Navigating Neurodivergence With Stefan Glazer

On this episode of the Men's ADHD Support Group Podcast, we have an insightful chat with Stefan Glazer, author of "Navigating Neurodivergence." After being diagnosed with severe ADHD at 39, Stefan realized the customized systems he had created over the years could help others discover tools to manage their neurodivergence.

We discuss his journey to diagnosis and the shame, misconceptions, and challenges that many adults with ADHD face. Stefan shares how discovering his neurodivergence helped him understand his gifts, like creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.

We explore practical tips that include using to-do lists, meditation, organization systems, and other strategies Stefan used to cope before his diagnosis and improve his life after.

It’s important to know that you're not alone on this journey. You can find a lot of support when you connect with support groups. Also, nothing is easy until it is – so keep trying different tools until you find what works for you.

Join us for an open and encouraging talk about navigating the highs and lows of neurodivergence.

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Transcript

 Welcome to the Men's ADHD Support Group Podcast. This is Shane Thrapp, Operations Director for the non profit that we run. And I'm really going to have a lot of fun today because I am joined by Stefan Glazer. After being diagnosed with severe ADHD at 39, he realized that his systems that he had that he created to cope,  you know, lists, mindfulness practices, a lot of the things that we've heard He really felt that he could bring that in a new way in his book, Navigating Neurodivergence. 

In it, he shares his own customized journey, and he really encourages people to find their own tools and resources to really discover how to move forward navigating neurodivergence. Thank you so much for coming on, Stefan I really appreciate it.
 
Thanks for having me on Shane. And I have to say that, yeah, it was  a very customized journey.
And I always tell people that too. I'm like, listen, this is what worked for me.  Will it work for you? Some might, but not everything. Not everything. This was everything that worked for me.  

That's one of those things that I've discovered in my coaching practice is these cookie cutter solutions that I see a lot of people trying to use, therapists, psychiatrists, even other coaches, they don't work.

It gives you a little bit of a framework, but it's almost like having kind of like a, you know, a garage that you take your car into now that the mechanics are not going to use every tool  on your car, you know, that he has, but he has those tools that he can pull forward to kind of pull out, whatever he's going to pull out and. 

In reading yours, I really saw a lot of really good practices.  Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey. 

Yeah, you know, for me, it was strange because I was...  Quote unquote gifted in school  up to a point I was at an advanced reading level.

I did a lot of really good things growing up and like was focused on art. I loved learning until I had a traumatic issue in fourth grade that made me hate school forever. So I kind of gave up and just did the bare minimum. And I always got the, the. the,  you know, the common things that people with ADHD get,  maybe if you just try harder,  you're doing it wrong.

Yeah, that's my favorite ones. Whenever I figured out a way to, to get through a problem, it's my way. And I was told it was wrong. That would frustrate me, but I, I just did enough to get by and graduate. So I decided to go to school and go to college and  find my path as a graphic designer and live life without knowing the entire time that I was burning the candle at both ends, trying to, to both, you know, mask without knowing I was masking and to go through and actually figure out how I was. 

not breaking through where I should have been breaking through. And that all came to a head when I was 39 years old.  I went from having a grasp on everything and figuring it out and just making it and the consistent,  Framework of just getting by was there and then  at 39, I kind of had one of those fun mental breakdowns that everyone hears about  and it was just it was the, the pinnacle of why can't I remember anything and why I can't figure.

out what's wrong with me, my emotions, like I'm just a ball of stress and I go  through the roof with anxiety and everything is off the wall and I'm getting so frustrated with everything. And then  my wife was kind enough to actually say, well, what can we do about this? And I said, Let's talk to my doctor and that started me on the path to getting my diagnosis. 

And when I got my diagnosis, that was the big turning point in my life. That was  not, oh no, 39 years of  life was wasted.  It was, oh, I get to start again.  Now that I know my brain is working a little bit differently.  And I think that was where I decided that, okay. Now I'm going to figure this out and that's when I started realizing that through my entire life.

I had Figured some things out roughly to keep me on task I mean, I had a business that I was running as a photographer So I was looking around like how is I even doing this and I would notice but go I have all these like notepads Everywhere with these to do lists and I have like post it notes on everything and what's going on?

Like what what is all this about? I  And  what really sparked everything to even get to a point of writing a book about my, my entire path of navigating neurodivergence was  one night I couldn't sleep  and I was in another state. I was in New Mexico and I'm in the state of Georgia  and I decided to just do a brain dump and start typing out like what was on my mind and what was on my mind was actually  how did I get through things.

How did I get through problems? How did I get through roadblocks in my life? And I just did a brain dump of about 25 pages of text, unformatted wall of text, a nightmare to read.  And what I had noticed was. Normally, if I would have a brain dump moment, it would be like a page of just like ideas I might get out.

But this was 25 pages of  things that I did to overcome, things that I did to get through, things that made things like anxiety come down or relieve stress or  put my mind at ease.  And I went, ah, there's something here. And that's when I... I told my, my business coach who  was  she, she's, it was really funny.

She was helping me with my photography business and she herself, she's a, an art, an author.  And she went and said, you put all this stuff here in a  format. That's kind of crazy, but  you have this in you,  you should probably put this in a book. You actually have enough for many books, but let's focus on one book.

And that's. What started the ball rolling and it took me from conception of that brain dump to Publishing on Amazon self published and I was like,  I did it in seven months and I was like, oh man that took forever  and she was like  You did it in seven months. That's almost unheard of.  And I, I kind of laughed.

I was like, what do you mean it's unheard of? She's like, I generally have like an 18 month cycle per book.  And I was like, oh,  so I did it fast. She's like, yeah. I was like, well, it's because it was an easy topic to write about. It was me  and my struggles and what I did to get over them. She's like, well,  that's good because you're going to help people. 

And  I think that was the spark that made me go,  Oh crap, I am going to help people.  That's I never thought about it like that. I thought it, this was, this is going to be a cathartic exercise to get all this out and just be like, look, this is the, this is all the crap that I struggled with in my life,  but it was when I got my first draft back from  my editor. 

Who is autistic and her husband has ADHD. So it was always funny to me that I was like, yeah, I picked the perfect editor. And,  she gave me all the notes and everything was great. And it was like 50, 60 pages in and then the notes. Stopped being editorial and more like I've never thought about that.

We're gonna try this. Oh, this is actually working We incorporated this into our daily routine now,  and I was like, wait a second. I'm helping somebody this book isn't even out yet  I'm helping my editor and I I found  Such a, a great sense of like joy out of seeing those words because it was like, Oh yeah, I am helping people.

This is not just  a cathartic exercise. This is an actual way to help others to let people see what we have to do to kind of jump through the hoops and under the hurdles and go around all the obstacles the way we do instead of. the way a neurotypical person would. And that's, that's been the journey so far.

It's, it's been, it's been pretty wild. 

 It sounds like it, like seven months. So as a writer myself.  Like, I am proud if I can get 500 words written in a day  and I have a book coach who works with me and she and I have been, you know, going back and forth and  we meet weekly and have discussions and brainstorm and things like that.

And it's been a godsend, by the way. I also have friends of mine who body double with me to kind of like also just have creative sessions. And like we organized. We organized a thing for the men's group every Friday night. We get together and we just have writing body doubling where it's also like creative Exercises or, hey, I'm having this issue trying to figure out how to work through this problem. 

And I have found that that has been one of those things that's really actually made me more consistent in my writing.  Now, I want to kind of take a step.  I want to take a step back though. I want to kind of ask you a question that popped in my head.  When you were working to get diagnosed,  what was that process like for you? 

Oh, man, that process, that is the cruelest irony for somebody with inattentive ADHD.  The fact that  I went to my primary care doctor and he was like, hey, I have a, I, I have a psychiatrist at. Does testing. You can go talk to him. He specializes in ADHD and,  you have a, a lot of the markets.

Cause we did a little self self evaluation  and yeah, you, you take a lot of these boxes, but let's, let's go down that path. And I was like, yeah, great. Let's do that. That would be great.  So I get to the doctor's office and I sit down and he goes, okay, have you ever done this before? And I said, no, obviously not. 

Well, here's what we're going to do. And he, he walked me through the process. And the first day was the. Kind of like a, I guess, the written exam. It was a  600 and something questions to go through and what I do remember was a lot of them were roughly worded the same and frustratingly,  I had to answer all of them  and it was So mind numbing, but what I didn't notice is that he was watching me  answer it and like I was sitting there like spinning in my chair and my leg was going a million miles an hour.

I was stimming without knowing what that was and I was just trying to get through that.  And I finished that testing. So great. You know, I got the information.  That's going to be it for today because he could tell I wanted to get the hell out of there. So he said tomorrow, come back around the same time.

We're going to do an auditory test and the auditory test, which.  I, I, I admit, I was just like, I don't know what this is. He's like,  it's an interesting, simple test. And there was a very simple visual cue on screen, and there was,  headphones put on the headphones and the voice will say one, and when it says one on the screen, you hit the button.

If it doesn't say one or isn't not showing the one on the screen, don't hit the button. And I was like, Oh, that's, that's simple. So what I found myself doing was like every time hitting the button, like, and I couldn't control it. I couldn't stop myself because I felt like the one was going to pop up or pop in my ears.

So I just kept hitting the button. Over and over again. And I was like, Oh, come on.  Come on, come on, come on. And I kept hitting it.  So he  chuckled at that one and he brought out the results of all the the testing and  I Couldn't help but notice that the entire test like he's like, here's a neurotypical person and showed this bar graph And he's like you are, You  have inattentive ADHD, I would say it's on the severe side and he goes,  here's this bar graph and,  you scored on your average for inattentive was around 12.

I was like, oh, okay, you know, range scores range from like 8 to 16 on the inattentive scales. Like, oh, that's, that's rough. Is that like out of 20? And he laughed. He's like, no, that's out of 100.  And I looked at it and he's like, here's the bar graph. Do you notice something different from a neurotypical response to yours?

I was like, Oh, I'm missing like four bars here. He's like, yes, that's attention. You, you, you scored very low on that, but that's, that's,  that's a very good indicator about your inattentive ADHD. And I, I was floored because I never had really understood, like.  Why did I have all these issues like paying attention to things, especially things that I'm not interested in it? 

So that was always  that was the big  That was the big turning point right there.  

So I went through a very similar situation You know, a little bit more complicated, you know, the first three psychiatrists I went to the first one, she was just like, you know, adults don't have ADHD. And she just completely dismissed me and misdiagnosed me with depression, which is a common thing that we see a lot in the men's group is misdiagnosis.

We see those with adults, women, especially get misdiagnosed often  you know, with anxiety disorders and things like that. And,  you know,  My second doctor, he was like, you're describing these manic episodes and so forth and so on. And I was like, yes. And  it wasn't until years later, after researching a lot about ADHD, that I was having these manic episodes after she put me on  SSRIs and.

You know,  it's really eye opening when I look at the overall situation that a lot of the men in the men's group face. is this misunderstanding by psychiatrists of what ADHD is. And it makes it very discouraging to keep having to go find a psychiatrist, go find a psychiatrist, getting dismissed, and things of that nature.

And you're describing a situation that honestly was probably one of the more ideal situations that we hope people find.  

Yeah, the point of getting a medication at that time because I got the information. I got my diagnosis. And then he disappeared off the face of the planet.  Oh, no.  Which was kind of frustrating, but thankfully I  was able to find  another psychiatrist that  could help me and got me on the right medication.

Thankfully I had all my test results and I had copies of all that because I didn't want to go through that again. I can imagine. 

So the psychiatrist who initially interviewed me, I want to say it was like 75 questions and we're going through them and there's a lot of repetitive ones in my memory. 

My very short term memory is pretty great. My  late working memory is horrifying. My longterm memory is stupidly weird. It's just nuts.  To give an example, the other day I've been going through an issue with my ex wife and  my daughter. We were trying to figure out what information that we needed  and my daughter was like, I don't remember what her social security number was.

I rattled it off right off the top of my head. It's been 

2007 is when I got my divorce  and my wife looks at me and she is how, how did that just happened?  I. I don't know. She's like,  you forgot to do the dishes three times last week. And yet you're rattling off a social security number from from, decades ago.

And I was like, I don't know. I don't know how my brain works. She just said the word social security number and I rattled off the number.  And she just walked out of the room and I was like, well, that, that happens. And my, and my oldest, my oldest daughter is looking at me. She was like,  I can do that too, actually. 

I know you're my daughter. That's how it works. She's like, yeah, I can't remember my Texas,  vocab to save my life, but I can remember things from third grade. And I'm like, yeah, yeah. So. Now, 

now,  kind of looking at everything else, and let's get back to your book, because that's what we're here to really talk about, right?  When you were  deciding to kind of go through and...  You know, describe the situation you talk about,  the first step that a lot of people need to do to kind of start the process.

What would, what do you think, or can you describe what that needs to be for most 

people?  Like the, the first step for,  like after your diagnosis, because I think that is the most important step. Because there's a lot of,  a lot of people. We'll take their diagnosis and either spiral out, which that's always a problem because there are a lot of people that don't have a support system. 

I was lucky that my wife said, okay, let's figure this out. And for my first step was  research and I'm, I'm thankful that it's one of my hyper fixations is learning about new things.  So when I found out I had a new shiny thing, I went ahead and started researching everything I could about that new shiny thing and getting books from like  From every author under the sun that wrote anything about ADHD and to figure out like what people have done and both on the medical side on the metaphysical side in the middle, average Joe on the street, figuring it out, like, or the guy that has five PhDs or the one that's sitting there with a bunch of crystals.

I want to hear everyone's.  story about what they did and how they  used whatever they could to mitigate  the pitfalls because there are a lot of pitfalls that we have.  Once you start identifying them, they become easier to mitigate. Without knowing them, boy, they can be,  they can be quite monstrous.

So, I think  the first part is That research that dive into it to really understand it.  What do you think was 

the worst aspect of ADHD for you whenever you started reading about it? What was like the, Oh,  that's unfortunate.  

Yeah, for me, I think it's a tie between rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria, and emotional  dysregulation.  Those two,  I had no idea about.  It was  kind of like a brick wall that I smashed my face into when I read what it was. And it was only like that because I said,  Oh, this makes sense now. Why I react to things the way I react or  am feeling the way I'm feeling and I think that was,  that was like the hardest thing to, to comprehend that like, oh, there's a reason why it's happening and it's part of this. 

What 

for the listeners who may not know, what is rejection sensitivity dysphoria?  

Yeah, that is,  that is something that  when you see it, you see RSD, you go,  yeah, that's a acronym. It's one of those acronym things that we get. We have tons of them, but the worst part about it, and this is, I always break it as simple as possible, is  the mere perception, not the actual,  like, happening of  getting, you know, Rejected or having criticism or feeling like you're attacked  just the mere perception that you are is causing you  physical reactions physical pain physical shame physical everything  every bad emotion  And it's worse when it's coming from  Someone you love and care about or that is in your inner circle So for me, my best friend is my wife and we've been this friends forever married for 10 years and  discovering this and understanding this  Put light on an understanding of that when she was asking me a question It wasn't an attack on my character.

It wasn't  Her being upset with me about not doing the dishes or closing the cabinets, because I do that one a lot where all the cabinets are just open,  because I forget to close them all.  It was just a general, honest.  Inquisitive question like hey, why did you leave the cabinet open not?  Why did you leave the cabinet open?

You're a horrible person  Why do you exist because that's what I would  Would infer it as  I deal 

with this so often  Well,  I used to deal with this very often. I still deal with it, but now I know how to deal with it.  Kind of goes back to what you said, research the issues that you face. And for me, emotional dysregulation and RSD were some of my biggest ones as well.

And I talk about them, as they are separate because they, 

because they are in my mind two separate issues and in the community they are as well.  Scientists will sit here and say, well, you know, the emotional dysregulation is the top issue. RSD happens to be nested underneath it because it is technically speaking a part of it.  But for me,  when I started researching and learning about ADHD. 

I went full nerd,  right? And okay, for y'all listeners out there, I'm about to do it again. I love the neuroscience behind the brain. I love it to death. I love the human brain. Cause I think it's fascinating to read about it.  But like  ADHD affects our very perception of the world around us  are reticulating activating system.

The part that says, okay, here's the world, how we see, how we hear, how we perceive everything.  And. I, I, I read that  and I reread that and I said, what the fuck  you mean other people don't see how I see. And then, you know, I read a really fascinating article. Somebody sat here and said, do you understand that the color blue is different for you than it is for other people?

And I'm like,  what? They're like, yeah, you see color blue, you identify color blue because you were taught what color blue was, but the way that your eyes work,  the color blue is slightly different. That's why we have shades of color.  Because other people said, okay, this is that color. And I'm like,  alright.

So, well, that makes a lot of sense. Sorry, side note.  You know, tangents. Okay. So, I really delved it further into this and further into this, and I'm like, okay, and I started reading about the trauma issues, the things that we have pulled from the past, and  when we look at those things, and we look at the fact that people with ADHD have a trigger based memory, not a linear memory, I was like,  Oh, no,  every time I reacted to somebody saying something to me, I wasn't reacting to what they said to me.

I was reacting to what I heard somebody else say in the past. It was very similar tone  location words that they used and I was like. 

All right, well, that explains a lot.  I'm going to have to apologize to a lot of people.  And there was that initial shame, right? There was that initial shame, but at the same time, I had to also recognize that I didn't know then I do now I'm going to move forward being better now. And we can't change the past.

And I think that was one of the biggest things I learned through therapy. And it sounds like that's one of the processes that you started learning was. Going back, discovering what ADHD was, researching it, understanding the various aspects of it. And then kind of starting to move forward. What was something that you learned that helped you process your RSD more effectively? 

Yeah, for, for me,  I got it from both ends. You know, therapy was a big help to process emotion, not just RSD, just emotions in general, because  we over feel a lot, so to be able to.  To process and understand it was great.  But also for me, meditation, I glommed onto meditation, which  seems like an impossible task for somebody with an attentive ADHD and it.

It  technically was when I first started,  but I remember reading  Joe Dispenza's book, the changing the habit of being yourself. And I went, okay,  he plays the change game. And I never thought something so simple could work until it started to work. And it was.  Simple in the fact that whenever I started feeling those same patterns coming up of,  oh great, she's mad at me because I didn't do the thing, why do I do this, I'm a horrible person, and that spiraling thought of negativity, as soon as I would start feeling them,  I would literally say change, sometimes out loud because I have no filter,  sometimes internally and what that would spark me to do is stop that in motion and feel something different. 

Sometimes it was just an adjacent feeling, but what I would, what I had learned was it took time.  Originally I would go for 5 10 minutes of feeling  overly anxious and... Spiraling out of control until I remembered  and generally I remember because I used to have a post it note that said change right by my monitor and I would have to look at it and I go, oh, oh, yeah, I shouldn't feel like this.

Let me change how I'm feeling on that. But then it.  Became quicker. So it could be  a minute or two or 30 seconds or while we're having the conversation and I would feel that little feeling start bubbling up. I go, no, no, no, I don't need that feeling of anxiety. Like that's Nothing to do with this conversation I'm having.

So my brain would instantly see change and I would just be right back into the flow of the conversation. And I think  that was like the big catalyst for  working with it.  

I can definitely understand that. And that's actually all throughout your book. Do you have this very gentle approach about  not taking on too much, really making sure that you're showing gratitude for the things that you're doing?

Really making sure that you're kind of  using more self positive talk versus the self negativity that we have. This is throughout the book. What is it about our nature that we have to kind of take that step back and be more gentle towards ourselves? 

You know, and I think it goes back to us having these  really big feelings all the time. And it could be good, you know, really big positive feelings too, but  being very gentle with yourself and  understanding that, Hey, it's okay.  It's gonna be hard until it isn't.  It's, it's one of those things where you could be going through the,  the hardest thing that you've ever gone through.

But. You can break it down to these little tiny pieces and every little step that you do,  celebrate it,  you know, acknowledge it, do these things without  making a, a mess of everything, because that's what I would always do is make a mess by just seeing the whole picture and going.  This is chaos.  I can't do this.

This is chaos. And then, you know, it would just be negative. But if I could start off and be like, all right, well, if I move this  off of the table,  that's one step done. I did something. It's a move in the positive direction. So  it's so important to do that to Mitigate the negative thoughts. So even if it is seemingly minuscule or tiny, it's not because every little tiny bit is going to build up this positive reinforcement for what you're doing.

So celebrating things that you do, celebrating yourself, celebrating your accomplishments, no matter how small is very important because it.  It rewires the brain to go, yeah, I'm doing it.  Mm hmm.  

One of the things that I found that goes along the same lines was also telling my friends and my wife, like, hey, I know you appreciate me, right?

You do amazing things with me and you really do a great job, you know,  celebrating sometimes.  Is there a way that we could kind of do that a little bit more often? I know this seems like really awkward for a lot of y'all out there, but kind of building your support network, talking to your friends, having these conversations with your wife or husband  honestly will  empower them to help you in a small way. 

And  I learned about this through reading Dr. Ned Hallowell's book, and he talks about recognition, response, euphoria. Which is technically the reverse of, you know, rejection and sensitivity dysphoria,  and it is just the  acknowledgement that we did a thing. So my wife, even to this day, when I do the dishes, she goes, Hey, thank you so much for doing the dishes.

I appreciate it.  And I love that about her. Also, she just brought me s'mores, which I love you for. Thank you so much.  And she did it quietly, which I really do appreciate no, but, I thought that it was really cool to have those conversations with people.  And the very act of the conversation  showed me that they cared because they were like, Oh, bet I got you.

No problem. I'll try to make sure I do that. Now granted, a lot of my friends have ADHD and they're like, well, what the fuck ever, I don't know what the hell my brain does. But, a lot of them took the time to actually do that.  I wanna really ask you a question though. And I love asking people with ADHD this question because it's one of the parts of my speaking gigs that I do.

And for those of y'all who are out there listening and not watching the YouTube, I've been stimming this entire time. I've got this little dodecahedron with all these different things on it.  You know, what are your stems and now that you've kind of started moving forward, do you  feel shame or do you try to hide them from anybody? 

You know, my stems have always been a lot of,  foot shaking, like leg shaking is a big one for me. And,  so, alright, we'll run it down. Leg shaking, big one.  Drumming in general.  is a way that I can just focus and figure things out. So I'll sit there and be tapping away on my legs. And it actually, that is what got me into playing the drums was my stimming, which was  a great,  segue into learning an instrument. 

Perfect goes hand in hand.  Another one  is scribbling  and it used to drive. A lot of people crazy and I still do it when I am trying to have a really important conversation with people that are neurotypical and they're telling me things I need to know, you know, like when you're doing  what's it called?

Like buying a house or these things where you should be paying attention and you really need to be there. I will have a notepad with me or my, one of my journals and I will literally just be like  scratching back and forth. And it will keep me engaged in whatever they're saying.  Do I hide? Those things. 

I used to, I used to hide it all the time because I would sit there and  It goes back to shame. I used to be Shamed whether my  parents knew it or not  to stop doing that because my leg would always be going it would just be going a million miles a minute and  They were like, why are you doing that? Like why do you have all this energy?

I'm like, no  Why don't you have me tested says my six year old self, but  I I learned as I got older that I don't have to hide it. So if I'm on the couch and I start, like, moving my leg a lot,  everyone knows, like, yeah, I'm just, I'm engaged in whatever we're doing. And I have to do this, or else I'm not going to be engaged anymore. 

And, you know, I, I think  for me, like,  one of the big ones that I do  is a lot of vocal stimming, but I don't do that. so much in public. That one has always been like an at home thing  and it helps me do tasks. So if I'm cooking, if I'm cleaning, if I'm getting through doing things, I will sing  gibberish songs sometimes. 

Or I will take any popular hits from the last. 30, 40 years and replace a lot of them with pug a lot of key words with the word pug because I'm singing to my dogs while I'm doing things. So it helps me cause it's just another form of stimming. And you know, my, my wife always laughs because she makes up songs all the time, but she just likes doing that,  but she laughs at my songs cause it's always songs to the pugs  and,  but it helps.

It, it, it helps.  Why I don't do that one in public. I don't, I don't ever feel the need to do that one in public for some reason like a lot of things are more with my hands tapping drumming. I do a lot of,  I don't even know what to call this motion. 

Like I did, I actually, for those of y'all listening,  there's a lot of things that he and I have in common.

And one of the things I do is I rub my two fingers, I rub my thumb with my two fingers and it is a stim whenever I'm trying to remember something that I want to say.  And so I'm literally rubbing and chanting in my mind what, what the question I want to ask  and I love it so much.  So,  when we were kind of talking about the, you know, we talked about the really big negative about your ADHD, what is one of the biggest positives about your ADHD? 

The biggest positives, I think actually the biggest positive has been  it let me find what I truly wanted to do.  And I I say that in terms of  people talk about hyperfixation, and you can be hyperfixated on a new thing, and then a month goes by, a week goes by, even a couple days go by, and then that's done. 

But what I have noticed is when I'm really... If you're truly passionate about something,  it stays. So, for me, photography wasn't just a hyperfixation hobby.  It started out like that. I wanted to do it. I got really into, like, into all the gear and different things about it, and the ratios, and understanding light, and going down that rabbit hole. 

And then... You know, eight years later,  I still get that same feeling  when I pick up my camera.  So I think the one of the biggest positives is definitely that I was able to find the things that I truly love. So  learned about photography  connecting with people. On a one on one basis is really great because I love hearing people's stories and I love that sort of connection. 

And it's, it's all,  I would have never  gotten there without knowing like, oh,  this, this is making me feel a certain way. And when that. Feeling keeps coming, no matter how many times I do it,  I was like, Oh, I had no words for that before my diagnosis, but then I realized I'm like, Oh, it's, it's a dopamine machine  that keeps giving it to me.

And  like,  I can't help but say like, yeah, that's a huge positive for me. Like I found the thing that I love and I get to make a career out of it and do the things that I love. So it's like writing, photography and, you know, connecting with people.  I don't need anything else. I can just survive on those three things. 

Yeah, 

I, I feel the same way about ADHD. Like, when I first started trying to learn about it, my oldest son, the teachers had called me and they said, hey, we're fairly certain your son has ADHD. I was just like,  uh, what's ADHD? And I started reading into it. And of course, that... That turned into a rabbit hole.

And like, of course, when I'm reading it, I'm also going, Oh, that  huh. Yeah, that,  that makes a lot of sense. Now it took it again. It took me forever to get diagnosed and everything, but at the same time, I, I couldn't get away from it. It wasn't, it wasn't just like the, Oh, this is what ADHD. I had to know like neuroscience, like what I said about what I said about it earlier. 

And I was like,  Oh, okay. And I was a project manager. And like you were talking about this earlier, I had discovered a lot of things by accident about what worked for me.  I don't work. I didn't want to work jobs where I was there for more than a year. So if that's the case, then why bother?  And so I had built up skillset that let me do that.

And so I would go to a head to head hunter and I would sit here and say, Hey, I just want a job that's three to eight months doing project management.  And she was just like,  uh, that's really weird. Then I'm like, I feel like that's a thing that could exist. And she was like, Oh no exist. But it's so hard to put people in those things.

How, you know, what kind of travel can you do? And I'm like,  I'm single  and I have no life. She's like, Oh, well that's beneficial. I'm like, okay, cool. So I get to, I get to travel over the country and help different companies with project management.  And I really, you know, as I kind of looked back at it, whenever I started learning about ADHD, much like you had talked about earlier.

I had accidentally discovered like how to do my career based around my ADHD,  but it wasn't until I learned about my autism  that I was like,  Oh, that was, that's what makes me really good at all the project management stuff that I did in the past.  Because my ADHD brain is like, Hey, here's all the chaos that let's hyper focus on it for a little while.

And then my autism would just kick in and say, Oh fuck, there's a lot of chaos here. Let's make something structured out of it, like timing. And, and  I really found that, you know, that's a big part of understanding ADHD.  A lot of us focus so much on the negativity and how it's destroyed our lives and different things like that. 

And we rarely remember that it's also the reason why we're more creative. It's the reason why we have, like, these problem solving skills that we have. It's the reason why we are often, you know, looked at as, like, savants  and different things like that. Gifted is what they called us in school. I was a reader as well. 

And...  We just, we just have to kind of also take that step back. This is mindset. You talk about it in the book.  Mindset about ADHD,  taking the time to recognize the good aspects of it,  and...  We have to do that because we're often too wrapped up in the disorder aspect of it.  But this is how our brain is designed.

It is designed to work a specific way. And unfortunately, we live in a society that is a neurotypical society designed by neurotypicals for neurotypicals.  And once I had that realization,  I started paying more attention to all the posi all I started paying attention to all of the positives about my life. 

And that was one of those things that really woke me up. So, hearing what you were saying about your positives. Now, I want to kind of go into that a little bit. You're a very specific type of photographer, right? 

Yes. Yeah.  My photography...  Like I said, it started as, oh, I'm really interested in photography and I did commercial photography that which was. 

I hated working  for real estate agents and, and architects. And it was what I thought you were supposed to do of like, Hey, you're taking pictures and getting paid for it. This should be exciting.  But it wasn't, but I knew there was something there. And then when we got our first pet and our pug named Philomena, I started taking photos of her and we started a,  Instagram account for her. 

And before you knew it,  it started blowing up. Because back then, all those years ago,  Instagram wasn't about videos, it was about photos.  And  people loved these pet portraits I was doing of her. And  I always say this as,  it's like tongue, it's tongue in cheek, but it's also true.  My photography made my pug famous.

And my pug made my photography famous, and I am very thankful that she was the doorway that I got to step through into pet photography.  I became a published pet photographer, I was in a few magazines, I have online articles that interviews talking about pet photography and my pug, and  it's still kind of.

Makes me giggle a little thinking of the aspect of like, Oh, what do you do as a photographer? You do you shoot weddings? I'm like, no, no weddings. Not for me. Oh, are you do you work with kids? I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no kids.  No, thank you.  What do you do? I'm like, well,  pets, I take photographs of pets and they're like,  what do you mean by,  like, I take photos with my phone.

I'm like, yeah, but do they look like this? And I'll show them,  what I would call like the pet headshot and they're like, no, I, they don't look like that at all. Mine are just like a blurry cloud of anger. I'm like, yeah, I, I approach it  with the, you. The same  type of  ways that a professional portrait photographer would go to a client or a headshot photographer would go to a company and be like, Hey, we want to do these really good headshots for your executive team.

I do that for pets and I, I rather. Work with pets than anything else now granted. It's not all I do I do have a fine art photography that I do that's more for me and people buy prints of that stuff  Pet photography I get  I get emails all the time still just like hey Are you still doing this because I don't promote it.

I don't put it out there, but people will still go hey, I need a portrait of my a lot of pugs because  I'm a pug dad.  So I, I get a lot of pug people requesting  my services and I am so happy to do it. It's, it's a true joy. Like I get to hang out with pugs, which I love, and  I get to take photos of them, which I also love and I get money, which I also love.

There we go. The trifecta.  Now,  I love that about you. And when we were doing  your podcast, we, we kind of talked about that as well. But after the fact, I was also kind of looking through and I'm like, that's something that is very ADHD specific. Like we find those really weird niches.  That a lot of people don't really like who thinks of a pet photographer who does headshots.

That's such a niche thing, but at the same time, there's an audience out there for it.  And it reminded me of this blog that I feel like I read back in 2000, 2003, of a guy who did nothing but butterflies.  He would go out, he would take photos of butterflies, and then he would just like break down the butterfly in a scientific manner, but then he would also break down like...

His feelings about the butterfly  and it was a very like very niche thing, but he was actually really popular and I'm like,  that's what we kind of have to lean in when it comes to ADHD. We're told very often as children that our creativity, regardless of what it is. isn't valid. There's, there's no validity to enjoying taking photography or painting or, you know, doing clay work and things of that nature.

Yet at the same time, these are a big part of our strengths.  And it takes us so long to realize that  because we got, we have this very niche idea of what creativity is. It's artwork and stuff like that. But I had a mentor of mine. He goes,  You need to understand that your concept of business development, how you think about that is creativity,  and you need to lean into it. 

And I'm like,  but that's not creativity. He goes,  do you not work with people to help them flesh out their ideas and build upon it and then design the process and then work them through the whole thing? And I'm like, yes. He goes, all of that's creative.  That absolutely changed my life.  Because it also taught me something else. 

I don't like finishing things. He  told me, he was like, he laughed about it. I was like, because I ran into the room and I'm like,  I don't like finishing things. And he was like, yeah, I know. And I'm like,  right.  But I'm supposed to finish things. And he's like, no, you don't. And I'm like, yes, I do. That's literally what I've been taught all my life.

He goes, no, you don't have to finish things. You're the creator. You're the designer. You're the developer. You're that person. Be okay with that, and give it to other people to finish.  Changed my life forever, from that point. So it's just like, we really have to understand how our ADHD affects us, and then kind of move forward again from there.

And I've really enjoyed this conversation, because that's really along the lines of, you know, of what your book is also saying, is like, This is my journey. This is my story.  Here's some ideas, but your, your story and your journey is your own. Start walking down that path. And I I've always really appreciate that about that. 

So we talked about mindfulness. We talked about meditation.  What is one of the best practical tools that you've discovered that helped you manage ADHD more effectively?  

Yeah.  I mean, for me. It  hands down for me and this is me not for everyone my to do lists are  The cornerstone of my day  and I will say I will say this  people go What kind of crazy things do you do?

Do you use a specific method or do you use a special thing? I'm like, no, I use some cheap Amazon basics  Five by eight pads that I can write down the things that I have to do for the day, which sounds like, yeah, that's what you do with it to do list, but it wasn't like this years ago, even after my diagnosis, my.

My to do lists were kind of rudimentary. Like,  oh, make the bed, brush your teeth,  take a shower. Things that,  for most people, would go,  well yeah, you're supposed to do that  every day. Like, yeah, you would think. But sometimes,  You forget and you go, you know, two, three, four days. And then you realize you're like, what is what?

Oh, oh, that's me.  I need to take care of that. Why are my teeth fuzzy? Like what's going on?  But it was  starting small. Like I always say, just kind of break it down to simple. Simple things. So I would have the to do list  and that was the cornerstone. And so it got to a point where I was, Oh, I made my bed.

Let me check that off. And I am one of the lucky ones where checking off something on a list would create a little tiny dopamine bump where I'm just like,  Oh, good. I got that done.  It became a thing that where I would celebrate every little thing that I got done like, yeah, I did that today.  And then the next thing would come off the list.

I'm like, yeah, and then the list would start small. It'd be like three or four things on there and I would get all of them done and I'd be like, I did it. I did all the things today. Granted, I mean there's still  a shit ton of stuff to do for the day, but those four things were so important that I wrote them down and I got them done. 

And nowadays, like I can get.  A list of  I will even reiterate nowadays, I still have a list that I write out every morning with my morning coffee  because it's part of my routine. Now  took forever to become routine, but I know that I will write out what I have to do for the day. It'll make me think and make me plan.

It'll make me do these things. And I know that I will get those things done because I can keep coming back to that list. Having that list. On the same spot of the table or of my office table because I have  generally I'll bring it with me, but I'll leave it in a spot that I always look  because I don't want to become blind to it.

So I will look at it and go, Oh,  I could actually cross something off right now because I am on this podcast right now.  

So I want to, I want to touch on that one because a lot of the things that we see in the men's group. Are people who talk about they're trying to do their to do list, but something happens and it throws them off, like getting notified an hour and a half before a podcast.

Hey, can you come on? This is last minute. Come on, please. And like, how do you get back to your to do list of the things that you want to get done when something unexpected happens and it drags you away for an hour and a half? 

Yeah, being disrupted  can derail the day sometimes and you have to be  in a mind and look, we're talking about mindset.

So important. It's okay if it totally disrupts the rest of your day. It is okay. Guess what? No, the world doesn't end. It's okay. If you get disrupted, you're going to want to beat yourself up.

You're going to want to do all this stuff because you didn't cross something off the list, or you missed three or four things. But up until that point, you were disrupted. You got something done, didn't you? And if you didn't, you got to do that thing.  And here's, here's the fun part is, yes, you got disrupted and you never went back to the list for the rest of the day, or you did for those that didn't.

Tomorrow's a new day for those that did. This is what I do. I go, all right, well, that was a weird disruption. That was. Fun. I got to, to connect with somebody for, for an hour and a half on a podcast.  And then I look at the list and I go, what is easy? What is the easiest thing on this list? Oh, take out the trash.

I'm going to pick that one because. The other ones like lawn work.  Oh, finish my book proposal. No, I'm not going to do that one because  what I, what I find is if I can find whatever is left on that list, that's super easy. And this is something that takes time to figure out, but when it's super easy, you can go do that one thing.

And all of a sudden it will.  Give you a little momentum and then you might go on to the next one and the next one  and then  who knows in a couple hours, you'll be out in the yard raking up leaves, not saying I will, but I might be  

so. Another issue that we see a lot of people talk about what to do list is prioritizing, like they'll sit here and they'll say, you know, I've got this, 573 things that I've been needing to do, and 48 of them are things my wife wants me to do.

How do I prioritize those things? Because, like,  like that's a huge list. How do you prioritize things? What kind of emphasis do you place on what you've been asked to do versus what you want to do, and then what you need to do? Like, how do you make that delineation between the three so it's not so overwhelming? 

Still figuring that one out in its entirety task prioritization is always an issue,  but what I find helps, especially if you do have things on your list that you're, you know, significant other wants you to do, those are probably.  Have a little more urgency than the things that you want to do. And I, I say this with love, every person that writes out a list, puts out all these things on a list that they want to do.

And there's gonna be a lot of things on there.  But if somebody outside of your mind is saying, Hey.  This could be done, like, could you get this done, this done, this done. I always tend to prioritize her tasks first, because I know that will  cause nothing but harmony in the house if I can get those things done first. 

When you don't have a significant other bringing on tasks like that, I always...  I keep the list shorter, because yes, if I wanted to, I could write out a list of a thousand things every day.  I need to do, want to do, have to do, whatever, you know, clarifier you want on there.  I keep it short,  and does it mean that every task will be right on point? 

Like on top priority. No, however, there are tasks that I know, like that have to be done like paying the bills. If paying the bills is on that list,  whenever there's money involved, I look at those first  because those are the ones that seem to drive the most importance. But I keep it simple and I don't overcomplicate it.

I think we have a very  bad habit of overcomplicating a lot of things.  

I overcomplicate the fuck out of my list and my clients, I've, I've tried to teach multiple people and they're like, you know, I have ADHD, right? And I'm like, yes, he goes, you know, this won't work. And I'm like, but could you try?  And they're like,  fine.

And  it almost never works for other people. Again, we go back to personalization. My, my brand of like prioritization for my to do list. And this may work for some of y'all out there. If it resonates, feel free to use it is red, yellow, green.  And in my book, I highlight them with red, yellow, green, or it's on my whiteboard, red, yellow, green, and red are the things that are due within the next two days. 

Okay, next two days, I have to get this done. Right, obviously today is one day and then tomorrow.  And then yellow is anything from two to five days. Things that are due within two to five days. I want to get them done within that time frame. And then green is anything else. Anything outside of that, a lot of wants, a lot of things of that nature. 

And I have found that like in the morning, getting up, looking at my items, looking at what I have on their yellow turns to red on a certain date really helped me. And my, my therapist was looking at me and she's like, yeah, so. That's autism. I was like, ah, okay. She's like, yeah, that's you putting in your structure and everything.

And she, and she goes, so how often do you actually get the red things done? And I'm like, oh, and she goes, that's ADHD.  And I was like,  this makes a lot more sense. And she was like, yeah. So whenever you're trying to help your clients and everything, you've got to re realize what they're. Background is and make sure that they have a process that works for them.

I love that about your book because you just keep emphasizing that. And for those of y'all out there, it is important to understand it, that it needs to be very you and how you actually naturally function. One of my clients, his list has nothing to do with days. It's.  I need to do this. I want to do this. I hate this. 

And I'm like,  why? He's like, cause all that stuff that I hate doing, I delegate it.  He goes, I find other people to do it. I asked my wife to do it. I asked, you know, my kids to do it. I hire somebody to do it. My personal assistant takes care of it. You know, my managers take care of this. I don't want to do any of that stuff.

I want to focus on the things I need to do and want to do. And I'm like, ah. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And  he did very much like what you talked about. He goes, I focus on the easy thing first, and then I ride the momentum down.  I actually wound up writing a blog because of him. Momentum and inertia.

And so I keep hearing all these different things that you're saying and everything, and it keeps coming back to your book, and I just really appreciate the work that you did there.  And, you know, your intro, you're like, I didn't start this to write a book to help people. And I was like, ah, this is one of those things.

And I saw the brain dump, by the way. I was like, ah, yeah, there we go. You essentially just wrote an outline and then just said, eh, let's make a book out of it.  So,  I appreciate that.  What is, kind of final words, what is one of the things that you want people to walk away from this conversation that you hope will be a catalyst for them to move forward? 

You know,  when it comes to  like a lasting impression that I always want people to take with them,  it's, it's,  Two part for me. My mantra with everyone is that you're not alone.  Always find groups like men's ADHD support group.  Amazing that you even have a group where guys can come and actually get the support that They need because that is,  that is, you know, it's paramount because a lot of guys, what are most men do stereotypically, they just stuff everything down and they don't, they deal with it internally until they all of a sudden their heart gives out from all the stress and anxiety that they've been under. 

So to have a place where you can talk openly and freely about what's going on in your mind and what's going on, like with your processes and just getting through that.  Paramount. So you're not alone. Big one. And  nothing is easy until it is.  I can't state that enough.  When you are first starting out, trying to reorganize your life, or trying to implement a new system, or trying to make a new habit,  it's not going to be easy.

And everyone that says, Oh, that's easy.  Tell him to shut up and go away  because it wasn't easy to learn how to meditate. It wasn't easy to figure out what I was doing with to do list. It wasn't easy to even go online to find support groups like that wasn't easy. It was.  Something that was there, but to actually, like, go and interact with people or write down things and figure out what works.

It wasn't easy until it was because I just had to keep at it and  if I had to ask for help, I asked for help. It was,  it was paramount to know that, hey, it's not easy now, but it will be. I just have to keep doing it.  

Amazing words, man. Amazing.  So,  where's Stephen Glaser going from here? What's next for you? 

Well, you know, for me, next on, I was talking about a a book proposal I was doing. I'm going to continue my, my Navigating Neurodivergence series, and I'm deep diving into  each of the, the categories, mental tools, physical tools, and  social tools, which is going to be a lot of research. Which.  Sparked my interest, of course, because I was like, Oh, I'm going to deep dive on, you know, 10 different types of meditation and like 15 types of breath work.

And I started really diving deep in this stuff. So I was like, okay, that's one area  I'm continuing to connect with people on my podcast. Same name of navigating neurodivergence. I am  always looking to talk to people and. Hear their stories and of course, let them know that they're not alone, let them express like, I think that's been like almost like a secret  joy of mine, like, oh, like, this is almost selfish that I get to be a platform where people get to talk and tell their story. 

Because a lot of us don't have that option. We'll sit there and just  dwell on it and go, well. Yeah, I'm struggling. Well, I know. Tell everyone  how are you struggling and what are you doing to make it better? And  it's been really awesome. You know, I've had you on and I've had a slew of people on that. I was enthralled by their stories.

It's.  It's a beautiful thing.  And, you know, I am,  I'm honestly just pushing forward and growing that I want to take what I do to the masses and help more people.  And  at some point  I see myself doing speaking gigs and see myself doing all this stuff, especially as the books  keep coming and keep growing.

And I, I'm  just here to help.  

Well, your book definitely helped me out a lot. I had a lot of fun reading it. I really appreciate you coming on and I wish you the best. And if there's anything ever I can do to help, let me know.  

Thank you so much, Shane.  

All right. This is Shane Thrapp with the Men's ADHD Support Group.

We really appreciate all of you listening and remember that you deserve love and respect.