DAVE https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXCp4PgDrx7/?igsh=dGg0NmxsYnU5Mzdu

For me it's pen twirling 🤓 What about you? Any party trick skills here?

Somewhere underneath the procrastination, the people-pleasing, and the perfectionism. There's a younger version of you who tried really hard and still got it wrong. That child was curious, sensitive, creative, and impulsive. They were also told in a hundred different ways that the way their brain worked was a problem. Too much. Too slow. Too distracted. Not enough. So they adapted. They learned to perform, to shrink, to work twice as hard just to appear half as capable. They learned that love and safety sometimes came with conditions. That's a nervous system that learned to survive an environment that didn't understand it. Self-compassion isn't soft or indulgent — it's neurological. Research shows it lowers cortisol, reduces the shame response, and improves motivation more effectively than self-criticism ever could. When you respond to yourself with care instead of judgment, your amygdala calms. Your prefrontal cortex re-engages. Your body learns slowly, repeatedly that it's safe to exist as it is. The next time you catch your inner critic running hard, pause and ask: "What might a younger version of me be feeling right now?" Then offer one simple sentence. Nothing poetic, nothing perfect. "You're not in trouble." "You're allowed to rest." "I'm here with you." That's it. That's the practice. Some other strategies can be writing a letter to your younger self. Holding space for your younger self through visualizations. Practice play with intention - give your younger self space to be child. Think back to a moment when you were young and struggling: what did you need to hear then that no one said?

Here is the link to the interview with the psychiatrist who coined the term RSD that I mentioned on our call today. @Rex Loyer @Sarah Hyland @Carolyn Burns @Brian Diep @peuge https://youtu.be/RxJjV9t_0mI?si=78nzH6BSDL_q378t

Part of the problem with ADHD and being a busy founder is that you know where you want to go... But you don't know the very next step. "Launch an offer" "Build a landing page" "Find clients" These are all important things founders have to do. But what is the very next step? You don't just go from where you are to fully launched product. Your brain resists starting the task because the steps aren't obvious. It feels big, complicated, and uncertain. I've been having this problem lately. I know the broad goals, but I'm trying to do all them at once, and my brain is spinning out. So it defaults to the thing it knows how to do next— Answer emails. Check socials. Write a Skool post. But those things aren't the most important thing. The answer? Make the most important thing obvious; so clear and easy to start that there's no question what the next step is. What's a big goal you have right now that you haven't started because the next step isn't clear?