Episodes
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Reading, Audiobooks, and the ADHD Comprehension Problem with Misty Stinnett
Most of us have a stack of self-help books we fully intend to get to. Our friend Misty Stinnett, co-host of Go Help Yourself, has read hundreds of them for her show, and she joins us to talk about reading when your attention has its own plans. Misty is quick to say she isn’t an ADHD expert, but…
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Plant Yourself in the Right Garden: Environment as Strategy
Last season, Dr. Kathleen Nadeau described a lot of ADHD struggle as a planting problem, and we've been thinking about it a bunch. This episode is about environment, and how much of what gets blamed on ADHD comes down to where you are and who you're with. We break it into what we're calling the...
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The Unreliable Narrator: Self-Observation for ADHD
You'd swear you sent that email. You can picture yourself writing it. And then you find it, unsent, still marked unread. This week, Pete and Nikki borrow the literary idea of the unreliable narrator to explore why ADHD makes us shaky witnesses to our own lives. They look at how working memory…
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The “Fine” Mask
You say it a dozen times a day. Somebody asks how you're doing, and before you've had a chance to check, you've already said you're … fine. In this conversation, we pick up a thread from our earlier episode with Dr. Sharon Saline on masking and follow it somewhere much smaller. Not the protective...
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Approach Motivation, Round Two with Ari Tuckman, PsyD
Are you doing the thing because of what you'll get, or because of what you're afraid of? Both get the task done. Only one of them is sustainable. This week, Dr. Ari Tuckman returns to talk about approach and avoidance, and why so many of us have only ever learned to start the second engine. We…
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Misattunement: The Through-Line of ADHD Relationships with Dr. Dodge Rea
Last time Dr. Dodge Rea was here, we set up a conversation in two parts and only got through one of them. This week we finish it, and the half we left hanging turns out to be the trickier one. What happens when the person you're most out of sync with is yourself? Attunement asks you to stay in...
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What Recovery Actually Looks Like (Beyond Sleep)
Rest, relaxation, recuperation. Three words we reach for when we're empty, and all three have collapsed into the same meaning: stop doing something. The older meanings point somewhere far more interesting, toward getting strength back rather than simply halting some energetic drain. This week…
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The “But I Have To…” Trap
You look at the list. You look at the calendar. You already know there isn't enough day for what's on there, and somehow the first thing out of your mouth is still "but I have to." In this conversation, Nikki and Pete follow last week's capacity conversation down to the reflex underneath it.…
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The Gap Trap!
There's the version of you that exists right now, and the version you're pretty sure you should have become by this point. In this conversation, we get into the space between them, what Nikki calls the gap trap, and why that space fills up with shame so fast for ADHD brains. We talk about freeze…
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A Revisit: Breaking Down an ADHD Challenge
We're on summer break, so this week is a Revisit: a favorite conversation pulled back out of the archive. In this one, Pete and Nikki put on their detective hats to break down an ADHD challenge. The idea is simple. "I can't focus" or "I can't follow through" is too big and vague to solve, so the...
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A Revisit: Change Your Vocabulary, Change Your Mindset
We're on summer break, so this week is a Revisit: a favorite conversation pulled back out of the archive. In this one, Pete and Nikki dig into the words we use and how much they shape the way we see ourselves. Working from Alicia Dunams' book I Get To, Nikki walks through a few simple language...
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A Revisit: Celebrating What We Do
We're on summer break, so this week is a Revisit: a favorite conversation pulled back out of the archive. The idea takes after Dr. Kurosh Dini's concept of the visit, showing up to something with curiosity rather than judgment. In this one, Pete and Nikki talk about celebrating what you get done,...
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A Revisit: Attacking the Gremlins with Jane Massengill
We're on summer break, so this week is a Revisit: a favorite conversation pulled back out of the archive. The idea takes after Dr. Kurosh Dini's concept of the visit, showing up to something with curiosity rather than judgment. In this one, we talk with coach Jane Massengill about the negative...
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How to Notice Progress Without Measuring It
At the end of the day, when your brain starts tallying everything you didn't finish, where's the credit for everything you did? In the Season 32 finale, we close out the season on the quiet skill that gets buried under all that mental accounting — noticing your progress instead of measuring it.…
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You’re Not Broken. You’re Contextual.
You can lose six hours to the thing that lights you up, then completely stall on a task that takes three minutes. Same brain, different room. In this conversation, Pete and Nikki get into why ADHD shows up hard in one setting and nearly disappears in another, why "broken" is the wrong word for…
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Self-Trust Is a Nervous System Skill with Dr. Tamara Rosier
You can have the perfect planner, the right system, and the best intentions, and still not follow through. It isn't a caring problem. After enough broken promises to yourself, some quiet part of you simply stops believing the plan. That's where this conversation with Dr. Tamara Rosier begins, and...
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Rewriting the Rules You Inherited About Worth
There's a rule most of us signed before we could read it. It decides whether we're worth anything, and it tends to set the same terms for everyone who carries an ADHD brain: you're valuable if you perform, if you keep every plate spinning, if you never let anyone down. Live under that contract…
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What It Means to Be “Good Enough” With ADHD
"Good enough" is a phrase that can land like permission or like an accusation — and for ADHD brains that have spent a lifetime being told we're not trying hard enough, both feelings often arrive at once. This week, we're untangling that knot. Why does a phrase meant to release us so often feel…
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Permission Slips You Keep Waiting For
There's a kind of waiting most ADHDers know well — waiting for someone, somewhere, to say it's okay. Okay to rest. Okay to stop masking. Okay to take the accommodation. Okay to want what you want without justifying it. In this conversation, we get into the permission slips we keep waiting for,...
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Why Advice Stops Working When You’re Tired
We've all been there: someone offers a perfectly reasonable suggestion, and instead of taking it in, you bristle. You're tired. You're cranky. The last thing you want is advice. This week, Pete and Nikki tackle what happens when ADHD meets fatigue — and why the strategies that usually work…
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Why “I’ll Deal With It Later” Is an Energy Leak with Ari Tuckman
We've all said it. "I'll deal with it later." And somehow, later never comes. The thing just sits there — not in your calendar, but in your head. It pings you in the shower. It shows up right before you fall asleep. That's an energy leak. This week, Ari Tuckman returns for his sixth appearance to...
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The Schedule That Bends Without Breaking
You've heard it before, probably said it yourself: time blocking doesn't work for me. Every block that slips becomes one more piece of evidence that you've failed the system — or that the system has failed you. So this week, Nikki and Pete try something different. They change the word. Nikki…
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What to Look For in a Planning Tool
There's a moment every ADHDer knows: you open the task manager, see the sea of red, and close it again. This week, Nikki and Pete sit with that moment — and with what it's actually telling you. The instinct is to blame the tool. Something's wrong with the app, the planner, the notebook. Time for...
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When Productivity Advice Ignores Capacity with Brooke Schnittman
Most productivity advice was built for brains that start on demand, stay consistent, and prioritize logically. That's not us. This week, Brooke Schnittman returns for her third visit to the show to dig into one of the most frustrating disconnects in ADHD life: the gap between what we think we can...
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Why Your Plans Fall Apart
This week kicks off a three-part series on planning, and it starts where every planning conversation should: with honesty about why plans fall apart in the first place. Pete opens with his own cascading construction disaster at home, where raccoon damage set off a chain reaction of disruptions…
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Later Life Diagnosis: The Relief, The Regret, & The Reality with Linda Roggli
Here’s a story a lot of women know. You’ve been getting by — maybe not perfectly, but you’ve been getting by. And then something shifts. Suddenly the coping strategies that used to work don’t. The brain fog is different. The irritability is new. And nobody around you — including your doctor —…
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What Changes About Executive Function After 40 with Dr. Brandy Callahan
Here's something nobody tells you about aging with ADHD: the part that feels like decline might not be decline at all. It might be retirement. Or perimenopause. Or just the fact that the external structure that quietly managed your symptoms for thirty years finally disappeared — and nobody warned...
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Grieving the Version of Yourself That Could “Push Through” with Dr. Kathleen Nadeau
What happens to your sense of self when the coping strategies you've relied on your whole life start to give out? For a lot of us, "pushing through" wasn't just a strategy, it was the story we told ourselves about why we kept making it. And when that story stops being true, what we're left with…
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ADHD, Memory, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves with Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.
"You forgot because you didn't care enough." Most people with ADHD have been told that — or have told themselves that — more times than they can count. Dr. Daniella Karidi returns to challenge it. She's a PhD researcher from Northwestern who has spent her career studying memory in ADHD, and her...
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"Friendship Skills for Neurodivergent Adults" with Caroline Maguire
If you've ever given everything to a friendship and been left wondering what went wrong, Caroline Maguire has a gentle but clarifying answer: you probably gave too much, too soon, to someone who hadn't yet earned it. That's not a character flaw — it's the ADHD brain doing what it does when it...
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When Masking Becomes a Relationship Strategy with Dr. Sharon Saline
If you've ever spent an entire day performing a version of yourself that felt nothing like the real you — holding it together at work, seeming calm when you're not, passing as organized — you already know something about masking. But knowing it and understanding it are two different things. Dr....
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The Relational Toll of ADHD Over Time with Dr. Dodge Rea
It's not the blow-ups that do the most damage in a relationship — it's the quieter stuff. The look you misread, the deadline you missed again, the apology you've given so many times it stopped meaning anything. For those of us with ADHD, these small misconnections harden faster because we arrive...
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Repair Without Over-Explaining
If you have ADHD, chances are you've developed a deeply ingrained habit of apologizing — for being late, for forgetting, for talking too long, for existing in a way that feels like an inconvenience. In this episode, Nikki and Pete unpack why over-apologizing is so common in the ADHD experience…
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Why Being “Low-Maintenance” Is Costly
Being called "low maintenance" feels like a win — until you realize the price you've been paying to earn it. In this episode, Pete and Nikki dig into why so many people with ADHD build their identity around not needing anything from anyone, and what happens when the bill comes due. Pete defines...
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Motivation Comes From Emotion, Not Discipline with James Ochoa
This episode turns into a stealth self-care intervention when James Ochoa joins Pete and Nikki and immediately drags “motivation” out of the tidy, planner-friendly realm and into the messy, bodily reality of fear, avoidance, and chronic stress. They start with the familiar ADHD paradox—knowing...
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Letting Go of the “This Year Will Be Different” Story
That “this year will be different” promise feels so good when it’s fresh… and so brutal when the old patterns quietly return. In this episode, Pete and Nikki unpack why that boom-and-bust cycle hits so hard for ADHD brains: the early dopamine of a new system (or a newly organized sock drawer)…
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Emotional Regulation When You’re Already Depleted
When you're running on empty, your emotions hit harder and last longer. This week on Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast, Pete and Nikki explore what happens to emotional regulation when you're already depleted—and what you can actually do about it. Building on last week's conversation about...
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You’re Not Behind. You’re Exhausted.
Pete and Nikki kick off the new season by naming the thing nobody wants to put on a vision board: the post-holiday crash. If you’ve come out the other side feeling “behind,” they argue you’re not failing—you’re recovering. And because ADHD loves a transition about as much as it loves a quiet...
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Quiz Show • Season 31 Finale
To close out Season 31, we turned the microphones over to someone who knows us better than almost anyone in our community: Melissa Bacheler, our DiscordMom, friend, and occasional chaos agent. Instead of the usual coaching, planning, and problem-solving, Melissa surprises us with a full-blown...
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Find Your Own Wind: Fuel Your Motivation through Emotion
Emotional planning sounds like one of those concepts you think you already understand — until you realize it has nothing to do with mood journaling, crystal grids, or color-coding your feelings. What Nikki brings forward in this conversation is something far more practical: the idea that ADHD...
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Aging, ADHD, and Letting Go with Jami Shapiro
Aging with ADHD often hides in the background of our conversations, even though so many of us feel its effects every day. In this episode, we bring it forward with help from Jami Shapiro, whose work sits right at the intersection of ADHD, transitions, and later-life planning. She’s a senior move...
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Acceptance, Avoidance, and the Tolerations Between Them
We’re revisiting a classic — and for longtime listeners, a foundational topic: the Tolerations List. These are the small, nagging things we put up with every day — the crooked picture, the squeaky door, the wrong clock time — that quietly drain our focus and energy. Pete and Nikki first talked...
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The Introvert’s Guide to Finding Your People with Ky Wescott
This week, we’re talking about what it means to be both introverted and ADHD, and how those two identities can collide—or beautifully harmonize—when you finally understand yourself. Our guest is Kyrus Keenan Westcott, better known as Ky, the creator behind The Vibe With Ky. With more than 1.5...
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The Cycle of Accountability: Reclaiming Presence with Dr. Nachi Felt
When Dr. Nachi Felt first joined us, he introduced two big ideas that stuck with a lot of listeners—the Cycle of Ambiguity and the Cycle of Agency. Those conversations gave language to what so many of us experience every day with ADHD: the frustration of getting stuck, and the relief that comes...
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Future You is Counting On You with James Ochoa
We love to say it: “Your future self will thank you.” It’s a mantra for hopeful planning, a reminder that the effort you put in now will pay off later. But for people with ADHD, that phrase can land like a challenge you keep failing to meet — because the gap between Now You and Future You can…
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From Shame to Strategy: Alan Brown on Advocacy After Diagnosis
In 1992, a struggling advertising executive in Manhattan walked into his Upper East Side doctor's office with what he thought might be a revelation. His boss had just been diagnosed with ADHD, and the symptoms—the scattered thinking, the time that evaporated, the constant feeling of running to...
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The Art (and Imperfection) of Diagnosing ADHD with Dr. Amie DeHarpporte
Imagine this: one person spends ten minutes with their doctor, walks out with a prescription, and calls it an ADHD diagnosis. Another spends an entire day in a psychologist’s office, testing memory, attention, and executive function, only to arrive at the very same conclusion. Which one is…
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Seeing Ourselves On Screen: ADHD Representation with Matthew Fox
Here's a puzzle that will stop you cold: ADHD has exploded into public consciousness. More diagnoses than ever. More research. More conversations. And yet? Turn on your television. What stares back at you? The class clown. The scatterbrained sidekick. The walking punchline. Something doesn't add...
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ADHD, Emotions, and Rewriting Your Money Story with Nicole Stanley
Money is rarely just about math—it’s about stories, habits, emotions, and, for ADHDers, often a deep sense of shame. In this episode, Pete and Nikki sit down with Nicole Stanley, financial coach and founder of Arise Financial Coaching, to unpack the hidden ways ADHD intersects with our…
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ADHD Meets the Budget Nerds: Give Every Dollar with a Job with Ben and Ernie
Money and ADHD: two words that often stir up stress, shame, or avoidance. But what if we stopped thinking of planning as punishment and instead saw it as a path to clarity, confidence, and even peace of mind? This week, Pete and Nikki welcome Ben Barlowe and Ernie Reppe—the Budget Nerds of…
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About this show
Nikki Kinzer and Pete Wright offer support, life management strategies, and time and technology tips, dedicated to anyone looking to take control while living with ADHD.
Hosted by
TruStory FM
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