So sometimes when I work with people who

have ADHD, right, or on the spectrum or

have ADHD, I see this problem where, you

know, they explain why they did

something, right? So, oh, I forgot this

thing or it slipped my mind or I know I

was supposed to pick this up. Like they

make some kind of mistake and then they

offer an explanation. And sometimes the

explanation is I've got ADHD. And then

the problem is like when they try to

explain themselves, people interpret it

as defensiveness. They do get

emotionally activated. They get

defensive, right? That does happen. Like

you feel defensive. You're like, "Look,

you're not listening to me. Here's

here's what's going on." And the problem

is that when you get defensive, often

times people in a weird way are less

likely to listen to you. That the more

you try to explain your side, the more

you get punished for having a good

explanation. You know, this is not work

I've done a whole lot, but like

sometimes I'll have someone who is on

the autism spectrum or is neurodeiverse,

let's say, and they find themselves in

these like weird traps of social

interaction. So, how do you handle

criticism without getting defensive when

you make a mistake? How do you offer

mitigating circumstances and have them

received? That's what we're going to

talk about today. So, a couple of things

to understand. If you're neurodeiverse,

your empathic circuits are going to be

different, right? This is why I think

Richard Barkley cites this research. I

could be wrong about it, but I think

I've seen a paper very similar about

how, you know, if you've got ADHD by the

time you're in the second grade, one

study found that 0% of kids get invited

to birthday parties if they have ADHD in

the second grade. I mean, that's not

true globally, but like it shows that

people with ADHD have a lot of social

impairment. Okay, autism also has social

impairment. So, when we engage in these

social interactions, we're kind of at a

disadvantage. And then on top of that

there's another element of this which is

emotional dysregulation and

hyperactivation of our lyic system. So

one of the key things there's one uh

hypothesized subtype of ADHD which is

emotional dysregulation subtype. So what

this means is when you get attacked the

stress response the fear the paranoia

all those kinds of things actually

escalate. So you get you feel very

attacked and you have to defend

yourself. So you kind of lose control of

that emotion as well. And then as they

attack you, you get defensive. As you

get defensive, it doesn't work, right?

Because when someone attacks you and you

get defensive, like sometimes it can

work, but oftentimes it doesn't work.

It's not the best strategy. So, what do

we do about this, right? Because often

times getting defensive just gets people

more pissed at you. It sounds like

you're making an excuse. There are two

or three things that we need to do. The

first is understand what triggers the

highest amount of defensiveness. When

someone makes a claim about you that is

tied to your identity, the defensiveness

will skyrocket. Okay? So when someone

calls you stupid, if you have a

psychological vulnerability, oh my god,

maybe I'm stupid. And it can be buried

real deep, you will protest very

prodigiously, right? So that when

someone makes fun of us or calls us out

on something, it is our own

psychological vulnerabilities, right? So

that's a psychological vulnerability. So

I have to get defensive around it. If

you look at the difference between

people who can't take criticism and

people who can take criticism, it has to

do with whether the criticism ties to

their identity. Can I be a smart person

who makes a mistake or does a mistake

make me stupid? So we see this in a

really good way in in narcissism, right?

A great example of this. An event

becomes an identity. Since you

oversalted this food, I am a terrible

cook. So if you are trying to not get

defensive with people, the first thing

that you should ask yourself is what

does this criticism say about me? And if

your mind does the work of tying a

criticism to an identity, the

defensiveness will activate at a very

high level. So that's where there is

some amount of work that we can do to

tease these things apart. Let me

separate this out, right? So I can be a

smart person who made a mistake. It

doesn't mean I'm a stupid person. So, in

the ADHD guide, I there's a couple of

videos about how ADHD leads to

depression because when we grow up with

something like ADHD or autism, it shapes

our perception of our self. And undoing

that identity based conclusion is very

important. Now, the second thing that

when I'm working, so that's one thing

that I try to do with them, help them

understand, okay, like why are you

defensive about this? What about this

makes you think about is is a

vulnerability about yourself? What does

this say about you as a person? And the

moment that it defines you as a person,

that's when you're going to get a lot of

defensiveness. And then when we get

defensive, now we get to the second

part, which is how to actually handle

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So, when someone criticizes me and I get

defensive, hey, this food is too salty.

No, it's not. Now, this person has a

complaint which I'm not receiving. So,

when a human being sends a signal and

that signal is not received, what does

the human being do? They increase the

volume or they stop communicating. And

usually it happens in that order. No, it

is too salty. It is too salty. It is too

salty. Whatever. I'm never coming over

again. I'm never talking to you again.

I'm going to ghost you. I'm going to

block you. I'm done. See, when we are

trying to be defensive, we are trying to

shut down their attack. We're trying to

shut down their attack because their

attack hurts us in our soul, right? So,

how do we shut down the attack? Because

defensiveness actually causes them to

double down. And when they double down,

right, their first invasion was repelled

and so they're going to invade again.

And then we double down with our

defensiveness. So, how do we disarm

their attack? We actually accept their

criticism. We try to use empathy, right?

What does it feel like? What what is it

like for this food to be too salty? Help

me understand that. We try to understand

their situation. Can you tell me a

little bit more? Great sentence to use.

Great question to ask. What do you mean

by that? It's too salty. What do you

mean? What the do you mean by that?

It's too salty. Right? But invite them

to speak more. So if you look at human

relationships, you know, if we get into

it takes two to argue. So when I say

something and you contradict me and then

I double down and then you double down

and then I triple down and you triple

down. Tension requires like pulling on

both ends. Conflict requires pushing on

both ends. Like does that kind of make

sense? So the right way to manage this

is to actually validate their

experience. Oh, is it too salty? Let me

try it. Right? So if you sort of become

a little bit loose, if you sort of

accept what they have to say, which by

the way, you can only do if you don't

tie it to your identity, right? That's

why it's so hard to do because we make

this uh tie to our identity. Oh my god,

I did screw this up. So what was the

mistake that I made? Oh, I didn't send

out the PowerPoint on time. Now, here's

the other cool thing that you can do

once you sort of say, tell me a little

bit more about that. Explain that to me.

like let me understand what what went

wrong here. Try to really hear them out.

We want to encourage them to talk

without pushing back. Okay. Then there's

another interesting thing that we can

do. We can turn an a defensive excuse.

We can pick up mileage. We can turn it

into an advantage by outlining our

corrective behavior. This is where your

side of the story comes in. It feels

pretty unsatisfying to not share our

side. And just take the criticism of

other people. Okay, so this is where

okay, like so this was a situation I I

didn't send the PowerPoint out on time.

Turns out that I had a really rough

weekend. You know, my kid was sick all

week. Um, I need to do a better job of

being more careful on Monday morning

when I've had a rough weekend. So, you

can mention the excuse, but the right

way to calm someone down is to highlight

the corrective action that you're

planning on taking. Acknowledge the

circumstances. acknowledge your

situation, but use that that

defensiveness, use that excuse, use that

circumstance as a way forward, right?

What are you going to do to fix it next

time? That's what most people want to

hear. That's what calms most people

down. And for from your perspective, I

mean, you can do this in two ways. You

can do that this as an actual learning,

which will help you not make the mistake

again, or you can use it as appeasement.

So, I would actually try to learn from

your mistakes. And this is the really

cool thing. Instead of being defensive

about your mistakes, if you learn from

your mistakes, you stop making them.

See, defensiveness invalidates the

mistake to begin with. It's an excuse,

not my problem, not my fault. And y'all

tell me, when there's someone in your

life who does not take responsibility

for their mistakes, what is the

likelihood that they make the mistake

again? Now there's one version of I've

seen this specifically with people with

ADHD and autism neurodiversity where

there's one unhealthy version of this

which is when someone sort of defaults.

So when when you have when you grow up

neurodeiverse often times you have a lot

of self-esteem problems and when you

have self-esteem problems it can be very

easy or almost like reflexive to accept

the criticism that anyone sends your

way. Some people actually do this and

they swing the pendulum so far that oh

yeah of course it's my fault. I'm an

idiot. My identity is that I make

mistakes. So, anytime you tell me I'm

making a mistake, I just I take it in.

And they learn this adaptation because

they learn that if they argue, they

lose. So, instead, what I'm going to do

is I'm going to just take your criticism

whole scale. Now, this creates another

problem because once you basically never

push back on someone's criticism,

they're more likely to critic criticize

you again. They will start assigning

blame for their mistakes onto you. I've

seen this as well. And this is why a lot

of times when I work with people, they

feel like they can't win. If they defend

themselves, people get mad at them. If

they accept all of the responsibility,

they always get blamed for everything.

So, it's kind of like a lose-lose

situation, right? So, I think the right

way to handle this is actually within

yourself. So, it is shoring up that

internal vulnerability, disconnecting

the action from the identity, developing

that sense of confidence and

self-esteem. Because if you just accept

the blame that everyone sends your way,

you're never going to develop

confidence. Second thing is to

incorporate constructive criticism.

Alter what you're going to do. Try to

stop making a mistake. And when these

two things come together, that is when

you will know when to accept criticism

and when to push back. When I have very

low self-esteem, I push back 100%. Out

of an a defensive posture and out of an

accepting posture. Does that kind of

make sense? So once I develop

confidence, once I can look at what my

mistakes are and own my mistakes, I can

say, "Oh yeah, I did do this. I I did

send I didn't submit the PowerPoint on

time, but you were supposed to get me

the PowerPoint on Thursday morning. I

didn't get it until Saturday morning."

So this was a situation where the

PowerPoint was delayed and it so

happened that this weekend things were

kind of crazy. If things were not crazy,

I may have been able to get it in on

time, but you also didn't get the

PowerPoint in on Thursday when you were

supposed to, right? And then they will

get defensive and then you can be

validating for that, right? So, and then

a really good thing, a very useful thing

to do is to sort of ask people like,

okay, like where are we now? Right? And

like here's what I'm planning on

changing. What are what are you planning

on changing? Just ask that question.

It's a way to signal to someone, I'm not

taking all the responsibility for this.

Now, this too, I know this is going to

get kind of weird. This we also have to

be careful about, and this is why, like

I don't know if this makes sense, but

you can provide people with dialogue on

the internet of what they should say,

there's always a case in which it

doesn't work. And here's the example of

that. If you are very narcissistic and

you make a mistake, you are always going

to ask the other person what they can do

differently. Have you guys ever been on

the receiving end of this where someone

screws up and they're like, "Yeah, I did

this, but what are you going to do? This

is your fault, too." Even when the blame

is predominantly on their end, they

shift some of the blame to you because

they can't take all of the blame. And so

this is why social interactions are

hard, there's absolutely a way to work

through them, right? So we want to

validate what their concern is. We

really do want to hear them out and that

is our advantage because then we won't

make that mistake again. It improves our

performance. It improves our relations.

That becomes hard because of our sense

of identity. Our identity is caught up

in a mistake. And if we're not careful,

we'll swing the pendulum too far on the

other side. We'll accept responsibility

for everything. So, we don't want to do

that. So, how do you find that balance?

You develop that confidence. You own

your mistakes. And there may be an

another element of pointing out theirs,

too. But that only works if you do it as

the third step, right? I got to hear

them out first, own mine, and then I can

point out yours. A lot of defensiveness

is you criticize me, but you didn't send

it to me on Thursday. So, there's a it's

so simple. There's a sequence. Criticize

somebody else after you've owned up to

what you did wrong. It be way better

received.