Dr. Carey Heller on ADHD, Time Management, and Turning Executive Function Into a Superpower

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Welcome to ECAST, the official podcast of He Changed it.

As always, I am Mike Chisholm. As always, I'm excited to have

conversations around the world of men's mental Wellness.

Now today we got a guy and I appreciate him.

His name is Doctor Carrie Heller.

Yes, doctor, Doctor of what? He's a psychologist.

And not only a psychologist, he's also a coach.

And I love that he's an executive coach as well.

And what does he coach people on?

Well, he coaches people on something that you might not

think is a sexy subject. It's time management.

But boy, do we ever do a deep dive on how powerful time

management is in our lives. He's AI would I would call him

an expert. I don't know if he'd call him an

expert. Mike says that doctor Carrie

Eller is an expert on ADHD and other and other things that can

affect people's time management. And we go through what a very

seemingly simple skill. And it is a simple skill, what

it can mean to people. Things like anxiety, depression,

family life, income potential, time management has a massive,

massive factor in these things for people.

If you're one of those people that procrastinates, can we show

you ways to practically get out of that habit?

Yes, we can. And Carrie is so good at this.

He's really, really thoughtful to the point, very, very easy to

understand and I just really have a fun conversation with

him. He's got some resources.

You can go to hellerpsychologygroup.com and

you can look at some of the courses that he has, you know,

$5.10 dollars, $15 courses that he has to help people get into a

better spot. And, and really isn't that what

it's all about? So thank you very much for

taking time to come here and listen to my conversation or

watch my conversation with Doctor Carrie Heller.

OK, Doctor Carrie Heller. Carrie, I'm so excited that you

have taken time out of your schedule to come on to he cast

today. There's a whole bunch of

questions that I have for you today.

I yeah, I just, First off, how long have you been a

psychologist? Ask me a question I guess.

Let me think for a SEC. I guess it's probably means it's

been a while since I have to count.

I. Think about 15 years now.

Yeah, before, before we kind of get into where you've kind of

specialized in, in some of the areas of of of interest that you

have done such an amazing job helping people to kind of deal

with. What's different about it than

you thought it was going to be when you thought you were going

to, you know, you were going to go into the into the the science

of of the mind and helping, you know, people understand maybe

themselves and how they think. How did you perceive the career

was going to be and what has been different about it that

what surprised you about it actually doing it after this

time? I mean, so I anticipated the

career involving a lot with talking to people certainly and

you know, helping them to sort of thrive and do better with

things. I think what I don't think I

realized in terms of like where it's sort of shifted was sort of

the the focus, you know, with adults on, you know, time

management, organization, how vital role that plays in mental

health and in general and how much like a hands on approach I

and sort of taking with clients and working on those things and,

you know, safety with kids too. So I think there's that piece of

it, you know, I think education both for kids, well as adults in

college or in Graduate School, you know, the idea of just how

much, you know, certainly education has changed over time,

but also just how vital all the skill skills are and how much

the time management really connects with anxiety,

depression, certainly ADC and variety of others, OCD and

almost pretty much any mental health disorder.

And just the all this stuff connects.

And if you can't sort of get stuff done effectively, it

really throws things off. I want to put an exclamation

point on what you just said. Time management, an organization

contributes to anxiety, depression, some of these things

that we don't like. That is, I can understand why

that would be surprising for you.

That's, that seems like a very simple, you know, a simple

ideal, something that we all go through all of the time.

I, I think whenever I use the word procrastination, I get

people always going, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, like it seems like a lot of people deal with it.

It also seems like they deal with it for different reasons.

So that's fascinating to me. And clearly, you know, you've,

you've, you've made it a focal point of what it is that you do,

the courses that you've created things like that time

management. Yet who knew how big of a silver

bullet that might be when it comes to our overall mental

health? Yeah, no, definitely.

And actually, I think it's, I think part of it is a lot of

people don't take that time to take a step back.

They just go with your life. They try to get stuff done.

If they're really struggling, they might think about it here

and there, but they're often so desperate to get things done,

they don't take that step back to figure out, is my system even

working? You know, or if they're working

OK, but it's not working as well as it could be.

Taking that step back to figure out how can I make it better?

Well, I think, I think also, you know, the part where we don't

even take the time to take that step back.

We don't we're just literally going from situation to

situation and encountering things.

And then as you know, deadlines pop up, that's when we sort of

pop up and and and move forward. Now you link that to a buzzword.

I mean, we talk on this show many times about how there

there's so many Co opted words that are that are out there

right now that they become buzzwords and and really at the

end of the day, have different meanings to different people.

You know, trauma is one that's a good example of 1, you know, but

but another one. And I'm fascinated to talk to

you about this today. And I'm glad that we're talking

to an actual psychologist about it as opposed to coaches and

stuff. And I love I love them.

And you have coaching as part of your a practice, which I want to

talk about because you, you combine the two many times you

find somebody is 1 or somebody is the other.

You've got actually kind of got both in what you do.

So I'm fascinated to talk about that.

But the buzzword, of course, being ADHD and, and, and I mean,

I can't tell you how many people in my life, both professionally

and personally, people have said to me, Oh yeah, I've got, I've

got a little ADHD. I've got a lot of ADHD.

Almost like it's a spectrum or I've been fully diagnosed with

ADHD and it's causing this and that and this and that and this

and that in my life. And it's like people have

completely different definitions of it.

I think back to when we were kids, when I was a kid.

Anyway, I'm 50 years old at the time of this broadcast, You

know, it didn't even exist. The, the, you know, you, you

heard of every once in a while you heard a kid who was on

Ritalin to calm them down or whatever, but that diagnosis

really wasn't there. And I think about you and how

long you've been doing this, ADHD has risen up and the, the,

the, the level of knowledge that we have about it has gone up

exponentially since you started. Where was ADHD on your spectrum

of knowledge when you first started?

And has you, have you just seen it grow and grow and grow?

And that's why you've kind of moved into that.

I, I mean, I've definitely seen it.

I think I've seen it grow in terms of people becoming more

and more aware of it, which I think is helped.

I think the other big thing is I think a long time ago there's

often this idea of, you know, a child or an adult has eighty.

Well, first of all, a long time people didn't realize that it

actually extended into adulthood.

I think there used to be this thought that it you sort of

outgrew it, which for the most part is not usually true, but

you know, the symptoms kind of change in adulthood.

But I think in terms of the way like with treatment, for

example, a lot of it used to be the focus on, you know, a child

is ADHD, you get the medicine and that's it.

What I think what often kind of got missed in that is that

there's a lot of other pieces to it, both directly with ADHD and

just sort of secondary things like self esteem and other stuff

that really gets impacted if you don't use behavioral strategies

to also support kids. ADHD.

Usually medication alone for the most part is not not enough to

sort of really help them to fully thrive.

Because the other part is medication is not going to

magically give you executive function skill, which are

basically an umbrella term used for time management,

organization, planning, test initiation, getting things done.

And so that's where, you know, practical strategies, whether

whether it's some sort of therapy or coaching, you know,

really helped helps people to be able to thrive with HD because

just because you can focus better isn't going to magically

fix all the other aspects of how it HD impacts people.

OK, you are on the right show with the right audience today.

I'm super excited with what you just said.

I want to start unpacking some of it and, and, and, and so

let's talk a little bit about the idea of time match.

I want to get into what ADHD is in a second here, but the idea

that there's a couple of things that I want to talk about today

with you, because I, you know, I think you are such a wealth of

knowledge when it comes to showing people simple ways to

drastically improve your life. And, and it's one of those

things where there are things that are, they're easy to do and

they're easy not to do. And, and, and, and it's, it's,

which is great. You know, it's super great

because if somebody does want to jump start where they're at and

give themselves some momentum moving forward, it's something

that's really simple and easy to do, but it's also something too

easy to avoid. And, and I want to get into that

when it comes to the organization, the time

management. First off, you agree with that

statement, right? Oh, yeah, no, definitely.

I mean, I think a common reaction to what I work is this

idea of, oh, these are actually fairly simple things.

I never really fully thought about it this way or you know,

because again, like what I often tell people is it's not a magic,

there's not one magic fix. It's not like a bunch of fancy

strategies. It's often, you know, fairly

sort of, or at least to me, they often seem fairly simple.

But in general, it's the idea that it's like, I mean, even

just as one example, like using like when people like ask me

what apps and stuff and things like that do I recommend?

If someone asked me about a calendar app, probably the most

common ones I'd recommend would be Google Calendar and Apple

Calendar, which are standard on people's devices.

It's not some, you know, super fancy extravagant calendar app

that doesn't really different things.

It's often the simplest things that use the right way can make

a big difference. There you go many times we

reinvent the wheel with the new shiny thing when really at the

end of the day, we just need to get the wheel that we have

turning and so, so, So let's go back to the ADHD thing for a

second. Now let's can we define what

ADHD is and and and and what the from a clinical perspective.

In your mind, what is ADHD and how many people do you think out

there are affected by it? Sure.

I mean, so in terms of what ADHD is, I mean the DSM 5 TR, which

is the book that's used has a criteria for various mental

health disorders. It's classified as just called a

neurodevelopmental disorder, basically means that it starts

in in childhood. So Tenley, based on criteria,

you have to have some sort of symptoms prior to age 12.

I mean, again, people with with that are adults can still be

diagnosed with first MTHD. The idea though is suddenly, if

you look back and get through history, the idea is that there

are symptoms that you saw looking back on your experiences

of childhood if you're an adult being diagnosed.

But basically it's essentially a disorder of of self regulation

or a challenges of self regulation.

So challenges with regulating your attention because people

with ADHD can focus pretty well on things that they generally

enjoy. Overall, it's really the things

that you don't really enjoy doing that are extremely hard to

focus on, which I think is also why I think sometimes, you know,

there's a lot of misconceptions about AHD and sort of

frustrations and feeling, oh, you just need to focus better,

like better, you know, the idea that I think sometimes it, that

itself makes it hard for people sometimes to really understand

how much it impacts someone. And there's also, so there's

Asia itself, but there's, I mean, there's what's called

combined presentation, which basically means you have

sniffing issues with attention as well as hyperactivity,

impulsivity, hyperactivity are things like excessive movement,

like having a hard time sitting still.

So the person that shakes their legs or fiddles with stuff, you

know, kind of where you think about fidgets, where those kind

of came into play, you know, or the fidget spinner, which I

think was very well mismarketed because I think it's meant for

anxiety because it's quite distracting.

I, I, and I can, you know, if you want to ask me later, I

mean, I'm AI, you know, I spend a lot, I focus a lot on, on

stuff with fidgeting and all sorts of like strategies and

tools and things I can show you. So definitely, if you want more

of a, just let me know later. I can definitely talk a lot

about that as well. Absolutely.

But, but I think the idea, but it's basically the idea you get

to also the impulsivity. So basically some people have

the attention hyperactivity and impulsivity.

So doing things without thinking, you know, saying

things without thinking, you know, which definitely can

impact a lot of things with with relationships.

So some people have kind of all three of those, some just have

the attention piece. Technically someone could

primarily have the impulsivity and hyperactivity part without

the attention. Like I mean anecdotally I don't

see that very much, but it is a some type of ADHD basically

also. OK, so is it actually chemical?

Is it, is it a chemical thing like, like, because I mean, I, I

look at some of the, the medications that are out there

and things like that, those to me seem to be things that treat

the symptom. But is there an actual chemical

reaction in the brain that causes it?

Or is it an environmental behavioral type thing?

Do we know the answer to that yet?

Sure. I mean, generally though, the

science sort of indicates that's a, you know, it has a biological

cause in the brain. The the thing though, is that,

you know, but I think that the symptoms can be brought out more

based on the environment because, you know, one reason

that, you know, you know, for kids, sometimes it can be hard.

I mean, the symptoms do change a little bit as you get older,

like the hyperactivity piece tends to lessen.

But you know, if you think about a child, there's less, you have

less control over your environment as a kid in terms

of, you know, there are only so many different sort of types of

schools and things like that. Whereas adulthood you get to

pick, you have more options, potentially pick a career that

fits better with your skill sets and limits some of the

challenges you may have with ADHD.

And so I think that so that's one reason where sometimes the

symptoms aren't always as noticeable, at least in like the

very, you know, outwardly ways in, in in adulthood.

But again, I think even if someone has ADHD that's well

controlled, you know, I think there's, I think there's, I

think it's still hard to completely function, you know,

fine. Also, I think like there's

little things I think that can pop up here and there as well,

even if you have a very well controlled, but you know, I, I

think certainly that there, there's a lot, a lot to it, but

I think it's also about finding the right strategies and tools

and comprehensive support systems to, to thrive with it.

Yeah, well, and I like the, I like how you said that.

I love how you said you can thrive with it because there are

some that would look at the, the attributes of ADHD and they

would look at it as a superpower almost.

They, they would say, OK, well, if I can just lean into the

things where I can zoom in and focus on and then, you know,

time you get into almost a flow state.

You know, I, I, if, if somebody's interested in

writing, for example, sometimes I, I've, I've met people who

have, you know, ADHD and yet they can write for hours and

hours and hours on end. They just may have to do it with

the stereo playing or, or something like that.

You know, it's, it's, it's, it's interesting to me how, you know,

so many people think of it as maybe, perhaps you know, well,

the word deficits even, you know, in, in, in the, in the, in

the term, they would see it almost as a negative.

But it really can be used as a positive if aimed in the right

direction, can't it? Yeah.

I mean, I think I would probably caveat that with the idea that I

think aspects of it could be used as a positive.

But I think it's, I think I wouldn't draw the like go quite

so far to say like it as a whole can all be positive.

Like I think that it's a a mix of sort of finding the positive

traits you get from the ADHD and using that, but at the same time

finding the right supports and interventions to support the

areas that you struggle with so that overall you can thrive.

That is a very measured response and I appreciate that response

very, very much so. So the idea of now let's let's

marry the two concepts again, Let's go back to the time

management, the organizational skills.

Is, is ADHD one of those things where it's on a spectrum or are

there people out there who just happen to have some of the same

sort of effects where, you know, I think we live in a society.

Oh, that's the other question I want to ask you too.

We live in a society where impulse seems to be winning the

day in many responses. You look at what the top social

media app in the world is. And I don't even have, I don't

have TikTok, but I see people who are on TikTok.

And I mean, the quick, it's all so quick and, and, and we're

scrolling through things very, very, very, very quickly now.

And you look at, you know, even where algorithms are going when

it comes to things like YouTube and what I'm the guy that loves

a long form conversation very, very much.

But I keep getting told strategically, you need to take,

you know, 9 to 29 second clips and put it out there and, and,

and do all these things because of the algorithm.

And that's that the algorithm is head by fed by our human nature,

you know, and then there are people who are saying, well, I'm

ADHD. Well, are we ADHD or are we

learning and and and and conditioning ourselves to what

the environment is feeding us every single day?

Yeah. Well, and I think what you're

kind of getting at is this idea that, you know, basically your

your brain sort of craves dopamine in a sense.

And basically the idea is that if you're constantly watching

these short form videos, you're kind of training yourself in a

way to want that instant gratification of it.

So, you know, just because someone watches a bunch of, you

know, so on social media doesn't mean they need HD.

But but what it does mean is that certainly over time, if you

keep doing that, you're going to train yourself more to kind of

expect the instant response, which can then sometimes make it

hard to get tasks done because they're not.

You don't get the same reward you get from, you know, going to

take out the trash that you do from, you know, sitting watching

a bunch of really short videos on TikTok or Instagram or

something. Yeah, well, and I mean, I like

I've seen it happen in, in, in younger people in my around my

circle where where it seems to be almost altering their

behavior a little bit. It almost seems to be like like

again, once they're in the once they're in the feed for a while,

their behavior outside of the feed will also sort of imitate

that, you know, you know, short attention span and things like

that. And I just wonder if that's

related at all or not. I appreciate.

Itself, yeah, it doesn't, you know, itself cause ADHD, but

certainly you can, you know, create some sort of symptoms

that probably could mimic aspects of it.

Either way, procrastination and not being able to focus on

things and what not really puts us in a situation where it can

affect our lives. And that's what I want to talk

to you about here today because you have really done a deep dive

and created some very simple resources for people.

There are going to be guys who are listening to this.

Were they themselves or maybe they're, perhaps they're the

parent of a child, you know, who isn't perhaps being as effective

as they possibly could. One of the things I love about

the stuff that you have made is it's incredibly simple and, and,

and the, the barrier seems to be procrastination in stopping the

procrastination. And I, I want to talk to you

about that and talk about some very simple things that people

can do to make drastic improvements to their lives and,

and, and, and start creating momentum for themselves.

Would you say time management is the top of the list?

Yeah, I think definitely, I mean it depends on each person's, you

know, where they're struggling because I can't think.

But in general, I would say for, you know, the average person

who's having a hard time getting things done is overwhelmed,

Maybe they're anxious. You know, usually starting with

like how can you work on kind of the organization to get things

done can be a good. I think it's a really good start

starting point because I think the hard, the thing with it is

that basically if you know, if you have so much going on in

your head and you have no way of actually organizing yourself to,

to know what you even need to do in the 1st place, it's going to

be much harder to get anything done.

And then you're just going to be kind of a perpetual state of

feeling overwhelmed, probably. Overwhelmed was a huge one.

And and and and when somebody's overwhelmed many times that can

feed procrastination, can't it? Yeah, no, exactly.

I think that can feed it. You know, I think on the other

hand, you also get people that, you know, trying to use a bunch

of different apps and things like that, but don't really know

what they're doing with it and then get discouraged if nothing

works. Because, you know, I think the

lots of apps out there that are really good for keeping track of

tasks and things like that. But often it's more about how

you have to use the app. That probably becomes more

relevant in some ways than than than app itself.

Yeah, we cheat. We keep chasing the new shiny

thing, don't we? Thinking the shiny thing is

going to solve the problem. But when?

At the end of the day, it's not the shiny thing.

It's us and our mentality. How can people who perhaps might

be behind the 8 ball a little bit when it comes to these

things? OK, so there's a good question

because I mean, there's different personality types and,

and, and I, I know of some people who, who have maybe more

of a certainty type personality, focused personality and, and

time management. Things like that are easy for

them. It's a natural, natural thing.

I know others where it is almost like.

The enemy, they just, they really, really have a difficult

time with it and, and almost look at it with almost, almost a

bitterness towards it. Do you think, are you convinced

that doing what you do and and having talked to ever all the

people that you've talked to over the years, are you

convinced that anybody can learn these things?

Yeah. I mean, I think as long as

someone is, you know, is, you know, is verbal and has, you

know, enough of like a cognitive capacity, I mean, I think even

if you have a limited capacity, I think there's ways around that

to kind of navigate. But I think I think the idea

generally is that probably all the people that are listening to

this podcast, I would venture to guess probably are fully capable

of making making improvements and changes.

And I think the key is really to start small.

So I mean, for like, I would say probably like just a soup, you

know, if you want a kind of really simple suggestion right

now or something you could do even theoretically while we're

talking or pause the podcast for a second while you do it would

be think about it, you know, open up the calendar app on your

phone or a computer if that's easier.

Basically, if you use a calendar app and you Add all of your

tasks or sorry, all of your, sorry, all of your events in

like the, because the idea is you don't want to rely on your

memory for things for this kind of stuff.

Like because that in itself is you're more likely to make a

mistake. It's more mentally taxing.

So what I would say like the two key things to start right now

would be use a calendar for events.

Put the events in, in terms of let's say if it's work meetings

or social events you know of or picking your kids up from

somewhere, you know, put that all into a calendar.

So it's all there in front of you.

You can set it and get alerts to remind you of different things.

So that would be #1 the number two thing would be to make a

list of all the different tasks that you need to do.

And then what you can do, you know, you can, if you, if

there's someone that really likes paper, you can put it on a

piece of paper to start. If you like doing

electronically, you could use, you know, if you have an Apple

device, the Reminders app is great.

You know, that's built in. Basically just list out all the

tasks to start because that those would be the two things to

really start. The thing with it though, is

that obviously you still have to plan it out because just because

they're in a list doesn't mean they're going to get done.

But at least knowing we have to do in the 1st place is is the

first step towards towards planning it out.

Yeah, it's almost like if you're, if you're looking at

cognitive behavioral therapy, you're almost chunking it a

little bit, right. Just that first step of making

the list is going to get you. I don't know if it's a dopamine

hit or not, but even making the list many times starts momentum.

It starts things going, you know, and the idea of, you know,

well, I want to exercise, I want to get into better shape.

But you know, I just, oh, it's so overwhelming the idea of

going to the gym five times a week.

So you start out by taking your gym bag and putting it by the

door. And OK, there's the first start,

right? And then the next time it's

driving to the gym and, and, and you know, maybe the next time is

walking in through the door a little bit and, and you just

kind of start the momentum. The organization can be done the

same way, correct? Exactly.

Yeah, they have to start small. And especially if you're someone

that gets overwhelmed very easily, you don't want to try to

go and implement a huge system to start because you're probably

not going to get very far and not going to do anything with

it. That's why, you know, in the

same way where you could put in all of your tasks into a list,

if that's going to feel super overwhelming, you know, start,

start with a few to start. You know, big picture, the most

important things get done or put.

You know, another approach actually is to get used to,

let's say, using a task list. If that's something you want to

try doing, but you're comfortable with putting a bunch

of stuff in, put in a few things you already do normally anyway.

Let's say brushing your teeth, eating dinner with the idea then

that you're not actually relying on the task on the task list to

remind you to do those things. But the idea is you can mark it

off after it's done. And then so it trains you to

kind of use the list without it feeling overwhelming because

it's not you're not adding anything that you're not already

doing anyway to it to start. OK, I love what you just said

there. So if if you're taking things

that you're already doing by memory or intrinsically,

instinctually, whatever it is and and putting them on the list

that you know that you're going to do, it's kind of a layup for

the idea that you get to cross it off the list.

Now, when you cross something off the list, that does provide

one of those little little little chemical rewards from the

brain, doesn't it? Yeah, no, definitely.

And depending on the app, sometimes they actually like

animated it when you hit the button to check it off too.

Oh, we love to congratulate ourselves, don't we?

Yeah. And again, I think for for a lot

of people that helps to reinforce stuff that the idea is

if you can cross off a couple little things, it gets that

momentum going to then make it easier to get more and more off

the list. And that feeling of at the end

of the day, you've crossed that last thing off the list that you

know, it's often a very good feeling for people when they

they've cleared their To Do List.

Yeah, and, and, and I mean, OK, so that's a great point.

And I want to talk about the habit part, because at the end

of the day, I think a lot of people, they get overwhelmed.

They think about, you know, all of these new extra things that

they have to do. How long does it take to become

a habit once you start? So I think it depends on the

person. I mean, sometimes it's, you

know, a week or two, you know, it could be a little more, it

could be less. The thing that I think is

challenging, especially with ADHD, is a lot of times even if

someone gets into a routine like they can get, people can get

very thrown off easily by let's say there's a day off from work

or school or you take vacation or some, some other thing that

just sometimes throws you off that it's hard to kind of shift

back to doing what you're doing before, even if you had been

doing it successfully for a while.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And then there are some people

like in your experience, other personality types who just are

anti routine. They just don't like routine at

all. Yeah, I think a lot of people

that find it boring and don't want to do it or, you know,

probably a common thing I hear is that, you know, they can sort

of get the routine for a little bit, like maybe a few days or

week and then they kind of fall off.

And then they can't they either they find porn, they just can't

stick with it. I mean, one things that I found

with the idea of like where you, you know, generally want to do

it and you start but can't sustain it is having that

accountability, like having someone to check in with to, to

kind of talk through your stuff and catch yourself when you're

starting to kind of fall off of whatever you want to be doing.

I think that's really crucial because that's where I think

most people kind of fall off from, you know, starting the

routine and sticking with it. Like, you know, using the gym as

an example, you mentioned earlier, like if someone says I

want to start workout routine, I want to just go to the gym.

You know, if they're going with someone each time or they're, I

don't know, letting someone know that they're going and let's say

they're starting to fall off their plan.

If that person says, oh, you know, you stop coming as much

with me or doesn't seem like going to the gym as much, that

might get them to think, oh, let me, let me, that's right.

Let me reassess and try to figure out how to approach this

better. Whereas if like several weeks

have passed and they stop going together at that point it's be

much harder to get back on track with with that goal that they

have. Full disclosure for me

personally, I mean, I, I, I've always had the intention.

I think we always have these intentions of wanting to be

better and wanting to move forward.

I think many people that's almost their default is that

they assume next year is going to be a better year than this

year. And, and, and I always had the

intention that I was going to exercise and get into better

shape. And it never really happened.

I lost my father last year. After that happened, I went

through it was, it was a very rough three months before he

passed away and I knew that I needed, I needed the benefits

that physical exercise give you more for the mental side than

for the physical side, although I certainly need it for the

physical side too. For me, it was hiring a trainer

like I needed to go to that level to know that I would be

accountable, that I would go to a place, I would be there three

times a week. And in that time, I didn't even

have to really think about the exercises that I was doing

because somebody was gonna be there directing me every single

part of the way. It, it, it was that extreme for

me to be able to start building that habit.

Now we're, we, we were just talking about it yesterday when

I was in the gym, You know, we're, we're, we're 11, almost

11 months into it completely transformed my body.

I've completely transformed my, my, my mental state.

And it was worth every single penny and every single second

that I was there. The reason I bring that up is

I'm curious if there's an equivalent in this world.

Are there people who are just so disorganized where, you know,

the idea of a calendar app and things like that and, and the To

Do List is there, but they just need more direction.

Are there ways that people can kind of dig in a little bit more

to have someone help them build the habits the same way that my

trainer helped me with mine? Yeah, that was a good question.

And absolutely, I, I, I think that that is something that a

lot of people struggle with. Even if they have a calendar and

they sort of use it to some degree, you know, they made

people often need help and to figure out how to plan more

effectively. Even if because even if they put

stuff all the events in, they put tasks on the list, there

still can be a disconnect between having it there and

actually being able to execute it effectively.

And so, yeah, so working with, you know, an ADHD or executive

function coach can be really good option because that's, you

know, basically where it's, you know, you're working like

directly with people on like someone's helping you directly

to kind of work on these things where you look at your tasks and

plan them out. I mean, what I would say with

that is, you know, first of all, I mean, so for ADC coaching, I

mean, there's there's some certification programs.

So like, you know, some coaches have some sort of certification,

but they really vary in what the training actually involves.

Executive function coaching is not really regulated industry.

So pretty much anyone can call themselves that.

So just, you know, my suggestion in general is when you're

looking at these things to actually look at someone's

background and their level of education, what they're actually

do, just, you know, if you're going to seek someone out for,

for those kinds of services, just because they, you know, it

really can vary kind of what people do and the knowledge

base, just because, you know, a lot of it is also, you know, at

least from my approach, one size does not fit all with, with how

you approach things. And there are definitely, you

know, various programs out there, professionals where it's,

you know, that they want you to do it, you know, their way in

terms of how you plan stuff out. But if that's not really how

you're creating works, you know, it may not be quite as

effective. So I think just thinking about

the importance to have flexibility in what you know, if

you're going to someone to really make sure that that

they're open to kind of meeting you where you are helping you,

but not aren't going to force you to do something a certain

way if you don't really want to. I love that you put it that way.

It's and that's where I wanted, I wanted to move in this

direction anyway because again, as I said earlier, many times,

you know, we meet psychologists, we meet coaches.

A little more rare, a lot more rare in my experience is that

you meet somebody who's both. I find it fascinating because,

you know, if you're looking for clients as a psychologist, I

think that there's a certain stigma or stereotype perhaps

that we, we all have individually in our viewpoint as

to what that looks like. If you're looking for a coach of

some sort, the same thing. And so I find it fascinating.

You kind of do both. You're you, you kind of step in

both worlds. Is it because humans think of

things and perceive things differently?

Is that, is that why as opposed to just saying, I'm going to, in

my, my, my psychology practice, I'm going to specialize in these

things and that's what I'm going to focus on.

Well, you're kind of branching out that much more by being a

coach. And I'm curious how that

experience has been for you and if it just, yeah.

Can you talk about that a little bit?

Sure. I mean, so I think what got what

got me sort of into the the coaching piece of things to

begin with was that was both sort of the the therapy work

they do with ASU, but actually also because I also do testing

to diagnose ADHD and learning stability, right and anxiety and

so very. Handy that you can do that as in

both. Worlds yeah.

And so basically, so the way it works with testing is you have a

feedback session after we talk about the results and you talk

about recommendations. So you talk about how do you

help someone to move forward? And so, you know, I have a lot

of fun with making recommendations, really like

making them detail oriented and specific apps and programs.

And so I had people that, that I wanted to kind of keep coming

back or wanted to come back to work on the stuff I was

suggesting the feedback session. And then so I end up launching

kind of a like a like a 2 hour boot camp that I've been doing

for I guess about 13 years at this point.

Basically this is like a 2 hour session like that.

But basically from there, I basically the, the coaching

piece kind of evolved into sort of, you know, people wanting,

wanting that, that direct, you know, hands on approach with

stuff. And also recognizing that it

seemed like that was really missing for a lot of people that

it's great to talk about feelings and there's a lot of

value and that's really crucial. But you have to actually take

some sort of action beyond that to actually, especially time

management to actually sort of see a lot of progress.

And so that's where I feel like was often just missing and

people. And it kind of just, I think I

was doing it for a long time. I'm really thinking about it in

terms like a coaching capacity. But then I think it's a somehow

sort of evolved naturally into kind of doing it way where then

I started referring to it, you know, as that in part just

because it helped people to sort of better understand what I

actually do, you know, in terms of going beyond, you know,

traditional talk therapy. It's fascinating to me that you

have all these clubs in this bag that you that you're carrying

around when it comes to this because there's a lot of people

who are stuck. Like there are guys listening to

this podcast right now who are stuck and perhaps they don't

even realize that something as simple.

And again, maybe let's let's go even the extra mile.

Maybe it's not easy, but simple anyway, as time management, an

organization and some of these things we're talking about can

literally change momentum for somebody.

I want to hit that point a little bit harder.

How, how much like you've seen success stories from this, like

where somebody is stuck, how, how much can this affect them

and where can it take them? What's the potential here if

somebody decides to make a commitment to this?

And you know, I use the example of the physical of the physical

with the, with, with the trainer before.

And I mean, for me, it's changed my life completely.

It's changed my body completely. And and, and, and it's certainly

changed my mindset completely. What can this do for people who

might be feeling stuck? How far can it take them?

I mean, I, I, I feel like it's, you know, each person may be

slightly different, but I think in theory, you know, you could

just pretty much, you'd probably do a 360 if things are really

not going well, you really could turn things around.

Because The thing is like the executive functioning time

management piece, it really underlies most of what you do in

life. So the idea of, for example,

being able to have the capacity to plan ahead with meals, to

eat, eat, eat healthier, to stay hydrated more, get physical

activity in being able to be. So there's sort of the health

piece of it where it can maximize your health.

There's the like financial standpoint there probably, you

know, depends on your job as somebody.

But in general, if you're more organized and functioning

better, you're probably going to do better in whatever your

career is. Which means that if you're in

the type of job where you can sort of get, you know,

promotions and better pay, you know, you're probably going to

achieve that or switching jobs to get that.

Where is if you're not really sort of oriented and you're not

sort of getting there, you may be in the same job, not really

going anywhere in the way that you want to with your career.

So, you know, so it has the, you know, obviously, so the health

benefit, career benefits, family life.

I mean, it can create better help you to create better

relationships with family members.

I mean, if you're someone that I don't know, you forget your

wife's birthday or you know, or some other thing like that, that

probably does not go over well year after year, you know, So,

you know, it's like these little things and, you know, and then

think about like, you know, also if you're someone where, I don't

know, you sometimes forget to pick your kid up places or

you're always running late. Like those things, you know, can

weigh on a relationship over time in a variety of ways.

And so being able to sometimes make those, you know, semi

simple changes can go a long way towards improving relationships.

Or, you know, one of the big things I see, you know, this

part is really especially interested as like idea of

mental health is the idea of relationships with friends, The

idea that a lot of times people in HD, you know, and obviously

men in general, sometimes they just, you know, they don't,

they're not intentional, but they don't really keep track of

the idea of, oh, I should contact so and so to keep in

touch. And so they lose touch with

friends and then they get kind of isolated.

So being able to kind of better navigate the time management

also may make it easier to keep track of, you know, the thought

of, oh, I should actually reach out to so and so to make plans

or I should text them and see how they're doing.

So it can help you to sort of be better connected, you know,

socially, emotionally. So really like you can help in

all aspects that go beyond what you typically think about time

management. Yeah.

OK. So you basically just, you know,

touched on every area of somebody's life.

So what you're saying is it's, it's literally could take and

give momentum to every single area of people's lives.

Have we got your attention yet? It's, again, it may not be sexy,

It may not be the shiny new thing, but it is simple.

It's it's really simple. Carrie, are you familiar with

Doctor Stephen Covey? He wrote a book called The Seven

Habits of Highly Effective People.

Oh yeah. Yeah, I've heard.

I've heard the book. Yeah.

OK, so I'm not sure if you're familiar with it or not, but,

but one of the things that he talks about in there is the idea

of reactive versus proactive. And he and he and he goes

through that in a whole bunch of different ways.

Certain certainly like little subtle things like speech, you

know, like don't say you're, you're, you're you're crappy at

something. Say I'm getting better at this,

you know, or my challenge is I'm going to, you know, it's, it's,

it's a way of, of, of reframing how you talk positive.

Positive mindset with it. Yeah, a little bit of positive

mindset stuff, but but it also very grounded, like it's just,

it's, it's, it's a mindset thing.

Now the proactive, it also goes to, and I believe in the book

it's, I'm not going to quote anything, but the impression

that I got is one of the most important things if you want to

be highly effective, one of the most important things that you

can ever do is, is in a proactive way, you can, you can

plan for your day the night before or plan for your week.

You know, let's say at the beginning of the week, you know,

you plan for your week moving forward and you, you cast a

vision as to what your week is going to look like.

And time management is certainly a part of that.

But you know, going through that, he said it's basically one

of the most powerful things that you can do if you want to create

new habits in your life. When you talk about this time

management stuff, do you also like obviously having the

calendar and, and, and being look at that?

Do you also enjoy the idea of planning out, say, the full week

and knowing what that's going to look like and outcomes and, and,

and, and putting that positive spin on what the week might look

like? Yeah.

I mean, what I would say with that is I think that makes a lot

of sense and I think it's good to sort of make a plan.

But you know, I would say probably one of the probably the

number one thing that I hear in terms of complaints about

planning is that people complain that the plan never works, that

something comes up, you know, and so like the way that.

So I think it's important to have a plan and to do what you

said, but I also think you have to have some flexibility in that

because there's certain things you're not going to know how

long it takes, how long does it take?

How many emails am I going to get in a day that have to

respond to? How many phone calls am I going

to have to return? You know, so like there's all

these things that basically you can't always plan for.

And so we were not very good at time estimations either.

And again, there's definitely things you can do to improve

that. There's certainly AI programs

you can use and variety of other things to, you know, just

naturally actually tracking the time yourself of tasks that you

do over and over again to, you know, see you can actually

develop a better sense of time with those tasks.

But the point is that, you know, you have to have some, you have

to have flexibility, but you need a framework as a starting

point. And to the idea is to try to

stick to as much as you can with the caveat that there are things

that are going to come up and you have to sort of adjust stuff

in a calculated way. So not just, oh, I'll push off

for tomorrow, but the idea of I see that, oh, I have a break

from 2:00 to 3:00 on this day. I'm going to reschedule this

task for that time because I know I have time to do it then.

Yeah, see, there you go. Because, I mean, I'm going to

push this off for tomorrow. Well, what you're doing now is,

is, is literally even whether you know it or not, you're

procrastinating. Sometimes we procrastinate.

We know we're doing it. You know, sometimes we are doing

the thing that we, you know, playing a video game when I know

I should be doing this. You know that, you know, there's

many times there's that. But the idea of saying, oh, this

came up, I need to put this somewhere, but that's where we

leave it. Whereas I need to put it

somewhere. Well, then that just becomes a

bigger problem later on when we get closer to the to the time

that there's a deadline or we're missing something, or or or.

We should, that's why we also have to look ahead because for

things you can't do quickly in one sitting, you know, you can't

spend 5 hours on something right before it's due if you don't

have 5 hours free. But if you do, you know, an hour

a day on it, then it gets done. But you have to plan it.

So that's where I, yeah, I think looking ahead week as a whole or

even further out for some stuff and then allocating time blocks

to things, you know, is a is a really crucial skill.

But it's also the other piece of it's also the by your energy

level that when you know, besides the actual time you have

available to do a given task, If you can sort of figure out how

much energy does something require when you likely to be

optimally focused and have enough energy potentially to do

it and not trying to schedule stuff that's unrealistic.

Like if you know that you're not going to, I don't know, figure

out how to pay some sort of bill at 10:00 at night when you're

really tired, you don't want to schedule that as a time you plan

to do it. Like, I imagine that, you know,

a common thing is to schedule lots of stuff to do in the

evening and they never get it done because you're tired and no

energy or other things pop pop up.

And so that's we're also having like a set time to plan like

maybe like, you know, the night before or first thing in the

morning. They can be very helpful because

then you kind of see, you know, what what's worked, what's still

works based whenever you set before and you kind of tweak it

quickly and then kind of go from there.

Or if you know. But the other thing I would say

is it's also important to try to in some ways almost under

schedule stuff in the way that if you cram in stuff every

single hour and minute that you have available.

Besides, it'd probably be very overwhelming.

The second, you know, anything takes longer than planned or

something comes up, it's not going to work.

Like if if you have to return emails or phone calls and you've

absolutely no time scheduled for that.

I mean, there's, I'll use an example like with doctors I

often see where you know, they have back-to-back appointments.

And they really have no time to actually schedule for

administrative stuff. So then the problem is, you

know, they send, you know, portal messages at like 10:00 at

night because the only time they have are on weekends.

Whereas, you know, if you blocked out, you know, 15

minutes, I don't know, every few hours, you could then probably

respond to all the messages and then not have to be working at

10:00 at night. So the idea is sometimes like

these little fixes of just how you're allocating your time so

they can make a huge difference on, you know, certainly the

productivity and your mental health as well.

Yeah, I, I love that you, I love that you said that.

One of my next questions was in your experience, is it better to

look at things the night before, the morning of that kind of a

thing? And, and, and when you're

putting things into your schedule, you know, do you do it

immediately the moment you know that there is something there,

do you do it immediately or do you wait till the kind of the

end of the day to schedule for the next day and, and put them

all in at once? Is there a, is there a method to

that madness, or is it one of those things where you can kind

of customize it around whatever your personal dynamic is?

That's a good question. What I would say with it is that

I think I mean in general, you want to be like awake and

focused enough to really plan effectively when you're doing

it. So you know, if it works well to

look the night before for stuff and you feel like you're going

to be able to follow through on doing it and planning, then by

all means go for it. And you could do that.

Then if you you know you're going to push it off because

you're so tired or you can't think of straight at that hour,

then I would do it earlier today.

Like even just basically the end of the work day might be a good

time. Like we're basically you're

finishing up tasks for the day and then this way before

whatever you do next, you sort of then play out the next day.

Then you kind of have stuff ready to go, you know, and hope

you know, plus also stuff from work may be fresher in your mind

to that point because you were just doing it.

And so it's easier to that point to figure out more quickly what

do you need to do the next day. And so I think you can kind of

plan a week out for big stuff, but then also look and see what

do you plan for next day and does it still fit?

Like if you had certain tasks planned out for certain times

and then you realize, oh, wait, I already had, I ended up

scheduling a meeting. I'm not actually free at that

time to do it or I have 5 tasks scheduled for the same 5 minute

time slot. Then you can't probably do all

this tasks at once. So you need to sort of adjust

them. So I think doing it, you know,

probably the day before and the time you're available and focus,

I think would be ideal. But at the same time, maybe

doing that is like your primary thing.

And then in the morning, have a set period of time before you

really start your day where you you dig out of emails, phone

calls, so you can kind of start the day without feel like you're

playing catch up. And then double check your what

you have planned and make sure that it still fits, you know,

because it's something new and you got some e-mail overnight

that impacts a project you're working on or something like

that. Or so.

And so from your group needs this particular proposal or

something sooner than you thought.

Then you have to reallocate time to whatever that is, if that's

more pressing. I, I appreciate these insights

very, very much. I want to thank you so much for

that, You know, putting the emphasis on time management for

people. Again, it's one of those things

it's, it's, it's we don't necessarily think about it.

You and I have dug really deep into that today and I hope again

in the future we can do that as well.

I want to shift gears a little bit.

Sometimes we got, we got dads who who listen to this listen to

this show and they've got kids like I think about, well, he

doesn't listen to the show anyway.

So I'll, I'll, I'll out him a little bit.

My kid brother was, you know, he was one of those kids where at

the beginning of the school year, my mom would buy him a

jacket and within the first month that jacket was missing

and he didn't even know where it was.

And he would go through two or three jackets throughout the

year. And, and, and not even, you

know, they would just be, be gone.

You know, one time I think he came home with one shoe.

How do you, how do you, how do you come home with one shoe?

I don't know. But there's a lot of parents,

I'm being a little bit hyperboless here, But, but, but

there are parents though, who have kids who this is, this is

their existence. And, and, and, and perhaps

there's official diagnosis. Perhaps it's just some of these

behaviors that are out there. Do you got advice for those

parents out there who've got kids who are in this situation?

I know that you have definitely gone down this path and you've

got programs when it comes to kids.

I'm curious about your insights on that.

Sure. And I mean, I think 11 strategy

to navigate that like with an example of the code or things

going to school would be to to actually have like a checklist

where you mark off each morning what code was being taken to

school. Because the problem is for

something like that, especially if it's warmer, when you, when

the child gets home, you may not automatically think, oh, there's

something wrong. They didn't bring your code

home. But you know, I mean, clearly if

it's 10° outside and they normally wear a coat and they

don't have a coat when they get off the school bus or walk home,

however, they get home, then you're going to notice the

code's missing. But I think it's often the times

where they don't actually need the code later today, they're,

they're probably more likely to misplace it.

So, but the problem is like it or like, if you didn't see your

child in the morning and they're old enough and they get up

themselves to go to school, then you're not going to have any

sense of what you know. So, so in that situation, it may

be a lot longer to realize the code's missing.

But if you have, I don't know, checklist, if you're the five

coats they own you, you know, you can move, you can do with

like a a marker, you know, like a dry erase marker.

You could have a little like magnetic donkey move next to the

coat that the child's taken. But the idea of having the mark

off what coat they took each day.

And then they can, you know, basically mark it off when it's

brought home. And then if they haven't, you'll

realize it the same day that's missing.

And it's a little easier to go back to the classroom or lost

and found and find it. Same thing with a water bottle.

Well, water bottle is another good example.

Like, like, and again, I want to like the coat is OK, That was

just the example. But like the idea of at the end

of the day, the kid comes home, where's your coat?

I don't know, like, like it's just it's it's gone.

And it's almost this behavior that you're talking about here.

Where, where, where, where, you know, the attention is so that

that water bottles or coats or things like that go missing.

And I know parents who are pulling their hair out because

these kids have these behaviors. So checklists is a way to do it

and, and accountability. So that that's really at the end

of the day, you're drilling down into, you know, knowing what's

leaving the house and making sure you're you're, you're

you're pretty tied down as to what's coming back into the

house. You kind of right the.

Other thing is to work on helping your kids to navigate

this stuff themselves. Like I like to call the idea of

parenting for independence. So like, I mean, you know, in

there, you could have the kid, the child kind of, you know,

marks off the on the checklist at home, but the child could do

themselves at school would be, you know, if they they can put

like a little checklist on like as A tag on their backpack.

And then basically, if it's a common thing, so they can check

in each day before they go, whether it's they're packing

from a locker or, you know, for kids that, you know, actually a

lot of schools don't seem to use lockers as much these days, but

you know, if they do or just, you know, cover your.

Whatever it is. That basically then they can see

the checklist of these are things that you bring home.

My water bottle, my lunch box, Yeah, my homework folder or

whatever it is. And then that can help increase

the accountability because, you know, same thing with a lot of

times I see kids have a hard time remembering to put their

homework folder in the backpack to bring it home.

Or if they have a bunch of different binders, forget to

bring home the right binder for homework.

When it comes to ADHD and kids, I mean, you know, when we see

the numbers, is it a matter in your opinion?

You know, you've been doing this for 15 years and this is where

you started focusing, you know, fairly early.

You started seeing this stuff. We're seeing a lot more

diagnosis when it comes to this. Is it awareness?

Is it a shift in our biology? Is it, is it just a matter of,

you know, we're discovering new things about this that we didn't

know before? In in in your opinion is it all

the above as to as to the reason that this has the diagnosis of

this of this state with kids has gone up so much?

Yeah, it's kind of a mixture of things.

I think it's certainly increased awareness.

I think there's certainly a decrease in social stigma

attached to it compared to what it used to be.

Absolutely. Yep, I, I think there's, you

know, there's obviously the elements of pandemic and for,

you know, kids of a certain age, parents seeing them at home for

a while, doing school and getting a maybe in some ways a

clearer understanding of what how they actually function in

school they may not have gotten before.

So, you know, it's a variety of different reasons that I think,

you know, there's certainly more diagnosis.

Again, the thing with kids in particular, though, you really

want to be careful of is that a lot of times like anxiety,

depression, various other these can really look like ADHD a lot.

I mean, even adults too, but even more so in kids, I think.

And so that's why you really want to be careful and not just

just jump at the symptoms and fill out a checklist and have

that be how you get a diagnosis. Like you really want a thorough

evaluation to figure out what, especially when there's other

pre exist, you know, possible issues or other things.

Like especially in teens, I see quite a bit is if a child really

is sleep deprived, if they're not getting enough sleep,

they're really busy, you know, they're not they're going to

have a hard time focusing. So you really just want to make

sure you under, you know, or if there's any certain nutrition

deficiencies, you always want to look at everything to try for

what's going on and not just say, oh, my child's trouble

focusing. It must have ADHD.

I love that and because again, that's rampant and it's not just

rampant with kids, it's rabbit with adults as well.

Like I'll give another example that is an ADHD to kind of give

perspective. Like, I know people who are very

well, we'll use the word anal retentive, perhaps, you know,

they're, they're so far down that, that, that path that you

could describe them accurately and lovingly, even as anal

retentive and they would go and say, Oh yeah, my OCD is causing

this. All right.

I have a couple of friends who have kids and, and are part of

a, of a collective of what OCD really is and what it can do and

the severity of it and whatnot, right.

There's idiosyncratic behavior, but then there's also like flat

out obsessive compulsive disorder.

And those are two very, very, very different things.

That's the example I'm using for for this.

I believe that that is in our society, we're trying to figure

out what ADHD actually is, and that is happening with that as

well. Would you agree with that?

Yeah, I think for a long time there's, yeah, people say, oh,

you know, this OCD disorder, they need stuff a certain way,

which I mean, again, is part part of the disorder.

But I think a lot of times people sort of attribute like a

random symptom or two to disorders even if they don't

actually have the disorder. Yes.

And ADHD, to me, that's a buzz that's happening all over the

culture, that same phenomenon, I think.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, cuz the one thing that I

just wanna sort of clarify that I think it's important to know.

So when I mentioned executive functioning earlier, the idea of

issues with time management, planning, organization, you

know, you know, certainly anxiety, depression, OCD, lots

of other things can really 'cause those things.

So when you see these issues with attention, also, just

because someone has troubles with attention doesn't

automatically mean it's ADHD. So I think that's a really

crucial piece of things. They don't want to just, even if

someone's having a hard time with time management,

organization and attention, you want to look at what, what else

could it be? You want to rule out everything

else too to ensure that it's not some other thing and and just

falsely assuming it's ADHD. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned

that. Like, again, you know, you see

people out there and again, I'm not, I'm not a I'm not a, I'm

not a psychologist. That's, that's, that's, that's

going and doing these deep dives with people.

But it sure seems a surface level, like you say, you can

just go in and fill out a checklist and suddenly, boom,

you're on vivance or you're on one of these things that, that,

that, you know, can drastically change your body chemistry, or

at least at least temporarily. And, and, and you want to be

sure when it comes to this stuff, but really at the end of

the day, habits can like time management and organization, for

example, can be something that can certainly, certainly take

some of these symptoms that we're feeling and help, help

them subside. So I, I, I'm glad that you've,

you've, you've talked about this, you talked about fidgeting

earlier. We got a little bit of time

left. I really do want to talk about

that. I mean, you see people with the,

the restless leg syndrome and things like that around.

You see people with fidget spinners like you say.

I mean, for a while there, every dollar store that you'd go into

would have almost an entire aisle of these different little

things that people could, could, can play with.

Let's talk about fidgeting for a second here.

I'm fascinated about the deep dive you've done in that.

Yeah. So I mean, I would say that the

main thing with fidgets is that to build AHD because they have a

hard time focusing. It's also about stimulation.

So they're basically when the task isn't inherently

interesting enough to them. It basically it's it's kind of

like if you take like a pie and 100% would be focused, maybe

they're 75% focused. So we're basically the the

mindless movement kind of fills the rest of the void in order to

help them to be better focused. So, so the key with it though,

is that any sort of fidgeting should be mindless and not

distracting to yourself or to others.

So especially for adults, because you often need your

hands, as they've showed me your computer, I actually really like

stuff that you can do with your feet.

And the thing things that we suggest to you are actually

really helpful really for everyone, you know, but probably

especially helpful to AC. But it really can be helpful to

anyone would be like, for example, of you a desk, like

having like a desk elliptical, like the, you know, a little

thing like about this big you can basically pedal while you're

working at the desk. This way you get physical

movement in throughout the day. You know, a sit stand desk, you

know, a treadmill under the desk.

So base, you know, and you or you can stand with like a

balance board or like a, you know, something like a whirly

board. Yeah.

You know, like things like that, they're basically, you know,

they're kind of fun. You can kind of move around on,

you know, there's lots of different things you can see,

but you know, a lot of these things really are helpful

because it gets you moving in throughout the day and it so

it's healthy in general. And yeah, it can help you to

focus at least a little bit better.

I dig it. I dig it.

So, so if somebody has like I, I noticed there's somebody in my

office and I every once in a while look and his leg is going

like 1,000,000 miles an hour. Like he's just, and, and while

he's talking and doing things or whatever, listening to a

presentation, especially if he's listening to a presentation from

somebody or whatever, I just look at his leg and it's going

1,000,000 miles an hour. What are some of the things that

cause things like that? I mean, certainly it could be

ADHD and like certain the oculation you do have that where

they shake their legs quickly and it's, you know, when they

either do it as sort of like usually it's unconscious, like

they're not intentionally like doing this initially, but it's

just sort of happens that it's their way of kind of creating

extra stimulation. If they're not, you know, it's

focused or interesting. That's actually why also the

stuff with the legs that peddling is really helpful since

the leg, you know, shaking is sort of probably one of those

common things that people sort of do with the fidget.

And so it kind of creates this intentional sort of movement

that, you know, probably a little a little bit easier to

navigate than leg shaking and sort of has more of a productive

sort of purpose in a sense. That makes sense, that makes

sense. So for, for, for the guys out

there that are listening to this today, I mean, I hope that we've

run it for good food, for good thought and, and, and, and, and,

you know, the idea that if you are stuck, there are some real

practical and again, simple ways and you can ease into it.

It doesn't have to be, you know, all at once.

Don't be overwhelmed by the idea of this, but if you can

introduce the idea, you know, of the calendar, if you can

introduce the idea of, of, of creating a task list or whatnot.

And again, when you have that task list, like crossing stuff

off, whether it's physically, whether it's in and out, it's a

really cool feeling to do that. And you actually start to feel

like you're getting some momentum.

And many times it can lead to patterns where you end up being,

doing more things and being more productive because you like the

feeling so darn much. And I, I know it may sound

boring. It may sound, you know, it may

sound so simple that it's not even worth trying.

Well, no, it's so simple. It is worth trying because it

can be life changing. You know, Carrie, I, I just

appreciate how, how far of a deep dive that you've done into

this. I want to talk about you and

your practice here and some of the some of the the resources

that you have created for people.

There are going to be people who listen to this that might want

to reach out to you and, and, and, and go a little further to

see what it could look like for them.

Talk a little bit about your practice.

I know you do online as well. You don't, you're not just, you

know, up in Maryland doing your, your, your, your personal

practice. Personally, the thing about the

beautiful thing about the Internet is our connectivity and

that you can help people across the globe.

And I know that you do do that. So can you talk a little bit

about some of the resources you have?

If people want to reach out to you, what's the best way to do

it? Sure, absolutely.

Yeah. So, so I can see people actually

in 43 states through side packed.

So gives me a lot of flexibility, working people

virtually. And I do also have two executive

function coaches in the practice who can see people in all 50

states. And you know what?

About Canada? What about Canadians?

We're broadcasting from Canada here.

Can you see international people who want to get help with this

stuff? Can you coach them?

I have to check. I, I unfortunately can't because

of licensing laws, but I check, I think like I think that

executive function coaches probably can see people in

Canada, I believe. Absolutely, but.

Yeah. So, yeah, they definitely can

help people in Canada. Yeah.

I mean, my website, hellerpsychology.com probably is

the best resource in terms of, you know, there's a simple form

to contact the practice if you're interested in working

with us. There's a page that has, you

know, the various online courses I have.

And anybody can take a course, anybody out there, wherever you

are in the world. Can take a course or actually

like intentionally very concise because, you know, I don't want

people to spend longer than they need to to do it.

I've got a few AI programs I've built on, you know, helping

people like plan out tasks and things like that.

Some are free, some are like a dollar or two and some Notion

templates. And again, all this stuff is

pretty low cost because I want to be accessible to everyone.

And the idea really is to, you know, use these as a launching

off point to really help yourself.

If somebody. Can also find me on social media

as well. Yeah, OK, So sorry.

Say it again. Carrie Heller, what is it?

Carrie Heller's ID for on Instagram and Facebook.

OK. And Heller, psychologygroup.com

and the courses are all there as well, right?

Yep. So let's talk about that.

So you got somebody who's listening to this podcast right

now who's like, OK, you know what?

I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I want to, I want to start the idea of getting some time

management going in my life. What course are they looking at

and how much is it? Sure.

I mean, there's, if they want that, there's a fidgeting course

that I think is $18.00, I believe.

Or I think if you, I think if you sign up for the newsletter,

I think I think you get it for free, I believe.

And then let's see, I have a coaching kids at industry and

sports 1. I think he's currently on sale

for 16. And then there's a, there's a

boot camp one. That one I think is more for

kids, but there's AI mean for parents and kids.

But certainly there's a lot the parents can get out of it in

general and some stuff they can help themselves with.

I think that's maybe like $24.00, something like that.

But I mean, again, none of these are like ridiculously expensive

courses. I want, really want people.

Absolutely, and I, I'm, I was so delighted by that.

It was refreshing to see that, you know, with some of the

materials that you have your YouTube channel too as well.

You've got all these, these little videos that, that, that

just show very, very simple things to get people.

You know, I think the big thing is getting thinking about it and

applying it to your own life, you know, and I'm saying that to

to myself as well as the people who are listening or watching

this, you know, could you be better in this, you know, and,

and, and if you could, are you willing to put a little bit of

effort towards a lot of results in the end?

And, and really, at the end of the day, that's all this is.

Carrie, I'm so grateful that you that you came here today and

came on to heat cast. Is there anything that you want

to say, you know, to the to the to the men that listen to this

or watch this? Anything that you want to say

out there to them who might be a little bit stuck?

I guess what I would say is sort of a final thought is the idea

that you're the thing. If you if you want if you want

things to be better for you, you have to take some sort of action

to make that change. Doesn't have to be a big action

to start, but if you keep doing the same thing over and over and

you're probably not going to have anything go very

differently. But so just start small.

It, you know, whether it's, you know, going for a simple walk to

clear your mind or get a little physical activity in, whether

it's, I'm going to say I'm at least put all my, my events for

today in the calendar. You know, whatever it is, start

small, you know, seek, seek professional help when you need

it, because that can really make a huge difference.

If you're really stuck and you don't really know where to go,

having something that can kind of guide you, make you where you

are and help you can really be helpful.

And also, you know, whatever you can, you know, pull online is a

starting point. But the idea is, remember that

it it does, it's very general advice.

It's they don't know anything about you civically when you're

watching it. So you also have to be mindful

that what may be recommended generically doesn't may not

always take your direct needs. There you go.

And we had, you know, disclaimer on the show here we have, you

know, we're we're, we're discussing ideas and

perspectives and things like that.

We're not offering advice when it comes to personalized advice.

You want to go to somebody who gives you the personalized

advice as opposed to just listening to something in, in,

in general. But at the end of the day, I

hope that I hope that that that this conversation today will

help the people who are listening to this or watching

this think about their life and move in a different direction.

That's why we do the show. We do the show.

He cast to have these discussions around men's mental

Wellness specifically and, and, and hopefully with the goal of,

of, of getting people to to empower themselves to move

forward to solution, whatever that solution might be.

I'm so grateful for our guest today, Doctor Carrie Heller.

You know, a lot of good food for a lot of good thought.

Like I said earlier, this has been another episode of he cast

the official podcast of he changed it.

My name is Mike Chisholm. Go change something.