Pete Wright:
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:
Oh, hi, Nikki.

Nikki Kinzer:
Hi.

Pete Wright:
Hi. We were talking at the pre-show. Big week for us this fine week, because we had kids go back to school. Finally. The whole country, the world, nay, the world, I say, went back to school like a month and a half ago. And here we are, lingering in Oregon.

Nikki Kinzer:
I know, right? The end of September.

Pete Wright:
I’m telling you, they know how to drag it out. But yes, they’re back to school, and it is absolutely fantastic. We’re very excited about that.

And so we’re going to talk about environment and the importance of environment as a neurodiversity strategy. And it turns out there are a lot of people who talk about this.

Nikki Kinzer:
There is one.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, there is one. It’s real.

Nikki Kinzer:
Or there can be more than one, yes.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Y’all, we have choices. That’s what I’m saying.

Nikki Kinzer:
We do.

Pete Wright:
So we’re going to talk about that today. Before we get started, I want to tell you about our Patreon community, because if you’re a regular listener, this is probably your next move. Members of our Patreon community get ad-free access to every episode a week early. They get access to our members-only channels in our Discord server. They get a seat in the live stream recording session of each show, where they can ask questions directly to our guests in the chat as we record, and we try to throw in specials along the way throughout the year.

But honestly, the community is where it’s at. These people are amazing. They are all real people. They are all living with ADHD, and they show up for each other in a really special way. It’s kind of hard to find elsewhere. So if you’ve ever wanted to be more than just a listener of this show, or you’ve ever wanted to stumble into an ADHD bar where everybody kind of gets you already, this is the place to do it. Everybody just yells “Norm!” and everybody’s name is Norm. That’s a Cheers reference that a lot of people might not get, but that’s all right.

Head over to patreon.com/theadhdpodcast and learn more. Again, patreon.com/theadhdpodcast. And of course, if you’re not ready to join as a paying member, that’s totally fine with us. Just visit takecontroladhd.com, connect with us on the socials, or join the free part of our ADHD Discord server and sign up for the weekly email newsletter. We would love to have you wherever you land.

Okay, Nikki. The topic as we came into this was “Plant Yourself in the Right Garden: Environment as Strategy.” What did that mean to you when we started planning this season?

Nikki Kinzer:
Well, at first when I read “plant yourself in the right garden,” I’m thinking, does he want to talk about gardening? As a calming practice, because a lot of people think gardening is calming. But I think he knows that I don’t think that. So I’m not really sure where we’re going. And then I saw “environment,” and I’m like, is he going to want to talk about the environment? But how does that relate to ADHD? So I was very confused, and then it started to click.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, it’s all bonsai trees all the time. We’re just going to Miyagi our way all the way down.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yes. That’s right.

Pete Wright:
Well, the conversation really started last season with Dr. Kathleen Nadeau, where she told us that ADHDers generally don’t have a discipline problem. They have a planting problem, to her eye. And we thought that was really provocative, and a compelling way to look at this stuff. So this week’s premise: we’re talking about what I think is a vastly underused lever in ADHD, around where you put yourself. It covers the job, it covers the people around you, it covers the room you’re in, and all of that.

There are lots of ways to approach this. We’re picking it up as a conversation kind of in progress. Obviously there was last season’s conversation with Kathleen, and we had an episode back in 2019, “Designing Your Life.” That was another one around building the shape of your life. This one is all about moving yourself instead of necessarily or exclusively fixing yourself, insofar as we like to dream that that’s possible when we’re in our dark times.

Tell me about your perspective on this personally. Not speaking as a coach or somebody who works with ADHD people. How do you notice the way you work depending on where you are?

Nikki Kinzer:
I noticed it at first when I actually had a laptop instead of just a desktop. That was freedom to me all of a sudden. I think that’s when I noticed it most, that I could actually move my work. I didn’t have to be at my desk to do the work.

Another really pivotal time for me was when we were writing the book. I could take my laptop and move to a cafe or coffee shop or the library. I did a few different things. And that made a big difference, because as soon as I was out of my house, I wasn’t distracted by people or pets or things in the home. I could actually just focus on writing the book in a different environment. And I loved the coffee shop, because I could get a little fancy coffee, and I felt like a writer.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, you feel so fancy.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, I felt like, oh, here I am at Barnes and Noble writing a book. How cool is that? It just felt good. So I think that’s when I really noticed it, when I could actually move.

Pete Wright:
A couple shots of absinthe, and you’re just a snifter away from Emily Dickinson right there.

Nikki Kinzer:
That’s right.

Pete Wright:
Classy. I’m right with you. And I think it was right around that time that we adjusted your setup. You used to have just the computer, and we set you up with the monitor situation, where you have the monitor and the laptop that you plug into it.

I just want to do a sidebar on the docked laptop lifestyle. It’s the way to go. You can have a laptop that is plugged into a monitor with a keyboard and mouse or trackpad or whatever you want, and then walk away from it with all of your life, and you don’t have to sync anything. It’s all there, because it’s in your laptop. That is the way to live.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yes, absolutely.

Pete Wright:
I can’t imagine going back to anything else, given my circumstances and context.

This idea of fit, the goodness of fit, comes from a long line of occupational therapy research and psychological research, starting really deeply with the first big published study in 1950 from Chess and Thomas that said successful outcomes depend on how well the environment’s demands match the person’s temperament. Temperament. That seems like a weirdly squishy word for measuring successful outcomes in productivity, in focus, in staying attuned to what you’re doing. And I think temperament is hiding, from our perspective, a lot of ADHD-ness.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yes. Because when I hear that, I think of the mood that your environment is providing you. Does it energize you or does it deplete you? Does it make you think of other things?

That’s why the library didn’t work for me. One, I didn’t really like the way it was set up, because it wasn’t busy enough. And then when it got busy, it was a bunch of teenagers coming in from the schools that are near it. That was distracting, because then I’m thinking about my teenagers. It just wasn’t a good place for me. So when I think of temperament, I think of what kind of mood I’m in when I’m here, and how that works. And with emotional regulation, that definitely comes back to ADHD.

Pete Wright:
Oh, yeah. And I think that gets to the next step. I should say this original research was really focused on kids and parents, and they found, guess what? Poor fit leads to struggle, even in kids with no deficit at all. That sounds familiar too, given the fluidity of the neurodiversity scale. It doesn’t really matter where you are.

And I’ll say this as an observation: I think people recognize very well and very easily when they have a good fit of environment to production. And they’re not so good at discussing what it means when they have a bad fit. Does that line up with your experience?

Nikki Kinzer:
Yes. Because what I see is when it’s a bad fit, they blame themselves. They’re not blaming the environment.

Pete Wright:
Yes. That was a double point at camera.

Nikki Kinzer:
I got a double point, for those who can’t see this.

Pete Wright:
You got a double point at camera. I think that’s exactly right. We just don’t necessarily have an instinct for recognizing it. We know we feel good when the environment is working. And when we feel bad, we don’t naturally recognize that the environment is not working.

Nikki Kinzer:
Right. Naturally, yes.

Pete Wright:
And what we’re talking about is figuring out how to develop an eye for that. So anyway, this whole goodness of fit thing started as a way for people to stop blaming mothers. And we’re going to talk about it as a way to stop blaming ourselves.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.

Pete Wright:
That’s the point. That leads us to positive niche construction. Have you ever heard of this?

Nikki Kinzer:
I have not.

Pete Wright:
We are talking about evolutionary biology right now. Organisms, as it turns out, don’t only adapt to their environments. They reshape them. Look at a colony of ants. They don’t just hang out and find a nice flat space. They start digging holes and building anthills. That’s an example of positive niche construction. And we need to be the ant.

Nikki Kinzer:
And they follow each other.

Pete Wright:
They follow each other, they cut some leaves, they build some things. This is how we need to think of ourselves with our ADHD. While the ants are digging holes and building hills, we’re talking about making career choices, finding the tools that work for us, finding the human support that works for us, and finding the places that work for us.

Thomas Armstrong wrote a book, and it was all about the power of neurodiversity. In that book he leans heavily into what we can learn from evolutionary biology and how we can apply it to our own brains. I think it’s a metaphor that works for the right brain, and I think a lot of our brains are the right brain for this kind of model.

So I ask you, how does this show up in coaching? How do clients come in trying to fix themselves when really they need to build their better anthill? What does that look like?

Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, for sure. I think it goes back to when I got the double point from you. They immediately blame themselves and think something’s wrong with them if something’s not working out. That’s the most common thing that I see. I don’t think it’s natural to think, well, is this the environment? Maybe I need headphones. Maybe I need to be able to leave the office, or leave my home office, and just practice to see if that works out better because there’s less distraction. I don’t think they necessarily think about that. They just go straight to “something’s wrong” or “I can’t do this,” or whatever that limiting belief might be.

Pete Wright:
Well, Nikki, you just walked face first into a segue.

Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, boy.

Pete Wright:
You could not have planned that better. What they’re probably sitting around thinking, and I say this because that guy looks like me, is, “God, I don’t need headphones. I need more willpower.” And we need to talk.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yes. “I just need to get through this.”

Pete Wright:
We do. We just need to build that willpower muscle.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
And it turns out, you guys, willpower theories are dumb.

Nikki Kinzer:
They’re dumb.

Pete Wright:
Yep. So, just a little bit of quick history. I think when I say “the marshmallow test,” people will recognize what that means. We’ve talked about the marshmallow test. It is shorthand for describing willpower in a way that is incomplete or insufficient at best. The pop culture version of the marshmallow test: kids have this marshmallow sitting in front of them, and then everybody walks away. Some kids have no willpower, so they grab that marshmallow and eat it real fast, and they don’t get a second marshmallow, even though they were promised that if they wait until the person gets back, they might get two marshmallows.

In 2018, a huge study was published and found that the link was less than half as strong as reported. It shrank by two-thirds more after accounting for family background and, I’m going to say it again, home environment.

Nikki Kinzer:
Interesting.

Pete Wright:
So the most famous willpower study ever turned out to be mostly about the kids’ origin environment, not the marshmallow at all. Which I think is an interesting thing when we think about our brains.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.

Pete Wright:
Then we have the muscle model, the ego depletion model. This was in the late ’90s. There was the radish study. Hungry students who had to skip the chocolate and eat only radishes gave up sooner on an unsolvable puzzle than the kids who got the chocolate. This started the model that explained willpower as a tank that drains. And it shaped pop culture for easily 20 years. It’s still kind of shaping pop culture.

And there’s this glucose detour, because in 2007 the tank started being called blood sugar. We just started saying, oh my God, if you don’t have willpower, maybe you need a cookie or an energy bar to refill your blood sugar, and then you’ll be able to do anything. But you know what? They tested people who rinsed and spit with sugar water without swallowing at all, and it worked just as well as eating a cookie. There is no real connection between glucose and willpower, because it turns out, guess what they found? Environment of origin and values actually mattered more than blood sugar in any case.

In 2016, over 2,000 people participated in a study, and they found basically no effect for the willpower-as-a-tank-that-can-be-refilled situation. There are lots of reasons to keep your blood sugar stable, but it turns out willpower is not one of them, and we should probably stop saying that.

Nikki Kinzer:
It’s not a great word. And I can’t stop thinking about how much I hate radishes.

Pete Wright:
That’s where you went after this? That’s awesome. That’s perfect. Chef’s kiss.

Okay, one more thing, and it relates to one of our own. It turns out that our own Dr. Barkley built the fuel tank model into his ADHD model, the 10 and 3 model. And since then it has been debunked. When you take one significant piece out of the model, does the rest of the model hold up? Well, it turns out, sort of. The answer is sort of, because the tank model certainly describes how it feels when willpower is depleted, even though the literal tank science does not hold up. So the advice works based on sensory experience. There’s nothing really to back it up scientifically. So we’re going to move along with that.

Nikki Kinzer:
Okay.

Pete Wright:
We’re going to say thank you for your good work. What replaced this model ended up being the shifting priorities model. I think people will start to relate to this. After effort, your attention and motivation shift away from “I have to do something” to “I want to do something.”

Nikki Kinzer:
The words, right. You’re shifting the words, or reframing.

Pete Wright:
You’re reframing. But the point is, after you do something hard, after you complete something that is a challenge to you, your language can naturally change toward “want to.” Because you have a sense of accomplishment, you have a sense of goal, you have a sense of belief in yourself that you can do a thing. This is something we talk about all the time, the interest-based nervous system.

Nikki Kinzer:
Right.

Pete Wright:
That’s what we’re talking about. And that sort of replaced it in the early teens.

All right, enough out of this. The fuel tank is everywhere in ADHD circles. Does it matter that it’s not literally true, or that it just feels like a good picture? I don’t know. For my money, it feels pretty good just to have a metaphor that works. I don’t know that practically it matters a whole lot. Do you have strong feelings either way?

Nikki Kinzer:
Going back to what we said coming into the segment, the belief is that you just need to do better. “I just need to try harder. I just need to work a little bit longer. I need to take this over. I need to bring this into the weekend.” All of those things.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Which allows us to think about the ADHD version of this. Again borrowing from Barkley, the point of performance says that internal motivation is really weak at starting and sustaining effort.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.

Pete Wright:
So you have to build support into the place where the work happens. And it turns out that’s what the research supports. We know our motivation is tough to light up. It’s really hard. But once you light it up, you can keep it up.

Nikki Kinzer:
Well, and I think this is where strategies like accountability and body doubling can come into play, because we have what we call accountability anchor rooms, where people body double. I think that is a really good example of where you can show up with community, with support, and do something really hard with people who understand it’s also hard for them, and they get you. And you’re able to move that needle a little bit more forward and not have to drink sugar water, eat radishes, or do it with more willpower.

Pete Wright:
That’s right. Exactly. Which is why I think we need to talk about the three gardens.

Nikki Kinzer:
Ooh, so now we’re going back to planting your garden. Okay, let’s do it.

Pete Wright:
Have you ever heard of the three gardens? Has this ever bubbled up in your universe?

Nikki Kinzer:
No.

Pete Wright:
Okay. The first garden is occupation, career, the right job. Garden one, the right job. In 2016, there was some research done. I’m not going to belabor all of the circumstances around the research, but they followed up with young adults who had been diagnosed with ADHD as kids, and those young adults described their ADHD symptoms as deeply context-dependent. Some jobs made focus much easier, and in some, traits like super high energy turned into great strengths.

The question of the paper was, if adults control much more of their environments than kids do, is part of why symptoms seem to ease with age that adults have learned how to put themselves in better environments in the first garden, the right job, the right career? That ends up becoming something really important, because it connects our own agency, our ability to make choices in what we do, with our symptomatic experience of ADHD. Context is everything.

I remember when I was in college, I used to study for tests all night with my friends from class. We had an environmental mug program where you pay like 20 bucks for a big plastic mug, and you get free refills all over campus. And I just drank Coke all the time. I kept myself up with Coke. And then when I got into class, I couldn’t have my giant Coke, and I couldn’t do things like literally walk on tables like I did at night, and I would do very poorly on tests. I have always kept that as a model in my head of context sensitivity. I’m very sensitive to chemical and physical context.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.

Pete Wright:
What is your experience with context and performance? Like you already said, when you go to a coffee shop and have a fancy coffee, you feel like a writer. That’s context sensitivity.

Nikki Kinzer:
Right. If I were to go to a coffee shop with a friend to body double, that would be a horrible experience. We would not be body doubling. We would be chatting the whole time and not doing our work. So I think it also matters who’s around you, who is actually going to do the work and who’s going to want to chat.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. And I think that’s a really important part of finding the right job, which is planting the right garden. You’re really assessing not just the specific tasks you’re going to be asked to do, but how you’re sitting, where you’re allowed to sit, the tools you’re allowed to use, the people you’re going to be working with. All of that fits in the right job garden.

And this is why, as we’ve talked about before, there’s continued research in entrepreneurial circumstances. ADHD traits really fit the fast, risky, super startupy phase and really struggle with the post-launch daily buckle shuffle of work. So fit doesn’t last automatically, especially for women.

Nikki Kinzer:
Interesting.

Pete Wright:
I thought so too.

Nikki Kinzer:
So where did that study come from?

Pete Wright:
Why do you think that is? I’m asking you. I don’t have that answer.

Nikki Kinzer:
So they’re saying that the fit doesn’t last automatically for an entrepreneur who is a woman.

Pete Wright:
Right. That women tend to adjust out of the fit faster than men. They outgrow the job that used to fit.

Nikki Kinzer:
As an entrepreneur, or in all jobs?

Pete Wright:
In this case, the research was done by Wiklund and colleagues, and this entrepreneurial research, specifically in 2025, so very recent, suggests, in the context of startup culture, that women typically don’t last as long as men in startup environments.

Nikki Kinzer:
The only thing that comes to my mind is some research I couldn’t tell you where it came from. If you think about a man and a woman who apply for a job, the man is going to apply even if he only has like 50 percent of the qualifications. But a woman may not apply unless she has like 90 percent of the qualifications. So we’re more hesitant to just throw our name out there, or do the work, or try to get the work, unless it’s perfect or unless we know everything. That’s the only thing I can connect with, that there might be some area of self-doubt. I don’t know if it’s self-doubt, but just not being able to be at risk, I guess. We’re not as high of risk takers, maybe. I don’t know.

Pete Wright:
That’s really interesting. And I almost look at it the other way around, because I think you’re right, and we have talked about that research before on the show. This idea that women come in more prepared to do the job, thereby finish the job and feel like they’re ready to move on to something else more quickly. “I’ve learned everything.”

Nikki Kinzer:
I like that answer a lot better than mine.

Pete Wright:
Well, I think that’s sort of the converse. I saw a little bit of Mad Men. I didn’t watch the whole show, but let me tell you, those dudes found themselves in a comfortable place, and they did not care to move up. I can sort of feel that. And I don’t want to be too terribly gendered about it, but I think it’s interesting that the research specifically calls that out.

So that’s the first garden. The garden is seasonal. It can fit for one season and immediately be wrong for the next, and you just have to be ready for that. That’s the first garden. The second garden is the right…

Nikki Kinzer:
Can I just say one thing to that too?

Pete Wright:
Yes, of course.

Nikki Kinzer:
I have had a couple of clients recently say that they’re trying to figure out if this job is still good for them. Is it still working for them? And I think that’s a really positive way of looking at it: “Is this job still working for me?” rather than, “Oh, I failed, and I can’t do this job, and it’s too hard.” It’s a nice reframe to say, “Wait, maybe I have outgrown this job,” or “It’s changed since I first accepted it,” or “It’s different than what I was told it was going to be.” I just think that’s a really positive way of looking at it, and again, staying away from that self-blame.

Pete Wright:
Yes, I think so too. The second garden is the right room. This is a matter of finding yourself in the right place at the right time. Research has shown that a 20-minute walk in a park improved kids’ concentration more than a downtown or neighborhood walk, with an effect in the range of medication. An effect in the range of medication. So kids who are medicated with different molecules, different doses, have stronger reactions to walks in parks versus walks downtown or in neighborhoods. That is maybe…

Nikki Kinzer:
I wonder if that’s because of the noise. Not only the actual noise, but all of the noise: what you’re hearing, what you’re seeing, what you’re smelling. There’s going to be more of that downtown or in a neighborhood than in a park setting. You’re going to hear more birds in a park than sirens.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, and I think the air too, the entire environment. The air is probably cleaner. Ideally, you find a place with life. You have trees, you have grass, you’re breathing in the fresh outside.

I will say that the original study from 2009 has not been replicated in a randomized trial, but it is interesting, if not absolutely causal, to think about. The practical version of it is to assess what is physically in your space when you sit down to work. This goes back again to Barkley’s point of performance. At the place where you are doing the work, what is it about your environment that allows you to do the work most successfully?

Some people can sit down at a desk that is piled with papers. I think of Andy Rooney. That is a very dated reference now.

Nikki Kinzer:
No, but I know who you’re talking about. 60 Minutes.

Pete Wright:
Andy Rooney, on 60 Minutes. He’d do these editorials, and he’d have his typewriter in the middle of his desk, and he’s in a mountain of books and papers and things all around him. His shelves are practically peeling off the walls because of the full weight of documents and books on them. And I have this idea that Andy Rooney did fine, because he was able to tune out all that noise. It was visual noise that actually allowed him to focus more. Some people are like that.

I am not like that. I’ve got to have it clean. Even if the rest of the room is a disaster, the actual working space has to be clean. So I look at the room makeover. The office, the kitchen, wherever the space is that you set yourself up to be productive, what does it look like? I can’t do that in my kitchen right now, because we’re still actively moving back into it. There are still boxes around. If I sit down and try to be productive, I’m going to be a mess of distraction, because there’s other stuff I want to do. If I can’t see it, then I won’t be distracted by it. I am like a horse, and I have to have the blinders on.

Nikki Kinzer:
Right. Yes. I think that’s true for a lot of people.

Pete Wright:
We should brand ADHD horse blinders that fit human heads.

Nikki Kinzer:
Totally. We should totally do that.

Pete Wright:
I could use that. So walk me through a room makeover, an office makeover, that has made a difference to you. Do you suffer from this kind of thing, or do you have a client experience where the context has mattered most?

Nikki Kinzer:
Well, when I started working from home, our home office used to be my husband’s, but then he didn’t need it anymore. So I started working from home, and it became my office. And we did a whole makeover. We painted, and I didn’t get new furniture, I just got a new chair. But I got some decor and put some pictures up. It was important for me to be able to want to come into this room and actually want to work here and be here. So for me personally, it did make a difference.

This might surprise people, but I can definitely work around a mess. There have been plenty of times when my desk… People don’t see it, because they only see the back of where I’m at. But if they saw the front, they’d see there’s stuff here. And that doesn’t bother me. I can be more like Andy Rooney and focus on the computer and do it. But then there’s this toleration. We talked about tolerations a long, long time ago. It gets to be too much, and then I have to do something about it. So there’s this fine line. I can do it to an extent, and then I’ve got to do something about it.

But for me, it’s really important to have joy and to be able to see things that I appreciate. I have flowers right now next to my desktop, and those are important to me. I remember when we talked about working from home a long time ago, or bringing joy, we talked about this office and when I redid it. Even when I was in a cubicle, I would still bring picture frames and things from home, and a plant, to make it homey. I couldn’t just work in a plain cubicle with a filing cabinet and a computer. That felt really icky to me.

Pete Wright:
I always dreamed of putting a roof on my cubicle.

Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, so it was like your own little home.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Just like Tent City. Put a canvas on top of it, something to make it feel cozy. I think that’s exactly it: figuring out how to take ownership of the space and really be cognizant of what it means to lock into that feeling, so that when you sit down, you know it’s going to work. It is so hard to put that formula into words in a way that’s completely generalizable. I can’t say universally that if you have Nikki’s flowers, you’re going to be able to work perfectly, because it’s different for everybody.

Nikki Kinzer:
No. Yes, absolutely.

Pete Wright:
But the important thing is to think about what it means for you, and how you can recapture that feeling of the space being the right garden for your productivity. So that’s the second garden, the right room. The third is the right people.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.

Pete Wright:
If you’ve heard of one, I would love for you to illuminate it for me, but I have not found any strong ADHD-specific study here that helps us define goodness of fit with the people around us. What we know anecdotally is that it seems to work for a lot of people to have accountability anchors, body doubles, coaches, people we can count on to take us to task when it looks like we’re distracted and to gently guide us back into focus. Having partners who get it, who understand. But this is very much your coaching territory. How do you help people figure out which relationships are the good soil?

Nikki Kinzer:
When I first started doing ADHD coaching, I remember watching a documentary on PBS. I don’t remember their names, but they were comedians, and they did this whole thing about ADHD. I remember them specifically talking about how picking the right job and picking the right people around you are really important when you have ADHD. The job, obviously, we’ve already talked about. It’s really important that you find something you’re passionate about and engaged in. Otherwise you’re not going to want to stay there, because the job itself is not a good fit.

But then there’s having the right people around you, and I think that’s where community comes in. I don’t know of any strong, specific study here, but you will hear all kinds of people talk about how important community is, and finding ADHD community, so that you’re not isolated, you’re not alone, your experiences are shared, and you’re able to talk to people about it and not feel like you have to explain yourself or apologize all the time. That’s where you’re finding the right people.

In coaching, I’m not really helping them find the right people. They already have the people around them. So it’s more about figuring out who is supportive, who can support you in this, who and where your resources are, and helping build the scaffolding and the support that you need.

And of course, when we talk about ADHD and relationships, that’s where it’s important to find out how your boyfriend or girlfriend or partner or spouse understands ADHD if they don’t have ADHD. That’s a question to have before you get married, because ADHD impacts every single part of your life. If you’re sharing your life with someone, you need to have lots of conversations around that. And unfortunately, I’ve seen it go both ways, where some partners are really supportive, and some end in divorce, because it’s a horrible emotional experience.

Same thing with parents and kids. If you have a child who’s been diagnosed with ADHD, learn about ADHD as much as you can if you don’t have it yourself. Although you probably do, or your partner does, because it runs in families.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, right.

Nikki Kinzer:
So I think education is really important too. I say that as someone who doesn’t have ADHD myself. Yes, I’m in a business where I know a lot more about it, obviously, than the regular Joe on the street. But it’s important to understand.

And I have an example for you. When I was moving my daughter this weekend, I could see her ADHD really loudly. When I first walked into her room, it was just such a mess. She had taken all of the clothes she wanted to bring with her and put them in a pile in the middle of the room. Nothing sorted into pants or shirts. Everything was in this big, huge pile. Plus the rest of the room was really messy, with stuff everywhere. And I walked in and felt overwhelmed.

And then she said, “Oh my gosh, Mom, if you’re overwhelmed, we’re not going to be able to do this. If you can’t do this, I’m not going to be able to do this.”

And I’m like, “No, no, no, hold on. Let me think this through. Give me some moments to process this out loud.” And I started walking through our process. I said, “Okay, great that we’ve got these clothes. Let’s put them in categories. Let’s hang up what needs to be hung up.” Just start putting things in categories. “And then we’re going to move this out of your room and into the car.” So then we could see that those things could move easily into the apartment, and now we’re left with what’s left, and we could break it down.

Well, once we got to the apartment, I could see her anxiety. I could see it on her face. She was so stressed out, because now all of the stuff we’d put in nice boxes was in the middle of her new room. And I asked her, “Okay, what is going to help you right now ease your overwhelm? What can we do to ease it?” And she said, “I think I need to get those pictures up on the wall.”

Pete Wright:
Oh, environment.

Nikki Kinzer:
“These pictures on my bed are really bothering me.”

Pete Wright:
Yeah, I love it.

Nikki Kinzer:
So then boyfriend comes in. “Boyfriend, your job is to get these pictures on the wall.”

Pete Wright:
Awesome.

Nikki Kinzer:
So he’s figuring out how to do it, and he’s getting the lamp ready and all that stuff. I don’t know how this whole story came in, but it’s about finding the right support. And I’m going to say it: Paige is lucky that I’m her mom in a lot of ways, because I understand her so well. I understand what is going on. Even when we were putting things away, I’m asking, “How are you going to think about this? Right now it looks pretty, but is it functional? Is it going to be easy to put back?” I was able to really help her with how she thinks.

What I would ask of other people who don’t have ADHD: I have a lot of experience, and I get that. But you can also still learn and be curious about your person without making them feel judged or feel bad about feeling overwhelmed. Open that up and learn about it with compassion. It doesn’t mean it’s not theirs. It doesn’t mean you use it as an excuse. Like you say, and like Dodge says, it’s not your fault, but it’s yours. We can be supportive as they try to figure it out.

Pete Wright:
I think you just told two stories in that story. One of them is from your perspective, about how to be a gentle and curious partner to someone with ADHD. But the other is from Paige’s perspective. It’s a reminder about finding the right people in this third garden. You are the gardener with ADHD. You’re the one who has to cultivate these relationships. And you’re right, it’s not your fault, it’s not your fate, but it is yours. That responsibility is to find the right people and to tell them what you need.

We have a tendency to internalize our needs because of shame, because of generational shame, and these old tapes we’re running in our heads that we attach to our ADHD experience. But the experience is made better when we’re able to stop and say, “Hey, I’m struggling right now, and this is what I need from you. Can you do it?”

Nikki Kinzer:
Yes, absolutely.

Pete Wright:
“Because this is going to help me be a better friend, a better partner, a better father, a better son, whatever it is.” That’s your responsibility as the gardener of the three gardens. And I think that’s where all of this boils down. Sure, you don’t always get to pick your gardens, the job, the room, the people. But tiny moves still count. Tiny exercises of agency still matter. Can you get yourself your own chair? Can you do stuff at a different time of day? Can you have a different person in the room? Can you be more judicious and selective about your social group if you find they’re not actually being very helpful and healthy for what you need? All of those tiny observations are critically important to nurturing the three big gardens. That’s all I’ve got.

Nikki Kinzer:
Love that.

Pete Wright:
I’m exhausted. My gardens have exhausted me.

Nikki Kinzer:
Well, we planted a lot of gardens today.

Pete Wright:
We planted so much, I feel like I’ve spent a day gardening just talking about it.

Nikki Kinzer:
I love it. Thank you, Pete.

Pete Wright:
Thank you, Nikki. And thank you, everybody, for hanging out with us and listening. We’d love to hear from you, so head over to the Discord server if you’re not a member yet, and jump into the Show Talk channel, because I’d like to hear where you’ve been trying to grow in the wrong garden. If you have that observation after hearing about this stuff, that’s what I’m interested in. If you walk through your gardens and discover, “Oh, look, I really need some work in one area or another,” let’s observe that together.

Thank you, everybody, for downloading and listening to the show. Thank you for your time and your attention. You can become a member of our Discord server and jump into that Show Talk channel by becoming a member at the Deluxe level or better at patreon.com/theadhdpodcast. 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.