The power of interest. Did you know that it's completely possible to get your brain to function just as the "neurotypical" brain without any outside stimulants or medications? I love the power of the mind. Not saying that you can't and shouldn't use what works... I LOVE pairing my coffee, and my thought work to create incredible results I never believed was possible, even 6 months ago. What will unlocking your brain do for you?
Love this podcast? We would love your review, or a share with a friend! If you are ready to jump in, and create huge change and make at least another $100k in your business this year, let's jump on a complementary coaching call. Click here to book your complementary 1:1 Coaching Session with Ellen Argo.
Transcript
We can activate our brains without any form of medication or external stimulant, so they act just the same as the “neurotypical brain” - A Neurotypical brain as defined by medical news today explains —The word “neurotypical” refers to people who have brains that function in a similar way to most of their peers. Individuals who are neurotypical develop skills, such as social or organizational skills, at around the same rate as others their age.
I was deemed the ADHD poster child by my well meaning pediatrician when I was 12 years old. I got about a 100% on the analysis test. I struggled in school
Had a hard time sitting still
Would randomly blurt out sounds- because I had a hard time staying still.
I was a total goof ball.
I was also in a strange place.
Surrounded with strange people.
All trying to be something they weren’t.
Trying to be super cool, wear Hollister- and be an adult already.
We had just moved from the other side of the country.
Now knowing what I know about the ADHD brain,
This feeling of pressure- and isolation is part of the reason my ADHD was so much more exaggerated. Not to mention, middle school is not for the weak.
Throw in the fact that I was a head taller than everyone,
And from the east coast- and a goofball…now we’re talking! I wanted to share this story- because those that know me now
The ones that see my success even as a younger person
That see me in my practice
They tell me, I had no idea you were ADHD…
You know why?? Because when we live in our zone of interest,
Our brain lights up just the same as a neurotypical brain.
Interest revs up our ADHD brain.
Without interest is when we have executive function problems. Harvard defines Executive function and self-regulation skills as the mental processes that enable us to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully. I am never going to be able to be successful because of my ADHD.
You can use the power of your brain to spark interest in any task, to reach any goal.
I like to think about what people that really like this subject think about it? When I am stuck - probably editing a video, or doing something on the computer which is definitely not my forte…
Or when I am doing anything number involved… I often times immediately go into the thoughts I have been thinking about it forever, such as…I am terrible with numbers
Or one of my favorites, my “I love technology” song- sang in an angry and sarcastic voice. When I am aboard the struggle bus. Depending on where I bring awareness to myself… If I catch myself early on in the frustration, or even simply just boredom…
If I had decided it truly is something that I need to learn, or do…
I can think of a different thought that will spark interest in my brain. For numbers - lots of times I am able to know that
When I track the numbers in my business, it helps me understand what is working and what is not working
Those numbers help us know what direction we are heading in. Helps us make appropriate decisions.
Helps us grow our business over time. They are not just numbers anymore, and with this thought,
Pulling reports, and placing numbers in a spreadsheet is somehow strangely exciting, and even addictive. I look over and reflect month over month to look for trends.
Something that I lovingly poked fun at my CPA friend about years ago.
My point here is -
The only reason you believe something is not interesting
Is because you have thought certain thoughts about it for some time.
Knowing that you get to decide what thoughts you think
You can chose to think thoughts that inspire the spark.
Ignite the brain, so that it operates that exactly the same as the neurotypical.
Not only do we activate all of the same parts of the brain, but we also have more fun at the same time. Instead of forcing yourself to do it sometime of the time….or more than likely not doing it at all, because you hate it so much that you always find other things to do instead of this one task…such as pulling reports and putting them into a spreadsheet..
I say this - because I did this for at least a year.
How to catch yourself when you are thinking thoughts that will shut down your brain —or at least suck all the fun.
It’s a true concern - a lot of people believe I’m not aware enough to spark interest in my brain Most of us have been practicing running away from their thoughts, trying to drown them out through all sorts of methods, eating, drinking, facebooking…we aren’t well practiced at noticing our thoughts. My favorite place to begin, is always looking at what we are actively doing in the moment. When I can recognize I am jumping from task to task,
Feel like a lost puppy - or when my hubby lovingly says something like…you look lost. These are definitely reflections for me to pause and figure out what is going on in my brain. When I am over processing,
Over stimulated.
This is definitely a time where I am operating from a thought that is not allowing my brain to function.
Let’s go back to the definition of Executive disfunction,
Because I think this is a great way for us to recognize the actions that we might take - at last I do for sure when I am shutting my brain down through negative thoughts.
When I am not following my schedule
When I am not paying attention to the thing I am working on
When I am not present with the person I am with-like my hubby, or even a client
When I am having to read and reread instructions,
When I am jumping from task to task but not completing anything
When I have 2049 tabs open on my laptop
When I go through my email and don’t read the important emails and just mark them as unread for later… These are all examples of things that I for sure do, that are my little aha moments. As soon as I catch myself doing this I get to chose how I want to continue. Yesterday, when my hubby said you look like a lost puppy
I chuckled, and said “I feel like a lost puppy” I was feeling so frantic,
Trying to get so many things in a short period of time. Once he said that it was like I was watching my frantic self, take 4x longer walking in a room, out of a room, not grabbing anything, making it back to the kitchen to remember why I walked to the closet. I was operating from the thought of - I need to get so much done in the next 30 minutes…which lead to me actually getting very little done in the 30 minutes because my executive function was completely shut down by this thought….but I did get a ton of extra steps in!
You can turn off your ADHD.
I know I have thought a bunch in my recent past - and it might pop up forever…My brain likes to occupy the thought of “If I had a normal brain, this wouldn’t be an issue”
Because my human brain, as every human brain likes to remind us of our flaws. It reminds us to keep evolving. Reminds us of the cobweb in the corner. It doesn’t mean you have to believe everything your brain offers you. Especially when we have not been evaluating the thoughts in our mind. They can get a little wild when they are left unchecked. ADHD is truly nothing to be ashamed of. That is one of the big things I want to remind people of through their journey with this podcast. No difference any of us has should be a means to separate ourselves, to blame or shame ourselves. It is simply a gift to understand how to use it. Each and every once of us has a quirky thing about us. Ours just happens to have a title. The only thing that will let it define you- is you.
I have ADHD,
And SO MANY of my FAVORITE most inspiring mentors have ADHD as well. This gave me so much hope.
Watching people with the same “disfunction”
Have some of the most successful businesses in the world
Being able to create incredible impact
Not limited by this thing I believed limited me before
This made me realize it was not a truth-
That - I could never be successful with ADHD
Was a lie.
That I was choosing to give space in my brain.
That’s when I stopped choosing,
When I honed in what I was doing when I was thinking this. Being aware of what I was doing - like the walking around the house, adn leaving the room without the item I was looking for -
This is my awareness,
My time to reflect
And decide what I am chosing.
What am I operating from right now? Maybe we can simply recognize the feeling in our bodies. Maybe it’s Pressure,
Or frantic,
Or fear. We don’t truly need to identify the exact thought right away.
But we can decide to stop.
Breath.
And reflect- when I am taking actions that aren’t feeling helpful.
When we deliberately decide thoughts that spark interest, we activate our brains (ADHD or not) so we can focus, sustain effort to take successful action, and regulate/savor our positive emotions to complete our intended goal.
When you recognize, embrace, and expand your strengths by owning and using the innate talents you are naturally good at, you will automatically improve your focus, accomplish more, and feel more fulfilled.
This creates a positive cycle. We start to use this as proof for us as entrepreneurs, we think better thoughts about ourselves and our abilities. We have better self-confidence and we accomplish more tasks, and continue to feel more fulfilled.
What we do know is that when they took an image of an ADHD brain and a non ADHD brain, when interest was involved with the task at hand. There was no recognizable difference in brain activity between either brains. However, when there was no interest, or there was time pressure the ADHD brain shut down. This is incredibly powerful in understanding our brain, and using science to help us create a balanced business, that is fulfilling, using thoughts and thought awareness to keep our brain lighting up. In my ADHD certification, they called the ADHD brain an interest based brain. We can’t just do something because it’s important- we will only want to do something when it has interest. The cool thing, is we can change our thoughts about something deliberately if it’s something that we really want to have interest in - even if just for a short while. With negative thoughts, that make us annoyed with the task- our brain will shut down and want to do anything but that. We hyper fixate on what it is that we don’t like. Which drives frustration and more shutting down. We can chose to take that same task- and think a different thought. Maybe a thought that simply gives us more ability to fail. My two biggest struggles as an entrepreneur is wearing the hat of needing to understand taxes, and a lot of tech stuff. I can tell every time my brain wants to shut down- and just abort mission. It wants to physically get up and run away from the computer as soon as it sees that I have an email from the CPA…sorry CPA.
I get to be aware of this reaction, to ask myself if this is helpful. I get to, at that moment decide. Do I want to continue to think this thought such as “I will never understand taxes” “taxes are the Bain of my existence” Or do I want to have the thought- there are so many more things I can do with my money when I understand my taxes. - this makes my brain think about all how I can use that money for marketing my business, instead of collecting a higher taxable profit. It gears me more towards a growth mindset. with this thought- these thoughts are also accessible - further driving my innovative brain.
“When I understand taxes I can make smarter choices. “ I can support my business’ growth more, and just have more understanding.
These thoughts Spark interest, and opportunity for myself, and my company.
It also makes the act of doing the thing way less terrible. And like my story earlier, we can actually learn how fun it can be.
Then through experiencing how fun it is - our belief around it will soon begin to change as well.
Now this thing that we used to hate doing,
We had proof was just awful.
That we avoided like the plague -
Now we can find ourselves finding ways to innovate it -
And doing it regularly and having fun. If I had these thoughts - especially “when I understand taxes it helps me make smarter choices”
This ignites my ADHD brain, even in something that normally is not interesting to me.
I use my thoughts about this subject to interest me - to find something that serves me in that moment.
This keeps me from running away from the computer —at least when I become aware of it. It allows me to learn, to listen, to ask questions, and eventually - make better decisions in the future. What are some things that you have identified are necessary for you to do in business,
But every time they come up for you, you want to run away in the opposite direction.
Or maybe it just elicits a strong panic feeling.
This is a great thing to look at first.
Analyze the thoughts that you are thinking…or just start with the feeling that you are experiencing when that thing comes up. This is the beginning process, to allowing your thoughts about it. Once you create wiggle room for the thoughts - then maybe you will be ready to have other thoughts about your thing. Mine being taxes. When I changed my thoughts about taxes,
When I realized that it could be fun to figure out what to do - and how to make sure I do things strategically - like how much more I can help people when I invest that money towards marketing my business, and other investment strategies when I understood my taxes and tax burden - I had an entirely different outcome.
When I was thinking about how bad I am at math,
How I hate numbers,
How my brain doesn’t do this stuff
I think I am dyslexic - because numbers change in my brain
I perpetuated more of that. More distrust for myself
More anger
And more simply not doing
And certainly no innovation, because I wasn’t present when I was doing those things
I was half present- because I wanted so badly to do something else besides that
Which looking back - isn’t it amazing how we can judge ourselves
Decide that something isn’t a strength of ours,
When truly we weren’t even trying in the first place.
We had this thought that it was terrible- so our brain wasn’t even on the task at hand.
It was already onto the next thing.
We were building belief - every time we messed up with that thing.
Doing math, of filling out a spreadsheet while thinking about your next meal…No wonder I believed I was no good at it!!
When my brain is in interest, I jump into the flow state.
When I am not in interest, because I am thinking negative thoughts about the thing I am doing -
I am thinking of everything but the thing I am doing. or at least - thinking about the “I don’t know how” to do this thing- which is not focused on the task at hand…
But all the other things we think it will take. another example is when I was thinking about how hard it was for me to want to go workout - how I really needed sleep. I didn’t take action. I slept instead of getting things done. It looks different for all of us - so what is your thing?
Our suffering comes from our resistance to reality
Being with your reality, truly experiencing it.
Reflecting on your thoughts, and recognizing the thoughts you are taking action from will free you. ….Not feeling like your thoughts are happening to you
That your feelings are out of your control.
That your life is out of your control
That your unique brain wiring has anything to do with your current success or lack of success.
Your brain wiring is actually such a gift. It helps us realize the thoughts we are thinking so much faster.
Where other people can think crappy thoughts-
And just keep their head down and work.
We can use our unique brain wiring to help us realize-
Wait. This sucks. my brain is totally shut down right now. What am I thinking? What am I hyper fixating on? Write it all down.
This is where the awareness begins. We have been practicing non-awareness all of our lives
So please be gracious with yourself
You are not going to realize your thoughts all the time,
Not even 20 years of perfect practice. A monk still has thoughts when they meditate. It’s just the way the brain works. it offers us thoughts. It is hardwired to keep us safe. However, the more you practice looking at the sentences in your mind.
That is when we can intercept them and decide what we want to think on purpose. That is when we can decide what to create.
Not in resistance to what is not working for us. It requires so much less work.
Back to my example of the taxes. It was grueling - like my body was physically angry whenever I had to do taxes. (and still experience this every once in a while)
But just my awareness of the anger, allows me to remember the other thoughts that I truly believe in it - and it totally changes my feelings right at that moment. Which creates an entirely different outcome for me. AND I have way more fun. I am not in a suffer fest at all. I truly learn to enjoy it…and then I have more and more evidence stored in my memory bank that maybe taxes aren’t that terrible after all….
I am going to have to practice that a few more times to truly believe that. Haha.
With that said, I am for sure not a believer in forcing positive thoughts.
I do know that when you truly believe it - it can change the way your brain functions as an ADHD.
You have stimulated your ADHD brain, without meds, without coffee…for 100 free. You got your stuff done, and you had more fun. This is the beginning of a lifetime my friend. Want to know how I get so much done in a day? How I am an energizer bunny. Intentional thoughts. You’ve got this.
Love this podcast? We would love your review or a share with a friend!
If you are ready to jump in, create change and make at least another $100k in your business this year, let's jump on a complimentary coaching call.
Click on the link in my bio to book your complimentary 1:1 Coaching Session with Ellen Argo.
Comments