ADHD 2.0: Essential Strategies to Thrive In The Midst of Distraction Feat. Dr. Edward Hallowell

one of the most important ones and I stress it in my new book is is Finding Your Right difficult it has to be the combination of difficult you see if it's not challenging we'll get bored we we love difficult but it's got to be the right Difficult by the way it's growth that turns us on not money we like money sure who doesn't but but it's really it's really that feeling of growing something that that's is so exciting for us you have to have some deal cooking or project cooking or something you're working toward in

order for you to feel right so it's really important to find your right difficult if if you don't you you won't be at your at your Peak please your attention because what's next is going to be a game changer for you if you like over half of your fellow genius network members if you're not in the special half of a group then you live with or know others who are no really pay attention to what I'm saying oh you can't okay I understand it's because you have ADHD and paying attention staying focused and being overly

active or just a few of the issues that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder causes for so many people there are lots of experts out there offering advice medications and cures and yet one of the most sought after of all these experts is your next speaker Dr Ned Hallowell Dr Ned is a longtime friend of Joe polishes and no stranger to genius Network at an annual event many years ago he spoke and the results were so outstanding we wanted to bring him back to you again Dr NAD is a board-certified child and adult psychiatrist in the world

Authority on ADHD he's a graduate of Harvard College and Tulane Medical School and was a Harvard Medical School faculty member for 21 years he's the founder of hellaway ADHD centers in many cities Across America for over 40 years he's helped thousands of adults and children live in happy live happy happy and productive lives through his strength-based approach and the fact that he himself has ADHD and dyslexia he's a New York Times best-selling author has written over 20 books on the subject he's the host of his new podcast called Dr hallowell's wonderful world of different in

his in this podcast he celebrates the world of different and it's many in varied forms his main mission is to break down the barriers of stigma and misunderstanding and show how all of us can benefit from the differences between us so Ned is going to Enlighten our minds you look very handsome today by the way Ned you're looking very good thank you so much I appreciate that you're welcome so he's going to present and then we're going to have some q a and then we'll be able to break out in sessions again to talk about

what Ned's sharing so Ned please help me everybody Welcome Ned Hallowell thank you all thank you all it's uh it's always a treat to join uh Joe's group you know Joe Joe polish is is really one of the most remarkable men I've ever met and he he has the unusual combination of being a creative entrepreneurial genius but also being a really good person uh he has really tremendous generosity a lot of people who are creative entrepreneurial Geniuses are pretty darn narcissistic and pretty darn selfish and uh that's not Joe Joe will give you the short

office back so he he cares about helping people which in that combination is I I just uh admire that so much the combination of being unbelievably creative the genius level entrepreneur but also unbelievably generous and unbelievably you know caring about the suffering of others and not not just trying to you know feather his own nest but help other people as well and and uh so I'm always honored to uh join anything that Joe wants me to join and and uh certainly to come be with you all uh is a is a treat for me in

a and a a genuine genuine privilege and honor I I love his team and and all of you all of you who come to him uh you couldn't do anything better than to uh gather together uh in in one of Joe's groups so let me bring you into the world of of ADHD a world that I live in obviously I'm 71 years old I've been living in it for 71 years and uh I've I've been treating by now thousands of people who have it I I know this condition inside and out and I'm here to

tell you the term is completely misleading attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is a terrible term throw it away throw it away we don't have a deficit of attention at all if we did it would be a form of dementia which it's not we have an abundance of attention our challenge is to control it our mind is going a mile a minute you know it's it's we've got a race car for a brain a Ferrari for a brain we have we have just so much attention we're brimming with attention uh but the Ferrari engine that drives us

has bicycle brakes so our challenge is to control all this attention to control this tremendous mental activity uh not to suppress it but to direct it I make the analogy with Niagara Falls it's just a lot of noise and Mist until you build a hydroelectric plant and then you can light up the state of New York so I'm pretty much in the hydroelectric plant business I take people with these uh incredibly powerful Niagara Fall brains and help them build their hydroelectric plant and and you know entrepreneurial activity is is a really good example of a

hydroelectric plant most entrepreneurs have this condition so what what is it well it the condition is a is a collection of of ways of being in the world again I don't see it as a disorder I see it as a trait and if you manage it right it becomes a superpower but if you don't you see the this high stakes if you don't you know you live a life of under achievement of frustration worst case scenario addiction uh incarceration the prisons are way over representative of people with undiagnosed ADHD so are the holes of the

addicted the unemployed the people who can't stay in relationships the you know the people who are getting in their own way time and again self-sabotage and whatnot it's it's uh undealt with unrecognized it can be holy hell living with this condition but if you recognize it and and learn how to you know develop breaking power and learn how to you know channel the tremendous power that you've got then Super success I mean you know and and I could name you so many people who have it uh in addition to your host Joe polish uh the

man who founded JetBlue Airlines David nielman Big Time add and you know he went from JetBlue to found another airline other Airline now he's finding yet a fourth Airline and he invented the electronic ticket by the way and I think it's ironic that it's someone with this condition with ADHD who thinks of a way for us to go to the airport and not have to remember to bring our ticket he also came up with the idea of putting television sets in the back of the the seat in front of you because you know the ADHD

boredom is Kryptonite and so he didn't want to be bored on flights so he said why not put a TV in so suddenly uh you know and that's David nielman uh you've all heard of the PCR test for cobit the PCR stands for polymerase Chain Reaction well the man who invented that Carrie Mullis he's now in heaven but he won the Nobel Prize in chemistry it was one of the biggest advances right up there with double helix in terms of advances in chemistry and and he has he had flaming ADHD Gary Mullis was um one

of his favorite things to do was walk on the beach in Malibu with a penguin I mean he was a genuine eccentric fella as people with ADHD tend to be so if you manage this right the sky is the limit you know I'm mentioning Sky Richard Branson has it too you know so so uh uh you know you're in really good company but watch out out because the downside as I pointed out is is also very real probably the the biggest pothole in the road of ADHD is addiction and uh addiction is is ten times

more common amongst us and and um uh we're we're basically self-medicating and and it's not just chemicals it's behavioral addictions as well but if you get your ADHD diagnosed then it's a lot easier to uh control control the addiction see our greatest asset and and what sets us apart from Joe and Jill normal is our imagination we have an extraordinary imagination and that can serve us or it can impede us so let me explain a little bit more of what goes on in our in our busy busy brains uh the condition is defined in the

diagnostic manual in terms of Three core symptoms distractibility impulsivity and hyperactivity uh we are uh we are remarkably distractible we are remarkably impulsive and we're hyperactive or very restless got to be moving will you take each one of those supposed negative symptoms and turn it on its head and you get a tremendous asset that you can't buy or teach uh the the flip side of of distractibility is curiosity we are unbelievably curious we are driven by by curiosity uh the add brain is like a toddler on a picnic it goes forever curiosity leads it with

no regard for danger or Authority off into the lake into the woods stick your hand in a snake's Nest I mean it we are we are driven by curiosity we will not sit still until we find out what's in there what's over there well that's what makes us distracted but distractible what's that what's that what's that we we want to know we're the opposite of of lazy we're the opposite of you know taking things as they come we we are forever investigating and that's why we're such great scientists and such great entrepreneurs and such great

creators you know we noticed the petri dish to change since we left it and and next thing you know we've we've we've discovered penicillin so you know we we are we are curiosity is our Driving Force and and you know and as I mentioned before the boredom is our Kryptonite the the minute we feel absence of stimulation curiosity drives us off to find something else um you know that that uh that will that will engage us you see we we have to be engaged we have to be stimulated we can't deal with lack of stimulation

that's called boredom and that's Kryptonite we repel from it we reflexively we just can't stay we can't stand that state like nature abhors a vacuum ADHD abhors absence of stimulation or called boredom so that's distractibility okay and again you have these paired opposites distractibility curiosity each negative has a paired positive hey I hope you're enjoying this video and I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and if you'd like to get it absolutely free there's a link below in the description or you can wait till the end of

this video or you can simply go to joe'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy there impulsivity may be my favorite one impulsivity is what gets us all into trouble impulsive decision making Reckless deal making impulsive romances you know impulsive actions you know dangers seeking Behavior All That impulsive well let me ask you what is creativity but impulsivity gone right you don't plan to have a new idea you don't say it's 10 o'clock time for my creative idea and lay it like an egg no creative ideas pop become spontaneously unbidden unplanned in the midst of something

else completely not related they come impulsively if you Tamp down all your impulses you will not be creative and those people who have what I call attention Surplus disorder they never have new ideas because they're they're they censor them before they reach Consciousness their their mind rejects them as being you know too new too alien you know so so it's the ultimate uh conformist who's just you know but we are the ultimate non-conformist we welcome the new idea now nine out of ten of them are useless but one out of ten wins you the Nobel

Prize you know so so our creativity and our impulsivity go hand in hand and that that's why you don't want to get rid of you don't want to turn your repress your impulsivity so much as you want to have breaking power you want to be able to direct it and know when to shut up and when to speak up you know and and that's hard for us because we we tend to just you know we blurt things out we we you know I used to when I was dating uh I can't tell you how many

women I asked to marry me on the first date I'd say well having fun let's just make it last forever and uh now I've been married to my wife sue for 33 years so I'm not I'm not in danger any longer of proposing marriage and the spur of the moment but but you know uh there is a there is in that also a tremendous positivity we are we we fall in love if you will pretty quickly with a with a deal with a with a with a project with an activity with a cause we we

are prone to fall in love and and in a good way uh and that's that's part of our impulsivity if you will we are we are ready for action we're ready to give it our all we're ready to go For Broke and and uh and you know we're we're kind of innocent in that way and we're you know we're we people say well we should be more cautious well the best way to do that is to partner up with someone who's more cautious because it's awfully hard for us to exercise that on our own I've

been trying for years to learn how to be more cautious and I've not succeeded but uh but I have good friends advisors who who are naturally more cautious um and then the the third element of that Triad hyperactivity uh you get to be my age I'm 71. it's called Energy I'm really glad I've got this little turbo pack on my my back you know I was born with the uh a genetic uh you know extra charge of energy and and uh it served me very well throughout my life you know and and uh but once

again you know it you can be out of control uh and and so you need to learn to put the brakes on you know you you have this runaway brain that's forever wanting to jump out of the Corral and and and so you have to you have to learn how to you know to to saddle it up and ride it so so it doesn't ride you so it doesn't run away with you and and that's that that's the challenge well but it's it's a very doable thing so so uh I'll mention one other quality that

I want to get into management a little bit but uh our our sense of time you know we we don't have the same executive function skills that other people do we're not uh we're not detail-oriented by Nature so so we have trouble sweating the details planning organizing prioritizing and it's particularly noticeable around time our our sense of time is fundamentally different in our world there are basically only two times there's now and there's not now so you say the The Proposal is due on my desk uh next Thursday not now and it's just just until

not now now you know you know and and so we are forever getting things done in a panic at the very last minute and and uh what we're doing what happens in a panic is your body puts out a lot of adrenaline so you're essentially self-medicating with adrenaline uh and and it and adrenaline is chemically very similar to the medications we use to treat ADHD and and um uh it's uh it you find out and that's why you find a lot of people with ADHD drawn to very high stem uh uh professions uh entrepreneur uh

Trader on the Commodities exchange trial attorney um Navy Seals I've worked with them and they they're not allowed to take medication but they say that doesn't matter because danger is their medication and uh and that that's exactly right they get the the adrenaline hit okay so so what do you do in in terms of as I like to put it unwrapping the gift or strengthening the breaks and and there are a number of steps um the most the most commonly talked about one is medication and man medication used properly is great it it it operates

like eyeglasses it's effective about 80 percent of the time in my case it doesn't work my medication is coffee but 80 of people will respond very favorably to stimulant medication now 20 won't so you know it's not a anywhere near 100 but if you do if it does work it works like eyeglasses it allows you to focus doesn't take away your creativity any more than eyeglasses do in fact it allows you to use your creativity with with greater care and Direction um and and it'll and it allows you to focus even when you're not super

stimulated so so when the meds work they they can be really life changing changing and and take you from here to here in in a short amount of time but remember they don't they don't always work now what else goes into unwrapping the gift or or uh learning how to to direct the the power of this brain one of the most important ones and I stress it in my new book is is Finding Your Right difficult yeah now what do I mean by that well I mean it has to be the combination of difficult you

see if it's not challenging we'll get bored we we love difficult but it's got to be the right difficult so it's also got to be in your wheelhouse it's got to be something that that resonates with you we're very Mission driven so appeals to the mission well you know for an entrepreneur the mission is to grow something to grow the business and that's a big turn on um and and it's you know it's it by the way it's growth that turns us on not money we like money sure who doesn't but but it's really it's

really that feeling of growing something that that's is so exciting for us so so the the right difficult and and challenging but in my case I discovered my right difficult in 12th grade it was writing so and and writing is a very Stern task master it's never as good as you want it to be but I've written 21 books and the reason is if I don't have a book going I get depressed so you know I finished ADHD 2.0 now I'm on I'm writing a novel my next one and and um you know I I

have to have something going and for you guys and ladies uh I I'm I'm virtually certain you have to have some deal cooking or project cooking or something you're working toward in order for you to feel right so it's really important to find your right difficult if if you don't you you won't be at your at your Peak another real important uh uh step is to learn how to manage your dark side learn how to manage most people with a tremendous imagination which is really the Hallmark of ADHD have a dark side have a side

they maybe don't talk about but they have a dark side where they brewed and ruminate and get down on themselves and think they're fraud and imposter and by the way that's when they're most likely to to turn to drugs you know is to self-medicate the dark side so you want to learn how to manage that dark side obviously without illicit drugs or behavioral addictions like spending shopping sex gambling whatnot um and and and the best way to do that let me explain it to you because we this is fresh out of new neuroscience turns out

when you're doing something constructive positive four different regions in your brain light up and in aggregate they're called the task positive Network and we can see this on fmri and functional magnetic resonance imaging we can see the the imagination in action on fmri the tpn the task positive Network now when the task is completed when the deal is done when the cake is baked whatever it might happen to be the tpn shuts down and what lights up instead is called the default mode Network the dmn which I call the demon for the following reason and

those of us with ADHD the demon which is the seat of your imagination instead of building castles in Spain you know it attacks you it sends out this terrible onslaught of negative messages you suck you're stupid you're ugly you're boring you're never gonna do achieve your goal you're never going to become the person you wish you could all the other people are doing better than you you're you're way behind in the race you're never going to get there you're and furthermore you're ugly and boring and just you just lay it on yourself you just attack

yourself viciously and horribly one reason you keep in in that state is is contentment is too bland you never say someone was riveted in contentment but you do say they were riveted in self-hatred in fear in anxiety in in images of gloom and doom so it's riveting and gripping remember we're always looking for stimulation and so we'll sit there in this dark dark place for extended periods unable to snap out of it what's the treatment and this is a terribly important Insight because it's so common in in highly creative people the treatment is not medication

medication really doesn't touch it the treatment is so simple but so difficult to enact sometimes it's to shut off its oxygen supply the dmn depends upon you're feeding it with your attention so you have to redirect your attention and that's hard to do because I like I told you it's very gripping painful but gripping so you have to rip it away redirect your attention to something else go for a run have a conversation with a friend uh blast loud music uh go out and chop down a tree I mean do do something that will engage

your imagination and shut off the your attention uh being directed to the the default mode Network to the demon that's that's a a tremendous life skill if you can learn to do that you basically will exorcise that that demon you will exorcise the power that the dark side has over you no medication just redirecting your attention and the the motto is Don't Feed The Demon and what we tend to feed it with is our attention don't feed the demon redirect your attention so you do not have to be living in fear and the grip of

of the of the dark side which most most highly creative people most entrepreneurs have that they tend not to talk about it because we tend to want to be positive and upbeat you know but it does haunt uh an awful lot of us and if you'll just do what I just recommended you'll be able to master that to tame that there's a whole chapter about it in ADHD 2.0 that I recommend to you um I want to add one more element in terms of uh unwrapping the gift and then I will stop and and entertain

your questions and and that is the the force of connection uh we live in in highly disconnected times uh covid certainly uh through a tremendous curveball into all of our lives and and and people are are separated um uh physically and and uh the the warring with each other over over politics and and positions and all that and that's not good for us that is not good for us we really desperately need connection so you guys coming together for example is so good for you you are extending your life by having this meeting uh just

being with each other sharing each other's energy I call it the other vitamin C vitamin connect and it's way underappreciated in terms of how powerful it is you know loneliness social isolation and most people don't know this is as dangerous a risk factor for early death as cigarette smoking social isolation is as dangerous as cigarette smoking and and the beauty is social isolation you can cure if you make a priority of doing it as you all have done by coming to the the genius Network meeting but keep up with friends uh talk to people in

the supermarket don't walk around with your head down blower glaring and glowering and feeding the dmn Instead try to look up look outside and and uh I prescribe dogs dogs are the world's greatest provider of connection um get a dog you know it's no accident the god spelled backwards this dog and and you know so prioritize friendship prioritize dogs prioritize uh participating in causes going to meetings it's not enough to believe in something go to the meeting connect you know really in in connection is really the source of pretty much the best of life and

disconnection is the source of pretty much the worst of life so so whenever you're you know feeling a little bit out of sorts connect one of my favorite mottos is never worry alone it's fine to worry it's good to worry you solve problems but when you worry alone you tend to catastrophize and and and and make things worse when you worry with someone you start into problem solving well those are three uh of the of the main methods of helping you unwrap the gift basically I hope you've identified with what I'm saying I hope you

can see it as a as a real positive in your life as long as you manage it properly and it does separate you from the pack because you know you you've got us you've got a special power and it's just a matter of learning how to manage that special power and develop it and you know hook up to your hydroelectric plant find your right difficult and then the the world is just an incredibly exciting Venture for as long as we get to be here okay again thank you Joe and thank you all of you I

hope what I've said has made some some impact if you want to read more my book is called ADHD 2.0 uh my website is just doctor halloween.com and uh my my podcast where I that I want to interview Joe on very soon is called Dr hallowell's wonderful world of different thank you guys so Dr Hallowell thank you thank you Ned we're going to um we're gonna go to q a for a while so thank you for staying with us first of all all of you should have received his book um we sent you the book

so it so Ned ADH 2.0 all the genius Network all the genius X 100K members have it or if they don't you got a gift card they ran out it's so popular they ran out or if you're newer to genius Network um we will send you the book okay so everybody has it net or will have it thank goodness I've got a really quick question then we're going to go to Babs and we're going to go to Wes um those of us who are ASD which is attention Surplus disorder we're kind of feeling bad that

we don't have ADD it's like darn I wish I had an 80s how do you respond to that well we need you so uh hook up with one of us it's it's a marvelous combination you know that uh most people with ADHD need someone with ASD attention Surplus in order to run the business you know the the Surplus guy make sure the trains run on time and uh you know and uh I think uh Babs and and and and Dan are a good example you know that uh uh you know you you need the the

person who can make the trains run on time and then you need the other person to be the disrupter the idea of you know the the person who interjects God knows what every single day and and it's a good combination the combination of someone with ADD with someone with attention Surplus thank you so Babs Wesley and then Dan online we're going to go into that order go ahead Babs hi Ned it's so great to see you I haven't seen you in um person since the last time you were here at genus Network and um or

maybe it was at the 100K group but we had dinner together and you were talking about this book and the whole um demon thing and um the one question I have and we got the book and it's awesome to get it because I've been thinking when's the book coming out right we haven't had a chance to read it yet though because of all the other stuff that's going on right so this answer may be in the book but remind me again what to do at night when the demon comes and you you know you trying

to get some sleep so you don't want to get up and move around and do stuff how do you you know change the channel yeah and that's a great question because by the way it's really great to see you Babs you're as striking as ever and uh really uh magnetic and captivating um but uh yeah night time is the Demon's favorite time you know because you're a captive audience you're you're lying there um ready to be uh you know just captured by this monster what you want to try to do is is uh sort of

you know you could get up and go down and do a crossword puzzle or something but if you assuming you you want to stay in bed uh try to redirect your attention have some favorite fantasy you know go to the beach in Aruba or imagine your last big successful deal or imagine an upcoming meeting you you can't wait to get to or imagine your your favorite friend and what you want or imagine the meal you want to cook or just imagine some creative undertaking that that can take your uh your attention away from the demon

because once you redirect you'll then you'll start falling asleep you know you you know so have in your mind's Rolodex to use an Antiquated term uh you know uh certain fantasies uh images that you can reliably go to uh that will that will disconnect your attention from the demon because it otherwise you can stay up you know hours and just miserable um and and tormented it's a common cause of insomnia oh that's interesting because what he was just saying is I've got that same thing in my mind races at night and if I'm uh going

with that one of the tricks that I've found was started um playing my favorite golf courses in my mind I'll start off on the first seat and I'll imagine I'll visualize playing off the First Tee because I played all these golf courses that are great and I'll start going down and I've I can't for the life of me ever recall making it past the first nine polls it's like the visual you know a 3D version of counting sheep in a way a visual exactly immersive counting sheep so yeah that's uh interesting who you say that

that's just something I've done and that's brilliant that's brilliant dude and the the the uh the flaw of counting sheep is it's boring and we need to do boring we just can't do boring whereas playing your favorite playing your favorite coffee in Saint Andrew so one other thing Ned so um you know in strategic coach there are a wide variety of entrepreneurs and some of them really do have kind of maybe attention Surplus um and are very detail-oriented and all you know um there's a range right that's coming commonly um common misconception that I'm the

detailed one and Dan is the add one we both have ADD I think there's a matter of degree and I'm marginally more in touch with the ground and maybe um I mean Danza tan is very grounded right and he's very um he can respond to deadlines and always be on time and always you know have his stuff in it's a matter of how he organizes himself which he's brilliant at but um I'm also kind of that way so um but we have great team around us of people who have lots of attention to detail and

amazing and they've been so we've been so blessed with that um over the years but you know we've been following you since we basically practically started our business Shannon Waller is a big fan of yours and she her biggest um sort of you know past time on her free time up at the cottage is cutting down trees the trees and you know she's got a electric chainsaw and she's she's like the chains badass chainsaw so that's that's a great uh example she's the add2 so let's shut up because thank you I gotta control put those

brakes on but you know there's a lot of really creative people in um strategic coach no matter what where they fall on the spectrum because I think it's a spectrum don't you oh yes absolutely absolutely yeah but thank you so much and uh thank you can't wait to dig into the book so we go Wesley Dan Wilkinson Ben Hardy Mike Kanis go ahead all right perfect thanks for your presentation and I've struggled with it for years and and finally on I've been on Adderall for I don't know God knows how long 15 years but I

tried not to be on it and I even went to the extent of having a separate office without any receptionist without anybody just by myself two blocks from my other office because I didn't want to be on the medication but then I'm like just embrace it and the medication has been a godsend well now my son has the same he's 16 he has the same Tendencies and I noticed the noun versus not now and as his life gets more hectic stuff starts slipping so I've told my wife I want to get him tested and she's

dead set against it because she says she doesn't want to saddle him with the burden of knowing he has ADD for his life and I just wanted to know your feedback or tips or anything to get her closer to you know getting them tested because I will I mean would you need to ever have her give her uh 20 minutes with me I mean this this condition is is is a godsend and it's the burden far from the burden I mean give him the good news uh son you're you've got a superpower uh son you're

you know you're you're you know you're you have it in you to be you know the the next Nobel Prize winner you you have uh you have what you've got going for you can't be bought and can't be taught you can't buy or teach a prodigious imagination you can't buy or teach curiosity you can't buy or teach the entrepreneurial drive so you know she should be celebrating it I mean you know and and she she just has a misconception of what this condition is you know a burden oh my God no the opposite it's it's

a it's it's an incredible ticket to Greatness yes you know and you just have to learn how to manage it you know it is really like being born with a with a superpower but you have to learn how to develop it and manage it and uh otherwise it can manage you and and have bad outcome but no gosh the opposite of a burden all three of my kids have it and wouldn't trade it to the world I wouldn't trade mine for the world but you want to learn how to manage it so let her know

that gosh uh uh it's good news but it's good news that comes with a mandate namely learn how to learn how to develop your breaks and and find out what your right difficult is and and then and then fly high for the rest of your life so before the next question so we're going to Dan Wilkinson right um a thought on that this talk is recorded so on genius networkgroup.com all of these talks are going to be up in the next few days if you want to show it to your wife or whomever it's like

oh my gosh watch this talk that Dr Ned Hallowell did she'll see your question Wes she may get a little annoyed with you that's right but anyway so all of these talks I mean they're up there forever that archive in the on geniusnetworkgroup.com there's over 900 talks but you can narrow it down to Ned Halliwell and really share some great stuff um Dan Wilkinson go ahead over there in England how are you I'm not I'm good Timothy thank you uh Ned such a pleasure to um to to to kind of meet you even if it's

you know from I don't know 8 000 miles away but um uh your your book driven to distraction changed my life um on a flight back from San Diego a few years back because uh I always thought I was a unique person I didn't ever know that I had ADHD or even suspected it I go to a marketing conference and I'm told whilst about the marketing conference you have severe ADHD by another marketer and I'm like yeah right but if you've got the better of me so I've got the Kindle app and I got the

uh I got the book on the flight home and uh and it it it was my life story inside the book front to back you know I was thinking I was unique looking to that point then it was the first time I shed any tears since my grandma's funeral reading that book yeah I saw a psychiatrist for two weeks and uh she she said we don't think we should give you counseling I think we should put you straight the medication and that was when life started really moving so yeah it was four years ago it's

so wonderful to hear I'm so I'm so glad to hear that it's such a powerful diagnosis and and change and you know uh and you know to help you like I like to say unwrap your gift and and um but by the way you are unique no two adds are the same so you know you you're still unique you know there's just some commonalities that that we do share it was the amount of Relativity in the book from very early ages right the way through to current day all the habits were kind of Trapped in

there going through late teens and early 20s and it was it was it was all in there yeah but uh yeah yeah and it's it's fascinating so I've been trying to help people when I when I noticed myself you know that kind of thing I wouldn't say severe I wouldn't say severe ADHD I'd say Bountiful ADHD that's good it's managed it's managed now which is great and I think my uh I think I think I'm a better person but also I think the biggest thing is I used to wear a lot of masks wherever I

was so uh people people say to me you've changed a bit since since you've had your diagnosis and I'm like no no it's not me that's changed it's the mattress I'm not wearing they said I don't have to cope with it at all you know it's been it's been quite it's been quite a big change um I could tell how how how ADHD were just watching you walk up the stairs I was carrying like you know she must have been able to smell my coffee I was walking up the stairs it was just a mug

full of espresso bouncing off the walls and yeah but yeah thank you very much ADHD 2.0 is brilliant book as well I've got the audible thank you mate hey Timothy oh yeah we're gonna go to Ben Hardy then we'll come back to you um Kevin thank you uh two quick two quick questions for you but before the question uh Dr ahala have you ever studied the research on um approach versus avoid in psychology yeah I think you'd really like it because I think probably everyone in ADHD is Extreme approach yes there's a lot there's a

lot there yeah um so my two questions one is about myself and then the other is about our three older kids that we adopted from the Foster system um all three of them are already diagnosed ADHD I'm still not sure how me and my wife are doing on handling that um my question about myself though is I've never been diagnosed with ADHD when I listen to you talk I relate to a lot of it but I think I've just learned to really manage myself um so I'm not really sure like if I should even go

find out you know go get a diagnosis for myself like I I probably self-medicate with caffeine but I don't know what you know I'm decently pretty managed as far as myself and my behavior I can get things done but when I listen to you I'm like I I relate to a lot of what you're saying well you know I think it's worth I think it's worth exploring and just read the book and see if you see yourself in there you don't have to be failing to benefit from the interventions I I have a self-made billionaire

in my New York practice and he said to me not too long ago think what I could have done had I had this diagnosis sooner and I said my gosh you haven't done too badly you know and and he said no but since the diagnosis I get even more done with much less effort so so life is is smoother and uh less conflicted for me less painful for me so you you might find it you know the the die and the interventions might or might not include medication um but if you with with just with

understanding yourself um and and also to manage your children to understand it by the way forty percent of the adopted population has ADHD so the the the chances are good that you know these kids that you've you're doing God's work you know you're taking them on but you you've got a handful there and you know you you're going to need help because it it it ain't easy uh uh raising these kids and and um you know you're done right they're gonna they're gonna become Superstars but but it's you and your wife have got your hands

full as I'm sure you know already yeah I guess one of the challenges is you know positively directing them without constantly trying to control them right because it's it can be intense and there's also a lot of opposition you know opposition to Authority or right so we get caught in battles where we're trying to facilitate you know and we've done a really good job I think with the oldest one he's getting really into tennis you know and so we get him playing tennis for like 10 plus hours a week and he's got a lot of

energy there and he's loving it but there can be a lot of battles where we're we feel like we're overly trying to control rather than facilitate and stuff like that and so but I'll give you one tip because you know you do have to set limits on them and when you do that you don't want to shame them that's the that's the kiss of really Badness is shaming them so that's where the breaks analogy really works well so when they uh act up instead of saying you're a bad boy say your breaks failed you there's

no shame in that and once they buy into this model the race car bringing the bicycle brakes then they'll they'll say I got to work on my brakes how do I strengthen my brakes and then when they you know punch their brother or kick you know somebody that you you say your brakes failed you so you you still intervene but in a non-shaming way and and it's a it's a it's a good it's a good way of uh you know thank you one last just quick thought as it relates to like when you catch yourself

on the dark side I think um there's a really good quote from Marshall Goldsmith he said if we do not create and control our environment our environment creates and controls us I think it's probably better to create systems and habits for example in the evenings so you can be on a good track yes sometimes you'll you know so prevention before before getting yourself in a bad situation obviously if you're if you already catch yourself it's good to mentally reframe and stuff but I think if you have systems and habits and things like that you can

avoid a lot of those disasters right in the evening time absolutely um so we only have five minutes left Kevin so so there are several interesting questions in the chat but I know that Dave is really eager to get something in here so Dave raised his hand formally Dave why don't you go ahead real quick hi Dave hello uh Edward uh thank you for this amazing amazing talk and I want to invite you on my podcast which says large viewership and we'll do that later what I wanted to suggest for people in the room and

get your opinion on is um if you're planning to get substantial life insurance to cover the cost of taxes on your business for your heirs which all of us probably should be doing you might want to do that before you go down a medical diagnosis of ADD or ADHD so my question for you is uh Hey given that it is liberating to know oh this is what's going on in my brain my whole life how important do you think of full-on medical diagnosis is versus knowing you have it but you haven't put in your formal

medical records yeah you don't need to put it in your formal medical records and you're quite right uh I don't know if the insurance companies have caught on to this but uh traffic accidents are eight times more common on average we die and Russ Barkley has proven this we we die it cost us 13 years of life so it's a highly uh you know bad thing to have in terms of just Actuarial tables now if you're if you become aware of it and you treat it you don't lose the 13 years but that's the the

insurance companies don't care you're you're in the Actuarial tables you are at Major risk and uh I don't know if they've caught on to this or not but your rates would go way up so um and for the same reason if you're looking for a job I advise people don't tell them because the average employer is still is stuck in the Dark Ages and they think it means you're a dingbat they they think it means you're unreliable it's not gonna they're not gonna understand that it means you're potentially the best hire they've ever made they're

going to pass you over because they they think you'll show up late and you know be rude and inappropriate and and uh so in in general it's something to keep to yourself and keep out of records and keep out of applications and you know don't don't write it down I mean it's a it's unfortunate that there's such misunderstanding about this condition but your your caution is very wise um and it you know thank you for for sharing that and guys you need to know just to be everything you just heard 100 describes like my whole

life so you need to know but you don't have to have a script to know that's all I'm saying exactly exactly exactly thank you for your work it's awesome and I'd love to come on your podcast uh it's already being set up we have good time for one more koenigs all right uh so here's the question I was actually having this conversation with Dan Sullivan and Babs and anyone who's worked with them would probably observe this and it's more of an assertion question I have for you which is the notion that successful high functioning ADH

and 80 yeah 80d people are either thing or idea focused versus people focus so if you look at Dan and Babs for example Dan's a great example of an extremely high functioning idea ADHD where he can just get out into the ethers and manufacture an enormous amount of stuff and he's surrounded by by an incredible team that can Implement and cohesively put this in in order I would relate to myself as an idea ADHD where Babs has and I was asking her about this in between and and think of her as a human tractor beam

where she apparently has been diagnosed as well but you wouldn't necessarily think of her that way but what she has this ability to do is really cohesively see where people go and and ADHD Founders who are great at people um are like that they're tractor beams so I that's been my observation but I want to just see is is there any research suggesting this is there a distinction between idea Focus versus people focused not within the ADHD uh classification uh but certainly I agree with your observation there there are people who are more drawn to

ideas others more drawn to interpersonal uh if anything I think ADHD we tend to be both uh like we we break down boundaries we tend to be synthetic rather than um the opposite we we we tend to be both and you know whenever there's a there's a choice like that okay great thanks thank you Timothy do we have time for one more question from Jennifer who did not all righty then so let's give Ned a hand shall we okay I hope you found that video awesome and useful so if you want to get a free

copy of my book I want you to click here and if you want to watch some more videos that'll be useful and awesome click here go ahead you're over here do it now come on thank you watching [Music]