This week we’re talking with the host of the ADHD Wise Squirrels podcast, Dave Delaney. As with many of us, Dave wears many hats — keynote speaker, author, and of course podcast host. Dave has actually been podcasting since 2005, although he only recently started up ADHD Wise Squirrels after his recent diagnosis. With that diagnosis, Dave has been on a mission to support others in the community and break down stereotypes that surround ADHD.
In our conversation today we discuss everything from the impact of ADHD on personal development to the power of storytelling in building connections. Dave brings a blend of professional insights and personal experiences that provide a host of strategies to tackle common ADHD challenges. It’s fun conversation and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
William Curb: I'm so glad to have you here today because I've been having a lot of fun listening to your podcast, the Wise Squirrel. Just Wise Squirrel podcast, right?
Dave Delaney: It's ADHD Wise Squirrels. So plural. But...
William Curb: Okay, there we go.
Dave Delaney: Close enough.
William Curb: That's like the amazing thing with ADHD, too. It right, you know, like you do the thing like, oh, what's your name again? You're like, okay, I'm going to remember that. And then someone says something, you're like, go. Oh, no. I'm gonna have to ask them again.
Dave Delaney: Yeah, it's interesting, you know, because I do a lot of speaking and writing and things about communication skills. And it's sort of my day job, I guess. And it's interesting now, having been diagnosed last year, that I've been speaking on these topics for so long and writing about communication and networking and all these things, that I realize now a lot of the stuff that I've focused so much on like active listening, like how to listen and retain and remember information by like repeating it, for example, things like that. This stuff is useful to anybody. But at the same time, I've been so focused on these things because they were things that I really needed without realizing, oh, I have ADHD. So now it's all like, oh, okay, now I know why I do these things to try to remember information and so forth. So yeah, it's wild.
William Curb: I mean, I've seen a lot of people with that kind of like same like they were in this like personal development field for years before they got their ADHD diagnosis, because they were struggling to do what they were like, oh, so they're like, if I learn this one tip, I'll be able to get my stuff done, not knowing that they're finding coping mechanisms to do with their ADHD and not dealing with like the root issues.
Dave Delaney: Yeah, exactly. It's fascinating. Even like with entrepreneurship and things like that, I think it's like you're 60 to 80% more likely to have entrepreneurial intentions and nearly 100% more likely to start a business or like a side business with ADHD. But it makes complete sense. I think of all the different jobs and experiences and different businesses and things that I've created.
Podcasts, we were talking about earlier, all these different things. But it's nice now that I know I have ADHD and now that I'm receiving treatment that I can focus on something like why squirrels and know that this is the thing. I don't need to do another podcast and I probably will never do another one. At least that's what I'm saying now because it's such an important topic both to me but also to those other why squirrels who relate diagnosed adults with ADHD.
William Curb: Yeah. And so maybe we should jump kind of into that like how you went about getting diagnosed and like what led you to wanting to seek that diagnosis out.
Dave Delaney: Yeah. So my wife is a school teacher. If you take away one lesson from today, it's always listen to your spouse.
William Curb: Usually.
Dave Delaney: Usually, yeah. But in my case, my wife's a school teacher and so she's mentioned it to me multiple times over the years. And back in 2016, I was going through a stressful time with my business and whatever and decided, all right, I'm going to go see if I have ADHD. And so I ended up seeing a psychologist and had two sessions with him and the diagnosis was more around like anxiety.
And for some reason, I don't recall getting a definitive yes or no on the ADHD. And then I kind of forgot about it. And then, you know, 2020 was pretty stressful for a whole bunch of reasons that we all know plus others like a tornado that destroyed my kid's school and then another storm that hit our house and we were displaced for three months.
William Curb: That's intense.
Dave Delaney: There was a lot of stress in 2020. So, but during that time, I started seeing an online therapist. But of course, we didn't talk about ADHD. She was sort of treating me for, again, more anxiety with like a little sprinkling of depression on top of the entree of anxiety. And because she was a therapist, she couldn't diagnose me with ADHD anyway.
And then fast forward to 2023. Last year, I was in a mastermind with a couple of entrepreneurial fellows and one of them I know well and one I don't. And as he got to know me one day, he texted me out of the blue and says, Dave, do you have ADHD? And I said, no. And he said, I think you do because he does. And so we had a little chat through texts and I'm like, all right, well, I'll go see my doctor. And because he's like, you should go see your doctor about this.
So I went to see my general practitioner doctor, my family doctor, and he does a little bit of testing with me. And then he says, hang on a sec. And he looks up my chart in the computer and he sees, oh, yeah, you were diagnosed in 2016. And I'm like, what? So I'm not sure exactly how I missed the memo. I don't know where the communication broke down there. I never got that diagnosis. And I figure five more years and 50 years is, you know, whatever. So that's the that's the crazy story of finally receiving my diagnosis and then being able to start getting treatment.
William Curb: Yeah, I mean, it's classic ADHD to forget that you had or miss that that detail, just the little one there.
Dave Delaney: Yeah, it's weird. Like, it's the strangest thing because my wife even said like, I wonder if you actually did like he told you that and you just didn't choose to listen or receive that information or or something. And I honestly, it's so weird. I don't remember what the outcome was. And again, I mean, I don't dwell on it because I could blame my doctor or the shrink for not communicating with my doctor or whomever. But there's, there's no point.
William Curb: Yeah. And I do think that's like an interesting way to do it. Because a lot of people do have a lot of this, you know, like general sadness, especially with the late diagnosis, where they're like, man, my life would have been so different. Had I known.
Dave Delaney: Yeah, that's really common, actually. You know, I mentioned earlier about these coping mechanisms that I developed for my business and for my productivity and so on. I think also, because 2020 was so stressful, and my dad passed away of dementia and Alzheimer's, and was kind of going through it during that time. And I started thinking hell or high water, I'm going to do everything I can, not to get dementia or Alzheimer's.
And because of stress from the pandemic and everything else, I was drinking a bit too much and things like that. So I decided, you know what, I'm going to quit drinking for 30 days, I'm going to get off social media, stop doom scrolling the news and just like cut it all back. And I did and started seeing a therapist and all that stuff. I started doing a meditation practice. I started exercising more frequently.
I quit drinking for 30 days, which became, I haven't had a drink in almost four years now. But I say all that because I was in a way I was learning, I was preparing myself for the diagnosis so that when I did receive my diagnosis, I knew during the therapy before this, I knew like, when you think too much of the past, that can lead to depression. And when you think too much of the future, that can lead to anxiety.
And so the importance of being present and being in the now, and that's very much a part of mindfulness and meditation, something I take really seriously. So learning all these skills before the diagnosis really did help me navigate it as far as not to say like I don't look back at my past and think, oh gosh, you know, if only I'd known. But at the same time, my life wouldn't be what it is now. I wouldn't have my cute dog Peggy. I wouldn't have my kids, my wife, all of these people in my life had my life not unraveled the way it unraveled.
William Curb: Yeah, I know that exact feeling where it's like, yeah, things would have been different, but man, they would have been really different.
Dave Delaney: Right. Exactly. Yeah. So.
William Curb: It's also interesting to think that anxiety being that primary thing, because often I find my own anxiety creates coping mechanisms to deal with my ADHD. Like I am rarely late to things because I am so anxious about being late.
Dave Delaney: That's interesting. And I'm the same way, actually. I'm exactly the same way. I will show up to a meeting like an hour early, and I won't be rude enough to like actually go into the someone's office or something and sit there for an hour. But I will like get there early, go in the parking lot, sit in the car and read or listen to podcasts or something for 30, 40 minutes early and then go in like right on time. And so in a way, I've always been very anal with my punctuality so that I'm not late for things.
It's a good point. And it's so interesting reflecting on things because I'll think like I was like that because my dad always was, you know, punctual and he sort of instilled that in me. And then I would think like another example is my dad would make me finish everything on my plate before I left the table. And like I could not like as much as I hated that food, whatever it was, I still had to clear my plate. And so fast forward to having two kids and going out to eat with them and my wife, I would finish their chicken fingers.
I would eat their fries and I would eat everything and I have a huge appetite. But now I know with the ADHD and my my excessiveness and my compulsion to again, looking back at it, I always thought it was my dad's kind of, you know, instilling that in me. When in reality, it was the undiagnosed and untreated ADHD that caused me to, to be excessive and things. So to your point about the anxiety and showing up on time, yeah, 100% on that for sure.
William Curb: Yeah, I remember talking with someone that like had no anxiety about stuff. And I was just blew my mind because of my, how can you not feel anxious about things? Yeah, he's like, I'm like, that sounds great. He's like, it's terrible because I don't care. I'm like, oh, not having anxiety leading to apathy. Yeah, that would be bad.
Dave Delaney: Yeah, yeah. That's a great point. I hadn't thought about that. But yeah, I could see that.
William Curb: That's one of the things that I come back to a lot of times shows is that comparing ourselves to others can be like this huge trap because we're like, oh, if I had such and such thing, it would be so much better. And it's like, well, I'm not thinking about all the downsides or maybe not even downsides, but like how things would be different.
Dave Delaney: Right. And I do that. Certainly having struggled a lot with self doubt and imposter syndrome and all these things. Again, wonderful additions to ADHD. But so much of this stuff also, it doesn't really matter, your sort of neuro type, because a lot of this is experienced by people, but it's been interesting thinking back about stuff, but not going to dark places.
William Curb: I like going back and being like, thinking about things and be sometimes I'm like, I go back and I'm like, how was I not diagnosed as a kid? Good. Googly moogly. Like, I remember it was just a thing that I would get up from the table and show off my gymnastics after I finished eating first for like 10 to 15 minutes.
Dave Delaney: Right.
William Curb: Every night. And I'm like, OK, like that, not definitive on its own, but
Dave Delaney: Yeah, that's one of those, mmm?
Dave Delaney: So my mom kept all my old report cards and I have them. And when I was diagnosed, I got them out of the box in my closet and my wife and I was like laughing our heads off reading through the comments. But knowing what I know now, I mean, it like case study ADHD, like hyperactive boy gets himself into trouble would do better in class if he paid attention, stop daydreaming, stop joking around. I would use my humor all the time and be like a class clown and that kind of thing. The interesting thing with that too is I actually went to therapists as a kid. My parents got a divorce or separated and had a kind of nasty divorce.
And I was very defiant, especially in my teen years, where I would get myself into trouble and my dad and I were like butting heads constantly. It was pretty ugly. And so my parents and I would get kicked out of schools over and over again. So my parents would take me to especially my dad would kind of instigate this and take me to these different therapists. And strangely, like it was multiple therapists. And yet to my knowledge, I was never diagnosed.
William Curb: One of the great things now is like we have so much more information about ADHD. It's something that's like actively looked for. Whereas he used to just be like that, you know, the boys will be boys and or girls are just, you know, oh, she's just, you know, in her own head and or any of the things because there's so much that we're just like right off like, oh, they're just different in that way. And that's fine. And like, yeah, they're different that way. But maybe there's a reason behind that.
Dave Delaney: Yeah. And it's interesting with, you know, knowing what I know now about comorbidities and people can experience, certainly everybody can experience anxiousness to be diagnosed with anxiety, though, or depression or even like bipolar and things like that. These are all like, comorbidities caused by the ADHD. And so it's really fascinating now. I know Russell Barkley did a study that found that like, this is why like why squirrels shifted for me from like this passion to my mission of helping other late diagnosed adults with ADHD.
And it's because this study that he did that found that for those who are undiagnosed and untreated, life expectancy can be up to 13 years less. And I published that study and things at wisesquirrel.com/life if anybody wants to see that. But when I heard that, I realized like, wait a minute, like, it's a very big deal not to have your diagnosis not to be treated. So this has kind of shifted how I've been sort of thinking about this.
William Curb: If I remember correctly, like one of the determining factors of if that reduction lifespan really was like going to affect you was how conscientious you were about your ADHD and able to manage it in some way.
Dave Delaney: Right. Yeah. And also like just getting the treatment you need in order to avoid getting yourself into trouble. Like when I smoke cigarettes back in the day, I would smoke like a chimney and I would finish a pack in a night or I would drink and black out always drinking like one too many beers, you know, like just that one extra one that one extra one. And luckily as a kid or as a younger person, somehow knew better in me, my dad drank a lot of hard liquor, he drank a lot of Scotch and he was a real bastard when he was drunk on Scotch.
And so forth. And for some reason as a kid, I realized like I should stay away from hard liquor. And also I should stay, like I would smoke pot or whatever, but I would stay away from like hard drugs. And as I got older, people that I know, I started seeing like cocaine appear. And I never saw people doing heroin, but that was in a broader circle of people that I knew. And ultimately people would OD or whatever.
And I just knew always to avoid those things. And so yes, I would drink too much. Yes, I would smoke too much, but I would know enough. And I say that because so many people with undiagnosed ADHD are not. I mean, people, I don't know the numbers, but people can become really easily addicted to things. And so that's one way of dying is overdosing, right? Or eating excessively and things like that. So yeah.
William Curb: I know addiction is a huge issue in ADHD. I don't remember the numbers right now, but I have looked into them before. And it's just like astounding how much more likely with ADHD you are to develop some sort of an addiction.
Dave Delaney: Yeah, right. So it's interesting to me kind of reflecting on things that way and knowing how this can affect life expectancy. This is why I love your podcast, because I mean, you've been doing this for four years. And so I've been going through like some of your back episodes and things like that. And just listening. And that's why I'm so thankful for folks like you podcasting about this and spreading the word.
William Curb: Yeah. I mean, I'm sure you relate in this that it's a very selfish endeavor for myself, too, because I'm like, let's work on what I want to work on.
Dave Delaney: Yeah, absolutely. The struggle for me is I work for myself and have worked for myself for a little over 12, 13 years. And like when I was diagnosed, like just shortly after, maybe a couple of weeks after, I was like, I need to start a website to blog about ADHD. And so I started wisesquirrels.com. And then I'm like, wait a minute, like I need to do a podcast.
And then I started the podcast and I have a habit of just jumping into creative ideas and endeavors and just going all in, of course, and then becoming hyper focused on the thing until you run out of steam or you realize like, what the hell am I doing? I need to feed my family. So often now in my 50, like in early 51, you know, I'm like, crap, like I got two college tuition's looming. I've got a will want to kind of retire at some point. Now it's like, oh, man, I got to make more money here. And then I start wise squirrels, which is, you know, I'm not making money from it. Not yet. Maybe I'll get a Patreon or something.
William Curb: As we were saying earlier, yeah, it's the like 0.001% of podcasts that really make money.
Dave Delaney: Yeah, right. As I mentioned, I started podcasting in 05. And so for years and I ran it like I co-founded a podcamp on conference here in Nashville and have done a podcasting conferences and meetups and things over the years. And there's always newbies showing up, even still today saying, how do I monetize? How do I make money? And I'm like, if you're getting into podcasting to get rich, like, yeah.
William Curb: Good luck with that.
Dave Delaney: Exactly. Yeah
William Curb: Like you could. Like if you don't already have an audience starting from zero is like your is a very saturated field.
Dave Delaney: Yeah. I mean, I'm a big proponent. I mean, I love I love podcasting and I always have I edit my own audio. I love digging into the waveform and doing all that, finding all my A's and UMS. There's one now. I could point out the waveform if you need me to later.
William Curb: I remember doing that being like just being like, oh, there and there. There just because it looks so distinctive.
Dave Delaney: It does. It's really funny, actually, because I podcast meetups. I would like, yeah, I remember a couple of times like showing a picture. I think I posted on Instagram a picture of my "uhm" in waveform. But I brought it up because of all these meetups. Yeah, people would show up and maybe like, how do I get rich? It is a wonderful medium, but it's definitely not something for the weak of heart.
William Curb: I encourage people to start podcasts, but I don't encourage them to do it as a career.
Dave Delaney: Right. And that's why right now, having podfated enough podcasts over the years, too, I knew that with wise squirrels right now, like I do an episode every two weeks. And that allows me enough time to focus on other things kind of between those episodes. My goal is to start doing the show weekly or even more frequently, but getting into that whole monetization thing. Yeah, I got to figure that piece of it out in order to be able to allow myself to do that. So, we'll see.
William Curb: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting to think how like what is a ADHD side project can move into being like a full time thing for a lot of people.
Dave Delaney: Yeah, and I feel like I have more clarity now. And again, with like treatment, I'm at least telling myself that this is the right direction. And I'm not like woo woo, maybe small W woo in the sense of like the universe and all the things. But there have been some pretty blatant things that have happened to me that have sort of indicated that I really am moving in the right direction with wise squirrels and also just the reviews or feedback I get from listeners, emails. As content creators, we're always groveling for reviews or for comments or anything because besides download numbers, those are just numbers.
And I think a lot of podcasters and bloggers and content creators give up after a while because they lack the feedback. And it's why, like, if you're listening to this today, like go and leave Will a review on the podcast. Like seriously, take two minutes. It's the best thing you can do for a podcaster is actually just write a little a little blurb to say thanks and that you enjoy the show. And this kind of feedback helps to keep us moving forward and feeling focused enough to keep going. At least that's, that's how I feel about it.
William Curb: Yeah, I mean, I know I got at a bad interview earlier this year. I got a lot of comments on that the way I took it, I was just like, man, these people have been listening for a while and they care that this episode was not up to the standard of the show. They want to hear more and they just want to make sure that I'm not going to keep doing dumb stuff.
Dave Delaney: If you don't mind me asking you, what was bad about the interview, like the quality or the guest or the topic?
William Curb: I didn't push back enough on some of the things he was saying that were more than out there. In my head, I was like, there was like some stuff about astrology that he talked about. And I was like, of course, that's not a thing like, of course, that doesn't determine anything about ADHD. And so I didn't push back on it. I'm like, I'm just that is not something I care about. But then there were others like some medical claims that he made that I should have also pushed back on that I didn't.
Dave Delaney: OK, yeah. I mean, I always let my listeners know I had a time not to make it an excuse. And so far, I've been OK in 20 episodes. But I always state like, I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on the Internet. So yeah. Yeah,
William Curb: I did have a disclaimer on that episode, but clearly was not enough because people are like, yeah, this is not what you're usually doing. I'm like, yeah, I was trying, not to do that again.
Dave Delaney: Fair enough, fair enough. Hopefully you won't get complaints about this episode.
William Curb: Well, we'll see. But yeah, it was just interesting to be like also the negative stuff was in my mind kind of positive. I was like, oh, people care.
Dave Delaney: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's great. If you're getting like constructive criticism that way, that's, that's great. And also not letting it kick you at all, because I mean, we do people are always more likely to leave a negative review than a positive one. I'm not talking so much about podcasting necessarily, hopefully, but you read the reviews of like a hotel or restaurant or something, and people are always more likely to they jump at leaving the negative review.
I actually have a review ratio rule, which is I have to leave two positive reviews for every one stinker. And I'm not I don't really leave a lot of reviews. But if I go to a restaurant or something and I have a terrible experience before I write that negative review, I've got to go and write two positive ones. And by the time I've done that, I'm in such a better mood that I'm like, they were probably having a bad day.
William Curb: Yeah, because it's like, yeah, you know, you'll see some of the reviews and things. You're like, why did this get up to one star for like, you know, I'll be like on Amazon.
It's like UPS mailed me the wrong package or something or like delivered my package in a weird place. And I'm like, why is that a one star review on this project?
Dave Delaney: Yeah, my book New Business Networking when that came out. Yeah, I got like one it was one negative review. And it was like, it was like, I love this book. It was fantastic, really helpful, blah, blah, blah. One star. And I think the person meant to write like put five stars, but they put one star. I was like, no. But anyway, yeah. So by the way, writing a book with undiagnosed ADHD, I don't recommend that for anybody. That was rough.
William Curb: I imagine writing a book with diagnosed ADHD. Like I've talked to a couple of people like that sounds really hard. Doing an undiagnosed is more than frustrating, I would feel.
Dave Delaney: Yeah, or even without. I mean, it's interesting, too, because I've learned about body doubling and something that the name of it was foreign to me. But I know two authors who wrote their books exactly that way, not to do with ADHD and both of them, I think are neurotypical or whatever.
They wrote their books virtually on Zoom, basically, and they would do like a Pomodoro type of thing where they would, you know, write for 30 minutes or whatever, take five minutes to talk and then turn their mics back off and plug away at writing again. And I thought, oh, that's such a great idea. And as I've learned about body doubling, I'm doing something I call wise and shine now at wise squirrels, but it's basically like body doubling. So yeah, no, I think that helps.
William Curb: Nice. Yeah. Does lead me to one thing that's been kind of like percolating my brain for a little bit. It's like, since you are fairly new with your diagnosis, what are some of the things that you've been like changing because of like treatment and stuff that have been helping?
Dave Delaney: Yeah, that's a great question. I've been giving myself more grace. That's a big one. I've just the more I learn about, about this and about me, I call it my operating system. The more I realize like it's OK if I fall down a rabbit hole for a while or it's OK if, you know, maybe I just need to go and take the dog for a walk and get some exercise and clear my head. So giving myself grace has been a big thing. And giving other people grace, too. I've realized that there are certain things about like my parents, my dad's no longer with us, but my mom's still around. And there are certain things that drive me crazy about my dad and about my mom.
If I was a betting man, they both probably likely had ADHD and so undiagnosed, of course, because and knowing how like it's like 80 percent or so, you know, it's so hereditary that it's quite likely one or both of them had ADHD. And so it helps me like realize, I guess I'm talking to my mom and she interrupts me constantly. Or I got to say this before I forget or that kind of thing where I'm like, you know, I can't say with certainty because I'm not a doctor, but there are certainly, you know, things in there. So I think giving myself and other people grace has been a big thing.
William Curb: Yeah, I think that is one of the things that often I have to come back to is like, you know, I'll have some negative self-talk and it's like, why am I doing this? And it's like, because you have ADHD, that is why this is hard. And it's like, yeah, OK, well, what can I do about it with that in mind?
Dave Delaney: Yeah. And I think also like I've when I was diagnosed before I launched Why Squirrels, I wrote a blog post about my diagnosis and I posted, you know, it's my email newsletter and on Facebook and so forth to friends. I joke that it was like kind of like coming out of the mental health closet as it were. But I did that and I got all these messages from people who are like, oh, you wouldn't believe how many people from our old friend group have ADHD and they've been diagnosed later or, you know, oh, I've always thought I have ADHD, but I'm not hyperactive. And I would have to explain that it could also be hyper focused and that it just kind of clarifying some of the confusion over the acronym.
And then the ADD to ADHD thing. I think just being open about it, I know not everybody can or feel comfortable about it. But I really do feel that by like coming out, as I said, by sharing this with my friends, fans, followers, whatever, I can empower enough people to maybe at least even if they're not willing or not comfortable sharing it with the world, they'll at least go and get tested and possibly diagnose if they are untreated. Whether they share that with the world or not, it doesn't really matter. I just I'm just trying to like help kind of educate people. And yeah, maybe, maybe even like lengthen some lives, which is crazy to think.
William Curb: Yeah, right. This is like, man, this can make a difference to people.
Dave Delaney: Yeah, exactly.
William Curb: So I was just wondering if you had any last thoughts that you wanted to leave the audience with.
Dave Delaney: I encourage everybody to give the podcast a listen. I would like I mentioned I would I would love feedback. I've created a survey, but you can find everything at wisequirrels.com. As far as like leaving any other like pearls of wisdom, I mean, I've developed a presentation called the Root Down and it's three sections. It's know yourself, respect yourself and connect yourself. And I go through exercises in each section and I'm working on my next book right now, which is going to be about this too.
But it's very much is about, I say like the presentation is for any audience. It doesn't matter who the person is, but the underlying thread of the Root Down is the story of my own ADHD diagnosis. And it's also to educate people about ADHD. So again, they may see it in themselves and go and get tested or at least come away understanding both, you know, some of our challenges, but also some of our strengths as well. And just have a better overall understanding of ADHD, because I keep hearing it all the time when I talk to people about this and they're like, yeah, we're all ADHD sometimes, are we?
And I'm like, no, we're not all left handed sometimes. Like the presentation is something I'm trying to do for more conferences and companies and associations and so forth. And yeah, I would appreciate people reaching out or just say hi.
William Curb: Awesome. Well, I have all the links to that in the show notes and people should go see it because I've enjoyed listening to podcasts and thank you so much for coming on the show.
Dave Delaney: Thank you. Keep it up. You're doing a great job.
This Episode's Top Tips
Recognize and accept your ADHD, allowing yourself the flexibility to navigate challenges without harsh self-judgment.
Identify and cultivate personal coping strategies for ADHD-related challenges, such as body doubling for productivity or mindfulness to stay present.
Many of us with ADHD have a natural inclinations towards entrepreneurship that we can use to funnel our creativity.