"I've Had ADHD My Whole Life. I Just Didn't Know It Yet."

"I've Had ADHD My Whole Life. I Just Didn't Know It Yet."

From Something Shiny: ADHD! by David Kessler & Isabelle Richards

May 20, 2026 · 32 min · Season 4 · Episode 124

About this episode

Afdhel Aziz shares his journey of discovering his ADHD as an adult and how it has shaped his creative career.

If you have ADHD and you got your diagnosis as an adult, odds are it felt like a spotlight switched on over your entire life and everything, every struggle, every pattern, every thing you couldn't explain about yourself is suddenly lit up. Afdhel Aziz has spent decades building an extraordinary creative life. Writer, filmmaker, keynote speaker, Forbes contributor. He even recorded an entire album in his living room last year. Through it all buildling a framework that made his career work without knowing it was an accommodation. All of it running on a neurodivergent brain he didn't have a name for yet. Then about a month and a half before this conversation, that changed. What you're about to hear is what happens when David and Isabelle get to sit with someone who is learning to understand their ADHD in the moment. Unpacking in real time what his brain has been doing all along, why the things that worked worked, why the things that didn't couldn't, and what it means to finally see yourself clearly after years of a blurry reflection. The epiphanies were still arriving while we were recording. You'll feel that. In this episode: What a late ADHD diagnosis feels like when you're…

People in this episode

Hosts: David Kessler, Isabelle Richards

Guest: Afdhel Aziz

Topics covered

  • ADHD
  • adult diagnosis
  • neurodiversity
  • creative life
  • self-discovery

Keywords

  • ADHD
  • diagnosis
  • neurodivergent
  • creativity
  • self-awareness
  • anxiety
  • Four P's framework

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Forbes

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