Yeah, the book

came out in January.

The baby came out in February.

Um, and now, uh, now I've, I've got a paperback version of the book that just came out yesterday, the day before yesterday.

What is time? Um, September 29th.

I think that was two days ago.

Uh, so the paperback version is out now, which is so funny because it feels like an absolute lifetime ago that I wrote this and I'm like, this is a pretty cool book.

But

He's like, oh, this new system is perfect.

Right? I will never struggle again.

Cut to, I'm bored of this system.

Or my life changed and that system no longer works.

That was another thing.

And I'm talking about that in my next book.

You design systems that work for you.

Yeah, especially if you've got like a lexostomy or something where you're just like, oh, yeah, I didn't realize this is how emotions were supposed to feel.

And, um, so tell me a bit about the community behind you.

It's been really cool.

I, I started out, um, making these videos for myself.

I did make them public in case they were helpful for anybody else, and at first I was like, okay, maybe every once in a while, like, somebody who also had a di- an ADHD diagnosis for forever and doesn't really understand how their brain works, like, will find it and it will be helpful for them.

And it was.

It was helpful for people, but it was also helpful for people who didn't even know they had ADHD because the algorithm, I guess, would serve them my videos and they'd be like, "Huh.

Oh, huh.

So how do you personally cope when that happens?

Not saying people should take it, but I'm saying for me, it's awesome, but I- the creative that I need on a moment-to-moment basis is gone.

Okay, so couple things.

So one, there is some research that divergent thinking isn't negatively impacted by meds.

We need more research, but it's not that the divergent thinking is impacted.

It's you get used to your brain working a certain way and coming up with lots of ideas and then bouncing from idea to idea i- to idea if you have ADHD, and while we're great at divergent think- thinking, we're not any better at convergent thinking, which is the ability to narrow our ideas down.

Meds do help with that.

Meds help with focus.

What, and what, I mean, I'm sure a lot, but, like, what, what were the things, what are the steps that you took outside of the medication that helped you understand how to load the paper?

Do you feel like there's more talk about it in the last couple years?

Oh, there's definitely more talk about it, and there's a number of reasons for that.

Um, there's a lot more talk about mental health in general the last couple years 'cause people who were maybe skating by or could maybe [laughs] cope w- were, were doing so.

Like, maybe they were barely above water, but they were still, like, managing to be above water.

And then COVID hit and, you know, maybe there's a parent who suddenly they're having to homeschool their kids and work from home.

Everything's changed all at once.

It's, it's too much demand on their executive function.

Mm-hmm.