Do you have adult ADD? Have you ever gone around and around with
somebody and you spend 45 minutes to get your point across when
the point is you are both saying the same thing but in a
completely different way? Then, you finally figure it out, if
you’re lucky. That often happens to people with ADD (Attention
Deficit Disorder). What if you could eliminate that?
People with and without ADD have probably all had that
experience of meeting someone and immediately becoming best
friends. It’s almost like you’ve known this person your entire
life. Other times, you meet someone and you really want to get
along with them very well, you really wish you’d like the
person, but you just can’t stand being around them.
It’s
all about communication.
When communication breaks down,
there's a loss of credibility. If you insult someone, you’re
insulted by someone, or get into an argument with someone, and
there are any bad feelings-–even just neutral feelings--most of
the time it’s due to poor communication, and that could be
connected to ADD. Or, it's just that no one ever taught you how
to communicate. They said, “Hey, just get along.” That didn’t
teach you a single thing. That feels horrible too. Nobody sets
out to communicate poorly with other people, and ADD could be
the reason for some of these issues.
Why is it that some
statistics show that over 80% of the people in prison right now
are possibly diagnosable with ADD? Does that tell you that
people with ADD have a hard time communicating with other
people?
That could be one indicator. There are all sorts
of ways that these things break down. Sometimes, with ADD, you
can feel very alone, very isolated, very in a box and have
nowhere to go, no one to turn to. You don’t know what you’re
going to do. It's as if no one understands you.
One of
the things that happens when you learn to communicate better is
that all of a sudden, you’re able to make rapid progress with
communicating and with ADD. Some people seem to have a golden
touch – they seem to be able to get anything they want in life,
even with ADD – they’re naturally just really good
communicators.
Granted, you can have an amazing
communicator with no ethics, with or without ADD. That’s the
worst type of communicator in my opinion. You can have ADD
people who are great at communication, who have a very low
ethical standard, who still can go out and get almost anything
they want in life. When you, have a high ethical standard, and
are an amazing communicator, then it’s the best of both worlds.
This can be brought down to our personal relationships as well,
which ADD can complicate. For instance, what if you just want a
hug from your partner, where you wish they could read your mind
and just come over and give you a hug because you really need
it? Why don’t you just say, “I need a hug?” You get what you
want.
It’s very simple stuff, but you have to know what
to do. You have to have some guidelines. Once you conquer this
problem and take control over your ADD, you can get rid of
misunderstandings. You can get rid of arguments.
Some
people like to argue for the heck of it. That’s a little
different. We’re talking about arguments due to
miscommunication. On the other hand, let’s talk about this
realistically.
When you become an expert communicator,
does that mean you will never have another disagreement or
argument again? Of course not. It means you will be able to
handle it a lot better. In a much shorter amount of time you can
diffuse the situation and have both, or all of, the people
involved walking away, feeling good about the solution.
Use your ADD to focus, and have a constructive argument or
difference of opinion without getting a lot of emotional push
and pull into the whole situation.
That’s the whole idea.
And there's another benefit: When you’re able to start
communicating, it’s more than just one on one. You’re able to
start influencing entire groups of people.
If you have a
good message, if you’re trying to use ADD to do something big
and important, if you are going after something in your life,
influencing and being able to communicate with 10, 20, 30, 100,
1000, 10,000 people at a time effectively is an incredibly
powerful skill.
The cool part is that it’s almost identical to being able to
do this effectively with one person. The same skill set just
twisted a little bit, a slightly different way, you can learn
to, very quickly, reach out to many people and they will all
understand what you’re saying. Not only will they understand
what you are saying, but they will give you credibility. They
will see you as a credible person. You'll stop thinking of
yourself as a person with ADD, and start seeing yourself as a
great communicator.
About the Author:
Tellman Knudson, certified Hypnotherapist, is CEO of Overcome
Everything, Inc. Stephanie Frank is an internationally known
speaker, entrepreneur, and author of "The Accidental
Millionaire." See their new comprehensive ADD site
InstantADDSuccess.com.