{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast","title":"From Shame to Strategy: Alan Brown on Advocacy After Diagnosis","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2713,"description":"In 1992, a struggling advertising executive in Manhattan walked into his Upper East Side doctor's office with what he thought might be a revelation. His boss had just been diagnosed with ADHD, and the symptoms—the scattered thinking, the time that evaporated, the constant feeling of running to catch up—sounded eerily familiar. The doctor listened, nodded, and delivered his professional opinion: \"ADD is a myth created by the media. You just need to do more crossword puzzles.\"Alan Brown took that advice seriously. For five years, he became exceptional at the New York Times crossword puzzle—almost able to complete the notoriously difficult Saturday edition. His ADHD, however, remained completely uncured.This week on Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast, Alan Brown—now known as the ADD Crusher—returns after nine years to unpack a question that haunts nearly everyone with ADHD after diagnosis: Now what?Because here's what nobody tells you: getting diagnosed is the easy part. The hard part is learning to ask for what you need without drowning in shame. The hard part is figuring out how to advocate for yourself when the very act of asking feels like admitting defeat.Alan walks us through a discovery that transformed his career: the moment he refused a shared office space and, instead of being fired or labeled difficult, ended up with a private office overlooking lower Manhattan. It wasn't magic. It wasn't luck. It was understanding something fundamental about advocacy that most people miss entirely.The conversation reveals two deceptively simple mindset shifts that unlock the door to effective self-advocacy. The first: replacing \"I suck at this\" with \"I'm trying.\" The second: swapping \"I should be able to\" with \"I am willing to.\" These aren't just feel-good affirmations—they're the difference between staying stuck and making progress.But there's a deeper pattern here in the concept of \"expansionist thinking\"—the ADHD superpower of seeing connections and possibilities...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/YTkFPoIRLaeVDZjC2YYGEtP5UJ2-NnlMAz8bCgZYbZs/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9zaG93/LzMzMDkxLzE2NjUw/MTA5NjYtYXJ0d29y/ay5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}