The Hidden Ways to Focus, Stop Spiraling, & Build Wealth: ADHD Doctor Sasha Hamdani

Board-certified psychiatrist and ADHD specialist Dr. Sasha Hamdani (@thepsychdoctormd) joins Hot Smart Rich to breakdown adult ADHD, neurodiversity, and how to build wealth with ADHD. In this episode, Dr. Sasha Hamdani and host Maggie Sellers Reum discuss the hidden signs of ADHD in women, why adult ADHD diagnosis is so common, and how to stop paying the costly ADHD tax. Dr. Sasha shares her personal journey with emotional regulation, rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD), and how losing her father reshaped her clinical work on grief, trauma, and mental health. They also reveal why traditional ADHD medication is only part of the solution for ADHD entrepreneurs, how neurodivergent founders can leverage hyperfocus for business growth, and why hiring employees with ADHD is a secret tool. Plus, Dr. Sasha shares actionable ADHD relationship advice, explaining why dating with ADHD feels overwhelming, how dopamine chasing impacts romantic relationships, and when it’s time to stay or walk away from a partner. Get unselfish access to insights that will help you own the room. Sign up now https://linkly.link/2jPXJ ⸻ Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (02:28) Understanding Your Brain (05:17) The Pros & Cons of ADHD (07:05) What Is ADHD? (08:02) Are We Overdiagnosing ADHD? (09:27) ADHD in Women vs. Men (10:11) The Biggest ADHD Myths (11:30) Maggie’s ADHD Experience (12:58) Dr. Sasha’s ADHD Theory (16:35) Why People Spiral (18:01) Inside Dr. Sasha’s Book (18:40) How to Stop an ADHD Thought Spiral (20:01) SoFi Ad (21:14) Eight Sleep Ad (22:44) Why Brains Get Overwhelmed (24:43) High Functioning v High Achieving (29:39) Comparing Maggie & Dr. Sasha’s ADHD (30:45) Fidgeting & Self-Stimulation (31:47) Entrepreneurship with ADHD (32:48) How to Get Motivated (35:04) How ADHD Impacts Money (37:10) The Hidden ADHD Tax (38:56) Can AI Help People With ADHD? (41:10) Bilt Ad (42:17) Alya Health Ad (43:27) The Truth About ADHD Medication (46:25) How ADHD Affects Relationships (49:57) ADHD Relationship Struggles (51:26) Can You Change Your ADHD? (53:48) How to Take Care of Your Brain (56:22) Dr. Sasha’s Current Hyperfixation (57:21) Rapid Fire ⸻ Sponsors: SoFi - check out SoFi Home Equity Loans at SoFi.com/HSR Eight Sleep - https://www.eightsleep.com/hsr and use code HSR for $200 off Bilt - Sign up at http://Joinbilt.com/HSR Alya - https://alyahealth.com/s/hsr and use code HSR for 20% off ⸻ Hot Smart Rich: Your Business & Culture Gossip For ambitious women wanting to own the room, gain power, and build wealth. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hotsmartrich/ Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@hotsmartrich Maggie Sellers Reum: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maggiesellersreum/ Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@maggiesellersreum LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sellersmaggie/ Locker: https://www.wantlocker.com/users/maggiesellers ShopMy: https://shopmy.us/maggiesellers Amazon Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/maggiesellers/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Maggie Sellers Reum?

  If you're starting a business, there are certain things that are so fun to think about. Y'all know I love a mood board. So everything that relates to the creative, the name, the brand, the website, the vision board. But then there are the things that make you pause and ask, am I even doing this correctly? Or do I even want to be doing this? Like forming your business, getting the right documents, keeping your personal information private. This is where our sponsor Northwest Registered Agent is so helpful. They're a one stop shop for founders who want to launch and legitimize their business without turning it into a giant admin spiral. They help you form an LLC or a corporation, act as your registered agent, and give you tools like a business address, operating agreement, website, phone number, professional email, and free guides.

• 0:43Maggie Sellers Reum?

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• 1:06Speaker 01

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• 1:33Maggie Sellers Reum?

  I lost my diamond ring because I was fidgeting. It fell through the picnic table, fell through the wooden floor. My whole life, my family, and like, stop fidgeting. You're gonna lose something. Give us a $3,500 diamond ring. That is like the ADHD tax.

• 1:48Speaker 02

  I'm a psychiatrist. I literally have studied ADHD. And by the end of this conversation, you're gonna have a better understanding of your brain to help you become hotter, smarter, and richer.

• 1:59Maggie Sellers Reum?

  I get overwhelmed extremely easily. And my sister knows that I will literally fire off 50 text messages that look like there is a real emergency. But it's so hard when you're in that to actually stop the spiral.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, our vibes are similar. And it's something that you can see a lot in people that are entrepreneurs. They're taking those chances, high risk, high reward.

• 2:19Maggie Sellers Reum?

  What are some telltale signs that someone is struggling with ADHD and doesn't even know it?

• 2:24Speaker 02

  But you have to understand that you're wired to process emotional data differently. And I don't think it's always a deficit. Sometimes people can dive into something and get done with a tremendous amount of work in a small amount of time.

• 2:36Maggie Sellers Reum?

  I just saw a headline that said only two kinds of people succeed in the AI era. Trade workers or the neurodivergent. But what are things that every single person can do that might not even have ADHD to maintain the healthiest brain possible?

• 2:50Speaker 02

  Number one.

• 2:53Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Hi, angels. Did you know that subscribing to our channel is free? It doesn't cost you anything. And it is the simplest way for you to support Hot, Smart, Rich and help us grow so that we can bring you more of the conversations you love. Just hit the subscribe button below and thank you.

• 3:13Maggie Sellers Reum?

  In case you missed it, you're allowed to be hot, smart, and rich. So let's get into it.

• 3:24Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Dr. Sasha Hamdani. Are you ready to get hot, smart, rich? Yes. That was very exciting. Are you excited to be here?

• 3:30Speaker 02

  I'm always excited about these things, but especially this one.

• 3:34Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Oh, my gosh. Well, thank you so much. If someone's just clicked into this conversation, they don't know what to expect, what would you tell them to get them to stay?

• 3:42Speaker 02

  By the end of this conversation, you're gonna have a better understanding of your brain. And that is going to help you become hotter, smarter, and richer.

• 3:51Maggie Sellers Reum?

  And I want to make a promise to my community that says if they listen to the episode in full, they will also be more productive, save time, and be their most authentic self because they will understand their brain. And I wanted to start with a little personal story because I am diagnosed ADHD dyslexic. And I don't think I even fully understand my brain.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:18Maggie Sellers Reum?

  And I'm 34 years old. Why do you think there is such a disconnect between something that literally runs our entire body and our knowledge or lack thereof in the world today?

• 4:30Speaker 02

  I think it's confusing, right? Because like, when you're in your own brain and all of this stuff is happening, it's really hard to decipher. It's not like you're seeing someone else's behavior and you're like, this is what's going on and I could tell what things are impacting it. When it's your own brain, it's so complicated and difficult. I'm a psychiatrist. I literally have studied the brain. And sometimes I'm like, am I sad? Am I hungry? Like, what, what am I feeling? So it's hard to decipher yourself. But I also think that we haven't, as a society, been given the tools to be able to educate ourselves about our own internal environment and about our own emotions and about our own brain functioning.

• 5:10Maggie Sellers Reum?

  I also would say that I grew up thinking that there was something wrong with me when I was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia. I even had family members that would say things like, it is a crutch. You are completely fine. What are you talking about? You're just disruptive. You don't have an attention span. You're not applying yourself. And I have come to realize that it is a strength of mine. And I was about to use the word superpower.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  Hate it.

• 5:34Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Let's talk about that because I heard that you hate calling it a superpower.

• 5:37Speaker 02

  I really hate it. Okay, so I'll couch that with saying that I understand why people view it as a superpower. And I actually am a little bit jealous about that because I wish that I could view it as simply as a superpower. But for me, I've had times where I've really struggled with ADHD. And because I've treated ADHD for as long as I have, I've seen other people who really struggle with it. And so it seems like when we just kind of like view it as a superpower, it diminishes the people who are really struggling because it's like, this isn't how it is all the time. And so I know that there's a positive reframe to it. And I think that part can be wonderful if you can access it. But for me, I've always viewed ADHD as kind of this, just under a realistic lens.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  There's some things that maybe aren't so great. And there's some things that are actually wonderful. There's a lot of stuff in my life that I've gotten because of my ADHD. So it just kind of depends. I think a more neutral approach is better. Because like, when you look at it as a superpower, it's kind of like you have the ability to fly, but you also can't choose when and where you fly. So that doesn't seem like, I wish I had a little bit more agency. I don't want to be like blasting off in the middle of a sentence.

• 6:49Maggie Sellers Reum?

  When you talk about some of the benefits of having ADHD, what are those?

• 6:54Speaker 02

  Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. I don't think it's always a deficit. I think for sometimes people who have ADHD, they can dive into something, especially if it's interesting or if it's new or if there's urgency. They can get done with a tremendous amount of work in a small amount of time. I remember being in high school and I could do like a summer's worth of like work in like three days because it would be interesting to me or because I would like what I was doing. I also think that people with ADHD have the capacity to be very empathetic, very creative, have the ability to think outside the box. I think that all of those things together make ADHD really an incredible asset at times. And it's something that you can see a lot

• 7:39Speaker 02

  in people that are entrepreneurs and who build stuff from the ground up. They, they're taking those chances, high risk, high reward things. And it works out.

• 7:47Maggie Sellers Reum?

  You said that you've seen some people really struggle with ADHD. What are some telltale signs that someone is struggling with ADHD and doesn't even know it?

• 7:54Speaker 02

  In like a work or a professional kind of capacity, you might notice that they're having difficulty keeping up with the workload or getting chronically overwhelmed, procrastinating so much that it becomes this problem and it gets delegated to other people and they lose out opportunities because of that. You could see it in a relationship capacity where they feel like because they're incredibly rejection sensitive or because they are having difficulty managing all the tasks and roles of being in a relationship, that sometimes they come off as thoughtless and that causes conflict. And then they can't handle conflict well. You could see it in regards to things like parenting and relationships like that. Like, there's a huge executive load that happens. Not only are you taking care of your brain,

• 8:38Speaker 02

  you're taking care of younger people's brains. And for a lot of us, we're also taking care of that generation above us. So now you're caretaking for your parents where previously you never had that job. So you're having to tend to different types of needs. So there's, there's a lot that, that people could struggle with.

• 8:55Maggie Sellers Reum?

  For someone that's listening to this that doesn't even fully understand what ADHD is, how would you break that down in the simplest form?

• 9:03Speaker 02

  ADHD is a regulation disorder. So we focus really heavily. ADHD stands for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. And we focus really heavily on the attention component, but it's so much more than that. Yes, attention is absolutely a part of it. It's a big part of it. But you also deal with dysregulation of motivation, of energy, of... Sleep, of emotions, of appetite. So there are many different things being dysregulated at the same time. So when you look at ADHD comprehensively, that's when you get the best picture.

• 9:35Maggie Sellers Reum?

  I grew up and not, I didn't know a single other person that had ADHD. So I don't think I've ever said this, but like I had to write exams in rooms by myself. So I was singled out. I remember having to go and write my exams there and I was given extra time and I didn't really understand it and I didn't really have anyone to talk to about it.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:54Maggie Sellers Reum?

  But now I feel like I can't scroll social media without seeing multiple people talk about their ADHD. Are people getting diagnosed with ADHD at a completely rapid rate? Or are we developing ADHD because of the world that we live in?

• 10:10Speaker 02

  We are just getting better at picking it up. If you look at the average age of diagnosis, for males, it's six to eight. For females, it's mid 30s. Like, we just weren't catching these people. So now, I think really during the pandemic shutdown, I think truly that's when things really started coming up more. Everybody had to be by themselves, so they were socially isolating and then they were on their phones. And that's when you started to have conversations about your internal environment and information was kind of shared. And then ADHD as a diagnosis just kind of exploded because people were curious and talking and they were like, that sounds like me and this looks like me. And it's entered the conversation more. Physicians are better equipped to diagnose it.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  And so we're just, it's like saying, are there more stars in the sky? It's like, no, we got better telescopes.

• 11:00Maggie Sellers Reum?

  What is the biggest difference between men and women and ADHD?

• 11:03Speaker 02

  Men, historically, they present more as this hyperactive, impulsive type. And for women, they're more the inattentive, daydreamer type. So, boys and men, typically you're going to see more observable behavior, more disruptive behavior. Women typically don't present that way, but that's not, not to say that they can't. I did. I was very disruptive.

• 11:24Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Both of us were like that.

• 11:25Speaker 02

  We were both disruptive.

• 11:26Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Like, I remember exactly, word for word, the guidance counselor in my school was like, you act like a boy at school. And I was like, and why is that bad?

• 11:34Speaker 02

  My parents were so concerned. They're like, you are, because like, and they would say tomboy.

• 11:40Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Tomboy, that's what I always got too.

• 11:42Speaker 02

  You're a tomboy. And I was like, oh, okay.

• 11:45Maggie Sellers Reum?

  What are the pieces of misinformation that are just completely untrue as it relates to ADHD?

• 11:50Speaker 02

  One of them is that you grow out of ADHD. So I think people, and that was like the party line, that only kids have ADHD. And I think that was really a confusing thing for clinicians for a long time, because then you, you know, an adult would present, well, maybe didn't have access, like for cultural reasons or financial reasons or whatever, they never got picked up. And so they present as an adult and physicians would be like, no, that's only in kids. That, like, that was our understanding for a long time. So you can absolutely have it in adulthood. Generally, it has started in childhood and at that point it just got missed. So you have to go back and look at patterns. A misconception that was around for a long time is that only boys have it. That's another one.

• 12:32Speaker 02

  And that's, that's weird because I feel like my clinical load is so female-driven. I see so many women. And I know when I was growing up and I got diagnosed, I, I truly thought it was only boys. Another one is that the only way you treat ADHD is with medication. False. I think a lot of people, actually that detracts them from getting diagnosed because they're like, well, I don't want to be on medication. You can use behavioral strategies and you can work with optimization strategies to help ADHD, for sure.

• 13:04Maggie Sellers Reum?

  When I was doing research on you and you started connecting dots between it being a regulation disorder, which is not something that most practitioners are talking about, talking about even the way we take criticism, the way that we deal with sleep, with appetite, with all of these things, like so many things started connecting for me. So I want to just paint people my story with ADHD because I think that might help people. I, in grade four, was pulled into the guidance counselor's office and they were like, there is something we're going to talk to your parents about. They went straight to me right away, which was bizarre. They then go to my parents and was met with a little bit of hesitation, for sure, because it wasn't common back then.

• 13:47Maggie Sellers Reum?

  And then I took medication from grade 10 until 2024, every single day. And nobody ever sat me down and explained what this was. No one ever explained why I was actually very hyperactive, why I was very distracting in school to people, why I had so much potential. And I don't think that to this day, I fully understood anything about what else was going on in my body until I read your book and literally read the research about you. So I'm hoping that people can really take that away in this conversation to truly understand this is not just about what's going on in your brain. There are so many other aspects to your body that this relates to.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 14:31Maggie Sellers Reum?

  How did that become your thesis?

• 14:33Speaker 02

  Because so many people are getting missed. I mean, you see it over and over and over again and you look at ADHD as a whole, women specifically, they're coming in their mid 30s, they've had a kid possibly, the kid's been diagnosed, they're like, this sounds exactly like me. They go to the doctor and the doctor is like, no, that you would have been picked up already. It can't be you. Put things in perspective, in 2019, Europe changed their criteria for ADHD to include emotional regulation. So like, everybody else is kind of on board. I think the US is kind of behind on that. I don't think, I know the US is behind on that. In terms of, of the book, I started thinking about that because my dad got sick in 2024 and then eventually passed and it was like this.

• 15:17Maggie Sellers Reum?

  So sorry.

• 15:17Speaker 02

  Thank you. It, it was this, you know, he was diagnosed with stage one lung cancer, we did all this stuff and then, you know, we go for, he's like, I don't feel well. We go and get scanned again. It was everywhere. He died 13 days later. It was the first time that I was like, my emotional status directly impacts my functional status. So if I can't handle something emotionally, I am not able to do all the other things that I could do. Like, for focus in general, and if you're the same way, I can find a way to delegate or I can hack my way around it or I can do that. But if there's an emotional component to what I'm going through, it takes up my entire brain. I can't move past that. And so I think that's when I really started looking at emotional sensitivity and emotional

• 16:01Speaker 02

  regulation and really pushing that forward.

• 16:03Maggie Sellers Reum?

  So do ADHD people not have the ability to regulate their emotions?

• 16:07Speaker 02

  I think they struggle with it significantly.

• 16:09Maggie Sellers Reum?

  And what does that mean?

• 16:10Speaker 02

  So the way that I kind of looked, because when I was doing this research initially, I was like, what is emotional dysregulation? What is emotional sensitivity? What are all those things? I think when you look at emotional processing, you look at neurologically, how someone is processing their emotions and it comes on a spectrum. If the middle of the spectrum is, you know, something emotional happens, your mood goes up, your mood goes down, and then you kind of move past it. On one side of the spectrum is like apathy or feeling emotionally numb. Something emotional happens, you don't really go up or down either way. And then on the other end of the spectrum, which is like where I hang out, something emotional happens and I feel things quickly and intensely and for a long time.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  And it's like my entire nervous system is on fire because I'm processing this and dumping out alarm chemicals. And that is kind of the phenomenon that I was like, we need to look into that because for so long I've been told I was too sensitive or I need to get over things or it's not that big of a deal. But I was like, there, there's something to it because I'm too limited by it. So I, and then when you actually look at the brain and you look at the research, quite literally, those people are wired to process emotion differently.

• 17:25Maggie Sellers Reum?

  And is this where you said you can't focus on anything else, so you start to spiral?

• 17:30Speaker 02

  Yes, all the time. I talk about a concept called rejection-sensitive dysphoria. It's your body's response, it's this very robust emotional response to real or perceived rejection, criticism, disappointment. So you feel like something is going to happen, I'm going to get in trouble. And your brain just starts spinning out of control. You start sending out these alarm chemicals and it's really difficult to start to gather yourself and allow that logical part of your brain to step in. So you're just kind of spiraling way more than the average person would. And that, that becomes really problematic when you have to do stuff.

• 18:08Maggie Sellers Reum?

  I am horrible at that. And my sister, who's my business partner, knows that like I will literally fire off like 50 text messages that look like there is a real emergency or that I'm in panic.

• 18:22Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 18:22Maggie Sellers Reum?

  And she kind of now actually says that it's best for me to go through the spiral and not take her with me in it. But it's so hard when you're in that to actually stop the spiral. Why do ADHD people spiral like that?

• 18:39Speaker 02

  There's so many reasons. But if you go back to neuroanatomy, there are two parts of the brain you really have to think about. Number one is the amygdala, which is this little almond-shaped structure, which is the threat detector in your brain. So when you're like, I'm in a panic, this is a little bit more hyper-responsive. Your brain is like, everything's dangerous. We're scared about everything. Spin, spin, spin, spin, spin. Second part of the brain you think about is your prefrontal cortex, in charge of judgment and decision-making and processing. And it's just like that logical part of your brain. That's underreactive. And then the connection between the two is weak. So now you have this hyperreactive emotional side, underreactive logical side, so this is going to spin every time.

• 19:23Maggie Sellers Reum?

  What are some other very clear signs that someone is suffering from this condition that would be logical to the average person, but to an ADHD person are going to give them panic?

• 19:34Speaker 02

  Okay, I'll get, literally?

• 19:37Speaker 02

  Embracing your own path without comparison. Every time my parents talk about my cousin's accomplishments, I feel like I shrink. No matter what I do, I'll never be enough. Staying present versus sabotaging the relationship before they can leave. Sometimes I get scared they're gonna leave me, so I push them away first, so it's on my terms. It's another one. It's a party favorite in my twenties. Recognizing your value even when it's overlooked. When someone doesn't acknowledge my effort or forgets to include me, I start spiraling. I feel invisible, and then I feel ridiculous for caring so much. So I think there's so many examples of just things that could trigger this.

• 20:14Maggie Sellers Reum?

  That sounds miserable.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's not great.

• 20:17Maggie Sellers Reum?

  How does someone that's listening to this that resonates with that, how do they overcome those thoughts?

• 20:22Speaker 02

  Well, I think first is recognizing that this is a neurological phenomenon. Because like, I think if you understand that you're wired to process emotion and emotional data differently, then you don't beat yourself up about it as much. Because I think for me, what was really difficult, and what I've seen with my patients, is that I would recognize myself spinning, and I'm like, this is so dumb. Like, you shouldn't be feeling this way. Like, why do you always do this? And I would just beat myself up, which made it a thousand times worse, and I would wallow in it longer. So I think that helps tremendously with removing a lot of that shame and guilt about it. And then two, I think what is so important, and like, conceptually, we understand, like,

• 21:02Speaker 02

  how we process emotions is neurological, so that we can start teaching, there are specialized tools, and there's stuff you've heard about. You've heard them all over the place. You've heard about taking a walk and using movement. You've heard about taking a deep breath and using mindfulness. These are all things you have heard about, and you're probably utilizing. But I think with those skills in the book, those 12 tools that we've found, it's all about knowing when to use them, it's about knowing how to use them, and then about practicing them before you get into that spot of dysregulation.

• 21:34Maggie Sellers Reum?

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• 23:02Maggie Sellers Reum?

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• 24:22Speaker 01

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• 25:52Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Like, to a point where I'm flying to Vegas tomorrow to do a speaking engagement, and I'm going solo, and someone just asked me something about the time and the schedule and when I have to be there, and I could feel this thing like bubbling up in my chest of like, I don't know, I don't know, I'm overwhelmed, what if I'm late? And like, the spiral starts happening, but it's because it had to do with details and scheduling and timing, and those are often things that I really struggle with.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:22Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Why do ADHD people get overwhelmed so easily?

• 26:25Speaker 02

  So the way that I look at that is there's, there's many different things happening. Number one, if you're asking someone, okay, you have to fly out to Vegas, you have to do this speaking engagement, and these are the things you need to think about, they, in their brain, usually have, like, these are the things I need to worry about, this is in the order of importance, and if I don't nail all of these, here are the resources I could go to, and I can look at this email, and I can look at this. For ADHD, especially if there is multiple things happening at once, or if there is, like, some sort of emotional component, like, I'm already losing my grip on this, and this is hard, and they're gonna think I'm stupid, it becomes harder to be, remain clear.

• 27:10Speaker 02

  That threat detector in your brain starts going off. It releases alarm chemicals. You get increasingly more agitated and stressed, which makes it harder for that logical side to kick in and do what it's supposed to be doing. So sometimes it truly does, it doesn't start from an emotional place. It starts from, this is executive function stuff, I already struggle with this. But then, once you add that layer of, I'm losing it, they're gonna think I'm dumb, this is, like, I'm getting overly stressed out, I'm getting overly overwhelmed, I'm getting anxious, you start adding that, and then that emotional side of the brain kind of kicks on, and the logical side is, just like, can't keep up.

• 27:46Maggie Sellers Reum?

  This type of person sounds like someone that could never be high-functioning. I gotta be honest. Like, when I hear us talk about this, I'm like, there's no way these people can run companies, there's no way these people can be in successful relationships. 29% of entrepreneurs have ADHD. What is the flip side to this? How are these people able to be so high-functioning in some capacities of their life, and then experience everything you've already talked about?

• 28:12Speaker 02

  Because they just do it alongside. They feel all those things, and life can be, at times, very difficult, but they move on from that, and they gain resilience, and they start doing other things and funneling their efforts into, this is what I know my brain is gonna be good at, and this is what I'm interested in, and they can get done with a tremendous amount of work in a small amount of time, and they really thrive in those kind of situations. Like, when you look at entrepreneurs, a lot of them, they're building things, and they're less concerned about, like, I need to have it absolutely perfect before I do it, they're like, I'm gonna learn and go. And that really is such an incredible skill for business, because a lot of times, it's

• 28:54Speaker 02

  just that tenacity and getting started and, and being willing to accommodate and adapt and change, where some people might be too rigid to deal with that.

• 29:03Maggie Sellers Reum?

  When you think about these incredible entrepreneurs who have built these businesses?

• 29:09Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 29:10Maggie Sellers Reum?

  What makes us attracted to go work for people like that? Because to my sister's point of, like, even working for me, right? Like, it is visionary, it is inclusive, it is like, a team that is working on a mission, it's very charismatic, but I have definitely been known to spiral, and I'm very much working right now as a leader on, like, not taking people with me on that journey. So I guess, what are we fascinated with, with these incredible entrepreneurs that have ADHD?

• 29:41Speaker 02

  I think there is a magnetism, and there is an energy, and there's a passion, that if you truly feel it, and you feel committed about what you're doing, people want to be part of that. And so I think it's just a very natural thing to feel inclined to want to follow along and be part of that journey.

• 30:00Maggie Sellers Reum?

  As you're thinking about building out your team as someone that has ADHD, do you want to hire people that have ADHD as well?

• 30:07Speaker 02

  I do. I, I think that there is so much positive that you can get from that, if you foster the right environment, if you are passionate, if you, if you build an environment that their brains can flourish, if you are encouraging, if you are, are giving them the right kind of soil for their ADHD to kind of blossom and grow, I think they are incredible to work with.

• 30:35Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Can I play devil's advocate to that?

• 30:37Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 30:38Maggie Sellers Reum?

  So when I was thinking about bringing my sister into my business, like, I'm extremely ADHD, and my sister is the complete opposite of it.

• 30:45Speaker 02

  That's how my sister and I are.

• 30:46Maggie Sellers Reum?

  It's the best thing, because I feel like we have these complementary skill sets, and I- I think people understand me as a leader more now than they probably have in any other podcast episode. And my sister is the one that I always say like, keeps the train on the tracks. And is like the ying to the yang. And I can even tell, like, can you tell in this conversation that we're both ADHD?

• 31:09Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 31:10Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Same.

• 31:10Speaker 02

  But I like it.

• 31:11Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Same. But I'm thinking about, okay, if there was two people building a business, like, we're thinking about finding a co-founder for our company, okay?

• 31:18Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 31:18Maggie Sellers Reum?

  And you're the one that is like this charismatic, visionary, like, high-energy, can do a million things, but you also have this emotional dysregulation, and you can be known to spiral, and you might make up scenarios in your head. Two people like that as co-founders, is that a good match?

• 31:36Speaker 02

  Whether you have ADHD or whether you don't, I think you have to find someone whose skills match each other and complement each other naturally. So I don't think it's as simple as saying this person has ADHD and this person doesn't. Because ADHD can present very differently for some person. You can have someone with ADHD, I just think ours presents very similarly. But, I know. But I think that there's some people who have ADHD and are just very meticulous about details. And like, you know, they just, they're not hyperactive at all, and they're not, you know. But I feel the same way you do. When I was doing my app, Focus Genie, I brought on my sister to help me with that, because she's

• 32:16Speaker 02

  so analytical. Her brain, like, just works like a grid. She's so analytical, so organized. And she, I would like come up with an idea, and she's like, okay, here's how we execute it. And so that combination worked so well. And that, that got it from like, an idea to a finished product. But if the question was like, just like a general team, or are people with ADHD good to work with in general? I think yes.

• 32:42Maggie Sellers Reum?

  When I feel as though we have very similar ADHD, and you agree, what do you mean by that? For people that can't read our energy right now?

• 32:49Speaker 02

  I mean, our stories are so similar. I got diagnosed in fourth grade. I was hyperactive and impulsive. The teacher brought it up to my parents. My parents were like, yeah, we know. And so like, I was starting on medication, didn't know I was on medication. It was just like something that helped me, help, something that helps you with school. So I would take this, and I took it every single day. And then I did well enough that I got into this combined undergrad, graduate, medical school program. So I started in medical schools classes when I was 18 years old. And when I got there, and I was by myself without my parents, I stopped taking the medication. Everything fell apart. And then I like kind of fought with it. And I was like, I don't really want to be on medication. I don't want to, I don't believe I have this. I've seen it in other people. I know it's

• 33:33Speaker 02

  for boys. I don't think this is me. And so then I had to kind of come to my own realization and health journey and things like that. But I think it's led me some places I really enjoy. And also, I just think that our vibes are similar right now.

• 33:47Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Even the way that like, I can see you even doing this with your foot, like, you're tapping your foot, which is very me. And I think, it's funny, because I just had Vanessa Van Edwards on the show. She's one of the number one leading researchers at Harvard about behavioral science and the way that you are presenting yourself and body language. And she said something very interesting, where she said, no self-touching at work. And I am just known to do this, or this, or

• 34:13Speaker 02

  All this.

• 34:14Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Like this. And I'm not nervous.

• 34:16Speaker 02

  Mm-mm.

• 34:17Maggie Sellers Reum?

  It is a tick.

• 34:18Speaker 02

  It's, it's self-stimulation.

• 34:20Maggie Sellers Reum?

  And why are we doing this?

• 34:22Speaker 02

  What you're looking at is fidgeting. And fidgeting is really a way, your body is trying to stimulate your brain. And so your body is like, if I stimulate with movement or whatever I'm doing, I'm going to release more dopamine. It's going to be usable, and you'll be able to regulate your attention better. So you'll notice some of that, like, fidgeting and stuff, increase with goal-directed activities sometimes, like, if you're doing something. So if you're like, during a test, if you're trying to focus, you're tapping your pencil, and, you know, things like that.

• 34:50Maggie Sellers Reum?

  But I feel so seen right now, in a way where I'm sitting across from someone who's extremely high-functioning, extremely intelligent, has built multiple businesses. And I think that the, that is still not the norm, when you think of ADHD. And I'm just interested in the ways that you feel like, we can do a great job today by de-stigmatizing what it is like to be a high-functioning ADHD entrepreneur.

• 35:16Speaker 02

  Like, I would replace what you're saying, high-functioning, with high-achieving. I think high-achieving, you're looking at, like, what is this person capable of? By traditional metrics of like, relationship, and job, and are they, are they making the mark? Have, like, what's happening? But it doesn't describe internally what's happening. So like, with functioning, I get into an issue with it, because, yeah, they could have that external thing. But from the functioning perspective, they're not actually high-functioning, because internally, they're not functioning all that well. So that's a distinction I like making. That's why I've replaced high-functioning with high-achieving.

• 35:50Maggie Sellers Reum?

  How do you communicate to people in your practice's parents, that your child is not lazy?

• 35:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:57Maggie Sellers Reum?

  They just have ADHD?

• 35:58Speaker 02

  I think when you explain this interest-based nervous system, like, your body is, with ADHD, you respond to something that is interesting, something that is new, or something that is urgent. So if you're telling me this homework is due in like, two weeks, like, this book project is due in two weeks, it, like, no, I don't care about that. I'm not going to start that, no. If you tell me this is due by 8:00 AM tomorrow, I'll work on it all night. I'll, I'll, I'll get it done. I'll finish it. So I think it's a bit of a skill, being able to kind of figure out how to work with your brain. And some of that is like, break it into, so when I started to, in medical school, I'm like, okay, I

• 36:41Speaker 02

  can't get away with doing this the night before, because I have to have foundational knowledge. I need to build on this. And so then it became like, okay, I need to do this and create urgent, I didn't know what I was doing at the time, but I need to create urgency in my life. So I had to, like, take the syllabus and breaking down, break it down by like, week. And I'm like, this week, I have to be done by Friday. I would tell someone else about it. I'm like, you have to make sure I get this done. And if not, you have to stand by the door, like, make sure it gets done. And I was so afraid of them wasting time, that I would get it done. So I would create these little hurdles that caused urgency, caused interest, caused novelty. I would bribe myself, I would do, like, you know,

• 37:23Speaker 02

  there's, there's things that ADHD people have done for a long time, and they don't really know what they're doing, or why they're, once I'm done with this, I'm going to go to the coffee shop, get myself a treat. Like, there are things you don't know you're doing. You're creating interest, you're creating urgency.

• 37:37Maggie Sellers Reum?

  I would do that as it related to hitting certain milestones at work with luxury purchases. So like, when I was in my twenties, and I started to achieve things, I was never that person that was like, I'm going to go buy a Chanel wallet, like, on a Wednesday. I would tie everything to like, if I do this, I will reward myself with a Chanel wallet, or whatever it ended up being.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  Which is interesting and enjoyable for you. So you have that motivation to go towards that. If you're like, I just have to get through this work milestone, it's going to be really hard to push yourself towards that.

• 38:08Maggie Sellers Reum?

  My question then relates to this conversation around money and ADHD. What does the research say about how ADHD people treat money?

• 38:16Speaker 02

  It depends on their presentation. So they're, like, having that hyperactivity, having that impulsivity is not a guaranteed for people. You don't necessarily have to have that for the ADHD diagnosis. There are some people that, that impulsivity is not really their thing. They're not impulsive when it comes to money. Maybe they're impulsive in other ways, like, they're impulsive in relationships, or impulsive in speech, or impulsive in other ways. I was previously very impulsive with money. And what I found is that my spending habits were directly related to like, stimulation. And I didn't know this, until I was working on this app. So I was working on this app with my sister, and we have this thing called the focus tracker, where you put down, like, this is what your,

• 39:01Speaker 02

  this is what my mood was like today. This is what my focus was like today. This is what my impulsivity was like today. And then, you know, it ties it to sleep, and food intake, and water. I was looking, and I was tracking this over time, and I was like, God, the last four days of the month, I'm so impulsive. And then I, you know, and then I tracked it back, and I was like, oh, my God, that's related to my cycle. And then, oh, my God, I go into my credit card statements, and I was like, there is, oh, like, a two-fold bump in how much I spend in those four days, because I'm literally sitting on the couch, and I'm like, I, it's, I'm using it to, that's when I online shop, and I'm stimulating myself that way. So that's when I get in trouble.

• 39:42Maggie Sellers Reum?

  So you're saying, that if you have ADHD, and you don't want to spend money, stimulate yourself in other ways?

• 39:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, you can.

• 39:52Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Wow.

• 39:53Speaker 02

  With impulsivity, that, like, that's why, like, with medication, when you're appropriately stimulated, or, you know, when you're appropriately regulated, your impulsivity goes down. So if you're finding an alternative method to stimulate you, and you feel more regulated, you're not going to feel that drive as much.

• 40:12Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Have you heard of this thing called the ADHD tax?

• 40:15Speaker 02

  Yes. And I pay it constantly.

• 40:18Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Can you explain what it is?

• 40:19Speaker 02

  So ADHD tax is the money that you unnecessarily spend because of some sort of executive dysfunction. So examples of that are unused gym memberships, lost wages is a big one. I mean, things that you miss opportunities, miss days of work. I think doctors visit, the cost of medication, parking tickets, and speeding tickets, and unpaid tickets. There's so many things. You forgot, or you didn't return something in time. Like, those are all expenditures that continue to add up.

• 40:56Maggie Sellers Reum?

  You will appreciate this more than anyone else. I used to have a diamond ring on my pinky, and it was like, $3,500.

• 41:03Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 41:04Maggie Sellers Reum?

  And I was fidgeting so much at a dinner, in this summer, that my ring fell through the picnic table, fell through the wooden floor, the, of the, of the restaurant, and it was on a roof. Lost my diamond ring, because I was fidgeting. And I was with my family, and you know, my whole life, they've been like, stop fidgeting, stop fidgeting, you're going to lose something. I've never, to this day, lost anything, until this summer, when I couldn't leave my rings alone, that I lost, like, I think it was a $3,500 diamond ring.

• 41:34Speaker 02

  So painful.

• 41:36Maggie Sellers Reum?

  By the way, like, it was the sweetest thing. I was at this dinner and this, like, old man, it was in cottage country, and this old man's like, I have my tool belt in the car. You want me to, like, get it out and, like, pop up the boards? And I was like, no, no, if you end up going to that effort, your daughter should keep the ring.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 41:50Maggie Sellers Reum?

  And then the owner of the restaurant literally DM'd me the next day and was like, the guy found your ring. Do you want it? And I was like, let him give it to his daughter.

• 41:57Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 41:58Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Isn't that a crazy story? Do you think that AI will help ADHD people with things like this?

• 42:06Speaker 02

  I don't know enough. I don't know enough to be able to be thoughtful about that. I, I think I'm so conflicted about that, i- its role to actually be super helpful versus not helpful, because I, I just, I don't have my finger on the pulse of it yet.

• 42:24Maggie Sellers Reum?

  I was fascinated. So apparently, according to this study, seventy-eight percent of neurodivergent employees will use AI tools at work compared to only fifty-nine percent of neurotypical employees, which I can say, maybe from my own experience, like, I have been loving AI for myself because my email inbox is a scary place. And having AI help me organize, make sure things don't fall through the cracks, is just a level of sophistication that I haven't had.

• 42:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:54Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Because even training, uh, executive assistant to assist me is, is much more difficult, I would say, for an ADHD person and someone that's neurotypical. I just saw a headline that said, Plantar's billionaire CEO says only two kinds of people will succeed in the AI era: trade workers or the neurodivergent.

• 43:15Speaker 02

  My fear is that, you know, you look at some of these studies, MIT released a study where they were talking about use of AI, um, and they compared it to, um, just using your brain versus using Google versus using AI. There's, you know, if you're using it for, like, executive function and those, like, menial tasks, maybe that's different. But if you're using it for, like, creative and heavy workload functioning things, I think that can be really difficult because there's very little retention that happens.

• 43:44Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Thousand percent agree. Like, we at our company, you cannot use AI for creative ideation. You can use it to actually help an idea go from an actual human idea into a different type of format. So, for example, we actually use an AI where it takes all of my TikTok videos that is not using AI, and then it will just script it for LinkedIn. So it's, like, taking my original thought, but it's actually just putting it in a tone of voice that will work for a professional crowd.

• 44:11Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:11Maggie Sellers Reum?

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• 44:54Maggie Sellers Reum?

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• 45:35Maggie Sellers Reum?

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• 46:20Maggie Sellers Reum?

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• 47:30Maggie Sellers Reum?

  But let's talk about other ways to manage ADHD.

• 47:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:33Maggie Sellers Reum?

  AI is one that I found a lot of success with. I also was on medication for two decades.

• 47:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:39Maggie Sellers Reum?

  And I remember feeling like I was super focused, but I couldn't think clearly towards the last few years of being on medication.

• 47:51Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 47:51Maggie Sellers Reum?

  For people that don't know what the medication is actually doing to your brain, what is it doing in your brain?

• 47:57Speaker 02

  And so if you're looking at stimulants, there was this paper that came out of Washington University, and it actually looked at how does stimulants work in the brain? And it works in two different ways. Number one, to increase alertness in the brain. So it literally fights off sleepiness cues. And number two, to push you towards reward, so help with motivation. The issue sometimes with stimulants is that it's a pretty short window. Like, even if you have a long-acting one, it's not going to give you all-day coverage. And that's good. You don't want to be stimulated twenty-four hours a day. But sometimes what people realize with that is that eventually, over time, because you do build a tolerance to these medications, is that your level of functioning, when you feel like, I'm on medication versus I'm not medication, it feels like there's too much of a contrast.

• 48:42Speaker 02

  And eventually, as this part stops working as well, it, it, it can sometimes make you feel foggy and tired, and you just don't have that kind of oomph that you had previously.

• 48:54Maggie Sellers Reum?

  I felt that one hundred percent. My weekends were hell. I went to India, and I decided that I was going to not even tell my boyfriend at the time, now my husband, that I was going to try to quit my medication.

• 49:03Speaker 02

  Uh-huh.

• 49:04Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Because I figured I was already going to be jet-legged. I was like, I've been on this for two decades. I will probably have withdrawal. Like, I'll just try to do it. So if I fail, I haven't had to admit it to anyone. And I literally was able to successfully wean myself off of it just by, well, not even wean myself off of it, just cold turkey, not use it again. So like, it took me a very long time to be self-motivated again.

• 49:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:25Maggie Sellers Reum?

  How do you make those decisions to know if it's right for you?

• 49:28Speaker 02

  Always try to recommend either starting with behavioral modification, and then, kind of, if that doesn't work, or if, if it's too hard, or if you can't access them because of that level of dysfunction, then starting to talk about medication. So I try to start with that.

• 49:43Maggie Sellers Reum?

  I have someone in my family that takes ADHD drugs today, and what we notice is that they are extremely abrasive and short when they are taking their medication.

• 49:53Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 49:54Maggie Sellers Reum?

  And we're trying to figure out, does the benefit offset the costs that we all feel by being around someone when we know that they're on their medication, that they're very abrasive, they're very short-tempered, they're very aggressive?

• 50:06Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:07Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Is that a normal side effect of ADHD medication?

• 50:10Speaker 02

  What I would tell you is that means it's the wrong medication. Correct medication management. You just feel like yourself, but on a good day. But that irritability and that shortness and things like that typically, and I'm not totally sure what's happening in this situation, but sometimes we see that when people are being overstimulated.

• 50:29Maggie Sellers Reum?

  How does ADHD affect relationships?

• 50:32Speaker 02

  Pretty comprehensively, because I think when you look at ADHD as a regulation kind of thing, you have to look at it in terms of how do you interact with this other person? How do you communicate with this other person? What are your expectations of this other person? And then, how do you learn how to share space? And I'm assuming romantic relationships, but how do you learn how to occupy space and existence and, like, accommodate for somebody else in your life? I think that's hard, especially if you're trying to manage your own executive dysfunction and emotional regulation during that time. It can be difficult. So, for example, a lot of times, what you see is, like, a breakdown in communication. I know that I'm

• 51:15Speaker 02

  very emotionally sensitive. I, my husband doesn't have ADHD, and so there are things that he says that are totally neutral, that if it hit me on a different day, I wouldn't respond to. And then there are some days where I hear that, and it's devastating to me. And then I, like, kind of shut down, and I'm quiet, and I, like, it, it's hurt me, and then we have to kind of work through that and talk about it. There are other things that happen in terms of, like, going back to the impulsivity and distractibility. I mean, I wish I could bottle up the beginning part of relationships. Like, it's so addictive and fun and wonderful, and just, like, it, it's, it is, like, a complete dopamine overload. It's so stimulating. But then you move into the more stable parts of your relationship,

• 51:56Speaker 02

  and you're like, ah, the, the fire's gone. Like, this is, this isn't what I felt before. Like, I don't have the butterflies. This must be the wrong relationship. And they leave. It's confusing, because you're like, what's dopamine? What's love? What, what's right? What's wrong? And so i- it's gaining a little bit of self-trust.

• 52:12Maggie Sellers Reum?

  How do you recommend ADHD people disclose to their partners that they have ADHD?

• 52:18Speaker 02

  I mean, the way that I did is, it was a problem.

• 52:22Maggie Sellers Reum?

  What did you do?

• 52:23Speaker 02

  We were trying to do long distance, and, like, he had a two-hour time difference, and I would, like, straight up forget about, like, he wasn't with me, so I would forget to call him back. And then by the time I remembered, I'm like, it's one AM your time. I'm calling now. And so, like, you do things and you, like, kind of forget. And then with the emotional sensitivity part, like, we were just... Like if we had conflict, I was like, you're being rude. And he's like, literally, no, I'm not. And so then we'd have to like, kind of figure out how to work our way through it. So if you are having a conversation with your, you know, partner, and you're trying to tell them about ADHD, you're like, listen, I have navigated through my whole life and I value this relationship.

• 53:08Speaker 02

  But I need to tell you, the way that my brain is wired, I have ADHD. I respond to things differently. I respond to emotional things differently. I respond to like, day to day tasks differently. And I want to make sure that you know, I'm, I'm trying really hard in this relationship and I'm being respectful, but there's some things that are hard for me. And then I think what the natural progression from there is, is that it becomes kind of a collaborative kind of thing. Like, what can I help you with? And then that opens up dialogue.

• 53:34Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Do you recommend that there's a good time in relationships to do that? Before there becomes problems?

• 53:39Speaker 02

  I don't think I've been in a situ, or I don't remember feeling anxious or embarrassed about talking about it with people. But I know some people definitely are. So I think you have to feel it out within the relationship and see how you feel. But I think it does give the other person definitely a better lens of how they look at your behavior.

• 53:59Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Let's play this out where it's the boy that has ADHD.

• 54:02Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 54:03Maggie Sellers Reum?

  And we're the girl that is starting to really fall for this guy. But he's not calling us. He's not doing these little thoughtful things. He's maybe not able to regulate his emotions very well and is very sensitive. How much of that do you ascribe to like, this is just the way that the person is? He has ADHD? Or how much of it is like, he's just not putting in the effort? I want someone that's gonna call me before I fall asleep at night. Like, how do you find that balance when you're dating someone that actually does have ADHD?

• 54:33Speaker 02

  You look at kind of behaviors like that and you look back at that interest-based nervous system. So if as the girl, you're talking to this guy, and you've already had this conversation about ADHD, you know he has ADHD, and it's still continuing to happen, you can say, these are the things that I kind of expect and I want out of a relationship. And I, you know, like, this is what, this is how, what makes me feel loved. And if he shows like, a true effort into making that happen, great. If he's like, that's really hard for me because I literally don't even know what time it is. Like, I can't keep track of time, I can't.

• 55:14Speaker 02

  Then show me a different way that you can give me those same feelings and make me feel loved. Like, prove it to me some other way. So I don't think that this is ever going to be this get out of jail free card. It is not an excuse, it's an explanation.

• 55:29Maggie Sellers Reum?

  That's what I was gonna ask, because I think one of the misconceptions at the beginning was that you can grow out of ADHD. But how much of the things that you don't love about yourself from your ADHD can you actually change the behavior of?

• 55:41Speaker 02

  You have the capacity to change your brain and to use behavioral techniques to actually alter behavior and neural pathways. That is something we are capable of doing. And so the difficulty in that is, is kind of gaining that consistency and continuing to lean in on this path where maybe you're not getting a huge dopamine rush and it doesn't feel fun. Making things into habit, it's probably not gonna be fun. It's probably not gonna be easy. But people are capable of doing it and building supports that you can do it. And generally, what I tell people is like, habit stacking so that things become more automated and automatic. Those are things that could potentially help.

• 56:20Speaker 02

  And then, once they become cemented, I mean, you, you can change your neural pathways with that.

• 56:27Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Were you always late, growing up?

• 56:29Speaker 02

  Yes, and I'm late now. Although I was like, 15 minutes early today.

• 56:33Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Well, so that's why I was gonna bring this up, because I used to be notoriously late. Like, you couldn't catch me early to anything. I was usually 20 to 45 minutes late for stuff.

• 56:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:44Maggie Sellers Reum?

  And so this was something that I knew was gonna hold me back. And I actually was so not proud of at all that I made a commitment to myself over the last few years, that like, I would tell myself that things were happening 30 minutes before they were happening. I am very rarely late. And the reason I ask you that now is when I saw your car outside 15 minutes early, I was like, she must be like me.

• 57:06Speaker 02

  So it changed. So truly, I was late all the time. Social engagements, everything. It changed when I started taking care of patients in an outpatient setting. Because I was like, I cannot be late for this. I can't, like, I have patients who are waiting on me, who have taken time out of their day to drive here to see me. I can't even take a minute away from their appointment. So I, I, I think that was my gateway into being on time.

• 57:35Maggie Sellers Reum?

  And if I've learned anything today, it's because you made it urgent.

• 57:38Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 57:39Maggie Sellers Reum?

  And you made it.

• 57:39Speaker 02

  And other, it was, I was accountable for other people. And, and so it was interesting to me to have them be happy about me showing up. Like, it's so, it, there was a urgency that I had to be there.

• 57:51Maggie Sellers Reum?

  I have to ask you about brain health. And like, what are things that every single person can do that might not even have ADHD? How do you work out your brain, the same way we work out our body, to maintain the cognitive function to have the healthiest brain possible?

• 58:06Speaker 02

  Sleep. Like, if you go back and look at that Washi study where it's talking about why stimulants work so well, and you're saying that it fights off sleepiness cues. It, it, it, it made every psychiatrist look again at what they prioritize is important. And sleep is so important. It is quite literally the only thing that's going to give you energy. So like, you can take caffeine, you can take stimulants, you can take all those things. It's gonna prevent you from feeling sleepy, but it's not giving you energy. Eventually, that tap is gonna run out and you're gonna feel tired again. So when you sleep, you actually give your brain time to restore and, and respond and figure out how to allocate resources for the next day. It clears out toxins.

• 58:48Speaker 02

  You are doing a tremendous amount, and that's hard because sleep is so boring. I get my best ideas at night. I'm not tired. So I think this is like, one of the best things you can do for your brain health is just prioritize sleep.

• 59:01Maggie Sellers Reum?

  How do you have a sleep routine to get the right amount of sleep that you need for your brain?

• 59:06Speaker 02

  I'm gonna say something that people are gonna hate. I have to be away from my phone. And that's, it's really hard because my phone is my alarm. But I put it in a different room and I plug it in while I'm still like, in the living room and hanging out. And then I, and then I will go into the bedroom and my alarm is already set automatically. So I don't really access my phone because there's interesting stuff in there. Like, I can't. And that's not something that I, I, like, I try to do that as much as possible. And I fall off the wagon a lot. But I feel like that when I go through patches of time where I really prioritize my sleep, my brain absolutely works better the next day. And I, I feel like I look better.

• 59:49Maggie Sellers Reum?

  You do when you sleep well.

• 59:50Speaker 02

  I wanna throw my phone into the sun. There's like, I don't, like, it, it's so, it's so easy for me to lose time on my phone. All of my work lives on my phone. Like, I know I need it and I feel like, very unnecessarily tethered to it. So I, I feel like it's a leash. I don't love it. And I also do kind of love it at times. It's a problem.

• 1:00:10Maggie Sellers Reum?

  This is why I love my husband so much. Because no one interested me that I would want to get off my phone until I met him. Whereas now, when I'm with him, I do not care about my phone to the point where like, my team will be like harassing me to return messages. But I'm just so interested in my husband that like, I don't really care to be on my phone at all.

• 1:00:31Speaker 02

  I know.

• 1:00:32Maggie Sellers Reum?

  So I feel like finding things that interest me in the real world is difficult because it's so much more interesting on my phone, except for these very few things that I do find very interesting.

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:43Maggie Sellers Reum?

  And this is why I think ADHD people have these hyper fixations. Because we find such few things interesting that we become obsessed with them. What is your current hyper fixation?

• 1:00:55Speaker 02

  My daughter recently got into like, this, like, air, like, air dry clay. And I was like, this is awesome. And like, it, it's like, dries and it's so light and it's so fun. I've been doing a lot of writing, I've been doing a lot of painting, which I really enjoy. And I've been doing more acrylic than oil. And I think there's something just like, very therapeutic about taking out my paints and picking the colors I want and not really having a plan. And if things mess up, I'm okay. And so I think, as long as I have time to do that, I really like it.

• 1:01:26Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Dr. Sasha Hamdani, is there anything that we haven't talked about today that you, you would feel sad leaving if we didn't cover?

• 1:01:33Speaker 02

  No, I think we got it.

• 1:01:36Maggie Sellers Reum?

  We got a lot.

• 1:01:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:37Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Okay, well, we're gonna have some fun and do some rapid fire then.

• 1:01:39Speaker 02

  Love.

• 1:01:40Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Dr. Sasha, what is the last thing you put on your credit card?

• 1:01:44Speaker 02

  Gluten-free bagel.

• 1:01:45Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Are you gluten-free too?

• 1:01:46Speaker 02

  I am.

• 1:01:46Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Are you celiac?

• 1:01:48Speaker 02

  No, I'm not.

• 1:01:48Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Okay.

• 1:01:49Speaker 02

  I'm just gluten intolerant.

• 1:01:50Maggie Sellers Reum?

  What gluten-free bagel?

• 1:01:51Speaker 02

  Yeasty Boys.

• 1:01:53Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Love that. They have a gluten-free one?

• 1:01:55Speaker 02

  It's amazing. It's so soft.

• 1:01:57Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Okay, I'm gonna get it tomorrow.

• 1:01:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:59Maggie Sellers Reum?

  What is the most expensive last thing you put on your credit card?

• 1:02:02Speaker 02

  I bought a suit for my book signing from Veronica Beard.

• 1:02:06Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Love that.

• 1:02:06Speaker 02

  And I was just like, you know what? I just can't waste more time on this.

• 1:02:10Maggie Sellers Reum?

  What is the most impulsive purchase you've ever put on your credit card?

• 1:02:13Speaker 02

  Impulsive in terms of like, that was weird? Or impulsive, like, that was expensive?

• 1:02:18Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Both, or one or the other?

• 1:02:20Speaker 02

  Okay, impulsive, weird. I went out to get my carrots and ranch, came back with two kittens that I put on the credit card.

• 1:02:28Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Cats?

• 1:02:28Speaker 02

  Cats, two small cats that are still, you know.

• 1:02:32Maggie Sellers Reum?

  That is so ADHD.

• 1:02:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I was like, I guess this is why, like, had no plans. That wasn't part of the journey. No litter box, no food. I was like, alright, come on.

• 1:02:42Maggie Sellers Reum?

  You went out for ranch and carrots and you came home with kittens?

• 1:02:45Speaker 02

  In all fairness. I'd been going through a breakup and I was like, I, I need these.

• 1:02:52Maggie Sellers Reum?

  What are some of your best tips to hack an ADHD brain?

• 1:02:56Speaker 02

  Using brain dumping at night? Find something that you naturally enjoy and can maintain some sort of consistency with. And whether that's like walking with a friend or doing something.

• 1:03:08Maggie Sellers Reum?

  What about doing hard things first?

• 1:03:10Speaker 02

  I think sometimes when you phrase it like that, there's some people that depending on the day, that they're totally capable of that. There's some people that if you start with the very hardest thing first, it is so daunting and so difficult that they lose momentum and they're paralyzed for the rest of the day. Sometimes when I realize that that is too hard, I go back and I do something really easy and dumb. And that's why I make my bed every morning. It's like my way to start the day with like this little win, something I could check off my to do list. I did this. And so then you can go about your day.

• 1:03:40Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Tell on a first date you have ADHD or keep it a secret for the rest of your marriage.

• 1:03:45Speaker 02

  Oh, tell that on the first date. I probably would do that anyway.

• 1:03:48Maggie Sellers Reum?

  You can only pick one for the rest of your life. Run 30 minutes late or get there an hour early.

• 1:03:53Speaker 02

  I mean, I'd rather be early.

• 1:03:56Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Love that.

• 1:03:56Speaker 02

  I mean, it's just a waste of time. Both of them are a waste of time. And but like, okay. But like, it's so much better because like, I can't even think about being that late for a patient.

• 1:04:06Maggie Sellers Reum?

  No.

• 1:04:06Speaker 02

  I could never do it.

• 1:04:07Maggie Sellers Reum?

  We do these things called HSR love notes to retrain my toxic brain and my spirals.

• 1:04:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:04:12Maggie Sellers Reum?

  So if you could only tell yourself one HSR love note for the rest of your life, what would it be?

• 1:04:16Speaker 02

  It would remind myself to be kind like I am to other people. Because I don't do a lot of that to myself as I do for like my loved ones.

• 1:04:28Maggie Sellers Reum?

  And if you had to title this season of your life, what would it be called?

• 1:04:32Speaker 02

  Like Sweat. So sweaty and anxious. Like, that's probably what it would be.

• 1:04:40Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Dr. Sasha Hamdani, I am obsessed with you. Where can people find you and how can HSR help you?

• 1:04:46Speaker 02

  I am on all the socials under the Psych Doctor MD. Oh, get this, too sensitive.

• 1:04:55Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Here we go.

• 1:04:56Speaker 02

  Because I love it. Um, and I think it is really good for anyone who has been dealing with just feeling emotionally sensitive and it gives you actual tools. It helps you implement them in a way that you're not already like dysregulated. And I mean, this was so helpful for me. I wish I had this 20 years ago.

• 1:05:14Maggie Sellers Reum?

  Thank you so much for coming on.

• 1:05:16Speaker 02

  Yay, thank you.

• 1:05:27Maggie Sellers Reum?

  If you're starting a business, there are certain things that are so fun to think about. Y'all know I love a mood board. So everything that relates to the creative, the name, the brand, the website, the vision board. But then there are the things that make you pause and ask, am I even doing this correctly? Or do I even want to be doing this? Like forming your business, getting the right documents, keeping your personal information private. This is where our sponsor Northwest Registered Agent is so helpful. They're a one stop shop for founders who want to launch and legitimize their business without turning it into a giant admin spiral. They help you form an LLC or a corporation, act as your registered agent, and give you tools like a business address, operating agreement, website, phone number, professional email, and free guides.

• 1:06:11Maggie Sellers Reum?

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