Overcoming Executive Functioning Challenges with Seth Perler

Do you struggle with executive functioning challenges? Today, we’re talking with Seth Perler, an Executive Function, ADHD & 2e Coach in Colorado. Seth will be telling his story about rising up, coming back, and finding his life’s purpose. After nearly losing everything, he’s dedicated his life to helping complicated, struggling students learn to navigate school and life so they can have a fantastic future full of choices and possibilities, where they can achieve their goals, do what matters to them and have a great quality of life. Executive Function is the key. Listen in to learn more about Seth and his purpose-driven journey.

What to Listen For:

What does Seth Perler do?

“I am what's called an Executive Function Coach, and I'm an ADHD Coach and a 2e Coach.

But what that really means is that I am passionate about education and I am angry and frustrated that students who don't fit in the box, - these outside-of-the-box thinkers and feelers and doers and talkers - these kids that do not fit in boxes. Well, they cannot fit in the school box, and they end up quote, ‘failing.’

So, that pisses me off. We have a system that has, as one of its metrics, you have A,B,C,D,F and F is called fail. And that drives me nuts. And I was a teacher for 12 years. I have a master's in gifted and talented education. I struggled mightily as a kid and a teenager, like you wouldn't believe.”

Why did he feel called to this work?

“I am an ADD personality. I do not fit in the box myself as an adult. I didn't as a teacher, I didn't as a kid but I am not in the hopeless place that I was when I was a young person. I have a fantastic life today that I do love, and I hope I live a very long life and, uh, I've gotten to do really neat, interesting things and live the way that I want to live. It's not perfect, but I have made choices that have enabled me to choose my lifestyle.

I feel like I have a fulfilling purpose. I have fulfilling work and all, all this to say that I was someone who was very hopeless and didn't think I could do anything like this. And I do have a fantastic life today. So anyhow, my life is dedicated to that.”

Who was Seth Perler before he did this work?
Being adopted as a baby and what his family life was like growing up
Begin free-spirited and curious and not fitting into the traditional box of school A deep feeler since childhood

“Once I became 11, 12, 13 I think it became more apparent that I wasn't conforming the way I was supposed to. I really started to internalize messages.

Now my external messages, meaning I could communicate them to you, were: I'm lazy. I'm a failure. I can't do anything right. Why try? When am I ever gonna use this? This is stupid. I hate this. And then as I got more into teenage hood: the world sucks. People suck. The older I get, the more people suck. This is just hopeless.

What I internalized, meaning I couldn't articulate was: I'm a piece of shit. I have no value. I'm not enough. I'm not okay. I'm broken. Those sorts of messages were what I internalized again, I didn't have a consciousness around that.

I just could not stand to be in my own skin.”

Being labeled a daydreamer on a report card - something he now considers a superpower
Getting tested for learning disabilities and discovering he’s gifted
The story about not applying himself, not living up to his potential Feeling like nothing mattered
Getting fired from jobs that are difficult to get fired from
Diving into any escape to check out from the feelings that he just messed everything up
Hating who he was, not believing in himself, not believing he could change Shifting from victim mentality to 100% responsibility
Hitting rock bottom in his early 20s

“What rock bottom was for me was that I knew that my choices and my behaviors and my actions, could get me killed, could get me hurt, could lose my family.

They were done with me by this point. That was actually my bottom,