Attention Talk Radio · Jeff Copper, MBA, PCC, PCAC, CPCC, ACG

ADHD and Focus: Are We Focused on the Wrong Thing?

April 8, 2026·29 min·2 clips

Jeff Copper argues ADHD is not a behavioral problem but an executive function impairment needing accommodations, not training.

Jeff Copper starts with focus. His point is that attention may be aimed at the wrong thing before anyone asks for more effort. That shift changes the whole conversation. If ADHD is an executive function impairment, then planning, deciding, and managing time are not simple behavior choices. Quick reset. He separates behavior from impairment, arguing that behavior can change while impairment still sets the edges of what is possible. Skills training has limits. When coaching teaches people to use executive functions to overcome executive function trouble, he hears a circular demand tucked inside the help. That is the snag. The person is being asked to solve a messy, unclear problem with the same mental tools he says are impaired. Willpower gets too much credit. Rewards may push someone through work, but Copper keeps asking whether they actually ease the executive function challenge underneath. Extra time sounds generous. In his framing, it can mean more time spent suffering when the challenge itself has not been relieved. Accommodations need to adapt. He argues for supports that recognize impairment directly, instead of treating ADHD as a behavior problem that skills training should fix. The tone gets urgent. Copper says people are suffering needlessly because the prevailing paradigm keeps training dependence on weak systems instead of changing conditions. He wants the word spread. The ending plays like a practical rant for adaptive accommodations, the right to perform, and a cleaner way to think about attention itself.

As heard by us

A blunt ADHD-coaching take that treats attention as an executive-function problem.

The episode makes a clear case that ADHD attention can fix on the wrong thing, and once that happens the work slips off course before it really gets going.

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Why you'd press play

If ADHD advice keeps telling you to try harder, start here.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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