Dr Ned Hallowell Explains How To Find Your ADHD Superpowers

Ned hell thank you so much for coming back on to the ADHD chatter podcast it's a pleasure I want to your your first episode did incredibly well and um I

really wanted to follow on from there and I suppose a foundational question to sort of set the tone for the whole episode what do you think are some common tough

patches that you notice in people that you've treated with ADHD well well until it gets diagnosed

and treated and um or as I like to put it the the gift gets unwrapped uh the the main problem is just a tremendous sense of underachievement you know I haven't done

what I know I could do and I don't know why I haven't done it and then the mo what I call the moral diagnosis start starts piling in I'm lazy I'm bad I'm

undisciplined I haven't taken advantage of the advantages I've been given I mean just this slew of of morally tinged uh versions of I'm a bad person I mean and

and so that's when they come to see me as adults and they have not been diagnosed that's the person I meet the the the extraordinarily talented person

who is hang dog down uh down on themselves and um just don't know what to do and and somebody said well maybe

it's add so they come to see me do you see a common theme in their I'm going to use the word blind spots like a common theme in their blind spots

or to put it another way are there shared behaviors within the ADHD community that confuse that same Community until they

hear others are doing the same and then suddenly it makes a lot of sense to them oh absolutely I mean they until they get

the unifying concept of of ADHD which is by the way is a terrible term that that brings it all together then it's all the the the sort of Helter Helter Skelter

patches of problems you know the the disorganization or uh uh laziness

so-called laziness or uh uh wrong job bad marriage uh um uh you know impulsive

uh uh uh just just this collection this smus Borg of of life problems and and and until you see the unifying concept that brings them all together it's like

whack-a-mole you take care of one and something else pops up you take of something and you and that creates a problem of Zone you're you're running around all the time trying to fix things

up and you can't do it because they keep falling apart and then then you get the the depression thrown in or the the the just you know give up itness thrown in or the

what did I do wrong I mean you know these sort of existential problems that only make make it much worse because you then then you start to lose your most

important asset which is Hope and when when when hope dra deserts you then you know you're really in trouble yeah I mean it's quite emotional

hearing you say that because it's such an echo of of my experience and and so many EX people I've spoken to on this podcast you kind of go through a a years

and years and years of not knowing why your behavior is is the way it is and I suppose with that lack of understanding comes a feeling of being different and I

suppose different in a bad way different in a bad way yeah and I guess like that feeling of difference and feeling lost how can that affect the human brain in its early

development oh in a real bad way I it's sort of like having a a high fever that doesn't go away you you you know you kind of cook your brain and and it

doesn't do well in response to that you you lose your native juices you lose your enthusiasm your buoyancy your in your your natural Innovative nature

where you can handle anything I mean we are the most resilient people you you'll ever find as long as we understand what's going on what the the kiss of

death or not death but close to death is is the the negativity the the I'm a I'm a lousy person I'm a loser I I have not I deserve to be punished I deserve to

suffer that the weight of that um you know can knock the the stuffing out of anybody and and but the good news once

you get the diagnosis it's like a whole new Sunshine shines through you know so Oh you mean I'm not just a loser Oh you mean there's a reason for this beyond my

lack of discipline or these these amorphous moral Concepts yeah there's a neurological reason for it your your brain is is different indeed but guess

what it's different in a good way that's that's the real kicker I mean yeah you've known you were different all along but you thought you were different in a bad way you know and and and so no

truth is if you manage it right you're different in a really good way and and you have whoever invented the wheel whatever that person had you have and

it's it's what's really Advanced our civil civilization from the invention of the wheel to where we are today and it's all because of us we we aders again the

terrible term but uh uh you know it it it it is the trait that that is responsible for the the advance of

civilization you know it's led by our incredible curiosity by our incredible creativity our incredible resilience we just keep on trying till we get there

and and that's what that's what that's what our contribution to World Civilization has been nothing less and uh what's a what's a crying shame is

tragic shame is that many more people don't know about it than know about it and the ones who don't know about it are the ones you know that's the prison population the addicted population the

multiply divorced the out of work the just the down and out the people who are Frozen in in a in a kind of existential depression I mean it's a terrible thing

having having this wonderful gift not recognized and instead the the damage it can do and you know it's it's it's a it's a odd qu fact that this condition

that can be so extraordinarily Bountiful and generative and you know Advance the world can also be a horrible curse that that you know Russ Barkley one of the

research has shown that untreated add on average costs a person 13 years of their life which makes it more dangerous than cigarette smoking you know uh uh or

diabetes you know the leading killers and and and and that's why I and you too I mean means so much to me to give

people this good news and then and then the Skeptics trash it and you know they do what Skeptics do they you know they can they can take any celebration and turn turn it into a funeral and uh uh

but the the the truth is on our side and and that's always heartening to know and and then the truth just keeps pouring in the the evidence that um um that that we

are but we just need to get get the word out to people because there there's like I said the the people in jail people in treatment for

addiction addiction is like six times more common in people with ADD than not and and what that's about I mean the whole the whole state of addiction is

also not well understood but it it's essentially the person who's prone to addiction is looking searching reaching for something more ordinary life just

doesn't do it we are born with our pleasure meter set too low and so to to get ordinary pleasure the kind of pleasure most people get just by waking

up in the morning we have have to do something extraordinary to get ordinary pleasure now the downside of that is we'll use drugs that's something extraordinary to get ordinary pleasure

but the upside is we'll build something we'll create something that's why we're so driven to become entrepreneurs we want to build something and that that's you know that's extraordinary means to

get ordinary pleasure but guess what the world benefits from from our reaching for the extraordinary um and and uh whether it's through uh

entrepreneurialism or through artistic creation or uh through building a movement you know what we're very we're very uh Missi driven so whether it's the mission to grow the business or the B

mission to write the book or the mission to save the world I mean you know we we make fun of that stuff but man that's that's what drives us I mean like I'm on

a mission to make the world understand ADHD you know and and uh uh you with your podcast are on a mission to do any number of things it when we have a

mission Watch Out World cuz here we come but uh but we are also very strong willed and very stubborn and if we get hooked on the wrong

Mission we do a lot of damage you know and um um our judgment kind of goes out the window but but but remember the the

upside is much stronger than the downside love is stronger than hate you mentioned the word us there a lot and

we're in in relation to people with ADHD and I very much relate to to that I very much since my diagnosis feel like part of this tribe part of this community of

of late diagnosed adhders Coming to Terms grappling to understand their past um and everything that comes with that um but on a more

General psychological level why is it important to fit into a pack how important is it to find your tribe and what can be like the KnockOn effects of someone's self-esteem if they don't find their

tribe well if we don't and remember it's a very diverse tribe because one of the things we we we recoil against is being classified and stereotyped and all that

but within our tribe there's enormous variety but the reason it's important to find other people who have similar

traits than we do is because otherwise you feel isolated and alone and and it anyway that's the worst thing a person can feel and you know in ancient times

the worst punishment was not death it was is was to be expelled to be you know put out of the group and and that was considered worse than death well the

same principle applies we isolation I mean which by the way is is rampant around the world today particularly in the United States that um feeling not a

part of something larger than yourself is lonely I mean our Surgeon General named loneliness as the number one medical problem not psychological

medical problem in the United States because because loneliness leads to all the killers I mean loneliness leads to stress and inflammation which leads to

cancer and diabetes and heart disease the the big killers and you know we we associate loneliness with depression which is itself a killer but it's it's

bigger than that and and uh and the good news is loneliness is eminently fixable um even though you even though people don't fix it because they don't know

that they could fix it you know it it's really good news the the best thing you could possibly do for yourself uh is make a friend you know or get a dog

people say I can't make well get a dog dogs are better than humans you know and and so if you're feeling lonely by all means just run down to the local shelter

and pick up a dog and uh you won't be lonely ever again totally agree I've I've always had dogs I've got a French Bulldog now Milo my wonderful wonder my whole world well

they have the most extraordinary face you know that's it yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah he's yeah my my boy he's six and uh yeah great deal of Joy comes from walking him and just being with him yes

my niece had one she named him Fang because he had these two little teeth s if if we go back in time Ned in

someone's journey I back in time to Childhood um in a person's upbringing how important is it to have the

understanding in support of one's parents oh my goodness uh you know how important is it to be to not be beaten

every day ridiculed and shamed versus understood every day praised and promoted I mean these are the battered children throughout history you know they they really are and and and there

was a time not not so long ago when the proper treatment for a child who disobeyed or didn't learn was to beat him or or her or her uh and and you

know it was brutal and if it didn't work well beat him more often beat him harder I mean kids died literally died under the under these beatings and uh and if

if they didn't die their their self-esteem perished and um um and and self-esteem is one of the great predictors of are you going to do in life it's a if you have a high

self-esteem you're going to probably do well and if you don't you're probably going to do poorly and and uh and and that's something that parents and teachers have in their control so much

as genetics but uh this you have in you if you want to love your child and grow him or her uh lovingly that's one way to

go and if you're if you're sort of the militaristic uh judgment Satan and and you whip your child every time he or she does something

inappropriate that that's your choice as well and we we and we allow parents to have that choice I didn't have to take an exam before we had our children and I didn't have to make any promises that I

was going to treat them properly uh and and and children are are handed over by God to whoever receives them and then that person has said do whatever you

want pretty much I mean there are some there are some agencies that try to look out for kids but uh um it's open season

now having said that it's a great opportunity to to uh do what you need to do to turn out a a beautiful wonderful changer of civilization it's just that

we are more difficult to parent than your average child because we tend to do what we want we tend to be headstrong we tend to be we tend to be stubborn we tend to do the opposite of we're told to

do we're not naturally obedient we're naturally disobedient we are the natural Rebels the natural iconic class the natural the King has no clothes people

and and and that can be annoying to have a child telling you the truth that can be very annoying you want to shut that child up just keep it secret no one's supposed to know we're a bunch of drunks

at home or no one is supposed to know you know this stuff and and uh uh so so uh uh you

know it's very high stakes poker so true from the and from the point of view of that child who is kind

of wanting to to go their own way could be quite stubborn evolutionarily speaking what effect does our parents

opinion have on us that is specific to that parental relationship in other words why do we seek our parents approved

oh that's in the genes that's in nature that's the ducklings following the goose you know the the mother duck I mean you and it it's really sweet and tender and quite remarkable it's a good thing it

happens otherwise we'd be helpless and you know not able to care it but um you watch like the march of the penguin it's wonderful to see in nature How We Do

bond with our and and how the the mother particularly will die protecting us I mean it's a it's it's a genetic natural

instinctual force that we need and and is quite beautiful uh to watch um when it goes

sour then you know among all animals parents human parents have the greatest

capacity and tendency to to be cruel to to torment torture their offspring um most animals don't do that most if they want to get rid of their

offspring they abandon them or or eat them you know and they do that to offspring that are not going to survive but humans we're given cart blanch and and if the child keeps us up awake at

night we go in and smother him and and you know say it was CRI death or something you know we the amount of absolute torture of children that people

get away with is horrifying and and what to me is horrifying that it is within human nature to do do that and and that's why I always worry when people

pretend it couldn't happen to them we all have you know a Nazi residing with within us you know it's a matter I mean that those German people they were not

alien they were very much human and they bought in to the whole I I worry sometimes in our country we're doing the same thing but they they bought in

knowingly uh to the most horrific uh program of of socialization that you could ever imagine and so it it it and and it's within us we particularly we

creative aders to come up with that kind of stuff so it's not just Devils out there that come up with it's it's us and how we use this the

extraordinary the thing that we have that sets us apart from everybody else that is our most distinctive most uh

powerful uh most uh uh amazing tool that we've been given is our imagination well this imagination yes can lead to the development of all this incredible technology and so on and so

forth but it can also lead to despotism it can lead to new new methods of torture you know it it can it can lead to uh new methods of mind washing and

and you know horrible stuff comes out of the same faculty imagination that we have more than anyone else has so we got to we got to number one not only

recognize it but then learn how to use it wisely and that means learn how to protect against our our most uh our our

most dangerous aspects like in my own case I'm incredibly gullible I'll believe anything you know and I have to watch out for that unfortunately I have people around me who say no Ned you're

get you're getting carried away you know that that person you is is really a bad guy because I can't recognize it my natural tendency is to trust and believe

and follow and uh as much as I have another tendency to disagree and oppose I have the other we're everything about us is is matched we pair pairs of

opposites we're all Beauty and the Beast you know we've got a beauty part and a beast part and and we're in trouble when we pretend we don't have both um you know the ones who are very down on

themselves they they they've lost touch with their beauty part they've lost touch with their assets and and and the ones who get uh uh carried away and do

bad things they're the ones who fall andth of of their Beast side because the Beast is very compelling you know I mean

uh causing pain and and hurting people is fun at a certain level because it allows us to exert power over chaos and that's always rewarding if you're doing it in a way

that causes great suffering you hope you have this uh this uh faculty called a conscience uh that will pull you back from doing doing that and then there are

those weird horrible despicable dangerous people who have no conscience zero conscience whatsoever they they have cart Blan to do whatever they want

in this world take advantage of everyone and everything and cause Li unlimited pain and suffering and then and then you hope that those of us who have a

conscience will stand stand up and say no you can't do that um it's a sad day when people who see what's wrong don't

have the courage to name it and unfortunately we're seeing that in the United States uh all the time uh the the

you know what is the line uh um the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity that's from Yates your your

your poet over there you know the um the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity and we're seeing that in the United States

right now um the best are standing off to the side you know chewing their nails and the worst are making you know making sounds like they want to take over

become king and subjugate all the rest of us and and Technology Will Rule and uh you know it it I'm a natural optimist so I I I

believe somehow or other the checks and balances will emerge but right now I I've never I've never seen never seen things that that that uh uh people are

are not checking off on allowing to happen we'll see interesting times if if you're an ADHD child Ned and with everything that

comes with that like the stubbornness maybe the Justice sensitivity and you see this evil or this wrong in your

parents do you still seek their approval well you do but you also you also begin to realize that it's wrong and and you

recoil from it and what happen at least what happened to me is you go look elsewhere so I found substitute parents all over the place uh because mine were

unable unwilling or not inclined to give me what I needed in fact to give me quite the opposite I I found it in other people's parents in friends in teachers

teachers saved my life there no doubt about I mean I I have there's a there's a score called the aces score it's a very systematic uh rating of of the

degree of severity of childhood adverse experiences and um if you have out of 10 items if you have four or more your chances of living anything like a good

life are virtually non-existent you'll you'll likely be dead or addicted or out of work by the age of 30 or 40 um well well my score is eight so it is a

statistical miracle that I'm sitting here talking to you right now at age 75 uh you know having lived a hope not

over uh wonderfully wonderfully good life um I I

beat amazing odds I'm a statistical anomaly but I know why it was because I found the connection elsewhere I Found Love else elsewhere I found approval

elsewhere and I I had certain assets that led me to do that number one I was smart I have a high IQ and number two I was cute and if you're a kid and you're

cute that really works in your favor so so I had those things going for me provided by God you know or whoever provides those things not earned by me

in any way um but uh that that saved me and and so yes your question is is a wonderful one uh what often happens unfortunately is what's called

identification with the aggressor and if you're being tormented and tortured you you you develop an admiration and a desire to be like that person so you not

only submit to but you approve of the torture you're receiving and then you can't wait to do it to someone else I mean it's it's horrible how uh Twisted

it can become but but I I I I want people to know that it's not other it's still human under Under the Tent called human all these horrible things things

live you know it's not alien you don't have to be a martian uh maybe that's giving martians a bad name you know you it is called human and under the Under

the Tent called human every imaginable kind of evil thrives so it's up to it's up and what part where that gets going is a good question but it's up to the

people who have what's called a conscience who can say that's wrong beating that dog is wrong I don't care what you want to say that is wrong and

the person who's doing it should be removed uh and the dog should be saved okay and and um um I think it's the most

important task of a civilized person to stick up for to identify and then stick up for what's right and you can feel that you don't have to have a a

philosophy book you can feel it I mean watching a dog get abused you can feel how wrong that is and watching a child get abused you can feel it too

um I feel it just imagining capital punishment now some people disagree with that but I just think it's wrong to put to get to put to death another person I I wrote a book about forgiveness and one

of the people I interviewed was a uh mother of a child uh uh who had been uh at age 10 been beaten and raped and and

throat slit and left for dead and uh the man was sentenced to death and uh the the little girl's mother spoke at the sentencing hearing and asked that the

death penalty not be imposed and the judge said why you this man did such horrific things to your daughter and she said I don't want the memorial to my

daughter to be someone else's death that just grabbed me you know she said I want the memorial to be human's ongoing effort to rehabilitate him now

people laugh at that and they scorn that to me that's the noble expression of of of the human heart you know we we can be ignoble in any number of ways but we

also have it within us to be Noble and that woman speaking for Mercy at her do daughter's sentencing her hearing uh seems to me the ultimate example of a

person overriding the primitive human T Tendencies we all have so interesting we're off the topic from add I know but that's what I I tend

to wander hither and no it's fascinating and I mean I like to think that everyone would agree that animal cruelty is I I don't understand social media is awful because it it it

serves you videos that you don't want to see sometimes and occasionally I'm scrolling Instagram and I'll for some reason it decides to show me the most horrendous video and you scroll on but

it just it's it's a little reminder that there is the of the evil that is out there um yeah if I can't imagine if if someone got if someone tried to do something to my

Milo I uh yeah I I might be one of the ADHD people who ends up in jail I'll tell you what Ned I think um

going back to the finding support elsewhere outside of your family unit if you are a child who who's going elsewhere an ADHD child going out into

the world trying to find support elsewhere what sort of comments do you think that that child could encounter from neurotypical who doesn't

emphasize with the neurod Divergent brain and how might that stifle that kids's development well we we we see it

every day and what they what they we get is most people saying cut it out shut up you know conform can't you get with the program can't you clean up your act

can't you be like other people and and you know not not cause a disturbance and and uh uh that's what most most people will do now that uh the ones of us like

me who lock out bump into someone who says no I I kind of like you the way you are and let's see if I can't help direct you in a direct in in a in a direction

that will prove fruitful as opposed to self-destructive and and um you know those are great people called teachers guides wise people whoever there are

they are out there is all I'm saying not everyone one is a rigid um judgmental uh you know on the sadistic side uh adult and and and we do need

some of those people to make the trains run on time but but uh fortunately there are enough people out there who have a heart and who do understand that uh the

broad uh parameters of of what should be considered acceptable U and as opposed to the narrow narrow band that we call

normal which is you know human existence is so much wider than that band called normal um Shakespeare said there's more in Heaven

and Earth than was ever dreamt of in your in your philosophy the the the the variety of of Human Experience it's it's wonderful and and what's a shame is that

a lot of neurotypical for one of a better word are threatened by that and so they want to stamp out and there's something in another part of human nature that I detest is we're we're

scared of anything different and so we want to stamp it out instead of learn about it understand it and and meet it the the the typical response is to stamp

it out and and maybe even put it to death U but we we want to get rid of uh anything that's not quote unquote normal and and the real reason for that is we

know we have it in us and it scares us so we want to deny it within ourselves or we can't quite get our head around that so we deny it in other people and punish it in other people and expel

other people and we think in doing that we've purged ourselves but we haven't all we've done has made our group weaker because the the difference is what

strengthens us and America right now expelling all these people that they don't realize that we're weakening ourselves our country was built by

immigrants and is made up of immigrants and to start systematically expelling them I mean sure we got to make sure they're they're you know they're not

ripping off the system and all that but um uh we we are a nation at our best uh

that we give and um at our worst we we uh we we punish and incarcerate and and dominate I was Kean to talk about uh

childhood trauma Ned briefly um I've heard that if you experience a trauma a little part of you that the trauma

affects stays at that age I don't know if you think that's true and does does a trauma keep a part of you stuck in a particular point in

time I I know I'm not smart enough or knowledgeable enough to answer that question uh with any kind of authority um I believe and I think I

experienced the opposite I I think I experienced a pretty awful trauma and I have the statistics to prove it but I've

I've I've done away with it you know and the way I did I I you know the way I did away with it was was turning to its

opposite which is Love by by having our three children and our various dogs I filled my life with love which expelled

the toxins of the trauma that I that I underwent and um uh I know there are some other experts in the field like Bessel and Gabor who who who would

probably disagree with that I I don't even know if they would or not but but I can but I can tell you speaking personally and also watching it Through

The Eyes of people I know uh the the the power of love to heal is greater than

the power of evil to hurt and and um in in some ways they are competing forces you know within within human existence

and and as one who's lived through both uh love wins U which is you know it's why I urge people to have children but not everyone should have children if you don't want to have children don't have

children if you don't want to have a dog get a dog anyway because the dog will the dog will change your mind do you think um do you think having

people constantly doubting you or or seeing your excentricities as fults do does that kind of feedback impact your

self-esteem and then inflict on your ability to feel shame yes in that's why I'm writing a

book about uh self-esteem right now uh in some ways it's a message to myself the the the title is you're better than you think you are and um like I say I'm

I'm it's a message to myself but it's a message to the many many millions of people out there who don't know how good they are they they sell themselves short

uh for various reasons but the the the message is just what the title says the fact is you are better than you think you are so let's open your eyes to that

and uh and and get past the the kind of magnetism that self-hatred can can create within you you keep drawn to the negative version of yourself you claw

your way up to a positive version then the negative version comes in and pulls you back down again and you're constantly having to claw your way up from the negative View to a positive

then you're pulled back down again and then you claw your way back up again and and what I'm trying to do in this new book is just provide better methods than just clawing

you know uh better methods than uh you know that accepting as your default position that I am a worthless person

now remember I am I I started going to church as an Episcopalian Anglican in your terms uh in the 1950s and every

Sunday I would say in church uh uh I have heard and strayed like lost sheep I have done those things that I ought not to have done I have not done those things that I have ought to have done

and there is no Health in us no Health in didn't say that affirm that weekly you know you you don't have to think too hard where our negative version of

oursel might come from you know that we are you know we are Fallen I mean that's the whole thing that we we we are fallen and then we ate from the tree that we shouldn't have eaten from and and that's

original sin and and that's why we're so flawed and you know you look at all the religions they come back to that all the Christian religions they come back to that over and over again so in some ways

we're taught and we recite as our holiest of holy prayers you know that are our fundamental uh wretchedness our

fundamental unacceptability and and and I take issue with that you see I I think the real the real message of the god I worship is love and and you love

yourself don't abase yourself sure recognize when you've done something wrong but don't say there's no Health in me I mean there's got to be some health in me otherwise I wouldn't be striving

to help other people I mean you know so to say to insist in a prayer nonetheless there is no Health in me that that seems to me a real Distortion of of humility

and and it turns it into some kind of uh self if not self-hating self- negating uh

Creed shame is such a big topic it's I always hear that word from every guest on my podcast but and it encompasses so

much but I'd be fascinated to know what your how would you define that word and do you think that feeling serves some kind of purpose whether no I think it's

terrible I think shame and guilt serve no constructive purpose I think they are they are psychological artifacts uh designed uh to bring us down to to

punish us to society doesn't want us to aray so we do we we uh uh I mean the classic chilling novel in in American

literature uh The Scarlet Letter uh about a woman who uh uh has an affair and she has to spend the rest of her life walking around with this letter A

for adulter on her on her dress I mean that kind of public shaming the stocks you know public executions used to be Sunday afternoon entertainment in

America um uh uh is is the worst part of human nature the worst part of human society shaming people lynching people

uh lording guilt all over them um um I I I wrote a I wrote a line that the WASP Tri Triad is uh alcoholism mental

illness and politeness and then a Jewish friend said to me well the Jewish Triad is guilt guilt and guilt you know you nobody would say I'm so glad I feel so

guilty or boy did that shame really help my life no it it it it Brands you like The Scarlet Letter it it wounds you it makes you dislike yourself it makes you

not want to go out in public it certainly makes you not want to be yourself you know you spend your lifetime trying to hide who you really are and nobody can recommend that as a

good way to live but I can't tell you how many people are doing that they're suppressing their every Natural Instinct now sure you could say that's just good manners you you don't want to you know

fart on an elevator or something like that okay fine you you suppress certain desires but there are other desires you shouldn't have to suppress like your

desire to express love or or your desire to uh you know say I don't want to be here um you know your your desire to

exercise your freedom and and um again you know it just drives me to a point of real sadness where I I realize there is a part of human nature that wants to

shame other people make other people feel guilty make other people feel bad about being human that's just so sad I mean and

wrong and just obviously wrong life is hard enough without making us feel bad about being alive you know and and and about wishing we hadn't been born uh

because of the bad things we do and and you know and that seems to me is under our control contr and that's where ADHD becomes such an interesting experiment

we are the rule Breakers we are the disruptors we are the Nui annoying kids we we are the people who get punished when we're children because of the way

we are and and and uh and yet if if we get our cards played properly we become uh the very people who who are the change uh agents for the better I mean

it's like Henry Henry the you know the the Shakespeare play um and uh with false staff you know false staff sort of the symbol of of Hedonism and and dis

disarray and and Prince how is buddies with him until it comes to a point where he has to say no I'm going to go the noble way and false staff is you know carded off and and Prince Hal becomes

the king and that's what we want to see happen we want to go through our disruptive childhood stage but emerge as the the the the responsible and and

beneficent King uh and and take our false staff side and say okay you you've had your fun but we got to grow up now and and that's what add I think every

generation of add shows that in motion some of us get cast aside and punished and we never make it but others of us cast off that side of us and we

become the the leader and the you know the the wise person we should be with a broad broad band of tolerance as opposed to the narrow people who never dared do

that they never dared go out of the the the the the behavioral perimeter they never dared try anything different or new because they were so afraid of Shame

and guilt well the people who dared do that and then discovered it's not a sustainable way of living then they became you know Prince Al King

Henry why do you think people with ADHD are so scared of putting boundaries in place and saying no to things that aren't a good

fit for themselves why why do you think there is so much shame in this community well I think we we don't want to be hemmed in we don't want to give up our freedom and uh that's why we don't want

to obey rules we don't want to give up uh what we see to be our I mean I I've done I did a survey while ago ad with ad

what what are the two most driving most most powerful for forces within you and number number one was the drive to be independent we we want we want to be

free above everything else we want to be free and um that's why so many are in the United States I mean we were a country that was founded on the idea of

freedom and and then number two is the desire to build and create we want to build and create and and you know that's why I tell people get it getting a creative Outlet is maybe the most

important thing you can do to find joy in in life with ADD and um we just have this this need I mean it it it it certainly is stronger than the need to

make money although making money can be a creative outlet but uh we that's why I write so many books if I don't have a book going I get

depressed I literally get depressed and so I know it's like a cow needs to be milked I know I've got to go out there and write another book and and uh it it's just biological fact I've learned

about myself over many years and and I think those two things we're so that makes us resistant to being regimented or um you know that we we want to be

free although there have been the military is a is a hotbed of of ADD and that's because we also need structure so structure applied the right way then we can we can feel independent I mean the

people who say structure is bad and they say it impedes my cure my my creativity look at Shakespeare and Mozart two of maybe the most two creative Geniuses who

ever lived they both worked under incredibly tight structure Shakespeare was all ambic Penta dot d dot d dot d da Mozart these very tight musical forms

within those tight structures they created infinite variety and that's the message that structure potentiates creativity does not inhibit it quite the

OB without structure you have chaos and that's not art that's that's chaos that's ugly you know and and so um U and it's not Beauty it's it's the opposite

and so what you want to is make friends with structure and then make friends with the best you have in you the best you have in humanity and try always to

side with that everything we do will be ambivalent everything there's two sides to everything but side with the side of you that wants to live basically side with the side of you that says yes to

life and and recognizing you have a side of you that says no to life but try to try to keep that one in abeyance don't try to make it go away because you can't make it go away you make it stronger by

trying to make it go away that's the failure of of willpower in inhibition just strengthens the other side but but if you can if you can side

with the affirmation and recognize but don't give power to the denial side the the destructive side can structure be forced upon us and

oh yes that's called that's called dictatorship more internally I mean for example if you're you've got a project during a week but you haven't got structure you haven't got a work

schedule so you don't do it you you procrastinate but then it gets to the night before the project's due and suddenly the structure is forced on you because it's due tomorrow so you do it

and I know we spoke last time that the the adrenaline kicks in it's the last minute rush and you get it done but is there an element of structure coming in here your you're you're forcing structure you're

putting it in the picture and therefore it creates the compulsion to start yeah yeah you're self-medicating with adrenaline and uh it it it it works

but it's not the best way to do it you're stressing out your system you're uh you're resorting to an extreme measure to do something that you could do naturally uh if you were willing to

work with a coach for example if you were willing to put yourself on a schedule that wasn't you know over-the-top hard driving you know type a kind of thing getting it done

like a ramrod um if you could learn a different method youd do it even better and it would be more sustainable you know I some of these folks die have a

heart attack early on because they their system just can't take it even though they may say they like it they they fall in love with the the high energy high

intensity life uh but it's not really sustainable what about impulsiveness Ned why is that's the

impulsivity is is uh uh creativity is impulsivity going right so your impulsive side is very valuable if there were no impulsivity we basically Define

it as as acting without reflecting you know fire Ready Aim uh and everyone says that's very bad that's very bad and uh in my own life it's illustrated by the

fact that I can't tell you how many women I asked to marry me on the first date you know this is have fun Let's Make It Last Forever you know and fortunately they all were smart enough

to say h it's a little bit too soon but um um uh you know new ideas don't they don't come on demand they come unbidden

you know they they interrupt your train of thought they come in the middle of the night they come uh in the middle of a conversation they they jump out that's

impulsivity but it's also creativity now if if what jumps out is is helpful we call it creative if it's obnoxious we call it impulsive you know so so um uh

impulsivity has a bad name you know I I think uh use properly the world depends upon it that's where the new ideas come from you you you can't by definition you

can't have a new idea uh you know it it has to it has to begin somewhere and then pop out um uh and and unfortunately our society

tries to inhibit the popping out and uh they're called Bad Boys and bad girls in school and they're they're called unreliable dsy add people in adulthood

unless they've made a contribution in which they're called genius you know and so it it's uh so much depends upon the

the the the result of what you do absolutely I think impulsivity has got a bad reputation generally but I think it can be a massive strength I think you

know I started this podcast impulsively I started lad Bible impulsively 15 years ago it's now one of the biggest social media brands in the world wonderful

there are all all of those things which at the time people around me were saying you're crazy that is a ridiculous like think on it sleep on it and I was just there buying the domain no no I'm going

to do it it's and you know you know I have a friend who says side with the Dream Makers not the dream

Breakers the the realistic people they're all Dre Breakers you know oh be realistic you know that wheel has no future you

know the the the the struggle I suppose is like because yes lab Bible big success this podcast love it it's going

really well but they're like 5% of the things I have impulsively started the other 95% I've started and then I've

lost interest and Abandoned and I wonder why the 5% I stuck at and the 95% I abandoned and I always ask myself when I

start something when I have that initial excitement am I acting on short-term dopamine or is this thing a true interest that is connected to my core

because when it gets hard which it will whether a new business or a new relationship or a new job if it's not then I will quit and I think that's so interesting because I reflect on my own

experience and the more I think about ADHD it's like I don't think it's a deficit of attention because when I become interested in something there's

so much attention towards that thing it's for me it's more of a deficit of self-awareness and the more I try and flex that because of all those years of pretending to be someone that I'm not

and you know wearing the mask I didn't know who Alex was so when when an opportunity came into my now a new job a new relationship a new hobby I jumped on

that opportunity I bought the domain I I got into that new job but then the honeymoon period passed and that's when I quickly found out whether it was a

true alignment with with my core interests and values and 95% of the time it wasn't so I I guess my question is like how in that really early stage of

of excitement and because I think so many people like you you that's where a lot of Shame and and self-esteem issues come in because you start a new project you jump into it and you tell a lot of people during that early stage that this

is going to be your new thing this is your new business this is your new life's purpose and then like you you almost hide from people because you

don't want to update them that oh it's another business that I've abandoned um you know I'm a useless piece of and you just feel so in that early stage how can

someone tell if it's a true alignment to their core interests and values rather than just short-term excitement I think you have to give yourself time and one of the ways of giving yourself time is

not telling anyone about it now that's hard to do because we 80 years we like to share everything you know we're just bundle of enus I'm going to do this I'm going to do that and then you set a big

trap for yourself that you just pointed out and you what to oh I don't know let it go and you feel ashamed because we we do that for every one thing we follow through on WE conceive of a hundred you

know that we might do and then we tell people about it and and then we're stuck what happened to that oh you that novel I was going to write yeah I guess and then we feel embarrassed and and so the only way to prevent that is not to tell

but telling us not to tell is like telling the Sun not to shine I mean you know we're just natural tellers you know and and uh uh but you're you're so right

I mean uh you know for every one that makes it many don't and and I think you just need to know that about and the other thing

you can do is is have somebody uh a friend a colleague a spouse a coach whatever who can who who can help you keep it alive you know because with

almost anything worth doing there'll be a period of a dip where you think this sucks this is stupid I should walk away from it and if you have someone there with you saying well hang in there a little B longer then you then you

increase the chances that it'll happen yeah no it's such good advice I think I'm also so intentional about always reminding myself of why I started

the thing that I'm doing because I think we spoke last time you came on that about object permanence and we either you you brilliantly said that people with ADHD have a unique perspective of

time we're either in the now or the not now and and you know friendships ideas can come and go and they're brilliant we can focus on them but then they they

float off and they cease to exist and I think the same can apply with our reason for starting something and our

connection to that so I'm so intentional about keeping the reason why I started this podcast front and center and in my now all the time so when there is a

particular day where things are really hard and that happens a lot I can really intentionally remind myself why I started because I think many people with

ADHD we can lose touch with things objects obviously there's a lot of stereotyping there but I think also with thoughts and ideas and and feelings and

motivations and I think if the if you lose touch with the motivation as to why you started something then that's that's a really risky territory for an ADHD

person who's starting a business totally so so so true I think you you want to stay aware of in touch with what I call your vision of greatness and if you

can't do that alone and most of us can't you want to have one or two people who can remind you you know why you doing this Alex because you have you know your vision of greatness your unwrapping your gift whatever you want to call it but

something that will bring you back up to the level of wanting to do it because you know there's a there's a natural entropy there's a natural tendency toward disarray of all of our projects

you know the minute we conceive of them a part of them starts to disintegrate and so you you want to have that other person wait a minute wait a don't let it go away completely sure it's maybe it's not as Nobel prize winning as you

thought of it at the beginning but that doesn't mean it's worthless and and hold on to it and and um I mean the transition one I think one of the most

difficult transition ever made is the transition from what you imagined to what you create as reality that's a

really tough really tough Gulf to cross you know we imagine just such beauty and then we get this hideous awkward little roboat you

know it's not it's not the ship we imagined you know yeah that's such a good visual and yeah it's so true I think you can really

forget about motivations but also achievements because you can do amazing things we're all capable of doing amazing things but because some of us

are so fast to move on to the next thing because we're so excited and enthusiastic we don't we don't intentionally store the feeling and the memory of that achievement we don't

build that evidence in our subconscious that we can and we are able to do the thing so when the opportunity comes to do the thing again we don't have that evidence base to draw on and we think

that we we're not qualified or we think that we're the wrong person they've asked the wrong person this is terrifying and call it you know imposter syndrome but I think

intentionally and I suppose do you have any advice on how somebody might intentionally celebrate those wins when they come I think it's more important to

remember them and the way to remember them is to write it down or share it with a person so it's in your verbal memory you know uh so because we tend to

just let things go they disappear I mean I'll have ideas in the middle of the night and I'll say I got to remember that in the morning come morning they're completely gone I remember I had a good idea but I don't have any clue as to

what it was you know and uh uh you so if you can think of ways of of holding on to them like writing them down or telling somebody else um um also keep in

mind you know there's a lot to be gained by imitating other people but there's also a lot to be gained by honoring your

capacity for originality there's a great line uh who he who imitates the Divine Iliad does not imitate Homer in other

words Homer started with nothing there wasn't a previous epic to imitate and U you know all of us have that in us all of us have you know great

epics that we that we would write and don't make the mistake of the minute you put it out there think oh this suck I call it the this suck reaction it's inevitable when I think of

something the next day I'll think it sucks you know it's it's like I think it's my defense against not getting disappointed if I can kill it off it's better than having someone else kill it

off you know and uh um it it's but it's such a vulnerable territory where you're trying to build something new and particularly

in the early stages that's when you need someone who believes in you because the world has geared people to show because they don't want you to get there first they don't want you to do what they

can't do you know so I'm not if I can't do it I'm not going to let him do it um men are much more that way than women by the way but uh I think it's so and I

guess also to celebrate the fact that you started right I mean the fact that you're doing it means you probably conquered that fear of or Not Conquered but you've really not let that fear of

criticism M and fear of of letting someone down or rejection win like you you've pushed through you've done that first step toward starting something I remember when you came in L Ned uh to

the studio a few months ago and you told the story of um being on stage at Harvard and you did a talk and you got a standing ovation but there was everyone

clapping cheering and you were I think you said you were in the taxi home um and your wife asked you what was wrong and you said there was lady at the back scowling one lady and that that that

really got to you and you thought done terribly and you know I'm referring to RSD this horrible thing called injection sensitive dysphoria do you think it's a

curse to suffer from RSD or can it be a blessing to feel emotions so deeply well if it keeps you from doing things and if you suffer through your life then it's a curse but there is a

positive side to it you know namely that uh uh you know you don't become you you don't become complacent you don't you don't believe every compliment you know

you don't you don't you know there's a there's a natural questioning that's good for you up to a point but then when you enter into the world of RSD the

people I mean you can't ever be happy because you don't you know you think every single gesture has the possibility of rejection in it and when you start you know parsing it sure everything does

have the possibility of rejection in it and you can't can't go around to everybody and say did you mean that as rejection did you I mean you drive yourself crazy so you need to develop

some and I'm working on it still some self uh self uh restoring capacity where you you you see the possibility that

that might be a rejection but you you develop a who gives a you know response you know because you've got better things to do than and you know

massage the possibility that might be bad and because any any moment carries with it the possibility that it's you know right now we could imagine people listening to us and think well some of

them thinks this is the dumbest thing they've ever heard well okay they can turn the cha the channel you know I mean we're not here to please everyone uh in fact it wouldn't be a good show if you

did please everyone you know and and uh um learning to get comfortable with with giving yourself the same advice you'd

give other people you know and and um and realizing that we are all on the same team it's called the team of the living and the more we can help one

another the better as competitive as we may be uh the more people we help the better our world will

be so many people who listen to this watch this show Ned they're they're late

diagnosed ADHD is or their their their coming to terms that they might have ADHD or certainly being neod Divergent um in their 30s 40s 50s and they spent

entire life masking and shape-shifting their whole personality to be more likable palatable for whoever they're

standing in front of on any given day copying mirroring people's entire personality sometimes do you think other

than fitting in does masking serve a purpose marking you mean conforming or

masking masking oh masking yeah sorry yeah yeah it serves a definite purpose I mean we if if we were completely real

the world would be at constant War I mean you know we we have to have a certain amount of what's called politeness or you know uh uh you know see see you don't walk into

the room and say I hate you or you're ugly or you're stupid or you're boring I mean yeah we we we have to have a certain mask but but when you take it too far then you then you you basically

mask yourself out of existence there's no real you left and that's not very satisfying if there's no real you as long as there's a real you behind the mask then you know okay I'm faking it

and that's necessary in society but when you're not aware of the the real person behind the mask that's time to take action because that means you've lost your sense of who

you are and then how can anything you do be legitimate or Genuine it can't be you're a you're a walking fraud and um and but you've been forced into that by

the fear of being caught out or embarrassed or ashamed or you know and so you you've just said okay it's safer if I just disappear totally and don't

exist anymore then I can't be ashamed because I don't exist so that that's the downside of too much masking but some masking you got to have can people mask

if they suffer from RSD can people mask because they don't want their true self to be rejected sure

absolutely absolutely yeah know and then and then you get to the next stages where you don't even know what your true self is so what are you rejecting or accepting it becomes totally

situationally dependent depends who you who you're with and what your goal is and what you want what would you say Ned to the

female Community 85% of people who listen to this podcast are uh women really 85% yeah and it's it's it's a

community coming to terms with who they are diagnoses later in life struggling to feel connected to

their true self and they're feeling resentful for those who have misunderstood them in their past what would you say to that Community well

first of all welcome congratulations thank you and I I don't mean this in a pandering way I think in general women are more emotionally evolved

sophisticated than we Men We men have a bit of primitive uh caveman in us that does not serve us well maybe one time it did when we had to go out and gather

food and and battle saber-tooth tigers but it doesn't serve us well anymore and it and it serves us very ill in fact um so thank God for women who who are

willing to be vulnerable willing to change willing to learn something new uh without feeling threatened by it and um uh you know the biggest undiagnosed

group of add are adult women and and also it's the group in my opinion experience that gets the most help from the diagnosis it's like a rebirth it's like an Awakening oh I mean I'm not

stupid Oh you mean I could run a business Oh you mean I can do more than just the laundry and and uh uh Prov prepare cocktails for my husband yes yes yes I mean I never forget one of my

first adult female patients her her father said to her you have no more sense than a jbird when she was about 10 and she took that remark with her the

rest of her life until she met me and and uh you know and and I dis dismantled that statement and she just started crying you mean you mean he was wrong I

said yeah you're in fact you're way smart and then of course they they've got a built-in detective so she said how do you know I'm smart and you got to be ready to back that up so I did

I said well it's your vocabulary your appreciation irony you're taking in whatever is in this room uh the questions you've asked me and then she said then she started to cry because she could see I really did know she was

smart and um um to me that's just the crowning moment of of every day when I and it happens all the time when someone sees the the truth of who they are and

that they are they are so much greater more competent more and more empathic it's not just skills marketable skills

it's in it's awareness of the other person that that they they've had to suppress cuz they thought it would be discounted and and and then they come

into themselves as a full woman and they are able to live the full life uh that they that they've always been capable of living so my word to women is keep at it

and keep keep trying to show us men the way you know it's what would you say to what would you say to the same women Ned who have

been told that they're too much in past relationships by a partner who couldn't manage their impulsiveness or thought that they were too much what would you

say to someone who's experienced that run the other way you know don't spend your life trying to tone it down unless you're off the charts and you you you know yourself you should tone it down

okay but that's a distinct minority I I think women who get told they too much keep being too much because it means you're you're you're you're you're threatening you're so smart you're

threatening or you're so full of Personality you're threatening or you're so beautiful and there's no way I could be that beautiful and you're threatening

um instead do what do what the sensible thing to do is run with your strength if you're that then keep being too much and be even more much and then find a man

who likes that assuming you want a man uh you know and and uh uh anyone who is threatened by another person's ability is not worth having a relationship with

uh you know you can work with them but you don't want to be intimate with them because they're going to be trying to tear you down and you don't want to be intimately involved with someone whose goal is to tear you down I see it all

the time by the way and and it and it's it's um it's a it's just it's it's it's just bad for life in general to try to

destroy a person's capabilities uh out of Envy much better to build them up and try to do the same yourself it's why it's better to play tennis with someone who's better than you than play tennis

with someone who's not as good as you it's how you grow and um if you you know great line from Kipling's poem If if you

can look at Triumph and disaster and treat those two Impostors just the same if you can realize that Victory and defeat are just imposters the real Victory Is Love of the Game whether you win or you lose if you love The Game

You've Won because you got something you can do for the rest of your life and you you know benefit from uh the people who can't uh who who can't stand to compete

or or Wither in the face of uh uh defeat or gloat in the face of Victory they're they're the

losers women have been massively let down um I'm sure you all agree by the the medic medical community particularly when it comes to ADHD like so many women

were just missed um diagnosed with depressed and anxious and put on ssris exactly um I mean the Injustice it's a travesty what's happened um the whole Lost

Generation coming forward now having that amazing moment you mentioned with the Phoenix Rising but do you think the this builtup pent up feeling of

misunderstood getting a diagnosis later in life can that manifest into anger and hatred in other words can

you blame women if they are reacting to a diagnosis with visceral anger no I think you should welcome it

and say you know let it out uh tell me please how you've been over you know pardon my language but tell me how it feels awful to be misunderstood and tell me about that and tell me how angry

you are about it because you deserve to be angry about it um and and you know don't think of that as a somehow being a spoil sport or you know no it's

legitimate and you it's also finite someone can't go on a tiid forever it's good to let it out okay now now let's

get down to building now that we've done destroying and well-deserved destruction now let's build and and and the women are incredibly good Builders once they

get the rage out of the way they're they're ready to go to town and and work uh and U they are and I may be wrong about this but my experience is uh uh

men are really good at holding grudges but women are not they're able to let it go because they want to let what's in it to hold a grudge I mean it it it's just

saps your soul of its precious bodily fluids you know uh and and I think women understand that they're ready to get on let's have the next baby let's do the next project let's build the next

business let's you know uh you know let's not waste time in in Grudge holding um and men will dedicate their whole life to holding a grudge I mean

you know Moby Dick or whatever you know it's a uh the and and revenge is such a stupid thing you and it it penetrate

when someone says I demand Justice what they're really saying is I demand Revenge I want that other person to hurt as much as I hurt and somehow or other

that satisfies their scale of what things should be no uh confucious said if you if you go down to the road if you go down the road of Revenge first dig

true dig to Graves you know and and um uh uh re revenge is like uh drinking poison and expecting the other person to

die you know it's just so stupid you know and and yet I wrote a book about forgiveness and it didn't sell much and I I think if I write another one I'll

call it get even and that will fly off the shelf you know gosh that's so funny Ned um have

you ever experienced people with ADHD in your practice that are so overwhelmed

that they just can't function and if so is it usually entirely the ADHD or are there other things that play Oh No it's it's it's the multiplicity I mean first

of all ad really occurs by itself um I also have dyslexia for example most people with ADD either have dyslexia

anxiety depression uh substance abuse um uh just bad job fit bad marital fit or whatever uh so there's usually almost

invariably other other things playing in um and so you you want to what you want to do is develop a plan that takes in all of them now it's usually the case

that if you start with the ADHD all the other things fall into place pretty quickly and unfortunately a lot of mistake uh American doctors make and I'm sure it's true in England as

well is they they start with something else they start with the depression and anxiety put them on ssris what they need is the add treated you know get focused put them on a stimulant and then usually

they start doing better so the depression goes away and they start feeling more in control less forgetful so the anxiety goes away way so you've essentially with one intervention

stimulant medication and education about ADHD you've treated three conditions and and the treatment first of the anxiety and the and the anxiety and the

depression carries side effects that are make everything worse I mean the ssris are cognitively dulling so you get a little bit stupid and they take away libido or they can take away libido and

libido is such a positive force you don't want to throw that away unless you have to uh and and so um yeah we don't often

treat it the right way but just you should know uh if you're listening that it's rare to see ADHD by itself um and

and and but the good news is it's rare to see such a case that we can't help when when someone comes to see me my wife says I shouldn't say this but I do

I tell people I promise you you will improve 100 % I can't tell you how much you'll improve but I can promise you you will see Improvement and and it it I've

never not seen it happened sometimes it's incremental tiny more often than that it's it's substantial and uh you go from you know sort of ruing every day to

enjoying every day and that's why I love my work there's no specialty in all of medicine where you can you can make that promise

at least that I know of maybe uh maybe um I can't think of one but uh um um and and what's makes that such a shame is

that most people still don't know about it and and and and it may even worse people who don't know anything about it make pronouncements as if they did uh

family doctors are the worst offenders oh that's not add that's know add from a hole in the ground but he talks as if he did and that means a lot of and and the other Prim offender or teachers they

think they know what it is oh that's not add and and and they just have wrong Notions of what add is and and uh if they understood it they would they would

line up to sign up the kids who have it because those are the kids who will give them the great reward of making tremendous progress so interesting I think when I'm doing a talk and someone asks me what is

ADHD I say well it depends who's asking or it depends who you're asking if you're asking a doctor or a psychologist they'll say that it's a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by traits of impulsivity

and forgetfulness and disorganization but if you ask somebody's actually lived with it then ADHD is a lifetime of being told that you're too much and you're too

sensitive or that you're not enough not understanding why you're so sensitive to rejection not understanding why everyone else seems to just be gliding past and making

progress with ease but for you things are so tough I think the dsm5 is doesn't account for so many of the emotional knock on effects of the

executive function challenges that we can face totally and people come to you Ned and do you just off the top of your head and I know it's not an easy question but do you have you got like a

list of behaviors eccentric behaviors that if there are some undiagnosed people listening and watching it might help them put two and two together and

seek a d seek an assessment well the the for adults the the the lead symptom is a feeling of underachievement I haven't made good on my promise and

you don't know why you've been told most of your life that it's you haven't worked hard enough but you know that's not true uh you know you've been working your ass off you just haven't got the result you've been looking for and you

don't understand why and so you buy into the notion that you're you haven't done something enough worked hard enough uh applied yourself taken Chinese you know whatever you you blame yourself and

usually in terms of lack of effort and discipline that's number one but then uh uh you you you've gotten into trouble because of your search for high stimulation we are always looking for

high stimulation uh boredom is our cryptonite uh now there are are adaptive ways of finding High stimulation like starting a

business or writing a book or you know building a rocket ship but then there are very maladaptive ways of finding High stimulation at the top of the list

is substance use which people with ADD have a lot more of um another way is to is to marry the wrong person a lot of people with ad marry a train wreck

because they they want the stimulation and so they spend a lot of time in in in fights and crisis um another another tendency is is to be

disorganized we have a lot of trouble uh putting things away organizing things closing cabinets uh washing windows washing floors and and why is that well it's called problem with the executive

function but but it really is because they're boring what's boring we don't do it just doesn't grab us it's not that we're trying to be defiant but the idea

of closing a cupboard door we reach in take out a a glass and walk away we don't even see the door is still open it it bothers someone else mother spouse

grandmother but we didn't leave it open on purpose we just didn't see it the same thing with the stop sign we we can see the land on our visual context

cortex but we don't comprehend it so we don't do what it says which is to stop now obviously that can be life-threatening you know so so not to

see something can cost you your life but again it comes back to we we attend to and attend very well to what's interesting what's not interesting we

don't so if you have a problem with organization if you have a problem with lateness if you have a problem with the uh speaking out of turn interrupting all

of that stuff it it's a um it's not it's it's not hard to understand if if it's if it's not interesting uh we don't do it on the other hand

interrupting it's because we get carried away with our enthusiasm things are so interesting we want to share it so we'll bark out something while someone else is talking it's not because we're rude I

mean manifest that way but it's because we're so eager to share the thing we we've got on our mind we are victims of our own enthusiasm it's why we overom commit it's why we overload our Plate at

a buffet you know we we are enthusiasts and and we don't know how to we don't know how to control our enthusiasm so those are some of the the the common

manifestations in adult but what what it all sums up to be is is we underachieve and we get criticized for uh for stuff that is really not done on

purpose at all so interesting Ned I am so interested in this podcast so I've spent the morning preparing the questions and

looking forward to it setting up my studio because I normally film in London but I'm filming at home for this one but I'm not interested in the coffee table when I walked in here just before I met you today I stubbed my toe on the coffee

table and it's so true I'm not interested in the location of the coffee table and I hit my toe into it is your toe okay now I hope it's fine now yeah but in the moment it was Agony for about

30 seconds yeah oh it's the worst feeling yeah yeah I want to focus on some of the positives Ned I mean we we've covered a lot this has been so interesting um the many positives of

neurod Divergence what are some of the most positive things that about ADHD that you've encountered on your ADHD Journey yeah the right at the top of the

list is creativity I mean we we we're so creative we don't even know we're creative we take it for granted we don't realize how uncreative most people are that's because we've always been

that way we were born with this fiery imagination so we've always been coming up with counter examples coming up with ridiculous examples coming up with new ways of seeing things uh pointing out

things that are other people don't see we' we've always been you know you could say inappropriate one of my least favorite words we've always been inappropriate we've always said the King

has no clothes we've always said how about doing it this way that's our that's our salvation and our demise you know I mean uh we get into trouble for

it but we change the world because of it so that that's the part that uh you can't buy and you can't teach you can't buy and you can't teach originality

another another quality that we have that you can't buy or teach is curiosity we want to know what's underneath that rock we want to know what's in that petriu we want to know know you know

what's on the other side of the moon you know and and uh and we ask impossible questions because we want to know and sometimes we get in trouble for asking too much when I was a kid they called me

the question box and they'd run away when I was coming because they didn't want to be subjected to my torrent of questions and um you know asking questions is a good thing that's that's

how change happens that's how new discoveries occur not memorizing what's already known but asking questions about what isn't known that that's what we we specialize in and

then we also have a a pronatural kind of way of plugging into situations and people we can see as obvious what's going on that other people don't see at

all and uh we we can't believe you mean you didn't see how mean he's being or you didn't see how vulnerable she is and and people without add no they don't

they literally don't see it and that's sometimes hard to believe because to us it's so obvious the time thing we've we've mentioned about that but are are not

doing time well well again the flip side of that is is we're really interested in what we are doing so it's hard to peel us away another point about ad for every

for every option there's an opposite option and for every motion there's an opposite so is many pluses plus their minus like

the three one everyone knows distractability impulsivity and hyperactivity well the the flip side of distractability is curiosity and the flip side of of impulsivity is

creativity and the flip side of hyperactivity is energy you know I'm 75 years old and thank God I have this turbo pack and then you go down the list

and wherever forever you find a beauty there's a beast and and try not to disavow either one you know get take advantage of the beauty and limit the

Damage Done by the Beast um and and ultimately be glad of who you are I mean that's why you know uh you're better than you think you are and

Society has a terrible way of taking everybody but particularly people with ADD and making them feel ashamed of who they are uh and gosh I hate to see that

because these are wonderful people and there's nothing quite as exciting is taking someone who thinks they're use useless and coming working with them to

the point where they exalt in who they are and it doesn't take that long because what it really takes is a is sequential measures of success and uh

setting them up to achieve that yes it's so interesting the being super aware of the surroundings and other people's

intentions you can spot someone's true judge of character you can spot someone's true intentions before many other people and when oh you can spot a hypocrite a mile away you can almost

smell him a mile away it'ser of the the micro facial expressions that so many people Miss but we pick up on it doesn't go over our heads no no and and and what

what's particularly I mean we hate those people at least I do I hate someone who's trying to fool me into believing they're someone they're not you know and

and politicians are the worst offenders but the uh you know I'm I'm Gul enough as it is you don't have to try to deceive me you know to get your gain you

know and and uh but you're so right we we we can see through people in a second it's a big lesson when I was um 15 years ago Ned I started a a company which was

going really well and I actually needed help so I got into business with these two people and I remember the day I met them to sign the paperwork my intuition was screaming at me saying these two guys are not on your side don't sign

this bit of paper but I didn't listen to it I didn't trust my gut I got kicked out of the business it started a 5year court case that nearly killed me through drinking

alcohol I've told this story on other podcasts so but it's it's such a big example of like that intuition that judge of character is there you just have to be brave enough to to trust it

and listen to it like especially in situations like that where the people pleasing versus the internal ability to spot that that person a wrong on

wronging on that day I should have listened to it and I should have said no but because I was such a people pleaser and so scared of Confrontation I didn't say no I signed the bit of paper that I

shouldn't have signed and it triggered a massive legal battle for me that nearly cost me my life all because I didn't have this awareness that I was living with ADHD at the time and also you were

so eager for the good outcome you know it's not just that you were you you you you had a vision that you want wanted to see come true and and

and you didn't see the for flusher in the people you were dealing with yeah I um I spoke to your friend Ned uh recently a brilliant brilliant man you

know him well Winford door oh yes yeah yeah fantastic he he came on the podcast as did you uh in London very lucky to

have him in the studio as well um and he wants to reframe ADHD to become vast uh yeah that was what I put in my book 2.0

that's it yes yeah could you so what remind me what vast stands for stands for V first of all add is a vast condition and I and I'd like to remind

people of that it's not just a series of discret little things but V vast is an acronym for variable attention stimulus

trait uh variability is the Hallmark of this condition attention and stimulation are two of the lead qual ities and then trait is to distinguish it from Disorder

so it's a trait depending how you manage it can be an asset or a liability attention and stimulation are two of the key variables and then variability we're never consistent we're

consistently inconsistent so variable attention stimulus trait fast yes I remember I remember now such a good I think ADHD is so such a wrong ACC it's

wrong it's wrong Alex it's absolutely wrong it it's we we don't have a deficit of attention we have an abundance of attention our challenge is to control it

you know absolutely it's it's such a competitive World though Ned and I'm thinking like um you know across the board such a competitive world and how

can we use our neurod Divergence to beat competition I wouldn't worry about beating the competition I'd worry about carrying the day ourselves let the

competition worry about themselves you know let because truth out and we have truth on our side we also have Vision on our side we can see what they can't see so I I think it's a mistake to get

sideline worrying about what they're doing uh we should worry about what we're doing and you know and let the chips fall where they may I mean I have

total faith that what we are doing will carry the day because it it's so in everybody's interest and the ones who want to tear us down have at it I mean go waste your time doing that you know

it it and and I tell myself don't get hung up don't take the bait uh you know let them burn themselves out because that's what'll happen you know it's a

and I don't even understand why they want to tear down what we're doing because what we're doing is nothing but helping people you know there's not like someone's making a killing you know at

all um um so I I I think just help each other out it's Cooperative Enterprise you do what you do I do what I do the the the

people who are trying to create growth in this world you know keep at it and and we're we're the inventors of growth we're the inventors of entrepreneurialism you know we're we're

the growth Masters if ever there were any this has been truly fascinating Ned I want to ask you one final question one final question before we wrap up and

that is if someone's listening or watching and they're thinking that they've got they they're thinking I wish I didn't

have this ADHD thing in just two minutes explain to them why they should thank God that they do have [Laughter]

it well uh because you don't know your own gifts you don't know what you wouldn't have if you didn't have this condition you're too aware of what

you do have that you don't like and that's why you wish you didn't have it but you discount or don't even know about what you wouldn't have if you didn't have it and and what you you

wouldn't have is your vision your creativity your originality your ability to see into problems and see around corners and see into people you wouldn't

have any of that and and and and and so maybe you'd be on time more often if you didn't have it or maybe you're sock draer wouldn't be as disorganized or maybe you wouldn't blurt out inappropriate statements in the middle

of a cocktail party but really does that matter that much to you as opposed to what you do have that you take for granted Vision imagination uh tenacity follow through

generosity uh I mean all of that you you wouldn't have that you wouldn't have this this glowing Sunshine of imagination that you carry with you everywhere you go you wouldn't have that

and you don't appreciate it now because you've always had it yeah yeah wow that is truly amazing and such a nice tone to end on um as as

always Ned as before thank you for thank you you for the great work you do precious your time is um absolute honor

to have you back on the podcast and uh thank you so much me too thank you Alex take care