Interview on Hope, with David Giwerc

David Giwerc

David is the Founder and President of the ADD Coach Academy, founded in 1998, the premier comprehensive ADHD coach training program. The program is designed to teach the essential skills necessary to powerfully coach individuals with ADD. David is a Master Certified Coach, with the ICF and has been coaching adults with ADHD for a decade, with a specific focus on entrepreneurs with ADHD and mentors some of the world’s leading coaches.  His site is at www.addca.com

The Paradox of ADHD

David: Then there is the Paradox of ADHD: on the one hand a kid with ADHD can be playing a sport where they kick a ball and stop a ball coming at them – say a soccer ball at 70mph – yet they can’t pay attention in their math class. Because the disparity between the two situations is so great people make assumptions about them and start saying things like: “Well, they’re just lazy, and they’re crazy, and they’re stupid.” In fact it is the same basic concept, in situations of high interest, that stimulate the brain, people with ADHD never have a problem or deficit of paying attention to situations, tasks or conversations of high interest. As a matter of fact, they will have an over-abundance of attention; we refer to as a hyper-focus.

David: The issue is that we cannot easily regulate our attention as others do. We easily pay attention to what is interesting but cannot force ourselves to pay attention to low stimulating, boring tasks. So the kid with ADHD that can’t pay attention in his math class is because he is required to listen to a boring, monotone teacher that does not engage him. It is scientifically validated that the ADHD brain needs automatic engagement; there is no “manual” or automatic engagement in mundane situations with the ADHD brain. All the medications, all the diagnosis, and all the treatment in the world will not help you if you don’t understand what boredom does to the ADHD brain...

David: If you have a belief that you’re broken, that only serves to exacerbate what’s going on biologically. What you pay attention to in any given moment has a tremendous impact on your ability to function effectively. ADHD kids and adults have been forced into living with beliefs of how things “should be done” and never get an opportunity to do things the way their unique brains work. Modern science has validated the fact that adult human beings possess trillions of brain processing options. We don’t need to identify all the trillions of them but we do need to identify a few and integrate them into our lives. But when we can’t do something the way we are told to do it, we feel broken and hopeless. The parents of ADHD kids, the spouses, employers and family members all feel hopeless, because they have no language or tools to describe ADHD nor do they have a grasp of what is really going on in the ADHD brain.. Unfortunately, Andrew there are thousands of health care professionals, diagnosticians and physicians who don’t have the language or understanding of ADHD to help their patients manage their ADHD. You know, Andrew, you said that this situation is probably not as bad in the US but sadly it’s just as bad as in Britain. We have even more people who are underdiagnosed and not nearly enough well trained professionals to support them.

David: Just today I met with a father who is in the dumps. He’s pulling his hair out. He doesn’t know what to do. And I was explaining ADHD to him about his son; the father said “How do you know all of this?” I said “Because we work with it. We live with it ever day. We also see significant progress and success. These ADHD kids are brilliant. They just don’t know it.” So there are many things we can do. I think the first thing, which your workshops and newsletter is doing Andrew, is in getting the word out there, that there’s nothing wrong with you, you just have to figure out your own unique way you work in the world.

Digging for Buried Strengths

Andrew: David, you taught me a unique way of trying to identifying ADHD strengths. I think that it is very difficult with ADD people is to tease out their strengths and talents, often buried under years of difficulties and low self-esteem. As you say, if you ask somebody with ADD often “What do you do well?” quite often it’s a complete blank response. So how do you figure out how to help these ADHD adults dig for their buried strengths?

David: It’s a great question and I think there are many ways but each person has a unique way. I believe that one of the ways we begin to dig for strengths is to look at beliefs. Beliefs are very, very powerful, and negative beliefs can be very pervasive. We make a distinction between a “belief” and a “knowing”. I might believe that I can do something because I saw someone else do it, but until I use that belief and take action with it, I’ll never know. The simplest example is in the ability to ride a bicycle. For most children their is a delay between believing they can ride a bike and actually trying it because they are afraid to take action and fail. Once they ride the bike, and maybe fall a few times, they will get up and re-ride it, learn to balance, move the pedals and reach a certain destination. Once they have actually experienced their ability to ride their bike they “know” they can do it. It’s no longer just a “belief”. However sadly enough, even a “knowing” of something that we can do well, like riding a bike, can be buried.

David: We all have these knowing: knowings of success, knowings of moments in our lives where we’ve done something exceptionally well, but they get buried because either someone deemed them to be unimportant, or we failed to notice what we do well. We live in a world that is so busy doing things that as soon as you get one thing done you’re onto the next. We fail to celebrate and pause when we do something well. We are so busy doing that we haven’t had a chance to be, to be a human being. Unfortunately we have a lot of human “doings”, when really we’re supposed to be human beings. Human beings are supposed to be able to pause and pay attention to those things in their lives that have brought them joy, fulfilment, success, and happy feelings. People with ADHD often don’t perform as well as expected so their lower self-image and self-efficacy/ performance go hand in hand, unfortunately. When you don’t perform well, in a specific environment, you begin to develop a self-image of being broken.

David: As coaches we ask our clients, first and foremost, to change the pattern of paying attention to only their problems. We say let’s change the pattern. One of the ways we begin to seek out strengths is asking our clients about events or lifetime experiences where they felt joy or fulfilment. As you know, some ADDers will be able to come up with some examples right away and some will not, sadly it’s a very high percentage who cannot.

Andrew: So how do you help those who draw a blank?

David: We find ways to take the pressure they already feel and create a safe, trusting environment with no judgment, expectations and lots of encouragement to discover and explore. If for example, the belief of failure is so strong that they are not willing to take any action than we begin to do what we in coaching call “reinventing”. We reflect back to the client their dominant language of negativity and their negative beliefs, of “I can’t, I won’t, I never could”. We invite them to put that belief to the side temporarily. We’re not asking them to get rid of them, just saying “Put that belief to the side because we know that it is not serving you well. Correct? It’s not serving you well. But I would like to ask you, do you believe you have the right to think and imagine whatever you want?” Do you have that right?” And, you know, I get people asking me “What do you mean by that?” “Well, it’s exactly as I said. Do you believe that one of your rights as a human being is the ability to give yourself permission to think and imagine a life that you would like to live?” Eventually they all say yes. So we say “If you knew that you could create any kind of job, or life, or whatever it is you want, and knew you could not fail, tell me what would that look like?” They begin to tell you, Andrew.

Negative Thought Patterns

David: The way our brains work is that the strongest thoughts that you consistently have are reinforced over many years, they tend to take over and dominate our internal programming. We have a part of our brain that doesn’t analyse, judge our thoughts as good or bad. It simply lets the strongest thoughts through and the electrical currents they create in our brain. Unfortunately the strongest thoughts that we have are about fixing: fixing problems and faults. It’s not about possibilities. You have done this for yourself, Andrew. I know this for a fact because I’ve heard you do it. You’ve changed your pattern from one of pessimism and negativity to realizing that that those dominant, negative thoughts only drain your positive energy and take you away from possibility and positivity – Andrew, look at what you’ve done with your website, newsletter and your coaching practice. At some point you made a decision to say that old pattern does not serve me well.

Andrew: You are right David, after my years with on/off  depression and inertia,  I started to make a series of changes to my lifestyle and my outlook. I made new conscious decisions that affected my health, wellbeing and attitude, to be more positive and take control. With my diagnosis of ADHD, I realised that there were new alternative and better ways to address my challenges. Then training to be an ADHD Coach with ADDCA was a significant part of that transformation, so thank you.

David: People subconsciously are run by negativity – all human beings, not just ADDers, but people with ADHD are even more so because that’s what’s they have experienced and had reinforced for many years. So we have to learn to identify where that negativity shows up, generally it shows up in our bodies. Everything that starts in the invisible realm of the mind shows up in our physical bodies. As a typical ADDer, I’m just as guilty of this as anyone. When we feel disharmony in our body rather than pausing to pay attention to it, we move on and try to fix and solve it. We won’t stop long enough to say “How is what I’m paying attention to serving me?” We don’t even give it a name. If we’re angry or frustrated, we keep pushing on, pushing on with the anger and frustration unidentified in our body, and many of us with ADHD become immobilised by that. We ruminate. We go into all these negative kinds of hyperfocus and it becomes a huge barrier to our own individual progress

David: We know that it is so powerful just to be able to pause and pay attention to what we are paying attention to in any given moment. So many ADDers have a very difficult time doing pausing because we live in a world that doesn’t even believe in pausing. It just believes in doing, doing more and more. I actually have clients that tell me they think they’re smart and intelligent based on how fast they do things. It’s crazy. But when we get them to slow down and pause, and say “This disharmony you’re feeling, where do you feel it?” “I feel it in my body.” What is that?” They can tell you it’s anger, it’s frustration. And when we do just that first piece of helping them identify the negative, science tell us that by identifying the emotion we diminish its power over us.

Andrew: So we need to pause and pay attention to our emotions?

David: Yes, but this is precisely what a lot of the ADDers don’t do. They pay attention to patterns of fixing problems that have not been identified emotionally. They get sucked up in the emotion itself because stimulation is anything of interest that stimulates the brain, but not all interest is necessarily good for us. An emotion is highly interesting and stimulating to our brains, but the intention of that emotion can be very negative. So we have to learn to pause and pay attention, and identify the emotion and ask ourselves “How is this emotion - that I’ve labelled fear, anger, perfectionism, whatever - serving me?” And we know that it’s not serving us. The next question is “what do I have control over and what don’t I have control over?” We may not have control over the results but we have control of our ability to sit back and pause, and ask “Is this serving me well?” And if it isn’t, we have the power to change it.

David: If we don’t know the patterns we cannot make the essential changes. This is why I got into the ADHD Coaching profession, I saw so many brilliant people beating themselves over such ridiculous concepts such as perfectionism: “If I can’t do it perfectly, I won’t do it at all” or focusing on problems, as opposed to possibilities. The most successful people in this world and indeed the most successful ADHD people (of which I’ve seen many,), are the ones that have learned to pay attention to these patterns. They recognise the negative patterns, reinforced in their brains as children. When you and I were children we went through the school systems not doing well enough, not doing as we were expected and then we took those negative patterns into adulthood and never challenged them. Really what this is all about Andrew is identifying these emotions and then challenging the thoughts that create them.

Changing Behaviours

David: The brain is very elastic and flexible but it needs reinforcement. Over a period of 30 to 40 days The theory about this is that over a period of 30 to 40 days is. if you consistently repeat it, you can change it. I’ve seen this happen, but you need the prompts and you need those memories. Both are very important.

Andrew: So that’s where something becomes habitual after the 40 days it becomes easy because it is now an automatic process.

David: But Andrew, to your point, habitual can also be negative. ADDers have a very difficult time embracing success because they’re not used to it. I work with a lot of entrepreneurs; many are very successful over a period of years of coaching. They were not always that way, and when they become successful it becomes a hyperfocus of success that can become as addicting as a drug. They become very addicted to success and they don’t want to leave it, so something suffers because of this, their work-life balance, their friends, family commitments and sometimes health. They’ve never felt this before and it’s so wonderful it becomes an addiction. We have to watch for that too, but I would much rather have somebody at least go to that success cycle rather than a cycle of pessimism and beating themselves up vs. working out how to transition out of their hyper focus and lack of life balance... Change is difficult for all human beings but it’s exceptionally difficult for people with ADHD because it requires a lot of mental and physical brain activity.

Andrew: Because people with ADHD respond strongly to what’s stimulating and what’s rewarding then do you find that change is easier if somehow greater reward and stimulation is thrown into the mix change? Does is make sense to make what they’re trying to do more attractive, and that attractive features are maximised as much as possible?

David: Yeah, I think that’s a very astute observation and very important, Andrew. I think that what is important to us and what stimulates our brains is all different, but I think that the responsibility of a person with ADHD is to find value in whatever it is they’re going to do and start their day off with value and momentum. They need to do that. A non-ADDer may start their day off in areas of disinterest and shift over. For people with ADHD, for most of my clients and for me, we need to start our days off with interest, positive stimulation and momentum. This gets my brain going and my energy going. I don’t start off in areas that other people determine are valuable unless I also determine they are valuable and interesting. Starting my day off with a boring task will never work.

David: Now can we create value? Yes, I’ve known clients that created value out of a challenge, when everybody said they couldn’t do it. The value was in proving those people wrong who said they couldn’t do it. It was enough to get them to do something they couldn’t do before because they wanted the reward of: “I will show them.” It was powerful enough to get them to do it. So “what ignites our brain?” is the first question, and then how we position what we pay attention to, so that it is valuable and ignites our brain. These are choices that are up to us. We have that power. I’ve seen kids, who didn’t want to be labelled as failures, persevere four or five times longer than any other kid because they didn’t want to be labelled inferior or sub-par. They didn’t want to be ostracized, isolated and rejected. I know that’s how it was for me and many of my clients, and our attitude was “I don’t care if it takes me four or five times longer. I just don’t want to feel that failure anymore. And then as we get well versed about their ADHD they realise that they didn’t have to struggle anymore. We just didn’t understand what it took to get them going. Value is created by each individual.

Some Stories of Hope

Andrew: We lack positive ADHD role models in the UK compared to the US. Richard Branson is often listed, he looks pretty ADHD but I have never seen the proof. We never really hear stories of ADHD people who have turned their problems around, or been successful with their ADD. There are plenty of famous and successful ADD people around, many appearing on TV and in media every day for the most part they are unaware they have ADHD! I coach many people with ADHD who make great changes to their lives but many feel unable to share their stories for fear of a prejudiced reaction at work or home. In your experience as a coach, do you see many cases where once somebody realises that they are ADD and is helped through coaching that they experience a real significant life turnaround?

David: Oh yes, thousands of clients in my experience feel alone. Many of them come into coaching feeling very hopeless. Way back, we made a video called “Me, my ADD Coach and I”. In the video were four gentlemen, all diagnosed with ADHD and none of them really understood their ADHD, which is very typical. Research shows us even when people are diagnosed with ADHD most of them still don’t understand how their ADHD manifests. What’s very interesting, almost 10 years after filming, all four of these clients are doing exceptionally well. These were people that couldn’t get through their Masters programme, couldn’t run a business. One of them was a social worker that wanted to be a filmmaker and another was a filmmaker. All of them are doing really well now. They struggled with their ADHD but the struggle was more of an awareness of how it got in their way. I can confidently say that each one of them felt like they were broken, every one of them. They had been told that they were not good enough. They were told that they couldn’t do the things they really wanted to pursue. They were told that they would never amount to much. They were told all these negative things.Of course none of it was true and they all proved it in their own unique way!

David: As coaches we know that every human being is unique possesses trillions of different ways of processing and doing things. As coaches, we’ve got to encourage them to find some of those ways that work so they can observe there’s nothing wrong with them. At the Academy, we don’t even look at ADHD as a disorder. We look at it and embrace it as a unique brain wiring and so eventuallydo our clients. It took a while, but what we started to do in this video was present what each one of these indivudlas was struggling with and experiencing in their lives. Each one of them had a dominant pattern of negative language and thinking they were unaware of . They really did not know. They blamed all their problems on their ADHD but they didn’t understand it or how it manifested... They didn’t understand the power of their language and how powerful it was because words create worlds. All of them were very negative and hopeless. Some of them were very depressed, which was caused by their beliefs and thoughts. All of them had one or more condition, which is very typical.

David: ADHD often leads to other conditions, whether it is bipolar, anxiety or depression, and more. Medically it makes a difference but from a coaching perspective we still treat them the same way. We still empower them to understand that if they’re bipolar and ADHD that’s their brain wiring. Now they have to ask the question do they want to be stuck in the manic stage or do they wish to use it as a clue to help them do something that will get them unstuck and to do something fulfilling, can I exercise, can I do a presentation, can I write? Of course we don’t use the language of the disorder we talking about the language of what is getting in their way and what they already do well. All four participants in our video began to develop a “strengths” mindset. One of them was a social worker who decided to become a filmmaker. He has since produced some independent films that have won awards. Andrew: That’s fantastic.

David: Michael who I met 10 years ago at a conference, loved coaching so much he went and got his Masters in social work, and also became a coach. He is now doing signifcant coaching research for the Academy. So what do all four of them have in common? They were hopeless and in a short period of time they became hopeful because we began to make them aware of their “knowings” of what they did well. We enocuraged them to changed the pattern of their focusing on what wasn’t working to what was working. We said don’t let what you can’t do get in the way of what you can do. They just weren’t aware of what they could do.

Successful Change

Andrew: So the people who do struggle then to come out of the problem areas of ADD are the ones who I struggle to make the change. It’s an attitudinal change, isn’t it, more than anything?

David: Yes, and it’s very hard.

Andrew: Do you find there’s a very high success rate with the people  you coach in making these changes in attitude?

David: A very high percentage. However, I have to add a note of caution. A very high percentage, if they’re willing to buy into the philosophy of coaching. You are absolutely right, Andrew, if a person thinks that there’s a quick fix there may be a problem. We live in a world that people think you take a pill and the pill will give you the skills. With diabetes you take insulin and live a better life. ADHD medication is just one element that allows you to be on a level playing field. But if you’re on a level playing field, you’ve still have to learn how the rules and skills of how to play soccer.

Andrew: Yes. Medication does not teach you football skills or how to score goals!

David: That’s right in Europe it’s football and here we call it soccer right!. But if you’ve never learned how to play and you’ve been told that you’ll never be able to play, and you get these medications so all of a sudden you’re able to get on the field. Once you are there you think “Now what do I do? I’ve never learned. Nobody has taught me.” Well, are you willing to learn? People coming to terms with their ADHD are like kids learning to walk, once they can understand the moves they can go anywhere they want to go!

David: The key is learning about your biology, then looking at the fuel that affects that biology: your daily thoughts. These subconscious daily thoughts are so powerful, Andrew, you and I both know that to not pay attention to them is to really mess up your life. I say to my clients “If you want to leave this negative pattern that you’ve been in for the last 40 years you’re going to feel uncomfortable because change is not easy. But you can have two choices: to remain stagnant and be comfortable, or to become uncomfortable and to change your thoughts and life in a positive way. It’s your choice. For ADDers it so much more difficult to make these changes. It is why they need a well trained coach in their corner that understands them and speaks their language. You know that we’re often the first person to hear an ADHD adult say “You’re the first person that really understands me.”

Andrew: I have heard that many times and it always touches me deeply, their sadness of living alone years with an invisible problem and their new elation to finally have found understanding help.

David: This is very powerful, that partnership, but the partnership is only the beginning. The willingness to take action and being reminded of what actions they need to continue taking should go hand in hand, so it’s repeated over and over again until a new habit develops.

Final Thoughts on Hope

Andrew: So many Adults with ADHD that I speak with are very newly diagnosed here in the UK. Do you had one final message for somebody who’s newly self-diagnosed or medically-diagnosed, who maybe just figured there are ADHD from a friend or a web site: what they can hope for?

David: Well, I think they need to hire a person like you, Andrew, that’s a coach. Of course I’m biased but I’ve seen this transformation happen. These people are coming to you hopeless, they’re coming to you not understanding their own ADHD, and they’re not able to convey it or articulate it. They go in for diagnosis and the doctor asks them “So tell me about your ADHD” and they convey symptoms and challenges that aren’t even impairing or are not really what’s going on. They may feel sad because their ADHD is showing up, so the doctor treats them for depression instead of ADHD. I think it’s paramount to get a well trained coach like yourself, because we understand and can give them the language and tools to clearly and accurately articulate what’s really going on, what’s really getting in the way, so then when somebody asks them “So tell me what’s going on with your ADHD” they can articulate their most impairing challenges. Once you can articulate and convey the accurate challenges a qualified health care professional can help you treat amd manage them, you’re finally getting the best kind of help.

David: My experience is the same with every single person I have seen over the last 15 years. They came to me for help but do not understand their true picture and they do not have clarity around it They were hopeless because they were given a little bit of hope with an explanation or diagnosis they didn’t understand. ADHD is not an excuse but it certainly is an explanation that has been conveyed very poorly to the public. Our clients need to understand where their ADHD shows up so they can accentuate their strengths and manage their weaknesses and barriets that get in their way. I believe that ADHD coaches do this better than anyone. Psychiatrists don’t have the time; Most therapists and psychologists aren’t trained in it.

David: We as coaches have the tools, have the language to be able to say “You are not hopeless. By the time we are done in our next few sessions you’re going to know more about your ADHD than you ever have before”. That is what we hear from our clients over and over again, “now I understand”. The coach can ask them “Have you conveyed this to your doctor?” of which almost every one of them of them says “No, I have not”. They are encouraged to discuss this new awareness with their doctor, I cannot tell you how many people have been misdiagnosed because of their lack of self-awareness. How can you feel hopeful if you don’t even understand what’s getting in the way?

David: So my advice is hire you, get a person like you Andrew because I know you do this. I know you do this well. When you get a full understanding, it’s then and only then can you begin to work on all those invisible pieces that we discussed like beliefs, values and guilt, and all these other things. Andrew you know yourself, when you have those “Aha” moments it’s wonderful. That’s why we’re both in the ADHD coaching profession.