ADD / ADHD Coaching Blog

Mindset: Why executives thrive or barely survive

Mindset shapes our mental world, influences our outlook, determines the scope of our goals, and ultimately sets us on a path of growth and fulfillment ---or--- one of stagnation.

Executive suites are filled with high achievers who boast high IQs and stellar accomplishments.  Still, some stagnate, while others thrive and continue to shine.

The mindset we develop over the years (heavily influenced by our parents and teachers) can have a powerful grip on our attitude toward learning and achieving.  In fact, it’s the key to fulfillment, explaining why high IQ scores fail to adequately predict success.

Do you or an executive client have an open or closed mindset?  Click here for the answer.

Teenage Weird Thinking

The ability to document the brain as it matures, made possible by harmless, noninvasive imaging techniques, is transforming our understanding of what it means to come of age.

Not so long ago, scientists were convinced that critical periods of brain development occurred only during the first few years of childhood.  Long-term imaging surveys, however, reveal that adolescence also is a crucial time in the life of the brain.

By most measures, the teenage years are the healthiest and most resilient time of life; yet they are also among the most volatile and vulnerable.   The mental and emotional turbulence of adolescence may reflect dynamic waves of change in parts of the brain associated with impulse control, judgment, attention and anxiety.

Prompted by puberty, impressionable teenage brain cells radically rewire themselves, researchers have learned.  At a neural level, consequently, adolescents often process information differently from either children or adults because the anatomy of reason and decision is in such flux.  Unused neural circuits are discarded during normal growth and young adults end up with less of the gray matter of neurons than a newborn, even though their brains may become three or four times as big.

The impulsivity and poor judgment of clinical attention-deficit disorders (A.D.D.) in many cases may be caused by a momentary lag in the timing of cortical growth, researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  Within a few years, they determined, a normal brain will correct itself.

Even the normal pace of development can exasperate parents and teachers.  The scatter-brain qualities of the normal teenager arise, in part, because neural circuits that control our ability to focus mentally on more than one thing at a time don't finish developing until late adolescence, researchers at the University of Minnesota reported recently in the journal Child Development.

Source: Science Journal, The Wall Street Journal, November 23, 2007

Free Fidget to Focus Teleclass

On Tuesday November 27, 2007 at 9:00 pm EST ADHD Coach Sarah Wright along with Roland Rotz will be leading the free teleclass Fidget to Focus through ADDClasses.com. Sarah Wright and Roland Rotz are co-authors of the book Fidget to Focus. This teleclass is free and registered participants can either call in using a telephone or listen live over the Internet. Sign up now at www.addclasses.com

Prevent the Post-Holiday ADHD Money Blues!

As an ADHD Coach, wife and mother of ADHDers, I know how difficult the holidays can be, especially on the pocketbook. ADHDers react impulsively to the excitement of commercial advertising. As a result you often spend too much and get into debt more easily.  Then spend the next few months having to reduce your grocery bill to pay for your splurge over the holidays. Been there, done that, after all I have been married to an ADHDer for 23 years and so many of my clients come to me to get help with your financial health.

Most experts will tell you to make a household budget and stick to it. The problem is that household budgets are boring and so they don't ignite your ADHD brain. Instead, use your creative brain to find amazing ideas that add value instead of sleepless nights. We have become such a society of consumers that we forget that what makes the holidays memorable is not the big gift we received but the quality of the time you spend with your loved ones.

Some of our best Christmas memories as a family was the time I spent with my daughters when they were young creating decorations for the tree or baking fun cookies. And each year we're reminded of those times with the decorations we created so many years ago that still don our tree each year. We make it a point to decorate as a family.

That was my story. Now it's your turn: I challenge you to come up with and share ideas of how you can make the holidays more meaningful for you and your loved ones.

From Coach Linda Walker

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ADHD and Decision Making

Many adults with ADD / ADHD have a hard time making decisions. If you are one of those people with Attention Deficit Disorder who gets stuck when making decisions there's some help for you in the ADD Audio Library. The class Decision Making: Can't you just make up your mind? from coach Kerch McConlogue has some great tips and advice about to make decisions!

Sign up now for the ADD Audio Library>>>>

The Gifts of ADD

The ADD Audio Library currently has over 50 audio classes. The majority of the ADD Audio Classes are by ADD / ADHD Coaches. The Gifts of ADD is a great audio class from coach Scott Lewis. Subscribers of the ADD Audio Library can download and listen to The Gifts of ADD along with dozens of other ADD Audio Classes.