Overcoming Distractions-Thriving with ADHD, ADD

What if the very reliability that built your success is the same thing burning you out?

Dave addresses a common dilemma for high-achieving adults, leaders, and entrepreneurs with ADHD. Being the reliable person who always delivers, but at the cost of personal energy, priorities, and peace of mind.

While relying on urgency and effort can produce results, it is often unsustainable over the long term.

Key Discussion Points:

• The Hidden Costs of Reliability: Overextending yourself drains strategic focus, pushes personal priorities aside, hides internal mental overload behind external success, and ties personal identity to being indispensable.
• Why ADHDers Get Caught in the Cycle: Factors like relying on urgency for momentum, struggling to assess capacity, seeking immediate rewards from solving problems, and serving as the default organizational safety net drive this pattern.
• What busy professionals with ADHD can do to take their time and energy back!
• How to stop being the person who does everything. But still be a reliable leader.

**Do you want to work with Dave one-on-one? Go to www.overcomingdistractions.com and book an introductory Zoom chat. Or go directly to Dave's calendar; https://calendly.com/davidgreenwood1/15min

How can shifting your physical movement and regulating your nervous system unlock greater focus, emotional calm, and clarity for busy professionals with ADHD?

In this episode of Overcoming Distractions-Thriving with Adult ADHD, Dave welcomes Beverly Atkins, founder of Posture, a mobile app featuring guided somatic audio lessons based on the Feldenkrais Method.

Together, they explore how ADHD affects the nervous system and how chronic stress often manifests physically through posture, tension, and pain. Beverly shares her personal journey from corporate burnout and back pain to discovering how guided movement can downregulate a hyperactive nervous system.

Beverly and Dave discuss how body-centered awareness can help tame urgency, quiet mental noise, and rewire the brain for long-term clarity.

Go to https://www.pauseture.com/

Enter custom code, DAVE30, to receive a 30-day free trial.

**Do you want to work with Dave one-on-one? Go to www.overcomingdistractions.com and book an introductory Zoom chat. Or go directly to Dave's calendar; https://calendly.com/davidgreenwood1/15min

What if the problem isn't that you need to manage your time better. Maybe you're consistently asking yourself to operate beyond your actual capacity?

For busy professionals, business owners and entrepreneurs with adult ADHD, it's easy to confuse capability with capacity. You may be capable of taking on another client, meeting another deadline or squeezing one more responsibility into your day.

But can you do it and not be exhausted?

Dave discusses:

• What professional capacity really means, including time, energy, attention, cognitive and emotional capacity.
• Why adults with ADHD can find themselves consistently operating over capacity.
• How urgency, hyperfocus, overcommitment and difficulty saying no contribute to the problem.
• Practical ways to create buffers, match work to energy, delegate and establish a capacity ceiling.

**Do you want to work with Dave one-on-one? Go to www.overcomingdistractions.com and book an introductory Zoom chat. Or go directly to Dave's calendar; https://calendly.com/davidgreenwood1/15min

How can a late-in-life ADHD diagnosis reshape our understanding of executive leadership and personal success?

In this episode of Overcoming Distractions, Dave interviews Carlos Gutierrez, author of Sheer Will: Learning to Lead When There Is No Path. Gutierrez, the 35th U.S. Secretary of Commerce and former CEO of the Kellogg Company, shares his journey of rising through corporate and government ranks before receiving an ADHD diagnosis at age 65.

The conversation highlights how unaddressed executive skill gaps can be balanced by leveraging personal strengths, intuition, and strategic delegation.

Executive Leadership With ADHD

• Leveraging Core Strengths: Gutierrez discusses utilizing macro-level pattern recognition, public speaking, and rapid decision-making while relying on dedicated team members to manage detail-heavy operations and administrative logistics.
• The Role of Self-Awareness: The value of identifying personal blind spots, such as procrastination and impulsivity, to avoid ill-fitting tasks and build complementary teams.
• Channeling Hyperfocus and Drive: How turning high-engagement tasks into sources of deep focus allowed Gutierrez to progress from selling cereal out of a van to leading major organizations.
• Cultivating Optimism and Reframing Failure: Strategies for leaders with ADHD to celebrate achievements, manage internal stress, and project confidence to their teams despite continuous challenges.

**Do you want to work with Dave one-on-one? Go to www.overcomingdistractions.com and book an introductory Zoom chat. Or go directly to Dave's calendar; https://calendly.com/davidgreenwood1/15min

What if everything doesn't actually need your attention right now…but your ADHD brain is making it feel that way?

If you are a business owner with ADHD, busy executive or leader, the challenge isn't knowing how to prioritize; it's that your brain experiences almost everything as urgent simultaneously. In this episode, Dave will explore why immediate demands hijack our focus, the hidden costs of living in perpetual fire-fighting mode, and practical tools to take back control of your workday.

**Do you want to work with Dave one-on-one? Go to www.overcomingdistractions.com and book an introductory Zoom chat. Or go directly to Dave's calendar; https://calendly.com/davidgreenwood1/15min

ADHD and Urgency in the workplace.

• Why ADHD Amplifies Urgency: How time blindness, the pull of immediate stimulation, and emotional discomfort trick your brain into treating every task like a top-priority emergency.
• The High Cost of Urgency Mode: How constant reactivity leads to decision fatigue, endless context switching, burnout, and becoming your company's default "emergency response system."
• Creating Systems Outside Your Brain: Using structured categories to eliminate the fatigue of making repeated prioritization decisions.
• Protecting Uninterrupted Focus: Why block-scheduling, boundary-setting, and pre-defining what truly constitutes a "real emergency" are essential for strategic work.

What if the recurring problems in your career or business aren't a sign that you need to work harder, but a sign that you need a better system?

For busy professionals, business owners, and entrepreneurs with ADHD, constantly remembering, rescuing, reorganizing, and starting over can create an "ADHD tax" in time, energy, money, and mental bandwidth.

**Do you want to work with Dave one-on-one? Go to www.overcomingdistractions.com and book an introductory Zoom chat. Or go directly to Dave's calendar; https://calendly.com/davidgreenwood1/15min

In this episode, Dave explores questions to help you:

• Identify where you're paying the ADHD tax in your business.
• Turn recurring problems into simple systems
• Reduce mental load by externalizing information
• Automate, delegate, or eliminate unnecessary work
• Stop relying so heavily on memory
• Find opportunities for a 1% improvement

The goal isn't a perfect system. It's creating a little more ease, control, and space for what matters.

How does ADHD manifest uniquely in women across their lifespan, and why are so many high-achieving professionals being missed or misdiagnosed?

In this episode of Overcoming Distractions, Dave talks with Dr. Jolene Brighten, naturopathic endocrinologist, nutrition scientist, and author of "ADHD and Women" to unpack the often-overlooked nuances of neurodivergence in female professionals.

Dr. Brighten shares her insights as a late-diagnosed "AuDHDer," explaining how hormonal shifts, cultural expectations, and internalized hyperactivity create distinct challenges for women in business, health, and daily life.

**Do you want to work with Dave one-on-one? Go to www.overcomingdistractions.com and book an introductory Zoom chat. Or go directly to Dave's calendar; https://calendly.com/davidgreenwood1/15min

Dr. Jolene and Dave Discuss:

• The Entrepreneurial Advantage: Why ADHD brains excel at creativity and problem-solving, yet often struggle within rigid corporate structures.
• The Diagnosis Gap: How up to 75% of women reach adulthood undiagnosed, often receiving their diagnosis during perimenopause when changing hormones amplify symptoms.
• Hormones & Executive Function: The impact of fluctuating estrogen and progesterone across the menstrual cycle, including the connection to premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD).
• Masking & Internalized Hyperactivity: Why female ADHD presents as internal restlessness, overthinking, and burnout rather than overt physical hyperactivity.

Find Dr. Brighten on her website: https://drbrighten.com/

Why do high-performing professionals with ADHD so often feel paralyzed by simple or critical tasks, and how can you break through those hidden barriers?

In this episode of Overcoming Distractions, Dave welcomes back ADHD coach and author Brendan Mahan to discuss his book Overcoming the Wall of Awful: Why It's Hard to Get Things Done with ADHD, Autism, and Anxiety (and How to Do Them Anyway)

Even top executives, business owners, and driven entrepreneurs struggle with the invisible emotional friction that halts execution. Brendan breaks down how past failures, uncertainty, and fear of rejection stack up like bricks between us and our goals, and provides a practical blueprint for navigating through, over, or around those mental walls.

Meet Brendan Mahan here and find your copy of the book!

www.TheWallofAwful.com

**Do you want to work with Dave one-on-one? Go to www.overcomingdistractions.com and book an introductory Zoom chat. Or go directly to Dave's calendar; https://calendly.com/davidgreenwood1/15min

What if the biggest productivity problem for adults with ADHD isn't a lack of focus, but not having enough uninterrupted time to focus?

For business owners, entrepreneurs, and busy professionals with adult ADHD, constant interruptions, meetings, emails, messages, and competing priorities can make it nearly impossible to reach the level of focus needed for high-quality work.

In this episode, Dave explains why large blocks of protected time can be one of the most powerful productivity tools available to the ADHD brain. And he offers ways to create them despite the demands of a busy professional life.

The goal isn't to work harder. It's to create the conditions that allow your ADHD brain to do its best work.

**Do you want to work with Dave one-on-one? Go to www.overcomingdistractions.com and book an introductory Zoom chat. Or go directly to Dave's calendar; https://calendly.com/davidgreenwood1/15min

In this episode of Overcoming Distractions, Dave interviews Alex Partridge, founder of UNILAD and LAD Bible and host of the ADHD Chatter podcast, to explore how Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD) impacts adults and entrepreneurs with ADHD.

The central takeaway from their discussion is that in the absence of context and clarity, the ADHD mind catastrophizes ambiguity, filling in the blanks with the worst-case scenario and severe emotional distress.

They unpack the origins of RSD, the role of early childhood criticism, and how these factors drive people-pleasing, imposter syndrome, and professional burnout.

Key Discussion Points:

• Defining RSD in Adults: How Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria extends beyond childhood into busy professionals, driving catastrophic thinking in ambiguous situations.
• The Impact of Ambiguity: How unsaid details or minor shifts in behavior trigger a knee-jerk reaction in the ADHD nervous system to expect rejection or disaster.
• Alex's Personal Journey: The story behind founding UNILAD, the legal battle over ownership, and how RSD and poor self-esteem led to signing a detrimental partnership agreement.
• The 20,000 Extra Rejections: How children with ADHD receive significantly more micro-rejections growing up, shaping adult struggles with burnout and people-pleasing.
• Overcoming Imposter Syndrome: The concept of "out of sight, out of mind" regarding personal achievements, and the strategy of storing tangible evidence of success to build confidence.