Podcast Summary: Overcoming Distractions - Thriving with ADHD, ADD

Episode: Why Vision and Values Matter for The Busy Professional with ADHD
Host: David A. Greenwood
Date: January 2, 2026

Overview

In this energizing solo episode, host David A. Greenwood dives deep into why vision and values are "mission critical" for busy professionals with ADHD. Drawing from decades of entrepreneurial experience and personal ADHD challenges, Dave reveals how clarifying a personal vision and living in alignment with core values can lead to fulfillment—and practical strategies for making this happen amidst the chaos of demanding careers.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Importance of Vision and Values for Adults with ADHD

Vision as a Filter: Dave emphasizes that adults with ADHD excel when they have a clear vision for their life and work. This vision helps filter distractions and unnecessary commitments.

“I think one of the clear positives of the ADHD-ish brain is being able to have that vision of what we’d like to see for ourselves… And sometimes that journey is a little choppy, right?” (05:45)
Values Drive Fulfillment: Frequent misalignment with personal values leads to stress, burnout, and dissatisfaction.

“When so many of us are stressed out, pissed off, we’re burned out… many times we can directly associate that with a misalignment of values. I’ve been there, I’ve done that.” (07:08)

2. ADHD, Ambition, and the Struggle for Alignment

Ambition Isn’t the Issue: Adults with ADHD don't lack ambition; rather, they often struggle with aligning ambition to what matters.

“I don’t think those of us with ADHD really struggle with ambition, right? I think we struggle with alignment sometimes.” (09:50)
Decision Fatigue & Overcommitment: A strong filter of vision and values helps reduce, but not eliminate, the tendency toward impulsivity and overcommitment.

“It acts as a filter… maybe it reduces a bit of that decision fatigue, it reduces maybe the over commitment. And I'll say this—it reduces it, it doesn’t eliminate it because we still have ADHD, right?” (11:15)

3. Identifying Key Personal and Professional Values

Examples of Core Values:
- Autonomy: Desire flexibility and independence at work.
- Creativity: The ADHD brain thrives on creative work.
- Impact: Need to feel that work makes a meaningful difference.
- Clarity & Calm: Spaces that nurture focus.
- Growth: Averseness to stagnation prompts frequent changes if growth is missing.
“Our brains are creative factories. We must have an impact. I know that is absolutely oxygen for me—I've got to have an impact on what I'm doing.” (13:00)
Key Questions for Reflection:
- When have you felt most energized and least drained at work?
- What strengths do you protect when you’re at your best?

4. Redefining Productivity, Fulfillment, and Control

Productivity: Not about doing more, but what matters most—without burnout.
Fulfillment: Ending the day with energy, connection, or satisfaction.
Control: Fewer “fires,” better priorities—staying out of “response mode.”

“Productivity doesn’t really mean doing more, right? It’s doing what matters without actually getting stressed or tired or even burned out.” (16:15)

5. Navigating Vision, Values, and Goal Setting

Short- vs. Long-Term:
- Long-term goals provide direction (“I want to get to XYZ in two years”).
- Short-term wins generate momentum, which the ADHD brain craves.
“Tie your goals, your values, your identity—not just outcomes… For example, I have a value of more freedom in my life.” (25:10)
Alignment > Discipline:
- Dave asserts that what’s needed isn’t stricter discipline, but greater alignment with values—which makes follow-through easier.
“I don’t think we need more discipline. I think we need better alignment—or at the very least, like, discipline comes from being more aligned.” (27:25)
Saying No and Overcommitment:
- Vision helps say no to misaligned opportunities and prevents regret over taking on too much.

6. Practical Strategies & Homework

Weekly Check-In:
- Review current commitments: drop or delegate those misaligned with your values.
- Use your vision/values as a “filter” for new decisions.
“Look at everything you’ve committed to and if at all possible, maybe it’s time to get rid of some of those things that aren’t serving you any longer.” (29:50)
Self-Reflection:
- Ask: “What does a good enough day look like?”
- Review: Was I fulfilled, productive, and in control—or just reacting all day?

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On ADHD Alignment:

“We chase urgency, we chase expectations, whether that's of us or expectations from other people, we chase the external validation instead of intention.” (08:20)
On Values in Practice:

“For me right now, a vision really isn’t a 10-year plan… it’s just the direction I want to take my life live on a daily basis.” (20:05)
On Avoiding Burnout:

“Without a strong vision… I think it’s easy for us to feel busy, but unfulfilled.” (10:35)
On Fulfillment as an ADHD Professional:

“Fulfilled might look like using your strengths instead of, you know, masking, which I think many of us do have a challenge with.” (17:10)
Facebook Memories Reflection:

“One of the things that I will share with you that bugs me is when one of those memories pops up on Facebook… and you’re like, holy shit, I can’t believe that was 10 or 12 years ago. Right? Where's the time gone?” (21:45)

Timestamps for Key Segments

[05:45] – The strengths of ADHD minds: vision and values as assets
[07:08] – Personal experience: How misalignment leads to burnout
[09:50] – The true challenge: Alignment, not ambition
[16:15] – Redefining productivity and fulfillment for busy ADHD pros
[20:05] – Vision as a daily direction, not a 10-year plan
[25:10] – Goal setting: Momentum from short-term wins
[27:25] – Discipline vs Alignment: The real solution
[29:50] – Practical advice: Commitment audit and decision filtering

Final Takeaways

Dave’s message for 2026 is clear:

Busy professionals with ADHD thrive not just by trying harder, but by getting clear on personal vision and values.
Regular reflection and commitment to alignment (not just discipline) helps reduce overwhelm and foster fulfillment.
Ultimately, as Dave says, “When we continue to remind ourselves of our vision and our values, we can focus and follow through, and things do get a little bit easier.” (31:30)

Resource: For more about Dave’s coaching and support resources, visit overcomingdistractions.com.
Contact: Listeners can book a 15-minute Zoom call for personalized ADHD strategy support.

Transcript

A (0:07)

I'm Dave Greenwood and this is Overcoming Distractions. If you are an adult with adhd, a busy professional, an entrepreneur, a high achiever, or just need some strategies to navigate your adult adhd, you're in the right place. Who am I? I'm an entrepreneur with ADHD and the author of two books, Overcoming Distract and Overcoming Burnout. I coach and mentor people just like you, and together we navigate the ups and downs of adult adhd, from getting out of our own way to helping people just like you thrive in the workplace. That's what I do. Want more info on working with me? Hit overcoming distractions.com ready? Let's get to today's podcast. Hey all my distractions distracted friends. Welcome back to Overcoming Distractions.

B (1:08)

I'm glad you're here and welcome to a new year. 2026, right? Yeah, it's 2026. I had to check real quick. Holy crap, man. 2025 went by so fast. At least for me. So. And I don't know if it went by fast for you, but whatever. We are here. Welcome to a new year and I am so glad you are joining me. We got some awesome stuff planned for this coming year. Some new guests, new perspectives on being that busy person with adhd. Or you think you have adhd. I got some great solo episodes planned based on my decades of being an entrepreneur, entrepreneur and executive with adhd, and of course working with many of you individually and trying to create some more fulfillment and some thriving days and weeks. So anyways, hey, real quick. If this podcast has helped you in any way or you just enjoyed listening to me talk about the ADHD experience and demanding career, you can hit buymeacoffee.com overcoming d buy me a coffee.com overcoming d. You can buy me a coffee. You can buy me one coffee, you can buy me five. That's just going to help me get through cranking these podcast episodes out. If you've ever listened to me before, you know I live on coffee and I don't speak to anybody in the morning without having my coffee. And of course, if you're looking to try and make some changes or be more fulfilled or everything from I just got to figure out how to manage my time better or sort some other things out. Given your distracted brain, we can always work together and all you need to do is hit the website Overcoming Distractions.com right on the home page. You can just click that button that says book a 15 minute Zoom meeting with me and let's see if we're a good fit. So all right, hey, let's kick off 2026 together because I want to talk about why those of us with adult adhd, we need to focus more on our vision and our values and why. I think that's mission critical for thriving, being fulfilled with our busy brains. And I really feel I have some first hand experience in this. Being an entrepreneur for so many years and a former executive, having to hire, fire, manage and do my own job with my ADHD brain. And I don't think many of us adults with ADHD would do well in like an assembly line type of career or business. Right? And then nothing against that. And I think there's probably a bunch of you out there that, that may need that type of structure. But, but I think one of the clear positives of the ADHD ish brain is being able to have that vision of what we'd like to see for ourselves. And sometimes that journey is a little choppy, right? Sometimes we need to kind of figure out how to get there. We could be 25, we could be 35, we could be in our 50s, right? Sometimes we still need to take that journey, given our season of life. So. And I believe values when it comes to ADHD are big part of this. And when so many of us are stressed out, pissed off, we're burned out, many times we can directly associate that with a misalignment of values. I've been there, I've done that. Whether that was in my executive position many years ago as a vice president of a large nonprofit, or in my public relations firm as the industry went through massive change, I believe my vision, my values were challenged numerous times over the years and we needed to navigate that, and I needed to navigate that. Now, aside from workload and the many other challenges as busy people with ADHD have, such as time management, procrastination, you know, all the things that, that we do kind of struggle with from time to time. I mean, you get the idea. I believe when we're aligned with our values and we feel like we can execute some type of vision and we're even living it, I believe we're far more fulfilled and we even thrive with our distracted brains and some of that stuff does become a little more easy to manage. So let's dig into this a little bit because I think many, many of us, maybe we call ourselves high achievers, busy professionals, people in demanding careers, or just ADHD in general, right? We chase urgency, we chase expectations, whether that's of us or expectations from other people. We chase the external validation instead of Intention. Without a clear values based vision, I think it's easy to, you know, for us to feel busy, but unfulfilled. Right. And I don't think those of us with ADHD really struggle with ambition, right. I think we struggle with alignment sometimes. And maybe, maybe it's the wrong career, maybe it's the wrong business, maybe it's the right career, maybe it's the right business, but we're not maybe necessarily doing the right things. And I think many of us struggle to stay consistent with the opportunities that are in alignment with our values. Something else I know that I really had to work hard on with myself, right? I mean, as an entrepreneur, like, hey, new business idea, holy crap, I have to jump on that right now. It's something many of us struggle with consistently. And I think those values, that vision, that it acts as a filter, maybe it reduces a bit of that, you know, decision fatigue. It reduces maybe the over commitment. And I'll say this, it, it reduces it, it doesn't eliminate it because we still have adhd, right? So we still need to kind of remind ourselves of our path moving forward on a very consistent basis. So as they say in the ADHD world, shiny. So, but I think clarifying your personal and professional values is something that we should consistently revisit regularly. Values aren't really goals, right? They're kind of the why behind why we want to do something or the path we want to go towards. And I think, I don't want to sound like Tony Robbins, but ask yourself, what do I want more of in life? And maybe that's not just someday, maybe that's now. And I think examples relevant to those of us who are busy people with ADHD or like autonomy, right? We want to do our job. We don't want somebody like hanging over our shoulder every waking moment of the day. We want a little flexibility to be able to do our job the way our brains are able to execute it, right? Creativity. Our brains are creative factories. We must have an impact. I know that is absolutely oxygen for me is I got to have an impact on, on what I'm doing. I want to make sure that I'm making a difference in some way. And that's why my work with many of you is fulfilling. Because when we can work together, and I can see together with you that we're, we're moving in the right direction. That's impact. We got to have clarity, right? Clarity. You know, if you've listened to even a few episodes here, you know that clarity is one of my favorite Words and calm. Give me a quiet room with absolutely no sound, and I am just in heaven. And of course, growth, we want to grow. We do not do well when we're just stagnant and stale and nothing's moving forward. We have to grow. And that's why so many of us leave our careers, jump to new jobs, because we're not growing. And I think a couple questions you could ask yourself that might help you, you know, align with that is, when have I felt the most energized and least drained when it comes to work? And what do I protect when I'm at my best? I always say I need to protect myself from myself. But when we're a busy person with adhd, we do need to set up some kind of bubble wrap around us, right? To protect us from certain things. Let's define fulfilled, productive, and even in control. And I think productivity doesn't really mean doing more right. It's doing what matters without actually getting stressed or tired or even burned out. And fulfilled might look like what? Ending the day with some kind of mental space or maybe energy for your family or energy to go out with friends or hit the gym? Or, you know, fulfilled might look like using your strengths instead of, you know, masking, which I think many of us do have a challenge with. And fulfilled might look like helping people, being a mentor, closing a deal, you know, a new business opportunity, submitting that proposal or what have you to the client or what have you. Okay? Now, when it comes to control, I love being in control of the right things. But in control doesn't mean that I think we have to be rigid. I think being in control means that we have fewer fires to put out, we have clearer priorities, we know where we're going. It's clarity in the things we do. You know, we've talked about procrastination and maybe it's time to revisit this. But one of the biggest, biggest reasons we procrastinate is because we're not clear on certain things, whether it's the actual thing we need to do for the client or the boss or etc. And then we just stall. And then being in control also is how we recover when the shit hits the fan, right? Or things go off track because it's going to happen. Ask yourself this. And I, I have to constantly ask myself this. What does a good enough day look like? Was I fulfilled? Was I. Did I have meaningful productivity? And was I able to have agency or control without just kind of operating in response mode throughout that day? I Think those are important. Let's talk about values and vision of success. And I'm at the age right now, I'm a child of the 60s, I'll leave it at that. Where this is super important to me, vision and values. For me right now, a vision really isn't a 10 year plan for me. It's just the direction I want to take my life live on a daily basis. And I think I ask myself these questions and maybe this would help you is where should I be right now? Like, how do I want my weeks to feel for me? I don't want to leave in, I don't want to live in freakout mode anymore. I've been there, I've done that. I don't want to panic with last minute deadlines, I don't want to be exhausted. I don't want to say to myself, holy shit, that was 10 years ago. Because time has flown by because of the way we've operated and we've just gone from month to month to year. You know, I mean one of the, one of the things that I will share with you that bugs me is when one of those memories pops up on Facebook or something you post and you're like, holy shit, I can't believe that was 10 or 12 years ago. Right? Where's the time gone? Because I've, you know, lived in such a kind of, you know, panic mode or exhaustion or week to week and day to day and month to month, etc. You know, without a strong vision. And I think that strong vision, let's double down on this. It's going to reduce your over commitment. It's going to make saying no easier, which all of us should have that mission critical strategy of saying no. I think it's going to anchor some of your decisions during overwhelm and it's going to allow you to kind of go back to your kind of path that you want to go down. And I think having that vision or just understanding of where you want to be helps you stick to a game plan without taking on extra things that you're going to regret later. So I also think you can kind of put together your short and long term goals with values in the ADHD brain and think about it like your long term goals, like I want to get to XYZ in two years or what have you. I think they give you meaning, they give you a path. But I think short term type of strategies are going to create that momentum which we need. Tie your goals, your, you know, your, your values, your identity, you know, not just outcomes. Right. For example, I have a value of more freedom in my life. That's kind of a goal. I need that right now. That means fewer meetings, more deep work days. Think about that. And again, if you've listened to us before, you know that the, the gold standard in getting stuff done when it comes to a, being a busy person with ADHD is, you know, more deep work days, more time, uninterrupted time. So ask yourself, when it comes to that goal, does, does it support the life I want or other things I'm doing, just keeping me busy? Here's what I really think. I don't think we need more discipline. I think we need better alignment or at the very least, like discipline comes from being more aligned. Because I think it just becomes a little more easy when we, when we understand what we want, what we need and where we're going. And I think this week I'll give you a little bit of a homework assignment. Kind of choose a decision that maybe you made or that's on your plate at the moment and kind of run it through that filter. For me, I do this all the time. It's always looking at my schedule to figure out how I can be living according to my values of freedom and peace of mind and less stress and doing the things I want and need, and those are family, health and wellness, etc. Etc. Look at everything you've committed to and if at all possible, maybe it's time to get rid of some of those things that aren't serving you any longer. It could be taking on an extra project at work. It could be taking on a client that is in complete misalignment with your business, or you just took it on because of the money, etc. Etc. You know, I still work on this every single day of my life. And there are times where life gets complicated and difficult and incredibly stressful for all of us. But I do believe when we continue to remind ourselves of our vision and our values, we can focus and follow through and things do get a little bit easier. So, hey gang, welcome to 2026. If you want to make some impact in your life, you feel like you need somebody by your side to support you, to ask the right questions, to work on problem solving, navigate the complexities of being a busy person with adhd. Let's crush this new year together. So just hit overcoming distractions.com, go to the homepage, book a 15 minute Zoom meeting with me and let's see if we are in a lot. All right. Hey, we'll catch you next time.