Danny O'Neill  00:00
I had to begin from below the bottom after I was released from prison, and then just work my way up. It was one hell of a challenge. I mean, this is 1985. So it's a long time ago, but awful as that was. That's kind of what I'm talking about. By everything's going to be okay. Even my family said my life was over. I decided it wasn't. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other looking for opportunities and pretending, acting as if I'm going to walk the walk. If I wanted something, I had to be that person first before it could actually come to me. So I decided to be able to be that person.

Brooke Schnittman  00:46
Welcome to successful with ADHD. I'm Brooke Shipman. And if you have ADHD and are feeling overwhelmed, chaotic and negative self beliefs, you're in the right place. The successful with ADHD podcast shares my guests journeys of overcoming challenges offering their tips and strategies for success to empower you to take control of your life and thrive with ADHD. Let's get started. Hey, Danny.

Danny O'Neill  01:17
Brooke. Good morning. Tracker dawn in Los Angeles.

Brooke Schnittman  01:22
Yes. It's always amazing to see your face. Thank you for joining us on successful with ADHD where we shine a light on the successes of people with ADHD.

Danny O'Neill  01:34
My pleasure, Brooke, happy to be

Brooke Schnittman  01:37
Yeah. So Danny, share with me a little bit about your journey with ADHD. Like When were you diagnosed?

Danny O'Neill  01:45
Okay, well, the diagnosis has been within the last seven or eight months. But now that I'm learning a bit about ADHD, my behavior and my wife was completely reflective of having, if not that diagnosis of other diagnosis since I was a kid going as far back as grade school. Oh, yeah. If I liked a topic, I was like, voracious, there was nothing I couldn't learn. There was nothing I couldn't remember. If I was bored with it. It's like, okay, please shoot me now.

Brooke Schnittman  02:18
I, there's so much to diagnose. You know, I like math, math and science are my jam, English social studies. I know you're more of an English Social Studies person with your politician background, but I'm sure you'll go there.

Danny O'Neill  02:37
Yeah, there's so many. So many things. We there's so many different areas to go into. So let's explore.

Brooke Schnittman  02:44
Yeah, let's do it. So it's been a number of years, but you have many different children. You have quite a history that I think a lot of listeners would be interested in hearing about because you have transformed throughout all those years. And you're 67 Right. I am 67. Yeah. So people listening want to hear tell us a little bit about your huge history.

Danny O'Neill  03:12
Wow, pick a spot any spot. I've been married, divorced five times. My last wife died in a car accident about five years ago. I have six children. Now there's a qualifier there. I have three biological children. And I have three children that were actually calling in my last wife who died in a car accident. Children that after she is gone. I've taken over a portion of the responsibility as a father there. So we got all of them. My oldest daughter is 47. Yes, it was high school. Thank you. And my youngest yesterday, was 26 years old. That's James.

Brooke Schnittman  03:54
So it's kind of birthday, James. Yeah,

Danny O'Neill  03:57
yeah. Yeah, he was pretty pleased with himself. He really who was most interested in what the President was gonna be. And when I told him it was cash that made his daddy da, yeah.

Brooke Schnittman  04:09
You can buy whatever he wants with it. Now. You're pretty much and he also likely has an ADHD diagnosis. Correct.

Danny O'Neill  04:16
Most likely, James had a brain bleed at birth. It's pretty touching go. He died my arms six or seven times at the third Hospital and the day was born. We finally got into surgery and we spent eight weeks in intensive care in New York City. So he said PT, he's got a diagnosis of cerebral palsy. He's very high functioning. Yeah, he's a jokester. He's got a great, great social skills actually. He has physically he's recovered completely because of the consequences of this surgery. He lost about half of his cerebellum and as you know, it's in the back of the brain. It does a number of things, including learning in part, but people think In the cerebellum, often for movement, James doesn't have that problem. He was an incredible wrestler. He's got it going on. So it's it's interesting, but I think it's been hard to tease out whether it was what happened to him or ADHD. I think it's a pretty interesting combination.

Brooke Schnittman  05:19
Yeah, a lot of the symptoms lend into one another, the brain injury and the executive lack of executive functioning. Right. with ADHD.

Danny O'Neill  05:29
Right. Yeah. I mean, in a way, they're both brain injuries.

Brooke Schnittman  05:33
That's correct. Yeah, okay, six children married five times. What else? with ADHD, you know, we have that interesting piece with relationships, we get very excited about new relationships, and then the dopamine can wear off very quickly. And we might want to move on

Danny O'Neill  05:59
dropping the breadcrumbs for this one. So I get it. Yeah, I not dissimilar from what I said about me and academics, me and relationships were very similar. There was, if I was on, I was very on, I could be seeming a little crazy, hopefully, in a good way, but very committed very into it, and then accelerate a year or two, or three, or four or five. And things were sort of fading away. So throughout my life, you know, five marriages is really, I wouldn't wish that on anybody. There's a lot of things about that, that are just very difficult. But now that I know about my ADHD, it kind of fits. Because, you know, I would ruminate and obsess, and then start losing sleep. And the more I was sleep, the worse I got. It's all my life was about understanding how to fake it. So that I didn't appear crazy or not too often. I became very good at that. I think that was my original actors training, that when

Brooke Schnittman  07:02
you say crazy, you don't mean crazy? You mean you would mask your ADHD symptoms? Is that correct?

Danny O'Neill  07:10
Yes. No, I wasn't crazy. But I could certainly appear to be different in a different space than the people around me.

Brooke Schnittman  07:19
That might not understand. Right? I'd be

Danny O'Neill  07:23
talking faster. I mean, it could be an incredible high two, I'm not bipolar. But I certainly know what a manic state is. And I honestly, I love my manic states. Very high productivity, the brain is working flawlessly, and then can shift this attention excuse me, then it can shift to not the brain not being able to remember much.

Brooke Schnittman  07:47
Yeah. So that you had that like that dopamine rush, that hyper fixation, that hyper focus, and then you'd crash.

Danny O'Neill  07:55
Right? Right. And now, now I've learned a lot about how I can manage that. Manage My dopamine understand my state more quickly. You know, I've always learned something feels wrong. And I'm saying I gotta say this, jokingly, but I always feel like I have brain cancer. This is it. It's over. So like a bad comedy. And then suddenly, at times, two or three days later, I go, Oh, is that what that is? It's my dopamine is off, go get some sun, go get some exercise, move yourself. Find something that's interesting. Play a game challenge yourself.

Brooke Schnittman  08:31
Yeah. And sometimes it takes longer to realize that then other times, depending on your emotional state, and what's going on outside, if the weather is bad, if the weather is good, yeah, where you're at, but love that you have those tools that you can rely on. And that awareness of how your brain is working.

Danny O'Neill  08:53
I'm a bit of an athlete, what I could do, both physically and emotionally, is absolutely exhaust myself trying to figure this out, which I've found is it's a hard pole to come up from. Once you're exhausted, you're exhausted. So it takes a lot of intention, a lot of focus to get out the door, and go in the sun. Take a walk all those things. They seem so ridiculously challenging.

Brooke Schnittman  09:24
It's exhausting. Yes. Yeah. Well, when you're depleted, even, you know, moving from a couch can seem difficult.

Danny O'Neill  09:34
Right? Right. I have a very large dog and every once in a while she has to do with me. She she pokes her nose and my ribs.

Brooke Schnittman  09:43
So she's your accountability partner.

Danny O'Neill  09:46
She's always my accountability partner. She's my partner in life.

Brooke Schnittman  09:49
No, she's your stability partner.

Danny O'Neill  09:55
Don't go too far that would imply that I'm stable.

Brooke Schnittman  09:58
Oh, stop. So if you couldn't tell by listening. Danny does stand up comedy. And yes, I'm talking about you in third person.

Danny O'Neill  10:09
Yes, yes, he does myself in third person. Yeah, yeah.

Brooke Schnittman  10:13
So tell us a little bit more. So you are an actor. Tell us about some of the big accomplishments. So you have six kids. That's a huge accomplishment. I

Danny O'Neill  10:27
had six kids. I began acting just before I turned 50. Within two years, I was a SAG member, which requires some success in the business to do gratulations. Thanks. And I've been, I guess many TV shows. I lived in New York was a different environment. Now the entertainment business has changed a little bit. But I'm happily still a SAG member. I'm a working actor. Most of many of my friends are actors. But on the flip side, if you want to see the other side of my brain, I've been a very successful businessman for kind of I gotta say this about 50 years,

Brooke Schnittman  11:05
right? Yeah. Because that's probably even before then.

Danny O'Neill  11:10
Yeah, I always had a little businesses but I actually formally started a business when I was 17. Running ski trips up to Stowe, Vermont.

Brooke Schnittman  11:18
Of course you are, I made a little salesman. I was

Danny O'Neill  11:22
I was the the trip lead the trip driver. And a few times, I had a van. And five or six of us would sleep overnight in my Ford van and the parking lot at Stowe. And it would be so cold. When we woke up, there would be icicles inside the van. From the moisture of our breathing. It was pretty spectacular. To say the least, then we'd go ski all day like crazy people, we'd challenge one another talking about ADHD. We challenge one another as to how many runs we could get in. In any given day. If there was two cars there might have might be seven of us or eight of us. But there'll be at least four and we get 2025 runs in a day. And that takes some work. Yeah. To say the least thinking of obsessive.

Brooke Schnittman  12:15
So you started as a business man officially at age 17. So 50 years ago? Yep. And oh, yeah. So you you are a jack of all trades, or Danny of all trades. So you are a successful salesperson slash business person, you are an actor, you are a dad. What else?

Danny O'Neill  12:42
I was the co founder of three nonprofits, all dealing with homelessness and to some degree or another. The primary one was epiphany house in New Jersey, which is a facility with numerous locations. Now that is for recovering from alcohol, drugs, women and their children who also are homeless. So he has has directly assisted Oh, I'm sure it's over 2000 families now where we gave them shelter for a period of time, and got to help them get their lives organized, and got into living situations that were positive for them.

Brooke Schnittman  13:22
Wonderful. Wonderful.

Danny O'Neill  13:24
One of my favorite things, too, if it is a part of

Brooke Schnittman  13:28
Yeah, you are definitely an empathetic person who gives back. Try to Yeah, so you're definitely well rounded. And you got your coaching certification and nutrition to correct.

Danny O'Neill  13:45
Yeah, from SUNY State University of New York, the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.

Brooke Schnittman  13:50
And you also had a consulting business.

Danny O'Neill  13:53
I did, it's probably more of a teaching position. And he was I was hired by medium sized technology companies, generally under 250 million in revenue, often less than 600 employees. I wouldn't be brought in as a fixer. If there were problems in sales, I'd probably start in sales, because companies notice first, that there's a problem when sales go down. Now, they very often assume that if sales goes down, their salespeople are no good. More often than not, that might be part of it. But it's not really what's going on. It's at least in the tech businesses, what your product, what's the developer messaging, marketing? Certainly. And who's going to be interested in that in it and have you really thought it through a lot of companies and generally the type of companies that would be my clients would would have been in business 25 or 30 years so they would become a little dated in their view of who their market was. So I was the fresh blood that I would sort of get a process inside the company that would allow them to look more specifically at who their audience was now, and who their other audiences could be, if they did a few pretty smart things. So I work on the smart things.

Brooke Schnittman  15:14
Yeah. And the fact that you weren't emotionally tied to the company definitely gave you an edge on having Well, first of all, your background was in that too, but it gave you an edge on being able to see more clearly you were out of the weeds rather than a company that was emotionally tied in in the weeds?

Danny O'Neill  15:34
Definitely. You know, I look back and going back to your first question, this is a situation where there was pressure, there were large stakes, and everybody was like their hair was on fire and running a particular direction. That was heaven for me. Yeah. Crisis Management. Gotta do it. So we have some good successes there too.

Brooke Schnittman  16:00
Absolutely. putting out fires, right? Absolutely. Yep. Your number one go to?

Danny O'Neill  16:07
Yeah, yeah. Maybe I should have been a firefighter. Maybe?

Brooke Schnittman  16:12
Hey, it's never too late to do anything.

Danny O'Neill  16:17
Okay, we got we need firefighters here in California.

Brooke Schnittman  16:21
So yeah, tell us about how you are successful. You did say that you run on problems, like you thrive, when there's new problems, right, that you need to solve. What else?

Danny O'Neill  16:40
I love coaching people. I've coached hundreds of salespeople in my career, you know, and it's, it's not what you might think there's, everybody knows that there's all these canned things that kind of get popularity at one point, and not in another all these ways and methods of doing it. But it's my opinion is that even though many good ideas are there, they're all very tactical. And I think if you want to repair a salesperson, you've got to go pretty strategic. And I mean, that interpersonally it comes about our psyche and what it means to us and simple things like, Do you have a balanced life? Or are you working constantly under the pressure? Because sales, for example, is endless. It's a crazy thing. You work like hell, for an entire quarter, you make your number, then the next day, you've got to start from zero. It seems it can seem to be in Saturday, it can be fun. And Saturday, I'm not a big fan of ejecting fun. And pretty much everything. Play works for kids way works for adults. And if you can make it a game, oh my god, where did that come from? It helps me as an ADHD guy had an eye, it helps everybody. It relaxes the part of the brain that tends to get blocked when there's constant pressure. You know, chemically, there's a lot of cortisol and many other things that get too complicated for me to go through. But I, I love teasing out what makes someone perform and helping them get there.

Brooke Schnittman  18:24
So essentially, you help people stop taking themselves too seriously too.

Danny O'Neill  18:31
Well, yeah, that's definitely part of it. Because it, you know, when you're under constant pressure, that becomes your life. And it's even if you thrive on it a bit. There's an end day to that. So the best performers find ways to make light. Get out of it. Yeah, yeah, it's really, it's a challenge. But it's, it can be done.

Brooke Schnittman  18:54
Yeah. So how do you balance your life?

Danny O'Neill  18:58
I balance my life through meditation. Exercise, I try to write quite a bit. Being a writer, I am always creating a story in my head. And so doing things like that are a greater relaxation to me. Plus, I love being around people. I'm you probably don't know this, but I'm an extrovert. Give me a room with 200 people that I haven't met, and give me a couple of hours. And I'll be in heaven. I will have met everyone have pretty deep conversations with at least 12 of them and probably make for friends. That's how my body my brain works.

Brooke Schnittman  19:36
So it energizes you by being around people.

Danny O'Neill  19:39
Yes, absolutely. That's why the for me and I think many others whether the pandemic was so poisonous.

Brooke Schnittman  19:47
Totally. I mean, it causes depression in many people because we are social beings. Even if you're an introvert. You still need people I know in the world that we've done together. There have been days where you haven't gotten yourself out there and been around people, right?

Danny O'Neill  20:08
Absolutely. No, I didn't mean to imply that I can execute on all this stuff. No, no, quite to the contrary, what I'm able to do now is because of how poorly I was doing previously, because I didn't have any tools.

Brooke Schnittman  20:22
Yeah. And what I've seen that I don't know, if you've said is that some of the reminders to yourself like they're more intrinsic now than extrinsic. I don't feel good. I don't feel right. Okay. Well, why do I not feel right? What am I not doing? That usually helps?

Danny O'Neill  20:45
Yes, yes. And, you know, speaking of funny again, in that evolution of thinking, I can say, Danny, it's not brain cancer, it's probably a cold, and I can have a good laugh at myself. They're always the best.

Brooke Schnittman  21:02
So you're not catastrophizing, the situation? And you're, yeah, you're making light?

Danny O'Neill  21:07
What is the point? I mean, you know, I've studied Buddhism for many years. And that is as unbiased as you can get. Because it's just acceptance of what is. But that means what actually is. So yes, no, it's not brain cancer.

Brooke Schnittman  21:25
And you definitely have a growth mindset, like you are probably one of the most comfortable people I know who is comfortable with the uncomfortable, not knowing what's next. Right?

Danny O'Neill  21:38
Yeah. I've had I've had a life where that has happened often, that impermanence that lack of assured this is to what's next was just part of me ever since I was a little kid. So I was adopted. I always felt it didn't know that then. But it was felt a lot of impermanence. So it became just a normal part of my life.

Brooke Schnittman  22:03
Interesting. So not knowing what's next has pretty much been ingrained in you from birth.

Danny O'Neill  22:11
Yes, yes, I have a pretty good education. But I think I'm far more educated and adaptable from from the street. Well, there's things that have happened in my life that just absolutely required me if I was to survive, to be able to adapt and to thrive. Yeah. I haven't done that flawlessly. But I've done it.

Brooke Schnittman  22:33
Yeah. So Danny, you have nurture, and nature, right. And nothing happens in vacuum, right? Nothing is just straight up. Nature, nothing is just straight up nurture. You've been adopted, you recently got diagnosed with ADHD, your history, your upbringing makes you who you are today.

Danny O'Neill  23:00
Definitely. Yes. Good and bad.

Brooke Schnittman  23:04
And all the in between? Yes. What would be the one thing that you would want people here to take away from your experience so far?

Danny O'Neill  23:16
It's all going to be okay. It just is.

Brooke Schnittman  23:19
Yeah. It will be it will be and we might not be able to forecast that we might not be able to vision that. And when we're emotionally so hard to see that. Right? We have that all or nothing mindset then the now and not now. Especially in children who are egocentric, you know, but it will it it's just a season.

Danny O'Neill  23:43
You know, first of all, I can't believe I'm 67 it's like, how did this happen? But I've had enough decades and cycles here. A lot has happened in my life. And just before I turned 30 I went to prison after being a golden boy in politics and being in the White House. And it was quite an amazing drop for me and my wife. I thought politics would be my path to success and it was there for a while and and it's apparently pretty different than today you you can do pretty much anything be successful at politics but back then you become radioactive.

Brooke Schnittman  24:18
We don't talk politics here. Danny This is a strictly an ADHD.

Danny O'Neill  24:24
Right, right. Right. So not what's gonna happen for it wasn't what I was what was going to happen for me anyway, that was not future. I had to begin from below the bottom after I was released from prison, and then just work my way up. It was one hell of a challenge. I mean, this is 1985. So it's a long time ago.

Brooke Schnittman  24:54
But 37 years ago,

Danny O'Neill  24:57
as awful as that was So that's kind of what I'm talking about. By everything's gonna be okay. Even my family said my life was over, I decided it wasn't. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other and looking for opportunities and pretending, acting as if we're going to walk the walk. If I wanted something, I had to be that person first before it could actually come to me. So I decided to be able to be that person.

Brooke Schnittman  25:26
Wow. So you were told repetitively through life experience, and through people that you're not good enough? You're not going to make it and you prove them wrong.

Danny O'Neill  25:39
It certainly seems that way. Yeah, I have a different life than what they forecasted for me. I'm mostly doing what I want. I'm at a point in time, my my life I've, I've expressed myself as a, as a father and a businessman, but also, as an artist, I love being able to just drop into the next character, and explore what that is from the inside, and be able to express that on camera, or on stage and make it realistic enough for people to suspend disbelief. And for those few moments actually be with that character as a person, not with me, but with the character. As an artist, that's, I don't think it gets any better than that.

Brooke Schnittman  26:30
So I'm gonna pose a challenging question here. Go for it. Are you acting right now?

Danny O'Neill  26:36
You mean in this conversation?

Brooke Schnittman  26:38
In life?

Danny O'Neill  26:45
No, I think there are certainly times where it is more helpful to only bring out certain parts of one's personality. Sometimes there's just, you know, just a little discernment. But in terms of that's an interesting question. Thank you for taking for much of my life. Certainly prior to prison. It was all performance. I knew what I where I wanted to go. And I assumed I knew how to get there. So there really was no me. I was this, this thing that I had created, that I believed would make me safe when I was a child, or make me get the next good job in my 20s, or helped me win elective office in my late 20s and early 30s, late 20s. I don't do that anymore. What you're seeing now, I mean, it's fun to be on camera. And there's, you know, the effect can be slightly different. But what you see is what you get,

Brooke Schnittman  27:49
this is authentically you. I am I am. And that my friend is what makes you successful.

Danny O'Neill  28:00
I hope so. I like being me.

Brooke Schnittman  28:04
While no one else can be with you right?

Danny O'Neill  28:07
Now God help them.

Brooke Schnittman  28:13
So Danny, it's so nice that you've got to that vulnerability that I was hoping you would get to for the audience. Because for those who are listening, I know that this is going to resonate with someone out there who is masking or who's had a past that they might not be too happy of, but they are looking for what's next. And like looking for hope and their successes with ADHD. And for prison. I believe that the statistics are 50% of people in prison have ADHD. And it's unmanaged ADHD. You didn't know you had it at that time. No, I

Danny O'Neill  28:56
had no idea. Yeah, I was just trying to get by. I can't. I felt something was working. I just kept doing it. And that that was some barriers. That was helpful. It wasn't drinking and all the things that were going on with me at that time. Sure.

Brooke Schnittman  29:13
So for the parents out there who have children who might be going down a path that you didn't want them to, or for adults who are seeking help and themselves like look at Danny's experience. He is the perfect example of someone who has defeated all odds. You know, he's been adopted, he's been told he's not good enough. He's been incarcerated. He has tried many different career paths and been successful, but it just wasn't the right thing for him. And he is a well liked sociable guy who is making a difference in other people's lives, has a growth mindset and most importantly is happy with himself. Right?

Danny O'Neill  30:00
Yes, yes. I have my moments that. Absolutely I'm more focused on finding more of myself.

Brooke Schnittman  30:09
Never find enough of yourself. You are an information junkie.

Danny O'Neill  30:17
I am. I have quite an apt appetite for that

Brooke Schnittman  30:21
as you should, as you should. Yeah. Well, Danny, it's been a pleasure having you on.

Danny O'Neill  30:26
Brooke, you're the best. As are you. Thank you.

Brooke Schnittman  30:30
And I look forward to our continued conversation.

Danny O'Neill  30:34
You bet. Can't wait.

Brooke Schnittman  30:38
Thanks for listening to this episode of successful with ADHD. I hope it helps you on your journey. And if you need any additional support for you or a loved one with ADHD, feel free to reach out to us at coaching with brooke.com and all social media platforms at coaching with Brooke and remember, it's Brooke with any Thanks again for listening. See you next time.