Faster Than Normal Brains Require Better Brakes with Peter Shankman
I believe that I am three bad decisions in a row away from being homeless in the streets. And it sounds ridiculous. Oh, no, you have to go to the department. You're making money. You work. It doesn't work like that. One bad decision leads to another leads to another. You know, and I'll make one bad decision. I make one decision a lot. But the key is to recognize it and not make the second one.
Well, welcome to another episode of the Wonderfully Wired podcast. We are so excited to have something of a big fish, actually, bit too big fishes in studio. I've got Peter Shankman with me and Peter is a six times bestselling author and an entrepreneur, founder of Harrow and Source of Sources, co-founded Mental Capital Consulting and the host of the ADHD podcast, Faster Than Normal and the book by the same title,
and a global keynote speaker on customer experience and your diversity. He's also an Ironman, skydiver and single dad based in New York City. Peter, welcome to the wonderfully wired podcast. It's wonderful to be here. Thanks for having me. So great. I don't know if you've been interviewed from Zimbabwe before. I hope that's a first and it should be a fun thing. Zimbabwe is a first. Zimbabwe is a first. That's great. And in studio with me as well is Juju, who you will have all
If you've listened to the podcast, you would have heard Juju before. Juju is on the team and she is joining us today because we get to talk ADHD with Peter. And I reckon if Juju just gives a bit of, what do we say, like real life experience in the interviewing as she is living well as a young adult with her ADHD brain. Juju, welcome back behind the microphone. Thank you so much.
Peter, the first time when I showed Juju our introduction to you, she said, well, what is an Ironman skydiver? Which I just thought was pretty great. It's actually, there's an Ironman, it's Ironman, comma, skydiver. So I am an Ironman. have done a, I have done two Iron, finished two Ironman triathlons, which is a 112 mile or a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and then a full marathon all within 17 hours.
And I'm also a skydiver who jumps out of perfectly good airplanes. have a little over 500 jumps under my Oh, that is brilliant. cooler than the whole fantasy I developed about doing mud runs in the sky. So I think this is even swellier. One day I'll have to skydive into an Iron Man and then race it. There we go. yeah, you just have to copyright Juju on that idea if you won't mind. I kick us off? Go for it. I have the first question for you.
Um, so many of our guests on this podcast are experts in the field of neurodivergence and many are also wonderfully wired like you. When we get the ladder, we love to ask this question. Would you be able to describe your brain for us? Like some form of word picture or even just, I don't know, what's it like to live in your head? So have you ever been to Asia? Ever been to Tokyo? I've been to Tokyo actually. Yes.
So in Tokyo, one of the things that's really cool about Tokyo is downtown in the main business district, like in Akihabara and in Shinjuku and all those places, the traffic lights, instead of having traffic lights that when this goes red, that goes green, they all stop red and allow everyone to cross the street at the same time. So you have people going this way and going this way at the exact same time. And there are some buildings that actually have lookout stations where you can look down.
and just see these incredible images of thousands of people crossing in every single direction at the same time, all at once. looks like, it's almost like you're looking at a piranha pond or a koi pond with millions of little fish going every day. That's you. That's me. But the reason that's me, there's a point to this. The reason that's me is because every single fish, every person going this way, that way, this way, that way, this way, that way, until the light changes and then it stops.
Right? So it's this level of complete and utter chaos. And then it stops. And it stops for five, six minutes. And then it's completely another chaos again. And then it stops. So imagine that. Imagine this crosswalk with millions of people going in every different direction. And then the light turns red. So the key is to find the things in your world that allow the light to turn red. It's great to have that level of chaos where you
Because chaos leads to brilliant ideas and leads to doing great things. But you have to have, you have to put yourself into situations in your life that allow you to turn the light red when you need it to. That is great. I love that because I love the idea of being able to switch, like you say, from the green light to the red light. And we know that part of the challenge with ADHD is not knowing where that switch is or people feeling that somebody else is holding the remote to my switch. Absolutely. Right? Do you relate to that? I know you talked about your
brain as a city as well. Yes, I did. It's actually a funny comparison. Your city seems a bit more organized than mine. I'm sure that's come with practice and discipline, but it's taken 53 years. I'll get there eventually. But no, it is very interesting how different people all with either similar neurodivergences or completely different will explain their brain. So thank you for sharing that with us. Yeah, no question. Yeah. My second question for you.
is, okay, this starts with a preemptive full disclosure. I was very excited when Eloise told me about you and the prospect of having you on the podcast. So I went a little fangirl and hyper fixated wholeheartedly into the entire world that is Peter Shigerman. You're welcome. So you do now have a I have listened to almost all your podcasts, as well as the book.
Because that's what ADHD does, right? All or nothing. Yeah, it did go all or nothing. I want to go back in time and tell Kristen Lamberti in junior high school who said I'd never be popular of what you just said, because there you go. There we go. Are you listening, Christian? Are you listening? Tagging him. No, but part of my deep dive was reading your incredible book. And in that book, you have four undeniable rules for your life.
Can you help us understand this? Because I'm not going to lie to you. When I first read that chapter title, I said to myself, rules are the antonym of everything I love. I'm fun. ADHD is loving fun. Why rules? And why do we need rules? It's a great analogy because you're right. You know, we don't love rules. I had one job in my life. I worked for a company called America Online back in the 90s that let us work anywhere we wanted, anytime we wanted, as long as we got the work done. And then
when I left that company and went to a second job, when I went to a New York publishing house to help publish a magazine, my first day there, we had an 8.30 a.m. meetings and 9.30 check-ins and 10.15 the stand-ups. I'm like, oh my God, this is Russia and I quit because I don't do well with the rules. And so I guess that, but as I've gotten older, what I realize is that in order to live this carefree life where you get to sort of do what you want when you want, you have to do it in a way
that allows you to not go off the rails.
I guess the best way to describe it, it's a lot of fun. Not me, I'm old now, but it used to be a lot of fun to go out and sort of have a, every once in a while you have a Friday night where you just go out, you have too many drinks, there are substances involved and you're dancing and whatever and you come back and it's like 10 a.m. the next morning and you're like, dude, that was so much fun. And then you take a day to recover and you go about your life. If you did that every single day with no rules, carefree, wouldn't go that well, right?
So you have to put rules into place to allow you to enjoy the creativity and freedom and excitement that comes with that ADHD or that neurodiverse brain. So for me, the rules are pretty simple because they are rules that I sort of live with and they become a part of my life. So I don't really think about them as rules as much as I do more about just living my life. Because here's the thing, if I don't follow those rules, bad shit happens.
You know, if I want to enjoy my life to the best of my ability and be the best dad that I can, right? Be the best boyfriend that I can, whatever the case may be, be the best worker, you know, start the greatest companies. If I want to do all that, I have to follow these rules. Without them, things go bad really fast. So, and they're really simple. The rules are simple. The first one is, and I'm spacing on how I actually phrase them now because the book's like eight years old,
The concept of, you know, eliminating choice. can tell me what the rules are. Eliminating choice is the first one. So I have on my in my closet, I have a giant closet. I live in a two bedroom apartment in Manhattan and from Manhattan, it's actually surprisingly decent sized apartment. I have a giant closet in my bedroom. Probably because when I first moved in here, I was I was getting married and my my now ex wife said I need she needed a big closet. I didn't get shit. got like a
one drawer, know, mostly hers. now that I own the place and she's not here, I have this giant closet. my closet has two sides to it and it's labeled. It says, the one side says office slash travel and it's t-shirts, sweatshirts, jeans, whatever. The other side says speaking slash TV. It's for when I go on stage. It has a physical label. It's like the label makers. Shoppies.
Okay. that's when I go on television or when I get keynotes and that's button down shirts, jackets and jeans. Every day when I wake up around 3 30 in the morning, and we'll get to that in a second, when I wake up super early, I do my exercise, I work out, I take a shower and when I get out of the shower, I say, Hey, Alexa, what's the what's my schedule today? And it tells me, and as long as my schedule tells me that if my schedule says, you know, you're in the office, you're taking your kid to school, you come back for a couple of calls,
Then you're picking your kid up and that's it. T-shirt and jeans. If my schedule says, you're flying to Seattle, you're flying to LA, you're flying to London, whatever, t-shirt and jeans. If it says you have a keynote at Google's offices at 1 p.m., button down shirt jacket and jeans, that's it. My suits, my vests, my sweaters, these gorgeous pieces of clothing I have, those stay in my daughter's closet. Because if I had to wake up,
And look at my closet and say okay, what should I wear today? Hmm. Let's see. Oh my god, that sweater Wow, I remember that sweater Laura gave me that sweater God, I haven't thought about her in years. I wonder how she's doing. It's three hours later I'm naked in the living room on Facebook and I haven't left it So the concept of a nice you eliminate any Conceivable way that you can fall off the track that you are on right?
You know, I love how these images are all coming together, isn't it? Because your picture of Tokyo downtown and the crossings, I mean, if there were no rules there, we'd be, it's not just that the green light will always be on, there will be no walking in certain directions, there will be no traffic, will be, it will all be chaos. That it is the channeling, it is the eliminating of the walk, don't walk, that actually brings out what's possible.
in downtown Tokyo. beauty of creating rules for yourself is that it lets you live your life with this incredible freedom. And it doesn't sound like it because you think, rules, can't live like you feel like it, but you can. Yes, it's the paradox, isn't it? You can live your life with rules. You can live your life without rules probably one or two times. You can live the most freedom you want without rules one or two times. Put the rules into place, you can live with freedom every single day. Yeah.
And really, know, Peter, what I felt in your work, and I've been using some of your ideas in my coaching, and one of the pieces that I feel you've added to the puzzle that is a game changer is that I talk a lot about the gifts of neurodivergence, of being wonderfully wired, and how if we just look at it differently, we could see these extraordinary cognitive gifts. But what you've said, and I think is what made me also think of Juju and bringing her along, is to say,
Actually, if you don't manage the negative parts, if you don't make the rules, there is no access to the positive. Do you think that's an exaggeration of what you have to say? Because I always thought, well, no, don't just look at the negative, also look at the positive. But you're saying actually, when there are no traffic lights in downtown Tokyo, there is only chaos. The positive doesn't become possible.
I'll take it a step further. You want long-term gains, right? You want to create these systems and put these systems in the place that allow you to succeed every day. One of the things I do is I look at the positives in an if-then situation, right? A lot of people call it playing the tape forward. If I do this, where will I be in 12 hours? I don't drink anymore. But every once in a while, I very much want to.
Right? You know, have a bad day. Our president says something even more stupid than normal. Whatever it is, you know. What? Not your president. Our president. Never. I know. I hear you. But every once in a while, you you just want a drink. And so I asked myself, that drinks to make me feel better tonight. There's no question about it. But I know myself, I'm not going to have one drink. Right. I have two speeds. And if you read the book, you know what they are. They're namaste. And I'll cut it. There's no middle ground.
And so I'm not going to have one drink, I'm to have six. And then I'm going go to bed, I'm going be exhausted, I'm going wake up in the morning, and now it's 12 hours later, I haven't exercised, I feel like crap, I'm dehydrated, so now I'm probably going to eat like crap. Well, now it's two weeks later and I haven't gone to the gym, I'm eating like crap and I've gained 10 pounds. That's playing the tape forward. So you ask yourself, what if I don't? What if I go to sleep and get up early and work out? What's the benefits there? Well, I'm going to feel better, I'm going be happy that I didn't do it, it's going to be worth it, I can gloat.
The concept of those rules, again, is to help you live the best life you can and enjoy the freedom. I wouldn't be able to get, if I'm stuck in bed with a hangover, there's no freedom there. I'm not getting out of bed. I'm not living my best life. Yeah, that's it. And I like how in the book you make it clear that for ADHD, it's really that black and white. It's really that all or nothing. But I do want to say, and I know this point gets made, but this is true for neurotypical brains. This is true for all brains.
that that self-awareness is key to living the life we want to live, right? And that's one of things about the book is that, you know, when I first started writing, I'm like, yeah, this is really useful for people with ADHD. I'm like, no, this is really useful for everyone. That's it. Yeah. 100%. That's it. OK, so let's go back for a second to saying, you know, bad stuff happens when you don't live by the rules. So let's go to like bad for a moment, you know, it's all or nothing. So.
So let's start at that nothing. What is life without the rules with ADHD, with unmanaged ADHD? I've said this before. First of all, there's a study out that says that 64%, 74 % of it's believed that people incarcerated in the United States, 74 % of them are undiagnosed or are diverse. And I've said this publicly before, on any given day, I believe that I am three bad decisions in a row away from being homeless in the streets.
And it sounds ridiculous. Oh, no, you have to score this apartment. You're making money. You work it. Yeah It doesn't work like that. Um, one bad decision leads to another leads to another You know and i'll make one bad decision I make one bad decision a lot but the key is to recognize it and not make the second one Um, and then the third one, you know, so there's no question that most that a good portion neurodiverse people are um are uh
have addictive personalities. You look at the two things that you listed about me earlier, skydiving and triathlon, those two things have some of the highest levels of addiction of any sport in the world. My triathlon concept is it makes perfect sense, right? You trade one addiction for another. In my case, I've traded it. Triathlon, most people do marathons. I've gone to triathlon. I'm trading for three addictions.
You know, why suck at one sport when you can suck at three sports? But the concept of a skydive is no different than spending a night blowing cocaine, except you are, it's a natural high. You're jumping out of that plane and you land, but your brain producing all those chemicals, not a drug. So again, you have to understand yourself and you have to know what is good for you and what's not good for you to
get those chemicals that you need. learned years ago, I never drank growing up. It was really weird. I was never one those kids that snuck off and had a beer at a party, mostly because I never got invited to parties. That wasn't cool. Not until now. Listen to that, In my late 20s, I'm running a public relations firm and all of a sudden they have lots of clients who want to be taken out. We go out and I'll take an employee with me and my employee, she and I will go out.
We'll meet the client and go to a bar and all of sudden I having a drink like I like this, you know, I like this a lot. And so it really became sort of that that that concept of, wow, I like this very I like this too much. Right. And so it wasn't so much that I was ever an alcoholic per se. But again, you know, I can go a year without thinking about alcohol. But the second I do, I said, I have one drink? It's not just one drink. So it's.
A lot of ADHD is like that. Again, namaste and I'll cut it. So you have to put these rules and regulations into place that allow you to control. There's a great movie called War Games that came out in the 80s with Matthew Broderick. it's the computer learns about, it's a nuclear war computer and the computer learns that how to prevent a nuclear war. he says, there's no winning. The only winning move is not to play. And so when you get that into your brain and you understand that there are just certain things that I'm not great at, you don't miss them.
I don't I don't I rarely if I if I have a keynote in Vegas It says in my contract that I'll you have to fly me in the night before I'm sorry You have to fly me to LA the night before and I'll fly down to Vegas in the morning or you fly me in the day of I give the speech and I fly out because I don't want to spend a night there. Yeah, I'm not probably not gonna blow my kids bank, know, my kids college fund, but why why why risk it? Why risk it why risk it? But that's I think if you don't mind I think what you say is really important because growing up like I'm not
the type of kid that flew off the handle or anything like that. But the truth is I had great potential too. And I still do. Like my, it's sounds a bit dark, but I also struggle with a chronic illness. And in a lot of ways that saved me from a lot of poor decisions. It's as simple as that. I was bedridden and that saved me from making those three bad decisions. Cause I honestly think I could boil it down to two for a lot of my life. And I know what that is. Like I can.
my ability to swing wildly to one side or the other is unmatched. And I think we'd be we'd be we'd be amazing if we dated. Give me a break. We would blow things up. What's so funny about what you just said? And I'll add something to that. When you're neurodiverse, you're really, really good at still being high functioning, no matter part of my friends, no matter how you are. Yeah, right. It's true. So I have no doubt that if I had some form of addiction or whatever, no one would know.
That's right. know my crash the crash the final crash would come wouldn't be Sort of this, you know catch me at the beginning and prevent it from being a huge My crash would be epic Right because no one would know and then one day I just literally be found on you know the corner of 145th Street and Brook Avenue You know and and in the Bronx somewhere and you're wondering how I got there. There's a great line. There's a movie Forget the name
stars the guy from Lonely Island, the guy who sang the song I'm on a boat with T-Pain. Anyway, it's about... I know you're talking about. This just makes me think of how you Shazam was actually created for ADHD people. Oh, 100%. I have never agreed with anything you said more. It is the best thing that has We need it for the movie. What's the movie with the guy? What's the guy with Here's the thing. The beauty of that is that there is a thing.
There's an app for your movie right now. Watch this. It's not an app. Watch this. Watch this. What's the movie about a guy? What's the movie about a guy who is stuck in an infinite time loop? He's with a girl and they they realize they're stuck there and it came out a few years ago. You're probably thinking of Palm Springs. Palm Springs. That's it. Thank you.
I love technology. movie is Palm Springs. I don't remember the guy's name, but he started it. one of the things he says, going back what we were talking about about our crash out would be massive, he talks about, he can't get out of the time loop. And they say, is there really, what if you're not here? And he goes, no, you always wake up back in bed at the next day. He goes, one day I smoked a bunch of crystal and made it as far as equatorial New Guinea.
You know, and that's the whole premise is that that would be my crash out. would literally wake up in jail in equatorial New Guinea. Right. So, so it's just don't start that process. you won't. So, so I mean, you know, with that, I mean, we, we say like, I mean, that's a hit. That's a big thing to say, guys. That's a big, thing to say. And we, when, when we have, you a lot of my listeners are parents. And so we're like, we've got this little kid and this wildly creative, interesting little kiddo, the thought that that.
Kid is three decisions away from chaos and from, you know, that's deeply upsetting, right? I mean, do we, enough to warrant calling it a disability? Are we calling it a disability? Peter, how do you find? I never liked the term stability. For me, you know, a disability, first of all, it's when you're a young kid and you're diagnosed with sort of disability, that's a death sentence to you. Yeah, that's like a direction, isn't it? Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. You you have a disability. Well, OK, guess I'm not normal, guess I'm screw up. You know, I spent the first 25 years of my life being told I was broken and the next 25 in therapy trying to undo that. So I don't like to tell you, again, I look at ADHD as a gift. And look, I know ADHD is a bitch and it can be it's a terrible mistress and it it can hurt. There's no question about it. is brutal at times. But I love I love that I have the choice to use my brain in a different way than other people.
Right? And if that choice comes with having to, if it comes with the responsibility of doing certain things to make it that way, the obligation to do certain things, be able to enjoy that other part. know, I look at it this way. Why do I go to the gym? Why am I on my Peloton every day? I'm on my Peloton every day for my brain. That's not an accurate comparison.
Why do I go to the gym four times a week and lift really heavy weights? I do that because I want to earn the privilege of at least once during the summer being able to take off my shirt and not be afraid that people are to run away. Right? So that is the trade off. Right? I lift a lot of heavy weights so I can enjoy food and I can go to the beach without a shirt a couple of times a summer and not worry about it. So it's the same thing. I put these rules into place and live the life that I've created so I can enjoy
the rest of my life. And if that means that I get up at 3.30 to exercise, to give my brain the dopamine it needs every day, that's a worthy trade-off. Right. Right. mean, if we're going to speak in movie quotes, with great power comes great responsibility. I was thinking that too. I was thinking that too. And like that, I think is what it boils down to. And if you really want to mess with a nerd and ruin their geek and ruin their old A, it with great power comes great responsibility. know, Darth Vader said that. But it's true. And I think...
what you say, it very much resonates because I'm not all of the negative things. It just means I have in me a great capacity for all or nothing behaviors. I think also we've talked a lot about this, about the concept of self-awareness and being like able to acknowledge what our capabilities and what the things that we're not going to walk into are. I've never gotten drunk. I don't drink for that reason. It's the same reason that I know
that while it might. So my assistant, I have a wonderful assistant named Megan and she's really good at. I also want a Megan by the way, just just in case anyone is listening. need a Megan. really is. Happy birthday Megan. Happy birthday Megan. So one of the reasons I love Megan is because Megan is what I call my ADHD conscious. She's the one who
I'm not allowed to put anything in my calendar. have to forward things to her that I want to do. I'll forward... For example, I get an invite to attend an opening of a new restaurant. It's a restaurant slash bar, guess, somewhere in Midtown. it's the party opening party started, I think, 9.30 p.m. And my first instinct is, wow, I'm...
I'm cool enough to be invited into a 930 PM. Yeah, have you know. And so this is my six months ago. So I forwarded to Megan. I'm like, Oh my God, I definitely want to do this. And she just she replied with uh huh. And I'm like, what? I totally want to go to this. She's like, no, don't know. I really do. How cool is this? She goes, you will call me or text me the day of and tell me to get me get you out of it. Yes. And I want you.
And then she did she kid the kid has a great memory which pisses me off She goes you remember when you got invited to that club because you owned a an NFT and it came with an invite to a club one time like yeah She's like and you went to the club you force yourself to stay until 11 p.m. When the doors open you went to the club. How long did you stay at that club?
She goes, stayed six minutes and you left. That is a record. That is a record. Because I'm not sending you to this party. I'm like, OK. You what she's saying? So you need to be aware. You need to be aware of. Again, pushing the tape forward, how your brain is going to react to things, because it sounds awesome. A party sounds cool, a party with celebrities. Sounds amazing.
You're not going to love that. You're hate that shit. The only party I am going to this year that Megan agreed to allow me to go to, I'm an investor in a new Broadway show. It's actually a revival of an old Broadway show called Chess, which is my all-time, hands down, 100 % favorite Broadway show. I saw it on three continents. I saw it in Broadway in 88 when it first opened. I've been in love with the show forever. It's finally coming back to New York. It stars Lea Michele from Glee.
Aaron Tivette, Nicholas Christopher. on Sunday November 16th, the 16th of November is opening night and then I get to go to the cast party and that I'm going to and Maeve's allowing me to go to that because I've planned for that. She canceled every event I had on the 17th. She knows that I'll take it off. So let's talk more about with much power part because we've been talking about the taking responsibility part. I mean, what?
You know, is the good, what is the winning the genetic lottery? What is the advantage of ADHD? The advantage of ADHD is the ability to turn on and off this brain that does all these incredible things, right? The ability to know that if I, so if I have to write faster than normal, I had a year to do it. And I did all the research the first month and I, you know, forgot about it. And then with two weeks later, two weeks left after a year, my editor calls me says, Hey, look, I'm a son of a gun. sure.
I booked a, I hadn't written one word. I booked a flight to Asia and wrote chapters one through five of the flight out. I went to the lounge when I landed in Tokyo, took a shower, got back on the same plane, same seat, two hours later wrote chapter six through 10. And the beauty of the gigantic lottery of Indian Sea, but it worked. 32 hours later I was home with a book. I was a zombie, but I was home with a book. And it's a New York Times bestseller. And so to be able to turn that, to understand that part of the brain and use it.
When you need to really is a gift, really is a lottery win. You know, but again, like any lottery win, if you win a ton of money, you're going to have to learn how you need someone to manage that money or you're going to go down a rat. It's not going to end well. You know, I know a guy. I don't know a guy. I've read a story of a guy who won six million dollars, blew it all on cocaine and hookers. Now he's working again as a night watchman because he blew all his money. Right. So you have to let other people do, you know, do the things that you're not good at.
And you have to understand that there are certain rules you have to put into play. You're not going to go out with $6 million in cash and have fun. Doesn't work like that. And when we talk about the fact that you just wrote this book and completely forgot about it and then got on the plane and wrote it all, I understand. Doesn't everyone do that? Hey, you know what? I understand you deeply. If I'm not doing a project and sitting down and doing it the whole time, there's no way it's going to happen. And I know now that that's hyper-focused.
In fifth grade, I thought I was losing my mind and as did my teacher. But as I've gotten older, that's obviously helped. So with hyperfocus, this is the problem that I've never been able to grasp as of yet. How do you... Okay, I need to watch my word choice. But how do you kind of manipulate your hyperfocus? Because sometimes I feel like the only way I personally will get anything done is if I fight with myself and I'm competitive enough that I'll win one of us. So...
So with hyper focus, how do you kind of manipulate that to your advantage? how do you, yeah, how do I choose when to use it?
I look at it like this. It's not something that I can turn off, but it is something that I can manage. I'll give you an example. Every human being, just because of genetics, has a sex drive. We're designed as a species to procreate to continue our species. It's just genetics. This is definitely the first time we've talked about a sex drive on the Wonderfully Wired podcast. thrilled. Carry on. I can give you a different analogy if you want. I'm teasing you. Carry on. Most of us.
I'd say the majority of us have learned through both.
just growing up and through maturity and through social acuity that there are times to let that sex drive go wild and there are times not to. A lot of times not to. You're not going to let that sex drive go wild in third period AP bio or French class or whatever. That's wisdom. Exactly. It's sort of the same with ADHD. I have this incredibly fast brain that can
do a lot of different things. But I also know that when I am sitting with my girlfriend and we're talking about, you know, she's upset because she's having issues with her mom who's getting older, you learn that that is not the time to let your ADHD brain go crazy because she's not really looking for...
What I want to do obviously is fix the problem because that's what people with ADHD brain do. We want to fix the problem. But I know she's not looking for me to fix the problem. What she really wants me to do is listen. And that took years over the course of several relationships to understand because intrinsically our desire is to go fix the problem. But it really is that she just wants us to listen. So, or wants me to listen. So what I've learned to do is shut off ADHD and focus. And I don't always succeed, most of the time I've trained myself that most of time I do succeed, I can listen.
And just, you know, sometimes I have to sit on my hands to do it. Yes. But it's understanding. It's about really understanding. You know, for lack of a better word, it's about reading the room. Yeah. I like this because it's a distinction from what a lot of kids are doing, which is masking, which is much more like I have to hide that I'm different. This is not that. This is intentionally choosing when to rein in something that isn't helpful for what you want from the situation. Right.
Which is very different. That's very different and much more intentional and much more. Let's get back to your rules, Peter. We've spoken about eliminating choices. Let's talk about food and eating well. Have the rules, by the way, in the 80 years changed since, because it's been 80 years since the book. So the rules are pretty much still the same. Eating well is very simple. Although I'll say that eating well has changed a bit because I have discovered incredible new ways to food prep.
Um, you know, I meal prep almost everything now. Um, and my daughter helps she's 12. So we've meal prepped together like on a Sunday night or whatever and um, It's awesome. I mean I have discovered we I live I live primarily on what's called a chicken chicken chicken genocide diet Which essentially means that the majority of what i'm eating is chicken
um in just different forms right i've learned that there's so you can make chicken bases for pizza you can and you know is chicken based for pizza as good as a pizza from the corner you know new york city uh pizza place right absolutely not but that's point for you right there you know let's be honest it's not but but if i have a craving and i know that i really don't want to eat a full pizza which i will this solves that problem so you know meal prepping again it's taking the guesswork and taking the the thought out of it if i know that i have meal prep eight
Meals of chicken protein pasta which have the right amount of carbs the right amount of fats the right amount of protein For what I want and I know they're in the freezer and four minutes later in the microwave I'll be able to eat one that takes the guesswork and thought out of or I take it step further takes the justification in my mind out of well You know, I could just go to the pizza place and get I don't think about it So meal prepping is change my life. But yeah, basically the concept behind my rule about food is You know
If you take care of your body and eat healthy 80 % of the time, 20 % of time you can eat like, and your body will take care of you. Right? So if I want that whole pizza from the corner every once a month, whatever, I'm not allowing myself to have it. needs to be the exception to the rule. That's it. I'm not going to, is how we live. Life is too goddamn short not to eat really good pizza at least once a month. So especially in York City. key is not to do it every single day. And so the chicken genocide diet helps. Drinking a ton of water helps. My God.
I believe that if America drank 50 % more, if every person here drank 50 % more water in this country, we'd cut down on healthcare costs by a couple of trillion dollars. I really believe that, Gigi and I just toasted that. we did. Yeah, so drinking water is bad. And again, I don't know how the hell we survive. My daughter can't go to school every morning without her Stanley water bottle on this day. I just assumed that when I was growing up, I was just.
could dehydrate it from birth till like age 24. Maybe. But we never carried water bottles. We had one water fountain that worked a quarter of the time in the school. it's just about, again, eating healthy. The apple test is huge. Am I hungry? Yes. Do I want an apple? No, that I'm not hungry. Right. If I'm hungry enough to eat an apple, I like Exactly. I keep bananas in the house. I keep fruits in the house. My daughter loves her...
I can make her a protein shake in the blender with blueberries and protein powder. It really, it's just about figuring out these sort of little life changes. And the funny thing is, that, know, on my tombstone, it's going to be written, always trying to lose those last 20 pounds. But, you know, I have figured out that the chicken genocide diet keeps me in a healthier state and at a weight that is really pretty okay.
Right? Could I be 10 pounds thinner? Absolutely. But, you know, if I was eating just whatever the hell I wanted and putting it in front of me, I'd have 40 pounds to lose, not 10. So it's just about taking care of you. And again, you if my grandmother wouldn't recognize it as food, I try not to eat it. I like it. There's a lot of really practical stuff like that in that chapter. And I like that you're talking again about eliminating choice. You're talking about moderation and that that's not a real thing in ADHD.
And so to rely on, I'll just eat two slices of the pizza. may not be a thing. And, um, and again, and just saying that what I, the, the third thing I felt that you added now and in the chapter is, is an awareness that we're also feeding a brain, right? And that our capacity to harness, um, the best thinking that superpower is, is, is determined by the field we eat. It's not just about the body. So I like that very much.
And that's the other thing, you people eat, you know, I might eat that pizza or that McDonald's or what do you guys call it there? Maccas? McDonald's. Or is that Australia? I don't remember. But you eat crappy food and you're going to get that dopamine high, but it's only the last about 10 minutes. That's it. You you devour a chicken and some veggies and some rice, you're going to get a good solid dopamine high. It might not be as strong in beginning, but it's going to keep it going throughout the day. Super helpful. And just even that awareness. And like I am.
One thing, sorry, you wanted to say, but one thing that we talked about is that, you know, even when things don't translate exactly in our situations, it's the principles of what you're saying. It's the finding out what feeds the brain well, what keeps one healthy, what helps with eliminating choice. It's kind of understanding those underlying principles rather than, I mean, we don't all have to genocide chicken diet, right?
100%. I feel there will be no chicken. It's affordable there. It's affordable here. The chicken diet. How about sleep? Talk to us about sleep. Sleep is key. mean, look, at the end of the day, if we're not getting the sleep, everything suffers. We're miserable. We're unhappy. Our weight fluctuates. Our weight gets higher. Our bodies don't rebuild the muscle we need for growth. There are studies that say our brains don't act as fast. Our synapses don't fire as fast.
You know, we try to there's this we've been fed this bill of goods that says we have to thrive in this constant go, go, go environment. You don't need sleep. Sleep is for the week. Call. I call startups and I call entrepreneurs out on that every single day because, you know, if you're not getting your seven or eight hours, you're seriously I mean, the difference between sleeping a full and I travel constantly. Right. And I know that I know how I feel when I get to Asia and, after a 14 hour flight and and getting a good night's sleep the night before is is massively different. I'm a massively different person if I don't.
You gotta get sleep. And I had someone in my life who used to say, God, I wish I see you all the time. You're up so early and you're at the gym. I wish I'd get up that early. How do you do it? I looked at one day and I go to sleep early. Earlier. It's not a magic I'm like, no, it's not that you can't do it. It's that you choose not to do it. You are, I know this is like 10 years ago.
I see what time you're posting on Facebook. If you didn't scroll all night and if you didn't watch TV until midnight, if you didn't do all that crap, I bet you could go to bed early. Yeah. If you didn't do the grownup stuff. Yeah. So basically I just, you know, I made the decision in my world, nothing good happens after, for me happens after 10 PM anyway. Megan knows it. Megan's My daughter's out by 8.15. I'm usually out by 8.30, 8.45.
Great. Great. Do you have a sleep question? I do have a sleep question. It may be slightly bunny trailing, but I think Peter's up for a buddy. I'm not sure what a buddy trailing question is, but I want to hear it anyway. As in a rabbit warren, as in a thought that goes off track. feel this is the right episode. But my sleep question is pertaining to the concept of circadian rhythm. Like, for example, this question.
I don't know if you're the correct person to answer, but I feel you'll have an opinion. The idea of you have to be asleep by a certain time to be awake for a certain time has never worked for me. And in high school, my doctor like tried to make me go to sleep at exactly 10 PM to wake up by 6 AM. And when I tell you it was hell on earth, it would be a really big understatement. for me, like I thrived in school.
during the pandemic, because what I would do is I just shifted my entire sleep schedule to when my body naturally fell asleep and when it naturally woke up. Absolutely. And I've never been so productive in my entire life. So like, what do you say, I think, to parents, to teachers, to also kids with ADHD or just people? What do you do if that's the story that you're being told and in reality, it's making your sleep living hell? Well, you're talking about two different things. Circadian rhythms versus timing. And you're 100 % right.
people circuitous there are some people skating rooms who are different. I look I used to be a night owl. I was a night owl first 25 years 30 years of my life and then something shifted in my brain. I know what it was but all of sudden making a morning person. I used to be like oh you need to go to sleep early and get up early. I'm not saying that what I'm saying is you need to get a certain amount of right from me going to bed at 830 and waking up at 330 works perfectly for you. It might be going to bed at 2 a.m. and waking up at 11 a.m. whatever but
It has to be about getting the right amount of sleep. I like I said, I used to be I used to back in college I was one of the I was the editor of the school paper and I the college newspaper and I used to be a spot news photographer I would run around till like four in the morning because that's when all the clubs closed all the accidents happen I'd get great photos. Um, and I was never tired, right? I didn't sleep till like noon. Um It really is about and unfortunately, look we do live in a society that that Where you know? Yeah, especially kids growing up. They do um
They are told you have to be up at this time, you have to go to sleep at this time. It's probably beneficial in the beginning, because kids do need a lot more sleep than adults. But at the end of the day, I think you have to, when you get older, you have to make that life that works for you. Like I said, in my 20s, 3 a.m. was my prime time. I was killing it 3 a.m. and I'd go to sleep at like 5. So Peter, when you talk about getting up super early to get to the gym, and so you have...
You talk about shifting from trying to do like habits, you know, the good old New Year's resolutions to rather creating rituals. Tell us about that a bit, because I felt like that was quite a good shift. Why does that work for ADHD? One of the things I've learned, I've just repeated it so many times, is that if I start on January 1st, I'm not going to be 30 pounds thinner by February 1st.
And the problem is that when I'm not 30 pounds thinner by February 1st, I'm going to give it up. I well, that didn't work, so screw it. Let's go have that pizza. That's a resolution. That does not succeed a ritual, however, is I'm going to go to the gym three times a week. I'm going only have pizza twice a month. A ritual is a lot easier because as you start a ritual, you start creating a subtle change in your life.
And the more you create, the more you do that subtle change, the more it becomes less of a change and more just life. And the more you're used to it. And that's when you start to see the results. Three months in, okay, I'm down 15 pounds. There's something here. Because again, when you're ADHD, well, really anyone, especially ADHD, you see, you discover trends, you're huge on data. I have to weigh myself every single day because I track the data. And I haven't had a cigarette in probably...
12 years, 15 years, whatever. Because on my phone, I have an app and I've had this app through like 10 phones that tracks the number of days since I quit smoking. And I have a streak of, you know, multiple thousands of days and there is no way in hell. I'm breaking the street. going allow myself to have start that again. exactly. Yeah. Because here's the thing, if I have another, if I ever have another cigarette, I'm going to be a smoker until I die. That's it. That's it.
It's the all or nothing. you talk about chasing the feeling you have rather than sort of this is important, I should exercise it is important. And we often talk to clients about not being importance motivated, like motivated by the feeling that we're going to get. How will I feel after going to the gym three times a week, right? Never, I've never in my life said I regretted that workout. Oh yeah.
There it is. that's it. And so we have one last one, exercise and do it outside if you can. So yeah, I, and this is why my day starts at 3.30. I get on my bike. Um, when you're ADHD, it's incredibly, you're, you have an incredible ability to talk anyone into or out of anything, including yourself. If I decide, okay, I'm to get up, I'm going to go to work and then I'm going to, I'm going to go to the gym at 5.30 PM.
I guarantee you I will see something over the course of day that gives me a reason not to go to the gym. Oh, look at that news article. They found a new meteor. It's orbiting Pluto. You know what? Just to be safe, I should go home. I'm going to stay home. Are you feeling seen? I feel a little over-releasing. You know an X-ray?
No, 100 % but here's the thing. So my peloton sits two inches from my bed in my bedroom and so when I wake up I go to sleep in my bike shorts and socks when I wake up I don't have to open my eyes to get onto the peloton put on my bike shoes clip in and start but I'm gonna my eyes for five minutes On the bike and I'm doing it by then I'm not gonna stop I have never
I'm proud to say I have never quit a Peloton workout until it's ended. Like I've never quit in mid workout. If I'm on the bike, if I've started the workout, I will do the workout. And then an hour later, hour and a half later, not only is it done and I'm going to think about it for the rest of the day, but I've also gotten all the dopamine I need. I've got serotonin, I feel good. I know that I can go take a shower, have a cup of coffee, then wake up my daughter for school and annoy her. Today,
How did I, what did I annoy her with today? Oh yeah, today I annoyed her with some early 90s rap, or early 90s dance. Oh, bit of Milly Vanilli end. No, no, no, I had her like to play everybody, everybody, so I could walk in dancing, everybody, ow, doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo, ow. I'm sure a 12 year old would just love that. Get out of my room, it would awesome.
Well done. And you've got your dopamine, so you're ready to be. Oh, that's the thing. I'm Isaac Heitz. I'm like, dee dee dee dee dee. Oh, God. But I'll tell you a funny story. When she was like four or five, I slept in one day and I was just tired. I didn't want to work out. And I got up around, I still got up before her, but I got up, I woke her up. It was a Sunday morning. I remember, remember we're sitting at the breakfast table over there and I said, and she looks at me, she says, Daddy, did you get on your bicycle today?
I said, no, honey, I was tired. I said to her, goes, you're not as happy. Oh, there we go. She read you like a book. five years old. She figured that out, right? And so she put you together. So I just know how I'm going to feel later. And I know how not going to feel if I don't do it. Peter, tell us a bit more about her. So she is 12 and also ADHD, I think, from your podcast. We sort of picked up.
So I think she is. haven't had her tested yet. Or actually, I haven't had her tested. They say she's borderline, so not necessarily there yet. But you know, she probably is. But I don't need to put, I'm not going to put her in meds or anything like that as long as she doesn't show any negative signs of it. But we talk about what it's, you know, we talk about focus. We talk about what it's like to, homework has to get done.
Right? And that's fine. she's very similar to me, but she's also really smart. She's definitely better at math than I ever was. She has a much better voice. I I spent 25 years, I have 25 years of classical vocal training under my belt as a singer and never had perfect pitch. This kid has perfect pitch. Drives me up a damn wall. Yeah, that's not fair. That's not right. It's Really, both my parents have it. It skipped my ass and she got it. she's my kid. love her. She's a lot of fun and we have a blast together.
What have you learned in parenting her that you would really want parents to know in terms of ADHD in her home? I've learned that having ADHD as an adult is essentially being eight years old but with means. That's good and it is, but I picked up the school last year, some random Thursday, and she goes, hey, we walked on the subway. She goes, hey, dad, what's for dinner?
I figured you'd be a plane. She goes, what? I'm like, oh yeah, I'm sorry, I forgot. We're going to Paris tonight. She goes, what? I'm yeah, Taylor Swift is performing on Saturday. I thought you'd want to see her. Stop it. No. Lost. It's like the greatest girl in the world. love doing that. kind of stuff. Yeah, you get to live the fun side of it, right? You get to because you do the rules.
Some more, there's actually a chapter in the book for parents and for loved ones and people that, know, we were like, oh, Jamie, Judy's boyfriend, we're like, can you just read this chapter? You just follow it all, just understand. What stood out for you there? Yeah, I think especially as being, obviously I'm not a parent, but clearly. Not yet. for me, one thing that resonated when you were speaking about with your daughter,
is for me, I never knew I had ADHD until I was older. Everybody around me apparently figured that out way ahead of time. I was just informed a little late, but for me that made me feel not different. It just made me feel like this is juju and this is the way it is. How, yeah, for you, what do you want to tell parents?
Your child isn't broken. They're gifted. The problem is we live in a society where everyone says you have to be the same. And you need to embrace the fact that they're different. Difference is what has kept us alive as a species. You want to be different, you know? And it's tough when you're a kid because when you're a kid, you know, the concept of being different is like a death sentence. Oh my God, I'm not like everyone else. want to be, you know, but you just have to tell them.
Love them. Never stop loving them. My 100th episode of the podcast, of Fast and Normal, podcast, was with my parents. Very funny. And I interviewed my parents and I asked them, I said, how did you guys survive this? I mean, I was a terror. I wasn't really getting in trouble. I was just pain in the ass. I kept coming home with notes from the school. I wasn't paying attention. And they go, just, we never stopped loving you. We never stopped telling you we loved you. We never stopped loving you. We knew you'd come into your own eventually. But God, can't imagine what it was like to raise me.
But that's the key. You have to understand that they're going to find themselves. Eventually, they're just have that loving. That's the thing. Have the loving base. Stay there for them. Be there for them. And never give that up. And they will find their way. The negatives of ADHD really only can come through and take over if the child doesn't have a support system. A lot of times it could be therapy.
You know, but the parents have to be first and foremost. What's really interesting is that I have a favorite quote that says pills don't teach skills. You know, we're putting five year olds on ADHD medication because they're acting like they're five. What's better is you're going to, I'm not anti-med. think meds are perfectly, I have a prescription for Concerta that I'm supposed to take every day, but maybe I take it once or twice a month. I take it when my assistant puts on my calendar pill day, which means that I have at least four meetings in one day. And I know that I'm not going to survive four meetings in one day without
without a pill. So I take it first. I take it like four in the morning because I think any later I won't go to sleep. But it's one of your Exactly. Like anything else. don't mind putting I don't mind the kids are on medication, but they can't just be on medication without other situations to help them. They need those other tools and behavioral therapy, whatever it is, because then they turn 25, they're off their parents insurance, they've never learned anything but to take a pill. Now they're screwed. Yeah, exactly. That's really good. We are bringing this thing to a landing.
I assigned you, no, you assigned you rapid fire questions for Peter. Are you ready? I reckon he's going to like it. it. Let's do it. Go. So the rules of the game I've invented is, if one of them doesn't make sense, just say skip. Um, because these have varying degrees of educational basis. Um, and just, yeah, answer whatever comes to your mind. Um, my first question is.
If you could rename ADHD, what would you name it? ADOS, attention deficit. Ooh, shiny. That's good. Okay. Add that loaded. Choose a video. I like this. Okay, go. Do you prefer typing on a computer, writing in cursive, or writing in print when you're taking notes? Typing on a computer. As a matter of fact, when I was in third grade, I had dyslexia and a counselor suggested I get a little tiny word processor.
It was one of the first ever word processors made. had four, it had two kilobytes of RAM, but I typed all my notes and I learned that I could sell them for 50 cents a page and actually make money. There we go. So entrepreneurial too. What is your strangest type of fixation to date? Strangest type of fixation? My current fixation is that I have been to six continents, not seven, and I need to rectify that. Yeah, you need to get on that. I that one. That's a good one. Are we talking Antarctica? Yeah. White safari ahead.
I know a guy. We'll talk. So do I. It's one of those things that I can justify a business trip anywhere. I got to figure out a way to justify a anywhere. It's to speak to those emperor penguins. Yes. I think I need him. All right. On a bookshelf, how do you organize books? By color, by size, alphabetically, or just pure chaos? put it where it goes. Size. That's crazy. Okay. I disagree with you entirely.
You're wrong. What noise makes you lose focus instantly? Someone lose focus. Not what pisses me off the most. makes me lose focus instantly. Well, what pisses me off is someone singing off key. But what makes me lose focus instantly is, I'll tell you, is so I live 60 stories up in the air. I'm in the top floor of a building here Manhattan. And you think, oh, it's so quiet. Well, the problem is, that when you're in a city of
buildings across the street from each other, the sounds actually bounce off the building and get higher until they exit, until they find an exit. the sound at two in the morning of the ambulance is actually magnified much worse here on the 60th floor than what we say on the 10th floor. So I think that when I'm trying to sleep and I'm almost asleep and there's an engine revving or a motorcycle or that ambulance siren. That would do it. What's your go-to? I'm swearing I pay attention.
phrase? Like if you're in a conversation, you're like, I swear I'm paying attention. What's your go to phrase? Happy to do it. I was my girlfriend told me one day, she said that she got us tickets to she got some event that I really wanted to go to and I was totally focused on something else. And she goes, So yeah, it's gonna be really great night. I'm like, well, I'm happy I could do it. She's like, I bought I bought the ticket.
Um, I don't know if I want to admit to that. Yeah. Yeah. I think I need to know. it? Yeah. It's just any word repeated multiple times. Oh, right. Right, right, right, right. What is an ADHD stereotype you feel you fit into very well? And then what's one that you completely reject as that doesn't apply to you? So the one I fit into very well is the concept of
coming up with an idea and implementing it in five minutes. So instead of stopping and thinking and going to a focus group and doing it just like, oh, maybe this will be fun, let's do that. The one I don't fit into is, oh, that's just my ADHD, sorry. I refuse to allow, I refuse to let my ADHD take responsibility for my mistakes. I think that's a beautiful last question. That is actually, and we were.
Yeah, exactly. We talked about this, a rant at one point in the book where you're like, I think you talk about triggers and you sort of say, you know, that's it. The world isn't made for you, but it isn't the excuse, right? What's the other option? is not. What is the other option? Peter, tell us where we can find your work and what you're busy with at the moment that excites you.
So my world is at shankman.com. That is my website that has pretty much everything you can find. It just relaunched a couple of days ago, in fact. you could find the entire website at shankman.com. My personal email is peter at shankman.com. I respond to every single email. love that you do that. That's nuts. It's one of the rules in my life. think if you're talking about customer experience, if you're talking about
personal things like ADHD, you have to be the one answering your own email, not letting someone else do it. As we know, I'm not allowed to book anything. My assistant doesn't let me my own calendar. But I will talk to you. I'm on all the socials as at Peter Shankman, except Twitter. I refuse to use it anymore. But you could find I'm very active on threads, very active on Instagram, I'm on LinkedIn. I even occasionally look at Facebook. But yeah, threads and Instagram are two things. Instagram is mostly me and my daughter doing stupid reels. It's a lot of fun.
So yeah, I'm all over the place and I'm usually on a plane. So email me and say, hey, when are you going to be in X city? And when I am, we'll grab a coffee or something. There we go. That sounds great. And Peter always ask, is there someone you'd recommend we have on the wonderfully wired show that you think would really contribute to our listeners? Look up a woman name. Well, I mean, there two people. The first person I'd say is, have you ever had someone who's not ADHD?
to talk about what it's like dealing with someone who's ADHD. Because if that's the case, send me an email and I'll give you all the info about my girlfriend. She would actually love her. There we go. And then there is a wonderful woman doing incredible work out of San Francisco. Her name is Dr. Emily Anholt, A-N-H-A-L-T, and she is a PhD studying ADHD and neurodiversity in the workplace like I do, but she actually has the
the letters after her name to back it up. There we go. Peter, this has been super fun. We knew it would be and we're just grateful for generously giving your time. And next time you might have to fly over to Southern Africa for it. Hey, don't threaten me with a good time. I've been there before. will gladly go again. Very good. Well, it's great to have met you and are you happy? feel like you've got your answers? Satisfied. You're satisfied with your care.
We're quitting movies today. So good. Thank you Peter. Take care. Bye.