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March 4 - March 5, 2023
took in each other’s words and ideas (“take in” is more what people like us do, as opposed to “listen to”),
conversational jitterbug.
There is a similarity among people with the kind of brain we share. There are major differences, to be sure, as each one of us is unique. But in a fundamental way, I “knew” Peter after about eleven seconds, and, I daresay, he “knew” me.
I’ve blown countless past relationships because I didn’t know how to slow down and match the life-speed of my partner, I’ve had some spectacular failures, both professionally and personally, and for whatever this is worth, I’ve cried at more than 70 percent of all episodes of The West Wing.
If I get into the office super early and work before anyone else shows up, I’m so much more productive. The second the office fills with people, it’s like my brain shuts down and I start spacing out.
SQUIRREL!: Here’s what matters more than anything: You’re not broken. You’re not damaged, you’re not defective, and you’re not destroyed. You’re not on the island of misfit toys, and your life isn’t “wrong” because you’ve been diagnosed with ADHD.
So the first rule here is this: you’re never allowed to say “diagnosed with ADHD” again, because ADHD is not a negative. Say it with me: ADHD is not a negative!
Having ADHD makes life paradoxical. You can super-focus sometimes, but also space out when you least mean to. You can radiate confidence and also feel as insecure as a cat in a kennel. You can perform at the highest level, feeling incompetent as you do so. You can be loved by many, but feel as if no one really likes you. You can absolutely, totally intend to do something, then forget to do it. You can have the greatest ideas in the world, but feel as if you can’t accomplish a thing.
I don’t have a middle ground: essentially I have two switches—Off, and 1,000 percent On.
SQUIRREL!: One of the biggest advantages and disadvantages to having ADHD is that your brain doesn’t play by the same rules as everyone else’s. You can decide to do something, and five minutes later, you’re doing it. You don’t think, “Well, what if it fails,” you simply do it. That’s both good and bad. We’re going to discuss this a lot over the course of the book, and I’m going to teach you how I’ve hacked this trait to be a lot more “good,” and a lot less “bad.”
Learning to utilize my ADHD as a power has fundamentally changed my life for the better.
Think about it: those of us with ADHD can entertain our friends with witty repartee, we can hyperfocus on things that interest us, we tend to do really well at things we enjoy doing. We’re enthusiastic, creative, willing to take risks, innovative, intuitive, spontaneous, compassionate, persistent, and have the brain processing power of the world’s fastest supercomputers. As such, we can connect seemingly unrelated dots, see the forest for the trees in ways that “regular” people can’t even fathom—oh, and by the way, we can usually do it at the speed of sound.
People with faster brains usually have intense multiple interests, and we love to share them. We’re keen observers and can process many ideas simultaneously with minimal effort. We’re great conversationalists, and can often improvise on the fly when speaking.
we can instantly assimilate new information into previous knowledge to create original insights;
“Some guys snort for it, jab a vein for it; all you gotta do is jump.” And that high gives me the focus I need, the focus I sometimes otherwise lack. And that’s when I do what I need to do. I get that same high from speaking, and from countless other things I do regularly in my life.
SQUIRREL!: I’ve learned to do two things: teach my body to make more “focus and happy” chemicals on demand, and also live my life in such a way that I don’t need to constantly rely on my body making more, as “normal” people do. In other words, I’ve learned how to fill up my gas tank, but also learned how to drive so efficiently that I get the best gas mileage in the universe, by far.
SQUIRREL!: No matter how well you’re handling your ADHD, no matter how well you think things are going for you, you can NEVER let yourself forget that it truly is a condition, and it doesn’t ever just “go away.” If you lose sight of that even for a second, it can cause you to do stupid things and can be your downfall. I make myself remember that every single day.
ADHD and addiction are not very far apart on the social scale. You learn to do the things that, for lack of a better term, “save you.”
Remember the movie WarGames? “The only winning move is not to play.” In certain situations, I simply don’t play. I eliminate the threat. You’re going to learn how to do that, and why it’s so important.
“A headache isn’t an aspirin deficiency.”
I do take it, however, when I need to focus on tasks that don’t hold my attention, such as paperwork, listening at meetings, completing expense reports, and sometimes focusing on people with whom I need to do business. I take Concerta in those situations because it benefits me and, as important, everyone around me.
The one thing Concerta, or any ADHD medication, can’t do is teach me the skills required to be the best I can. Drugs do not equip children or adults with the life skills they need to manage their ADHD as they grow into adulthood.
Managing ADHD is a lifelong undertaking. If you do it right, it can be a great way to manage your life—and exploit the gifts of a faster than normal brain.
Throughout my twenties and thirties, before I knew I had ADHD, I just made my life work somehow—life was imperfect but it was livable.
We can understand more about ourselves when we understand people like us who have succeeded.
E-mail: peter@shankman.com (I answer all my own e-mail personally)
The Faster Than Normal Course: www.ftncourse.com
What do all these great people have in common?
They're all men
Different ways of thinking, failure to sit still and be like everyone else, pushing forward regardless of what anyone else said . . .
Just because we didn’t know what to call ADHD fifty years ago doesn’t mean it didn’t exist.
When applied the right way, ADHD is the greatest driver of creativity in the known world, and can take your life in incredible directions.
we are quickly becoming a society where the ones who “change things up” are winning, in all facets of life.
Simply put, the ADHD brain is an untapped, nearly limitless source of creative ideas, energy, and passion, much, much more so than a “regular” brain. The caveat, however, is that we need to learn how to tap into it, and then we need to learn how to channel, harness, and properly utilize that power. It’s not knowing how to use that energy and power that gets us into trouble, causes us to act out in class or zone out in the meeting, or forget to take the trash out, despite the bag sitting by the door for three days in a futile effort to remind us.
SQUIRREL!: I’m of the opinion that because my brain doesn’t get enough dopamine, adrenaline, and serotonin on a regular basis, when I do get some, I’m much more reactive to it than “regular” people. I can’t prove this via science, primarily because I’m not a scientist, but I’m betting that somewhere out there, there’s a neuroscientist who can.
The great part of all of this is that during the time your brain is “supercharged,” you can accomplish things better, faster, and more creatively than “regular” people. It’s the equivalent of running a race with a human being when you’re Superman.
After years of being thought of as “different,” I woke up one day and no longer cared what other people thought. I simply did my thing, for better or for worse. I decided several years ago that I am who I am, and others’ opinions of me aren’t needed or valid.
You need to get into the habit of taking frequent “dopamine breaks,” as I call them. They’re little five-minute windows when you do something completely different. Getting up and simply walking around is the easiest thing to do, in almost any environment.
stretch, do some squats, anything that kicks up the dopamine.
something as quick as dropping for ten push-ups or deep squats is enough to chemically change my brain. When I sit down, I’ve got my focus again.
Resolutions fail for most people, but fail ridiculously hard for those with ADHD because we are unbelievably adept at convincing ourselves of anything, including talking ourselves out of things that we know we should
So Rule A in creating a ritual: The ritual has to come from a positive place. A negative place won’t do it. Rule B in creating a ritual: Continue to work backward from the reward.
Rule C in creating a ritual: Build fail-safes. Fail-safes are exactly what they sound like: if A doesn’t happen, B kicks in to fix A.
Finally, Rule D for setting up a ritual: Visualize yourself achieving what you were going for with the ritual in the first place.
Remember: When you have ADHD, you’re all about the feeling. When that feeling is a healthy one, then building something (like a ritual) to make getting that feeling easier and more frequent is a good thing, possibly the best of things.
Start Exercising at Least Six Times a Week—but Don’t Worry, It’s Not Really Exercise
I’m talking about making specific time in your schedule to be more active than you currently are, for at least twenty minutes a day.
The Third Thing: Eat When You’re Hungry, and Eat Real Food
My roommate taught me something I’ll never, ever forget. She taught me the “apple test.” It’s incredibly simple. When you’re hungry, ask yourself one single question: Am I hungry enough to eat an apple? Chances are, you’re not. If you were, you’d devour that apple without thinking about it. But if you’re not hungry enough to eat an apple, yet hungry enough to eat a bag of nacho chips, well, that tells you that you’re not really hungry, but rather, your brain is looking for dopamine. I use the apple test as a ritual now, whenever a hunger pang strikes unexpectedly.
SQUIRREL!: When you’re ADHD, less stuff is better.
So right now, go to your desk and toss out half the crap on it. Or go to your briefcase, or your kitchen table, wherever you work, and seriously, toss at least half the crap on it.
