Cancun is a wonderful tourist place. Despite the media hype about tourists being targeted for ugly crimes, there was no evidence that there was a wave of worry. People are hospitable and welcoming. I have been to Mexico a number of times usually around Cancun or Tulum but this time I was there and back for a lecture and no beach retreat.

I usually drive my own car when in Mexico, which is always challenging but fun. I am fond of the “shoulder pass” where you go onto the shoulder of the road to let other cars pass. I’ve only seen that happen in Alberta.  And of course, stopping at roadside food places and getting a taste of super hot food. In my mind, it is not hot enough if you haven’t got a change of underwear.  Capsicum, nature’s stimulant and the gut cleanser of Mexicans. It works. Never had a problem with bacterial dysentery when having hot food.

Soooo, what about chili peppers as a natural stimulant for ADHD? Unfortunately, there is no evidence that this occurs but I think it is largely because it has not been investigated versus any clear negative data refuting it’s utility.  It certainly creates all of the external feelings of adrenaline like sweating, palpitations, loose stools, light headedness and mild euphoria.

There is some soft evidence of the memory enhancing power of capsicum and this can be seen due to an increase in blood flow to the brain. But then, if capsicum is so good, we would not expect high rates of ADHD in Mexico. Not so. The evidence on prevalence rates in Mexico is as bad if not worse than southern US states. And then you look at the physical evidence. I’ve yet to see a car without a dent on the side. And while this may reveal my cultural bias, I think Spanish is an ADHD language. People talk a mile a minute and say very little. But Mexican’s are so emotional and romantic whose hands and facial expressions convey so much. They should talk less!

OK, let’s hear from the Mexican/Spanish contingent out there. First, what about your thoughts on chili peppers and what about ADHD in the Spanish world?

Back in 1997 I wrote a paper which I presented to the American Orthopsychiatry Association (Jain, U. & Ballon, B. Calvin (Hobbes) on Ritalin and Batman on Prozac: popular cartoon figures and their psychopathology American Orthopsychiatry Association, Toronto, ON.  March 15, 1997) where my Resident, at the time, went through all kinds of comic characters to see which ones seem to have a certain stereotype and it was evident that Calvin has ADHD. How did Bob Watterson know? The image of last minute mentality, daydreams in class, poor organizational skills and the social outcast seem so obvious. Whenever I have used the comic to help a child (or adult) to understand the world of ADHD, it seems to connect. But then, that is what media does it brings to the obvious what we can’t explain in words. We had discussed this phenomena when we talked about Maria in the Sound of Music and how the song connects to ADHD.

But it got me wondering 15 years later, what other comics are represented in the world of ADHD? South Park? The Simpsons? Beavis and Butthead? The characters are there, aren’t they? Maybe we connect to them because we see ourselves in their comedy (or tragedy depending on how you see it). In fact, the world of humor, comedy and comics are closely aligned. Many comedians now talk about ADHD openly and people get it.

I wonder if the ADDers out there have more examples of ADHD in the comedy or comic world. And what’s with Bug’s Bunny anyway, with the white gloves. Cross dresser? Eccentric?  I don’t know. And can someone give Wile E. Coyote some medication because he is definitely ADHD.

So we are working on a sequel to ADD & Loving It?! A Part 2. The next step.  Taking it to the next level.

ADD & Loving It?! won awards because it dared to suggest ADHD & ADD are real, they’re impairing, they run in families, they can ruin families, they show up in odd and unsuspecting ways, they’re tricky to diagnose, knowing you have it can save your life, and there’s a ton that can be done to manage ADHD.

But it’s not easy.

Thus, the next video, ADD & Mastering It! Hopefully ready for June and airing on PBS stations starting in August and September.  A week ago, I would have said that was a pipe dream. I was stuck.  In overwhelm.  I was walking through the valley of the shadow of deadlines.

We’d hit a huge problem. Two competing ideas that couldn’t be stitched together. One was an introduction to the basics of ADHD, a whole separate. The other was a video about what to do about ADD. A slew of tools, tips, strategies and ways to transform not only your habits, but your view of the ‘disorder’.

We couldn’t just get to the good stuff, the tips, we had to include some background, get people up to speed. But it wasn’t working. It felt like you had to sit through a lesson before the fun began.

Our regular editor Jimi is off in Europe.  Ava, an editor by trade, was too busy with a thousand other things around revamping the website. (Ohhhh, lots coming!) So I called my friend Marcus, another great editor, and we hammered away at the project for four days. (And this was after weeks of editing with Jimi, before he traipsed off to nibble on bonbons in Paris.)

Finally, Marcus looked at me and said, very diplomatically, “I think we’re trying to force this.” That was an understatement. I could feel it. I’d been trying to force it for days. I was waking up in the night, thinking about it, I was going 12 hours a day with no real progress.

Force doesn’t work. If it has to be forced, there’s something wrong. I know this. Or I knew it, but of course when I’m in the middle of a deadline and trying to cut things together that were never meant to go together… well, who has time to think, let alone eat, breathe or go to the bathroom.

Overwhelmed, I’d look at the same shots on the monitor and in the editing timeline, asking, again and again, “What was this one?… Oh, right… What was before it?… Oh, right…” My brain was now concrete mixed with chewing gum, tar and asbestos. A good sign that I was stuck was that I was afraid to cut out anything. It’s like when you get clutter in your house. This was clutter on the editing screens. How could I cut something out when I wasn’t sure what I was doing, how it was going to work and what I might need?

Easy to de-clutter if you know that you are specifically moving from a big house to a small bungalow, or a one bedroom apartment, or a small van. Once you have the parameters a lot of the decisions are made for you. “This 14 foot L-Shaped, couch is not going to fit in our mobile home.”

So try as I might, trying wasn’t working. “We’re trying to make this into something it’s not.” Marcus was being polite. And I knew he was right. He didn’t suggest we abandon weeks of work. He let me decide that. Sigh….

Surrender.

I stopped fighting, stopped pushing and sat back. I started asking questions. We bandied about ideas. Suddenly, something clicked. I had a notion, then had a cascade of ideas flow out of it. Marcus could instantly tell I was on to something. Twenty minutes later ideas where tumbling out so fast I was having to scribble them down and two hours later… I was energized, in the zone, having fun, making connections, and now clearly able to toss one choice clip after another. “We’ll save that for the website. That’s a whole separate video…. We don’t need to explain this… We need a couple of Hallowell clips that aren’t here, I’ll go find them… Actually, John Ratey has a great example of that… “

And so it went.

What had become a draining, frustrating challenge turned into an exciting game. Like putting together a giant jigsaw puzzle. Only we weren’t trying to match the photograph on the cover of the jigsaw box, we were creating a whole new picture. A moving picture.

We went the rest of the day and all the next day, and it was joyful. I didn’t’ stop for lunch until late afternoon. And that, my friends, is not like me.

Tomorrow we’re back at it. And it’s fun. Exciting. I’m in the zone.

But to get here, to where we should be, to what is working and easy and flows naturally… we had to struggle, and then we had to be willing to stop, realize it wasn’t working, and step back. And then, start over.

And all those days we spent editing up to that point? A waste? Nope. The process. The game. Playful. Alas, I had lost sight of that and gotten all serious. Deadlines.

A reminder to play, to make sure every moment is fun, and to not get attached to one idea, one point of view, one belief, or even what you think are ‘the facts.’

I was recently in New York defending an athlete who was fighting to get some recognition about the impairments of ADHD. I was going on behalf of the National Hockey League Player’s Association. When ADHD is ignored and/or dismissed, it can have serious consequences on the player and their performance. While the player’s ADHD was well known to the team that had him under contract, it was not handled well, in my opinion. But it addressed for me the presumption that we expect athletes to overcome whatever it is that is hidden behind the highly trained body of theirs. Whether it is psychological or medical the athlete is just a commodity. The general mentality I think is, ”If you can’t do the job and whatever it is that you have ails you, then there are a thousand others who would love to be where you are right now so tough it up.” Suffer in silence is the message. Sure you are sliding into drug/alcohol addictions, ruining your life with mindless indiscretions which is really pleading for help in some way but no one listens. Except the media who go on a feeding frenzy.

Sidney Crosby made headlines by defining that a head injury could impair performance and could be dangerous if not handled well. Are we ready to accept the brain is a vulnerable organ? When Muhammad Ali faced Parkinson’s disease from constant head beatings, it may have opened up a few eyes but people assumed it was the consequences of a violent sport. Have we come further with this?

Michael Phelps has ADHD. He has come out in the open and discussed the consequences and benefits of it. You may have seen our videos featuring Jake Wetzel or Greg LeMond both gifted athletes and how ADHD helped or hindered them. Dr. Parr recently did a study on ADHD and Athletes at Texas A&M and presented the findings in the Clinics of Sport Medicine (Clin Sports Med. 2011 Jul;30(3):591-610. Epub 2011 May 12) and suggested that athletes may have a higher rate of ADHD but they also have special needs that must be evaluated like increased cardiovascular risks. However, it did not go far enough to talk about the sensitivity that coaches must have in dealing with these athletes.

There is no question that sport does help the child with ADHD and can be highly protective but at what point does the sport supersede the rights of the ADDer? I’d especially like to hear from anyone who is a high level athlete and the problems they have faced.

Last week I blogged about the Bike Rally I did. And a member, ‘Sdwa’, commented that the story was inspiring, but then shared the challenges he/she has had getting in shape. One pilates class and he/she could barely walk for two days. That suggests a couple of things.

First: Wow, congrats, you really took it on.

Second: Oh dear, that was too much.

Third: As long as you didn’t injure yourself, that pain is your body going, “Oh boy, I need to build more muscle.” Apparently our muscles actually get damaged, in a good way, by exercise that pushes the envelope. The pain is your body saying, “Okay, don’t do that again. I’m going to repair the damage and add a bit more muscle so if you try that again you’ll be able to do it without damaging the muscle.” And when you exercise again a few days later, the body does it again, “Okay, here’s some pain, so you stop, and I get to work building the muscle. And by the way, it would help if you ate lots of protein, especially before bed, so I have raw material to work with.”

When I started training for the bike rally I was 20 pounds    overweight, and had enough muscle to be able to get up from my computer, get to the dining room table and then make it to bed.   So there were times during the training when I was worried I’d have a heart attack. Not at any specific moment that I can recall, just a kind of low grade, pervasive, “I can’t run up two flights of stairs without being out of breath, this could kill me!”  The team leader who trained the group I was in told me I’d probably pass out before having a heart attack. Since the recumbent bike would protect me, somewhat, in a fall, I rode on. Usually.  When it started to hurt or cramp or blister… I slowed or stopped. It meant someone else had to hang back to wait for me, but they were great about it. I tried to make it worth their while by being funny, or asking questions and getting to know them.

Right now, I’m out of shape again, but we have started walking every day.

We did loops around the neighbourhood and then one day I said, “Let’s walk to Hortons.” (Tim Horton’s is a chain of doughnut shops. More pervasive than any other chain in Canada. Where we’re living right now, there is one McDonald’s, one Wendy’s, no Burger King, one KFC and three Horton’s)  And this town has about 10,000 people.  Anyway, it was going to be perhaps three miles there and back, which seemed intimidating, as the look Ava shot me suggested.  I said, “If we get tired, we can call a cab and ride back.”  Good enough.

So we did it. There and back. Without taxi assistance.  I was surprised. The next day we did it at a slightly faster pace. The third day we were too busy to walk. Same the fourth day. And then fifth. The sixth day we walked. The seventh was brisk. Then three more days of being too busy… And so on.

Every day we didn’t walk made it easier to avoid walking the next. Cause we’d forget how good it felt, how nice it was to talk and get some sunshine and Vitamin D. I’d forget how much the walk cleared my head and helped me focus. It was 40 minutes of walking, plus a bit longer if we had a doughnut… Okay, if I had a doughnut. Ava politely watched. So I know I was losing 40 minutes of work time, but when I didn’t walk I wasted hours dithering, trying to decide, starting one thing then another. It more than made up for it. So what I’m doing is reframing walking in my mind. If I thought of exercise as a luxury that would probably help me live to be 90 instead of 85 it wasn’t motivating. Ninety is still a long way away. (Though, with ADHD, tomorrow is a long way away.)   If I created a better context, a more urgent one with a bigger, more immediate payoff, I’d walk.  What do I mean by a bigger context? What’s bigger than five extra years of life?  For an ADDer, it’s not about how big it is, it’s about how soon it gets here.  Immediate payoffs.

So instead of walking to ‘live longer’ I’m walking…

… because it gives us time to discuss the day, regroup, and get a ton done in the late afternoon.  Time which used to be useless because I’d be in overwhelm.

… because it allows me time to think, plan, and brainstorm ideas which I can record onto my cell phone’s pocket recorder function.

… because Ava and I get to be alone, talking.

… because we pass by a lot of houses and we can talk about what we want in a home and what we don’t want since we’re looking for a new home.

… because that sunshine really does help, and looking at something farther away than a computer monitor does something good to my brain. My thoughts get bigger. My mind starts thinking long term. Dunno why. I do know a lot of very rich and successful artists, inventors, painters, musicians, billionaires and entrepreneurs take long walks.

… because there are so many birds around here and it’s very neat to watch them. If you pay attention you can actually see what they are doing and why. It’s more than just flying from here to there and chirping.

And finally, I’m walking…

… because there are doughnuts.

Counter productive?

Maybe.  But I have to confess, I used to drive there and get a doughnut.

So this is a step in the right direction. Actually, about 3,200 steps. (I counted once) Context. I’ll write more about this next week. Because with the right context you can do anything. From completing a gigantic, week-long bike rally. Or making it to Horton’s just in time for the fresh batch of afternoon doughnuts.

I’ve always envisioned ADHD children as entering into the world and making it clear to their parents, “So, who died and left you in charge?” There is an intrinsic power battle that goes on. The child constantly needs to be in control and has to challenge authority with three words, “No, why and but.” I call that the “no wide butts” dialogue opener. We often refer to these children with the additional diagnosis of an Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD).

I saw a kid with ODD as I was doing a Telepsychiatry consultation this week. Smart kid but a heck of a problem for the school and the parents. (I have changed the identifying  information for him to protect his identity but he will recognize himself when he reads this.) He is ten years old and let’s call him Brad. Turns out that Brad loves the Red Green Show and for his 11^th birthday he wanted suspenders that the characters wear.

For those of you who are novices to the popular Red Green Show you might want to take a look at some of their antics.  In the show, the character “Bill” is none other than your friend and mine, Rick Green who co-created, wrote and occasionally directed the series.

So, during the session, I decided to call up Rick and have him talk to the kid by speaker phone. Rick answered. The kid was blown away. His favorite show comes to life and here is someone he idolizes talking to him. Rick told the child some of his own story and that he had ADHD and that he had to struggle in school but also that, looking back, he wished he had listened to people more like his teachers and parents because he thought he knew everything when he was a kid and realized that he didn’t and they were just trying to help him, not control him. It was brilliant. The kid was nodding like he had just spoken to God and God answered directly to him.  It was one of those dying kid’s last-wish-before-I-die moments.

In that room were his parents, teachers and community agency staff and there was not a dry eye in there. Mom was weeping quietly in joy. Brad’s birthday is this week and he just received the best present of his life. A transformative conversation just happened with a little kid who needed to know that someone understands. Mentorship, in my opinion, is what ADHD people need; someone who will light the way. Their parents simply can’t do it.

So if you are an ADHD adult, one of the best things you can do to give back is talk to an ADHD kid and let them know you understand. It really helps. If you have stories of transformation, I’d like to hear it (and if you could for the future, think about sending us a video of your experience).

So I’ve been blogging about how I, an ADHD adult, managed to train for a 368 mile/6 day bike rally in less than three months. Bearing in mind that I was out of shape, didn’t have a bike, hadn’t ridden in years, and the other 190 riders had been training for 6 weeks.

I pulled it off using the same strategies I’ve used to manage and even master my ADHD.

I’ve explained how I broke the ride down into manageable steps. This was crucial when I was cramping up, burned out, or exhausted. I cut off thoughts like, “How will I manage today? I’ve only done 30 miles out of the 74 miles and I’m toast!” Instead I asked, “Can I manage the next half mile?” If the answer was, “I don’t think so,” I’d ask, “How about another hundred yards? Or even one hundred feet?”

I kept breaking it into smaller chunks until I could answer, “Yes, I can manage that far… and when I get there I’ll decide what’s next.”

Now I’ll share another strategy I used. Or was forced to use. Being part of a team. There were 190 riders. We were divided into teams for training, and I looked for riders with much more experience to mentor me and provide support. Another 50 people acted as crew, chefs, and support staff. Bike store employees taught us how to change tires and fix chains. A former Olympic cyclist gave us lessons in ergonomics and how to maximize the power from each pedal.

The team was big. During the ride there were massage therapists, nurses, and safety and support crew waiting every few miles with a mini-van full of water, chocolate bars and band-aids. There were drivers, bike mechanics, a chiropractor and even laughing volunteers who would stand by the highway, hosing us down with ice cold water from super-soaker guns on the super hot days.

We had to camp each night, and our amazing cyclist friend, Andrew was so much faster than us that he had our tent set up for us long before we staggered into camp. So convenient to have a cozy place to collapse.

A thousand things were done for us from food preparation to route planning to markers stuck in the ground at every turn or fork in the road to keep us going in the right direction.

And of course my team-mates, including Ava, encouraged me, pushed me a bit, but let me go at my own pace. That was crucial. I felt like I had control. (Control is big for ADDers.)

To give you a sense of how important having a Team is, consider how much you have benefited in dealing with your ADHD/ADD from this website, from the videos, the Forums, from books you’ve read, coaches, support groups… And how hard it has been when you have had to struggle alone, or rely on crappy sources of information.

Team is not a natural fit for me. Normally, I try to do it all myself. I turn inward. I become hermit-like, just focusing on the problems and challenges, trying to figure it all out myself.

That never goes well. As creative and energetic as I am, I know that working with someone else doesn’t just double the productivity and energy, its exponential. With 250 fellow riders, support staff and sponsors, I was propelled forward, energized to do something that seemed impossible when I first blurted out, “I’ll do the rally too.”

To appreciate the power of the team, I only have ask, could I get myself in shape to do that rally again all by myself?

No. I wish.

Even though I’ve done it once, could I keep myself on track? Get inspired when I’m pooped? Take care of all the details?

If I’m honest… not a chance. Even if I’m dishonest. There’s no way.

So why don’t I do this all the time? Just immediately build teams, rely on others, ask for favours, seek help and let others contribute? Am I being noble?  No.  I wish.  It’s not nobility but a habit from the past. The dark age before I got a proper diagnosis.

Y’see, back then, the tornado of thoughts from my unrecognized and untreated ADHD made it brutally hard to follow long conversations, give detailed instructions, or even finish a complete sentence. It’s hard to trust others when you don’t trust yourself. Rather than try to put into words and communicate what I want, oh hell, I’ll do it myself.

When I was in the middle of something complex or hairy–the perfect time to have help—I was so busy handling it, or mishandling it, I had no time to build a team, much less call 911. I was busy doing, doing, doing!

“Yes, it would be a lot easier to juggle these three flaming torches if I had nine people helping me, how can I call people and ask for help? I’m busy juggling three flaming torches!!!”

Even today, when I was in an edit suite working with my friend Marcus, I was only sharing about 1 in 20 thoughts, and I finally had to stop the, “Cut here and move this here…” and explain the bigger picture, “I think we could cover this point in just two sentences.” Or, “Here’s the problem I’m trying to fix.”

Now, knowing about ADHD, understanding my inclination, I’m way more likely to ask for help. I’ll explain what I want, make sure all the details are clear, answer any questions and then allow them to do what they need to do. Not always, perhaps not even all that often, but when I remember, or when circumstances force me to start including others to avoid exploding, it works.

It’s just not something that comes naturally, it takes time to build the muscle. And it’s taking longer than it took to train for a 368 mile bike rally.

In my continuing series on scary words to live by for the ADDer, I hand you “Rules”.  Shudder.  You will have already passed out when I made the case for the words “Work”, “Deliver”, “Obey” and “Busy”. But Rules has, by its definition, a connection to someone/something else. In other words, it defines our relationship to a hierarchy (i.e. a parent, a boss, God, society, government, military dictatorship, or Miss Fenner, your teacher).

Someone had to make the “rules” but the moment they were made, there was an ADDer either trying to find the loopholes in the rules or trying to combat them outright none the less. ADDers don’t like rules but they actually, ironically, thrive when the rules are clear. I often think that they want the world to be very black/white with the rules defined in a life/death dichotomy. In other words, there is no grey zone for an ADDer. You live, you die and if there is any doubt, the ADDer has to push the limits. Whether that pushing is a reflection of trying to avoid conflict or failure or whether it is just a natural instinct to determine if the authority figure is worthy of trust or something else, I frankly don’t know. But inherent in the word “rule” is the need to yank someone’s cord.

ADDers need to follow rules most of the time though one might argue that thinking outside the box or looking for loopholes is an inventive task that bucks status quo and that might be a good thing. So which rules to follow? I like to divide the rules into household rules versus society rules. The later are a bit clearer because they are governed by laws constructed by government (despite the ADDers need to be somewhat anti-establishment at times). Household rules are flexible and defined by the standards you or your parents choose to keep.  Clarity of rules is necessary in either case.

Now don’t be like one mom I had who set up a Policy Manual in her house with laminated pages and defined everything like “How to Make Your Bed with after pictures” because that becomes too rigid. Though the military does use this strategy and ADDers thrive in this world. Anyway, looking for the middle is better.

Following rules means feeling safe knowing that within the boundaries of the rules, things can be accomplished. A deadline is a type of rule. But if the rules aren’t clear, ask questions! There is a difference between asking questions and bucking a rule. Once the rule is clear, the world is where it needs to be.

Six years ago I was out of shape, didn’t own a bike and did not particularly mind that I didn’t.

Ten weeks later I was sweating through a six-day, 386 mile bike rally. Actually, since it was from Toronto to Montreal, I should say 622 kilometers.

I promised to share the ADHD strategies I used to accomplish this. They are strategies I’ve used elsewhere in my life to master my ADHD on projects as big as launching this website and as small as doing this month’s paperwork. (Oh, who am I kidding. I never get paperwork done. Ava does.)

One strategy that had me manage the bike rally, as I mentioned in my previous blog, was breaking the training down into small chunks.  Small, bite-sized chunks. Or ‘bike’ sized.

I didn’t wonder, “Can I manage to ride 124 kms today?” Instead I focused on the next 100 metres. When that was done, the next 100. Until I’d pedaled all 622,000 of them. Breaking it down.  Can I do one small chunk…

Here is this week’s secret.  It’s one we talk about in our live workshops. I call it… “BEND THE WORLD TO YOU.”

Once I’d committed to doing the rally, I started training. But I had to use a mountain bike with ancient knobby tires. Even adjusting the seat didn’t hide the fact that it was a girl’s bike. If you’re not familiar with Canadian geography the mountains are out west and up north. So grinding around residential streets on Ava’s old mountain bike was like running the Indy 500 in a pickup truck: Same number of wheels. But wrong vehicle for the job.

So I borrowed my son’s bike, which was better, but still no cigar. The bell was broken, but the rusting gears squeaked so pedestrians could hear me coming.  Clearly I needed to buy a proper bike.

The training for the rally included classes on how to change flat tires, fix chains, and so on. We gathered at a bike store after closing hours. There were probably 30 riders. All younger than me.  Ava listened carefully and took notes. I looked at all the shiny things; checking in now and then to see if the instructor was saying anything interesting. During a bathroom break, the store owner told the lecturer, “My buddy has biked across Canada, coast to coast, three times. Last time he rode on a recumbent. He said he’d never do it any other way.”

“A recumbent?” I blurt out, “What’s that?”

He shows me.

It’s love at first sight.

The first thing I notice is the seat. Not a padded testicle crusher, but a chair, like a chaise lounge!  If you fall the metal sides of the seat take the impact. The handles are up high. Like a steering wheel. No stress on the wrists from leaning over handlebars and holding your torso up. You sit back. No neck strain from staring down at the road and cranking your head up to see where you’re going. Your feet hang up in front of you. From the front you look more like a bullet. Much lower wind resistance. (I was told all of the world bicycle speed records have been set on recumbents.)

The store owner said, “If you were designing bikes from scratch, this is what they’d look like. Efficient. Comfortable. Aerodynamic.” I thought, heck, I’m starting from scratch. I want one!

The downside? It’s expensive. And it’s tippier to ride… until you get used to it.  But I know how to ride a unicycle and the recumbent has twice as many wheels. Best part of all? Ava was totally supportive.

So I came back the next afternoon, took it for a spin, giggled my head off, and bought it.

Sure, it was unusual. As I zipped by on training rides people would either laugh and point or stare, gobsmacked, and shout, “That’s awesome!!!”  So yes, the bike cost extra. It’s weird. But so what? It was also a pain to load into Ava’s RAV4 when we headed north for training rides. But we did it.

What amazes me is that the rally has been run for a decade and I’m told I am still the only recumbent bike to enter. I don’t understand why.  It’s waaaaaay easier and waaaaaaay more comfortable.  But people wouldn’t even want to try it. They’d shrug and say, “I dunno, it looks weird.”  It looks weird?  Hey, buddy, so do bruised, squashed testicles!

The point is, with ADHD you’re going to probably need to do some things differently, use different tools, or try different tactics.  So what?  If you need 8 sets of keys cause you can never find them, so what? Who cares. Big deal.  And if friends tease you about it, just laugh along. Or, maybe get better friends.

I love my recumbent. During the rally, after every break, we’d climb back on our bikes. Everyone else winced and groaned in pain. Me? I layed back into my ‘Lazy-Boy-Recliner’ laughed, and zoomed away.

If you have been following my Mantra words, you will remember we discussed the following: a) WORK, b) DELIVER and c) OBEY. I know they scared the willies out of many of you thinking that these words were simply too hard or that they created an emotional flash to the past. The psychological demons of old teachers and your parents welled up and you realized they were right but so what; you were paralyzed to do these things so you got stuck. Maybe the meds will help.

Today’s Mantra word is BUSY. ADHD people have to stay busy. The word they want to hear is FREEDOM or FREE. Pahooie! (I made up that word- kind of sounds like an old man without teeth might say it). Freedom comes out of good organizational ability. Freedom comes because you use your time wisely. The efficiency of time management allows you to do all of the things you need and want to do. Go and see this video from our Sponsored Series. http://totallyadd.com/sponsored-video-3-holistic-treatment-approach

You see, the busier you get, the more time efficient you become because you have no time to think and that, effectively, shuts off the internal noise. I sometimes say to my adolescent patients, “You need two jobs not one because you can do that where others might not be able to, but you can.” Of course, if the work ethic is there, the creation of efficiency just happens.

Not surprising that time management = busy = success. Work hard and play hard. If you look at some of the most successful ADHD people, they have understood this formula. It is possible.

I’d like to hear from people who have found the winning formula so that our audience knows this is not just my delusion. And if you can’t sink your teeth into this word, let me know why.