125 | Success Despite ADHD

Hello everybody. Tom Nardone here,

This week, we had the pleasure of speaking to Dan Spears. Dan learned of his ADHD as a result of the problems it was causing in his marriage. This episode hit especially close to home for me.

Dan saw a therapist in the fall of 2015. He was diagnosed and given a prescription. The therapist he was seeing at the time recommended he read, "Driven to Distraction" which was somewhat helpful. While the book spoke of helping with strategies, it was the emotional side of things that presented the biggest challenges in his life.

Dan speaks of his experience with procrastination, accountability and memory. These issues have caused problems for him, and consequently for his wife in their communications with one another. Dan cannot recall the simplest of things to memory when his wife engages him, in what should be a normal conversation. He has trouble not just remembering names, but entire events of which he was a part of. He often has only vague memories of things they have done or places they have been to.

Those of us with ADHD know this feeling all too well. Our inability to focus on the things we are doing, prevents us from being able to recall them later. This causes those who know and love us to feel like we are not interested in them or in the things they say to us or do with us.

This is not just a problem with our families. We struggle at work where forgetting something can present a completely different set of problems.

We see the so called "regular people" and wonder how they seem to master interactions and tasks with little to no effort. We wonder what they have that we do not. We ask ourselves, "Is it something we will ever learn?" We ask ourselves, "How to they do this without having to look for a strategy"

For many of us, this is where we begin to feel inferior or not good enough. Those of us with ADHD will usually take one of two paths. We will simply give up or mentally check-out and accept defeat, or we will seek the help of a professional. Thankfully Dan Spears has chosen the latter.

Dan works in IT and a big part of his job is preparing time sheets. This is very important because it is the way they ensure that clients are billed properly. This is where Dan struggles the most. He has tried many different methods to achieve this but nothing has worked for him in the long term.

We invite you to listen as Eric discusses solutions and helps Dan not only develop new strategies, but leaves him with a genuine enthusiasm about their implementation on this 125th episode of ADHD reWired.

Bio: Dan Spears

Dan is a 36-year-old native of Liverpool, England, who unfortunately does not sound like one of the Beatles. He immigrated to the US in 2005, landing in Texas, then ventured north to Ohio in 2010, where he lives with his wife, 3 step-children, and 2 cats and according to Dan, a rabbit that hates him.

Dan was finally diagnosed with ADHD in 2015.

Stay tuned to ADHD reWired for follow-up sessions with past guests who have allowed Eric to help them and keep up with their progress.

Hey! What about you? Do you have a story? Are you a Coach? Are you an ADHD Clinician? If you answered yes to any of these questions and you'd like to be a guest, schedule a pre-interview call here.

Audio books mentioned in the show.

Driven to Distraction – Edward M. Hallowell

The Power of Habit – Charles Duhigg

The Willpower Instinct – Kelly McGonigal

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