We all have it.  A running narrative in our head based on our belief system to describe, explain, justify our actions and inactions.  So what is your narrative when it comes to struggling with task completion?

“I must not want it badly enough!”

“I just can’t be accountable to myself!”

“If only there were 25 hours in a day!”

“I didn’t have the right people or support”

As you increase your awareness about your ADHD and how it impacts your life and work be sure to review and update your running commentary to reflect your new understanding of your unique brain wiring.  We update our phones and software but we often miss updating the thoughts in our own head.  Beliefs are powerful and like ADHD invisible to the eye.  They are our internal programming that direct all behaviors and actions.  They also contribute to our evaluation system-when we look back on an experience and stamp it as a success,  a failure or a learning opportunity.

Here is some sample ADHD infused expressions:

“I need to be clearly committed before I proceed with a project” (prioritizing and decision making)

“I benefit from external accountability” (Structure)

“What hours of the day is my PFC most alert?”  (limiting scope and managing energy)

“what do I need to remember to duplicate this success?” (memory)

“It is what it is” (Rumination-accepting the current situation and moving on)

So next time you set out complete an important project pay attention to your narrative and see if your operating on a pre-ADHD operating system.

Cameron Gott PCC

ADHD Coach for Professionals

I’m not a career coach but I do know how ADHD impacts a career, both positive and negative.  Considering a new career is a great opportunity to align your passions and interests with your cognitive preferences.  Here is an excerpt from an article I wrote for Task.fm titled,

How should adults with ADHD factor ADHD into their career choice?

Selecting a new career is also a wonderful opportunity to make great strides towards what you are truly passionate about or what I like to call “A Life that Fits.”   As one client suggests, entertaining a new career path allows her to focus on doing the right things instead of figuring out how to do things right.  I specialize in the latter a.k.a. improving work performance but I can certainly comment on ADHD and work fulfillment.

Adults with ADHD can bring a lot to the professional table but only when they are clear on what all is showing up at the table.  Asking how ADHD should factor into a career choice is like asking how “unique brain wiring” or cognitive preferences should factor in.  If we step back for a moment and look at all the factors that go into career choice – strengths, aptitude, experience, personality, history, preferences and interests – our unique brain wiring provides the blueprint for all of these factors.  Given that ADHD is neurobiological in nature it will influence all of these factors and in truth it already is.

Read More…

This is an excerpt from an article I wrote for Task.fm before the holidays.  It’s really intended for a co-worker or manager who wants to know how to best support a professional with ADHD.  But the strategies are useful to review for all including Covey’s 5th Habit – Seek First to Understand Then be Understood (which is really about the coaching skill – active listening), and the concept of being a “Secret Weapon”.

Managers who want to support and get the most out of their ADHD employees can really benefit from knowing a little about the ADHD experience in the workplace.  The dynamic and intense work environment the 21st century workforce now faces can present opportunity and challenges for the ADHD worker.  

A dynamic environment with a balance of positive support and flexibility can help foster amazingly creative and innovative results from people with ADHD.  On the flipside, all workers are asked to do more – manage and track more with less resources and time.  (link to rest of article at Task.fm).

Cameron Gott PCC

ADHD Coach for Entrepreneurs and Business Owners

I ran for the first time in 6 weeks the other day. Elective abdominal surgery put exercise on hold in addition to lifting anything more than a gallon of milk (including my 3 year old).  I don’t particularly enjoy running (certainly not as much as riding) but it does miraculous things for my brain.  Concepts and models that didn’t make sense sitting at my computer suddenly become crystal clear when I exercise.  No doubt the good chemical release of endorphins and dopamine do a lot.  I had forgotten the benefit of a 30 minute run.  Global creatives or adults with ADHD can often be so focused on the next new thing that we forget the ‘tried and true’ best practices.  When we fall out of the saddle (be it working a system like GTD or an exercise routine) we can search for a new horse when all we need is a reliable step stool.  So as you search for good practices and strategies be sure to look at what you’ve already tried.  There’s bound to be good stuff there.

Cameron Gott ADD Coach

About two in ten people who have ADHD recognize that they have ADHD and are engaging a proactive management plan.  One reason for this discrepancy is the misconception about what ADHD is and what it is not.  Over the last 10 years I’ve coached many successful entrepreneurs, professionals and small business owners around getting things done. The most successful ones do not let their ADHD define who they are.  Rather, they allow their ADHD to inform their experience.

Can ADHD present big roadblocks for these entrepreneurs?  Yes, but not so big that the roadblocks become insurmountable. These clients see their ADHD as ‘more information’ to fold into their bigger game plan.  By getting clear on their ADHD experience they were able to put their misconceptions of ADHD behind them.

A quick disclaimer -It should be noted that everyone’s situation is unique. It is not a simple matter of “just do it”. Accessing key resources as needs arise (a therapist for depression, a coach for accountability, an assistant for scheduling) is a smart approach.  A place to begin is developing accurate awareness of your own ADHD experience.

Get Clear and Move Forward

Uncertainty is the major derailleur for people with ADHD. Getting clear or ‘clear enough’ allows one to move forward. Moving forward is key for the individual with ADHD.

Uncertainty about ADHD can play out in extreme mindsets:

“No excuses… it’s in your head… you’re just undisciplined!”

or

“It’s OK, you have a disease/disability, you should take medication and look for a job that doesn’t involve concentration”.

As you can see, neither of these mindsets are useful in developing a winning approach to business or delivering the goods.  “Get clear and move on” is a process and within the process we first need to clear up some common misconceptions.

There are many common misconceptions about ADHD. Here is a short list especially useful for success in dynamic work environments:

“I can’t have ADHD and be smart”:  There is no connection between intelligence and ADHD.  In fact children identified in gifted programs with high IQs also have been diagnosed with ADHD.  Many truly innovative geniuses of our time and in the past exhibit the traits of ADHD.  The challenge lies in the attention , memory, an executive function part of the brain.  The freethinking entrepreneur’s misstep is not pausing to access his smart brain opting for the emotional or “caveman” portion of the brain.  Also, there are different forms of smart.  Some are ‘time smart’ while others are ‘idea smart’.  So claim your intelligence where you can.

“I can’t have ADHD and be successful”:  It’s true that statistically if you have ADHD you are less likely to:

• graduate from college
• make more money over your lifetime
• stay in one job

It’s also true that you can be successful and have ADHD.  The key is having your ADHD work for you and not you working for your ADHD.  It is knowing where and when to leverage your attributes and limit the challenges. Richard Branson, David Neeleman, Jamie Oliver, Paul Orfalea and Howie Mandel are just a few successful entrepreneurs who have ADHD .

“I can’t have ADHD and have a strategic advantage”: It’s not important that others accept the ADHD.  It’s important that you accept and define your experience.   It’s important that you tell others but only those who will support you and not try to jab holes in your argument.  For many, ADHD seems like a cop out or throwing in the towel.  For those who are not ready to accept your ADHD, be creative in relaying your preferences and needs.  Enacting a daily huddle to stay abreast of current events sounds like a brilliant management move.  It also is a great way to manage your ADHD challenges.

I’ve seen time and time again, brilliant, innovative business people approach their ADHD management in uncreative ways.  This is usually because they view the challenges from one of the two limiting mindsets stated above.  Once you turn your innovative practices toward managing your ADHD, you will see positive movement.

(This entry also appears as an article at Task.fm)

Entrepreneurs and professionals with ADHD under-utilize two key resources – people and process.  Organizations from 2 to 2000 people count on collaboration, communication and agreed processes to function well.  Organization members in leadership positions have people at all levels they need to communicate with, delegate to, and deliver key completions to. They also have processes (procedures, systems, routines) they need to understand and utilize to be effective team members.

Yet for the entrepreneur or professional with ADHD, resourcing people and process effectively can be challenging. The challenge often begins with how the professional views these resources. They can see people such as managers as “uncompassionate and meddling” and a process such as expense reports as “boring and unnecessary”.  Yet if you want to deliver on big ideas you can’t do it alone.  You need people to hear and carry your vision and simple processes to absorb the detail work.

As a  part of my coaching program, I help my clients better utilize these key resources.  On November 8th as a part of the ACO Expert Speaker Series I am presenting on this topic to my fellow ADHD coaches.

If you are an ACO member please join me.

http://www.adhdcoaches.org/members/2011-ess-gott/

If not, you can check out the ACO (click the logo) and the good stuff they do for the ADHD community.

Excerpt from the Program…

In his New Yorker Magazine article, surgeon and acclaimed author Atul Gawande explores coaching.  What caught my eye was this excerpt from a teacher-coaching program in my own county school system that he visited with coaching researcher Jim Knight and witnessed coaching in action.

Good coaches, Knight said, speak with credibility, make a personal connection, and focus little on themselves. Hobson and Harding “listened more than they talked,” Knight said. “They were one hundred per cent present in the conversation.” They also parcelled out their observations carefully. “It’s not a normal way of communicating—watching what your words are doing,” he said. They had discomfiting information to convey, and they did it directly but respectfully.

With so much mis-information out there about what coaching is and is not, it’s nice to see concise explanations like this in popular media.

Key phrases that resonated with me- credibility, personal connection, listening more than talking, present.

ADD is a condition that can produce more questions than answers especially for those of us who live with it.  It can feel like a study in extremes – extreme successes and extreme failures.  There is a paradoxical monologue that can run in the global creative’s mind that can be especially maddening:

“How come I can deliver a brilliant solution to my client that will save his company millions but I can’t deliver it on time?

“How come I can start multiple successful business ventures but I can’t manage my project list?”

“How come I can bring all the right people to the table but can’t follow up once they’ve left the table?”

How come I can do the first 90% of a project but can’t finish the last 10% and get compensated?”

Unfortunately this argument can be reinforced on the outside by family, friends and colleagues as they see the two extremes play out:

“How come a college graduate with two degrees can be so successful developing IT solutions at work but can’t remember to pick up the dry-cleaning!”

“How come she can connect customers to our product but she can’t make a connecting flight?”

And it goes on and on like a rugby scrum that never ends.  For natural problem solvers not solving this paradox problem can feel like an enormous weight and can be completely energy draining.

What to do?

Start with your perspective-how you are viewing this conundrum.  Taking this ‘opposites’ approach is frustrating and unrewarding and yet at some level our brain can actually enjoy this mental tug-o-war.  Viewing issues in extremes is the ADD characteristic of black and white thinking.  It is reinforced by the global creative’s habit of viewing multiple approaches to a problem (remember our default processing preference is by association and not sequence).  So why would we do something that our brain likes but puts our mind through the ringer?

All brains crave activity.  The ADD brain is active when it has a focus.  Yet the brain will not distinguish good and bad focus.  That’s the mind’s work but if the mind is getting tossed to and fro by the fast moving brain it can’t say “time out!”

So in a way our ADD is exacerbating the situation when we get into this way of thinking!  This plays out in all kinds of ways - indecision, prioritizing, and eventually leads to overwhelm.

Nudge the Paradox Perspective

Once we humans make up our mind it can be difficult to change it.  Even a belief or perspective that may not be working for us.  The brain does this for self-preservation.  Flip-floppy brains are ineffective during real crises when we need to be clear on what is a threat and what is not.

When you notice the paradox thinking at play call a time out.

1. Step back and notice if this thinking is working for you.
2. Entertain another way to look at the problem.
3. Creative solutions only occur when we view the challenge from a ‘possibility’ perspective.
4. Remind yourself of where you’ve had success here or in related fields (you have but your working memory may not accessing the history of wins right now).
5. Consider looking at the challenge as you would any work challenge where you have considerable success.

Solutions that work start with a perspective that can work.  From a more powerful perspective we then can identify the info we need and the tools to create a solution.

Cameron Gott PCC

ADD Coach for Entrepreneurs and Professionals

BY JENNIFER WANG | January 8, 2009|

Link to rest of Article

Here is Cam’s response below….

Farming is easy for farmers. Hunting is easy for hunters (from Thomm Hartmann).  For entrepreneurs with ADD the ‘easy part’ is often the hunting or start-up.  Like Skorman suggests, the creative part at the beginning is the draw.  For those who process info more by association than sequence, their brains are wired for seeing a problem, creating vision, generating interest and capital. This is true hunting.  Managing the established company is akin to farming, highly sequential and challenging for the ADD/Associative.  The best thing a board can do is take their creator and give him new products to create.  The best thing an SE can do is sell or locate the farmers to do the back end stuff. Anyone remember David Neeleman (inspirational manager) and the Valentine’s Day melt down at Jet Blue?
Great resource on associative processing - http://www.openbooklearning.com

With a plethora of time/task management systems, tools, and apps available it can be tough to pick the best ones.  Equally challenging, it can be hard to stay clear on the objectives for each system-the tool’s intended purpose.   As you add and modify tools that work for you, take a moment to get clear on what you want the tool to do for you and see if the tool is up to the task.

On the golf course you would not use a driver 50 feet from the green and yet often is the case, global creatives will pull a tool out of their bag without considering the main purpose of the tool.

An example -Rhonda is a professional with ADD who viewed her daily action list as a vehicle with the prime objective to do more in a given day.  Unfortunately, Rhonda was becoming frustrated that she was not boosting her output, getting to the end of the day with only half her items crossed off and faced with the dreaded task of ‘task rollover’.

Rhonda did a couple key things.

She first recognized that what she was attempting was not working (this is a major challenge for people with ADD-recognizing when an action that is not working is not working).

Second she reevaluated the action list’s prime purpose.  When she viewed it more as a choice tool, what to focus on on any given day, she got more out of its use. Now she saw it more as a ‘daily intention tool’ with a focus on quality over quantity.

So as you pull tools out ask the questions.  Does the tool match up with the job?  Is this the best tool for the job?

A couple other ideas:

Tools often try to do too much creating complexity.  Opt for accesibility-ability to access main attributes of a tool easily.

Watch out for too much redundancy.  Tools do so much that they can overlap.  I had this problem with Evernote and Awesome Note.

Cameron Gott PCC

ADD Coaching for Small Business Owners and Entrepreuners

Virginia