Lynn Davison 00:00
Welcome, everyone. Today, I get to introduce someone I genuinely admire, not because of the titles after his name or the organizations he's worked with, but because of what he's done with the challenges that life has given him. Brendan has lived with ADHD, experienced burnout, navigated his son's OCD and faced the kinds of setbacks that could have made him cynical or discouraged. Instead, he became curious. He kept asking, "What can I learn from this? And how can I help someone else who feels the way I felt? Out of those experiences, he created one of the most memorable frameworks I've encountered, the Wall of Awful. He's given 1000s of people language for something they've felt for years but couldn't explain. What I love most is that Brennan never leaves people feeling stuck. He helps people understand what's happening in their brain? Replace shame with self-compassion and discover practical ways to move forward. As we've gotten to know each other, I've been struck by how often our work overlaps. Whether we're talking about ADHD, autism, leadership, or families, we both believe people grow best when they feel understood, when they have a voice, and when they can take the next right size step together,
Lynn Davison
Brendan. One of the things that you said in a recent podcast has stayed with me. You your worth as becoming the person you needed. I think that's one of the most beautiful descriptions of a coach I've ever heard. I believe that's what so many of us are trying to do-not only for ourselves, but for our families, the people we love, and the communities we serve. So thank you for becoming that person and for sharing what you've learned with all of us. I'm so grateful you're here, and I'm really excited for this conversation.
Brendan Mahan 02:04
Well, yeah, thank you for having me, and and thank you for your kind words. I mean, to my mind, everybody should be working to become the person that they needed when they were younger, because somebody needs that person, right? So I'm I'm I'm a pretty pro-social kind of guy. So that's that's my lens.
Lynn Davison 02:25
I love it. I love it. I love it. Well, and then the first thing that we talked about before we talk about the wall of awful, there was one thing you said to me when we first talked that I hadn't been. I just haven't been able to stop thinking about. You said that when an autistic or an ADHD young adult struggles to meet expectations, parents usually think, "Hey, we still love you. We just need to solve this problem. But they may be thinking, "I've disappointed them. They don't like me anymore. I have to fix this before they'll love me again, and that feels one of the biggest no surprises moment that we need to address as families. Can you explain what you meant there?
Brendan Mahan 03:10
Yeah, I I think that it's the the issue is we know that the relationship is fine and strong, and we have the power in that relationship.
Lynn Davison 03:23
Yeah.
Brendan Mahan 03:24
So when we talk to our kids, they don't know because they're the ones that have caused the damage, right? Young and and this goes even beyond families. This is like at work, you know, same kind of idea, and that matters for young adults in the workforce who are like, I think my boss hates me because I got in trouble once, and I'm going to lose my job tomorrow. Right? Same. If this pattern exists in all kinds of different areas of life, where the neurodiverse young adult who doesn't have as much power in that relationship because they're the employee or they're the child of the parent, they're more vulnerable, and so when the person who has been offended or has to solve the problem or whatever help the kids solve the problem, affected by the problem, whatever the situation is, when they move to fix the problem, but don't and and support the young adult with fixing that problem, but they don't first repair that relationship, or at least tell the kid or young adult, like, "Hey, everything's fine. Like, you're, I'm not mad at you. We're still glad you're a part of this family. I'm still on your side. You still have a job. Like, whatever the case may be, right? If they don't make that clear, then the young adult is walking on eggshells because they can't be sure that things are going to be okay. And where those eggshells lead, typically, is if I don't solve this problem perfectly, then mom's going to hate me. Dad's going to. Maybe I'm going to lose my job, whatever the case may be, and that that's why we want to repair first. Because if we're coming at the problem from a place of anxiety, from a place of the only way this relationship is going to be healthy again is if I fix this problem that I caused, we're not setting that kid up for success. If they could have, if they could solve the problem by themselves. They probably would have avoided it in the first place, so they probably need help. And the person that they're most likely to ask for help is us. But if they feel like that relationship is frayed and strained because they made the mistake, they're maybe not going to ask us for help, and they're super anxious, so they're not processing with the executive functions they need to solve the problems effectively. So they're not getting support and not thinking about things as clearly as they could, and it's just a catch 22.
Lynn Davison 05:48
So they come in, if you will, with you know, like in golf with a handicap, right?
Brendan Mahan 05:56
Right.
Lynn Davison 05:56
They're not, yeah. But if we can absolve that, get that repair done. Then there'll be a little, you know, light bathroom. Right. Solve it. I love that. It's so smart. It's so smart. Okay, so we repair first. All right. And
Brendan Mahan 06:15
And I should add, right? That that matches how the brain processing works because that's kind of that's what's happening underneath that I'm not mentioning. When everything is going smoothly, I'm in the prefrontal cortex and processing cognitively and able to solve problems and all that stuff. As things get more stressful, right? I'm moving into the more emotional processing parts of the brain. So the amygdala, if it's a if it's a terrifying, scary thing, and I need to be protecting myself and feel safe. If not, we're moving into. Oh man, I'm blanking on the name of the part of that part of the brain.
06:54
The limbic, the limbic system.
Brendan Mahan 06:56
Thank you, the limbic system. Thank you. Yeah. Then we're moving into the limbic system, right? And the limbic system processes emotionally. It's processing emotions, so everything is fine. I'm in the prefrontal cortex. Things are getting stressful. I'm in the limbic system and processing more emotionally. Things are really bad, and I'm in the amygdala, which is part of the limbic system. And now I'm just focused on safety. So I'm gonna be more defensive, right? In those, in that more stressed out area, on the way back out, as my anxiety like resolves and deescalates, I'm going from the limbic system into the prefrontal cortex, and potentially from the the amygdala to the limbic system to the prefrontal cortex. So. when there's a problem, I want to start with emotional processing, including relational. Hey, everything's cool. We're good, and then move into problem solving. This is how we fix the problem. After,
Lynn Davison 07:55
I love that. I love that. This sounds like so much like what we do inside the peace practice it.
Lynn Davison 08:01
isn't a script. It's not. It's just a. It's not conflict resolution. It's a way of moving from fear and reactivity back to connection and collaboration. You know, we pause before we react. We empathize with what's happening in both people. We align around what matters most and reassure each other that we're on the same team, which is what that repair step does, right?
Lynn Davison 08:24
And we also then collaborate, noticing what's feeling uncertain, so that we can address everything that's you know that's kind of getting us a little concerned, and then we experiment with one small step instead of trying to you know do it all at once or demand perfection, and so as I was listening to you, I kept thinking Brendan's describing peace. So go ahead, yeah.
Brendan Mahan 08:48
Can I push back on that a little bit? Sure, because the pause part always drives me batty. In a best case scenario, we pause before we react.
Lynn Davison 08:59
Yes,
Brendan Mahan 09:00
right.
Lynn Davison 09:01
What you do with this? Because I I heard you do this. It's great.
Brendan Mahan 09:04
Yeah, but like that's best case scenario.
Lynn Davison 09:07
Yes, it is.
Brendan Mahan 09:08
And we don't often get best case scenario, especially with neurodiversity in the mix. So sometimes the pause happens after or during. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, like, because if you do something and then feel bad about it, that's the pause, right? Like, and that maybe you act on that, maybe you don't. I don't know, right? Like, you might feel bad about it and never apologize, never bring it up, that kind of stuff, because maybe that feels too vulnerable, or it's just not a thing that you have the opportunity to do. Because the person you did that thing to is now an hour away, and you're not there anymore. I don't know, but that's the pause, and it's important to make to honor that and recognize it as the pause, and. Probably the hardest place for the pause to land is in the middle, right? When I'm in the midst of my response or my reaction, really, when I'm in the midst of my reaction, and as I'm flying off the handle or doing whatever I'm doing, I'm like, "Oh man, I'm totally doing this wrong. But my ego is now deeply invested in this behavior continuing, and me doubling down on it, it's hard to pull out and go. I'm not doing this right. This isn't how I want to be. But but you're allowed to, right? And and paradoxically, often when we're able to pull out in that moment and demonstrate that we recognize that what we're doing is wrong, or un or not appropriate or whatever, people see that as good, right? Like that's that's an act of integrity to say I'm really sorry, especially in the moment. If people are much more likely to view that positively in the moment as you're otherwise doing something that you maybe shouldn't be doing, as opposed to an hour later or a week later where they're like, yeah, whatever. Like you don't mean that apology. If you're if you're apologizing a split second after you snapped, people know that you mean it.
Lynn Davison 11:10
That happened to me yesterday morning. Someone someone gave me a critique, and I went, I am. Oh, I do not want to get defensive.
Brendan Mahan 11:21
Yeah,
Lynn Davison 11:22
you're right. I need to work on that.
Brendan Mahan 11:25
Yep,
Lynn Davison 11:25
it was. I promise it happened the day before yesterday.
Brendan Mahan 11:29
I believe. Yeah.
Lynn Davison 11:30
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, something feels off. Would be nice if we would all sit with it, but we didn't. But you did once. You discovered the wall of awful coaching in Japan, and I think you found that term in the pause.
Brendan Mahan 11:50
Well, it it wasn't my pause, right? Like I was just asked to think about this kid, and mom was saying like, "How come he can't do his homework? And I was like, "It's like there's this wall of awful between him and his homework. It sort of it was my pause because what I was doing in that moment was empathizing with him and having some compassion for him and remembering what it was like for me in middle school to experience the overwhelm of having to do homework and recognizing that I had a wall of awful back then. Right, like the, I don't know, it was probably like 25 years ago that I would have been thinking back to, but but that component is true. So in sort of it was my pause, but it was more the memory of a pause than an actual pause on my account.
Lynn Davison 12:35
And then you got curious. How did you know? Was that the right? Yeah, is that yeah? I love that metaphor. I think it's a wonderful metaphor.
Brendan Mahan 12:46
Thank you. Yeah, I wrote a whole book about it.
Lynn Davison 12:47
Yeah, yeah, I know that. Yeah, that's that's just wonderful. And then you went through a period of burnout.
Brendan Mahan 12:58
I did. Yeah, yeah. That and the book was actually part of me getting out of the burnout. So, like COVID, this is goes all the way back to COVID, right? COVID hits in 2020. One of my sons was already experiencing some pretty pronounced anxiety, like diagnosable anxiety levels, and what was happening is was anxiety was getting especially bad when school came home, and I'm looking at COVID and like school is always going to come home, right? We by we did the virtual stuff that March when COVID hit. He was in fifth grade. I have identical twin sons who are now going to be seniors in high school, so that's the context. So when I say he and there's two of them that seem like they're the same age, it's because they are. So Nate, my eldest by 12 minutes kid, has this significant anxiety that he's dealing with, and I'm noticing it gets worse when school comes home. It has to because everything's virtual. So moving into sixth grade, when it's going to be a whole school year of virtual learning and hybrid and going into school and coming home, and we don't really have any idea what this is. I I'm thinking like I taught sixth grade. I'm licensed to teach half of this curriculum and can figure out math and science, like mom is a scientist. My kids are pretty gifted in math and pretty strong in math, so I was like, "All right, I got English and social studies nailed down. I think we can make this work. And that means a couple of things. One, it means school doesn't come home, so that that stress and anxiety doesn't have to happen because school is me, it's school is home, and that might have been something that was hard. We didn't know. It turned out it wasn't, and I did talk to them and my wife, and we had conversations about whether they do this or not, and and the other component was when school was in charge of the pacing. My kids needed a ton of help, like every kid. Like they're not unique in that, right? And they maybe needed less help than most kids because they're pretty academically strong, but they still needed help. And if I'm the one doing the curriculum, I control the pacing of that help. If the school is in charge of it, the school controls that pacing. And I work from home. I run my own business, so I knew I was going to end up helping a fair amount, and it would be better if I could say, "Yeah, you don't have to finish that essay for another day or two, because I have two days of solid clients and podcast stuff, and I'm not going to be able to get to this right. So I can give them other stuff to do in those two days. We can go back to the essay. I can't do that if it's school is dictating the pace. So I end up homeschooling them for all of sixth grade. During that time, they both end up getting diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder to different degrees. Nate is significantly more pronounced in that area than Gavin is. Seventh grade, they both go back to school. The anxiety continues. They both like kept their masks on all year, pretty much. They their masks on were tight enough to like cut the backs of their ears from the from the string. Nate's was worse than Gavin's. Nate is now like cleaning his hands with only one kind of soap, and there's all sorts of rituals happening around how to clean himself, which led to like chemical burns from soap on his hands and his body and stuff, because he's got obsessive compulsive disorder, and that he's washing his hands for 40 minutes at a time, showers are taking two hours, like that kind of stuff. It was rough, but we ended up being able to get him the help that he needed, thankfully, and at the end of seventh grade, the summer, like the summer right after, it was July after seventh grade. He went went went into McLean Hospital for three months, and they, he's better. Like he came home and is better now. So yeah, he returned to school mid like in October of eighth grade, and and then Gavin fell apart.
Brendan Mahan 17:04
It's like these they're identical twins, and Gavin held it together for all of his brother's time. Yeah, but now his brother's back and better, right? So Gavin kind of could fall apart then and did, and that's okay. Like he's allowed at the same time that all of that was going on, my dad had a pretty significant cancer diagnosis that was hard and challenging, and I was driving him to to the doctor at least once a week. Eventually, I had to stop doing that to support Nate, and then Nate's better, and I start taking over some time with my dad. But then Gavin needs more support, so it was a the sandwich generation was pretty strong at the time, and and like having your kid hospitalized for with obsessive compulsive disorder, and about a year before that stuff was hard too. It burned me up pretty hard, and the I I put myself back together in a couple of ways. One, I looked at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and was like, "All right, let's rebuild with Maslow's hierarchy. So it's like physical needs, safety needs, connection needs, right? That kind of stuff. That was mostly where I hung out. Was I was like, "All right, physical. Let me eat better. Let me move more safety. Let me get outside into the woods and listen to music that is soothing and connection. Let me make sure I'm doing my best to connect with my wife. That took a little longer. We got there, but it took a little longer. I made time to make like hang out with friends and that kind of stuff, and I continue to connect with my kids and my wife too, which is like that kind of scenario is gonna put some strain on the marriage, and like that, I'm not gonna pretend that that isn't true. We we weathered that storm, but it was there. And then eventually, I found that like I had to move towards stuff. My definition of burnout became one thing when you've been anxious for so long that anxiety doesn't motivate you anymore.
Speaker 3 19:01
Wow! Wow! And
Brendan Mahan 19:03
most neurodiverse folks are using burning anxiety for fuel, right? Like that's what a lot of us do. I couldn't. I didn't. It didn't work as fuel for me anymore. Right. So I had to move towards something, and that eventually ended up being overcoming the wall of awful. The book that I wrote was what I started moving towards, and that worked out pretty well. It's coming out in a month, coming out september 1, and yeah, yeah. So
Lynn Davison 19:29
yeah, yeah. So this is how you figured out how you got developed compassion and stain, right?
Brendan Mahan 19:38
Right.
Lynn Davison 19:39
This yeah yeah a wonderful story. I love this. I love having me. Yes.
Brendan Mahan 19:46
So, like, guilt and shame are. It's guilt is I feel like I made a mistake, and shame is I feel like I am the mistake, right? Like that's that's how I distinguish between the two, and I am actively working against. Shame, like sort of cosmically speaking, like that's one of the things I sort of try to push down. I don't really have a problem with guilt. Guilt is a is a useful lesson, right? I messed up and I feel guilty about it, so I'm gonna not do that again. No, don't do that again. It was probably not a great plan. It probably hurt somebody or something.
Lynn Davison 20:20
Yeah, that was useful. Yeah, no. Yeah,
Brendan Mahan 20:23
it.
Speaker 7 20:23
Yeah,
Brendan Mahan 20:24
right.
Speaker 8 20:25
Right.
Brendan Mahan 20:25
Shame though. Like, nah, you're not a mistake. And and when you're neurodiverse, that line gets really blurry because I made a mistake and I feel bad about that. But if I made the mistake because I have ADHD, because I have autism, because of my anxiety, does that then mean that I am the mistake? And the answer is no. No. But I understand why that line gets blurry, and so some of what I do is giving people permission to have ADHD, autism, anxiety to have the brain they have, with a little bit of a caveat, which is, but you have to work to be better, right? But you have to manage your symptoms. Like you can't just go, I stink because I have this, and I'm just going to always stink, right?
Speaker 9 21:20
Right? Because
Brendan Mahan 21:21
that's gonna the damage is gonna spread out more, and you're gonna feel bad about it, just like you're gonna upset other people, and that that guilt that you'll end up having will become shame. And it's not shame because you made a mistake. It's shame because you're not working to mitigate have making that mistake in the future, and you're not working to fix whatever the problem is that you caused, that's the stuff you need to do, right? And that that plays into this is like a meme that's been dancing around the internet lately. Of like, can someone who is neurotypical explain the difference between a reason and an excuse? I keep seeing people post that. I'm like, I'm neurodiverse, and I can tell you, so you have to be neurotypical. A reason is why something happened, and in in our case, it happened because I have ADHD for me, but I still have to fix it, right? I'm still responsible for
Speaker 3 22:09
it. Absolutely,
Brendan Mahan 22:09
an excuse is I don't have any responsibility. I can abdicate my responsibility, and I don't have to fix it because I had it. I did did that thing because I have ADHD, and it's not my fault. Yeah, but you still feel bad about it, right? Like if you don't take that responsibility, you're going to feel that responsibility for the rest of your life, and it's going to weigh you down. So better to take it and do something with it, so you can put it down once you're finished solving the problem and avoiding it moving forward.
Lynn Davison 22:37
I love the way you frame that up. I love. I think it's very useful. It says that we are responsible for what we create, the results we absolutely and yeah, it can be hard. Okay, now we got to figure it out,
Brendan Mahan 22:50
right?
Lynn Davison 22:51
Yeah, and then we align. Like, let's you know, listen to what feels most important and what seems uncertain. So, I mean, then you had another awful year, which was your started with your mother's death and ended with your yeah. That
Brendan Mahan 23:07
was actually even before this. That my guys were like, I don't know that they were in second or third grade probably. So it's it may be even more. It might even be further back than that. They were really young. I don't remember exactly the years. I have ADHD. I'm bad with years, but this is before COVID. This is way before COVID, where I used to be a teacher, and so my career as a teacher ended. I lost my fifth job in seven years and was just like, I can't get better at this if I don't keep a curriculum. A lot of that was me having undiagnosed ADHD and schools not having a lot of money and people getting let go. Right, the newest person in is the first person out. So when I left teaching, I was like, "All right, what do I do? And at the same time, my mom got fell sick and then passed away, like shortly thereafter. I was just starting to get into grad school because my next step was going to be either be a guidance counselor or be an ADHD coach. Six to one, half dozen, the other kind of like I landed in the right area. So I was going back to grad school to get a second master's in counseling when my mom passed away. A month to the day of her funeral, I went out to lunch with my dad, and drove home. And on the way home, my car got sluggish all of a sudden. I was driving pretty fast. I'm not going to pretend I wasn't. I was definitely speeding. It was like 98 degrees out in Massachusetts. Like it was really hot that day, and my car all of a sudden gets really sluggish. And I'm like, "What is it? What? That's weird. What's going on? So I I'm in the fast lane. So I start to pull over towards the side because I don't know what's happening, and then all of a sudden I hear, and the hood popped up and flame shot out of either side. Like it didn't pop all the way up. It bent in the middle and lifted, like it didn't come unlatched. It stayed latched, but it bent up in the middle. And fire shot out of either side of the hood where it where it's popped up, and I was like, "Oh no, yeah. So then I pulled over, totally, and it my car burned down. Like it, there was a 50 foot pyra flame off the front of my car, and I was just like, "I don't know, I don't know how I'm going to go to grad school with this. Like, I don't know how I do that. I don't know. I have. I had a handful of ADHD clients I was working with virtually, so I could do that every now and then. I drove to people's houses. Sometimes I didn't know how that would work. Thankfully, like there was some inheritance, and my dad was just like, "We're just buying you a new car flat out because we've got the money right now. So I he ended up buying me a new car, but but yeah, and then so my car burnt. My mom gets sick. My mom dies. My career is detrans, and then the capper is my car burns down on the side of the highway. It was funny. The insurance company was like, "Well, we're gonna send someone out to see if it's totaled, and I was like, "There's no hood. The hood melted. Like it's gone. Like I'll just send you a picture. Trust me. You don't need to waste someone's time. But, but yeah, one one of the things that happened as a result of that that I don't do it as much as I used to. For a while, I did this every day. Was I stood on the side of the highway, and I'm like I don't know what the takeaway for this is.
Brendan Mahan 26:22
Like I don't feel like the universe hates me, but it kind of feels like the universe hates me. I don't think that's true, but it feels that way. And so every day on Facebook for several years until I got too busy to really look at Facebook that much, I would post today's awesome and then tell say what it was, and and I still do it every now and then, look at the
Lynn Davison 26:41
practice though.
Brendan Mahan 26:42
Yeah, the practice of gratitude and focusing on the positive and all that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was intentional. That was the whole point. And sometimes it was big stuff, and sometimes it was little stuff. Right? Like today's awesome, I got a book deal. Or today's awesome. I really enjoyed this cucumber that I ate, or whatever. Right? Like it would vary. And I got to the point where I could find the awesome in the awful, as I like to say, pretty readily. And that, like, that's a piece of it. That's a piece of managing it
Lynn Davison 27:11
toward instead of away from. Wait a minute, I needed something. Yeah, toward yes,
Brendan Mahan 27:16
right. And that that was a few things. Right, it moving towards the awesome, right? Paying attention to the awesome in the context of that really hard year, and then I hit burnout after that, right? And I probably I started posting less during burnout because like I was very burnt out, and everything felt effortful. But eventually, moving towards the writing this book is what ended up being the thing that really got me squared away and brought me back from burnout.
Lynn Davison 27:44
I love that. I can't wait. I can't. I can't wait till it comes out. So yeah, but and then there was one other great frame that you have, which is my diagnosis defines my playground. Tell me about that.
Brendan Mahan 27:57
Yeah, I. This came up. This I started doing when I was a teacher, right? Where I remember talking to some parents, and I was not a guidance counselor at the time. I wasn't a special ed teacher. I was just an English teacher. But they said to me, they were like, "Well, we don't know if we should tell our kid that they have ADHD or not, and I was like, "Well, you may as well. Like, like, what? What's it gonna hurt, right? Because you're able to understand what it is better. And I also had a moment where I was in a IEP meeting, and it was kind of like a bummed out IEP meeting. Like, it was one of those ones that are the parents are not really quite accepting their kid's diagnosis, and it's sort of a new a new IEP meeting. And their daughter had been diagnosed with autism, and this is a kid in a mainstream classroom, so it's not super severe, right? But it's they're diagnosed with autism, and this is I don't know, probably 15 years ago, so our perception of autism was much different a decade and a half ago than it is now. It was a very anxiety-inducing diagnosis back then, and I remember saying to them, like, like I get it. Like that's this is a hard diagnosis because I didn't know too much yet, and nowhere near what I know now. But I said, "But what it? What does one of the things that's good about this? What this does is it defines your playground, right? This diagnosis is going to tell you what works and what doesn't.
Lynn Davison 29:33
Playground, right?
Brendan Mahan 29:34
Yeah, or or define your sandbox or whatever, right? Like it's it is it's going to let us know what are the boundaries? What will work and what won't work? And to me, that's every diagnosis at this point. I don't care what it is. When my son got diagnosed with OCD, it helps us understand what his needs are and what we can do to help him get better. If my dad has a diagnosis of cancer, it helps us define what dad. Needs right. If your best friend is turns out to be an alcoholic, cool. We, I mean, that's not great. We don't want our best friend to be an alcoholic, but at least we know, right? What are the challenges and pitfalls and risks and all these kinds of things that and benefits that we can look at and try to apply or try to avoid. So those, I think that it's it's tricky, right? Because a diagnosis is a scary thing, but it also is a tool, and it can be useful.
Speaker 3 30:32
Yeah. Well, it helps, and
Brendan Mahan 30:33
and
Lynn Davison 30:33
it helps us look at all the options.
Brendan Mahan 30:35
Right. Yeah. Right. And like I have clients who are have medical stuff, and I help them call the doctor to find out what their test results and things are. Right, and it's like just call because it's true whether or not you know it. And if you don't know, you're uncertain, you're more anxious, you can't start working to solve whatever this is, or at least adapt to whatever this is, so you're better off calling. the The situations where I most encounter this are job searches. I used to coach people on like applying for jobs. I don't do that as much anymore. Every now and then, if it happens with the client, I'll do it. But it's not like a thing I market, and people wouldn't want to call the place that they just had an interview with, like call them, because you all you already don't have a job or have a job. Like just call, and then you'll know. You have to sit here in la la land, not knowing. And the same is true with medical diagnoses and all this stuff. Just find out.
Lynn Davison 31:35
You're just waiting for surprises. Yeah, right. No, if I can identify, you know what's happening and get fewer surprises. My brain works a lot better.
Brendan Mahan 31:45
Yeah,
Lynn Davison 31:46
and then you also consider the option of working with Alex, who I've hired, by the way. Oh,
Brendan Mahan 31:54
did you?
Lynn Davison0 31:55
Yeah,
Brendan Mahan 31:56
dope. That's good. Yeah, she's fantastic.
Lynn Davison 31:58
Yes, she is. Yes, she is. And so, tell them about Alex.
Brendan Mahan 32:02
So, Alex is my co-writer on this book. Professionally, she's a ghost writer. Her name is on my book, just because that's how I work. I do whatever you want to do when it comes to your book. But, but yeah. So, I Alex and I sort of interacted on Twitter for a little while there, back when Twitter was Twitter, and then I started like she posted something on one day that was like this ghost writing company has gone out of business. So if anyone needs a ghost writer now, it's the time to hire us because we're cheaper. There's no middleman, and I was like, okay, cool, I guess. Like I had no re. That's not where it started. I wasn't like, I wasn't planning on working with her. I was just like, okay, cool. Like I read that thing, and then my buddy Shane was like, hey, I have this client who needs to write his autobiography, but he physically is unable to do it. This the guy has a lot of stuff going on, and he was like, does anybody know someone who could help, and I was like, "Yeah, like yesterday I read this thing on Twitter that let me see if I could find it. And so I found that post from Alex and hooked hooked Shane up and was like, in the course of introducing the two of them, I was like, "Can I just at? Can we just talk about what this is? Because I do have this wall of awful thing in my head that I know I need to write. So I'm like, let me ask Alex what's up, and what this all means. And she's like, "Yeah, sure. And so we meet, and she was as excited as I was, I as excited as I was to find out that I there was someone out there who could help me do this. She knew me and knew the wall of awful, and actively wanted to work on this project, and wanted to learn more about the wall and all that stuff, so it ended up working out really well. And the book is a better book because I wrote it with her. She's really good at saying, like Brendan, you've been thinking about these ideas for a decade, and are 1520 miles down the road, we need to get back to mile one. Here's like here's where we have to start this const conversation on the page. We can't start it where you are because you've already figured you've already gotten to four different conclusions, and you haven't built the case yet, right? Right. So she was able to say like we need to build the case, and she also like the the stuff that I was sort of very passionate about and very determined to make happen. She was open to all of it, right? Because it's my impression is that it's a different kind of book than the sorts of books she wrote prior to this one. Because her it was a lot of like business stuff and tech stuff and like, you know, really smart people writing about really intelligent, complicated ideas, and that doesn't mean that I'm not a really smart person, and it doesn't mean that I'm not writing about a really complicated idea. But the thing that I have that they didn't is I taught middle school, and specifically I taught middle school English, which is writing and reading, and. My model was middle school textbook. I was like, you should be able to flip this book open to any page and start reading, without feeling like you've missed something or you're overwhelmed by information. You should just be able to flip it open and have a general idea of where you are and and go from there. And that was a different frame of writing and style of writing for her, I is my impression. But she saw the usefulness of it, and it's all me trying to make it ADHD accessible. It's like that. It's got to be that, and it also has to punch right away. Like I've read enough sort of business books and stuff to be like some of these could be 100 pages shorter, and
Speaker 7 35:42
yeah,
Brendan Mahan 35:42
and that I don't want my book to feel that way. I want my book to feel like this book could maybe be 50 pages longer. Yeah, right. Like I want a neurotypical person to read this book and be like, this book probably could have been 50 to 100 pages longer, because that means the ADHD person is going to be like, this book is paced right. This book has the density of information that I want, there's no wasted space. There's no wasted words. We're just getting in and getting out and building a case and creating concepts. Yahoo! That's how I want it to feel, right? And I think that we pulled that off without, I should say, without it being overwhelming, and that that matters too.
Lynn Davison 36:20
That matters for all people that are neurodiverse. So, okay, here's the one more thing. No, there's more. There's more than one more. So your your explanation of emotional regulation that people don't need solutions first. They need someone to say. What do they say? They need someone. Yeah,
Brendan Mahan 36:42
just that's how you feel, right? Like this is true. This is real. This is a thing. Yeah, and it's the same pattern as forgiving, making it clear that the relationship is okay, and then moving into solving. It's the same thing, right? We're we're starting with emotional processing.
Speaker 3 36:58
Yeah.
Brendan Mahan 36:58
We're starting with the limbic system, and then we're moving to the prefrontal cortex and the executive functions.
Lynn Davison 37:04
I have a feeling we can be moving in and out of this in and out on a regular. We don't just all
Brendan Mahan 37:08
the time. It's the nature of being a human.
Lynn Davison1 37:10
Yeah.
Brendan Mahan 37:11
Right. Like that's just the way it goes. And often we're doing both. Often we're processing in both areas. Even even the way I communicate with people is me doing that, right? Like I'm a pretty animated guy. You can tell that I'm excited. That excitement is the emotional hook that hopefully draws people in to give me to get their concepts to get the concepts going. And if what we're talking about is heavy and intense. Now I'm going to be speaking more calmly and more soothingly, and try to make sure that it lands in a way that feels safer, so that we can move into the next concept. Right, like the nonverbals, and in terms of body language and pacing and word choice and that stuff and tone, that's all verbal, but it's not the content, right? So the way that you talk is presenting all this emotional information to the person listening and and receiving the information, and that matters, right? Like I try to be aware of what's my emotional content and is it leading to the cognitive content that I want people to have.
Speaker 3 38:22
So important. I'm gonna have a conversation. I think at 5o'clock today. That I mean, all this applies to. So anyway,
Lynn Davison 38:30
so then we move on to okay. Let's try something. So this is where your wall of offal to me really sits beautifully, and all the five ways that we can get through it. So how about that? Can you talk about the wall of awful, the five ways?
Brendan Mahan 38:43
Yeah, sure. So the wall of awful is the emotional impact of repeated struggle and failure. Failure may or may not be a part of it, but struggle is. And we all have stuff that we struggle with regularly. We all have stuff that we've failed at more than once. When we encounter those tasks again. There's going to be a wall of emotions there that we have to deal with, right? And that's okay. It doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. It just means that you've got some stuff, right? It's in some ways it's a trauma model. It's just like lowercase t. It's not I was attacked or witnessed a murder or had a horrific car wreck. It's, it's. I've always had trouble in math, and now I have to pay my bills, or I've struggled to make friends, and now I've moved somewhere else. I'm trying to make friends again, right? It's that kind of stuff. And in order to get past the wall, there's five strategies people use-they don't all work, and they're not all great, right? So the two that don't work are staring at the wall and trying to go around the wall. Staring at the wall is just-I'm looking at it, and like that's a really big wall. That thing I have to do is really hard. The emotions. Are in front of it are really overwhelming. I don't like it, right? And trying to
Lynn Davison 40:07
go-it's just yucky. Yeah,
Brendan Mahan 40:09
it's just yucky. And then trying to go around it is-I-I mean, I know I need to do that thing. I get it. Let me do this other thing first, and then I'll be in the mood to do that or whatever, right? Those two things are freeze and flight of the fight, flight, and freeze model, right? I'm staring at the thing. I'm not engaged. I'm frozen. I'm trying to go around it. I'm really running away from my problems. I'm really trying to get away from this thing. Got it. The way that first way that works is smashing, which is when I get up strong enough negative emotions to push me through the wall. The wall is made of all these difficult emotions that are pretty sedentary or repelling, right? Like I feel guilty, I feel ashamed, I feel overwhelmed, I feel disgusted. Maybe, maybe disgusted. We'll play with that in a minute. Those emotions make me want to not go through the wall or like avoid it, maybe. So I need I need to counter those emotions with emotions that are strong enough to make me push through. Typically, that's getting away from how I'm feeling, getting away from the thing that I feeling bad that if I don't do this right, and that's usually anger or anxiety, right? So anger is aiming that smash outwardly. Anxiety is aiming that smash inwardly. Anger is I yell at you for asking me to even do this thing. Anxiety is why do I stink? Why can't I just do it? That's fight. It's the fight response of fight, flight, and freeze. It works, but it'll burn you out if you do it enough, and it damages things. Right? It damages my relationship with myself. It might damage my relationship with my spouse, or my kid, or my parent, or my boss, or whatever, right? My employee. So it's not great. It's not the best way to go. The two that work are putting a door in the wall and climbing the wall. What's tricky is they look a lot like the first two, from to the outside observer, and maybe even to ourselves. So, if I'm putting a door in the wall, I might say, "I'm going to do my homework, but I need to listen to music first, or I need to listen to music while I do it. Which looks like I'm trying to go around the wall, but really, I'm trying to find a strategy that will let me change my emotional state to something that's more useful, so that I can go through the wall. That might mean working with a friend. That might mean listening to music. That might mean watching an episode of Bob's Burgers and hanging out with the Belchers to center myself and soothe my anxiety, so that I can then do the thing that I need to do. Right? If it's one episode, you're putting a door in it. If you then go do stuff, if it's 345, episodes, you're going around right now. You're you've run away. Climbing the wall is processing those emotions and sitting there and dealing like, oh, I don't want to do this, but I have to. This thing is overwhelming. That kind of stuff.
Lynn Davison 43:14
Oh, thank you for giving options because I've always been taught to process the emotions, and the people are looking at me like, "Am I? Am I graduates? My my kids are looking like, you want me to stay in this yucky place?
Brendan Mahan 43:26
Yeah. Heck no. But you don't have to process them all the way. You just have to accept that they're there, right? Like I, I can do the thing while I feel anxious about it. I can do the thing while not wanting to do it. That's okay. That's often the best strategy. If I don't want to go to the gym, and I go to the gym even though I don't want to go to the gym, I know from a great deal of experience that I will eventually feel happy that I went to the gym and be like, "Oh, I'm glad I came here right like this is working, and like that goes into the DBT trying triangle where we've got like emotions thoughts and behaviors right
Lynn Davison 44:11
right
Brendan Mahan 44:12
affect each other
Lynn Davison1 44:13
yes
Brendan Mahan 44:13
so I don't necessarily have to be emotionally ready to do the thing I can just do the thing
Speaker 8 44:18
right
Brendan Mahan 44:18
and then I'll feel better about doing it and think more about it and all that kind of stuff. So they influence each other.
Lynn Davison 44:24
Yeah, definitely, they're all related. And then when we notice our progress, right? We go, oh, this you've got a great click counter story about, right? We want to notice our progress.
Brendan Mahan 44:38
Yeah, yeah. Like one of the things I notice with especially high achievers that I that are neurodiverse or not, right, is that they tend to move the goalposts a lot. And this might be a parent moving the goalposts for the kids. This might be just the kid moving their own goalposts. But as you accomplish stuff, you're like. Ah, it's not now. Now I should do this, right? Yeah.
Lynn Davison 45:04
Oh, yeah.
Brendan Mahan 45:05
And you're always looking forward, but like every now and then, turn around and look how far you've come, so that you have more motivation to continue going forward, right? To to keep doing what you're doing, and that matters, and and it can happen in small and large ways, right? It can be. I remember, I I my book deal was fairly good, and and I didn't get that. But then I saw I was watching like the $10,000 pyramid. Is that what it's called? Something? No, it was Deal or No Deal. I was watching an episode of Deal or No Deal, and one of the prizes that, like, at this point, the audience was like, right? And I was like, oh, that's around what my book deal was, and I as an as a prize for a game show. I get why that's a cool number, but it didn't make sense to me as a job. I guess. Yeah. And so I was like, "Oh, all right, cool. That that progress helps, right? Being able to see that as a thing.
Lynn Davison2 46:14
Yeah.
Brendan Mahan 46:15
Um. And even and and things like what you record will help, right? The weight loss. There's a lot of like, I've lost 10 pounds, I've lost 15 pounds, and that helps you keep wanting to eat more celery and less cookies, right? But even, even with our kids, right, like noticing how far your kids have come. If you're a parent listening to this, of a of especially of a young adult and going, oh hey, like my kids work at Walmart. Maybe your kids work at Walmart. I don't know, but like that's that's cool. My kids have their first job. That's a cool indication of their progress and how far they've come from the kid who couldn't go to school because he was full of anxiety and couldn't handle it. Right.
Lynn Davison3 47:00
That's
Brendan Mahan 47:01
now
Speaker 4 47:02
accomplished.
Brendan Mahan 47:02
Now they. are fine, right? Like they're both honors and high honors, and working at Walmart and getting ready to go to college and those sorts of things. Seeing that progress for them matters. My my wife is an artist. She was like a sketch artist. She draws with pencil, and looking at her portfolio and going early pages where she was not anywhere close to as good as she is now. I thought she was great back then, but now I look at those pictures and I'm like, yeah, they're fine compared to where you are now. Like that's mediocre, but it's only because she's gotten so much better. She's starting to walk towards photorealism, and that's kind of crazy for someone who does it as a hobby and not professionally, but she has amazing fine motor control and that kind of stuff. And that's not even her job; like she's a scientist, so that is impressive, right? I am a black belt in tempo, and took me forever. It took oh man, it took me forever, but getting to black belt is an indication of my progress, right? So you're not done. There's still a lot left to do. But noticing progress is important. If we don't, we're not going to want to keep going. And I took so when my boys were born, I set two goals. I was like, by the time they're five, I'm going to be a black belt and an author. 17 years later, I'm a black belt and an author. So it took me 11 years longer than I, 12 years, 11 or 12 years longer than I intended
Lynn Davison 48:38
it to. She got there,
Brendan Mahan 48:38
but I got there, right? Like I got there, it happened. Yeah,
Lynn Davison 48:42
yeah, yeah. And let's just double back one more time on that writing the book to recover from burnout. I liked what you said. How you moved toward meaning, writing part of healing. I think that's. I think that's really. You didn't wait to feel better, you took action. I think that's that's the thing. That's the thing, and and yeah, and I I want to give you plenty of time, more time to talk about overcoming the wall of off of the book, because I listened to a lot of your podcast interviews, and every one of them has taught me something over the last six years when I was introduced to you six years ago. Thank
Brendan Mahan 49:21
you,
Lynn Davison 49:22
but a book is different. It's a chance to take everything you've learned over decades of coaching and teaching and parenting and living with ADHD and organizing it all in one place and deciding what to put in and what to take out. All of that. So, for someone who's already heard you on podcasts or maybe has followed your work for years. What will they discover in this book that they probably haven't experienced before? A
Brendan Mahan 49:47
lot of stuff. So I haven't mentioned this on any other podcasts, but one of the things that was a real challenge for me around the Wall of Awful specifically was I knew it was. Good, and I also knew that I kept seeing people steal stuff on social media, so I didn't do a lot with it publicly. I shared the big idea, but nothing underneath-not really, because I was really concerned about like recording a reel, doing like five or six reels about stuff, maybe or videos about stuff, and then finding out that someone else is like playing my video in the background and going like just making faces at all my intelligence, right? Like that. Oh, it drives me crazy when people make faces at someone else's intelligence. It's like no, that's that person's idea. You're just miming nonsense underneath. So I, it really inhibited me in trying to do anything on social media, and and that I think is maybe obvious in my being more active in social media as a professional person since the book started writing. I started writing the book in particular since marketing it, because now I'm like, yeah. If someone steals my idea, I can go. That's page 78 of this book that I wrote. You know, so it's it. There's a lot in here that is not available, kind of anywhere else, and and it goes it like even just breaking. I try to break it down in chapters because I think that makes it a little easier to understand, right? Chapter one is the is basically the videos I did with Jessica McCabe. It's like the basics of the wall of awful. Chapter two is anxiety, and plays with some of the stuff we've talked about about how the brain works and emotional processing, cognitive processing, that kind of stuff. Because the wall of the mortar of the wall of awful is anxiety. It's what's holding all these bricks of emotions together, and some of the bricks are just anxiety too, right? But but the anxiety holds it all together. And then chapter three is well, let's solve this problem, right? Like because part of the job of the book, one of the mission statement of the book was it's got to have hope. We've got to infuse this book with hope. That's why it's yellow, right? Like the the font is yellow because that's hope. My headshot. I wore a yellow tie on purpose as a little like nod towards the importance of hope when it comes to this whole concept. So, chapter three is resources and skills, because those are the two things we use to solve problems. Every solution to every problem is some combinations of resources and skills, and every problem can be solved with resources and skills. I don't care what that what it is. Not every problem is going to be solved because not everybody is interested in solving those problems, and if we don't, I can't solve world hunger, for example. But any billionaire out there can. Elon Musk proved it when he like offered to, and the UN was like, "This is what we need, and he was like, "Nope, like it all. Any problem can get solved. We can figure it all out with the right combination of resources and skills. So that's chapter three, and that's part one. You could read just part one and get plenty out of the book. Part two is the is the going around it, staring at it, smashing, putting a door in it, and climbing it. It's the ways we get past the wall. Each of those broken out into I don't know, like 20 or 30 pages. The the chapter four is staring at it and going around it. So we squish those into one chapter because, like, why waste time on stuff that doesn't work? We want to at least understand what we're doing that doesn't work. We don't need to spend a lot of time there. And then chapter five is smashing. And what's the role of anxiety and anger and frustration in in our behavior, and how do we navigate those things? When is it useful? When is it not useful? I was talking to Caroline McGuire for her show the other day. She's a friend of mine. Like she's, I'm at the Brook. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Brendan Mahan 53:56
I'm at the Brookline Booksmith for my book launch this september 2, it's like the second event of the book launch, and she's moderating me at Brookline Booksmith. I moderated her for her book launch at the Harvard bookstore, so we're we're we're longtime friends. But I was talking to her, and she was like pushing back on chapter five a little bit, and was like, "I use anger all the time. Am I just smashing? And then what she described was like she gets angry that someone else is saying she can't do something, and then she's like, "I'm gonna do it, right? Yeah, right. And I was like, "I don't think that's smashing. I think you're like kicking the door open, is what that is, right? Because you're pivoting away from anger pretty quickly, and you're not being mean to that person. You're just using it internally to motivate yourself, so it's more of a door thing. But but anger is there, and we got to know what it is and how it works. And it's also an emotion we don't talk about comfortably or often enough. So I'm trying to kind of normalize it and also help people recognize that it is there. Then we move into putting a door in the wall. Like, how do we change it? Because that's similar to smashing, right? Both of these are putting are changing our emotional state to get through the wall. I'm changing it to anger or anxiety. Maybe anxiety was already there. That's not great. Better move to transition to motivation or hope or excitement or engagement. So that's putting a door in the wall, determination, right? Yeah. So that's putting the door on the wall. We play with that, and that goes even into like Bill Dodson's income model, his interspace nervous system stuff. And so we play with that, and I had permission from Bill to do that. Like I, he and I emailed back and forth, and his his interest-based nervous system is people who are neurodiverse, especially ADHD, are often not motivated by things being important. We often don't. That's not a thing that makes us want to do anything. We're just like whatever. But if it's interesting or novel or challenging or urgent or connected to our passions, and I sneak the word values in there because, like that, I think it's more values than passions. But in cup is his deal; that's the model. It's more easy to activate for that, right? Me writing this book is me moving towards my values, and of course, it's something I find interesting, and it's a it's a challenge. I've never done that before. It's a new experience, so it's novel, right? It gets a lot of those. The one I pump the brakes on is urgency, like using urgency to activate is a recipe for burnout because it's really smashing. But sometimes that's the way to go, and that's okay. Just don't do it all the time. And then chapter what am I? Six. Chapter six is climbing. It's a big chapter, like it's longer than the other ones. That's the one that's probably 30 pages, but the chapter on the two that don't work is like 10 pages. And and we break climbing into different groups. There's there's active climbing and passive climbing. I haven't talked about passive climbing publicly like at all, like up until like the last month in doing these interviews for the book, I've talked about it a little bit, but I haven't gone too deep. Passive climbing is when we're climbing without trying to, and we don't do that enough. That's it's in that case we're talking about like a default mode network of the brain and sort of like mind wandering mode and those kinds of things, because when we're in the default mode network, our brain is working on solving problems that we're not thinking about. It's working on regulating our emotions and sort of processing those emotions. And our phones keep us from entering the default mode network because we're looking at them and not bored. You kind of have to be bored to enter the default mode network, so as long as you're not letting yourself get bored, you're also not letting yourself process emotions, not letting yourself think through stuff that is in your head.
Brendan Mahan 57:50
Whether that's how to word an email or how to solve a significant challenge in your family, if you're not getting mind wandering mode, if you're not getting the default mode network, if you're not bored, those things aren't happening. So I play with how to do that. Like, how do we make allow more time for that in a way that is safe and healthy, right? Because part of the challenge for folks with anxiety, which is ADHD as much as anybody and autism as much as anybody, is we end up ruminating, where I'm bored and now I'm thinking all these negative thought spirals and getting stuck and that isn't great, right? We want to steer the default mode network towards healthier stuff, and sometimes you got to ruminate. Like sometimes you got to process through those negative emotions. That means you're going to feel them, and it might seem like rumination. It's just you know, don't let it go on forever.
Lynn Davison 58:48
Yeah, don't let it take over.
Brendan Mahan 58:49
Play a song that will soothe that anxiety and move through it. So though that's the middle part of the book, and then the end of it might seem disconnected, but isn't the the ending. The chapters are change and how it works. Then we talk about systems and habits, and then we move into planning. The change is because that's what I'm asking people to do with this book, right? I'm asking to make a change, and I've read enough of these books just because I read them, and also because I do interviews and stuff. No one ever talks about the change part. People are like, "We're going to change things, and then not talk about what that looks like. And it kind of started driving me crazy, because I was like, "People need to know what to expect. People need to know that they're going to try to make this change and mess it up, and have to get back on the horse, and that's okay, right? Or people need to understand how transitions work. That even in the both the large scale and small scale, right? As the two of us are going to finish this episode and transition into something else, people who are listening are going to turn off their their audio and transition to something else. That's a small scale transition. People who are trying to get a new job-that's a also a transition. It's a big one. That's made up a bunch of little ones, right? You get married. That's a transition. That's made up a bunch of little ones, right? So we want to know how transitions work. We want to know how change works, so we can facilitate doing the changes that we're trying to get out of this book. Then systems and habits is how you maintain that change, right? Like we just have to have the habits that build the systems that become a new lifestyle and and new behaviors, and then planning is kind of tying all of it together because all of this is going to require some level of planning and forethought in order to make it work. And planning as you do it is climbing the wall of awful because you're facing the challenge. You're trying to think it through. You're dealing with the emotions. You're climbing your wall of awful in the course of planning to address whatever's on the other side of it. And once you have the plan, that can be a door through the wall every time afterwards, depending on what it is, and it doesn't mean the door will always work. It doesn't mean that climbing planning will always get you all the way to the top in terms of climbing. Like it doesn't have. That's not always the case. I am not a magic bullet, and neither is my book. I wish it was. I wish I was, but that's not realistic. That's why part of planning is like you're gonna mess up and have to try start over. It's just the nature of being human,
Speaker 5 1:01:25
right?
Brendan Mahan 1:01:25
But so the the book I think is pretty comprehensive in terms of this is all the stuff early on to build the foundation of what you need to know. Here's that ways to get past the wall that everybody wants. I think if I ended it after that, everybody would be like, "Cool, I got what I wanted. Most people, I think, just want that middle of the book, and then the end of it is like, "Let's big picture figure out how to make sure this sticks and make sure that I can activate on what I need
Speaker 3 1:01:56
to do. So important to have instructions there because without them, like you said, we don't know what we're doing.
Brendan Mahan 1:02:03
Yeah, and the we've got five appendices that are those instructions, right? It's like here's how emotions affect you because that's the wall. Here's how to put a door in it. Here's how to climb it. Like there's that stuff is in there in short form too, and every chapter ends with like a cliff note version of the chapter with like five takeaways and an action step and all that stuff, so it's pretty it's pretty useful as a book, which is my intention. I don't I didn't want to just inform people. I don't want people to read it and just be like, oh well, now I get what the Wall of Awful is. Like, no, no, no. I want you to apply all this stuff, or at least the stuff that is useful for you. Yeah, I want you to be able to apply it so that you can make the changes you're trying to make in reading the book.
Lynn Davison 1:02:44
Yeah. Ah. Yeah. Oh, this is so good. So what you're basically saying is, the wall of awful is an emotional barrier, and it can be understood and it can be overcome.
Brendan Mahan 1:02:57
Yeah, and and that word is critical, right? Like I've I talked to a few people who are like, you should just call it the Wall of Awful. That's such a great raise. I was like, yeah, but it's overcoming the Wall of Awful.
Lynn Davison 1:03:09
That's what matters
Brendan Mahan 1:03:10
because the part, the most important word of the title is overcoming, right? Like I don't want to just name the problem and leave it there.
Lynn Davison 1:03:18
Yeah. No. Thank you for giving us a roadmap, we needed one because this comes up and it's harder than we expected it to be, you know.
Lynn Davison4 1:03:28
Yeah.
Lynn Davison 1:03:29
And and now that it's harder than okay, now we know we gotta we gotta find the guides, and you're one of the best.
Brendan Mahan 1:03:36
Thank you, but genuinely thank you. I I try to be
Lynn Davison 1:03:39
true. It's true. So, where can people learn more about you and pre-order the book and continue learning from you?
Brendan Mahan 1:03:46
Yeah, just go to thewallofel.com or wallofawful.com. Either one will work, and you'll that'll bring you right to the book. And from there, there's like you can, it'll have my name up there somewhere. You can click on my name and see a little bit about me, and it'll say ADHD essentials in the upper upper right hand corner too, and that'll take you to the webs to the podcast. But right now, it's all about the book. It's all about getting getting this in people's hands, and and I'm trying. I'm hoping I get to help as many people as possible. Like that's really what I want to do. That's
Lynn Davison 1:04:16
the bottom line. That's the bottom. Well, I wish you the very best. This needs to be. I mean, I understand that there's a million families in the United States alone that have autistic young adults living in households with parents who are 65 or older, like me. A minute, just just in the U.S. alone. Not talking about the other English-speaking countries in the world. Yeah. I mean, this book. You know, just from that niche, then you add the ADHD. I mean, frankly, it applies to the 20% of people who don't fit into the 80% of the bell-shaped curve. Oh,
Brendan Mahan 1:04:51
yeah, and it it applies to everybody. Everybody's got a law of all.
Lynn Davison 1:04:54
Yeah, come to think of it, it could apply to yeah as well. But it is special for the people. Who are struggling, as you say here, to get things done,
Speaker 3 1:05:03
right?
Lynn Davison 1:05:04
That need to be done.
Brendan Mahan 1:05:05
Yeah, yeah. Like you got to do it. You may as well.
Lynn Davison 1:05:08
You got to do it.
Brendan Mahan 1:05:09
Be able to do it with a little more ease.
Lynn Davison 1:05:10
Yes. Yeah. Let's figure out how to make it fun. Thank you so much, Brendan. Thank you. Thank
Lynn Davison5 1:05:15
you.
Lynn Davison 1:05:15
I really appreciate you being here. I can't wait to to to see the book september 1. Yeah, thank you, and thank you
Brendan Mahan 1:05:24
for having me. I appreciate
Lynn Davison 1:05:25
it. I'm already there. I've already bought it.
Speaker 5 1:05:27
Yay!
Speaker 3 1:05:28
It's gonna be
Lynn Davison 1:05:29
oh, yeah.
Brendan Mahan 1:05:31
And I should add, I recorded the audio book too. So if if people don't want to are not big fans of reading a book physically, you can read it with your ears instead, and I'm the one recording that voice.
Lynn Davison 1:05:43
That's lovely. I have a we have a family member who that works for the best. Absolutely, yeah, yeah. We got all kinds of neurology going on.
Brendan Mahan 1:05:52
Yay! Me too.
Lynn Davison 1:05:54
You know, figure it out. Yes, yes, yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much. Thank
Brendan Mahan 1:05:59
you, Lynn. Bye for now. Thank you. Bye. If
Speaker 5 1:06:04
there's one idea I hope you take away from this conversation, it's this: the problem isn't that autistic or ADHD young adults don't care. Very often, they're carrying an emotional weight that the rest of us can't see. As Brendan reminded us, before we can solve a problem, we often need to repair the relationship. Before we ask someone to climb over the wall of awful, we need to understand what's in that wall. That fits beautifully with what we've been discovering at the Art of Adulting, families make progress when we create fewer surprises, more emotional safety, and more collaboration. When everyone feels understood, their brains become available for problem solving again. That's where self-reliance grows. Bye for now.
