TPP 519: Brendan Mahan on Overcoming the Wall of Awful
episode
Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
40 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 9 hours ago
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the “Wall of Awful” and how does it create an emotional barrier to getting things done?
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I'm Debbie Reber and this is Full Tilt Parenting. Today I am welcoming Brendan Mahan back to the show to talk about his brand new book. It's just out today, called Overcoming the Wall of Awful: Why It's Hard to Get Things Done with ADHD, Autism and Anxiety, and How to Do Them Anyway. Brennan is the host of the ADHD Essentials podcast. He's a sought after speaker and educator, and a neurodivergent person himself who helps people navigate neurodivergent challenges through education, collaborative problem solving, compassion, and accountability. So, today we're going to unpack Brendan's concept of the wall of awful, which is the emotional barrier that can build around tasks after repeated experiences of frustration, shame, anxiety, and failure.
And we'll explore why it can lead to procrastination, avoidance, and shutdown. But even better than that, Brendan will share practical ways to understand what's getting in the way and help ourselves and our kids move. move through that wall of offal without adding more pressure or shame. This was such a great conversation. I know that you guys are gonna get a lot out of it, whether again it's for yourself or for in how you show up as a parent to your child. So here's Brendan Mahan. Hey, Brendan, welcome to the podcast.
Hi, Debbie, how are you?
I'm good. I should say welcome back to the podcast.
Yeah, it's awesome to be back.
It's so good to have you back. I'm really excited about your new book, which I just read. What's called Overcoming the Wall of Awful, Why It's Hard to Get Things Done with ADHD, Autism and Anxiety, and How to Do Them Anyway. And just on a personal level, like I really love this stuff. Like how to get things done. I'm fascinated with it. I hack myself to death. And I just so appreciated the way that you make this so accessible for those of us who need it ourselves and for those of us who have kids who struggle with getting things done. So congratulations on the book.
Thank you. And I know I already said this, but I'm deeply honored that you liked it. Like you were literally one of the people I was thinking about as I was writing it. There was a short list of like a dozen, maybe a little more, maybe a half dozen people that I was like, this person has to dig it when they read it.
Wow, I'm super honored. And I totally did. I was saying before we hit record that it's really, really accessible. And as someone who's working on my own book right now, it's just so hard to take, I think, sometimes these concepts and make it not just like something that we can digest, but then how do you make it so gettable? That's like, oh, okay. And then you can take it and run with it as a reader. So you did that. You've been on the show. It's been years actually since you've been on the podcast. And we touched upon this concept of the wall of awful. But would you just before we even get into the book, talk about the evolution of this concept in your own world?
Yeah. So the wall of awful is my model for the emotional impact of repeated struggle and failure as it relates to a specific task or like a flavor of task, right? So personally, I have a wall of awful for email. So when I encounter email, I gotta get past some stuff before I'm gonna be able to navigate those emails effectively. And other people might have walls of awful for other things, right? Like a kid in school might have a wall of offal for homework or for math. If they have a wall of offal for both of those things, then math homework is going to be especially difficult because they have to get past the homework one and then they have to get past the math one. And I've worked with adult clients who are like, I struggle to pay bills.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the “Wall of Awful” and how does it create an emotional barrier to getting things done?
0:00–5:40
2
How did Brendan’s personal experience with email and math shape the Wall of Awful model?
5:40–11:13
3
Why can anxiety and adrenaline both help and hurt us when we try to climb the Wall of Awful?
11:13–16:02
4
What are the five ways people try to deal with the Wall, and which strategies actually work?
16:02–20:36
5
How can we create “doors” in the Wall to regulate emotions and get unstuck quickly?
20:36–26:10
6
What role do interest, passion, and values play in making tasks feel less overwhelming?
26:10–30:48
7
How does Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) add another layer to the Wall, and how can parents support kids through it?
30:48–36:30
8
What practical tools and language can parents, clinicians, and educators use to talk about and navigate the Wall of Awful?
36:30–40:55
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
TPP 266a: A Conversation with Poet and Advocate LeDerick Horne
TPP 522: A Whole Child Approach to ADHD with Phil Boucher, M.D.
TPP 091a: A Conversation With Steve Silberman About His Book “Neurotribes”
TPP 521: A Conversation with Dr. Peter Gray About Restoring Childhood
TPP 253a: Advocate and Author Jonathan Mooney on Why Normal Sucks
TPP 520: Dr. Özgür Bolat on Why Rewards Backfire and the Real Science of Motivating Kids