Drama Queens - Work in Progress: Penn & Kim Holderness

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

For online content creators Penn & Kim Holderness, the saying, "the couple that works together, stays together," is spot on! The couple, who have been married for over 18 years, are best-selling authors, podcast hosts, and Season 33 'The Amazing Race' winners. They join Sophia to discuss their new project, taking on the stigma of ADHD with their book "ADHD is Awesome." The power couple opens up about Penn's ADHD diagnosis, reframing how people think about ADHD, dealing with 'time blindness,' the viral video that jump-started their company and the lessons they learned along the way!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Hi, everyone. It's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Whipsmarties, today we are joined by two guests that I, I just, I don't even know if I have the words to describe how excited I am that they're here. I'm such a fan of their work, their sketch comedy, their award-winning videos. I mean, me and, you know, 8 million other people who follow them across their social media platforms and the 2 billion people who've watched said videos. I'm not exactly new on the discovery here, but I am long on the adoration.

Today's guests are Kim and Penn Holderness. They have been married for 18 years, and over the past decade, they have become incredible online content creators. And now they are on a mission as a duo and as parents to reboot how we think about ADHD. They are bringing their trademark uplifting humor, which you probably saw on The Amazing Race, here on their podcasts, have read in any of their bestsellers or, you know, listen to on their videos. They're bringing that humor and their personal insights, plus five years of research, which you know makes my brain feel excited, to share their experience. with a condition that affects millions of people around the world,

attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder. Penn was in college when he was diagnosed, and although the signs of having a brain that worked differently had been there since he was a kid, he still had to go on quite a journey to figure out as an adult what coping with his neuro-spicy brain looked like. And as he researched how to do that, he realized he wanted to write a book.

So they wrote this book together. They are sharing it with fellow ADHDers and the people who care about them. And as, you know, one of the estimated 10 million people in America with a neuro-spicy brain, I am so excited that they are here and so excited to ask all of the questions. Let's get to it. Well, hi, guys. Welcome. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks for having us for excited. Well, gosh, I mean, you guys have obviously so much history. You've been married for 19 years. And as you say, you have a news background. You have this whole incredible life you've created and the things that you make and the content that you produce. I want to like, I want to go back before we catch up to where we are today. How did you two first meet? In a bar. In a bar. In a bar. are in North Carolina Florida we were yeah so we were we were reporters at opposite stations

in Orlando Florida oh the competition everyone says that which is so funny but like we were the only people awake yeah Tuesday night and it's 12 o'clock and you know it's midnight and we finally get off work so thank God there were other stations so we could like talk to other people Yeah, so his business is actually very incestuous. So, yeah, I met him at a bar. Then, you know, a few months later, I saw him. We kind of connected. And then I saw him doing the worm on stage.

And I was like, this man is mine. Like, that said, it's done. Yeah, that's him. Yeah, so that was it. And then we got, we were engaged and married. Like, we were engaged within nine months and then married nine months later. So, yeah. Incredible.

When y'all were growing. up? Did you envision being public figures? Like, can you sort of see a through line from your childhood dreams to what you do now? Or has everything just taken five left turns and you can't sort of believe this is where we find ourselves today? I mean, you do have that poster. I did stand out in front of the Today show when I was in high school that said like future NBC news anchor and Katie Kirk signed it when she was on the Today show. Oh my gosh. You know, I grew up in a small town in Florida and I always wanted to be a writer and I didn't know and I loved comedy but I just didn't really see a path as a writer besides a newspaper writer or some sort of like television reporter so I just didn't see a path any other path and I was yeah and I was kind of pictured myself behind the scenes on things so this is weird in a thousand left turns I wanted to be a musician for a long time I but I didn't really have the patience to learn a lot of the instruments.

How to play music? But I felt like I had like a creative side to it. I played in, you know, I was part of a lot of musical theater growing up in high school. And so that like got me into doing a cappella and playing in a band in college. And I was like, oh, maybe I should be in a band. And my parents are like, what are you talking about? No, you can't be in a band. Go find a real job.

And so the closest I could find to a real job that didn't bore me to death was working for a local TV station, which had no real, real musical element to it. But I did that for almost two decades before we started this next, just bizarre, left turn into the internet where you can really do whatever you want. So how did that happen? How do you go from working in the news to having this digital career? Yeah. So we, yeah. All right. So we, um, I didn't see my kids. I just could the way that local news works, you either work from 3 to 12,

like 3 a.m. to 12 noon, or you work from 3 p.m. to midnight. And when your kids are younger, they're not really going to school and they're just like balls of, you know, skin rolling around everywhere. It's like, I can see them whenever it's fine.

I'll like see them for a long time. But then when they start going off to school, uh, you really don't see them. And so Kim had started a career where she was like doing video production for other entities. Behind the scenes, shooting videos,

yeah. And because I'd been in sports and in journalism for almost 20 years, I had some experience shooting and editing. And she was like, look,

maybe we could just make this work. I was a news anchor at the time, but like instead of being a news anchor, you know, I know you know how to shoot and edit, like you could be my shooter and my editor. I offer you zero benefits, a share of what we make with no salary,

what do you think and I was like great let's do it and so to set the scene there we had two months in savings we had two young kids we were giving up like benefits and a good job but I was so it was just like a miserable existence and so that Christmas so the first video we did our kids were four and six four and six and they weren't really

sitting still for a Christmas card picture so we decided to make a Christmas video and we would send it around and hopefully like my mom would share it and then like his aunt would see it and then maybe local companies would hire us to do their video production and we he wrote a parody song and it was like in my Christmas jammies and it went like crazy viral and it was on all the news shows and all that stuff so that video actually that changed our lives because after that it still took us several years to figure out how we're doing what we're doing. now. But that, we got like 10,000 emails for people who wanted to hire us for our company. Yeah. We put our email on the video like, hey, we want to, if you want to work for us, you know, while we're dancing. Work with us. Here's our, here's our email address. And then so we're so stupid. We thought like maybe our, you know, parents, we put our, um, our home address on it. Our driver's license, uh, you know, was our car license plate was on there. So like a lot of our personal information was on this video.

They got seen about 20 million people. And so that sucked when we had to figure out how to... Lesson. Yeah, we learned some lessons. We learned some lessons and probably moved. We moved. But it did allow us to start like a new direction of just being creative on the internet however we wanted.

That's so cool. Not being beholden to 11 p.m. deadlines. Yeah. Yeah. it's it's also so interesting to me two things that really stand out that you've said knowing about the new book is then you said that you never had the patience or the instruments I'm like oh the graveyard have failed hobbies or never executed hobbies that exist all over my home the stacks of books oh dear and then you also said it's taken you

it took you a couple of years from that video to sort of figure out what your thing was. And for folks with ADHD, like not knowing what it is immediately or not being really good at it right away can be the reason that we quit things. So I'm fascinated that you were able to take some time. Did that feel like, did that time feel like an exciting journey, almost like being at a TV station and learning something in real time? Or was it torture for you and she kept you on track. Like, how did that work? Yeah, it's so interesting. So I think that I really never found the way to see the world from 30,000 feet above, you know, like a good project manager would do. I just kept doing like, oh, wait, I did something, uh, that worked.

Squirrel. Uh, what's the next thing that I'm going to find and do? Like, I'm just repeat, repeat. I'm going to do this again. Um, and in some ways that worked. It helped build our audience up, but we didn't do it with a ton of consistency and we were still doing all the things we promised people on that video that we would do, which is like make videos for the dentist's office down the street. We made videos, like we weren't in them, but we were like behind the scene producing commercials for like companies and brands. But we had the most fun when we just put everything down and we figured this was just going to be like a free thing that we're not going to make any money on because we didn't know how to monetize videos. Like, hey, let's

something about let's do another parody and those parodies kept doing well and they kept you know making national news and they kept building up our audience um so for me really what it was was not taking a minute to stop and say where are we going with this the question of death right exactly yeah i would ask him like where do you see yourself in five years where do you think this is going i didn't like that question and he's like oh that feel icky like i don't want to answer that i don't know Yeah. So I think it's the fact that he didn't allow himself to zoom out. And I didn't know. I mean, who knew 10 years ago that the internet would look like it does today? So like I didn't have, I wasn't smart enough to know what sort of platforms would exist. So that's so interesting. We'll be back in just a minute after a few words from our favorite sponsors. kind of look at what you've built, how do you determine where your boundaries go? Because like you said, that first video went in all these places you didn't think it would. People figured out where you

lived. You literally had to move. What is the kind of filter that you pass opportunities through or that you make decisions on what to share, what not to share, how much of your life, you know, especially because it's like it's your real life it's your personal life it's your marriage it's your family you you love this stuff but also it's a weird world out there how do you make sense of that tornado well we quickly set boundaries around our children um we were aware that when this video went out and our kids were on it that we didn't give them a choice whether or not they were to be in a 20 million view video because we didn't know it was going to have that many so that was the start um you see a lot less of them. If you look through the 10 years, we've been doing this as time goes on.

For a long time, it's been they have to either, well, they have to want to be on it. And a lot of times- That's always been the case. I mean, yeah, that's always been the case. In addition, like, if they ask to be on it, a lot of times will say this isn't really appropriate. Like, this isn't, this is too much exposure. But a lot of times we have these brand deals that come to us. And they're, those are to my, in my opinion, like a little more harmless. And those videos, they get paid. And so they have a really nice college fund now because they've been able to be as part of their living. And my kids, spoiler alert, kids really like

money. Money. So I will say we, they get a paycheck from us and they always have. So like that first video, once we've finally realized how to turn on monetization, like they have Coogan accounts. You know what I mean? Like they have. So I am sure we've screwed our kids up. Oh yeah. 100%. Everyone has. Everybody does. that's not that's not it's not but i will say um we they're going to have bank they're going to pay for uh therapy so they are i joke they're coin operated because when they get low on cash because they're now 14 and 17 they're like uh they're pitching videos to us because they know they have a baseline of money they make just because they're in existing videos but they're like

hey mom what if we did because they just want to make some more money right so it's but the other boundaries that's a it's a really good question because we had none and didn't know how to really do that in the beginning because I don't think we were we weren't thinking big picture enough we weren't thinking about any of this and I I have regrets around that I have regrets around how much my kids were in videos and all of the we've deleted some we've hid some but now like we don't we very rarely show our bedroom we're using like a guest bedroom we're very there's like space spaces in our houses that are in our house that are private that you'll never see. But again,

it is our house. So it is super weird. We close laptops around like five o'clock and that's it. And it's like no work talk. We try to really limit that discussion in our marriage. Like we went to marriage counseling. And that was one of the things. Like we needed to shut like it is like product is our life. And it's very authentically us. But that can't be driving. what our conversation is like on a date night. So definitely work in progress, and we had a lot of work to do on that. I think that's really beautiful, though,

because at the end of the day, there's no guidebook for this. And when you talk about, like, oh, we regret, fill on the blank from early days, like I feel that in my bones. And something I've also learned as an adult diagnosed with ADHD pen is that, like, the justice complex that can come

with being a little neurospicy, I love that about myself. Like that, that makes me an activist. It makes me a good journalist. It does all these things. But that obsession with truth when I was like, when I'd been 21 for nine days and then I got on a TV show and I went from like co-chairing a philanthropic thing at my college to like being on television. I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know I didn't have to answer everybody's questions and interviews.

I didn't know that I shouldn't just be open about my personal life. Like, I didn't understand the business of any of it. And that, the obsession that that created that I sort of got, like, used as product for, for an early-aughts TV show, like, as an adult person who has done all of the wonderful things I've done and like, you know, built schools and interviewed vice presidents and like, just the things that I'm so proud of, like, the personal life obsession chases me because it makes money for tabloids. And I'm like, there is so much more interesting shit that I do. But like, okay, so when you talk about that, like, oh, we regret this and we try to shift it, like, I have the same thing. I regret

that there was no crash course to teach me what I didn't know because I have to kind of retroactively try to go back, shift, refuse to answer questions, like redirect conversations. And I'm like, man, if anybody taught any of us who were getting into the world of media that loves to feed on our personal lives, like, if anybody gave us like a 10 page guidebook, it would have been great. But don't you think like early aughts especially, that is, and like the Perez Hilton's of the world were coming up. Like you didn't.

There was no guidebook. It was bad. Because that we didn't, we didn't know as consumers that, oh, that's really inappropriate for us to see this and know this about this person. I think it's,

maybe it's better now. I mean, I, but like, I know I know, with kids are better, but there's some things that it's just, yeah.

So you started that conversation by talking about this sort of like, inner voice, this inner voice of justice that you have. Yeah. Do you have that too? Yeah, but I want to know for you like that when I have it, I, it conflicts with my, the part of my ADHD that I think I've learned to control, but not completely. And that's like the emotional flooding when I get really, really upset about something or I get like fixing by something emotionally. What was it like for you when you were 21? Oh, what was the emotional side like? It was so hard. And, and, and,

you know, being thrust. I talk about this a lot with my best friend from my first job. You know, she had a little more experience because she'd been hired in college as a VJ on MTV. She was going to school in New York. And so she kind of got to know the music scene. So she came into our show with like a little bit of knowledge. I was like, bitch, I came onto our show three years after I graduated from an all-girls school with 55 girls in my graduating class. Like, I didn't know anything about anything. And it. It, you know, it's interesting for us because the thing we had in common was that we were, you're expected to be so professional.

Like, you're the lead on a television show. And so I kind of just followed a lot of what she did. I was like, that's a mark. Okay, I stand on the thing with a tape on the floor shaped like a T. Like, all right, which color is my mark? Okay. You know, there was this sense of like, I can't let anyone know I'm just a kid. because I'm 21 damn it and I'm an adult

and so there was a lot that we didn't even know to ask for help on and I think the folks who realized they could make so much money on naive kids loved that they could be like well this is how it goes and we'd be like okay it wasn't really we had no idea it wasn't really until later jobs where we were like oh wait this set

this functions very differently than where I come from. This feels like professional. What do you mean the writers want to meet with me to talk to me about my story arc? You're not just going to like hand me a script on a Tuesday and tell me to start acting it on a Wednesday, really? Like there were all these things that we just didn't know.

And so I think that for me is what comes up when I think about your question. Like the emotional flooding, I think I could excuse with, well, of course. I'm really overwhelmed. This is really overwhelming. I just went from taking college classes to filming 18 hours a day on a TV show. Like, of course I'm really overwhelmed. I moved away from my parents and every single person I know and I barely have time to talk to anyone who knows me. Of course I'm

overwhelmed. Like, I didn't get the difference because there were so many things that I think could excuse the big feelings. Yeah. And when you go to work, you get trained to perform well to be good soldier to like always be cheery and whatever so especially for me understanding how that those these versions of neurospiciness present differently in women and often are easier for women to mask because we've been raised being told to mask our emotions our whole lives to be good girls I was like oh man we really like us ADHD girls get really set up to fail and then I was sort of It really blew my mind in a good way as an adult to go, oh, the things that I feel so much shame about in my life are actually not indicators of my willpower, my strength, my intelligence, any of it. It's hard for me to see time as linear. I see it as a vertical stack, and it's very overwhelming to me.

Oh, okay, that's why to-do lists can feel hard to tackle. I don't know what's the most important thing. have to talk through it and reorganize my to-do lists into chunks. And like, some of my friends just don't have to do that. But it took me a long time to learn that I wasn't too sensitive or biting off more than I could chew or too smart for my own good. Because I am a language person. I do. Like when you said, I don't like to zoom out, where I zoom out is on like politics, policy, society, justice, activism. So I can zoom out and stay in my like nerdy little data land all day. Because then I don't have to really feel my feelings either.

Oh, okay. So the whole like, now that I see it all, it's kind of like someone gave a kid who can't see a pair of glasses. I was like, oh my God, is this what leaves look like on trees? Yeah. I just thought it was like a green blob. Like now that I get it, I get it. Yeah. Yeah, I felt that way since working on this book. Just like learning about how my brain works, right? Because most people, you explained women, you know, they are trained to and are very good at internalizing their difficulties. They go undiagnosed three times more than men. Minorities, same, a very similar situation. So of course, it's like the loud, you know, white kids running around that ended up getting getting all the medicine. I ended up being like more in a tentative than hyperactive, so I wasn't diagnosed until I was much older either. But when I learned,

okay, the reason why I am unable to make it through a task is because my brain is it has a bunch of on and off switches. They're not dimmers, like on a light mixing board that you can bring up like 20% of each one of them and perfect composition of all these eight lights or things going on. I've got a bunch of on off switches. And when I turn one of them on, the rest of them turn off. Yeah. And I got to go find them. They've left my working memory. Yes.

And just like living for 45 years, because even when I got diagnosed, no one explained this to me. They just handed me some dexidrine, which by the way is like, no, it's like meth. They, or speed. Oh, God. Like, that's what they gave. I'm a little older. That is not good for you.

Well, it got me through college. And then I took myself off. You went on an academic probation twice. Yeah. I took myself off of it after a little while. But I never really understood it. So I interview a gazillion psychologist for this book. They explain that part of my brain.

And it's just like you're talking about putting on glasses. Holy crap. That's how this works. Okay. Now what do like how can I get to work to keep systems in check so that the other part of our brains, Sophia, which are wildly spontaneous and creative. And the reason you've been so successful, not only in your former acting career, but in your ability to express yourself in this new career,

those things come out now that you're able to keep the other systems in check and also keep your emotional flooding in check. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, it's even a thing for me, like learning that I am so motivated

by so many things. Like, I've had to visualize my career into a couple of buckets. And then I try to apply my creative skills to them instead of feel like I'm just not quite capable of doing any one thing. It's like, no,

my students. superpower is actually that I can focus on a bunch of different things and be additive to all of them. So I have my day job. I have my film and television career. And now that I'm also producing things that I act in, oh my God, like music to an ADHD person's ears. And then I've got this political bucket of, you know, causes big and small that I love to work on. That's really what led me into the financial activism for women and working with the First Women's Bank And running this fund with my best friend, like, I have figured out how to, when those switches turn on, build systems around them that help keep me going.

Because if I try to do it all alone, like people whose brains are wired like us, we are not lone wolves. We are not. That's not for me. I need my humans. So it's like I produce TV with two of my best friends now. and I do this financial work with my best friend whose son is my godson and like the literal light of my life. And I have my team that I do political work with. And when I work in cohort

with my humans, it's like my brain is being stimulated really well all the time. But having folks who see time in a linear fashion as opposed to a vertical fashion like me means they can say like don't get overwhelmed. This is the next task. And I'm like, great. If you just tell me what it is, I can go do it. But if you ask me to pick, it's like, it's like putting a person without a driver's license on one of those Parisian roundabouts. Like, good luck. There's nine roads in a circle. How in God's name do you expect me to know how to navigate this? Like, I realize other people have intersections and I have roundabouts and that's okay. I've never heard someone say the vertical. Is that how you see time? I definitely don't see it linear. I call it time blindness. Yeah. Oh, big time. He doesn't.

And your to do list. He will put 47 things on a to do list. I'm like, the laws of space and time still apply to you. Like, you cannot get to all of these things. Like he is blind. Love you, babe. To the amount of time things will actually take. But I've never heard somebody say vertical.

And that's such a, like, a cool way to like talk about the differences. Like, of course it's a straight line in front of you, but no, it's not at all for you. Yeah, and time blindness is so real. Like, this is going to sound wild, but I have actually, so that my brain can understand, like if you look at my calendar, it's horrible to look at. There's too much going on. But because of that, like, if I see a blank space in the calendar, I'm going to fill it. So I have had to even start, like when I do a day like today and I block podcasts,

I will put an eight-minute break in between the two interviews in my Google calendar. And people are like, why are you doing that? I'm like, because if I don't, I won't pee and I won't eat. Yeah. Like, I have to do that. If I have a meeting and it's not on Zoom, I put the drive time before and after the meeting in my calendar. Because if I don't, I will think I can do something during that time. And that's not physically possible because I can't teleport.

yeah you need to probably the drive that is a good strategy you need to put drive time in your calendar it really helps yeah because he'll the meeting will be at two and again we live in raleigh and we don't live in l.A but it'll be 157 and he'll be like i got it and like you do not got it you don't got it sometimes i got it sometimes you do not got it yeah and and what i did like i don't know if you love to color code things pen i do like i have one color in my calendar, like in the drop-down of, you know, 12 colors you can pick, that's just for real time. So like driving a food break. So I know, I'm like, no, no, no, that is real. Like, if it says on my phone, it's going to take me 27 minutes to drive to a meeting. I put 35 minutes in the

calendar just in case. And it's just in there. And I know that it's like a way I can push back against my inner adolescent that's like, I could beat that. And I'm like, no. Because my inner 13-year-old is combative and I'm 41 and I need to be responsible. So I want to talk to you about that because that's been one of the biggest breakthroughs for me over the last couple of years. And I think that a lot of ADHD people struggle with this.

And if they're listening, obviously. Accepting the fact that easy stuff is going to be hard for us, that inner 13-year-old is always combative. Right. And sometimes that lasts all the way until you take your dying breath. Just like, I'm not going to make a calendar. I'm not going to make a checklist. Mom, I'm not going to make a list to brush my teeth at the end of theitis. This is for, say, like a 10 year old kid. But it makes it easier for me to accept that the easy stuff is hard for me. When I remember that our type of brain, a lot of times the hard stuff is easy for us. So it's the other way around. We'll be back in just a minute. But here's a word from our sponsors. well and that's the thing is I've had to realize that it's a ratio game and everybody has it and in the way that I can remember data political fact explain to you how an injustice here is tied to an injustice here and it all traces back to the 1960s because of this and did you know what happened with women in Iceland in 1994 when they did the walk out of work and people

are like, you are like a freaky genius. I'm like, sure, that's my superpower, but I will forget to drink water. If I carry this, I literally brought props for today. For our friends at home, this is a big solid metal water bottle that I'm showing my lovely guests. If I carry this around, this has been full for two days. I won't drink it because I can't see it. I don't know how much water's in there, and it might as well be, that could be, it's some, it could be a lamp. Yes. But Mason jars from home goods changed my life because this is 32 ounces of water, and I've had two of these today, because I can see it.

And if I'm looking at it and the water has been at the B line for two hours, I know I'm not hydrated. this is why the magnets work so well so he has a magnet he has on top of his car well because he's a giant and he can see the top of his car but it doesn't actually hold anything but it's just a visual cue of don't put my coffee cup there because we were losing coffee cups on the daily because you know you like just you're carrying all like that down and then you forget yeah and there's like there's a magnet like on the dryer of like take my he has to take his inhaler and chap stick out before he's doing watch like those like videos like visual queued. Upstream solution. So smart. So part of what really helped me crack that my brain was wired a little differently because, again, I think especially for women, we are so good at masking that we often don't get diagnosed. And, you know, and I don't say this to be like, ooh, amazing. Like, because one thing I've also learned about ADHD is the intense shame spiral. Like, nobody's meaner to me than me, to be clear. So anyone who thinks what I'm about to say is like egotistical. like check that check that at the door but the the level of intellectual capacity that I have my

love of language eloquence and you know memory for facts was also people were like you're way too smart to have a learning disability but I cannot remember those simple little things I don't know where the car keys go I don't know why I picked up my phone I'll walk into a room to do something and it's gone. And something that actually helped me start to hack it. Years ago, I read that book, Atomic Habits. Yeah, James Clear. And when James Clear started talking about habit stacking, I was like, oh, and the visual

queuing, if I fill up a mason jar with water and I put it next to the sink on my way to bed, like from the kitchen, I leave it in the bathroom, I go to bed. Then as soon as I brush my teeth in the morning, I'll drink a jar of water. because drinking water is really hard for me to remember. And that seems so silly, but, like, it has health impacts. Yeah, no, yeah, like the easy stuff is hard. Yeah. That's it.

And so then it got to be really interesting. And that was a clue for my doctor who was like, oh, the visual clues are a, that's a keyhole for you to look through. And that was one of the things that really helped lead us to a diagnosis for me. Because, you know, they have to add up all the things and see if. it sticks. So how did you decide, I mean, decide or, or maybe Kim, you said you should get checked out for this? Like, how did it happen? How did you start to figure it out? Well, I got diagnosed when I was in college. Oh, you said that. That's right. But, but it's, like, I can answer your question because there were kind of two phases of my ADHD. Phase one was college. I was on academic

probation twice at, we'll name drop Katie Corrick at Katie Corrick School. A little bit younger, but like it just didn't work for me, these big auditoriums where I wasn't in front of the class. Like, you know, I always one of my biggest hacks in high school was I sat front and center or else I would space out. And it's impossible in college. And so I'm starting to think maybe there's something that I need to talk to a doctor. And then my grandmother died. I was at her funeral. And the family was all sitting around talking about what are we going to do about our beach trip, you know, our family beach trip. And I was getting sad and thinking about that. and my aunt Zelle goes, Penn, this is a really emotional conversation. I can't concentrate because you're chewing on a fly swatter right now. So I had a used fly swatter in my mouth and I was chewing on it.

Whoa. And so I'm like, there's something that needs to get checked out. So that was your habit, your habit stacking. Mine was I was chewing on a fly swatter when talking about a difficult subject. And my psychiatrist was like, that's emotional dysregulation. That's fixation. That's all like he's, you've got ADHD. Congratulations.

Here's this medicine. this will help you with emotional regulation. This will help you with conversations. This will help you with everything. It did all the things that he said it would do. I took myself off of it after about a year because I felt personally like the side of my brain, the creative side, which really specialized in taking everything in and not keeping it out. Like letting it come into me was the reason.

that I was able to create musically. So I took myself off. And all of that is to say I took medicine. I took myself off of it. I found a job in television where like micro deadlines really help and they're good for an ADHD person. I did nothing to put any systems in place, right? When I first met Kim,

I lived in a house that had one towel. And you want to talk about the towel? Well, no, he's like, well, you use it. You're clean when you get out of the shower. It's like self-cleaning, right? It's like self-cleaning. why would you need more than one towel? I think it's less ADHD and more just poor hygiene.

Okay, maybe. Maybe. No, I do think that his ability to kind of his, I think a lot of our success is tied to the fact that like he allows all of the, and his brain allows him just like you. Like all these ideas on everything. Try telling him he can only do one thing. But that's not going to happen. Absolutely not. And you have this.

So Penn also has this crazy. memory. He can, if he looks at something, he can remember it. And so ADHD folks, they don't have a lack of attention. They have an abundance of attention. It just has to be something they care about. So for you, it's your activism and the politics and the history of it. And for Penn, it's like weird movie quotes and music. So a lot of it. So that was phase one. Phase one was college, got through it, managed to somehow marry a woman way of above my way rim whatever it's called out kicked my whatever it was I did that your coverage um jk and then like really the second phase was when we started a company together and I was raised with kids and um my

my executive functioning redlined it really did like stuff started falling through the cracks yeah I was leaving stoves on um as I left to drop my kids off at school and like almost burning the house down I was forgetting keys leaving him in the cars realizing that like if you do that someone could not only break into your car, they could get into your house. There were danger issues with my ADHD because I was getting overtaxed. And so that was like, I think our next step where you were asking if Kim did something. I think when we decided to write this book, I think Kim knew that this was going to be a form of therapy for me and what was going on in my brain to understand it.

And that that would empower me to put those systems in place that you just, talked about those sorts of atomic habits that could help get the most out of my brain. I just spoke for you. I'm sorry. Yeah, do it mansplain away. That's not like mansplaining. No, no, no, no, no. Help me out with mansplaining.

I get accused of mansplaining sometimes. I don't know that I... No, we do it as a joke because you do mansplain. You're fine. You're safe. You're safe. Well, one of the things I've learned, too, about the way our brains work is that it often comes with a desire to over-explain to make sure that.

other people understand what's going on in our brains where you're like, no, no, I get it. Like, I know I'm the odd man out, but I'm also in on it. So let me tell you this thing. And I feel so lucky that, you know, some of my best friends have been on this journey with me every so often will look at me and go, I'm going to stop you there. I get it. I'm with you. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to stop talking because I'm just still talking. It's like, ADHD explaining. Yeah. I'm like, I just want to make sure we're on the same page because I know I'm always on another page and people are like, you're fine, just calm down.

But I find it funny on that topic. Like, I love watching the way you guys banter together and talk about this and also that you knew that this would be good for both of you writing this book because Kim, you've said that so many of the things that you were initially and are attracted to about Penn were because of his ADHD. So, like, as a neurotypical partner

of a neuro-spicy human, like, what is, what's your perspective? Like, what do you think those positive qualities are and how do you work around the fact that you're human is wired differently than you? Great question. Yeah, I mean, he's spontaneous and hilarious and he was interested in so many things, which made him interesting to me. So, like, all of those things, sign me up. And, yeah, when there was like, we had two kids and people would joke, oh, it's like you have three kids. I'm like, that is actually not funny. Not at all. But he's a very good partner. I will say I, in doing the research, this took us five years and in doing the research, I think the most impactful thing I learned was about the ADHDer's working memory. So I used to get very deeply offended when, you know,

we went on vacation one time and we were all kind of sitting all over the plane. It was a carry-on suitcase situation. We get off the plane in Florida. And he, he, didn't have a suitcase. He's like, babe, I just left it in the boarding area. I have, I have no idea where I put it. So, like, things like that would happen. We would find the milk in the pantry and the keys and wherever. And I'd get offended and really pissed off. Rightfully so. Rightfully so. I learned that the ADHD is, like, things aren't stored in your working memory, the same they are in mine. So he walks in the door and one shoe goes here. He sees food because he wants food now, and that's the priority.

The other shoe goes, I don't know. In the pantry. In the pantry. Near food. The keys get left in the refrigerator because he's taking like the rotissary chicken out to like eat it. And one time I walked downstairs and there was like a rotissory chicken carcass on the counter and his pants were on the ground.

And I'm like, I'm just trying to like CSI recreate what happened last night. And he's like, I'm done with my pants. I'll take them off and leave them here. But like none of that entered his working memory. So he has no memory of leaving the keys in the fridge. Like it doesn't exist in its memory. So he can remember all these really big, hard things, but not where he put his keys. So when I learned that there was actual science to back that up, I could offer grace.

And I could say, so I deal with some anxiety and OCD. So he offers me grace around that. But when it comes to him not being able to find his inhaler for the day, like it's, It's an explanation, not an excuse. I don't, like, run and jump in and act as his executive functioning all the time, but I could offer grace around the situation because I just understand it more. Yeah, it's funny. It's like, I think people who can make space for each other in that way probably really level up as a duo. Like, you start to do that thing where the unit is greater than the sum of its parts.

And I find that to be really inspiring. And it also makes me think, like, I actually. think maybe this is just because I've been rewatching the West Wing. I'm like God, people with ADHD would probably make such great, like, presidents because they could be in charge of all the big thoughts and then they'd have like

all the chiefs of staff, like handing them the things they'd leave behind them otherwise. I'm just like, hmm, I'm like, maybe Martin Sheen had ADHD. If Aaron Sorkin didn't have ADHD, he has to. He has to. He has to, right? And like,

yeah, he's He's so freaky, like freakishly smart that he must. That's what it is. That's obviously what it is. That's obvious. Let's diagnose him. Yeah. Okay, great.

And now a word from our sponsors who make this show possible. I find it really fascinating too because, like, y'all have to figure out how to navigate this stuff together. And I love that you frame it as being. awesome as being kind of a superpower because I actually think it is you know and when we realize that for us as adults we're figuring this out I also know thanks to you guys that you know more than one and 10 children in the U.S. are being diagnosed with ADHD and I know your son has ADHD so I'm really curious what the experience is like for you guys as a family to to help him hack this stuff earlier to maybe not have to do a round two as like a husband to figure out in

your adult life how to manage it but but to grow up with tools and and because you're helping him grow up with the tools that you perhaps didn't have how it makes you look at like the school system and what he needs not just in your house but outside of your house well starting just with him. I think it's really weird. Very early on when I suspected that he had ADHD, I fell into a trap. I don't know, like, maybe I need to go see a therapist about this of being like not wanting him to do what it was that I did. Because this was before I went down this journey five years ago. Like, oh, he may have this brain like, dude, stop chewing on your shirt. It's like, it, because I have this thing where I would chew on, it was apparently an ADHD-esque thing because of your fidgetiness.

I, when I'm concentrating, I chew on my shirt and get like a huge. Like when he was a bitch kid. Yeah. And I'd never see my cheeks. Yeah. Okay. Oh, bad. Yeah.

And so I see my son doing it. I'm like, dude, I stop. And then, you know, I realized many years later that that's not, that's not a bad thing. It's our way of releasing some nervous energy. It's also a way to stave off distraction and stay focused on something. And so all of these things, like, you know, he still did it after I learned this. All of these things that I learned as a parent about like the right way not to punish someone for the way that their brain is, that'll help out a little bit.

We've been very open in all of this book studying. And we've written a book that we think is readable by a 14 year old kid, maybe even 10 year old kid. We have eight year olds who are reading the book because we put a bunch of color and a lot of graphics and a lot of brain breaks into it. Having said that, I know that there's going to be some times that he struggles, and I know he's going to be guilty of being his own worst critic, like you said, not too long ago. So those are the things really trying to keep in check, right? I will say that when we were in the office and got his official diagnosis, we were already

doing the research for this book. So I'm already thinking, yeah, ADHD has many downsides. It can totally suck. But I was like, no, it's awesome. We're going to, we're going to to reframe this, but I got the diagnosis and it came to us as if it was like this really hard medical diagnosis and we left the office kind of bummed out and sad and we're like, because you're thinking, oh my gosh, my son's life is going to be hard. Like what is going to be, this is going to be a struggle for him. And we really had to actively as a family retrain and reframe our brains, even though we were already living it and already doing that work. But the shame spiral, I like my heart breaks when he starts to feel that shame so like yeah um something that was

taught to me and we learned is to offer connection instead of correction so he's a brilliant kid he would do his homework but not turn it in yep and i would get pissed off and i'd be like what you know and i'd snap and he off like the shame spiral start now it's hey, that must be really frustrating to have done all that work and now you're not going to get credit. What do you think we can do? Like, I've offered connection and our relationship has totally softened because he feels safe with me to be like, Mom, can you believe it? He'll call me from school like, Mom, I forgot my lunch again today. I'm like, I got you, buddy.

Like, he feels safe to talk to me about these missteps. Yeah, instead of try to hide them. Instead of try to hide them. And there's two ways a spiral can go, right? Like the downward spiral, you mess up, your parent or your loved one gets mad at you, you get ashamed, you're already feeling bad about yourself, you know, you get more ashamed and more ashamed than it's all downhill. If you mess up and someone gives you grace and gives you encouragement,

then you're much more likely to work hard to keep it from happening again and things start improving. Yeah. And that's a way better spiral. Absolutely. And by the way, that's true for everyone, no matter how you're wired. That's true. The idea that you could offer someone, hey, that's okay.

What if we did this instead of, what are you doing? Yeah. Like, nobody likes option B, but we don't, we certainly don't handle it well because we internalize it. And that's another thing. Like, I just sort of always assumed everybody felt this way. And I think it certainly made me resilient. because I was like, well, better get on with it.

Like, I've got shit to do. You know, I'm going to go make a TV show and a movie and a thing, you know, whatever. Like, I've done so many things that I'm so proud of and I'm like, oh, maybe I didn't need to white knuckle through all of that so hard. Like, I probably could have done just as much cool shit without feeling like I was on the receiving end of a, like a fire hose most of the time. But you still have so much more of your life to enjoy without the fun. Well, and that's it. And that's absolutely it. And that's why I think, like, you know, the book is so exciting.

I think it's so cool that not only, you know, did you guys as a family unit choose this as an undertaking. But, you know, you did what you do with so much of your work and your profile and your platform in general, which is welcome us into it and, like, offer things to others. I find it to be so incredibly generous. So bless our saint of Katie Couric for bringing us together here on this podcast today. I would love to ask you my favorite question to ask everybody, which is whether it's personal, professional, big, small, from where you sit today, what feels like your work in progress? You go.

Listening. thing. I want to be a better listener. I have this brain. It is a wonderful brain. It is constant. So my brain is, uh, the neurotypical brain is like a VIP party with like a bouncer and one of those velvet ropes and it knows how to keep out things. Let in certain things at certain times. My brain is Coachella. It's an open air party. You can feel the wind and the rain lightning and everyone's invited. And it is a wonderful place to be. So, really most of my time when I'm awake, I am bouncing from fascinating possibility to fascinating possibility. Ding, ding, ding. Yeah, I think about space and asteroid mining and the universe

at least six times a day and it's my favorite times of the day. Sometimes it happens when someone's trying to tell me something really important. Yeah. And I, so I know that I have to work on it. And I also know that all of these wonderful things that I'm thinking of are great and they're the reason for creativity in my job, but I could really enrich my life if I knew more about the people around me. So I should just, like, it's not that I'm talking. I should shut my brain up every once in a while and really work hard at trying to listen more and learn more because the world is really the best part of the world are the other people that are in it, not asteroids.

They're cool, but so we're humans. I did. You landed that. I landed that. You really did. Circle, babe. Hi-five. You're in the state of flight and you landed.

The plane, it's nice. You know, people with ADHD, they can be like about to land in the middle. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They just like take back up. My work in progress so much. I'm in, I've been a new therapist. So there's a lot of what I'm working on.

But my assignment from my new therapist is I'm going to not, I have this habit of I say, it's fine. It's fine. Everything's fine. When it's not fine. So I'm trying to label and name emotions I'm feeling like I'm happy and excited. grateful to meet you and other yeah I'm trying to name that so that's what I'm working I love that's yours oh gosh um you know it's interesting that you say the thing about

listening because listening is one of my favorite things to do and I think because of my job like I find artistry in really being present and having an emotional reaction to the unexpected thing I hear I don't struggle so much with with like a random topic distraction, though I literally have like a symbol from the golden record tattooed on my arm. So if you want to talk about space obsessions, we're going to have a follow up. Let's say, we'll go offline. But what I have as hard time with, which now I understand to be like part of this sort of neuro wiring, is if you say something and I have something to share, which that for me fosters connection, I don't want to interact.

but I really, really, really want to tell you the thing that you made me think of because of your great story, because to me that's like real connection, but you're not done talking. And so to be able to take a deep breath and wait and be okay with risking that by the time you finish your story, I'm probably not going to remember this thing I'm so excited to tell you because you'll have made me think of something else. Like, that's really okay. what I'm excited to tell you it can be a blip or it can be a thing that gets said and like honestly either outcome is probably not going to change your life and it's probably not going to change mine either like it's all right and and I have had to learn that my love of connecting with people does not need to supersede the normal cadence of conversation because when I do that and when I get into like a very neuro spicy like yeah yeah and and do you know or i heard this thing or i read this article in the atlantic last week and you're really going to like it people are like what the fuck is wrong with her

you know and and it's i just have to like take a breath and and it's all good we're already here we're already talking i don't have to prove anything we're fine well without even meaning to you've really helped me out there by explaining that because i'm guilty of the same thing for sure he heard whatever space tattoo and he's like, oh my gosh, I have to tell her about, he's, yeah,

he reads, Kim knows what I'm about to do it at dinner and she just jammed. I just, if we're at, if we're at another couple, because I find interrupting people incredibly. I just find it in some cases. Sometimes it's a fun continuation,

like kind of kinetic energy. Yeah. I love that too. But sometimes I'm like, we're just, we're just meeting these people. Yeah. Just wait.

Yeah, that's, it's like, I've trained enough. puppies through the course of my life to know that when you say something and I want to tell you why I know something about that or basically say oh my gosh me too like that's like the excited puppy that's like sitting there begging for a treat and it's like you just have to wait your turn small one and and like being able to kind of for me at least assign a metaphorical

identity to my puppy response and also to my like rebellious sassy 13 year old that the minute it hits 10.31 p.m. And I was ready for bed at 1026. But 10.30 is my teenage witching hour. And I'm like, nobody can make me go to bed. I'm going to watch a whole show till 5 o'clock in the morning. Like, I can't let her drive the car. She needs to be put to sleep.

She needs to go to bed. Like I have to put, I, me adult, Sophia has to forcibly put 13-year-old me to bed every single night. every night yeah meanwhile my my trainer kim has to shock teller me under the table with talking that puppy metaphor was actually hit pretty close to home yeah and like if you think of it if you think of that thing in you as like a sweet little puppy it's adorable and you can have like at least for me i won't generalize i can have i can have empathy for it and i think being in healthy partnership does it too like the number of times a day my partner will grab me by the face and be

like you sweet little ADHD baby. Like I love how quirky you are and just kiss me. And I'm like, okay, I know I'm so weird. And she's like, you're my favorite kind of weird. I'm like, okay, all right. All right. Well, look at that. Like there really is a shoe for every foot.

And like you need your, yours to like jab you under the table to calm you down. And that's okay. That's love, actually. I do call him my human golden retriever, though, because he is very excitable. And he'll probably. lick you. No, I'm kidding. But he will, yeah. Energetically. And that's okay. And metaphorically. And metaphorically. Not literal. Just right on the face. Yeah. I like where this is, we're coming to a really weird landing. It's the kind of landing I like to.

I like it. But how boring the world would be without these spicy brains. I mean, I love it. You just did something for me. I didn't interrupt earlier when I really wanted to. And I didn't, because first of all, I figured you'd read it. But you reminded me. me how boring the world would be when we were talking about the stats around diagnosis, it made me think, I think it was maybe last month. I don't know if it was the New York Times or popular science or whatever, but an article hit about how scientists now think that ADHD was an evolutionary change, like a superpower for hunter-gatherers to survive. And I was like, see, we are neo-humans. And I got very excited. So, you know, the world does need us.

or maybe we would all starve. We're probably here today because of some ADHD people who are like, I see those berries. Those look kind of weird. I'm not going to eat those. I'm going to go over here.

Yeah. So thanks, guys. You know, you are welcome. Guys, thank you so much for joining you today. This has been so much fun. Next time I'm in North Carolina, we all got to get a meal. I would love that.

I would love that. Thank you. This is an IHeart podcast.