Episode 404: Liron Kayvan on ADD: Misdiagnosis, Overmedication and Strategies for Channeling it for Success

0:01Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits & Hustle. Crush it. Hey, friends, you're listening to Fitness Friday on the Habits and Hustle podcast, where myself and my friends share quick and very actionable advice for you becoming your healthiest self. So stay tuned and let me know how you leveled up.

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1:51Okay, hi guys. Welcome to Fitness Friday and I have my special guest today is Leron. and hello Liron. Liron is a soccer player slash fitness trainer who is someone I always work out. Well, I used to work out with you. Did I ever really? Yeah, yeah, we worked out. We talk about fitness a lot. We talk mostly about fitness and mostly about just other stuff in general. That's probably only 5 % of our conversations are about fitness. Oh my God, you know what? That's actually true. I don't even think we actually do talk about fitness. Very little. We just gloss over it and just carry on. Which is funny because I like - we record it, you know?

2:28I was going to say, usually like we actually only talk about it during these like Fitness Friday episodes. We don't really talk about it like outside of the Fitness Friday episodes. Well, I think it's important to have a life too. Good point. Balance. Balance. Okay. First of all, balance is not, there's such a misnomer. I don't even think balance exists. No, it doesn't. It's something you can strive towards, but I don't think you ever actually get it. I just think that when you put that pressure on yourself that, oh, we have to strive for balance, balance, balance, that word balance. It gives people anxiety like, oh shit, I'm not balanced.

3:03Am I balanced? Yeah. Is my work life balance perfect? Am I playing enough? Am I working enough? No. Yeah. You're never in that state. It never happens. You're always unbalanced in some way. Well, I think anything that you, I don't know, maybe this isn't for everybody, but for me, when I like something, I go so far into it and I'm so hyper focused that like there is no such thing as balance. I think most successful people have that too. They get a little bit obsessed about things. Yeah. It's like a healthy obsession. Well, I think a part of it too is I probably have a little bit of OCD in general, to be honest.

3:39And ADD, the combo of ADD and OCD makes you hyper focused on and become obsessed. Like I believe anything you want to be really good at, you have to have a level of obsession and audacity. The combination of obsession and audacity is very, very necessary. This is your next book, Jo. Maybe. Maybe. How to succeed with ADD. How to succeed. Well, I think that ADD is a precursor for obsession, right? There's actually a study, sorry to interject, but there was a study that said that there's a gene for ADD. And what they found is that that gene, when you look at like primitive people, like tribesmen and, you know, people, cavemen, essentially like modern day hunter gatherers, that gene made them really good at hunting and gathering.

4:31So it was actually very adaptive gene and it made them very successful. What gene? Like GNP403. You know what I mean? It's a very out. They can see where ADD is in the brain and some people are predisposed towards it, but that was adaptive, meaning that was beneficial in our natural environment. It's only in the modern school system and so on and so forth where it becomes like bad, maladaptive. That's so interesting because for the longest time, like, first of all, if you really look at people who have ADD, most of the people that I know who have ADD grew up, they may have been really bad students because they didn't thrive in that academic school environment, but they thrived in their entrepreneurial endeavors, their career, and other things.

5:24To me, ADD is a superpower. Does it hinder my life in terms of administrative work and getting shit done operationally? Yes. But if I didn't have my ADD-ness, I wouldn't have been able to have gone as far as I've gone. Because when you have it and you find something that you're super in love with or obsessed with or passionate about, you're able to focus so highly on that thing and go so into it. And you basically supersede all these other things because of it. Do you think that you get bored easily? Yeah. And do you think that's a good thing? No. No? I think there's pros and cons to both. Me being bored easily has pushed me to be able to seek and be curious to find and do other things.

6:15But it's also hindered me and hurt me in other things where probably being a little bored would have helped me. right like you know what happens a lot with people like me where people who have add you start a lot of things and you don't finish them right that's a big thing right or you know relationships like you are like super like into it and then you like kind of lose interest because it's like now not as exciting because like unless something keeps the excitement up yeah i'm just being honest no like sure it's just part i think that's kind of part part of like being add right i don't know i don't know i'm not add i'm oh excuse me sorry i don't really know too much about it to be honest with you aside from what i just told you before but i think oh so you just have like a factoid yeah just whip it out okay i'm no expert on it i'm also self-diagnosed i think people like use the word ADD and they throw it around super loosely now.

7:15Yeah. Oh, I'm ADD. Oh, I'm OCD. Oh, I'm, yeah. Yeah. Oh, I'm so ADD. I can't do that. I'm being ADD like right now about this thing. Yeah. Yeah. Like I think most people who think they're ADD, and by the way, I'm not even excluding myself from this, you know, are probably not ADD, right? And like you said earlier, I think that like before in time, it was not like something that was so focused on. But now everyone's focused on it. It's such a trending word. And it's also an excuse for people sometimes to kind of be less than or to not work as hard or to be like people use it as a crutch. Or like the horoscope.

7:51Someone's like, oh, I'm Capricorn. So I do X, Y, Z. And they just like excuse it off. Like they have to take responsibility for it because they've labeled it. Oh, I'm this. I'm sorry. I'm this. I can't do this. Exactly. Exactly. I think that the problem is when you label anything, then you can fall on that title or label to excuse bad behavior. You know, like I just did it myself. I'm like, well, because I'm ADD, I lose interest in that. And that's not a good thing, right? But you also recognize that that part of your identity doesn't encapsulate who you are as a person. Like it's an aspect of your personality and you don't let it, you still take responsibility for your life.

8:27I think the problem is that we get labeled with anything, literally anything. Like it could be ADD, but it could also be your political affiliation. It could be your horoscope. It could be your ethnicity. It could be anything. Like we sometimes take our labels too seriously and we make it our whole self. And then it becomes a problem, usually. Well, what do you think about children who are now being put on medication for ADD at 10 years old, 8 years old? does anyone think that's good apart from the people who are giving the medications i mean it's great for big pharma it's fantastic for big pharma it's great for big pharma you know what though like i have a problem with it because i think you know i think it's a problem when you start when you when you put a child on medication um especially because like you're dimming the things that can that make them who they are and then they get reliant on this medication and then that's a medication they're going to be on for 40 50 60 80 years and anything that you put yourself on medication-wise, your body becomes acclimated, and then you have to constantly up the dose.

9:28So why the fact that you start children on something like that for a thing that may or may not even be, you know, because for a thing that actually could have really benefited them in real life, right? I think, though, I'm actually shocked at how many people are putting their children on ADHD medication at a really young age. Because that's like what, I don't know if it's just an LA thing or what, but like, I think what's happening is all these kids are now going to therapy, like really young. When parents don't know how to like parent their children, they're like, I'm going to take them to a therapist.

10:02And then the therapist, you know, diagnoses them with ADD or ADHD. And then like the next thing is like, well, they should be on medication for it. And that becomes like the slippery slope where then that becomes who that child is. That becomes who the children identify as. And then that's their crutch for anything in life. I've seen that. I can actually think of someone very specific who is a younger person, 20, about to be 21. And they do that all the time. They make their labels, their identity. And I can see it limits them tremendously in life, but they also use it as a crutch to just get out of things oh i'm i'm add oh i'm xyz and they you can see they're using it in a way that i think they think it's to their advantage but you can see clearly this is like really limiting this person i also think it's become much more common now than it was before like when i was a kid right like the diagnoses the diagnosis have become more common taking children therapy is much more common And instead of just figuring it out on your own and just kind of trying to create coping skills and coping mechanisms by going through challenges and difficult times, the go-to now is like, oh, I'm going to take my kid to a therapist and let them deal with it and then talk it through and talk it out and talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.

11:35Yeah, yeah, yeah. Too much talking. Right. too much of this emotional ability to kind of like keep on like especially going into the past as well like a lot of times they'll go into the past and they'll say well why are you this way and why are you that way and it goes back and it's you know you're talking about something that happens when you're three and i know i'm talking about these kids who are super young like who are not even like they're prepubescent kids who are like are in therapy like once to five times once to three times a week like to feel their feelings which i really believe is the opposite of what you should be doing.

12:07Like, I think when you feel your feelings to that extent, it actually could be detrimental. And it also ends up, it's making the kid ruminate on these things and problems that they may have versus just like, kind of like moving through them. Because at that age, like, yeah, you'll have a problem, but if you're not focused on it, the kid will eventually like focus on something else or do something else. And as opposed to like, just like this hyper focus on like what your issue is and who you are badly or not badly. Like people are just are too like, I guess it's part of like the culture we're in, like, which is like this caudal culture of like, you're so scared of doing X and Y.

12:49And so you just bring in like an expert or a therapist, or, you know, you don't want you want to give them a safe space, or you don't like that trigger and all these things. I think it speaks really when you talk about kids, it looks like the kid is the one with the problem, but really it speaks to the fact that the parent is the one with the problem. The parent is getting exacerbated, has given up, doesn't know the solution to the problem. And I don't think 99 % of the parents I know are doing what they think is best for the kid. They just feel like they've run out of options. So I think it's really more about, it says more about the parent than it does about the actual child.

13:25So again, no, the other thing I think is interesting is like therapy is expensive. So is this kind of just like... First world problem. Is it like a first world problem? It's like, hey, you know, I have excess money. I'm just going to throw it to a therapist for$200,$300. Because let's not even talk about the fact that no one takes insurance anymore. That's a whole other problem, right? Like no one is taking insurance. So this is all out-of-pocket expenses usually. And so like, yeah, if you have the extra money, like why not? I'll just do that. But the average Joe doesn't have$200,$300 to throw to a therapist for their kids.

13:57Which might be beneficial because then they don't dwell on these problems. They just feel, well, you're going to have to just get on with your life. And that, in some situations, in many situations, it's probably the best thing to do. 100 % that's exactly what I think. I mean, like, I don't know, like, I really keep on saying this, but I feel like I belong in a different era, in a different time. Like, I want to go back to living in 1996. A lot of us feel that way. I do. I do too. I do too. A lot of us feel that way. You know what I mean? Yeah. And where, you know, I just, I was forced to be bored.

14:28No one was like overscheduling my life. And I wasn't told I have to go see a therapist because I'm emotionally like irregulated when it's just me being mad that I didn't get the toy I wanted. Right. Or whatever it is. I think like less is more. Yeah. You know? Yeah, for sure. But just to kind of wrap up on this ADD thing, I find that interesting because it's not just kids. I also think it's obviously adults. Yeah. And even I said, oh, yeah, I think I have ADD. Like I said, I'm self-diagnosed. But I always, I want to really kind of hammer home the point that I think whoever you are, whatever you have, you can make that work for yourself and make that your superpower.

15:09So if you are somebody who, you know, does have ADD and like has trouble focusing, you know, that can work to your advantage too. Like everything can work to your advantage. It's all about how you frame it in your head and how you reframe it. right like nobody's better or worse than anybody the only thing that actually actually like makes a difference or like moves the needle is action like taking action doing something yeah definitely 100 you always want to validate who you are and what you are and accept it and then you're going to be in your power and then you're going to be able to you're going to do things differently from everyone's going to be different but this idea that like i'm this way and that's bad you know nobody i don't think that anybody uh thrives from that i think whatever you are if you're add whatever and we're talking about it like loosely yeah not clinically necessarily but like we're not doctors it's just like what we're seeing in like societal yeah you know and in social media and all but it is i mean i mean we we know about like tiktok brain and stuff like that we do know that social media is hijacking the dopamine system and making people more add and And like, I don't think anyone is debating that.

16:20So as a society, we are becoming more ADD. Well, that's funny you say that because it's true. I think that even if we aren't some, we were not, we may have not been that way, but our brains have become so used to like these instant gratifications, no delayed gratification, instant hits of dopamine where we're without, without working for it. So in nature, you would have to work for every reward you got. you wouldn't you'd very rarely get like a big fast dopamine hit without having to like put in some effort which i know you're all about effort right yeah you're all about striving and being bold and and taking action towards something and not just having things delivered to you on a plate like we think we want that but that's not that's not what we want is not what's good for us to be just delivered something and that's probably the ultimate first world problem is we are given things too easy.

17:15Our life is too easy. And so we find a way to make it hard because it interferes with our wiring, interferes with how we were meant to be. We were meant to take action and strive and have delayed gratification. There's a big mismatch. I think there's a direct correlation between delayed gratification and your ultimate happiness, right? Because when you have to work for something and see it through and develop patience, right? And once you get it, you feel so much more satiated and that you earned it. And it lasts, that satisfaction lasts a lot longer. Well, I think overall, the feeling that you earned it versus just got it because it came too easy, it's more precious to you.

18:00You actually, I think that you just, you really kind of appreciate it more. yeah you work with um what with you you know a lot of celebrities um like hollywood types i don't know that depends i guess i know a few yeah okay have you noticed that that is quite common amongst the hollywood types because they're very i when i first moved to la i worked in hollywood just a little bit and i observed them and uh they're an interesting bunch yeah they're an interesting bunch but i think maybe there's there's quite a bit with that because they get so much fame and money and love and like these unnatural amounts of adoration that we wouldn't again be wired towards and they get it so fast and i'm not saying they don't deserve it because a lot of them were going to get rejection after rejection after rejection you know like going to casting calls and no but most people don't deserve it and i think that's why most of these people are fucked up right is because they have no real sense of reality anymore right it's just like They do seem quite deluded after a while, especially if you've been famous for a while.

19:06For a long time. I think it also depends on when you get famous. If you get famous really early on in life, it's really a problem. Yeah. Because then... Because you grew up with that. You grew up with that fame. And so it distorts your idea of what's real. Michael Jackson or... Right. Like Britney Spears, Michael Jackson. I mean, these people have had crazy experiences with life because it's so pseudo-reality. It's not real. If you're somebody who worked really hard and had a lot of failure and had to be resilient and had to kind of get back up over and over again. And so then when you finally found success, when they finally found success, it really meant something.

19:47Those people are much more normal. I think that speaks again to what you were saying about validating where you're at. If someone hasn't made it in whatever avenue they're talking about, whether it's business or a relationship or family or fitness or whatever it is, money, the fact that it's taking a lot longer for them could actually be a good thing. It is a good thing. Because like we just finished saying, like instant gratification. If you just like, if you came out to LA and you hit the first movie you got, like you came off the boat or the bus from Ohio and you got the first movie or first gig and then boom, you're super famous.

20:27It's probably not so great for your psyche, right? Right. But if you actually got here and like you like tried out for a movie, didn't get it. And then you're like, oh, shit. OK, I got to I got to go through the grind and I have to do all these auditions and I have to I have to get I have to be rejected over and over and over again. When you finally get the opportunity and you succeed, you're like, wow, and you appreciate it more. But I will say there's something to be said for people who like who are like a glutton for punishment also. Right. Like you must. I think there are different types. Right.

20:57There are people who just want to be famous for the sake of being famous because they think it's glamorous, which are like a whole other group of people that I don't really have much to do with. But then there are other people who are truly like really talented. And like they have like they've honed their craft. They work on their craft. They like practice. They have like coaches and all these things to get better. That's like a different mindset, right? You're saying there's a difference between people who's obsessed with their craft. versus the results and the rewards of the crop. I think the people who are doing it for the right reasons, who they become, is very different than the people who just do it for fame.

21:37The problem is anybody can be famous today, right? Like if you have a big social media account, I know a lot of these people who just like buy 10 million followers, right? And then they leverage this fake number to become famous. And like they have a whole team around this whole facade That's not even real. And then people don't do their homework and think, oh, this person, this girl has really 11 million followers. Okay, I'll give her this or I'll let her into that. And they get access to things that they otherwise wouldn't have got access to. But they didn't, not only did they not earn it, they bought it.

22:15And then they're working the system. Yeah, they're cheating the system. They're totally cheating the system. But this is the world we're living in now. Anybody can do that. That's kind of what we're talking about in general. Like my philosophy on basically all problems is that there's a mismatch between how we were meant to be, how we're naturally wired and our environment. And that's the same mental health problems, the same with physical health problems, the same. But I think all of that is really all these issues come from trying to kind of cheat the system. Like, again, try to get rewards for not doing the work in the first place.

22:49Right. They're all hacks. These are all like hacks, like, you know, not biohacks, but kind of like these like life hacks that you're doing. Like life hacks are kind of like cheating the system, right? Because you're trying to like find these shortcuts into getting from point A to point B. And that might be a hollow victory. Maybe you're not prepared for that level of success. It's a hollow victory. Yeah, maybe you're not going to be able to sustain that. But here comes the other, we can go on about this. That most, a lot of people don't care because they don't have the self-awareness to know any different.

23:19So, you know, they don't mind hollow victories because they're hollow. Right. So then it comes down to like, right? Like we could go, this is like a rabbit hole, right? But like, I find all of it to be just where we're going as a society in this way is not the right way. No, it's not. But definitely like - For people to be truly happy and fulfilled and satiated. No, clearly not. I mean, if you look at younger people, it's depressing how much they're depressed, how easily they're depressed, how anxious they are, and how, it's kind of a horrible thing to say about them, but how weak they are, you know?

23:53To a large degree when you, but you do. Soft, fragile. Soft, fragile, snowflakes, yada, yada, yada. I just did last Friday, I did a TED Talk. It's not out yet, or maybe it will be out by the time we do this, by the time this is loaded, about how we are breeding a generation of soft, fragile people. Like Gen Z is much more fragile than our generation was because we're not giving them the tools to be strong mentally or otherwise. And it is going to be the demise of our society and culture in life because of this problem. And we're feeding into the problem unless we put a stop to it. I think that social media, I think that screens, I think both of those, social media and screen, are the main culprits.

24:42I think coddle culture is a major problem when we are brainwashing to like I feel like they have next to again I'm being harsh and there's there's definitely smart kids out there but a lot of them seem to have no critical thinking capability whatsoever and will just literally eat whatever's in front of them you know only because we're they're being told like they're on tiktok they're on they're on instagram and there are they are looking at these influencers and they think, oh, this person says that eating this is what's going to get me to the goal I want or that's what they're doing. It's cool.

25:17Like that Bieber shake. You know that$25 shake at Aero One that Hailey Bieber has? You know what? I'm thinking to myself, who can afford a$25 shake? Right? Like that's crazy expensive. Especially because the type of person who's going to be drinking it shouldn't have that. You know, it probably doesn't have that. Well, number one is all sugar, but that's a whole other problem. But like for 25 bucks, you can go get like a real amazing meal at like a nice restaurant. For two. For two. I can get a great chicken kebab. I can get salad. I can get my potato. But no, people are going and they're, by the way, they're, they're going there in droves.

25:53It's not like it's like, you know, straggling in one at a time. There is a lineup. I'm like, I can't make this up. Like no matter what time I go to Air One, like I won't even shop there at a principal alone. But I'll drive by. I don't get it. I don't get who shops there. I mean, if you're going to pick up one or two things, we'll get lunch. I understand. but like who's doing that grocery shopping era okay by the way have you been to air one i have recently okay i will tell you packed every time i go packed yeah i'm talking in the morning i'm talking late at night i'm talking in the middle of the afternoon who has the money to spend on that place i'm a working person and i still feel like it's so crazy expensive that i can't afford it okay you see the people who go there they're like young girls they're like young boys they're like people who don't even look like they have jobs they're like look if they do yoga all day or have no job they look homeless and they're going into the store and there's lineups i'm talking like lineups at the at the like the the hot food area lineups to get that bieber smoothie line up to buy fruits that are like you know like cut up 10 times the price of what they would be at literally any other no no you don't understand leon okay i prop i went there a friend i went there and i had to get bone broth that was like 25 for like a bowl of bone broth that like by the way it's like bones and water yeah i literally made it this morning i bet you cost like seven cents yeah something like that everything there is so ridiculously expensive you would think you would think that they were giving you giving away gold in the food or like there was like some kind of like what is it like a sort of just mob mentality like a no it's trendy it's trendy people see it on tiktok and they see some famous person so that's drinking that's a huge thing i feel like the trend like their their like propensity towards whatever the trend is that's what i'm saying they don't i don't think they even care it's like oh the cool kids are doing it then i have i want you to go to arrow one and try that beaver shake you you as a fitness person like me if you see the ingredients i'm more of an animal based okay but i'll try that i'll try literally a bunch of sugar if anyone pay me to do it no they're not going to pay you they're probably going to like ban this podcast no i was going to say that if you saw the ingredients and all the things they put the word organic in front of like an ingredient which itself is a little bit of a scam it is a scam but we'll get into that after but the point is you put organic bee pollen and people are like oh it's healthy i'm gonna go get that organic sugar yeah okay i'm gonna run and get get this shake you i'm telling you you would have to stand in line for 20 minutes for this stupid shake it is so beyond anything have you tried anything yeah it's all sugar i didn't like it but you put hayley bieber's name on a shake yeah and all of a sudden it's like it's the most popular thing it's like people are so crazy that's business though like i always kind of i always get into these things and i flip it like i'm thinking from a business perspective good for errone If you're Erwin, that's your job in America.

28:56They are genius. By the way, I want the founders of Erwin to come on this podcast, even though I trashed you, because brilliant. Brilliant. I don't get how they do it. I don't get why it works. But that is a brilliant business. I'll tell you how it works. You overprice everything. People find that there's value if they're paying too much for it. If you underprice something or whatever, people think that like, ah, it's not worth it as much. Like even for trainers, right? If I put a price tag on me that says I'm$500 an hour, it's the perception of value. Oh, if she's$500 an hour, she must be really good versus that$80 an hour trainer at LA Fitness.

29:42He can't be as good when it's just all fucking lies. It's all perception is reality, but perception is actually not reality. It's also a status thing. I think people, one of the things that people like makes human behavior look more complex than it is, is disregarding like basic human nature that we want to have status. Like the thing that most people want more than anything else is to be high status, like more than their health. They would sacrifice their health to be high status. Here, I'm going to give you the equation to how mob mentality works, right? It is have a really famous influencer, right?

30:24Drink the Hailey Bieber smoothie, right? Walking around in yoga pants, right? Put that on two to seven reels. And next thing you know, someone's going to see it and their friend's going to tell their friend. Their friend's going to tell their friend. And next thing you know, that becomes a trending product and everyone will drive there in droves. Now, they did the same thing with Il Paseo. Do you know Il Paseo, the restaurant on Canon? It became massively, it was always very popular, but it like hit its tipping point when on TikTok, a couple of famous people were shown eating lunch there. And all of a sudden people are like, oh, that's the cool place to be.