We're gonna leave the past where it is, and we're gonna create a design that allows us to do that. We're gonna commit to supporting each other. And that's not just gonna be verbal. It's gonna be, yeah, how we're gonna do that. We're gonna find systems for successfully problem solving together, and we're gonna reinforce intent and refine action.

I wanna say that again. We're gonna reinforce intent as the critical component. Actions are there for refinement and tweaking and improving. So this is where I'm gonna ask you to go away and do something. For those of you in a relationship that want to address something with this, take these points and think about how will I commit to this. And this is a big coaching stage too that we often talk about. Well, we always talk about is how are you gonna commit to it? So create specific actions at specific times. Do not leave this in the theoretical. Okay? Set up the resources. So in other words, if you need to find time together, get the kids minded, or or, you know, think about how can we talk in front of the kids, which is even better.

But also too, how am I how am I going to remember stuff? Am I going to, you know, things like how am gonna let you know things and phrases I can use and that sort of thing? Keep the actions in context. So while we wanna focus on improving our relationship, we also have a family to run and lives to live and work to get to and all these other commitments in our lives. So we have to think about how we're going to do that. And last but not least, and this is a recurring thing for me, with ADHD, get a calendar and use it. And when you use a calendar and once again, this could be a whole presentation on calendars. But it's it's the simplest way I can put it is get a calendar, make it electronic.

And put everything you want to happen in it. If you don't care if it happens or not, don't bother putting it in your calendar. But if you want it to happen, whether it's say hi to my partner and tell them I love them or, you know, remember to go to work or whatever, Put it in your calendar. But don't forget to put in the stuff that's about you and what you want in your life. Okay. So that's the talk part. And this is if you wanna hear more about talks I've given, both Monica and I are on this website. This is our practice website. We we routinely do talks in in The States and in Australia and now other parts of the world. And we have clients all over the world, including The UK and The US and Asia and, and obviously Australia.

You can see a whole pile of our presentations, interviews, and things like that up there. I also have a book that I wrote last year with a psychologist friend of mine, Madeleine O'Reilly, who we we talked about ADHD solutions for procrastination. So we actually talk folks on how to get stuff done, creating systems for that, and that's available too. So I think that's enough of me flogging my wares. Henry, you still there? Oh, can't hear you, Henry.

Man. Man. I turn it off out of a paranoia. Like, I've gotta I've gotta lose the paranoia because I it it does turn off. I knew it. I've tested it, but I still anyway, it's not a proper conference, a virtual conference. If we don't go to the you're on mute. I have to say that. Like, I know she's not listening to this because she's taking the kids to school so I can do this. But my wife is wonderful. Listening to some of your tips and your communications, just how lucky I am. Now look, we've got lots of questions coming in. I do just wanna remind people that you can go to globaladhd.com, and you'll find it went down five hours before the conference started. Hurrah. And.

Put your questions there, but we've got lots there. And like some of your tips, the shared calendar is a part of our life, and I remember really part of its big growth was that it was working so well. Like so, we both put everything in. It was always so like and because it was working so well, like just momentarily, my wife stopped doing it. And I just didn't turn up for something or we had an event on Monday, and I just was at I was at home. And she's like, where are you? I'm I'm at home. And she said, but we talked about it last night. You said you were looking forward to it. And I said, that does sound exactly like what I would say. And I'm like, is it in the calendar? Because if it's not in the calendar, it doesn't exist. Exactly.

Right. And Yeah. I was I was giving a talk at the professional ADHD professionals conference earlier this year, and I was staying with my daughter in Melbourne who's 30. And I did a run through my talk, and I was talking about time blindness. She said, but dad, you've got ADHD, and you were a senior person in pharmaceuticals for ADHD. You flew around the world. You gave talks, and you've been a coach for ten years. You're always on time. You never forget anything. And I said, yeah, but I can't tell you how long we've been talking just now. I I have a calendar and I live in my calendar. And it's like you say, Henry, if it ain't in the calendar for me, it doesn't exist.

Yeah. But and it is one of the it's also a great example of how fantastic a strategy can be. Mhmm. But it's so good people don't realize how important it is. And it is just an insight into how.

How getting the strategy that fits is life changing. Oh, absolutely. It's something that's a problem. I I think the other thing, just to add in there, there's there's another talk I give, which I talk about adapting successfully. A big part of it is the expectation that a strategy will fail. And it often fails because we think it worked too well. Like like your your wife. Well, we didn't need to put it in the calendar because we've been really good and been on time for everything. So so we abandoned the strategy thinking we don't need it anymore when, you know, the simple way of dealing with it is to say, I'm just gonna have this forever, and this is great because then I don't have to worry about it.

So let's we've got questions. And if my wife is here, I know what she would say at this point, just to be quite clear on the calendar, is that for kind of quasi work events, her PA was responsible for inviting me and she changed PA. And I know that she would want to make it very clear that it weren't her, which I think is a fair point. I do feel like but I just why I like it is it showed how important the strategy was by expressing how successful it was. It was only important because it was successful. Right. We've got lots of questions. Look, someone's idiot's.

Put in my partner and I have ADHD, it feels like double jeopardy all the time. So what's your what's your sort of advice to people? Because I think a lot of advice was ADHD and non ADHD. What's your advice to ADHD ADHD? Well, I mean, you've.

You've got double jeopardy, but you've got double advantage there too. Right? So so, I mean, you know, usually what you'll find with when both partners have ADHD is there's often one that's that's performing better at different times to the other one, and they sort of tend to do this seesawing act. But the big opportunity there is apply all of those same principles because those principles are about relationships with ADHD present. Now, if you've both got it, you've got the added advantage of saying, well, hang on. We can learn about this together. And it is also a major head start to be able to say, I know exactly what happened to you, Justine.

Like, you know, I often say with parents of kids with ADHD, you know, parents I coach who have ADHD and they've got kids with ADHD, is you you've got this wonderful asset of being able to say, I totally do know how you lost time then. I totally know how that happened because I've experienced it myself. So as a couple with both having ADHD, I would start from there and then apply all of these same principles and and but, you know, be much more directly supportive of each other and particularly in an understanding each other's experience. Hello, Henry. And you've.

Seen some wonderful comments on busy multi doing a bit of multitasking, which actually, to quote another coach, there's no such thing as multitasking. There's just fast switching. That's exactly right. And we're not, as ADHD is, it's not what we're great at. I loved it. Was just like throughout the book, throughout the yeah. We don't multitask. And then certainly like, actually one the strategies I use in my my own home is I'll just say one at a time. Mhmm. Because like if I'm given a sort of mental to do list of chores.

I I just get lost. Oh, and and with ADHD, single focus feels wonderful. Like, being in single focus is Yeah. Just.

Absolutely. It's it's such a good point. Right? So just in that little phrase of like, I'm just doing let me I'm doing it one at a time. One at a time. And then I will I will go do it, and I will have the joy of single focus. And then I will trot back, and I'll go, what next? And I could what do you like, how can I help now? What would you like me to do? And, like, which obviously is a bit like often I'll be like it's not all sort of parent child type style. But what I've swapped is, yeah, that singular focus and the joy of it versus the horror of a mental to do list that I know I'm going to fail on. It's a high stress environment.

Well, Henry, I'm gonna help you now. So the trick is, again, you can use a calendar for this because a task is not a real task until you've allocated it to time. So put the tasks in your calendar, ditch the mental to do list, and don't think about the next task until you finish the first one.

I know I I.

You're gonna have to repeat that for me. Go on. Was having a text message. Ditch the to do list. To do lists are only part of the way of planning. So what we need to do is we need to allocate a task to time. So get it in the calendar to a time and then focus on one thing at a time until they're done. And it's a much nicer like, I often say to my clients because I I work with people all over the world online. They'll say to me, well, how do you cope with seeing all these people? I said, it's easy. They're all in my calendar. I I know roughly who I've got to see that day, but I don't think about them until I'm with them, which means I get to be with you a 100% while I'm with you. And I've gotta tell you, I I do things because they feel good.

I think that is a yeah. I I love the the the strategy on, like, recognizing the joy of single focus and allowing more of it and that being with people with tasks. Time blocking's interesting in that I find time blocking big blocks out very successful, small blocks out not successful at all. We're doing some primary research on to do lists, and it's quite interesting on time blocking how variable the the outcome is for people. And that can mean needing to do it in a slightly different way, which is obviously what coaching is about, is that bespoke bespoke approach?

Well, that's that's what that's what the book's all about, actually. So we we won't take up this talk with that book, but the book talks about how We'll invite you back. How we we can do that.

There's been one some wonderful comments coming in. Did I sleep in this suit too? Like I'm a true virtual connoisseur. So this suit and tie goes off and gets put back on the back of the of the thing and gets put on in the morning. I do own an inordinate number of white shirts. I decided a long time ago that I liked white shirts and I didn't care and I would just buy a lot of them. I have a suspicion, Jonathan, that you have a similar view on black tops.

Absolutely. Barack Obama said that he had the same suit and tie every day because it's one extra decision he didn't need. And I have the same theory with black shirts.

I didn't know Barack Obama was on that. Inspiration was Vanessa Phelps, who's a TV celebrity here. She, I think about fifteen years ago, just said, I realized that I just I just really like pink jackets. And I was always buying other color jackets because I felt like I needed to and I was supposed to and that I should wear other colors. But I would never wear them and then I just wear I'd wear the pink ones, every color one just because I felt like I had to. But I wasn't doing was doing for other people, not for me. I realized I just like pink jackets, and I'm gonna wear them all the time.

I was just like, I love you. But yes. And at that point, put a lot of white shirts.

It's all quite so exciting. Let's look to, yeah, talk to some of the questions. So someone's talked about the task is not a task until you you've allocated it at a time.

Someone someone asked while I was speaking that it caught my eye. They said, what if your partner is in denial?

Can we do that one? Okay. Yeah. You can. You have that. Yes.

Because that was a really good question. Was that good that it caught my eye while I was talking, which almost saw a disaster of attempted multitasking. But so so this is not uncommon that often that, you know, a partner will come and contact me and say, listen, my partner, they either have ADHD, they have been diagnosed, or I'm fairly sure they do. However, I'm seeing all these problems in our relationship and in their functioning. How can we change him or her? And, generally, the first step is to start with you. I get people to think about first, to think about who you wanna be and who you don't wanna be, and then plan that life. And then with the partner, explain to them what you're doing and highlight where.

Whatever they're doing is in in contradiction to it. And, again, taking that principle that, you know, we we hold so dear in coaching, make them aware that there's opportunities to even just look at their what's going on for them. Because invariably, denial is about hiding the fact hiding from the fact that we don't think we can do anything about it. That's that's the, I think, the most damaging thing about ADHD is that we think we should be able to do stuff. And we we don't realize that we can that there's so much so many things out there that we can get help with, which is, you know, this conference is a testament to. And I was watching Phil Anderson earlier, and I've I've watched him at conferences for years.

You know, those sorts of services are wonderful. But so we need to allow our partners time to get exposed to it. But in the meantime, you work on what you need to do and be for you and the family and for your partner. And generally, that approach takes the focus off the partner trying to fix the partner with ADHD and allows them the space to say, oh, actually, I could probably do something about this.

Thank you. That that was wonderful. Well well, intervened. Any of you picked up any other favorite questions you wanna answer?

No. That was the only one that jumped Then I thought I better pay attention to my slides.

It's a tough occasionally, there's like I've I actually I actually really loved it earlier prerecord. I think it was actually with with Chakra Kasandi where I started to ask her a question. I got distracted and retanged into a different point, which I wanted to say. And then I had absolutely no idea what my question was. I completely forgot. And I just said I've completely forgotten, and she was completely fine with that. And it was just a reminder of like what a safe space really looks like, that I could do that and it'd be completely accepted and okay. And the joy of that. And I saw it particularly watching back on the re record just reminding myself of that. It is the fight when we're talking about in a relationship, like people.

Understanding. So that why that question you picked up on was so important because then they are in denial. You are denied a safe space. Right? You are going to there's that risk of anger, of that pathway you talked about, of people getting you know, being going to that sort of parent child relationship, being told what to, that implication that you're you're not loving them because your actions aren't aren't there. The yeah.

So that's absolutely worth now, look Yeah. You I mean, actually, Henry, that that sort of leads on to another interesting point, I think, which is RSD. So as we know, rejection sensitivity dystopia is is not a diagnosis. It's a description, but it's a description that a lot of people feel is is relevant to them in terms of understanding. And within couples, one of the things I've noticed is that there I think, generally, there is a heightened demand on that emotional connection, which is good. That's what it should be. Right? But when that gets threatened or fractured, so if if my partner is not hearing me, seeing me, accepting that my intentions are good regardless of what happened, then then I'm gonna be detached from that person.

Now if that is the one person in the world who gets to see me raw, gets to see me with all my mistakes, all my all my issues, or whatever else I'm doing, then then I'm gonna be cut adrift. And I think that is very much the experience of RST, that sense of rejection. And it's not so much rejection as what can be, but also in terms of of just not being connected anymore. And so I think that's in a couple that's a really important thing to think about, and it's a really important thing to get back to in terms of starting the emotional regulation from, okay. Like you said, Henry, we we are in a safe space here. You can you can tell me anything that you're thinking or what's going on for you both ways.

And we're gonna accept it and hear it and not judge it so that at very least, emotionally, we have that foundation of connection with one other person.

That's wonderful. Now, look, you've watched Don't a few of say that to me. I'm actually not. That's just cruel. I think there was a delay. I mean, don't do that to me. I'm sorry. Right. Alright. I was arming and arring over, like, asking this next question. I'm not going for for definite. So I'll put you on the spot if you've watched some of these. It was wonderful, I saw you commenting earlier yesterday our time because you were watching what was happening. I have a traditional end question that I love to ask. We've got a few minutes, so I'm going In terms of your ADHD, what made you saddest? And what, in terms of ADHD, has made you happiest? And if we could do saddest first and happiest second, so that we end on a high note.

Okay. So sad first. Okay. So sadness happened actually in London. I was I was at an ADHD Conference, and I remember Phil Anderson spoke at it and a whole pile of people there. I was I was working for a pharmaceutical company. I was a scientific adviser for ADHD. I was meant to know everything about it and be a bit of it. Well, not everything, but be be at least an expert to some degree in it. And there was a talk on, the positive presentations of ADHD, and I walked out of that meeting and said, hey. I do a lot of those things. And, which everyone thought was wildly amusing because, the people there that knew me, had always assumed that I that I knew I was ADHD.

And so I got in a black cab and put it out to Heathrow to fly back to Australia straight after the meeting. And I and I gave myself a little assessment in the cab, scored beautifully in it, and, and was incredibly sad. And and I was sad for who the kid I was. And I had a great childhood. I had wonderful supportive parents. I I had every opportunity in life thrown at me, and I and I live in a beautiful country that gives me lots of opportunities. But I I I felt for that kid who so many times felt misunderstood, who so many times had the intention to do something and and the intellect to do it, but it didn't pan out. And, yeah, I shed a tear for that kid in that taxi. I I don't carry that as a trauma.

But but I certainly felt a connection with with me of the past. That's probably the saddest I've been. Now, the happiest I've been the happiest I've been is actually very similar to the feeling I'm having now. In 2015, I think it was, when we first about a year of being into practice and I just left pharma, my partner and I flew over to the big ADHD Conference in The States. It was in New Orleans, I think, and we caught the lift up. We'd spent a small fortune getting there, which starting out a new coaching practice in a country that had virtually no coaches was a bit brave. But we I came up the top of this escalator in one of these big hotels in America, and everybody in that room was talking at once.

And and in that instant, I just felt like I'd walked into this this massive warm hug. And and, you know, obviously, the happiest time of my life was getting married, having children, all that sort of stuff. But in terms of ADHD, the happiest time was was that moment because I felt these are my people. And and every time I meet with ADHD groups, I work with ADHD clients, I get part of that feeling back again. And that's so I get I get that happiness hit every day. So yeah.

That that's wonderful. No. So it's the the emotion of realizing you have ADHD is complicated. And that sadness. When we I find when I talk to people, phrasing that question is very important. Like, if you say for example, you ask me like, would you would you do your life again the same way? And often people will say yes. And you know, I look back at them going, did you learn nothing? And it's because what they're actually answering is the question is, are you happy? Do you love the people in your life? And this path has brought you to them. No, I wouldn't do it differently because I have them. And I'll do anything to get to there. Yeah. And so the way I tend to talk about it, so you have that emotion, that mourning.

And it's a mourning for how hard it's been.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yep. And I mean, that's every time I connect with a client too, a new client too, a couple or an individual, it's and wherever they are in the world, it's the same thing. It's you can feel the weight of of what it's been like. I mean Yeah. In my instance, I terrified some poor black cab driver by, you know, this big guy in a suit weeping in the back of his car on the way to Heathrow. He was very glad to get rid of me. I'm pretty sure he sort of had the door open as we coasted to a stop.

But but yeah. Yeah. That there's that way. And and again, that's that's one of the great joys about doing what I do is is that, you know, I get to help shoulder that weight a little bit in the first bit and help them and give them give them a direction and a sense of hope. And because, you know, I I've worked in mental health now for over twenty five, thirty year oh god. I think it's actually thirty years. People say, well, don't you miss schizophrenia or bipolar or or personality disorders and all that sort of stuff? And I say, well, yeah, that was all interesting stuff. But the thing about ADHD is you guys are nothing but potential. You haven't tapped yet. Even though you've probably achieved amazing things.

Until you get to master your ADHD, you haven't really hit what you possibly could do.

And it's a great point. These you've achieved so much without knowing you had ADHD. Right? Without knowing your that understanding of self, knowing your battle, and that's life changing. I want to say, the emotions we see, you've seen some wonderful comments which I've been popping up. John, your presentation was brilliant, well polished, and so informative. Thank you. And No. It's a pleasure.