Have you ever wondered what it’s like to attend an international conference focused on ADHD? 

What valuable insights can you gain from connecting with the ADHD community? 

How can sharing experiences help you overcome imposter syndrome? 

🔗 Read / Listen more: https://smartadhd.me/24 

In this episode of The Smart ADHD Podcast, I’ll be diving into my experiences from the International ADHD Conference in Anaheim, California. I’ll share the challenges I faced while preparing for the trip, my recent journey with ADHD medication, and the incredible insights I gained from the sessions and people I met. 

Join me as I reflect on the importance of networking with like-minded individuals and how these connections can inspire and support our unique journeys. I’ll also discuss overcoming imposter syndrome and the delightful chaos of participating in the conference’s talent show. This episode is packed with insights and personal anecdotes that I can't wait for you to hear! 

🎙️ In this episode: 

00:00 Welcome to the Smart ADHD Podcast 

01:07 Back from California: My First ADHD Conference 

02:14 Getting Organized for the Trip 

03:50 The Journey to Anaheim 

05:05 Meeting Friends and Settling In 

07:37 First Day at the Conference 

08:50 Experiencing the ADHD Community 

12:08 Insights from the Conference Talks 

21:57 The Talent Show Experience 

23:57 Reflections and Final Thoughts 

🕺More about Ian Anderson Gray. 

Ian is the host of the Smart ADHD Podcast and a live-streaming video coach and consultant. He helps business owners and entrepreneurs broadcast live confidently, communicate better, and set up the right gear and tools. Ian runs Seriously Social, a business aimed at helping others be more productive and level up their impact online. He's also a professional singer, web developer, and an international speaker. Ian lives near Manchester in the UK with his family. 

🤗 Connect with Ian: 

Website: https://iag.me/ 

X/Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/iagdotme 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ianandersongray 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianandersongray/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iagdotme 

Threads: https://threads.net/@ianandersongray 

What’s your biggest challenge in navigating ADHD as a smart creative? Share your thoughts in the comments section below, and don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review! 

—---------------------------- 

🎤 About the Smart ADHD Podcast 

The Smart ADHD Podcast is for smart creatives, entrepreneurs, and business owners who are navigating life with ADHD. We celebrate unique brilliance, whether we’re intelligent, exceptionally talented, or both. Ian Anderson Gray interviews experts to uncover the real story of ADHD for smart creatives, busting myths and discovering effective strategies to improve our lives, unleash our creativity, and grow. 

🔗 Find out more at https://smartadhd.me/

—---------------------------- 

🕺More about Ian Anderson Gray 

Ian is the host of the Smart ADHD Podcast and a live-streaming video coach and consultant. He helps business owners and entrepreneurs broadcast live confidently, communicate better, and set up the right gear and tools. Ian runs Seriously Social, a business aimed at helping others be more productive and level up their impact online. He's also a professional singer, web developer, and an international speaker. Ian lives near Manchester in the UK with his family. 

—---------------------------- 

🤗 Connect with Ian 

Website: https://iag.me/ 

X/Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/iagdotme 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ianandersongray 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianandersongray/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iagdotme 

Threads: https://threads.net/@ianandersongray  

Hello, I'm Ian Anderson Gray, and this is the smart ADHD podcast.

Now if you're a smart, creative entrepreneur or business owner

navigating your life with ADHD, This is the podcast for you.

Now, I'm no ADHD expert, but I'm eager to share my story on what I've learned

by talking with experts, as well as digging into the personal ADHD stories of

successful creatives and entrepreneurs.

I was diagnosed at age 46, and it answered so many questions in my life.

But of course, that was in many ways, only the start of my journey.

So let's learn together.

Smart stories, smart strategies, smart ADHD.

Hello, welcome to the smart ADHD podcast.

Well, I'm back from California.

Last week, I was in Anaheim for the international ADHD conference.

This was my first ever time attending this.

I'd only heard about it last year.

And it seemed like a long way to go for a conference.

But almost 10 years ago, I made the trip to San Diego for my first ever social

media marketing world, which was a similarly kind of big deal in my mind.

It's a long way to go.

It's expensive.

Of course, you've got all the flights, you've got the accommodation,

you've got the ticket to pay for.

But that was a game changer.

That was that changed so much in my life, meeting people in the marketing

space, people that I knew, people who've become friends and connections.

Ever since that changed my business.

And so I felt that now that I'm talking a lot about ADHD, I've

got the smart ADHD podcast, and I wanted to meet all these people.

It felt like the right thing to do to go all the way to

California from the UK for this.

But I want to say this was kind of quite a scary thing to do for me But

the right thing to do and I'm going to share all of the stuff that I learned

the people I met in this episode So the first thing of course is is getting

organized there's so many things you need to remember to Bring and to pack

and to sort out, you know when you're flying You know To a different country.

You've got things like I have an ESTA to get, my passport.

So I spent a huge amount of time with all of that side of things.

I'm going to share that in another episode about all the hacks, the tips

that I've created for going on a trip, particularly an international trip.

and like all the task lists I've got, the air tags in everything.

Thanks.

made a massive, massive difference.

So getting organized made a massive difference to my anxiety,

the planning, the strategies.

I've also just started about two weeks ago on ADHD medication.

This is something that I've wanted to avoid for years.

I've had loads of stigmas and kind of concerns about it.

But I'm going to share a little bit more about that in another episode.

I've also got Phil Anderton talking about medication in a future episode as well.

And you will be able to hear my journey and my experiences.

But suffice to say, it has been a game changer for me.

Everyone's experience of medication is different, but yes, that made

a massive difference on this trip.

So I felt a lot more confident and less overwhelmed, which was great.

So I flew from Manchester to London, London, unfortunately, Heathrow airport.

I mean, it was, it was great to be there.

Little bit nervous as you can probably tell here,

So I'm here at London Heathrow.

You can see the planes out there at the back.

And I'm flying to LA for the International A DHD conference.

So I've flown down from Manchester and I've got all my stuff here.

I think I'm ready to go.

The only problem is on the other end, I'm not entirely sure how I'm

gonna get to Anaheim, but we'll work that out when I get there.

This is very exciting.

Can't wait.

but shortly before the flight, I was, flagged for security.

Well, not flagged for security, but they kind of randomly select people

to do an extra security check.

I had these, like, special letters on my boarding pass.

And this happened about, like, I think it was about five, six,

seven years ago at Heathrow.

So, I don't know, maybe they think I'm a terrorist or something.

But, yeah.

That seemed to be okay.

They let me on the flight, which was good.

And it was an 11 hour flight to LAX.

The experience at LAX wasn't bad at all.

I was prepared for it to be horrendous.

It wasn't, , that was good.

And then I got a, an Uber, a taxi to Anaheim, which was not cheap,

but it meant that I could, meet my friend, Molly Mahoney, who

I was staying with in Anaheim.

And to meet her Beautiful family, her husband, two kids.

So we went out for a meal, which was great.

Now, Molly Mahoney has been a dear friend for many, many years, met her at social

media marketing world in San Diego, and she has a background like me in singing.

She's also very, she was into live video which was my other podcast.

So, and she's very much into AI as well.

So we have a lot of similarities.

in terms of our interests.

She is also like, so smart when it comes to all this kind of stuff.

And so we were kind of bouncing ideas off each other.

She, she was very busy kind of got that, got her in a difficult, busy time.

So I gave me a lot of time to spend thinking and just

being somewhere different.

Somewhere sunny and Molly's home in Anaheim is just beautiful,

beautiful swimming pool, palm trees.

And so, you know, when you get into that zone where your brain is buzzing

with ideas, I put so many notes down, I've got so many ideas for the future

for my business and for my life, which I'll be sharing in the future.

But it was a reminder that sometimes we need to take ourselves away

from the place that we're currently in, meet with other people, that

human connection, Is so important.

That was a massive thread throughout the whole of the

international ADHD conference.

And and just put those ideas down.

So I generated all those ideas, put them all down, had a chat with chat

GPT, of course, that was amazing.

Now, Molly wasn't going to the ADHD conference or anything, but she

just happens to live in Anaheim.

So, the following day.

I then she then gave me a lift in her beautiful convertible beetle

car, which was so cool to center of Anaheim where I was staying.

And that evening it was time to register for the conference.

So, I didn't really know many people.

I knew maybe three or four people.

So I was a bit nervous about this, but I registered and then I went out

for a meal on my own that evening.

But that was the start of the trip.

So that was pretty, pretty cool and great to be in Anaheim.

So, wow.

So the first thing on the Thursday morning, there was breakfast which was

great at the actually organized by the conference, I got to meet a Tamara,

who's been on the show many times.

He's a wonderful friend.

She's our coach.

Meeting her in person was such a special thing.

So Tamara, if you're listening, That was amazing.

Just getting to meet with you to hang out and Tamara, just to be clear,

Tamara is on the committee three people actually organizing the conference.

So she was so busy, focused on all of that, but she still made

time to see me, which was great.

So thank you, Tamara as well.

So, and also got to meet Cathy Rashidian, who's another guest on the show.

We had a lovely breakfast together.

And Jonathan Hassell as well.

So great to meet Jonathan.

He's amazing.

And to meet his fantastic wife, Monica.

I actually saw Monica speak as well.

So there was definitely a mix of excitement.

There was a bit of imposter syndrome.

I have to say, I was also, I really was struggling with jet lag on the way there.

So I had sinus, blocked sinuses.

I had a horrible headache.

So there were times when I just had to go to my hotel room

and just chill out as well.

But the cool thing, the thing that I wasn't kind of prepared for was just being

around so many other people with ADHD.

Just to be clear, not everyone at the conference has ADHD.

There are professionals who don't have ADHD, but they are there to

help and support people with ADHD.

Or maybe there are parents or spouses, or that kind of thing, of people with ADHD.

But a lot of people with ADHD, you know, almost probably a thousand people with

ADHD and it was such a joy just seeing so many people unmasked walking around just

showing signs of ADHD, things that, you know, for example, talking to themselves,

Yawning like in a just like not hiding it.

Just letting it all out because I think we all felt really comfortable to be

ourselves That was the amazing thing.

We just felt comfortable in who we are.

We're so used to having to mask our symptoms So people walking one direction,

then suddenly remembering, actually, I'm going the wrong way, the other way.

How many times have I done that?

There's loads of other things that I've probably forgotten, but just

the conversations I have having with people all over the place,

but we kind of get each other.

So that was wonderful.

That's a mix of excitement, understanding those conversations.

People were really friendly.

I'm quite a shy person, an introvert.

But still, I was able to, like, talk with, talk with people.

There was a lady I talked to who was, who'd just been diagnosed.

And we just got into this massively deep conversation.

And I felt that I was able to offer a lot of encouragement, help and advice, even

though I feel I'm still on this journey.

I'm still learning.

I'm no expert as well.

There was one moment though, I have to admit, when imposter syndrome

kicked in and I was feeling really quite down on myself.

I was questioning why I was there.

I was really kind of like, my shyness kind of kicks in and I felt,

well, I don't know anyone here.

Like I do know some people, but they're all busy.

And I was just kind of standing around feeling like a complete lemon.

And I thought, okay, well, I need to get something to eat.

Let's just walk outside.

And I bumped into these two ladies.

I think the names I'm awful with names, so apologies if I've got this right.

I think it was Katie Viska and Charlene Bronson.

And Katie just, I think she recognized me perhaps from the talent show.

And I'll mention about the talent show another time.

I don't know, but she just was very friendly and said are you going for lunch?

And I said what lunch?

And she said, Oh, we're going for lunch.

Would you like to join us?

And it was like an answer to prayer.

So thank you for that.

Cause I suddenly felt I felt there connected with people.

So we went to the most amazing Indian restaurants it was a buffet and there were

actually a loads of ADHD people in there.

And I just wonder whether people with ADHD Well, I think we love

food and we love lots of flavor.

I just wonder whether that's a thing.

So anyway, that was cool.

The power of being surrounded by so many people with ADHD, it's not

something you get to experience.

That connectedness, that understanding was so important.

So I want to go through some of the talks that I went to.

I wasn't able to go to so many talks on the Friday.

because I wasn't feeling great.

But on the Thursday I went to a lot.

The first talk that I went to was led by Dr.

Anna Vagen.

I hope I'm pronouncing her name right.

I'd love to have her on the podcast.

So we might have that have her on.

This talk was Rising When We Fall, Fostering Resilience and Perseverance.

This is something I've thought about a lot.

Sometimes, well, it's been a struggle the last few years with the

ADHD burnout for me particularly.

And so I've wanted to build my resilience and that perseverance as well.

And so this whole talk was about, well, these skills need to be built.

They're not things like resilience and perseverance are not things

that we're necessarily born with.

Maybe some people have more of that built in, but.

Yes, the role of dopamine in this and that curiosity can help us to

be more motivated in what we do.

She also talked about the importance of stories and she shared some

animations which can teach us about perseverance and resilience.

So that was really interesting.

The next one was about burnout and it was burnout 2.

0.

And this was led by Dr.

Nate Page.

Nate was, is a really cool guy.

It was a really, really helpful talk.

Burnout is something that I've had twice in my life, big time.

And so he shared the concept of burnout as an injury.

It's not just exhaustion.

It's much more than that.

And he shared the different stages of burnout.

You've got the honeymoon stage.

So this is when there's something new and exciting is that novelty.

We sometimes are prone to biting off more than we can chew.

We're fully immersed in that and we're hyper focused.

However, we get onto the next stage, which is awakening when we realize,

hold on, this is not sustainable.

I can't carry on like this.

It's kind of like in your car, the check engine light is on.

There might be a problem.

that might not be, we need to be aware of that.

So we need to recognize the unsustainability of that

honeymoon stage as well.

And we need to be careful because that burnout injury is just starting.

So we can prevent, we can change course at this point.

Next stage.

Number three is slow down.

So this can last.

Like months or years, we start to slow down.

We may not even be aware of this because that stress slows us down that injury.

And the longer we are in this stage, the more we push ourselves, the

longer it will actually take to heal.

Now, those of us with ADHD, we're pretty good at masking.

So we can be in this stage longer because we're kind of used to it.

So yeah, this stage can last a long time.

Yeah.

Then with the burnout, there is inevitably that hitting the wall.

This is when the mind, the body, and the soul basically

say, we can't do this anymore.

We've had enough.

So the analogy is like when marathon runners, they can sometimes hit that wall.

It's that realization that we can't go on.

It's a sudden decrease in your resilience.

the next stage is that healing.

And this is that potential that occurs that allows yourself to experience that

full pain of your injury and surrender to the process that leads to recovery.

And you have to kind of put significant changes in your life as well.

So.

Yes, I feel that I'm just coming out of that.

I've had like the last two years in that kind of healing process.

I feel this year in particular has been that and I'm now in that

position, which is Pretty cool.

So yeah, that was Burnout.

Nate is awesome because he was in the in the talent show.

He's a really talented singer and keyboard player.

So yeah, thanks Nate.

So the next one was ADHD and high achievers.

This was from Dr.

Alan Graham.

This was a really interesting tour.

I, I have a lot of hang ups with the phrase high achiever.

So I had to, I had a little bit of a chat with chat GPT about

this because I was questioning the fact, am I a high achiever?

Because I, I, this is a typical ADHD thing.

I look at myself and I think I questioned my own achievements.

When I actually look at what I've achieved in my life, I

realized, actually, that's a lot.

I've had a lot of success.

There's been a lot of really positive things, but it's really

natural for me to question it.

So even the phrase high achiever.

I have to kind of like re or use a different phrase.

So this talk was all about reframing ADHD traits as creative assets.

And he mentioned strategies for finding balance, like focusing on goals, building

support and improving confidence as well.

So that was really interesting.

Again, I'd love to have Dr.

Alan Graham on the show as well.

Maybe to talk a little bit more about that.

Now, the next one was interesting.

This was Jonathan's wife, Monica Hassel.

So we've had Jonathan on the show.

This was billed as for professionals.

So I felt a little bit, I don't know.

It wasn't imposter syndrome, but I was wondering like, I'm

not a professional here, but.

I found this fascinating.

It was quite an advanced talk.

She was talking about, a lot about biochemistry.

So, we've heard of dopamine, but serotonin oxytocin.

I don't know a huge amount about that.

She was talking about regulating your wellbeing and the focus on the big eight.

These are things that we need to to think about as ADHD is, you know, diet,

sleep, mindfulness, and then the, the unique challenges that we have with ADHD.

On those things.

Yeah.

So Monica, it'd be great to have her on the show.

The next thing was the first time attendee meets up.

They've, they really, they've went out of their way to make first time

attendees feel valued and not overwhelmed.

So this was a really fun meetup.

We got to know each other on our tables.

We did, was it like two truths and a lie?

We did all those kinds of fun games.

That was great.

Yeah.

There was also a talk there was an entrepreneurs meetup.

Great to see lots of other ADHD entrepreneurs.

There's a lot of us.

There was also a talk or a workshop from Jennifer Snyder on

neurodivergent entrepreneurship.

Keynotes.

We had Dr.

Sasha.

Dani, I think is her name.

So she's a social media influencer, ADHD influencer.

She does a lot of that.

She's a doctor as well.

She was talking, sharing a lot about tools to help with that.

So like tech.

And so that was like a lot of the stuff that she was talking about.

I knew about, there was a few extra tools, which was great.

That was a good talk.

Now the following day the keynote was from Penn Holderness.

This is the Holderness family.

So him and his wife and his kids, they do all these kind of parody songs.

A lot of them are on ADHD.

His big thing is ADHD is awesome.

I've always had a problem with that.

ADHD can be awesome, but it can also be a real pain in the butt.

But but what was cool was that he was so he was showing he was

really honest about this and he was talking about so he he thinks that

medication ADHD medication is awesome.

It's helped so many people.

However, for him, he shared his personal story that it took away those

internal songs and that creativity.

So he decided not to do that.

So maybe it's, you know, he's found that he can manage and he's

developed strategies to to help that.

And he's really using his quirkiness in his stuff.

I was kind of, I was really, that's maybe one area where I think actually for

me, medication is going to help because it's going to help me to be more who I

am, to be more confident because I want to do silly kind of, I want to use my

voice, my musicality in my creativity.

And so that really inspired me.

He also talked about ADHD is awesome, which is, is his book as well.

And I think he's had a lot of flack about this, about that phrase, because as I

said, for many of us, ADHD is not awesome.

It can be, there are many positive things about it, but there are

many negative things about it.

And what I really liked though, Was he talked about the fact

that the word awesome today.

We see it as like like totally positive, but actually ADHD, sorry, awesomeness

is, about it's something to be feared and it's scary as well as amazing.

And he talks about, so I thought that was interesting.

I still have an issue with the use of the word awesome in the sense that

everyone has come to think about the word awesome as just really cool.

but he did at least flag that up.

And then there was the whole thing of the dichotomy of ADHD as well.

Now I did have this written down.

I don't seem to have it here at the moment, but there, there is,

there's two sides of the coin.

So there's sometimes that neurodivergent thinking that can have a positive

effect or a negative effect.

So there's usually for all the different traits that we have, there's

a positive and a negative, and we need to maybe focus more on that positive.

But it was, it was, it was really cool.

Okay.

The talent show.

So I heard about the talent show quite a few months before the event.

I'd, I'd already bought tickets, a ticket for the international ADHD conference.

And then I heard there was this talent show.

And I thought, Hmm, sounds a bit scary, but I probably should.

enter, you know, I trained as a professional classical singer.

And so I thought it would be a good idea to To do that, it's a great

way to get known, to meet people.

And so I did that.

Of course, nearer the event, I was thinking, why on earth did

I say I was going to do this?

But it was really cool to meet people.

So Dr.

Sharon Saline, who's very well known in the ADHD world,

she's written books on this.

She's an expert on ADHD.

She was organizing it.

She is like an amazing singer in musical, the musical theater world.

And so the thing was, I was feeling really Bad at this time.

I had a horrible headache.

I had to sleep.

Had to eat a lot to make sure that I was okay, but in the end, it was great.

It was fun.

We, there was singing, there was dancing.

I'll share some of those things at the end of this episode, but it was, it was.

Good and people really loved what I did.

I don't think people expected like a classically trained voice to be singing.

So that was quite fun as well.

So yeah, I didn't actually feel overly nervous.

It just felt, I felt at peace.

The cool thing was people like were forgetting words and the mistakes,

but we all understood each other.

I chose a very, a piece that I know really, really well and very short.

So.

And I chose that deliberately because I really struggle with memory, and I

want to just be confident with that.

But the cool thing was that even if I had made mistakes, it would have

felt like a safe place for that.

Dr.

Nate Page was singing some cool parody Disney parody

songs on ADHD, which was cool.

There's this, there was this royal sense that it was really fun.

It was really fun.

So yeah, that's probably all I want to share about the, the conference.

Yes, there were some downs as well as ups.

ups, there was sometimes that there was that imposter syndrome.

There was so many cool things that chat I had with Tamara.

It was great meeting other people meeting other people who were

doing a similar kind of thing.

Being able to find more guests for this show, it was amazing.

And at the end of this, I had to then go back to la I got the,

the train, my first Amtrak train.

I went to my first target, which was fun.

And I decided to go to the beach, so I ended up on the beach near LAX airport.

I had my my luggage on the beach as well, went for a meal, flew

back home, and it's been great.

So, yes, it was a big thing, expensive, a long way away.

But definitely worth it for me.

And I'd highly recommend if you can get to the ADHD conference, you might

be living in the UK, you might be living far away from this, but there

are will be events near where you are.

One of the things I would love to do is to put on my other

events to put on my own events.

In the future.

We'll see how we get on with that.

That is it for me.

I hope you found that inspiring, interesting.

If you have any thoughts or questions, please get in touch.

You can get in touch with me at Ian at IAG.

me.

If you've got any thoughts or recommendations for future

episodes, anything you'd like me to talk about, any guests you'd

like me to bring on, let me know.

But until next time, I encourage you to be smart with your ADHD.