Why We Get More Done Together: ADHD, Community, and Gamification with Russ

Join Russ' ADHD Big Brother Community: https://adhdbigbrother.circle.so/feed

From Russ "My greatest gift is that I believe in you, and I don't even know you. I help to connect you to your belief in yourself, and in providing education, support - in the form of unique tools and structures tailored specifically to you - and daily accountability, which is vital in the beginning. You can - and will - ultimately learn and experience how to hold yourself accountable."

Visit Russ' Website: https://www.adhdbigbrother.com/main

In this episode, the host shares her excitement about a recent interview with Russ from ADHD Big Brother. They discuss the importance of community, especially when managing ADHD. The host also updates listeners on her personal life, including a cross-country move and how she's tackling the associated challenges. Russ and the host delve into the concept of body doubling for productivity and discuss the unique aspects and benefits of Russ's ADHD community. Additionally, the host shares upcoming changes to her own community's platform and details about coaching opportunities and other resources.

03:56 Community and Support Systems

04:42 Interview with Russ: ADHD and Community

07:01 Body Doubling and Productivity Hacks

13:53 The Power of Community in ADHD Management

21:32 The Struggle of Perfectionism

22:43 Balancing Work and Family

23:52 The Comparison Trap

24:33 Finding Your Community

25:59 The Power of Positive Thinking

31:40 Reframing Failures

32:58 Joining the ADHD Community

Book a 20-minute call to see if COACHING is a good fit for you: Megs Calendar

Join the Organizing an ADHD Brain COMMUNITY waitlist (New community launches May 15th): https://www.OrganizinganADHDbrain.com/community

Get your Free DOPAMINE MENU download OrganizinganADHDbrain.com/dopaminemenu

The TO DO list Daily Planner is available here! TO DO List Daily Planner

The ULTIMATE Recycling & Disposal Guide: Disposal Guide

Transcript

Yeti Stereo Microphone & FaceTime HD Camera: 0:43

Hey, beautiful people. Welcome back to the show. Thank you for your patience. I know I didn't drop my normal show on Monday this week. Regardless. I'm so excited to share with you another interview that I had with Russ from the A DHD Big Brother. I interviewed him last September. He's so comical. So hilarious. And today we're talking a little bit about community. In other news, in life update news, we are officially moving across the country. We are under contract on our house. We're selling it. And I know a lot of you are like, please keep your house, don't sell it, right? Like investment, all that stuff. But ultimately. We know we wanna move and we're just not ready to rent our house out. It's not something that is in the cards for us. And so we are going to figure out how to use our money in other ways and figure out how to make money in other ways and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. So our plan is to leave Colorado,'cause that's where we are right now, around July, and we'll make our way back to Massachusetts is where we're planning to land. That's where I grew up. And I am really excited. We did the estimate of what it would be to move all of our stuff back east, and it was over$6,000. Actually, if we didn't get rid of a darn thing, it would've been over$10,000, almost$11,000. That's a lot of money and not money that I necessarily wanna spend on just moving stuff. So my husband and I looked at each other and we're like, what if we sold. Everything. And so that is what we're doing. It feels a little strange because oftentimes I talk to you about when you're working in a space and you're decluttering and you're organizing, part of it is envisioning what does it look like at the end? What's that end result for you? And then you get to decide what tiny actions you can take to start to build that end result. And that's part of it, right? And part of it is regulation and taking care of yourself. All this other stuff. Now we're looking at our stuff and we're just like, oh. How do we just let go of everything? So it's a little bit at a time. What I'm gonna do coming up here soon in my community is take a video of my house and where I have everything so you can see how I have it set up right now. And then what's really cool is as we build our home back east, we're gonna start to be just really super intentional about what we buy for our house back there. At some points I aspire to be a minimalist. I was talking to Dana Kay White about this, and She actually brought this up how sometimes that's too much. It's like starting a diet and you wanna be a bodybuilder right away, but you're like 200 pounds overweight. So there's some other things that need to happen first. It's so similar in decluttering and organizing that I. Yeah, that could be an aspiration one day, but understanding that, take it back a few layers, take it back a few steps, quite a few steps because ultimately to get to that point it takes work and it really takes time. One of my clients, and he's listening, he shared this example about how when you're growing asparagus. You can't just plant asparagus and get amazing asparagus in the first year. It actually has to, I don't know if this is the right word, germinate, or it has to process. It has to have time to really start to thrive. You can't really eat asparagus that you are growing yourself until three to four years in. It takes some time. I thought that was fascinating, but it's so similar to organizing. You're not growing asparagus, but you're building habits and you're changing the way that you've been your entire life. That takes time. Whether you're working with a coach or you're doing it on your own, change takes time. It takes believing in yourself. It takes understanding that. You don't wanna live this way anymore, which takes you out of your comfort zone and puts you in a zone to grow into a new and different person. So anyways, we're letting go of everything and I am really excited about it. One of the things I'm gonna be doing in the community this month is doing a presentation on Facebook Marketplace. I am. I don't talk about this too often on the podcast, but I'm a Facebook marketplace queen. Like down to what you're listing, what to list it for, how to speak to people, what to say to people, and to ensure that you're not gonna get scammed. That's really important too. But I'm gonna give a presentation on that. But stay tuned. I am really excited to share with you all of these other eventful happenings that are going on in our life and trying to figure out what's next. Now, we are gonna be traveling back east, not with our stuff, but we do have two kids and four animals. So it'll be a journey and an exciting adventure On that note, I'm really excited to welcome Russ back to the community. He has his own community, the A DHD, big Brother. I've been there a couple times hosting decluttering sessions, body doubling sessions, and supporting people through what it's like to get organized with an A DHD brain. But what he does in his community, he takes it to a totally different level. They're not just focusing on organizing, although that's what they did this month in their community. But he's also talking about how to get this stuff done, like the dishes or the laundry and things like that. So I'm really excited to share this conversation with you today. On that note, let's jump in.

6:05

I'm so excited to be interviewing you for the podcast again because you're, I think you're the first. Re-guest. Oh. Second guest. Like person coming for a second time. I know, right? I've had intentions to have people back, It was so cool'cause when I interviewed you the first time, it was so easy. It was so fun. And then, we just became friends after that. now we're friends. And this is just what we're gonna do now. Done and done. Makes it easy. Makes life really easy. Yeah. Okay, now we're besties. And now let's do another interview. Now let's do it. So I wanna tell you guys, if you haven't heard our first interview, Russ is one of my favorite, A DHD humans. So he has a podcast called A DHD, big Brother. He talks about brain spaghetti and talks about depression in A DHD and how real it is, but then also just like the real things that come along with a DHD. And he also has this incredible community called the A DHD, big Brother, same as the podcast, where he helps people with a DHD get shit done. And so there's group coaching, there's like body doubling rooms, there's all kinds of themed months. It's so freaking cool. And then Russ, you're also a coach, so you do a little bit of everything and you're so fun. I'm always talking about you. I'm like, do you guys know Rus? He's my friend. And I just love that you're here again, so welcome. Is there anything that I missed? No, I'm like, I wanna meet that guy. I'm like, he sounds pretty cool. Yeah, he is cool. He's cool. That was a really nice introduction. I appreciate that. Heck yeah. And by the way, we talk about you all the time too. People are always like the decluttering sessions that you've done in our community and the workshops and stuff, it are phenomenal. So thank you. Thank you. Yeah. It's been what I love about your community. And so to fill you guys in, I come into Russ's community and I'll host full body body doubling dec clutter of sessions. And if you're not familiar with body doubling, I'll give you my example. I'd love to ask you too what your opinion is, but it's just this proven technique to support people, especially with A DHD to get through doing this. Stuff. So if you show up and you say you're gonna do something, there's something about it that helps you get the stuff done, even without someone twisting your arm or telling you that you have to do it. So we do these full decluttering sessions where we talk through letting go. We pick a space, even I'm decluttering at the same time and we're just talking through it. And I've met some incredible people in your community. So fun. They're so cool. I really like them. Yeah. Like it's just so fun to see. What all the A DHD people are doing. But yeah. What is, what's, tell me about body doubling in your opinion. Yeah I'll just say, yeah, it is a great collective of people in there, and those body doubling sessions have been awesome. I was late to the body doubling game, so I'll have to shout out Rivka because Rivka has been a community member for I think over a year now. after a while being in the community, she brought up Have you ever heard of creating a body double room that we could do that? That's always open. she had been a member of another community that did that. And she said there was a lot of benefit to it. And I was like it's really not for me. I don't, that's, I don't, I was so not into body doubling. Sure. As, and I wanna speak to this a little bit too,'cause about the idea that we as ADHDers, we will poo poh things. Because we can't see them working for us. Because, oh, we know us. I know me. That won't work for me. And so I was like, okay. But it's, it's a paid community. So if your customer, I guess right, if your community member is this would be a great thing to have, you're like, absolutely, let's go. I'll put it up. I probably won't use it'cause it's not for me, but I'll make one. And it is probably one of the favorite things in the community. I am in there every day. Oh, to explain the body doubling, I guess was the original question though was, the phrase that I always come to is I got it off of a research paper one time. I. That hills are never as steep when you walk them with a friend. And I think that's beautiful. I think that's a beautiful way to look at this. Yeah. And so we as ADHDers have a real hard time initiating tasks that suck, that are stupid. Yeah, for lack of a better word, they're dumb and, but they're important. We are wired for interest and so we, it's a real hard slog. So you go to these virtual rooms. Obviously if it was in person, it would probably be even easier to get done because you're both physically there and you're like what We said we're gonna work on this thing. So I guess and you're working side by side doesn't have to be the same thing. It's two people. Spending time in the same time working on something and just the fact that there's another body there, there's a psychological term for it. I don't, whatever. Yeah it's for all of us lay people, it's just try it, you know how you go to the gym and it's easier to do the workout when there's a personal trainer. Yeah. Like you pay for people, you're a nutritionist an organization expert. Seriously. Yeah. It's easier, like those declutter sessions, right? There's so many things that I would never do but having somebody there and just shooting the shit and talking while it's happening is super helpful. Here's a great example is, so we did a, a declutter session on our own a while ago. And it was, I think it was just me and Stephanie one of our community members. And while we were decluttering, she was doing something in her kitchen. I think maybe it was underneath the sink or something. And I was doing my spice rack and that cupboard. I just talked about this so much, but the emotional drain of. Seeing that I bought like a lot of garlic powder brings up all these triggers of oh my God, am I having dementia? Am I gonna be like my grandma? And am I losing my mind? If I was doing that work by myself, I would've sunk, it would've depressed me and I would've stopped. But I had Stephanie there on camera, we're both cleaning and going, oh my god, I'm the guy that gets eight garlic powders. And it was less of a blow. So it can really help lighten the load. Difficult tasks. Does that talk about body doubling enough? It's when you clone yourself speaking of cloning, I saw this trick the other day of. Have you seen so you're not on social media, but there's like this meme going around that's okay, give me your unhinged A DHD hacks and what would you do to get things done? And someone put in the comments like, I have an alter ego and I've named it, and that's. The ego, or that's the person that does all the shitty stuff. That's the person that does all the stuff that I don't wanna do. I was talking to one of my clients about it the other day. We were like, what would Frank do because he sounds boring. What would Frank do? And if your name is Frank, and if you're listening to, I'm sure you're not boring, but this particular Frank, all Franks are boring. Oh, Frank, almost a hundred percent positive. No. Okay. That's good to know. Get ready for your emails. N. And I don't like your podcast. Yeah. One star review. So body doubling has been incredible. It's, yeah. I did a body doubling session in my community the other day. I fixed my sliding glass door, my back door. So for an entire year I have been trying to push it and then like I have to struggle to get it to lock, to actually get the full door to lock. Guess how many minutes it took me to fix? It took me how many you thought it was gonna take? Probably five hours. I thought I was gonna have to hire someone, I thought for sure, something's wrong with this door to the point that it's warped, right? It literally took me watching a YouTube video while I was in the body doubling session and then getting a screwdriver, and I literally had to hold it up, screw it a couple times, and then it works perfectly. And my husband got home and I was like. I am a champion and I cannot wait to tell you how much of a champion I am, but it's things like that I wouldn't have taken the time to do it because it I figured out a way to work with it. And it's like clutter. It's all the stuff we don't wanna do. I, it comes back to people saying. Oh my gosh, that thing that I've been putting off for a year, it only took me five minutes to do. Yeah. But just knowing that isn't enough to get it done. It's not enough to get all the things done because Yeah, you've got all of those little micro tasks all over the place. There's so many things that need to get done. Totally. So tell us a little bit more about what you do in your community. After this recording, I'll be in the body double room in my community. We have an audio on one for decluttering. Cool. But then we also have audio off one where it's just now I gotta get my shit done. So you type in the chat. I'm doing this. in the community, in general, I think you gotta go back to like why I built the community. Yeah. Let me ask you that, right? Why did you build this community? Lemme phrase it like a David Letterman question. Really interested way. What's the origin story of this com? What do you call it, a Comm c Community. Yeah, group of people. It's, I in the coaching world is it's my answer to appointment amnesia, really. Coaching is great. So for people that can afford one-on-one coaching, it's great. It's awesome. You get really one-on-one direct attention. You get a thought partner and all that stuff. You don't get a guarantee that you're gonna do any of the work. not to toot my own horn, my sessions with people are very motivating. I get all, I get juiced up by it and they get juiced up so that by the time we leave, there's a commitment and there's I'm a on Tuesday and Thursday, I'm gonna do this, that, and that next thing. And it takes a while for people to get on the other end of A DHD got me again, A DHD got me again. And you're like, okay, great. Know we gotta get over that hurdle. Community is the answer for that forgetfulness that we have for that that feeling of like isolation of worthlessness that we have of I can't do anything. I'm a loser. And it attacks in a shame-free way. The remedial, the easy, all those things that we know that we can do on our own, but that we're not. I built a community based on, it was also on a, an addiction quit group that I was a part of years ago. Really getting over nicotine. Yeah. And we were, you just post every day. Nicotine, it was like, no matter what, one day at a time, right? No matter what, I'm not gonna chew today, come hell or high water, I'm not chewing. And then you go in and you just are like, I hate this. I'm mad. Everybody's a asshole. I, maybe I'm the asshole. It was like, together we are all going through this painful process and quitting, and I wanted that for A DHD and for getting shit done. So how can we, no matter what happens, what are we gonna commit to achieving today? And knowing that we're posting that to a group of fellow ADHDers, shame free. You can say, I'm gonna fold two pieces of articles of clothing today. Yeah. And that's it. And we gamify it with day streaks. And if you get to a hundred days, you're a school spaghetti master. And we have, we have people in our community. Stephanie, shout out to Stephanie, who's over a year in a row of doing every day like 400 days in a row. What of doing the thing that she said she was gonna do. Wow. Some days it's five things. I'm gonna do these five and some days it's like I got nothing in the tank. I'm going to read in my hammock today. That's my what I'm going to do. We can do this stuff. Like my mentor Dana Rayburn her catchphrase, it's not a catchphrase, it's the, we can do hard things. Yeah. And we make things hard that we know, are easy. So what is our A DHD way of doing what we perceive the normies doing? Super easy. Yeah. And I think. It is imperative, especially at first when we're trying to manage our A DHD that we do it in a community or we do it together. Yeah. And I think the proof is in the pudding on that. Like the proof is in the community, people that show up are doing shit. And here's another case in point the whole point of it all right, is to show up and publicly fail at the thing that we say we're gonna do. And know that I'm not gonna be judged. I said I was gonna do the dishes. I didn't do the dishes. I feel like a piece of shit. Am I a piece of shit? No, you're not. What got in the way. And it's like this group coaching of people saying, this is what I do. This is what you might think about doing. And it's people showing back up and saying, okay, gonna do the dishes today's the day I'm gonna do the dishes. Here's why I didn't do'em yesterday. I totally forgot, okay, how am I gonna remember? And it's literally a DHD coaching. Supremely low priced A DHD coaching for multiple people. It's a no brainer to me, but Oh, it's so cool. I just love what you're doing.'cause right now you're in your group, you're doing a 30 day decluttering challenge for the month of April. Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. Part of what makes the community awesome is A DHD people are super creative. Yeah. We are the best of coming up with cool shit. One member brought in a 30 day decluttering challenge. So every day it's like some, somebody's process. I don't know whose process it is, it's a PDF that she shared and cool. It's every day is a thing. So then you post and you're like, okay, today's day five. I'm clearing out my car, these are things I would never do. Like I, I have deleted all the apps on my phone. I have one page of apps, by the way. That's amazing. That's a flex. I have one page, zero games on my phone. That's crazy. Zero social media on my phone. Wow. And another part of that is Jen is a member of our community who's brilliant at. The graphics design work on this is brilliant. She created a game of to help us with our doom scrolling and so you get points for various things that you're doing that are anti doom scrolling. Cool. And it's I'm doing it for the points. I told my girlfriend, I was like, okay, I have Instagram I have Instagram on my phone just as a watcher. Because like my girlfriend shares recipe things with me. Should we make this for dinner? I deleted it. I'm like, I'm so sorry, but I need these points. Yeah. I'm meant to win the game. So I don't have, I get 750 points a day for this shit. I am sorry. We're gonna have to communicate in another way about rest. Yeah. We have to find a different way to connect. And I, yeah, I've been working on my own doom scrolling. I'm trying to figure out how to be off social media altogether. Yeah, I deleted Facebook and now it's just like. How do I communicate or get the information that I want and need and connect with people in a way that's not on social media and I've been longing for this for a really long time, so I think having a game is so brilliant because I've tried a lot of different apps. I really want them to work, but it's also like that intention behind it and really wanting it because then like when I am in a dysregulated state, I go straight from my phone. And to decompress, to numb out. But that's not necessarily the healthy way I wanna do it, so That's so freaking cool. When I first got diagnosed with A DHD, it wasn't until I started reading books about people who had a DHD and learning about their own lived experiences that I started to feel seen for the first time and started to feel, yeah. Understood in a way that I didn't have to prove myself and I didn't have to explain why I was late or why I couldn't remember people's birthdays or all of these different things. So yeah, getting in front of people with a DHD and knowing that they have the same brain as you just helps you feel like you don't have to prove yourself. Yeah, you can show up. Know that you have a lot of similar. Struggles so that you can get in front of it in a way that feels like you're not doing it alone. Because when you're doing it alone, oh man, it's isolating. It's so isolating. Big time. And don't you like I find this big time I wasn't diagnosed until I was 40. Yeah, and I'm 49 right now, but like in my thirties and stuff everything about me was, I gotta do this on my own. I'm a grown man and I can do right. And so everything was about isolating and cocooning and going, okay, I'm gonna just go away and I'm gonna transform on my own. And then I'll emerge this butterfly and people will see me and I'll be like, look, I got my shit together. Look at me. And it's never, it's like a gnarled butterfly with a half broken wing and you're like, oh shit, I gotta go back in the cocoon. This is the thing that community helps us with. It gets us on the other end of, you don't have to do it by yourself, and it's often not possible to do it by ourselves. Totally. I don't know if you could relate to this, but I have this thing where I have this amazing day where I've done everything. I've gotten so much done and then I'm like, I've figured it out I conquered my brain. I just need to do that day for all the rest of the days. And then I don't recreate it. And then I'm struggling to recreate this perfect day that I had and I'm not doing it. And, it's because that's the way that my brain works. And it's accepting that through understanding I'm gonna show up differently every single day based on, how I slept the night before, what's going on in my life, how my working memory is supporting me or not supporting me. There's so many things that go into it, but even just understanding or being reminded that it's not going to be. Perfect. Every single day like I used to during Covid or even not during Covid. Whenever I would have my kids home and I was working in the corporate world, I would be like, it's fine. I can work. I can work totally fine, and they can also be home. And I can do all the things. I literally tried to do this so many times, even working like building my business. I'm like, they, they'll be home, they'll be outside. Like I'll feed them and it'll be perfect because they'll see mom working and it's always hell, every time I'm like, maybe if I go about it differently, so I'm saying this to say. I think it's so good to see other people struggling too with those same things so that we can remind each other Hey, what if you came up with something realistic? What if your kids were home and you did take some time out of your day to actually spend time with them? And so then when you're sitting them in front of the TV for two hours while you're trying to get stuff done, you feel fine about it because you guys just went and did a nature walk for two hours. So Totally. It's like just understanding that there's balance that you can create. It's just sometimes we try to do it all, but when everything is important, nothing is important and can all fall to the wayside. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes those perspectives are hard to have when you're by yourself. Like when you don't have anybody to bounce that off of and you think everybody else seems to be doing things perfectly well and finding good, why am I not doing everything perfectly well and finding good all the time? And then by comparison, people say, not to compare yourself to other people, but that is how societies work. That's like how we are. Yeah. That's one of my biggest takeaways from some organizational psychology classes I was in was like, that's how people look around and go, how is everybody? Hey, behaving in our society? Yeah. How might I behave? And then they go, oh, so we. We just do shit. Okay. So we do the dishes we do laundry. These are responsibilities that we suck up and do. Why can't I do that? I guess I'm not a good member of our society or it's, we need to be around our own skull spaghetti people, our own brain people. Yeah. So that we can go, what's normal for us. Usually it's chaos and it's like I operate under high urgency. Then we as a group go, okay, we need to do these things that these normies are doing apparently really easy. What's our way to do that without feeling like we're idiots about it? I'm gonna go on passionate tangents and it's always gonna come back to fucking laundry mag. Yeah. I work on decluttering and organizing and some people are like, I really wanna, like, how do you do your laundry? And I'm like. My, my husband does all of it. So I, you delegate, delegate. So that's he's a champion and that's the job he's taken. So I don't have to do it. So wow. I don't know. I highly recommend it. It's amazing. but you know, the comparison thing.'cause I was thinking about that literally yesterday. So I love that you brought it up because I do think that age old phrase, comparison is the thief of joy. Yes. In some cases, right? It's the thief of joy. When you are just starting a business and you look at someone who's had a business for 10 years and then you start to shame yourself because you're not where they are. Duh. Obviously you're not where they are because they have done so much more behind the scenes. It has taken them years to get to where they are now. But it is amazing to start to compare yourself, to understand how other people operate and what you could do to get where you want to go and to start to say, okay. If they did it this way, I wonder how I could make that fit into my life. Because I think when it comes to comparison, even just reading self-help books or understanding how to get stuff done, no matter what, it's never gonna look the same for you. It's never going to be like, oh, I followed these instructions perfectly and now it's working. No, it's, I've followed these instructions the way I would see them working and it either works or it doesn't, I think the comparison is It is important to see what other people are doing.'cause that's how we learn, that's how we learn how to react to people. That's how we learn what's funny and what's not funny, right? It's how we learn what the societal norms are. It's natural to see what other people are doing. And to say, okay, how do I fit in there? But. With a DHD, it's different. And so you've gotta understand that the way that you're going to operate in this world is going to be different. And there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah. It's just about, you gotta find other people that are doing it your way too. Yeah, because then it feels better. I have this my history comes there. There's a lot of I'm not good enough, and there's self-loathing that comes with that. And it's almost like that, the reticular activator thing, right? Where if I'm thinking a certain way, you know that thing where you're like, oh, if you're, I'm gonna buy a Volkswagen bug. And so then you just start seeing them everywhere. Yes. Yeah it's like that, but for like proof that I'm a piece of garbage, right? That self-loathing I am coming from a place of self-loathing, so I'm always looking for data. Not me personally. I'm not trying to look for it, but my brain will be like, oh, look at all these reasons why you're not like that person.'cause they're better than you. You're not like that person. They're more successful than you. So here you wanted to proof that you're no good. The brain is just doing its job. I'm like, oh God, brain shut off. But it's coming back to that manifestation thing is like thoughts become things. Yes. What you think about it stems from your beliefs. And if you genuinely believe that you can't do a certain thing, like what you said earlier too, you're like, that's not gonna work for me. You've already decided I can't do things. I believe I can't do something like that, and so therefore I'm gonna decide already that's never gonna work for me. But because you already think this about yourself, you do, you look for the evidence. But I think that's what's cool about working in a DHD groups is that you then start to understand that you can do this. I did a podcast interview this morning and she was like what's one of the coolest things about The mindset shift that you see when you're coaching someone and I'm like, oh. When they finally start to believe that they can actually do it. Oh, it's so cool. It's just like the seeing it inside themselves and then there's regression, right? They go back and they're like, oh, maybe I can't, but yeah, I can, but maybe I can't. But yes, I absolutely can. It's like that internal battle of getting to this other side. But when you finally realize you can do it, you start to see the evidence more and more. It's look for the butterflies. Have you ever heard of that phrase? I probably brought it up before, but when you are intentional about like looking for something specific hey, I tell me how many butterflies you see this week. Now you're gonna be looking for the butterflies. Whereas right, in most of your life, you're just gonna go along and maybe look for the assholes because you believe that most people are assholes, right? But intentionally looking for the good. Look for the helpers, look for the people that are smiling. My gosh, like when you put your intentions into that, you're gonna find that and you're gonna see the evidence all around you. And it's beautiful. It's really neat. You made me think of a challenge for the community. Let's bring this back to community. Let's, yeah. So if there's a challenge, right? This is how my brain works. I turn everything into a game. Yeah. And to be like, okay, what's the competition? The game is that you all agree on something positive that you're gonna look at for the week. So then it's top of mind every day in the daily accountability, right? And then you go, okay, so I'm gonna look for, what are my butterflies? The challenge would be looking for the butterflies or something like that, right? Yeah, totally. You spend an entire week going, how many kind people can you get in touch with or can you meet? Or how many people can you get to smile like in, in a week or something like that? And then you tally it, so you're always like, I got three more today. And now you're actually going after it, right? Not because you're going after a smile, but because you're going after a number in a game that you're playing with somebody else. That's a great idea. I love it. Can I call it the Megs butterfly challenge? I would be honored. I think people will eat that up in the community. They, that challenges are awesome. They're great. And. It's just about when you start to reframe things in the way that you wanna see them. I'll give you an example of like real life. So we had this interview this morning and I had this great idea. I was like, what if we had a bunch of people watching our interview? Wouldn't that be so cool? And then we could field questions from the audience. I sent out one email to my community and was like, let's do this. Guess what? Nobody read that or saw it or did anything with it. And so initially they're like not interested in that Russ guy. He curses too much and I don't think he takes life serious. Exactly. Wow. That's actually what people told me in their brain. initially I was coming into this meeting, I'm like. Russ is probably gonna be so disappointed in me. Like I said, I had this great idea you probably didn't even remember. But like I'm creating this story about what it was. But the truth of the matter, the facts of the matter is that I wanted to do this. I didn't have a plan. I executed one email and we know Yeah. That we need lots of reminders and lots of support and lots of things telling us when something's happening in order to make room for it. Yeah. Also, people are busy. And therefore it didn't work out in the way that I originally wanted it to. So instead of shaming myself, I looked for what could I do differently next time? There's a whole bunch of things I could do differently next time. Yep. And like ultimately, we're still having this really cool interview that people are gonna listen to. And it's gonna be awesome And sorry you missed my one email everyone I think it's just about reframing the way that we see ourselves and being allowed to do that. It comes back from the way we saw ourselves our whole lives. I know I've always been so used to putting myself down and it wasn't until the last five years that I've really worked on building myself up instead. Oh, that's rad. Yeah, kick ass. I think a lot of these things too, the, in our business is trial and error. Yeah. We get great ideas all the time. I'm like, this would be super awesome. Wouldn't it be fun? And then it's like crickets. And you're like, oh, historically this was me 10 years ago. Because I've done this plenty. I'm not even saying this is about this today's event. Yeah. I've done so many things where I'm the only one that showed up. And I'm by myself going, do I keep recording? Am I guess I'm just gonna start talking about seaweed But like you learn from those things. Yeah. And like at the core is something important. Yeah. So I have a friend of mine, she's like, it's just collecting data. You're just collecting data on the stuff you're doing. And it really that's really what it comes down to. So tell us more about like, how people can join your community, what that looks like. Give us all the deets. Oh, here's the dates. By joining, by Jan, Oh yeah. Radio host. Absolutely. Radio pause for commercial. Are you down in the dumps? Do you, having trouble getting started. Why don't you look into the ADHD Big Brother? it's a really easy process to join. It's, you join, you get onboarded. There's a few videos.'cause when you join a community, you want to know what's the culture, how does it work? What are the rituals? How do you even use the platform? And so you're on circle now, right? Community. So come on, let's go Circle is the platform that we use. It's super awesome and when you join, you go through the onboarding videos to tell you how to do it. And then at the end I give you a checklist of a couple things to do, post a win. It explains the spaces right, and how you can get along. And then I do a free coaching call with everybody once they're done onboarding. So just to get FaceTime, I want to meet you. I want to know who the hell you are. Yeah. And then I want to be there to be like, oh, if you're struggling, like this is my particular A DHD hurdle, I'll give you like that coaching start to be like, try this space. Try the, where does it hurt space. We have spaces that are designed to be like, oh, you have trouble getting started. Here's all the webinars that we've done on that. Here's the posts, here's some strategies. Here's where in the community you can take action on that. Like the organization we have your, the in, in the organization space, the Megs. Declutter sessions, Meg's webinar. And then do you have a whole space in your community dedicated to me? I should change the name to Meg's organization Center. That's so cool. All the stuff is cool. My community is not built. For Hey, let's just all talk about how hard life is and let's just be relatable to each other. That's intrinsic. That happens. You're going to get that. But it's like you can join a Facebook group. You can join free places all over the place to be like, Hey isn't this funny? Or isn't this hard? My community is made for the doing of the work. So the thing where you've done all the research you've you're in therapy, you're going to an A DHD coach, but you're not doing the work. You're not doing the work of the book, you're not doing the work of your therapist, you're not doing the work of your A DHD coach. We have a platform built to make it as easy as possible to do the work, and we will help hold you accountable, which is glorious. That's so cool. Yeah. You even have a spot for accountability buddies, right? Yes. This is what it's all about. We have an accountability buddy space where you can put on a Google sheet your name, the kind of accountability you're looking for, and then other people will another member will join, and then I call it a 30 day relationship, I think is good. Yeah. then I give you methodologies questions to ask each other on your accountability sessions. And then we have a public meeting room that you can book out for free to have your Zoom meetings if you don't have it on your own. Oh. That way. And I like, cool. 30 days is good, right?'cause if it's a shitty relationship, you're like, I don't like this person. And then you're like, okay, that's fine. Cool. Your 30 days is up and then move on, or whatever. Yeah. That the accountability it is everything. Yeah. External accountability. If I share with your audience one thing that I think is imperative in getting your shit together with a DHD, it's externalizing your accountability. If at first, get rid of the mentality that. I gotta be able to do this on my own. I, we all know you can do it on your own. I can do laundry on my own and the dishes on my own, but if I'm not doing it, then something is missing. Get with a buddy, this is literally the magical elixir of ADHD. That's that's everyone's missing. Oh no. I'm sure there's a book out there I can read. There's a book out there that's gonna solve everything and everything's gonna click, and then I'm gonna be able to move forward. I love the body double room. I love knowing that I'm slogging through something and somebody else is getting their work done, and I get to be a part of their success. There's something magical about that. So I like giving up the idea that maybe I can do the laundry on my own. But I do think that a lot of people aspire to try to do it on their own and they think that they should have to do it on their own. And asking for help is a negative thing sometimes. But it's not, in fact, asking for help and removing the barriers. Like I know when my husband helps me do something, like if he just does one step of it, I can do the rest so much easier. Even like my personal assistant, like when she does one thing, I'm able to do all the rest of it because she has removed a barrier for me. She has removed one of the steps from me having to accomplish it and just being in a room full of people removes the step of actually getting yourself to the job. That's the barrier. You are now in it like you are facing me uncomfortable with everyone else, but you're uncomfortable together instead of having to do it on your own. So that's awesome. Yeah, it's really freaking cool. I'm so pumped about your community. I think it's amazing. It's award-winning and yes, on engagement heck yeah. That's so legit. And so if you're ready to join, I'm gonna put everything in the show notes below so that you can come check out Russ and see what he has to offer. To see what you've been able to create and the people that are in the community, like what an incredible space for people to go and get things done and to ask questions and to feel normal. It's just, it's it's really cool what you've done. And I'm really proud of you. Thanks. Thanks. Yeah. If people don't know or they want talk before about the community you can put the Calendly link for a 30 minute call. Oh, cool. And I'll just shoot the shit with people. Everybody on the planet gets one free 30 minute call if they want to just. Talk. And it doesn't have to be about coaching, I'm happy to, I'll talk all day long about this community. I love that. That's really cool that you offer that. Thanks Megs thanks for being here, Russ.

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Wasn't that so awesome? I love the passion with which Russ talks about his community. He has been building it and like the people he's talking about, I know them. They're so cool. There's incredible humans in there, and it's just so fun to see all of these incredible A DHD brains out there thriving and figuring out how to do the stuff that is mundane is not fun. So to join Russ's community, just go to the show notes below, or go to adhd big brother.com and you can join his community there. I know he also has a ton of really cool stuff like free events if you're not ready to join yet, but you can see what it's all about. So you can get an idea if this is the space for you. Also, I have a message for Janine who left me a podcast review back on April 6th. You had me cracking up. So here's the review. I like listening to this podcast while cleaning and doing laundry. The information is helpful and not just for a DHD. The in the interviews and topics are excellent. That said, for the sake of all that is good in the world, please edit the volume so that the cutaways for the reviews are not screaming into my ears. Okay. Fair enough. I had no idea. So thank you so much. I was laughing because. The art with which you wrote, that was beautiful. And I heard you loud and clear even though you didn't actually say it out loud. And I immediately took it out because I didn't know how to edit for volume. So while I'm incredible at organizing, I'm still learning this whole podcast thing and all of the video editing and sound editing stuff. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. If you guys have feedback, please share it with me. I am a solo woman over here doing my thing. I do have a business support manager who helps me with marketing and I have a bookkeeper, but other than that, it's mostly me over here. So if you have feedback, let me know. And if it's positive feedback and and you do want to share a review, please do. Otherwise, you can just email me or go get the dopamine menu and put your feedback in the request for the dopamine menu. That's easy too. Super quick announcement about the community. I am transitioning over to Circle, which is so A DHD Friendly. That's where the A DHD Big Brother is housed, and it's just really awesome. I'm so excited to be moving my community over there. That said, if you decide to join my community before May 2nd, you'll still get the community price of$27 a month. And actually when we move the community over to circle, you'll get grandfathered into that price. So anyone in the community right now, we'll just keep that price forever because why not? That's really cool. Then I am going to be launching the New Circle community on May 15th, so stay tuned for that. I'll be sharing a bunch of information on my email list, so when you sign up for the dopamine menu, just check, subscribe, and I'll just keep you in the loop. I try not to be annoying, but if it's not for you, just on subscribe. Super easy. And right now for the month of May, I only have two coaching spots available. So if you are interested and you're ready to get started, just book a call in the show notes below, and I can't wait to talk to you on that note. Have an incredible week and thank you again for your patience this week.