The Faster Than Normal Podcast: ADD | ADHD | Health

Having ADD or ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Hear from people all around the globe, from every walk of life, in every profession, from Rock Stars to CEOs, from Teachers to Politicians, who have learned how to unlock the gifts of their ADD and ADHD diagnosis, and use it to their personal and professional advantage, to build businesses, become millionaires, or simply better their lives. Our Guest today in their own words: Dana Sproule, is a passionate teacher and literacy coach who loves learning about "neurodiversities" and loves working with students who have them. She was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult and suddenly her impulsive, hyperactive, obsessive and passionate behaviour and thinking started to make sense. Dana is now grateful to have a good awareness of ADHD, and realizes you can only recover with awareness and knowledge. Recently she has noticed connections between ADHD and individuals who are in 12 step recovery programs. Looking ahead to the future, Dana believes there should be a substantial increase in ADHD testing and support in our educational systems, so hopefully this could help our future generations avoid the pitfalls individuals with a little less dopamine can run into. Enjoy!

[You are now safely here]

00:40 - Thank you again so much for listening and for subscribing!

00:41 - Introducing and welcome Teacher and Literacy Coach, Dana Sproule!!

01:45 - So what's your backstory?

ADHD traits in children and people attending AA meetings and thinks AA should acknowledge the connection.

06:50 - Ironically hyperactive people love singing, dancing, sports, but struggle with small talk and team sports.

09:35 On Breaking the stigma: ADHD acceptance and progress towards destigmatization

12:00 - Hope for a future without stigma.

00:00 -Ever want to pursue a degree in Psychology? Here are some other good topics Dana Sproule and Peter Shankman discussed today.. that you will learn more about if you will tune-in :)

- Dana's personal experience of being diagnosed with ADHD as an adult

- Discussion of the connection between ADHD and addiction

- The need for more research in the area of neurodiversity and addiction

- Correlation between neurodiversity and incarceration rates

- Personal experience of being open about their ADHD and its positive impact on their job search

- Progress in society's understanding and acceptance of ADHD

- Sharing knowledge and observations with teachers and principals

- Criticism of negative stereotypes and misinformation surrounding ADHD

- Advocacy for play-based learning and outdoor time in schools

- Discussion of ADHD testing in schools and the potential benefits

- Comfort and relief in realizing one has ADHD and eliminating shame

- Importance of openness and the harmful effects of secrets and shame

- Noticing ADHD behaviors in students and personal associations with ADHD

- Observations of ADHD traits in participants of Adult Child of Alcoholics and Al-Anon meetings

- Connection between ADHD and partners attending Alcoholics Anonymous

- Suggestion for incorporating a brain-based component into the twelve-step program

13:00 - How do our hot subscribers find out more about you?

Web: Ms. Sproule is not a big fan of socials, but if you have a question you may email her [email protected] or you can contact us for her address.

[Ms. Sproule did not verbally share her email address -Ed]

14:11 - Hey, hellooo from Earth!!@ ERF! YEs! You right there with the cool earbuds and big grain Golden brain! Yes YOU dear! We are THrr~rilled that you are here & listening!! Repeat in forward and to your kiddo'sx! ADHD and all forms of Neurodiversity are gifts, not curses. -Peter Shankman. And ooh-ooh now.. and just by the way, if you haven't picked up The Boy with the Faster Brain yet, it is on Amazon and it is a number #1 One bestseller in all categories. Click HERE or via https://amzn.to/3FcAKkI My link tree is here if you're looking for something specific. https://linktr.ee/petershankman

0000 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits. Guys, as always thanks so much for subscribing! Faster Than Normal is for YOU! We want to know what you'd like to hear! Do you have a cool friend with a great story? We'd love to learn about, and from them. I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via email at [email protected] or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! All right, guys, as always, than you for listening. Love that you're here. Any news, shoot us a note. Petershankman.com go to fastennormal.com everywhere but Twitter. We are on Blue Sky now at Peter Shankman on Blue Sky. [Ed- I will siphon -in BlueSky and learn about that next week!! If not in two or so, cooL?? -Ed]

[Also Ed here. SorryIFneedbe: This is still a relatively brand new experiment in editing show notes, transcriptions sort of; so if you notice any important, or significant goofs we've missed here or along, please do let us know @FasterNormal Thanks! -sb]

Having ADD or ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Hear from people all around the globe, from every walk of life, in every profession, from Rock Stars to CEOs, from Teachers to Politicians, who have learned how to unlock the gifts of their ADD and ADHD diagnosis, and use it to their personal and professional advantage, to build businesses, become millionaires, or simply better their lives. Our Guest today in their own words: Phil is an innovative memory coach who transforms learning by tapping into the mind's hidden potential. Leveraging techniques honed from history's greatest minds, Phil has helped over 2,000 students worldwide to learn languages in just 15 hours. His own ability to learn and teach a language within a month showcases the power of his methods. He is on a mission to learn 30 languages and teach them to 500 million students and we're going to learn several of his techniques and tricks today- enjoy!

[You are now safely here]

00:40 - Thank you again so much for listening and for subscribing!

00:41 - Introducing and welcome Philippe Arseneault!

01:45 - How did Philippe start his career; what's your backstory?

04:41 - Speed learning unlocks dormant potential for all people, but especially the Neurodiverse

08:28 - Imaginative networking scenarios

14:56 - ADHD students benefit in multiple areas. [i.e. A student with ADHD had an 800% memory increase in 15 hours using memory tricks]

15:00 - How does Philippe view speed learning?

16:00 - How do our hot subscribers find out more about you?

Web: https://speaklikealocal15.com/

Socials: LinkTree @speaklikealocal on Facebook or [email protected] FREE MINI COURSE JUST EMAIL HIM!! Don't forget to mention Faster Than Normal!

00:00 - Hey, hellooo from Earth!!@ ERF! YEs! You right there with the cool earbuds and big grain Golden brain! Yes YOU dear! We are THrr~rilled that you are here & listening!! Repeat in forward and to your kiddo'sx! ADHD and all forms of Neurodiversity are gifts, not curses. -Peter Shankman. And ooh-ooh now.. and just by the way, if you haven't picked up The Boy with the Faster Brain yet, it is on Amazon and it is a number #1 One bestseller in all categories. Click HERE or via https://amzn.to/3FcAKkI My link tree is here if you're looking for something specific. https://linktr.ee/petershankman

11:56 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits. Guys, as always thanks so much for subscribing! Faster Than Normal is for YOU! We want to know what you'd like to hear! Do you have a cool friend with a great story? We'd love to learn about, and from them. I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via email at [email protected] or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! All right, guys, as always, than you for listening. Love that you're here. Any news, shoot us a note. Petershankman.com go to fastennormal.com everywhere but Twitter. We are on Blue Sky now at Peter Shankman on Blue Sky. [Ed- I will siphon -in BlueSky and learn about that next week!! If not in two or so, cooL?? -Ed]

[Also Ed here. SorryIFneedbe: This is still a relatively brand new experiment in editing show notes, transcriptions sort of; so if you notice any important, or significant goofs we've missed here or along, please do let us know @FasterNormal Thanks! -sb]

—

TRANSCRIPT via Castmagic.io and then corrected.. somewhat.

Speaker A [00:00:00]: You're listening to the Faster than Normal podcast where we know that having Add or ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Each week, we interview people from all around the globe, from every walk of life in every profession, from rock stars to CEOs, from teachers to politicians who have learned how to unlock the gift of their add and ADHD diagnosis and used it to their personal and professional advantage to build businesses, to become millionaires, or to simply better their lives. And now, here's the host of the Faster Than Normal podcast, the man who doesn't understand how anyone could have leftover pizza, Peter Shankman.

Peter Shankman [00:00:41]: Everyone. Welcome to their episode of Faster than Normal. My name is Peter Shankman. I am thrilled to have you. This is the world's number one ADHD podcast. Add. We are glad that you are here. Add neurodiversity is a gift, not a curse. We explain it every week. Add. Hopefully this week will be no different. I would love to mention our guest today. Want to talk to you about Phil. Let's Talk About Phil. Phil Arseneault is how do we put him? He's a memory guy. I think he's the best way to explain this. All right. What the heck is I'm thinking? Well, Bill is an innovative memory coach who transforms learning by tapping into the mind's hidden potential. He's helped over 2000 students to learn languages in just 15 hours apiece. His own ability to learn and teach a language within a month showcases the power of his methods. He's on a mission to learn 30 languages and teach them to 500 million students. That is pretty impressive. He began his career with law enforcement, but he wound up going down this fascinating path when he discovered his fascination with memory. He learned Spanish in a month to secure a managerial position at a high end restaurant in Playa del Carmen at the age of 22. I love that. Sounds like he's ADHD. He loves exploring shipwrecks without oxygen tanks.

Philippe [00:01:53]: Interesting timing considering what's happened in the past couple of weeks with the Than, he dives the depths of the human mind. So there's definitely diving here. Phil. Welcome to fast add normal.

Philippe [00:02:02]: Hey, Peter, thanks for having me.

Peter Shankman [00:02:05]: First question. How did you discover that your memory was incredible and you decided this is what you want to do with your life?

Philippe [00:02:12]: Well, I don't have an incredible memory bu. I've been harnessing these very powerful tricks which have unlocked my ability to remember things. But before we even get into that, I want to just show some appreciation towards you. Thank you so much for writing that book. It completely blew my mind when I discovered that I had ADHD through this book. And I don't know, nobody else in my life was surprised except for me.

Peter Shankman [00:02:42]: Thank you. Than means a lot. That's usually the case when you come out with ADHD. People like well, yeah, duh.

Philippe [00:02:49]: Yeah. A student of mine, a friend of mine, he needed to learn Portuguese in a month, so I had to learn Portuguese and teach him Portuguese. And at one point, he just casually mentioned the fact that I have ADHD, and I was like, no, I don't. And he's like, you got to read this book. And I'm like, I'll read the first chapter, but there's no way I read the whole book in the day, and I was just completely so just thank you so much for having made that beautiful piece of content.

Peter Shankman [00:03:12]: I love that. Thank you. Fast and normal helps again. I love that. I need to understand this. So you started what you started as a cop?

Philippe [00:03:22]: Well, I worked in municipal law enforcement for five years in Montreal, but it was completely depressing, and I knew I was destined for greater things. So I was very happy to have shifted or manifested this opportunity in Mexico. And then the only obstacle that was in my way was the Spanish components.

Peter Shankman [00:03:41]: Yeah, I imagine managing a restaurant in Mexico would kind of require you to speak Spanish.

Philippe [00:03:45]: Yeah, well, I managed to make it through all the hiring process and made it down to the last two until that finally came up. And then I had to convince them that I was going to be able to learn Spanish within a month and that if I was not able to do that, that they would have that time to find somebody that's much more capable and competent than the other guy and me. But in the meantime, I'd at least solve all of their logistical issues and I'd train all their staff. So that was the whole goal, is basically just a month. They didn't think that I'd be able to do it, but they figured they'd get a month of training, add optimization of their new hotel restaurant, and I guess I surprised them because I succeeded. I stayed there for over a year.

Peter Shankman [00:04:30]: Unbelievable. So what is it what is it about language that makes it this sort of tell us your secret?

Philippe [00:04:41]: For me, it all boils down to speed learning. Speed learning or accelerated learning methods. And this, for me, I kind of see it as like the Green Lanterns ring. I think when you have focus and determination but you don't have a solid way to utilize it, it gets pretty much wasted. But when you have a way to focus it. So, for me, the speed learning has been something that has unlocked so many things throughout all my entire life, and it has given me this feeling of having a superpower. So I use it in school to memorize 510, 15 pages of notes the night before the exam. Obviously, I had to build up to that. I started off with just a couple of little dates and a couple of little bits of information, and then over years, you develop it into 15 pages verbatim in an hour that you can memorize. But I also use it in the restaurant industry to memorize 20, 30, 40 people's names every night and then their orders and their drink orders and what their bills were. And again, it started off with a table of two and a table of four and I'd make a bunch of mistakes. But over a period of time using these really powerful tricks, it made me feel like everything is possible. We have 256,000,000,000 gigs of storage capacity, which is like 1.2 billion computers. So we have all this potential. And I didn't understand why people can access it. And then when I started going on this rabbit hole of memory competitions around the world and there's thousands and thousands of people that are utilizing these really powerful tricks, they're memorizing over 4000 digits in an hour and like 30 to 60 decks of shuffled cards in a couple of hours, which is like 3000 individual cards. They're doing all this. Why are we struggling in school? So it was really serendipitous that the language element came into play with this challenge. And as I was learning it with these tricks, everybody was so surprised by how quickly I was learning and I just felt like it was normal. So I was teaching them along the way. And then when I realized that my natural gift to perceive patterns and to simplify things. And all the years that I've spent very passionately curious about the mind psychology, personal development, flow states and speed learning, it all couples together and fits in perfectly with languages in a way that I don't think that anybody else has ever really tapped into. So people just started getting really excited with because most of my students don't have ADHD. And I've noticed that the students than I've taught that have ADHD are able to outperform and they really take all these tricks and these tips and they run with it and it's just so much more powerful. But even with the people without ADHD, they're accessing parts of their brains and capabilities that they thought never existed, but they were just lying dormant. So it's just been incredibly rewarding. The language is just basically the path that I'm choosing to spread the knowledge of speed learning and unlocking people's dormant potential.

Peter Shankman [00:07:55]: Give us an example of one of those tricks because look, it sounds amazing. It sounds like, oh my God, I need to do this. Give me an example of something that you learned that allows you to sort of tap into that potential.

Philippe [00:08:07]: Okay, so the beauty about the speed learning tricks is it's a very simple fundamental core, right? And then you use it in different ways that you can use it for numbers, for names. When you go to a networking event.

Peter Shankman [00:08:22]: Give me something with names. I'm terrible names. I meet someone, I forget the name 2 seconds later. Give me something with names.

Philippe [00:08:28]: All right, so here's an example. I meet you at a networking event and you say hey, my name is Peter Shankman. So as I'm shaking your hand and saying hello to you, I'm imagining you dressed in tights like Peter Pan, and then you never wanted to grow up, so you have a shank in your pocket and I'm shaking your right hand always, because I know that's your shanking hand and I know you're always looking to shank a man, right? You want to be a boy forever. Peter Pan wants to be a boy forever. So you're always looking to shank a man. So I shake your hand and I neutralize your Shanking hand because you're Petershankman. And then in the beginning, you say, well, that takes a long time. How can you do all that while you're shaking somebody's hand? Well, in the beginning, it takes a bit of time, but as you practice it, over a couple of weeks, couple of months, that whole story just pops into my head in terms of concepts, not in terms of specific words. And then I immediately lock you down as Peter Shankman. I can give you another story for numbers, if you like. Yeah, I'll summarize it, but normally it's a little bit longer, add more wild. But basically, you want to imagine yourself as a spy sent to murder Hitler. Now, this is Germany, kind of like where the movie Unglorious Pastors ended off, where they're trying to kill Hitler and he's in his office yelling, nine, nine, nine. Right? He's getting very, very angry. So you reach into your pocket and you're there as an undercover spy, and you pull out this little tiny, mutated squid, octopus assassin creature. And as it goes onto the floor, it starts to shift and mutate and grow into the giant assassin octopus. He's killing Hitler. He's killing everybody in the room. You start running away. The octopus starts chasing after you. But luckily, you have a secret pill that's hidden in your teeth. So you clamp down and you break the hidden tooth. You hope that it's not cyanide, but it doesn't taste like cyanide, so it actually transforms you into a car. So you look down and you look down at your hands and your feet, and you got four tires growing out of your extremities. You have four tires growing out of your extremities. And now you transform and you drive the hell out of there and you go down to Amsterdam for your extraction point. Now, when you get to Amsterdam, the first place you go to is the brothel, obviously. So as you pull into the brothel with your four tires, you transform back into human shape and you try to get into the brothel to call. Now, there's this little short bouncer that's blocking the way, and he's not letting you into the brothel. He looks kind of like the famous rapper $0.50. But he's vertically challenged. He's a dwarf, so his friends jokingly call him $0.25. So you pick up air. He's not very intimidating, and you smush him into your hands and he transforms into a 25 cent quarter, right? So now he literally is as you walk into the brothel, there's this giant, like, blockbuster gumball machine. Like those giant gumball machines. You put twenty five cents in the gumball machine, and you turn it around and the ball comes out. But you didn't get a gum. You won a prize. So you open up the little piece of paper and you read it, and it says, you have won a complimentary 69 in this establishment. Complimentary 69. We get 69. Amazing. So you run in, forgetting about the extraction point, just running in to collect your reward. But when you get in, there's this giant jigsaw from the movie the movie saw this giant jigsaw puppet riding the Tricycle and he's so freaky and he's giant Tricycle, and he starts chasing you out of the brothel. So you've got this Tricycle just hauling ass behind you, pardon my French. This giant tricycle chasing you? And you try to bite down on your teeth again, but you can't turn into a car anymore. But luckily, there's this giant pink Ford pickup truck. It's a four x four with two pink with a couple of pink unicorns in the back. For some reason you jump in the car, the keys are in the ignition, you haul of, and then you're driving, and the Tricycle is gaining on you. But luckily, you see the button for the four x four. You unlock the four x four. You have enough torque to escape. So let's go back to the beginning of the story. Where are you?

Peter Shankman [00:12:34]: In Germany.

Philippe [00:12:35]: In Germany. What is Hitler yelling?

Peter Shankman [00:12:37]: Nine. Nine. Nine.

Philippe [00:12:38]: Perfect. So the first number is nine. So we got nine. You reach into your pocket. What was in your pocket? How do you kill Hitler?

Peter Shankman [00:12:45]: An octopus.

Philippe [00:12:46]: Octopus. How many legs does an octopus have? Eight. So we got nine. Eight. Perfect. Now, how do you escape the octopus?

Peter Shankman [00:12:54]: I bite down on something in my tooth

Philippe [00:12:57]:

Perfect. And then what grows out of your limbs?

Peter Shankman [00:13:00]:

Two wheels.

Philippe [00:13:02]:

Out of all of your limbs?

Peter Shankman [00:13:03]:

All four wheels.

Philippe [00:13:04]:

Perfect. We got nine, eight, four. Perfect. And then where do you escape to after Germany?

Peter Shankman [00:13:10]: Amsterdam.

Philippe [00:13:11]: Amsterdam. And when you get there, who's blocking your entrance?

Peter Shankman [00:13:15]: Twenty five cents.

Philippe [00:13:16]: Twenty five cents. Excellent. Now, when you turn it into 25 cent, what do you get in the gumball machine?

Peter Shankman [00:13:21]: A prize.

Philippe [00:13:22]: And what's the prize?

Peter Shankman [00:13:24]: Free 69.

Philippe [00:13:25]: Perfect. So we got 69. And then when you get into redeem, your prize, who attacks you?

Peter Shankman [00:13:31]: I don't remember that part. Who attacks me?

Philippe [00:13:34]: Okay. What was his vehicle of transportation? What was he riding? Some creature was attacking you on this weird children.

Peter Shankman [00:13:43]: Was it a bike or something like that?

Philippe [00:13:44]: Yeah, it was a bike, but it was a Jigsaw from that's right.

Peter Shankman [00:13:48]: Jigsaw from Saw. Right.

Philippe [00:13:49]: So he's got a tricycle. Right. So the tricycle number three. And then how do you escape him. There was unicorns somewhere.

Peter Shankman [00:13:58]: That's right.

Philippe [00:13:59]: Okay, and then how do you get enough speed to outdrive the tricycle? You hit a button. What did the button say?

Peter Shankman [00:14:07]: What did the button say?

Philippe [00:14:09]: It unlocked all the torque if it was a pickup truck. Yes. Okay, very good. Four x four x four. So that's my phone number, 984-256-9344. When it's in the format of numbers, I can't memorize a single phone number. But when I transform it into these stories, I can do in one night, I could do 1020 people's phone numbers, and if I need to sit down to memorize them for an event that I have, it takes me ten minutes, and I just get 1020 phone numbers locked in the form of these stories.

Peter Shankman [00:14:46]: That's amazing. I imagine that people with neurodiverse brains would even have an easier time learning this stuff because they're already creative to begin with.

Philippe [00:14:56]: Like I said, I've seen 800% increase when we measured it once with I had a student ADHD. This is one of my first students when I beginning. For a month, I was teaching everybody for free, and then I just started going with referrals. But this guy, he was always known as having a crappy memory. Maybe it was partly due to ADHD, but his brain was just not able to make memories. His mom, as a gift, as a gag gift for Christmas, bought him a little kids memory game. So there's 70 cards in them, and it's like a picture of a pacifier, a picture of a bicycle, et cetera. And he could never memorize more than five or ten, depending on how he's feeling. And then within 15 hours of working with me with these tricks, he was able to memorize the whole deck, and we ran out of cards, so we didn't even reach the limit of its potential. But that's an 800% increase in 15 hours. So ADHD students that I've had, they just take this and fly, not only for the languages, but for numbers, for information. They use it in their work now. They use it in their relationships. Their girlfriend's favorite color is blue. They just imagine the girlfriend listening to blues music every anniversary, so now they always remember it's blue. If it's red, they imagine them as a raging bowl. If they forget the favorite color, and then the red connects with the bowl. I love the it connects everything.

Peter Shankman [00:16:18]: This is brilliant. All right, we're out of time. I want to have you back without question. How can people find you?

Philippe [00:16:24]: I'm on Facebook. Speak like a local. Or they have my phone number now. It's plus 52 area code or email info at speaklikealocal15.Com. Web: https://speaklikealocal15.com/ Socials: LinkTree @speaklikealocal on Facebook or [email protected] FREE MINI COURSE JUST EMAIL HIM!! Don't forget to mention Faster Than Normal!

Peter Shankman [00:16:37]: Amazing. Just amazing. Thank you so much for taking the time. This was awesome.

Philippe [00:16:41]: See? And just to show you a bit of gratitude for rocking my world with this book, and I mean setting me on this path of optimizing my brain, add removing all the obstacles that I've had in my path. Happy to give all of your listeners a free mini course. So if anybody wants to send me a message, seven Spanish verb tenses in 1 hour. Or if they just want a memory, I have a little intro to memory hacking. I'll give it absolutely for free. Just send me a message. If you have any questions, just mention Peter Shankman or ADHD and happy to send off some cool free content.

Peter Shankman [00:17:19]: I love it guys. You also know this guy on his zoom. His name is Dr. Phil. Your brain I love that. I love that, Phil. Thank you so much for taking time guys. If you listen to Faster Than Normal, this is fun to do. We'll have Phil back. As always, we'd love to hear what guests you want to have on the podcast. We always have room. Let me know and we will see you guys soon. Keep having fun, stay healthy. Neurodiversity is a gift, not a curse. And we'll talk to you guys later.

—

Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at shankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week!

Having ADD or ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Hear from people all around the globe, from every walk of life, in every profession, from Rock Stars to CEOs, from Teachers to Politicians, who have learned how to unlock the gifts of their ADD and ADHD diagnosis, and use it to their personal and professional advantage, to build businesses, become millionaires, or simply better their lives. Our Guest today in their own words: Amanda Soper is the founder of Amanda Soper Equine – Gestalt Coaching & Horsemanship. A labor of love that focuses on helping young women break generational trauma cycles to live in authenticity and joy, through the healing power of horses. Amanda is a graduate of the renowned Touched by a Horse Equine Gestalt Coaching Method, where she found her community after a lifetime of feeling like a misfit toy. As a Gestaltist, her job requires spontaneity and creativity, so ADHD is the perfect superpower for creating powerful healing spaces and sessions. We are grateful for her time today and are now researching ADHD + Equine also, enjoy! And hey, thanks kindly for subscribing to Faster Than Normal!

[You are now safely here]

00:40 - Thank you again so much for listening and for subscribing!

01:43 - Introducing and welcome Amanda Soper

02:06 - Why is it that every young girl has love affair in some capacity with horses?

03:14 - When were you diagnosed?

05:41 - Does ADHD give you that same hyper focus as say, Skydiving; when you're on a horse?

06:48 - Tell us how and why you started Equine Therapy; explain it to us?

10:28 - How do our soon-to-be-poolside subscribers find out more about you?

Web: https://amandasoperequine.com

Socials: @amanda_soper_equine on: INSTA

11:07 - Hey, hellooo from Earth!!@ ERF! YEs! You right there with the cool earbuds and big grain Golden brain! Yes YOU dear! We are THrr~rilled that you are here & listening!! Repeat in forward and to your kiddo'sx! ADHD and all forms of Neurodiversity are gifts, not curses. -Peter Shankman. And ooh-ooh now.. and just by the way, if you haven't picked up The Boy with the Faster Brain yet, it is on Amazon and it is a number #1 One bestseller in all categories. Click HERE or via https://amzn.to/3FcAKkI My link tree is here if you're looking for something specific. https://linktr.ee/petershankman

11:56 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits. Guys, as always thanks so much for subscribing! Faster Than Normal is for YOU! We want to know what you'd like to hear! Do you have a cool friend with a great story? We'd love to learn about, and from them. I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via email at [email protected] or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! All right, guys, as always, than you for listening. Love that you're here. Any news, shoot us a note. Petershankman.com go to fastennormal.com everywhere but Twitter. We are on Blue Sky now at Peter Shankman on Blue Sky. [Ed- I will siphon -in BlueSky and learn about that next week!! If not in two or so, cooL?? -Ed]

[Also Ed here. SorryIFneedbe: This is a relatively brand new experiment in editing show notes, transcriptions sort of; so if you notice any important, or significant goofs we've missed here or along, please do let us know @FasterNormal Thanks! -sb]

—

TRANSCRIPT via Castmagic.io and then corrected.. somewhat, (Ooh-ooh! 1234-now Fiiifth and likely final re-trial run is today June 13, 2023. #gen_AI_for_whut??

Welcome to another episode of Faster Than Normal. I'm thrilled to have you here. We are closing in on 300. Pretty crazy. We're not there yet. We should be there by the end of the summer, but 300 episodes, that's pretty amazing and inspiring. And I have you guys as an audience and I have all my listeners and guests to thank for it. It has been an incredible ride and I'm thrilled by it. So than you for that. I've just gotten back from another wonderful hour and a half of boxing. My kid is done with school, so she thought she was going to get to stay in and just do nothing. And I dragged her to boxing with me and had her workout. So she water me right now, which is good. It. So I'm back. I'm a little beaten up, but all good. Let's get into it. Today we are going to talk horses. And when you ask yourself, what do horses have to do with ADHD, it turns out the answer is a lot. So I want you to meet Amanda Soper. Amanda Soper is the founder of Amanda Soper equine guestal coaching and Horsemanship. She calls it a labor of love that focused on helping young women break generational trauma cycles to live in authenticity and joy through the healing power of horses. Amanda is a graduate of the renowned Touched by a Horse equine gestalt coaching method, where she found her community after a lifetime of feeling like she's a misfit toy. I get that as a Gestaltist, her job requires spontaneity Add creativity. So ADHD, which she has, is her perfect superpower for creating healing spaces and sessions. Welcome to Faster than Normal.

Amanda [00:02:02]: Amanda thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be here.

Peter Shankman [00:02:06]: So why is it first question not related to ADHD? Why is it that every girl, when they are young, starts a love affair in some capacity with horses? My daughter, I put her on one at age four, age five, and even though she didn't pick it up because living in midtown Manhattan makes that a little difficult, she did fall in love with it and speaks of it often, that it's something she wants to do. What is it about horses and young.

Amanda [00:02:37]: Girls that is a million dollar question. Definitely. I think it's about freedom. For a lot of young girls, horses are their first faster of independence. Add getting to ride and partner with 1000 pound or bigger beast is just really magical. Add, I think it's the magic that draws most of us young women in young girls. It's great that you got your daughter started with a little taste of it early on. That's wonderful. And good luck with that if she turns it into a career or a hobby.

Peter Shankman [00:03:14]: Yeah, I think she's picked up on acting, so hopefully that'll kick in for a while. But no, she loved it. She's an amazing time. Speaks with fondly often. So, tell me about ADHD. Tell me about when you were diagnosed. How old were you? How to start with your thing?

Amanda [00:03:29]: So it's very new for me. I just learned about it in 2019. No, excuse me, where are we in the world? 2022. Add diagnosed 2022 about December. So this is really new. But when I learned about it, it was just this explosive light bulb moment of oh my God, yes, that's me, 100% Add. It, in fact, is, as it turns out.

Peter Shankman [00:03:57]: That's pretty cool. At what point did you realize that ADHD could be a benefit or could be anything other than a hindrance?

Amanda [00:04:06]: Kind of right away. Once I had the awareness of the trajectory of my life because of it, I never thought of it as being a hindrance. Because post school, where it definitely was a hindrance, all of my education was just a nightmare. Since I was diagnosed, it's been an absolute asset all the way. Because what I do with horses, of course, is horses are a high risk activity which real well into that ADHD Add world, but also because it requires spontaneity to pivot on a dime. Add your horse and you are maybe not communicating correctly. I can be really creative and find new avenues to work better with the horses, work better with people, work better with myself. The awareness of ADHD has been huge. Just that piece all alone has been huge. For me to take the trajectory of my life and go, I can help other people who have ADHD and Add and help them learn that it's an asset and not a curse or a gift. Not a curse, as you say. Yeah, for me, it has not been a negative at all since I was diagnosed.

Peter Shankman [00:05:41]: Here's an interesting question I just thought of so you mentioned, and you're right. It's these thousand pound beasts who can easily trample you without a second thought. Not intentionally, but things happen. So when I first started Skydiving and my mother was definitely afraid of it because she goes, you never focus on anything. How the hell are you going to focus on doing things you need to do to jump on a plane safely? She was amazed when she came and watched me and realized how hyper focused I was on every single aspect of the event. Does ADHD give you that same hyper focus when you're on a horse, that you're so hyper aware of what you have to do because you love it so much and you know that it can be dangerous?

Amanda [00:06:16]: 100%. 100%. There is a saying than your horse and you can both have the opportunity to freak out. But as a person it is never your turn. It is always you have to be hyper focused, you have to be in the present moment very much to be successful. Even if you're just trail riding or if you're barrel racing or whatever you're doing with horses. Absolutely that hyper focus is such an asset.

Peter Shankman [00:06:47]: Makes sense. Tell me about this concept of what you started and explain to me where this because I imagine it's almost a level of therapy.

Amanda [00:06:58]: It is very much, very therapeutic. After I got out of school, which as I mentioned was just something I never ever wanted to return to, I took about a year off and immediately returned to school to pursue horse training. And then to make a long story short, I graduated from the horse training program, and I didn't have any business sense, so I looked into schooling for business, which is how I ended up finding the Touch by a Horse equine Gestalt coaching method, which is a really intensive two year program to teach people how to partner with horses in gestalt. To coach whatever niche you choose to go into. Mine happens to be women and empowerment and grief processing and trauma recovery. So going down that trail of my own personal work, which is a requirement of the program, unlike traditional therapy where therapists don't actually it's not a requirement, than they heal from their own traumas. Bu this program touched by horse, it is very much a requirement. So once I started to heal from my childhood traumas, which I see now in a different light than even when I was doing the program, is a lot of it being related to ADHD and parents who didn't have coping mechanisms. For me, parents who themselves have ADHD, though they're undiagnosed this pathway has led me to helping women heal their own hearts, their own trauma with horses. And I've lost the thread of your question, so if you would please repeat than for my brain.

Peter Shankman [00:08:44]: No, that's an classic ADHD thing. No, it's just the premise. Than horses can be incredible therapy and I don't think enough people realize that they absolutely can.

Amanda [00:08:53]: Most people are aware of physical therapy with horses that's been around for a long time, but mental health and wellness with horses is just as powerful. And the horses themselves of course, are the drawing point for a lot of women, especially men, benefit from this as well. It's still stigmatized for men. So I work with men, but not very often. The horses themselves, their part in it is hard to explain because they show up differently for each individual person. For example, with grief, which is one of the very main things that I work with people on. I have seen people literally be wrapped up by this thousand pound animal. They put their head, add neck over their body and they pull them in and they give them this giant horse hug. And for somebody in deep grief or somebody who is having relationship problems and they're not feeling loved, the horses really do a deep dive into their heart and just expand it with their presence and people walk away feeling lighter and lighter. Really a lot of times physical issues will disappear. For somebody who's been suffering with say back pain or gut issues, just by being in the presence of a horse and having somebody listen and talk to.

Peter Shankman [00:10:22]: Them and experience sounds pretty amazing.

Amanda [00:10:27]: It's truly amazing.

Peter Shankman [00:10:28]: How can people find more? How can they reach you?

10:28 - How do our soon-to-be-poolside subscribers find out more about you?

Web: https://amandasoperequine.com

Socials: @amanda_soper_equine on: INSTA

Amanda [00:10:32]: I am pretty easy to find so my website is Amandasoperequine.com, facebook is Amanda soperequine and Instagram is Amanda soberequine and I think that's pretty much all my socials.

Peter Shankman [00:10:50]: Awesome. Amanda, thank you so much for taking the time to be a faster. Normally we appreciate it. Horses definitely have a magical ability. I think we need to explore that more and I'm going to see if we can find other people who have ADHD and also understand the power of horses. I'm going to do some research.

Amanda [00:11:05]: Awesome. Let me know what you find out.

Peter Shankman [00:11:07]: Will do. Thanks so much guys, as always listening to Fast than Normal. We'd love to hear what you think. Drop us a note, leave us a review, let us know how we can help. Life goes on. Stay safe, stay healthy. ADHD is a gift, not a curse. We'll talk to you guys soon. Have a great day. You've been listening to the Faster than normal podcast. We're available on itunes, Stitcher and Google Play and of course at www.fasterthenormal.com. I'm your host Peter Shankman and you can find [email protected] and at petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform form of choice and leave us a review. The more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast is shown and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were performed by Stephen Byrom and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagon Blast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week.

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Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at shankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week!

Having ADD or ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Hear from people all around the globe, from every walk of life, in every profession, from Rock Stars to CEOs, from Teachers to Politicians, who have learned how to unlock the gifts of their ADD and ADHD diagnosis, and use it to their personal and professional advantage, to build businesses, become millionaires, or simply better their lives. Our terriffic Guest today in her own words:

Joia McDaniel is not just a dynamic force in the supply chain industry, but also a passionate advocate for neurodivergence. As the architect of Supply Chain GOAT she has over two decades of award-winning experience and an armory of creative ideas that set her apart in her field. Born and raised in Detroit, the epicenter of the automotive world, Joia was primed early on to understand the complex dynamics of supply chains. Today, she resides in Fort Worth, Texas, expertly balancing her role as a business maven with her life as a loving wife and mother to four spirited children. Joia's journey to success is one that defies convention. Living with ADHD, she's found a unique perspective that she applies to her work and life. Far from being a limitation, her ADHD has proven to be an extraordinary capability. It propels her creativity, drives her boundless energy, and fosters a level of hyper focus that enables her to delve into complex problems until they're solved. Her Auditory Processing Disorder has refined her listening skills, helping her catch subtle cues others might miss and use these insights to fuel her innovative approach. Joia's distinctive prowess has shaped her success and fueled her passion to advocate for the neurodivergent community. She actively promotes a better understanding and acceptance of neurodiversity, highlighting the unique strengths and talents that neurodivergent individuals bring to the table. She is a testament to the fact that different minds have a place in our world and can lead, innovate, and excel. Joia McDaniel is a trailblazer, a thought leader, and an advocate. Her contributions to the supply chain industry and her commitment to fostering neurodiversity make her story a powerful narrative of exceptional ability, resilience, and impact. Enjoy and hey, thanks so much for subscribing to Faster Than Normal!

[You are now safely here]

00:40 - Thank you again so much for listening and for subscribing!

01:43 - Introducing and welcome Joia McDaniel CEO of Supply Chain GOAT

02:40 - So how does one grow up in the supply chain?

04:36 - On the rewards of a career in Supply Chain and Logistics; is it a sexy career choice now?

05:42 - How did you first get diagnosed?

06:21 - Oh no.. Not the Meatz!!

07:58 - What were the first major changes that you noticed personally after you got diagnosed?

09:51 - So.. we have tons of kids who are college students or just getting out of college, figuring out what they want to do with their life. If they wanted to look at supply chain, tell us why, number one, and then tell us what they should be doing to get involved in that industry? #SummerJobs #SupplyChain #Neurodiverse

10:43 - Why is it the perfect career for neurodiversity? This is Joia's favorite question!

12:25 - Is working in the Supply Chain like putting out one fire after another?

13:11 - On Passion for your job/work/gig/world/client/account/boatshoes/recycle bins

13:46 - How do our New Summer-shiney subscribers find out more about you?

[email protected]. My website is www.supplychaingoat.com. It's not up as of June 13, 2023, but iscoming soon, so those are the ways that I could be reached.

14:36 - 500 POINTS FOR USING THE WORD SAUNA!! Ahhhh.. summer swim & spa days….

00:00 - Hey, hellooo from Earth!!@ ERF! YEs! You right there with the cool earbuds and big grain Golden brain! Yes YOU dear! We are THrr~rilled that you are here & listening!! Repeat in forward and to your kiddo'sx! ADHD and all forms of Neurodiversity are gifts, not curses. -Peter Shankman. And ooh-ooh now.. and just by the way, if you haven't picked up The Boy with the Faster Brain yet, it is on Amazon and it is a number #1 One bestseller in all categories. Click HERE or via https://amzn.to/3FcAKkI My link tree is here if you're looking for something specific. https://linktr.ee/petershankman

00:00 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits. Guys, as always thanks so much for subscribing! Faster Than Normal is for YOU! We want to know what you'd like to hear! Do you have a cool friend with a great story? We'd love to learn about, and from them. I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via email at [email protected] or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! All right, guys, as always, than you for listening. Love that you're here. Any news, shoot us a note. Petershankman.com go to fastennormal.com everywhere but Twitter. We are on Blue Sky now at Peter Shankman on Blue Sky. [Ed- I will siphon -in BlueSky and learn about that next week!! If not in two or so, cooL?? -Ed]

[Also Ed here. SorryIFneedbe: This is a relatively brand new experiment in editing show notes, transcriptions sort of; so if you notice any important, or significant goofs we've missed here or along, please do let us know @FasterNormal Thanks! -sb]

EXTRA CREDIT + GENERATED BY AI and NOT proofread much really here below:

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[Yaaaay CastMagic.io. Go-go-Gadget AI! -tell us in the comments or emaiL: -Ed]

Is this thing on??

1. Who is the guest of the episode?

Answer: The guest is Joia McDaniel, an advocate for both the supply chain industry and neurodivergence.

2. How has COVID impacted the supply chain industry?

Answer: COVID has increased the attention on supply chain as more people realized the importance of understanding each link in the process.

3. What are the cognitive differences of the speaker, and how have they helped them in their career?

Answer: The speaker has ADHD and auditory issues, which they consider their "superpower" in the supply chain industry.

4. What changes did the speaker experience after being diagnosed with ADD?

Answer: The speaker experienced a significant change in energy levels, ability to complete tasks, gained more confidence, and was able to hyper-focus more effectively after receiving a diagnosis of ADD.

5. How did understanding the diagnosis and accommodations help the speaker?

Answer: Understanding the diagnosis and accommodations helped improve the experience for the speaker in their career.

6. What company did the guest create, and how much experience does she have in the field?

Answer: The guest created Supply Chain Goat LLC and has over two decades of experience in the field.

7. Where was the guest born and raised, and why is it important for understanding supply chain dynamics?

Answer: The guest was born and raised in Detroit, which is important for understanding supply chain dynamics because of its connection to the automotive industry.

8. What sparked the guest's interest in supply chain?

Answer: The guest's interest in supply chain was sparked by growing up around the automotive industry and being fascinated by watching the process of turning car parts into a whole vehicle.

9. What are some challenges that neurodiverse individuals face, and how can they excel in supply chain?

Answer: Neurodiverse individuals can struggle with transitioning from a high-stress state to a calm state, but can excel in supply chain because of their ability to connect with different people and be natural people pleasers.

10. What is the name of the podcast, who is the host, and where can it be found?

Answer: The name of the podcast is Faster Than Normal, the host is Peter Shankman, and it can be found on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play, as well as www.fasterthannormal.com.———————————————————————————

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TRANSCRIPT via Castmagic.io and then corrected.. somewhat, (Ooh-ooh! 1234-now Fiiifth and likely final re-trial run is today June 13, 2023. #gen_AI_for_whut??

Peter Shankman [00:00:40]: And here's the host of the Faster Than Normal podcast, the only man who goes skydiving to calm down + focus, Peter Shankman.

Peter Shankman [00:00:40]: Greetings, everyone. Happy day. It is time for another episode of Fast Than Normal. My name is Norm McDonald. No, that's not true. I'm Peter Shankman, but I wanted to see if you guys are listening because I say that every single week. It is great to have you here. Everything is good. It is a gorgeous day. We're finally into summer almost, but it's good enough. It's nice out. Everyone's happy. Dog is sleeping. Let's see how long that lasts. So I am good. I'm glad you're with us, and I'm glad our guest is with us today, a lovely young lady named Joya McDaniel. Joya McDaniel is pretty interesting. The told me before we started that she's really nervous because she can't believe that I chose her to be on this podcast. I'm like, okay, you have obviously no idea who I am because I'm not special in the slightest, but there's nothing to be nervous about. But that being said, I'm thrilled that you're here: Welcome, Joia.

Joia McDaniel [00:01:26]: Thank you. Thank you, Peter. I appreciate that.

Peter Shankman [00:01:28]: So you have an interesting bio. You're like a dynamic force in the supply chain industry, right? So you're the reason that during COVID no one got any of the things they needed, right? That was all on you.

Joia McDaniel [00:01:40]: No, absolutely not, because I wasn't a part of that.

Peter Shankman [00:01:43]: There you go. Someone didn't hire you for the right time, and that totally screwed up the entire country anyway. She's a passion advocate, not only in the supply chain industry, but also passionate advocate for neuro divergence. As the architect of as the architect of supply chain Goat LLC, she has over two decades of award winning experience in an armory of creative ideas that set her apart in the field. She was born and raised in Detroit, which is the epicenter of the automotive world, as we know. So she was primed early on to understand the dynamics of supply chain. Now she lives in Texas, and we'll talk about that. But she's expertly balancing her role as a business maven with her life as a loving wife and mother to four spirited children. She is neurodiverse. She has ADHD Add. She's not a unique perspective that allows her to apply her work, so she applies this to her work in life. Here's what I want to know. This cool thing. Her auditory processing disorder has refined her listening skills, helping her catch subtle cues others might miss. So essentially you'd be one hell of a poker player.

Joia McDaniel [00:02:37]: Yeah, maybe so. I don't play, but I can learn fast.

Peter Shankman [00:02:40]: There you go. All right, Joy. Welcome to Faster. We're glad to have you here. So how does one grow up in the supply chain; how does that happen?

Joia McDaniel [00:02:49]: So being from Detroit automotive, automotive is pretty much centered around supply chain. But as a kid, you don't know about supply chain. You just know you see one vehicle. I mean, you see the arts turn into a whole vehicle. And with both my parents being in the automotive industry, one at GM and, the other at Chrysler, it was just my life. I grew up automotive. I just heard all the conversations and it just kind of stuck with me. And it's literally just ingrained in my DNA because literally that's all that Detroit used to talk about during my days of growing up. And it's just going to see my Dad, seeing what he did, it was just always intriguing to see how he put one part on and then at the end you have this beautiful car. And so, yeah, that's pretty much been my life. And I don't know if you've heard of that saying, don't shut the line down, but that is like a common phrase in Detroit. So you can't shut the line down because it's expensive and it's almost like you're just going to hell. Like, literally it's just than serious. So having that ingrained in me, that started me out with the interest of just automotive, but I didn't, like I said, grasp the whole supply chain concept until after college, actually, and I got my first job and I just pretty much fell into supply chain in the automotive industry. And it's just been going nonstop, literally since then. So that's how automotive supply chain kind of ingrained in it to where I am now.

Peter Shankman [00:04:26]: It's kind of fascinating when you think about it. You found it amazing and you found it enjoyable. Joia McDaniel [00:04:36]: Yes, absolutely. It's a very rewarding career and it's kind of like the new sexy word now. You really didn't hear about supply chain too much before, COVID so now everyone's trying to understand all the dynamics of supply chain. And it's such a layered field, and you really have to understand each chain, I mean, each link of the supply chain to really be good in this industry. Add that's something that my ADHD and my auditory issues has really helped to put me in a position of just excellence regardless of what I'm doing, literally, it's just effortlessly. So I'm excited. I find it to be my superpower. And it didn't always be like this. It wasn't always like this at all. I definitely had my challenges before I really understood what was going on. But definitely once you hone in and you know who you are and what you have and capable of the industry is just amazing for our brain type.

Peter Shankman [00:05:42]: So let's talk brain type, let's talk neurodiversity. How did you first get diagnosed?

Joia McDaniel [00:05:47]: So I was diagnosed in the third grade, and I was diagnosed because my mom was getting calls from the teachers I wasn't listening, I wasn't focused and all this stuff. And so was diagnosed from school, from my performance in school, Add. My mom, she never put me on any medication growing up. Instead, we did I don't know if you've heard of, like, the Bach remedy flowers. Yeah, we did that. And then I had a diet. No sugar, no meat. Literally, it was like that for 18 years. She was very, oh, my God.

Peter Shankman [00:06:21]: No sugar I can handle, but no meat. Oh, my God.

Joia McDaniel [00:06:24]: Yes. It was crazy. And it wasn't until I came home from college and my grandmother was frying some pork chops, and they smelled so good and, oh, my gosh, diet is broken. I cannot do this anymore. But, yeah, it's been going on since the third grade, but my mother never talked about it. I just knew that I had to take these drops, but she never said what it was. So when I got my career started going, things just started getting a little weird, like, okay, why can't I focus? Like, I need to why am I forgetting to do this? And just why is things just really weird? And so I went to the doctor again, I had the diagnosis, but I was never told about it. So I went to my doctor, and I literally told him this phrase. I said doctor, I am stupid. I don't know what's going on. I need some help. And just pulling my records and going through just my previous records and taking questionnaires, definitely. And then I told my mom. She's like, oh, yeah, you've had that since the third grade. I'm like, you know what? That's pretty much my story. And ever since I've had the official diagnosis of me knowing once, you know, it just kind of what do people say? It's like you're putting the wipers on when it's raining. But, yeah, it's been amazing. Now that I know and have an understanding, and I don't know how I was getting by before that.

Peter Shankman [00:07:58]: Tell me what it was. So what was it like when you finally after you got diagnosed and you started, I guess whether it was medication, sort of understanding, Add, learning it, what were the first major changes that you noticed personally?

Joia McDaniel [00:08:10]: Well, the first major changes was my energy. I've always been high energy, but my energy was different because I was able to actually get things done, and I would get things done, and I was able to multitask with actually getting the things that I was multitasking completed and just more confidence and stand up, able to hyper focus more. I would say that's some of the first benefits that I definitely experienced once I got the official diagnosis. And once you get it and you know Add, you understand some of the accommodations that you may need. That helps too. So you can understand exactly what's going on with you. But not being able to tell your employer and kind of mask in those things that I would say was the most difficult. You didn't ask that question, but that's something that kind of ties into that because it's all good. Add, you perform and you're a stellar. You're doing all these great things and getting these awards and everything but the masking and the background. It takes a long time to get things done for me back then before I learned updated processing. But it took a while to get used to having to do things differently and having the wheel and the brain power after medication.

Peter Shankman [00:09:51]: Let's shift gears for a second. Go back to logistics and supply chain. So you say that it's great for.Someone with Neurodiversity, supply chain is awesome. So we have tons of kids who are college students or just getting out of college, figuring out what they want to do with their life. If they wanted to look at supply chain, tell us why, number one, and then tell us what they should be doing to get involved in that industry To get involved in that worl.

Joia McDaniel [00:10:07]: So what they should be doing is looking into manufacturing, cohort classes or just anything dealing with automation, logistics. You could take courses at a community college. Even in high school they have transition classes and study groups and things like that. Just reading, reading and learning about supply chain, understanding the dynamics of it and what all it entails. What was your other question?

Peter Shankman [00:10:43]: Sorry, tell us about so you mentioned neurodiversity. Why is it the perfect career for neurodiversity?

Joia McDaniel [00:10:49]: Okay, so it's the perfect career for neurodiversity. This is my favorite question because literally, supply chain moves so fast. Everything is moving so fast, Add. There's always something new going on. Every day there's a new problem, there's something going on. And in order to keep up with that fast paced scale, you have to have the ability to stop what you're doing maybe, and then go to something else and totally hone in on that and then go back to what you were doing before and have it be seamless. People communication, it can be a struggle with ADHD of people in supply chain, but we're natural born people pleasers. So sometimes you get intimidated. But communication, being a people pleaser actually works because you're dealing with so many people from so many different backgrounds and we're just able to connect with just about anyone. I'm sure you definitely can understand that. So that's definitely a plus. And then just being able to not just see one portion or one link when someone makes a decision and let's say for instance, sales, you know, that okay, they made a decision in sales. So this is going to impact production. This is going to impact forecasting. So it's like this huge like you just have this brand and you just know from the onset that if this happens, then that's going to happen. So definitely those are definitely things people.

Peter Shankman [00:12:21]: With ADHD and Neurodiversity tend to be Really good at, putting out fires..Really good at, putting out fires. Is this a kind of industry where It'S one fire after anothe

Joia McDaniel [00:12:29]: Absolutely, yes, absolutely. There's fires almost every day. And I don't care how good your supply chain is. I mean, it's so layered, it's so deep that you're always going to have something to do. Add it wasn't oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.

Peter Shankman [00:12:42]: No, I just want to own into it because I want to follow up because that brings up an interesting question because we're really good people with neurodiversity are phenomenal putting on fires. But how do you handle the concept of, okay, I just put in a fire. Now I have to go home and listen to my children or listen to my husband or calm down or not because I can imagine you put in a fire and you solve a huge problem. You must be high as a kite. Dopamine hit from that. Must be off the charts. So how do you then go home And turn it off? Joia McDaniel [00:13:11]: It's difficult because you're so passionate. We're passionate people and you're excited, especially if it gets accomplished and it's favorable terms and it's just having a partner that understands what I do and being supportive and can listen to my stories and kind of bring me down some, that helps. But the ride home when I was going to the office, especially if I had to go through traffic, it was a lot a huge transition to go from that. It's like going from fire into the sauna. ####SAUNA!

Peter Shankman [00:13:46]: Fascinating. I love this. I want to get a job with you. Very cool. Joy than you. How can people find you? How can they reach you?

Joia McDaniel [00:13:54]: So you can reach me at [email protected]. My website is www. supplychaingoat.com. It's coming soon, so those are the ways that I could be reached.

Peter Shankman [00:14:08]: We will link all of that in the podcast. I am greatly, greatly appreciative of you taking the time. Thank you so much. It was really great to have you.

Joia McDaniel [00:14:15]: All right. Thank you, Peter. I appreciate it.

Peter Shankman [00:14:17]: All right, guys, as always, than you for listening. Love that you're here. Any news, shoot us a note. Petershankman.com go to fastennormal.com everywhere but Twitter. We are on Blue Sky now at Peter Shankman on Blue Sky. [asap is good; I know -Ed]

We'll talk about this every episode, but any interesting guests, shoot us a note. We'd love to have them on as well. Stay safe, stay happy, have a great week andBy the time this comes out, it'll Probably be summer, so stay cool and we will talk soon.Thanks for listening, guys.

—

Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at shankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week!

Having ADD or ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Hear from people all around the globe, from every walk of life, in every profession, from Rock Stars to CEOs, from Teachers to Politicians, who have learned how to unlock the gifts of their ADD and ADHD diagnosis, and use it to their personal and professional advantage, to build businesses, become millionaires, or simply better their lives. Our Guest today in her own words: Suzy Malseed is a high-energy Mum of twins, a competitive free-diver, a farmer, a reformed teacher and a neurodiversity advocate. Based in Australia, originally from New Zealand, Suzy maintains a ferocious appetite for adventure and travel, having lived in 6 countries and worked and stayed in many more! We have a few things in common, but can you guess the main similarity? Yep, ADHD! Also parachutes; but you've got to subscribe and listen for that story ;-) Enjoy and hey, thanks so much for subscribing to Faster Than Normal! [you are now safely here ]

00:40 - Thank you again so much for listening and for subscribing!

[This week we've switched to Cloudemagic.io from a slow Descript. All sorts of things are happening in Tech now, huh?! This may be 'the way' we go for this upcoming Summer season. Please let us know what you think in the comments?! I will be paying special attention to any feedback on this Ep, that you may share- and also of the past three Ep.s (not the tbd Ep.291) Thank you -Ed]

01:00 - Introducing and welcome Suzy Malseed!

03:50 - Most parents when their kids are diagnosed are like, Wait- this sounds like me?

05:09 - Shrek- Ogers are like Onions Ref

06:00 - On processing your ADHD

06:37 - Peter on Free Diving. Ref: Le Grande Blue Luc Besson

[Not a Luc Besson film, but if you love the above ref, (or Philip Glass, or Portugal even, then this assistant editor strongly rec's The 100 Foot Wave. It appears to also be a podcast now! -Ed]

07:50 - On "the silence" while free diving with very little gear

Ref: If I dive to 30 meters, that four times the pressure that we experience walking on the ground..feels like a giant bear hug, basically.

09:24 - On Skydiving joy

09:42 - do you have techniques to get your head right, to get into the zone & ready to dive?

10:52 - On meditation.

11:00 - How much does your heat rate decease when you put just your HEAD into the water? Ref: The Diving Reflex aka MDR

11:18 - What, what? Why?? Genetics??!

12:05 - On mental and physical adaptation & breaking the surface13:04- Are you good in Emergencies too? Please ell us in the comments!! [remember, we always read these at some point every few weeks]

14:04 - Is dopamine generation = wanderlust or/and wanderlust? [US parlance + vernacular]

14:20 - What else do I and we all not know about Free Diving; but should?

16:32 - When your back-up plan is to be prepared and try harder if… there is a next time, 98 feet down.

17:26 - Do you want to see what free diving in an Underwater Cave looks like?! [We have warned you!! [Trusted respect to AL + MCH & Co. btw -Ed ;-]

18:10 - Thank you Suzy Malseed!!

"I would rather a child start therapy at an early age and learn that they're brilliant; than spend the next 30 years undoing the belief that they are broken." -Peter Shankman June 7, 2023

18:14 - How do our now Summer-shiney subscribers find out more about you?

Web: Will update if avail. Otago Times article from 2018 is here

Socials: @NoAirSuzy on: INSTA @SuzyMalseed on: Facebook

18:14 - Hey, you there! Yes YOU! We are thrilled that you are here & listening!

ADHD and all forms of Neurodiversity are gifts, not curses. And by the way, if you haven't picked up The Boy with the Faster Brain yet, it is on Amazon and it is a number one bestseller in all categories. Click HERE or via https://amzn.to/3FcAKkI My link tree is here if you're looking for something specific. https://linktr.ee/petershankman

17:24 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits. Guys, as always thanks so much for subscribing! Faster Than Normal is for YOU! We want to know what you'd like to hear! Do you have a cool friend with a great story? We'd love to learn about, and from them. I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via email at [email protected] or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse!

[ Ed: This is a relatively brand new experiment in editing show notes, transcriptions sort of; so if you notice any important, or significant goofs we've missed here or along, please do let us know @FasterNormal Thanks! -sb]

EXTRA CREDIT: 10 GEN-AI POINTS ABOUT FREE DIVING COVERED IN THIS INTERVIEW AND GENERATED BY AI.

1. What is free diving? Ref: Free Diving Safety

Answer: Free diving is an activity that involves diving underwater without the aid of scuba diving equipment, but instead, relying on one's ability to hold their breath and adapt to high pressure underwater.

2. What is the process involved in free diving?

Answer: The process involves a state of deep meditation to connect the mind, body, and breath. It involves getting a feeling in the body to confirm readiness and experiencing a mammalian dive reflex, which results in a 30% drop in heart rate when immersing the face in water.

3. What attracts people to free diving?

Answer: Many free divers are drawn to the sport due to the sensory deprivation it offers. The sport also requires a lot of respect for the body and its ability to adapt to the demands of the sport.

4. What is the connection between ADHD and free diving?

Answer: ADHD is highly represented in free diving. Many free divers with ADHD are drawn to the sport's calming effect and the sensory deprivation it offers.

5. Can free diving be a solo activity?

Answer: Yes, free diving can be a solo activity, and the responsibility for success or failure rests solely on the diver.

6. What is the movie La Grand Blue about, and why is it significant?

Answer: La Grand Blue is a movie about a free diver who can slow down his heartbeat and go as deep as he wants. It is one of Luke Basal's best films and launched the career of Eric Sierra and Jean Renault.

7. How does free diving compare to skydiving?

Answer: Both skydiving and free diving require a lot of preparation work before the activity. The speaker puts a lot of effort into checking their gear before skydiving and even dreams about it.

8. What is the connection between risk-taking and neurodiversity?

Answer: The speaker shares a love for risk-taking with their son. They both enjoy taking risks, but they are careful when doing so. This high appetite for risk-taking is much higher than the average person.

9. How was the speaker's son diagnosed with developmental issues?

Answer: The speaker's son was diagnosed with developmental issues by a specialist in Singapore who observed his high energy and sensory needs.

10. Why is silence important to the speaker in free diving?

Answer: The speaker experienced silence for the first time in their life when they first went underwater, and they are addicted to the quiet. The feeling of deep pressure on their body when diving is also compared to a welcoming hug.

—

TRANSCRIPT via Castmagic.io and then corrected.. somewhat, (Ooh-ooh! Fourth and likely final trial run is today June 7, 2023. #gen_AI_for_whut??

Peter Shankman [00:00:40]: Ladies and gentlemen, good morning from wherever in the world you happen to be. And welcome to their episode of Faster Than Normal. My name is Peter Shankman. It is 5:30 in the morning when I am recording this, which can only mean one thing. We are talking to someone and interviewing someone on the other side of the world, because otherwise I'd be on my bike right now. I want you guys to meet Suzy Malseed. Suzy is with us today, who is a high energy mom of twins, or Mum, as she puts it, which cold give you some idea of where we're talking to get this. She's a competitive free diver. I cannot wait to talk about that! She's a farmer, a reformed teacher, a neurodiversity advocate. She is based in Australia. Her two kids have ADHD. She's originally from New Zealand. She believes she has ADHD. She's a ferocious appetite for adventures and travel, having lived in six countries and worked and stayed in many more. Susie, good evening. Where you are. Good morning from where we are!

Suzy [00:01:26]: Hello, Peter!! How are you?

Peter Shankman [00:01:28]: It is great to have you back on the podcast. Love to talk with this. I found you because I started following you on Instagram because your Instagram is just you free diving, which is just some cool stuff. So I'm a huge fan. So thanks for taking the time today.

Suzy [00:01:42]: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

Peter Shankman [00:01:44]: So there are a lot of topics here I want to cover. Both your children, ADHD, were they diagnosed? If so, where? If so, how? How old are they? Let's start the so.

Suzy [00:01:55]: Yeah, my kids are twins and they were diagnosed pretty young, particularly my son. So he was diagnosed first, which is kind of often the case because girls present a little differently. And he was diagnosed pretty early, pretty easily, pretty obvious, if you know what I mean. Right, Add? It wasn't necessarily something that I sort of went to the doctors and said, look, I think we've got some challenges. It was actually more because they were twins and because they were a little bit premy and we were living in Singapore at the time. Oh, wow. Yeah. And so singapore is amazing. It tends to be a little bit more on the clinical side, so they're very good at tracking and than sort of thing. So they were tracking growth and checking up a lot of things. And it was actually only in quite a routine sort of pediatric appointment when the specialist just saw my son literally bouncing and just said and I just said, oh, no, he's got high energy. I have too. And they just said, yeah, but there's energy and then there's energy. And I just went, oh, okay. Anyway, so we went there with Max pretty quickly, and it helped him a lot, to be honest, because it helped us to understand his sensory needs. That was probably the biggest thing that we had to get our heads around, is his sensory needs. He was very sensitive, so there was a lot of sort of putting his fingers in the ears and high pitched noises. He was very aversive to those sort of things. But he was also a sensory seeker, so he would love contact. He would love heavy contact. And once we understood that, we could do a lot of OT him. And we did a lot of physical work with him. I ran everywhere with him, on him, a scooter and a skateboard in the pool from a very young age, and his body just responded just so well to that heavy work. So I'm very grateful for understanding….

Peter Shankman [00:03:49]: Interesting. You said than you're undiagnosed, but you probably have it like most parents when their kids are diagnosed. That's how you figured out. You're like, Wait, this sounds like me 100%.

Suzy [00:04:01]: I mean, as I was reading reading to learn more, to understand how to advocate for my son, I just sort of went, oh, my God. Well, that's me. And it was sort of the risk taking type stuff. I've never really put it all together, but I'm a very high energy person. I always have been. I've always had a ridiculous appetite for risk, but not in a stupid way. So from the outside, it might look like you're doing crazy stuff, but I've actually thought about everything I've done before I've done it. But my appetite for risk is certainly much higher than the average person. And I saw it with my son as well. He would jump off very high things, but he knows how to land, and that's the difference, right? Little parachute landing, and he's just not scared of getting hurt. And I've had the same thing. I'm not scared of getting hurt, which is probably quite weird, but when you've lived your whole life in the same body, you don't really realize how strange it is until you sort of put it all together. And it's like peeling an onion. As you get older, you realize a little bit more every year.

Peter Shankman [00:05:09]: I always think back to that great line in Shrek. Onions are like ogres. Oh, they smell. No, they have layers. But it's very true. It's a complicated peel. It's interesting. And I talk about this all the time, which is great segue into talking about free diving. I never felt any kind of sense of release until I did my first race, until I did my first skydive, until I did all these things that allowed me to get as much dopamine as I ever wanted than I was doing stuff that would get me in trouble in school. And it'd be a nice quick hit, but it'd always come with a punishment. So, yeah, when you find that thing, it changes everything. And I'm sure your kids figured that out.

Suzy [00:05:46]: Oh, absolutely. And for me, when I was at school, I mean, being a female, it's different again, like, I was the class clown, like you sort of alluded to in your book and stuff as well. It's very similar. And I never realized that I was doing it. I wouldn't have said than I was doing it to get a laugh. I was just quite flippant, and my brain just goes so fast. I would think of things very quickly. And it did get me into a fair bit of trouble, of course, but yeah. And you do realize after a while I did figure out that I was chasing adrenaline. I didn't understand that I was also chasing dopamine. So there's been a lot more come out since. Every year we learn more. So that's an interesting bit to put together.

Peter Shankman [00:06:26]: All right, speaking of dopamine, let us talk about free diving. How cool. I've never done it, but I actually can't. Funnily enough, I have something called a peritoneal shunt in my spine. I can't go below like 20ft or.

Suzy [00:06:40]: I'll.

Peter Shankman [00:06:42]: But let's talk about free diving. I first learned about free diving high, as I'm sure you're familiar with in the movie La Grande Blue. Yes, I saw that movie in college, Add. Holy shit. Did that just captivate the hell out of me. It started my love affair with Jean Renew. If you haven't seen La Grande Blue, it's one of Luke Basal's best films. Luke Basal is the guy who did the original of Fem Nikita. Not that American bullshit, but the original version, the French version. And La Grande blue launched Eric Sierra's career and launched Jean Renault's career as well. So I strongly encourage you to check out La Grand Blue. But it is about a free diver and who just has this incredible ability to go as deep as he wants and slow his heartbeat down like something like six beats a minute. The first question I want to ask it must be I'm sure the dope mean hit is amazing, but the silence must be incredible.

Suzy [00:07:39]: Yes. This is the thing. When I first went underwater was the first time in my whole life I've ever experienced silence. Like, my whole mind just went quiet. And that is what I'm probably addicted to the most, is just the quiet. I just love it. And then there's also pressure. So you're familiar with every 10 meters of depth, there's an additional atmosphere of pressure on the body right. So when we're sort of walking around on the ground, we have 1 ATM of pressure on our body. When we go 10 meters below surface, we have two atmospheres of pressure. Every 10 meters past that is an additional. So if I dive to 30 meters, I have four atmospheres of pressure on my body. Four times the pressure that we experience on the walking around on the ground. Now that feels like a giant bear hug, basically. And the really interesting thing is you either like it or you don't like it, to be honest. And I love that feeling. It's deep pressure to me. It just feels like a big welcoming hug. And that's a sensory thing for sure. So I have a few head starts, I think in terms of my natural ability to be able to be very good at the sport, sort of just drew me in from the start because I've actually been helping other people along the way. And sometimes when I watch their journey, it seems so foreign to me because it was so different to my journey. So they tell me about how scary it is and they tell me all than and I'm just like I can see that they are scared, so it's their truth. But I don't understand it because I've never had any fear around free diving. For me, it's just the most beautiful sport you could ever do.

Peter Shankman [00:09:24]: I think it's the same for Skydiving when I'm never more free. Because when I jump out of that plane, I only have two options. I'm going to live or I'm going to die. That's it. Yes.

Suzy [00:09:34]: Quite a cool feeling, right? Peter Shankman [00:09:35]: It is. It's wonderful. It's the most free I'll ever be.

Suzy [00:09:38]: Yeah.

Peter Shankman [00:09:42]: So one of the things about Skydiving, I'm assuming it's the same with Freediving, is there is a not of prep work that goes into it. And a lot of for me, it's checking my gear, it's making sure that everything's right. The point where I have dreams about it. And my parents, once when they came to, they weren't too happy I was doing it. But when they first came to watch me, they told me were shocked at how meticulous I was because I was never that meticulous for anything in my life. And all of a sudden I'm here checking all my gear and I'm doing double check and triple check. So I'm curious, do you have routines before you go? You don't just jump in the water and dive. So do you have things that you do to sort of get your head right, to get into that zone to get ready to go?

Suzy [00:10:24]: Yeah. The cool thing with free diving is we don't have a lot of gear. So that's pretty cool. Compared to scuba diving or technical diving. They have a lot of gear. They have all of that check check stuff. We don't have that. But obviously we have to go through our own process. The process that I go through is basically I would consider it. I was very deep meditation. So it is my way of connecting in my mind, my body and my breath. I get a feeling in my body and then I know I'm okay, I'm ready. Everything's like you just quieten down, everything. And then your heart rate flows. It's called a mammalian dive reflex. So every human gets this. When you hop in the water and immerse your face you'll get a 30% drop in heart rate. That's a given, right? Everyone gets that? Yeah.

Peter Shankman [00:11:11]: Wow. When you're in the water say it again, say it again.

Suzy [00:11:16]: So when you immerse your face in water you get a 30% drop in heart rate.

Peter Shankman [00:11:22]: That is incredible. Why?!

Suzy [00:11:24]: It's genetic. So it goes back to when we were little, whatever you think we were before. A little fishy somewhere along the line. Yes. It's called the mammalian mammal. Mammalian dive reflex. MDR. Yes, I've heard of that.

Peter Shankman [00:11:39]: Okay.

Suzy [00:11:39]: Yeah, no I know!

Peter Shankman [00:11:40]: 30%. That's amazing.

Suzy [00:11:42]: It's a big drop and so that's a real thing. So that sense of comfort and feeling like you're really supposed to be there comes over you. And then of course I suppose one of the other reasons I just love the sport so much is how much your body adapts is just you have so much respect for your body. So your body can adapt to pressure. Obviously we take one breath at the surface and that breath has got to carry us through all of the equalizations of our masks, our sinuses, our ears all the way down to the bottom and then all the way back. And the more you dive, the more you free dive, the more your body adapts to what you're asking it to do. And that happens with everything that we do, as you would know with your own body and your training. And free diving is perhaps an extreme example of that because when you take your breath on the surface and you leave, it's just you and it's like jumping out of a plane. It's just you. There's no one to blame, it's no one else, it's just you. And like you said to me, it's just so freeing. I go very silent and very quiet in that response. And are you good in emergencies and things like that. Like do you have that same sort of response where whenever everyone else panic.

Peter Shankman [00:13:04]: I'm perfect in emergencies I'm terrible at real life.

Suzy [00:13:07]: Exactly.

Peter Shankman [00:13:08]: But throw an emergency there and I'm the guy you want.

Suzy [00:13:11]: Correct? Yeah. And I'm exactly the same and I figured that out along my life as well. Everyone. And when I was a kid I used to tell myself, I don't know why, but I live in opposite land and that's just how I prioritize it on my head. So someone else would go yay, we're having a massive party. And I would go oh my god.

Peter Shankman [00:13:28]: Exactly. Well you know, you just made me realize something. I think that part of that might be because when you're in an emergency, you don't have time for social anxiety. There's never any small talk in the emergency.

Suzy [00:13:40]: True. Yeah.

Peter Shankman [00:13:42]: I just realized that there's no small talk in emergency. It's get shit done now.

Suzy [00:13:46]: Yes. And we can be who we really are, like instead of niceties. And the other one I wanted to touch with you is travel. So I know that you're a massive traveler and I'm the same and quite extreme stuff as well. Probably when I look back in it, I have an appetite for that. And I think it boils down to the same sort of really ridiculous survival instinct which I quite enjoy, which is basically you're only going to eat when you figure out how to go get the food that you want to get and how to make yourself understood.

Peter Shankman [00:14:16]: That's kind of a cool thing very much. I love that. What else? What am I not asking you about? Freediving? I don't know enough about it to know what to ask you. What am I not asking?

Suzy [00:14:29]: Okay, so I think that ADHD is quite highly represented in free diving, to be honest. When I consider other free divers and I look around I see a lot of people who are like me and I believe that we're all drawn to the sport for the same reason, which is like a form of sensory deprivation, if you know what I mean. A lot of times we're actually diving in black water and that freaks some people really out. But we just close our eyes and I suppose how do you do that? Well, you have to find a way to surrender. You have to understand than the more you relax, the better your dive will be, the more tense you are, the worse your dive will be. So you have to switch off and there really is no choice. And if anything happens when you're under the water like I've had a couple of little incidences along the way. I had this time when I was swimming through a wreck and it was a fun dive with some other free divers and as I was going through the wreck and coming up through the wheelhouse, the back of my fin came off and I was sort of like it just came over me. I'm like, oh my God, I'm 30 meters down. I've already been here for at least a minute and now I only have one fin. If I panic, I'm toast. And you just go through that process and you're like, right, I have to cross my legs to make you can picture yourself crossing your legs and than do the dolphin movement to make your one fin work and just get yourself to the surface fast. And you just know that you have no space for panic so you have to stay calm.

Peter Shankman [00:16:10]: I'm panicking listening to that story and I get it. I mean, you're in a position like same thing with Skydiving. Knock on wood. I haven't had to use my reserve yet, 500 jumps, but I'm sure at some point I will and I'll know what to do. But yeah, I mean, I guess it's that premise of what is your other option? Right? There is no other option.

Suzy [00:16:30]: That's right. There's no other option.

Peter Shankman [00:16:32]: Add, it's interesting because we worry about I'm sitting here, I'm listening to you. I'm like, Jessa, Christ, it's 98ft underwater, and she loses a fin. And I'm thinking you can't stop to get it right. You just sort of have to let it go. And so, okay, do what you have to do. Right. And this is what you train for.

Suzy [00:16:50]: That's right.

Peter Shankman [00:16:51]: And again, there's no small talk. There's no, oh, what would you rather do? There's no oh, honey, I don't know. What do you want to eat tonight? No, it's get out. Yeah, right. So you make than work. No, it makes perfect sense. But Jessa, 98ft of door. It's it's so funny. The only thing that that really physically scares me to the point where I can't even watch it is these guys who do sunken wet cave diving where they wear the air and they go into these ridiculously tight. And there's always a story, like people who have died doing that. I'm watching them skirt through these caves that are like they have half an inch above them. They have to take off the air bottle and put it next. What is wrong with you people? Yeah, I'll go jump into a perfectly plane because I'm not going to get Stuck through the middle of the earth, Jessa. Peter Shankman [00:17:47]: But, yeah, I get the freedom. I totally get the freedom that you feel it. But again, Steven, free diving is more freedom because you're not stuck in between the middle of the earth. I don't know.

Suzy [00:17:56]: That's right.

Peter Shankman [00:17:57]: Anyway, I want to be respectful of your time. Suzy, this was amazing. What a great story. I really like to have you back, if at all possible. Next time I'm down under, next time in Australia, I'm coming to visit, no question about it. You can take me out of the water.

Peter Shankman [00:18:09]: That would be awesome.

Suzy [00:18:10]: Absolutely. Yeah. We've got some nice things.

Peter Shankman [00:18:12]: Thank you so much for taking the time. I really, really appreciate it.

Suzy [00:18:15]: Thank you, Peter. Keep up the good work.

Peter Shankman [00:18:17]: Thank you, guys. As always. Faster Than Normal is intended for you and yours! Shoot me, email. Let me know you want to hear. Peter Petershankman.com. I'm at Peter Shankman everywhere but Twitter, because Twitter sucks. Now, Add, if you're on Blue Sky, you can find me there, too. Let us know what you want to hear faster than most for you. We'll see you guys next week. ADHD is a gift on a curse, and I'd rather here's my new quote. I would rather a child start therapy at an early age and learn that they're brilliant than spend the next 30 years undoing the belief that they're broken. We'll see you soon, guys. Stay safe.

—

Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at shankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week!

Having ADD or ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Hear from people all around the globe, from every walk of life, in every profession, from Rock Stars to CEOs, from Teachers to Politicians, who have learned how to unlock the gifts of their ADD and ADHD diagnosis, and use it to their personal and professional advantage, to build businesses, become millionaires, or simply better their lives.

Our Guest today: Morgan Hancock is a commercial Real Estate Agent, Entrepreneur, US Army Veteran, Mother-of-two, "Bourbonista" , and passionate advocate of the Arts. She is a charismatic force who can completely capture a room, radiating positivity with a disarming demeanor and sharp sense of humor. Growing up as an only child in a small town, Morgan spent much of her time alone reading, writing, and creating. With an overactive imagination and natural talent, art became an early passion. Taking an atypical path to her current success, Morgan has never let her context stand in the way of her ambition. She believes that art, like life, is only limited by your imagination, and it's up to you to create your own world. Morgan created Bourbon with Heart as a way to leverage the influence and popularity of Bourbon, in order to raise funds, bring awareness, educate, provide better access and deliver a first-class Arts experience to every person in Kentucky! Regardless of age, race, class, gender, or ability.

About the company: Bourbon with Heart is Kentucky's first & only arts-focused bourbon charity. Bourbon with Heart's (501c3) mission is to leverage the influence and popularity of Bourbon to raise funds, bring awareness, educate, provide better access and deliver a first-class arts experience to every person in Kentucky regardless of age, race, class, gender, or ability. This interview was a blast! [Ed: and made my Producer/Editor a little emotional]. Enjoy and thanks so much for subscribing to Faster Than Normal! [you are now here ]

00:40 - Thank you again so much for listening and for subscribing!

02:00 - Introducing and welcome Morgan Hancock, Founder & Director

Bourbon with Heart, Inc.

02:33 - Thank you for your Service! [And to all of you who served- your family too if applicable!]

03:25 - On service and Peter's training. "My ADHD probably would have been I would have served me well to have been in some branch of the military, just for the discipline" -ps

04:17 - What's it like to be ADHD and in place w/ such discipline, such rigid controls; like the Army?

04:24 - And... we're now flying over Giza! Ref: https://www.instagram.com/p/B34UmeQlZE_/

05:09 - When were you diagnosed?

06:04 - A little of Morgan's backstory

07:09 - On The Military

08:02 - On becoming a very young mother

09:03 - On parenting, and a couple of exciting childhoods

11:12 - Ok, I wanna know about Bourbon with Heart?!

12:53 - How's your company doing?

14:17 - Peter's toughest day in Louisville… almost a decade ago

15:05 - What if any advice would you have for your younger self?

16:27 - This was fantastic.. thank you Morgan. Please stay in touch!

17:01 - How do our spectacular subscribers find out more about you?

Web: https://bourbonwithheart.org Email: [email protected]

Socials: @bourbonwithheart on INSTA YouTube and Facebook

17:11 - Thank you so much for making time for all of us today Morgan!!

17:18 - Hey, you there! Yes YOU! We are thrilled that you are here & listening!

ADHD and all forms of Neurodiversity are gifts, not curses. And by the way, if you haven't picked up The Boy with the Faster Brain yet, it is on Amazon and it is a number one bestseller in all categories. Click HERE or via https://amzn.to/3FcAKkI My link tree is here if you're looking for something specific. https://linktr.ee/petershankman

17:24 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits. Guys, as always thanks so much for subscribing! Faster Than Normal is for YOU! We want to know what you'd like to hear! Do you have a cool friend with a great story? We'd love to learn about, and from them. I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via email at [email protected] or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse!

[ Ed: This is a relatively brand new experiment in editing show notes, transcriptions sort of; so if you notice any important, or significant goofs we've missed here or along, please do let us know @FasterNormal Thanks! -sb]

—

TRANSCRIPT via Castmagic.io and then corrected.. somewhat, (Ooh-ooh! Third and likely final trial run is today May 30, 2023. #gen_AI_for_whut??

Peter Shankman [00:00:40]: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to their episode of faster than normal. How about we raise a glass of bourbon today? I don't actually well, that's not true. I've had bourbon. I like bourbon, but like most things, I rarely drink anymore, because, as we know, I don't just have one drink.

Peter Shankman [00:00:58]: We are talking today on this gorgeous day I'm recording on a Thursday. I'm doing all my recordings on a Thursday this week, and it's it's beautiful out. It's it's about 68 degrees in New York. It's sunny and a cloud in the sky. It's a gorgeous day, and I'm inside recording all day. And this Saturday, it's going to be raining into the 40s. It's like god's personal gag reel. I just don't I don't understand the universe sometimes. Anyway, we have a fun guest on faster than normal day.

We are talking to Morgan Hancock. Morgan Hancock is a plethora of things. I believe that everyone should make it an effort to use the word plethora at least once a day. Morgan includes you. I want you to start using the word plethora.

Morgan [00:01:39]: At least I use it five times a day.

Peter Shankman [00:01:40]: There you go. I like her!

Morgan is a commercial real estate agent. She's an entrepreneur. She's an Army veteran. She's a mother of two. She's a get this "Bourbonista", okay, which has to be my new favorite word. And she's a passionate advocate of the arts. She launched something called bourbon with heart. It's Kentucky's first and only arts focused bourbon charity. Bourbon with heart's mission is to leverage the influence and popularity of bourbon to raise funds, bring awareness, educate, provide better access, and deliver a first class arts experience to every person in Kentucky, regardless of age, race, class, gender, or ability. I absolutely love that. As a public school kid who grew up in the performing arts, I think that is hands down, one of the coolest things I've ever heard. Oh and by the way, Morgan also has massive ADHD. Welcome to the show. We're thrilled to have you.

Morgan [00:02:33]: Thank you. And let me we started by saying we are Kentucky's first and only arts focused bourbon charity. But pretty sure we could just claim the world because I'm almost 100% certain nobody in the world has an Arts focused Bourbon charity.

Peter Shankman [00:02:52]: I'm pretty sure I've never heard of one. I haven't been looking, but I'd be willing to bet that you're probably right on that. I'm talking to Morgan today and she's has her camera on. I'm looking in the background. She has this gorgeous her desk is full of stuff and she has this gorgeous collection of color swatches adorning her wall where normal in any other room it would be at a place. For some reason, it just seems to fit her style. She looks awesome as she's talking to us and it just seems to work. So, welcome to the podcast. We're thrilled to have you here. First question I got to ask you. So you're an army vet? Thank you for your service.

Number one.But more importantly, let's talk about I've Often said that looking back on it.

My ADHD probably would have been I would have served me well to have been in some branch of the military. Just for the discipline. Because when I was in my late.Twenty s, I met a former Navy.Seal who was teaching a boot camp class in New York City. Come to New York, he lived in Houston, came New York four times a year for two weeks at a time, and taught a boot camp class.And it was basically like being in the field for two straight weeks every Morning for two weeks. And I remember, granted, it was only 2 hours a day as opposed to in your aspect, 24/7, but the discipline that he required from us has stuck with me to this day. He's the reason I'm early. Everywhere I go, he's the reason that I'm not on time, I'm early and things like that So I don't know if you were Diagnosed by the time you entered the army, but let's first and foremost talk About what it's like to be in A place with such discipline and such rigid controls. Like the army, like the military, with ADHD.

Morgan [00:04:24]: Okay, well, first, it's a little awkward to people that can't see. So I'm just talking to you while you're jumping out of a plane in.

Peter Shankman [00:04:33]: Egypt over the pyramids of Giza.Yes.

Morgan [00:04:35]:

So I've never interviewed with someone who's actually in the air over Giza. This is school for the people listening. His camera is not live right now, so he has the placeholder photo, which is him, skydiving or parasailing, I can't tell in Egypt. So I feel like that's I'm interviewing with him while he's doing that. I feel like really boring over here right now.

Peter Shankman [00:05:07]: Not at all!

Morgan [00:05:09]: So, to answer your question, I wasn't diagnosed by that time. I wasn't diagnosed until I was 31. And I'm 37 almost, will be in a couple of months. My personality, if that's what you call it, did not do well in the military. I was constantly in trouble. I got transferred. I'll just say I got kicked out of a platoon, put in a different platoon. I was always on the verge of being written up for different issues. Bu. I made it. I served my time. I got honorable discharge. I made it. But I don't suggest it. The military as a place for people.

Peter Shankman [00:05:56]: With ADHD, why were you constantly getting written up? Was it lack of attention? Was it lack of focus? What was causing it?

Morgan [00:06:04]: Yeah, all the above and just kind of my whole life struggling with authority or any type of rigid systems and structured and just always kind of bouncing all over the place and kind of always being the class clown type, which really doesn't go over in the military. They just don't have a good sense of humor, I'll say that.

Peter Shankman [00:06:36]: So basically your time in the military was like my time in school.

Morgan [00:06:39]: Yeah, if you were a class clown, then yeah, I just tried to be a class clown in the military, and drill sergeants don't appreciate that. There's not like a superlative or you can win class clown. There's awards, honors and medals, but not for class clown and not for the funniest.

Peter Shankman [00:07:00]: You got through it, though, right? Was there a point where you realized, gee, maybe I should shut up. Maybe I should stop making jokes?

Morgan [00:07:09]: Yeah, because my arts and legs would hurt because of the punishments. And then because they do mass punishment.

Peter Shankman [00:07:22]: Everyone had to do it.

Morgan [00:07:23]: And you were getting trouble. Yeah, I thought, maybe I shouldn't do this, but then it's like I just couldn't resist either, so I just stayed in trouble and just don't recommend that's really my review of being in the military.

Peter Shankman [00:07:44]: But you did it. You got through it. You got through it. Congratulations.

Morgan [00:07:47]: I did it, yeah. By the skin of my teeth, I got out of there.

Peter Shankman [00:07:52]:

So talk about; your an Army veteran, and prior to that you had a kid.

Morgan [00:08:02]: Yeah, so I was 15 with my first son. I have two. One is 20 years old now. So it's crazy because we grew up together, and then I have a 13 year old, so I got pregnant with my second son also while I was in the military. I had one before I joined and than the second one during.

Peter Shankman [00:08:30]: Are you married? Are you single?

Morgan [00:08:32]: I'm not married, but not single. What do you call that?

Peter Shankman [00:08:37]: Cohabitation? Doesn't matter. I guess the question I was going to ask is, what is it like raising a kid, a, when you're young. And by that, I mean, I've raised my Daughter when I've had ADHD, but I also had her at almost 40 years old.

Right.

So I had a little more life experience under my belt. What was that like for you? What were some of the, I guess, difficulties that you had to go through?

I can't imagine anyone having a kid at 15, bet it wasn't easy, but what was it like for you?

Morgan [00:09:03]: Right. I know it couldn't have been easy. If you just look at the facts of it, there's no way it could have been easy, but it's weird because honestly, sometimes it's just hard to remember. I think also when you're young, you just don't think about things being hard, you just do them and you just don't think, oh, this is now. If I had to do it now, I'd be like moaning and groaning, complaining about every step of the way. But I think when you're young, you're different. Maybe you're just a little more adaptable. But he had to go on some wild rides with me. I was always kind of rebelling or doing things against the norm and having a new phase or interest every other month or couple of months. So he definitely did not have a traditional upbringing. I pulled him out of school for many years to do homeschooling, if that's what you call it. I don't know how you exactly define homeschooling. We weren't in school. We'll say that.

Peter Shankman [00:10:16]: It sounds like it was interesting, though, for him. It sounds like it was never boring.

Morgan [00:10:19]: Oh, no, definitely not. I think it was called 'unschooling' at that time, and it was just the reason I did that is because school just wasn't beneficial to me. If anything, it felt a lot like wasted time. And he was also just a very passionate person like me. And so I just knew that school in a lot of ways was going to hold him back the way I felt it did for me. So he really didn't go to school most of his life, and I don't have any regrets of that decision. I think he's one of the most mature, just turned 20 year olds than I know. He pays all his own bills. He has a fantastic job making more than most 40 year olds I know.

Peter Shankman [00:11:12]: Yeah, I want to talk about Bourbon with heart. So a nonprofit to help the arts is always an amazing thing!! I mean, I'm on the board of a couple of them here in New York, but why bourbon? What's your connection to bourbon other than Kentucky?

Morgan [00:11:31]: Well, if you live in Kentucky, as you said, you can't help but be impacted by bourbon. It's a huge part of our culture, of our economy. I love bourbon. I've been a fan of bourbon since well, I can't say how long, because we'll just say since I legally could be. And bourbon in Kentucky has this kind of incredible power to people really unite around it, because, as I said, it is a culture and it brings people together. And there's this bond than bourbon forms, and art does the same thing. Art unites people and brings people together. And one thing that people, everyone in the world knows Kentucky is the leader of the bourbon industry, but people don't realize we have a really rich and thriving arts culture in Kentucky and a ton of talent. So we took bourbon with heart, got them as a way to leverage that existing popularity and influence of bourbon to then bring the awareness and educate people and raise funds for the local art scene. And it's working.

Peter Shankman [00:12:53]: How is it working?

Morgan [00:12:54]: It's working because it has been met with so much support and enthusiasm. I mean, people just naturally when we launched this, I did not expect the rapid success and for everyone to just be so to just embrace it with open arms. I mean, corporations, our local businesses, the distilleries, the media, the artists in our community, and everyone just has embraced us with open arms and everyone's all of a sudden, wow, art and bourbon was such a natural marriage. And so many things are just growing from this initial concept. We're on our fourth exhibit this year. We're already over $100,000 that we've raised this year. And we have some really huge partnerships coming with big community players coming up in the coming years or next year. It's bringing people together that you would not typically see in the same room. And that's a beautiful thing. And let me also I don't know if you mentioned this, but yes, we raise funds and we raise awareness for the local arts community, but we raise funds for other local nonprofits. So we've given away almost $45,000 to other nonprofits that aren't arts related.

Peter Shankman [00:14:12]: Very cool. That's a phenomenal what a cool concept. Marrying the two. You wouldn't really think it's funny but, I want to say I have a love hate relationship with Kentucky, but primarily just a hate relationship. In 2014, I ran the Louisville Ironman and it was the last year they ever did it in the summer because the starting temperature was 104 degrees and it was hands down the most painful and difficult Iron Man Triathlon I've ever done in my life. And I remember being back at the airport after it was over and saying, I am never I don't even want to fly over Louisville. It was so hot and so miserable. But I got through it. And the people there were wonderful as they rescued my dehydrated ass from nearly dying. So great people, but your weather sucks ass.

Morgan [00:15:03]: That being said, I agree.

Peter Shankman [00:15:05]: What a cool concept and I'm so glad we took the time. Let me ask you one final question, Morgan. Let's say you're walking down the street and you come across a 15 year old who is much like you were at 15, undiagnosed ADHD, school, bores her. Things really, aren't you're not really seeing what's out there and you want more. You just don't know how to get it. What do you tell her?

Morgan [00:15:27]: You're not going to find it in that boy. Start with that. That's probably what she's needing to hear at than point that's honestly one of the main things. And then just chase your passions because basically what I've had to do. All the energy that fuels and drives me now to make me successful in these endeavors. Bourbon with heart. It's really kind of the same energy that got me in trouble in the past. I just learned how to harness it for more positive, socially acceptable, not self damaging things. I would tell them to take that energy and harness it. They can still let it all out, but harness it for something that's not going to get you in trouble.

Peter Shankman [00:16:25]: I love that. Morgan Hancock, this was an honest pleasure. Thank you so much. I'd love to have you back at some point.

Morgan [00:16:31]: Thank you. Thank you.

Peter Shankman [00:16:32]: Awesome guys. As always.

Faster Than Normal is for you. We want to know who you want to hear other really cool people like Morgan. Send us a note. I am [email protected]. I am at Peter Shankman on all the Socials except Twitter. I don't use it anymore because it's evil. At FasterNormal everywhere as well, including instagram. Everywhere. Everywhere in the world that social media exists except Twitter. We will be back next week with another awesome episode and another awesome guest just like Morgan. Oh, Morgan! How can people find you?!

Morgan [00:17:01]: 17:01 - How do our spectacular subscribers find out more about you? Web: https://bourbonwithheart.org Email: [email protected]

Socials: @bourbonwithheart on INSTA YouTube and Facebook

Peter Shankman [00:17:11]: Very cool guys. We will see you next week. As always, thanks for listening. ADHD is a gift, not a curse. All neurodiversity is amazing. You're not broken, you're brilliant. See you next week.

—

Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at shankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week!

Having ADD or ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Hear from people all around the globe, from every walk of life, in every profession, from Rock Stars to CEOs, from Teachers to Politicians, who have learned how to unlock the gifts of their ADD and ADHD diagnosis, and use it to their personal and professional advantage, to build businesses, become millionaires, or simply better their lives.

Our Guest today: Konrad runs a charming team of strategic word-slingers, known as The Creative Copywriter. They're a fast-growing content strategy and copywriting agency that blend art with science to help bold brands sell more stuff. Brands like Adidas, Hyundai, TikTok, Geox, Les Benjamins, Superdrug, PTC, Thomson Reuters, VMWare and plenty more. His mission? To break the boundaries of corporate dullness. And help companies pierce through the noise with 'real talk', 'word science' and calculated creativity. We're also taking about how to harness and Neurodiverse Superpower techniques today.. duh. Enjoy and thanks so much for subscribing to Faster Than Normal! [ you are here ]

00:40 - Thank you again so much for listening and for subscribing!

00:57 - Introducing and welcome Konrad Sanders!

01:34 - What do you do when you run a creative company and have ADHD?

02:00 - How are you Konrad?

03:02 - What's your back story? Ok, your business's back story then!

04:00 - Incredible procrastinator also? Tell us in the comments!

04:40 - On life and Travelogue

05:20 - On career beginnings

06:40 - On meeting his business partner and wife! Who is NOT ADHD or Neurodiverse…

09:50 - On the ADHD/Neurodiverse brain and a non-neurodiverse partner

10:37 - What makes it work.. I mean your marriage + biz partnership; what 5 tools do you use?!

11:27 - The steps Konrad has taken and processes they is practicing

12:32 - Ref: Gemba Kaizen and Techniques

14:37 - On dividing up the day-to-day work responsibilities, time management, ah, + hyperfocus!

17:16 - How do our spectacular subscribers find out more about you?

Web: www.konradsanders.com Email: [email protected]

Socials: https://www.linkedin.com/in/konradsanders/

18:00 - Thank you so much for making time for all of us today Konrad.

[Konrad has kindly shared a few of his links/works with you and here they are]:

WATCH/LISTEN: Speaking with Tyler from Yes Optimist! On sales funnels: https://youtu.be/R8DXWhT_NAY

Panel discussion with The Fountain Partnership on the state of SaaS Marketing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrqYKxBKsuU&t=1s

How to make your content zig when the industry zags with Sales Impact Academy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdT6W7OJNeY

How to make money writing online with Teachable: https://discover.teachable.com/workshops/make-money-writing-how-to-turn-your-word-skills-into-wages

How Konrad copes with ADHD as a CEO and founder: https://deezer.page.link/3EByB6ncxtm26D4L9

How Konrad builds business brand based on demand (Brand Harder or Go Home)

https://street.agency/podcast/brand-harder-or-go-home-with-konrad-sanders/

READ: The 13 Lenses approach to writing content that converts on Neal Schaffer: https://nealschaffer.com/how-to-create-content/

Are B2B SaaS Marketers getting it wrong on Tech Crunch: https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/26/are-b2b-saas-marketers-getting-it-wrong/

Why your marketers should stop marketing on The Drum: https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2021/10/14/why-marketers-should-stop-marketing

18:44 - Hey, you there! Yes YOU! We are thrilled that you are here & listening!

ADHD and all forms of Neurodiversity are gifts, not curses. And by the way, if you haven't picked up The Boy with the Faster Brain yet, it is on Amazon and it is a number one bestseller in all categories. Click HERE or via https://amzn.to/3FcAKkI My link tree is here if you're looking for something specific. https://linktr.ee/petershankman

18:46 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits. Guys, as always thanks so much for subscribing! Faster Than Normal is for YOU! We want to know what you'd like to hear! Do you have a cool friend with a great story? We'd love to learn about, and from them. I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via email at [email protected] or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse!

[ Ed: This is a relatively brand new experiment in editing show notes, transcriptions sort of; so if you notice any important, or significant goofs we've missed here or along, please do let us know @FasterNormal Thanks! -sb]

—

TRANSCRIPT via Castmagic.io and then corrected.. somewhat, (Ooh-ooh! Second trial run is today May 23, 2023. #gen_AI_for_whut?? —

Summary:

- Background in philosophy, copywriting, and SEO.

- The challenges the speaker faced due to ADHD and how it helped him understand his limitations and strengths.

- Medication and ADHD coach.

- A lean management approach and agile process.

- Difficulties with time management and hyperfocusing.

- Struggles with planning and organization in personal life.

- "The Boy with the Faster Brain" and its success in sales.

- Acknowledging the challenge of living or working with someone who has a brain different from yours.

- The importance of acknowledging the struggles of non-ADHD partners or colleagues.

- The speaker's tendency to go off on tangents during conversations."

—

Peter Shankman [00:00:40]: Hey everyone, Peter Shankman here. Welcome to another episode of Faster Than Normal. Glad to have you. It is a Friday here. We're recording on a different day for a change, but it is kind of gray and gloomy outside, so what better thing to do than be inside talking to cool people? Today we have Conrad Sanders. Conrad has an interesting backstory. He's masali ADHD and he runs a company, as he puts it, a charming team of strategic word slingers known as the Creative Copywriter. His company is a fast growing strategy and copywriting agency that blends art with science to help bold brands sell more stuff. He has clients like Adidas, Hyundai, TikTok, A, Superdrug, PTC, Thompson, Reuters, VMware so names, you know, he tries to break the boundaries of corporate dullness. I love that. What do you do when you run a creative company and you are ADHD? I have discovered this when I was running Help a Reporter Out about twelve years ago now, problem is, you're so creative tend to forget the day to day. And so I want to ask Conrad and I want you guys to hear how he handles that. So welcome, Konrad. Good to have you.

Konrad Sanders [00:01:50]: Yeah, thanks for having me. I'll just say that I'm across the pond. You might be able to tell from my accent. And believe it or not, it is a rare sunny day here on this.

Peter Shankman [00:02:00]: I was going to say yeah, I figured it would be cloudy and rainy just like it is here, but no, you have a sunny day in London. Nice.

Konrad Sanders [00:02:05]: Yeah, we've had the worst weather this year possible, but the skies have opened up and the sun is shining, so I can't complain.

Peter Shankman [00:02:14]: I'm hoping it stays that way. I'm going to be there on Sunday, so please keep it that way if you could.

Konrad Sanders [00:02:18]: I'll do my best.

Peter Shankman [00:02:19]: All right, so tell me about running a company when you're ADHD, because I know my story, but every story is different. Tell me your backstory. When were you diagnosed? The whole thing?

Konrad Sanders [00:02:29]: Yeah, I mean, I think if I tell you my backstory, I think it's probably best to start with the backstory of the business. Like how that kind of started because I was only diagnosed a year and a half ago. Okay. I think that the diagnosis once I got it, it made a lot of sense, right? Once I kind of understood more about ADHD, looking back at my journey, my life journey, things made a lot more sense. It explained a lot, essentially. But shall I start with kind of the beginnings of the creative copywriter? I'll try to be succinct story and how I've got to where I am today. So I think it all helps you understand my journey and where I'm at and how we operate now. So I'll start off the uni left uni. I studied philosophy at Uni. I was one of the kind of guy that didn't go to found it very hard to go to lectures when it came to writing essays. I always left it literally to the last day and would drink loads of coffee. And I was good at kind of cutting corners and good at writing. Right? And I was good at cramming things in. Obviously, this is a sort of trait of having ADHD, leaving things the last minute and only being good at working under pressure, but being extremely good once, I'm very pressured again. I didn't know at the time I had ADHD. I just thought I was an incredible kind of procrastinator. I just didn't really understand why I could never start a project until it was, like, right at the last very minute. So Left Uni went traveling in Australia, all around Australia, met my wife well, she's now my wife, a girlfriend at the time, and she's also the managing director of the agency. So she's played a very important role in my life for many reasons. She also has a very different brain to me, to mine even. And anyway, we met traveling in Australia. She's from Israel originally. So I ended up there after two years of being in Australia, traveling Southeast Asia on a shoestring budget, literally, and ended up in her parents house in Israel without a work visa because it took a while to apply for one. And that's when I basically discovered the art and science of copywriting and SEO and kind of combined those things to sort of start a business and start an online business, which has kind of grown since Than and later in that journey. So I was kind of very good at kind of the sales, the marketing, the ideas. And actually, what some people don't know about me and my kind of entrepreneurial journey, which I'll share for you guys, is that that wasn't the only business idea I had. Right? There were plenty of the things, and I definitely had shiny object syndrome. And early on in the journey of our agency and I started as a freelancer, quickly kind of wanted to grow it and managed to kind of turn Than into a collective, gradually was building an agency. But I had what we call what I call shiny object syndrome, right? I was like, anything that came my way, I wanted to jump on and was hugely optimistic with time, which is again a common trait and terrible with time. So there was a point at which, believe it or not, I was kind of a co founder of, I believe, five different businesses, right, because there would be friends going, hey, why don't you join the Brcmo for this? And it made no sense, right? It didn't make sense. You can't really focus, and focus is extremely important as a business owner. And I gradually kind of understood that I was burning out, basically, I was doing too many things, spreading myself way too thin, doing far too many things, and then kind of matured a bit and understood I need to focus on the agency. That's the only thing making money. There's lots of potential there and a key milestone, right? A key ingredient in this sort of recipe or this journey, was my wife joining in 2017, and she has a very different brain to me. And she was in the NGO world prior to that, trying to solve the conflicts in her region. Didn't manage to do so. Kind of felt disillusioned with that whole NGO sort of world. And I said, hey, why don't you join us? It's when we're a small kind of, I think, a few person agency at the time and using freelancers, why don't you join? I know you're good with project management, that kind of stuff, right? You've got an operational type brain, so we could probably do with a bit of that. She joined just part time to fill in for someone, and the first week we were just clashing high, massive arguments. Why is it so chaotic? Why is it so chaotic? And I said, I was like, Babe, that's just agency life, you have to get used to it. And there was maybe a slither of truth in what I was saying, but for the most part it was because I was running it with my ADHD brain. And my second in command was also a creative and further along on that kind of spectrum, let's say. And we were going around putting out fires in a very charming way. We're very good at putting out fires, but rather than preempting them, rather than building process, right? And there were loads of parts of the business that I just wouldn't even look at, like finances. My brain wasn't interested. I wasn't interested in that. I was interested in the big ideas, the schmoozing, the charming, that kind of stuff. And there were holes, there were gaping holes in business, which I didn't even see at the time because my brain was kind of and I was closed off to it, I didn't want to see it. So things like money owed, right, I thought was money in the bank and there was debt, right? There were people owed us money and I was like, oh, yeah, they'll pay it, it's fine. And I didn't want to chase them up because I wasn't interested in the invoicing and things like that. So gaping holes which my wife discovered and she kind of naturally lent into that side of the business. What happened was the became the integrator and I was the visionary. And it actually worked really well after we got past the blazing rouse and kind of found our strengths and kind of limitations. And she helped me really understand where mine were and are. And she kind of obviously knows me on a personal level. So kind of it made a lot of sense. She started together with me building structure for the business, like processes lasering on the building process and making sure that we follow through and those processes are followed through. And gradually what happened was we built structure and then we started to grow that's properly. When we started growing as an agency, we've hit 40% growth since then and we're kind of approaching the 2 million mark now. I owe a lot of that to having someone like NIT Sam, Marga Hart and her very different kind of brain complementing.

Peter Shankman [00:09:46]: Let me interrupt you for a second because that actually brings up a really interesting point. You work and partner with someone both personally and professionally yes.

Konrad Sanders [00:09:55]: Right.

Peter Shankman [00:09:55]: Who has the complete opposite brain that you do. I think there is not a listener in this podcast who doesn't want to know five ways to make that work, because that is not easy. Forget about just one. Like living with someone with a different brain or working with someone with a different brain and you've chosen to do both things. And the fact that your partner hasn't thrown themselves out of a window yet is when you're ADHD it is difficult. We don't often talk about how difficult it can be for the other person.

Konrad Sanders [00:10:34]: Yeah.

Peter Shankman [00:10:34]: So tell us what makes it work?

Konrad Sanders [00:10:38]: I think that's a great point to make. And I write LinkedIn posts about my ADHD quite a lot and I actually wanted to write one specifically on that. There's a lot of neurodiversity awareness at the moment, which is brilliant and it's great. And I almost want to do kind of partners of people who have neurodiversity awareness because yeah, and you said, like, she hasn't thrown herself out of a window yet. But I'll be honest, it's come close to that. But again, both based on our work life and personal life and often they're kind of woven into each other naturally. So how have we avoided that? I think, first of all, awareness of how my brain works. I did get diagnosed a couple of years ago. That made a big difference, even for myself, because in terms of understanding really where those we knew where the limitations were. We knew what I wasn't good at. Right. But there wasn't an explanation. And I think you know as to why. And I think when you understand why and I am on medication, and that's definitely helped. I also have ADHD coaching and that's really helped as well because it's someone else who's an accountability partner rather than just my partner in my personal life that's been really crucial and it's really been life changing for me having an ADHD coach because at work we built these processes, right? So there's something about building a business where even with my ADHD brain I really wanted to succeed. I know process is important and I know than following is important as much as my brain doesn't want to. And we have just this lean management approach, we take this agile approach based on like Gemba Kaizen, the Japanese business management philosophy where when there are hiccups, we call them Oopsies. Whenever there's something inefficient a hiccup, something has not quite gone wrong. Rather than blaming each other or blaming team members, we write it down on a slack thread and two weeks later we tackle it in this level ten meeting where we look at the problem, what was the root of the problem, how do we then preempt that issue for next time? Let's work it into a process and who in the team is going to take care of that? Two weeks later it's done, right? So it's this very very lean approach to kind of we call it the quest for perfection. You can ever be perfect bu if you're on that quest, it really really helps. And that was something we installed quite early. And I think that back to your question. I think that's one of the ways where we've perhaps avoided killing each other because we have this approach to business where if something's gone wrong and it might have been caused by me and it might be caused by something that hasn't been conducive to how my brain works, but it's written down and we tackle it and we think about what's the process that would be good for avoiding that. So I'll give you an example back in the day, for many years I'm in charge of getting the business in, right? Nita is in charge of making sure we deliver, you know, great results essentially to simplify it. And back in the day I used to do the proposals and a proposal is a project that has many different parts and that is not good. I'm not great at doing that, especially when it comes to time management, way, way too optimistic and also I would hyper focus on the wrong things, right? My brain wouldn't want to write the proposal, I'd be sitting there spending I could spend 4 hours adjusting the design of one slide because I like how things look and I wanted to look perfect and I'd hyper focus and what would happen is I would spend many evenings literally like until three or 04:00 A.m. Working on proposals and burning out and it wasn't good, but I thought oh, it's just because it had to take that long and there was the deadline tomorrow, there's no two ways about it and the other team members perhaps are not doing the right thing. I'm really pedantic and I have to kind of go in and change things. When we kind of took this much more process driven, agile approach to kind of uncovering why, what's going wrong and why and what's the root of the problem. One kind of look at it from Nitsang going in and looking than process the could uncover those holes and realize right there's A, B and C, there's this issue, we don't have a good process and Conrad is not great at doing that. So let's give it to another team member and then jump on a meeting with me and I will go through it and do you see what I mean? We created structure and process whereby the bits that I'm not good at, we're delegating and bringing me at the right time. And it was again, life changing transformative for the business and really, really crucial. So that's definitely one of the ways I say is like taking this, I mean, Gemba Kaisen is this book. I recommend this approach to business, which I think is probably one of the main ways which has helped us in our work life, really play to our strengths and really build structure that works not just for me, but other team members too. And in our private life, I'll be honest, that took a lot longer, right? That's where I feel like up until recently, even at work, I've been really good. Great at work, great at what I do. And we built this structure where I can really ADHD has superpowers as well, right. The amount of ideas I have kind of really brilliant just to blow my trumpet, like brilliant ideas in terms of branding and marketing and what we can do to kind of drive those forward, but the limitations as well. But I feel like I've been doing really well at work and then suddenly when it comes to after work hours, it all goes out the window. I don't have that structure, it's just this big void. And yeah, it has been difficult relationship wise because Nitzan traditionally has taken on way more than me. It's been very one sided relationship outside of work. She books the holidays, she plans them. Like when it comes to cooking, she'll buy the ingredients and plan. And I would take kind of I'll cook on this day and the other, but I haven't prepared bu. It'll be 07:00 p.m.. I don't know. I haven't got the ingredients. I don't know what I'm going to cook. And it causes friction. And that's just one example of the kind of way that friction in a relationship.

Peter Shankman [00:17:22]: We try to keep these to 15 minutes because ADHD but tell people how we can find you and we'll definitely have you back.

Konrad Sanders [00:17:29]: Yeah, I go off on tangents.

Peter Shankman [00:17:31]: No, it's cool. I love it. I love it. I can relate.

Konrad Sanders [00:17:34]: Yeah. So find me. LinkedIn is the best place. I'd say. Comrade McKay. Sanders. S-A-N-D-E-R-S-I talk about ADHD on there. I talk about copywriting and content strategy, I talk about my agency journey. And, yeah, there's so much more to talk about, but as you know, I will go off on many different tangents and not be very succeed, but I hope there's been some value and some interesting interest there in what we've chatted about today.

Peter Shankman [00:18:02]: No question about it. Really appreciate it, guys. We're talking to Conrad Sanders. Really interesting stuff on how to survive ADHD. When your partner doesn't have it, you do, and you work with them as well. My God, that is just I can't even get over that. That's very impressive. We will definitely have you back, guys. Thanks for listening to Faster Than Normal- we love when you listen, we love when you comment. We love your emails. Send me a note, let me know how we're doing. The book The Boy with the Faster Brain continues to rocket the charts. We are thrilled for everyone who has purchased it. I am greatly appreciative. And we're changing the world about ADHD. One book and one podcast recording at a time. We'll be back next week in another episode. Have a great week. Stay safe, stay humble.

—

Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at shankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week!

Having ADD or ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Hear from people all around the globe, from every walk of life, in every profession, from Rock Stars to CEOs, from Teachers to Politicians, who have learned how to unlock the gifts of their ADD and ADHD diagnosis, and use it to their personal and professional advantage, to build businesses, become millionaires, or simply better their lives.

Over the past month, we have been fortunate enough to be sponsored by Skylight Frame. [Check it out at: https://www.skylightframe.com] And guys, if you need a calendar for your family, for your kids, if your kids are neurodiverse- look at skylightframe.com! You order it, you hang it on your wall. It connects to your WIFI. You import your calendars, you add chore lists. My daughter knows all her chores. She knows everything she has to do. There's no more fights, no more arguments. She looks at the chores. She does them. She clicks the little button, the little touch screen, and it means that she's done and she gets her Roblox cuz that pretty much is what kids exist on today under the age of 12. They exist on, on Robux and, and apparently high quality mac and cheese. Apparently, you know, regular mac and cheese that we ate as kids. No, that's not good enough anymore. Skyline Frame is awesome. Use code PeterShankman at checkout. That will give you up to $30 off. I love the thing. You can also throw up all your photos on it. Uh, so when you're not using the calendar, it just. Scrolls your entire life by you and it looks pretty cool. It's in our kitchen. When I wake up at two in the morning to go get some cold water, I see a photo of me and my daughter or my dog, or my late cat, NASA, and it's pretty awesome. Makes my night. So https://www.skylightframe.com code: PeterShankman up to 30 bucks off. You will not regret this. If you get it, send me a note, let me know that you have it, and uh, I'll send you a photo for it. All right, again thank you to Skylight Frame! Enter discount code: PeterShankman for 10% off, up to $30 off https://www.skylightframe.com

Cortney Weinbaum (she/her) is the lead author of a new RAND Corporation report on Neurodiversity and National Security (link). She is a senior management scientist and senior national security researcher at RAND, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think-tank in Washington, DC. She specializes in intelligence and space topics, and she has worked with the Intelligence Community (IC) and Department of Defense to improve policies, practices, and technologies. She has improved analytic and collection tradecraft; identified emerging technologies and their impact on space architectures, special operations, countering weapons of mass destruction, and intelligence; and examined new workforce models for intelligence agencies. The study: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1875-1.html

I am beyond excited that this study and research are basically backing up IN WRITING so many of the things we've been saying for almost THREE HUNDRED EPISODES!! We're definitely asking Cortney Weinbaum back! Enjoy and listen up!

00:40 - Thank you so much for listening and for subscribing!

Thank you Skylight Frame - Get your coupon now!

https://www.skylightframe.com Discount Code: PeterShankman for 10% off, up to $30 off

01:45 - Introducing and welcome Cortney Weinbaum!! Ref: What is RAND anyway & why does it matter?

03:30 - I want to talk to you about the recommendations you and your team have made on this incredible research report. But first of all, what prompted this?

04:40- I love that Rand was so open and wanted you to do this, and you got no pushback or feedback or anything like that?

05:00 - Explaining to companies & governments how interviewing neurodivergent job candidates is a benefit to all, even your talent pool!

06:00 - Combatting prejudice, discrimination, and bias with the Neurodiverse

Ed: [this part right here]

07:48 - "You're the first person I've ever met like me who's successful"

08:40 - "Two female civilian intelligence officers both came up to me.. from different agencies, and they said they both identify as autistic in their own workplace…We both face bias and discrimination for this. Ironically, they never met each other until that day"

09:54 - Within the US government, neurodivergent diagnosis are treated as a Disability.

11:54 - The Catch 22 paradox.

15:30 - The US national security community isn't taking a position yet they're not saying we're neurodiverse friendly or we're not. They're more, maybe neurodiverse ignorant at this point. And that ignorance is changing for sure.. one organization, one office at a time..

17:51 - I want to touch on a few more recommendations

18:42 - This is why we say don't treat it, (or ADHD), as disability..

20:16 - How do our spectacular subscribers find out more about you? So, yeah, if people want to post or write to me, I say that anyone who doesn't sound like a troll, I will respond to.

Web: https://www.rand.org/about/people/w/weinbaum_cortney.html

Socials: @cortney_dc on Twitter. @cortneywdc on Instagram, LinkedIn, Mastodon it says. "I'm on everything except Facebook"

20:30 - Thank you so much for making time for all of us today Cortney!

21:00 - Hey, you there! Yes YOU! We are thrilled that you are here & listening!

ADHD and all forms of Neurodiversity are gifts, not curses. And by the way, if you haven't picked up The Boy with the Faster Brain yet, it is on Amazon and it is a number one bestseller in all categories. Click HERE or via https://amzn.to/3FcAKkI My link tree is here if you're looking for something specific. https://linktr.ee/petershankman

16:40 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits. Guys, as always thanks so much for subscribing! Faster Than Normal is for YOU! We want to know what you'd like to hear! Do you have a cool friend with a great story? We'd love to learn about, and from them. I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via email at [email protected] or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse!

—

TRANSCRIPT via Castmagic.io and then corrected.. somewhat, (first trial run is today May 17, 2023):

As always, thank you Skylight for sponsoring this episode as well as many others of the Faster Than Normal Podcast. https://www.skylightframe.com Discount Code: PeterShankman for 10% off, up to $30 off.

Peter Shankman [00:00:40]:

Hey, everyone. Peter Shankman. Welcome to the Faster Than Normal Podcast episode number "Happy You're Here!" We're happy you're here as always!

It's a gorgeous Monday. We are recording on Monday. I try to do all my podcasts in one day a week, and I do all my zooms the same day. And basically, I just know that there's going to be one day where I'm be super productive and not that productive, and you get everything done, and then that way you can spend the rest of the week doing everything. That's been my ADHD sort of lifestyle going on, like, ten years now. It really does work. Anyway, big shout out to Skylight Frame. You guys have heard me talk about them before. Skylight Frame is this awesome little frame that hangs in my kitchen right over there. And it shows my calendar, and it shows my daughter her chores and her calendar and what she has to do for school and what she has to bring everything in one place. It's touchscreen. It's Skylightframe.com. Peter Shankman. The code Peter Shankman will get you $30 off. I love it. I can upload pictures of anything. My parents can send pictures to the frame. So if they instead of that's their new way of guilting me for not bringing the kid over. They only live three blocks from me. So their new way of guilting me for not bringing the kid over is to send me photos of themselves that show up my Sky Frame, where they're holding little signs and say, forget about us. Remember us. We miss our granddaughter, things like that. It's lovely. Lovely Jewish guilt via digital. Anyway, skylightframe.com use code peter Shankman and we thank them for sponsoring this episode of Faster than Normal. And guys, I am so stoked today because we have a wonderful woman who I just met named Cortney Weinbaum on the podcast today. Get this. She is the lead author of a new Rand Corporation report on neurodiversity and national security. Okay, that is huge. And you know what the key finding is? Neurodiversity, like other forms of diversity, can strengthen a national security organization. I feel like Vindicated, like, for the first time, this stuff that I've been shouting from the rooftops about companies and neurodiversity in the workplace and neurodiverse. Cortney, sitting here right now from Bethesda, Maryland, and has verified everything that I've been screaming for ten years. I'm, like, the happiest person. A Cortney, Welcome to festival. Ed: [that's so funny- Castmagic.io thinks this is a festival.. well.. kind of it IS a festival, really.. but anyway, back to your transcript here- that has been corrected at least to this point by a human]. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you so much for taking the time.

Cortney [00:02:43]: Oh, thank you for having me, and I love your enthusiasm!

Peter Shankman [00:02:46]: Oh, my God. This came across my I don't remember who said this to me, but someone said to me that, you're going to love this. They're like, oh, my God, I am, like, so stoked about this. And we're going to talk about how you decided to do this study, but listen to this, guys. Neurodiversity, like other forms of diversity, can strengthen a national security organization within the US. Government. Neurodivergent diagnosis are treated as a disability and requiring employees to identify as disabled benefits those with severe needs, while stigmatizing employees who have spent decades overcoming the challenges of workplaces designed for neurotypical workers. Several aspects of the recruiting and hiring process can pose barriers to a neurodiverse workforce. And then, once on board, neurodiversion employees can face challenges, navigating careers and workplaces that were not designed for them in mind. So I want to talk to you about the recommendations you and your team have made on this incredible research report. But first of all, what prompted this?

Cortney [00:03:38]:Wow. I want to unpack all of that in this episode with you. So what prompted this? A dear friend of mine who's the president of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance got together with one of her summer interns to write an op ed two years ago now on neurodiversity and intelligence. And my background is from the intelligence community. I joined the intelligence community very soon after 911, and that's how I entered National Security. And so when she and her intern called to interview me, it was like I got hit with a ton of bricks. Why hasn't anyone written about this before? And so I said, Send me that op ed as soon as it's done. And they did, and I took it inside Rand. For those listeners who aren't familiar with Rand, we're a nonprofit, nonpartisan, federally funded research center. I'm in our Washington, DC. Office, and I took that op ed inside Rand, and I said, we need to research this. There needs to be data about this topic. And I got an immediate gap. There was no hesitation at all. And so we got some project funding, and we did this study that you're looking at now.

Peter Shankman [00:04:40]: That is amazing. I love that Rand was so open and wanted you to do this, and you got no pushback or feedback or anything like that?

Cortney [00:04:47]: None.

Peter Shankman [00:04:48]: And we're starting to see that now. I mean, the companies that I'm dealing with and I'm working with, adobe and Morgan Stanley and Google, they're understanding not only that neurodiversity is real, not only that neurodiversity is something that needs to be addressed, but that it can benefit companies tremendously. And that's the story screaming from the rooftop. So let's talk about the key findings. First, in terms of neurodiversity, like other forms of diversity, can strengthen a national security organization. So that the hardest part there is explaining to companies that that can be a thing, right? As opposed to companies look at it. Okay, something else we have to deal with. No, this can benefit.

Cortney [00:05:22]: Absolutely. One of the questions that we were asked at the beginning of the study and then again at the end of the study were, but which jobs? Just tell me which jobs I should be opening to the neurodivergent candidates. And I'll flag those jobs as the one. And I'm laughing for those who can't see my face. And what we found out, what all of your listeners probably already know, is the answer is all of the jobs. And the way we make that point is I tell people this story, which is that when we started doing this research project, our goal was to talk to program managers, hiring managers. We were not trying to ask people to self identify as having a diagnosis and tell us about their experience. We didn't want to put at risk a population that's already at risk for prejudice, discrimination, and bias. So we weren't asking anyone about a diagnosis. But people started calling me. My phone started ringing by people who would say, I heard you're doing this study. I'm an intelligence officer, or I'm a military officer, and you need to interview me. I'm autistic. And I've never told the military that before. I got diagnosed outside the military health system so that there was no military record of my diagnosis. We heard all these personal stories so very early on. It was very clear that people with all of the Diagnoses we talk about in this report already are serving in the military, are serving as civilians in the entire national security enterprise, and that they're usually doing in a way that is masking, that is hiding whatever is their neurodivergent trait in order to fit in in their office so that they're not known. They describe themselves as living in the closet, like the LBGT community used to in the military. And that masking is exhausting, and it leads to burnout, and it prevents them from really leveraging the talents and the benefits of their conditions, but it also leads to burnout, exhaustion. It's psychologically draining all of the things. And so it creates this environment where the neurotypical employees and managers think, well, there's no one neurodivergent here. And it prevents us having role models that we can see with these diagnoses so that we can realize that, yeah, we actually should be making on ramps and making entry easier because our colleagues, who we really value, already have these diagnoses. So by having that community hide, it's a disservice to everyone. And so that's one of the first findings we had in this report, that.

Peter Shankman [00:07:48]: Last point about the fact that we're not being more public about it. I gave a talk last week to a bunch of hundred fifth graders in school in New Jersey, because my latest book is for kids called The Boy with the Faster Brain. And it's hard. I tear up every time I think about this. Fifth grader came to me at the end of the class, and his head was at the end of the talk. And as everyone else was leaving, his head was down. He didn't really mumbling. I'm like what? And he's like, it you're the first person I've ever met like me who's successful, and my heart, oh, my God, my heart.

Cortney [00:08:27]: Oh, my gosh.

Peter Shankman [00:08:28]: Right? And it's like, we need why we.

Cortney [00:08:30]: Do what we do.

Peter Shankman [00:08:31]: Oh, my God. We need to be telling these stories. We need to be telling these stories. And I'm so glad that you are.

Cortney [00:08:40]: I have to give you one more example. We were at a conference. I mean, it was a small event, not massive, but it was a small event for neurodivergent service providers in the national security sector. So there are some please don't think there are none. And two female intelligence officers came up to me after I explained, I stood up, I said, I'm doing this project. If anyone wants to talk to me afterwards, come find me. And two female civilian intelligence officers both came up to me. They're from different agencies, and they said they both identify as autistic in their own workplaces. They're out of the closet, quote, unquote, in their workplaces as autistic. And they said, we need more of this. We need other people to be able to be out just like us. There's no one else that either of us could ever look up to. We both face bias and discrimination for this. Ironically, they never met each other until that day. They knew each other existed. I think they talked to emails, but this event was the first time they'd been in the same room, and it was really powerful. There are people who are trying to be role models, and they're doing it at cost. And we wanted to put this study out there to provide data and analysis and objective, unbiased data analysis on what is the benefits and what are those costs.

Peter Shankman [00:09:54]: That's amazing. I'm so glad you did this. So let's look at this. Within the US government, neurodivergent diagnosis are treated as a disability. And so my first reaction is, no, it's not. But I understand why that would be, right. You're looking at a lot of these things are based on 50, 67 year old rules or the Ada from 82. So talk to me about what you learned from that standpoint.

Cortney [00:10:18]: Yeah, this was just eye opening, so I'm not a disability researcher. So a lot of this was new ground to me. If you want to get a job in the US government and you want to self identify as being disabled, any type of disability, you get what's called a schedule, a letter, from the Department of labor. Basically, you fill out a form, the department of labor gives you a letter called a Schedule A Letter. The schedule. A letter does not state your disability. It just says Mr. Smith has a severe disability and therefore qualifies for accommodation. That's all it says. It doesn't say what your disability is. You can be blind, you can be an amputee. Well, because of that process, no matter what your disability is, you're just identified as disabled and severely disabled. When government agencies are calculating data, we ask them, how many people do you have for neurodivergent your agency? And they said, I don't know, I can only give you my disability number. So the blind employees, the deaf employees, the amputees, and the autistic employees are all lumped in one category. So that was one finding. The second finding is that Schedule A Letter says severely disabled. And all the people we talk to don't identify as severely disabled. And they take deep personal offense at the idea that they should have to describe themselves as severely disabled just to wear noise canceling headphones in a classified room.

Peter Shankman [00:11:34]: Exactly.

Cortney [00:11:35]: Or just to ask that the light bulb be taken out from over their desk, or that their desk be moved from the bullpen further away from the door so they don't hear the door every time it opens. These are like basic requests of a manager, but the government treats them as accommodations and if you want an accommodation, you must have a declaration of disability.

Peter Shankman [00:11:53]:Right?

Cortney [00:11:54]: So we provide a few metaphors in the report and we call this the accommodations dilemma because it was like this whole catch 22 paradox. Cause you either declare yourself as disabled and all of a sudden you get all these benefits along with the risk of bias and discrimination, right? You don't declare yourself as disabled, don't worry about the bias and discrimination, but now you've got to cut it. And we said if you compare this to other diagnoses, and I use vision in the report as the example, I'm sitting here wearing eyeglasses, I'm near sighted. I am not disabled by any standard. I drive a car I can see perfectly with my eyeglasses on if I want to apply for military service or for a civilian job. I'm not considered disabled simply because I'm near sighted. Now, there's a point at which a vision diagnosis does become a disability, but it's a spectrum, and we know it's a spectrum and we know that simply having a vision diagnosis is not a binary yes you're disabled, or no you're not. For the government, having a neurodiverse divergent diagnosis is a binary yes or no. Whereas we all know, those who are in this community or researchers in this community, that it is a spectrum. There are some people with ADHD, autism and other diagnoses who do self identify as severely disabled and there's plenty who don't. And the government right now doesn't give people the option.

Peter Shankman [00:13:07]: What's interesting, I think another aspect of that is because it's government work, it's the premise that you can't just move your desk away from the door if you just want to. There has to be an accommodation for.

Cortney [00:13:20]: It because someone else in the office is going to say, well, that's unfair. Why did they get to their desk? I want to be near the window.

Peter Shankman [00:13:26]: And I think that what companies are starting to realize is that those rules don't. I interviewed someone who was a boss once and I said, what are the neurodiversion aspects of how you're dealing? He goes, there are none. He goes, you get your work done. He goes, I do not care how you do it. You're not in junior high. You don't have to ask for a bad bathroom pass. Do whatever works for you as long as you're getting stuff done. And I think back to my first and only job I ever really had working for someone else was for America Online and under Steve Case back in the 90s in Virginia, right near you, Northern Virginia, they said the same thing. We don't care when you come in, right, work from a forest, just get your stuff done. And that was so amazing. And of course it screwed me because I thought, oh wow, this must be what the workforce is like. And my second job at a national magazine was, no, the hell it ain't. That was sort of a wake up call, but now there's no question about that. It is difficult if you have to constantly label yourself as only one thing or the other. I've never looked at this as a disability from my perspective. I understand I've had to write it down at some points for surveys or qualifications or things like that. But again, I don't qualify my ADHD as a disability. And the funny thing was, I remember growing up in school, in the New York City public schools, you could qualify for something called resource room, which would give you extra time on tests and allow you lots of different accommodations. To get there, though, you had to fall below a certain level in reading and in math. And because I loved reading, I was on a 12th grade level from first grade. Because I hated math, I qualified. But because I didn't qualify for both, I didn't get anything. So yes, there's a lot that needs to be addressed in that. Talk about for a second the concept of and I want to be constantly time, but we're definitely having you back, but the aspects of recruitment and hiring process, right? So there are companies now that I'm advising that are trying to create conversation, that they are more neurodiverse aware and that they are neurodiverse friendly. And is that not the case in government yet or how is that happening?

Cortney [00:15:29]: Well, for the most part, the US national security community isn't taking a position yet they're not saying we're neurodiverse friendly or we're not. They're more maybe neurodiverse ignorant at this point. And that ignorance is changing for sure. But one organization, one office at a time, we're hoping this report can blow that door open. So what we did is we actually went through real government job vacancy postings and said, how is this worded today? And how might one word it differently? And there's actually a point in the report. We take a table. We take three or four job descriptions. And we wanted to make sure that these aren't very stereotypical job descriptions. We had people come to us say, oh yeah, I could hire people who are neurodivergent and they could be the cyber analyst in the corner who never have to speak to anyone. And so we made sure that the job descriptions we chose were not just like that person you put in the back corner who doesn't actually interact with people. We chose an accountant. Yes, a cyber operations officer. We chose a contracts officer. Contracting is a huge part of the national security workforce, and we chose some of these job descriptions. And then based on what we had learned from the commercial sector, we said, here's how you might do it differently. Sometimes it's just changing the wording. Like, instead of saying, demonstrate that you're an effective communicator. I don't know how to do that in a cover letter very well. Instead, we write it in a way that for someone who has trouble with nuance, who has trouble with interpretive language, who doesn't know how to do that, we'd be able to figure out what exactly is that they need to see from me. We took one of the job descriptions that was asking for financial analysis skills as the accounting position. And we said instead of all these things that they're asking the applicant to prove in a resume, instead let's interview this person by giving them a practical exercise, which is what some companies do, we email them a spreadsheet three days before the interview. The spreadsheet is fake financial data. We say to them, in three days, you're going to present your analysis to the hiring manager or a board of three people. Well, by doing that now, this person isn't worried about making eye contact and making sure they know how to answer the question of what do you want to get out of your career? Instead, you're really assessing this person on their financial analytic skills and their ability to convey analytic findings to a customer. That's probably all you really cared about in the first place. You didn't really care if they could make eye contact and shape your hand with a firm handshake. So we provide those kinds of really specific, tangible recommendations.

Peter Shankman [00:17:51]: I want to touch on a few of the more recommendations. We have a few minutes left. One of the ones that I saw immediately, and I love this, help all employees understand neurodiversity right and this goes back to what I've taught at some of the companies that I work with in the concept of curb cuts. I'm sure you know that is at the end of World War II, 600,000 US servicemen came home disabled. And every city and every town across the country put ramps at the at the corner of every block, make up the sidewalks, making curb cuts. And they wound up helping those 600,000 servicemen and also wound up helping pregnant women and people with boxes and children and people with strollers list goes on and on. So you help one group and it benefits all. So the concept of teaching, understanding university, go ahead. Yeah. Cortney [00:18:42]: This is why we say don't treat it as disability. By putting ramps in buildings, you didn't just help the people who are disabled. Like you said, you help the Janet or push the card more effectively. So if you change your interview practices or your management practices in ways that provide clear communication to everyone, everyone will benefit from that. It's not just the few employees that have a diagnosis. And by the way, there's plenty of employees who are not diagnosed because they didn't have the availability to have a diagnosis. So it helps them, too. So, yeah, we wanted to make sure that the recommendations in here were really widely applicable. We heard from plenty of people we interviewed. It's one thing to give the neurodivergent employee the feedback that they need to be a better communicator, but did you also give the rest of the team the feedback that they need to be better communicators, too? And that's what we're talking about. Why is the whole burden on one person to be able to improve team wide communication? The burden shouldn't fall on one person's shoulders 100%.

Peter Shankman [00:19:41]: Courtney, I want to have you back again. I really appreciate you taking the time. I'm going to tell Meagan immediately that I want to have you back. I could talk about this for 6 hours. Maybe we'll break our rules and do like a 45 minutes version if you're up for it. But thank you so much for taking the time. And this research is available. Anyone can download it. It's at RAND.org under publication for free.

Cortney [00:20:03]: It's for FREE!!!!

Peter Shankman [00:20:04]: That's the coolest thing. It's like, Here, have it. I'll put a link to where it is in the show notes. But again, if people want to find you, I mean, you're pretty easy to find. Do you mind if people contact you? Do you have a social account or.

Cortney [00:20:16]: How can people yeah, I'm on Mastodon, I'm on Twitter. I'm on Instagram, LinkedIn. I'm on everything except Facebook. So, yeah, people want to post to me. I say that anyone who doesn't sound like a troll, I will respond to.

Peter Shankman [00:20:30]: Awesome. Cortney Weinbaum, thank you so much for taking the time. Really.

Cortney [00:20:34]: Thanks for having me.

Peter Shankman [00:20:35]: Phenomenal. Most definitely. We'll be live in a few weeks. Guys, thank you for listening. Really appreciate your time. I love that you are still listening to Faster Than Normal. We are closing in on 300 episodes. How amazing is that? I've never been able to do anything 300 times in a row, so I am super excited about that. And we will be back next week with another interview with someone probably not as cool as Cortney, but we're going to try. Thank you again, everyone for listening. Cortney, thank you one more time. We will talk to you guys soon. Have a great day. Stay safe. —

Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at shankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week!

Having ADD or ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Hear from people all around the globe, from every walk of life, in every profession, from Rock Stars to CEOs, from Teachers to Politicians, who have learned how to unlock the gifts of their ADD and ADHD diagnosis, and use it to their personal and professional advantage, to build businesses, become millionaires, or simply better their lives.

Over the past month, we have been fortunate enough to be sponsored by Skylight Frame. [Check it out at: https://www.skylightframe.com] And guys, if you need a calendar for your family, for your kids, if your kids are neurodiverse- look at skylightframe.com! You order it, you hang it on your wall. It connects to your WIFI. You import your calendars, you add chore lists. My daughter knows all her chores. She knows everything she has to do. There's no more fights, no more arguments. She looks at the chores. She does them. She clicks the little button, the little touch screen, and it means that she's done and she gets her Roblox cuz that pretty much is what kids exist on today under the age of 12. They exist on, on Robux and, and apparently high quality mac and cheese. Apparently, you know, regular mac and cheese that we ate as kids. No, that's not good enough anymore. Skyline Frame is awesome. Use code PeterShankman at checkout. That will give you up to $30 off. I love the thing. You can also throw up all your photos on it. Uh, so when you're not using the calendar, it just. Scrolls your entire life by you and it looks pretty cool. It's in our kitchen. When I wake up at two in the morning to go get some cold water, I see a photo of me and my daughter or my dog, or my late cat, NASA, and it's pretty awesome. Makes my night. So https://www.skylightframe.com code: PeterShankman up to 30 bucks off. You will not regret this. If you get it, send me a note, let me know that you have it, and uh, I'll send you a photo for it. All right, again thank you to Skylight Frame! Enter discount code: PeterShankman for 10% off, up to $30 off https://www.skylightframe.com

Our guest today is Stephanie Scheller. Stephanie has studied human psychology for more than a decade and built her first business from scratch to walk away from her job in less than five months. She has now worked with more than 5000+ companies and is dedicated to helping small business owners understand how to create their greatest impact. Using the violin to tap into the human subconscious, Stephanie breaks down the psychology behind business growth strategies and marketing that makes an impact to simplify implementation and accelerate growth. She is a TEDx speaker, a two-time best-selling author, an award-winning entrepreneur and the founder of Grow Disrupt, a company that designs and produces educational events for the ADHD small business owner! In her downtime, you'll find Stephanie playing on the violin, out in the Texas Hill Country with her horse, or in the garage painting endlessly. Enjoy!

00:40 - Thank you so much for listening and for subscribing!

Thank you Skylight Frame - Get your coupon now!

https://www.skylightframe.com Discount Code: PeterShankman for 10% off, up to $30 off

01:45 - Introducing and welcome Stephanie Scheller!

03:04 - How long have you been playing violin?

04:30 - Is music and the Arts in general an ADHD brain booster?

04:45 - On unlocking your focus on what to do correctly!

05:20 - On having a plan for when you succeed.

05:53 - Peter's T-shirt idea- …that was successful.

06:08 - When were you diagnosed, and how did that go?

07:20 - On 'covering' for your ADHD and building events that will keep us focused

08:15 - What are YOU doing to care for your ADHD? [On Peter's diagnosis/non-diagnosis]

08:42 - What happens in your brain when you start playing violin? Has it always been easy?

12:00 - On finding your happy thing, and how it can completely change your life!

13:30 - What kinds of events are you doing, what kind of content and tools are you employing?

14:48 - How do our spectacular subscribers find out more about you?

Web: www.GrowDisrupt.com and https://www.thestephaniescheller.com

Socials: @GrowDisrupt on Facebook YouTube

15:18 - Stephanie.. would you give us just a little taste of your violin, 48secs or so?

16:00 - Thank you so much for making time for all of us today Stephanie!

16:40 - Hey, you there! Yes YOU! We are thrilled that you are here & listening!

ADHD and all forms of Neurodiversity are gifts, not curses. And by the way, if you haven't picked up The Boy with the Faster Brain yet, it is on Amazon and it is a number one bestseller in all categories. Click HERE or via https://amzn.to/3FcAKkI My link tree is here if you're looking for something specific. https://linktr.ee/petershankman

16:40 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits. Guys, as always thanks so much for subscribing! Faster Than Normal is for YOU! We want to know what you'd like to hear! Do you have a cool friend with a great story? We'd love to learn about, and from them. I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via email at [email protected] or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse!

—

Having ADD or ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Hear from people all around the globe, from every walk of life, in every profession, from Rock Stars to CEOs, from Teachers to Politicians, who have learned how to unlock the gifts of their ADD and ADHD diagnosis, and use it to their personal and professional advantage, to build businesses, become millionaires, or simply better their lives.

Over the past month, we have been fortunate enough to be sponsored by Skylight Frame. [Check it out at: https://www.skylightframe.com] And guys, if you need a calendar for your family, for your kids, if your kids are neurodiverse- look at skylightframe.com! You order it, you hang it on your wall. It connects to your WIFI. You import your calendars, you add chore lists. My daughter knows all her chores. She knows everything she has to do. There's no more fights, no more arguments. She looks at the chores. She does them. She clicks the little button, the little touch screen, and it means that she's done and she gets her Roblox cuz that pretty much is what kids exist on today under the age of 12. They exist on, on Robux and, and apparently high quality mac and cheese. Apparently, you know, regular mac and cheese that we ate as kids. No, that's not good enough anymore. Skyline Frame is awesome. Use code PeterShankman at checkout. That will give you up to $30 off. I love the thing. You can also throw up all your photos on it. Uh, so when you're not using the calendar, it just. Scrolls your entire life by you and it looks pretty cool. It's in our kitchen. When I wake up at two in the morning to go get some cold water, I see a photo of me and my daughter or my dog, or my late cat, NASA, and it's pretty awesome. Makes my night. So https://www.skylightframe.com code: PeterShankman up to 30 bucks off. You will not regret this. If you get it, send me a note, let me know that you have it, and uh, I'll send you a photo for it. All right, again thank you to Skylight Frame! Enter discount code: PeterShankman for 10% off, up to $30 off https://www.skylightframe.com

Welcome to the month of May! So, there are a few things you cannot buy in life: One of them is Time and your Life. Therefore people's goal is to reclaim time and have peace of mind. For our guest today, Roy Smith, protecting others has always been his passion. An Executive Protection Specialist, Mr. Smith makes sure people come home after a busy workday, or a night out. His career in law enforcement has laid the foundation for his exceptional expertise in the security industry. His experience spans diverse roles. Roy worked with high-threat criminals - was a Gang Task Force Officer on the southern border of Texas. He was assigned to multiple Texas and Federal task forces to combat gangs, drug trafficking, etc. His goal at that time was to protect the community. Then Roy went into the Executive Protection field and graduated top of his class from one of the most renown academies in the US and won a prestigious award.

Security is not a luxury; it's a necessity. Roy Smith understands this principle and has dedicated his life to ensuring the safety and well-being of those he serves. As the CEO and Executive Protection Specialist at Viking Executive Protection Solutions and Owner and President of Viking Tactical Security Group, Roy offers top-tier concierge executive protection services to high net worth clients, and high-threat security to media networks, and at events as well as a School Guardian Program for children. In addition to personal security, Viking provides assessment and situational awareness classes to empower individuals with essential knowledge and skills. Don't miss this opportunity to hear from one of the industry's leading professionals and learn how Roy Smith and his team at Viking Executive Protection Solutions can help you stay safe and secure in an unpredictable world. Today we learn how to stay heads-up, especially since it is unbelievably easy for us neurodiverse individuals to lose situational awareness. Enjoy!

00:40 - Thank you so much for listening and for subscribing!

Thank you Skylight Frame - Get your coupon now!

https://www.skylightframe.com Discount Code: PeterShankman for 10% off, up to $30 off

02:17 - Introducing and welcome Roy Smith!

03:36 - What is your company designed to do?

04:00 - Do you think there would be lower instances of crime if people were just more aware of their surroundings on a regular basis?

05:00 - Bad stuff can happen anywhere.. and you may not even be aware of all that you are not aware of! Especially when 'safe' in your routines & cyclic norms. #HeadOnASwivel

08:04 - Challenging our habit of going into 'autopilot' when we commute and…

08:31 - When you get home…

09:00 - How do you practice being aware of new/odd patterns in your daily?

10:00 - How do you not sit there and dwell, or worry about one detail being off, once you've noticed it?

10:53 - Let's talk about personal safety in the post COVID era

11:06 - Not quite like Jason Bourne's default training state but.. what basic things should we remember to always do when going to: a restaurant, movie theater, baseball park, whatever?

12:18 - A couple of tips for travelers and event-goers awaiting the queue to shorten

14:19 - On the benefits of pet, (let alone well-trained pet), ownership; in public!

17:14 - How do you train your Neurodiverse, (or any), body to sort of not go into overdrive when something is happening? How do you use that dopamine and adrenaline to your advantage?

20:30 - On training your mind and body via live scenarios

20:45 - The benefits of using preparedness drills as part of your training

23:08 - How do our spectacular subscribers find out more about you?

Telephone: (1+) 844-6-Viking aka: +1 (844) 684-5464

Web: www.VikingEPS.com email: info @ vikingeps.com

Socials: @viking_eps on INSTA and @ vikingeps on Facebook and Twitter

24:06 - Thank you so much for making time for all of us today Roy!

24:24 - You! Hey there! We are thrilled that you are here and listening! ADHD and all forms of Neurodiversity are gifts, not curses. And by the way, if you haven't picked up The Boy with the Faster Brain yet, it is on Amazon and it is a number one bestseller in all categories. Click HERE or via https://amzn.to/3FcAKkI My link tree is here if you're looking for something specific. https://linktr.ee/petershankman

24:50 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits. Guys, as always thanks so much for subscribing! Faster Than Normal is for YOU! We want to know what you'd like to hear! Do you have a cool friend with a great story? We'd love to learn about, and from them. I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via email at [email protected] or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse!