Podcasts about Cerulli

Do the vast majority of 401k plan 5500s have a red flag? Under performing investments in recent litigation, Cerulli report says 1 million micro plans by 2029, Roth Catch-Up Loop Holes, and more!

UMH is changing the world of wealth management, helping clients earn more and keep more through tax-smart, multi-account coordination. Many advisory firms recognize the benefits of UMH but often face challenges with its adoption. Having access to the right tools and technology solutions, however, best positions firms and advisors to increase assets under management. In this episode, Jack Sharry talks with Scott Smith, Director of Advice Relationships at Cerulli Associates and member of the CFP Board's Digital Advice Working Group. Scott has more than 20 years of experience in the financial services industry and leads Cerulli's research on investor behavior and advisory relationships. His research helps clients understand how to optimize their platforms. Jack and Scott discuss UMH, its core elements, and how it revolutionizes financial advisory services. Scott also unpacks his findings on UMH adoption, the challenges advisors face in its implementation, and the innovative solutions paving the way forward. In this episode: [02:05] - Implementing UMH [04:58] - The core elements of UMH [07:19] - Research methodology and findings on UMH adoption [13:09] - Asset location and its complexities [16:02] - Identifying and addressing barriers to UMH implementation [19:44] - The growing demand for retirement income solutions [23:02] - The future of asset location and income generation [25:31] - Scott's key takeaways [28:32] - Scott's interests outside of work Quotes [14:25] - "People are just getting overwhelmed by the number of accounts they have and the number of passwords they have. Anything we can do to make a client's life easier, bring those things together, and not have them worry about is a compelling story." ~ Scott Smith [25:43] - "Every tax optimization strategy is great, but it only matters if advisors use it. So, lack of adoption is the barrier to real impact." ~ Scott Smith [26:14] - "It (tax optimization strategy) has to be easy to understand. It has to be easier for advisors to use than what they're doing right now. And it has to be easy to explain the benefits to clients." ~ Scott Smith Links  Scott Smith on LinkedIn Cerulli Associates 55ip EY Vanguard Morningstar Envestnet Morgan Stanley Fidelity Investments Charles Schwab Kismet Improv Connect with our hosts LifeYield Jack Sharry on LinkedIn Jack Sharry on Twitter Subscribe and stay in touch Apple Podcasts Spotify LinkedIn Twitter Facebook

The past week of Connecticut politics - get it all here!

News 8's Mike Cerulli was in studio with Chaz and AJ this morning to talk about his job as the youngest political reporter in Connecticut, and how often lobbyists are interrupting politicians when they are in session.

Mike's first show of the new year and he sets the stage on what to expect in Connecticut politics in 2025!

On today's show, Mike is joined by State Senator Ryan Fazio, Speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives Matt Ritter, State Representative Vincent Candelora, Chairman of the New Haven County Young Republicans Patrick Burland, and State Representative-elect Joe Canino.

On this week's show, Mike chats about the week that was with State Rep David Rutigliano, State Senator Stephen Harding, State Comptroller Sean Scanlon, State Senator James Maroney.

This week, Mike Cerulli chats with WTNH News 8's Jeff Derderian, Hearst Connecticut Media's Dan Haar, Danbury Mayor Roberto Alves, CT Republican Chair Ben Proto, State Senator Ryan Fazio, and State Rep Chris Rosario.

Quarantasei agenti penitenziari al servizio nel carcere Pietro Cerulli di Trapani sono indagati per torture e abuso d'autorità, in pratica un quinto del totale degli agenti in servizio presso la struttura. Ne parliamo in apertura di programma. A seguire ci occupiamo di guerra in Ucraina e di sicurezza sulle strade.

This week, Mike recaps Election 2024 with Lisa Wexler and Kevin Currian (0:00) and an extended interview with Patrick Burland (38:18).

Ahead of Election Day, Mike Cerulli chats with some of his News 8 colleagues including Jeff Derderian (0:00), and Dennis House (41:34), along with Connecticut State Comptroller Sean Scanlon (1:00:00) Senator Richard Blumenthal (1:22:47), and former state senate minority leader John McKinney.

On this week's show, Mike Cerulli chats about early voting with Connecticut State Rep Matt Blumenthal (0:00), and is joined by News 8's Eva Zymaris, (41:46), and State Rep Chris Rosario (1:23:14).

Today, Mike Cerulli speaks with attorney Chris Mattei (0:00), News 8's Jeff Derderian, (40:57), and Connecticut Attorney General William Tong (1:22:20).

On today's show, Mike Cerulli recaps the Vice Presidential debate and chats with New Haven County Young Republicans chair Patrick Berland (0:00), State Senator James Maroney, (41:43), and former Bridgeport Mayor and newest WICC host Bill Finch (1:22:33).

Today, Mike Cerulli chats with former state senator John McKinney (0:00), and keeps the conversation going with state senate Democratic candidate Rob Blanchard (39:20), and state rep Chris Rosario (1:19:30).

 On this week's show, Mike recaps the week that was (0:00), and chats with former Connecticut state senator Will Haskell (39:38) and deputy Republican leader and state rep Tom O'Dea (1:18:26).

Today, Mike Cerulli discusses this week's presidential debate with Connecticut State Comptroller Sean Scanlon (0:00), State Representative Greg Howard (40:00), and Patrick Berland (1:22:34).

On today's program, Mike Cerulli chats with former Connecticut State Senator John McKinney (0:00), 36th District State Senate Independent Candidate Nick Simmons (41:45), and even WICC's own Lisa Wexler (1:24:11).

On today's program, Mike Cerulli chats with former Connecticut State Senator John McKinney (0:00), 36th District State Senate Independent Candidate Nick Simmons (41:45), and even WICC's own Lisa Wexler (1:24:11).

Anthony Cerulli (University of Wisconsin - Madison) joins the podcast to discuss his work on medicine in South Asia, focusing on ayurvedic medicine in premodernity. After some basic background contextualizing south Asian medicine, Anthony provides an overview of the three foundational texts for it. The conversations touches upon subjects such as the role of the patients, how healing is achieved in south Asian medicine, and similarities between south Asian medicine and Greek/Arabic medicine. Although most of the conversation focuses on the premodern past, Anthony also draws connections with the present, including with Covid. The interview ends with some reflections on the broader theme of health and the humanities in academia.

As your Labor Day weekend is underway, Mike Cerulli was live and joined by Connecticut State Senate President Martin Looney (0:00) and Connecticut Young Republicans Chair Patrick Burland (45:45).

Today, it was all about the DNC! Mike spoke with several Connecticut state delegates, including former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin (0:00), Alan Cunningham (44:55), and State Rep Josh Elliott (1:29:43).

Today, Mike had the pleasure of covering the week that was with State Senator Ryan Fazio (0:00), former Speaker of the Connecticut State House Joe Aresimowicz (45:43), and even WICC's own Lisa Wexler stopped by! (1:31:25)

Today, Mike Cerulli covers the week that was with Connecticut State Representative Corey Paris (0:00), Republican Strategist Liz Kurantowicz (45:31), and the National Review's Zach Kessel.

After a week that saw Joe Biden drop out of the 2024 presidential race, Mike Cerulli  covered how this will impact Connecticut with State Senator Ryan Fazio (0:00), former State Senator John McKinney, (45:15) and Patrick Burland (1:31:47).

After the attempted assassination of Donald Trump and the Republican National Convention, Mike Cerulli spoke about the week that was with State Representative Vincent Candelora and State Senator Rob Sampson (0:00), State Representatives Tom O'Dea and David Rutigliano (46:28) and RNC delegate Patrick Burland (1:31:47).

On today's show, Mike Cerulli chats with Stamford State Representative and DNC delegate Corey Paris (0:00), Anthony Anthony from Connecticut tourism (45:25), and former Connecticut State Senator John McKinney (1:30:09).

In episode 12 of the Alternative Allocations podcast series, Tony and Daniil discuss the greater focus on alternative investments by asset managers, the wealth management community, and individual investors. With the development of new structures and increasing access to these investment options, they consider the evolution of the industry and both foresee an ever-increasing adoption of alternative investments in the coming years. Daniil is a director of Cerulli's Product Development practice, where he works on the identification, analysis, and reporting of asset management industry trends with a focus on alternative investments. Prior to joining Cerulli Associates, Daniil was part of the Product Management and Business Intelligence teams with the MainStay Funds, part of New York Life Investment Management. At MainStay, Daniil supported sales efforts via fund and ETF competitive analysis, product research, and development of marketing materials, as well as performance reporting. Before New York Life, Daniil was part of the risk management practice at Accenture, and held risk and compliance roles at HSBC's investment bank. Daniil is a CFA® Charterholder and holds the FRM And CIPM designations. Daniil graduated from Baruch College with a B.B.A. in Finance and Investments. Daniil Shapiro, CFA | LinkedIn Alternatives by Franklin Templeton Tony Davidow, CIMA® | LinkedIn

On today's show, Mike Cerulli chats with Speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives Matt Ritter (0:00), Connecticut State Representative Greg Howard (45:30), and Connecticut State Senator Stephen Harding (1:31:21).

Jeff Cerulli: Live At The Bomb Shelter New York City stand-up comedian, Jeff Cerulli, takes the stage at NYC's Bomb Shelter Comedy Show for a one-hour comedy special that takes viewers on a hilarious journey. Cerulli gives his perspective on the true crime craze, the joys of being a dog dad, getting engaged after 10 years, the struggles of helping an aging parent, and more. COMEDY DYNAMICS YouTube Facebook X (Twitter) TikTok Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's show, Mike chats with Vin Candelora, Connecticut House Republican Leader on the upcoming special session of the legislature, local Fairfield County campaigns, and Bridgeport's ballot scandal (0:00); then he's joined by Emily DiSalvo, former Hearst Connecticut Hartford bureau reporter on the state of local news in Connecticut (45:07); and finally, Zach Kessel, national political reporter at the National Review on his recent reporting on foreign donations to Yale + Trump VP pick (1:30:20).

On today's Mike Cerulli Show, Mike chats with News 12's John Craven (0:00), Connecticut Attorney General William Tong (45:38), and Connecticut State Senator Rob Sampson (1:31:14).

Jeff Cerulli! Comedian! Documentarian! Friend! Guy with a new special out now called "Live at the Bomb Shelter"! ABOUT THE SPECIAL: NYC-based comedian, writer and filmmaker Jeff Cerulli and Comedy Dynamics are pleased to announce the release of Live at the Bomb Shelter, Cerulli's debut full-length comedy special, out now everywhere comedy can be streamed. Cerulli takes the stage at NYC's Bomb Shelter for an hour of comedy that takes viewers on a hilarious journey through growing up on Long Island, the true crime craze, the joys of being a dog-dad, getting engaged after 10 years, and the struggles of helping an aging parent. Notably Cerulli gets into the bad NYC apartments I've lived in: “I had to move about a year ago because my last apartment was filled with lead…which is not what you want.”   Cerulli always loved stand up comedy, and knew he would try it one day. He started running comedy shows in his 20s - a great way to land consistent stage time. “I have run so many random shows at different places in the city that most of the bars are now either a 7/11 or a Citibank”. The Bomb Shelter is a weekly comedy show run by Cerulli since 2016 in the basement of the Gaf West - one of the best independent comedy rooms in New York, super-intimate with low ceilings, a hot pipe and Christmas lights all year round. Says Cerulli: “There isn't anything else like it, going up and telling jokes without a net. It is the only artform you must practice in front of strangers to get better.”  Cerulli is a filmmaker as well as a comedian, with multiple documentaries, web-series, and short films to his credit. Thus, he opted to make his own special a DIY affair, hiring amazing DP friend Ari Rothschild to shoot and run sound, and Paul Levin from International Digital Centre to mix. Cerulli edited Live at the Bomb Shelter himself, deftly switching hats: “I have been doing comedy for a long time, I have enough material, just do it.“ Cerulli took it to Comedy Dynamics because he loves what they are doing in the comedy space and was thrilled that they came aboard to distribute.  ABOUT JEFF CERULLI: Jeff Cerulli is a NYC-based stand-up comedian and filmmaker who has performed all around the world. Jeff has been featured on Sirius radios Jim & Sam show, Amazon Game Breakers, The Laugh Button & Decider. His web series The Feed earned critical praise - The Observer said “it hits too close to home” and Paste called it “a sly satire on social media.” Jeff's feature-length documentary debut Hungry premiered at the IFC Center as part of the DOC NYC film festival. His latest documentary Tasteless, about the ever-changing comedy landscape, is currently available on Apple TV. Jeff currently hosts the podcast Your Team's Stuff where he invites a guest to judge memorabilia he finds off eBay for their favorite sports team ABOUT THIS PODCAST: Listen and enjoy! And know that this is only the first HALF of our chat. For the second portion, subscribe via Apple Podcasts or click on over here to Patreon!

Our guest on the podcast today is Andrew Blake. Andrew is associate director of wealth management for Cerulli Associates. He is a member of Cerulli's Wealth Management practice, leading coverage of asset manager distribution strategy for products sold through financial advisors. With a focus on the wealth management landscape, Andrew assesses trends related to advisor use of investment products as well as their relationships with clients and varying practice types. Prior to joining Cerulli, Andrew worked at John Hancock Investment Management and a Boston-area RIA. He has a BBA in marketing as well as management and strategic leadership from Ohio University.BackgroundBioThe Cerulli Report: US Intermediary Distribution 2023The Cerulli Report: US Advisor Metrics 2023ResearchUS Broker/Dealer Marketplace 2023US RIA Marketplace 2023US High-Net-Worth and Ultra-High-Net-Worth Markets 2023US Retirement Markets 2023State of US Wealth Management Technology 2024AdvisorsThe Cerulli Edge: US Advisor“More Advisors Are Making the Move to RIA, Independent Models,” by Josh Welsh, investmentnews.com, Oct. 31, 2023.“The Role of the Retail-Direct Channel in a Growing Financial Planning Profession,” cfp.net, March 28, 2023.“Financial Adviser Shortage Looms, Cerulli Reports,” by Natalie Lin, planadviser.com, Jan. 16, 2024.“Asset Managers Embrace a Technology Arms Race,” cerulli.com, Oct. 27, 2022.“As Retirement Exodus Looms, Rookie Advisor Failure Rate at 72%, Study Finds,” by Ayo Mseka, insurancenewsnet.com, Feb. 12, 2024.OtherCreative Planning“Peter Mallouk: The Financial Advice Industry Is ‘Still Very Messy,'” The Long View podcast, Morningstar.com, March 26, 2024.Vanguard Personal Advisor SelectSchwab Intelligent PortfoliosiCapitalCase IQ

On today's Mike Cerulli Show, Mike chats with Connecticut State Comptroller Sean Scanlon on the end of fiscal year, the state of Connecticut's economy, and the political outlook looking toward November. (0:00) Then, Mike previews the upcoming political battles in Greenwich with Nick Simmons, Democratic candidate for State Senate (45:30). Finally, Frank Ricci, conservative commentator and Fellow at the Yankee Institute, discusses his recent one-on-one interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (1:31:12)

It's the first edition of the Mike Cerulli Show on WICC! On today's show, Mike discusses president Trump's conviction, ‘24 election looms, Congress campaigning and more with Congressman Jim Himes (0:00). Then, he breaks down Connecticut Republicans game plan for ‘24 with Senate Republican Leader, State Sen. Steve Harding (45:55). Finally, in the third hour, Mike breaks down Bridgeport's state legislature primaries - there's a lot of them, and former Bridgeport Mayor and Candidate for State Senate, Bill Finch (1:31:38).

VettaFi's Tom Lydon offers perspective on using alternative ETFs in a portfolio.  Madison's Patrick Ryan discusses the firm's recent ETF entrance and explains the rise of active ETFs.  Cerulli's Daniil Shapiro highlights several of the industry's biggest trends.

Hey, we're back! I'm so excited to bring you the first of many new episodes in our 3rd season of Focus Forward. Considering it's ADHD awareness month, I wanted to explore something relating ADHD that we hadn't done before. In this week's episode, we're tackling adult ADHD and the life-changing journey of getting a late diagnosis. This episode is particularly special for me as it documents my own personal journey in discovering that I have ADHD (in real time!) This journey of revelation began with a conversation I had last year with Dr. Jan Willer - a clinical psychologist who specializes in supporting those with ADHD. After our conversation, I began to seriously suspect that I, too, might have ADHD. In this episode, we'll explore the difficult question of "do I have ADHD or not?" and the impact that getting a diagnosis can have on our life and sense of self. I hope you enjoy this one! Resources Related to this EpisodeDr. Jan Willer's ResourcesJan's books on AmazonADHD ResourcesAdult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS-v1.1)CHADDAdult ADHD ToolkitBeyond BookSmart's ADHD Success KitHow to Thrive with ADHD After a DiagnosisEp 13: How to Unlock the Superpowers of ADHDWomen's ADHD Wellbeing PodcastContact us!Reach out to us at podcast@beyondbooksmart.comIG/FB/TikTok @beyondbooksmartcoachingTranscriptHannah Choi 00:04Hi everyone and welcome to Focus Forward: An Executive Function Podcast where we explore the challenges and celebrate the wins you'll experience as you change your life through working on improving your executive function skills. I'm your host, Hannah Choi. Hannah Choi 00:18We are back after our summer break. Yay. Today's episode is super special. Not only is it our first episode of season three, but it is also our 30th episode. I know there are podcasts out there with hundreds and hundreds of episodes. But I just have to say I'm super proud of this achievement, and I'm so glad you're here with me today to celebrate. On top of all that fun stuff is also ADHD Awareness Month. In today's episode, I'm going to share some of my own ADHD story which all started when someone very close to me was diagnosed a couple of years ago. hearing their story got me thinking about my own life experience through an ADHD lens. I recorded the ADHD episode and have an excuse me had a couple of clients whose challenges I could relate to more than just a little bit of a coincidence. Dr. Sherrie All, the star of the Focus Forward episode 16 all about memory connected me with Dr. Jan Willer, a licensed clinical psychologist who lives in Chicago, and she has written two books for practitioners - Could It Be Adult ADHD?, and The Beginning Psychotherapist's Companion, I thought Jan would be a great person to talk with. Jan and I recorded twice, once back in January and the second time just last month in September. The first time we talked about ADHD and what it is, and then spent a while talking about my own experience and symptoms. In September, we met again to reconnect and talk about the post diagnosis experience, and how people can both support themselves or the people they love who have ADHD. So today's episode is all about ADHD. And because it's ADHD Awareness Month, I hope my story helps someone out there find the confidence to go get tested. As you'll hear it has been a positive and life changing experience for me. So first up is our conversation from January. Hannah Choi 02:20Hi, Jan, thank you so much for joining me on focus forward.Jan Willer, PhD 02:25I am really excited to be here. Thank you for inviting me.Hannah Choi 02:29This is take two right? We tried last week but my, I'm a migraine person and my migraines got in the way. So I'm glad we're able to do this today. Glad I migraine free today. Yeah, so we are going to talk about ADHD in adults and what that experience is like for people and how they got there. And so can you share a little bit with our listeners about why about why I'm talking to you about ADHD?Jan Willer, PhD 03:03Sure, yeah, I'm happy to talk about that. Well, I've been interested in ADHD for a good while. And actually a number of years ago, a psychiatrist that I would refer to would start referring adult ADHD clients, to me just kind of out of nowhere. And at that point in time, I didn't know very much about ADHD in adults. And just as a little sidebar, graduate schools usually don't teach very much about adult ADHD. And so every mental health professional out there who knows much about it has taught themselves and gone to seminars and that type of thing. But anyway, so I started teaching myself about it. And the more I learned, the more interested I became, and, you know, it's just a population of folks who really are undertreated a lot of the time and a little education and a little help with executive functioning issues can go and maybe a little bit of medication can really go a very long way in terms of helping people feel better and feel like they're functioning better as well.Hannah Choi 04:16I see that in the clients, the adult clients that I've worked with, where they have experienced exactly that with a little bit of medication, a little bit executive function, coaching, and just like a lot of knowledge, it's really made some big differences. What are what brings someone what are the questions that people have when they come to say, like, I think I might have ADHD?Jan Willer, PhD 04:41Well, a lot of the time, people will come to me and they've already been wondering about whether they have ADHD for a long time. And many people who've had ADHD their entire lives, were not diagnosed as children. And it used you know, back in the old days, it used to be thought that if it wasn't really obvious as a child, and the child wasn't pretty impaired from ADHD, then a person who is an adult couldn't possibly have ADHD. Now we know now that that's not true, because there's a lot of folks who don't get diagnosed for various reasons. Maybe because they just had inattentive type ADHD, and they were well behaved kids. And so, and they were, you know, pretty smart, and they just kind of flew under the radar and their grades weren't amazing, but they weren't disrupting the class, and they were just kind of daydreaming. And, you know, nobody really noticed that they were having some learning issues. So a lot of the time, those are the folks that kind of end up coming to us. But also, sometimes people may have had some hyperactivity as a kid, but their parents, and their schools really recognize that they need a lot of exercise. And so they would get put into sports and all kinds of camps that gave him plenty of exercise and this, so they coped, okay. And they didn't have behavior issues. So, you know, in the past, most of the folks with ADHD who are identified as children were people who had behavior issues, and usually white boys as well. But now we realize that anybody could have ADHD. And, and I think that is that information has gotten out into the popular consciousness. And so people are soaking that up and going, Oh, wow, maybe I have that. That sounds kind of like me. I just thought it was a flaw I had, but maybe I have ADHD.Hannah Choi 06:46So something that I've noticed, just in my observations of people talking about, if they have ADHD, or if they wonder if they do, I have noticed. And I think that there is a stigma around around it around being diagnosed with it and around having those challenges. Do you see that in the people that come to you do, do they express those hesitations?Jan Willer, PhD 07:16You know, I think it varies a lot by the age of the person. Because it seems like, you know, young adults have are much more knowledgeable about people who are neurodivergent, and often seem to have a lot less stigma about that, you know, they understand that people is some people have ADHD, some people are autistic, it's, you know, it's not necessarily such a big deal to them. It's just more a recognition of individual differences. But for people who are, you know, middle aged and older, for sure, and possibly also younger than that, it kind of depends on you know, the environment the person grew up in, they're often did grow up at a time where there was a lot of stigma about having ADHD. And there were a lot of stereotypes about people who had ADHD, which were often wrong. And there may not have even been an understanding that ADHD lasted to adulthood. And so they've often just internalized a lot of shame about some of their life challenges that are very, like completely related to ADHD.Hannah Choi 08:30Can you just talk a little bit about what ADHD is for any listeners who might just kind of have like a surface knowledge of it? And maybe we can help any listeners who might be questioning whether they they might and then maybe some, maybe you could share like some symptoms or some characteristics that aren't necessarily fully known? I mean, that the name of it ADHD, like is Attention Deficit Hyperactive disorder, but like you said before, many people can have ADHD but be the inattentive type. So maybe just share a little bit about what it is.Jan Willer, PhD 09:09Sure, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, the first type of symptom of ADHD that was really recognized was the hyperactivity. And you know, if you've ever seen a hyperactive kid, that's pretty obvious. I mean, that's a kid that's just bouncing off the walls full of energies, maybe really talkative. And so, and then over time, it became clear that a lot of those kids also had some challenges with paying attention, despite, you know, in addition to their high energy level and tendency to bounce off the walls, and then it became clear that there are kids who had the inattentiveness alone. They didn't have the hyperactivity, but they still had a hard time paying attention consistently, especially in school and that was kind of where it was the most obvious but, you know, sometimes that home to their parents would say do this or that and they just kind of lose track of it didn't really absorb that information, or procrastinated, which can be a symptom of ADHD too. And then, you know, as things went along, people started to recognize that for most people, they do not grow out of ADHD. Most ADHD does last to adulthood, not every single one. But most, for sure. And as they recognize that ADHD, lastly to adulthood, they would see that adults with ADHD had a lot of executive functioning problems. And I'm sure that your listeners have a good understanding by now of what executive functioning. So I'm not gonna go into detail about that, because I'm sure you've covered that in a lot of different podcasts. Yeah. And the they actually, many experts actually consider the executive functioning problems to be more disabling for people who have ADHD as adults than either inattention or hyperactivity. Yeah. And we'll see that too. Sure. And when you look back at people who have ADHD as adults, it turns out that the executive functioning problems are a lifelong problem. They're just less obvious in kids, because with kids, the adults in their lives, be it their teachers and parents, you know, other other adults will structure their lives for them. And so they don't have to do as much executive functioning as an adult. That's right. And often, when people who have ADHD go off to college or leave home for the first time, they may, they often do have a lot of struggles initially, because they're not used to doing their own structuring for themselves.Hannah Choi 12:02Yeah, absolutely. I see. And most of my clients are college kids. And that's exactly what I see. Every pretty much in every every client, like, Wow, a lot of things were structured for me in high school. And I thought that I could, you know, just keep up doing the same thing once I got to college and wait a second. Not exactly working out as I thought it would. Jan Willer, PhD 12:24Yeah, and things can really fall apart pretty fast. Because nobody's telling them to get up. And people who have ADHD have a tendency to be night owls. And so, and especially, and sometimes it's so extreme that they could even get a diagnosis of delayed sleep phase disorder, which is a sleep disorder. And so that difficulty getting up to go to things, stay up till three in the morning, hanging out with friends playing video games, whatever, you know, and then they don't want to get up until 11. And class was it 9:30? Yeah, yeah. So there's can be a lot of different pieces to the difficulties that college students can have.Hannah Choi 13:07I know a big part of ADHD for kids and adults. But maybe we can talk about adults here is the self regulation and emotional regulation. How, how does that show up? What do you see in your practice?Jan Willer, PhD 13:23Yeah, I mean, that is indeed a common problem. And about half of people who have ADHD as adults do have this emotional dysregulation problem. And what it consists of is, when people have something stressful, occur, they tend to be especially reacted to that. And it could be just kind of ordinary stuff, like somebody cutting you off in traffic, or it could be something bigger, like, you know, some family crisis or something, or, you know, just a minor change, like, you know, they were looking for peppers in the refrigerator, and they didn't have any, and they were going to, that was going to be a key part of what they're going to make for dinner. And so these stressors, whether they're big or even little, can lead to some pretty intense emotional reactions for the person and the person can feel irritated and frustrated and aggravated. And, you know, depending on the individual, some people have kind of learned to hold all that in because they've realized that other people don't react well, when they're next to somebody who's really, you know, having an outburst about a minor stressor, but other people don't have the, you know, ability, at least in that moment to hold that in and may have, you know, a verbal outburst or a temper outburst or something in response. And that can be, you know, really challenging for the person because they look around at everybody else and they're like, wait a minute, these other people are having stressors to, but I'm reacting somewhat differently from them. And again, this is sometimes where there's shame or embarrassment. Because the person then feels bad about themselves for having a strong emotional reaction when other people might not. Yeah. But unfortunately, it can be a part of their ADHD struggle.Hannah Choi 15:22That's so interesting. I didn't ever know that, that that how closely connected that was to ADHD?Jan Willer, PhD 15:29Yeah, it really should be a symptom that is in the official diagnostic manual, but it's not.Hannah Choi 15:36What are some other symptoms that people might not know about?Jan Willer, PhD 15:40You know, that's a really good question. One symptom that I actually see all the time, is that often people who have ADHD have a really hard time getting to sleep. And they lie down in bed, and they're ready to go to sleep. And their brain just starts going and going and going. And it's very active. You know, folks who don't have ADHD, when they lie down and go to sleep, their brain is kind of like slowing down and not very full of stuff. As long as they're not stressed or anxious about something, yeah. But a person who has ADHD, their brain just tends to be at very active all the time. And that's not true for everybody. But it's true for a very large proportion of people who have ADHD and, and their brains activity will keep them awake. And they may stay awake for an hour when they're trying to go to sleep with their brain just churning over all kinds of different stuff. The default mode network is a network that so the brain has many different networks of connectivity. And the default mode network is one of those. And they call it that because they people used to think that if you weren't doing something, then your brain wasn't thinking about anything. Now, anyone who has tried to meditate knows that that's ridiculous. Yes. Because of you not doing anything, which is what meditation is, to some extent about your brain is full of ideas. And yeah. So so that's the default mode network kind of churning up ideas and thoughts about your life and how we what's just going on with you what you plan on doing just any old random thoughts about your life. And that area does tend to be extra active and people who have ADHD, which is I like you're pointing out the connection to the sleep onset problem. Yeah, right. Also, that area is supposed to be kind of quieted down, when you're working on a task, that since that area tends to be extra active, and people who have ADHD, often one piece of their challenges with distractibility is that they are distracted by their own thoughts when they're trying to work on things. Right. And so they're really trying to focus that their own thoughts are interrupting their thought process. And a final thing that is probably related to the default mode network in ADHD is that people who, there's a little bit of research, unfortunately, there is really isn't enough research on the positive aspects of ADHD. But there is a little bit of research indicating that people who have ADHD tend to be more creative than the average person, and tend to be really great at brainstorming and thinking up lots of ideas. Hannah Choi 18:41I was reading about that. And, and the article was saying that it may be because they're able to not gonna remember the whole brain part of it, but they're able to make connections that might not necessarily be able to be made by someone as easily if they don't have ADHD. Jan Willer, PhD 19:03Yeah, absolutely. Sort of. Yeah, that thinks ability in that part of the creativity of the ADHD brain for sure. Yeah.Hannah Choi 19:10Yeah. Huh. It's interesting that if there's one thing that you said was like, not everybody experiences that not being able to fall asleep bit. So what do you think? When when, like, not everyone with ADHD has all the same symptoms? And like, why do you know why that is? And no, it's just probably because we're just all different. But it's so interesting that some people can quiet their default mode network and then others can't. Jan Willer, PhD 19:41Yeah, it is kind of fascinating, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, I think that part of that has to do with the fact that ADHD, there's no one gene that ADHD is carried on right there. There's a lot of research about genetics and ADHD and a lot of it on us Sleep is way too technical for me. But yeah, I can read enough of it understand that there are dozens of genes at least that affect whether a person has ADHD. Okay, and if so to help what degree? Yeah, because some people have a lot of ADHD, some people have a little bit and some people have none. So, right. Right. And that, you know, plus everybody has a different life that they've been through was raised a different way. And so, you know, sometimes I see people with, you know, pretty significant ADHD symptoms, but they have no problem keeping track of their calendar, because they've had folks working with them their whole life about how important that is. And they've really got the skills down.Hannah Choi 20:43Right. Yeah, I imagine, like so much of your about of how your ADHD affects you, as an adult, is decided by just the strategies and the skills that you've learned and the awareness that you have of yourself and the impact that your behaviors have on your life and on others. And with kids. It's harder for them because they they haven't learned to that. Yeah, they just haven't been around long enough to, to kind of know that sort of stuff.Jan Willer, PhD 21:19Yeah, exactly. And, you know, with my client, adult clients, I don't work with kids. I tell them that one advantage that they're bringing to working with their ADHD is maturity. Yeah. Right. Because having that insight into how some of these challenges of ADHD have affected their life negatively, provides a lot of motivation to work on.Hannah Choi 21:45I interviewed Nancy Armstrong, who was the executive producer on a documentary called "The Disruptor"s and, and that her documentary, really highlights, it definitely explores the challenges. And it also highlights the positive side of ADHD. And that's and their work. Yeah, it's, it's a great, it's a great watch. They're working really hard to dispel a lot of the myths around ADHD and, and help people find the positives. So in your opinion, what are some of the positives? Jan Willer, PhD 22:19Well, we've already mentioned a lot of them, right? The artistic creativity can be one of them, out of the box, thinking of being more of a divergent thinker who's able to connect a lot of different things. I think that because of people having that out of the box thinking, they're often really valuable team members. And, you know, I personally have, of course, I have no proof of this. But my personal belief is that the reason that the genes for ADHD survive in the population is because it's so helpful in any group of people to have somebody who is really creative and full of all kinds of ideas and thinks about things in a really different way. And, you know, to some extent, that might be true of autism as well.Hannah Choi 23:12So it's really interesting talking with you. And I know, it was a conversation that we had the other day before we came on, and in all the research that I've been doing, and all the clients that I've worked with, I'm realizing the more and more I read and the more and more I talk with people that I really think that I probably have our head like had as a child and still have the inattentive type. So much of, of what I've read, and just things that people have said, I'm like, Oh, my God, that just, I feel validated when I hear that and so it makes me wonder, you know, maybe that was something that I could have gotten help with as a child and, and, and can still now like as an adult, find things that helped me. I'm sure that you've heard a lot of people come into your practice and say something similar. Jan Willer, PhD 24:12Absolutely.Hannah Choi 24:17Okay, so in the interest of time, and potentially embarrassing myself more than I'm comfortable with. I'm going to stop the recording of a conversation here. Right after this. I asked Jan, if she'd be open to talking with me about my own challenges. We talked for a while about my life and what I struggle with and why I think I might have ADHD. It was pretty eye opening and extremely validating. She encouraged me to get a formal diagnosis from someone in my state. After chatting with Jan, I set up an appointment with my primary care physician who is an internal medicine doctor. I was really optimistic on the appointment day but things didn't go as planned. I was reminded of something that Dr. Theresa Cerulli said about how internists will not usually entertain a conversation about ADHD, and will generally refer you to a psychiatrist, which is exactly what mine did. Feeling deflated because I knew a psychiatrists fee would be greater than what I could afford. I remembered my own advice to clients. What would this look like if it were easy? So I reached out to Jan again, for more guidance. Do I need to see a psychiatrist is a full neuro Psych Exam necessary? And who else can I consult besides my doctor? Jan assured me that a full neuropsych exam wasn't required. She explained that due to the shortage of psychiatrists available for ADHD support, other providers can diagnose it without a formal neuropsych exam. And this boosted my confidence to search further. And then I found a local psychiatric nurse practitioner online through psychologytoday.com, which is a great resource for that kind of stuff. We met for over an hour, she asked me all about my health history and my childhood, my college years and my coloring challenges. And we went through the adult ADHD Self-Report scale together, which was hilarious. I kept bursting out laughing at many of the questions because it was me but on paper, and I kept wondering "Was the person who created the scale living in my brain?" Initially, I wasn't sure I wanted to use medication. But after learning about the ADHD brain and how it works, I was more open to it. I remembered something else that Dr. Cerulli said, at least have the conversation about medication options. Whether you use them or not, is up to you but have that conversation. I also felt confident trying medication because I already did all the things you're supposed to do, right? I eat well, I get a lot of exercise, my sleep habits are good. I had created systems that work really well to support myself in EF areas that I struggle with. But honestly, I was exhausted, forcing myself to use them all the time and not being as successful as I probably should have. And honestly, I was being pretty mean to myself inside when I struggled. So something had to change. So I decided to try using ADHD medication. I knew I wasn't interested in stimulants because I wasn't sure how they'd work with the anxiety that I already dealt with. And considering my history, Sophia prescribed the non stimulant Wellbutrin initially, it actually worked really well. But unfortunately, it increased the number of migraines I was having. And interestingly, there is a connection between migraines and people with ADHD. And I'm actually having an appointment with a with a neurologist coming up. And I want to ask more about that and learn more about that connection. So anyway, I switched to another non stimulant called Strattera. And that's actually been working great. It's made a huge difference in reducing the constant chatter in my head until it quieted down in there, I seriously had no idea how much noise I had in my brain all the time. I've also noticed that it's so much easier for me to get started on my work and get back to it if I get interrupted. And I can also stay focused on my work for longer periods of time. And following through on stuff that I don't want to do is not so painfully difficult anymore. And I remember Bob Shae telling me that his meds make it easier to use all the tools he had already implemented. I agree, Bob, I completely agree. I have spent a lot of time reflecting you know, me, I love that self reflection and thinking back to choices that I made and things that I did that were likely because of ADHD. I've been reading and listening to podcasts and talking with people about their ADHD. And I am learning so much. I decided to reach out to Jan again to talk with her about what comes up for people once they've been diagnosed, and what supports will help. We met just recently to record and realize it had been almost nine months since we first talked. Let's check in to hear what we talked about. Hannah Choi 29:17So when we last talked, I asked you about my own experience with ADHD and I really am grateful to you for taking that time with me to walk me through that a little bit uncomfortable, and a little scary conversation and and it's just such a great example of this idea that when we step outside of our comfort zone we end up finding magic and and discovering things that we never knew or we knew about ourselves but we didn't like have words for it. And it's just been who I got chills it's really actually been life changing and I'm I am so grateful for it. So thank you.Jan Willer, PhD 30:03Oh, you're welcome. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I do find that a lot of people really appreciate knowing that they have ADHD. Because it has so much explanatory power for what people have been struggling with. And like you said, sometimes people don't even have the words, yeah, for all of their struggles. So being able to talk about it with a professional and have that person say, Oh, well, people who have ADHD often struggle with this, and this and this and kind of give, give the person the words and the ways to conceptualize it. And then they'll be like, Yes, I do that. And yes, I have that problem, too. And yes, that's so hard for me, really can kind of make a difference in terms of the person understanding themselves, and being able to communicate with their loved ones. And people they work with even the whether they come out about having ADHD or not, they can still say things like, it really doesn't work very well, for me to have a lot of interruptions when I'm trying to work on a project.Hannah Choi 31:13Yes, yeah. Yeah, that's a that's a great point that you brought up. And something I wanted to talk about is that whole, you know, disclosing at work type of thing, because so I, you know, I'm very lucky, I work in a job where, you know, I wasn't even an issue for me to disclose, they were just like, okay, yeah, that's great. What's next, you know, and then, and, in fact, it, it probably really helps me as a coach to know and to relate with my clients even more. And, and so I'm very lucky that I work in an environment that is not only extremely accepting of neurodivergence, but also we are in like, the literal business of supporting people who are neurodivergent. And then you know, there's there's other people who may or may not feel safe disclosing that at work. And so I really love that, that that suggestion that you gave just then of how you can disclose your needs without necessarily disclosing your diagnosis. How do you support client, your clients who come to with that struggle?Jan Willer, PhD 32:26Yeah, well, you know, everybody who has ADHD is a little bit different. And so you know, depends on some people work better at home, some people work better in the office, it kind of each person has different situations where they concentrate better. Sometimes that people do better in the office that also certain areas of office are too noisy or distracting. And so they need some help with that. On occasion, I have written accommodation letters for people. And it doesn't always work 100%. But usually, they are able to do something that's helpful to the person. Like I had someone I was talking to once whose cube was right by the coffee machine. And you can imagine how distracting that would be for anybody, much less a person who has ADHD, and they were able to get moved to an area that was a lot quieter. And that made all the difference in terms of being able to be efficient at work. Hannah Choi 33:29Yeah, and I imagine a big part of it is self efficacy and being brave enough to speak up about it. So having someone like you to maybe work through a script, or just kind of talk out what an accommodation might be helpful. I'm, I'm sure that is a big, a big part of people's experience.Jan Willer, PhD 33:50Right. And, you know, people can kind of take two different approaches to that. I mean, one is kind of the official HR approach, you know, going in, I want reasonable accommodations for my ADHD, which legally is considered a disability even though you know, people can discuss whether they could consider it that way or not. And so that's one approach. And the other approach is to say, okay, to think about, well, how is my ADHD interacting negatively with the work environment? And how can I verbalize what my needs are? If I don't feel comfortable or the HR situation isn't optimal in a way that people can hear it and might be willing to work with me on it? Tomorrow, kind of informal approach.Hannah Choi 34:42And I bet when you have an like, I imagined maybe like before someone gets a diagnosis, they still are aware of what their challenges are. Maybe after they get the formal diagnosis. They're like, okay, that might give them some confidence to to ask for what they need there. There's an actual reason why they need that. It's not just that they're bad. They're, you know, there's a real reason. Jan Willer, PhD 35:08Right, and I think you're bringing up a really important point is that a lot of people, you know, like yourself managed to kind of fly under the radar their whole life. And they knew something was going on, they knew they were somewhat different from everybody else. But it often tends to be very internalized. And the person tends to feel like, well, I'm struggling, and all these other people aren't struggling, therefore, there's something wrong with me. And so that, you know, that, then they just kind of end up what caught doing what many people call masking, which is trying to pretend that there isn't an issue, even if they are struggling, and a lot of people can be very successful at pretending. But even though even though inside they're really feeling kind of miserable about Hannah Choi 35:59Yeah, there's a there's a, an internal cost. That is it's maybe not visible, but they are feeling it. Exactly, yeah. Yeah. That That reminds me of, we recently did a webinar about ADHD, and about for people who were newly diagnosed and are curious. And a parent asked about their child who was, I can't remember, I think he was like, older teen young adult kind of college age. So the parents said, he had just been diagnosed, and was feeling like it was a negative thing. And, and, and she was wondering how we could or how she could support him to learn about about it, and maybe see it in a more positive light. And it just made me think like, he's probably spent a lot of his life internalizing all of those things, then you find out, Oh, there's a reason for it. Oh, then this must be a bad thing. So how do you support people who are how can we even our listeners, if we have people, you know, loved ones in our lives? who have been diagnosed? How can we support them? In seeing that it's not all bad?Jan Willer, PhD 37:21Yeah, I think there's a couple of ways to look at this. I mean, one way to look at it is to say, well, you know, if you if you think about it from a disability perspective, which is, you know, one angle to look at things is to say, Okay, well, it's a disability that makes it difficult for this person to learn, in certain situations difficult for the person to work in certain situations take information in and at times, you know, all kinds of other challenges that can come up with that. But does that, does that have to be viewed in a negative and judgmental way? Right, you know, the brain is an organ to the brain, you know, can have issues just like any other organ can have issues. And so, in a way, that's one way of conceptualizing ADHD and thinking about it in terms of not having stigma towards a person who has an illness or a disability or something like that, because nobody deserves that, that's, you know, that's ableism. And that's wrong. So, another way of thinking about it, which I think is is equally valid, is thinking about it in terms of being neurotypical versus neurodivergent. And so, you know, when we think of people who are neurotypical, we're typically talking about a person who doesn't have ADHD, and a person who doesn't have autism. And so, those folks at you know, the world is built around people who are neurotypical is not built to accommodate people who are neurodivergent. And so that's part of the difficulty that people who are neurodivergent have is that it's just not, it's not built for how their brain operates, nothing is built for how their brain offers and the things that are valued, don't tend to be the things that the people who are neurodivergent have to offer. So for example, some of the things that a person who's neurodivergent have to offer our, the, their incredible ability to be really interested and passionate about things and just really dig in and get into something and understand all the incredible connections between they're taught that topic that they're into and everything around it, they're great at understanding things in a network kind of interconnected way. Whereas kind of in this is obviously a little over-simplified, but a person who's neurotypical tends to be more of a linear thinker, whereas a person who has ADHD tends to be more of a, you know, kind of a divergent, tangential type thinker. And also people who have ADHD are often very creative in some way or another, you know, they can be creative in terms of problem solving, coming up with ideas, brainstorming, they also can be very creative in terms of the arts. So, and they're just great at coming up with ideas that no one else ever thought of, you know, and those are not things that the school system was really searching for. Hannah Choi 40:45So help, helping somebody with ADHD who maybe has recently been diagnosed recognize that ability that they have, and recognize how they can use that in a work situation or school situation. Yeah, while simultaneously advocating for themselves to somehow fit successfully into that neurotypical system.Jan Willer, PhD 41:11Right, the neurotypical world. Yeah,Hannah Choi 41:14Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that broke my heart that he that that boy felt that way. Because, and maybe it's just age, right. So I, I found out that I was, you know, I got the answer to all of my questions when I was 46. And so I, I might, you know, I'm just like, just have more life experience, and I'm more mature, I guess. Right. So I was able to, like, kind of go back and, and hug the 20 year old version of me that, you know, didn't understand. And he is that 20 year old version of himself. And so he doesn't, he just has what other people are telling him. So I guess that's not really sure where I'm going with this, but I like, but it just makes me think of when you've been diagnosed, finding people who really support you recognizing your strengths. And, you know, and following your strengths, following your talents, finding a work environment, or a school environment that is willing and open to supporting you as an neurodivergent thinker. With an ADHD brain or an ASD brain, then, you know, that that would I imagine just lead to a better experience, like I'm having, you know, the fact that the work that I do is very well suited for me.Jan Willer, PhD 42:37Yeah, and I think people who have ADHD are especially well suited to professions where there's always something new to learn, there's always a problem to solve. There's always a new person to talk to, you know, and that, and they're really great at engaging in all of those new things that are coming at them and love, usually love learning new things. Yeah. Which I think is really cool.Hannah Choi 43:05It is. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And so I was just listening to Ned Hallowell he was on, on a podcast that I really enjoyed listening to with a woman called Kate, I can't remember her last name, but she's a British woman who has a podcast called the ADHD, women's well being podcast, and she interviewed him on there, and he was talking about, and I'm sure he's talked about this and other things, I just happen to hear it on there. But he was talking about how important it is for people with ADHD to, to, to do things that, that they're really interested in and find a job that they are good at, because it's something that they're good at, or because it's something that they're interested in. And to break free from these, like, preconceived notions that society has, like, oh, you need to become this or that or maybe your parents expectation or, or your social circle or whatever. And, and this just another chance, another op op, another situation where a person has to say like, Hey, I might not do things the same as everybody else. Jan Willer, PhD 44:12Absolutely. Right. And doing things different in a different way. Doesn't mean you're doing things in a worse way. Hmm, I like that. Right? Different isn't?Hannah Choi 44:21It's just yeah, it's just different. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. Jan Willer, PhD 44:27And, you know, often I'll tell my clients who have ADHD that it's important to work with it rather than against. Yeah, don't fight it and feel like I have to do everything the way exactly the way that a neurotypical person does it or I'm not successful. Yeah, do it in a way that works for you and your own particular brain. And that's great.Hannah Choi 44:52Yeah, just I have a friend who has ADHD and so we've just been talking a lot lately and, and we were talking about how Oh, how it's so fun talking with another person who has ADHD because you can get really tangental and tangential and come right back and other person just follow right along. I had a client this morning, she's like, sorry, I'm all over the place. I'm like, Don't worry, I, I gotcha. Gotta take a lot of notes as you're going, because otherwise I'll forget what you say. But, uh, mowing you? Yeah. And I guess that deer? Do do you see in your clients desire to connect with other people who have ADHD or to find a social support that way?Jan Willer, PhD 45:39You know, I think it's interesting that you're bringing that up, because I have certainly have noticed that a lot of my clients who have ADHD do tend to have friends who have ADHD, and sometimes even spouses, but the spouses can go either way, sometimes they have ADHD, and sometimes they want to be with somebody who's very organized. Like, they want to be with a really neurotypical person, balance them out. Yeah, exactly. But they do tend to really, you know, kind of enjoy that bouncing around. Yeah, seasonally, that happens when two people have ADHD. It's an interesting phenomena. Hannah Choi 46:18It's fun! We're fun people. Jan Willer, PhD 46:20Yeah, I mean, people who have ADHD tend to be full of life. And, you know, it's really and spontaneous and have lots of interesting things to say. And you know, that's cool. That's a good friend.Hannah Choi 46:35Something that, that I've been thinking about lately is the anxiety that comes along with ADHD and how, for me, realizing how connected they were was so freeing, and it's truly incredible how much less anxiety I am experiencing now. And I remember you said that you said to, you often encourage people to explore the ADHD diagnosis when they have it, where they have anxiety. And at night, I really can speak to that it made a really big difference for me. And then I think back to my childhood. And I remember I went to the summer camp, and they gave away awards at the end of the summer. And the award that I got, which I was 12. And now looking back on it, oh god that my poor 12 year old self, the worst they gave me was the "What If Award". And because I always used to say, well, what if what if this happens? What if that happens? I was really anxious. And it nobody said like, "Wait a second? Why is she wondering all the time What if?" And now I realize it's because my brain was thinking of all the things, all the things. And I just so when I realized that I was in the car today while I was driving. Oh, so I went back to my 12 year old self. It's okay. We get it now. Yeah, so that's been that's been like a really nice experience that I've had is being able to go back and just kind of forgive myself a little bit.Jan Willer, PhD 48:09Yeah, yeah, it really it does take a while to kind of turn over all the things that happened that were related to the ADHD, and put it all in context, isn't it?Hannah Choi 48:20Yeah. And it's, yeah, it's and you know, so it's been, like, nine months since we talked, so nine months of me, like really exploring that. And, and it's, I think, out of the whole experience, I think that is probably the most impactful is being able to explain a lot of things and, and really forgive myself, because I held on for so long, that, that I was just bad at all those things, and, and internalized so much of it, and I and I, but I was really good at masking it even to myself. And so it's just been, like incredible, but for sure need a therapist. Like, I don't think I would have been able to do that all on my own. I wouldn't, I would have been more afraid to go there without the support of a therapist, you know, like, walking me through it is it's been. It's been hard. And it's been amazing. Yeah.Jan Willer, PhD 49:27Yeah. So there's there's a lot of advantages that can come to having a therapist who is knowledgeable about ADHD, right? Yeah. Because they can help you sort through those issues from the past and get their perspective on it. Right. And they can provide you with a lot of information about ADHD and you know how the brain works when a person has ADHD. Yeah, what their common struggles are or what their differences are. So, so that's, that's really useful too, and it can help you work on and coping skills if there's things that you're struggling with. Hannah Choi 50:03Yeah. So you know what, before we go, what kind of it? Like, what's your top advice that you give to people? Right? You know, when they, when they come to this realization like, oh, okay, this is why?Jan Willer, PhD 50:19Well, I think it's the case with any, you know, cognitive or emotional difference that a person may have in that get, you know, knowledge is power, right? Yeah. And so the more a person understands themselves, the more they understand how their brain is working, the more they've understand how ADHD has affected their life, and affected how they feel about themselves and their emotions, you know, then that really helps them figure out how to move forward. Yeah,Hannah Choi 50:53Yeah. And that might take a while and might take a lot of hard work. Probably some tears. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks again, Jan. I will be forever, eternally grateful to you for taking the time and for being so supportive. And I really hope that anyone listening can can find a Jan Willer in their lives, to you know, to kind of walk them through this whole, like, exploration of possible ADHD diagnosis. Hannah Choi 51:33I just like I like you heard me just say, I am just so grateful for this diagnosis now at age 46. And I'm sad that there was not as much education and understanding about ADHD back when I was a kid so that me and other people like me, could have gotten help earlier. And mom, I know you're listening, I just want you to know that I placed absolutely no blame at all on you, or dad, or on my teachers or the other adults in my childhood, there just wasn't the knowledge, the awareness and understanding that we have today. And I know there are people out there many of them women like me, who were masking their symptoms with coping skills, they were not so that were not so outwardly noticeable to others and didn't have any catastrophic consequences. But they were slowly turning them us inside into people who struggle to find confidence, and believe in themselves. So I am really hopeful for myself and everyone else out there who can relate to any of what I've shared today. If you can relate, please reach out, ask for help ask the questions. It's scary, but you got to do it. I made an appointment, like I said before with a neurologist to learn about my migraines and the connection with ADHD. And I also made an appointment with a more affordable psychiatrist who does full neuro psych reports for less than the typical cost. I'm very excited about that. And you know, as Jan said, knowledge is power. So I'm taking my brain health into my own hands and learning as much as I can. And I really hope that you're able to do that for yourself as well. Hannah Choi 53:11If you've been listening for a while, you'll know that one of our main goals is to hopefully help someone somewhere who is struggling with an aspect or maybe many aspects of their executive function skills. Well, this episode is here to maybe help that person find freedom from their frustrating past. By finding the courage to get tested, ask questions, learn about medication and strategies that truly can make a huge difference. It was hard and kind of weird to put myself out there for this episode. My colleagues and Jan both asked me if I was okay with being in that vulnerable position. But I thought about all the people who might be able to relate who might not know where to start and who might find some inspiration and maybe some bravery in my story. I also figured if Katie Couric, Jimmy Kimmel, and Ryan Reynolds can all share their colonoscopy experiences on TV, I can share my ADHD story with you on Focus Forward. Hannah Choi 54:10And that is our show for today. If you know anyone who might want to hear all this or maybe needs to hear all this, please share this episode with them. You can reach out to me at podcast at beyond booksmart.com I would love love, love to hear from you. Please subscribe to focus forward on Apple and Google podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts and if you listen on Apple podcasts or on Spotify, please give us a boost by giving us a five star rating will love you for it. Sign up for our newsletter at beyond booksmart.com/podcast. We'll let you know when new episodes drop, and we'll share information related to the topic. Thanks for listening everyone.

Mark Cerulli is a writer, producer, and director who helped create the “Making Of” series giving us the behind the scenes look at GOLDFINGER and THUNDERBALL. Mark tells us how the series was made, behind the scenes stories, his interactions with Sean Connery, and much more. Mark also discusses his documentary BY DESIGN: THE JOE CAROFF STORY.   We KNOW every James Bond fan is familiar with Joe Caroff's work.  Yet, you probably have never heard of him.  Mark fills you in on Joe's major contributions to the James Bond movie franchise as well as other places you will have seen Joe's work.   The documentary is available for streaming on MAX. Finally, Mark discusses his upcoming movie, AREA 5150.  This is the first full-length movie that Mark Cerulli has written and produced. So, have a listen and you'll “Be in the Know”. We had a lot of fun with this interview.   You can check out all of our podcast episodes on your favorite podcast app or on our website. Our channel name is CRACKING THE CODE OF SPY MOVIES. Ideas/Comments? Info@cracking-the-code-of-spy-movies.com  Website page: https://bit.ly/44XruL5  

Last week, I had a blast hosting another free webinar for Beyond BookSmart that was all about ADHD. Amy McDuffie, an Executive Function coach and ADHD expert, joined me to explore how the ADHD brain works and what the roles of medication, therapy and executive function coaching are within the larger umbrella of ADHD treatment. We also took some time to cover some of our coaches' favorite tools and strategies that can support the areas of executive functioning that people with ADHD often struggle with, and featured psychiatrist, Dr. Theresa, to fill in some of our expertise gaps around ADHD medication. So, today, I'm bringing you the audio from the webinar AND a bonus Q&A section that Amy & I did after the webinar (there were just too many great questions we didn't get to!) If you joined us live and just want to hear the bonus content, you can skip ahead to around 47 minutes to listen to just that. And if you didn't get a chance to watch the webinar at all, be sure to look for the link in the show notes below!For those who have been blessed with careful ears, you'll hear me share in this episode that I was recently diagnosed with ADHD myself. Because of my recent diagnosis, this episode is particularly close to my heart. I hope you enjoy listening half as much as I enjoyed being a part of these important conversations and if you do, be sure to give us a 5-star review on the platform you're listening on! And last but certainly not least, thank you for being a part of the Focus Forward community. Here are the show notes for this week: Watch our webinar, How to Thrive with ADHD After a Diagnosishttps://thinkingoutsidetheclassroom.wistia.com/medias/u3pueh40rsSlides from our webinar, How to Thrive with ADHD After a Diagnosishttps://www.beyondbooksmart.com/hubfs/How%20to%20Thrive%20with%20ADHD%20After%20a%20Diagnosis%202023.pdfWatch our webinar about Motivation:https://thinkingoutsidetheclassroom.wistia.com/medias/o3it96iuotBeyond BookSmart ADHD Success Kithttps://www.beyondbooksmart.com/adhd-success-kit-2022Focus Forward Ep 13: How to Unlock the Superpowers of ADHDhttps://www.beyondbooksmart.com/podcast?wchannelid=y1lzulxlcs&wmediaid=by637tasziFocus Forward Ep 18: Flipping the ADHD Narrative: How "The Disruptors" is Changing the Way We Talk About ADHD (ft. Nancy Armstrong)https://www.beyondbooksmart.com/podcast?wchannelid=y1lzulxlcs&wmediaid=wwh3rsdpbw2-Minute Neuroscience: ADHDhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8JnDhp83gATranscriptHannah Choi 00:04Hi everyone, and welcome to Focus Forward, an executive function podcast where we explore the challenges and celebrate the wins, you'll experience as you change your life by working on improving your executive function skills. I'm your host, Hannah Choi. Hannah Choi 00:18Oh, you guys, thank you so much for taking the time to go to Apple podcasts and rate Focus Forward. For me, it really means a lot to see that little number next, all those stars go up. I really appreciate it. If you want to help us out, and you haven't already rated it, you can scroll to the bottom of the Focus Forward section of your Apple podcasts app and give us a rating and hopefully it's five stars. If it's not, email me, tell me why. Thanks, guys. I really appreciate you all so much.Hannah Choi 00:47 I had a blast hosting another beyond booksmart free webinar last week, this time, all about ADHD. Amy McDuffie joined me again as one of our ADHD experts. And we covered what ADHD is and what it is not how the ADHD brain and medication work, the roles therapy and executive function coaching play for people with ADHD, and the benefits of pairing those interventions for maximum success. We also took some time to cover some of our coaches favorite tools and strategies that can support the areas of executive functioning that people with ADHD often struggle with. And this webinar was an updated version of the ADHD fundamentals webinar that we held in June of 2022. So today, I'm bringing you the audio from this year's ADHD webinar. If you listen to Focus Forward regularly, you may notice that much of the content is similar to the ADHD focused episode we did in October of 2022. In fact, I even used some of the audio from last year's webinar in that episode, I really hope you listen anyway. And don't report me for plagiarizing myself, although you'd have to report me to me, and I'm cool with it. So it's all just such good stuff. And I want to share it with as many people as possible in as many formats as we can. So some people like to watch video to learn, and others like to listen and still others prefer to read. And as a coach, I really recognize the value of honoring these differences in people. And so this is me making that happen. If you'd like some visuals while you listen, the slides from the webinar are linked in the show notes. Also, today, you'll hear me share that I was recently diagnosed with ADHD myself. And so this webinar and that ADHD episode are particularly close to my heart. In fact, doing all the research for the ADHD episode last year confirmed what I had been wondering for quite a while. Hannah Choi 03:02At the end of our webinar presentation last week, Amy and I answered some of the Q&A topics that our attendees asked both with their registrations and during the live webinar. And people asked such good questions. So good. And if you listened to the Focus Forward episode of the audio from our Laziness vs. Executive Dysfunction webinar, all about unlocking motivation, you may remember that Amy, Vin and I sat down the next day to answer more Q&A topics. Because there were some great questions we couldn't get to before this latest webinar ended, Amy and I decided to meet up again, just like last time, so stay tuned at the end of the webinar audio for the bonus content. If you joined us live and you just want to hear the bonus content, you can skip ahead to about 46 minutes to listen to just that. And if you missed the webinar, and you want to watch it, the link to it and our other webinar presentations is in the show notes. Okay, now on to the show. Hannah Choi 04:07All right. So hello, and welcome to our webinar "How to Thrive with ADHD After Diagnosis". We are so thrilled to welcome people joining us from across the US and around the world as we saw, and we have closed captions available. So if you'd like to use those, be sure to turn them on. My name is Hannah Choi, and I'll be your moderator for tonight's event. I use she her pronouns and I'm the host of our podcast, all about executive functioning called Focus Forward. So if you listen there, you might know you get to see a face to the name or Yeah, face to my voice. I have been an executive function coach at beyond booksmart since 2017, and I have coached dozens of students from elementary age all the way up to college and I also work with adults and I'm a mom of two kids who are 11 and 14 and I live in Connecticut. I am also joined by Amy McDuffie who you may recognize from our laziness versus executive dysfunction webinar around motivation. Amy, would you please introduce yourself and share your background and your roles with Beyond BookSmart?Amy McDuffie 05:14Yes, thank you, Hannah. Hi, everyone, I have been a coach and executive function consultant with beyond booksmart. For over two years. I use she her pronouns, and my background is in special education, specifically in behavior and learning disabilities, with students from elementary through high school. And I'm also a former behavior specialist. These opportunities allowed me to really experience both the gifts and challenges of students diagnosed with ADHD. Much of my work in the school setting focused on providing interventions for students, and coaching teachers on how to best provide support. I'm also the parent of two pretty awesome teens, ages 14 and 17. And I'm so glad you all are here. And I'm really excited to be with you.Hannah Choi 05:59Thank you, Amy. And for those of you who are joining us who may not be familiar with Beyond BookSmart, we have been providing one on one executive function coaching with students and adults since 2006. Even before that term executive function became widely known. And you may already know this term since ADHD and executive function skill challenges are so closely bound. But if it's new to you, you're not alone, I promise. Executive function skills are mental skills that we use to navigate our lives and get through our days. They include attention, memory, time management, planning, prioritizing, and emotional regulation. And many of our clients have an ADHD diagnosis, which gives us extensive experience in supporting individuals with ADHD or similar challenges. And today's webinar is an updated version of the ADHD fundamentals webinar that we ran last summer, which was hosted by Jackie Hebert. And that webinar was one of our highest attended webinars. So we know that this topic is really important to people. And I am personally thrilled to be hosting this time, because the topic is really close to my heart, I was recently diagnosed with ADHD. And I've been doing a lot of the same navigation of new waters that many of you likely are. And so I'm really happy to be here with you today. So you may be joining us today because you or your child was recently diagnosed with ADHD, but maybe you just suspect a diagnosis. And if this is the case, we really encourage you to listen to the webinar, and then reach out to your pediatrician or your primary care provider for guidance on what to do next.Amy McDuffie 07:37Thanks, Hannah. It can be really overwhelming when you learn or suspect that you or a loved one has ADHD. There's just so much information out there. And it can be hard to sort through it all. But we find it can also be a huge relief to get a diagnosis because it gives you context for your or your child's struggles, and also a defined place to look for help and support, which you are doing right now. We're here tonight to provide that for you. So here's what's here's what to expect in our webinar. First, we'll briefly define ADHD and explore some common assumptions about it. Then we'll move to learning about medication options. Then we'll touch upon behavioral approaches to treating ADHD, and share some of our coaches favorite tools and strategies that can make life a little easier. We'll share some resources and answer some of your questions before we finish up. So please use the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen throughout the webinar.Hannah Choi 08:38Yes, thanks. And because we're not medical doctors - Sorry mom and dad! We will be sharing a recording of some of the webinar from last summer. We had Dr. Theresa Cerulli join us to discuss the option of medication to treat ADHD. Dr. Cerulli is a graduate of Tufts University, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Harvard Longwood residency program in adult psychiatry, and Harvard fellowships in Medical Psychiatry and neuro psychiatry, and she is a board certified physician in psychiatry and is on the faculty at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and for the neuroscience Education Institute, so we'll hear from her later.Amy McDuffie 09:21All right, so you might be wondering just how common is ADHD? You're in very good company. Research from the National Institute of Mental Health, the NIMH reveals 11% of children and 4.4% of adults meet the criteria for ADHD, with males diagnosed at a higher rate than females. Now those statistics are from 2011. So we hope that NIMH updates their data soon. But with that degree of prevalence, you can see why it's essential to educate caregivers, children and adults with ADHD and help them identify supports to manage their symptoms.Hannah Choi 09:59Yes, and thanks to the efforts of high profile and successful people with ADHD, there's less stigma associated with a diagnosis. In fact, you'll meet many people who consider their ADHD a superpower of sorts. And it provides great energy and creativity when channeled effectively. There are so many great examples of people with this superpower from Simone Biles that you can see on the screen now, and astronaut Scott Kelly and so many others, and ADHD does not have to be a hindrance to success. All right, but all of that inspirational wisdom still leaves us with an important question. Hannah Choi 10:35What is ADHD? And what is it not? All right, so ADHD is a brain based condition that impacts daily life. And it often can affect motivation. And it often runs in families. And it has three subtypes, there's hyperactive impulsive, and then there's inattentive, which you may know as add the ADD is what it was formerly called. And now it is called ADHD inattentive type. And then there is the third type, which is the combined type that has characteristics from both. And ADHD directly impacts executive functioning. And ADHD is not a result of poor parenting. It is not a choice. And it is not something that children typically outgrow. And it is not a learning disability. And it's also doesn't have to be an immovable barrier to success and happiness. And I want to touch upon just a few of these points. Not everyone outgrows it. But with intervention, you can manage symptoms, and sometimes the symptoms just change over your life, because the demands on us change. So the symptoms can look different as we age. And ADHD is not considered a learning disability because it's a medical condition that, as we learned, impacts your it will what you'll learn as we will learn it impacts neurotransmitters in the brain. And research indicates that 30 to 50% of children with ADHD also have a specific learning disability, and that the two conditions can interact, which can make learning extremely challenging.12:10Yes, let's talk more about that for a minute. It's not a learning disability, but a medical condition. And understanding these dynamics can really help us empathize with individuals with ADHD. So if you attended our Laziness vs. Executive Dysfunction webinar, this may sound familiar. So ADHD is characterized by lower levels of the neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine, affecting how the ADHD brain perceives both reward and pleasure. And this leads to a lack of enthusiasm per task, and a tendency to prioritize short term rewards over long term rewards. Another significant difference in the ADHD brain involves the default mode network, which activates during daydreaming or when we're not focused on a task. In ADHD, this network is more often activated constantly diverting attention toward unrelated thoughts. So that explains why staying focused on tedious or repetitive tasks can be such a chore with ADHD. It really isn't a matter of well, it's a matter of neurology. And that's why brain based interventions can be really effective for individuals with ADHD.Hannah Choi 13:26Yes, so true. Thank you, Amy. Alright, so now that we know what happens inside the ADHD brain, let's take a look at how ADHD can show up in behavior. Okay, so here is the top of an iceberg. And this is the part that everyone sees when a person has executive function challenges due to ADHD. The people around them see the top they see the behaviors that are problematic. They're forgetful, they seem lazy and scattered. They're sloppy or moody, they behave impulsively, and sometimes can even be rude to others. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Now remember that icebergs are actually mostly hidden under the water. And it's the same with executive function challenges. When we look deeper, we can see the specific skill deficits that people with ADHD can often have and that are causing the challenging behaviors that impact those around us. And so a person may have a poor sense of time or difficulty planning ahead, when that can make them seem scattered, and they may have trouble regulating emotion and seem irritable or moody. When they have no strategies to self monitor, a person can look impulsive, and students or adults who are too overwhelmed to get started can look lazy. And when they have no systems to track to sorry, excuse me to track their belongings or to maintain their focus, they can be forgetful. And when a person has trouble thinking flexibly, it can affect their problem solving and perspective taking and that can often come off as rude or demanding behavior. Beer. And as I mentioned in the beginning, ADHD can impact one or more of these skill areas. So you can see how it can directly impact our ability to manage everyday demands.Amy McDuffie 15:13Thank you, Hannah. So we'll shift now to the role of medication for ADHD. Many of you wrote in with questions about that, and we recognize that medication is a personal choice. And for those who are considering it, we wanted to provide some support there. So let's hear from Dr. Cerulli to learn how that works.Theresa Cerulli, MD 15:33So medications, I will say, it should be something to at least discuss with your providers medication isn't for everyone, but should at least be considered for everyone is how I would have I would think about it. And mostly because of the data. Looking at this was these were NIMH funded studies, not pharmaceutical funded studies years ago, looking at the role of behavioral interventions versus motivate medication intervention, interventions, versus combined in treating ADHD, and the sitter. So the surprise was that medication interventions, compared with behavioral interventions alone, the medication invent interventions were more significantly impactful. And then we all made the assumption that the combined medication and behavioral treatment would be even more impactful and which was true, but not to the extent that they had anticipated. So it does look like a main a main part of the treatment intervention should be medication should at least be considered this is neural neuro biologically based. And the sometimes it's hard to make headway in your behavioral strategies, meaning I call that "from the outside in" using strategies you learn in your environment, with some coaching, hopefully, and therapy, from the outside in, those strategies become hard to learn, and or utilize if you're also not not working from the inside out and helping with the neurobiological aspects in terms of what's happening in the brain. So initially, at least considering the combination of therapies, internal and external, so to speak, are, are considered them should should at least be considered. That's how we think about it. And here's our ADHD brain here on on the slide with the power switch in the frontal lobe. Think of the brain as a large electrical circuit, it really is that we're sending electrical signals when one part of the brain is talking to another part of the brain. So in the ADHD brain, all the circuitry is there, there's nothing that's we're not missing something. There's not, you know, holes in the section of the brain that's involved in attention concentration. But it just, it turns out that there's a higher level of stimulation is needed to literally turn the circuit on. And the reason that this switch here is in the frontal lobe this on switch is because that's the area that's mostly involved in ADHD, from what we can tell that area is under active or hypo active. If you look at functional scans, have somebody do a concentration task that has ADHD, and you scan them in a functional scanner, looking at what happens. And it turns out that that area of the brain that's used with concentration and attention is under active, it's too quiet. It takes something stimulating to flip the switch, which is where the medications come in. I get this question all the time. Why in the world would you talk about stimulant medications? For somebody who's already hyperactive and impulsive? It's kind of counterintuitive. And the reason is because you're not trying to stimulate the whole person. You want to stimulate that frontal part of the brain that Its job is to help us focus, concentrate, built around, filter out background noises, organize and plan. You're trying to turn it on to do its job most efficiently and effectively. So choosing the right medication is the question we get all the time. It should be in partnership certainly with somebody who really knows ADHD well, and the primary care physicians are especially if you're working with kids, the pediatricians are quite familiar but all with adults with ADHD your internist may or may not be they because the stimulant medications, which are many of the options we have available, are controlled substances. A lot of the internists and general practitioners for adults are their little hesitant to be involved in in prescribing so we usually refer you to a psychiatrist and neurologist, somebody who does this on a more routine basis. For ADHD, there are stimulants. There are also non stimulants. The non stimulants have some similar effects in the brain. Not quite as strong, I would say Say is the stimulants and we'll go through them quickly through the pros and cons. Stimulants have been around for years and years the gosh, Ritalin 1950s There was some amphetamines available even before that in the 1930s not yet used for ADHD but at least existed so stimulants have been around for more years than I have been concert they've been well studied. They're relatively affordable because there's many options and so usually there's a lot of generic brands that are available which insurance is more willing to pay for so that has that advantage. Cons is that they are controlled substances. They do have the potential for addiction. If we have clients that working with when there's any concern around that we are really careful usually move that would be someone I'd move to a non stimulant is first line. Some examples of stimulants you may have heard of certainly, Ritalin, Concerta, and meditate those fall into the methylphenidate category of stimulants. There's a second stimulant category and that's amphetamines. Some of the names you may have heard of there are Adderall, Vyvanse and dexedrine. So stimulants, if that's the umbrella term, under stimulants, you have two subcategories methylphenidate and amphetamines. And then there's about 29 or so total stimulants if I wanted to make a list and but most of those 29 fall into either methylphenidate or amphetamines in some form, some are long acting, some are short acting. An example in the methylphenidate Ritalin itself and its original form that tablet lasted only about three and a half, four hours. And that was it, which is why it was so hard to get tend to go to the nurse's office at lunchtime to take their second dose of Ritalin than they needed a third dose after school and potentially another for homework. It was really kind of rough that up down on off feeling. Concerta is a long acting rhythm and it's still Ritalin. It's just a 10 to 12 hour version that you can take once in the morning and have it last throughout the day. So there's many methylphenidates that are short acting, many that are long acting, some that are in between. Same thing with amphetamines, the non stimulants, they aren't controlled substances, there is no potential for addiction. That is one of the beauties of the non stimulants. They haven't been out as long so we don't have as many available. In fact, there are only for adults, we only have two non stimulants FDA approved for treating ADHD. In children, we had three new we now have four because Quelbree came became available last year as another non stimulant available for actually kids and adults. So we don't have the long list of that we do with stimulants where there's I said 29 I think it's actually even a little more than that now. Preparations, non stimulants we're more limited choice, but they do have their advantages that it's not that they don't have side effects, stimulants and non stimulants both can have side effects. The side effects with the non stimulants are just a bit different. I already said that not addictive, there's no withdrawal risk. They're not quite as strong. If you looked at the robustness of response, you're going to get more effect over and above not on a stimulant over and above not taking a stimulant compared with what we call the robustness of of effect of a non stimulant. But it really should be tailored to the individual and discussed with your individual provider. Hopefully someone that really is specialized in ADHD.Amy McDuffie 23:41All right, that was great information. So medication provides a place to start for many with ADHD. But as some educational professionals say, "Pills don't teach skills". I know it might sound silly, but it's worth noting for the reminder it provides medication as we just learned can set the stage to make learning and applying new skills easier by turning on the brain's ability to focus, which allows us allows us to take better advantage of other beneficial supports. Also, because some people choose not to take ADHD medication, it's important to explore these other supports. So the other half of the equation is how you go about learning new habits and behaviors. Let's find out more about two options therapy and coaching. Both of which can teach you different ways of thinking about your ADHD, and tools and strategies to support the areas that you or your child find challenging. So therapy and executive function coaching work together to address the negative behaviors and habits that have been learned over time, but in different ways. Therapists help transform negative patterns of thinking influenced by living with ADHD and constructively rebuilt the way people feel about themselves. Their therapy can be a really helpful piece of overall treatment, particularly if there's self esteem issues, or coexisting mental health conditions like depression or anxiety that are part of the big picture. The longer that ADHD is untreated, it's more likely that there are deep seated beliefs about self worth, and potential that can be holding a person back. It's significant to note that a child with ADHD could receive 20,000 corrective or negative comments by the time they are age 10. Now that's fertile ground for feelings of shame to take root. We're not therapists, so we can't elaborate on the specific benefits and approaches to therapy. But we really encourage you to find a therapist who has experience supporting people with ADHD.Hannah Choi 25:56Yes, I know that my therapist has been invaluable to me as I figured out how to manage my ADHD and all the emotions that come with that diagnosis. So managing those emotions, and those negative narratives that come along with it are just one part of the puzzle. Because ADHD impacts executive functioning so directly, working specifically on developing good habits to level the playing field is really, really helpful. And that's where executive function coaching can help. So what is executive function coaching, it supports clients to explore their strengths and their challenges, and then refine their tools to manage their daily life challenges. And all of this helps foster healthy habits. And having a coach is beneficial for everyone, actually, regardless of your ADHD diagnosis, because you don't have to have ADHD, to have stroke struggles with executive function. And life can just be tough enough for everybody. So learning some new strategies is always helpful. And as we said before, Amy and I are both coaches, and we have been for some time now. And I just love how we get to teach adults and students, all those executive function skills like organizing, planning, prioritizing, managing time, and maintaining focus, learning to assess yourself and work more efficiently. But it's really so much more than just building on those specific skills and habits. Right, Amy?Amy McDuffie 27:26Absolutely. Yes, I definitely agree with you there, Hannah. I also really just value the strong trust and rapport that I get to build with clients. And I love those moments when I get to see a shift in confidence and autonomy. You know, really our goal is our goal as coaches is for clients to develop the skills they need in order to become successful and independent.Hannah Choi 27:51Yes, there's just nothing like it when we see our clients finding that. And also, everybody comes from a different place and has different needs and different challenges. And so what what I really like about that one on one aspect of coaching is that it can really help clients focus on their specific goals and their needs. So Amy, what do you see in your clients with ADHD when they first start coaching?Amy McDuffie 28:19Yeah, that's a really, really important question, because clients often come to us when they're feeling pretty frustrated, which is completely understandable. And oftentimes, individuals with ADHD experience much more frustration and failure than they do success, which ends up having a negative impact on their self perception, and also increases stress. So this can become a real barrier leading to the self-reinforcing negative cycle, and also results in less efficient processing. Because our brains just don't function well under stress. I know I've seen clients come into coaching with the assumption that they just can't improve their grades or stay on top of their work. Because this combination of past failure and unhelpful habits have really diminished their confidence in it for taking any steps towards making a change. And that's why it's really important to help clients with ADHD recognize their strengths. And as coaches, we can build upon those strengths and draw parallels between the skills needed to generalize that success to other areas. We also initially work on finding small wins and help clients recognize the benefits from these changes, which then leads to greater self confidence. And this increase in self-confidence and feelings of success then became motivating to build upon this habits and ends up creating a positive cycle of success that can really snowball into some major changes.Hannah Choi 29:51Yes, it's so it's just so great to see that happening. So let's talk about some of the specific tools and strategies that we coaches use to teach people with have ADHD, or just executive function challenges to make the life a little easier. So a common common common executive function skill challenge area for people with ADHD. And actually, I would say for most everybody is planning, prioritizing and time management. And so let's start with that time management. One helpful strategy is using timers and then blocking out your time, we really liked the Pomodoro Technique, which you may have heard of before, and it involves setting a timer for a focused work period, then that's usually about 25 minutes, the brain doesn't really like to work longer, in general. So 25 minutes is often a good amount of time. And then after the timer goes off, you take a five minute break, make sure you set a time and mercy or five minute break doesn't turn into an hour, and then restart that cycle. And then if you're finding it difficult to get back to work, after the break, you can try stretching or getting up and walking around having a snack or a drink, or just maybe switching to a different activity temporarily. And when prioritizing what you're going to work on in those blocks of time, some people like to decide ahead of time, what they're going to work on, based on the difficulty of the task or its urgency, and then others like to start with what they're feeling most motivated to work on. And it really just depends on what works best for you. And as all tools. And what we really say to all of our clients all the time is we really, really want you to try things out, and then see what works best for you. And as a person with ADHD, the way that you do things might look different from the way everyone else does. And I'm here to tell you that that is okay. And a tool that we like to use for planning is called peak performance. And what peak performance does it helps you to learn to pay attention to when you're most productive. And so this can give you some insights on how to schedule your days. So if you tend to get tired in the afternoons, I think that's pretty standard for most people, scheduling a focus to work session in the afternoon is not maybe a realistic expectation. And if you have a hard time winding down after school, jumping right into homework when you first get home might be stressful and unproductive.Amy McDuffie 32:17Yes, thank you so much, Hannah. I totally agree it's so important to recognize those peak performance times during the day. And I think it's also really helpful to determine why the task is important to you, you know, to remind yourself of the potential benefits, which may not always seem immediate, but could have some greater benefit down the road. And this can really help boost motivation for taking the steps to get started. Some other strategies that can help with focus include things like taking notes, using checklists, asking questions, and just writing information down in your own words. It's really about creating opportunities for engagement and active participation whenever possible. And some people find it's also helpful to drink water or to gum, also to use alternate seating or even stand and to create opportunities for movement. And this is definitely something to consider in the school environment where students do a lot of sitting.Hannah Choi 33:21I also wanted to touch on some strategies that can help remember help with remembering to take your medication. And this could be ADHD medication or any other prescriptions you might have. Memory can be a big challenge area for people with ADHD. I know it is my kryptonite. We suggest setting up automatic refills for prescriptions that allow this and adding a reminder in your calendar for the following month when you receive this month supply. And you can create a recurring alarm as a reminder to take your meds or and then also like keep them in something like near something that you use daily, maybe by your planner or bedside table or the kitchen counter. And ordering a three month supply when possible. You can't do this without medications can reduce how often you need to reorder, which is really helpful. And if the current Adderall shortage affects you, being proactive is crucial. Your pharmacist may need to collaborate with other pharmacies to source refills, and finding a cooperative pharmacy will make things much easier. Let's see. All right. I'm gonna go with this one. Let's see. How do you know when a teen is being lazy versus when it's ADHD? This sounds very familiar to me. Amy. Does it sound like that to you?Amy McDuffie 34:48It's that's a that's a tough question to be honest. Yeah, I'm happy to start out on that one. Yeah. I you know, coming from you know, a behavioral behavioral person Active, excuse me, I really like to find out, you know, where the problem issue is, and also, you know, help determine why that's happening. So I feel like, that's a really important step here. Like, you know, how, how is this child being impacted? And, you know, why is that occurring? Because I do think that, you know, behavior serves a function. And I think we need to determine that before we can identify, you know, if it's ADHD related, which it very well could be, or if it's more of a behavioral issue. So, I don't know, Hannah, what are your thoughts on that?Hannah Choi 35:39Yeah, well, it reminds me of the last webinar that we, that we both hosted back in May, where it was actually the topic of the webinar. And, and, and we, we do like what like you just said, it's, it's, I mean, I would say it's not laziness. It can feel that way. As the parent, I can very much feel that way. It can also feel that way, as a person with ADHD, sometimes I find myself, I like catch myself thinking, I'm being really lazy. And then I realized, like, wait a second, I'm just not, I'm not figuring out why. And I'm not figuring out a tool to help me get past that what feels like a laziness barrier. I do know that a lot of screen time can deplete what little dopamine people with ADHD already have. So extended amounts of screen time can can make it feel like everything else is really boring, which can impact your motivation. So you know, if there's, you might want to have a discussion with yourself, if you're the person who's experiencing that, or with your partner or with your child, if, if there might be some dopamine depletion going on from a lot of screentime, which is totally normal. Everybody, does it. I'm not at all saying is there's anything wrong with it, but it can be, there can be a connection of it there. So yeah, all right. Um, let's see. Oh, here we go. Can you give an example of how ADHD can be a superpower? I would like to take that one.Amy McDuffie 37:20Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.Hannah Choi 37:24So that Default Mode Network section that you were talking you and Dr. Cerulli were talking about earlier is, is it's both a challenge and also a superpower. So even while I'm talking right now, I have like a lot of ideas going on in my head. And what I'm doing is like making all these connections between topics. And I feel like I'm really good at synthesizing information. Because I have this deep, I even I'm focusing on talking right now to all of you, I have this default mode network that is like susceptible, making all these connections out here. And I feel like it gives me some really creative ideas. And I also feel like it really helps me as a podcast host. Because I feel like it helps me come up with some really cool questions and make connections that a more linear thinker might not make. It does require extra effort to stay focused and to kind of ignore that default mode network when I when I really need to focus. So it's a it's a challenge, and it's also a superpower. And also, there's just a lot of energy behind the things that people with ADHD are really interested in. So I think that that is, you know, some of the most successful CEOs in the world have ADHD. What about you, Amy, what do you see in your clients are the students that you used to work with?Amy McDuffie 38:46I really, I really value the creativity that I feel like many individuals with ADHD have. And you mentioned, Hannah, you know, the energy and I think that's, that's such an important part that to frame it as a positive. And, you know, that kind of goes, you know, really into, like, the dialogue about ADHD that we really should reframe it as, you know, as a positive and look at, you know, you know, the gifts that ADHD can bring for individuals.Hannah Choi 39:19Yep, I agree. Okay, here is a great question. I'm so glad somebody asked this. How does mood play into executive functioning with my daughter who has to attempt inattentive ADHD getting into the frame of mind to do anything is a big challenge. Yeah, so just to get a little brain nerdy. So our executive function skills reside in our frontal lobe or prefrontal cortex which is right behind our foreheads. And we can only really access them when we are at rest and digest when our body when we're not stressed out. We're not upset we're not anxious. And so if you, if you already are struggling with executive functioning, which a person with ADHD does, and also one of those really big, important executive function skills in there that do that does really challenge people with ADHD is emotional regulation. So regulating your emotions so that you can stay up in the front part of your brain, the top part of your brain where your executive function skills are is a huge part of success. Right? Like, if you already have trouble accessing them, and your emotions are not being managed, then it makes it even harder to get started even harder to get over the anxiety that you might have or the frustration you might feel or the fear you might have for what you're going to work on.Amy McDuffie 40:45Yeah, absolutely. Hannah, I mean, it really that emotional regulation or self regulation piece, it really is the starting point, you know, of things to focus on and then to work on building strategies from there.Hannah Choi 41:00Yeah, yep. Somebody asked about screen time. We could literally talk about screen time all night.Amy McDuffie 41:07Yeah, yeah. And I feel like that's, that's such an important question. Because, you know, it's one that we all we all live. Yeah. So I'm, if that's okay, Hannah, I'm happy to share. Okay. So this is something that I've, you know, that I've actually been working on with a client, and, you know, having two teenagers myself, it's something that we address in our own home as well. And I feel like, you know, for me, the approach that I like to take is to really look at, you know, how we spend our time, so, you know, how your kids are spending their time. And, you know, really what they're missing, you know, are there things that they have enjoyed doing in their lives, their hobbies, other things that might be sacrificed, if they're spending tons of time on the screen. So I like to, you know, kind of approach things from that angle in terms of, you know, what else could you be doing with your time, and then, I love the approach in my own house of, you know, taking the, the adolescent need for independence and autonomy. And, you know, really talking with my kiddos about, you know, are you in control of your phone? Or are you allowing your phone to control you and, you know, taking that approach and teaching them about, you know, the intention of all of the the apps and, you know, wanting to, you know, maintain our attention and take our time away. So, those are just some approaches that I use, you know, in my own house and with with my client as well. How about you, Hannah?Hannah Choi 42:44Yeah, I really love that last point that you made, because learning to, to reflect on our own experience, and then take what we've learned, and then apply it to our life to make positive change is is such an important skill to learn as a teen because you're soon going to be an adult and not have your parents around to help you monitor all that. So learning that self awareness, and just self control is so great. So I love that. I love that you mentioned that. Yeah, I got to interview Dr. Clifford Sussman, who is a psychiatrist who specializes in screen addiction. And he had some really, really great tips for, like you said, working with your, with your child, your teen to, to, you know, work together to come up with a potential solution for you know, setting reasonable limits, while also giving them that autonomy and independence that they do crave. And they do need because they need to develop that skill for success in life outside of, you know, our safe and cozy homes. And then he also talked a lot about See, here's where my memory is... so anyway, just listen to the episode!Amy McDuffie 44:06That is a great episode, Hannah. That's one of my favorites.Hannah Choi 44:12We are live folks, we are live. Here's one. How can you tell if it is anxiety or ADHD? Oh, whoever wrote that? I feel Yeah, I feel you. What do you see in your clients? Amy?Amy McDuffie 44:28Oh, wow. I honestly he and I often see both of those in conjunction and, you know, the symptoms of anxiety and ADHD. There's definitely some overlap there. And you know, we talked about the you know, the cycle of failure and I what I have seen is when clients expect have that experience of past failure, it causes more anxiety and that anxiety you know, leads to avoidance with Whether it's for, you know, completing assignments or the thing they have to do, and it just, it does create that ongoing cycle. So it's, it's hard for me to separate the two, honestly, when I think about the work that I do with my clients, because I do see it often together. How about you?Hannah Choi 45:18Yep. Yep, I agree. I mean, I agree personally, that is, has been my experience. And I also see it in my clients as well. I know, for me, personally, I have a lot of anxiety around forgetting things, because memory is my most challenged area. So I am, I am often anxious that I am, you know, forgetting an important appointment or forgetting to do something that I told someone I would do. And so I have to use a lot of strategies to support myself there and I don't succeed every time. I have recently double booked myself. And so you know, it happens. But I encourage you to explore both. And to, like Amy said, it's hard to separate them, I do think it's pretty common to have both. And, and also, like, maybe we even internalized this as a child, you know, you you like all those corrective messages we heard, you know, we talked about earlier, it's, you know, when you hear that over your over the years and years, it's, it's hard not to come a little anxious about that. Hannah Choi 46:20Okay, so this is where we ended our Q&A section of the webinar. Now keep listening to hear the rest of the conversation that I recorded with Amy the next morning. And in keeping with my goal of authenticity, you can hear some sounds of daily life in the background of my recording. My mother in law, who I love dearly, did not realize I was recording. Good morning, Amy.Amy McDuffie 46:46Hey, good morning.Hannah Choi 46:48Thanks for coming back. It's not too early, but it is the morning, but I appreciate the quick turnover. Amy McDuffie 46:56Yeah, absolutely.Hannah Choi 46:58That was so fun last night. I'm so glad we got to do that again.Amy McDuffie 47:01Yeah, me too. I really, I really enjoyed that I could talk about, you know, ADHD is something I could talk about all day. So.Hannah Choi 47:10Okay, well, then I'm glad we're talking about it. So I was laughing so hard internally, because as you know, every time we were practicing, I kept almost I kept saying not almost saying I kept saying laziness versus execution webinar. Not laziness versus executive dysfunction webinars. SoAmy McDuffie 47:31yeah, that would be a different webinar, for sure. It'll be different. Yes, exactly. I mean, that would that would be a different source of motivation, for sure. SoHannah Choi 47:51All right, so yeah, so I was very proud of myself control and yours as well, because I know you were wondering if I was gonna say it?Amy McDuffie 47:59Well, and I was trying not to think about it too much, because then I didn't want to internalize it and say it myself. So I feel like we did. We did well, with that. We did. We did. We said the word.Hannah Choi 48:13 All right, let's dive into some of these questions that are just so good. I love. I just love how thoughtful everyone is. And so some of these questions were submitted during our live Q&A. And some of them were submitted when people registered for the webinar. So we've just kind of mixed them together. Okay, so here's the question when searching for a therapist, what kind of therapists should I look for?Amy McDuffie 48:39Yeah, so Hannah, I'm happy to jump in on that. One. I would recommend looking for a therapist who is experienced working with individuals with ADHD. And you know, also if you you know, feel comfortable and know someone who has an ADHD diagnosis, you know, maybe getting a recommendation from them as well. Then what do you think?Hannah Choi 49:01Yeah, for sure, you can also ask your psychiatrist or your whatever the doctor is that you're working with, for medication, if you take medication. I do know on Psychology Today, the different therapists will have profiles. And then and then on their profile, it'll say whether they work with people with ADHD, although I did reach out to one and she she told me that she doesn't work with ADHD. People with ADHD but it says so on her profile. So you might, you might and then they went to check back again. I noticed it was gone. So you might you might that might happen to you, but I encourage you to persevere. Yeah, yes. But yeah, absolutely. Someone who has experience and then you meet you might also meet with the person for the first time if you've never met with a therapist before. You may not know this that it can take a couple tries to find a therapist that you really gel with. But it's worth pursuing. It is frustrating because you have to tell your story, again to a new A person. But um, hopefully, hopefully you find the right one on the first try. Yeah. All right. Next, how do you approach a college age student who has been diagnosed with ADHD but will not accept help and wants to fix himself? And how do you help with the shame that they feel I actually entire my own personal experience real quick, I ended up when I got diagnosed, I realized, oh, there's actually nothing wrong with me, this is just how my brain is wired. So I actually felt a lot of relief, getting a diagnosis, so that I can understand the opposite experience. And it does, it can really feel like there's like something wrong with you, and that needs to be fixed. But, you know, as we talked about last night, it is it is just, you know, it's a, it's the way that your brain is, you know, it's neurotransmitters, it's not character flaws. And so I don't know if you know, approaching it from a real matter of fact, sort of factual viewpoint, that this is what's going on in your brain. And it's not necessarily like you as, as your essence, your soul, your person. What do you think?Amy McDuffie 51:16Yeah, I think that, that the education piece is so crucial. Because just having that having the understanding, knowing why that's happening, I think can really help with that piece. And in terms of, you know, addressing the shame piece, and dealing with denial, I think it's really important, you know, as, as parents, as professionals to really normalize our own struggles, and normalize the fact that everyone has challenges and struggles and things that we that we fail at. And, you know, just really, you know, trying to approach it from that perspective that, you know, this is this is what I'm dealing with, and that, you know, we all have those things. And I feel like that's a really important part in conjunction with the education piece.Hannah Choi 52:11Yeah, yep. Showing that empathy. And, and, and acknowledging their, their feelings and not denying them those feelings. And, yeah, yeah, it is hard, though. Yeah. What's what what I feel like is that, that, eventually, people who are feeling that way will hopefully feel, see the superpowers see the benefits of it, and are and are able to shift their perspective from something like wrong with them something that needs to be fixed to something like, oh, how can I leverage the, you know, the, the actual, like, really great things about this? And, you know, it does take a lot of work? Not, you know, it's definitely not easy, but I think that a shift in mindset can can help as well. Absolutely. Just wanted that therapy piece and executive function coaching thing coming.Amy McDuffie 53:05Right. Right. And I think also, you know, if it's possible, you know, to connect them with someone who has ADHD and has, you know, worked on some strategies and, you know, is able to share their perspective, I think that can be really helpful as well, because so many people are diagnosed with it, and, you know, are very successful. So I think that's a helpful piece, too.Hannah Choi 53:31Yep. Absolutely. And that we are seeing much less of a stigma around it, and people are more open to talking about it. And so hopefully, they are, you know, your your kid kiddos are able to connect with other people, I think, yeah, that's a really good point that you brought up, Amy. Thank you. All right. So next one. All right. Let's switch to an adult perspective. If you work in an office job, where you stare at computers all day, how can one unplug and not lose motivation to do other stuff? I feel like I can't separate myself from my electronics and I procrastinate on other things I need to do. That's a really I think this challenge for anybody right, regardless of your diagnosis. Yes. Especially in this day and age, this is you are absolutely not the first person to ask this question. I think many of our adult clients are saying yes, yes. Amy McDuffie 54:33Yeah. I agree with you there. Yes, absolutely. Because we do spend so much time, you know, staring at our screens, whether it's work or anything else, I think it's really helpful to you know, to actually schedule time away from the computer away from the screen, and, you know, whatever that looks like, whether you're actually in an office or working from home, but you know, scheduling that time and committing to sticking to it. I also think it's really helpful to enlist support, you know, whether from a family member or a friend, you know, to help you commit to that, whether it's, you're able to go for a walk, or whatever the thing is, where you're breaking away from it, you know, having support can be really motivating.Hannah Choi 55:25I have an adult client that I work with currently, and he is dealing with this exact same challenge at work. And he is lucky that he has an office so he is able to shut his door. So what he does is he schedules work time on his calendar, so he looks busy, so that people, you know, interrupt him less, and then he also shuts his office door. If you don't have an office door to shut, you can have, you could even put up a sign like I'm busy working, putting on headphones is a nice visual cue to other people that you are busy. And then the phone, the phone is a big one, they've done studies and they have found that we are I think 30% less effective. Just having our phone on our desk, even if it's flipped over and silenced, we are less productive. So I really encourage you to put your phone, like you know, leave your phone in your I don't know, on your friend's desk or your co workers desk or in your work bag or something. So it's really, really out of the way out of you know, the temptation zone. That can you really help if you feel like you can't put it away or you can't for some reason, maybe you need to be on call for a sick child or you have some other commitment where you really need to be connected to your phone. They do have apps that can help you with focus. So there's don't My favorite one is Focus Dog, which there's like a dog that makes doughnuts while you're focusing. We talked about that one before. There's also there's also Forest and you know, all those other focusing apps - the Flora flora. Yeah, those are both really like pre pretty ones. Right? So, if you want the tasty donuts get Focus Dog, Pretty one get Flora Forest or, or Flora. Those are some tools that you can use if you if you can't physically move your phone away from your Yeah, your workspace.Amy McDuffie 57:31Yeah, that's, that's great to know, to Hannah about the productivity. I need to I need to work on that.Hannah Choi 57:39Yeah, it's and I've actually asked my, a lot of my college clients, I challenged them to not have their phone with them when they're working. And they all begrudgingly admit that yes, they were more productive when their phone wasn't. So yes. But yeah, it is it is a powerful distractor having that there. SoAmy McDuffie 58:01yeah, definitely. Yeah.Hannah Choi 58:03All right. So let's see. Here's some more though is two more that will combine any tips for college freshmen with ADHD? What may be some good routines to practice over the summer? Great question. And then how do I help my teen who was diagnosed last month with ADHD? Learn some strategies to make things easier on them during the summer? While the pressure of school is off? Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah. Amy McDuffie 58:32Yes, are so great. And I, I love the thoughtfulness behind that. And, you know, taking advantage of summer time being, you know, a low stakes situation without the pressure school. And I really think it's a great time to work on things like organizational skills, whether it's your physical space to get that set up, you know, before school starts, or, you know, working on, you know, learning to use a planner or a Calendar, Google Calendar. This is something that I actually work on with my kids during the summer. You know, in terms of, you know, Google Calendar, and you know, helping them manage whether my daughter is dog sitting or babysitting, she uses like a physical wall calendar as well. So you know, whatever the organizational system is, that's going to be helpful just to get in the habit of using that. I feel like it's really important over the summer. What about you?Hannah Choi 59:29Yeah, yes, I'm working on that right now with a client where I'm encouraging them to. I joke and say, you have to change your relationship with your planner, you have to move beyond just holding hands. And so yeah, so I'm really encouraging them to write everything down in their calendar. And it's like you said, it's such a low stakes time. So even when they're going to hang out with friends, I encourage them to put it in their calendar. So they can just get in the habit of making the calendar event, you know, and then maybe even sharing it with their friends with their friends can also have it on their calendar, just to be a little bit of a role model and also have some built in some accountability. So, that's is such a great time to practice it.Amy McDuffie 1:00:20One of my clients, we actually started this summer, working on a schedule for laundry.Hannah Choi 1:00:27Because there's so many executive function skills. Yes, yes. And cooking, too.Amy McDuffie 1:00:33It's a good one, too. But yeah, so you know, even things like, you know, working on, you know, managing your chores, or, you know, setting up a plan to manage your laundry can be really hard to work on in the summertime. Yeah, so with one of my clients was laundry, like, we literally, you know, worked on making a schedule and a plan for the week of, you know, when to tackle laundry, and, you know, even down to, you know, pulling in some habit stacking that in the morning, right after the shower, we're going to start laundry and, and go from there. And it was really effective. And I think that's such a helpful thing to focus on in the summertime,Hannah Choi 1:01:16Especially for kids who are heading off to college. And we've, you know, we've talked about that, before, it's come up on a couple conversations on the podcast anyway, it's such a huge, huge thing. And there's so many executive function skills out there. Yeah. And also cooking to cooking is a really great way to practice executive function skills of planning and prioritizing and organization, and time management. And it, there's so many involved in there. And then also, they're learning the valuable skill of how to cook right is so important as you prepare to leave to leave the nest. Yeah, though. Yeah, absolutely. You're right. It is, it's such like a great low stakes environment to practice those things. And they, and they really, and you don't need to practice them in an academic way. You know, like the examples that we just gave have nothing to do with academics. But, and that's what's so cool about executive function coaching is how transferable all of the skills that our clients learn, like, like our student clients, learn, you know, strategies to support their academics, but all of those strategies are transferable to, you know, their daily life activities. It's pretty cool.Amy McDuffie 1:02:36Yeah, absolutely. And it's, it's so valuable, too, because, you know, just thinking about things like laundry and cooking, I mean, those are skills, you you have to have your entire life unless, you know, you're in a situation where someone does that for you have to learn to manage those things. And I think back and I wish that someone had like, either really kind of worked on those things with me in a more direct way. I mean, I figured them out, as we do. Yeah, right. Right. You know, it really does just make me aware of the value of, you know, really directly teaching the skills and the systems that you can apply across the board.Hannah Choi 1:03:19And what is so great about that is that you can directly teach your kids those, those executive function skills without them even realizing that they're learning. So, you know, if you sat down and very, very formally said, now, we should work on time management, and, you know, like prioritizing, they're gonna roll their eyes and say, No, thank you. But, you know, just don't mention them and they're gonna learn them just accidentally.Amy McDuffie 1:03:48Exactly, exactly. There's so many ways to naturally weave that in. Yes, yeah. If we, if we formally approach it with our own kids, I feel like at that point, like, they're, they're no longer listening. Yeah.Hannah Choi 1:04:01That's right. It's like when they're little and you would like, I don't know, you'd like hide the spinach and something tasty. Like, if you tell them there's spinach in here, they're gonna like, I'm not gonna eat that. decided in there. They don't know. Exactly, exactly. Sorry, kids. Parenting is all about tricking you.Amy McDuffie 1:04:23It's actually it's not manipulation. It's education. Hannah Choi 1:04:28That's right, disguised as a brownie or laundry. Amy McDuffie 1:04:32You'll think this later.Hannah Choi 1:04:34And you'll do the same to yours if you have them. Thanks again for joining me, Amy, such a pleasure.Amy McDuffie 1:04:41Absolutely. Hannah. This was great. Thank you so much.Hannah Choi 1:04:45And that is our show for today. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to listen, I hope you learned something new about ADHD or maybe you just found a new view of it. It truly can be a superpower with the right interventions. tools and strategies. As I mentioned before, if you want to watch the entire webinar, you can find the link to it in the show notes. I also included some links to the slides that we shared during the webinar. I hope you join me at our next webinar. You can find more about our upcoming events by signing up for beyond book smarts monthly newsletter, the monthly think, or by checking the Events page in the resources section of our website. If you know anyone who might want to learn more about ADHD, please share this episode with them. You can reach out to me at podcast at beyond booksmart.com and also you can subscribe to Focus Forward on Apple and Google podcasts, Spotify or wherever else you get your podcasts. And as always, if you listen on Apple podcasts or Spotify, you can give us a boost by giving us a five star rating. We would love it. Sign up for our newsletter at beyond booksmart.com/podcast will let you know when new episodes drop and we'll share information related to the topic. Thanks for listening

According to Cerulli's “U.S. Managed Accounts 2022: The Future of Personalized Portfolios,” assets in managed-accounts programs grew nearly 24% in 2021, reaching a high of $10.7 trillion.  In this episode Nevin (Adams) & Fred (Reish) take a look at the trends, the issues, and the considerations underlying managed accounts.  Certainly these structures have proliferated in recent years, doubtless driven in no small part by the development/adoption of these solutions by advisory firms, though many advisors continue to see these as little more than “expensive target-date funds.” 

According to Cerulli's research, “22% of wealth managers said consolidating to a unified managed household (UMH) is a significant priority, with half reporting it as a moderate priority for their firm moving forward.” This discovery is aligned with wealth managers shifting away from transactional brokerage relationships and prioritizing fee-based assets. The Unified Managed Household (UMH) goes further than the Unified Managed Account (UMA), which aggregates accounts at an individual level. The UMH takes into account not only the client's financial situation but also that of their entire household. This week, Jack Sharry talks with Matt Belnap, Associate Director of Retail Distribution at Cerulli Associates, about the latest research in household-level management. Cerulli is a financial services industry leader providing market intelligence and strategic business recommendations. Matt is involved in the development of research across various aspects of retail financial services, including wealth management, managed accounts, and product development. He is involved in creating nine Cerulli reports spanning three research practices and oversees The Cerulli Edge—U.S. Advisor quarterly publication. In this episode, Matt talks with Jack about key challenges managed account sponsors face, why clients should seek more holistic financial advice, and why the household-level approach will take time. Key Takeaways [01:18] - What does the research show about unified managed households? [03:42] - Cerulli's research philosophy. [07:57] - Key challenges managed account sponsors face. [11:53] - Points of entry for account openings. [16:03] - What will progress look like? [20:35] - What will it take for clients to seek more holistic advice? [23:57] - The power of tax-deferred. [25:25] - Matt's key takeaways. [27:33] - How Matt spends his time outside of work. Quotes [06:11] - “It's a complete reframing of the advisor-client relationship, and it's something that is going to be pretty important for these advisors as they look to differentiate their practices going forward.” ~ Matt Belnap [20:39] “I think there's questions for some of the firms that haven't begun anything yet of, ‘Where do we start? How do we even begin to begin? To move into doing something like this? How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, but where does that first bite go?' And I think that's something that a lot of firms are grappling with in terms of, ‘how does this happen?'” ~ Matt Belnap [26:56] - “Don't wait for the perfect time to completely flip to a household-level approach because it's not going to be there. It's going to have to be piece by piece.” ~ Matt Belnap Links Matt Belnap on LinkedIn Cerulli Associates Franklin Templeton Goals Optimization Engine (GOE®) | Franklin Templeton Merrill Lynch New York Life Insurance Northwestern Mutual Connect with our hosts LifeYield Jack Sharry on LinkedIn Jack Sharry on Twitter Subscribe and stay in touch Apple Podcasts Spotify LinkedIn Twitter Facebook

This week, Anna (https://twitter.com/annarrose) and Ariel Gabizon (https://twitter.com/rel_zeta_tech) cover the SNARK trilogy; a history of pairing-based SNARKs in 3 acts. Starting from Jens Groth's early works on SNARKs, Ariel takes us on a journey through key moments and breakthroughs in SNARKs over the last decade. They also dive into the emerging accumulation research on folding schemes and Ariel's latest work surrounding lookup tables! This is an episode you won't want to miss. Here are some additional links for this episode: Relevant Jens Groth Papers * Short Non-interactive Zero-Knowledge Proofs by Jens Groth (https://www.iacr.org/archive/asiacrypt2010/6477343/6477343.pdf) * Short Pairing-based Non-interactive Zero-Knowledge Arguments by Jens Groth (http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/J.Groth/ShortNIZK.pdf) * On the Size of Pairing-based Non-interactive Arguments by Jens Groth (https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/260.pdf) * Zero-knowledge Argument for Polynomial Evaluation with Application to Blacklists by Stephanie Bayer and Jens Groth (https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/195) PLONK-Relative Papers * PLONK: Permutations over Lagrange-bases for Oecumenical Noninteractive arguments of Knowledge by Gabizon, Williamson, Ciobotaru (https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/953.pdf) * HyperPlonk: Plonk with Linear-Time Prover and High-Degree Custom Gates by Chen, Bünz, Boneh and Zhang (https://eprint.iacr.org/2022/1355.pdf) * Proposal: The Turbo-PLONK program syntax for specifying SNARK programs by Gabizon and Williamson (https://docs.zkproof.org/pages/standards/accepted-workshop3/proposal-turbo_plonk.pdf) Lookup-Relative Papers * plookup: A simplified polynomial protocol for lookup tables by Gabizon and Williamson (https://eprint.iacr.org/2020/315.pdf) * Caulk: Lookup Arguments in Sublinear Time by Zapico, Buterin, Khovratovich, Maller, Nitulescu and Simkin (https://eprint.iacr.org/2022/621) * A Close Look at a Lookup Argument - Mary Maller at The 13th BIU Winter School on cryptography (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGjbczKGm4s&list=PL8Vt-7cSFnw1gx51WHRgAtioVqAjzMS1w&index=13) * cq: Cached quotients for fast lookups by Eagen, Fiore, and Gabizon (https://eprint.iacr.org/2022/1763) Additional Resources * Pinocchio: Nearly Practical Verifiable Computation by Parno, Howell, Gentry and Raykova (https://eprint.iacr.org/2013/279.pdf) * Sonic: Zero-Knowledge SNARKs from Linear-Size Universal and Updateable Structured Reference Strings by Maller, Bowe, Kohlweiss, and Meiklejohn (https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/099) * Perpetual Powers of Tau GitHub (https://github.com/weijiekoh/perpetualpowersoftau) * Delegating Computation: Interactive Proofs for Muggles by Goldwasser, Kalai and Rothblum (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/2008-DelegatingComputation.pdf) * Efficient Zero-Knowledge Arguments for Arithmetic Circuits in Discrete Log Setting by Bootle, Cerulli, Chaidos, Groth and Petit (https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/263) * Nova: Recursive Zero-Knowledge Arguments from Folding Schemes by Kothapalli, Setty and Tzialla (https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/370.pdf) * Episode 232: Cutting Edge ZK Research with Mary Maller (https://zeroknowledge.fm/232-2/) * ZK Whiteboard Sessions - Module Six: Lookup Tables for Performance Optimisation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oLzrbTBlbc) Check out the ZK Jobs Board here: ZK Jobs (https://jobsboard.zeroknowledge.fm/). Anoma's (https://anoma.net/) first fractal instance Namada (https://namada.net/) is launching soon! Namada is a proof-of-stake L1 for interchain asset-agnostic privacy. Namada natively interoperates with fast-finality chains via IBC and with Ethereum via a trustless two-way bridge. Follow Namada on twitter @namada (https://twitter.com/namada) for more information and join the community on Discord discord.gg/namada (http://discord.gg/namada). If you like what we do: * Find all our links here! @ZeroKnowledge | Linktree (https://linktr.ee/zeroknowledge) * Subscribe to our podcast newsletter (https://zeroknowledge.substack.com) * Follow us on Twitter @zeroknowledgefm (https://twitter.com/zeroknowledgefm) * Join us on Telegram (https://zeroknowledge.fm/telegram) * Catch us on YouTube (https://zeroknowledge.fm/)

ADD / ADHD are typically discussed as a controversial diagnosis. Some people — including experts — feel that these conditions are over diagnosed, underdiagnosed, or simply don't exist. ADD / ADHD have been used to attack parents, defend behavior challenges, and seemingly everything in between. But what is the real story? Join us as today's guest, Dr. Theresa Cerulli, explains the challenges in helping people with ADD / ADHD and the steps people can take to make sure they get the best care. To learn more -- or read the transcript -- visit the official episode page. Guest Bio Theresa Cerulli, M.D., is a graduate of Tufts University, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Harvard Longwood Residency Program in Adult Psychiatry, and Harvard Fellowships in Medical Psychiatry and Neuropsychiatry. Dr. Cerulli is board certified in psychiatry and is on faculty at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and for NEI, the Neuroscience Education Institute. Dr. Cerulli is the co-founder and prior Chief Medical Officer of ADD Health and Wellness Centers, specializing in the holistic treatment of children and adults with ADD/ADHD and coexisting behavioral health conditions. Her vision is in combining traditional medicine with healthy living to promote cognitive and emotional well-being. Inside Mental Health Podcast Host Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, "Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations," available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from the author. Gabe makes his home in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio. He lives with his supportive wife, Kendall, and a Miniature Schnauzer dog that he never wanted, but now can't imagine life without. To book Gabe for your next event or learn more about him, please visit gabehoward.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Talking Guaranteed Lifetime Income Solutions with Allianz Life's Michael De FeoGuaranteed lifetime income in retirement plans is a hot topic these days, with study after study revealing that Americans want to know more about it and view these products as a good fit to help them reach their financial objectives.While 401(k) plan sponsors are showing increasing interest in adding guaranteed income products to their benefit programs, there's still a lot of confusion surrounding what they are and how they work among retirement plan advisors and plan sponsors alike.To help us sort it all out and understand what's happening in this growing market, we are joined by Michael De Feo, Head of Defined Contribution Distribution at Minneapolis-based Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America, which has recently expanded into the defined contribution market as more Americans say they want guaranteed income options in their employer-sponsored plan.De Feo shares his insights about how the SECURE Act and SECURE 2.0 has spurred innovation in guaranteed lifetime income product design, the barriers to widespread adoption these products still face, and a shift toward more personalization through managed accounts and hybrid plan design.---------------1 Institutional retirement reference guide, LIMRA, 2022.2 U.S. Defined Contribution Distribution 2022, Cerulli & Associates, 2022.This content is for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to provide fiduciary, tax, or legal advice and cannot be used to avoid tax penalties; nor is it intended to market, promote, or recommend any tax plan or arrangement. Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America, its affiliates, and their employees and representatives do not give legal or tax advice or advice related to Medicare or Social Security benefits. You are encouraged to consult with your own legal, tax, and financial professionals for specific advice or product recommendations, or to go to your local Social Security Administration office regarding your particular situation.Guarantees are backed by the financial strength and claims-paying ability of Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America.• Not FDIC insured • May lose value • No bank or credit union guarantee • Not a deposit • Not insured by any federal government agency or NCUA/NCUSIFProducts are issued by Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America, 5701 Golden Hills Drive, Minneapolis, MN 55416-1297. (C64712-MVA)Product and feature availability may vary by state and broker/dealer.

Andrew Blake is a Senior Analyst in the Wealth Management Division of Cerulli Associates. He works daily with asset management firms and their sales leaders. He joins the Internal Use Only podcast to preview the results from their 2023 Intermediary Distribution Trends Report. This report is focused specifically on retail sales and distribution trends and will be available in June 2023. Reach out to Andrew directly to learn more about Cerulli and to get access to the full report. ablake@cerulli.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewwrightblake/