Hi, welcome everyone to another episode of the all the things ADHD podcast.
Oh, the things ADHD. Oh,
nice. That was NPR ish. Yeah, like that
with Billy Eilish because because she just has a new a new album. Oh, my husband's always accusing her of just whispering into a microphone. So yes, cuz that's my Terry Gross crossed with Billy Eilish.
She is kind of whispering slash hooking into the microphone.
You heard the new album? Yeah,
I'm not not not all the way through yet. Cassius played me some of it. My daughter has played me some of it but not all the way through it. It is very her. Like it is very within her wheelhouse. So, and I enjoy her other stuff. So I'm sure I'm going to enjoy this. I just
casual about it. We'll find a bonus later.
Yeah, no. Well, I guess I don't know. There's something about like,
I struggled to listen to albums now. And maybe it's because like, my kids have taken over the car radio. Right? And so like my playlist is either rap from my son, who is very into mid aughts. Kendrick Well, Kendrick Lamar was his favorite. So we listen to a lot of Kendrick and a lot of mf doom and a lot of you know, and then my daughter who is into like, which again is fine. Isn't to like queer female rockers, which is great, too, right? And Billy Eilish is right in that wheelhouse as well. But it's like I have very little control anymore over what I get to listen to and largely music is listened to in the car. Right? Right. And so like, I want to listen to Maggie Rogers new album, because I loved her first one, I was male. And the second one, people are saying it's great. And I just can't build myself up to be like, Okay, I'm gonna sit and listen to an album. Like, I don't even know how I ever used to do that. You know what I mean? Like, like, Yeah, how did I ever used to just sit and listen to an album? Well,
here's a segue for you. Are you ready? Yes, the segue. Well, Billy Eilish released the album on May the 17th, which was right before I had a full day of intercontinental travel. Right? Yeah. Yeah, I downloaded it. And I'll tell you what, like flying from Eugene, Oregon to San Francisco and then from San Francisco to Toronto, and then having to be an airport limo for an hour and a half after that. You have a lot of time to listen to full albums, if that's what you like, because you can't really stream stuff on the airplane. If you're not going to spring for Wi Fi, which I'm not. Yeah, yeah. So there you go. I had to travel recently, Lee and that is how I managed to listen to albums. cobbling some time together for self care after a long week. Yeah,
no, that's good. And I don't I guess I just don't travel as much anymore, either. Right? Or you forget until the last minute that you're traveling. Yes. That's the other thing that happens too. But now it's been. And also unless it's like Taylor Swift levels, or Beyonce levels of announcing a new album. I just don't even know. Right, like you told me it was released two weeks ago. And I was like, I thought it was only released this week, because that's when I sort of found out about it and started hearing about it. So it's, it's, you know, unless my unless it's sort of like pop culture so big that it just sort of transcends everything, and everybody's just whether they like it, its
own news cycle. If it is his own news cycle, then you will hear about
it. Or it's someone my kids are obsessed with. Right.
That's a that's an app home news cycle.
Yeah, yeah, that's true. Trust me the amount that I know about the Kendrick Drake beef is incredible. But because it was so important for my my youngest, just like yeah, that was a we had a lot on that like, you want you want autistic hyper fixation. Now that was that was it for I feel it two weeks like it was just Yeah, it was it was something it was. But yeah, so like, that's, that's where I am now. I have with with music. I've officially old. I officially have no idea who is performing on Saturday at live. I officially look at all of the festival lineups and go Who are all these people, except for the one like nostalgia act. You know, it's like Foo Fighters and nobody I've ever heard of.
Well, there's like there's a tick tock thing going around now. Oh, it's like 80s mom dancing. Yeah, it's the Tick Tock or teenage tick talkers, like put on a song and ask their moms to dance to it and what they're playing is Bronski beat's small town boy, right? And these 80s moms are like grooving out to it. And I was like, Yeah, girl, That's my jam. But yeah, I got super mad because like, I don't know if you know that song at all. It's a song about queer exclusion and bullying and homophobia, right? Yeah, run away, run away. Like it's always a lonely boy kind of thing. And I just saw it in an ad in a Scotiabank ad. Now, so they're using this song that's about, like homophobia, running away from home and bullying. To be like, yes, you have all the money that you need. And here's how you can spend it and impress other people. And I was like, I don't want to live in this world anymore. I was like, Does nobody listened to the lyrics before they pick the song like this would be great for encouraging overconsumption.
The Yeah, that's the the one cog piece of doubt and of dissonance when it comes to advertising that I'm experiencing right now, because it's a hockey playoffs. And the Oilers are moving along and my husband's from Edmonton. And so we
leave
that we're on top of this. Yeah, we Yeah. And the problem was streaming, as some of you may know, as opposed to watching broadcast, even broadcast is guilty of this, but particularly streaming, you get the same four ads over and over and over and over and over again. Yeah, there is one car ad.
Oh, yeah,
for a luxury SUV. Where the pitch is you are the only survivor in a post apocalyptic hellscape. And you can use your very powerful SUV to scale over all of the wreckage to move to higher ground and the
bodies and the smaller bodies,
no bodies, but like, and so at the end of it, you're at the top of the gets to the top of the parking garage after like dodging and like it's just like a, like a post apocalyptic sort of hellscape that he's looking over. And that's like and so you have your luxury vehicle and I'm like, this was a good idea. Everybody else experiencing like, what's odd? No, we're not. We are not okay. rugged
individualism taken to the extreme and purchasing luxury goods so that when all of humanity is dead, you still have Wi Fi and leather heated seats. But it's not it can scale. That's my future.
Yeah. Yeah. Good. I'm glad I survived that because of my luxury SUV and can reverse Ed. It was like, I'm like, what, and there's like a jaunty, so like, because again, you sort of tune out during the commercials. And so it's this sort of jaunty tune. There's no lyrics, but it's kind of a jaunty, jaunty tune, and there's a car driving and I'm just like, in there describing the car and luxury, rugged, you know, all of that kind of stuff. And I'm not really thinking anything of it until I look up at one point. Because it's the 47th time the commercials aired, and I'm like,
What in God's name Am I looking at? And I'm like,
Wait, that isn't just like the Outback or like, you know, Arizona the way they do or the Grand Canyon the way most of these cars. Yeah, no, no, this is a political update.
Let's get Yeah, yeah. What I guess they're saying like, maybe can go over sand dunes in ways that like the cybertruck. Can. My husband actually kicked me out of our TV room the other night because I couldn't handle the ads while he was watching the hockey because I never see ads and is like, yeah, What in God's name Am I looking at? Anyhow? What are we talking about Lee? I try to segue us and then we do ourselves or we
do ourselves Anyways, hope you enjoyed that for those four side quests, where we're talking about ADHD hangovers
learn divergent, divergent hangovers.
neurodivergent hangovers, which you may or may not recognize us as being in the middle of right now. Really having trouble focusing really having trouble remembering what's going on? You know, all like, to me, it's what's interesting about the neurodivergent hangovers is it's just like all of the features of neuro divergence turned up to 12, as opposed to like the nine it usually is that yeah,
after we've already gotten to 15. Right. So yeah, listeners may or may not recall, we did an episode a couple of years ago. I
think time is a flat circle. Who knows? It could have been less like, who knows?
It could have been like, What even is today? Where we sort of came up with it on the fly while we were talking because you had just done a major thing and you were tired. We're gonna you're having trouble getting back to work at like, you're sort of regular 100% Right. Yeah. Well, I'm only up 50% or whatever, because you've been operating at 120% Right? Yeah. You He stepped in and done a really big task. And then we sort of put together this concept of like, one of the gifts of neurodivergent people is we can go at 110%, often, right? We seem to be like either moving in reverse, or under 10%, none of the focus or all of the focus now, and not now. But when it happens to be Now, sometimes we are able, in the faces in the face of crisis, right or urgency, right? Where
because of that dopamine, that sweet, sweet dopamine. So
we are able to often do better than other people in high stress situations. But then we think that because we do better than other people in high stress situations that we should just walk away from the high stress situation and go back to fully normal functioning right away, which we discovered was not in fact, the case and that what we got was a neurodivergent. Hangover. And what we'd been thinking about at the time was this metaphor of like, you know, you can train to run a marathon and the day that you run a marathon, you don't jog home, the race, right, because you, you actually everything
some psychopaths do, I
don't know if that makes training to be good at something. And then you execute at peak performance. Because like, even when you're training for a marathon, you'd never run the full distance, you're not usually running at race pace, because it's too tiring on your body. You can't continue like that, right? So you save it all for race day. You like do this big race, and now you're exhausted and you don't jog home, and you don't start training again, the next day, it's not another Monday, after that day, right? Because you did the peak performance. And after peak performance comes recovery, and neurodivergent. People often struggle to know when they have done a peak performance, because it feels like the usual like I probably just left this too late. And that's why it's like so big and urgent. But sometimes the task is really, really big. And you did an excellent job of it, not because you left it too late, but because it was a really big job, right? And so you're allowed to feel tired after that. But we're normally like, Oh, it's just stuff that happened in my head that I did, like, how tiring could it be to do whatever it is I've done. So you and I have just both had peak experiences. Right? And we're both time of the year. And we're Yeah, it's that time of the year. So why don't we do a refresher on on how the neurodivergent party turns into the neurodivergent hangover? And what the recovery is like? Yeah,
no, that's great. I think it's been long enough. And it's not like anybody to remember it anyways, because it's I love the way you pause. It's
been long enough, because you know, when it was I have no idea what it was no,
well, it's like, it's like saying, like, how long have you been doing the podcast for and I'm like, a while,
a while. While right count? What did my hair look like when we started? That's how I did things. Right. So what was your What was your? You had a conference? Right? That yeah, so we partially,
if you remember, because I think I talked about this every single year. Because it's an annual thing. Every single year on campus, we run a faculty development event slash conference called the Teaching and Learning Innovation Summer Institute, or TLI, OSI. And it is a three to four day event where we basically have programming and run the events and stream the events and feed everyone and all that kind of stuff for four days straight. This year, we only did three, but you know, and so it is a high. It is a high demand high contact event like I am there at 730 to eight o'clock in the morning, and I am going all day until six or 630 in the evening.
And your extra burning pretty hard, extroverted pretty
hard. Trying to keep all the balls in the air, I am in charge of overseeing the technology in order to ensure that sessions are streaming, this was the least stressful year because we outsource it a little bit. So I actually literally only just supervise rather than put out fires. Last year I wrote detailed instructions that nobody read. And then so had to keep running around. I also stream the keynotes so I'm in charge of streaming the keynotes, which are big marquee events. So that's kind of a high pressure I coordinate with the with some vendor anyway so there's a lot of I oversee a lot of stuff and also help out wherever I can because I've been doing this since I started this job so I've been doing this six years and helping to organize and run this event for six years so I also very well aware of the the mechanics and logistics and know all the players and that kind of stuff and we've had some turnover other than me. So it's it's you know, it's
less like it's less like doing a marathon and more like doing like the decathlon you have like 10 events that you're running right yes, you're you're a jack of all trades. Yeah, yeah,
exactly. Right. So I was Oh yeah, things no literally though, and and, again, like it It fits my ADHD Well, right. Like there's, there's things that I that I know how to do. And especially now with it, it's a different kind of stress and pressure, because I've done it for this is your number six, and I'm doing this five anyways, doesn't matter, been doing it for a long time. And so, you know, I sort of know what to expect I know what the problems will probably be could be, you know, I know how to set things up. I know. So it's like, now it's a little bit more mechanical. And it's just like, Okay, I have all of these things on the list. I know that what the list is, you do this, you do that? What do we need to do? What have we forgotten? You know, and there's a team of us who worked together on this, I know them, I trust them. They trust me, it feels really good. So it's a very, you know, it's less, it's, it's less stressful, but it's more like just being on for four days straight.
Right. Yeah. It's a very specific, multidisciplinary based way where there's a lot of people around and a lot of people that you're working with, and a lot of different tasks that you have to manage simultaneously, and like sort of coordinate things that are happening and people and to be friendly to everybody, and also enjoy it.
And also enjoy it. Yeah, so that's a lot. Yeah, it is. It is field.
Yeah. How do you feel when it's done? Exhausted?
Right, one year, one year. Immediately after tail Si, we went on a work or my husband's job had a retreat that families were invited to. I fell asleep, holding the phone so the kids could watch be watching your show. And I fell asleep. Like just like on the bed there on either side of me. I'm holding the phone, and I fell asleep. And they like and my husband was doing so but they like had to like, text him. Because they're like home on we can't wait. We can't get mama when we're worried about her. Right? I just like, like, holding out passed out cold just right. So much of the kids were worried. They're just like, Mom, mom, but I was breathing. So they were ya know, it's like, that's how tired I am after these events were. Yeah, yeah. It was. And that was that was pre pandemic when I was like, still used to being around people. Right.
So you people do really hard and you executive function really hard and you like problem solved really hard and you coordinated really hard and you socialize really hard. And then like you body gave out? Yeah, it was like no, yeah, you put yourself it was like your brain induced a coma? Yeah. Oh, yeah. There will be no more things note for now. No more listening. No more seeing no more tasting. No more smelling no more touching. You're just
out. Nope, nope. Wow. Like, just like, yeah, and, and there's also something that it was. There's something about hotels, I don't sleep. We've both talked about our insomnia in the past. There's something about hotel beds that are just like the only place where I like, like, I get into a hotel bed. And I'm like, Wow, I'm actually tired.
Yeah, me too.
It's amazing. And so yeah, and so couple the fact that I was already like, at, like, at the end of my rope. And that it was a hotel bed. And I had it and it's, it's, it's a really interesting also, for me, just like I have a fairly good work life balance in terms of like, I see a lot of my kids I try to like, you know, I also coach swimming and like the weeks of TLI Si, I don't see my family, right, I'm out of the house before they're up. Because I gotta beat traffic and then be able to get a parking space. And I come home and especially now that they're teenagers, it's sort of like and I'm so exhausted that it's like I eat dinner, and then go straight to bed. And so even just like having my kids there and I haven't felt like I haven't seen or even spoken to my kids in a week. And then we're there all together and it's just like, okay, and then the body is just like yeah, you're you're okay now. Yeah, there it is over and now you're safe.
Well, we have talked in the past about the difference between like recovery, rest and relaxation, right. So part of your work life balance is that you you do have other activities that you coach doing, you hang out with your kids. You sew like you blog, these are things you do for fun, and those are great. They help you restore kind of balance in your brain and between work thinking and stuff that you're doing because you enjoy it gives you the zing right yeah. And sometimes when your regular tired, zing is what you need. But sometimes when you have pushed yourself to exhaustion, I'm doing a really poor peak performance on something. You don't want to go on a vacation. You don't want to do anything. You just actually need to sleep. Right so that it's easy to feel guilty to be like, Oh, well, as soon as your thing is done, it's great. We have this like family getaway we can do. It's my work, but it's not your work. So you can just come and have fun. We're like, I don't want to have fun. I'm too tired. Yeah, right. Yeah. So this conference for you is the thing that puts you into like, it's not the kind of thing where you're gonna get on a plane the next day and like, go to a vacation hotspot because you will not be in a position to enjoy it. That's not no, you don't need relaxation. They're like you need sleep.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And also, just like, you know, time to reconnect, right. And I think like you were before we started recording, you were joking with me, are you making a garment today? And I said, Well, I was that weekend. Because that was just like, I felt very disconnected from it. Because I couldn't. I didn't even have the headspace to even think about sewing in a room where it was yes. Just like, and now I get to sleep in.
Yeah,
I get a I'm gonna end that I'm gonna go downstairs. And I'm going to so yes, you know, I don't have to catch up on all of the podcasts that I didn't have a chance to listen to. And I get to catch up on all of the TV shows that I didn't have a chance to watch. Because I was too tired and too busy. And I'm just gonna so and I'm gonna feel you know, it. Again, it's one of those things where I've gotten to the point in sewing that, like, I know the things that I can do fairly easily. Right, right. Like I only sewed patterns that I had sown before. I didn't do new. Yeah. And they were very simple and straightforward parent patterns as well, where it's just like, I know how to do this. Like, I don't even have to look at the instructions anymore. There's no worrying about a burrito method. There's no worrying about like, sign plackets it's just like, there's no origami folding is
what you're looking for, after a peak experience, or what you are needing after peak experience is different than what you need after a day of work, right. It's like we've been trying to figure out how to manage our, excuse me, our every day kind of work situation so that we're not obliterating We tired when we get home, right? Like you don't want to be like I have to lie on my bed and play 2048 bricks in my underwear until I stop sweating. And then I'm just gonna go to bed. Right? Like, that's not a sustainable way to do everyday. But sometimes after peak experience, like, that's what you need to do, and you need to do for a couple of days. You're not like I'm gonna try, like, when I'm tired like that. I don't want to play, like new repertoire on the piano that I'm struggling with. I want to play the songs I already know. Great just to goof around, because I do not want any kind of mental challenge and neither do you. Right. So you're like,
but But you want some of that. And I think that's the kind of tactile right like, like the playing the piano or sewing. It's like I can do this one. It feels good. That consumer fidget. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like a steamer or fidget that. You know, I hate to use the word productive, but feels productive. But there's something is satisfying about it, it makes a garment, it makes music it makes creative, right,
which is a different way of saying like, productive, right. So think about producing create as having the same roots, ultimately, and each is defined by a reference of the others is productive has been co opted by sort of capitalist thinking. But we can say like, it's creative in a sense, and that something material is happening that you can see, right, progress has been made towards some type of goal where especially if your peak experience involves a lot of things like reading memos, and plugging and unplugging computers, right, or shifting microphone levels and stuff, like it's very difficult to feel like very much is being done especially with like spreadsheets and emails. And like did the printer work for the registration badges kind of thing? Like it really doesn't feel creative in the sense that something is being produced that is tangible and knowable, and doable, and completable it's just a series of tiny tasks right? So yeah, we would we should distinguish there that on that every day, you want to have enough balance in your life so that when you are every day at work is not a peak experience. Right? Yeah. Then you just come home and you pass out until you have to go back to work like that's not ideal, but jobs do have or life has like you know getting married is a peak experience for people it's okay to be tired after that right like not after every dinner party you have shouldn't crater you for six months, but like you get married, like it's okay that you're stressed out about that and that you need a break.
You move right you move right? Yeah, like okay, like stuff
is happening. And like so my peak experience is a little bit different, right? different from yours, but sort of same results, right. So I went and we get a shout out to the University of Oregon, in Eugene for hosting me as their annual lecture for the new media and culture, graduate certificate program and interdisciplinary program. You could be in any kind of program and you take courses in this certificate and then you get that in addition to your whatever it happens to be art history, philosophy, English, whatever right? And, and shout out especially to Mattie Burkert, who invited me and hosted me. So I went, I flew on Wednesday all day. And then Thursday, I had just planned the day before workshop for administrators and graduate studies in the morning and then in the afternoon, my keynote and then the next morning on interview with the University of Oregon today podcast and then Friday afternoon, a workshop for graduate students and faculty about sketchnoting and every meal with people. I got my schedule, it was like amazing. As I said, like, I'm like the nuclear football right, the chain of custody must be unbroken handed to somebody. Yeah, all times like Maddie sent me this like, amazing schedule that had everything from like when I had to leave my house and Waterloo to get to the airport in Toronto had all the details of my flight had like the the street address of my hotel because you know, you need that immigration to like it. I never know what it is, right? Yeah, had everything. And it was like at 930. So and So picks up Amy from the hotel at 940 brings me to this place at 11. A different person picks up a mess, like, wow, it was amazing. I've never been so cared for in my life. And it was great. Yeah, I wrote a talk for that. Right. I've been working on it all year. And then I wrote it before us was like 6000 word talk. And it was brand new workshop and then a surprise workshop for grad people than being on a podcast and meeting all these people, which I said like, I'm gonna be there, you're flying me and like, hook me up with as many people as you benefit from seeing me. So it was it was a thing where, unlike you where you're managing 50 million things. So at an event goes, I am the event. Right?
Which is a different. That's it. That's a lot because you have to learn in a different way. But you're all Yeah. And I'm all the time. Yeah,
which I volunteer for him, which I love. But I thought I am experiencing this now. I I am doing this right now. I will experience it later. Right? Like yeah, yeah. It was so great. I met so many amazing people. And I get a whoop for Rebecca Schumann. To who I like finally. In person. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. It was immediate hugs. It was like, girl. Yeah, I know. So we went for coffee. Thanks, Rebecca. It was a good time. And yeah, I just like every minute of every day was scheduled. And then I get back in the hotel and I fall asleep and then get up just in time. The next day. Yeah. So yeah, the peak experience there was like, I didn't have to do any executive function at all. But But yeah, the whole time, right. And I was also stressed because I'm presenting original research and a new project. So it was like very cognitively demanding in that way. It was emotionally demanding. Because this is new work. Yeah, for me that I've not tested in front of an audience before and two new workshops. Right. And so that was like an a ton of new people, which like, I want to meet them, but like, Girl, I'm autistic. This is hard for me, right? Yep. And I loved everything about it. And I was the center of attention for the whole time. And it was not easy. It was amazing. But it was not easy. And then when I came home, like also, there was a three hour time difference. Yeah, right. And flying was like, it's a full day. It's like eight hours in the air plus, like switch arounds plus ground transportation. That's your whole day. So when I came home, I slept for two days. Right? I was just so tired. I didn't want to talk to anybody. Right? I didn't want to think and I was like, Oh, good. Monday's a holiday came back like Sunday over a Saturday overnight. I was like, well, Monday is a holiday. And I was like, listen, Tuesday and Wednesday are also going to be holidays, and possibly, because I've worked so intensely to get this new project done, right. And then to like, do all the flying and everything and managing it. But like I put in peak, right? Yeah, I did peak experience. And so the first couple days, I was just physically exhausted and asleep. And then the next couple of days. I want to do anything but didn't just want to like lie in bed and do nothing. So I played some piano and I sold some stuff like slowly, right? I was like, I'm so not smart right now. I'm just gonna like take my time cutting stuff out. And I'm gonna go for walks like I did very little, and I just did nothing. And I had not one blessed idea all week. It was great. Like my ideas brain just shut down. I didn't read like anything except my newspapers. But I was not sending myself emails with stuff yet. I mean, I was not having any research ideas or teaching I get to like, No, I didn't even open my computer. I didn't put makeup on because I tried to put makeup on like a week after I got back and I was like, obviously, it was in my suitcase. And I was like, oh, okay, right. I didn't even take my makeup out of my bag. Like I took everything else out of my bag. But I'd like this travel bag full of stuff. Yeah, that's hadn't taken my makeup out of it. I was like, Oh, God, good for me. Like I just gave up. Right? Yeah. And that was a week. I spent a whole week and then Friday afternoon of that week. I was like, Yeah, I'm your board. Yeah,
right. You messaged me like are we going to record a podcast?
And then I went to Canadian die. I heard I was like, Lee, listen, I can't do it. I'm trapped. And trapped to Canadian Tire. They're doing a price check. No one's coming back. I live here now. But yeah, like, sometimes we feel I know that you feel like this. And I know that I have felt like this where I mean, I'm very lucky that it's my research term right now. So I'm not teaching and I have minimal obligations on campus or service wise. So that when I came back from this peak experience, it's my research term, no one is going to know if I'm not doing anything, right. So I took the time. And I'm always afraid that when I take the time, I'm going to discover that I'm a lazy person. And I'm never going to get started again, right? Like, if I let the engine go all the way down to neutral, I will never find first year again, let alone here. It turns out, I just, I let my own sort of body and brain let me know what they were up for. And for like two days, they were up for nothing but sleeping, and doom scrolling. And then after that, it was like, let's play the piano. But not that song. That sounds too complicated. Like, let's fart around with pretty fabrics. Not the ugly, not the hardest. So fabrics, the pretty fabrics. And yeah, let's go outside and sit and clean a barbecue or whatever. And. And then after a certain amount of time, I was like interested in thinking again, right? And then it was like, Oh, I It's not like I'm a lazy person that I have to force myself to work. It's like I did a peak experience. And then I recovered. And as it turns out, I like working. I'm gonna go back now. Yeah, right. Yep. which not everybody has the opportunity to, like find that out. But it was very interesting to me to discover that when I didn't put a limit on myself, like, Okay, you get to sleep on Sunday. And then Monday, you have to do all of your laundry and get everything ready to go back to work on Tuesday. So you'll be ready for Tuesday. Like I didn't put that kind of limit on myself. I was like, I'm still tired. I don't want to write and if I don't want to I probably can't. And I did it and then just took a little bit of time. And then I recovered. It was amazing. It was amazing. Because that happens for you. Yeah.
And I think that this is this is kind of the hard fought wisdom that both of us have learned the hard way multiple times. Before we were finally like, oh, like you just said, oh, yeah, no, this actually is works and probably is a good idea. You know, because and I think like talking about your travel, right, you wrote, and I think we've talked about it now where you're just like you have certain requirements for when you travel, right? And they're they're just, they're just really non negotiable now, because this is what I need in order to function. And I'm just thinking it's like, the past Amy, would have scheduled this trip halfway in the middle of the semester and been like, yes, of course I can do this works better. Yeah, I can do it. And then I can go in, and I'll teach all of my classes that week and problem, no problem, it'll be fine. And all of these other you know, and pass me would have done something similar where, you know, now, you know, I know, we know our own limits, right. And we know what we need to like, again, like TLI size, an annual thing, where it's like, my family now knows, we all understand like TLI si a market on the family calendar. And it's just like, if you any of you make plans for anything. Don't include me, don't include me don't include me or don't expect me because I cannot and I will not be able to function at all. You know, so there's, there's there is that? And I don't know maybe it's because it does happen literally every year that I've just sort of like, okay, this is just the routine. And even like even everyone at the office knows that like even the non neurodivergent colleagues, we're all hung over after the event. And it's always before it's always Memorial Day weekend and we always get Friday off so because it goes till Thursday and then like the week after TLI si tends to be a really light week as well in terms of meat because everybody understands that it's just like and it coincides with the end of the semester it coincides is the week after graduation all the grid like so it is faculty are all gone. And while we are all still nominally working our our work as a center is recovering for TLI sigh Yeah. And so we've even institutionally, we've kind of institutionalized that for our jobs,
like I think there's a couple of things in here that are important one is learning what you need, right from repetition be like, you know, they're always saying like, Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Right. So so many of us are trapped in that self hatred loop, right of like, if I only done this, like if I try harder next time, I won't be tired. I'll just I'll be different. I'll be a different person next time, right. I'll just keep trying the same thing until I shame myself into being able to do it without the effects that always seem to happen, right. Yeah. So When we start accepting that, like, I know, I think this is the event that had like major spreadsheet tasks associated with it. Yeah, we're driving you crazy, where you found a way, you had someone working with you earlier who like was the spreadsheet magician would just be like, give me that lead, I will fix it. And then they made you templates, right? So instead of, of, because you know, which parts you really excel at here, where your value add is really at the event, right, and managing the things and the kinds of planning that that are not involved with spreadsheets, right, like, so there are a lot of things that you're good at actually took
the spreadsheets away from me. Right. great luck with that. Yeah.
Great idea, right? Because it's freeing you up to focus your peak performance energies on things where you're going to succeed. Yeah, right. And where your input is something that other people can't do more easily, right. So you've shifted the kinds of tasks you give, or where you're going to like, put your Fox, right, like, I'm gonna get better at spreadsheets this year, like don't, because you're gonna burn yourself out even know the event, it's just not going to happen, right? They don't need you to do that. That's yeah. Pyrrhic victory, at best. And then you also know that coming up to this event, you need to protect some of your time, right. So you're doing a little bit of work before the peak event, to minimize the amount of burnout that you're going to have after the event. Right. So you've learned how to organize things at the front end, where like, you've set expectations in your family about your availability for stuff like, because you can imagine, like, Oh, I'm gonna do like, like, let's say, I'm gonna do something with my kid, we're going to sign up for like, six lessons in whatever, but it's going to be in the six days before I have to fly away for a talk. Like, that's stupid, I would never do that. Because Frankie unprepared, and I'm going to leave for my talk already burnt out and freedom, and
you're not going to enjoy the thing, because during the thing, you're going to be worried the entire time about
that I just started writing. I was like, just in the groove when the alarm went, and I had to go to the thing. And now I'm mad. And I'm not fully president. Like, I just don't do that anymore. Right? There was a time when it would have been like those four categories. Yeah, of course, they had, like, it's not when I'm gone. So sure, I can do that. And we don't. So that gives us a little bit of an insight involved there. And knowing like, I think I need like two weeks where nobody demands anything out of me so that I can write this thing. I also what I learned about myself, over the past couple of years is that I love the research part, actually, that I can't research and write simultaneously. Right? Okay, you know, so I had pitched this particular topic, the touch grass thing on materiality to Matty last August. Because it was interesting to me. And I started researching right away, because I was really interested in it. Yeah. And all he did was taking sketch notes, right. So I had by the time I sat down to start writing us at the beginning of May, which is after my teaching was done, like 58 pages of sketch notes. In my machine, just from over the year, I'd read this article, I wrote stuff down, I had an idea, I wrote it down beside it, right. So I had like, 50 things that I printed them 60 page, I cut them up, like and I deal them out, like tarot cards. I'm doing a reading of my own research, it was just so much easier to start from. That's amazing for me. Yeah, thank you. And that's like the workshop I was teaching to was about how to organize your research like this. The writing doesn't hurt so much. Yeah. And so because I know the writing hurts for you. It does, it does. It doesn't hurt anymore, because I've found a way to do it. Yes. Yeah. So that when I started to write, I wasn't like, Oh, my God, I have to research this entire paper, like, it was like, Yeah, and I would save all of the tasks, but it was just so interested in it over the year that I was just reading as I went along, taking notes like not typing 1 million words of notes for everything, I registering a sketch note about it, and saving that stuff. And then I had a day where I blocked out on like, all my ideas that I have, each one gets a heading and a Pages document. And I just write until I can't think of anything else to say and then I print them. Right and then I deal them out like tarot cards. And so like, I know, that process is better for me, because I'm less panicky, because even when I start writing, I already know I have way more than enough material. Right? And so it was during that period, actually, from the first of May where I got sick, where I got that cold that knocked me out for oh, yeah, days, 10 days that we're supposed to be writing days. Right. And the brutal that I didn't just have a complete existential meltdown about that was because I was pretty sure that even having lost those 10 days, I was still going to be able to write a 6000 word talk because I was so prepared. Yeah, I mean, yeah. And I will say I wrote some of it the morning of the talk, right? I wrote on the airplane the full day, but I'd lost 10 days, right? But I was really confident because like my research analysts were clear, I had a structure I'd like delta on all my stuff. I knew what was going to happen. And so that way of writing is better for me. So I'm not landing someplace thinking I hope they don't discover I don't know what I'm talking about. Because I did you know I was talking about right. So that was like, one thing that I know how to do now. So I don't ever get in that position of like, if I get sick during this period, I have to cancel this talk because I won't be able to write it down. On time, yes, I've found a way to spread the research out over a much longer period of time. That makes it fun. And I've compressed the writing into a much shorter period of time, which makes it challenging enough for me to finish it. Yeah, exactly right. I've even been collecting in my sort of photos. I do screen grabs of things that were relevant. And I've been filing them into an album on my photos so that when I went to make slides, I opened up that photo album on my iPhone, I already had 100 pictures in there of stuff I thought might be fun to use. I didn't have to remember what I thought was going to be good was already in there. Right? So when you're in that state of panic of writing, I didn't also have to be remembering stuff. Because they've externalized it. All right, yeah, externalize it all in my sketch notes in my screen grabs in the drawings I've made, so I didn't have to remember any of it. I just had to lay it out in front of me so I could access it. So that was good. And, and I yeah, I knew to limit my engagements in the weeks before so that if I needed to nerd out and go into the writing hole, I could do it and no one would interrupt me. So that when I got there, and I do ask to go a day early, always right, some people are like, I gotta fly and do my thing and fly it. I can't I can't function like that. Like I even had no, I had I'm sorry, Maddie, I Loki temper tantrum at the airport in Eugene, when I landed after a full day of traveling because my taxi was supposed to be there. And it wasn't. And like Eugene is not a big airport. And there aren't taxis just staying there, right. And two taxis from the company that were supposed to pick me up came and waited for other people. And I was like losing my shit because it was 10pm. And I needed to be in bed right now. Right. And I would not be in any position to give a talk. But I had a full night's sleep. And it was chipper the next morning. And I don't leave the same day that I finished my thing because I can't check out of a hotel and pack and like, make sure my airport shit is organized and then go give a workshop. I can't like let me do all of that stuff first. And then the next day, I will go home. Right. So and that saves me a lot of stress.
And that is what's so funny. And then this is kind of the feminist lens on that That's some real diva behavior right there. Right. But it's but and you know, I say that facetiously but also slightly seriously that in some cases like, yeah, no, but but it is being able to set boundaries and ask for what you need to be able to be your best.
Yeah. And that's predicated on predicated on believing that you deserve it. Yes. Right. Yeah. Like, I'll tell you, it's still very weird for me. You know, I'm always joking, because it's true that I don't write anything unless somebody asks me, right, because of my various challenges with getting through peer review and stuff. But every time people ask me, I'm like, I look at who else has done it. I'm like, Oh, my God, those people are better than me. Right. But then I have to think, no, they're not. Right. Yeah. So for me to say, I'd like I would like to spend an extra night in the hotel. Right? Yeah. For me to say that is is to say, I am worth you spending more money on me, which can be hard. Especially when you think that the reason you need it is coming from a deficit that you wish you didn't have, like, people don't get cratered by jetlag the way that I do. Some people don't get sick to their stomach the whole time. They're flying the way that I do. Some people don't have tantrums when their taxi is 25 minutes late, but I do read, I can't manage my emotions. If I can't manage my energy level, and I can't manage my energy level from doing too many things in one day. But it is absolutely diva behavior. Absolutely right. But then I have to, like justify to myself like I needed or I can't function at all, is probably where I should stop. Right? But I also go to like, well, I better make sure I'm worth it. Yeah, right. And it's that's something I'm working on now is thinking like to have been invited means that you're worth it. They chose you didn't apply for this, right? Somebody picked you to go do a thing. That means I'm already worth it. Okay, I'm gonna do my best. And that's fine, but don't have to be like in this constant crisis of like, is this sentence the sentence of somebody who deserves to have their taxi prearranged? Right? Because like, it's very easy to get upset with ourselves about this. Right. And so I did function better because I had those things. And I think I managed to be friendly. I managed to be the person I wanted to be. Yes. Right. Like I say, like, I socialize really hard. I don't want anybody to imagine that. I don't enjoy that. I do. Right. So hard. It's hard. The ways that I accommodated myself or managed to get other people to accommodate me, allowed me to be the person I want to be when I do these things. Right. And it still meant it meant that I was able to thrive when I was there, but it did not mean I did not have to recover when I came home. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And same with you. Yeah,
that's exactly it. And I think that that's, and I think one of the things that that is important, and we've we've shifted this like, again, like we've sort of institutionalized as as an organization, how taxing TLI Science, right? Yeah. And so like, again, everyone knows. And it's a rough time for the whole center because it's again, it's also coincided with the end of the semester, it's also coinciding with graduation. It's also coinciding with the launch of all the summer online courses. And so half of the team is scrambling to make sure that we've done quality checks on all of these courses that all the i's are dotted, the T's are crossed, and everybody's ready for these courses to launch. And so it's a lot of so there's a lot of stress on there, there's a lot of stress on all of the details linked up. So there is a lot of space that we've sort of built in that we know over the cycle of the year, those two weeks, as you said, leading up to TLI. So not only personally for me, I do this at home, but our whole center sort of creates this space in the two weeks leading up and after and it used to be this was pre pandemic, it was a full four day event. All of it was in person because of course it was of course it was Yeah. And so and I mean, again, this is like taxing on the whole system. The we do it at the Healey family Student Center, which is kind of a hub on campus. It's it's a it's a well used facility, including during graduation. And so we would have to show up Sunday night to set up and be ready for Monday morning.
No, that's too much. And I
didn't want and that was the week where I passed out immediately afterwards. But but then the pandemic happened. And so we've we've turned it into a hybrid event. So that Monday is all online. And so we have people managing the online sessions. And then there's a team set up while we set up Monday afternoon, which gives the facilities people a chance to breathe. Yeah. And to switch everything around. It gives us a chance not to be there until 1010 30, Sunday night and then have to show up at 730. The next morning again,
why make it harder for yourself? Exactly.
And so there's been, you know, and this year again, we didn't make it all four days, because we're like, you know, what, three days is probably enough. And then that way, we're not staying late on the last day cleaning everything up. Yeah, but we basically ended it on Wednesday, and then came back on Thursday. Yeah, after a good night's sleep, to just debrief and clean this stuff up and do everything. So it's like, institutionally, and I think that this is this is a bigger sort of thing to say is like, what can we do for our neurodivergent colleagues? And it's one of those things like, you know, universal design will benefit everyone. Like these kinds of accommodations are not because we're all neurodivergent or doubt, but because we've all recognized that this was
never reasonable to do it the other way. Exam never was like it never never was right. So it's the pandemic reset, gave people a better sense, maybe of what it feels like to thrive, like, which is weird to say, right? Yeah, whoa, but a lot of the bullshit got taken out of our calendars. We were like, you know, I do a better job when I only have 50 things to do every day, not 75 things to do every day. Yeah, oh, I don't hate my job. I just didn't feel like I could succeed because there was too many things to do. Right. And so I think it takes you know, I'm always joking about how neurodivergent people are the canary in the coal mine of the workplaces and, and all the spaces that we occupy because the unhealthful conditions that will harm everybody eventually harm us first. And visibly, right? It's like the canary you put it down in the coal mine because canaries are very sensitive. Like they're like don't use Teflon pans if you have a parakeet right because the fumes coming off the Teflon pan will kill you like they had like dodgy little lungs and they die from lung irritants, right. And so it's like, if you want to know if your semester is too crowded, your course is too crowded asking or whatever to person. Right, because of the flame out. In week four, everybody else is going to flame out in week. 10. Right. So I think that sometimes it's possible Lee that your expression of your needs and your excellence simultaneously as part of what makes that culture change where you work, right? Part of the culture changes like, well, we could do great, but like why do we have to do 400? Like why do we have to start the conference already exhausted? Right? Yeah, we're like maybe it takes so much time. Like you try to spread it out over the year. Right? Yeah. Where are you like, well, we know this thing is coming. We can start planning now. But like you work with faculty members, you know, like people want their courses they decide two weeks before classes start. There's always going to be things that are happening at the last minute that you wish people had asked you earlier, but they do and they're never going to write so why don't you just preemptively clear the decks? Yeah. If you know that every year, right, because like, as we learned in therapy, you cannot change other people. Right? Like, that's the first step. Everybody is like, you know, what if everybody else behaved differently, my problems would be solved, right? Yeah. And the next thing is, I just need to start fresh somewhere else, right? So we try to change people. We could never do that. Sometimes we're like, this is like people who like my sister who compulsively moves all the time, like tries to solve her problems by changing her environment. Yeah, right. Sometimes we can do that. Right. So you're changing your environment a little bit at work. And so my, and then the thing that is, that is our number three, we try not to even do this is change ourselves. Yeah. Right. Because that's probably where you have the most agency, but it's least attractive. I would rather that other people change. And I would rather that my environment change. But if I have to change myself, like shit, that's my least preferred option. Right? But I think
what we're shy, but we also try to change ourselves and unproductive ways, usually, particularly from a neurological perspective, right? Like, yeah, we just, it's like, Yeah, we tried to pass we try to mask we try to like, if I just try harder, I'll be I'll be able to do it this time. Right. Yeah. So we're, we're not changing ourselves in a sort of productive reflective way, which is what we're talking about now, but often in very unproductive and destructive ways.
Yeah, we try to change our behaviors without changing our attitudes. Yeah, right. Like, maybe some behavior that needs changing, maybe your schedule needs changing, because your attitude, or your understanding of what needs to get done is like a lot, right? Which is like, I've changed how I do my research for big talks, my research and writing, I separate them a little bit more, like I'm writing the whole time, but I'm not doing drafts. No, I'm telling you, right, I'm doing all kinds of other writing, which I didn't use to do it, which has proved to be really helpful. So there, I changed myself, right? Yeah. But I've also changed the environment. And that when I go places, now I do require, like, I asked nicely, like, I need an extra day, on the front end, I need to come in the day before and I need to leave the day after so like, that's, that's non negotiable for me, or I'm not gonna function, it's not worth it for any of us. Right? So I have changed my environment a little bit that way. Have I changed other people? Well, no, I can't change other people in here. I don't have to because I have a locus of control, right? But when you are engaged in like this big activity, like your, your conference, which I can't remember, till we see, we see, right, you'll have to, you can change how you behave, you can change your boundaries, you can know that you're gonna need time off after and then everybody else is gonna be like, You know what, I also need a break from this. And sometimes, you know, we teach people how to treat us, right? So when we start saying yes to things that we know are going to push us over the edge and and people will change what they ask of us. And that can make the neurodivergent hangover after the event a little bit shorter, right? If we take care of ourselves on the way in the neurodivergent hangover will be shorter. Like, I'm sure you've done things that were a crunch, like, when I went up for tenure, like was a nightmare process. Like it always is like it's Yeah, wasn't Yeah, it's just a lot of work and a lot of stress over a long period of time and a lot of document production and stuff. And I was not diagnosed or treated. And I just didn't handle that very well. And when it was done, I probably needed like a full month. Yeah, off, you wouldn't really let myself have it. But I will know of course, I'm getting exhausted, right, like, so I didn't really know how to manage myself. And now that I am a bit better at knowing what ways of working will work for me, my neurodivergent hangover is less painful and shorter, it's never gonna go away. Because again, if you run a marathon, you're not going to run home. Right? You're not going to pick up your peak training, right? There's a reason that we do periodic training in, in running, right, because you can't always just be improving and going faster, you have to slow down sometimes you have to run less frequently. You have to change we because you're the it's called the taper. Right? It's
called. Yeah, yeah, we it's a taper you taper into swim meets or big races. Right, you load up and then you ease off and then you, you know, for peak performance during this one weekend. And then yeah, I mean, and then you have recovery, right? Where it's like you gotta get in, but you just kind of have to, you know, you're you're
you're having to learn about the tape. Really? It's exactly that it's exactly the period before. Yeah, yeah. Before tape on prints, you're like, let's not take on big projects, right now, let's leave that open, right? Because you're walking days, like, you know, like two weeks before, like I would run a half marathon, then you're doing near like 25 Kilometer runs, but in like the maybe seven to 10 days before your race. You're just doing checkouts right, you're just running three kilometers slow, by a kilometers, maybe 10 kilometers at 10 and ones like just real slow, your taper so that you will be as strong as you can be right or for me as extrovert as possible or as like able to communicate as possible or for you to manage like 10 Different kinds of tasks.
to actually be able to apply. Yeah. To actually have functioning executive functioning. Yes. A lot of executive functioning going on. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, it is that taper. And again, like you. You always feel like, like you feel good. And again, I like the athletic kind of analogy, because I'm about the same thing. And so I mean, you feel great after a swim meet, and you also feel like absolute garbage? Yeah,
absolutely. Right. Like, like, in today's like, coach.
Yeah. Yeah. And usually, I mean, often after big meats, you'd get a, you know, we would get a full week off, right? Don't don't come back. And, and, and by Friday, we were all like, we're insane. But I want to get back into the pool. I'm bored. Right? But like, Monday, you're like, Thank God, I don't have to go. Yeah, that's crucial
that by the time your rest period is done, you're like, you really just like duels with Right, yeah, go in like, because great feeling to want to start again, instead of like, I'm so tired that I have to because like when things become like coercive in those ways, when we're not enjoying them, we're telling ourselves, we should enjoy them, you lose your joy. In games, you'll never get to that point where you're like, can I please go swimming? Yeah, I just do a little bit of just because I want to write. And I I like the athletic metaphor, too, because the talk that I gave actually was about the repression of materiality from Descartes forward. Right? Because, you know, rationalism is all about, like, I think therefore, I am basically is based in distrust the material world and distrust your perceptual system. Okay, right, that the only kind of thinking that's real, the way that you know, you're a human is the manipulation of abstractions in your head, is your radical skepticism about the existence of other things that is actually the postulate, like God is what that means not like, I can do math, therefore, I am not that kind of thinking. It's like, I detach myself so thoroughly become so alienated from my own sensory apparatus, and the physical world that I experience, like, alienation, levels of skepticism regarding reality, and that's what makes me human. Like, fuck off, please. Descartes, right, so
actually explains a lot these days. Like, I can see how well you could go from that to like where we are today. Well, listen, that's
where we get to the crush AD, the Apple crush ads, but you should have seen my talk because like, that's what it was about. And I started about it. Now, I will just give you an earful. But I will say what your score is. It is not recorded, but I have 67 slides and a printout I can send to you if you want. Okay, you just have to advance the slides where you want. There's pictures of me sewing in it as an 11 year old.
Oh, good. That's great. Nice. Yeah.
It's a good picture. Right? So the thing with the physical metaphor, too, is like, oh, yeah, even in these jobs, where we're doing the thinking think, right. And most of us are in jobs, where we're doing the thinking thing who listen to this podcast, we are taught to divorce ourselves from our bodies, right? Yes. And we are taught to think of, of thinking, right, or white or pink collar work that we do as not actually being taxing in the same ways that digging a ditch classically, would be considered taxing, right? But did you know that your brain like you know, people say like, you're only using 10% of your brain, you're only using 10% of your brain for abstract thought the other 90% of your brain is fucking busy all the time running your body, you actually burn more calories, doing like if you if you're reading something, you burn more calories than when you sit still. But if you are trying to learn a new song on the piano, you burn even more calories than when you're just thinking about stuff like It's taxing is metabolically expensive to have a brain that runs like this. So it's not really even a metaphor, right? The physicality of it, your brain gets tired. Your body gets tired, even marathoners when they bonk right. So bonking is when you see your arms and legs stop working. Your brain stops working and you can't run anymore, right? Yeah, no, I've seen it I've seen in swimming, too. Yeah. And so what it turns out to be is that it's your brain that gives out, not your legs. Right, your legs have enough energy to keep going. But you have lost control of the executive function and motor control parts of your brain because when you run low on glucose, because you're running your body directs it to your muscles and away from your brain. But when you don't have the system that can control your movements, you have the experience of I cannot run one more. So it's like people fall down and crawl. Yeah, it's no, your legs are too tired. The Brainscape right. And so our brains give out after peak experiences we are bonking and the more I think we are able to articulate this in our workplaces or in our families, that this is like running a marathon. These peak experiences you need to taper before Yeah, and and you need a recovery after but also the more training you put and right, the more planning you do about how that training cycle is going to go so that you head into your taper ready? Right, the less difficult the race itself will be. And the shorter the recovery will be. And
sometimes you'll hear. Yeah, and you hear people saying we do it in swimming all the time. Is that like, we didn't get the taper, right? Yeah, right, because everybody also tapers differently, right? So some people like so just just to give an example. It's not a perfect analogy, but in but it still makes me laugh all the time, is that my younger brother was also a high level swimmer better swimmer than I was. And they would, you know, going to Nationals, he would go to Nationals. And we taper before these big meats like nationals, and just any good training hard and all that kind of stuff that look good, and then would just absolutely suck. And they couldn't figure out what it was, oh, well, again, he has, he has an incredibly fast or had I should say it's in his 40s. Now it's not quite as fast. It incredibly fast metabolism, he would lose 20 pounds of muscle during the taper, because also use lifting, you would stop shifting keep right. So the taper was to well, he couldn't so he would everybody. So that wasn't the problem that the swimming. It was the it was the weight training. And so he would do taper, but then have to go do maintenance weights, right? Just to be able to maintain backwards just to not go backwards. Right? And because they did they weighed them. And maybe it wasn't 20 it was like 10 to 15. It was but it was like a noticeable amount of muscle loss. Right? Just in like, a two week or 10 Day taper period. Yeah. Where it's like, okay, we're stopping lifting now. Right? Because you know, you were not? Yeah, it's like, no, no, Eric. Yeah, you have to go keep lifting. So everybody be leaving, and he'd be in the gym, like doing bench press and that kind of stuff. But I mean, that's what they had to figure out. Yeah, he's like, you know, this is really weird. You're training really well. You know, you you look good in the water, but you're going to the meat not sweating fast, but you've lost all your muscle. Yeah,
I think that's a great example to bring up too, because it reminds us like your mileage may vary. Yeah, right. Exactly. Could be maybe somebody else who's listening flies, places to give talks. But for them, what's most important is that they get back to their own bed as quickly as possible, right? Maybe they're like, I don't want to spend any nights, right, I'm going to fly at three in the morning so that I get there at 10am. I'm going to do the thing in the afternoon, I'm gonna fly home at midnight because I need to be back. I don't feel safe unless I'm in my house or whatever it happens to be right. So I guess like with, so much of the advice that we cobbled together for ourselves and share with others here is like, you have to learn how to tune in to yourself and really listen without judgment, right? Yeah, like, well, I should or like, well, the last person who did it didn't need these days, or everybody else seems fine. Because like at your work, it turns out, everybody else was kind of tired by this event, too. And they wanted a taper. And they also wanted a recovery period. And now what's better for for everybody, right? So it's hard to learn to listen to what your body and your brain is telling you that actually you really need right now, especially when you think you don't deserve it for various kinds of reasons, or if it differs from other people. And you're so used to masking that you don't want to be different from other people. But I
will say a burden and you don't want to leave.
Absolutely. Right. She comes again. Yeah, yeah. But listen, like, that is the way you're gonna get your peak performance. That's why you're not going to lose, you know, 10 to 20% of your muscle mass before nationals, because you've trained for this right, don't undermine yourself. So like, the advice that I would give would be different from the advice that you would give because we both have different needs and different styles. And for us, like, the comparison of your conference to my keynote trip is like, opposite ends of the same kind of it's a big event, but you're in charge of the big event. And I'm like, the football being moved around, right? And, and so we have different needs different peak experiences. But what we have each done in our different ways is learned how to figure out ahead of time where the potholes are and not stepping, right? Figure out how we have to run the training cycle so that by the time we get to the taper, we're able to taper we don't have anything we have to like, do the last minute training on and that afterwards, we're able to give ourselves enough of a recovery so that we remember that we don't hate this. Yeah, right. Yeah, it doesn't have to derail us and that's hard work. So good for you for doing that hard work of listening yourself and figuring it out.
And also again, like good for you for you know, knowing that you're worth it or working on knowing that you're worth it to be able to ask for what it is that you need for peak performance. And
they'd pines in Latin lien, ponds, several all about cocido ergo sum, like, rationalism was a bad idea, Cogito ergo sum went wrong there. Right? Or when we distinguished creating, from producing we mistook our Cogito when we were actually cocido in the wheel of commerce. Get it. And then when we are able to use our full embodied ways of knowing to produce our work, we are more than the Cogito ergo sum of our parts. Listeners, you can't hear, but Lee is actually laughing at my jokes. And I made upon a French too, because like in French, Descartes is like, visual pause, don't just three, and I did a lot on Descartes right at the beginning. I'm like, you may be wondering why I'm taking so much time to dunk on Descartes here. But it's important.
That is such it like, no one's really gonna get that. Except us. I know. And like, for like bilingual listeners,
I wrote. I wrote all half of those puns the morning of the talk. That was like, in the zone. I knew they were coming. Right? Yeah. That was like, and there were philosophers in the room. And I was like, Oh, shit, but they were like, Yeah, you got it, I think is like the
who love it. All right, well, I gotta go. While we were recording, the person who was supposed to meet with one is like, he'll go 158. And I'm like, yeah, oh,
my God, he's, well, I think we'd have to tell everybody, like our common ADHD Comedy of Errors today. Because you DM me yesterday to be like, we record tomorrow. And I was in my head thinking yes. But then I didn't answer you this morning at like, 1015. And I was like, 1130, great. And then I went out to get like my coffee and talk to my friend. And then I came back and I sat down at 1130. I was like, I wish I ate something. But I hadn't. And I turned it on. I was like, there's a message from you that said, Wait, can we do a live in 45? Because I gotta eat something. I was like, Oh, good. And then I finished the pocket. And I was like, I should eat something too. So that I went downstairs and I cooked something and I came back up here at 1147. And I had to eat up, but we're just gonna keep swapping 15 minutes to leave. Until next week, and then maybe we'll record but like,
we'll just have the zoom open for the whole time. I just keep popping in One sec. One sec. I'll be
taking one sec. I'm gonna go do those things that by the time you come here like I'm gone, and I'm gone long enough to like, I'm just gonna go switch mics, like, Oh my God. Yeah, but we did. It was very frustrated by us. Yeah. He's like, What do you guys even doing? I'm like, I don't know.
I don't know. And we've been invited to write about being podcast hosts.
I wrote down a bunch of ideas yesterday. Good. Alright, some sketchnoting about it. So when we get there,
Lord, okay. That's awesome. That's a whole other thing. But I do have to go. And we never introduce ourselves. I'm Lee Skallerup Bessette I'm ready writing on all the socials.
I am Amy hope Morrison I am at Did you walk on that stupid website that just changed its URL today and I'm going to rage punch a hole in the unit what it did? It did. You cannot lose the cellphone going on. Just great. Super Wonderful. I wonder how much you paid for that domain?
I don't know. It was somebody anyways, I think somebody was was.
Well, it's really hard to get a one letter domain lead. It's really hard to purchase a one letter domain.
Well, some No. But what I'm saying is, somebody probably purchased it and then held it hostage.
Well, somebody probably purchased it in 1993 is what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. Anyhow, that's neither here nor there. We have to
go. Yeah. So email us at all the things ADHD gmail.com. Visit our website, ADH, all the things adhd.com Leave a message on our Spotify because apparently we asked you to do that on every episode. Now by default fi asks. Yeah, yeah, Spotify asked you, that's great. And, you know, we'll be we'll be around. We'll be back eventually, you know, in a series of 15 minute delays until we go serious. Yeah, exactly. Until then, have a great rest of your day or whatever it is that you're doing.
