In this video, Dr. Jim, ADHD specialist and founder of FastBraiin, answers the question, "What are the long-term results of having ADHD?" The following is a basic transcript.
That is an interesting question when you ask about results. And I like thinking about ADHD in terms of results. Phil Knight wrote a book called Shoe Dog. Phil started Nike. It is a wonderful book because it talks about the story of over 10-15 years of his struggles, nearly going bankrupt, even when Nike was early on, making 7-10 million dollars a year. They were on the verge of being bankrupt, bankrupt, bankrupt.
Banks were not re-giving their loans to them. What was Phil Knight? He was all over the place. In fact, people say that he could never complete a task, he would never return phone calls because he would forget, he would not be on time for appointments, and his desk was a mess!
He's only worth, I don't know, 10 billion dollars now, how big is Nike? So the issue is not, what is ADHD and what are the negative consequences of having it. No, it's more, I'm FastBraiin. How am I uniquely gifted, and what might I accomplish?
I may own Nike. I might start Jet Blue. I might be a top Olympic athlete. I may be a top basketball player, or a drummer, musician, or ballet dancer. Yes, you might be! That's the neat thing about having ADHD / FastBraiin. You are going to have some attention issues, but you are going to take risks.
When a risk fails, what do we do? We learn from it and try something else.
Thomas Edison said, "I know a thousand ways not to do a lightbulb." Why? Because he tried and tried and tried and failed and failed and failed. But he kept trying and kept learning.
In today's world, if you fail, you get chastised, and that's it. You get chastised for failing, you don't get chastised for learning from the mistakes we make. We've got to get the thought in our minds that when we make a mistake, it's okay and we can learn from it.
We have to have the safety and freedom to make a mistake and have others say, "That's okay, what are you learning from it?"
If I make a 65 on a test, and on the next test I make a 75, then I've made an improvement, right? I need positives for that. Because then, if I get positives reinforcement, there's a chance I could make an 80 next time because I see the reward.
If I'm getting chastised for everything I'm doing, I'm not going to improve myself.
The results of having ADHD limitless. But it's a choice that everyone has to make. It's a choice of the person who has ADHD, and a choice of those around the ADHD individual. How are you going to affect them? How are you going to respond to them?
We as parents have to understand our FastBraiin children, help guide them, and help improve their own personal productivity.
