In this video, Dr. Jim, ADHD specialist and founder of FastBraiin, answers the question,
“What are the advantages of ADHD?”
The following is a basic transcript of the video.
Look at your child, not as someone who is disabled, but as an artist, as somebody playing in the backyard. Watch him on the sports field. Watch him playing the violin. Watch him taking the Legos and being very creative and putting it all together.
Legos is a great example. They will put together a spaceship and they are all excited and they will show it to you. And you will run to get the camera and by the time you get back they have torn it all apart and are building something else.
Why? Because you know what? Us FastBraiin individuals--we finish something, we win a tournament, we take the trophy, we're excited, it goes in the backseat, or goes in the closet, and we are on to the next thing.
Look at all the top people that are out there in the world, and doing great things.
One of my patients came in. He was a C-D student. His name was Alex and he was struggling to focus and pay attention in school. He and his mom and I, we had quite the discussion that I wanted him to learn how to play the saxophone by ear. She said no, we need to do the pure lessons and learn the notes through sight reading.
Finally, after quite the discussion, she humored me and said okay, I'll give you three weeks. She came running into the office, with a video of him in his room going crazy. He right now is at UNC Greensboro taking lessons from Branford Marsalis, one of the top saxophone players in the world, as Alex has expanded his musical horizons with what he can do with a saxaphone.
His grades are also As and B's now. I asked him facetiously but seriously, do you care about school anymore? And he actually smiled because this saxophone playing has given him such a positive inner feeling, to the point that he says, you know, teaching other people is so important, it's what I want to do for a living now. And I want to mean things to others. Which was really heartwarming to hear.
The ADHD individual and the FastBraiin person, they are the successful people. They are the people that run the companies. They are the people that start companies. They are going to make lots of mistakes.
The books are full of mistakes. Matter of fact, go to the bookstore and look at the books that say, “I started a business for the very first time and became a millionaire.” They are always talking about how they had a problem, a problem, a problem, and a failure, failure, and failure, and then succeeded. Why? Because their brain is all over the place.
And I know that those are the risk takers that need to keep trying. One thing that I would ask are, What are the problems of not having ADHD? We can go back to some of the architects of the past. Frank Lloyd wright. If you look at some of his stuff, everyone says, wow, he was really out there. Yes! Guess what? He was ADD.
Leonardo Davinci. What was he? You know Leonardo, you need to just stick with one topic. Oh, well so that meant he couldn't be an artist, or an engineer, he couldn't be an inventor, he couldn't be a sculptor. Boom boom boom, all these great and wonderful things.
All you have to do is go to the store and look at all the new technology. In 2007, the iphone was invented. Look at what has happened in just 10 years. Realize that these are people thinking outside the box because they don't have a box.
Follow them. Watch them. Because the world is made by them.
