Global Creative

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
–  Mahatma Gandhi

Fitting words for the change you want to see period.

Where else do you want to see change?  What about closer to home?  In your life? In your day?

How will you practice the change you wish to see?

We humans love our ways of doing things or rather our brains love our ways of doing things.  The brain is into self preservation and perceives change as a threat.  Yet here are these habits you have developed over the years that have served their purpose.  You are now shopping for some new habits – limiting procrastination, start exercising, etc.

Stop shopping and start practicing.  Start practicing in small increments.  Create a simple 4 week experiment with few variables.  An AM routine to set the tone for the day, a 15 minute review at the end of the day.  It really doesn’t matter. What matters is the consistent attempt at practicing this new habit and the willingness to suspend any evaluation until the end of the practice period.  Enroll an accountability buddy.  Making public your new intentions gives them power.

As an ADHD coach I have come to realize that my clients are successful at turning an action into a habit when they (1) see the value of the action and (2) are successful completing the action.  One cannot know the value of a action with out experiencing it.  One can only experience it through practice.  Suspending evaluation will suspend the doubting and second guessing.  ”This is not working!” self-talk will shut down any attempt to “Be the change you want to see”.

Cameron Gott, PCC

ADHD Coach

Washington DC, Virginia and the World

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Not the greatest at nudging the ‘big rig’ into gear, innovators with ADHD can really struggle with inertia.  Many professionals come to coaching seeking to develop tools for consistency and  momentum.  A handy formula I created a while back is a simple reminder of what is essential for momentum.  Hope + Reserve = Momentum.

Those with ADD are a resilient bunch so hope (or attitude) is often in abundance.  Our rosy outlook in the face of countless setbacks is a unique characteristic of ADD.  The distracting nature of the disorder that takes us off our game also can insulate us from the worst harm and pain.  We tend to get up and look forward again.  Attitude is really the present tense of hope.  Attitude is a huge player in activation for task.

Reserve is another matter.  Trying to hold together multiple commitments of a high level job,we are susceptible to overwhelm (the real bad guy in ADD management).  When we are pushing the limits, reserve is often the last thing on our minds.  Yet reserve, like fuel in the tank, will take us to our destination.

Building reserve takes forethought and patience.  It wont happen overnight but the pay off is huge especially in stress reduction.

Start with a little space and fill that space with some rewarding self care.  Two areas I focus on are exercise and sleep.  Start with these two and you will see a difference in your reserve levels almost immediately.

So hope on the front end and reserve on the back end will carry us forward!

Cheers!

Cameron Gott PCC

ADHD Coach

Washington DC and Virginia

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A good friend who is also a global creative is a small business owner running a service company out of his house.  Ted is a one man operation so if he is not working he is generally not making money.  He is also an amazingly generous individual – almost to a fault.  If a friend makes a request, Ted will often drop what he is doing and help his friend in need.  To exacerbate the situation Ted owns a pick-up so people are always asking him to haul and drop off stuff.

You can see how these two identites compete for Ted’s attention with ‘generous friend’ often winning out over ’successful business owner’.  This is not an uncommon challenge for global creatives in general especially if they are master responders allowing others to dictate their daily intentions (more on the Responder here)

Covey and Allen refer to these as roles but I prefer identities.  Identities speak more to who you are (father, husband, professional, provider) than a role that you play.  I’ve been focusing on rediscovering and reinforcing identities with my clients recently.  CG’s have a tendency to not only forget the name of the game in the middle of a good hunt (or distraction) but also forget their best identities.

A number of factors can contribute to this.  A fallible memory and limited inhibition (impulsivity) certainly do not help.  Throw emotion  into the mix (would you rather help a buddy or bill a customer?) and you can see how we arrive here.

Best Identities also help to reinforce our level of confidence reminding us that indeed we are up to the task.  They also give us a better option than less-than-stellar identities that can step in when our guard is down (Shiny Object Chaser, Day Dreamer, Walk-by completer)

Steps to Reinforcing Identites

• Name your best identities with appropriate qualifier (successful business owner, for example)
• List attitudes and actions that support this identity (confidence, vision, cultivating new clients/work, billing customers)
• List what happens if you do not regularly step into this identity (stagnating business, loss in visibility)
• List what happens if you do regularly step into this identity (regular completions that contribute to building business)

Posting your best identities prominently to remind the brain (R of REBEL) is a good idea.

Some of mine

• Add Value Coach
• Successful Business Owner
• Knowledgable Trainer
• Generous Collaborator
• Loving Husband and Father
• Olympic Biker (well not really, but it gets me on the bike!)

These are identities I strive for.  I am not successful all the time but having these accessible gives me useful  focal points.

Enjoy!

Cameron Gott PCC

ADHD Coach

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A very interesting scientific article that makes me ask some fundamental questions about multi-tasking…

SOURCE: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition, online August 24, 2009.

…Researchers at Stanford University found that college students who made a habit of immersing themselves in various media at once were not very skilled at tests of memory, attention and, ironically, “task-switching.”…

To view the complete article follow the link below

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE57N4UO20090824

Multi-taskers that are not good at multi-tasking?

Hmmm…

Below is an excerpt to explain their findings…

It’s possible, according to Nass and his colleagues, that heavy multi- taskers tend to have a generally “exploratory” orientation: they simply like to gather lots of information, even if that means sacrificing their performance on the task at hand.

OK, so multi-taskers with a general ‘exploratory’ orientation.  Does this sound familiar?

Sounds like possible Global Creative activity to me.

Let’s get clear on the definition of multi-tasking.

Multi-tasking is not doing 2 things at once (contrary to popular belief).  For the brain, paying attention to 2 things (or more) simultaneously is not possible!

Multi-tasking is managing multiple tasks over a long period.  This is where ‘task switching’ is an effective tool (something we Global Creatives can struggle with).

So it is clear the students in the study are not multi-tasking experts.

OK so if they are not multi-tasking experts then what are they?

I would argue that they are multi-chillin’ experts.

Huh?

The key here is the level of engagement.  Engagement has some component of pro-active interaction.  The college students are reacting to multiple inputs and not engaging each at a deep level.  They are passivley being entertained by their media toys, hence the term chillin’.

This brings us to our interest in this article.  Completion of any task demands regular engagement at a deep level for sustained periods of time. Give up the notion that multi-tasking will deliver the project to the team monday morning.  It wont!

Multi-chillin’ is a very passive sport which would fall squarely in Covey’s quadrant IV (not important and not urgent).

So why are the students multi-chillin’?

I can’t fathom a guess but I do know that many of my GC clients are prone to multi-chill.

I see multi-chillin’ as a symptom of overwhelm.  When GC’s are skipping around from activity to activity giving their brains cheap dopamine squirts (little rewards) and not getting any real traction on the most important work.

How can we manage multi-chillin’?

1. develop an awareness for it
2. consider the source(s) of overwhelm
3. make a plan to address the source
4. pull the trigger!  Engage the action that will move the ball forward
5. get to a completion point.

Cameron Gott

ADD Coach

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This is a review of each component of REBEL,  a process I use to help clients with ADHD  get things done.

B stands for Balanced Attack

Exercise the weak muscle.

Set aside time to plan, review, remember, reflect, adjust, organize, prioritize.

Set aside time to work on the important and not urgent tasks (Covey’s Quad II items).

David Allen addresses these two categories as-

Defining Work and Doing Defined Work

Global Creatives like to spend time in his third category – Doing Work as it Shows Up

An approach I like to ‘Doing Defined Work’ is to name one intention for each day (preferably in the AM) that is important but not urgent.  Set aside one hour at first and then build on that.  So regardless of what happens the rest of the day you atleast got your one intention time in.

The key is to do it before you start cranking up your big responder muscle-responding to requests, emails, ‘crises’

You may be saying- “I don’t have time for this Cam!”

That is your urgent brain speaking.  Unless you are a fire fighter or a ER doctor you have the time.  What is helpful here are motivators other than urgency.

Soon I will post my “5 C’s of Completion” Document which touches on motivators other than urgency.

Cameron Gott

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This is a review of each component of REBEL,  a process I use to help clients with ADHD  get things done.

‘Expand the Mind’ has two very different components.  Part 1 addressed the practical challenge of freeing up usable space in the ADD brain.

The other component addresses attitudes and useful perspectives.  For example expanding what is possible.  So this component focuses more on improving mind ‘flexibility and resiliency’.

For all of our creativity, Global Creatives can fall prey to one dimensional thinking with respect to action.  Urgency and overwhelm (which produce stress and anxiety) squelch creativity and force the GC into a ‘just push harder’ frame of mind (not very flexible).  A common challenge of ADHD is black and white or ‘all or nothing’ thinking.  This is related to challeges around setting priorities.  It especially comes out when we slam ourselves (ANT’s) showing up as absolutes.

“I always mess up!”

“I never get it right!”

So, when you push a large object you literally put your head down.  Figuratively, when we come to a challenging task we do something similar with our familiar language.

“I just need to push harder!”.

This is a great time to practice the first E of REBEL – an expansive mind.

When we are focused solely on doing and finishing we are not focused on the potential resources that are available to us.

So some informal ways to expand the mind is a Cam favorite – asking questions.

Starting with questions for self (and the Fire Chief)

What have I not thought of?

What has worked in the past?

What is another way?

Questions for others (delegating is hugely under-utilized)

Who is the best person for the job?

Who can I bring in?

As ‘doers’ we naturally want to hang on to tasks and can be reluctant to hand off to others.

This can be useful for the occasional push to finish the big project but not a basket to put all of one’s eggs into.

Informal practice is great but formal practice is really where major headway is made.

Quiet reflective time is a wonderful way to cultivate an expansive, flexible mind.  This can come in the form of prayer, solitude, and mindfulness.  I am a big fan of mindfulness because it seems to work nicely with the global creative brain.

A study at UCLA has found that meditation is bringing real benefits to individuals struggling with ADHD.

Quiet reflection coupled with strategic planning is a wonderful practice that hels to ‘reset’ the brain.  Even 10 minutes of quiet reflection will make a difference.  Then out of this quiet ask these questions:

What are my intentions for the week?

What is one thing I can do each day that will make a difference?

enjoy

Cam

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