Pete Wright:
We’re still on our summer break, so this is another Revisit — one of our favorites, pulled back out of the archive while Nikki and I take a little time to recharge.

This one’s all about the words we use, and how much they quietly run the show. Nikki brought in a book called I Get To, and we spent the episode walking through some small shifts in language that turn out to be a bigger deal than they look. Trading “I have to” for “I get to.” Swapping “I can’t” for “I choose not to,” or better yet, “how can I?” Catching the “what ifs” when they go negative. We also get into the power of the pause, and being curious instead of judgmental, which if you’re a Ted Lasso person, you already know the line.

Quick note before we start — this episode originally aired right after I lost my dad, so I open by talking about that. I’m in a different place now, and I left it in because … I don’t know… I guess it felt weird to take it out. It’s a part of the episode… and certainly a part of this show’s archive.

Anyhow, it’s a good one for the start of anything, honestly, and summer’s as good a time as any to check in on how you talk to yourself. So settle in, and enjoy this Revisit. We’ll be back with new episodes soon. Thanks, as always, for being here.
We appreciate your time and your attention.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Taking Control, the ADHD Podcast on TruStory FM. I’m Pete Wright, and I’m here with Nikki Kinzer.

Nikki Kinzer:
Hello, everyone. Hello, Pete Wright.

Pete Wright:
Season twenty-four.

Nikki Kinzer:
Amazing. Season twenty-four.

Pete Wright:
Twenty-four. That’s where we’re going into year twelve. Is that possible? Twelve years of this show.

Nikki Kinzer:
It is possible, yes, because we started in 2010.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, that is bananas. I can’t conceive of time like that anymore.

Nikki Kinzer:
No. Bananas.

Pete Wright:
So, twelve years, still more to talk about, apparently.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yes, there is.

Pete Wright:
It just keeps coming. The hits keep coming. We’re excited to be here and to be back. And to regular listeners, I just want to say personally, thank you for your patience and your understanding in our delay in coming back. We are a couple of weeks late. I lost my dad over Christmas, and that was real, real hard. I had to do some travel and had to kind of put pieces back together. I don’t know if there is ever a show — let’s just say, in the annals of ADHD podcasting history, I am sure one day we should do a podcast on ADHD and grief. And that day is not today.

Nikki Kinzer:
No.

Pete Wright:
At some point we’ll figure that out, because man, do I have thoughts.

Nikki Kinzer:
I bet, yeah.

Pete Wright:
And I don’t think I can do those without going through knee-buckling grief right now, but we’ll get there. I think that’ll be a conversation that we need to have, because I certainly did not expect to learn lessons about my ADHD this week, or over the last couple of weeks. So I’m excited to do that. Mostly I’m just really excited to be back. I missed you.

Nikki Kinzer:
I know. I missed you too. We had happy hour at the beginning of January without Pete.

Pete Wright:
Ugh, so weird.

Nikki Kinzer:
And it was really sad. I’m just glad you’re back. You know how I feel. My heart goes out to you and your family, and I’m glad you’re here.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Thank you. We’re going to try and have a better time of it today.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.

Pete Wright:
Now that we’re kicking off this season, it’s just really exciting to be podcasting again, and to be talking about good stuff. Today we’re going to be talking about our vocabulary. Change your language, change your mind. And you’ve been inspired.

Nikki Kinzer:
Oh yes, I have.

Pete Wright:
So you’re going to do a little bit of teaching for us. I want to know what we’re talking about today.

Nikki Kinzer:
We are talking about a book that caught my eye at the bookstore. It’s called I Get To, and it’s about how using the right words can radically transform your life. Radically transform. Is that not powerful language?

Pete Wright:
It is powerful. Words like, “Hey Pete, here’s a million dollars.” I can see how those words would radically transform my life. I’m not sure that’s what we’re talking about.

Nikki Kinzer:
No, but you get the point. So, how using the right words can radically transform your life, relationships, and business. And it’s by Alicia Dunams. I hope I’m saying that right. What do you think?

Pete Wright:
Sounds good to me. You just read what it says, so I’m going to call that a win.

Nikki Kinzer:
Okay, good. So, like I said, it caught my attention at the bookstore, and it reminded me of a podcast that we did years ago around the power of language. I remember talking to you about, instead of “I have to,” “I get to,” and there were some different switches, right? Just some different shifts of how you say things. And that’s what this book is about. The author is a communications expert, and in this book she’s teaching us about intentional communication. And, you know, I love the word intentional.

Pete Wright:
And how? Oh dear.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yes. So she says we communicate through our words, tone of voice, and non-verbal cues like body language. In the foreword of her book, she says, “Crafting our daily language with effective words and tone is a true art.” The book gives you ideas around sentence starters and communication skills to be successful in life. Now, there are 40 different sentence starters to help you shift your mindset. We are not going to go over all forty.

Pete Wright:
But wait, I have presented a candle for each one, which I will blow out incrementally as we do this.

Nikki Kinzer:
Right? Now, of course, if I was to do that, I might as well be the audiobook person.

Pete Wright:
Oh, absolutely.

Nikki Kinzer:
But no. What I want to do is go over five of them. When I was going through this book, I was noticing this connection between communication, how we communicate, ADHD, and specifically limiting beliefs. And then there were some other things that just really blew me away about how one word can really change how you see a situation. So I want to go through these and see what you notice, and let’s just talk about what we have here.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, let’s do it.

Nikki Kinzer:
So the first sentence starter of the whole book — which makes sense, because the title of the book is I Get To — is “I get to” versus “I have to.” One thing I want to say is that a lot of what I have to say today is from the book. So what I want us to do is, I’m going to be talking to you about the pieces that I thought were interesting, and then Pete and I will have a conversation around it. I don’t want to take credit for any of this, because this is all coming from the book.

Pete Wright:
Alicia, yes.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yes. So, “I get to” versus “I have to.” I have to eat healthy.

Pete Wright:
I buy that, because it connects with my own internal vessel of shame.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, exactly. I have to pick up my kids. I have to.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. When you don’t, they’re not picked up. And not-picked-up kids are less good than picked-up kids.

Nikki Kinzer:
That’s right. So what she says in the book is, when you say “have to,” it’s a mindset of dread, or like it’s an inconvenience in some way.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, I buy that.

Nikki Kinzer:
So eating healthy definitely feels kind of dreadful, because it just doesn’t sound fun. And having to pick up my kids feels like an inconvenience, when really it’s not, right? We want to pick up our children. So it’s an interesting thought. “I have to.”

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Nikki Kinzer:
What are you thinking? I can see you thinking.

Pete Wright:
It is interesting. It is dread, and I want to go back to that feeling of shame, because that’s what was triggered for me around eating healthy. Picking up the kids, for me, triggers a feeling of selfishness. If I have to pick up my kids, the implication is I have to stop doing what I’m already doing and go inconvenience myself to pick them up. And to me, that feels like I’m being super selfish. I don’t like that. I enjoy my kids, and I enjoy spending time with them, especially now that they’re growing up. Any minute I can get with them, I’m excited about that. So that’s a matter of perspective that I can wrap my head around. The eating healthy one, though — I’ve lived for many years figuring out how to eat healthy, and it still feels like an obligation that is less fun than Twinkies. And as long as it’s less fun than Twinkies, then “have to” is the natural order of things.

Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely. And so that’s where the shift is hard, right? Because we have to look for what the “get to” is for you. The “get to” is bringing up a mindset that’s more around, this is a blessing in some way, this is a gift, this is something that I can appreciate. So if we’re looking at eating healthy — “I have to eat healthy” — if we’re going to change that, we could say, okay, well, I get to eat healthy today so that I can have more energy. Or, I get to eat healthy today so that I’m a good role model for my kids, or whatever it might be. And even with picking up my kids, like you said, it may feel like an inconvenience, but boy, we’re lucky to be able to pick up our kids, because there are some people who aren’t able to. Their kids have to walk home, or whatever. So I think it’s looking at the gift in it and shifting it. As she says in the book, it’s a really powerful way to view life, relationships, and business, because it really does go from this kind of dread to, wait a minute, where’s the gift?

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Well, and I wonder, does she talk at all about how rewards play into language? Because I’m thinking about eating healthy again. One of the things that strikes me is that once I eat healthy for a little bit, then I start feeling better and losing weight. And those rewards allow me a gateway to reinforcing the language that I’ve changed already, right? “I get to eat healthy” is easier to say once I’ve lost 30 pounds. “I get to eat healthy” might lead to behavior and results that then reinforce the language every day. So I think it’s important to note when you see the impact of the cycle of change that you have started.

Nikki Kinzer:
Right. I think that’s very important. And it’s also starting from the very beginning. Even if you haven’t felt that impact yet, we want to be manifesting that. We want to be affirming that that’s where we’re going. So even if you don’t really believe that you’re at the “get to” yet, you want to keep saying it. It’s that whole state of mind. If you focus on — and we’ll talk about this with the “what ifs” — if you focus on everything that could be bad or hard about it, then it’s going to continue to be bad and hard. But if we can already say, yeah, I’m going to get to this point sometime, I know I’m getting there — you’re also being honest, saying maybe I’m not there yet, but I’m going to get there.

Pete Wright:
But at least you’re opening the door to change.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yes. Because if you keep it a “have to,” then it’s just always going to be negative. It’s always going to feel like it’s a “have to,” right?

Pete Wright:
Yeah. There is a facility, a place where I grew up in Colorado Springs, called the Quit Center. I don’t know if this is a national thing. Have you ever heard of the Quit Center?

Nikki Kinzer:
No.

Pete Wright:
So, trigger warning. This is a disgusting behavioral story, and I’m going to tell you anyway.

Nikki Kinzer:
Okay.

Pete Wright:
The Quit Center is a place that helps you quit behavior that is hard for you. For years my dad was a smoker, and he would go to the Quit Center to quit smoking. What they did was they put him in essentially a phone booth. The phone booth had a little desk in front of it, and it was closed, and it was just full of piles of spent cigarette butts. Smoked butts, and a trash can down below. True story, legit, true story.

Nikki Kinzer:
This is a true story.

Pete Wright:
And they said, all we want you to do — you love smoking — so we just want you to sit in this room and smoke. And don’t stop smoking. So they made him smoke for hours and hours at a time in front of this pile of butts, and he would just put his butt on top of the pile, until — and I’m not kidding — until he threw up in the trash can. That’s what the trash can was for. It was the vomit bucket. After two, maybe three sessions of that, he was done smoking for the rest of his life. What he replaced that behavior with was Butterfinger bars. And then he gained like 40 pounds. So he went back to the Quit Center, and they made him eat Butterfingers until he threw up. And then he was done with Butterfingers forever, and largely done with candy. So that is the cycle of behavior that strikes me. It doesn’t take very long for you to say, ugh, I have to eat Twinkies. If you change your behavior and let your language lead your behavior, you can make it gross. You can make anything you want to do that you enjoy disgusting.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, no kidding. So did he replace the Butterfinger habit with something else too? Or was he like, I’m not going back to the Quit Center ever?

Pete Wright:
I think he actually reinforced his behavior not to go to the Quit Center. I think that was the last I heard of it.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, that’s what I would do for sure.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Disgusting.

Nikki Kinzer:
That’s really interesting.

Pete Wright:
Isn’t that interesting?

Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. Okay. Well, the next one I want to talk about is “I can” versus “I can’t.” And I hear this so many times with my clients. “I can’t do this.” So the chapter starts with a quote: “Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.” That’s from Henry Ford, which is true, right? We’re telling ourselves what we think we can do. So instead of “can’t,” her suggestion is that you choose not to, because choosing implies that you’re taking some kind of action. You have purpose and you have control. Words of power like “choose” are there to inspire us, so that we don’t shut down, but we actually look at the possibilities. But “can’t” gives you no other possibilities. And “can’t” is a limiting belief. So it’s really important that we connect that too, because limiting beliefs are here to protect us. They want us to not be sad. They want us to not be disappointed or frustrated. So they’re going to come into your brain and say, you can’t do this, what are you thinking? How, why do you think you can do this now? You’ve never been able to do it before. So this is the part where I would actually change a little bit of what she has to say. I understand that you want to choose not to do something, but I would take that even a little bit further and say, okay, how can I do this to work for me? Or how can I do this in a different way that I can do? You know what I’m saying?

Pete Wright:
I do. And my spin on it comes from — and many people have probably heard this, I know we’ve talked about it on our show — it’s “yes, and,” right?

Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.

Pete Wright:
Take something that you’re going to do, and “yes, and” it, even if it’s hard. My kids’ pickup time is at 3:30, and somebody’s got to get them. And I know my day is troublesome. Yes, all of that is true. Foundationally, that is true. So what am I going to change in my day to enable me to pick up my kids? How am I going to change my behavior, my processes, my strategies, my tools, to enable me to do the next hard thing, even though it’s hard? I really like the pivot you put on “I can’t.” Yes, that is a thing that could be done, and I’m not the person to do it, right? At some point there’s a decision that has to be made about moving forward or not. Because, as a corollary to this — whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right — if you don’t make a decision, you’re making a decision, because eventually time runs out and that decision will be made for you. So I really feel like, if it’s something that you want to do, that you feel would improve the way you live your life somehow, or is an obligation to friends or family that are important to you — yes, and it. That helps you get over the “I can, I can’t” hurdle.

Nikki Kinzer:
That’s right. And I just want to add to that. One of the examples she has in the book, which is a good example of what you’re saying too, is “I can’t fix my credit.” Okay, what if we change that and say, “I can fix my credit. What is required for me to do this?” So it’s giving you the opportunity and the solutions. Maybe you do need to change the goal altogether. We don’t know. But it’s giving you another option. What can I do to make that happen?

Pete Wright:
There are very few impossible situations, right? But the stories we tell ourselves imply that many things are impossible. The difference is, something that seems impossible might just be masked by high costs, and not just monetary costs. Time costs, emotional costs. The cost may be so high that it feels impossible. But in truth, if you’re willing to “yes, and” it, it’s not as impossible as you think. I would love to have that challenged. If it’s not a life-or-death thing, largely you can fix your credit. You might have to do some very hard things. That sort of thing. I don’t know.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, absolutely. Love it. Okay, so the next one I want to talk about is “why not” versus “what if.” When I read this, I quickly saw the connection between “what if” and anxiety, because I always go to the “what ifs,” and they’re negative for the most part.

Pete Wright:
Oh, like the deconstructionist versus constructionist “what if”?

Nikki Kinzer:
Yes, like, what if I fail?

Pete Wright:
Like, what if everything falls apart? Not, what if we could build something huge?

Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, like, what if I fail? What if nobody likes me? What if nobody shows up? What if, what if, what if?

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Nikki Kinzer:
And something that she said — again, this is powerful language, at least for me it was — is, “‘What if’ crushes dreams like no other statement, if it’s stated in the negative.”

Pete Wright:
But what’s interesting about that is, “what if” is the language of dreams if it’s stated in the positive.

Nikki Kinzer:
Well, this is what she says.

Pete Wright:
Ah, it’s like I was sitting on her shoulder while she wrote the book.

Nikki Kinzer:
If it’s used in a positive way — “what if I fail,” and we switch that to “what if I succeed” — then we open the conversation to potential. We open the conversation to dreaming, to opportunity, to brainstorming, creativity. There’s a quote somewhere, and I can’t remember who says it, but it’s something like, “What if I fall?” And then the next line is, “But what if you fly?” It’s the same kind of thing here. Let’s not look at the “what if” as a negative. Let’s look at all the “what ifs” where I do make my goals. What if I do get that house that I want? Or whatever it might be. It really changes the way you think of things.

Pete Wright:
The day my daughter was born, we invited her godfather up to the hospital room, and we’re in the elevator. I say to him, I’m going to get a picture of you holding her. And he says, oh, I’m not going to hold her. I said, why aren’t you going to hold your goddaughter? He said, well, I’ve never held a baby before. A newborn, never held a newborn. And I said, okay, what are you afraid of? He says, well, what if I have a seizure? And I said to him, have you ever had a seizure? And his answer was, no, I haven’t. But that, to me, demonstrates the case example of a “what if” that destroys dreams.

Nikki Kinzer:
“But what if?” Yes.

Pete Wright:
And I was there to actually say, bite me, you’re going to hold your goddaughter, and I’m going to take a picture. We’ll put a net underneath if you really feel like you need it, but we’re going to “yes, and” this holding, because that’s important to me. And it turns out to be an important thing for him too.

Nikki Kinzer:
If you’re really worried about it, yeah.

Pete Wright:
But that goes into this idea that language can destroy dreams, can destroy opportunity.

Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely. And something that you and I have talked about before is, when we have these limiting beliefs, you’ll say, well, what is the truth in it? Where is the actual truth, or evidence?

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Fact and truth, right.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yes. So, Karen — oh, help me, Pete. How would you say this last name?

Pete Wright:
Reivich. Karen Reivich.

Nikki Kinzer:
Karen Reivich. Okay. So she talks about the “why not,” and she’s an expert in the fields of resilience, depression prevention, and positive psychology. She has three strategies to challenge negative thinking. One is the evidence, two is reframing, and the third one is the plan. So, Pete.

Pete Wright:
Well, I just did it with my godfather example and my kids, right? He said, what if I have a seizure? Well, the evidence is, have you ever had a seizure? No, I have not. I’m not prone to seizures. Okay, two, let’s reframe it. This is important to everybody, that you have this experience. And three, the plan — what are we going to do to actually make it feel safe for you? I feel like that walks through that model really cleanly. But we were talking about a different example, and this is one that gets to the fact-and-truth bit that I live with way too often, that I’m constantly challenging. Let’s just say I have a lot of Zoom calls and podcasts, and I spend a lot of time showing up for Zoom. We have a couple of new clients this year, and we’re excited to get started, so I set up a Zoom, and I’m waiting for the meeting to start, and minutes go by. And the meeting does not start, because they don’t show up. What are the things that go through my head naturally? I don’t want to generalize for everybody, but my sense is these won’t be foreign feelings to people who live with anxiety and ADHD. The first thing that goes into my head is, oh, did I get the wrong time? So, is it my fault? Wrong day, wrong time, did I screw up? And the fireworks start, and I can start going down this other road pretty quickly. Not about “did I screw up,” but “how do they feel about me?” Is them not showing up on time a reflection on my place in the world and in their lives? They don’t like me. They don’t trust what I can do for them. They don’t feel like there’s going to be value in the session that we have together. And therefore I am being ghosted. And now I’m just going to sit here, and I could never hang up. I could be paralyzed in anxiety, and no one’s ever going to talk to me again. Now, I don’t voice those things, but I certainly am mired in those thoughts, in a cyclone of those thoughts, and it does not take long for that to happen.

Nikki Kinzer:
Right. This is what you’re thinking. But where is the evidence that all of those things you said are true?

Pete Wright:
Well, it’s only in my head, right? That evidence is only in my head, and I’m totally making it up.

Nikki Kinzer:
Right.

Pete Wright:
That evidence is only that I feel like, surely the only reason they must not be there is because they don’t like me. No one has ever ghosted me like that, ever before, ever.

Nikki Kinzer:
Right. And if you were to reframe it into the “why not” — why not? There was a miscommunication in some way. Maybe they’re wrong. Maybe they sent you the wrong link. There are a lot of things that could have nothing to do with you.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Maybe they’re human, and they got a call from their kids’ school and they had to rush to pick them up. Lord knows that’s happening a lot these days, right? And then, what is the plan? Well, the plan is, I need to reach out to them authentically and say, I may have made a mistake.

Nikki Kinzer:
Follow up.

Pete Wright:
This was the time I had for us in our calendar. I really look forward to making a plan to meet with you. I look forward to this experience that we’re going to have together. And then I’ve challenged what is fact and truth. I’m challenging my experience, and I am replacing it with what is fact and truth. The only thing I don’t know is that they’re not here when I am here. I know nothing else.

Nikki Kinzer:
Right. That pause. Oh boy. The power of the pause. I’ve talked about this on the show. I talk about it with my clients. Communication isn’t just the words we speak. There’s the tone that we use, and there’s body language. So Pete, you could be smiling at me and telling me how horrible you think I am. You could be doing it with a big, huge smile, with a very upbeat tone. But you’re hearing the words, right? It’s weird. It’s not matching. So the power of the pause is a great skill to practice when you have ADHD, because so many times, from what I’ve heard from my clients, sometimes you say stuff that you wish you wouldn’t have said. There’s this impulsive reaction. Communication can be very difficult when you have so many things going on in your mind, right? So the power of the pause gives you that moment, that time to pause before you say anything, and have a little bit of processing time. Now, this is a skill. This is something you practice. This is not natural for anyone. It’s really hard to do, especially if you’re really emotionally driven. We want to just spit out what we think. So it is definitely something that we want to practice, and probably in conversations that we’re pretty safe in, with partners and friends and family.

Pete Wright:
You see, I don’t know.

Nikki Kinzer:
But these are the three benefits to pausing. One is, it builds trust, because it lets the other person feel heard. As humans, we want to feel like we’re heard. We want to feel like, okay, you’ve acknowledged me, you’ve heard me, what I have to say matters. So it builds that trust. It’s also showing careful consideration, that you care. Your silence is saying that you’re being mindful of what they’re saying, and that can really show that you care. And then, understanding creates greater efficiency.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Nikki Kinzer:
It gives you time to reflect on what you want to say next, or to really process what they’re saying. What are they saying here? Again, I can’t emphasize enough that this is not easy.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Well, it’s not just “not easy,” it is a practice.

Nikki Kinzer:
It is a practice.

Pete Wright:
And I think that’s different than “practice,” right? You practice to achieve excellence in something. You practice the violin if your goal is to become first-chair violinist. A practice is something you do every day to get to and maintain incremental experience in a certain thing. You have a meditation practice. You have a listening practice. And I think back to something that our friend of the show, Dr. Dodge, advocates for. He’s like, it is a practice to think more slowly.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, right.

Pete Wright:
It’s a practice to really slow down and reflect in every conversation, every day, to make sure that you are tracking 100%. And with ADHD, it is both important and difficult.

Nikki Kinzer:
Mm-hmm. And something I want to say about the practicing — if you’re listening to this podcast because you want to learn how to be a better communicator, or you want to understand how words can influence how you communicate to other people, then there’s a need there, or a want there, for you to become a better communicator. So, with intention — because this is a skill you want to practice — you want to be thinking about that pause before you even get into the conversations. So, like you said, Pete, you want to practice it every day, but you want to do it on purpose. You don’t want to just think you’re going to do it. You really have to practice it in a way that’s intentional. If you want to listen better and you don’t want to interrupt people, then practice the power of the pause.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Expertise doesn’t come from “wanna.” Expertise doesn’t come from hope. Expertise doesn’t come from wish. Expertise comes from practice.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
Love it.

Nikki Kinzer:
And there’s no perfection, either, right?

Pete Wright:
No.

Nikki Kinzer:
One of the things is that you’re going to practice it, and there are going to be times where, hey, it didn’t work. And that’s all right.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, that’s part of practice.

Nikki Kinzer:
Give yourself some grace. It’s part of being human. And you can always go back and apologize if you need to.

Pete Wright:
Yep.

Nikki Kinzer:
So, okay. This last one that I want to talk about is being curious, and I love this, because it’s so much about what I do as a coach. She says, be curious about your communication. When you come from a space of curiosity, you create a safe and non-judgmental space for others to share. It can also deepen your learning. We all fall into the trap of assuming too much. So, a couple of things I think about with this. I’ve heard the expression, “be curious, not judgmental.” I think that’s really important.

Pete Wright:
Ted Lasso. Ted Lasso.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yep. Yes, we love Ted. So that’s an important piece of being curious. And there are three benefits. One is, it does give us that deeper learning, because we’re not just assuming anything. But it gives us deeper relationships too, because it really creates connection. People want to be heard. They want to be understood. What better way to make somebody else feel that way than when you’re really curious about them and asking questions? Another benefit is deeper happiness, if your focus is on others and not just yourself. This is really nice, because this comes from an article by Emily Campbell: research has shown curiosity to be associated with higher levels of positive emotions, lower levels of anxiety, and more satisfaction with life. Let’s be curious about everything, right?

Pete Wright:
Oh, I like that. Yeah.

Nikki Kinzer:
And take the judgment away. One of the things I want to say is, when I’m working with clients and we’re practicing something new, like the power of the pause, we want to go into it with curiosity and start asking those questions. Why was it so hard? What was it about that conversation that set you off? Was there anything that you could have done differently? What could you do differently if you’re in that position again? There’s so much learning that can happen when you’re being curious.

Pete Wright:
Yes. I love it.

Nikki Kinzer:
Thank you.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. I think it’s great. I think this is a great way to start off 2022. Check your language. How are you talking to yourself? How are you talking about yourself? And are you talking with yourself? All of those things might be happening.

Nikki Kinzer:
I do. I talk to myself all the time. In fact, my husband caught me. He says, you always talk to yourself when you’re working. I’m like, oh, I know. This period goes here.

Pete Wright:
Own it.

Nikki Kinzer:
This title goes here.

Pete Wright:
Uh-huh.

Nikki Kinzer:
And I’m doing it all with love and grace and curiosity.

Pete Wright:
That’s right. Absolutely. And it’s with love and grace and curiosity that we give to you, everybody listening to this show. Thank you. We appreciate you downloading and listening, and joining us over in the community. Thank you for your time and your attention. And special thanks to TextExpander and Smile Software for sponsoring this episode. Don’t forget, if you have something to contribute about this conversation, head over to the Show Talk channel in our Discord server. You can join us right there by becoming a supporting member at the Deluxe level. On behalf of Nikki Kinzer, I’m Pete Wright, and we’ll see you right back here next week on Taking Control, the ADHD Podcast.