Attention Different with Stephen Tonti & Aaron Smith

This week, I’m talking with Stephen Tonti and Aaron Smith, co-founders of the ADHD edutainment platform Attention Different. It’s a podcast and resource hub for ADHD adults looking for support, humor, and, most importantly, strategies that actually work.

I got to know Stephen and Aaron at the 2024 ADHD Conference in Anaheim. Stephen’s a filmmaker and longtime ADHD advocate who’s been trying to reframe ADHD as a difference, not a disorder. Aaron’s a licensed therapist and ADHD coach, helping clients bridge the gap between clinical understanding and real-world functionality.

In this episode, we dig into the messy middle of adulting with ADHD. We explore why the strategies that worked before suddenly stop working, the emotional aftermath of small mistakes, and why sometimes the best thing you can do is just… breathe. 

I had a lot of fun with this one, it’s a grounded, funny, and deeply practical conversation about living with ADHD, without trying to fix it into something it’s not.

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William Curb: All right, so I'm so excited to have you both here with me, especially after I got to go on the Attention Different podcast. Could you just tell me a little bit about Attention Different? I think it's a great platform that you guys are developing, and I think a lot of people would like to hear more about it.

Stephen Tonti: So attention different. There's the short version and the long version. And I think I can give you both in a short way. The long version, I say long because it just it started many years ago when Aaron and I met and we became very fast friends. And I think more or less discovered that our principles and values were very aligned when it came to complex mental health and in particular ADHD. And that was at an ADHD conference many years ago, where the two of us sort of ferociously met at a bar after the conference and shared our passions for complex mental health advocacy and ADHD advocacy.

Flash forward many years to today. And Aaron and I put our money where our mouth is really. We filed for an LLC at the top of 2023. We collected all of this information and experience that we've had over the decade and change really thinking about ADHD and mental health advocacy and radical acceptance and themes surrounding that. We collected all of that information, all of that research. We did our homework and we launched a company based on all of the research that we've done in the experiences that we've had. And we believe that this company called attention different is one of the more equipped to help ADHD adults learn to not just survive but thrive with their condition.

Aaron Smith: So we're an edutainment and advocacy organization. We do all sorts of video content and podcasts. You can find our podcast out there called attention different. It's on all the different podcast platforms. And we're interviewing a whole bunch of exciting people, including Will Curb, who was on our podcast, which is coming out soon. It'll all be pertaining to adulting with ADHD. And we have also lab episodes, which are just short episodes, all about tools and ways to leverage kind of your ADHD, exploring things like like breath work and body doubling and acceptance and radical acceptance and all that kind of stuff.

And then we also have a unique thing called fireside chats where we bring everyday ADHD'ers together and we talk about what it's like to adult ADHD. So we're really excited to share this with you guys. You can find a lot of that content on our website attention different.com. The links to our YouTube channel, our Instagram. So follow us there and check it out. We hope we're providing a great resource for you, for any adults out there with ADHD to just understand yourself and be part of a community. And we're looking to also platform some diverse voices and perspectives.

William Curb: I find that's one of the big things that I've been working a lot towards too is the diversity in content is so important for especially with ADHD because we all come from this from different experiences. But like everyone benefits from hearing those different voices when they're like, you know, this like small little thing over here and a bunch of people like, oh, yeah, I totally experienced that too, even though that's not necessarily something that I get from my community. And I think like having just so many different voices is like, just grow this ADHD pie and make sure everyone gets heard.

Aaron Smith: It might share some similar characteristics like we can relate to each other. But then there's always those nuances and differences, especially when we have overlapping co-occurring conditions. We were just talking to Roberto Olavardia and he was saying 50 to 60 percent of ADHD'ers have co-occurring conditions, whether that's, you know, a learning disability or some other mental health condition, like, you know, developmental condition or mental condition like bipolar or ADHD, right, your your AST folks and ADHD combination, depression, anxiety.

Those things just pop up. And as Roberto said, ADHD does not travel alone. And then you layer that with all sorts of other orientation, identification, communities, marginalization, you know, you layer those things in too. And all of a sudden you have a very diverse range of experience and what it's like to live in a world with ADHD.

William Curb: Yeah. And I mean, I always hear that like this like 50 to 60 percent. I'm like, man, that seems low to me.

Aaron Smith: Probably is.

Stephen Tonti: On the show, of course, Aaron and I respond in the way that you should when presented with a statistic that is profound, 50 to 60 percent is profound. But we also have the same feeling. We're like, that's probably still low. That's probably still not getting out.

William Curb: How many people have I met with just, just ADHD with nothing else? I'm like, I don't...

Aaron Smith: You're right.

Stephen Tonti: I when I think about the same question, I really think about it because like in the economics world, we have homo economicist, right, which is this concept of like an average, an economic average. Human, we don't have a cerebrally neurotypical average. So it's like, try and think of an ADHD average. Who's the median ADHD'er I don't know. That's, that's not a thing.

Aaron Smith: Yeah, we have three different presentations of ADHD right off the bat. Right. So it's like, and then what's the average of that? Like it's already a very diverse condition with diverse presentations.

Stephen Tonti: So at a low and co occurring conditions. Yeah, it's hard for me to think of somebody who's just ADHD impossible.

William Curb: It's a funny way to think about it, but it is like, yeah. And so, yeah, having the diverse voices again, because if you have all these co occurring conditions, it's going to be something where, yeah, there's other things that pop up. And this is also why I think it's so important to have like some of these more curated discussions about things because people then be like, I see a lot of word coming to mind as appropriation. But I don't know that's quite right. But you know, like people will see like, oh, that's something from ADHD.

And it's like, well, no, that's, you know, like an anxiety response or that's, you know, we're of an autism response. And so this is my one problem with like self diagnosis things is people grabbing on to the wrong things. And while I'm like, yeah, it's important to be able to be able to advocate yourself through self diagnosis, I do think there's also like, oh, you do need to have these like actual factual based things that like help give people a better sense of what's going on.

Aaron Smith: As a licensed clinical therapist and ADHD coach, you know, I have this training background in mental health. And I do see this quite a bit, especially when I'm looking at social media and folks that are out there that may have these relatable experiences and are speaking from the heart about themselves. But what they are sometimes proclaiming is, yeah, everybody with ADHD does this or has this thing, it's not true. And while some people can relate to it, if you're saying, well, because I struggle with this thing, that means everyone else in a generalizable sense struggles with it too, that can be a problem.

It's more about, hey, let's be more careful about that. This is my experience. Does anyone else experiences too? That's OK. But when we like, say, everyone must experience this because of me and this will attribute to this just to ADHD. No, it might also be like you're saying, this might be anxiety, this might be depression, this might be something else traveling alongside of it, this making life more difficult for you personally. And it may not be the similar experience for ADHD. And the other dangerous thing about that is, is like, well, if you tell people we're limited or we're stuck because of this thing, this one person is experiencing, they might get that in their head and start thinking, oh, well, I can't do that. That's not for me.

All right. If someone comes out and is like, well, no ADHD or can be an accountant. That doesn't work. Well, I've met ADHD or counties. Your brain might not be attracted to accounting. Right. Mine sure isn't. That doesn't mean no one you can be who has ADHD can be an accountant.

William Curb: Or like the other side of it, too, like I know a lot of people with ADHD do very well in a crisis. You know, they're like, oh, I have this finally have this.

Stephen Tonti: Oh, right. Yeah.

William Curb: You focus on it. But I also know people that like that it quickly goes to the overstimulation to them and they're like, I can't do anything at all in crisis. And they're like, does this mean my condition is am I wrong in saying I have ADHD because everyone else is saying this thing. But it's like, no, we're all unique and we're going to have our strengths. We're going to have our weaknesses.

Aaron Smith: Yeah. Some people shut down in crisis. Right. Some people respond in very different ways.

Stephen Tonti: It also changes over time. Correct me if I'm wrong. But the last time I checked it, I used to be a fight only when it came to fear, flight, freeze. I developed a freeze response during grad school and like so much so that a partner of mine at the time who had been with me for a long time was like, Steven, I've never seen you literally freeze in the middle of the living room or the kitchen and like stop physically moving because of overwhelm. That was new. I developed that. That wasn't how I was in high school or college. That was in grad school. It's like I was always a fight, you know, like something happened in crisis. OK, do something about it. Later on in life, we can also change. I grew into a freeze guy all of a sudden. That was new, you know.

Aaron Smith: Yeah. ADHD can manifest differently as we age. It changes. The stage you're at really affects how ADHD starts to show up in your life.

Stephen Tonti: It's a bit of a moving target, which I don't think is necessarily a doomsday feeling. I don't feel doomsday as you're catastrophic about that. It's a sobering thought like, oh, I could be totally in control and command of my brain on a Tuesday at 24 years old. And the same things that work for me at 24 suddenly or gradually over time, don't at 34, right? And that moving target can make things really complicated and stressful.

William Curb: Yeah, we have our seasons of ADHD where things work, things don't. And I mean, that's one of the most frustrating aspects for ADHD for me sometimes is the consistently inconsistent aspect of it where I'm like, oh, yeah, this worked. And then I'm like, oh, no, it doesn't work anymore.

Aaron Smith: And that's the fun of ADHD. Yeah.

Stephen Tonti: See, that's where we can say that I do like the dualistic nature of English. It was spoken language. Creative can mean to a person and artists. Creative can also mean clever, creative thinking, right? In that regard, I see that as being one of those ADHD strengths, right? Like which comes first, the chicken or the egg, the strength or the pressure, right, to perform in a certain way. And these are the techniques to the adaptive techniques. Yeah, that feels like we're forced to adapt every decade because the stuff that worked in the last chapter of our life suddenly stops working. And that that has to inform a global level of creativity over time.

Aaron Smith: And hence, we better at creative problem solving. Yeah, yeah, for ourselves and maybe for others, too. It's like, yeah, what's looking for a chicken or the egg? Well, I don't know, but that's up for debate. But, you know, a lot of us do find ourselves having that as a strength, myself included, where it's like, I can attest that like people come to me to solve things. And the other part of this is frustrating. It's a lot easier sometimes to do it for others than for ourselves, right? We can become really good at being like, hey, you know, yeah, my friend struggling with this or, you know, partner, I can like come up with all these things.

And then for ourselves, it's like, oh, shoot, why am I struggling with this again? OK. I just give you the reverence to that, too. Yeah, it is a struggle. It is a challenge.

William Curb: Yeah, doing things for other things is also like hilariously like part of the reason I do this podcast is because I want to research these things and create these strategies to help me. But I'm not going to do it just for me. I have an outside audience that I'm doing for it. Like, oh, yeah, I can do the interviews and write all the stuff up because I am doing it for other people. And I'm like, this isn't logical to do it this way, but it's a workaround to make it work.

Aaron Smith: It gives you the motivation. It lights the fire in the youth to be like, hey, I'm collecting all of these strategies that are given from all these other folks. But it's also helping me at the same time. It's this iterative process of growth. And we feel the exact same way with Attention Different. It's not that we're some models of like perfection here with ADHD far from it. We're really imperfect in a lot of different ways.

And that's OK. But we can hopefully give some advice or some perspective on things that we live through and experienced and help others through their journey by what we've gone through. But at the same time, we're constantly learning and growing too with our audience and with our community. And that's what drives our work as well.

William Curb: So you've had this focus on adulting with ADHD. Can you tell me a little bit more about what that kind of means for you guys?

Stephen Tonti: During our time working together, I witnessed Aaron go on his own evolution from working as a clinician and a coach with younger minds. And then as he grew up and his his life stakes and the pressures in his life started to take new forms and new elevated forms, I watched the age of his clients increase naturally. And there's something that to me very charming and obvious about that. It's like, what is Aaron learning to master in real time? The stuff that he's hopefully disseminating to his clients and like helping them through. So there's a really beautiful one to one. And you can kind of copy paste that experience over both of our journey up to this age that we're at and where this company is. When we started ideating about this, I had not started going to grad school yet.

Right. We were still young in our 20s and early 30s and a little bit still, you know, it was novel. There's a lot more novelty is what we're just as seeking and justice warrior. I think naturally over the process of developing the company, we grew up and the issues challenging us, the issues facing us on day in, day out were more, frankly, adult issues. The capital our relationships were like to be married or not, to cohabitate or not, to rear a child or have pets and dogs like the living things that you're responsible for.

The stakes just kept rising. We started to feel more and more distanced from the middle school or the high school or even even the college student and became much, much more close to the experience of somebody first job and beyond. Right. So quite literally the information we were collecting, the personal lived and experiences we were collecting now are more akin to an adult demographic and to top it all off all along the way, we knew and were aware of the incredible dearth of information for adults with ADHD.

Right. There is this ever growing, ever blossoming archive, almost like living archives of information for kids with ADHD. Like we I think we rounded the corner for parents. Like we rounded the corner as a society in America for information and access to information for kids and their parents with ADHD. I feel like we rounded that corner in terms of information available out there to ADHD or predominantly for kids and their parents.

Aaron and I, we started to have the experience that other ADHD adults are having. Right. We've been discussing that with diversity on the screen. We weren't seeing ourselves represented on the screen. We weren't seeing ADHD adults adulting. We were seeing a lot of ADHD influencers still talking to kiddos, teenagers like influencers, till teenagers, college kids, etc. We were like, wait, how do we pay our mortgage on time? How do we deal with the mortgage? How do how do I I'm on job seven and I'm having the same freaking issue with my manager at job seven that I did at job two. I can't I keep surrounding myself with managers who are so mean and impressive.

Aaron Smith: How do we get diagnosed later in life and what it's.

Stephen Tonti: How do we get a diagnosis at 38 at 45 at 52? Right. Like we the stakes rose as we grew up quite simply. And the information out there is not enough. There's not enough information for adults. I mean, let alone entertaining, accessible, modern, up to date information. Right. You put Aaron and I together and hopefully you get the combination. You get the multiple degrees in clinical licensure. And you get the on the other side, the multiple degrees in professional storytelling and modern hip relevant storytelling. You put the two of those together and hopefully you get a really powerful educational tool for ADHD adults who really need one.

William Curb: Yeah. We know we have this like interest based nervous system and paying attention to stuff that's not that interesting. We're not going to do it. So we need to have that aspect of this can't just be, you know, plain text information that we get off of a website. Even as interested as I am in a lot of this stuff, I see those some of those websites are just I'm like, oh, my God, why are the words so close together?

Stephen Tonti: And yeah, we do this all the time, right, Aaron?

Aaron Smith: Yeah, a lot of the manuals that are out there for ADHD and adults for ADHD are very dense, very long, no pictures, no, just like not entertaining at all. There's no stories in there. And let's be honest, like how many of us are sitting there reading a manual about how to help ourselves? That's hundreds of pages. No, I'm not. That's why we were like, hey, let's save people some time, make this stuff more engaging, make it more interesting. And that's why we have the podcasts and the labs and the fireside chat so people can relate, find those stories they relate to and get that information in a digestible sense that is interesting.

Stephen Tonti: To underscore what Aaron just said, actually, to give you a little bit more of a non-Aaron, I want to speak a little bit. He said, you did do the reading. I think I think the difference is like we, Aaron and I both know that our neuroses, the thing that makes us beautifully strange is that we as individuals, ADHD or not, tend to be very interested in the brain and how to make other people, how to help other people understand their brain. Right.

So I'm going to give us that, that nod, that pack on the back, the back of the back, you as well will like the three of us in half of a space of people, of humans, we care a great deal about disseminating information that we ourselves picked up along the way. So it's a special quality of ours. And I will say that that's the distinction between us and perhaps our consumers. Right. Is that we did go do the homework. We wanted to. It was a lot. We read those manuals without the pictures.

It sucked. Right. We are trying to translate that into something that is much more fun and much more exciting, but there should be a very almost one to one with the information. Something I'm really proud of in our first ever online e-course is that it was the culmination of Aaron's doing the homework as the licensed man that he is, as the experience he has. And Steven setting a stage with all the homework I've done as a professional storyteller to make sure we could inhabit it with stuff that we just know now. We just know this stuff.

It's in our bone marrow. And as long as we accomplish those two things, then what you get is something dynamic and fun and funny and silly. Aaron and I do not have an ego about being silly. I think that's really important. We both said what would we want to find on the internet content wise? And we both agreed on this set of principles and values with regard to silliness, but also serious like serial comic, real stats and information based on research that you can take home and do something with. Right. So something that you learn on the spot and can affect change in your life that day. We were looking for something more practical, pragmatic, while still being light and fun. Right. Because we both happen to be sort of Buddhist and self loving in that way.

William Curb: Yeah. And I see the aspects of like this being without having that second piece of it being like, yeah, you do the homework and then the fireside chess. Let's bring other people around. Let's get people involved. Right. And this is also related to the idea of adulting too. And when I was thinking of in terms of ADHD being this developmental delay where you were talking about how, you know, as you were getting older, you were like, oh, yeah, we're doing these more things.

And it's like, oh, yes, we've had this developmental delay. So we're like in our 20s, we're not really in our 20s. And we're missing all of these important life skills that we're supposed to be developing in our 20s. And then we get older. We're like, why can't I do these things that all my peers can do? Why don't I know how to pay my mortgage? This is something I should know how to do and be able to not just do, but just kind of have on autopilot or something, not be like, oh, my God, every month, this is something I'm dealing with or whatever the period is.

Stephen Tonti: That sounds like Aaron's exact experience. And that must be your experience to your clients.

Aaron Smith: Yeah. It's a lot of times those simple things like, you know, keeping up with chores and household duties, like dishes and cleaning the house and laundry, oh, my gosh, laundry is huge.

Stephen Tonti: It's like a conversation. Tom, you're saying that's like a number of family feud. It's like 100 points laundry.

Aaron Smith: Yeah. Planning and prioritization. You know, like, like, how do we get? How do we plan trips or plan things? Date nights with, with our partners? That's those are all adulting things that I think we're not taught in school. We're not often time prepared for, especially when you bring on board kids into the picture and other responsibilities. You know, you own a house, well, now you have all these responsibilities of the household. I got to mow the lawn. I got to fix the shower. It's leaking.

Then you add in like kids. Oh, you got to do soccer practice. You got to take them to school. They have to get ready in the morning. We have to all leave the house this time. Those things are adulting one on one. But where are we shown some sort of way to do that? And that's the stuff that is hard for for a lot of my clients is like, how do we show up with ADHD and still get the things done that we need to do to be productive in our lives and be responsible adults in the world?

William Curb: Yeah. And feeling the shame we often feel around that, like, because I'm like, you know, I'm turning 40 in about a month. And, you know, I'm still like still figuring out how to regularly make sure the dishes get done. Like, I'm pretty good at it now. But it is something that still like happens. Like, I'm like, oh, you know, like, I'm like, oh, yeah. And then suddenly they're back. How did this happen?

Stephen Tonti: Oh, my God, it sounds like a great shirt. The dishes are back. You know, I mean, like an ADHD shirt, they're back. And it's just a sink of dishes. Old dishes. I'm going to write that down.

Aaron Smith: That's funny. And I think that comes down to our acceptance of ADHD, too, because in our acceptance of the reality of the condition, a lot of times people with ADHD think I'm going to learn some kind of tip or trick or solution that then if I learn it well enough or I practice it X number of times, then all of a sudden it's just going to click. And it will be from there on after, not a problem. And that's just not the case. That's ADHD. One of the fundamental things about ADHD is that we have executive dysfunction. And part of executive dysfunction is inconsistency.

It's baked in. So it won't it's not part of the list of the symptoms that we see, but that, you know, we are consistently inconsistent individuals, building structures and routines while necessary and are very helpful. We need to adjust the expectations. We can't have the expectation be I'm going to build the perfect routine and then it'll stick and everything will be fine after that. What we need to actually do to be more sustainable and to work with our brains, we don't have so much shame, you know, guilt around this, like, why isn't this working? I'm a failure. I must be a horrible person. I'm not I'm not an adult. I'm immature. We blame ourselves. What we need to do is shift our perspective to seeing it as like, no, this is executive dysfunction that's getting in my way and not allowing me to be consistent.

So therefore, I need to have some compassion with myself, with my brain and say, have that conversation with ourselves. Hey, it's OK. You know what? This week, I slipped up a little bit.

The dishes came back. It's not that what I was doing wasn't working. It was working more than doing nothing, right? And all that new thing. But if we approach it with some compassion and we learn how to get ourselves back on the horse, what's what was working? Let's bounce back and do that faster and better. Then it's, you know, we'll come back. Well, we're very resilient people. We can bounce back from things.

Stephen Tonti: I love that. We ADHD years are a very resilient people.

Aaron Smith: What I know, what I tell my clients is what we lack in consistency. We make up with persistence. We're very persistent. That's our strength. Let's come back and let's come back faster. Let's let go of the shame. You know, it's OK. You know, some of those things we're worried about. The dishes, the laundry, the this to that. That is not a reflection of are you a good parent? Are you a good right? No. Are you a good human being? Your dish productivity does not equate to you being a bad person.

Stephen Tonti: We need that on a card. Your dish productivity. Yeah, you're that's to go get it. It's true. Is that one to one?

Aaron Smith: I've learned to have a certain level of acceptance around. It's OK. You know what? Sometimes this week, it's like if I'm sick or this week, if I had a lot of other stuff on my plate, the dishes may not be perfectly done. You know, am I OK with like right now there is probably 10 dishes next to the sink? That doesn't mean I didn't do the dishes. There's a load in the dishwasher, right? But I honestly now try to leave it not perfectly done. I'm OK with saying, look, I put in 30 minutes of doing the dishes. And if I don't get all of them done, that's OK. That's not a failure. And I leave some of the dishes and do it later. Sure, I can still do that and still feel good about myself. That's what I've been working on.

Stephen Tonti: Yeah, yeah. I want the audience to know if you think for a second that Aaron and I are sort of like Luke Skywalker in the third film, like showing up with like everything put together and that we are the masters of round to me. No, we have this conversation every week with each other. We do this for each other. We've been doing it for over a decade. Like Aaron famously has asked me countless times. Stephen, does the bed need to be made or does the laundry need to be done or do the dishes need to be finished for us to work on this lecture? Right. That is a question that is incredibly important for two reasons. Number one, it begs an answer with regard to perfectionism and where we're putting our priorities and our energy, right? It begs an answer within that framework.

Do you need to have every single thing in your house perfect for us to do this seemingly unrelated task? Right. It also though opens the door for me to wonder about that because actually there are some things and Aaron knows this about me and I know this about Aaron. There are certain things in our lives and our adult ass adhd lives that if they're not put together, we can't function. So it makes us weird and fantastic, but it may be the laundry has to be done for Stephen to think clearly, but the dishes don't. Maybe Stephen needs to go potty, needs to go to the bathroom before we start a meeting so we can focus, right?

That needs to happen. But maybe the dishes in the bedsheets can wait until after this meeting, right? And I think that practice is just that. It's a practice that I've been doing for my whole 34 years and I leverage other people like myself also practicing this like Aaron or partners, romantic partners, family members, friends, board group. to be our better angels and to remind us that it's not a game about perfect. It's a game about intention. It's a long-con game. It's a game play for your life. And as long as you're attempting to get to the batting plate, how many metaphors can I squeeze in here? As long as you're making an attempt at the thing, that is noble, that is honorable. Give yourself a hug. Be happy in that. Find joy in that, right, in the process.

Aaron Smith: The progress over the perfection, it's not all or nothing, approved. And we don't have to feel like to tell ourselves negatively in our minds, we are a failure if it's not all done. It's not perfectly done.

Stephen Tonti: Right, restrictive language. I cannot do this other thing until that's done. Like, that's part of that negative sort of thing. I'm disallowing myself from meeting with my co-founder because my dishes are dirty. Like, Aaron helps me realize the absurdity in that, right? That is a feeling. My brain lobbed that barrier towards success up at me. Hey, you are having a small anxiety attack about these dishes having been there for two days straight. And I had to, hey, can't they can't be there for another one hour? They can't be there for one whole more hour while I work with Aaron. And Aaron's there going, hey, yes, they can.

But what about a version where they do sit there for one more hour and you come to the meeting? You know, there's so much self-love and compassion. Yes, they're there. You're not a failure. You are not a fuck up, right? The dishes are there. You know, go do this other wonderful thing that you do. Shifting your attention, shifting your attention. My mother does that as well for me, always throughout life was, okay, yeah. So those things didn't happen today, but what did you accomplish today? You know, she was practicing CBT without knowing it. But like, let's write down the list of things you did today.

Aaron Smith: It's what can I do? What am I going to do? What will I do? What are my options? What's my energy level that I can bring to this? Maybe I can bring 100% of it.

Stephen Tonti: So valuable.

William Curb: Yeah, absolutely.

Aaron Smith: So productive to have that type of thought in her brain than to be stuck on the like all or nothing, like perfectionists. This either is all done or it's not. And I'm either good or I'm bad or I'm a failure or I'm a success. No progress or perfection.

William Curb: So reminding me of this. This sounds strange, but a life changing meme I saw the other day where it was just this like like image macro that was like, did you have a bad day or did you have a bad five minutes that you slept on for the rest of the day? I'm like, oh, oh,

Stephen Tonti: like I'm stating accuracy.

William Curb: Yeah, that happens. I mean, there's like a whole set of emotional regulations, things that also go in with that, but it's also like, oh, am I I'm also kind of choosing to let that bad five minutes ruin the rest of the day.

Stephen Tonti: Yes Will, at the gym at the gym this week again, I am this is an active compassion for our listeners. You are not alone at the rec center this week. I am not at home in New Orleans. I'm in Colorado. I'm staying at my mother's house and I grabbed her key fob instead of mine for the gym. This is a gym that cost is a rec center. It costs $10 a day for seniors and $13 for everyone else. And I accidentally grabbed my mom's, which is a senior pass. And I went to scan in and the woman working at the desk who I know because I come here often recognize that I am not in fact a 65 year old woman named Lynn Tonti, but I am her son, Stephen Tonti. Now, she didn't notice this very quickly.

I had a time to go away. I didn't realize that I had scanned the wrong one. She didn't either. I went to a vending machine and she followed me. She like came around and like, sir, sir, and the energy was giving. You're trying to steal from old people. And I was I was like, no, no, you don't understand. I paid for all these passes. I just grabbed the wrong one. It's my mom's. I were related and we had to go back and like reverse which one was scan. And she had to like look at my license and be like this.

Let's like check you off. That whole experience was so embarrassing to me. That is a very mortifying context for Stephen. I was very embarrassed and people are watching and now I have a bunch of people who are paying attention to me in a negative context and I hate it because I can't control this attention that's being paid on me in this moment. I'm not in charge of it on a stage in a spotlight. They're just looking at me.

That moment is not my strongest, right? And dollars for donuts that workout was not great. That was an hour and a half of ruminative affecting working out. But thankfully because I was at the gym, I was in a natural place of like moving through the emotion rather than sitting in the emotion. Literally, I was saved by the fact that I had to move. And so like my I'm literally shifting the intention in my brain over from the emotional dysregulation to like the need to move and create dopamine and other.

So by the time I got out of the gym, this is the wisdom that Aaron myself, you will have crude over the years. But I was able to literally move through it. But had that happened out of that context at a cafe, at a hotel, at a, you know what I mean? If I didn't have a gym to get it out, right? That might have taken my whole day. That might have been the thing I thought about all day was that one interaction over a tiny dumb key fob that I scanned incorrectly. That would be 24 hours easily.

Aaron Smith: And to come back to what you said, Will about choosing or not choosing objective dysfunction that is occurring in that moment. Like Stephen did not choose to have the anxiety spike and for him to start feeling this wave of embarrassment and like his brain starts shutting down and for him to start ruminating on it. You don't choose to ruminate on something, but what can choose is how we respond in response to that. Do we make it worse? Do we kind of double down and like a greenery with those negative thoughts of like, yeah, no, I should have had this, the key fob.

What's wrong with me? Why didn't I just grab it? I always, I always remember to grab it. Oh God, like, oh, I did. Of course, my mom's ones hanging here and mine's here. What is wrong with me? I'm an adult. I'm this years old. That's the ruminative cycle that happens in the brain. Do we interrupt it and say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay. There's an accident. I didn't intend to do this. This other person behind her, the desk, she's just doing her job. I'll get through this. It's not so bad.

Yes, this is a momentary embarrassment. What can I do? I can get through this. I can pay the fee. I'll get in. I'll do my workout and I'll try intentionally to let some of this stuff go to punch it out, run it out to lift it out to literally to punch it out.

Stephen Tonti: Literally to punch it out. It was punching. It was the speed bag. A new warmup arrives. I've been blessed by having mentors and collaborators like Aaron so that what he just described is and with no, no bullshitting that that's the internal process now is that I'm, I'm, I'm living what Aaron just described in my head. Right. First, it's the, the reactive, not responsive, the, the rumination, all of the thoughts that Aaron just laid out and even other nastyier ones. I want to forgive everybody who's listening. We go to negative dark places when we are anxious and disassociative and please for whichever gods you pray to the sake of that God, forgive yourself.

It is okay. It is okay that in those moments of unhinged dysregulation that our brain is sending machine gunfire thoughts and opinions, a lot of which we probably don't agree with at our core, but they come out. So just want to add that little spice in theirs in that rumination can also be negative and toxic and angry thoughts.

Right. I have to say to myself, the a voice is going wild. The B voice has to step in and say ironically, eerily, Aaron, you hit the nail in the head. One of my first recovery thoughts was she's just doing her job. This is her job. That was one of my first thoughts was actually empathy one. It was like, wait a minute, Stephen, she's actually killing it at her job. A guy came in, scanned an older woman's card and she was like, Hey, error, that's not you. Clearly that's not you.

Right. So like I, that was one of my first forgiving responses was like a was, oh, wait a minute. This isn't personal. She has a job and it looks bad if she lets a 34 year old dude walk in on a 65 year old woman's card. Like that's not okay. Right. That was one of my first recovery thoughts. And then breathing kind of follows like, okay, it's not about me. It's not about me. It's not about me. This is not about me. Right. The more you can say that the shaking and the sweating stops.

Aaron Smith: Yeah. The first goal. And I know a lot of the listeners are going to relate to this because I've heard this just yesterday from a client. They were like, yeah, I know. I've been told this like breathe. Right. Well, yeah. A lot of people know about just breathe or breathe or go take a walk or do something. But I think we have to understand it and a little bit more of a nuanced way. It's not just about breathing. Cause a lot of times what we do is we're just like,

I'm breathing. I'm breathing. What? It's not working.

Right. No, it's about if you want to reregulate your dysregulated nervous system, your breathing is, is intricately connected to your vagus nervous right all the way down from, from your, your brain down through the bottom of your lungs. And so what we need to do is reregulate ourselves. The first task when we get those warning signs of oh shoot, this is, I'm starting to feel tension in my body. I'm starting to feel like I'm getting dysregulated. I'm feeling the rush and flood of thoughts. And these are a lot of negative thoughts.

You feel that fight, flight, freeze response. The first thing we need to be doing is saying, let's not get into the context of what happened. That's what that's the main error we do is like, we're like, oh, let me start thinking about the situation, what I could have done and all of that. No, no, no, get out of the context, get into your body, calm yourself and start taking some breaths. And what do we, what we need to do is actually focus on the out breath, the out breath and extending that out and breathing deeply and fully is going to calm us down.

So we, what we need to do is take, we might have to take two or three real good deep breaths through our nose, out through our mouth, but extend the out breath as far as we can. Slow it down because that'll help your brain come back online so you can figure your way out of this predicament.

William Curb: I have something thinking like one of my worst traits is that when I am in these like dysregulated situations, my brain goes, here's the things you can do. And then that other voice of me goes, don't do them. Feel justified.

Stephen Tonti: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You mean sit in it? Like sit in the, like, you know,

William Curb: like I'm mad about something and I'm like, I know how to make myself feel better, but I want to feel justified in being angry. And I want to just,

Aaron Smith: That's the petulant. Yeah, that's like kind of that petulant teenage kind of part of our, inside of us, right?

Stephen Tonti: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my God, do I contend with that kid? Yeah, do I contend with that kid? And I, I, I, I, I, Aaron, I like you calling it out. There is something petulant about it. I don't hate that kid. I don't have hatred for the malice, but there, but that is definitely, that's the temper tantrum beside of me. That's the, that's the, that's the part of me that's like, I'm going to value, I'm going to benefit from this temper tantrum. I want to feel this madness.

I want to feel this anger and this hurt, right? I'm justified. Yes. How dare they, you know what, like, whatever this woman's job is stupid. You know, like the dumb toxic shit. I say dumb toxic shit to not give it power, but I do honor its existence, right? Cause that's what you're also saying, Will. Sometimes you do sit in this real, very present voice that's like, no, be mad. I want to be mad. Fuck it.

Aaron Smith: I want to be mad. And what I would say that is it's, it's the righteous indignation. Yeah. And when we start to do that, we're, it's a reflection of our ego. Our ego gets attached to whatever it is we're being triggered. You might feel like in your situation, years, years, years is a real example. It's the embarrassment. It's the feeling like it's the tone. Why does she make a big deal of it? Right? Yeah. Why is this such a big deal? We come here, she knows, she knows my mother, I paid for the stuff. And then you have this self-righteous indignation of like, yeah, I should be able to get this. Why can't they understand?

Why can't they make an exception for me? And it's like, when we take it personally, and this can be even with a fight with a partner, you know, your spouse, when we start to take it personally, and we bring that ego in and say, how is this affecting me? And I'm right. And I need to be right. I need to stand on this platform and stand up for myself and all this stuff. We start losing sight of the bigger picture. And it's really important if we want to help in those situations, not just to help ourselves, but kind of help others, help people we love, help the people we care about and help be the best versions of ourselves.

To step out of that personalization, to look at it from that bigger perspective of more of a depersonalized space of wait a second, this isn't about me. This person is just doing their job.

Wait a second. This is not about winning this argument with my spouse. What this is really about is I love this person dearly. I respect them. How do we keep this relationship intact? How do we show up as the best version of parents we can be?

How do we show up as the best spouse I can be? Because I love this person. I'm going to make that bigger goal way more important than my need in this moment. That really is probably you're making that thing way more important than it really is because you're stuck in the emotion surrounding it. You're not separating that anger, that frustration. And that's where that righteous indignation sets us off on a course that isn't great.

It's not going to end well. The more we stay in that, the problem and then it's the response to the problem. A lot of times it makes it even worse. It digs us in deeper and then whole.

Stephen Tonti: Oh yeah. It's a perversion of a lesson because the way I got the lesson wasn't the greatest, but it's actually a good lesson. If I may, in this regard, I had a father who doesn't carry a lot of shame because of his complex mental wiring. He doesn't sense shame in the same way that other people do. And he famously or infamously, depending on how you take this, once told me when I was in high school, Stephen, have you ever considered that people don't consider you that much? And I thought this was like for an ADHD empath and someone who's anchored to how people please again. Yes, Andy, was it a nice thing to say?

No, and I guarantee you it was not. It was coming from this man I love at a time that probably was tough, but he said something low key brilliant. Stephen, have you ever considered that people don't consider you that often? And what his point was, was everybody's got adult ass lives.

Well, got responsibilities. The person talking to you at line at the gym or the receptionist, the person at the cafe, they're carrying all the same, same, but different crap that you are, right? And my mother was saying the same things in a more empathetic way, like you don't know what's going on in someone's life before you walk, you know, until you walk a mile in their shoes, Atticus Finch sort of stuff. She was taking the empath ADHD or approach.

He was taking the zero shame and kind of disassociative approach. I don't think about what people think about me because I tend to believe that people don't think about me that much. That was actually a saving grace for me for many decades after I have oft returned when it mattered times and it mattered to my father's hard paw there, right? That tough ball of like, Hey, Stephen, have you ever considered that they're not thinking about you that like they go home and they have other stuff to think about? And what a release, you know, because in that moment of embarrassment or for upset, if that Bob boys, the dad boys comes back in those special moments like, Hey, Stephen, they're probably not thinking about you. Like this is probably not at all about you.

Aaron Smith: You're not as important.

Stephen Tonti: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That you reminded me, Aaron, when you said that the ego thing, right? Like we're probably blowing it up bigger than it is. And the first thought I had was, man, the number of times when I was growing up that I would bring a story home and allegory or something that happened to me that day. I was so upset and my father would say some variation of I don't think they're thinking about it as much as you are.

I just don't believe they're thinking about this as much as you are, right? And that really good note, really good note, right? Because it releases so much pressure, right? So much eye, so many eyes on you. Oh, right. They have to go take care of their stuff. Why am I beating this black and blue? Why am I sitting in this? They're not, they're not thinking about it anymore. I think that was the release, right? Such a logical release. Why am I still suffering if they're not

Aaron Smith: in perspective shifting in that, in that moment? It's like shifting from your perspective to the other person. Yes. Yes. How are they looking at it? And that gets you out of your head and stop the rumination cycle.

Stephen Tonti: Oh, same, same. I got you. Yeah, it's taking you out of the context. You're putting yourself in their context and it removes you from your emotional storm. Yeah. See, I'm still learning from Aaron every day.

Aaron Smith: I hear this from my clients like, let's just say it's like a male client and the wife is really upset that they forgot something and they're taking it personally and they say, the wife may think it's because this person doesn't care. They don't love me enough. They don't care enough to consider my needs or my opinion.

How many times have I told them and they did the thing without that consideration? It almost feels like they did it on purpose. I mean, it's like intentional to them and they react. And let's say the husband in this situation, they react defensively. Well, what do you mean? I didn't mean to do that. That wasn't intentional. I just forgot. It was my work. You remember, right?

I forgot to do the thing, right? Well, if the guy in that situation stays in that mode of like, I'm going to be defensive. I'm going to tell them they're being ridiculous. They're overreacting. They're blaming me. I hate that they have this tone. They stay in that. You're going to make it fun. That hits me. You just read me. And the other option though is to take a moment and say, let's put myself in their shoes.

Okay. Why is she reacting so strongly? And this client that I just had who was telling me the story too, they had a very like the wife had a very abusive father who was neglectful, who kind of left at the age of 12. And of course that's a trigger. Her own father growing up left her, right? And abandoned the family. So what she sees as this might like what he did is so minor, he's not leaving. He's not doing something horrible. But this action of him forgetting this one thing that she's told him is important that she probably verbally reminded him about in the morning.

A thousand times right. Taking the kids to school, he forgot it. For her, it's not about the thing. Right. So if he can get out of his own head in his own, in his own reactiveness to it and move over here and say, wait, okay, I care about her a lot. Right. And she's reacting very strongly.

This must not be about the thing I forgot. That's not really the issue. Okay. So then he can move to support that instead of taking it personally. He moved to say, like, oh, honey, let me hear you out and like, you know, have that conversation about what he's going to do differently. How he's going to support her, address the core needs there that she has, which is like, how do I feel loved? How do I feel cared about? How are you showing that and demonstrating that care through your actions? And he can do that right there in that conversation.

Stephen Tonti: You did the Dr. Becky thing though too, Aaron, just then. It's like, I want to highlight this because it's a step that you skipped over naturally because you do it naturally by him saying the first feeling is this is a lot. Right. That's our first feeling is coming from our partner or friend or peer. This is a lot. What you did was the Dr. Becky thing immediately. You first validated that, right?

You first validated. Hey, guy, that is a lot. Let's try and think logically for a second rather than personally and emotionally about why it's a lot. Let's affirm. Let's confirm your instinct that this is more than it should be. That treats the ego right away, right away. This is you identified. This is more than it should be. Whatever that is, whatever rationale on your head is. Okay. Accept that. This is more. Now we shift right there in that moment to it can't. Couldn't be me.

Right. Yes, she's mad that I didn't do the thing because she's told me a thousand times, but this level of response is huge. Oh my gosh. All of this context that I know about this person, all of the therapy we've done together, all of the company.

Aaron Smith: Let me make it a little bit more simple. In your rights, Stephen, I think what I skipped over was, okay, she's emotionally triggered right now and responding emotionally, maybe harshly, maybe in a condemning tone, maybe yelling, who knows, right? But she's responding in an intense fashion. Let's set aside whether it's justified or not. This is what's happening. And then he's responding in a defensive way. And I think the emotions that are flooding him are happening too.

So we're both in a triggering emotional situation. Exactly. Because he has had a lifetime of being accused of not doing enough, not being enough, like failing. So it's very triggering for him. And she had this abandonment stuff going on. This is very trigger for her. So what we need to do is recognize both people are in a heightened emotional state.

And so we need to start responding to the emotional content and not the content of the situation, not the situation. Thank you. And so if we each respond to the emotions that are going on, right? And we do that first out of a love and compassion and care for the other person. We're going to be so much more successful, so much.

Stephen Tonti: Bingo. Thank you for consolidating.

Aaron Smith: Because that's what I was picking up. So I think the good default of looking for a very easy light default in this situation, you find yourself in this, a real easy thing to do is shut up, breathe, listen, ask questions. Right? That's the first thing you can do that it's going to be very validating. Don't get into defensive talking back. Well, but you didn't tell me, but like, well, you should have written it down. Well, why didn't you remind me? Well, well, you know, no, of course, I didn't care. No, don't go into all that. Just shut up for a second.

Stephen Tonti: You know, it's like sometimes it feels naughty tosay shut up, but in this moment it doesn't. I don't know why, but when Aaron says shut up in this moment, I'm like, ooh, I'm like, yeah, shut up, breathe, listen.

Aaron Smith: Take some deep breathes, open yourself up to listening and hearing, ask a question. We're kind of validate their experience. You know, you can just say, I understand this is really upsetting for you. And the right, I did it again. Yes, I did forget that. And I can see how this is really a let down for you right now. Tell me what is going on? How are you feeling about this? Let's have this conversation. Tell me what's going on and just listen. Just give her some space to listen. All of a sudden she might come down.

Stephen Tonti: I just felt it. Did anybody else listening feel that as Aaron was just talking? I literally was like, OK, yeah, I'm going to. I was you literally just prepped me to be like, OK, so here's what I think didn't happen. You know, it's what I think didn't happen today, babe. I was so warmed up just then.

Aaron Smith: And then you can validate and confirm that stuff. You don't have to agree, right?

Stephen Tonti: It's not there were so much that you took threat out of the word. Yeah, you took threat out of the room.

Aaron Smith: She's not acting. Yeah, you're not. You're not being attacked here. What you're what she is, is she's expressing some kind of unmet need and is reacting in a frustrated way. So therefore, right there in that moment, your response needs to be responding to that need. What can I do? What can I say that's going to help show her that I do care that I am me? And we can demonstrate that with listening and validation.

And then from there, then only then we can get to the problem solving or the fixing it or the what to do next time. We have to listen first. You have to understand the problem. What's the real issue? What's going on here and hear them out? It might not be the right time for either one of you.

That's the thing that's reality, right? Maybe this isn't the time to have the conversation. If she's really worked up or you're really worked up, you might have to say, hey, let's let's pause this for a minute. I can see we're really worked up. I really do care about you and I want to hear you.

But right now, the way you're coming at me right now and I'm feeling triggered. I do care about you and I want to have this conversation. But I need to go calm myself down and go take some space in a moment and we'll circle back. Can I come back in 20 minutes? Can I come back and we come back in an hour? And then have this conversation. Yet the important thing is to come back.

Stephen Tonti: Saving a conversation for later does not mean you lost a debate or a competition. Saving a conversation over later reminds us that it's not about winning or losing the conversation. It is about having the conversation.

William Curb: I was wondering if there were any final thoughts you guys wanted to leave the audience with?

Stephen Tonti: All of them. I have had a reoccurring feeling or kind of a cocktail of feelings over the last few months. This is me sort of like nodding to the launch of the company and to the success that Aaron and I are seeking, but also the work capital T, capital W that we want to set in front of ourselves for a very long time. I have been having this reoccurring wave of a cocktail of gratitude, stress and fear, love, euphoria. It's this very unique cocktail that I think comes from what I've reframed it as is when you try and do big stuff. Big stuff is going to happen to you.

And I have felt those waves. The one that I'm in now, in earnest, is why aren't the people calling yet where I'm at with Aaron is we have been doing this homework and what do we care most of all about? Quite literally sharing what we know. We are two people more keen on sharing our toys than any kids you've ever met before. It's like we gathered all these really important tools and techniques for ourselves because we needed that. And we see suffering around us amongst our family members, our peers, our ADHD fam. And it kills us. We hate it.

If there's anything that I hate, it is the suffering that I see in my peers, my neurodiverse peers. We feel some agency in this space. And I personally, I look at Aaron, I look at myself, we're ready. We're ready to help and we're willing to help and we want to help. And I hope, I hope that this calendar year sees a sort of floodgates opening. I've never felt more excited and confident to say, come at us, come at us, come at us with your questions, come at us with your nightmare and horror stories, come at us, come at us with your big wins and your huge success stories as an ADHD or a neurodivergent person. Right.

We are ready to receive as much as we are ready to offer like, entrego con amor, recibo con amor. That has been the phrase cycling in my head for the last year and a half, two years with Aaron. And it's just, it's wonderful to feel justified in the work. Right. And that's, that's kind of what I would love to leave our audience with is like, as an ADHD adult, if there's anything to be proud of, it's ironically building a company with a brother in arms who want to help other ADHD adults. There's something so ironic and like a closed loop about that. But it's true. That's what I am most proud and excited about is the work we're literally doing right now.

And I'll leave you with this tiny little bit of that. Aaron and I spoke to the Medicaid offices in Colorado recently. And we got many comments. We did very well just to toot our own horn. It was good. It was, it was, it felt like we were sitting in our seat of power and influence and helping people. One comment of the many was a quote that Aaron said, Aaron said, and we've pulled this from someone else. I'm not the problem. The problem is the problem. But for this person, that's the first time they ever heard that. Aaron, myself, you, we've probably heard this were gurgitated a thousand times. But that was the first time they ever heard that. And the comment was the quote, I am not the problem.

The problem is the problem. And then underneath that, I will take this with me for the rest of my life. That one comment from one person at the Medicaid offices in Colorado is quite literally what makes all of this worth it for Aaron and I. And we would be doing it just for that comment and nothing else if we only had that option. So that is what I will leave you with. This work feels awesome. And I have, I can think of nobody else I'd rather be doing it with.

Aaron Smith: You all are part of this. We want you to be part of the Attention Different community. Come check us out. Come engage on our YouTube channel.

Stephen Tonti: Attention underscore different.

Aaron Smith: Our Instagram is attention underscore different. Come check this out. If you're if you're interested in working with me personally, I have another coaching company called Potential Within Reach. We're off or individualized coaching. So you can check that out at PotentialWithInReach.com and we can work together on individual level. And then also, you know, if you're an adult with ADHD and you're looking just to kind of learn, get a get a sense of of some different tools that could be helpful.

Check out Thriving with ADHD, our first e-course. And you can find out on the website. It's linked to it there. So just go to attentiondifferent.com and we'd be happy to have you go through the course and let us know if it was impactful for you because we hope it is.

Stephen Tonti: And keep watching that space. We will have more courses. We will have more content. Not for nothing Aaron put Aaron and I put so much blood, sweat and tears into this project so far, this company so far. And we have a lot of content to show for it. So please come check us out on all the platforms. The brand is attention different as an attention different, not deficit. One of our tag lines as it were is breathe. You got this. So yeah.

William Curb: Well, thank you guys so much for coming on the show. I think people will really enjoy it.

Stephen Tonti: Awesome. Thank you, Will.

This Episode's Top Tips

1. You don’t need to finish all the dishes to feel like you’ve succeeded. Sometimes, doing just part of the task can be good enough, and good enough is a win.

2. We’re not always going to have high-capacity days, so work on shifting your mindset from “What can’t I do?” to “What can I do with the energy I have?” Reframing these thoughts can help manage low-capacity days with less shame.

3. In conflict, slow down. Shut up, breathe, listen, ask questions. This sequence can help de-escalate emotional tension, create space for connection, and avoid falling into defensiveness.