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Life Divergent
Tune in to listen to us as we discuss our experiences of living life divergently.
Life Divergent
EP 6 - Positive ADHD Traits
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Explore several positive ADHD traits.
Hello, welcome. I'm Trina.
SPEAKER_00That is true.
SPEAKER_02You know something else that's true? I'm Jason.
SPEAKER_00Howdy, howdy, howdy.
SPEAKER_02Hello. All right. This is Life Divergent. In today's episode, we are going to be talking about ADHD strengths. The positives of ADHD.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And it's important to know, as per usual, this is not meant to be diagnostic advice. We are not medical professionals, nor are we providing any form of legal counsel. In no way, shape, or form should anyone try to hold us liable for the information contained herein. Absolutely that. So uh that's a negatory, bro.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Nuh-uh. All right. So do you have a friend with you today, Jason?
SPEAKER_00I happen too, yes.
SPEAKER_02Yay. Let's see. Jason is holding up a little unicorn pig that's very, very cute. It's pink and fluffy and has a pink, darker pink mane and tail. Yay. For those who don't have the visual. And um it has heart nostrils.
SPEAKER_00It does, and a smile.
SPEAKER_02Yay! And a smile.
SPEAKER_00But then but then we move on.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00And I'm not who do I have? You have a teenage mutant Hello Kitty?
SPEAKER_02I do. And which one is she?
SPEAKER_00Leonardo. So it's Hello Kitty with the the turtle body and the green skin, fur, with the the blue Leonardo ness.
SPEAKER_02Everything.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02Yes, she's very cute. Alright.
SPEAKER_00One fact about Leonardo. He painted all 16 chapels.
SPEAKER_02And that is not to be confused with the 16th chapel. The 16th chapel. Okay. Alright, so as we said, we are discussing ADHD strengths.
SPEAKER_00Oh me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's you. All day.
SPEAKER_00Alright, well, ADHD is really there's a lot to it. So it's it's a different way of experiencing the world. It has its challenges, sure, but there are a lot of strengths to it. Uh and it drives innovation, creativity, and resilience. Yes. Now, not a lot of people are diagnosed or have it or whatever. Uh, it's a worldwide about six six to nine percent of children are diagnosed with ADHD, and adults, roughly four and a half percent.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00And those are the percents that we have.
SPEAKER_02Excuse me.
SPEAKER_00Your excuse.
SPEAKER_02Thank you very much. Thank you very much. All right. Um, so one of the first positives that we have as ADHDers. Did I say that right that time? ADHD.
SPEAKER_00ADHD.
SPEAKER_02Um, one of the first ones that we have is hyper focus. Um, I know it might be hard to believe the way that I've been kind of going off, but it's true. We focus differently, but when our brains lock in, they really, really lock on to something.
SPEAKER_00Yes, very interesting sort of dichotomy where there is an inability to focus, which can be very difficult to deal with if something's extremely important and you know that in your mind will not cooperate. And then you have the hyperfixation on things that don't even matter in life sometimes, but every part of you needs to stay up till 3 a.m. or whatever to do the thing that you are set your mind on doing, and you can't stop that, it seems like.
SPEAKER_02Right. And um go ahead.
SPEAKER_00Like you'll you'll you'll miss food, you'll miss your sleep time, you'll miss all the stuff you have to work the next morning or go to school the next morning, you gotta be up at six. You no, no, it's like I'll be fine, I'll be fine, I'll be fine. Let me just I gotta do the thing. That's that's all that there is.
SPEAKER_02Yep, it's uh really unfortunate. Um once you get in that flow, it's hard to get out.
SPEAKER_00But it's really cool listen to that.
SPEAKER_02What's that?
SPEAKER_00It's really cool though, isn't it? Like you get really excited about something. I like being excited about things, and like you said, you you're locked into the zone and it's relaxing, it's peaceful, it's nice because you just get to do the thing. It's not like an OCD thing where you have to and it bothers you that you have to. And maybe some people are like that, I can't speak to that, but I want to, and that's all that's important to me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's almost like when you're not locked into something, you're like, what is my purpose in life for that moment when you're not locked into something? And it's like I I know, like um with doing this podcast, when I have videos to edit or not, um, to post, to upload, to do our shorts and reels and stuff like that. It's like when I'm done, I'm just like this this is incorrect, something's missing. I I now need something else to focus on. Um, I don't I don't like the downtime, it's distressing. Fortunately, I can pretty easily lock on to something else, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02All right. Now we're moving on to creative and divergent thinking.
SPEAKER_00Yes, another another strength in its own way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um, so the thing about people who have ADHD is that again, we're not speaking about everybody, but in general, um, we don't think in straight lines, we think in fireworks, so to speak, or it's like we don't go from A to B to C. Sometimes we go from A to M to Z. Um, and it's really good, it's a good way of thinking because you're able to see things outside of the box, so to speak. Um so that when you're trying to solve a problem, you're able to utilize different strategic things, things, different strategies. That's what I was trying to say. You're able to use different strategies from different areas to solve that problem. Um, so you end up with more starts than the average brain. Um, you might have fewer finishes, but when you go, you go deep. What'd you say?
SPEAKER_00I said giggity.
SPEAKER_02Diggity?
SPEAKER_00Giggity. It's uh that's what I said.
SPEAKER_02When you go diggity, you go diggity?
SPEAKER_00No, never mind. It's okay. We'll talk later.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_02Uh I got lost for a minute there. Sorry. I was deep.
SPEAKER_00That's not on you.
SPEAKER_02All right, pattern recognition. So we that's how we're able to, you know, shape a problem really fast, that we can see things that we can't even explain how we see them or why we know them, so that we can solve problems. I don't like the way I just said that.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's here now, that's forever.
SPEAKER_02Well, it doesn't have to be, but it's gonna be. Gosh dang it. You think you could explain that a little better than I just did?
SPEAKER_00Pattern recognition?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We recognize patterns.
SPEAKER_02We do that. Thank you. That explained it better.
SPEAKER_00No, listen. So some people can piece patterns together, you know, find things that make sense, and then there are people who will see something and the pattern will emerge on its own, and you didn't really put thought into it. It just is clear as day. Things just make sense. It's like if you look at grass, you see all the blades of grass, and then you compare that to someone who might not, they just see a field of green with no texture. It's like, well, I didn't have to think and find the blades of grass, I just looked and they were there. So that's like finding patterns. You just look at something and like I'll do like logic puzzles or different type of puzzle games with people, and a lot of times I'm crushing it, and they're like, I didn't need how did you figure that out? I haven't even thought through it yet. I'm like, I just I don't I saw it. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02It was just there. I love stuff like that. I really do.
SPEAKER_00It's like your mind goes faster than your mind does.
SPEAKER_02Yes, all that that you just said.
SPEAKER_00Did that explain it better or just differently?
SPEAKER_02Um, probably better and differently, more succinctly, more um less stumbling, bumbling that I was doing.
SPEAKER_00Okay, great. Number three resilience that you didn't ask for is what this slide is called. Uh that that that's interesting because I think most of our traits are traits we didn't ask for. We just we just have them. Okay, so you learn from your mistakes more quickly. You can pick things up without a plan, you can just go. There are you you have this natural ability to find workarounds for things, to make things work efficiently. And you learn to tolerate, I hate to say failure, but whenever you don't succeed in an attempt, you you get used to that because you learn from it and build from it, and you become more resilient. So, you know, there are some people who don't do that, who who aren't used to that, and so whenever something doesn't go well, it's really discouraging, they have a hard time recovering from it. But you'll see that less with ADHD. You have this resilience to stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and what's really nice is that if we fail at something we're doing, that we can just start again. And it's like not it's not really a failure, it's a roadblock to you know, a fork at the road, so to speak, where it's like, okay, I need to figure out which way to go. Okay, this is how I'm gonna go about this now. Um, whereas maybe some person who doesn't have ADHD, they get to the end of the road and that's just it. They're done, they can't figure it out, they don't know where to go from there. Whereas oftentimes people with ADHD are able to navigate their way around that roadblock. Um, anything else?
SPEAKER_00Uh there are what? Like I just looked up a number, the the light bulb, Edison's light bulb. Took him 1200 attempts to make a light bulb. And he never said that he failed 1199 times, he just found 1,199 ways to not make a light bulb.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00Um an interesting way of reframing it, but uh there's there's a dedication and a determination, and resilience comes from that, and and we don't look at these attempts as as failures. When I think about my successes in life, I don't remember all the times I didn't succeed. That's true if I never succeeded, which sucks, but I remember doing the thing and moving on.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00But the I the fact that I don't remember it doesn't mean that it still burned itself into my mind, and I'm okay with things taking a long time to do, beating my head against the wall. Like when you spend five five hours today fighting millennia to no avail.
SPEAKER_02What's funny about that is I've um heard some ADHD people are like, okay, and I won't make that mistake again. Whereas there are some that do make mistakes again and again and again and again. So again, I just like to remind us that we're not talking about everyone, but we are talking about in general, these are the things that are seen as positives for ADHD or in general. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, why do we fall down? So we can learn to pick ourselves up again.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00All right, anyway.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so big-hearted, big feeling, feeling, not feeling, feeling. Um so the same nervous system that gets overwhelmed at the grocery store, don't get me started, also reads the room like a poem, so to speak. Um, metaphors, crotch, shampoo. Anyway, um, so there's um a thing called emotional attunement, and that means that you notice a shift in someone's voice before they even finish a sentence. You may look at them and they look like they always look, but you may see something in their eyes that seems different. And it's a common misconception, I think, that ADH or AD, people with ADHD, there we go, or even people with autism, that they don't um that they're not attuned to other people's feelings and emotions. It's just that we might express them differently, we might not press the issue, we might not ask them what's going on, but it doesn't mean that we don't see it, and it doesn't mean that we don't feel it in in just in the air, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00There's a very common thing that I've heard from people with ADHD. They'll recognize a tiny shift in a person's voice when talking to them, and the only conclusion is that person hates me now for some reason.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's a tough one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I exaggerate slightly, but it's like, yeah, okay, what did I do wrong? Why did their tone shift? It could be anything in their life, it could be that they saw something on their desk they didn't like, who knows? But all of a sudden, it's like, oh my god, I screwed something up. This person doesn't like me now. I I need to be careful. And then all of a sudden, you start behaving weirdly around that person because you don't know what was wrong in the first place, and then they're getting kind of weird about you being weird, and you have this whole self-fulfilling prophecy where this awkward relationship because they said a word slightly differently, and then your life is ruined in your mind.
SPEAKER_02And a lot of people that I know who have ADHD have um expressed the whole walking on eggshells, or they feel like they're walking on eggshells because they're around someone and they can just feel that tension that that whatever it is that the person's giving off that makes them know that you know maybe they need to make themselves small or whatever. But I'm I'm making this sound like a bad thing, but it's not the emotional attunement when it comes to being empathetic is a very great gift, I think. Okay, another thing that can be said for people um who are big-hearted, big-feeling people with ADHD, is that when they care, they really care. Um, their friends, their family, if they have causes that they believe in, fictional characters, um, all of it. Anything that an ADHD person is interested in, that they care about, they are going to care about it. And there's just no two ways about it. They're loyal to the end, unless you do something bad.
SPEAKER_00And that is something that you kind of have to keep in check. You kind of have to rein in because it's possible. I used to do this a lot where I would care about someone and things that are important to them, and I could see a way that they could be successful in an area, and I would want that for them and their success so much, I would want it more than they would, and I wasn't respectful of the fact that maybe that wasn't as important to them as I wanted it to be, because I knew they could do the thing or be successful there, and I kind of pushed an issue that you know was up to them to figure out on their own. If someone doesn't support them more than they supported themselves, supporting them in their decisions as long as it's not negative, horrible, or dangerous, but understanding that people look at things differently and everyone has their own path in life, but you know, as long as you can keep that in check, yeah, you care about your friends, you help them along as long as you know they're comfortable with it and you have that loyalty, that dedication.
SPEAKER_02Yep. And then we have our justice radar. Yes, unfairness just gets us going. Um, we will become proactive, speak up for people, do what we feel is necessary or right in order to right or wrong, or just to protect someone from being treated unfairly. A lot of ADHD adults end up as the person who finally speaks up.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, all the time. Yeah, I'm I I'm the person who will call out someone in the restaurant for you know being an asshole to his wife or whatever at a table, you know. Yeah. So that's that's fine. I don't care. You know, you do the right thing. There, so my favorite movie, listen, it's Captain America Civil War. And there's a scene. Yes. Cap no, hold on. Tony Stark is talking to Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man. And Spider-Man says something in that movie. It's one of my favorite lines. I'm gonna do it almost verbatim, but I hold to this, it means so much to me. If something bad happens and you have the power to stop it, but you don't, the bad thing happens because of you. Inaction is just as bad as action. If you can make a difference and and help someone, but you just watch a bad thing happen, it's like it's your fault. I mean, I I it it isn't in in the real world, that's not like really always the truth, but I I can't not see it that way. I just you have to do the right thing because the right thing needs to be done.
SPEAKER_02Is letting something happen truly different from causing it to happen?
SPEAKER_00There's a whole moral, ethical, there are there are classes on on that.
SPEAKER_02So and this isn't ethics, but I mean it's part of justice though. I mean, it's it can be to me, um, like some of the things that happen or are happening in the world, and I'm not gonna go into details or anything, but this political climate, there are times that I just I feel suffocated because there are things happening that I really don't feel like I can stop, that I can do anything about because I'm just one person. I mean, I know, I know all the things that people say. Well, you could join, blah, blah, blah but what I'm saying is that initial kind of I really feel suffocated. I mean, it's a a physical a physical thing that happens to me when I see injustice. I can't, I can't, I just can't.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's infuriating.
SPEAKER_02It is. Um, so fortunately, we're built for the storm. Nice segue there. Do you like that?
SPEAKER_00That was a segue.
SPEAKER_02Were you done with the previous thing?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, besides doing a stupid heroic justice voice, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Oh gosh, okay. Um, I thought I had an example, but then I lost it. So, anywho, so being built for the storm, basically, when everything is on fire, when things are calamities are happening all around, the ADHD person tends to be the calmest person in the room and is able to think on their feet and take action.
SPEAKER_00That is correct.
SPEAKER_02It's all you have to say about that. You are correct, sir.
SPEAKER_00I mean I mean, there are a lot of different things that that we can say, but that's that's really what it comes down to. You know, there's a crisis or something, you know, really bad's happening, all of a sudden you you know what to do, or you have the ability to think through things.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, part of it is go ahead. Sorry.
SPEAKER_00The all the the neurochemicals just get you in the zone.
SPEAKER_02If you get flooded with dopamine. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Now this isn't every this sorry. This is not everyone. Obviously we have to generalize because they're just there's so much variation, but yeah, generally speaking, things calm down. You don't panic. You try to find a plan, build a plan, focus on an escape route, whatever the situation is.
SPEAKER_02All of a sudden there's a problem in front of you that you need to solve. Um all the boring stuff that was going on disappears. Not saying that tragedy is interesting, but for the mind of someone who is always delving deep and always thinking outside the box and you know, non-linear linear that word that I can't say right now, um it it's just you just become focused and you're able to problem solve.
SPEAKER_00Um some of these things that we're talking about really don't work. We're we're trying to explain something that's extraordinarily simple to understand.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00But you know, situations you're calm.
SPEAKER_02It's basically thinking on your feet, and we kind of get used to thinking on our feet through our entire lives because we're always looking for solutions to problems, um, always deep diving, finding solutions where we didn't even know there was a problem in the first place, so it just kind of comes naturally to us from all of our deep diving. Yeah. All right.
SPEAKER_00The last of the big ADHD strengths that we'll be covering today, superpowers, if you will, is very plain and simple curiosity. Curiosity gets you so much. That's how you learn, that's how you grow, that's how you get better. And to the ADHD brain, getting better is a huge driver. Learning more, understanding things, understanding yourself, the things around you. The hyperfixation on a new skill set, for instance, and you just stack those, and so you know a little bit about a lot of things and can speak on a lot of topics.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, when we get hooked on something, it could be something that we just deep dive on for three months. Well, if you're deep diving something for three months, guess what? You're gonna know a lot of information about that thing. Um, so that curiosity really gets you to specialize, so to speak, in certain areas.
SPEAKER_00I I can tell you a great deal that I've never taken a class on. I can tell you a great deal about the speed of light, gravity, and the idea of time travel and how it relates to all of that, how time is not static. There's so much to it. And I I learned about it a little bit, and I'm like, this is the most interesting thing I've ever seen in my life. And then all I watched for like months was uh like Neil deGrasse Tyson videos and Brian Cox and read through different articles on the topics. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02I can talk to you about gardening and raising chickens because I got hooked on those things for like over a year. Um, so do I have a garden? No. Do I have chickens? No, still interested. But I just got interested in them and did deep dives on them and watched every video on them that I could find and did research online and just because it interested me. Yes, don't know why. But I love chirkins.
SPEAKER_00Um do I have gravity? No. Do I have the speed of light within me? No. Can I time travel? No, but it's still interesting.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_02Just had to one-up me, didn't you? Do I have chickens? No. Do I have a garden? No.
SPEAKER_00It's it's satire.
SPEAKER_02All right. So um then we have like these connector brains. So we can know a little bit about a lot of different things. So we tend to be those people who um, because we're curious, even if we go uh only a certain depth in something and decide that maybe that's not the way we wanted to go, we're gonna know a lot about several things, um, maybe not in depth in all those things, and the way that we will hyperfocus on one thing, because you know, there's only so much time in the world. But um it means that we're allowed that we can um connect things to one another, like you know, I can connect chickens to farming. I mean, that's not really that much of a stretch, but it's just a quick little example.
SPEAKER_00Um like the conversation I was having with my sister earlier today. Which was it's just a long series of texts with um ever subtle references that led to other references that led to other references, and unless you knew those specific references, it would not make any sense. Because we had all these connections between a specific deliberate mispronunciation of one word and how perhaps there was something similar to that mentioned vaguely in another movie or book or something.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_02So those are the connections, which is right, just leading you from one thing to another, to another, to another, and then that makes you the person who ends up introducing ideas um that fit into other places, like he was just describing. Okay, and then finally, Jason. Finally, what the last point about being a lifelong learner.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I mean, pretty much touched on it.
SPEAKER_02You build up a skill set all over the place. Boredom driving us, and you know we don't really stagnate.
SPEAKER_00Um, I suppose in the uh business world, you have this sort of cross-training and you can learn a a little bit about a lot of uh programs, softwares, departments, and so if you're going for internal promotions or something, or moving to other companies, you'll have a more diverse skill set, and that a lot of that comes from curiosity. Because if you're doing it just because you feel obligated to, it's really not going to stick as well as you're earnestly curious about it.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00That's all I have to say about that.
SPEAKER_02Well, just as an example, I know when um when we worked for one particular company, Jason and I, and his sister, as a matter of fact, worked for the same company, and we dealt with um the IRS, and um there's a manual that the IRS has that's wickedly long.
SPEAKER_00Um Internal Revenue Code.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Um, but I would read that just for kicks because I found a lot of the stuff interesting. I I would start out reading something that was relevant to what I was doing, but then I would just read and read and read and read. And that probably made me a little more knowledgeable than most people who I worked with because I took the time to actually sit and read and understand what it was, what the code was, what the laws were. Um so that's just an example, yeah. And that helped me out getting another job, a couple of other jobs, as a matter of fact. So, yeah.
SPEAKER_00These these are fantastic strengths. I think they're great to have. Um, that's not to say that ADHD is just this fantastic thing everybody wants. Uh as everyone who has those benefits and possibly is a victim of that knows there are challenges associated with this. We're not trying to paint it out to be only this great thing, because you know, pros and cons to everything. Just extreme pros and you know, sometimes extreme cons, but you know, different video, I suppose.
SPEAKER_02And along with um, it's nice that along with the challenges that we experience, that there are some things that we can embrace and make our own, and you know, be thankful or grateful, I guess, that we have those things that we have, because a lot of times um those things outweigh the negatives, and to me, that's helpful, and something that's really important.
SPEAKER_00Everybody needs to know this. If you find out, or if you're diagnosed with ADHD, there's nothing wrong with you. Because I I do know someone who got a late-in-life diagnosis, and that was a question like, am I broken? What's wrong with me? Nothing, it's just each brain works differently in the world, and yours happens to have four letters slapped on it. Doesn't change anything, you're still the same person you were, different operating system, sure. And you can incorporate that well into your life. You build your life around who you are, what you want, and not what you think people expect from you.
SPEAKER_02Right. You are who you are, despite or in spite of the difficulties that you went through before you became diagnosed. It doesn't make you worse or anything like that. As he said, you are who you are. I am what I am, and that's all that I am. All right. Um, next episode is going to be about autism strengths. We're gonna focus on the strengths of autism.
SPEAKER_00Um I have much to say about that. I have he does there the yes, I there are strengths that I love so much that come with that, and I could profess on them at length. And I I I will you be here professing will happen.
SPEAKER_02Be here, be there for the professions. Um, I think that we didn't really give a whole lot of um personal stories in this particular episode. Um, however, in the next one, I feel like we will give a little more, go a little more in depth with that side of the things of things. All right. I guess that's it for me. Is that it for you?
SPEAKER_00I have nothing more to contribute at this time.
SPEAKER_02Very well. All right. On that note, we'll say goodbye.
SPEAKER_00Goodbye.
