Why ADHD Is Your Superpower For Success!

Posted on December 12, 2022 by Coach Mark In Manila Coach Mark In Manila NLP, One of Thousands of Business Coaches on Noomii.

Hello and welcome to another article from me, Coach Mark Manila, from eslbusinessenglishexperts.com and initial-impact.com.

Those of you who are regular followers of my podcast -Google Coach Mark in Manila Podcast – know that from time to time I speak about a variety of subjects; not just about English as a second language. What I try to offer on the program is a variety of resources to help you live your best possible life. That also includes talking about neurotypical and also atypical things. Perhaps we might call it being neuro-divergent, and ADHD features as one of those neuro-divergent traits.

We could also say similar, if you have a mental health challenge, which I also speak out more freely these days relating to the challenges that I and other of my clients suffer from. I try to paint them in a different light.

Each and every one of my podcasts is designed to help you improve your knowledge of English, to use higher level advanced words and hopefully inspire you or empower you will give you a different way to try to live your life if you’re struggling with any of these particular challenges.

A recent podcast I made about a child or young person with ADHD and what parents and teachers and even you yourself need to know if you’re struggling with some of the challenges seemed to be a huge hit. Therefore, I felt that I should carry on with some ADHD podcasts and articles but showing how ADHD is really a great superpower!

As somebody myself who suffers slightly from I would say, aspects of ADHD myself, and probably down to the fact of how complex post traumatic stress disorder has also changed the way that some of the structures of my brain might be functioning.

I also wanted to share that the neurobiology of trauma is a very real thing. It’s been shown up on MRI scans. ADHD can also be part of this – appearing on its own or with coma morbid conditions. That means in conjunction with other conditions, and sometimes it can be mistaken.

Some aspects of post traumatic stress disorder, for example, or OCD can be mistaken for ADHD and vice versa. Therefore it’s really important that you get that diagnosis from someone who’s an expert and understands how these conditions can basically mask or mimic each other. It really depends. I am no expert yet I personally struggle with some of these challenges myself and of course coach many clients and students who have struggled with one or other of these types of conditions.

ADHD is confusing, inconsistent and frustrating and quite overwhelming to live with every day. If you think about it, the actual diagnostic criteria has only been around for probably the last 40 years or so; it can leave some people thinking do they have it? Is it something else?

A great medical doctor William Dodson, wrote about this. So I was fascinated by some of his findings, which I wanted to discuss today. He, along with other practitioners had been trying to establish a really simple and clear way to understand the impairments of ADHD. So what does it actually do?

They tried to find the key things that define the condition, explaining the source of impairments and giving some direction as to what to do about it.

William Dodson realized that they’d be missing something important about the fundamental nature of ADHD. Now what does fundamental mean? It means basic, the key / crucial foundation of ADHD and the symptoms and what it can do. When he went back to experts on the condition and hundreds of people and families affected he confirmed his hypothesis. Now, what’s his hypothesis? It means his his hunch, his suspicions that he speculated were going on here, or some of the typical traits.

William Dodson said the goal was to look for the feature that everyone with ADHD has versus standard neurotypical people. So the majority you might say, of people who don’t have ADHD are neurotypical.

He found that in his opinion, the ADHD nervous system is unique. It has a special kind of creation in itself that regulates intention and emotions in different ways than a nervous system in those without ADHD.

When he spoke to his patients, pretty much almost every single one of them wanted to actually lose the term Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, because it describes the opposite of what they experienced. It’s hard to call something a disorder when it also brings many positives which everyone told him about.

This is interesting and that’s why I wanted to write and podcast about this because we often hear about how ADHD is a challenge. It’s a detriment. I’m not saying it isn’t, but, it’s important to understand that ADHD in itself is not a damaged or defective nervous system. It’s just a nervous system that works well using its own set of rules to quote William Dodson himself and his own words.

Studies that were carried out suggested that ADHD symptoms are not correlated in any way to IQ. It’s almost certain though, that people with ADHD, nervous systems use their IQs in different ways to neurotypical people. By the time most people with the condition reach high school, they’re able to tackle problems that frustrate everybody else. Those with ADHD can often jump to solutions that nobody else can see. Again, this is very interesting. That’s kind of a superpower, right? So there’s one nil, I would say for ADHD.

Also, the vast majority of adults with ADHD nervous systems are not really hyperactive. They’re not bouncing around, but they are hyperactive internally, and I hold my hand up here! My brain, it can just work, work, work, work, work! Which, when you’re able to hyper focus, which can also be frustrating to get into in the first place… this means you can sit and focus and keep going in a project far longer than anybody else.

Usually, it’s like being the Ever Ready Bunny. Now, if you’re in Britain you’ll know what I mean by that. Ever Ready is a long lasting battery.

In the adverts the Ever Ready Bunny was a little windup toy Rabbit that they put the batteries in for the TV advertisement. That Ever Ready Bunny was still running around banging a big toy drum, while all the other windup toys with other batteries in them had failed and had stopped working. So the ADHD battery allows you to focus for long periods of time, like that Bunny!

The downside though, is that you can burn yourself out, if you do too much of that, and you can’t get out of hyper focus. This is exhausting. So it’s really important that we know how to manage that. You can help a loved one if they are struggling with that to break out of hyper focus. If you’re on your own like I am, it’s hard because there’s nobody here to tap me on the shoulder and say, STOP!

I can just keep going and going and going and going and going and going again, until I’ve ever done and then you can make yourself a bit sick with it, to literally taking you off to bed. So it’s about trying to balance it. Now when we look at it, ADHD It’s not a shortage of attention, but basically that you pay too much attention to everything. If you are somebody who lives with ADHD, and you’re not on any kind of medication, usually you’ll have several things four or five, six things going on in your mind at once.

That can give you some fantastic powers and allow you to develop so many different things on the go at the same time. However, it can also mean that you’ve got five or six things that you’re trying to lift off the ground, whereas most people are just trying to lift one. I would say that, frankly speaking, it’s probably just to lift one project and get that up and running, then do the next one to be honest, because it’s a better use of your time.

On the other hand though, if one of those things isn’t going to work out, you’ve at least got four other options in this case, that might work out better. So you haven’t just thrown your time into one sinkhole. A sinkhole means you never coming out of there again. You haven’t wasted everything. So ADHD can be a pro or con.

The hallmark of an ADHD nervous systems is not a lack of attention, but more inconsistent attention. It can be hard sometimes if you’re not in high focus to stay attentive for long enough to things you don’t love and that can be really frustrating. I know what that feels like. So for example, I love coaching.

When I had the energy and the health to do so, I could coach for 13 hours non stop 7 days a week yet that wasn’t healthy. However, that’s the feeling when you are doing what you love with ADHD, you can absolutely focus to the point your physical body fails first. There’s no inconsistency in attention then. If anything, you get supercharge! Which is why, back in the days, my clients and students would give testimonials like, ‘Wow, I’ve never had a coaching session like it’.

I used to think, ‘Well, I’m not doing anything remarkable’. However, when you compare yourself to other coaches, you see, actually, yes, it is different. The positive dopamine hit you get – that people with ADHD lack – pretty much then fuels itself…until you hit a wall! This is the experience that people were loving, which is why, I received as many wonderful testimonials as I did. I’m so grateful for that and proud of my students and your efforts, and also for your lovely feedback, which helped keep me going.

In this light, ADHD and the trauma that caused it was the gift, and is the gift, that allowed me to excel at coaching. So contrary to always seeing your ADHD as a bad thing, try to see the powers it gives you and then make these work for your study, career and life!