About our guest today, Teresa Clark:

An innovative and forward-thinking leader Teresa Clark is the founder and alchemist of The Wellness Revolution. A pioneering culture and employee wellbeing company reimagining the workplace to unleash human potential. Built on the belief that the world of work plays an important role in transforming society and that by supporting people to live happier and healthier lives we can co-create happier and healthier societies together. She is deeply passionate about social justice, human flourishing, and the power of creativity to transform society. A public speaker, transformation and resilience expert, Teresa’s moving personal journey as a woman who received a 4-year prison sentence for the deaths of 3 of her friends in a car accident where she fell asleep at the wheel after a festival, has led her on a turbulent journey of personal recovery from extreme physical injury, psychological and emotional trauma. The deep remorse and transformative journey of finding peace and amends birthed a life trajectory driven by a magnanimous compassion to create positive social change centered around a deep passion and purpose to help others.  With 12 years of experience working within mental health for the criminal justice system, NHS, and charity sector, she has consulted at local and national levels and led cultural change across organisations through the design and development of award-winning programmes and services. Through her work, she has empowered thousands of people to reconnect with their authentic selves and transform their lives creating synergistic outcomes from collective shifts in mindset to social impact.  Enjoy! 

In this episode Peter and Teresa Clark discuss:  

00:40 - Thank you so much for listening and for subscribing!

01:00 - Intro and welcome Teresa Clark

01:24 - What gave you the idea to start a career in mental health?

02:45 - On masking strains and normalizing dishonesty in the workplace 

03:48 - How are companies beginning to take mental health seriously enough to implement change? [versus the bottom line]

05:00 - Are companies really making fundamental shifts? How and to what extent?

06:31 - On Google’s big bad goof-up

08:22 - “Don’t Be Evil” -Google

09:00 - What do you do once inside a company; how does consulting work best? Definition of reticent

10:10 - Breaking the stigma takes courage and intentional, comprehensive systems of support, time, training, positive reinforcement and encouragement, inclusive of leadership.

12:58 - How can people find more about you? 

Web:  www.thewellnessrevolution.co.uk

Socials:  @thewellnessrevolution_ on INSTA  @ThewellnessR on Twitter

13:23 - When HR and Business Leaders allow certain foundations for our people to flourish, our business will flourish. It's a natural thing. And it’s been proven. Ref: Deloitte article Deloitte study: Mental Health and Employers: The Case for Investment – Pandemic and Beyond

14:40 - The Boy With the Faster Brain is out very soon!!

15:14 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits.

Guys, as always thanks so much for subscribing! Faster Than Normal is for YOU! We want to know what you’d like to hear! Do you have a cool friend with a great story? We’d love to learn about, and from them. I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via email at peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 

 

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TRANSCRIPT via Descript and then corrected.. somewhat: 

[00:00:40] Peter: Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of Faster Than Normal. My name is Peter Shankman. I'm your host. I will guide you through this journey today where we talk about A D H D in the workplace and all neurodiversity really in mental health in the place for a change. We're talking Teresa Clark. And Teresa Clark is the founder I believe, of the Wellness Revolution. She's based in London, England, and her job is to help company culture, enhance employee experience, and unleash the potential of the people who work for said companies. They are a pioneering culture and employee wellbeing company built for businesses of the future. They support forward-thinking organizations to create cultures of happiness fueled by passion, purpose, and creativity. So welcome, good to have. 

[00:01:19] Teresa: Thank you for having me. It's great to be here. 

[00:01:22] Peter: So let's dive in. What gave you the idea to start a company focusing on business mental health? 

[00:01:29] Teresa: So I, my career is in, um, working for the N H S. I've worked in mental health for about 12 years, and it was during my time when I worked for, um, a big mental health trust in North London when I was working actually in a hospital. And, um, I started to kind of look around and just see, we had a really high turnover of staff and the nature of the work was very intense because I worked in forensics, which is, um, a part of type of mental. Services, which when people commit offenses, they go into hospital as opposed to prison. So as you can imagine, you, you are, you know, experiencing quite a lot of sad cases. It's the works quite heavy. But even so, um, we just had this huge turnaround of staff and as I was there longer and longer, I realized that we weren't looking after our own people's mental health and that the workloads were huge. People were really stressed out if somebody came and said that they were experiencing. their own issues. It wasn't treated very well. In fact, there was a kind of real fear culture that nobody would've said that. Um, and they would've just gone off work with, you know, explained it underneath another sickness. But it was actually to do with that. And what was happening, which was really, really sad, was that was actually affecting patient care. So I started to sort of think, wow, if this is happening in a mental health trust, what's happening in the real world? And I started to kind of look at my family and friends and acquaintances and kind of see that, you know, we all struggle with something. Some of us might talk about it, others might not. But you know, mental health is just the same as physical health. And I just started to, to sort of think about how many toxic work cultures there are in the. and that we really need to do something about it because we spend 90,000 hours of work in our lifetime. And that is a long time to be stuck somewhere where you feel miserable and the, and the outcomes of that in terms of your own physical and mental health, but also the ripple effect that it has on your family, your friends, uh, and just sort of society at large, really. So I thought if we can really shift the workplace to be somewhere where. It actually lays the foundations for people to reach their potential, you know, optimal wellbeing. You know what a, what a different world we would live in. Sounds very idealistic, but I really do believe that we can do it. 

[00:03:48] Peter: So my first question is this. How are companies reacting to this? Because companies, you know, at least in the US, companies don't particularly like spending money on anything that doesn't help their bottom line, obviously. Mental health and mental wellbeing in the workplace does help the bottom line, but that's a hard explanation to give. I've been there. So how are, how are companies, uh, reacting to that first and foremost? 

[00:04:06] Teresa: Yeah, great question and you're right. I think there's still some attitudes that we need to change around wellbeing as a fluffy topic and that it's a nice to have but not actually imperative to your business success. But the good thing is there's, you know, the, the bodies of evidence of studies and case studies. Just, uh, continuing to rise and really, really being able to show that r roi, I call it return on happiness, to show the difference between a company that does foster, you know, positive experience for their employees and emo, um, employee wellbeing compared to one that doesn't or that does it surface level. So it's really about kind of presenting the figures, you know, talking to the people who are making the big decisions, because that's another thing that I think is really important. You know, getting the C-suite and people in leadership roles really involved so that it's not just a bottom up, it's a, you know, a top down and a bottom up approach. And that does really work. It's still, you know, it's still difficult. I think there are a lot of companies out there that are doing what, what's sort of known as like wellbeing, washing, similar. What people do on pride and things like that is sort of saying that they do it, but. You know, doing the opposite.

[00:05:16] Peter: Well, I mean, that's my, that was my next question. You know, the, we are, we're all familiar with, you know, uh, what are they doing for mental health? Oh, they're allowing wacky tie days on Friday. You know, it, it, it's, it's, you know, or free sandwiches does not equate to mental health and mental, mental, uh, caring. And so I think that, that one of the big. Um, issues that I've seen is that companies say, this sounds like a great idea, but then again, it's that question of actually getting 'em to commit because there's no, you know, the ROI isn't immediately seen. 

[00:05:45] Teresa: Yes. Yeah. And I think what we are seeing now because of this, is we are seeing kind of mass exodus at companies where people are, are leaving, you know, the great resignation or we wanna call it the great awakening. Either way, people are looking for a very different experience, particularly Gen Z. And millennials. And so if a company doesn't start to do these things, it's, you know, when you look to, to, to start a new company, if your company doesn't have a flexible working policy that doesn't have some sort of ea and that doesn't kind of offer some kind of wellbeing provision, it's gonna make you think twice about whether you take their offer because money's not everything, as we all know. And again, the research shows that people would rather take a pay cut to have those things and go and work for an organization that doesn't have that now. It's pretty shocking at what the kind of world is like at the moment, because I don't know if you'd, you'd seen that, you know, Google's laid off a load of staff just now, 

[00:06:39] Peter: including their, including the director of mental health and wellbeing. Yes, I saw that. 

[00:06:43] Teresa: So that's, you know, really, really scary considering that some, the company like Google is doing that. It's just, 

[00:06:49] Peter: that's also really telling, because if a company is big and as, as supposedly forward thinking as Google doesn't give a shit, why should any other company. 

[00:06:56] Teresa: Well, yes, it's true, but I'm, I I think it's also a very, very bad move for Google because they're losing their credibility as an employer. Like their, their employee brand is really suffering because it's not just about the businesses, it's about the people that work there and, and we, people that work that have as much sort of say in terms of, you know, whether they wanna work at an organization like that or whether they want to go and work for Microsoft. You have all of those benefits. So it's a about, you know, the companies really need to think about what their brand reputation is because that does, you know, in a marketplace it's gonna get more and more difficult now for, you know, jobs for everybody. That's something that everybody's gonna be looking at. Yeah. And how much money does it cost? I was gonna say, how much money does it cost to, to recruit somebody? Especially for a company like Google, you're probably thinking, you know, it's in the grands isn't it? So you don't wanna be not being able to retain your staff, cuz that's just gonna cost you more and more. So it'll be interesting to see the data on that bad decision and how that's gonna infect Google because it is gonna really affect them. I. . 

[00:08:01] Peter: Well, I think that's really the question, you know, is it we, and we'll have to wait and see on that. But I, I mean, I agree with you. I just, I feel like, you know, and, and this is maybe the, the New York City cynic and me, I just feel like companies that try, uh, you know, oh, we're gonna care, wanna care, you know, Google's, I mean, do you remember who Google's original motto, company motto was? Back in like the, the, the early two thousands? 

[00:08:20] Teresa: No, I don't think I do.

[00:08:22] Peter: It was literally don't be evil. Oh wow. Yeah, that was their, that was their corporate motto, their corporate culture motto. And, and they publicized it and they talked about it and they go, we're gonna be the good company. Because back then Microsoft and, you know, Yahoo, were the bad companies and. All of a sudden, you know, here they are laying off their, their, their, their vice president of, of, of mental health and wellbeing. So I, I, I think that companies talk a lot of, talk a great game and I wanna do this. And I think it's a lot harder to sell that story, um, in the real world because at the end of the day, you know, they're, they're shareholders are looking at the next quarter and not the next quarter centuries, which is, which is obviously a much bigger problem. Talk. What are you doing into, in terms of once you get into a company, you know, are you, are you listening? Are you holding sessions? How, how does this whole process work? Because, um, I remember the one time I did work for a company back in the nineties, I worked for America Online, and they had someone in-house who actually, uh, was a mental health, and this is, this is again the mid nineties, so that was pretty impressive that they were that forward thinking. And they had someone where you could just go in, you could say, Hey, you know, having a bad day, not having a good time, having a mental health day. And again, before any of this was, was popular. So, so how does it work from a consulting point of view?

[00:09:29] Teresa: Yeah. So what we do is we kind of go in and we just really get to understand the organization. We look at the values, we look at how the values are being lived. We look at the kind of main challenges around the people. We look at what they're doing really well, what they could do better, and then we speak to, um, the employees and we kind of find out anonymously what they're thinking. Cause I think. , that's a big thing. You know, companies have a lot of in-house surveys and things like that, but people are quite reticent to be honest. Completely, because there's kind of like a lot of fear about, you know, will I, right, will I be looked at differently if I say that I've got a mental health condition or that I'm struggling, or, you know what? How does my culture support mental health and wellbeing as it is now. So we kinda understand the energy of the organization, what's going on, what's going on that can't be seen, and then we kind of present that to, um, the C-suite or the people team, and we sort of talk about. , you know, what we can do to support them, what they wanna focus on first. Cuz sometimes you go in and there's quite a lot of things that they didn't realize are going on. So it's almost, you know, too much of a big job to do everything all in one go. So it's like, where do we start first? So that can be things like helping them to set up like wellbeing champions so that they're embedding wellbeing more regularly within their culture because it's gotta be kind of a movement that goes forward. We do a lot of workshops and webinars, training. Taking like a design thinking approach to the employee experience. So thinking about when you have new starters, like what's their experience like, how do we deal with, um, you know, when somebody comes to us with a problem, how do we make more space in our teams so that we are having more interaction socially? Because a lot of companies we work with now become completely remote. So you have to be really intentional about that employee experience. You know, as a brand, like how do we want our employees, what are our team rituals? How do we embed wellbeing so that it's not something that we're having to deal with when it reaches crisis point, that we've kind of creating a culture where people can come and talk about things. So we are supporting each other. So when we have a team meeting, somebody says, we do a check-in and someone says, I'm having a bit of a bad day today. , we are normalizing it cuz you and I both know as well, people that have ADHD you know, sometimes we are, we are having a terrible day, sometimes we're having a great day. But sometimes it's difficult to say that you are without, you know, fear of being judged because you don't wanna seem like you can't do the job or that, you know, they can't trust you. So there's so many things around that. So what we do is we try to really help, well, not we try, we do help the organizations to, to really look at that and then just getting some defining, um, ways of approaching that as an organization and as teams and as individuals. And we do, um, some really cool offsites and sort of revolutionary retreats where we look. Kind of issues are within leadership, and then we create kind of like a two day conference, which is much more based on sort of like human potential and like how we can be the best leaders and really kind of like changing the mindset in more of a kind of intense short way, which, which are really successful. Um, and we do panel talks like loads of things. We, we, what we do as an organization is we just try to be really innovative and approach mental health in a very different way than, uh, the sort of traditional sort of pathology of it. 

[00:12:58] Peter: Awesome. I love it. Well, the website is called the wellness revolution.co.uk and you can find everyone there, you can find the whole team there. And it is really great to have you on the podcast. I appreciate you taking the time. It is. With any luck, this is sort of the start of, you know, more and more people understanding that, that there is something here and that we have. Uh, pay attention. We can't just let this go, right, Teresa? 

[00:13:23] Teresa: Oh, definitely. And I wanted to, to give you a, a, a really interesting stat actually. Yeah, please. For those leaders out there that, um, are still kind of struggling to see the, the real kind of returns on it. D Deloitte did a report here recently, I think it was last year actually, so it could do with renewing now. But they said that for every pound that's spent, and obviously I know it's in pounds, not dollars for every pound that's spent on wellbeing and mental health interventions, company receives up to six pounds back in returns on reduced absenteeism, reduced presenteeism, reduce, and um, higher retention rates. So there really is like such a business case and I think what we're gonna see from now on, as well as obviously with things being so uncertain with economic kind of unrest, is that this is the main, you know, people are our highest value assets if we think about it like, So if we look after our people and they're, we are supporting their mental health cause we're still kind of suffering the fallout from Covid, you know, psychologically. that's still very much kind of impacting people in different ways. If we really do sort of, you know, give those foundations for our people to flourish, our business will flourish. It's a natural thing. So just, yeah. I hope that's kind of stuck into some people's heads and that they'll really start to look at it differently.

[00:14:40] Peter: I love it. I love it. Teresa, this is great. Thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it. 

[00:14:45] Teresa: Oh, it's my pleasure. 

[00:14:46] Peter: Guys, as always, you know the drill Faster Than Normal is for you. We wanna know what you want to hear. Shoot us a note, let us know. And, uh, the children's book is coming out, should be out in about a month. The title is The Boy With the Faster Brain, so we are really excited for that. Stay tuned for more on that next week and we will see you next week. A D H D in all forms of neurodiversity are gift not a curse. Pay attention to your mental health. It is just as important, if not more so than your physical health. We'll see you soon. Thanks for listening! 

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Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at shankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week! 

Evie Kirshner is an 18 year old gap year student studying in Israel on Kivunim. She graduated from the Heschel school and will be attending Emory university in the fall. Evie has ADHD and anxiety. In her spare time, she loves photography, watching movies, and reading. Today we learn why she was diagnosed early in her life, about some of the choices and decisions she’s made thus far, how they’re working out and her advice to you. Enjoy! 

In this episode Peter and Evie Kirshner discuss:  

00:40 - Thank you so much for listening and for subscribing!

01:05 - The Boy With the Faster Brain comes out in about a month!!

01:40 - Intro and welcome Evie Kirshner

01:50 - How’s the weather in Israel today?  Ref: The Kivunim Institute 

02:34 - So you were diagnosed in 1st grade. Tell us your story?

03:28 - Kind of how things go in first grade with ADHD or ADD

04:23 - What were some of your symptoms? Did you get in trouble much?

04:40 - Were you put on meds? Did they work?

05:20 - To sparkle or not to sparkle…

06:20 - You can't live the rest of your life just talking out of turn; or can you!? What happened?

07:02 - On resolution and resolve

07:54 - Is there anything you think you may need to change? Or for in the future?

09:05 - What was your parents’ reaction upon your diagnosis? 

10:00 - What would you tell a kid who's seven years old and getting diagnosed today?

10:20 - How can people find more about you? 

Socials: @EVKirshner on INSTA and Snapchat

11:28 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits.Guys, as always thanks so much for subscribing! Faster Than Normal is for YOU! We want to know what you’d like to hear! Do you have a cool friend with a great story? We’d love to learn about, and from them. I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via email at peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 

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TRANSCRIPT via Descript and then corrected.. somewhat:

[00:00:42] Peter: Hi everyone. Welcome to Faster Than Normal. My name is Peter Shankman. It is great to have you for another episode. If you are binging this welcome back. Uh, someone emailed me today and they go, Hey, I found your podcast last week. I'm like, really? Which one? How many episodes do they go? All of them. I'm like, Just doing some quick math in my head. That's a lot of time, but either way, I am thrilled that you're here. It's great to have you guys. And if you haven't already heard, uh, the Children's book is launching in about a month. It is called The Boy With the Faster Brain. So I am super, super excited about that. We have a fun guest today. We're going to Israel. We are going to the Promised Land today to talk to Evie Kirschner, who's an 18 year old gap year student. She's studying in Israel on Kivunim, and she'll explain what that is. She graduated from the Herschel School. She'll be attending Emory University in the fall. She has ADD and anxiety, and she got diagnosed when she was in first grade, so around seven years old. I love talking to kids who are like 18 years old. They're like, yeah, I got diagnosed in first grade. I'm like, Mike Ben, when I was in first grade. They didn't even know what ADHD was. Welcome to the show. It's good to have you. 

[00:01:40] Evie: Thank you. 

[00:01:41] Peter: Well it's snowing here in New York. How's the weather in Israel?

[00:01:44] Evie: Oh, it's, it's actually pouring rain. I just got caught in the rain actually. It's not pretty out.

[00:01:49] Peter: Okay. And I don't feel so bad. good. Alright. Well, welcome to the podcast. Glad to have you. So I discovered you because I have lots of friends who send me articles and stuff all the time and say, oh, this person is adhd, you's interviewing them, and, and you caught my eye cause you wrote a beautiful article and you so, so first of all, tell us what you're doing in Israel. 

[00:02:07] Evie: This year I'm studying and traveling on a program called Kivunim. So five months out of the year we're studying, like basically taking college classes, you know, five days a week. And then for three months out of the eight we are traveling around the world. I'm going to 13 different countries and studying contemporary culture and ancient history and Jewish history and communities that existed in all those countries. So it's like, it's really cool stuff. It's, it's pretty awesome. 

[00:02:34] Peter: That's very, very cool. So let's talk about ADHD so you were diagnosed in first grade. What was that like? What was what? How did it come about? What the teachers say? Tell me your story. 

[00:02:43] Evie: I thought it was cancer. . I, I was so em embarrassed. I was fir when I was told I was devastated and I wouldn't tell anybody. It was like my deepest orca secret. I thought it was the only person in the world with adhd. My parents like sat me down and told me. I mean, they were running tests on my brain at NYU by the time I was eight. Really? Yes. I had a severe case especially, and this was in 19? This was in 2000, 2011. 12. Okay. I was always told I had the energy of a boy inside a girl and they had never seen anything like it, and that made me feel. I was like, oh no, I'm, I'm secretly like, have the energy of a boy, and this is like, I can't tell anyone. I have this like, big, heavy secret weighing on me. 

[00:03:28] Peter: Yeah. And that's in first grade. In first grade, that's kinda hard to handle. 

[00:03:31] Evie: Oh, it was really hard to handle. I was devastated and I, I, I really felt it all the time. Like I had something that made me different that I couldn't tell people about. Um, and I think, like as I got older, you know, people always say to me, well, everyone's a little ADD everyone's a little ADHD , and I'm like, well, hmm, hmm. . Um, I think like when you're, you know, doing, you're getting up in first grade and spinning circles around your desk while everyone's sitting and writing, I think like there's a difference. You know, there's the, there's dozing off and then there's like, actually there's not being able to function in a classroom at seven years old. 

[00:04:09] Peter: Yep. So what was, is that, was that some of the symptoms you were just a little, little hyper, a little. 

[00:04:14] Evie: I was hyper, I was crazy. I was, time and place did not occur to me. I kind of marched to the beat of my own drum. 

[00:04:23] Peter: Okay. That's funny. It's exactly what my mother used to tell me all the time. did it. Uh, did it get you in trouble at all? . 

[00:04:29] Evie: Oh, all the time. I was in the principal's office, like I'd say until high school, almost every day of, of middle school, at least. I think like in lower school, they were more lenient on me. Yeah. But I was in the, yeah, I was in the principals a lot. 

[00:04:43] Peter: So you were diagnosed in first grade, but were you put on meds? What happened?

[00:04:47] Evie: I was put on meds in third grade actually. Um, and I stayed on the same meds almost every day until my junior year of high school. Okay. 

[00:04:57] Peter: And were they, do you, did you feel like they were, did you feel like, did you feel like they were working?

[00:05:01] Evie: Oh, they were totally working, but they dulled my sparkle. Yeah. So I decided it was, it was time to let it go. 

[00:05:11] Peter: I understand that. And so, so when you say dulled your sparkle, why .Did it make you, obviously it made you more focused, but it, did it take away that ooph or did it take away that creativity?

[00:05:20] Evie: It took, it took away the oomph. It took away a lot of, it just kind of suppressed everything. It's almost as if, the way I describe it to people, like it's if you turn the saturation down, I'm like the way you, the way you see everything. 

[00:05:32] Peter: So you decided to get off of it in seventh grade. 

[00:05:35] Evie: Um, in junior year of high school I started oh, junior 

[00:05:37] Peter: high school. Okay. Okay. But you said you were in the principal's office a lot in high school? No, in middle school. In middle s. Okay. I'm confused. So you were on the meds and still gonna the principal's office. Oh yes. Interesting. Okay. And what were, what were your charges? What were you, what were you usually busted for?

[00:05:53] Evie: Um, making an inappropriate song in the middle of class. , um, texting, um, chatting with a friend over here, not being able to control what came outta my mouth, things like that. Examples like, 

[00:06:09] Peter: All right, so obviously there are a ton of people listening right now who hear themselves in your story, , I mean, including me. Um, so what did you do, right? It's obviously you can't live the rest of your life just talking at a turn. I mean, maybe you can. So what happened?

[00:06:26] Evie: I think it actually wasn't necessarily anything that changed in me, but something that changed in the people around me in that I think they realized I was a well-intentioned kid. Smart. I had a good head on my shoulders and I meant, I meant well. Um, I was loving and deep down I was really respectful. I just didn't always show respect and often displayed disrespect. But, um, it had nothing to do with how I felt about my teachers or my peers and more to do with something that I was struggling with internally.

[00:07:00] Peter: Interesting. So, am I getting sort of the feeling that you just, for lack of a better word, just decided I'm gonna live my life. 

[00:07:09] Evie: Yeah, I did. I think like, I mean, I'm still at the point where I'm, you know, deciding, okay, I don't have to change this. I don't have to be self-conscious about this anymore. People around me are gonna have to learn to accept this, and I don't have to be the one that stops kicking the desk or stops, you know, biting my fingernails or dozing off or seeming like I'm not paying attention when someone's speaking because if they know me well enough, they'll know that I am. . And I think like I'm, I think I'm still getting to that point in many ways and I'll see other ways in which that manifests itself over time. But I think I have like chucked a lot of it in the efit bucket like I think that, um, there were many things, especially the way it manifests itself in the classroom, that I just said to myself, okay, so this might be something that I have to explain to teachers, not change, 

[00:07:54] Peter: Is there anything that you think may have to change? I mean, I, I am all in the category of, hey, here's who I am, deal with it. But I also know that there are times, right. Especially in my quote unquote adult life, um, where I have to, okay, you're, you're going to listen to this visiting professor. You probably shouldn't make a joke in the middle class, or things like that. Mm-hmm. . So are there any points that you've seen that yet?

[00:08:17] Evie: Yes. So I think now that I'm kind of in a more of a college setting, um, I find that, and even in high school, I find that when it, when it gets hard and I feel impulses coming on, or it's hard for me to sit still in class, I just, I just leave and come back. Okay. Or I'll do, I'll do something else. I can't be sitting still with thoughts and impulses and wanting to speak, and I'll either be doodling or tapping my foot or bit like, uh, or, or I'll just leave the room. 

[00:08:49] Peter: Interesting. Interesting. So you are, you've basically accepted what you have. You don't take meds for it and you're sort of pulling a a, a Greatest Showman. This is me. 

[00:09:02] Evie: Yes. This is me. . 

[00:09:04] Peter: Awesome. Okay. What did your, um, parents, uh, how were they when you first got diagnosed? What was their, what was their, uh, reaction?

[00:09:13] Evie: They, well, I, they took it very seriously, which is I think why I thought it was such a huge deal. They were like, you have ADHD , we're gonna take you to a therapist, get you meds. And I was like, oh shit. I'm like, dying of something as hard . I was, I was really, I was really scared. Um, but my parents took it very seriously. I, lucky enough, I have a mom who works in the world of learning disabilities um, and she very much like got me the help I needed academically early on. You know, taught me that it's a, it's a gift, not a curse. And, um, even though I felt for a lot of my childhood, like it was, and I think I, I had parents who always reminded me that I'm gonna realize one day that my, I actually really do love the way my brain works. 

[00:09:59] Peter: Awesome. I love that. So what would you tell a kid who's, uh, seven years old getting diagnosed? 

[00:10:05] Evie: That their brain is beautiful. Mm-hmm. .And it might take time to realize. And other people are gonna see it first. And other people are gonna tell you it's not there, but you'll see it over time. 

[00:10:17] Peter: Very, very cool. Very, very cool. Tell us how people can find you. Are you on any of the socials? 

[00:10:23] Evie: I am, I'm on social media. I am on Instagram and Snapchat. I don't really have any other, 

[00:10:30] Peter: what's your username on Instagram? I. 

Evie Kirshner, the letters E & V K I R S H N E R. 

Okay. Very cool. Well, okay. Thank you so much for taking the time. I appreciate it. 

[00:10:42] Evie: Thank you.

I'm gonna have you back, I'm gonna have you back next year and see how, uh, Emory's treating you. I have a lot of friends who went there.

Oh, really? Okay. Well that'd be awesome. I'm looking forward to it.

[00:10:50] Peter: Very cool. Guys, you've been listening to Peter Shankman and this is, that was Evie Kirshner talking about Faster Than Normal and talking about how she grew up A D H D and when she finally decided to say screw it, and live her life and sounds to me like she's doing just fine.

We'll be back next week with another episode. As always, wanna hear what you think, you can leave us, review anywhere, you can tell us what's going on. Wanna thank Steven Byrom, who's our editor and producer, who constantly shakes his head when in the middle of an episode I go, oh, by the way, Steven, do this. So we love you, Steven, [Your Producer/editor loves you too, is proud of the work this podcast is doing and hopes that these transcripts are helpful] and uh, we will see you guys next week with another episode of Faster Than Normal, and hopefully by then I'll have some info on when the book will be out. So stay tuned. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you soon!  

—

Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at shankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week! 

Nik's Social Media Channel ADHDVision is a global movement aimed at improving well-being, productivity and overall life quality for people with attention deficit disorder (ADHD). With over 150 Million views in just under 2 years Nik has rapidly created a community of over 1.8 million people who follow him and are inspired by his work to live their BEST life with their brain. He is currently running an international inner circle of ADHD business owners and is on a mission to make the knowledge around creating and thriving as a business owner with ADHD more accessible. Enjoy! 

In this episode Peter and Nik Hobrecker discuss:  

00:40 - Thank you so much for listening and for subscribing!

00:47 - Intro and welcome Nik Hobrecker!

01:47 - Tell us your story; when were you diagnosed?

02:41 - It all was kind of like an ‘explainer bomb’

03:30 - You live in an especially beautiful part of Thailand. How do you stay productive? Ref: Faster Than Normal book

05:00 - On rejection sensitivity and living in a ‘vacation destination’.

06:30 - What have you been learning from your new Mastermind group; how best to lead?

07:30 - Ref: Perfectionism, decision paralysis, imposter syndrome

08:14 - How many people do you have in your group?

08:45 - What are some of the things you’ve learned by running this group?

09:49 - What would you tell an entrepreneur who's just been diagnosed; next steps, etc?

14:40 - How can people find more about you? 

Socials: @ADHDVision:  YouTube  INSTA  TikTok  Twitter

This was great- thank you Nik!

11:37 - Drumroll please:  I have a new book coming out mid-February! The title is….

12:21 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits.

Guys, as always thanks so much for subscribing! Faster Than Normal is for YOU! We want to know what you’d like to hear! Do you have a cool friend with a great story? We’d love to learn about, and from them. I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via email at peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 

—

TRANSCRIPT via Descript and then corrected.. somewhat:

[00:00:39] Peter: Hello everyone. Good morning and welcome to another episode of Faster Than Normal. My name is Peter Shankman. I wanna say how many words I could say all in one breath. Good to have you guys. It is a pleasure to see you all again. Talk to you all again. It is wonderful to be back, pretty much back weekly. Now we have a bunch of episodes in the can, so things are good. Let's take a trip today.

Let's take a trip. All the way over to Asia, into Thailand, where we're gonna meet up with Nick Hobrecker. Nick has a really cool backstory and I'll let him tell you, but all what all you need to know is he runs a social media channel called A D H D Vision with over 150 million views. Atta aimed at improving wellbeing, productivity, overall life quality for people with A D H D. Sounds like someone you know. He's created a community of over 1.8 million people who follow him and are inspired by his work to live their best life with their brain. He's running an international circle of ADHD business owners again. Sounds like someone you know. Nick, welcome to the podcast. Good to have you, 

[00:01:35] Nik: Peter. Lovely to be here. Thank you for having me, my friend. 

[00:01:38] Peter: It's great to, great to have you. It's great to find someone on the other side of the world doing the same thing. Tell us your story. How are you diagnosed? How'd you figure it out? Um, how old are you? What's, what's the, what's everything? . 

[00:01:48] Nik: Yeah man. So first of all, I'm from Germany, so, um, the whole notion of ADHD, uh, is still arriving there as we speak. Um, I got diagnosed in college, so quite late. I was about 21. If my memory serves me correctly, probably won't, but about 21. And, um, I was studying entrepreneurship in college. It was my fourth, fifth semester and, you know, classical story, mind blown. My whole life has explained itself to me all in a flash. And that's when I started creating content. I was active on YouTube way before then, you know, I was making funny videos on some random games. You know, Roone Scape League of Legends was always a passion of mine. And then I found a way to channel that passion into something helpful for people, which, um, you know, has now gained me that, uh, the amount of followers and, and the views that, that you just mentioned. I'm very grateful for it. I'm really, really happy to be able to reach the people that I do. And, um, Yeah. It's just, you know, showing people what my journey has been and trying my best to, to educate, uh, them so they don't have to say, have the same mistakes and go through the same struggles that I did.

[00:02:51] Peter: Yeah, it is, it is a wake up call when you figure out exactly what's going on and how you can use that to your advantage, isn't it? 

[00:03:00] Nik: It is, it's, it's huge. Um, you know, I keep going back to the same thing, saying the same thing, but it always, for me it's just, it's like an explainer bomb, right? All of a sudden, you know Exactly, um, who you are, why you do the things you do, and why you've been different your whole life. And, um, yeah, wanted to give that, that knowledge and that awareness to more people, because for me, it was a game changer. Ever since then, my, my life completely turned. 

[00:03:27] Peter: Tell me about, uh, an average day for you. Cause right now you're in, you're in Poquette, Thailand, which is one of the most beautiful places in the world. It's, it's a favorite place of mine. I've been there many, many times and I don't necessarily know how productive I'd be living in a place like Phuket Thailand. So tell us what you're doing to, to sort of stay productive and how are, how are you surviving that? 

[00:03:46] Nik: Man, let me, let me tell you, it's . It's a constant struggle, but, uh, there are a few routines in place, um, you know, occasional fun routines that I use to, to, uh, to stay on top of everything. So I do also wanna mention Peter, I, you know, your book Faster Than Normal helped me, um, a lot when I got diagnosed and it was actually part of my inspiration to go out and use my brain for, um, for its benefits. And, uh, what you mentioned in your book, uh, has stayed true, you know, pretty much ever since I've read it, which is just exercising, right, um, exercising in the morning, not just doing something for the dopamine for that reward chemical at the end, but doing something because you enjoy it. I really enjoy running. , right. Um, so every morning I try to do my run. I, I try to do my, my ab exercises. Um, I've got a gym just around the corner. Accessibility is everything, right? If the gym is around the corner, the motivation hurdle is a lot less steep. So that helps me. And other than that, you know what? Thailand is beautiful and the nature just also gives you that energy, right? There's been different studies, I think, on A D H D and nature and how can I help you focus. We've got a beautiful garden, outback, um, and you know, sometimes it's just great to to, to tank up the creativity that, that I need for from my videos.

[00:04:59] Peter: That's awesome. So it's, I mean, it's a beautiful, there's no question it's a beautiful location. Um, how is it working there in an environment that, that doesn't necessarily lend itself to work, per se? I mean, tell us what you're doing. Like, you know, what do you do to get sort of like a dopamine hit in the middle of the day. Are you gonna go out and run on the beach or are you gonna go for a swim or, you know, tell me about that. 

[00:05:18] Nik: What I like to do is just do something different to what I usually do. So it's just novelty. Novelty for me, gives me that dopamine kick, gives me that creative spark that I need to create new and and meaningful content. So, uh, for me it's just all about exploring this, this beautiful place. You know, we've, we've done so many different trips. I'm here with two of my very good high school friends who are also, you know, we like to call ourselves digital nomads, right? So we travel the world don't really have one specific place that we stay. And we just like to explore this, this beautiful island. I mean, you yourself, I think you've been here, Peter, right? It's, it's beautiful. You have um, this amazing culture shock of just, by the way, people are amazingly nice here. Yeah. Which is very nice for rejection sensitivity, cuz you never get rejected. Everybody's so nice to you, you know? Yeah. Um, on the one hand, on the other hand, you've got these, these beautiful beaches, these um, these amazing, I mean, we went to this huge statue of like a big Buddha. Um, it was a bit of a steep climb, but we went up there and inside this Buddha, they were actually meditating. Meditation has been a huge remedy for me and my A D H D right? Mindfulness. Um, and even though it's a struggle, um, sitting there in a big Buddha meditating with monks, I never knew I had a bucket list until that. You know what I mean? So that was, that was crazy. 

[00:06:33] Peter: That's very cool. Tell me about, um, let's, let's flip gears a little bit to the business side of things. Tell me about what you're doing in terms of, so you run a mastermind or, or a, a group. Yeah. Um, all focused, adhd. Are people coming to you with, are you finding that people coming to you from an ADHD standpoint with all the same problems? Um, you know, the lack of focus, the ability is everything different? 

[00:06:52] Nik: I mean, look, this mastermind that I'm now creating, right? We are in the very early stages. You know, it's, um, there's a lot of things that we still need to get right, but um, it's an experiment and we're testing things out, um, to see what's gonna give everybody the most value in the long term. Um, and what I've found, and the reason for creating this mastermind for ADHD Entrepreneurs in the first place is, you know, A D H D is often put on a pedestal when it comes to entrepreneurship, which it should be. We are great entrepreneurs, right? Five times more likely to start a business, et cetera. But, um, you know, we really talk about the struggles that do come with owning a business and having a D H D, right? Perfectionism, uh, decision paralysis, imposter syndrome. , all these different things that, that mass up into this, uh, big, you know, ball of, well, what the hell do I do now? Right? And that's where the inception of the group came from to have a support system. Right? One family that supports one another that gets one another, right? I think as business owners, Peter, you're probably gonna relate to this, is just as ADHD business owners, we often don't feel like the other people get it. You. 95% of people usually don't. And having a circle of like-minded people who get each other, um, and who can network with each other all at the same time, um, so far has been proving incredibly valuable. 

[00:08:14] Peter: Awesome. Uh, how many people do you have in the group?

[00:08:16] Nik: Right now? We've got 13. I wanna keep it really small because this is, you know, we're starting out. It's, it's an experiment. I wanna get everybody's feedback. I wanna make this the most kick ass group. Um, there, there is. And, um, you know, to do that, uh, we gotta dig down in the trenches and I wanna, you know, I've got feedback calls lined up with everybody. Um, and it's more like that we're creating this group together rather than just me, you know, spearheading it.

[00:08:38] Peter: Yep. That's awesome. That's awesome. What, what have you learned, um, about yourself from running a group like that? Because, I mean, I know that when I ran, when I run mine, one of the things I learned consistently, consistently, consistently over and over again is that I'm, that any problem I think I can have, right? Any problem I think that I, I'm probably the only person in the world that has this, there's no one else with, is not everyone has the same issues. Um, we just don't talk about 'em a lot. Right. So when you get into a group and you start doing that, it changes everything. So what are some of the things that you've learned?

[00:09:04] Nik: I mean, yeah, it's just, it's just exactly what you said. So I'm, I'm very fortunate to be in the position of being, um, you know, a bystander to listen to these amazing, vulnerable stories that do get shared. Um, and, you know, these are all very successful business owners that we have in this group. And you know what a lot of them talk about is, you know, problems like not really being understood, right. Wanting to people please everybody, even though it's your business. And, you know, certain things like that where you just, you. And you're like, damn, that's been, that's exactly been my experience. I just haven't been able to verbalize it. And just hearing that from people feeling at home is, I mean, I don't think there's any, um, any higher value than, than that. 

[00:09:48] Peter: Yeah, no question about it. What would you tell an entrepreneur who's just gotten diagnosed and who has all these questions and, and, and really doesn't know what the next step is? 

[00:09:58] Nik: Well, um, it's a great question. I don't think I can answer that in like one or two sentences, but the first thing that I would wanna tell them is that you've got a unique set of strengths that work for you, and you should use those strengths, get better at those strengths, right? Build your strengths, but. Try to outsource your weaknesses rather than like, try your best and like force yourself like, oh, I really have to do these financial, uh, statements right now. Like, no, get a virtual assistant for that. Right? You know, like there are certain things that your brain is just not meant to be doing. If you are an entrepreneur, of course, if you don't have the money, you're gonna have to stick through it. But, you know, virtual assistants are quite affordable nowadays, especially online. I know. Oh, totally. Um, I'm sure Peter, I don't know if, if you have, uh, I mean, how many virtual assistants do you have? Do you have one , two?

[00:10:44] Peter: I've, I've been fortunate. I've had the same assistant going on 15 years now. And she was originally, she originally started with me and then she moved, uh, went and got married. Uh, so she lives in Massachusetts now, but still works for me. Wow. 

[00:10:54] Nik: Well, fif 15 years. That is, um, that is awesome. 

[00:10:56] Peter: She saved my life. She saves my life on a, on a regular basis. 

[00:10:59] Nik: Yeah. Yeah, I hear that. I hear that. I've got one now. You know, we've been together, been together. Sounds, sounds odd, but you know, it's been 3, 4, 5 months. Um, and, um, yeah, she's, she's also been a lifesaver. So, I mean, but to get back to your question, that's what I would say. Focus on your strengths, outsource your weaknesses. 

[00:11:14] Peter: Awesome. I love it. Guys, thank you so much for listening. I really, Nick, thank you so much for taking the time. How can people find you? 

[00:11:21] Nik: Um, just at ADHDVision on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, you'll find me. Um, I'll be very happy to, uh, share some content with you.

[00:11:31] Peter: I love it guys. Check Nik out. And as always, if you like what you hear, leave us a note. And I told you some good news last week. I'm gonna repeat it again this week. There is a children's book coming out and I can share the name with you now. It is called The Boy with the Faster Brain. And it is, you know, the first question I get every time I say that first question is, oh, is it autobiography? Well, yeah, kind of. But I think you're gonna like it. I think you're gonna enjoy reading it, and it should be coming out mid-February, so I will have a lot more info on that soon. It is gonna be for your kids, anywhere from ages 8 to. 14. It's gonna be a lot of fun, so stay tuned for that. As always, thank you for listening. Thanks to our guest. If you know a guest you think should be on as cool as Nik, shoot us a note, peter@shankman.com or at Peter Shankman, all the socials or @ FasterNormal . We will see you guys next week. As always, thank you for listening. Stay strong. Bye. We'll see you next week.
—

Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at shankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week! 

Abbie McCarthy is an award-winning TV / Radio presenter & DJ, you’ll find her hosting BBC Music Introducing in Kent on the airwaves every Saturday night and also bringing great new music & fun interviews to your TV screens on 4Music and E4 Extra with Fresh This Month. Abbie is known for bringing the party with her DJ sets and this year has played at a whole host of festivals, including Glastonbury, Latitude & Knebworth, as well as playing several arena shows. Abbie is also the host and curator of popular gig night Good Karma Club, which has put on early shows for the likes of Tom Grennan, Mae Muller, Easy Life & many more and has even featured some famous faces in the crowds over the years - Alex Turner, Lewis Capaldi & Wolf Alice. Abbie’s huge contribution to both the radio & music industry was celebrated when she was inducted into the Roll of Honour at Music Week’s Women In Music Awards 2018. Abbie has been highlighted by the Radio Academy as one of the brightest young stars in radio, recently featuring in their esteemed 30 under 30 list and winning Silver for Best Music Presenter at the ARIAs 2020. Aside from music, Abbie’s other passion is sport, which really shines through in her entertaining coverage on Matchday Live for Chelsea TV. You’ll also find Abbie guesting frequently on BBC Two’s football show, MOTDx and doing online coverage for England and the Lionesses football teams. How has she been so successful already, especially having just recently been diagnosed, and what advice does she impart to us? Enjoy! 

In this episode Peter and Abbie McCarthy discuss:  

00:40 - Thank you so much for listening and for subscribing!

00:47 - Intro and welcome Abbie ‘AbbieAbbieMac’ McCarthy!

03:00 - So you just got diagnosed a year ago, so tell us your backstory?

05:51 - What rituals have you put into play for yourself to be able to get through the boring stuff?

07:00 - Do you get a dopamine release after having completed a list, or boring stuff?

07:38 - Who happens when you have to quickly adjust course? How do you balance your dopamine producers at all hours of the day and night, as various types of work demands?

10:30 - How do you handle negative criticism, and keep performing at one hundred percent even on tough news days?

12:32 - What have you had to fight through with respect to your being a Millennial, and a Female in a often-times patronizing industry?

14:23 - Americans are learning more about Premier League Football thanks to Ted Lasso. Who’s your team?

14:40 - How can people find more about you? 

Web:  https://abbiemccarthy.co.uk

Socials: @AbbieAbbieMac everywhere:  Twitter  INSTA  TikTok  FB

This was great- thank you Abbie!!

Guys, as always thanks so much for subscribing! Faster Than Normal is for YOU! We want to know what you’d like to hear! Do you have a cool friend with a great story? We’d love to learn about, and from them. I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via email at peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 

16:00 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits.

—

TRANSCRIPT via Descript and then corrected.. somewhat:

[00:00:40] Peter: Yo, everyone! Welcome to Faster Than Normal, another episode. Thrilled to have you as always. We got someone fun today to talk about- Abbie McCarthy is joining us from the OK. She's an award-winning TV and radio presenter and DJ. Okay, you'll find her hosting BBC music, introducing intent on the airwaves every Saturday night, and also bringing great new music and fun interviews to your TV screen on 4 Music and Eve four extra with fresh this month. She brings the party with her DJ sets. She has played a whole host of festival. She's played Glastonbury, Latitude & Knebworth, as well as playing several arena shows and she's serious. Like, no joke. She doesn't, she doesn't fuck around. You're gonna, you're gonna like this one. She's the hosting curator of popular Gig Night. Good Karma Club. God, what else has she done? Uh, she was nominated, she was inducted into the role of honor at Music Week's, women in Music Awards 2018. She's been highlighted by the radio academy as one of the brightest young stars in radio, recently featured and their esteemed 30 under 30 lists and winning silvers for best music presenter at the Arias 2020 I. Being in PR week, magazines 30 under 30, and I'm now 50. So yeah, now I'm all pissed off. It's gonna be a shitty interview. All right. Anyway, Abby, welcome. I feel old. How are you?!

[00:02:03] Abbie: Oh, I'm good, thank you. How are you? Thank you so much for having me. 

[00:02:05] Peter: I'm thrilled to have you. So you came to us because you, you were reading Faster Than Normal, the book, and you identified with it, and you found yourself in it.

[00:02:13] Abbie: Absolutely. I really loved it. I just loved the whole concept of it. The fact that you kind of said our our brains are like Lamborghinis. They just work faster than everybody else. But if you do the right things, you can use it quite efficiently. I thought it was a really nice way to approach it. Cause I think there's some books that you read and it's about kind of, Dismissing that you have A D H D or kind of not embracing it. But I thought that the whole approach was great and yeah, I took so much from it. And because I've only recently been diagnosed, it was such a useful book to lose myself in. I actually managed to read it in a couple of days and obviously everyone listened to this that has a D H D knows that's not always, that's not always easy. So I think it, uh, became my hyper focus for a couple of days. I really enjoyed it. 

[00:02:56] Peter: Very true. We don't, we don't normally finish things like that. Um, now tell us, so, so you just got diagnosed a year ago, so tell us your backstory. Tell us about what it was like growing up before you were diagnosed. What was it like as a kid? Did you, what was school like for you? Things like that.

[00:03:10] Abbie: I think I'm one of those classic people where, I was, I was, I was okay at school. I got like fairly good grades and I was always being told off for talking too much, which obviously makes a lot of sense now and I think that would happen more and more in the classes of things that I wasn't particularly interested in. Uh, you know, you mentioned at the start, I do lots of different things within music and, and some within sport as well. So I'm, I'm a creative person, so some of the more academic subjects I didn't particularly like, but I. Was Okay and, and got good grades, um, which maybe was why it wasn't picked up, I guess, when I was a teenager. Uh, but I, it's, I have this thing where I guess I. I just always felt like I was different, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why. And you know, even as I've got older and I've got to do some great things in my professional life, like being on the radio to me is my dream job. I still can't believe I get to do that. I get to go on the airwaves, pick amazing music, and connect with people and share it with them, but that's awesome. You know, it's, it's. It's, you know, you might look at me and be like, oh, she's getting to do her dream job. But then it's like, it's more like all the things I struggle with at home, I guess. It's like, you know, keeping on top of errands and, and things like that and organizing other aspects of, of my life. And I think that's the thing with A D H D, isn't it? Someone on the surface might look a certain way, but you never know what's. Going on in, in somebody's head. Do you, you know, my brain is racing constantly. Yeah. Um, but you know, I've, I've managed to, to hold down a job and I guess I'm lucky because it's , it's, it is in things that I'm interested in, so that makes it easier too. 

[00:04:50] Peter: Well, that's, I mean, that's really the key. You know, we, we all have to realize, you know, there are people who, who don't have faster than normal brains who can just sort of wake up, go to their job every day, do it for 40 years, retire, get their little gold watch, you know, and, and whether they love the job or not, is irrelevant to them. I. It's a means to an end. It's a way to make money. If we don't love what we're doing, we're not doing it well. 

[00:05:10] Abbie: Yeah. Or you just don't wanna do it full stop. Exactly. So I feel so blessed to be doing something that I absolutely love and I. I'm so excited to go into work every day and the, you know, what I do is really varied as well, which I think works with our brains too. Like, I'm not gonna get bored. Each week can be very, very different. Sometimes I'm in the studio doing a radio show, then it's something like festival season where I'm kind of here, there and everywhere DJing. It might be going to interview somebody, you know, on the other side of the country. It might be going to a gig somewhere else. So it, it's, yeah, it's, it keeps it interesting. It's, it keeps it lively. 

[00:05:43] Peter: Tell me about, um, so let's talk about the stuff you're not that great at. Let's talk about like, you know, what is it like to, you know, running the errands, things like that. What kind of, um, sort of rituals have you put into play for yourself to be able to get through the, the, the, the boring stuff?

[00:05:57] Abbie: I actually got this piece of advice from somebody on social media when I first posted that I'd got a diagnosis and they were saying the things that you don't enjoy, things like housework and errands and food shopping. It's almost like, think of it in a different way, sort of set yourself, um, a bit of a competition or like, so you're trying to do it in the quickest amount of time or, you know, you set yourself a reward once you've finished it, things like that. So then actually that those, those activities aren't just draining. You are in some way getting a little bit of dopamine and I think it's just like picking the right time in the day to do some of this stuff as well. I think now I try and get up, exercise is a big one for me and I know it's for, for you as well from, from reading your book, getting up, going to the gym, even if I don't feel like it, which I don't a lot of the time, I always feel so much better afterwards than kind of getting all of those errands and boring things out of the way and then I can just enjoy the rest of my day and I kind of don't feel the guilt that I haven't done all the, all the adult things I guess that I think I should have. 

[00:07:02] Peter: Well, it's interesting because that there is a, there are some studies that say that getting the boring stuff and stuff that you don't love getting it done is actually a dopamine release. Um, once they're all, not from doing them per se, but from that feeling you get of, oh, I don't have to do them anymore because I did them. 

[00:07:17] Abbie: Yeah, that's true. Yeah. You actually completed something that you set out to do, so that's gonna give you a buzz, isn't it? 

[00:07:22] Peter: Talk about, uh, some times where it's not that easy. Have things happened, whether you are in, uh, you know, whether you're at work or whatever? How do you deal with the things that, you know, you're, you're going a million miles an hour, right? When you're, when you're DJing or when you're working whatever, you're going a million miles an hour. What happens when you have to adjust course, uh, suddenly when you suddenly, you know, find yourself going off track or something like that. How do you keep yourself going, especially in a high energy job like that, because there's really only so much dopamine mean you can give. Uh, to get through over the course of a day, right. At some point, you know, I know that, that if I time it right, I give a keynote, I get done with the keynote, I get into the airport, get back onto the plane, and that's when I pass out. Right. So, how are you sometimes you're doing, I, I, especially as a DJ you're doing late, late nights, right? You know, into, into the wee hours in the morning. How are you holding that up? How are you keeping yourself aligned? 

[00:08:14] Abbie: I think when I am DJing or I'm, yeah, playing a big event, I get so in the zone. I get so pumped for it. So I kind of have enough energy to, to get through it. I think the thing that I struggle with the most is when I've had, you know, a really great run of work, so something like festival season or because I work in football, you know, the, the Premier League season that we have over here. I've just been getting to work on loads of games with that. When that stops and there's just naturally a tiny little lull in work, and I say a lull, it's like four days or something, and. Get really down cuz I'm like, I dunno what to do with all of this energy that I've got. I almost dunno how to, to harness it. And then I have a real low and I'm kind of waiting for the buzz and the high again of, of doing all the things that I love. And I think that's been a learning experience for me is when I have these days off. Which I really crave when I'm in the thick of it. You know, when you are like working back to back and you're traveling everywhere, you can't wait for a day where you are. You can just not think about work and relax. But when it gets to those days, I find it really hard to actually lean into them. So that's something I need to work on to be honest. Um, but the other thing that I think is a bit of a struggle in the job that I do, and maybe you'll relate to this or other people will relate to this. Do more of a kind of public facing job is, you know, the sensitivity we can have to rejection and criticism. It's very much part of my job, you know, it'll be like, I'll be presenting something or I'll send off a show reel sometimes I'm super lucky and I get the job. Sometimes I don't. That's just part of the business, but I might then be really upset about that for a little while, and I think sometimes. The emotional deregulation thing. I can f I can feel a little bit. So that can be hard. I guess if you are, you're in the fields and you're not feeling so great and then you've gotta, you know, go on air and give people a good show, give people a good time. But sometimes I imagine that's a savior because you kind of have to put on this. I thought, great, let's have a good time. And you're doing it for other people. You're doing it for that feeling. It'll give somebody else. And the connection that you have with you and your listeners is really special. So you kind of wanna keep that. So sometimes in a way it can get you out of your funk, which I think is good. 

[00:10:30] Peter: That's actually a really interesting point because I imagine that, you know, especially as a creative right, you do these amazing DJ sets, you, you're, you know, on the radio, whatever, and then yeah. You know, millions of people might love it, but there's one person who posted comments somewhere that's negative and that's all we think about, right? The same thing happens to me in keynotes. Mm-hmm. , but it's a real, you, you, you gave us a really interesting point, the concept of going on stage and having to put on that smile regardless of whether you're feeling it or not. You know, you don't have a choice, right? Mm-hmm. . So I would think that, yeah, in a lot of ways that's probably very, very helpful because you know that which you believe you eventually achieve, so, right? So, so you, you put that happy face on, you give that speech or you, you do that set at the end of it, you're gonna have that dopamine regardless. So it's a nice sort of, a nice sort of, uh, I guess, cheat sheet to get out of it. 

[00:11:20] Abbie: Yeah, it actually is. Yeah, cuz it kind of gets you into that mental space, even if you really weren't feeling it beforehand. It might be, you know, you've got some really bad news an hour before I'm gonna go on the radio, but then as soon as I'm on the radio, I'm there to. I'm there to give it everything and to hopefully, um, bring people great music but also, you know, some good stories and, and keep them company as well. So it can be very useful cuz it can definitely switch you into a more positive place. And like you say, access that dopamine that we are always searching for.

[00:11:51] Peter: Tell us about, um, how, first of all, how old are you, if you don't mind telling us. 

[00:11:54] Abbie: I'm, uh, I'm 32, so I got diagnosed when I was say 31. 

[00:11:58] Peter: You're 32 and you're female, and you're in an industry that's predominantly male focused and male driven. Right? So you are coming in as sort of a, I guess, uh, what are you, A millennial, I guess. Are you a millennial or Gen Y? What are you? 

[00:12:10] Abbie: Yeah, I'll be, I'm a millennial. I wish I was a Gen Z yeah. 

[00:12:12] Peter: You're in the cusp of a millennial, right? You're coming as cusp millennial. Tell us about some of the fights you've dealt with and some of the battles you've fought coming in as a millennial, a neurotypical, a neuro atypical millennial, um, who's a female in this male dominated industry. Right. You've, I'm, I'm sure you've, you've had to step up several times, both in, in football as well as DJ ing, 

[00:12:32] Abbie: Yeah, I feel like I feel it the most as a DJ actually to be honest, where you'll turn up to DJ at a festival and a club and predominantly a lot of people working in that industry, it is changing, which is great to see. But a lot of people working in that industry, uh, are male. And sometimes you can get a few patronizing kind of sound engineers who are like, oh, do you know how to use the equipment? Do you need any help with that? And you're like, yeah, that's why I'm here. I'm here to, I'm here to dj. I'm here to do the thing that you booked me for. Or the, or, you know, the, the place book before. So I feel like you can experience a bit of that and I think a lot of stuff like where, you know, you are doing as good a job as your male counterparts, but you're probably not getting paid the same. But I think so much is changing. There's a real positive shift in like entertainment, in music, in sport. To, to even things out. But I do, um, some stuff for, uh, for B B C sport and uh, a sport. Chelsea, sorry if you don't, or sorry if people listening don't. So I do some of their matchday live programming as well, and I, I sometimes feel most vulnerable being like a woman in sport. Cause I think often people are just looking to just dismiss what you say because that industry is still so, so male dominated. That one's probably got the most catching up to do. Um, so dealing with that sometimes, but then it's, I think sometimes you just have to, although we find it hard, it's like shut out the outside noise and, and thoughts and just have real confidence and belief in what you are doing and what you are saying. That's the only thing you can do. 

[00:14:10] Peter: Shut out the outside thoughts. I love that. So I've actually been a, I've been a Premier League fan for, for years, and I can tell you over the past few years here in America, I'd say millions more people have suddenly learned about non-American football thanks to Ted Lasso. So I think that, um, people are definitely learning a bit more , um, about it. What is your, who's your, who's your team? 

[00:14:31] Abbie: Uh, Chelsea. Chelsea Football Club. Yeah, I've been a fan since I was like six or seven. So the good times and the bad times, and the Inbetweens . 

[00:14:40] Peter: Very cool. I love this, Abbie! This has been so much fun. How can people find you? 

[00:14:44] Abbie: Uh, people can find me on socials, uh, a Abbie Abbie Mac. That's my handle on everything. So A B B I E. Um, yeah, come and say hello! You know what? Us people with A D H D are like we, we love to connect. So yeah, please do, uh, get involved. Gimme a follow and uh, shout me in the dms and thank you so much again, Peter. It's been so fun. 

[00:15:04] Peter: Oh, I'm so glad to have you! Guys listen to her stuff. She really is amazing, Abbie it's pretty incredible. Abbie McCarthy, thank you so much for taking the time. 

Guys. By the time this comes out, you will probably. Have already heard the news that, uh, Faster Than Normal is being turned into a kid's book. It is. I can give you a title now. It's called The Boy With the Faster Brain, and it is my first attempt at writing a children's book and I am so excited. So I will have links, uh, on where to purchase and how to purchase and how to get fun stuff like that and how to have me come in and, and talk to your schools and your kids and, and whatever soon enough. So stick to that. As always, if you know anyone that we should be interviewing, shoot us a note. Just people as cool as Abbie and all and above only. Those are the only ones we want. No, I'm kidding. Anyone, anyone you think has a great story, we would love to highlight them on the podcast. My name is Peter Shankman. I'm at Peter Shankman on all the socials. We're at Faster normal as well, and we will see you next week. Thank you for listening and keep remembering you are gifted, not broken. We'll see you soon!
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Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at shankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week! 

Nathan Minns is the founder of Green Light Improv, a professional training company that cultivates resilience, enhances creativity, and improves communication, all while inspiring connection through improv comedy. Beginning as an actor in 2015, Nathan soon realized that his acting training was positively affecting other work skills, from creativity and confidence, to communication and decision-making. Ultimately, the change he saw in himself led him to create Green Light Improv in 2019. Green Light Improv inspires connection through improv comedy. The company doesn't teach improv comedy, but instead uses improv comedy as a tool to teach other work and life skills. In 2022, Nathan quit his job and is now working full-time to spread applied improv training. An Ohio State University graduate, Nathan has previously spent most of his career in the startup ecosystem as an employee and a 3x founder. How does this all work with his ADHD? Can Improv Comedy work via your ADHD too? Enjoy! 

In this episode Peter and Nathan Minns discuss:  

00:40 - Thank you so much for listening and for subscribing!

01:01 - Intro and welcome Nathan Minns!

02:50 - So Improv is a cult right? What got you into it? What got you excited?

05:51 - Can improv positively affect your mental health? Focusing on 2 things tandem?

07:10 - What is the reason people with neurodiverse brains are drawn to the improv community?

07:50 - How do you feel on stage? Why do you continue to practice improv?

08:30 - What kinds of folks are you working with; what all is your  Green Light Improv company doing?

09:45 - Can you share an example you’ve experienced in where a new client ‘gets it’ for the first time, as you did?

12:40 - Is it about the 8 people you’re in a room with, or the eventual audience?

13:48 - Neurodiverse brains. Conversation engineering and management. Improv is a team sport.

14:48 - How can people find more about you? 

Web:  https://greenlightimprov.com  Personal: https://nathanminns.com

Socials:  @ linkedin.com/in/minns on LinkedIN and via YouTube

15:06 - We should talk about improv as a tool and subject again- than you Nathan!! 

Guys, as always thanks so much for subscribing! Faster Than Normal is for YOU! We want to know what you’d like to hear! Do you have a cool friend with a great story? We’d love to learn about, and from them. I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via email at peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 

15:49 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits.

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TRANSCRIPT via Descript and then corrected.. somewhat:

[00:00:40] Peter: Hey everyone. Peter Shankman is with you today. Welcome to another episode of Faster Than Normal, the podcast where we talk about ADD, ADHD, Autism, Executive Function Disorder, anything and everything having to do with the neurodiverse brain, we here look at all of those things as gifts, not as curses, and we're thrilled that you're here. I am joined today by someone who I've been talking about improv both in my books and on the podcast and in my courses and things like that. As something that you kind of have to do. And why do I say that? Because improv allows you to focus on improving yourself from the inside out. An ex-girlfriend who used to do improv all the time, and I never really got it. And one day she invited me. She said, just come take class. And look, I was a drama major growing up. I went high school, the whole thing. I took this class and the simple act of having to think inside your own head in real time, massively, massively opened up my brain. and I was a fan, have been a fan ever since. So we're talking to Nathan Minns, who's the founder of https://greenlightimprov.com , a professional training company that cultivates resilience, enhances creativity, and improves communication, all while inspiring connection through improv comedy. He began as an actor in 2015, and he soon realized his Actor training was positively affecting other work skills from creativity and confidence to communications, decision making, things like that. So that's where he created Green Light Improv in 2019. It inspires connection through improv comedy. The company doesn't teach Improv. , but rather uses improv as a tool to other work and life skills. That actually, uh, resonates with me because I think that when I, when I talk to companies, when I go and speak to companies, I like to do a little improv just to get them to sort of break down those barriers that are inherent in business and inherent, I think in our brain. You know, a lot of companies, Nathan, um, more than ever before are focusing on, uh, employee mental health and employee mental wellbeing. And I think that, that you might just be at the right place at the right time type thing. That, so welcome to the podcast. First. 

[00:02:44] Nathan: Thank you for having me. I loved your podcast for a long time, so I'm happy to be here.

[00:02:49] Peter: So improv. So, you know, look, I, before I started going and started becoming a fan of it, I always assumed improv was kind of a cult. Um, you had to go, you had to bring 10 friends, you had to buy two drinks, you know, the usual, right? Yeah. And I was quickly disabused of that theory, uh, my first time there. So what got you into it? What got you excited? . 

[00:03:08] Nathan: Well, I started performing in 2015 and I saw my first improv show in 2016, and when I saw the show; they were just, their brains were working so fast. I knew that it was something that I wanted to do too. So I went out and auditioned for these two groups that I saw perform, and I felt like I was doing incredibly well. I was making everyone in the room laugh and I was having a blast. And the only small hiccup that came was that it seemed like I was the only person that thought I was doing well. Because, yeah, I didn't get in, so I did not get into either group and I said, okay, I know this is something I wanna do. I've seen improv, I've done theater. So I took a step back. I started taking some classes and trying to put in the work to be able to get up to that level. Then I went back later, I auditioned again, and I did so much better. And in the end, the exact same thing happened. Really? In total? Yeah. In total. I auditioned across the two groups seven times before I got into an improv group. 

[00:04:17] Peter: Wow. But you got into it. 

[00:04:19] Nathan: I did . I did get into one. Um, but I, I realized there that many people, like what you were describing, see improv as this thing that they would never be able to do. And it's a learnable skill. It's something that you can figure out how to do. There's training to be able to learn it. And I was very naturally bad at it, but I like to think I'm a little bit better these days than when I first started. 

[00:04:47] Peter: I love that. Naturally bad at some. Well, being naturally bad at something is the first step to kind of eventually being good at something, right? Yeah, exactly. Tell me about, um, you, you mentioned the, the brain working faster. Everyone's brain working faster in improv. You know, the thing about A D H D is that we're constantly, our brains are constantly working faster and, and while we're thinking one thing, we're making a joke about something else and we're thinking about something else, and you know, like four different things at the same time. And I found that the only place where that doesn't, two places where that doesn't really work well. One is in a relationship, um, when you're not entirely focused on the person. And yeah. The second one I've just discovered recently is in boxing because I'll be thinking, I'll, I'll, I'll be focusing on my punches, I'll be throwing, I'll doing it, and then something clicks in my brain and half a second later I'm four tangents away, uh, you know, wondering whether or not, um, beavers fall in love. And yeah. Next, next thing I know, I've just gotten rocked with a, with a hard right to the head, so that is, uh, something I'm focusing on, but, but talk about from an ADHD perspective or from mental health perspective. Talk about how improv can positively affect that.

[00:06:00] Nathan: Yeah. I, I find that improv is one of the only places that I have gone into that community where the traits of A D H D are often rewarded. So when I'm on stage, I feel very comfortable. I feel everyone's watching me. Of course, I'm performing. But there's something about that heightened feeling that makes me very focused. And also in improv, we have to be fully present in the moment. And I think the stress, almost stress of being on stage helps that helps us to stay focused. And while we're being fully present on stage, we have to be able to come up with a lot of creative ideas very quickly. And discern which ones are good, which ones aren't worth pursuing. And I find that my ADHD is very helpful in allowing me to come up with a lot of different ideas and see what works. So I feel like it is a incredible community where it is the highest percentage of people with ADHD that I have ever been a part of any group. 

[00:07:10] Peter: Interesting. Why do you think and and do you think the reason people with neurodiverse brains are drawn to it is because of the speed, is because of the quickness, is because it's, you know, it's, it's like that perfect place for a brain, for brains like ours. 

[00:07:22] Nathan: Yeah, I think that it's, it's rewarded. Some of those quick thinking skills are rewarded where it may not be rewarded in the corporate sphere, where we often do more monotonous kind of tasks in 80, in, in improv. we're doing a lot of different things and we have to come up with a lot of different ideas. So I definitely think that, um, that's a, that's a solid reason why we're drawn to improv. 

[00:07:51] Peter: Interesting. Tell me about how you're feeling when you're on stage. I mean, are you getting. . You know, when I get off the stage after a keynote, I'm, I'm just a wash with dopamine. Right. Do you have that same sort of feeling? Is that, is that one of the reasons you, you keep doing it? 

[00:08:03] Nathan: Yeah. It, it's an incredible high being on stage. I now feel more comfortable on stage when I don't know what I'm about to say next . And in improv than when I'm in a play, or I'm doing a keynote, something like that. I feel very comfortable. Um, when I just, I don't have a script and I can just float along with it. I find I'm incredibly focused. Yeah.

[00:08:29] Peter: That's very cool. Um, Where do you, uh, see it taking you? I mean, you're, you're working, what kind of companies and, and groups of people are you working with now in, in the company? And tell us about what the company's doing. 

[00:08:42] Nathan: Yeah, so I'm 24 right now and I started the company in 2019 in my senior year of college at Ohio State. And I found, at the very beginning that I found that working with colleges and universities, uh, worked very well. That has stayed something that's pretty consistent working with a lot of colleges, uh, university programs. Now we're expanding into more of the corporate sphere, small business sphere, non-university, university sphere. Um, I see it growing into a place where we can have, uh, a variety of facilitators doing this work at, at the same time, we can have the basis of the curriculum too, but I think that improv can be used for so many different things that we can start to have different branches from, uh, a law school, a social worker school and, and any other, any other groups that we think can really benefit from this kind of training. 

[00:09:44] Peter: Very, very cool. Talk about one of your, uh, talk about someone who came in with sort of that same attitude I did the first time. Oh, this is, this is bs, whatever. And talk about that moment when they sort of got it and you saw, you saw the change.

[00:09:59] Nathan: So I saw, I went into one group. There were 40 people, and I started my initial talk. It's about, usually the workshops are about 10 minutes of me talking at the beginning. And then the entire rest of the workshop is exercise debrief. And in the exercise we're doing paired exercises for about half the time and groups of four to six for the rest of the time. So I start this 10 minute talk of just what is improv? How are we going to use it today? Why are we doing this? And about 30 seconds into this talk, someone raises their hands, think, okay, this, this isn't typically a time when people raise their hands, . Um, I said, Oh, ok- , what would you like to say? And there was this woman, she was probably around 60 or 70, and she said, Nathan, I just wanna let you know that we are all introverts and we're gonna hate this. Ha ha. And I was like, I appreciate your honesty,., thank you for telling me that. It's nice to see where, where our starting point is. And in that workshop I knew; okay, this might be a tougher audience than my typical workshop, but as we started getting going, I told her, let's just give it 10 minutes. Just give it a little bit of time and we'll see what happens. Within 30 minutes maybe, she was volunteering in front of the entire group, which isn't a thing we force anyone. , but we just, I asked would anyone like to share or represent the group? And she started, started doing it because I, I think they realized that this isn't an activity that's only for extroverts or, um, only for people who like to speak up all the time. Um, this is an, an activity that we, anyone can do, we can use it for, for any group. Yeah. And they can do something and have fun and get something out of it. 

[00:12:07] Peter: You know what always interests me, the the introvert concept is interesting because a lot of people with neurodiverse brains are what you might call the most introverted extrovert you'll ever meet. In the respect that, you know, I love being on stage, I love speaking. I love doing that because it's me to many. Yeah. Right. But if it's me to a few, like at dinner party or whatever, I hate everything about that. Hmm. Right. You know, I, I, I, I love being on stage talking to thousands of people, or I love one-on-one, you know, having dinner with a friend or whatever. But the concept of, of, uh, you know, sitting with her in a room with eight people where we all have to make small talk. , you know, I'll be in the second bedroom playing with the cat. And so I think that one of the keys about improv is that it is a small group of people talking to each other, but in essence talking to an audience.

[00:12:52] Nathan: Yeah. And in improv it is very much a conversation with the audience, not in the way that we actually expect the audience to talk to us through the performance. But when we're, because in improv, just so we're all on the same page, it is often when five to six actors get on stage, they ask for a single word, and they use that word to inspire a variety of scenes that have never been done before. Never been written before, and will likely never be done again. So something that that we find is that we have to create all of those scenes live and we can use what the audience is giving us all, whenever they laugh, we can say, okay, that is a, a button that we just pressed. Right. That something was funny there. Let's dig into that. 

[00:13:42] Peter: That's really smart because you're, you're listening to the audience and you're, you're, you're letting them give you the cues not even realizing they're doing it. 

[00:13:48] Nathan: Exactly. Yeah. It, we're not performing in a vacuum. We're not writing in a vacuum, so it's a nice way to, to have a conversation on that kind of scale.

[00:13:57] Peter: It's interesting cause that's what people who understand their neurodiverse brands tend to do is they, they tend to, uh, engineer the conversation in the respect that I can go in and start talking about something with someone knowing full well that I'm leading them, uh, down a path that I want to go to get to somewhere I wanna talk about, but making it seem like it's their idea.

[00:14:16] Nathan: Yeah. And, and in improv, you know, we, we all have, I have a ton of ideas when I'm on stage, my scene partner has a ton of ideas and that's where the connection happens. Because in improv we're not doing just what I'm thinking. We're not doing just what they're thinking. The ideas very much meld together, and that's much of the basis of how we use it for connecting and trust building. Because improv is a team sport. It's not like standup where it's just you on stage. You win and lose as a team. 

[00:14:53] Peter: Totally. How can people find out more about, about you and about, uh, Green Light Improv? 

[00:14:58] Nathan: You can go to https://greenlightimprov.com

[00:15:02] Peter: I love it. I love it. Nathan, thank you so much for taking the time today to be on Faster Than Normal. Really appreciate it. Improv, I think, is the subject that we, we should touch on again. Um, I think, I think it, it, it is an underrated tool for those with Neurodiverse brains; so I really appreciate you being here, man. We'll have you back. For sure. 

[00:15:17] Nathan: Thank you for having me!

[00:15:18] Peter: Guys, as always, we wanna hear what you think! Shoot me an email, peter @shankman.com. Let me know about a guest that you think might be great on the show. Uh, we'd love to know. You could follow us on all the socials and I'm gonna give you all a little, uh, piece of secret news that haven't really announced yet. Children's book .Coming in February. I'll leave it at that. Thanks for listening. We'll see you guys next week here on Faster Than Normal. 

Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at shankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week! 

Welcome back and thanks so much for staying with us here in 2023! So today we’re catching up with our former guest, Sharon Pope. [her first interview focusing on Shelpful and Instant Human Accountability can be heard HERE].  Sharon is the co-founder and CEO of Shelpful, the instant accountability service that pairs you with a real-human buddy to help you build good habits (they nudge you and hold you to big habits like getting exercise, or small tasks like taking out the trash on time). Prior to starting shelpful, Sharon was a startup executive for 15 years, running marketing and product. She advised startups at the famous startup accelerator, Y Combinator, and was Chief Marketing Officer at ZeroDown, Green Dot (NYSE: GDOT), GoBank and Loopt. Prior to that she managed PR and content for a range of tech companies at leading San Francisco-based PR agencies. Today we welcome back to talk about how her super helpful company Shelpful has changed, if she’s still using exercise as medicine, and what new important things she has learned since our visit last year. Happy New Year! Enjoy!

In this episode Peter and Sharon Pope discuss:  

00:40 - Thank you so much for listening and for subscribing!

00:50 - Intro and welcome back Sharon Pope!

01:48 - Since our last visit HERE, she has been up to a lot! Let’s talk about rituals- 

02:17 - On dealing with your tasks, habits, routines 

02:45 - About your brain and habit formation

03:41 - A note on keeping perspective and overwhelm

04:05 - On becoming a certified habit coach

05:43 - What can we do right away to begin feeling a sense of accomplishment of achieving a goal?

08:18 - What is it with people start/stopping on very specific dates? Does that even work?

09:15 - On bursts of motivation and will power

10:52 - What have you learned that might surprise people in regards to accountability and habits?

11:00 - ADHD getting small things done, asking for help when you need to, and not feeling bad

13:28 - How can people find more about you? 

Web:  www.SHELPFUL.com  

Socials:  @shelpful on Twitter  INSTA  Facebook & TikTok

13:39 - A little more on how Shelpful works.  Ref: Oak Journal and method 

14:38 - Thank you Sharon!

Guys, as always thanks so much for subscribing! Faster Than Normal is for YOU! We want to know what you’d like to hear! Do you have a cool friend with a great story? We’d love to learn about, and from them. I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via email at peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 

15:00 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits.

—

TRANSCRIPT via Descript and then corrected.. somewhat:

[00:00:40] Peter: Hey everyone. Welcome back to Faster Than Normal. My name is Peter Shankman. I am thrilled that you're here for another episode. We are talking again to a recurring visitor, Sharon Pope. Who was on about two or so years ago runs a company called Shelpful, and I love the concept. It's the instant accountability service that pairs you with a real human buddy to help you build good habits, like big habits like getting exercise or small habits like taking out the trash on time. I could use one to remember to walk my dog, but actually we can do that too. the dog. The dog reminds me to do that. I could, I could use my other thing, but, um, awesome. You are, I mean, Sharon, Sharon has tons and tons of, of awesome background. We've had her on before. Um, she ran marketing products. She was a, she, she advised startups at Y Combinator. She worked at zero down Green dot GoBank Loops. She managed PR back in the.com boom for a bunch of tech companies. So she's, she's been around the block quite a few times. So Sharon, welcome. At the beginning of the year here, 2023. Tell us what's been going on in the world of she and, and, and what, what new and interesting things you're doing and how, more importantly, how can our listeners take away some advice on building good habits, good rituals, forget about resolutions, let's talk about rituals. 

[00:02:00] Sharon: Yeah. Resolutions, I feel like is the hot topic right now, but it's really about those big goals that I think people try to set. Right. Um, and we at Shelpful a lot of that, right? So Shelpful obviously the place where people can go to get support on whatever they're trying to get done. So tasks or habits, routines. Um, and so we often have people come in and say, I want to do X, Y, z. You know, like a giant list of things and a whole overhaul. And our, our response is always, you know, let's start smaller. Um, and not just because. That helps in a text message conversation or in a workshop setting, which is often how we're helping people. But it's because the research proves it out, right? So you know, the actual habit formation that happens in your brain happens when you feel successful. And if you have these giant goals that you set that are almost unachievable, then after a few days you, your brain, literally, Push against the habit because it's not feeling successful and doing it. So we like to have people really lower the bar, not because they're lazy, but because in lowering the bar, you're actually setting yourself up to feel successful, number one and number two to do the habit the next time. So whatever it is that you're trying to do, whether it's. You know, get movement in every morning. Wake up when your alarm goes off, do gratitude, take your dog for a longer walk, . Um, all these things are, are habits, and if you can work on wiring them in, you know, it, it can help, it can help you feel more successful the whole year instead of just, I don't know, the first month of the year, for instance. 

[00:03:41] Peter: So, so basically what we're looking at here really is the concept of eating the elephant one bite at a time.

[00:03:47] Sharon: Oh yeah. I think that's a great analogy. I think, and it's, it's, I think people often get, stir that analogy up when you're talking about tackling a big thing. because it's, it's what seems logical to get it done piece by piece. But what's been really enlightening for me as I I, so I became an actual certified habit coach in this path after starting Shelpful to solve my own problem, which was feeling completely overwhelmed with everyday stuff, right? The little things would just follow from my list, like getting movement and getting fresh air. Yeah, like you mentioned, taking my dog for a very long walk instead of just like having go to the bathroom. All these things that were important to my self-care were just falling off the list. So completely geeked out on habits became a sort of a habit coach through Dr. BJ Fogg who wrote the book Tiny Habits, um, and is kind of one of the preeminent. Behavioral scientists in the field, his research backs this up, that if you shrink something down to tiny, tiny, tiny, not only are you making it harder to not do, but you, it's that feeling of success from that small, small action is what wires the habit into your brain. So that's something we spend a lot of time. We have kind of a workshop now that we try to teach people those skills of feeling successful for the smallest thing. Cause it actually is a skill. You kind of have to learn that and, and especially for an ADHD'er who's very comfortable and a shame spiral situation. Yeah. I think that it, it's, it's hard to accept that the smallest version is okay, but that it's not only the reality and something that would be helpful for self-compassion, but the research backs it up! 

[00:05:26] Peter: Yeah, no question about it. So tell us about, tell us a little more about that, because the, the premise of, you know, oh, it's the new year, we lose 30 pounds in January. No, you're freaking not. Right, right. You know, we, we, let's, let's be honest. No, you're not. Um, so you have to sort of start at the beginning. Um, what can people do just off the top of their heads, you know, what can we do right, right away, um, to sort of give us a little confidence that we can achieve these goals.

[00:05:50] Sharon: Sure, and let's, let's play out your example, right? So if the big goal is to lose 30 pounds or, um, improve your health, then I think the first step would be, first of all, trying to think of an ongoing habit you can work on that you actually want to do. So if you love. Paddle boarding, then maybe pick a habit, like an exercise that you wanna do regularly that helps improve your balance, that would help you with that habit or that that activity that you really, really love, um, or that you're cooking more. If you love to cook, then maybe we're working on a habit that involves meal planning or um, meal prep on Sundays. Things that you genuinely want to do because like we, we talked about, we're working on kind of hacking the brain and so we have to like the thing. That's why bad habits are formed too, because cookies are delicious and and I love them, then I can form that habit. So picking something you really want to do, I think is key. And it might sound obvious, but you know, starting with box jumping, if that's not your thing, is probably not the way to go. Right. Um, And then the second step is making it super, super small. So, um, instead of, I'm gonna work out for 20 minutes every morning, there's, we can make it tiny. Like, after I walk outta the bathroom, I'm gonna put on one walking shoe. Or after I put my toothbrush back in the cup, I'm gonna turn on my Peloton. Right. Literally just, and that's it. And that's, and, and then we actually say the hack is to celebrate that small thing. Because on the craziest busy day, maybe sometimes you'll try on the Peloton. and literally have to just walk away from it. But you can still say you did your habit. Yep. Um, and so that's, I mean, those are the key things is, is making it smaller and attaching it to something you already do. So I mentioned like putting your toothbrush away. This is something that, um, is an existing habit so we can kind of hack the brain a little bit to, to stack those habits together. Right? So just like when I walk through the door as an adult, my hand goes behind me to pull it shut. That's what we're kind of trying to create is this habit, muscle memory. By making it small, by making it part of your existing routine. Right. That can help you form that. And th this is the type of thing that I would define as success, Peter, that if you told me that you turn your Peloton on every day after you put your toothbrush away, I would say that's something to celebrate. I would have no follow up question that I, I assume that some days you would've gotten the workout in too.

[00:08:08] Peter: Right. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. You know, it's interesting I think that, that people tie and I, I'd be curious your, your opinion on this. People tend to tie. Whether it's resolutions or rituals, to specific dates like, oh, dry January, or mm-hmm. , or, um, you know what, whatever, whatever those are, uh, the month before Memorial Day to get in shape. But why does it have to be tied to something? Why can't you arbitrate? I mean, when I quit smoking back in 2015 mm-hmm. , I mean, I quit years and years before that, but every once in a while I'd bum one, but the last time I had an actual, honestly got cigarette was March, fif March 17th, 2015. I just, I. no tie to that date whatsoever, I'd say, you know what? Screw it. I'm done. 

[00:08:49] Sharon: Had a good, had a good St. Patrick's Day, and you're done. 

[00:08:52] Peter: Yeah. Why is it so hard to just go to that, to go say, you know what? I wanna do something and make that change today, but, oh, you know what? I'll do it in February. I'll do it March 1st. Why? Why are we so stuck on tying it to something?

[00:09:07] Sharon: Yeah, I, I think that, I mean, in smoking obviously has other addiction elements that I'm certainly not an expert on, but I think I can definitely relate to this Diet starts Monday mentality or, you know, big nears resolution, those things. And I think it, it's related to our tendency to have these bursts of motivation and willpower, which don't sustain, like you can kind of map it, right. You can see. Okay. Big burst of motivation and willpower, especially for an adhd, right? These things can't be dependent upon. So we have these moments where we kind of, um, we put a lot of our kind of motivation eggs in one basket of, okay, this is gonna happen. I'm doing it big, go big, go home. Never say die, right? Keep up the streak. All these things. And our culture. Our culture stokes this, it it, it makes us feel like it has to be all or nothing, which is why I think we have to put a start date on it. But what we always, I mean, what we work with people on, and as you know, we have, we kind of have our habit coaching, but we also have these accountability buddies that you text with. And the big part of what. I've seen from our members is that, start today with something small. Celebrate your small successes, and that adds up to something big. And if, if it's small enough, you can always start today. Usually, you know, like unless it's something that depends on you getting some piece of equipment or something you have to get from your Amazon order. But generally you could start if it's, if you make it small enough, you can start today. And if you can't. It's probably a sign that you're not starting small enough. 

[00:10:43] Peter: Yeah, no, that's a really, really good answer. That's a really good answer. What else have you learned, um, as you've been going through? So, so you've been running the company now for a few years. What, what else have you learned? What would you, what would surprise people, um, about whether it's habits or about whether it's accountability? . 

[00:10:59] Sharon: Yeah. We started this company in early 2021 as a response to my own frustration. And I, I've obviously, through that journey, I've found out or was finally diagnosed with my own adhd, which explained why so many people with ADHD were signing up for our service. Um, and I think, I think the main thing, it's, it's been interesting. I have, I've had this parallel path of learning a lot about myself and learning a lot kind of what, what support needs to exist in the world? Um, on my own track, I think being able to instantly see when I launched this service that I wasn't alone, that a lot of people felt a lack of support on the little things in life. Just felt like they were completely alone in these tasks of taking care of everyone in their life and taking care of work, but not taking care of themselves. It was, I wasn't alone in that. Which for me was not only enlightening and exciting from a business perspective, but just made me feel this immediate sense of community and and gratitude to be able to help people just like me. Yeah, and I think the other thing I've really learned is, As I, I've had this parallel path of understanding about my ADHD as I've been helping people with adhd and I've found it transformative. So the advice I just spat out on starting small and not falling to the shame spiral, that was advice I would not have been taking two years ago. And so I've had this kind of personal journey of being able. to number one, name a specific thing as adhd, like, I didn't pay that bill. I have adhd. I'm not a horrible person. , let me reach, let me, you know, I, I have a shelter. That's our, that's our name for an accountability buddy. So I, I literally texted her last night like, please, please, please make me cancel this fitness subscription that I haven't used and I like, and they're making me call, which is complete paralysis for me, of course. And so instead of blaming myself and being like, I suck as a person because I can't pick up the phone and cancel subscription, I mean, you know, you, I'm sure you can completely relate to this and a lot of people can, someone making me call them is like, oh, the worst thing in the world, the literal, worst thing in the world. Like I, I'd rather start a company. I'd rather learn to fly a plane , like there's a million things I'd rather do than c all a person to cancel something. Right. So I, I have, I've had this, I think, journey of self-compassion that I, I'm accepting support, that I know I need help on little things, and I'm not a bad person for that.

[00:13:23] Peter: Yeah. I love it. I love it. Very cool. How could people find you? 

[00:13:30] Sharon: Yeah, we are at www.Shelpful.com S H E L P F U L. Rhymes with helpful. Um, and we have all sorts of services you can find there. Our most popular thing is that one-on-one work with your own real human buddy who will remind you of your crap , basically, and help support you on any habits or tasks you're trying to get done. But we also have groups where you can be put in a group with four, with three other people and work on the same thing. So we have, we actually have folks with adhd. Um, we have groups, people working on all trying to get movement in, drink more water, anything under the sun, and we actually have some specialties. Um, in partnership, there's a company called Oak Journal that we're partnering with, and they have this kind of daily method where you do gratitude every day and set your top priorities every day. So groups are kind of going through that process together so they can stay on track and work toward bigger goals. So that's been really fun to do as well. 

[00:14:26] Peter: Very cool. Well, Sharon, thank you as always for joining us at Faster Than Normal. I love it when you come by. It's great to hear from you. Glad things are going well, and we'll have you on again towards the end of the year. We'll see how we're doing with our, our, our, our rituals.

[00:14:37] Sharon: Thanks for having me Peter.

[00:14:38] Peter: All right, guys, as always, listening to Faster Than Normal. We love that you love us. Have any ideas for great guests like Sharon, let us know. Shoot me an email peter@shankman.com we'd love to include, and we will see you with another episode next week. Stay safe, stay happy. Bye bye :)

Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at shankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week! 

Professor Esme Fuller-Thomson is cross-appointed to the Faculties of Social Work, Medicine, and Nursing at the University of Toronto. She is also Director of the Institute for Life Course & Aging.  She has published more than 170 articles in peer-reviewed journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, and Cancer. Her research examines ADHD and mental health, the association between early adversities and adult physical and health outcomes, and disparities in health. She has recently been focused on resilience and flourishing mental health.  Her work has widely cited in the media including the New York Times, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine and CNN. We’re thrilled to welcome her back and hear about her latest research in our last episode of 2022. Thank you for joining us all year long! We hope you have a happy, healthy and safe holiday season, everyone. Enjoy! 

In this episode Peter and Professor Esme Fuller-Thomson discuss:  

01:20 - Thank you so much for listening and for subscribing!

01:15 - Intro and welcome back Dr. Esme Fuller-Thomson!

01:57 - Since our last visit HERE, she has completed some new research on Anxiety and ADHD

03:00 - Women with ADHD were 5x more prone to anxiety, compared to women without ADHD

04:20 - What is the percentage of researchers who study ADHD and Anxiety?

05:45 - On budget, finance and anxiety + ADHD

07:17 - Are you one of the people perhaps more at risk for anxiety? Ref: Research Aug. 31, 2021

08:00 - ADHD and finding moderation with controlled substances/impulse control

09:40 - And now for the new good news! 

11:00 - Ref: Corey Keys at Emory University and his three pillars of “Excellent Mental Health”

13:00 - More than 2 out of 5 are flourishing w/ excellent mental health; how do we get more of us here?

15:12 - On keeping perspective and not hyper-focusing on the bad stuff.

17:25 - A look at the factors in the study of those flourishing with ADHD

18:29 - 300 years ago, exercise was a mandatory part our daily life because we needed it to simply exist

19:40 - People who use spirituality to cope w/ their day to day troubles were much more likely to be in complete mental health.

20:43 - Point | Counterpoint on relationships and marriage

21:17 - Happiness and chronic pain

22:00 - Remember, just a few years ago it was still rare for Women to get an ADHD diagnosis

23:56 - What is CBT and can it be helpful? Ref: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy 

00:00 - How can people find more about you?  Just type in Fuller-Thompson + ADHD, HERE on Google Scholar, or via https://socialwork.utoronto.ca/profiles/esme-fuller-thomson/

25:00 - Thank you Esme!

25:18 - “Thank you Peter for what you do for the whole community of people with ADHD. We all appreciate it!!”

25:28 - The Faster Than Normal book is still being printed, and this is awesome, THANK YOU and I’m so happy it’s helping!!!!  

26:07 - Happy Holidays!! 

Guys, as always thanks so much for subscribing! Faster Than Normal is for YOU! We want to know what you’d like to hear! Do you have a cool friend with a great story? We’d love to learn about, and from them. I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via email at peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 

26:35 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits.

—

TRANSCRIPT via Descript and then corrected.. somewhat:

[00:00:40] Peter: High, high, high. Hope you're well. This will probably be last episode will be recorded before Christmas and the holiday break. I hope that you are all going somewhere warm or if. You are doing something that keeps you busy or maybe going somewhere cold if you live in a warm area right now, like to all my friends in Australia anyway, I'm not, I'm in New York City, it's 12 degrees or some crap like that. Um, I am getting outta here later in the week for about a week and, and gonna bury my head in the sand somewhere warm. So that's nice. Anyway, we have a g returning guest. We. Esme. Okay, I gotta stop you right here. Cause first of all, you understand I love this person. This person is one of the few people who's out there doing hardcore research on girls, women, and adhd. So I want to welcome back Esme Fuller Thompson, Dr. Esme Fuller Thompson. She's an incredible guest. We had her right, we think about God two or three years ago, I think it was pre pandemic. So it's wonderful to have you back as we welcome and you got tons of new stuff to talk about. 

[00:01:36] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: Absolutely. And some of it is really positive because last time I came it was all about the negatives. And I still have some, I remember. Yeah. But I promised you that I had in the works, um, some research on flourishing among h adhd. So do you wanna start with the bad stuff or the good stuff? Which one? 

[00:01:52] Peter: Let's get the bad stuff outta the way. 

[00:01:54] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: Okay, so, um, when I was with you, which I think was about two years ago, we were talking a lot about women with h ADHD which is dear to my heart. Um, I think it's a neglected population. People really haven't been looking at it, but we, we, in that time we talked about, um, depression and suicidality. But we didn't really know very much about anxiety. So I worked on a paper that came out, um, uh, almost a year ago on generalized anxiety disorder among A D H D and life. It, it's not too surprising that the rates are higher among people, um, with adhd cause life is anxiety producing because things are sometimes quite chaotic, right? So yes, indeed. Um, We found that people with A D H D had four times higher odds of anxiety disorders compared to their peers without

[00:02:52] Peter: Wow. Four times higher odds of anxiety disorders when you have ADHD. Wow. 

[00:02:57] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: Yes. Yeah, so I mean, I was expecting maybe double, but. Four times and it's women. Insane. Were even worse. Women, women with a adhd were five times compared to women without h adhd. Now these are young, relatively young, like 20 to 39 year olds. And um, ooh, you know, that, that, that's hard. It's hard to, to manage. Uh, that doesn't mean that they actually have it necessarily at this moment, but they've had anxiety disorders. So some have overcome it, but, but it's, um, it's a significant barrier that, that a lot of people with a d h ADHD have to go through. And as I said, women have, um, a harder time with it even than men, even though women in general have higher anxiety., Women with ADHD proportionately are doing worse than women without ADHD compared to men with ADHD versus men without, so interesting. It's, it's, uh, it's a real issue and I think it's neglected. I don't think, I think the other behaviors, you know, the, the depression and substance abuse, those ones tend to get more attention, but anxiety can be crippling. And I think we need to think about it as, as clinicians and also as as people with A D H D and, and also people who love people with A D H D, that keeping an eye on that anxiety and thinking about interventions to help with it because there are some really good interventions. 

[00:04:18] Peter: I know for a lot of people who are getting help with A D H D and they're getting help, uh, you know, whether it's medication, whether it's, uh, D B T or whatever, you know, there are a lot of. What do you think the percentage of of psychologists or or therapists are that put together the link between ADHD and anxiety? 

[00:04:38] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: Well, certainly I know with, um, some of my research on women and other people's research that women are much less likely to get the correct diagnosis and Right. So they might have, they, so sometimes they might be that anxiety or the depression or flagged and they haven't put it together that it's A D H D. If people are brought in young, uh, be maybe because of school related stuff for A D H D, they may not be screening for, um, depression or anxiety. So it's, I what I, my plug is if you have people presenting with anxiety and depression, think about A D H D. If you have, um, have patients or clients with a D H D think about depression and anxiety. Not that everybody has it, and we'll get the good news at the end. But it is more, much more likely to occur. And among those with, uh, among women are more vulnerable than men. But there's other things too. Um, low income is very anxiety producing, whether you have ADHD or not. 

[00:05:40] Peter: Wondering, and I completely, I mean that, that's a given. There's no question about that. 

[00:05:43] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: Absolutely. But, People with A D H D may have harder time managing budgets and, and making sure that the money makes it all the way through to the end of the month. And so that, that's very anxiety producing. So now going from middle class to upper class, that doesn't make a huge difference. But being really close to the line and not having enough to make ends meet is desperately anxiety Produc. Yep. 

[00:06:11] Peter: I believe it. And what's interesting is that I think, you know, especially now in this sort of worldwide financial crisis we're in, you know, that certainly doesn't help. It's, it's tough enough when, when we're all doing moderately well,

[00:06:22] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: Yes. Yeah. So, uh, I, now, my, I should have comment that my research is based on, uh, representative samples, but before the pandemic, right? So everybody got more anxious, more depressed, and more, you know, during the depress the, um, pandemic and being locked at home is. Great for people who like a lot of the stimulation and activities. So I'm guessing that these estimates are perhaps, um, underestimates of the magnitude of the problem in probably, yeah. The pandemic. So I, I, as I said, there'll be a while before we get that kind of information out, but it seems logical to think it's not getting better anyway. 

[00:07:06] Peter: Hmm. Unreal. Unreal. , but you said you had good news.

[00:07:11] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: All right, well let me just finish the other people at risk, cuz those are kind of Okay. More, more bad news. Let's go over that. More bad news. Okay. Um, so the, uh, people who had more close relationships were much less likely to have anxiety. So almost every study I've done in ADHD, social support, having a confidant, having, uh, a spouse on your side. All of those things are really, really protective. So, um, the idea of building and building a so social support network and reaching out to that network and investing in it really helps on all those fronts. Um, . And then the, uh, the other negative news in August in 2021, I published on substance use disorder. And we touched on this briefly, I think two years ago when we talked about it, but some people, uh, uh, we found that people with A D H D were much more likely to have had a substance use disorder at some point in their life. And we're looking at 20 to 39 year olds and. Almost half had a substance use disorder. I don't think that'll be too surprising to you having talked with so many of your guests, but Yeah, not at all. So the issue is, I mean, some people are able to consume in moderation, but people with A D H D are probably many of them. find Moderation a hard piece. It's kind of an all nothing piece. 

[00:08:35] Peter: People are able to, people with ADHD are some are able to consume with, what'd you say?

[00:08:39] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: With moderation? Say, oh, I'll just have a glass. But that's, 

[00:08:42] Peter: why are you, why are you making up words? I've never heard this word. Moderation. What is that? 

[00:08:48] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: So my point is that, um, among people with substance use issues and a D H D and impulse control issues, perhaps abstinence is a good strategy. Not, you know, some people can do it without the abstinence kind of piece, but, um, You know, it, it can get you into, if you have impulse control and drinking and drink, this is all types, uh, it's higher for everything, cannabis, uh, heavy drugs and alcohol. So, um, generally the. The idea is that, uh, A D H D makes it harder to manage, uh, substances in general and makes you more vulnerable to, um, addictions. So that makes perfect sense. Yeah, totally makes sense. So those are the bad news, but can I get to the good news? Can I share with you, 

[00:09:39] Peter: for God's sake? Yes.

[00:09:40] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: After all of this. Okay. So, So, uh, you know, I'm, I'm more than a quarter century into my career, and so I, I have spent the first 20 some years looking at negative things, depression, anxiety, um, uh, suicidality, and, you know, that's a bit of a Debbie Downer. When you go to parties and you say, oh, what do you do? I'm looking at depression, anxiety, thanks, geez. But, and then, but it's a little bit of. Whack-a-Mole Pro, uh, uh, problems, you know, that little kid's game where it's politics of course. Yeah. Very, uh, politically incorrect, where just spit poor moles on the head and yeah, one goes down and the other pops up. So, you know, here I am, I'm like, okay, I'm focusing on say A D H D and anxiety. And so, you know, you think about interventions and many really good interventions and maybe anxiety goes down, but depression pops up or maybe depression goes down and substance abuse pops up. So, um, I, I started thinking, well, I need to really look at it holistically. And if I said to you, how are you doing today? And you said, I'm not suicidal. Well, that's not really where we want you to be. We want you to be flourishing, right? So, um, I started looking around and there's an amazing researcher at Emory University called Corey Keys, and he came up with this concept. Excellent mental health. So when I ask you what does mental health mean to you? Not just it's, it's the absence of mental illness. Sure. But that's not really enough. Just not being suicidal or not being depressed. It's really more than that. So his idea has, Three pillars. The first one is, no mental illness in the past year. No substance dependence, no um, depression, no anxiety, no bipolar, and no serious suicidal thought. So that's a great place that's getting you to, that's pillar one is getting you to neutral, which is great. Um, and certainly if people are, are, are, have any of those issues, getting them out of that is, is your first plan as a clinician or as a family member. But then, then pillar two. How often in the last month have you been happy? And you have to say every day or almost every day. Like if you're just happy twice a week, it doesn't make it. And they also ask how, how often you are satisfied with your life and you have to be daily or almost daily. So you can see that one of you have to be at least one of these. So pillar two is happy or satisfied on an almost daily level. So no mental illness and you're happy and satisfied. And then pillar three is about psychological wellbeing and social wellbeing. I have warm and supportive relationships. Life is getting better for peace pull. Like me, I like most parts of my personality. And in the last month you have to agree to the majority of those six of the 11 questions. at least, uh, daily or almost daily. You have to agree to that. So this is really, really, really high, right? You're not mentally ill. You have no substance dependence, you have no suicidal thoughts. You're happy and or satisfied, and you have warm and you, you have great social or psych and or psychological wellbeing. Like, isn't this what we're hoping for? 

[00:12:54] Peter: Yeah, one would think, 

[00:12:56] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: all right, so among those with ADHD, this is a really, really high bar. More than two and five are flourishing, are absolutely flourishing, are hitting this incredibly high bar. 

[00:13:12] Peter: Interesting, interesting. That's more than two and okay. . I wouldn't, I would not have thought that , 

[00:13:20] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: neither would I. And in fact, when I talk to anybody else, they all say, oh no, it's gotta be 10% or something like that. But, and you know, some of the blame is to us who are researchers, cuz we've just focused on the negatives. Like I started the conversation with, but without looking at, well there are some people who are completely free of mental illness and are flourishing, and why don't we spend more time thinking about who those people are and how they got there and how can we help more people get to that point. 

[00:13:51] Peter: Really, really interesting thoughts. I, you know, it's interesting. I think that a lot of, and I mean, look, I, I'm not the doctor you are, but I think there's, I wonder if a part of the reason that people with A D H D tend to find themselves in positive spaces more often is because, , we're very, very good at changing the subject. In other words, we're in a bad mood for as long as that bad mood can hold our attention. . 

[00:14:16] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: Okay, well, so fine. But, but at least, at least, uh, almost daily in the past month, uh, past week, months, uh, you have to have been happy. So you're saying the, it's the, uh,

[00:14:28] Peter: well, cause you have, you have to be happy 24 7. I mean, no one's happy.

No, no, 

[00:14:32] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: no, no. You have, just have to have happy. Right. Yeah. Or you have, you have happy moments. Oh, well then, now I have to admit that people with a d, ADHD have a much lower rate than people without H adhd. But I, my, what I was focusing on, and I think, I think partly as we said, because we do all this negative research about all the negatives, people feel that they are, they don't have in front of them our potential to flourish. That they, you know, that, that that is not a trajectory for them. And I'm saying, wow, many, many, many people are getting to that incredibly high level of functioning and just, you know, life is good. 

[00:15:12] Peter: Yeah. It's really, you know, it's fascinating. I think that that, you know, we spend a lot of time complaining. Oh, this is this and this. I mean, we got on the phone today, Peter, how you been? Oh my God, these last six months. You know, but, but in retrospect it's not bad. It's, there's day-to-day annoyances in the minutiae, but. , I'm here. I have my health. I'm, I'm, I'm my kid's doing well, you know, all those kinda things. I'm happy and, and I think that I at least look. Again, I'm, I'm looking at a sample of, of one or maybe two here, but I think that A D H D helps you stay happy because there's constantly something exciting. Something shiny just over the next hill. I know it sounds ridiculous.

[00:15:59] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: No, but life is, I mean, let's be honest, it's fun to hang around with people with adhd, life, Ising. Right? 

[00:16:06] Peter: Well, it's fun to hang around with people with adhd as long as those people with ADHD are on the right path or understand their path. I think that that there have been times when I've hung out with people who were probably undiagnosed adhd. You know, I take, I, I, I turn my head for a second. I look back and everyone's railing fat lines of cocaine. So I think that ADHD does have some negatives there in terms of the fun of hanging out with them. But yes, I mean, you know, my, my girlfriend tells me constantly that the reason, one of the reasons she, she, she loves hanging out is she never knows what's gonna happen next. You know, we're, we're sitting in a cafe one day and the next day we're flying somewhere because I read an article about a waterpark or whatever. So I think. You know, you have to, you have to sort of know yourself, but yes, I totally get that. 

[00:16:53] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: Mm-hmm. , so, so again, this was based on a sample, a representative sample of Canadians prior to the pandemic. So I'm pretty confident that the way that data was gathered, it's a really solid national study. So I'm, I'm, I'm confident with those numbers. But I wanted to talk a little bit about what was a hindrance or a help. Apparently I looked at what, what we call the factors associated with A D H D. So what are the characteristics of those, sorry, factors associated with flourishing among those with A D H D. Okay. And so, alright, right, let's just talk about it.

Physical activity. I know this is one of your things. If you were pH physically active, they were four times more likely to be in the state of flourishing four times. 

[00:17:40] Peter: I'm sorry that that's just a, that's just duh. Of course you, you, you, you box for an hour. You go for a run, you're chock full of do you're high as a kite. Of course you're gonna be happier and at the very least you're gonna be happier. Cause, cause it's over, You did it, 

[00:17:54] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: but our, our lifestyle is not conducive to exercise. It's an effort. It's an organi. You have to be organized, you have to get out, you have to do exercise. The, the way you know modern life is it's easier to sit on your couch and it's hard to get that momentum to get up and out, but, Boy, oh boy. Four times the odds. This is, this is a winner. do not pass Go without exercise. Right. 

[00:18:21] Peter: Well, you know what's interesting and that brings up a whole nother series of, of questions. One of the reasons that A D H D you might argue, and again, uh, this could be an argument. One of the reasons a d ADHD has flourished in the past a hundred years, um, is because 300 years ago, 400 years ago, exercise was part of our daily life because we needed to exist. Right. We exercised cause we'd exercise, we wouldn't catch. The, the, the, the, the, the Saber tooth tiger and have dinner. Right? And then we discovered farming, and then we realized we didn't have to walk so much. So the the premise of, you know, having all your food delivered by a messenger, by a, by a, by a GrubHub, um, that's a relatively new concept for our brains. Our brains are, are very, very slow creatures. So that, that's a very, very big part of it. You know, I would be willing to argue that that ADHD or, you know, People were probably a bit happier back then because they had to exercise, they had to work out, or they didn't exist. 

[00:19:09] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: Yeah, absolutely. So now it's an effort you have to put . Structured in your day that you're gonna get to exercise. But this is, you know, I almost never see odds this high, like do this four times. You know, usually something improves it maybe 20%. If you're really, really lucky, it doubles it. But four times. Wow. This is a keeper for sure. You know? Now. Um, the other thing that was really interesting, and I haven't done much research on it, but um, I'd love to do more people who use spirituality to cope with their day to day troubles. Were much more likely to be in complete mental health. 

[00:19:51] Peter: Say it. Say that again, slower. 

[00:19:53] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: So, people who use spirituality or religion, so it may be an organized religion, or it might be spirituality as well. Okay. And if it was very protective. So people who use spirituality were much more likely to be in this happy sat life, satisfied, mentally healthy space.

[00:20:10] Peter: Okay. I believe that if you think there's something bigger than you, regardless of what it is, 

[00:20:15] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: all right, now, the and. And also that you have something to turn to, right? So that you have some right, and it, it's concenter as well. I mean, I don't know exactly why. I just know when you had do these sort of survey research, you don't know the reasons, you just know the association. So, but, um, being married is very protective and I think that's getting back to the confidant, having people on your side, um, and possibly to stabilize you too . 

[00:20:43] Peter: Well, and you know.. There, there are, there, there are outliers of all different studies. Yes. Some not as, some, not as accurate as others, but No, I hear what you're saying. Um, I don't, I don't fit into that. But, um, I would, I would argue the caveat of with the right person., 

[00:20:59] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: right? I would definitely, um, and also, and I mean, being married or being in a, in a committed relationship kind of thing is helpful. Um, if it's, if you're right, if it's with the right person. And the thing is, when you do rep representative samples, usually the ones who aren't with the right person may no longer be with them. So I you don't see them in your analysis. Right. Um, now, Not, again, this is another no-brainer, but people who were in chronic pain were less likely to be in complete mental health. Now that seems completely obvious, but I was surprised how many people, these are relatively young people with ADHD are in chronic pain, perhaps because it risk taking behaviors or i, I don't know why, but, um, that's worth getting treated. You know, you've got your mental health stuff going on, but there's, if there's physical pain, Life is really hard and it's hard to be happy with it. Right. Um, and, uh, again, my poor women with h d they're less likely to be flourishing than men with h d, which is in keeping with all the, the higher prevalence of the negative things that we talked about earlier. Right. Um, so they're less likely to be all, um, completely flourishing. , you know, still many women were, but it's just, um, women with ADHD seem to be struggling more. Um, but there's a couple reasons for that. It's because, so remember I, this study was done almost 10 years ago, so women with a d d were not diagnosed very often. So I have a feeling that the women in my study who were diagnosed with adhd, they were probably fairly far along the spectrum with ADHD to actually get the diagnosis. So they may be. They may be, um, worse off than the av the average woman who would be worse off than the average man just because the people with milder symptoms would, uh, women can often, uh, mask the symptoms better than men because, especially girls, and so they were less likely to be diagnosed. So I have a feeling the women that we have, We're, we're pretty far along, and maybe that's why they're doing poorly. But it may be, it's just there may be less acceptance for women with ADHD related symptoms in society too. Um, we're still working on why women are vulnerable and trying to get a picture of that. But, uh, when more and more women are getting, um, diagnosed, I think there'll be, um, There'll be more understanding and more interventions. And then the other thing I just wanted to talk about, and I, I plugged this ev every time I talk to, uh, uh, you know, people with, uh, ADHD and any mental health CRI crisis. So even though though two 42% were doing really well that means that, you know, a little bit more than half had at least one of these other problems that that wasn't flourishing to the extent that they would like to, or we would all like them to. So, um, I just wanted to suggest that cognitive behavioral therapy, it's also called CBT is relatively short, relatively in inexpensive. It's a, it's a form of talk therapy. You can have it in a group session, eight weeks to 16 weeks, and it's been shown with people with A D H D and people with depression and people with anxiety and people with substance dependence. It's really, really helpful and what it does is it helps you capture your dysfunctional thoughts. So if you're telling yourself negative messages, which you may have heard in childhood, oh, you can't do this. You know, you're never gonna achieve. You tell yourself these types of messages many times an hour, that is gonna pull your, your mood down, your ability to function. So it helps you grab these thoughts and look at them objectively and reevaluate. And it can, it's, it really is kind of almost like you're reprogramming your own brain with more positive messaging, and that is helpful for, for almost every negative mental health outcome and certainly promotes better mental health. 

[00:25:02] Peter: No question about it. What a phenomenal interview. We're well passed our time but that was totally worth it. Thank you, Esme it's wonderful to have you back. As always,

[00:25:11] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: my pleasure. 

[00:25:11] Peter: You're welcome here anytime you want. Really, really good stuff. Thank you again for taking the time. It's, it's great to talk to you again

[00:25:18] Dr.Fuller-Thompson: And thank you Peter for what you do for the whole community of people with ADHD. We all appreciate it. 

[00:25:24] Peter: That means a lot. Thank you. Okay guys. Fast than normal is for you. And I got some good news actually. So it turns out that Faster Than Normal, the book, which most of you know about and have read and probably brought you here, um, is still printing. It's, it's gone into like it's fourth or something, printing, and I've written five books and all five books I've gotten advances on, right? Uh, progressively more and more money. And then this Faster Than Normal I get a really nice advance and I thought, wow, there's a really nice advance. There's no way I'll ever make it back because I've never made an advance back in any of my previous. I beat my advance for Faster Than Normal. So, so finally, like five years later, I am actually earning royalties and, and I owe that to everyone who has ever listened to everyone who has ever bought a copy of Fast Than Normal. Thank you. It means the world to me. 

We will see you again next week. We actually probably won't because next week is a holiday. We're probably gonna take a couple weeks off and we'll be back in the new year. We have, uh, sponsors coming up. We have new sponsors for the for the podcast. Lot of cool stuff. New guests, amazing guests, amazing repeat guests like Esme. Lots of people coming on the podcast, so, so stay tuned. As always, Faster Than Normal is for you. A D H D. All sorts of neurodiversity can be gifts as long as you know how to use them. Have a safe and wonderful holiday guys. We will see you soon.

Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at shankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you in January- Happy Holidays!! 

Hey guys! Peter Shankman the host of Faster Than Normal here. I wanna invite you to something! I am hosting a Mastermind with 12 amazing speakers who are gonna be talking about everything from ADHD to mental health, from entrepreneurship, to just living your life better. It's gonna be on November 10th, It's gonna be virtual from anywhere in the world. Incredible, incredible speakers. The leading fitness trainer in Canada for all things. Me! A whole bunch of speakers- Scott Carney, who wrote the book which is to all about how he goes and takes ice showers every day. It's gonna be 12 amazing speakers, the CBS Early Shows’ Jennifer Hartstein, really, really great people. And I'd like you to join us. Check out the link below in the show notes at ShankMinds 2022 and we will see you there. And a matter of fact, look for the discount code in the show notes as well, that'll take a hundred bucks off the cost. We'll see you soon! https://shankman.lpages.co/shankminds-virtual-2022/  DISCOUNT CODE:  SMFriends22

We’re visiting again today with Aron Croft who’s made some changes since our last visit on Episode 240, “The Un-Squeaky Wheel: How Inattentive ADHD Goes Under the Radar w/ Aron Croft” including developing a new way to help the community; enjoy! In his own words: Aron Croft has always been obsessed with one question: “Why can’t we get ourselves to do tasks that we WANT to do”?  That question was on his mind as he dropped out of college twice, failed out of his first 7 jobs and ended up broke, divorced, and earning minimum wage at 33. After an adult diagnosis of Inattentive ADHD and an M.S. in Coaching Psychology, he decided to abandon neurotypical productivity, and his life changed. He built a successful Fortune 500 career followed by a six-figure coaching business with over 125,000 followers. In his coaching business, he teaches ADHD’ers his contrarian 8% Productivity Habit, which helps them complete their top tasks in 2 hours a day and  never feel behind again. His work has been featured by  ADDitude Magazine, the Attention Deficit Disorder Association, and dozens of top ADHD outlets. To watch a 30 minute training on the 8% Productivity Habit, visit freeadhdtraining.com. 

In this episode Peter and Aron discuss:  

01:20 - Thank you so much for listening and for subscribing!

01:29 - Intro and welcome back Aron Croft!!

02:40 - Tell us what you've been doing since the last time you were on the show? Ref: 8percent Productivity Habit Method

03:20 - What is living in the country like for someone with a faster brain?

04:12 - Is spending time daily in the out-of-doors helping?

05:25 - How have you grown in this environment within the last couple of years?

07:01 - On embracing ‘measured’ change

08:11 - Aron explains his 8percent Productivity Habit

08:47 - “motivation, willpower, and discipline” These may only be neurotypical confines!

09:23 - There are other ways to win!!

09:53 - How do professional Boxers become so fast?

11:16 - On willpower and habits. Skateboarding can strengthen you!

14:13 - How can people find more about you? Web: hiddenADHD.com ALSO  freeadhdtraining.com

Socials: @aroncroft on Twitter  @HiddenADHD on Facebook  INSTA  YouTube and hidden_adhd on TikTok

15:07 - Guys, as always thanks so much for subscribing! Do you have a cool friend with a great story? We’d love to hear. I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via email at peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 

15:30 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits

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TRANSCRIPT via Descript and then corrected.. somewhat: 

Hey guys. Peter Shankman the host of Faster Than Normal here. I wanna invite you to something! I am hosting a Mastermind with 12 amazing speakers who are gonna be talking about everything from ADHD to mental health, from entrepreneurship, to just living your life better. It's gonna be on November 10th, It's gonna be virtual from anywhere in the world. Incredible, incredible speakers. The leading fitness trainer in Canada for all things. Me! A whole bunch of speakers- Scott Carney, who wrote the book which is to all about how he goes and takes ice showers every day. It's gonna be 12 amazing speakers, the CBS Early Shows’ Jennifer Hartstein, really, really great people. And I'd like you to join us. Check out the link below in the show notes at ShankMinds 2022 and we will see you there. And a matter of fact, look for the discount code in the show notes as well, that'll take a hundred bucks off the cost. We'll see you soon! https://shankman.lpages.co/shankminds-virtual-2022/

—

 

[00:01:23] Peter: Hey everyone. Peter Shankman, another episode of Faster Than Normal. Thrilled to have you here. Welcome aboard. We gotta repeat guest today Aron Croft was here by a year or so ago, and since then he told me that after he, he heard hisself on this episode, he's had to upend his entire life and he moved to a farm. And like, I don't know, I've got 10 acres of land and a chainsaw or something. I'll let him tell you more about that. But Aron Croft has is he was a great guest last time we have him back, and he's always been obsessed with one question, which says, Why can't we get ourselves to do the tasks we wanna do? He dropped outta college twice. He failed his first seven jobs. He ended up broke divorce earning minimum wage, days 33. Then he got diagnosed and then he got an MS in coaching psychology, and he took his neurotypical productivity. His life changed. He built a Fortune 500 career, followed by a six figure coaching business. He teaches ADHD 'ers his contrarian. 8% productivity hat. We'll talk about that. He's at free ADHD training.com and welcome back Aron good to have you, man.

[00:02:21] Aron: Thank you, Peter. This is, this podcast is always the most challenging one for me to be a guest on because it's like, it's so hard to be efficient and, and get everything done that you and I want to talk about in your episode. Cap. 

[00:02:37] Peter: All right, so let's let you start it. Tell us about yourself. Tell us what you've been doing since the last time you had you on. 

[00:02:42] Aron: Yeah, I mean, pretty much just buying 10 acres in a chainsaw. Uh, that's, that's pretty much it, that's taken up most of the last 12 months. Um, what have I been up to really, uh, formalizing, Um, my 8% productivity habit method. Which is really just about how do we get our top task done in just two hours a day. Like, we're not gonna suddenly become sort of full of motivation, willpower, and discipline. Like we've been trying that our whole lives and how do we do that so that we can just stop feeling behind? And, um, that's really what I've been focused on and working with hundreds of ADHDers and, um, now we're just, you know, expanding it out to more.

[00:03:20] Peter: Very, very cool. And tell me that I wanna, I wanna talk about living in the middle of nowhere or on 10 acres or whatever. What's that like for someone with a faster brain?

[00:03:28] Aron: Uh, it's so delightful because, you know, I can just, my brain is going a mile a minute all the time. It's so exhausting. I would love freedom and a break from it sometimes, but like when I go out, like we've got trails on the property and it's just, we're surrounded by just trees and nature and when I just, when I get outside, Um, it just quiets everything down, um, in nature. And so, yeah. So it's just been, it's been absolutely delightful. Um, and there's also like some mindless tasks like cutting, you know, cutting down branches with a chainsaw on the weekend. Like, I don't need to think. And it's very nice for me to not give myself like, cognitive tasks every once in a while.

[00:04:10] Peter: Yep. Are you enjoying, So is there, is there, would you say you're getting more outdoor time than you used? And and is that helping?

[00:04:20] Aron: I, you know, honestly I'd say that I'm getting about, I'm getting a little bit more outdoor time, Not a ton more, but the outdoor time absolutely helps. Like I, I mean, part of the reason we made the move is cause I was living in downtown Chicago and all I would do to leave the apartment was just go and walk in nature. And there was this cool nature path near us. So I'd say that I'm, I'm only getting a little more time in nature, but the other thing I really like is, um, space. Uh, so like you can't see it cuz it's off camera, but like, I literally commandeered the entire big, like what room would be a family room in our basement. I put up a 16 foot long whiteboard of just wallpaper, that's whiteboard wallpaper. Um, I mean, I've got like a studio set up with camera and lights and a nice microphone, and I've just got my shit everywhere. Like on the pasted it on the walls, the post it notes galore! I just love the ability to spread out and try to untangle this like super messy brain.

[00:05:21] Peter: Very cool. And what would you tell people that you've learned? How have you grown in the past couple years?

[00:05:27] Aron: I'd say, I'd say two things. So, um, one is just this idea of like, stop, like, like I, I, I've given up trying to be neurotypical. Um, and you know, that might sound obvious, but I work with a lot of ADHDers and they're still trying to be like what their parents and their peers and their teachers told them to be. And so one is just the freedom to give that up, um, and all the like self-compassion and acceptance that comes with it. And then on the flip side of that, right, and you know this in business, right? Is once I gave that up, um, And I was like, You know what? I'm not gonna be like, So you and I are a little bit different. Like I, I just have the inattentive ADHD symptoms. I wish I had some of the hyperactivity energy stuff, but like, like, I'm like a delicate flower. I burn out after like a few hours of like, I. Of like thinking work. And so I was like, Okay, instead of just saying that, that's like a weakness. How can I just build a productivity system around, around that? And um, so just doing those things and kind of embracing my limitations, quote unquote, has like, turned me into way more powerful than I've ever been. 

[00:06:43] Peter: It sounds like it might have. Um, It's interesting. I, I know a lot of people with adhd, they, they change is difficult; , Right? They get into a routine, they get into a habit, and then change becomes sort of a, a, a fear, right? You embrace it. 

[00:07:01] Aron: Um, I embrace, I embrace measured change. Okay. Um, because Right. It's, that's important. That's an important distinction. It is. Right. But like, but it, it's like so many things we don't realize that we're actually trying to. For two variables. And we're really looking for balance, right? We want, we want no change, but we also want lots of novelty and variety, right? And so we're, we're kind of, we kind of need to find that right balance. You know, I find so many people with their, uh, Productivity. They're like, I wanna get all my top tasks done. But I also don't wanna be forced into like Right. Having to do it. And I wanna like feel like doing them. Like I don't want it to be painful. And it's sort of like, okay, like if we can make explicit those like trade offs that we're trying to make, we can find a solution. That's the, that sounded theoretical. I feel like I'm just dabbling. Sorry, Peter. 

[00:07:53] Peter: No, no, it makes sense. So with that, tell me about the, uh, the 8% productivity habit. 

[00:07:58] Aron: Yeah, I know cuz clearly I'm obsessed with it. But , uh, I'm excited to have somebody to talk to about it that isn't my wife. Well, she's excited that I have someone you know today to talk to about it. Um, yeah, I mean, so it was really just, This concept. So the 8% is simply that like 8% of a 24 hour day is two hours. And I was like, All right. If I could just build a productivity habit, that meant that I could get away basically with just doing hard tasks for two hours a day, and then the rest of the day I can kind of just slack off and like wing it. Um, like if I could build something that would be effective, man, that would just give me so much freedom. And, um, so I tried to build it, and then the first phase of it is abandon neurotypical productivity. So all of us have been raised on this like diet of motivation, willpower, and discipline. And like you, Whoever wins is the one who wants it the most. And that's fine if your motivation pathways and willpower pathways work, you know, neurotypically. But for us, or at least for the inattentive, ADHD symptoms that I tend to work with with my students, um, it doesn't translate to action. And so we're left with, we're left with this really unfair conundrum. We either don't take action. Or we have a secret sauce, which helps us take action, which is we just flood ourselves with adrenaline, stress and anxiety, and suddenly we can do a bunch of hard tasks. Right? But it's like so mentally and physically and emotionally training,

[00:09:33] Peter: I believe that. It's interesting because it puts us back into that premise of imposters, right? If we're trying to do things in sort of like that one way that's supposed to be done right? You know, like what you said about, about going out and, and, and you know, the person who wins, the person wants the most, there are other ways to win . 

[00:09:55] Aron: Amen. My brother. Thank you. 

[00:09:56] Peter: You know, I, I, I find that, Well, even this morning I was, I was in a boxing class and I was training. It was one trainer who was training two of us, and we'd each do drills, uh, alternate on drills. And I was watching him, you know, so like 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off. And on my 30 seconds off, I'm supposed to be shadow boxing. And of course I wound up watching this guy. This guy is about. 10 years more experienced boxing than I do. And his punches were so fast, like, so fast, and, and it was like a blur. And I'm just staring at him. And of course the trainer's like, Yo, you wanna actually do something or you wanna just watch? I'm like, Okay, yeah, sorry, but I need to figure out how he got that fast. And he goes, he's trained, He's constantly repeating the motion and doing it over and over again and building those muscles and growing and. You know, so I, I hear what you're saying. It's, it's in that, in that regard. I'm sure he does want it, but I'm sure he is also lost a ton of fights. He doesn't want it the most, he's just doing it every day because it's something that makes him happy and excites him, and he is also getting better at it by default.

[00:10:55] Aron: I love, I love that you said that because, um, so like, because I. And just, I'm, I'm just like on like, honestly, like, I'm literally like the most like unproductive person at my core. Um, and I just have like almost no motivational, willpower discipline. So the work around though is kind of, is what you were saying though, that I discovered. It was like, if I just build something in a habit, then it kind of happens without really any motivational will power discipline. Right. And so, It's been this like side door to like sneak into like productivity, uh, without kind of the traditional things is it sounds like you've got some, uh, interest in habits as well.

[00:11:42] Peter: Well, I've always found that, you know, I always, because for ADHD I would always gravitate back in school. I always gravitated toward the things I doing because I enjoyed doing them and I. Specifically, One time I got off, I, I was up, I would always ride my bike, and then one time, one year I get into skateboarding, right? And I, I would skateboard, skateboard, skateboard for like a year and a half, two years, everywhere. I went to skateboard. Skateboard. And then one day case got back on my bike. And I was shocked at how much stronger my legs were. It wasn't that I'd been working out my legs, it's that I'd been skateboarding, I was working out my legs, but it didn't occur to me as that, Right. The things that you love to do are the things you naturally get better at because you're doing 'em so much because you love them. The the downside for ADHD is sometimes you have to do things you don't love and you still have to do them. 

[00:12:27] Aron: Well, and so the, the upside, so I agree with you and the upside is, um, so look, I believe, and, and again, all with the caveat that a lot of the things I'm talking about are limited to people that have the inattentive symptoms or combined adhd, Right? Um, but. You know, the cool part is that I believe so many people, and this is entrepreneurs, this is working professionals I've talked to, like, we're looking for something that would have like the biggest bang for our buck. Um, kind of like on the entrepreneur where they're like, I don't want to just trade dollars for hours. Like, Right, or hours for dollars. Like, I want something that's scalable and like, I want, I want like leverage effectively is what? You know, working professionals and stuff are saying. And um, the cool part is that I found is. A lot of productivity stuff focuses on like overhauling your life, right? Like you're gonna write down all your to-do lists and write down goals in every area, and then you're gonna time box your schedule and you know you're gonna do all these things. You're gonna make this color coded thing. And the reality is that there's a lead domino in there, which is if you just push this one piece, all these other productivity things fit, which is the piece that you just mentioned, which is. We don't suck at all productivity. We're great at like fire alarm tasks.

Exactly. We're even decent at like busy tasks. And the reason we're decent at them is because the area that we suck and that if we improve is the lead domino that knocks all the other dominoes down is in doing tough tasks. And if we can get, build a habit of doing tough tasks every day, suddenly they don't feel tough and our comfort zone expands. 

[00:14:13] Peter: Yep, a hundred percent. Tell us how we could find you. 

[00:14:17] Aron: Well, you could just drive out to Michigan and look for a house. 

[00:14:22] Peter: Quit being a smart ass Aron, how can we find you? .  [14:13 - How can people find more about you? Web: hiddenADHD.com ALSO  freeadhdtraining.com

Socials: @aroncroft on Twitter  @HiddenADHD on Facebook  INSTA  YouTube and hidden_adhd on TikTok

]

[00:14:24] Aron: All right. Alright. Um, I would say, I would say just go to free adhd training.com. I literally was like, How could I come up with the easiest to remember URL in the history of URLs? Not that help a reporter out.com isn't also memorable . But anyway, free adhd training.com and uh, I go into like a full training. It's free on the 8% productivity habit, what it is, how you can do it, um, and really break it all down with like pretty graphics and all the, my pretty bald head and all these fun things.

[00:14:57] Peter: Always love having you, Aron bald head and all. It was a pleasure. Enjoy your home, enjoy your 10 acres and your, your chainsaw. We'll have you back again. 

[00:15:06] Aron: All right, brother. Appreciate it!

[00:15:07] Peter: Guys, as always, we wanna know what you're hearing and we wanna know what you're seeing. If you have a guest that you think might be great, shoot us a note. Peter@shankman.com. Let us know, Tweet us, post us, Facebook us, whatever. If you like what you heard, leave us review. Thanks to Steven Byrom @stevenbyrom our awesome producer. We'll back next week, another episode. Stay healthy, stay strait on keep going on the path that is yours, and yours alone, and we'll talk to you. Bye 

Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at shankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week!

Kristin Wilcox has a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Mississippi Medical Center and has spent over 20 years in academia as a behavioral pharmacologist studying drug abuse behavior and ADHD medications at Emory University and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  She has authored several manuscripts published in peer reviewed scientific journals and presented her research at international scientific meetings.  Her book “Andrew’s Awesome Adventures with His ADHD Brain” shares her son’s experiences with inattentive-type ADHD, and her insights on parenting an ADHD son.  Dr. Wilcox serves on the executive board of the Inattentive ADHD Coalition, hoping to increase awareness and understanding of the inattentive subtype of ADHD in children and adults.  She lives in Maryland with her husband and two sons. Enjoy!

In this episode Peter and Kristin discuss:  

1:00 - Intro and welcome Kristin Wilcox!

1:40 - Cocaine for research whaaahht??

3:00 - Talk about inattentive-type ADHD?

4:45 - On adrenaline junkies. Ref Type T ADHD

6:50 - Is there a nature versus nurture component there? Ref: OneWheel & Multi-Access Trainer

9:00 - Tell us about the book!

10:30 - There was not much research in existence on inattentive ADHD in boys

10:52 - Does it occur in girls as well?

11:14 - What specifically are you studying in terms of drug abuse and behavior & things like that? Tell us a little more about your background?

12:15 - Is the book available everywhere?

14:15 - How can people find more about you and what you’re doing? @ADHDAdventures on Facebook And you get get the book from Here and here-> on Amazon!

14:25 - Thank you Kristin! Guys, as always, we are here for you and we love the responses and the notes that we get from you; so please continue to do that! Tell us who you want to hear on the podcast, anything at all; we’d love to know.  Leave us a review on any of the places you get your podcasts, and if you ever need our help I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 

15:15 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits

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TRANSCRIPT: 

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Yo, yo, Hey everyone. It is Peter Shankman. It is Faster Than Normal! It is another interview. It is a great Wednesday. Uh, it's a great Thursday, Thursday? Oh my God the weeks are rolling into one. My daughter goes on a field trip for three days overnight and I no longer know what day it is. Ridiculous. Okay. Welcome. My name is Peter. Shankman. Said that already. We're talking to Kristin Wilcox today. She's a doctor. She's a PhD in pharmacology from the University of Mississippi Medical Center has spent over 20 years in academia as behavioral pharmacologist studying drug abuse, behavior and ADHD medications at Emory University and John Hopkins University School of Medicine. In other words, she's much smarter than any of us. It is great to have you here Kristin. Then she has written a book called Andrew's Awesome Adventures with his ADHD Brain, where she shares her son's experiences with inattentive type ADHD and her insights on parenting an ADHD son. She's on the executive board of the inattentive ADHD coalition of an increasing awareness and understanding of yet attentive subtype of ADHD in children, adults. She lives in Maryland where there has been two sons, Kristen. Hi, welcome. 

Hi Peter. How are you today? 

I am great. Thank you for taking the time to join us. Um, it's funny. I remember probably in 2005, I dated a woman briefly who was doing her second PhD at Rutgers, I believe, and was also studying drug abuse. And the thing I found so amazing was that when you are studying drug abuse in a university setting an academic setting, I guess, for a PhD or better, or whatever, you basically can call the government and they deliver you drugs like illegal drugs, like they delivered through cocaine to her or to her lab, I guess. And I was just shocked by that because my first question was, so can you.. and she immediately shut me down and said, absolutely not! But it was an interesting question. 

They do actually, um, the, uh, the cocaine that we used to use in our, uh, experiments with. Cocaine that was confiscated off the street and then purified by the DEA and that's how we got our cocaine for our research. 

Unbelievable. The DEA was purifying their own cocaine. That is brilliant. I love it. That's awesome. All right. I just need to throw that out there. 

I remember she sent it to me. She goes, yeah, this stuff is like a hundred percent. Yeah, you wouldn't want to use it or something like that.

That's crazy. Unreal. Well welcome. I'm glad, glad you're here. So tell us about, um, you know, we, we think of ADHD as both, um, you know, going down the rabbit hole of hyper-focus and also, you know; Hey, I'm bored. Give me some dopamine.  Talk about inattentive ADHD?

Um, well,  I think the most important thing is that, uh, there's very minimal hyperactivity and impulsivity. So a lot of the times when people think about ADHD and especially ADHD in a boy, they think about a boy who's bouncing off the walls, who can't sit still in class, who's constantly fidgeting. They don't really pay attention to the boy that maybe, you know, kind of dreamy and forgetting to turn in his assignments and has a desk that’s stuffed with undone worksheets. So that's probably the biggest thing to know about inattentive ADHD. They do also have the, uh, like, you know, the inattention and the forgetfulness and the disorganization, which also occurs with, um, the commonly thought of combined type, which does have the hyperactivity and the impulsivity, um, you know, and these kids are also, uh, they're very smart. Um, inattention has nothing to do with intelligence. Um, they're very creative. They're outside the box thinkers. They're great at problem solving. Um, they love risk-taking and adventure. They're adrenaline junkies. 

Yeah, that totally makes sense. 

Yes, my son actually wanted to skydive when he graduated from high school.

Well, tell him to give me a call and we'll make that happen. 

Haha! I’m glad somebody will go with him because it's not me. 

So that's interesting. I remember there was a, there was a study. I wish I could remember the guy's name, but it was, there was a TV show, probably the learning channel or something 15, 20 years ago, when I first heard it, got to me and it was talking about someone who came up with this concept of type T. T positive and T negative, where T is this adrenaline junkie right? And empty, positive T is someone who gets their adrenaline in positive ways based on upbringing. You know, they be able to do public speaking, whatever. And T negative is those who find it in negative ways, you know, drug addiction, um, um, you know, crime, things like that. And so, so in ADHD are they are adrenaline junkies. 

Uh, they are adrenaline junkies, but it can also go both ways they can. Um, you know, like you mentioned before regulating dopamine, they can regulate dopamine by jumping out of an airplane, but they can also regulate dopamine by taking drugs or driving fast. Um, so it's kind of a, it's a double-edged sword. Like the, the risk taking is, um, you know, can have complete benefits and be fabulous and, you know, kids with ADHD are not afraid to do something and jump right in and they, they live life. Um, you know, cause they don't think about it. We'll just think about the concept and we'll deal with the consequences later. There's no thinking about them. Um, but you know, they, they do get into problems with drug abuse and crime and driving fast cause that's also stimulating domain. So, um, you know, it, it, it is kind of a plus and a minus of having an iteration of inattentive ADHD. 

But is there, I mean, is there, you know, I think that, that for a lot of us, you know, especially when we're not diagnosed, it's just okay: Sit down. Right? And we don't realize that the things were drawn to come from this concept of…? but for me, for instance, you know, I never got into, I didn't get into drugs at least not in high school or as kid, um, you know, the worst thing I ever did was smoke. Right. And this was the eighties where smoking was good for you. But, um, you know, it's the premise that it is there. Is there a nature versus nurture component in there? Where, if you know, you, you, you, you look for positive things, or look for things to give you that dopamine, that aren't necessarily negative things.(?) 

Um, yeah, I, I, I would probably agree with that. Um, my son, as, as well, uh, hasn't gotten into the drugs in high school, doesn't go to parties and, and drank, um, you know, he finds his stimulation in other ways. Um, you know, like, right. He has a Onewheel, I don't know if you know what a one wheel is. 

Yeah, of course. 

So, so he just got a one. 

Yeah. For those who don't know what's next generation Segway with just one wheel on it and and, and you..

He just got on that thing and just took off, you know, he, he went to space camp when he was in seventh grade and they put you in this thing that, um, you know, turns you all around 

A Multi-Access Trainer. I know exactly what it is. I had a very bad experience with…

And he was the first in line to do it, you know? So he's, he's seeking his im, adrenaline out in self-regulating and positive ways. He's not self-regulating with, with drugs and alcohol. Um, is that partially because of the environment that he's in? Uh, probably he's, you know, we have an open dialogue about things like that and, um, you know, so we're kind of steering him away from that type of behavior, but, you know, um, if he wasn't in that type of environment, maybe if my husband and I were constantly gone; working all the time and stuff like that, and he was left on his own, you know, he might try to, you know, get into some of that to help self-regulate. 

And I think that, that, you know, that's one of the interesting things is that you look at, you look at, um, uh, prisons, you know, it's a 65 to 70% of um, incarcerated males are undiagnosed ADHD. And so it does come down to that question, you know, I mean, for me, you know, my, my being undiagnosed by parents just assumed, okay, he's hyper, let them run around so I’d take my bike after school everyday, and I'd ride around for hours and hours and hours. Right. And then, you know, I don't know if they ever noticed when I came back, I was much calmer. but obviously it was absolutely helpful. Okay. Tell us about the book!

Ok! So, um, so the book is in two parts. The first part of the book is my son's story with his inattentive ADHD and the ADHD elephant that lives in his brain. Um, and the second part of the book My experiences raising an ADHD son and I kind of, um, put, you know, some of the science behind ADHD and how that relates to my son's behaviors. And, um, the reason I wrote the book is because there is virtually no information out there on inattentive ADHD and boy s. So, um, when my son was diagnosed, fortunately, he was diagnosed in third grade, which is young for inattentive ADHD. Most of the time, these kids are diagnosed after nine years old, sometimes not until their teens, because, you know, it's what I like to call the silent ADHD, if they're not disruptive and, you know, creating chaos so they're not really noticed. Um, and we were fortunate. He had a teacher in second grade who recognized his symptoms because her son at the time was in high school and he had inattentive ADHD, so we were fortunate that he had that teacher. Um, and at the time is when I was working at, um, Hopkins on the ADHD project. And I was talking to a psychiatrist who was consulting on our research project. And he actually said, there's nothing out there on boys with inattentive ADHD. And of course I went home and started to look and do some research and he was right. So, you know, the purpose is just kind of to increase awareness that this occurs in boys. Um, you know, get it out there. 

Uh, it does occur in girls as well? 

It does occur in girls and adults and it's, um, most often discussed in girls and more recently in adults. 

Okay. And, and obviously it's, it's being discussed more in adults because adults are taking their kids to get diagnosed and they say, huh, it sounds like me.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 

Interesting. What, um, talk for a second about, uh, about your, about your background. What are you, um, what specifically are you studying in terms of drug abuse and behavior and things like that?

Um, well, when my son was diagnosed, I stopped working to focus on him. So I haven't done research in quite awhile. Um, but the majority of my research was looking for therapeutics for cocaine abuse and finding cocaine taking behavior. Um, and it was preclinical studies. Um, and then when I worked at Johns Hopkins, Uh, the ADHD study was looking at long-term effects of ADHD medications, because at the time there were no studies on it; long-term effects of ADHD medication. So we looked at, um, physical features. Um, we looked at cognitive functioning. Um, so that was, uh, was the nature of that study. 

Interesting. That's fascinating stuff. Um, is the book available everywhere? 

Uh, the book is available on Amazon. Um, and it's available on the, uh, publishers website, um, MSI Press, LLC.

Cool. Did you self publish it? 

I did not. Okay, cool. Excellent. A lot of our, a lot of people are, um, I've talked to a handful of people who've written ADHD books down and they're all self published. Um, just like, yeah, whatever helps people whatever gets it out there. I'm a fan of..

No, yeah, I was very excited. It was picked up by a publisher. I didn't, I didn't have high hopes. And I thought that if it wells, it's never really published, hopefully it made me a better mother to my son because it helped me to understand his brain and to work with him instead of working against him, because he doesn't think the way I think.

Yep. Now it's it is, it is, you know, I think that's one of the biggest things that the parents need to understand. I mean, I remember growing up, my parents just didn't understand the difference, you know, why, and then they still treated me a hundred percent wonderfully, you know, and, and I had a great relationship with them and I still do, but they weren't the way I was and it was just a, it was a very, they just never got it. They never really got it. 

Yeah. Now I asked my son before I, um, but while I was writing the book, I said, tell me what it's like to have ADHD, because I don't know what that's like. And here I'm writing this book about ADHD and I don't really know what it's like to have ADHD. And so he describes it as an overstuffed garbage can where the lid doesn't stay on and everything's falling out on the floor. 

So that's how he describes his ADHD.

Yes! 

I couldn't come up with a description nearly that eloquent. 

I love it. I love it. All right. Well, very cool. Um, how can people find you? 

Um, well, I have, um, my author Facebook page is Kristin M Wilcox PhD, or they can find me at ADHDAdventures on Facebook. [same page] And you get get the book from Here and here on Amazon!

Awesome. Kristen, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today. It's been a lot of fun. We will definitely check out the book and we will link to it on your Amazon link and in the show notes. And we really appreciate you being here today. This was great. 

Great. Thanks Peter. I appreciate it. 

Guys you've been listening to Faster Than Normal. We love when people come to us and say, Hey, I would like to be on the podcast, or when they have a great idea for a great story. And they have a great story themselves. If you're that person who knows someone who has let us know, we're always trying to find new people. We have a plethora!! of new episodes that we've recorded that are in the can that are coming up. The next three months are already filled but if you have someone to let us know, we'll record you and get you on the podcast as well. And you can find me at Peter@shankman.com  The podcast is FasterThanNormal.com on iTunes on Stitcher, Google play anywhere you get your podcasts. Thank you so much for listening and remember that ADHD and all neurodiversity is a gift, not a curse. And we will see you next week with a brand new episode. Thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you soon!

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Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at petershankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week!

Adam Coutts has been teaching meditation and mindfulness for twenty years, mostly through weekly sitting groups, eight-week classes, corporate webinars, phone trainings, and one-on-one coaching.  For the past couple years, he has been leading a "Mindfulness Meditation for ADHD/ADD" course in corporate settings and in phone trainings.  He has sat meditation daily for thirty years and lived in monasteries in America and Asia for four years, meditating up to ten hours a day.  He has also been on a journey of discovery about his own ADHD for about a decade now.  Adam considers it an honor and a pleasure to relate to people through meditation teaching. Today we dip our toes into some well-honed methods and about how meditation works with the ADHD mind- enjoy!

In this episode Peter and Adam discuss:  

1:25 - Intro and welcome Adam Coutts!

2:03 - How in the heck does someone meditation 10 hours a day?!

3:38 - An hour in a float tank..

4:15 - What are the tricks? Do you let go and get in the zone? What are the basics?

6:20 - On paying attention to your body ref: Somatic self soothing 

8:33 - Stop telling me to “Relax!!” 

9:38 - Two main wings to meditation..

10:00 - A few other types of meditation to help with agitation(s)

11:53 - We don’t necessarily need to empty our thoughts!

13:03 - “Motivational Deficit Disorder” -Russel Barkley 

13:26 - On building concentration techniques, distraction, focus and thought and benefits

15:05 - On Walking meditation, other ‘easier’ techniques and ADHD/ADD

17:07 - How to know when what’s best for you

18:14 - How can people find more about you and what you’re doing? www.IntroMeditation.com

18:49 - Thank you Adam! Guys, as always, we are here for you and we love the responses and the notes that we get from you; so please continue to do that! Tell us who you want to hear on the podcast, anything at all; we’d love to know.  Leave us a review on any of the places you get your podcasts, and if you ever need our help I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 

19:20 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits

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TRANSCRIPT: 

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 Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Faster Than Normal! My name is Peter Shankman. I am glad that you're joining us today. Interesting morning. Interesting. Day-to-day it is, uh, here in New York. This is what's called a third winter. So you have first winter, which lasts a few months, then you have a feaux spring. Then you have second winter, which lasts a couple of weeks. Then you have a fake spring and or full spring. And then you have a third winter, which is what we're in right now, uh, where it's about 22 degrees out where yesterday it was like in the 60’s. So it is very annoying and we're hoping to get into actual spring, which comes next week, that lasts for about two days. And then we're into 90 degrees and humidity Summer, which lasts until September. 

That being said, welcome to another episode. Glad to have you. We are talking to Adam Coutts today. Adam has been teaching meditation and mindfulness for 20 years. It's something that I need desperately, mostly through weaknesses in groups, eight week classes, corporate webinars, phone trainings, things like that, one-on-one coaching. But for the past couple of years, he's been leading a mindfulness meditation for ADHD, ADD course in corporate settings. And in boundaries, he is  daily for 30 years and lived in monasteries in America and Asia. I want that. Meditating up to 10 hours a day, even a journey of discovery about your own ADHD for a decade now. Okay. How the heck does one? I can't meditate. If I set my apple watch to meditate for five minutes after three and a half weeks. I am hyper aware. There's only been three and a half minutes. How in God's name do you do 10 hours a day. And welcome. 

Thank you. I appreciate it. But you were saying earlier, remind me. I live in the San Francisco bay area and our seasons are not the normal north American seasons at all. The hottest part of the year is late, uh, late September. How does one meditate? Um, I think start small. You know, that's the classic advice that, that you hear from ADHD and meditation coaches? I think when I started meditating, I think I started with two minutes a day. The first time I ever meditated was in a Tai Chi class when I was 19. So that's 33 years ago and I felt like I was going to explode. I was just overwhelmed with emotions and memories and swirling visual images and a lot of energy in my body. So when I started my daily practice, I started with about two minutes and then, um, you know, just like weightlifting, you know, you start with with just a little bit beyond your edge and then when you're ready, you, you up it as, as your strength builds. So I also think that feeling of I'm going to explode that comes for a lot of ADHD people. It's actually a good thing. It's actually, um, not something to be avoided. It's actually a big part of the benefit of meditation. I would say one of my teachers used to say, as meditators, we are trying to tolerate the intolerability of being human. I think that's a challenge for everyone, but especially for ADHD people, we're, uh, we're special winners. We get to run up against that one really quickly and really with a lot of strengths usually.

Well, I mean, it's interesting because I mean, I remember my assistant, Meagan got me a, um, uh, for my birthday one year, she got me an hour in a float tank. Okay. It was brutal. I mean, it was, it was brutal. I, I became hyper aware of everything, which is good. I believe everything, you know, I, it was, it was, but it was so I get why people like it, but it was so difficult for me to shut down. It was just so hard, so hard to, to let go. And I think that, that, yeah, when you already HD it's, it's, it's even harder. Right? So, so what do you do? How, what are the tricks of, of letting go of it? Because I know meditation is beneficial. I know I tend to get, I think the closest I get to meditating is on a long bike ride, doing 60 or 70 miles and you just get into his own where you're just, you're just passing the time. But in terms of like sitting at a table, sitting on my bed or sitting like I'm sitting on the floor and trying to do that. It is, it is almost impossible for me, what I'm sure a lot of other people, what do you tell people? Um, you know, again, like you mentioned starting, you know, like lifting weights or whatever, but even just getting into the basics(?)

Yeah. Um, well, I want to, you know, my main teacher who, uh, when he was a child, he ells stories. He had really raging ADHD and, uh, you know, he failed all sorts of classes. And then he eventually became a professor of Physics and sort of a world renowned, uh, meditation teacher. He tells a story of, um, if you had a chunk of metal, and this metal was gold, but you knew it had some impurities in it. Nickel, cadmium, et cetera. And you wanted it to be pure gold. How would you purify it? Could you stare at it and be like, get out nickel and cadmium? It wouldn't work. Well, what you have to do is heat that chunk up till it melts. And then the other impure metals, either float to the top of the bottom. I'm a, not a metallurgist. I don't know. But it's that heating up that allows you to purify it because it brings the impurities right to the, to the top or to, you know, to where you can see them. And he said, meditation is the same thing with our inner agitation. When we slow down, we heat up things can get very kind of like, I feel like there's bugs crawling through my skin. I can't sit here for another moment and that's actually pretty valuable. You heated up the chunk of gold and you can, you can see the impurities right there to scrape them off. I think that, you know, the way meditation helps is you just tolerate it. You're just open to it. You know, there's tons of techniques that I teach. There's tons of techniques out there. You know, if your listeners go, go online or go to some of the phone apps or buy a book, there's tons of a techniques, my favorite technique for 30 years now. And the one that I do pretty much every day is just to feel the body. I do a technique where I notice where my attention is drawn in the body could be a pleasant sensation, could be unpleasant. It could be strong, could be subtle. Just I let my attention float in the body, wherever it wants to go. I hold my attention there for a couple seconds deeply and fully feel that, I say it's like attention flowing into the body sensation like water into a sponge. I say the name inside my head of the part of the body. And then after a couple of seconds, I release and see if it wants to stay in the same spot somewhere else. If I notice that I’m thinking you know, which is almost all the time. I try notice the impact that the thoughts have on my body, or if there's a body sensation, creating the thoughts. A lot of times some way that we feel like uncomfortable or really comfortable creates thoughts. If I feel an emotion, I try and notice where in the body that's happening. If a sound impacts me, I try and feel where in the body that impacted. I often meditate with my eyes open. I recommend for beginners, especially ADHD, beginner's eyes closed, but you know, if I see something that impacts me, I feel that.. my body for me, meditation is often it kind of shouldn't be since there's so many techniques out there. Sort of the meaning it has, for me, it's often just somatic self self-soothing and somatic self soothing for an ADHD people, person is so crucial in so many contexts, like the social anxiety that comes up. Like I didn't get all my to-do list stuff done. I, in fact, I screwed around all yesterday afternoon. I'm a big failure. And now I have to social areas around people and I feel like a fraud. And I feel like I got to go home and get stuff done. I don't know. That's been a big part of my ADHD. And just as I drive to the meeting with people just feeling where the tension is, my body and giving it space, um, you know, being friendly with it, loving it, just seeing it, just witnessing it, letting it dance it’s dance, and then it releases itself. And again, somatic self soothing when really emotional, when really wound up for any reason, somatic self soothing. To me, that's the number one benefit of meditation as an ADHD person. And then there's tons of other techniques that have their value as well. 

It's interesting. Everyone tells. The ADHD person to relax, to calm down. Yeah. I think that, that, that, you know, ‘sit down and quit disrupting the class’ was our, it was our mantra in school. And I guess when you hear that all the time, it's usually said to you in a negative. Yeah. So, so as such, you probably do. I know, I think about it. When you think of meditation, when you, it, it translates in the ADHD brain into forced relaxation, gunpoint, relaxation. And if someone is holding a gun at you and telling you to relax, it’s probably the last thing you want to do. Right. And, but that's how we grew up. That's what we dealt with in school, with our parents, with every, Dude, relax, calm down. There's that joke that, you know, telling women to calm down has it never has the effect of getting anyone to calm down. But at the same thing when you're telling me to relax. It's just going to make me hyper focus with the fact that I’m not. Yeah. 

Yeah. Well, you know, the way I was trained to kind of traditional mindfulness meditation, there's two main wings to meditation. There's focusing your mind and kind of like empty, you know, the traditional emptying your thoughts and, you know, getting into a state of Zen where you're really, someone could walk into the room and you wouldn't even notice cause your attention so focused on the grass or something like that. That's one part of meditation. The other is be one with everything. Life just is, as it is. And you just open to it and fully experienced life. However, it is now the way I was trained, as it goes sequentially, you learn how to concentrate them. And then you use that concentrated mind to experience things just the way they are. So, uh, I do think it's valuable to try to chill out the mind on the breath- is sort of the classic technique- the way I was trained, at least, or walking back and forth with, um, really deeply feeling the souls of your feet. That's another thing to concentrate on, you know, I've, I've heard some people on, on, uh, mindfulness teachers on ADHD podcast recommend walking meditation for ADHD people. Cause it's less going at hard right angles that against digitation like sitting still is it's more, um, you know, working with the agitation by walking. So learning how to focus the mind. I think there's a value there. And I think if a person really does that for long enough, the body calms down the mind calms down. But I, I think, um, I think it's important to have patience with that process. It can take years. I mean, I've meditated what, over 10,000 hours of my life. And still sometimes it's just really hard for me to concentrate. My mind, I had when living in monastery has gotten to a point of just really crystalline and clarity where my mind is very tranquil, but that doesn't last forever. Right? It's like being an athlete, you work out a whole lot. You get in shape. And then you don't work out as much, you know, you're not in as great shape. So that focus hasn't lasted my whole life, but I've developed that tool. And then I've used that tool to just let my body, my mind, all of who I am, just be the way it is and experience it. So that's a really different kind of meditation and the way I was trained, that's seen as the highest form of meditation. So if you have an agitated, mine, just have an agitated mind. Just notice it the way it is. It's perfect. It's just something to be aware of. If your body is about to explode, you know, and you're trying to formally meditate as long as you can keep the tush to the cush and like, just let the body feel how it feels. It doesn't have to feel any different. So, um, you know, I think thinking that we have to calm down and empty our thoughts and all of that, it’s like, that's one goal in meditation. There's certain techniques that aim for that. And I think it's a useful thing to work towards without ever expecting we'll get there, you know, perfectly. But I also think there's a lot of kinds of meditation that just let all the craziness just be the craziness and just enjoy the circus. And, um, yeah. So I think really interesting. 

That's a really interesting way to think about it is the premise that you're going to be. You know, you're going to have your moment. You're going to have your issues. Just go with them. Yeah. As opposed to, um, I guess as opposed to the uselessness of say fighting the ocean. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Well, I appreciate your, uh, your, you know, It's one of those things like, wow, okay.. this is more than just an interview that actually makes a lot of sense, but again, you don't, we're not trained to think that way growing up with ADHD. Right. We're trained to think that if we can't relax that we’ve failed. 

Yeah, well, you know, like, uh, like, uh, Russell Barkley says ADHD is, is an awful name for it. You know, the better name is motivational deficit disorder, attention deficit and hyperactivity are the things that bug adults about ADHD kids. They're not the main experience of being an ADHD person, um, that ADHD adult are experienced from the inside. So yeah, hyperactivity is what pucks, uh, you know, teachers and parents about, uh, about. Definitely.

You know, getting back to what I was saying. I think even that first kind of meditation concentrating the mind, um, you know, I lead that technique. I lead meditation on the breath or other, uh, concentration techniques regularly. And what I tell people is if you did this 10 hours a day in a monastery, you know, which is something a person builds up to like being an Olympic athlete, but if you did, you might get your mind really calm, but you as a corporate employee or just someone, you know, off the streets coming to my sitting group or whatever, you will have a ton of thoughts. You will have a ton of distractions. You will not have continuity of awareness of the breath. Probably unless you catch a good wave today or, you know, you're just in a good mood, right. And noticing the mind going off to obsessive thinking or a strong emotion or an itch in the body, or, you know, the conversation happening outside the door. It's not an error. It's part of the value of the meditation. You learn a lot about. You know, how fast is my mind today? What actually is happening in my emotions, you know? And, and that bringing the mind back to the breath, bringing the mind back again and again, and you know, it can be frustrating. It can be like lifting weights or playing piano, scales, simple, repetitive work, but it's building a strength. It's building that strength of concentration that, you know, builds over time. So I think there's a, that experience of like, um, yeah, my mind isn't calm, but I'm trying to focus it. You know, even in that first kind of meditation where the goal is calm there so much value in the non-com there's so much learning. There's so much to work with. There's so much. Uh, goodness. Um, and I think it's very important to, uh, emphasize that to people that are beginning meditation. I also, if I may, I want to say something about the walking meditation.

You know, I've listened to some other teachers on various ADHD podcasts and they often recommend what I would say is making the meditation easier for ADHD people. And I think that’s great. I think, you know, anything that gets you to start the practice I'm in favor of- being a big meditation proponent. But I also think for, you know, some people even say an ADHD person should never meditate. It's just going to have them feel like they're going to explode. So don't even do it. Um, which obviously as a meditation teacher and, uh, and uh, someone that's made meditation a huge part of my life. I’m not in favor of that, that recommendation. I think meditation is great. To me, telling an ADHD person not to meditate is like telling a sickly person, well, working out will be hard for you so don't do that. A sickly person is going to get all the more value from physical vitality than, you know, a normally healthy person, it's all the more important for them to do it, even if it's harder. So there are ways to make meditation easier and there's ways to make it harder. Easier:  Sit for shorter periods. Harder: sit for longer periods until you feel like you're going to explode. Easier: uh, do walking meditation, most techniques you can do seated upright, you can do walking. Harder: Um, sit still, um, Easier: do a technique where you just opened the however you are busy mind. Great. Just notice the busy mind. Harder: do more of a concentration technique where, what you're really trying to do is, um, focus the mind set on the breath. Now, I think there's a great value in going on to, you know, uh,.. Harder: sit by yourself where it's just your own willpower. Harder: I mean, Easier: sit with a group where the groups sort of vibe supports you. Harder: Sit by yourself and silence and guide yourself. Easier: Get a phone app, you know, with that voice pops into your ear every 90 seconds, come back to the breath, be aware of your thoughts, just let things be, um, you know, be friendly with whatever you're aware of, notice the details of what you're aware of and really experience the richness. So I think there's value for ADHD people to know when to go on the easier side of that spectrum, back off, sit for shorter walk, do phone app, and when to really challenge yourself and say, this is going to be hard, but I'm going to heat up the chunk of metal to strip the impurities off and sit for longer. Sit in silence, sit still rather than walking, you know, sit by yourself. Um, I don't think we should always avoid going through the harder side of that. I think though it's helpful to know when we're ready for it and when we want a challenge and when we want a good workout and you know, what's just beyond our comfort level, not way beyond our comfort level, you know, a beginner weightlifters should not try and bench press 500 pounds, you'll just rip your muscles or trust your sternum or something just three or four pounds beyond what you're comfortable with. That's your growth edge. And so I think knowing when to ramp. Speed up, you know, uh, turn up the heat, um, and make a little bit more progress. That's that's the wisdom of learning how to meditate and have a person's own meditation practice. 

Awesome. I love it. This has been a phenomenal interview. Thank you so much Adam! 

My pleasure. I appreciate you having me on! 

How can people find you if they want to learn more?

My website is www.IntroMeditation.com There's a pop-up that invites you to sign up for my email list, where I announce courses and classes and groups. Uh, I hope it's okay for me to say I have a regular, um, group Tuesday night, 7:00 PM, California time. I also in 5 months probably am going to have in August of 2022, going to have a weekend ADHD for an meditation course. 

Thank you so much and I may take a look at that. Thank you, Adam! Guys, you're listening to Faster Than Normal. We had Adam Coutts today talking about meditation for the ADHD mind, which I found really, really far more fascinating than I thought I'd actually find it. That was pretty cool. Um, as always, we love to hear from you. If you want to leave us a review, you can do that at any of the sites like iTunes or Google play or Stitcher or wherever. Uh, I think even Alexa, you can do it on there. Cancel. Got it. Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back with another episode next week and. Have a good one. And remember, ADHD is a gift, not a curse.

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Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at petershankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week!

Stefan Hottel is a fellow ADHD-er from lighthouse point, Florida, and currently lives in Memphis, Tennessee. He was homeschooled for most of his childhood until attending the University of Memphis, where he studied biology & chemistry with aspirations of becoming a dentist. Stefan was part of the Emerging Leaders scholarship program, played for the hockey team, held leadership positions in numerous student organizations, multi-semester Dean's Lists awardee, and was involved in research throughout college. Since graduating undergrad, Stefan has co-authored five Academic research articles, started a Master's in neurobiology, and was accepted to Lincoln Memorial University College of Dental Medicine's class of 2026. After dental school, he hopes to continue his education in a pediatric residency with the ultimate goal of having a practice centered around treating special-needs patients. Today we ask how the switch from home school affected him, how he’s using his ADHD, and what keeps him successful in his studies, enjoy!

In this episode Peter and Stefan Hottel discuss:  

2:07 - Intro and welcome Stefan!

3:01 - When, where and how were you diagnosed?

4:54 - How was education & your studies when you weren’t being home schooled any more?

6:23 - What changes have you made since you’ve been diagnosed with ADHD?

7:42 - What is the most difficult thing about your ADHD; what drives you bonkers?

8:54 - Where do you do your best studying; what works best for you? Ref:  BrainFM episode!

9:50 - What do you do for fun, how do you recharge your brain?

10:54 - What do you wish everybody knew about ADHD that they definitely don’t?

12:05 - What advice would you give to someone who’s just getting diagnosed?

13:33 - How can people find more about you and what you’re doing? @dastefster on Twitter  INSTA  TikTok and Stefan Hottel on LinkedIN (linkedin.com/in/shottel)

13:48 - Thank you Stefan! Guys, as always, we are here for you and we love the responses and the notes that we get from you; so please continue to do that! Tell us who you want to hear on the podcast, anything at all; we’d love to know.  Leave us a review on any of the places you get your podcasts, and if you ever need our help I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 

14:17 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits

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TRANSCRIPT: 

I want to thank you for listening and for subscribing to Faster Than Normal! I also want to tell you that if you’re listening to this one, you probably listened to other episodes as well. Because of you all, we are the number one ADHD podcast on the internet!! And if you like us, you can sponsor an episode! Head over to https://rally.io/creator/SHANK/ It is a lot cheaper than you think. You'll reach... about 25k to 30,000 people in an episode and get your name out there, get your brand out there, your company out there, or just say thanks for all the interviews! We’ve brought you over 230 interviews of CEOs, celebrities, musicians, all kinds of rock stars all around the world from Tony Robbins, Seth Godin, Keith Krach from DocuSign, Danny Meyer, we've had Rachel Cotton, we've had  the band Shinedown, right? Tons and tons of interviews, and we keep bringing in new ones every week so head over to https://rally.io/creator/SHANK/ make it yours, we'd love to have you, thanks so much for listening!  Now to this week's episode, we hope you enjoy it!

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 Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Faster Than Normal! My name is Peter Shankman. I am your host as I have been for, oh my God. I don't even know how long, like six years, I think five years. I'm like, I don't know. It's been a long time. That noise here in the background is Waffle the dog drinking. He hasn't made any noise all day. The second I get on this podcast, literally the second hit record is the moment he thinks let’s get a drink, idiot dog. All right, but I love him. 

Welcome to Faster Than Normal. Welcome to Stefan Hottle. He is a fellow ADHD or who will be talking today. He is from Florida living in Memphis, Tennessee. He was homeschooled until he attended the university of Memphis, where he studied bio and chemistry, two things I would never, ever, ever studied with aspirations of becoming a dentist. He's the third dentist we've had on the podcast. I have no idea why dentistry and teeth are so damn popular with people in ADHD. It's a very strange, we're going to find that out. Um, he was part of an emerging leader scholarship program. He played for the hockey team, held leadership positions, multi semester Dean's list award. Obviously very humble as well. And it was about the research throughout college. He's researched he's coauthored five academic research articles started a master's in neurobiology. Are you kidding me. He was accepted to Lincoln Memorial University College of Dental Medicine’s, class of 2026. And after dental school, he hopes to continue his education in a pediatric residency with the ultimate goal of being a practice centered around treating special needs patients. Welcome Stefan, nice to chat. 

Thank you happy to be here. 

So it's obvious that you're, you know, uh, definitely an underachiever haven't done much with your life. Um, when were you diagnosed? Tell us what that was like. 

I was actually, uh, I guess comparatively speaking, I was diagnosed pretty late in life, uh, at the age of 21 right before, uh, right after college actually, which is kind of weird. Um, but I think there's a good reason for that, which I've put a lot of thought into and a lot of that has to do with me being homeschooled. So I've heard you talk about it in the podcast a lot. Um, you know, you were just sit down and be quiet syndrome when you were in school, you know, and, uh, I never had to deal with that, so ADHD didn't really affect me when I was growing up. I mean, when I had long reading assignments. Uh, my mom would sit in the living room as I would literally pace back and forth, like building a Lego and she would read me my stuff, you know? And so I never, it never really affected me growing up because it didn't, my mom kind of catered my education around. And so we never really had to take me anywhere or get me diagnosed. And then college kind of. College is kind of easy for me, sort of, um, I also had a friend who he benefited from studying with someone else and he would fire, um, our tech, uh, questions that we made together based on the, you know, the, whatever the test is on and he would sit down and he would fire questions at me. And I would do the, kind of the same thing. I would like be doing something else. And as long as I was moving or whatever, I retained more. And so I just got kinda lucky, but then when I got accepted to dental school the first time, which we'll get into later, um, I was like, okay, the only problem I ever had in undergrad was I was always the last person to leave the test every single time. And sometimes I was the person like, okay, put your pencils down. And I had just to just like submit it because I was a slow test taker. And I was like, well, I think at dental school would be worthwhile for me to try to get extended test time. So that's when I went to psychologists and got a, and got tested and got diagnosed with ADHD. So that was after a undergrad. 

So what do you think that that being homeschool? So you mentioned homeschool obviously affected, you know, your case benefited you, but hit the real world type thing. Was it sort of a massive wake up call? Was it like a, oh crap. I'm in trouble type thing? 

Um, you mean socially speaking?

 in, in any, in any capacity, I mean, you went from basically having your mom who could work with you to now, you had to be, especially, you know, hitting dental school, whatever, you know, now you had to sort of follow the rules for lack of a better word.

Yeah. I mean, um, kind of, I think. I also, um, because I duo enrolled my senior year of, um, when we moved to Memphis from Florida was at the beginning of my 11th or the middle of my 11th grade. Um, which was tough, obviously, uh, for my dad's job. And then senior year of high school for me, I had the choice of either being homeschooled and dual enrolled in my classes or being the new kid senior year at the local high school. And I was like, nah, I don't want to do that. And so I took all of my classes for senior year at college. So my mom didn't teach me anything. And so I, dual enrolled, got those credits and started my actual undergrad ahead of the ahead of the curve. And during that time I had a light schedule, of course. Um, I think I took like 12 credit hours a semester. Um, so I kinda like was, it was an ease into it. And so I think it kind of helped me kind of the transfer from kind of a catered, uh, educational setup to kind of like the real world is what you're saying. So it wasn't too bad of a transition. I just knew dental school was going to be harder. 

Right. Interesting. So what, what changes have you made now that you've been diagnosed with ADHD? 

Oh, uh, I, I allow a lot more time to prepare because I know that like, if I have, like, let's say a week ahead of me, uh, or so many hours ahead of me to study for an exam, especially a dental school exam, I'm going to allow a lot more time and kind of like space and kind of schedule my time. I never really scheduled my time before. And of course, like everyone else's age or like most people with ADHD, I was a last minute procrastinator. I mean, I was, I was banging out the night before pulling all nighters as an undergrad, but you can't do that in dental school that does not work. Um, and so I I've been more, I've been scheduling my time more. Um, and, uh, and just taking more time ahead of it, because I know that like, Uh, six hours in a day after classes to study before it gets too late to, you know, it for it to be feasible. I'm not going to study for that entire six hours. That's not realistic for me. I'm going to study for like, you know, maybe 40 minutes and then I'm going to, you know, be distracted and take a break and get on TikTok or something and then come back to it. And so I know that I need more time, um, to do things then a lot of people do. And so I've come to know that. And so I will plan ahead of time. 

What do you find sort of most difficult about your ADHD? What, what drives you insane? 

Um, kind of that, uh, hyper-focused, which is amazing, but for me, and I'm sure other people will be able to relate, um, can also be a negative as far as school is concerned because growing up, I was interested in so many things. I mean, I, uh, got my dad to get me my first car that didn't run. It was a 1970 Torino. I researched basically on YouTube, how to fix a bunch of things I was into, I I'm, uh, uh, uh, trained Luther, which is an instrument builder. I can build electric guitars. I mean, I did so much stuff in high school cause I just had so many interests that like, it's so easy for me to get focused and get lost on something that's not the pertinent task at hand. And sometimes I'll just like a notification will pop up and I'll get lost for like an hour. And then I'm like, wow, I should've been studying for that hour. And I was like, researching like how to do whatever. And so that's like the most frustrating things for me is like, I can hyper focus, but it's not always on thing. I need to be focused on. 

Where do you find yourself, um, doing your best studying? So are you, are you, can you do it in your room? Do you have to go out what's you know what works best for you? 

Uh, definitely not in my room. Um, that's the worst study place for me because there's just so many distractions. I have my guitar and I have my Xbox, I have this and that. I don't, I don't do. I try to go somewhere. I typically like the library is good for me because coffee shops I've tried, but there's just too much going on. People coming in and out and just kind of loud and everything. I try to stick to the library. I'll pick like the most secluded part in the corner of the top floor or something like that and put my headphones on. I use a program called Brain FM. We’ve had the CEO on the podcast several times. Yeah. I've listened to that episode. Yeah. I love BrainFM, it’s a game changer for me. Um, I basically can't study without it anymore. Um, so I used that and put my headphones on and go to town as long as there's not a lot of movement distractions, that's where I do my best work. 

Very cool. Um, tell us about what is it like to have, uh, at your, at your age and with everything you're doing, what is it like? Do you have a social life? Do you, do you, what do you do for fun? What do you do to sort of recharge your brain when you're not studying children’s teeth?

Um, I, uh, I like to, at this point, um, I like to play guitar a lot on my free time, so I'll just, cause I've been doing that my whole life, well, since I was like 11, um, that's a big, it's a big hobby for me. Sometimes I'll play video games with friends. Uh, I'll go out every now and then it just kind of depends. Cause like a lot of times on the weekend, um, I have a test to be studying for and stuff like that so I know for me, like if I go out. Um, with friends on the weekend and I have a test on Monday or Tuesday and I'm like, oh, I'll just go out and, you know, I'll just study before study after it's probably not going to happen. So I try to keep myself from getting into that cycle. But, um, yeah, when I can, I I'll go out with friends, but I typically my hobbies, I just like play guitar and I'll play some video games sometimes with friends, but it just kind of depends on what's going on. 

Cool. What do you wish people knew about ADHD that you find that they don’t. What, sorry you find, they don't know. What do you wish people knew about ADHD? 

I wish. I wish that even still, I know it's gotten a lot better than when you were a kid. Um, but just the, the negative stigma that still surrounds it, um, that it's over-diagnosed which, you know, that's arguable or whatever, and that it's easy to get a diagnosis and easy to get medication. And it's basically even like, when I first got diagnosed, my best friend, kind of , after that, he was kind of like, that's not real. And I was like, I don't know, dude, but like, I wish that people had a better understanding of that. Like, it is a thing and it does, it's not like the end all be all, but I mean, it's real and it does affect people's lives and you have to cater how you approach situations, uh, because of it. And I just wish that it wasn't kind of like still sort of like, aha, everyone has ADHD. 

Yeah, no question about it. Very, very cool. You know, it's interesting. It's a fascinating world that we're in and the more people I interview, the more I realized that ADHD, it's not one size fits all. Everything is different.   What last, last question? What piece of advice would you give to someone in your situation who's just getting diagnosed? 

Oh, I would, um, honestly the biggest piece of advice I could give the, I learned a lot, um, is regarding, uh, medications. So if you choose to get medicated, uh, I think that in my opinion, you should try it with your doctor's recommendations. Go through that process. Try it. If it doesn't work for you. Fantastic. If it does. Um, the biggest, honestly, the biggest thing that's helped me is when I, of course I, when I was diagnosed, he recommended medication and I was like, okay, I'll try it. And, um, at first kind of like how I mentioned earlier, I would, uh, you know, take the medication and then I would get locked in on something that wasn't studying and get lost for like an hour and like super focused on something that was just, wasn't what I needed to be doing and just lose a lot of time. And the biggest thing that's helped me regarding that is to start the task that you want to be doing, before or at right when you take your medication; so when it kicks in, you don't get lost into something else you're actually doing the task and that's what you're going to be focused on because that's changed the game for me, I've been..my productivity has gone way up. If I just like sit myself down with my studies, um, material in front of me, don't look at anything else and then go for it because I've just wasted a lot of time being focused on other things that I shouldn't at that time be focused on. 

That makes a lot of sense. Very, very cool. Really, really appreciate that. That was actually a great answer. Stefan, how can people find you?

Uh, yeah, so, um, most of my socials is:

[13:33 - How can people find more about you and what you’re doing? @dastefster on Twitter  INSTA  TikTok and Stefan Hottel on LinkedIN (linkedin.com/in/shottel)

Awesome. Very cool. Thank you so much for taking the time. We really do appreciate it. Guys as always Faster Than Normal we want to, we want to hear from you, so send us a note one day, let us know.. a bunch of you responded and said you want to be on the podcast which is how we're getting so many great interviews lately. My producer is thrilled because he doesn’t have to keep bothering me to do more interviews. That's awesome. So send us more and we would love to hear from them and hear from you and hear what you have to say! We will see you next week. Keep that ADHD working for you. It is a gift, not a curse. We'll talk to you soon.

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Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at petershankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week!

In her own words: I am a wife, mother to one amazing daughter, and a fully trained human to a Chihuahua. I am a certified special education teacher and have been a special educator for 30 years. I now work as a special education consultant, Master IEP Coach® and am a member of the Master IEP Coach® Network. I've worked in the United States and England. During my career I developed my own behavior modification system that worked with all my students, which equates to hundreds of students. I am the author of “Those Who ‘Can’t…’ Teach”, a video podcast host of #nolimits and “Friday with Fran”. I am making the world better for all, one IEP at a time. Today we ask her about IEP’s, the behavior modification system she’s developed, what led her to educating and consulting, and her experience thus far. Enjoy!

In this episode Peter and Shelley Kenow discuss:  

2:10 - Intro and welcome Shelley!

3:30 - What called you to work in Special Education?

7:09 - What are the basics, what is the overview of the behavior modification system you’ve implemented?

8:12 - On the different ways to ‘listen’ for behaviors 

11:18 - On the concept of what ‘other’ people find appropriate; who makes those ‘rules’?

13:00 - Learning how everyone has their own uniquely wonderful lens  

13:44 - How are things for the neurodivergent in Europe/What was your experience like?

16:37- How can people find more about you and what you’re doing? www.shelleykenow.com  on LinkedIN  YouTube  @shelleykenowiep on INSTA @ShelleyKenowIEPconsultant on Facebook and via email: shelley@shelleykenow.com

17:22 - Thank you Shelley! Guys, as always, we are here for you and we love the responses and the notes that we get from you; so please continue to do that! Tell us who you want to hear on the podcast, anything at all; we’d love to know.  Leave us a review on any of the places you get your podcasts, and if you ever need our help I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 

17:53 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits

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TRANSCRIPT:

I want to thank you for listening and for subscribing to Faster Than Normal! I also want to tell you that if you’re listening to this one, you probably listened to other episodes as well. Because of you all, we are the number one ADHD podcast on the internet!! And if you like us, you can sponsor an episode! Head over to https://rally.io/creator/SHANK/ It is a lot cheaper than you think. You'll reach... about 25k to 30,000 people in an episode and get your name out there, get your brand out there, your company out there, or just say thanks for all the interviews! We’ve brought you over 230 interviews of CEOs, celebrities, musicians, all kinds of rock stars all around the world from Tony Robbins, Seth Godin, Keith Krach from DocuSign, Danny Meyer, we've had Rachel Cotton, we've had  the band Shinedown, right? Tons and tons of interviews, and we keep bringing in new ones every week so head over to https://rally.io/creator/SHANK/ make it yours, we'd love to have you, thanks so much for listening!  Now to this week's episode, we hope you enjoy it!

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 Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Faster Than Normal. Today's an interesting day. It is the day before I leave for Paris. Um, another international trip coming up, which is normally not that big of a deal, but I am dealing with the joy of COVID testing in multiple cities, in multiple places. So I am currently talking to you, uh, with a stick up my nose. I'm about to put it into a little home test and see what kind of results we get. So that being said, who are we talking to here? We're visiting with Shelley Kenow. And I hope I pronounced that right. She’s an education consultant. Today's concept is going to be all about education. We're going to talk about ADD ADHD and education. Shelley is a wife, a mother to an amazing daughter, and a fully trained human to a Chihuahua. I love that. She's a certified special ed teacher. She's been a special educator for over 30 years, working as a special education consultant now, and a master IEP coach. She's worked in both in the US and England and during her career, she's developed her own behavior modification system that works with hundreds of students. She's the author of  “Those Who ‘Can’t…’ Teach”  and she does video podcasting and makes the world better for all one IEP at a time. Welcome! How are you doing?

Thank you, Peter. I'm doing well. And I'm sorry to hear that you have a stick up your nose. 

Well, it's no longer there now it's in a little device and I'm going to wait 15 minutes and see to get again. For whatever reason I don't have COVID, you know, I gotta tell ya. I two and a half years almost. I was, I was in China when, when Wuhan, I was a thousand miles south when the virus was discovered. And, uh, I was, I went back to Asia three times before they, before. Uh, a thing and I was all over the world. I was in a Peloton class with 60 journalists from around the world, uh, in studio, um, the morning that everything was shut down in New York city. So the fact that I didn't never got it is just a lottery, but it's pretty crazy, but I hope that was a safe as well. Tell us what got you into special ed that's that's a, yeah, that's not something you do for the money. So you must have really loved, loved what you do and still love what you do. Tell us about your background and your history and, and sort of how that started. 

Yeah, no, certainly didn't get into it for the money and didn't get out of it because of the money. Um, I, when I was nine years old, I knew I wanted to be a teacher, but I wanted to teach students in the general education population and wanted nothing to do with special education students, because I didn't think that I was capable or that I had the right stuff, whatever that is, uh, in order to, to really be a good educator for those who had disabilities, um, throughout my, from the time I was nine, until I decided, yes, I'm going into special education, which was around the age of 25, I had that thought of, oh, you should teach special education. And I thought, Nope, Nope. That's not the path I'm supposed to take. That's not what I'm going to do. Um, I didn't have anyone in my family that had any disabilities. I didn't have friends that had any. And so I really didn't have any experience with anybody and your audience. Can't tell probably by my voice and you can't see me, but I'm 51 years old. So this was, you know, I was growing up in the time when the law was just coming into practice and things were just starting to change as far as kids with special education needs. And yet I never saw anybody with special education needs. Um, it wasn't until I was, um, Much older that I realized there had been a classroom down the hall from me when I was in third grade. That's where the special education kids were. We didn't see them, they didn't have lunch with us. Um, you know, the, the whole idea of inclusion at that time was non-existent right. And so I just really had no idea. Well, then the Lord put me in jobs where I was working with kids who had different needs. And I didn't realize that they were the ones who were considered special education, because I didn't know they had an IEP or an individualized educational program if somebody doesn't know what that is and, um, and I absolutely fell in love. And the thing that really shifted for me was a position that I had when we lived in England and I worked with kindergartners who had IEP’s and two of them had major behavioral issues that, um, we were able to address and help them. And I saw such a significant change from the beginning of the school year to once we, um, put a behavior intervention plan in place and were able to help these little guys, that was it. That was the final thing for me, where I just said, I've got to do this. This is absolutely what I love and I'm passionate about. And then for the next. I don't even know how many years, um, started working with special education, finished up my degree to be able to do that, then had my own classroom develop this behavior modification system where it really is something that applies at every age. Um, but because I was teacher, I used it with my students. I might've used it on my husband, but don't tell him I said that. Um, hehe, and I, I just absolutely every student that I worked with, it worked, it worked in varying degrees. It works with kiddos in individual settings, in small group settings, and in large group settings, it was used at one of the school districts where I worked with whole class General education students. And it was parts of it, not all of it, but it was able to, to, uh, show progresses in there as well. 

So talk, talk a little bit about it. So, you know, for an ADHD and sort of, sort of ADD perspective, what are the, what are the basics, give us the overview.

So the idea, the first main point of it is having a relationship with the student. Now that doesn't mean that you take them out for ice cream or that you, you know, do anything outside or, or even anything big. It's just a matter of letting the person know that you really do care about them. You really do want what's best for them. And having that understanding goes a long way and how much trust the person will give you in order for you to be able to walk alongside them and help them figure out, okay, why are you having this behavior? What is this behavior communicating? All behaviors are communication. So what are you trying to communicate? And when you're talking about younger children, especially, they don't often know what their bodies are trying to communicate. Um, and. Or what their behaviors are trying to communicate. It often comes out through body, um, behaviors, you know, they're, they're fidgety there.. and it could be that their body just needs movement, that could truly be what they're trying to communicate. Instead of saying, look, you know, you need to sit still or you need to sit in a desk or you need to, um, stop paying attention to everything and only focus on the teacher, understanding that some of those things are just how their body is built is what we need to know, and we need to get the person to know that about themselves as well. So walking, alongside, figuring out what the behaviors are, trying to communicate, adapting what we are doing as the person walking alongside and helping the person, um, who's exhibiting the behaviors, possibly find what they need in order to be able to safely and appropriately exhibit whatever behaviors that they have, um, you know, for somebody who has maybe ADHD, that they need a lot of movement, maybe it's getting them some sort of resistance bands on their desks or that they can hold, or, um, if it's something that, uh, you know, as far as being able to focus, um, giving them some sort of a fidget or, um, some sort of other sensory input that will maybe give them what they're looking for. I'm not a huge proponent.. I don't, I don't automatically go to medicine, but medicine is also something that can help and, you know, so just trying to figure out all of those nuances of, okay, there's a person, and usually we don't pay attention to behaviors that we want; we only pay attention to the unwanted behaviors. So figuring out how somebody can express what they need to say in a way that society ‘approves’ and that is ‘socially acceptable’ and safe..and that's really the biggest one, um, for that person. And then when they have that time, when they do misbehave, rules are there. We have to have rules. And one of the other things that I say is you have to be consistent, with exceptions. So what I mean by that is when a rule is broken, the rule is broken; there has to be a consequence. However, that consequence doesn't have to be the same thing every single time. and it doesn't have to be the same consequence for every single person it's having that relationship and knowing like, okay, why did this child misbehave again, going back to the behaviors or communication, what is going on? That you know, is this something that they really had control over? Did they not get enough sleep? Is there trouble at home? Do they not understand the material that we're covering? Um, what is it that is controlling that behavior and then determining like, okay, look, yes, you broke the rule. Yes, you need to have a consequence, but maybe instead of jumping all the way to the most severe consequence, we just give you a mild one this time, but you have to have a consequence because you did disobeyed the rules.

Brings up an interesting question, you know, the concept of, um, you, you mentioned doing things that other people find appropriate. Right? Right. Um, you know, w w who's who's drawing those rules, who's making those rules for what is and what isn't appropriate, you know, God knows. I am not. Uh, when you think about me, you don't necessarily think appropriate, uh, all the time, right. So, you know, what, what defines those rules as appropriate. And, and, and, uh, I guess, I guess I asked that question because I've always thought the concept of telling a kid you're not appropriate in a lot of ways, because I mean, not all the time, but sometimes can equate to you're different than everyone else, right? And you have to find that difference between being inappropriate by society standards and then just being different, which is not necessarily a bad thing. 

  Absolutely. No, absolutely. Like you talk about, you know, it’s ‘a superpower. Um, especially ADD and ADHD, that is a major super power. People who have that, you can multitask. And that's a thing that I can't do, um, to be perfectly honest, but who determines if it's appropriate or not? That's kind of why I use the word wanted and unwanted because a classroom teacher determines what behaviors they can tolerate and what behaviors they can't and what behaviors they want and what behaviors they don't want. Parents, we do the same thing and every person who is applying that ‘appropriate or wanted’ views things differently. And so that's the other thing is like, okay, you know, kind of getting the, the broad overview of quote unquote, socially acceptable norms, as far as behavior goes, But also being able to embrace exactly what you said. Like I’m, me and I am a wonderful person the way I am. And if some person has a problem with my, my behaviors, then that's as much on them, because their behavior is communicating something also. So learning, you know, that, hey, everybody's gonna look at you with a little bit different lens; that doesn't change who you are in your wonderfulness, that's on them and how they're dealing with their own wonderfulness, and how those two things interact with each other. 

No question about very, very cool. So this has been implemented in school districts. Is that what, how, when did you live in Europe and, and what's the, is there a different mindset, um, over there in terms of kids who are different? Um, I know that in Asia, it's, it's huge. It's a huge difference compared to America. What's it like in Europe? 

When we lived in England, it was in the middle nineties. My husband was military at the time. And so we lived on a military base. Uh, it just so happened that prior to us moving onto the base, we lived, um, on the economy as they call it. And there was a school basically in our backyard. So I volunteered at that school and they do have at that time. And I don't know if it's still that way today. They had a very different approach as to, it was much more individualized in the Gen Ed setting. Um, people were working on the same subjects, but they were working maybe on slightly different levels within those subjects. So they might all be learning the same concept, but as far as how much practice they did or the exact level of that concept, um, which is very different than the United States classrooms that I've been in because we are all, well, here we go. We have 25 people in here. We're all getting the same lesson. We're all getting the same assignment. We're all getting the same test, and you all have to just deal with it. Um, so at, at that time, And again, I can't speak to it today, but it did seem much more individualized, much more, um, what we have here in the states that I have seen that is kind of like this are Montessori schools, where they really work with the child's abilities and interests and let them kind of move at their own pace, but not exactly. 

I was a Montessori kid until Junior High, so I get it.

And so the other thing that I found really appealing about the schools that I volunteered in there were that they were year round schools. So you had more breaks, built in to the system, they still attended the same number of days per school year, or maybe, you know, maybe five or six different, but, uh, one way or the other, but the fact that they had those breaks so that the students could absorb what they had learned, give their brains that break and then.. they retained the information so much better because of that. And that's actually more where the science goes as far as having learning opportunities is you need the little breaks. You need to have stuff repeated and taught different ways. Multiple times. We don't do that here in the states. We like to just say, okay, here you go, here's the new skill. All right. That's on Monday on Friday. We're going to test. Okay. Next Monday, we're doing a different skill. All right, for.. and just lather rinse repeat. And that isn't necessarily well, it isn’t, period, the best way to do it, according to Science. 

No, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. Actually tell us about, um, tell us like last question really, is how can people find more about you and about what you're doing and where can they look you up and where can they learn more about it?

[www.shelleykenow.com  on LinkedIN  YouTube  @shelleykenowiep on INSTA @ShelleyKenowIEPconsultant on Facebook and via email: shelley@shelleykenow.com]

so they, I feel like I'm everywhere, Peter. Um, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Facebook. I'm on YouTube. I'm on Instagram. I have a website which is Shelleykenow.com and, um, that's S H E L L E Y K E N O w.com. Um, Parents teachers admins trying to help everyone. As you said at the beginning, make the world better for all one IEP. By helping everyone really collaborate and understand the student and writing an appropriate, and not what the law says is appropriate, which is why I use that word, um, IEP for each individual student. 

Great interview. Great stuff. Very, very interesting. I learned a lot today. Thank you Shelley, for taking the time. I appreciate it. Absolutely. Peter, thank you for having me!

Guys you’re listening to Faster Than Normal. I’m not going to say, you know what I'm going to say, but if you're looking, if we're always looking for new guests, if you know anyone who might be a guest or you want to be one yourself, like is just shoot me an email, Peter@shankman.com. We would love to have you, uh, ADHD is a gift. We all know that I'm going to go use that gift, and I think I'm going to go do a couple of hundred laps, that'll help. So have a wonderful day! Everyone, thank you for listening. We will see you next week with a brand new interview. Stay tuned. Stay safe. Stay healthy.

Guys. You've listened to Faster Than Normal. If you like what you heard, drop us a review. If you have a guest, uh, Emma came to us by a suggestion so that it does work! So if you have a suggestion, pick anyone you want to. Let us know, and we will get them.. we will work our butts off to get them on the podcast. Um, you can find me at shankman.com and @petershankman on all the socials. Our producer is Steven Byrom, he does an amazing job, give him a shout. [thanks Peter! I’m for hire! @stevenbyrom on Twitter and also via www.byroMMusic.com We will see you next week with a brand new interview. Thank you for listening. And remember that any form of neuro-diversity is different. Different is good. It is a gift. It is not a curse. We will see you next week. Thanks for listening.

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Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at petershankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week!

Today I’m here to remind you that you’re not alone, that we are all going through this together, that you need to go easier on yourself, and that we WILL get through this pandemic & related crap -Enjoy!

As always, we are here for you and we love the responses and the notes that we get from you; so please continue to do that! Tell us who you want to hear on the podcast, anything at all; we’d love to know.  Leave us a review on any of the places you get your podcasts, and if you ever need our help I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 

 

TRAANSCRIPT

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Hey guys, Peter, Shankman the host of Faster Than Normal.

I want to talk to you guys just sort of heart to heart about what we've been going through for the past couple of years and what it's meant. Not only to the neurodivergent like ourselves, but to everyone, you know, because this is Faster Than Normal, really focusing on sort of us and what we're dealing with. Y’know.. I, and this isn't scripted. I'm literally making this up as I, as I talk. Um, these are just thoughts coming from my head so I apologize if they seem a little rambling, uh, or at least more, more, more rambly than my normal self. But you know, when the world shut down in, in, I guess, March of 2020, no one really knew how long it was gonna go.

 

People like us, you know, we're, we're used to adapting. Uh, the thing about ADHD is, and, and neurodiversity is that we're used to adapting, but we adapt with the concept that as we adapt things, at some point I can go back to some sort of normal that we can do. You know, and over the past now three calendar years, right, almost, almost two full years since this started, the concept of adaptation has pretty much been how we've had to live our lives, which is fine, except there's been no normalcy in that, going back to it. Right. In other words, okay. I'm not gonna be able to travel for awhile because the coronavirus, but that should end soon and I'll be back on a plane and so we look forward to that, right. Or, you know, oh, I'm not able to, to go to I'm better. I'm better at learning in school. I'm terrible at learning and homeschooling, but you know, it won't be that long remote schooling should be over by whenever. And it’s not ..and I guess I just wanted to talk for a few minutes about, uh, or talk to people like myself who are dealing with everything we're dealing with with COVID and this sort of new environment and this crazy world. And on top of which we're dealing with the fact that we're still neurodiverse and what works for other people or other people's ability to adapt, isn't like our ability to adapt and sometimes. We can't and sometimes we have to stop and look and say, oh my God, where are we? And how did we get here? And I need some hope to know that it's going to get better.

 

I can tell you that these two years have been really tough for me. Um, and for everyone, but you know, for me, and I can't really tell that to many people. Right. Because, you know, you say, oh yeah, it's usually like, oh, you know, what are you complaining about? You have an apartment and you're still, you're still making money and you have. Well, just because I'm not destitute or I'm not as in as bad shape as others. And I'm very thankful I'm not, but that doesn't make what I'm doing through any less than what other people are going through or, or it doesn't invalidate what we're going through. And I think that's the first thing we need to talk about is the fact that, that your problems, what you're going through are entirely different than what other people are going through. And they're both valid problems. And if you're sad and if you're upset about those problems, those are valid reactions just because you might not be homeless on the street or have lost your whole family to COVID doesn't mean that what you're going through isn’t valid and doesn't meant that it doesn’t need to be addressed and you need to take ownership of the fact that you're sad or that you're upset or that you're dealing with whatever it is you're dealing with.

 

For me, what COVID has brought into my world. Is the inability to travel for me, travel was where everything happened. Travel was where I did all my writing, travel is where I got my books, written travel is where I, I came up with new ideas and implemented them travel was my safe space. Being on an airplane, allowed me to do 24 hours of work in a three hour flight, and that went away and I didn't have that ability. I haven't had the ability. Last year, I traveled 39,000 miles on an airplane. The year prior to that, I took, I traveled 24 the year prior to that in 2019, I traveled 274,000 miles. So. To have that taken away almost immediately was a very hard wake up call and we kept assuming it would come back and it didn't, and again, we're still assuming it will. Right. And it has to, but we don't know when, and it gets very scary, not knowing when an after a while our ability to say, oh, everything's going to be okay. Starts to fade. And we don't necessarily have that ability anymore. We don't have that ability to say, oh, everything's going to be fine. Don't worry just a little while longer because we have no idea how long little while is going to be.

 

I bring that up because I want you to understand that it is okay to not be at your best during this time. I'm not, I am the furthest, but I'm not gonna say the furthest from my best, but I am certainly not anywhere near what my best currently is. And I know that I know where I am right now is not where my best is. And, and, and that doesn't mean I've given up. It doesn't mean that I'm not sure I can come back from it. It just means that right now, things suck, I am pretty sure that I am skating very, very close to some form of depression. I've talked to my therapist about this. Uh, I have no doubt that I, and many of us are skating very close if not full in to some sort of depressive episode right now, because there is no telling when this is going to end. I guess that's what I want to bring up more than anything else is that it's okay. It sucks, but it's okay to feel this way and understanding that it's okay to feel this way is the first step, I guess, towards being able to process it. And being able to recover from it. 

 

I look outside right now, I'm in my apartment. I gave up my office about a year ago, cause I wasn't going there anymore. I look outside and they see the streets are still emptier than they were two years ago. And then I look across, I looked the other way into Midtown Manhattan and, and, and the buildings were just empty. Right. I walked down the street and the stores are closed they are shut. New York city. I would say it's a ghost town, but it's a very scary place right now. It is not the difference between two years ago now is palpable and they talk, oh, you know, the apartments are coming back and the. You know, if you're working from home all day and don't leave your apartment in New York city, you pay your, you pay your rent or you pay a mortgage for what's outside of your department. And if you can't go enjoy any of that, what's the point. For the first time in my life, I started thinking about maybe moving out of the city. Um, obviously can't do it anytime soon. I have a daughter who's I split who splits her time between her mom and myself and, and, you know, can't just leave. Um, but I've been thinking about it. You know, maybe open space is what we need. Maybe, maybe some place with more sunshine or warmer weather. I mean, it's, it rained all night. It snowed all night and then turned to rain, now it's just a slushy gross gray day outside. And that that's certainly not helping things, but, you know, look, I know things are gonna get better. There's no question that things are, but it does suck right now. And, and I just want my listeners who I'm still so thankful with me, to know that that it's going to get better. I don't know when. I still have a hint of optimism that things are going to improve. I do. Um, I'm, I'm vaccinated, I'm boosted my daughter's vaccinated. You know, I hope that things are going to improve, but we don't know when, and we don't know when things gonna get back to any semblance of normal and what normal is. And I just, you know, I it's like I've been in situations like when I've been depressed, whatever before, and I'm like, you know what, screw it I'm booking a trip and I'm going to Asia. And the next day I'll just book a flight and go to Asia. You know what? I can't go to Asia now because it’s closed. Right. Or, you know, I couldn't even, because I have to take a PCR test and let's take 48 hours, whatever the case. I mean, it's, it's, there's always, it just seems like there's always something preventing us from being able to make it okay and, and that sucks and, and it sucks for everyone and it's not just you and it's not just me. 

 

And you look at Instagram, you look all these people sort of living their best lives, that there. And guess what they're offering. Right there. No one's living their best life. I don't care what they say. Right. There's an image I saw of a LinkedIn, this dock somewhere warm and tropical that dock. And it's a video of someone running to the dock and living carefree and just beautiful photo. And then another video zooms out there that this woman is running and there were 400 people online behind her to do the same thing.

 It's all bullshit. It's all bullshit. So I guess I pointed this sort of little mini Faster Than Normal episode. To let you guys know that it's okay to not be okay and we're going to get through it. I don't know when or how, but I do know that we're going to, and the best thing we can rely on right now is other people, as our friends, is people like us Neuro-diverse like us, people who we trust, who go through this with us. And so if any of you are dealing with that, I encourage you to reach out to me. I'm always happy to answer an email. You know, a tweet or whatever. Um, but yeah, it sucks right now and, and all we can hope is that day by day, it gets better.

 

So I just want you to know that I'm still here and I'll still keep doing this for as long as I can, and I hope it's gonna improve. And you guys are in my hearts. I'm thinking about you all. And yeah, I know it's a, an a non-normal Faster Than Normal episode, but I thought it was important to say that that. It does suck. And we all know that and it feels like sometimes it feels like our passion for all this is just non-existent. And even sometimes even just getting out of bed in the morning is the hardest fight we're going to have all day. And, but we do it and we're going to keep doing it and we'll, we'll make it somehow. You know, it's okay. If getting out of bed is literally the only thing you did that something, right. I there've been days where, okay. I got to work out today and I don't, and I feel like shit for not doing it, but you know what? I got out of bed and they made the bed and I got dressed into the shower and whatever and sometimes that's enough.

 

Go easy on yourself because. This is, I hate this term, but this is unprecedented and there are no books, there are no rules to teach us how to deal with the amount of bullshit that we have had to deal with over the past two years, there are no rules,

so go easy on yourselves. And, uh, I'm here if you need me. And we'll figure out a way to get the other side of this. I love you guys. Thank you for listening. And like I said, I know it's not a normal FTN episode, but we'll be back next week with a normal one. 

 

Next week. We actually have miss America on the, on the podcast so that's going to be an amazing interview. So I'll talk to you guys soon. Thanks for listening.

 

As always, we are here for you and we love the responses and the notes that we get from you; so please continue to do that! Tell us who you want to hear on the podcast, anything at all; we’d love to know.  Leave us a review on any of the places you get your podcasts, and if you ever need our help I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 

Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits

Today we learn how his daughter’s ADHD diagnosis led to a better understanding of his own superpower, and how his ADHD has been serving him for many, many years. His bio is below. Enjoy!

In this episode Peter and Bill Hamlen discuss:  

2:14 - Intro and welcome Bill Hamlen!

4:45- So, how were you able to hyper-focus with all that financial responsibility?

6:56- Stock trading and related chaos.. those are places where the faster brain really thrives?

7:23- Was there something about the pits that gave you a sense of Zen, or sort of a quiet hum?

8:50- So then how did you train yourself to come up for air and get out of hyperfocus?

9:56- Tell me about how ADHD affects your personal life and the different tools you use to keep that part of you solid too?

12:11- Ref: Delivered from Distraction Peter’s interview with Dr. Ned Hallowell

13:47- ADHD and addiction are very close to each other. Did you have a similar situation?

16:32- What do you wish you'd known back then that you know now about your ADHD and about sort of the way you've lived?

18:50- How can people find more about your reach out to you if they have any questions or if they want to share, if you're willing to give us some info on how to get to you? Mr. William Hamlen on LinkedIN

19:19 - Thank you Bill! Guys, as always, we are here for you and we love the responses and the notes that we get from you; so please continue to do that! Tell us who you want to hear on the podcast, anything at all; we’d love to know.  Leave us a review on any of the places you get your podcasts, and if you ever need our help I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 

19:46 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits

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Bill Hamlen was born in Schenectady, NY and raised in Bernardsville, NJ where he attended Bernards High School.  After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1984, Bill joined Drexel Burnham’s commodity division.  While at Drexel, Bill worked in various areas including the international order desk as well as many different “pits” including all of the metals, softs, and oil pits.  He eventually landed a permanent position on the oil desk that included a year in Singapore where petroleum derivatives were just developing. After leaving Drexel in 1990, Bill worked at Rafferty Associates and United Energy brokering various energy derivatives.  In 2001, Bill joined Westport Petroleum, Inc. in their Singapore and London offices where he started a clean product trading desk specializing in the international arbitrage of jet fuel, gasoil, various grades of gasoline, and alkylates.  In 2005 he moved over to Westport’s heavy fuel oil desk in Singapore and specialized in the international arbitrage of heavy crudes and fuel oil.  In 2007, Bill joined Vitol Singapore’s heavy fuel oil desk and worked there until his retirement in 2015.  While at Westport and later Vitol, he sourced heavy streams in the USGC, Mexico, Venezuelan, Ecuador, Colombia, Russian, Bulgaria, The Middle East, Iraq, India, Australia, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesian, Thailand, and Malaysia among others.  He also supplied blended fuel to ships in Singapore as well as power plants throughout Asia and the Middle East including India, Pakistan, East Africa, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China, and Vietnam as well as many other smaller destinations.  He also managed the complex hedging activities necessitated by all of these physical movements.  After leaving Vitol, Bill and his wife began a second career as real estate investors via their privately held Leeward Holdings with properties on Nantucket and in Hanover, NH. Bill was married in 1996 and has two daughters and the family currently lives in Hanover, NH.  Among other achievements, he is an Eagle Scout, a PADI certified diver, and completed a NOLS course as a teenager.  He has extensive open water sailing experience having participated on multiple voyages in the Caribbean and Pacific.  He is also the Chair of Planned Giving for the Class of ’84 at Dartmouth, the VP for the Association of Planned Giving Chairs at Dartmouth, and has served many other volunteer roles at the College. Even his abridged bio is incredible!! 

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TRANSCRIPT: 

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I want to thank you for listening and for subscribing to Faster Than Normal! I also want to tell you that if you’re listening to this one, you probably listened to other episodes as well. Because of you all, we are the number one ADHD podcast on the internet!! And if you like us, you can sponsor an episode! Head over to https://rally.io/creator/SHANK/ It is a lot cheaper than you think. You'll reach... about 25k to 30,000 people in an episode and get your name out there, get your brand out there, your company out there, or just say thanks for all the interviews! We’ve brought you over 230 interviews of CEOs, celebrities, musicians, all kinds of rock stars all around the world from Tony Robbins, Seth Godin, Keith Krach from DocuSign, Danny Meyer, we've had Rachel Cotton, we've had  the band Shinedown, right? Tons and tons of interviews, and we keep bringing in new ones every week so head over to https://rally.io/creator/SHANK/ make it yours, we'd love to have you, thanks so much for listening!  Now to this week's episode, we hope you enjoy it!

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Hey everyone! My name is Peter Shankman. You are listening to Faster Than Normal. We have taken a hiatus. This is our first episode back in about a month and a half. It was a good holiday season. It was fun COVID times now. And, but we're back it's it's early January. Daughter's homeschooling again. And we are thrilled to be back with all new episodes. We have some incredible episodes that we've already recorded coming down the pike. You're going to be very, very happy with what you hear in the new year. So I hope you guys are safe and well and vaccinated. And I want to introduce Bill. 

So Bill reached out to me after his daughter was diagnosed with ADHD in 2016 and he was based in Singapore and sure enough, I happened to be in Singapore right around that time for keynote. We weren't able to get together, but we did stay in touch and I found Bill's backstory and bio very, very fascinating. So I want to share it with you guys. Bill was born in Schenectady, New York and raised in New Jersey. He attended high school and Dartmouth. He joined a company in 84 called Drexel Burnham. I don't know if you, for those who are young and don't remember Drexel Burnham, Drexel Burnham was, um, one of the old school financial firms-the, I think the joke around that, around early nineties when things started to go south was that if Merrill Lynch and Drexel Burnham merge, would we call the company Lynch and Burnham. But I remember Drexel from the day and he worked in various and Bill worked in various areas there, including the international order desk, as well as many of the different pits, including all the metals softs and oil pits, and if you watched Wall Street And you see how crazy they get when they're trying to sell a stock or buys or whatever. Imagine that. 400 times the speed. He wound up eventually in the oil desk, he wound up in Singapore. He's got a bunch of stuff. He since reinvented his life, he started a second career along with his wife as real estate investors, um, in Nantucket and it Hanover New Hampshire, but keep in mind, he's ADHD. Because of that, obviously he couldn't just do one thing. He's an Eagle scout. He's a PATO certified diver. He's completed a NOLS course. He has extensive open water sailing experiences. He's competed multiple voyages in the Caribbean and Pacific. He's also chair of planned giving to the class of 84 Dartmouth, the VP of association, giving care to Dartmouth in addition to many other volunteer roles. Bill welcome. And you sound as crazy as I am. So it's great to have you. 

Thank you, Peter. It's funny. My wife jokes that I over-schedule myself. And I always say, well, I just schedule to my maximum ability, and then you come to me with extra things to do and that's when I get over tasked. 

Exactly. And I'm sure that goes very well. I'm sure that goes over very well when, when you explained to her that. One of the things that I find fascinating; you work the trading desks, right. And I mean, you started, uh, you know, after you left Drexel, you, you, you joined Westport Petroleum and then the second point trading in London offices, you started a clean product trading desk there, especially as in the international arbitrage of jet fuel gas, oil barrier, spades, gasoline, and alkalines basically, you were doing stuff where if you fell off.. we're talking millions or billions of dollars wiped off the balance sheet in half a second. So what I'd love to know, and I'm just gonna dive right into this. How were you able to, I mean, I know hyper-focus is a thing for people like us, but that would scare the living crap out of me. How were you able to hyper-focus that well?

Um, it's funny. I would almost put it in the, oh, I w I would reverse that, that when I first got into commodities, everything suddenly made sense. It was like a, the Rubik's cube pieces fell into place. The what, what to some people looks like total chaos to me was order. And the sitting on a desk with a bunch of phones ringing South Paulo, Brazil would call Hong Kong would call and you have to place orders and all the various pits. It was easy to me. In fact, that was fun. It was like a big game. So I always feel like I never worked a day in my life. All I did was basically play games. The games happened to be commodities and, but it was making order out of chaos. That just seemed. Um, soothing in a way. And so what from the outside looked stressful to me seemed like fun, like a big game, really. And then going down to the floor, the, you know, I was kind of in a commodity training program. So I worked in every pit learned about every, you know, orange juice, cotton. Someone was out, you'd have to go over there, then go to the gold pit. And you know, all that chaos was, it was just a big game. Uh, to me at least, or it seemed like a big game and the game was to make as much money as possible. Um, at that point though, it was just clerking. I wasn't trading and, um, it, you know, but I basically found my home and I, and I think in fact, if you go to a lot of, you know, wall street companies or commodity companies, and you look at the trading desk, you'll see a bunch of guys with ADHD. Uh, a couple of sociopaths, maybe a psychopath and a, and a bunch of engineers kind of keeping it all together, but there's a huge concentration of people with ADHD in commodities. And, um, it's, it's not a given, but you, you could see them. It's just clear as daylight. 

So it's one of those places where the faster brain really thrives?

Oh, absolutely. In fact, it's funny a couple of years ago, um, I have a, uh, former colleague, he went to Duke really, really played lacrosse there. Um, and I was joking. I asked him about ADHD and he looked at me like, I'm an idiot. Like, of course I am, I mean, that, that's how accepted and common it was. Um, yeah. And so there's a lot of people that, that seem to gravitate, um, to that type of chaos and that, and find it, find harmony there. 

I'm curious as to, how do I phrase this? When, when I get into a zone, when I'm doing something that I truly love, let's say I'm on a plane to Asia and I'm writing, I'm writing a book or something like that. I get into a zone and I just sort of have. I guess the best way to put it is this quiet hum in my head, that is my call it my hyper-focus hum. Right? And it just, no matter what chaos is happening, no matter whether there's turbulence or whether the flight attendants come over with food or whatever, the case may be, two people are fighting behind me; it doesn't matter that hum is keeping me Zen and focused. Did you find that the same thing? Was there something about the pits that gave you that same sort of hum for lack of a better word?

Well, I would, I get what you're saying, but it's funny in more realistic terms when I was in Singapore, I'd be on the desk in a conversation, looking at a spreadsheet, you know, maybe calculating what something's worth, but on the phone at the same time, talking to someone I'd look up. And it was, you know, 10:20, and there was no one else in the desk because we had a meeting scheduled at 10. I would not even notice everyone could leave the room, I'd be there. And then I w- but it didn't just happen once, you know, it would happen over and over and over again. And I, I had to really work hard. To, to get out of that. Hyper-focus but I know exactly what you mean. 

Well, what it's, here's an interesting question. What did you do? What did you, how did you train yourself? Did you involve other people? Did you say, Hey, when you're going into a meeting, you know, reach out to me, what did you do to get people into that? To, to, to, to get yourself, you know, helping with that? 

Well, I can tell you, it is funny. Like when I was on the phone, if I was sitting at my desk, I'd get bored. Um, so I would stand up and pace around the office in giant circles. Um, just to keep my brain focused. That's just how my head works. If I'm sitting at a desk and not doing something else at the same time, I kind of get bored. So I, um, so I came up with little tools okay. Based around the office and I would have a more meaningful conversation. In order to make the meeting, I would just schedule reminders that, I schedule reminders for everything. I'm a big list kind of guy. Um, I have lists for everything and those lists I create helped me, um, you know, keep order. 

Yep. Tell me about your personal life. So, so your, uh, ADHD is obviously very, very beneficial for you in this regard. Tell me about how it affects your personal life and what, what sort of changes or, uh, different things you've had to do to get there. 

Well, the it's hard to go there without telling kind of the backstory of my kind of discovery. And it has a lot to do with our daughter, who, um, at a certain age, in fact, this is what gets me angry about ADHD. And this is one of the reasons why I reached out; because her journey and my journey, um, it's a very typical situation I think. She was in seventh grade. Um, and we got called to school. This is UWC in Singapore. Um, and to give an idea, the level of understanding of ADHD in Singapore is there are about 25 to 40 years behind where we are here. 

I actually interviewed this doctor, on the podcast, a psychologist, the podcast from Singapore and she said, exactly the same thing. 

Oh, yeah. It's like stepping back in time, in fact, so, okay. So w we go into, um, we find out that she's struggling in math, she's just above the red line. They wanted to put her in learning support. And I fought back the vehemently because I believe that once she got into learning support, she would never get out. It's like a black hole and. So we had her tested independently and guess what? She's very, her processing speed was off the charts. Um, in fact, at one point we had her tested again for something else. And the, the woman that did the test said, I've been doing this for 20 years. I probably test 15 to 20 kids a year and she's the first one that has ever completed one of the sections. And so, and we started, so my wife and I, we looked back and it at her school in second grade, they said, we think maybe she has an eyesight issue. She needs glasses. So we had her eyesight tested, we're scratching our heads. And, um, anyway, fast forward, she, um, she started on Conserta

Yup. That's my drug of choice also. 

Right. Okay. Then we read, um, uh, uh, uh, Dr. Ned Hallowell’s book, um, Delivered from Distraction. Yes. And we started listening to podcasts and everything kind of fell in place. In fact, I forgot one key part of this. Is that, um, we had her tested and at the same time, my wife was reading the diagnosis of someone else that had ADHD and she's reading it and she's like, oh my God, that's our daughter. And that's when everything kind of fell in place. So it was kind of a combination of both the testing and, um, Yeah. And the reading diagnosis of someone else with ADHD. So at that point, I began to look back at my life and realize, huh, I like chaos at my own little Rubik's cube. All the pieces fell into place and I began to realize all the things I've been doing to cope. You know, I get up, I run in the morning in central park, when I lived in New York, I'd have coffee, I'd do all these different things. I needed to work out just to be able to see straight and, um, You know, so I began to see all the commonalities of the, um, Of the things I did to deal with it, and I guess it, um, and then I looked back at my career that, you know, for me, I liked playing games. I like eating good food. I like drinking good booze and commodity trading kind of combines all those things that I enjoy. And so, like I said, I never felt like I worked a day in my life. It was all kind of a big fun game to me. Um, so it was kind of perfect for someone who has ADHD. 

Let me ask the question. Um, it's it's you're you touched an interesting point. It's one of those industries where, you know, you work hard, but you also play hard. Right? I mean, I know just, just my, uh, my, um, uh, financial adviser, right. Once a year, he takes me out to dinner. He shows me how my portfolio is doing and, and, you know, five drinks in right? He doesn’t..you know it's not that we're going out to drink- you treat the client well, right, in any, in any sort of financial industry. So did that affect you at all? Did you, I mean, I know that I have a very precarious relationship with alcohol and a lot of that is connected to ADHD. ADHD and addiction are very close to each other. Did you have a similar situation? 

Yes, that would be, you know, I probably, um, well.. It depends in New York one, doesn't really go out to lunch really. Um, in Singapore, in, in London, it's kind of a different story. So, and it is very much, um, well, I should say, if you look at say the, the world of oil trading, it's a giant fraternity and it's a giant fraternity, um, of people that know each other and entertainment plays a big role in, in that industry. So you work very hard all day and you go out and celebrate at night. Um, and yeah, it, um, it plays a big role. Yeah. 

It never, it never affected you the point where you're like, okay, I probably shouldn't do this or I should cut back on anything that that? 

Um, well, for me, I can tell you, it was very clear when I was in my early fifties, I began to feel, um, diminished resilience. And that was really more a function of the stress, um, that, you know, without going too deep into it, sometimes when you have huge positions, um, you walk in and you ready to have a heart attack. And for the first up until my early fifties, I suppose if I had a superpower, it was the ability to endure enormous amounts of stress without thinking about it and I began to feel that that resilience diminishing, and that was my body speaking to me and saying, Hey, it's time to slow down. So for me, the signal was more about stress and less about other things. Um, I also, as I said, always would get up and need to workout first thing in the morning or at lunch. And I think that. Um, I think that the French have an expression to drink enough water with your wine and need enough salad with your foie gras, you know, working out, um, was always a way to balance out that aspect of you know, of my life. 

That’s very smart. So tell us last steps. What do you wish you'd known back then that you know now about your ADHD and about sort of the way you've lived?

That's a good question. Um, what do I wish I'd known before? Well, I think the, maybe I would turn that around a little bit and, and, and say that, um, I've heard that expression; it's like a Maserati engine with a bicycle brakes. And I think the understanding that ADHD can be a superpower was a transformational concept for me and for my daughter, but maybe more for young people. And I recently have had a friend whose son was diagnosed with ADHD and from the questionings, the line of questions he was asking, and from the tone in his voice, I got this sense that he'd been given some negative messaging from the school. And I thought, how tragic that was that, you know, it can be. And I, and I understand there's the, you know, there's a full spectrum for me. And I think in our family, a high processing speed is, is a part of it with less of the maybe other hyperactive issues. Right. And so we're able to harness that superpower and I get that it it's diff you know, everyone's a little bit different and that there are more difficult challenges that some people face but I think the understanding that, um, ADHD really can be a superpower is such a powerful message. And in understanding that figuring out how to channel that energy into the right direction, I think I was simply lucky to find something where I was able to channel it appropriately. Um, I don't think my knowing that I had ADHD would have helped me find.. I kind of stumbled into something that I loved And, but I think that, um, I think the, you know, to understand that people with ADHD have a superpower and it's important to try to find things in life well, ways to, to live with it, but also ways to channel it. Um, I think is the, is a message that, you know, I'd like to share because for me it was, it was a superpower.

Yeah, I love that. What a great way to when it end., um, Bill, I really appreciate that. How can people find more about your reach out to you if they have any questions or if they want to share, if you're willing to give us some info on how to get to you? I'm on LinkedIn. That's probably the easiest. Sounds good. And we'll put that, we'll put that link in the, in the show notes. Uh, it's under William Paul Hamlen. [actually under Mr. William Hamlen] Thank you so much for taking the time. I really, really appreciate it. You're our first interview of the year and it was definitely a good one. We'd love to have you back in several months as well to tell us what else you're working on.

Alright Peter, thanks, Happy New Year! 

Thanks again guys. As always, you were listening to Faster Than Normal. We love that you're here. Welcome back! This is going to be a really great year. We have a lot of new things coming up. I'll tell you right now we have some open space; you want to be on the podcast; you think you have an interesting story? Let us know what it is! I'm sure if you, if it's interesting to us, it's interesting to other people out there and you can help tell that story and share the ADHD is a gift, not a curse. We've been saying that since day one, we'll see you next week. Stay safe, stay healthy. Wear a mask.

—

Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at petershankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week. 

Jason Hsieh is the founder of LakiKid, a growing company who provides quality and affordable products that help neurodiverse children with their daily challenges. LakiKid is an eCommerce company that helps kids with special learning needs like Autism, ADHD, and Sensory Processing Disorder by providing support, education, and products. In 2013, Jason's son, Keanu, was diagnosed with Autism and ADHD at  the age of 2 while they were still living in Japan. They decided to move to Seattle, Washington because they just could not find the help their son needed in Japan. In the winter of 2017, Jason then founded LakiKid with a mission to help kids with Autism, ADHD, and Sensory Processing Disorder by providing support, advice and products that will reduce anxiety and improve attention span, improve sleep and inspire confidence in interpreting their senses. It is his mission to help neurodiverse kids live a life full of possibilities. LakiKid runs an online support group with 2400+ parents and weekly educational video podcasts. It has helped over 20K+ kids with it’s products since its inception in 2017. Their products are also being used in 300+ locations including NBA Arenas, Football and Baseball stadiums, Aquariums and Zoo’s across the United States as part of  KultureCity’s Sensory Inclusive Initiative program. Jason appeared on 6 podcasts (ADHD Support Talk Radio, SPED Homeschool, Become A Fearless Father, Silent Sales Machine Radio, Ecomcrew, and  Once Upon A Gene), and has also been a keynote speaker at the Selective Mutism Summit. Today we talk in-depth about what led him to start LakiKid  Enjoy!

 

---------- 

 

***CORONA VIRUS EDITION***

 

In this episode Peter & Jason discuss:

 

   :53  -  Intro and welcome Jason Hsieh!

 

1:55  -  On the difficulty of finding adequate resources in Japan to deal with any kind of neurodiversity 

 

3:11  -   On the stigma around getting help & support, then talking about it, especially as a parent

 

3:47  -  On an actual diagnosis at age 2 in Japan. What caused you to move to Washington, was there just zero help available in Japan?

 

4:50  -  Is Tokyo also progressive when it comes do neurodiversity?

 

5:47  -  On how Jason started https://lakikid.com/  and what prompted him to start it

 

6:56  -  On the company itself, the products offered

 

6:55  -  On the advantages of not only helping children in the home environment, but more of a global, general public service.

 

7:32  -  On the sensory inclusive movement like www.kulturecity.org is pushing, and response thus far

 

8:51  -  On the future plans for www.lakikid.com

 

9:05  -  How has the response been to your partnership?

 

10:38  -  On the possibility of partnering with other schools, or districts 

 

11:11  -  On how his son has adapted to the “new normal” w/ COVID, homeschooling etc.   

 

12:00  -  On more & more parents realizing that they too may have ADHD, after a child’s diagnosis

 

12:11  -  How do people find out more? Website: https://lakikid.com/ They have a monthly video block that they partner with occupational therapists, as well as different educational materials that people can check out. Lost of free materials!  Follow them at @LakiKid_Sensory on Twitter  @LakiKidSensory on Facebook and HERE on YouTube

 

13:14  -  Thank you Jason! And thank YOU for subscribing, reviewing and listening. Your reviews are working! Even if you’ve reviewed us before, would you please write even a short one for this episode? Each review that you post helps to ensure that word will continue to spread, and that we will all be able to reach & help more people! You can always reach me via peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterThanNormal on all of the socials. As always, leave us a comment below and please drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! Do you know of anyone you think should be on the FTN podcast? Shoot us a note, we’d love to hear!

13:42-  Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits

 

TRANSCRIPT: 

Hi everyone. Peter Shankman and you are listening to another episode of Faster Than Normal, which is always nice. It's great to have you guys. I hope you're enjoying your day, wherever in the world, you might be. We're going to Washington state today and we're going to talk to Jason Hsieh, who's the founder of https://lakikid.com/ a small and growing company that provides quality and affordable products that help neuro-diverse children with their daily challenges.  They're an e-commerce company and Jason founded it. They help kids with special needs like autism ADHD, sensory processing disorder, and they provide support education and products. In 2013, Jason’s son Keanu, best name ever, was diagnosed with autism and ADHD at the age of two, while they were still living in Japan.  They moved to Seattle Washington because they just couldn't find the help their son needed back in Japan.  We're going to talk about that,  In the winter of 2017, Jason founded https://lakikid.com/ with the mission to help kids with autism, ADHD, and sensory processing disorder….processing disorder by providing support advice and products that will reduce anxiety, improve attention, span, improve, sleep, and embrace confidence for the kids.  It is his mission to let neuro-diverse kids live as full a life or a life full of possibilities as possible. Talk to me, Jason, welcome to Faster Than Normal, thank you for being here. 

Hey, good morning. How are you? Thank you for having me on your podcast. 

Definitely tell me about. So I've heard from other people that in Japan, it is very hard to get the resources needed to deal with any kind of neuro-diversity.  Is that true? 

I would say a 100% true and that it's not just in Japan... and I'm from Taiwan. My wife's from Japan after we got married, we moved to back to Japan, but that's also the case for Taiwan as well, because I think we, in alot of Asian community and Asian countries. There's a huge stigma around mental disabilities that people tend to avoid talking about it.  Pretending it doesn't exist. What does try to hide it?  So that's kind of that kind of mentality in the society lead to lack of resources and lack of openness to openly talk about those kind of issues. 

I imagine it would be difficult if there is a stigma around it that that getting help and getting support and then coming out and talking about it in itself would just be difficult.

Of course for sure, and that's something I also struggled with when I first learned about my son's diagnosis back then, and I actually went through almost six months of denial. I refused to accept that there's something wrong with my son because we, my family does not, no one else to have mental disabilities.  Like how can this happen to my son? Just doesn't really make sense, and I think that's a process that… alot of the parents, especially Dad’s, I think goes through a lot more than a Mom, because I think we don't interact with the kids as much as the Mom’s do, and that tends to kind of create some kind of barrier.  And also as men, we tend to try to fix stuff, but Autism, ADHD or something like that is not something you can fix. That's something you need to create. Well, I guess, make it better and make improvement, but you couldn't really fix that kind of thing. 

 

And you said your son was diagnosed at age two in Japan.  So when he was diagnosed, what did the doctor say? You know, I mean, he told you, OK, your son has, you know, a central processing disorder, ADHD. Um, did he…. was there...,  was there help available?  What... what happened? I mean, cause you obviously moved to... you moved to Washington, you moved to Seattle. Um, was there just nothing available?

So, um, that's actually a perfect example for this is we didn't even find out about it until my wife pointed something out was kind of strange because every time she would take our son to the playground, he doesn't play with any other kid. He tends to play in his own corners for the whole time, for like one or two hours straight.  He doesn't even look at any other kids during the whole time. So that sounds really strange to my wife and that's where she brought up, uh, the proposal. OK, maybe we should have to have him take a beat, take a look at, and the first thing we got half of after we talked to the doctor in Japan is like, OK, this is a potential issue.   But unfortunately in the area that we used to live in, which we live in Tokyo, one of the largest metropolitan areas  you can imagine you have almost as much population, as the city of New York, but we can only go to 2 therapy centers that provide any kind of services for our son with the kind of symptoms that he has.   So that is not a good situation to being in, to living in the city was population over 10 million people, but you can only go to two locations to find help. 

That's pretty amazing when you think about it, that that's all that. Um, is available at, out of, you know, you look at, uh, Tokyo and, and, and, and cities like that, and you think that they're so progressive, when in fact it's actually very the opposite. 

Unfortunately that's a 100%t true, even so, they are very technology-wise, they are very advanced, but when you come to mental disability and kind of services that you can get, I think they are of these 10 year behind the United States and a lot of the Western countries.

Hmm. So let's talk about https://lakikid.com/  You moved, you moved to Seattle and you realized, okay, you're just going to start a company that will help these kids because what, there was nothing available. I mean, there was obviously a lot more support available here. So what prompted you to start the company? 

I think it's really just by connecting with other families that also have kids with special needs, and also at that time, the biggest struggle we have, is the insurance that we initially got. When we moved back here, it doesn't cover ABA therapy, which is an intense one-on-one behavior therapy that a lot of the kids with autism will use. And I was also trying to find out additional ways to supplement our family income.  That's why the idea of creating a business and helping other families, kind of similar to ours, that's where the idea was coming from, and also by talking to other families that also have similar issues, but they couldn't really find a lot of affordable products and solutions that can really help their kids, that's... that's where the idea originally come from. And we have since grown to something a little bit bigger than that, which I can talk a little bit more. . . 

 

Yeah. tell me, so tell me about the company. Tell me about the products, tell me about what you do, talk about it. 

For sure. So https://lakikid.com/ as a company, we are quote “mission is to empower support and educate kids with, uh, different sensory issues.”  And we partner with, um, different non-profit organizations. One of the biggest non-profits that we partner with is called https://www.kulturecity.org/sensory-inclusive/….start with K.  Uh, they have, uh, one of the, um, they are an international non-profits. They have locations in both US, Canada, Canada, Australia, and UK. I see  right now, they have over... 500 different locations, uh, inside one of the biggest programs called https://www.kulturecity.org/sensory-inclusive/and I'm just honored that we are able to partner with the non-profit and by providing sign of our product into their program and what their programs do, is still go into locations like zoos,  aquariums, NBA stadiums, football and baseball arenas, and they'll do, they'll do three things  for all those locations.  First, they will provide staff training so the staff is aware of the sensory challenges for the kids that have ADHD or Autism will face when they go to a public arena like NBA stadiums.  Second, they will provide a physical tool that's free to use for the family, they call a sensory bag.  Inside the sensory bags,  we have noise-canceling headphones, fidget toys, and a weighted blanket, which we designed for  https://www.kulturecity.org/sensory-inclusive/ for them to use. Our weighted blanket is unique in the way that we make it.  A, the material is different that kids can write on the blanket itself, use a water pen, so it's a 100% interactive, and last but not least, is they also help those arenas and locations to build sensory rooms, which is essentially a quiet space that a family can go to in case the kids is having a meltdown now, uh, while attending those kinds of events.

Interesting. So it's, you're thinking more of a bigger picture in that regard, it's not just to, to help the child, you know, when they're at home when they have it, It's, it's, it's, it's more of a global thought. 

Of course. I think we, uh, at our core, we believe in the sensory inclusive movement that https://www.kulturecity.org/sensory-inclusive/ is pushing, and it's all about creating a more accepting environment, not just at home and classroom, but also in the public, in the public, the general public as well.

What's the response been?  

Oh, https://www.kulturecity.org/sensory-inclusive/ and us, um, I think collaboration has gone a long way and the response has been very positive and of course, um, like everything else, uh, we all get affected because of the COVID situations, because all the location, I just mentioned almost every one of them got shut down because of COVID and including our business, because we do a lot of, uh, um, transaction with  school, and as you know, majority of the schools, oh gosh, shut down at the same time last year when the COVID situation happened, so it has been a very tough year for us last year, and we are kind of struggling right now, trying to recover from, from the, from the fallout of that. But hopefully this year will be a much better year.

 

Cool. So tell me what you have planned for the future for https://lakikid.com/ ?

Yeah, so one of our biggest programs that originally were planning to launch last year, but because of COVID, we didn't happen, but we have a new program we're working on called Sensory Inclusive Classrooms, which the idea is to implement what  https://www.kulturecity.org/sensory-inclusive/ is already doing in the NBA stadiums and all the different locations I mentioned earlier, but inside a public school environment, by providing a similar kind of training for the general education teacher, for the parent educators, and also help them provide some of the tools, like sensory tool that the teacher can use in the classroom and also helps out of the school to build sensory room if they have the budget and the space to do so. 

Awesome. Are you... are you looking at partnering with, uh, other schools or districts or things like that?

That's one thing we're working on. We do have a pilot program here in Washington that, uh, implementing before COVID, but because of the COVID situation, everything kind of got shut down. We are kind of waiting to see…. some of the schools are already starting to reopen here in Washington, but not all of them. So kind of waiting to see what the situation is going to turn out and how the vaccination roll-out is going to be before we decide what we’re going to do with the school program again. 

What has, uh, how has your son, uh, adapted with, with COVID and with homeschooling and all that? 

I would say that was one of the biggest struggles.  That's very common for the parents in our community, in myself and my wife included because it's very hard to focus even in-person, I mean, let alone saying remote learning because you're just staring at the screen and that’s something my son definitely still struggles with, um, focusing and, um, like being able to pay attention in class because he has not just Autism, but  ADHD as well. 

So yeah, totally. I could see the... the biggest problem for me was the lack of movement, you know, running around, running around and around and everything just stops, you know, and move... movement is living for someone with ADHD.  So not being sort of just being stuck at home and not really doing anything has been brutal.   

For sure, and that's one more thing I want to share that I actually didn't realize I had ADHD myself until I was doing all the research and all the study for my son and the more research and the more study I was doing, I realized I was checking 9 out of the 10 boxes for…. that was ADHD myself.

More and more, more and more parents, more and more parents get diagnosed because their children get diagnosed and they realize, wait, this looks really familiar. 

Exactly. Yeah. It's, it's kind of, it kind of explained my, my childhood story because I went to five different high schools myself, because I sweat a lot during school and I couldn't really pay attention, and I didn't know why. Then I was just keep on being told that I was, I wasn't a very good student, but now with the diagnosis... is kind of explaining a lot of the things that happened to me when I was young. 

Yeah. Jason, how can people find more, uh, what's the website for https://lakikid.com/ ? 

Yeah, they can find more https://lakikid.com/  It's spelled as lakikid.com. We have a monthly video block that we partner with occupational therapists, and we also have different educational materials that people can check out our product. And most of... most of the, um, we have a lot of free resources that we're trying to provide to the families as well.

Awesome. Jason Hsieh, thank you so much for taking the time to be on Faster Than Normal, I really appreciate it. 

Thank you so much for having me. 

Definitely.  Guys, thanks for listening. If you like what you hear, drop us a review, leave us a note, we'd love to know more.  We'd love to have, if you have any guests you think should be on the podcast, tell us, uh, send us an email at https://www.shankman.com/ or   https://www.fasterthannormal.com/   or  @petershankman  ,  Peter Shankman (@petershankman) • Instagram photos and videos  Peter Shankman (@petershankman) | Twitter all the socials. We would love to hear it. And, uh, we'll try to get your guests on the show as well. This podcast is for you and it's about you. So thank you for listening, have a great day.

Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at petershankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week. 

Life can change when you embrace your fears like our guest today did. His name: Patrick Sweeney. His occupation: Stunt pilot. He is also an Olympic level athlete, a best selling author, a World Record holder, has built and sold three global tech companies, is a leukemia survivor, a husband and a father. Why does he fly and seek-out fear regularly? Today we’re talking about managing fear and ADHD.. and also a little about skydiving!  

A bit more about Mr. Sweeney in his own words:

"I grew up terrified of everything. I didn't have confidence or self-esteem. My biggest fear was flying. I made excuses every time I had a chance to fly – on exchange programs, to family reunions, for big races, I made excuses to cover up the shame I felt of being afraid. I was lying to the world and myself. Then at 35 I got one of the rarest forms of leukemia. The doctors told me to say my good-byes. That was when I chose courage. Yeah, it's a choice. Not for me but for my 1-year-old daughter and unborn son. I decided if I beat the disease and got out of John’s Hopkins I’d get over my fear of flying. I did. I decided I’d get my private pilots license. It was terrifying, but I still took the first frightening step. Then an incredible thing happened. I fell in love with flying. I now fly a stunt plane in aerobatic competitions. It is one of the greatest joys in my life, a true passion that was hidden from me because of fear. My choice had a halo effect on my whole life. Suddenly courage became my superpower. It all started with that first small step. My life changed and so can yours. That’s why I left the lucrative start-up world behind; to write Fear is Fuel and help millions of people find courage and the life of their dreams. When we become authentic, strong and confident we can achieve world peace. That’s my dream." Enjoy!

 

 

***CORONA VIRUS EDITION***

 

In this episode Peter & Patrick J. Sweeney discuss:

1:00-  Intro and welcome Patrick!  Check out his book “Fear Is Fuel”

2:11-  On not getting over your fears

3:20-  On discovering how fear can be used as a performance fuel

4:20-  On being owned by fear and the shame of fearing fear

6:15-  On overcoming poor self esteem

7:12-  On making decisions out of fear rather than opportunity

9:17-  What advice would you give someone who’s been told ‘you are different’ all of their lives?

12:20-  On being ‘different’ and the conceptualization of fear

14:24-  About the fight, flight or freeze reactions

15:20-  On recognizing opportunity and finding more fear in our daily lives

17:30-  About the courage center in our brains

18:50-  On activating our courage center 

19:15-  Take Patrick’s Fear Level Test here  Find Patrick’s website at www.PJSweeney.com Find Patrick @ thefearguru on INSTA @PatrickSweeneyFearGuru on FB @PJSweeney on Twitter and on YouTube here

19:57-  Thank you Patrick! And thank YOU for subscribing, reviewing and listening. Your reviews are working! Even if you’ve reviewed us before, would you please write even a short one for this episode? Each review that you post helps to ensure that word will continue to spread, and that we will all be able to reach & help more people! You can always reach me via peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterThanNormal on all of the socials.

STAY HEALTHY - STAY SAFE - PLEASE WEAR YOUR MASK.. until next time!

20:05-  Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits

As always, leave us a comment below and please drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! Do you know of anyone you think should be on the FTN podcast? Shoot us a note, we’d love to hear!

We have a new sister video cast called 20MinutesInLockdown! A video podcast devoted to learning fascinating lessons from interesting humans all around the world, all in 20 minutes or less!  20 Minutes in Lockdown was born in early April of 2020, when we were in fact, in lockdown, and couldn’t do much of anything. Realizing that more than ever, people could benefit from learning from people outside of their comfort zone – people with interesting stories to tell, people with good advice, people with useful ideas that could help improve lives, we started hosting short Facebook video interviews, and we grew from there. (Plus, you can actually see my hair colors change before your very eyes!) Check it out:  www.20MinutesInLockdown.com

 

TRANSCRIPT: 

Guys, Peter Shankman looked at their episode faster than normal I'm thrilled that you're here. Let's talk Fear today. Let's talk for your, let's talk about the fear that paralyzes you and prevents you from doing anything. That's the fear that says, Hey, I have this great idea, but you know what? I don't think there was no of good. So I'm not going to take the risk. I'm not gonna do it. Let's talk about the fear that keeps you paralyzed and inactive and prevents you from getting everything you want. And when you're ADHD or any sort of neurodiverse, you get that a lot. The road is littered with brilliant ideas that never took off because fear held us back. And the day I realized that I could manage my fear was the day that I became free. And I think we got someone else who's going to share a little bit about that as well. So let's talk to Patrick Sweeney. 

Patrick calls himself the fear guru and long story, very short. He grew up terrified of everything. His biggest fear was flying. Hated flying. At age 35, he was diagnosed when the rarest forms of leukemia and the doctors told him to say his goodbyes and he chose courage, and he got over it. He beat the disease. Studied to get his private pilot's license. And now he flies a stunt plane. He does aerobatic competitions. He loves it. Life can change if you embrace your fear like this guy did. Patrick welcome to Faster Than Normal.

Peter man. It is great to be here. Thank you so much. I love what you guys are doing and I'm excited to be on the show.

Good. I appreciate that. You know, fear is one of those things that I, I, you know, I I've talked to people. Oh, you know, I have no fear of fear for the weak. I don't believe that. I believe fear is actually very beneficial because fear. You know, if I went to, if I, every time I, I don't have to, if I wasn't afraid every time I sat up, I wouldn't skydive. Fear is designed to keep you alive. It's designed to make sure that you're on top of your game. So I think the first thing we should establish is, is you're not anti fear(?) 

Oh man, the opposite. And in fact, people who say avoid your fears or get over your fears, or I want to be fearless; that's complete bullshit, Peter. I, uh, I just got off a call with 200 CEOs. Uh, in Asia from this group called YPO young president's organization. And one of them said, you know, are you afraid of anything? And I said, yeah, I'm afraid of tons of stuff, but now I know how to use that fear as fuel because when you produce that fear cocktail, when you have that those physiological changes you literally get smarter and you get stronger. So why not use that as a, as a superhuman performance fuel? 

I remember the first time I ever truly discovered that fear could be a performance fuel. Exactly. Like you said, I, when I went to get my skydiving license, my first solo jump, you know, you do three tandems and they do a bunch of solo jumps with an instructor. Right? First jump you do you're you're on your own, but the instructor is sort of holding onto your belt loop, right to make sure you can stay stable in the air. And for some reason I had this, I had an instructor who weighed about 280 pounds. It was the middle of August. He was sweating his ass off. He smelled horrible and I was doing everything in my power to stay away from him in this tiny little plane. But of course it had to be right next to him. And I was gagging and several,.. I get out of the air to do the job; he lets go on and he tells me to pull, I open my parachute. I land in a heap on the ground. He comes over to me and I hugged this man like harder than I have anyone in my life. And I realized nothing else mattered. At that point I was hi is a kite on dopamine, serotonin and adrenaline and that was the first time I realized that, wow, you can really target this fear and allow it to benefit you. Now, when you started telling me, this is when you started out, you know, you were just like everyone else in that respect, fear was there. Right? 

So, yeah, I mean like, is it became a life? I was, I was owned by fear. I was, uh, and, and because of growing up in a blue collar, Irish Catholic, you know, uh, immigrant area of Boston, fear was something to be ashamed of. Right. Fear was something you didn't admit. Fear was something that you pretend it didn't exist. Yeah. And my grandfather was thought the way to make us Men, you know, it was, was to beat the fear out of us. So he used to take his, um, uh, his belt off and put us over his knee and whip us with it. And so I grew up with no self esteem, always thinking I wasn't good enough. And then always feeling this terrible amount of shame because I was afraid of stuff. I couldn't tell anyone I was afraid. I wouldn't, you know, things got really crazy. Uh, you know, I got crazy scared of something I'd start crying and you know, my dad would give me the old, I'll give you a reason to cry and, uh, and so I grew up with this fear and then not knowing, not having any mechanism for dealing with it. Because of that, Peter, I became afraid of fear. So when I started feeling those feelings, you know, the butterflies, new stomach that heartbeat faster and all the stuff I talk about in my book, I started to think, holy shit, this is fear is happening I got to get away from it. I got to do something. So every time I felt that I, it became the fear of fear that really was crippling for me. 

And that wake up call. I mean, you know, I'm not going to say you were lucky to get the disease you got, but you know, all the major life changes that we have come, they started some random point and yours happened to be that right? Tell us about it. 

Well, you know, and, and I wouldn't necessarily say it was random. Uh, I caused it for sure. So I was, I spent my lifetime trying to build self confidence and self esteem and, and never being good enough. And so when I started a company, I figured if I made a lot of money. So first I figured if I, if I became a great athlete, I'd signed self esteem and courage, so I spent six years training to the Olympics, finished second in the Olympic trials, race the world cup in the single skull and rowing and I got confident on the water, but no place else. I mean I still was terrified to ask out a, a beautiful girl or, or ask Investors money or, you know, all this stuff instead of \so, uh, so then I thought, well, so I make a lot of money. I'll get self esteem and confidence. And, and so I started to build up this persona, uh, after business school where, you know, I was wearing $10,000 watches driving $150,000 car, raised about $50 million in venture capital in debt and was just terrified the whole time. And the way I dealt with it was, was the only way I could keep these anxiety wolves at bay was drinking. I'd have seven or eight beers every night and probably twice that on the weekends. And so that combination of drinking of anxiety and fear, a fear of failure, fear of employees, leaving fear of customers going and then that, that just being terrified to fly, all of those things combined to just keep a flood of cortisol, the stress hormone, going through my body and not surprisingly- that almost killed me. I'm highly convinced that combination of things led to this really rare form of leukemia. And when I went into my local GP, he said, we have no idea what's going on, but you get no immune system and we're going to send you to the Hopkins. My one year old daughter went to her grandparent's house, my wife and I went up to Hopkins and we endured this battery of nightmare tests that culminated in Dr. McDavid coming in and saying look, um, you know, we're going to do everything we can, we've got great oncologists, but we think you should get your affairs in order and say your goodbyes. My wife was six months pregnant and went into shock. And I was just, you know, I didn't know what to do. I mean, I, it, it was then when regret hit me like a baseball bat to the stomach. I thought I looked back on my life stop, man. I had these amazing opportunities and I just wasted them all because I was terrified of everything I made every decision out of fear instead of making decisions out of opportunity. And that's when it hit me that, that, uh, I had wasted my entire life and now I'm going to die anyways. 

So, the podcast is primarily geared towards either people with ADHD or people who love people with ADHD, or neurodiversity, and you know, what do you, what can you tell them? What can you tell someone who has all his life or her life been accused of being different. And has, you know, is we just suddenly realizing that that might not be a curse; that might be a gift, but they're not anywhere near the point where it doesn't scare them- where they're not afraid of that, where they can..where they can move forward from it. You know, when you're, when you're in school and you're not like everyone else, a lot of times ‘that's different and you're wrong’. Right? And so you, you grow up with that mentality of: ‘my God, something must be wrong with me. I should probably keep a low profile. I can't do anything. I shouldn't try anything new’. You know, what advice would you give. 

Well, you know, I got a ton of advice from Peter and, um, partially because, you know, I think I'm going 100 miles an hour all the time. When I grew up, uh, you know, obviously in the eighties and they weren't really diagnosing kids with ADHD and the, in the, uh, eighties and nineties, she was called, “sit down, you're disrupting the class disease”.

Exactly. That's exactly. And that was me. And so, and, and I'll, I'll continue the story with my youngest son as well, but, um, I had so much energy and I was always thinking of stuff and I could, I could just, you know, I was like a machine gun instead of these people who were like a bolt action rifle that I deal with. And so to me, it was always, you know, my, my. Uh, my, my friends were, would always say, you know, you're either gonna end up in jail or as a millionaire because you're out of control dude. And, you know, I think up until the sickness, you had that, that looking for self esteem and that was a big part of it because feel different and one of the things from a neuroscience perspective, everyone listened to your podcast needs to know— is that when something is different, it scares us. So we have, uh, a subconscious database that's the equivalent of 500 Mac book computers, and the really messed up thing. Peter is we don't populate that, that subconscious. Other people do. So we don't choose where we're born. We don't choose the color of our skin. We don't choose the number of brothers and sisters. We don't choose the language. We speak, all of that's changed. And for us yet, we use that to make 18 and 90% of our decision every day. So all of those decisions are being made subconsciously. Now, if you realize that if you realize that I'm going to populate the computer that's making decisions for us. And one of the key warning signals of danger that our brain gives is when something's different. And it doesn't match up with things that are in our tribe, things that are in our environment. So when someone seems different or they're called different, then they scare people and, and people are gonna act differently around that. They're going to have literally a fear response. And so. When, when you look at the greatest, most successful and happiest people in the world from a, an Elon Musk to a Richard Branson and, uh, you know, to, to, uh, Gandhi, they're all very different from normal people. And so being different. One thing I learned after, or six years of neuroscience research- being different means you've got a much higher chance of success and happiness and fulfillment. If you find the, the really bright shot, any exciting side of your difference. 

It's a great way to look at it. I always think- in the concept of fear, um, if you look at the, I mean the human body and you're right, you're a hundred percent, right? The human body does classify things that could kill me, stay away from it. That's pleasurable. Get more of it, things like that. It's a very, it's a very binary, binary approach, right? A you want a, okay. That's B you can't have B you should get a stick with that. On the flip side, though. I mean, there are benefits to that, you know, not, not from the perspective of ADHD. Um, a lot of the ADHD perspective is, is, is the body is telling you not to do those things when in fact you should and that's where the training comes in. You know, for instance, um, you know, a car. Uh, God forbid a car rolls onto your kid. All of a sudden you have hope strength strengthen. You can actually pull that car off, right. Adrenaline and, and, and, and, and dopamine sorry, give you that strength. Now. You're going to be in hell for the next six months as you heal from that, but you know, you're going to the body says, hey, I'd rather you. It's better for you to, to hurt for a few months than to lose your ability to procreate, right. And that's millions of years of evolution. And so the concept of fear is that it's fear. Fear is the same thing in that regard, as adrenaline fear tells us, Hey, that saber tooth tiger can kill you; avoid it. The problem is is that we don't have saber tooth tigers anymore. Right. We have, you know, the risk of, of looking stupid, right? And we've, we've maximize these risks and glorify them in such a way through the media and through the us that a lot of times we are afraid to take that chance. 

Well, and that's the problem. So we're running a 2 million year old piece of software on our amygdala, and that knows the fight, flight, or freeze response. But the problem it is that was designed by our caveman ancestors to be an early warning system for danger. And in fact, today we can use that same system in our modern society, which is full of stimulus. We can use that as an early warning system for opportunity. Because we have, when we designed 2 million years ago, that cave man was sitting out in front of his cave maybe some birds were tweeting and gentle breeze was blowing, but there wasn't phones ringing. There, there weren't computers going off there weren't horns honking and, and weed whackers going there, there wasn't all this stimulus. So anything that, that that was the slightest bit off was something that they needed to be warned about. The problem is that software stayed with us. So we've got to reprogram that. So that when something feels different, when something gives us a strange feeling, we look at that and we say, Hey, wait a minute. I’ve got an opportunity presenting itself here and try and figure out what that is when you have that feeling, beause what most people do and what I did until, you know, I almost died was I looked at that and I said, Oh my God, I get that feeling. Something's wrong. I get it. I got to run. I got to run from that feeling. When in fact you've got to lean into it, that's why we need to find more fear every day in our lives. 

Well, it's very true.  And you know, the, the, the, the first time I jumped again for sometimes under the airplane, I felt freer when I hit the ground than I ever had in my life. I'm like, I gotta do that again And every time I jump, I get scared, but that's the excitement of it is that I know that the end result is going to be worth it. 

Oh, Peter, when I, you and I took that first flying lesson, I peed at least four times. I'm telling you. I remember absolutely every detail. It was in a, you know, ultra high definition, crystal clear and that fear response helped me learn better because my pupils were dilated. I was taking in more visual information. My hearing was better cause more blood flow went in there. My, my brain, the brain oxygen blood barrier opened up wider so I got more oxygen to my brain. And, and I was terrified, but I kept thinking I'm going to do this for my daughter, so I had an altruistic motivation. I, I didn't want her memory of her dad being a guy who was too afraid to get on a plane and take her to Disney world. Right. So I said, I'm going to overcome this fear of flying for her. And that motivation gave me courage, that that helped me flip the switch to my courage center. The second lesson was even worse because we went out over some mountains. And, and let me tell you, Peter, in that little plane, that little diamond DA40 we were bouncing around and I actually pooped myself up.

Updrafts! Updrafts will do that to you, my friend that's phenomenal. 

Hey, that ha that's part of it. That's part of the game and that's part of the experience. And that's the story you tell now. 

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And, and, you know, after that, having the courage that we've literally have a courage center in our brain there's there's, uh, everyone has heard about the amygdala, our fear center, but these Israeli researchers did a brilliant study. They took, uh, 300 people who had admitted in a survey; they were terrified of snakes. And they put them in a functional MRI machine. That's one of those white sort of coffin-like things you can go into scan your brain. And at the other end of the FMRI machine was the snake sitting in a wagon on a little, um, a little track. And inside the FMRI machine, they had a button that could move the snake closer or further away and not surprisingly, most of the people got in were told what the buttons were for, and they pushed that snake as far away as they, yeah. But. There were a few brave souls who actually moved it closer to themselves. And what happened was incredible because the amygdala literally switched off and a part of their brain called the SGACC sub-genial, anterior cingulate cortex lit up like a Christmas tree. They literally flipped a switch on their brain and activated their courage center and they did it by choice. And that's the amazing thing that we all have the capability to do. We can activate our courage center. It feels horrible. Right? You've got to act courageous first, then you'll feel courageous. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking, Oh, I'll do that. When I feel more courageous. 

Yeah, it's never going to happen. It's just your body telling your body you're ready to do it and then just get it done. Awesome. Patrick, I cannot thank you enough. The book is called fear as fuel. It's a Wall Street Journal Bestseller. I strongly encourage people to check it out. How can they find you? What's a, you have a website and what? [Take Patrick’s Fear Level Test here  Find Patrick’s website at www.PJSweeney.com Find Patrick @ thefearguru on INSTA @PatrickSweeneyFearGuru on FB @PJSweeney on Twitter and on YouTube here]

Well, Peter, uh, I definitely have a website and something for your listeners. I think that..You have a, there's a little button there that says test your fear. So you can take a survey for, uh, it takes about five minutes and you can test your fear in different realms, like finance and chill and physical and that sort of thing. So go to www.PJsweeney.com and go test your fear. Have some fun with that. Uh, we're also got a master that released I'm really excited about. Is the fear, your listeners. Thank you all so much for taking time out of your busy day. Awesome, Patrick, thank you again. And guys, thank you as always for listening, we'll see you next week for another episode of Faster Than Normal, looking forward to it with other great guests like Patrick Sweeney. Talk to you guys soon!

 

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Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at petershankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were performed by Steven Byrom and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week. 

Kevin Roberts has spent a good deal of his adult life coming to terms with his own ADHD and cyber addiction. He has a Master’s Degree in ADHD and Addiction Studies from Antioch University. He has trained therapists, students, physicians, nurses, teachers, parents, and school administrators on the perils of overuse of the Internet and video games, as well as ADHD. He has developed a number of innovative programs, such as Training Your Dragons summer camps that empower ADHD children, including intensive training to their families. His “ADHD Empowerment Groups” have been featured on television programs and other media outlets. A sought-after speaker, Roberts has given lectures and workshops around the world, and has recently spoken in the United Kingdom, Canada, Holland, and Poland. He speaks five languages fluently. He has taken groups of young people and their families to Poland to visit Schindler’s factory, Auschwitz, and other Holocaust sites. Roberts has appeared on national and local television stations across the country and the world. Enjoy!

 

In this episode Peter and Kevin discuss:

:54-  Intro and welcome Kevin!  www.KevinJRoberts.net

2:06-  Tell us your story & your background. How old were you, how were you diagnosed, etc. ref: psychometric testing

3:45-  How did the internet addiction thing come into play? How did you identify that? ref:  “Confessions of a Self Help Junkie” 

8:04-  So at what point did you realize that something really had to change with the gaming?

9:05-  So what happened- what did you do to get better?

10:00-  Tell us about your daily routine

10:47-  Let’s talk about a good night’s rest

11:30-  Talk to us about language-learning skills. That’s not usually a norm with ADHD folks.

12:35-  Tell us more of your passions; what else do you do when you’re not in ‘the zone’ working. ref:  BBC’s The World At War

14:00-  This is definitely not the place to talk politics but considering that reference, how do you feel about what you see going on in the US and European politics today?

15:09-  Tell us parents about your summer camps! ref:  kinesthetic learning “Training Your Dragons camp”

16:08-  On changes being made in recognizing ADHD 

17:23-  Tell us about your upcoming book! Schindler’s Gift: How One Man Harnessed ADHD to Change the World link to it at Barnes & Noble  (Soft release on Oct. 8. Official release on Dec. 7)

18:17-  How can people reach you Kevin? www.KevinJRoberts.net or email: Kevin@KevinJRoberts.net

18:38-  Thank you Kevin!! And thank YOU for listening1 You can always reach me at peter@shankman.com @petershankman on all of the socials, and also at @FasterThanNormal on all of the socials.

18:42-  Join us January 24th in Las Vegas! ShankMinds: Las Vegas is a complete business transformation experience. When you attend a ShankMinds Event, you grow your business and boost your revenue in three simple steps. 120 Entrepreneurs. One Day. Unbelievable Breakthroughs. 

19:20-  Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits

As always, leave us a comment below, PLEASE drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! The more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! Know of anyone you think should be on the FTN podcast? Shoot us a note – We’d love to hear!

Every once in a while we get to interview people who share some goals with Faster Than Normal. These people have a similar calling- to help, inspire and teach people more about ADHD. Today is one of those days! Sarah is the brains behind www.AdultingWithADHD.com, a blog for ADHD women. Along with the blog, she hosts a spin-off podcast and online support group with the mission of bringing self-empowerment and practical tips to her community. A digital marketer by day, Sarah lives with her husband and toddler in San Antonio, Texas. We hope this is helpful and useful to you. Enjoy!

 

In this episode Peter and Sarah discuss:

:56-  Intro and welcome Sarah!  https://adultingwithadhd.com  Sarah’s Podcast

1:36-  Tell us your story; how did you learn you were ADHD? Inattentive Type ADHD

2:20-  Was that a wake-up call? Did things start making more sense afterwards? ref: Jon Snow

3:19-  When you began to learn more about ADHD, was it an additive process or did things just switch overnight?  ref: ACL Fest 

4:34-  What were some of the first routines/things you began to implement that made a big difference in your daily life?  ref: Brain.FM  Brain.FM’s Daniel Clark interview on Faster Than Normal 

6:30-  Tell us a little more about your color-coding system?

7:14-  What are things like with your family, in regards to learning all about your ADHD, etc?

8:45-  Have you felt a difference and how do you feel when people misuse & loosely toss around the acronym ADHD?

9:58-  How would you go about explaining your ADHD to a romantic partner, or even a potential romantic partner?

11:38-  What is a “first visit” like for women who come into your group? How does that go?

12:34-  What do you recommend to people who have just been diagnosed with ADHD for the first time?  https://www.additudemag.com

13:43-  Sarah, how can people get in touch with you?  https://adultingwithadhd.com contact@adultingwithadhd.com or @ADHDAdulting on Twitter or INSTA

14:05-  Thank you Sarah!!  And thank YOU for listening1 You can always reach me at peter@shankman.com @petershankman on all of the socials, and also at @FasterThanNormal on all of the socials. Thanks as always to Steven Byrom for editing/producing this podcast & for composing our theme!

14:36-  Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits

As always, leave us a comment below, PLEASE drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! The more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! Know of anyone you think should be on the FTN podcast? Shoot us a note – We’d love to hear!

Corey is a media and technology expert who has emerged as the 'always-on' innovation and cannabis publicist. His experience as a journalist for outlets like Global News and The Globe & Mail and his prolific hustle on behalf of his clients makes him the ideal partner for brands looking to connect with journalists and consumers. A frequent speaker at hubs such as Leaf Forward, MaRS and Ryerson's DMZ, Corey has unique insight into the inner workings of the media industry and knows how to make a story irresistible. 

Corey received his post-grad in public relations from Ryerson University and resides in Toronto, ON, Canada with his wife, daughter, dog and floor-to-ceiling sneaker collection. We begin by talking about those sneakers here today. Enjoy!

 

 

In this episode Peter and Corey discuss:

:52-  Intro and welcome Corey!

1:42-  So how does one garner a floor-to-ceiling sneaker collection & how are you still married

3:48-  What prompted you to finally get diagnosed?

6:05-  Outside of CBD, do you take any other meds?

6:47-  Talk about the immediate differences you experienced once switching completely to CBD 

7:26-  Is it/does it work the same for you, to this day?

7:54-  What is Indica?

8:58-  So you are able to get into your zone of focus this way?

9:49-  And for you this has been 100percent better than any sort of medication you got from a doctor, or from BigPharma?

10:24-  You also work as a publicist in the cannabis industry; talk a little about that and how you use ADHD to your advantage in your work

12:16-  How were things for you, growing up with ADHD?

13:37-  What do you tell someone who may have a kid with ADHD and is struggling in school?

14:50-  Thank you Corey! How can people get in touch? @CoreyHerscu on Twitter  @Herscu on INSTA Facebook and at RainmakerPR on Twitter

15:29-  Thank YOU for leaving us your reviews and for subscribing!

15:39-  Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits

Genna Singer grew up going to summer camp. She started early in her single digits and only missed one year. She loves summer camp!! In September of 2002 she joined the wonderful staff at the Marlene Meyerson JCC as Director of After School Programs, while maintaining an active role in the summer camps programs as well. In 2006 she became the Director of Camps and continues to help them develop and grow new, exciting programs! My daughter had a wonderful time here this summer and I was so happy Genna was able to join us today, to talk and educate us about the importance of Summer Camps. Enjoy!

 

In this episode Peter and Genna discuss:

:45-  Intro and welcome Genna!

1:25-  You spent most of your summers as a kid at sleep away camp. What was your favorite summer camp? Camp Timbertops

2:11-  What is it about camp that you love so much?

3:02-  On nurturing play & freedom from routines and a kids’ school-day grind.

4:50-  What have you seen in terms of kids who come in, who might have some soft of neural ‘atypical-ness’ in them; whether it’s ADD, ADHD, Autism Spectrum- what happens when they go to camp?

6:38-  Have you seen situations where physical activity has radically changed a kid?

8:56-  How do you get kids excited to leave their comfort zones and try bold, new things?

12:40-  Peter’s first experience with summer camp. Are there two types of reactions you typically get from kids in the first few days?

16:03-  Genna, how can folks reach out to you if they wanna follow-up, or talk to you?

 http://campsettoga.org  646-505-4430 or at Marlene Meyerson JCC 

16:29- Thank you Genna!! And thank YOU for leaving us your reviews and for subscribing!

16:59-  Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits

As always, leave us a comment below, PLEASE drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! The more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! Know of anyone you think should be on the FTN podcast? Shoot us a note – We’d love to hear!

Today we visit with Mark Murphy. He wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until he was nearly 50. We talk about how he built his company and how being impulsive can sometimes be a huge benefit. Mark is a trusted travel expert, best-selling author, entrepreneur and professional speaker. He is the founder and CEO of travAlliancemedia, the leading travel trade media company in the United States. His company has been recognized 6X (starting in 2008) by Inc magazine, as one of the fastest growing privately held companies in the United States. He provides professional commentary for both consumer and business travelers, and is a frequent travel expert and travel analyst on major networks & news stations including: The Today Show, CNN, FOX Business, FOX News, and ABC, CBS,NBC and The Travel Channel. We’ll probably bump into each other again soon on our way to One Columbus Circle. Enjoy!

In this episode Peter and Mark discuss:

1:45-  Hello and welcome Mark!  http://www.travalliancemedia.com

3:25-  How did things go for you in school?

5:02-  What made you decide to get tested & diagnosed?

6:42-  What is a typical work day like for you?

8:26-  Do you do anything to minimize your daily choices and does that help?

9:10-  Tell us some about your company and how it came into existence?

11:12-  How do you decide which tasks to delegate?

13:40-  What are you NOT good at?

15:45-  What are you pitfalls, your rabbit holes?

17:05-  Has giving into impulsiveness ever been a help to you?

19:02-  How can people find you if they’d like to talk more? @MurphyTravels on Twitter/Facebook/Insta. Also at www.MurphyTravels.com and at www.TravelPulse.com @travelpulse

19:40- Thank you Mark! And thank YOU for leaving us your reviews and for subscribing!

20:13-  Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits

As always, leave us a comment below, PLEASE drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! The more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! Know of anyone you think should be on the FTN podcast? Shoot us a note – We’d love to hear!

ADHD Balancing Time & Learning w/h Multi-talented Company Builder Vahid Jozi

Vahid is a serial entrepreneur, having founded several companies in the past that resulted in exits, failures, and everything in between. He has held most of the positions in a company including developer, designer, salesperson, marketer, and investor. His focus currently is on product management, machine learning & AI, and retail. He advises various startups, investors & accelerators. He is currently the founder of Yooshi.ai with the mission of utilizing AI to increasing video engagement and reducing cost of video production. We spent some time together on Labor Day talking about how he balances his mental, physical and social health, while keeping it all spinning, enjoy!

In this episode Peter and Vahid discuss:

1:04- Intro & welcome Vahid!

4:45-  With so much of your work depending on you 24/7, tell us how you manage that, being ADHD and also having OCD?  https://www.eisenhower.me/eisenhower-matrix/

6:40-  Do you think the concept of always being ‘on task’ can be a negative thing?  How does that work on a schedule?

8:00-  What do you get out of planning downtime? Is it working for you?

9:15-  Did you ever have “a real job”?

10:54-  How do things work in your social life, being around people w/h brains of different speeds?

12:30-  Other than work, what do you do for fun?  https://weedbox.io

13:20-  How do you meet new people?

14:10-  Do you exercise regularly?

15:10-  So you’re a morning guy too, how’s it going with such little sleep?

16:10-  How can people find you? Twitter: @VahidJozi or LinkedIn: www.VahidJozi.com

16:30-  Thank you Vahid! And thank YOU for leaving us a review and for subscribing!

16:52-  Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits

As always, leave us a comment below, PLEASE drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! The more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! Know of anyone you think should be on the FTN podcast? Shoot us a note – We’d love to hear!

This March, Brain.FM received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to research the effects of music & soundwaves on people who have ADHD, and also those who suffer from difficulty focusing on the job. At lot of neuroscience continues to go into their work. We were happy to visit with CEO Daniel Clark in our office to talk about how it all works, and how his life’s love of technology ultimately called him aboard. Enjoy!

In this episode Peter and Daniel discuss:

1:04-  Intro & welcome Daniel. www1.Brain.FM

2:27-  So how did you first learn about Brain.FM? What is your background?

3:55-  Tell us some more about Brain.FM?

5:15-  Tell us about this concept from the neuro-diversity aspect. Who is using Brain.FM? EEG fMRI Data Center 

6:30-  Based on the research you've done thus far, how exactly does music bring one to an increased mental state? A.I. Composer  Human Composer 

7:56-  Everyone is different- how do you customize for each brain? Neuro Phase Locking (ref also *13:30) 

8:50-  Binaural Beats were once all the rage and I tried them out. Are they still a big thing?

10:50-  Tell us about the Auditory NeuroScientist that you are working with

12:00-  http://www.kevinjpwoods.com

*13:30-  On finding what music works for your brain.

13:50-  Tell us a little about how A.I. helps you create music

14:58-  On White noise

16:00-  Why is it that USA Greco-Roman Wrestling is so popular on your site?

17:20-  Folks, the site is Brain.FM  How can people follow you Daniel? TWITTER: @BrainfmApp  Facebook: BrainFM

17:45-  Thank you Daniel! And thank YOU for listening! Please let us know what you think of this new in-office format below!

18:22-  Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits

As always, leave us a comment below, PLEASE drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! The more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! Know of anyone you think should be on the FTN podcast? Shoot us a note – We’d love to hear!

Collin’s struggle with ADHD has always been a crucial part of who he is. ADHD was almost a mystery to him, and he always felt out of place, wondering why he was “different” from his peers. It wasn’t until he began to research these feelings that he discovered that there were others who felt the same way. Collin then became obsessed with understanding ADHD. Throughout his research, Collin began to feel comforted knowing that there are resources that can truly help people struggling to understand themselves.  During high school, Collin was introduced to a MLM company called Vemma which sparked Collin’s passion to become an Entrepreneur. He has since invested hours upon hours into personal development, communication, and leadership skills. He now manages his own Car Detailing business, which started as a side hustle, but is turning into a profitable source of income. Today we talk about his journey and what’s been working for him.  Enjoy!

In this episode Peter and Collin discuss:

:45-  Intro & welcome Collin

1:34-  When did things first begin to change for you?

3:30-  What happened after you got diagnosed?

4:15-  Was there an immediate difference as you began taking Concerta?

4:50-  How often do you take your meds?

5:43-  You mentioned you attained your blackbelt in Krav Maga; how do you currently use exercise for your ADHD?

6:13-  Have you found a specific time to exercise that works best for you?

7:30-  Tell us how you started out as an entrepreneur

9:12-  Do you see yourself going back to a regular job, or is being an entrepreneur “it” for you?

9:40-  Take us through an average day for you

10:23-  How do you shut off your brain?

11:02-  Do you have any tricks or tips that you’ve found and use to get stuff done?

11:50-  What have you learned about yourself from your ADHD?

13:08-  How can people find you? CollinMcDougall@gmail.com or SNAPCHAT: @DougDoug

13:45-  Thank you Collin, and thank you for listening!

13:59-  Faster Than Normal Podcast info and credits

As always, leave us a comment below, PLEASE drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! The more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! Know of anyone you think should be on the FTN podcast? Shoot us a note – We’d love to hear!

Brian grew up in suburban NJ. He was diagnosed with ADHD at six years old. He moved away, graduated from Tulane University with a Philosophy degree and a honed talent for writing. In 2016, he was interviewed by Fox 5 NY about his ADHD memoir & personal experience with Adderall addiction. I actually have Brian’s book on my desk right now! He’s a successful entrepreneur, continues to be very outspoken about society's miscomprehension of ADHD and is helping to change the conversation! Now living in NYC with his wife Lindsey, Brian loves to travel, lift weights, talk philosophy at bars, and enjoys spending time with family & friends. He spends a little of his time here with us today. Enjoy!

In this episode Peter and Brian discuss discuss:

1:00-  Intro & welcome Brian!

2:10-  Brian’s book “Adderall Blues” 

2:27-  “Ten Ways to be Happier When You Live/Love Someone With ADHD”

2:38-  So let us begin with talking about your wife!

3:50-  So what happens when you randomly do the most stupid & impulsive things without telling anyone first?

6:30-  Tell is about your book!

9:20-  Tell me about Beijing- how did you wind up in Beijing?

11:35-  Do you think you would’ve planned better if you didn’t have ADHD?

12:19-  Peter on London

13:28-  Brian on getting deported from China

15:17-  Talk some, if you will please, about addiction?

17:43-  Do you have the premise of addiction that:  “there is no ‘just one’ dose, or hit”?

20:07-  Do you think you could write another book today and be as raw, and honest with us as you were in “Adderall Blues?

21:32-  How can people find you Brian?  Brian.J.Robinson@hotmail.com  INSTA: @BrianRobinsonOfficial

21:48-  Thank you Brian, and thank you for listening!!

22:25-  Faster Than Normal Podcast info and credits

As always, leave us a comment below, PLEASE drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! The more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! Know of anyone you think should be on the FTN podcast? Shoot us a note – We’d love to hear!