¶ Intro / Opening
I felt this wave of relief just cast over me like, oh my god, I'm not terrible at life. There's nothing wrong with me. My brain works differently than everyone has expecting me to function. And my brain just works differently. And I just raised a child on my own via, like, for the last 1011 years with this issue, and I like look how far I've come look
at what I did. I like the sense of like, I spent my whole life flogging myself for all the things that I just couldn't keep on top of and couldn't keep organizing couldn't and I've been a really fun, wild creative person, but it was like, I was always so hard on myself. And in that moment, realizing how much I'd accomplished as a mother as a as a working woman. Just as a human and an adult, I felt so validated and relieved.
Welcome to successful with ADHD. I'm Brooke Shipman. Let's get started. Bethany Joy Lenz. She's an American actress, singer, songwriter, and filmmaker. And she's very well known for her portrayal of Haley James Scott on the web, which the CW television drama One Tree Hill, welcome, Joy. How are you? I'm great. How are you? Doing? Well, doing well. And Bethany is just not any actress, songwriter, author, she, in fact, is one of us. She is a fellow ADHD or what have you. She's part of the
tribe. I know you just found out about a year ago, tell us about what got you to finally consider
¶ How Bethany discovered she likely had ADHD.
that you might have an ADHD diagnosis.
I, it never occurred to me, I always thought ADHD was the same thing I thought it was in high school, which is some guy is really hyperactive and has to be on Ritalin because he can't stop moving around and talking really fast. And he's super annoying in class. And that's just the only understanding I ever had of ADHD. And I mean, thank God for Instagram. I just started, I think something just came up in
my feed. And I read these like, it was probably some late night scrolling, I read some some like descriptive elements of someone with ADHD. And I kind of went, huh, that's funny. And then I clicked on it just started going down a rabbit hole. I was like, that's funny. I wonder, wonder, wonder if I have that like a little bit like, maybe I have a little of that. And then I continued down the rabbit hole for the next few weeks, until the point where I was 100% sure that this is exactly what I deal
with. I then I started going into real like medical research and looking into I mean, you know, it was a hyper focus mode of
my new brain that I didn't know about.
¶ The relief of diagnosis after years of feeling something was wrong.
I was on an airplane. And I I started seeing I think I just saw one of those, like one of those diagrams that you put up. And it was all the ways that our behavior interacts and diverges from one thing to another. And I just thought about, I felt this wave of relief just cast over me like, oh my god, I'm not terrible at life. There's nothing wrong with me. My brain works differently than everyone has expecting me to function. But my brain just
works differently. And I just raised a child on my own via like, for the last 10 or 11 years with this issue. And I like look how far I've come look at what I did. I like the sense of like, I spent my whole life logging myself for all the things that I just couldn't keep on top of and couldn't keep organizing couldn't and I've been a really fun, wild, creative person, but it was like, I was always so hard on myself. And in that moment realizing how much I had accomplished as a mother as a as
a working woman. Just as a human and an adult. I felt so validated and relieved. And that was really the first month of realizing that this is what I had.
Yeah. So you felt validated and relieved. Do you have an official ADHD diagnosis?
¶ Bethany got an official diagnosis 6 months after self-diagnosing.
I do. I do. It took me about six months ago I went to go get the diagnosis because I didn't want to. I don't like medication. I don't like having things in my body. If I don't have to. And so I realized that I had this, but I wanted to put into a bunch of put into practice all of the tools and suggestions for how to try and manage this on my own. And so I did that for about six months. And then I realized it was not enough. I was not, I just is not capable, my brain chemistry is off, and I need
help with it. And so yes, then I called the doctor and went in, I got my didn't make two or three
¶ How medication helped Bethany's focus and feeling overwhelmed.
sessions, got my diagnosis, and got my prescription and started just experimenting with that. But it was amazing. I mean, it was like, shockingly amazing, the difference at how much more like myself, I felt how much more settled dropped into my body focused, capable, they made a huge difference. And so being able to continue to talk with my doctor here that over the last year has made a huge difference in my ability to actually finish a lot of tasks that I start and not feel so overwhelmed.
Yeah, I mean, look at all that you've accomplished in your life. And especially now you have your newspaper that is launched, you have the strawberries, new single that you just dropped on August 18. You have a podcast drama queens, you have a lot, you have an 11 year old child, you said, Yeah, 1212. So you've been even moving and shaken.
It's a lot. It is. It's one of the busiest seasons of my life ever. I think knowing this about myself and having tools to navigate, has made all the difference. Because when I start to feel overwhelmed, or when I hit up, bump up against certain walls, I don't, I don't beat myself up. I'm not like why can everybody else do this and I can't, it's it just moves into a different zone of like, let me focus on what I'm really good at, here's
how I stay in my lane. And now I don't feel guilty about bringing in other people to be good at doing things that I am not good at doing.
¶ Playing to strengths and not beating yourself up over weaknesses.
I love it. So you delegate you stay focused on your strengths, which is so important, you don't beat yourself up about the things that are your weaknesses, and you're more aware of that it all starts with that awareness. And I love how you really immerse yourself in the tools and the strategies and the community of people with ADHD because that is where you're going to learn the lifelong lessons and feel like you are a part of this group.
And then the medication very often is something that comes after. And it's a triage effect. Now I understand that a lot of people don't like or are nervous to take it because they don't want that in their body. But the facts, it helps 80 to 90% of people who take stimulants, and it actually without medication very often, the studies show that you can live 13 years less than with medication because of all the risky behavior, the impulsivity, the stress, so I'm not pushing medication on
anyone. But I too am on medication, I did the behavioral piece first because you have to understand how to work with your brain. And then the medication will help you fire more regularly.
¶ Being careful with medication due to addiction history.
I agree. And I don't I also don't forget, every day I try and space it out because I don't I have there's addiction in my family. I want to be careful about that too. So I I just didn't like it's something that I have on me all
the time. If I'm on a working day, and I know I need to get things done and I need to be really dropped in or if it's a high stress day or whatever, I will take it and there's plenty of days when I'm like I'm going to work out I'm going to get my endorphins and I'm going to navigate through today but now that I know not to beat myself up I'm so much more better off I'm so I'm so much more settled. And I just say it's really transformed my friendships as
well. And I don't know if you found this but what How old were you when you got diagnosed?
¶ Managing friend expectations and communicating neurodivergence.
35
years later in life just like me. I don't know if you found this as well but my friendships completely transformed in terms of my ability to be again easier on myself. You know, I forget birthdays. And yeah, that's funny. What was one of the things I read it's like it's not that I forgot your birthday. It's like I have no idea what day it is yeah, but plus I'm also does calculus or have I have this calcula, which has dyslexia with numbers, and so
then they get inverted. But anyway, it's things like that work, I've come to be able to just go, oh, yeah, this is just my brain, I'm sorry, my, I'm, I know my lane of where I can be a really good friend. And there are places in my friendships where I just have to be like, I'm sorry, I'm probably always going to be five to 10 minutes late, I really try not to be for some reason professionally, I
can manage it. And with friendships, it's harder for me, like, there are so many little spaces that are weird gaps in my brain, and I'm working on all of them. But it's not all going to change overnight. So being able to accept myself, and be able to communicate with my friends so that they're not sitting there guessing, like, what is her deal? And the people who I have made friends with who are also neurodivergent. Whereas before, I might have been like, what is
this person's problem? Now I'm like, Oh, they have the exact same brain as me. And I have so much more space in my life to give them grace. Because I understand.
So you're, it almost seems like you're a lot more fulfilled in the other areas of your life where perhaps you used to worry, or people would shame you and you felt bad. But now you can be an advocate for yourself and the way that your brain works. And like, I'm going to try but take it or leave it, this is who I am.
Yeah, I'm getting better at that. I'm not an expert. And there are still environments. The last movie I worked on, I had a really horrible experience with our producers, there were some major misunderstandings that were due to my neuro divergence and their complete lack of information about neuro divergence. And it took me a while to figure out that that's what was happening.
Because it felt at first, like a character attack, just a total onslaught of like, Why do these people hate me what the hell is going on? This is so strange. And then it took a few days before I really was like, Oh, if you don't understand the way that this brain works, it's so easy to interpret certain behavior as something completely opposite from what it actually
is. And so that takes time, because then it's like, yeah, you want to stand up for yourself and have have that space like you're talking about, but you also want to give people grace and give them space for just not. Most people, unless you have this or have this in your family. You don't really understand it or don't know what it is. So you got to just give people grace. And hopefully, they'll be willing to listen to you when you can share with
them. Hey, let me educate you on something you probably don't know. I love
that. So even if you have ADHD, to ADHD brains
¶ ADHD symptoms can look so different yet still recognize each other.
don't always look alike. I think someone mentioned that there's about like, 6000 different ways that your symptoms manifest when you combine all of it. Whoa. So with that being said, I have ADHD you have ADHD. My husband has ADHD, my two sons have ADHD, we all have different. Wow, internally, of course.
Do you find that it's easier? It's still easy to recognize, though, like even though the symptoms are different? Do you still feel like you're able to win even when you meet a stranger? And kind of like, Ah, I know what that is?
Yes. So there are certain indicators, of course. So like you had started out saying you thought it was the boy in high school who couldn't sit still and, you know, didn't raise his hand and would call out? Yeah, that's a big indicator. Another thing is my older stepson he has the inattentive type. So I would talk to him and he would zone out. And he would like start creating screenplays in his right. So the God come back, come back. And unless we
mentioned, yeah. And so unless I mentioned his name first to get his attention, he would not hear what we had to say because he was in tunnel. So those are two big things. They both have extreme ADHD, but they manifest differently. So yeah, there are some indicators but yes, there's so many other coexisting conditions that come with ADHD. It's almost always co occurring with something so you said you had dis calcula. That is a very common co occurrence. dyslexia, autism, OCD, bipolar, odd, the
list can go on and on. So there's that other thing that you have to work on as well. There's also trauma, PTSD, anxiety, depression. So, yeah, all of it, all of it, all of it. So rewind back in the day, you've done a lot of different shows, movies, what have you. How did you remember your lines because ADHD is struggle with executive dysfunction. And working memory is one of those things. And I work with a lot of actors. And they also struggle with memorizing their lines, what was your trip,
¶ Never struggled to memorize scripts thanks to hyperfocus.
I have never had a problem remembering my lines. And that's even from a young I mean, I played, I remember when I was 1110, or 11. I played scout and To Kill a Mockingbird and a local production of like a regional production in Texas. And the first rehearsal I showed up and I had the entire play memorized, I knew everyone else's lines, and mine. Wow. And for me, that's a hyperfocus. Because I'm so intensely interested in it.
But also, as an actor, it the whole, the whole point is that it's in your body, and you're listening. And so if it's good writing, you really should just be able to listen. And if you're completely present and dropped in, in the moment, your natural response will be something close to what's on the page. And then my brain just kind of ties it together. So the words may not come out from me exactly the same way as they might come out from my character. But they're similar enough that I have a
photographic memory as well. So I can go back and remember where on the page it is, and sort of, I don't, I can't read the lines exactly in my brain. But it's close enough that I will remember.
Now, that's a really good explanation, because you are present, and you love acting. And I just read in the National Geographic, that's so much and I knew this, but so much of memory has to do with emotion. So if you are emotional, when memorizing the script, you're going to remember, or have an easier time remembering it.
But if I read anything else, I like I would love to be someone who is super well spoken about data. And the things that I read about social political discourse, just information that I that I consume from various sources and things that helped me formulate a lot of my opinions about life and activity that's happening around me in the world. I'm always open to being changed. But once I established a foundation for something, the
information is gone. Like I there is no way that I can actually recite back, I can tell you where on the page it was that I read it. Like it's a it's like, the top left corner of that book that's on the shelf on the bottom shelf, right. But there's no way I can I can tell you back what the numbers are, or exactly what the quote was, I might not even really be able to give you a general sense of what I read, I could just say something, I read something once
that made sense to me. And in the moment, I'm super interested, and I will do additional research, and I will kind of do everything I need to do to feel like okay, I can formulate an educated opinion about this. And then I have the opinion, and then I move forward in the world with the opinion, but the information has gotten to me. And it's so irritating.
¶ Remembering facts/data hard because of dyscalculia.
Well, two things. A you have dis calcula and B, you said when you're acting sometimes the words are not exact, but the motion and what you say are close enough. But when you're talking about data, you have to be exact right? If you're a researcher, so it makes sense that you wouldn't remember that just like you said, you don't remember what day it is right? It's not that you don't remember the birthday you just don't you're not like present to what the day
the date on the calendar is. So I guess we all have our strengths and weaknesses. When it comes to memory.
We do I have a friend who's got ADHD but she's amazing is data like she could she could tell you exactly what everything she does. She'll read a whole book and then go tell you everything that's in the book and what page you can find it on.
Wow. Yeah. So 35% of individuals with ADHD are entrepreneurs. I'm not sure if you knew that. But Dr. To be Yeah, we have to strive to be our own boss and make our own rules and just create. So you have a lot of different things going on. You have a book coming out. So tell me how you manage it all.
¶ Timers, limits, scheduling help juggle everything.
But sometimes I do well, and sometimes I don't. I mean, I've historically never done well managing a lot of things. Although a lot of my friends To tell you differently. I do have a lot of friends that tell me, I don't know how you do it all year amazing. And I'm like, I don't What are you talking about? I am failing constantly. And it doesn't, I guess, look that way to the
outside. But I do feel constantly, like I'm failing and getting this diagnosis, being able to know how to use the medication to my advantage, and being able to learn how to, to feel okay about delegating has made a big difference in my productivity. So, right now, I would say, timers make a huge difference. This is how I'm managing my motherhood, my music career, my newspaper that I'm the founder and editor of and my
podcasts. And, of course, there's other things, time to meditate, just getting outside taking scheduling, like an hour break or 30 minute break to go outside and put my feet in the grass and just ground and scheduling in a phone call 20 minute phone call with a friend that I have to catch up with. I'm really learning to love and use my calendar a lot for just breaking the day up into small
bits. And then really trying to be diligent about shutting everything down at 536 o'clock or five, just depending on what the day needs and make dinner focus on my daughter, relax and take a mental break for myself. Those are the things that help it there's no perfect formula. And I wish there were but
ya know, I love how you said that you actually schedule those 20 minutes to ground yourself. You know, it's not just about the work productivity that goes into your calendar. It's about the 20 minute phone call to your friends, the 20 minutes of going outside and being mindful, being like the non negotiables.
Yeah, because I can't trust myself to remember to do those things. There's no way like I have to put a reminder in my phone I have to, and I'll I've done it enough in my life. I still do it sometimes where I'll go, oh, yeah, I gotta remember. As soon as I get home, I have to call so and so or as soon as I get home, I have to make sure to put the thing in the oven. But that's 10 minutes from now. And by the time I get home, it's gone. I'm completely
somewhere else in my brain. And I won't remember to take the roast out of the freezer, or the
¶ High control groups prey on neurodivergent people.
fish out of freezer until it's dinnertime, then it's too late. And then we're now we're ordering from DoorDash. So there is my alarms gotta set timers, I just cannot trust myself. And that's okay. I don't feel guilty about anymore.
That's awesome. Yeah, with ADHD we have that now or not now mentality. And literally anything that's 10 minutes out, is that not now, it's really hard to remember that when our brain is constantly in motion. And we are either overstimulated or under stimulated. So when you're going into the kitchen, and you're forgetting about the frozen fish or whatever, it's because you see something along the way, right, that triggers something and reminds you to do this, and then that takes you down that
weird squiggly. Yeah, yes. And you also recently had an article come out about you that you spoke on your podcast about being in a cult for 10 years. And I'm not sure many people know about this. There's not really data or studies out there. But there are ADHD experts who talk about cult followings in ADHD. Like this is a common time. Yeah, so like high control groups preying on neurodivergent people, because
it's easy. But also on the flip side, we want a sense of belonging, we need black and white thinking we don't like to live in the gray. So we need to have these even though we don't like to follow rules. We need these rules to follow. That's the ADHD contradiction and people that can be our people. So very often, like I was part of before I became a coach, I was part of landmark. I don't know if you Oh, yeah, it's a great coaching program. I love
it. I learned a lot. But it's compared to a cult in many aspects. So it doesn't have to be religious to be a call, right? We all have certain things that we just go really strong into for long periods of time. So how did you get out of that? And I'm sure you talk about it more on your podcast, but what was that like for you?
Well, in terms of the way I look back at my ADHD, I think you're right I think the hyperfocus and being able to assess A lot of different things at one time, is what isn't was really helpful and really useful for me, you know, once I hit the point where I realized I needed to go in a different direction, I think a suit total superpower of ADHD is to be able to calculate a lot of different variables at one time.
This is something that I've seen work really well, I think it's one of the reasons why I'm a good actor, when I'm like, I'm good at my job, because I'm not just feeling the emotion, I'm also you have to be aware of where the camera is, you have to be aware of where the light is, you have to be aware of where the other actor standing, you have to be aware of all those things, and yet not look like you're focused on any of those things, you have to still stay completely emotionally present.
So to hold an emotion, fully feel it, but also have your brain going in six or seven other different directions. On the side. It's just so incredibly useful for people in a creative field. And when you're in some sort of, you know, high demand group or abusive relationship or situation like that, and you're able to remove yourself just enough to see all the variables and see all the factors, it really helps to just help you navigate through it. Because you know, it's not just as simple as
one or two things. Do you think these groups know intentionally that they're preying on people who are neurodivergent? Or is it just uh, there's this an ease, like an easy access because of what you're saying about the need for belonging or acceptance or the black and white thinking?
I think it could be both I don't have you know, like enough information to answer that. But I also know that very often with ADHD, we could be like, super quiet, or we could be super loud. So it could be hard for us to build friendships and when someone is essentially love bombing you like call, right? They make you feel belong, like there's no, there's essentially no work that you need to do. They just fully are showing you acceptance.
Yeah, unconditional acceptance. It's well, it seems like it until it conditions really show up. Yeah.
Exactly. And that's also like you mentioned abusive relationships, we can jump into a relationship where someone is love bombing us, and it's very exciting. And they're telling us all the things that they want to hear, we want to hear. And like finally we get that euphoria from someone loving us or from what we think loving us and then the role
switches for that person. And very often ADHD or do it to ADHD or ADHD years can be the love bombers because their dopamine gets really high with new exciting relationships.
¶ Hard to distinguish narcissist traits vs ADHD challenges.
Yes, that was my next question is wonder about the like, this seems to be a fine line sometimes between behavior with like narcissists, like true narcissistic behavior, and then ADHD behavior where you're not a narcissist, because you do empathize. And you have the capability to put yourself in other people's shoes and all those things, but the high of new things newness, yes. We're
so used to it. That's just what especially for somebody who's like an actor who we travel all the time, new sets, new people, new groups, new restaurants, new cities, new character, new clothes, it's all new, new, new. So to settle into something that's more long term and serious, I could see how a lot of ADHD ears are like, constantly struggling with
that, yeah, we get the need to be stimulated when we're under stimulated. So jumping into something that's exciting, brings us dopamine, and then from there, we just jump right in. And then after that, we're like overwhelmed. And you know, this is too much coming. And then we back down and try to find new things. So I was talking to an ADHD couple
specialists. Her name is Melissa Orlov. And she had mentioned that generally speaking, it takes ADHD years, two years to know, to really know their ADHD partner. Wow. So it's fascinating because you have this like phase she said, it's usually the first six months where like, everything is great, and they're actually a different person, and then they change into the person they really are. But it's not that they were trying to be someone different.
It's just they were so excited about the newness of it that things look different.
Yeah, but that looks so much like narcissism
well That's a good question. I'm not a narcissism specialist. But like you said, narcissists typically don't have empathy. And I just want to say that if you have autism, which 75% of people with autism have ADHD, not the other way around. You don't always understand people's emotions. So they might think you're narcissistic, because you're not connecting to their emotions, and you're not being empathetic. But you just don't understand it unless they flat out tell you.
Yeah, makes a lot of sense. I think about that. There. Because there are moments I've definitely been accused in my life of being. At one very blunt, like, you know, I'm a Jersey girl, like, I'm really just a tell you exactly what I'm thinking, I don't want to waste time. I don't want to waste your time or my time. But there's been a lot of times in my life when I've had people be like, ouch, what the heck, you do have to say that bluntly. And
I'm like, I'm not mad. I just I'm telling you exactly what's going on. But it's, it can be hard for me to really think about unless I can, like you're saying, unless I can understand it. If somebody tells me in a way that makes sense. Why they're either behaving a certain way or feeling a certain way. Once I understand their feelings, I can drop right into it. And then it's like, emotionally can be overwhelming.
But it's just hard for me to understand it on the surface, I think because I emotionally detached from so many things personally just in order to like, get stuff done. And because I am critical thinking all the time, my brain is always going rather than emoting I'm like, Hmm, why did that happen? What should we, I don't know how I feel about that. I can't feel like my brain is like, like a little calculator instead of just feeling something. Mm hmm.
¶ Brooke's EMDR experience and feeling emotions.
So it's, it can be hard to imagine how people just are like feeling things without when they don't make sense to me.
I totally hear you. It's so interesting. I'm doing so much of this. And I don't know things come in waves, right? So you start hearing the same thing over and over again, or you start like, I don't know, it's just someone's writing a script. But I've been doing EMDR. And before for this, oh my gosh, it's, it's wild. But I like just jumped into it. I'll give you some recommendations of people, if you are interested. Before I started doing it. I am hyper aware and hyper sensitive.
So I'm like, always on alert of what's going on kind of like you. But I'm also emotional because I see everything. Like I feel other people's emotions to a flaw. But but at the same time, I would block myself from feeling emotions because of trauma from the past.
I that's what it is, by the way. Like I think that's because it's not that I don't feel like we're standing next to somebody who's feeling something and I'll get like, when I go nope, I'm not gonna do it. Not gonna do it. I'm detaching, lovingly detached. I refuse to feel all of your emotions. But it's just a self protective mechanism, probably because of trauma.
Yeah, yeah, it could be it could be. And now that I'm doing the EMDR I'm starting to feel things again about how I feel. And it's so weird. Like, everything is just so intense right now, before it gets better. It's, it's a good thing because I'm starting to feel again. But my whole point of going down this rabbit hole is that with ADHD, you can just kind of retract and not feel and just you know, isolate. Or you can feel everything and be out
and about and and get it all. So drama is very often an indicator of this. And on top of that, when we're overstimulated, right we are we're doing things but when we're under stimulated, we're looking for stimulation. So after we're overstimulated, we can burn out and that's when we go into like our own little shell again. So so that's what
I was gonna say is if you do you find yourself vacillating between the two.
I do. I do. I don't as much though because I like you have a schedule. It's right on my desk. I actually because I don't really move, which I should but I don't. I take my phone, I put it all onto paper and then I have all my events on paper. So I also put my two dues and I schedule them in and so when I start to get that sensation in my body, like oh gosh, I'm feeling
overwhelmed. Or like I'm about to get there I realized that I have to delegate or what am I diving into right now that doesn't really need to be attended to? Why am I maybe producing less dopamine than usual? How is my sleep, like the hierarchy of needs that I talked about in the article that I wrote for you like, all of those things? So I think that I got out of the cycle to the extremes as much as I used to, which is helpful. That makes sense. Yeah. But listen, there's times where
I get there again. So we're all human.
¶ Compartmentalizing emotions when acting vs everyday life.
Yeah, I do that too.
But you know, when you have to be a performer, like you legitimately aren't performer, how do you do that if you are overwhelmed?
Well, the acting is its own beast, it feels much more of a sacred space. Because you are manipulating your emotions for a living. And it's, it's different, I think, than somebody who's probably working a desk job with ADHD, or someone who is creating their own art by themselves, or even entrepreneurship. I know, you still have to have meetings with people and interact with people, but you can compartmentalize your emotions, when you're
acting, you. Really, you just have to use what you have in that moment, toward the scene. So if you feel like crying, and you have to do a comedy scene, or just turn the tears into laughter, you just sort of have to you. It's, it's weird. It's almost like the emotions become their own, like, inside out. emotions become their own, like entities, and you just move them around into the different different spots. Like, I can't cry right now. I definitely can when I get home, I can't do it
right now. Or if I'm feeling really extroverted, and lots of energy, and I have to do a calm, quiet scene, I just have to put that energy on a shelf and come back to it later and just drop into because the work is so sacred to me, like storytelling is so sacred, if you can't, it's not a vanity project, like you're there to actually move people in and give someone an experience that is authentic, and pushes them deeper into themselves and then deeper and then further out into the
community based on the story that they've experienced with you. And so if, if I don't really show up and do my job to give that experience is the best way that I know how, then it's all vanity. It's just sort of masturbatory, you know, it's like not, it's not actually doing any good. So I do find that space to be sacred, and I take where I put my emotions pretty seriously.
Got it. Thank you for sharing. I could see an energy shift as you're talking about it, too. So what's next for you? You have a lot in the fire in the frying pan.
¶ What Bethany's cooking: Modern Vintage Newspaper and 'Strawberries' Song.
Yeah. I think of my life as a stove with 25 burners. No more like six burners really. I have my newspapers called Modern vintage news, smarter vintage news.com. It's a broadsheet lifestyle newspaper, you can see it's all behind me with its artistic and creative and kind of perfect for neurodivergent brain, lots of bite sized articles. And it's really just dealing with the critical thinking element that we have started to lose, because we're all locked into our algorithms that are phonus
feeding us. I just wanted to create a space that was fun for people to go spend time, not be overwhelmed by the content, or depressed, but dealing with things that are very real, like loneliness or suffering, but in character, thinking about you're building on character, but doing it in a way that is reflective of the past, looking forward to the future and reminding you how to formulate your own opinion about things rather than just doing whatever the media or algorithms are telling you.
You're supposed to think or believe. So that's the mission behind the newspaper. Thanks.
And then yes, I'm also I'm a songwriter and have been since I was very young and it's a huge passion of mine and so being in Nashville that's been really fun and I'm integrating myself here with the songwriter community and have been writing a lot and I have a single that's out because I also sing and so my Country Singles called strawberries and that came out a few weeks ago and got some getting some airplay on country
radio just fine. And yeah, and then a few other few other things, irons in the fire that will really announce So when it's the right time,
perfect, and hopefully we could share the links to modern vintage news and anything that comes out by the time this comes out in the show notes, and people can follow you on Instagram too.
Yep, it's just at M S. Bethany Joy Lenz, Ms. Bethany Joy Lenz, and then the newspaper is at modern vintage news.
Perfect. Well, thank you so much for being on successful with ADHD today. I know that a lot of people listening are going to be inspired by your story. And if you're not already one of the 1.5 million followers that Bethany Joy Lenz has on Instagram, go follow her. She has really authentic creative advocacy posts. I think that a lot of us in this community can resonate with what Bethany Joy Lenz shares.
Thank you so much for me, I'm so grateful and happy to be happy really, genuinely happy to be a part of this community. I think ADHD are the coolest man.
Thanks for listening to this episode of successful with ADHD. I hope it helps you on your journey. And if you need any additional support for you or a loved one with ADHD, feel free to reach out to us at coaching with brooke.com and all social media platforms at coaching with Brooke and remember, it's Brooke with any Thanks again for listening. See you next time.