Case Study
5 years ago, Steven was diagnosed with ADHD. The diagnosis helped explain many things. But it also became his answer for everything that was hard.

Can't get the invoicing done on time? ADHD.
Team's frustrated because Steven keeps changing priorities? ADHD.
Lost a big client because the job wasn't finished when promised? ADHD.

His wife would ask him to follow through on something and he'd say: "You know that's hard for me because of ADHD."

Every time someone tried to push him to actually address what was happening, Steven would pull back: "You don't get it. This is how my brain works."

About a year ago, Steven decided he wanted to see if there was anything he could do to help himself, so he went to therapy and tried ADHD coaching.
“Both the therapist and the coach gave the same answer I always give: ADHD'. I feel like there’s nothing I can do because of this ADHD.” He shared the first time we met.

I was SO HAPPY I got to speak and work with Steven because, unfortunately, his experience is super common. Going to get help, only to be told you’ll be struggling with this forever, is horrible, especially when you don’t have to stay with these struggles forever.


It's The Mindset
Here's the thing about Steven, and honestly, about many of my clients when they first come to me.

Steven believed his brain was limited. After all, that’s what he’s been told by experts and even friends who meant well.

There's a psychologist in Stanford named Carol Dweck who studied what makes someone successful. Business, sports, academia, anything, what makes them successful?
What she discovered was fascinating. It has nothing to do with talent, IQ, background… It has to do with whether you have a fixed or a growth mindset.

Fixed vs Growth Mindset
A fixed mindset believes: The way I am is the way I’ll always be.
A growth mindset believes in always growing, wanting to get better, and being open to feedback. They realize you can put in the work, and make the change happen.

Steven had a fixed mindset about his ADHD. His belief was: "I have ADHD. I can't focus. I can't grow my business. That's just who I am."

So every time something was hard, he didn't try to fix it. He just accepted it. Because in his mind, it was already decided. This was how his brain was.
But here's what Dweck found: people with a growth mindset actually do improve. Because by believing change is possible, your brain approaches the situation differently and actually does change!

So with every client, I always start by making sure they’ve got a growth mindset. Or else we can do all the exercises to develop their thinking skills, but if they believe the way they are is the way they’ll always be, nothing will change with those exercises.

As a kid, I personally did 3 full sets of sessions to improve my thinking skill of categorizations, and NOTHING happened. Because I thought I was good at it and there was no need to improve. Only once I got sessions as an adult, and went in with a growth mindset, wanting to learn everything I could about categorizations, did my categorizations improve. (It was also the week when I was able to save 23 hours and saw how I can restructure my business with 3x the revenue with less work)

If your brain is convinced "I'm just disorganized," or "I'm bad with decisions," or "I can't focus," then you won't work on the thinking skill that would actually help you. You'll just accept it and live with it.

Once you switch from a fixed to a growth mindset, you’ll actually be able to make a change.

Here are four ways we helped Steven develop his growth mindset:

1: Watch the words you use

The words we use to talk about ourselves have a much bigger impact on our lives than we realize. Every time you say, “I’m bad with names,” you reinforce in your brain that you’re bad with names.
You’ve GOT to use language that will actually help you. This doesn’t mean you're meant to lie to yourself. Change the wording so it's still true.

Instead of “I’m bad with names.” It becomes “I’m learning to get better at names”

A great word to add is “yet”
“I can’t do this” becomes “I can’t do this yet”
"I can't get invoicing done on time" becomes "I can't get invoicing done on time yet"

The “I can’t” literally puts a wall in your brain where you wouldn’t be able to do it. The moment you say, “yet” your brain starts looking for ways to make it possible, as it knows one day it will need it.
How you speak about yourself is SO important that if a client ever says something that’s not helping them, I’ll interrupt them and have them say it again in a growth mindset way.


2: What’s swimming in your head?

Put on a timer for 3 minutes and jot down random thoughts that come through your brain throughout the day.

When the timer is up, take two highlighters, one green and one yellow.

Any sentence that’s a growth mindset sentence, highlight it in green.
Any sentence that’s a fixed mindset sentence, highlight it in yellow.

Do you have more green, growth mindset sentences?
Or more yellow, more fixed mindset sentences?

Then, for every fixed mindset sentence, highlighted in yellow, write next to it what a growth mindset sentence you can say instead.


3: Keep a "I got better at this" list.

Start a “I got better at this” list on your phone. Whenever you recognize you've gotten better at something, add it to the list. It doesn’t have to be anything big.
Steven realized he was better at estimating job timelines than he used to be.
Improved his communication with his team

Things like being better at remembering to eat breakfast in the morning made it to the list too

Over time, the evidence stacks up. You’re showing your brain how it can grow.



4: Ask: What skill do I need to learn?

This one was huge for Steven as he was told many times over and over again, “ADHD struggles with… you’ll have to just deal with it.”

Yet, that’s a fixed mindset.

Whenever Steven was faced with a challenge, I had him ask this question:
What skill do I need to learn here?

This focuses on the growth. On something he can do to help himself instead of staying stuck in the situation.

If he didn’t follow through on something his wife asked him to do, he’d ask the question: What skill do I need to learn here?
In this case, it was learning the skill of managing time, so he’d set out to improve the skill.

Bonus: Read the book Mindset by Carol Dweck.

I send out this book to every participant in Optimize Your ADHD Brain. I’m gonna warn you, it’s a little bit on the heavier side, but it’s worth it!


I'm gonna leave you with this:

A little over 4 years ago, my dad fell off a bike and became paralyzed from the neck down. The doctors said there’d be at least 18 months till you see any improvement, and there’s a really good chance he’ll never be able to walk again.
Good thing my parents didn’t let someone else put on a limitation, and they’ve done WHATEVER was necessary to help him improve. Within 4 months, he began walking again. That ONLY happened with a growth mindset.


Never, ever let someone else tell you what you can or can’t do. Remember you’re capable of so much more than you imagine


Cheers to Peak Brain Performance!