Emotional Regulation 2.0

If you are a business owner or entrepreneur with ADHD you are well aware of the Holy Grail of purported ADHD super powers:

• Vision and Inspiration on the front end

• Responsiveness and Speed on the back end

Productivity gurus from inside ADHD-land and out profess the virtues of vigilance, the appeal of The Hunter and the pursuit of the big signal win. Yet these states of readiness to react can over the long haul take an emotional toll on the individual and their teams. I have nothing against these four qualities of entrepreneurship. They are key to one’s success. I have written extensively on all especially inspiration. Global Creatives, though, can make two crucial missteps when it comes to actualizing these four qualities:

• They will prioritize the four to the detriment of other worthy work practices or principles

• They will activate and execute on the four, especially responsiveness and speed, through negative neural channels or, more specifically, the emotional fear center of the brain.

Conjuring a sustained dopamine state through a sense of urgency and pressure can work well in your 20s and 30s but then starts to erode in your 40s and 50s. Constantly corralling actions into states of urgency and working to immediate deadlines tap the consequence-based motivation system or the fight-flight center of the brain. Global Creatives do this out of necessity because ADHD makes it difficult to prioritize action and sustain effort without real and immediate consequences. This constant state of vigilance and waiting for the other shoe to drop actually exacerbates the ADHD challenge of emotional regulation and keeps the nervous system in a constant state of agitation. Global Creative leaders in a constant state of agitation put their teams on edge too and make emotional management much more challenging for everyone. In a vigilant and fearful state we are prone to suspicion and doubt. We are prone to treat incoming stimuli as a threat and not an opportunity. We are prone to respond like we are not The Hunter but the hunted!

Now imagine enjoying these four qualities of vision, inspiration, responsiveness and speed from a place of curiosity and intrigue, from a place of trust and knowing. Imagine utilizing your adrenaline induced emotional system AND utilizing the positive emotions of hope, opportunity, curiosity and innovation. I think there is a different way we can approach the emotional regulation dilemma with ADHD. Yes, we need to do our own emotional work, identify triggers and what floods us but we also need to figure out how to calm our often agitated nervous systems - agitated by the urgent means in which we prioritize and activate for task. I know this is possible because I see my clients wanting more than just emotional regulation strategies and wanting to explore the nuance of emotion - to see how it can inform vision and build trust, how it can create engagement or buy-in and sustain a collective effort to a common goal.

I am calling this Emotional Regulation 2.0 and I am witnessing ADHD business owners and entrepreneurs, professionals and creatives change the way they are accessing and engaging with their own feelings. Emotions are key to effective leadership, attention management and motivation. My clients are moving past a simple model of emotional management and adding their own emotional intelligence to their slate of valued work principles like the four stated above. I am seeing how coaching and neuroscience together can facilitate a different relationship with emotions. I’m seeing it in my individual coaching and in my Equanimity class where we apply principles of neuroscience and Positive Intelligence. I’m also hearing from other coaches who are witnessing their own clients’ desires to manage emotions beyond the basics. Emotional regulation is not easy with ADHD but it’s possible to tap a well of emotions beyond hype, urgency and inspiration. Start with curiosity. When you are curious, really curious in this current moment, it’s almost impossible to access your flight/fight center of the brain. When you are curious you give your agitated nervous system a break from being constantly on-alert 24/7.

In a recent newsletter, I wrote about my own frustrations when my dog suddenly ran off chasing a deer. He eventually came home but while he was gone I cussed him a blue-streak seeing my plans for the day dissolve in front of my eyes. People lose their cool. People with ADHD will lose their cool. Emotional Regulation 2.0 is not a constant state of cool-headedness. What’s different for me and my clients is that we now see emotions as an asset, a resource, a vehicle for learning and leading. We know longer see emotions as something just to be regulated.