Harnessing ADHD as Your Hidden Superpower for Success | TJ Power EP 917

0:00There are two big things happening at one time that I've never done before. I'm going on a book tour for my new book, Make Money Easy, and I'm doing a podcast tour at the same time. It is going to be big, and I'm going to seven cities in 10 days. Get your friends, get your family, bring everyone you know to these cities. I'm coming to Austin, Texas, New York, Boston. We're going to Nashville. Then we're going to Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco. Make sure to get your tickets right now. go to lewishouse.com slash tour again bring everyone you know if you're looking to create more financial freedom and abundance in your life and you want to see a massive guest live on the school of greatness show get your tickets i can't wait to see you there hi my name is lewis house and welcome to the daily motivation show

1:00What do you think is the main cause of ADHD right now? And also, what is the superpower that people with ADHD have if they lean into it? Yeah, I think ADHD is a fascinating topic for our world. I think it's something that many humans may have had for thousands of years. I think there would have always been a subset of society that potentially had this lowered baseline dopamine level. There's a brilliant scientist called Volkow who's done like a lot of research into ADHD and dopamine levels. And you see with those that are genetically born with ADHD that they might have a lower production of dopamine within their brain.

1:37So there's that element of the genetic component. We in our modern world, with all the things we've been discussing of social media and porn and sugar, are really disrupting this pathway. So we have some people that are exhibiting it as a result of their genes from when they're born. And a lot of people that are also exhibiting it as a result of the altered modern lifestyle. Regardless of the cause, it really does create a lot of difficulty for people's lives of inattention and lack of action and procrastination. And it's extremely important that we begin to get it in check and help these people to thrive.

2:08If someone feels like they can't focus or maybe they've been diagnosed with ADHD or maybe they feel like maybe I have it, maybe I don't. but I just know something's off energetically and I can't stay focused or I feel a little more depressive at times. Is there a positive side to having ADHD? Is there a benefit to having it if someone's able to learn how to harness their ADHD? There is for sure. And this is where it gets really fascinating. I do a lot of events around schools and we help them a lot with ADHD. And I also grew up as a young guy with ADHD without necessarily knowing it. I wasn't diagnosed as frequently back then but i grew up with real difficulty in school massive inattention big highs big lows a very like addictive personality to anything i engaged with whether it was healthy stuff or unhealthy stuff and i began really investigating this world of if someone has adhd how can they thrive partly self selfishly out of like i really wanted to get going i wanted a business and i wanted to be able to serve and i began thinking a lot about our ancestors the whole of the dose effect is built upon our brain spent 300 ,000 years running around out there hunting and building and making fire and connecting as small groups 300 ,000 years and nowadays we've spent about 30 years as modern sedentary digital humans and you can imagine for our bright biochemistry that's pretty tricky that change if you were to look at a hunter-gatherer and they grew up with ADHD for example so say they had genetically low dopamine they got to like seven eight years old and suddenly they're expected to contribute maybe they had to start the fire one night maybe they had to hunt build make the food whatever it may be they would have had to begin engaging with very challenging effortful based activities if you were to compare the hunter gatherer with adhd to the one without it the one with adhd because it's got low dopamine levels would experience a greater elevation in their dopamine and actually enjoy the activity more and thrive more than the other hunter-gatherer without it.

4:08So then they would get really into it and they might actually become the greatest hunter or the greatest shelter builder. As a result of the fact, they would effectively experience more pleasure from the activity itself. And with the schools, we're really trying to reframe this for a lot of young people. We've kind of changed it from ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, to ADHA, attention deficit hyperactivity ability, to try and make it like a concept in their mind whereby this is going to be challenging. It definitely comes with a lot of difficulty. But if you find something to isolate on, you can really, really thrive.

4:39That's interesting because I relate to that. I mean, I just hated school. I was just like, get me out of here, watching the clock all day long, like hoping for the bell to ring. It just felt like it took forever. And anything the teacher said, I just feel like I have no idea what they're saying. And I can't comprehend. And I have to reread the page over and over again. I still don't understand. And just feeling defeated every day in class. Like, I'm never going to get this stuff. Me too. And because it was so hard and I wasn't excited about it, I checked out. I had a lack of attention. But once I found something that I was excited about, it was hard, but it gave me more of a purpose.

5:20Like, I'm excited about this. I'm willing to do the hard work because I'm seeing improvement. I'm learning something. I'm liking what I'm learning. Like, I'm seeing results. like something's exciting and I have a goal or a dream that I can work towards that excites me. Yeah. So I was able to use that energy or that lack of energy I had from school and put it towards sports most likely and eventually evolve into what I'm doing now. So it was figuring out a way to use that lack of attention and feeling of ADHD into, well, find something you're curious about. It may be hard to learn how to do it, but at least you're curious enough and have the excitement enough to go work on it over and over again until you get better at it.

6:07Definitely. And it made me kind of obsessive on mastering things that I was curious about. Like you said, like becoming the best hunter-gatherer or whatever. It's like, okay, I suck at everything else and I have no attention for these things, but this one thing is really exciting. Let me go all in. And it's like, now I have hyper-focus and super attention in detail for these things. So it's interesting how that, you know, kryptonite, you can turn it into a superpower.

6:41Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on the School of Greatness. And if you are loving the daily motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you wanna get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

7:31Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.