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Are you working toward leaving a legacy? As I am writing this, I am on my way back from Harvard. I went overnight with my mother to meet some “Wurf Scholars.” What, you ask, is a Wurf Scholar? (At least I hope you asked.) They are special scholarships for people in the labor movement to go to Harvard for a period of time and up-level their skills. They are Wurf Scholars because they are funded through the Jerry Wurf Memorial Fund. Jerry Wurf was my father and when he died the members of the union he had been president of, got together and created a fund that now gives opportunities for people in the labor movement to train at Harvard. The fund also does a few other things. Aside from my father’s fight for fair treatment of workers whether skilled or unskilled, he was a civil right’s leader and anti-nuclear activist. He left a legacy that continues to this day. When I have to make these biannual trips to Cambridge, it obviously makes me think of my father. It also makes me think about legacy. What is going to be my legacy? I used to think I knew when I was a professional dancer, choreographer and teacher. The obvious answer was leaving behind some “art” that I had created. But that was wrong. When I had to leave the dance world due to an injury, I learned I had a much different legacy from that time of my life. The legacy was of using dance to teach critical skills that would last my students a lifetime. Skills like teamwork, critical analysis, leadership, responsibility, empathy and a strong work ethic. I am proud of this. At my studio, after watching a class, one surprised father said, “You don’t just teach steps here, you are teaching them how to think and analyze and work hard.” This was followed by a promise not to bring his daughter late anymore! This pleased me not only because he realized what we were modeling at the studio but also that it mattered that he model better life skills for his child also. For those of us who struggle with overwhelm, productivity, time management and completing tasks, thinking about one’s legacy might seem just another burden or an additional thing to mess up. But it is not. It gives your life direction and more meaning. It also gives you motivation. Obviously not enough to solve all of our problems but every little bit helps. So what is the legacy you want to leave? As I have been thinking about this, I realize that hopefully part of my legacy as an ADHD coach will be that every person I work with or give a talk in front of realizes’ their full potential is limitless. That with the right mindset you can achieve great things no matter in what ways you’re different or struggle. Actually, I believe the more struggle involved, the stronger you get and the better prepared you are for your future. Knowing that I want to leave this earth having helped people move their lives forward helps me to know what tasks to do and what tasks aren’t in alignment with this goal. Knowing what legacy you want to leave behind gives you clarity as to where your time should be spent. Are you spending your time in the right places? Do you know what you want your legacy to be? Are you living in alignment with those goals? Write down what you want your legacy to be in a few words and keep it some place you will see often as a reminder of what you are working toward.

What do you see when you look up from working at your desk? I sit at one end of a table and behind the other end of the table is a large three-section window. It is great. Whenever I pause or need to think, I do so looking out at a vista of lovely green trees with a red brick house with black shutters way back in the background offering a nice contrast of color. I find looking out the window pleasing.

There is something else I see as I sit at my table. Below the window and above the convector there is about six inches of wall space. That in itself is not remarkable. The fact that the six inches in height and the width of the convector wall space is crusted and crumbling looking ugly is not pleasing. Furthermore, at this table I see my clients and having part of your wall crumbling doesn’t look good.

I live in a condo so there is a maintenance staff. I have held off asking for this to be fixed. I had my reasons. I didn’t know if it was something the condo covered or would I have to pay out of pocket. I also didn’t know when it could be scheduled to be done due to the fact my client schedule is often changing. Since I offer complete confidentiality to my clients the repair had to be done when I had no clients scheduled. Thirdly, I wondered if I had done something wrong to make this happen to the wall, such as not properly running my convector. If this was true, I was reluctant to have anyone come and look at it and tell me it was my fault.

Last week I had to drop off a form to the management office of the condo and out of nowhere I heard myself asking about getting my wall fixed because now it had also happened in another room as well.

The woman who schedules maintenance requests said it would be no problem and did I want them to do it Friday or Monday. When the guys came on Monday they explained to me why this crumbling sometimes happens and each got to work on a wall.

Why this long tedious story? I had been tolerating looking at the crumbling wall and being annoyed rather than just acting on it. All it took was a simple action to get something that was annoying and concerning me fixed. But because I made assumptions or didn’t ask any questions to relieve my concerns I had to keep tolerating something unnecessarily.  This is not uncommon for those of us affected by ADHD. We struggle to act even on the smallest things.

Are there things in your life that you are tolerating? They don’t need to be earth- shattering things, my walls certainly weren’t. Nonetheless, the issue bugged me, took up mental space and was in my face everyday.

Lo and behold, there was an easy fix. How could I have known that? By asking.

Are there things you are tolerating because you are not asking the right questions. Think about all the tolerations in your life that could be obliterated just by asking a question or two. Do it right now. Think of something you’re tolerating and solve it either by yourself or with the help of others. Just get it out of your life. After you have done it once, find another toleration and fix that one also. Even better make a list of all your tolerations and start working to reduce that list as quickly as possible.
Not only will you lead a more unencumbered life, it will be a smoother life also. Do it now. You will feel a sense of accomplishment as each toleration is removed. Each sense of accomplishment will lead you to solve another problem that you are tolerating.

Don’t do what I did and stay stuck. Act now. I waited five years to fix the walls. I know you can do better than that.

I wrote this while flying back from London where I had been visiting my brother and nephew in 2016. It was my mother’s wish for her birthday (a significant one!) to travel to England to visit her grandson at school.

My nephew attends the boarding school Eton outside of London next to Winsor Castle. The school was founded in the 1400s. Crazy! It is hard to imagine something in continuous operation for that long. This got me thinking about legacy.

As my brother drove us away from Eton and back to London, he told us the history of Eton and it’s role within the English educational system. Eton, is probably considered the best school in England for boys. It has a rich legacy but they weren’t always considered one of the best. For a while, Eton and many other fine educational institutions lost their way in terms of providing quality education and there are many reasons for that. I won’t go into them but what struck me was that the school, over hundreds of years old, has gone through many phases. Good and bad phases, but it kept going.

Walking around the campus that is basically the town, name after name was inscribed on the walls. These lists of names were the boys who died in battle like the First World War or the Second or other battles fought by English lads. The lists are long, but despite the decimation of so many of Eton boys and men, the school continued, broadened and met the changing needs of the students as times changed.

Eton could have chosen to remain the same, it’s original purpose being a school for choir boys, but instead it changed and grew. Some parts are still traditional but they continue to prepare boys for the world they will experience once they leave Eton.

We don’t live or exist for hundreds of years like Eton. We have only a short time on earth. Some of the ways we used to do things still work and some of the other ways don’t work anymore. Are you recalibrating the way you live to meet the challenges of today? Not throwing away the past but living a life that includes the best of the old and the best of the new? Are you maximizing your potential and living a fully realized life?

Time management is a lie. We can’t manage time. What we can manage are the actions we take in the 24 hours we have each day. If we consider these actions and manage them in a way that supports us, everything ultimately works out and the actions we take move our life forward in the direction we choose.

How can we start to manage our actions? There are only so many actions you can take in a day, so many possibilities in that day. When you align your actions with your values, you are only acting on what is of value to you and what is important to you and to the people you value. Part of this requires going through a process of figuring out your values–identifying what’s important to you–and figuring out your needs and your wants.

Just as in marketing they tell you to figure out why a customer should buy from you. You need to know what your big whys are. Why are you here? What is the reason for your existence? What were you put here to do? How can you serve others while on this planet? You can tie religion into this exploration or not. The point is to live a good life you need a reason to move forward. Your reason(s) are your why. Answering the “why question” helps you figure out your values. Yours will be different than others’ values, and they will also differ depending on the stage of life you are in. It’s important to focus on your values because after you know your values then you can take a look at your needs and wants.

What does this have to do with time management? You can use all this information as a filter to help you decide what actions are imperative, preferred, unnecessary, or damaging to you. Knowing this helps you create a system for managing your actions. In turn this determines how you use your time.

Remember: it is not time you are managing. You are managing your actions so that they (and you) stay in alignment with your big whys and your values. In doing so, you are living a powerfully considered life.

Knowing your big whys is not a one-time thing. You must continue to examine them over the course of your lifetime because with major life changes, your values can change. For example, in the past you may not have valued having children. Now you want to have them. Take some time and write down your current whys. They will guide you as to the actions you need to take and those necessary actions will guide your time.

Ultimately, what you are learning is prioritizing and then acting based on your what you value and want to accomplish in your life.

Sometimes I get emails, comments or calls where a person says they are “afflicted” by ADHD and this really bothers me for a couple of reasons. First there is no question in my mind that ADHD is a disability, I know that as I am someone who is affected by ADHD. Note how I almost always use the word “affected by ADHD.” Because ADHD does affect my life. It affected my life before I was diagnosed and continues to affect my life post diagnosis but less so because I am getting proper treatment.

I also suffer from chronic pain. I actually virtually never use the word “suffer” when referring to my chronic pain. I usually say “I am a chronic pain patient” or “I have chronic pain but it is well managed.” This is because compared to how my pain used to be, it is manageable in my mind so therefore I may be somewhat physically uncomfortable all the time but not suffering, to me if you are suffering you probably can’t get out of bed or not very much. Granted this is my standard and needs not be anyone else’s.

To me one is afflicted by cancer, ebola or other potentially painful and most potentially life threatening diseases. Again, I am not saying ADHD isn’t a hardship but it is survivable. If I had to choose between having chronic pain or ADHD the rest of my life, I would pick ADHD in a heartbeat.

Now there are co-morbidities to ADHD that can be life threatening, like severe depression if that depression leads you to not want to live and you act on this. If you are feeling this way, call a doctor or hotline immediately. Tell someone.

This may all be splitting hairs to some but how we think about ourselves and how we describe ourselves reveals the mindset we have. Who do you think lives a healthier life the people who believe they are “afflicted” or the people who believe they are “affected” by ADHD?

I would argue that there is little sense of hope if you are of the mindset of “afflicted.” Also, this allows you, because of the lack of hope to possibly not invest your energy into making the best effort you can. After all, the situation is so dire and hopeless no one should expect anything from you.

Whereas if you are “affected” by ADHD, hope is implied and expectations rise, people expect things from you and you expect things from yourself. Maybe even that in spite of being affected by ADHD you can move forward in your life!

My hope is that you choose “affected” not “afflicted.” Word choices matter whether spoken out loud or just internally. How are you talking to yourself? Mindset is everything in moving your life forward. One way of thinking can set you free and another can lock you down.

What are your thoughts on this? What types of word phrases do you use when referring to yourself and ADHD?

Quality Over Quantity

I didn’t have tons of friends growing up. Not uncommon for someone affected by ADHD. It didn’t really bother me because I figured I preferred a few really good friends over a lot of casual friends.  But the problem with having a small circle of people you surround yourself with is that each member of that circle has tremendous power over you and the circle.

Being Treated “Less Than”

One of my friends at that time wasn’t that popular with my family and I couldn’t understand why. As we got older I began to understand. They didn’t like the way she treated me. I was always made to feel “less than” by her. Upon reflection, I realize now that I made her feel good about herself in a superior way. I was valuable to her because of that.

But, as things will happen as you grow up, I began to realize I was tired of being treated as “less than” and should really only surround myself with people who treated me as an equal. It wasn’t my purpose to serve as a prop for someone else’s ego.

Are You in a “Less Than” Situation?

As I look around me, I see clients in relationships both personal and professional where they are a “less than” and they are grateful just to be invited to the party. Whether it be a friend, family member, significant other or colleague, you should never feel “less than” another. Part of it is your responsibility to stand up for yourself and realize you deserve people who value you in both success and trouble.

Are their people in your group who treat you as “less than?” If so you have two choices – shift the relationship to one of greater equality or let go of the relationship. This is painful either way. People are resistant to changes in power dynamics and they are resistant to ending a relationship that they feel superior in.

Are You Being Boosted Up or Pushed Down?

Your quality of life is greatly affected by the company you keep. Are you being boosted up or pushed down? You deserve relationships, no matter if they are minor or major, that move you upward in your feelings for yourself and others.

Look around you at the people who you have surrounded yourself with, are they there to help you succeed or simply make themselves feel better? I still believe, as I did when I was younger – quality over quantity.