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Jennifer Koretsky

8 ESSENTIAL SKILLS FOR MANAGING ADD

presentation to the Manhattan Adult ADD Support Group, 12/2/04

(Note: inaudible comments are indicated either by a [----] or .... notation.)

JK: A couple of years ago I was on my way to work on a crowded New York City subway train, before 9 o’clock in the morning, and I was running late for work, and I had a very important meeting that I had to go to that I was completely unprepared for.

I was soaking wet because I had to walk 10 minutes to get to the subway in the freezing rain, because even though I had put my umbrella next to my bag that morning, I still forgot to take it.

Now to top all this off, I had a new puppy. Now anyone’s who’s ever had a new puppy knows that when you leave them in them morning, they cry. So I was suffering from tremendous guilt from leaving my crying puppy all alone. So here I am, on the subway, I’m running late, I’m soaking wet, the train is crowded -- and there’s this guy next to me who just can’t keep his balance and he keeps stepping on my foot. And the first time he steps on my foot, I gave him one of those looks that you’ve all either given or been given. You know, one of those “hello” looks.

[laughter]

Hey, we all know it, we’re all New Yorkers, we all know it. The second time, I cough and I give him a look. Well the third, I lost it. I started yelling at the guy, I swore at him. Here it was, not even 9 o’clock in the morning. My fuse was completely blown. And you know what? It wasn’t even the first time something like that had happened to me.

So, here I am, my fuse is completely blown, it’s not even the first time this has happened and I said to myself: you know, something needs to change, because I can’t live my life like this. And at that point, I went into therapy, eventually I got diagnosed with ADD and the more that I learned about ADD, the more that I realized that I wasn’t this horrible person that just blew up at people in the subway at 9 o’clock in the morning for no reason.

You know, I did all my life the best that I could with the tools and the resources that I had. And the more tools that I acquired as I learned about ADD and the more skills that I built, the more that I realized, that you know what, I didn’t have to live life completely overwhelmed all the time. Life can be peaceful and it can be enjoyed. You can be happy.

So I became a coach because I wanted to help other people learn the skills that I learned that allowed me to feel like I lived successfully. And as I started coaching, you know, I saw that there were really two groups of people with ADD. One group that was really successful and all they really needed in way of help was somebody to check in with every now and then. And then there was another group that was like I was a couple of years ago on the subway completely falling apart all the time. And I said, what is the difference between these two groups of people? And what I found when I stepped back and I looked at this, was that very successful people with ADD have acquired certain skills along the way to help them manage their ADD. And that is what this presentation is based on.

Now I have handouts for everybody and I think that we have enough. I’m going to pass them around. If we don’t, this group's webmaster has agreed to put them up on the web and they’ll be available. If you don’t get a handout, just try to pass it around, if you could just take one and pass it around, and leave me your address, I’ll be happy to mail them to you.

WEBMASTER: Jennifer, for people that have an e-mail address, if a person has a question they don’t get to, they can just [deliver?] their e-mails right from there.

Sure, so if you can take one and pass it around. I think we have enough. So before we get into this, how many people have been diagnosed with ADD or really highly suspect they have ADD? How many people here are here to support a loved one? Great, good. Now how many people here are reality-show fans?

Thank you for staying, "Survivor" and "The Apprentice" are on tonight so I know that’s a big deal. I’m certainly taping things.

So let’s get into the skills. There are eight official skills for managing ADD that I’ve outlined in the handout. We’re probably only going to have time to cover four tonight, because this is really about a three-hour presentation. So we’re going to cover four skills.

[EDITOR: Actually, there seem to be seven.]

JK: But before we get going on the first skill, let’s just try to reconnect a little bit. What does it mean to have ADD? What does it mean for you? Just call some things out for me. What does it mean to have ADD?

PARTICIPANT: No time management.

JK: No time management.

PARTICIPANT: Procrastination.

JK: Procrastination.

PARTICIPANT: Lateness.

JK: Lateness. What else?

PARTICIPANT: Too much energy.

JK: Too much energy.

PARTICIPANT: Impulsivity.

JK: Impulsivity

PARTICIPANT: Thousand-mile-an-hour brain.

JK: Thousand-mile-an-hour brain.

PARTICIPANT: No follow-through.

JK: No follow-through.

PARTICIPANT: Entrepreneur.

JK: Entrepreneur. Hey, very good. Positive stuff. Thank you.

PARTICIPANT: Low self-image.

JK: Low self image. Yeah. I’m sorry?

PARTICIPANT: Letting others down.

JK: Letting others down. Oh wow, that’s tough.

PARTICIPANT: Being creative.

JK: Being creative, good -- more positive stuff. Very good.

PARTICIPANT: Not detail-oriented.

JK: Not detail-oriented. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. OK, so we’re gonna, thank you for all that, that brings back in, we’re a very large group. You know, by the way, this is an ADD-friendly presentation, so if you need to get up and stretch, get up and stretch. If you feel you need to go outside and get some air, don’t worry about it. Do what you need to do. If you need to ask a question, feel free to ask a question.

Anyway, being creative, having an entrepreneurial spirit are excellent qualities that many, many people with ADD have. But we also have this brain that runs a thousand miles an hour and you're always on the go, on the go, on the go. And if you’re not on the go physically, then you’re on the go mentally, thinking about all the things that you have to do.

Now I know it sounds counter-intuitive for me to tell you that it’s necessary to slow down when you have ADD, because you feel like you already run on high speed and you can’t get all the things done that you need to do, right? So I know that it sounds counter-intuitive for me to stand here and tell you that one of the essential skills for ADD is to slow down, but it really is essential. Because you see, the problem is that a lot of us think is that we run so fast and we do so many things, either mentally, physically or both, that our batteries are empty and we’re always running on empty.

So the question is, how do you slow down and recharge? Well, there’s a couple of things. First of all, no matter what, try to take at least five minutes for yourself. Take five minutes for yourself every day to just slow down and recharge. Do it in the morning, if you need to do it in the morning. I think a lot of people, it works better in the evening to slow down and unwind after a long day. But do something by yourself, away from the TV, away from the computer, away from other people.

Maybe it’s meditating, maybe it’s going outside and taking a walk. Maybe it’s just sitting and looking at the wall and taking a couple of deep breaths. But do what you need to do to slow your mind and your body down long enough to charge your batteries up a little bit. Give yourself a little break from the stress and the feeling that you have so much that you have to do all the time. Because when you’re able to step back and slow down, you’re really able to see things more clearly and prioritize more clearly. So that’s the number one thing I suggest.

The number two thing I suggest is to learn how to retreat from times of stress. If you are in a meeting at work and you’re having a really stressful day, you have tons of things to do and all of the sudden in this meeting your boss announces that there’s this new project and you’re the one who’s going to be taking this over. And you feel like, “Huh! How am I possibly going to do this when I have so many other things that I need to do?” It’s very stressful and it’s very overwhelming and you probably feel like you’re going to crack in a situation like that.

Well, instead of succumbing to that pressure, take some time out, take some space, go outside, walk around the block. Breathe. Get up, go get a glass of water, go to the bathroom. Do something to step away from that stress instead of falling into it. I hope that makes sense and I know that it’s a lot easier said than done. I’m well aware of that.

PARTICIPANT: Do you think that making lists is part of this?

JK: No, that’s a whole other skill. Very useful and we’ll certainly talk about that later. But this is really about getting out of your head and just allowing yourself some down time so that you don’t cave under that constant stress and that constant feeling that you’re running behind all the time.

So now, the third thing, and this is the one where everybody’s going to roll their eyes and look at me like I’m crazy. One thing really good thing to do is to learn how to wind down about two hours before you go to bed at night. Because how many people here have problems falling asleep and getting up? Probably about 70-75% of you, right? No matter how much you try, you just wake up at night and then you’re up all night, then you’re on the computer and you’re watching TV, then you get to bed really late, and then the next morning comes, you’re having a hard time getting up, you’re running behind and you’re always tired, right?

You see what happens is we take a little bit longer to ease into the day and a little bit longer to ease out of the day and you have to keep that in mind, you know at night when you want to go to sleep. If you want to go to sleep at midnight, really you should be starting to slow down, wind down at 10 o’clock at night. Here comes the hard part, that means shutting off the computer. Okay? Because that computer is stimulating, it’s stimulating to the mind.

How many of you have ever stayed up until 3 o’clock in the morning researching something online that the next day you could care less about, right?

[laughter]

Somehow or another, that computer just sucks you in. And you can sit there and you can tell yourself, “I need to go to bed, I need to get off the computer” -- but for some reason you just stay where you are, right?

PARTICIPANT: How do you handle the following situation? (And I guarantee you that 40% of the people here who are into computers will agree with me.) It’s at night, it’s late night and your meds are kicking in right and they’re in tune with you and all of the sudden your creative juices are going and you're on the computer and something you see there on that computer or website, or some information that’s pertinent to what your activities are, hits you the right way and it gives you creative energy, creative bursts and then it’s that extra two hours you need and it’s something you improve upon again and again and it actually does help you out. So how do you weigh the balance of that and the wind down period, because you can’t have it both ways.

JK: All right, so this is what I’d say to that, two things, first of all, you have to have a routine in place whereby if you want to go to bed by twelve, that computer gets shut off by 10. This is my partner, she has permission to shut my computer at 10 o’clock no matter what because I can’t trust myself. I’ll make excuses and I’ll stay there, I’ll be honest with you. So that’s one thing.

The second thing and what you’re talking about, you know, it really is, it’s such a dilemma, because we are creative people and we do tend to really just get flowing at night, whether you’re creative, whether you’re a student, you want to be up here, your mind is awake and alive at night. The problem with this is that the rest of the world does not operate on this time frame. So if you stay up all night feeding into that, then you’re going to be tired the next day.

What happens when you’re tired? When you don’t get the appropriate amount of sleep, then your brain chemicals don’t get balanced. Then it’s harder to concentrate, it’s harder to focus, it’s harder to manage your time, it’s harder to manage ADD, period, if you’re not getting enough sleep. So what it comes down to is you have to do your best and just create that routine and every once in a while are you gonna have one of those nights where you can stay up and you’re really proud of what you did, but you’re tired the next day? Yeah, that’s life and that happens. But more often than not, you know hopefully, you can avoid that.

Now the other thing that I want to say about people that are creative, people that are entrepreneurs, people that are small business owners, you get your ideas at night, you’re really kind of not allowing yourself the freedom to step away from that passion of yours. And if you’re involved in that passion, day in and day out, hour after hour after hour, you're going to be less creative. You have to be able to step aside a little bit to let those ideas come in. You have to be able to separate a little bit to let those ideas come in. And I think that you’ll find that when you actually do allow yourself to separate, that you will get better ideas, because you’re giving your brain a little bit of a break.

PARTICIPANT: I just wanted to confirm that as an entrepreneur, and a new one and not a good one .... there are a lot of different ways of handling your time ....

JK: I will tell you that you know if you make it a routine and if you really do cut the stimulation off at two hours before you go to bed, you will have an easier time falling asleep. If allow your brain the time to wind down, you will have an easier time falling asleep.

PARTICIPANT: What do you do if instead of using a computer or watching television, I often find that if I don’t have the stimulation I would get then I’d get bored and I need to find something continually whenever I’m up.

JK: You know, but that’s true and that’s a good point. Because when we’re bored, what happens, the ADD brain goes right to the negative when you’re bored. And you start worrying about things that you really don’t need to be worried about, find something to keep you occupied or keep you interested. You can read, you can breathe, you can meditate, you could talk to somebody, talk to your partner. So many people with ADD don’t really ever spend that much time talking to their partner, because when they’re up all night, their partner has gone to bed, there isn’t that much interaction.

But what do you do? I think meditation is great. I think reading is great. If you can watch TV without getting sucked in, watch TV. I’ll give you a little tip. Don’t watch movies. You watch a movie, you know five minutes, you’re going to have to watch it until the end. Don’t watch, if you’re watching a half-hour sitcom right, I’ll tell you what I get sucked into. Here’s me giving you too much information.

"Roseanne," at night on Nickelodeon, followed by "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." I see five seconds of "Fresh Price of Bel-Air" and I need to watch the whole thing. So what you have to try to do is if you’re like me, and you’re up watching "Roseanne," the minute it’s over, shut the TV off. Don’t allow yourself to see any little bit of Will Smith because then you have to know what happens at the end. Even if you’ve seen it. Even if you saw it 10 years ago and you remember everything.

All right, let’s move on to self-care. Self-care is a skill that so many adults with ADD have such a difficult time mastering. Why is that? We’re so worried, we’re so concerned about the people around us and we end up sacrificing our own needs. And I hear this all the time --“but my kids, but my boss, but my family” -- you know. Here’s the truth of the matter. If you’re not giving yourself what you need to feel good, to operate at full capacity, how can you give to those around you?

And in order to explain this point a little more, I’m going to use a metaphor. I’m sure that just about everybody here has flown, right? And when you get on the plane, what do they tell you before you ever take off?

PARTICIPANT: Fasten your seat belt.

JK: The stewardess says to you, or the steward says to you: “If we are to encounter turbulence and the oxygen mask should drop down, make sure you fasten your own mask before you help the person next to you.” Right?

Because if you don’t have oxygen, how can you help the person next to you? Self-care is the same way. How can you help your kids? How can you help your spouse? How can help your sister, your mother, your father, your boss, if you don’t have any oxygen? You know the best way to help those around you is to model for them. Model the skills, model the behavior, show through example, you know?

And it’s tough, it’s very tough, but if you can manage to remember the more full you are, the more you can actually have to give and that can be a help.

So what does that mean really? Self-care, right? Well the basics. You certainly want to be trying to eat appropriately, which is my big challenge at the moment. You want to be eating appropriately. You want to get the needed the amount of sleep. Exercise is great for people with ADD. Exercise helps balance your brain chemicals. Certainly you want to talk to your doctor before you start any new program. But cardio exercise is very helpful, it helps reduce the stress and it helps balance brain chemicals, so that’s great, that’s the sort of thing you should be certainly looking at.

You know those are really the basics of self-care. There are a lot of other things that go into self-care. What about perfectionism. Who here is a perfectionist? Yeah. You know perfectionism seems to go hand in hand with ADD. And a lot of times, when you’re first introduced to that concept, you’re like: “No, I’m not a perfectionist, my house is a mess, my office is a mess, my desk is a mess" -- but you know the real definition of perfectionist is somebody who can’t let things go, somebody who looks at something and constantly sees changes and improvements.

So let me ask you a question, what’s the difference between a good job and a perfect job?

PARTICIPANT: A good job gets done.

JK: Yep, you’re right. What were going to say?

PARTICIPANT: Well I was going to say the reason that I’m a perfectionist is because I feel that unless I’m better than the other guy, I’m not gonna get the job, so that’s the reason I strive for perfectionism because many more people do the same thing. We have so many cons, you have to have some pros to balance out against everyone else.

JK: [That] I really like. Because you know what's the difference between a good job and a perfect job? A perfect job doesn’t exist. There’s no such thing as a perfect job. And if you’re a perfectionist, every time you look at a piece of paper, you’re going to find something that you can change, you’re going to find something that you can improve, no matter how good it is, because you’re a perfectionist.

You know, self-care involves letting yourself off the hook sometimes. Understanding that if you’re doing the best you can do, then that’s all you can do, that’s all you can ask of yourself, that’s all anyone can ask of you, right? And that’s hard and that’s tough to get over.

PARTICIPANT: Forgive yourself.

JK: Forgive yourself. Let yourself off the hook .... Think about it, if you had a friend right who said to you, you know, you call up your friend and say: “Hey, you want to go to the movies tonight?” And your friend said: “Oh, I don’t know. I was working all night on this report and I found this little typo and it’s just gotta to be perfect for my boss and I don’t know, I can’t go out because I don’t deserve to go out because I haven’t done a perfect report yet.”

What would you say to your friend? “You’re crazy, you don’t deserve to go out because, you know, something is not perfect”? That’s what we do to ourselves. You’re not allowed to leave work because something is not perfect. You’re not allowed to have people over your house because your house isn’t perfectly clean, right? And it’s a shame because it holds you back. Nobody is perfect.

And you know what else we do? We compare ourselves to other people, because you know, how many times have you gone over to somebody else’s house and said, “I can’t believe how clean this house is. How well decorated this house is. What a good cook this person is." Or: "How can I possibly have these people back over to my house when my house is such a mess?” You know what? You don’t know what’s going on behind closed
doors. You don’t know that your friends didn’t take five hours to clean their house, you know?

[laughter]

We always assume that everybody is so much better than us and it’s not necessarily true. You know, sure, there are clean people out there, you know? I’m sure you’ve got something else that your friend doesn’t have and does it all balance out? Yeah, and if the person would hold your not so clean house against you, is this really somebody you want as a friend. This is all self-care. What do I have to do for me right now to fill myself rather than worry about people around me?

Any questions on self-care?

PARTICIPANT: Sounds like that idea -- that I don’t have to do it -- could be also an excuse for just not bothering to deal with ADD-type issues.

JK: You want to give me an example, maybe I could ....

PARTICIPANT: Yeah, I have this homework to do, it's bugging me, I want to do it -- but then my friends call and want to go out -- and I want to go out because I was told I need some time to myself, so I don’t finish my homework.

JK: Yes, well you know sometimes something has to give. You know? If you haven’t gone out in a long time and you’ve been spending a lot of time on homework, don’t you deserve to go out every once in a while?

PARTICIPANT: That could be taken the other way: "I'm special, I have ADD, I don't have to do my homework, or bother cleaning my house."

JK: I don’t know if I’d argue with that. I really don’t. You know what? No matter how much or how little money I’ve had in my life, I have always budgeted for a cleaning person, because I hate to clean, I hate it. And you know what, that perfectionism takes over too, because if I’m going to clean, well then damn it, I’m going to do a good job. So there I am with one little spot and then I’m just spent. You know, who wants to bother? I’d rather let
somebody come in, pay somebody to clean, you know? A little joke of mine -- and this is no disrespect to anybody with OCD, and as a matter of fact, I’ve got tons of people in my family with OCD -- is: I always say the best thing a person with ADD can have is a cleaning person with OCD. Because we’re great for people with OCD, they can clean their little hearts out. Monica on “Friends,” how much would you love for her to clean your house. I hope everyone understands that I mean that in fun, I don’t mean any disrespect.

PARTICIPANT: The problem is, is that cleaning is one thing, putting papers away is another. A cleaning person is not going to put your papers away. It does not happen.

JK: Do you want to know something funny, too? Everybody with ADD has their own definition of the word "clean." To the rest of the world, cleaning is taking out the mop and the furniture polish and scrubbing. To other people, it’s putting things away. To every person with ADD, we have our own separate definition of cleaning. I’ll tell you what I do. I know exactly what you’re talking about and my mom always makes fun of me because she’ll call me and I’ll say, “I can’t talk right, the cleaning lady is coming, I have to put things away.” She tells me: “You’re the only person who cleans before the cleaning lady.”

PARTICIPANTS: [unclear]

JK: You know what? That’s the thing. When she’s there, I have that perfect amount of pressure that I need to just get things done and put away. So when she’s in the bedroom, I’m can do the kitchen, when she’s in the bathroom, I can do the living room. And that’s what works great. You know I have to be there anyway because she’s coming. That’s my little trick, that’s what I do.

PARTICIPANT: Do you think that people with ADD .... because they have low self-esteem, or could it be something else?

JK: You know, I think it really depends on the person. Some people have very low self-esteem, some people have very high self-esteem and still do everything for everybody else. You know my own personal theory about this -- and again, this doesn’t really apply to everybody -- is that perhaps we’ve just heard all our lives about the things that we’re not doing, or the things that we’re doing differently from everybody else, and we’re constantly being compared; so we compare ourselves, and you know when you’re trying to take everything on, the people around you, you’re going to take on their problems. I mean, it’s so hard to answer your question, it’s a good one and I really wish that I could answer it but I don’t know that I can, you know, maybe it does has something to do with self-esteem, maybe it just has to do with the fact that we need stimulation, so we see things around us that we can do and we do them. Did you have a specific example that you wanted to bring up?

PARTICIPANT: I’ve noticed that I’m aware that ....

JK: They really do. And I know what you’re saying and it’s women but it’s also men. It really is also men that have this problem. Yeah, I think too, a big part of it is that we just don’t think about it, we just do it without really realizing that we’re taking on everybody’s stuff.

PARTICIPANT: Well, now I am aware of it.

JK: And you know, I really think you know people say knowing is half of the battle. I think knowing is 90% of the battle. Because you can have a behavior that’s really hurting you, but if you don’t know it and you’re not aware of it, you can’t change it. When if you do become aware of it, the change will happen or it will happen on its own time but it will happen. The hard part is being able to realize where the behavior is what’s hurting you.

PARTICIPANT: My husband keeps saying that that's my way of trying to take control of the situation.

JK: What is?

PARTICIPANT: Doing things for other people.

JK: You know, it very well could be. Because when you are constantly overwhelmed and you feel that life is chaotic, the best way to keep that chaos from growing is to control things, right? You know I certainly suffer from that myself, I’ll tell you that, you know, delegating, giving up things is very very difficult to do, because when things are out of control, yeah, you want to control them. You want to prepare yourself. Could be.

But -- it also could be something that sounds good in an argument, right?

[laughter]

So okay, I’m going to move on to positive thinking. Positive thinking is another problem, or another thing that really challenges people with ADD. We tend to be very negative thinkers and I’ll tell you why. This is something, I used to be such a negative, cynical person and I was able to change that and changing that was one of the best things I ever did, because life just has so many other possibilities when you’re a positive thinker.

So tell me. Just call out. I know there’s a lot of us, try to speak loudly, just call out, what does it mean to be a positive thinker?

PARTICIPANT: Optimistic.

JK: Optimistic.

PARTICIPANT: Taking the high road.

JK: Taking the high road. What else?

PARTICIPANT: Looking at challenges as opportunities.

JK: Looking at challenges as opportunities. What else?

PARTICIPANT: Creativity.

JK: Creativity. What else?

PARTICIPANT: See options.

JK: See options. Yes.

PARTICIPANT: Free of the doubts.

JK: Free of the doubts. Yes. What else?

PARTICIPANT: Looking for a lesson in a problem.

JK: Yes.

PARTICIPANT: Taking the worst possible remedy and the worst possible outcome and playing it out to its ultimate extension. Solving it, maybe not to your satisfaction, but no longer feeling ....

JK: So what would you say, maybe realizing that the worst possible thing is really probably not that bad in the end?

PARTICIPANT: No, it’s bad, but ... [laughter]. It's a protocol; you’re addressing the worst possible scenario, still finding a logical outcome -- probably something that ....

JK: So really, you're looking at the whole picture, you’re looking at the big picture.

PARTICIPANT: You're looking at the negative so as to reinforce the positive.

JK: You think about what you’re going to do rather than just kind of staying in the worry.

Okay, if that is what it means to be a positive thinker, then we know that negative thinking is the opposite. So, you know we don’t have to go through that like we did with positive thinking but what I do want to do is to talk about, how does negative thinking hold you back in life? Call it out again, how does negative thinking hold you back?

PARTICIPANT: You won’t ever take a risk.

JK: You won’t ever take a risk.

PARTICIPANT: You’re afraid of failing.

JK: You’re afraid of failing. What else? How does it hold you back?

PARTICIPANT: Draw negative people to you?

JK: Yes, you will draw negative people to you.

PARTICIPANT: You'll be stagnant.

JK: Absolutely, you’ll be stagnant. What else? How does negative thinking hold you back in life?

PARTICIPANT: You’re afraid of succeeding.

JK: Afraid of succeeding. Yes.

PARTICIPANT: I think it causes illness.

JK: Yes it does, it absolutely does.

PARTICIPANT: Full of anger towards people.

JK: Full of anger towards people.

PARTICIPANT: Paralyzes you.

JK: Paralyzes you. Yeah.

PARTICIPANT: Dwell on the negative.

JK: You dwell on the negative. Yeah.

PARTICIPANT: The sense of overwhelming --

JK: Always overwhelmed. Yeah. What’s that?

PARTICIPANT: Ages you faster.

JK: Ages you faster. It does. It does. You know, there really is science behind negative thinking and positive thinking. When you have a positive thought, your muscles relax, you breathe deeper and positive chemicals are produced in your brain. When you have a negative thought, the opposite happens.

And you know what happens to people who have too many negative thoughts and who worry too much? They produce a lot of adrenaline in their bodies. Now adrenaline is the fight-or-flight chemical, do we all know that? You know, if you’re faced with a dangerous situation, your brain will decide like that, are you gonna fight it or are you going to run. Well, too much adrenaline is not supposed to be in your body. It serves a very specific purpose but it’s not supposed to be there all the time. So too much adrenaline will actually weaken your immune system. That’s why people who worry a lot are always sick. That’s why hypochondriacs usually are sick, because they worry and they suppress their immune system.

PARTICIPANT: There’s a fine line between negative thinking and realistic thinking.

JK: Give me an example.

PARTICIPANT: A family .... her mother was blind .... you can’t stop her [from driving].

JK: Well, you know what? That’s self-care though, right? Because you can’t stop them, you’re right. You can’t change anybody but yourself.

PARTICIPANT: I’m tired of hearing: "Don’t worry, you have nothing to feel guilty about" .... I’m not worried about guilt, I’m worried about people not dying.

JK: You know what I hear what you’re saying, this is what I would tell you. Imagine that you are the friend of yourself. What would you tell your friend? Would you tell your friend: “You need to do everything in your power to get your mother to stop driving. That is completely 100% your responsibility.”

PARTICIPANT: Well, yeah, I would.

JK: Would you really?

PARTICIPANT: Well, she’s my mother.

JK: You know what? You can’t change other people.

PARTICIPANT: I think he’s right -- sometimes you have to involve the authorities.

JK: Yeah, but you know, it’s certainly you think other people are in danger and it doesn’t hurt. I don’t know what.

PARTICIPANT: I have a story like that. I went out and bought my parents a smoke detector, and it went off.

JK: Okay.

PARTICIPANT: I told them, if it goes off, call 911 and leave the house. They wouldn’t leave the house. The fire department came, the police came -- and said: leave the house now. And they wouldn't leave the house! Unbelievable.

JK: Yeah, you see this is something you can’t control. You just can’t. I understand. I know you have the best intentions .... The only thing I can offer you is let yourself off the hook.

We were talking about positive thinking versus negative thinking and how negative thinking really holds you back and how, you know, excessive worry is going to weaken your immune system. It really is going to damage you physically.

Now, positive thinking is really a tough thing to adapt when you’re a life-long negative thinker. Because basically what happens in your brain is that neural pathways are created and I know this is kind of complicated so I’m going to do my best to simplify it. If you constantly have negative thoughts, eventually your brain is going to default to those negative thoughts. If you always tell yourself that you’re ugly, you’re going to get in front of the mirror and it’s not going to take any time at all for your brain to automatically think “I’m ugly” because that’s the default thought. Is it possible to change that? It absolutely is, but it’s difficult. It’s tough. It takes a lot of work and it takes a lot of dedication.

But this is the way that I like to talk about it. If I’m standing in front of a forest and I’m at Point A and I want to get to Point B and there’s a clear-cut path from Point A to Point B. I can take that path and it’s very easy for me to get to the other end of the forest taking that path. But there are other ways that I can go. I can go around and I can cut my own path and sure that’s going to be difficult and it’s going to take a little bit longer but I can do it. And if I do that enough times, that path is going to wear in and the old path is going to grow in. And that’s what positive thinking is like. If you actively practice positive thinking, you will be able to rewire your brain. Sure it’s going to be difficult. Sure it’s going to take a lot of dedication. But so many possibilities will be opened up to you.

But you say: “How do I do that? How do I become a positive thinker?” Well, people out here have a lot of good ideas. One thing you can do is to reframe your bad experiences. Instead of thinking about failures, think about what you learned from a bad experience, think about what you can change for next time.

I’ll give you a great example. Two months ago, I spoke at a conference in Connecticut. I did this presentation ["8 Essential Skills for Managing ADD"] and then I did a presentation for college students and their parents. This presentation went on without a hitch.

But the presentation for college students and their parents was horrendous. It was horrible because it was very rich, snobby Connecticut parents that wanted their ADD children to become doctors and lawyers with no other alternative. I mean 15-year-old kids on a track to Harvard with no regard --

PARTICIPANT: There are ADD doctors and lawyers.

JK: Oh, there certainly are, there certainly are. But with no regard for, you know, what the kid wants, 15 years old and they want the kid in Harvard within the next five years studying medicine. And a lot of these people just didn’t want to understand that the more pressure you put on someone with ADD, the more you punish them. The harder it is for them to perform and the more they feel bad about themselves. This presentation just did not go over well.

And I mean I gave tons of advice on study skills, how to balance life and how to succeed in a positive way and all they heard was: “Don’t push your kids too hard, your kids don’t necessarily have to be doctors and lawyers.” You know what, I felt horrible after this presentation. You’ve got four people in a room this big that were so vocal. So vocal. I really had to stop and tell myself, okay, you know what? This sucked.

But I learned something. I learned that the next time I do this presentation I have to stand in front of the room and I have tell people right up front: “Parents, this is what I’m going to say to you today. If you don’t like that, if you don’t think you’re going to want to hear this, then please I would encourage you to go to a presentation that you will enjoy more so than this.”

[laughter]

And I’ll tell you what, that was tough, I struggled with that, because I wanted to feel so bad about that. But in the end, I can’t do that. You have to look at it like a learning experience because that’s the only way I’m going to move forward.

Another way to be a positive thinker? Reframe your “shoulds”. How many people have a list of things that they should be doing right now? Whenever you hear yourself saying the word “should,” I should clean my house, I should do my taxes. You know take a minute and stop and ask yourself, “Is this should a necessity?” Taxes? You have to do your taxes or else you’ll get into financial trouble, right? I really should read that book. Do you want to read that book? Well, is it a desire? Do you want to read it? If you want to read it, great. If you think you should read it because everybody else with ADD read it and it’s the book that you’re supposed to read, then what’s the point? If you want to read it, read it.

Because then there’s guilt and guilt is all those shoulds that are like “I should keep my desk more neat because everybody else does” -- or “I should keep my house more neat because everybody else does” -- or “I should exercise seven times a day because that’s what you’re supposed to do.” That’s just useless guilt. It’s unnecessary. All it does is bring you down, you know?

And this is something that will also help you prioritize. Whenever you hear yourself say “I should do this, I should do this,” just step back and ask yourself. Is this something I need to do -- is this something I want to do -- or is this just useless guilt holding me down, weighing me down.

PARTICIPANT: You’re talking about what to do with ourselves. What would you recommend in dealing with people .... who believe in "tough love."

JK: Are you trying to ask me what do you do when you’re trying to be positive and the people around you are negative?

PARTICIPANT: They put pressure on you ....

JK: Yeah, you know it’s so tough, because people with ADD are spongy. We absorb others’ energy, we absorb other people’s emotions, and you can be in a really great mood and somebody can come and knock you right down with their bad mood.

And it’s tough and what I would suggest to you is that you try to really distinguish your expectations of yourself from other people’s expectations of yourself, you know? Make sure you live for you and not for everybody else. Because that’s where those “shoulds” come from. Those “shoulds” come from everybody else and you holding yourself to standards from other people rather than your own standards, you know? Does that make sense?

PARTICIPANT: Yes, but that doesn’t answer my question .... [my point is that if people were] supportive and encouraging rather than pressuring and sometimes insulting, because I would be able to accomplish so much more.

JK: So are we talking about a job?

PARTICIPANT: It’s tricky -- it’s both work and home.

JK: Because if we’re talking about work, what I’d say to you is this is probably not the environment for you to be working in, it might not be the best job for you. And that’s not easy to hear. You know when it comes to family and again it’s pressure from family? It’s tough. You have to express yourself. You have to say: “Look this is really hurting me when you do this. The best thing you can do for me is to please be positive.” You have to try to do it in such a way that you make it about you and not about them. Because when you make something about somebody else, they will get the pressure. So instead of saying, “You never support me!” You know you can try saying, “You know I really work best when I feel like I’m getting positive support. Could you help me out and give me some positive support?” You know, does that make sense?

Okay, the last skill, planning time to plan. Time management. This is the heart of everybody’s problem, right? Time management.

Okay, here’s the thing, when you’re planning your day, when you’re planning a project and when you’re planning a task. What you can’t forget to do is to take time to plan, you know? It’s one thing to plan but sometimes you really have to plan in the time to plan. Now, if that doesn’t make sense I’m going to try to use some examples to help you out a little bit. Let’s say that I have a couple of hours on Saturday to clean my closet. Well, if I don’t plan ahead of time, let me tell what’s going to happen. I’m going to go into my bedroom, I’m going to open my door, a shoebox is gonna fall down, you know, things are gonna, dust is going to be everywhere. I’m going to get so overwhelmed looking at the closet. I’m going to slam the door, I’m going to sit on that couch and watch TV and probably have a pint of Ben and Jerry’s with me.

PARTICIPANT: Häagen-Dazs is doable.

JK: Häagen-Dazs? Ben and Jerry’s all the way. If I’m going to go down the tube it’s going to be with Ben and Jerry’s [laughter]. And you know, it’s funny enough, I’ve had a couple of clients that were so embarrassed to say it that they’d just end up on the couch with Ben and Jerry’s. Yeah, you and me both. Anyway, so instead, what happens? What happens? Well, basically you open that door and you get so overwhelmed by all the things you have to do to clean that closet, that that pressure just shuts you down. It becomes easier to sit on the couch and eat ice cream and watch TV. Not only that but you’re going to feel guilty because you were supposed to be cleaning your closet.

So how can you avoid this? Okay, so I have two hours. What I’m going to do is I’m going to realize that the first 15 minutes of my two hours are going to be spent planning. So before I ever open up that closet door, I’m going to sit there with a piece of paper and I’m going to say, “Okay, these are the steps that I need to take,” and what I’d suggest is to break things down into three to five steps, because less than three, you’re probably looking at things a little bit too broadly. More than five, there’s a good chance you’re being a professional. So I think three to five steps is really good.

So, my first step is going to be, okay well, I want to get everything out of this closet that isn’t clothes. That’s step number 1. Number 2 is, I want to take all the clothes that I haven’t worn in the last six months and put them aside for charity. Number 3 is I want to put all my professional clothes here on the left side and all my casual clothes here on the right side. And you know, maybe number 4 is I want to put all the shoes neatly on the bottom of the floor. Well, here’s my first step. So now when I open the door, I have a sense of direction. I know exactly what I’m doing, and I’m not going to get overwhelmed if something falls down on me, because I know exactly where I need to start, because I know exactly what I need to do and therefore, I’m not overwhelmed.

PARTICIPANT: What always kills me is that I start by saying I need to find this particular item. Now if it’s right there in front of me, great, fine, I’ll go on. But it’s never right in front of me. It always takes me, God knows how long -- and I guess it’s in my head, I’ve got to find it, I’ve got to find it. I can’t let go of that. And that is probably the biggest time-waster for me.

JK: Yeah, I know what you’re saying. I think that’s probably just a little bit off from what we’re talking about here.

PARTICIPANT: Well, I mean, I could plan, I could have all those steps but that’s going to get in the way before I even start.

JK: Okay, so if you’re cleaning your closet, then that’s your goal. And your goal is not to find that little item. You know maybe that’s for another time.

PARTICIPANT: The weekend.

JK: Okay, so you know what? I mean, hey, none of this stuff is easy and it certainly takes time. But my suggestion to you would be to try it, you know just try just planning your steps. I think that if you can actually get that task done, you’re going to feel so much better about yourself. If you can stay and sit there and say “I’ve got two hours and this is it, these are my steps and I’m gonna do it. And the other thing is, you know even though it’s really difficult, if you only have two hours and you don’t finish your project in two hours, that’s okay. You can pick it back up later.

I know it’s tough, I know, I know.

I’m so sorry, I feel so bad that I have to ask you to hold your questions, but I just have like two more things to get through and then I’m going to open it up. Okay, so that’s planning a task. What about planning your day? Because really that’s where we have a lot of problems is time management during the day, right? This is what I will suggest to you. Find 15 minutes a day to plan your day or plan the next day.

I’m going to tell you exactly what I suggest, if you work, I suggest taking the 15 minutes right before you leave work. If you don’t work, perhaps first thing when you get up in the morning or maybe right after you have your coffee or breakfast is a good time if you don’t work maybe you want to do this right before you go to bed at night. But when you take just 15 minutes, look at your calendar. And if you’re not using a planner or a PDA or a calendar, then I would really really encourage you to get one, because it’s too hard to keep all this stuff in your head. It’s just too hard, there’s too much.

So, when you’re going through your 15 minutes, right, first of all, somebody mentioned something about the to-do list before. Take a look, make a to-do list if you don’t have a to-do list, take a look at it and see what did I actually get done today? Let me take the time to cross these things off my list and appreciate that I actually got some things done today. What didn’t I get done today that I need to get done tomorrow. Recreate or update your to-do list.

One thing that people always think that if they have a to-do list that it should go away. The nature of to-do lists is that they don’t away. The nature is that they get updated and changed and revised constantly. So if you’re trying to knock off your to-do list completely, you’re really setting yourself up for disappointment because it’s not gonna happen. There’s something new that’s always going to come up that you’re going to have.

So review your list, see what you have to do, see what you did do. Take a look at your appointments. You know whether you’re looking at the content or the next day, so that you’re not surprised at 1:55, when you realize you have a appointment you have to get to. You know, look at it ahead of time, know what’s on your calendar, know what you have to do. And then take a look not just your day, explore your week. What does your week look like? If you’ve got a lot going on at night? Maybe you don’t really want to go out with friends or maybe you don’t want to go out with your spouse to dinner because you’re just too overwhelmed and you need one night where you don’t do anything. If you have a really crazy month, maybe you don’t want to go visit family that month because there’s just too much going on.

You know it helps to review all these different times and the things that you have going on in your life. And the more you review them, the more you keep them in front of your face, the less overwhelmed you’re going to be by them all. The less likely you’re going to be to forget that you have that appointment.

Okay, so really that is the material that I have. Like I said there are eight skills that are in the packets that I gave you, and -- unfortunately -- I just don’t have time to go through all of them. But if you look there, there are some very practical exercises in those sheets that I think you’ll find helpful. And at this point, I am gonna to take questions, I also publish a free e-mail newsletter. I’m gonna pass this around, if you want to sign up, great, if you don’t want to sign up, this is completely optional, but I do send around tips and resources on a regular basis. And at this point, I know some of you will be leaving so I want to thank you all for being such a lovely audience.

[applause]

I appreciate your humor and your open-mindedness.

PARTICIPANT: .... about chronic list-making?

JK: It’s perfectionism, right?

PARTICIPANT: I don’t know.

JK: Well, chronic list-making: tell me a little more.

PARTICIPANT: I have to make a list of lists ....

JK: Okay, so this is what I’d suggest. First of all I don’t think that that’s necessarily a bad thing. Because as I was saying, you know, all of us, when you have ADD, you’ve got so much clutter in your head and one way to get rid of it is to write this stuff down. So I think that writing things down is an excellent tool. Making lists is an excellent tool. If you find too many lists, and you’re getting overwhelmed by it, then I’d say a couple of things. First of all, keep them all in one place; and second, maybe you want to create time for yourself every week to review the list. To see what can be combined, what can be taken off. But don’t necessarily beat yourself up for having too many lists because I don’t really think that that’s a bad thing.

PARTICIPANT: Thank you.

JK: Yeah, you’re welcome. Okay, who else? I promised you.

PARTICIPANT: This is just a suggestion .... it's not for organizational purposes; it's really just a brain-opener [laughter] .... Use free recall; just write three pages every morning.

JK: I’m a big fan of journaling, I really am because you know, when you have all that stuff up in your head, it needs to go somewhere, it needs to be processed. Otherwise it just weighs you down, it just makes you feel bad, you know? I’m a big fan of journaling. Also, some people like to write and by the way, if you journal, it’s not for anyone else. You can have spelling mistakes, it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t flow, it doesn’t matter if you’re a bad
writer. It’s for you and just you. And for some people that really don’t like writing? You know I’ll tell you I don’t think it’s that bad to talk to yourself or talk into a tape recorder. Do something to just process. I always say I talk to my dog so much, I’m surprised she doesn’t talk back by now.

PARTICIPANT: You mentioned before, the aspects of appreciating yourself and feeling good about yourself before you can feel good about others. The whole issue after that is aren’t some people gonna take that as being selfish and self-centered, where you want to convey a different type of personality?

JK: You know what I would say to that? If that’s what people think, then it’s about them.

PARTICIPANT: But most people are like that ....

JK: I’ll tell you a very quick story. A client a year ago called me one day and she said: “You know, I’m such a horrible person, my friend called me and she said, ‘I want to go out, it’s my birthday, I want to go for lunch and then I want to go to the beading store.’” And, for those of you who don’t know about beading, you can buy beads and you can make jewelry and make things. And so she goes out with her friend and, first of all: "You know it’s my birthday, I don’t want to drive, you drive." Well, she didn’t really want to drive, but she did. She said: "We have to go at 10 o’clock in the morning to the sale."

Well, my client usually exercises at that time, but she said: “Oh, it’s her birthday, okay." Then they go to the beading store and they spend three hours in the beading store. Now I don’t know how somebody without ADD can spend three hours in a beading store [laughter]. But you know she got hungry, she wanted to go to lunch. But she didn’t say anything, because her friend wanted to be in a beading store so much. And she said to me: “You know, and then I just got so nasty and I turned into a complete bitch and I felt so bad because it was my friend’s birthday.” But you know what? I don’t think you’re a bad person, I think you worry too much about your friend.

You know, your friend had no problem saying: “It’s my birthday, you drive.” Your friend has no problem saying: “I want to spend three hours in the beading store.” So why is it, that it’s exactly what you said?

PARTICIPANT: [unclear]

JK: You know it’s really true. There is that fear that you’re being judged that you’re being selfish, but if somebody thinks that, that you’re being selfish, that’s really their issue, it really is. It’s not always easy, if people are going to give you a hard time about it, you really need to think, is this somebody that I want in my life. If they’re gonna make me put my needs second.

PARTICIPANT: Say you’re working on a project; what do you do when you get sidetracked?

JK: Well, you know what? The only thing that you can is when you realize you’re getting sidetracked? Do your best to get back on track. I mean, that’s the best that you can do. That’s the way our brain works. Sometimes you get sidetracked and you don’t even realize it.

PARTICIPANT: It’s hard to shift .... are there tips for that?

JK: You know what I think? You’re doing a project that you’ve got a very specific amount of time for? There’s a couple of things you can do. One is turn on music. Turn on music that you like, that’s got a good taste to it, that’s uplifting. You know, nothing that’s too sad or sappy or emotional because that will just drain you. Uh, Broadway, people tend to find very energizing, '80s music, even some classical music .... It helps you keep your pace. And it really helps you to turn on that part of your brain that you know can get focused.

So that’s one thing I would suggest. Another thing I would suggest, have somebody come over. And you know, not do any work, but just sit there with you. Just sit there with you and keep you on track. Because we are often, like I said, spongy -- we soak up other people’s energy. Sometimes that’s all you need, is to have another person in the room with you, to get that energy and keep going.

PARTICIPANT: [unclear]

JK: You know sometimes that can be a medication issue. I would say look at that number one. Number two -- and this is tough because I get so thirsty at night -- try your best not to drink for another two hours. And I know that sounds sick, but it will wake you up.

You know, I think it’s really hard to tell because sometimes if you look for advice about the sleep, people will say if you’re just laying in bed, don’t just lay there, get up and do something different for a little while. I don’t know if that works for people with ADD, because if you get up and you do something different, well then you can get stimulated your brain gets turned on, you’re on to something else.

But you know if you’re laying in bed and you’re resting, it’s still better than not resting. You can lay quietly, if you can do your best to have positive thoughts and not be up late worrying. That’s good.

And then I would say, as tough as this is, try to get up the same time everyday. Try to get your body on a routine, so that it knows when it’s supposed to sleep and when it’s supposed to be up. Sleep issues are so tough, they’re so tough. We all suffer from sleep issues.

PARTICIPANT: Can I give a comment on that? .... There’s an alarm clock for deaf people and it vibrates under the pillow .... Some people can hear things and just not wake up.

PARTICIPANT: [a question about the above-mentioned incident in the subway]

JK: It wasn’t so much a lesson as it was just a wake-up call. Look at me, 9 o’clock in the morning and, of course, yeah, this guy’s an idiot, but is that who I really need to be yelling at 9 o’clock in the morning? .... It was just realizing that I’m living my life in fast forward and I’m constantly overwhelmed and it doesn’t take much for my fuse to be blown. And, once my fuse is blown, I’m done for the day.

PARTICIPANT: [unclear]

JK: Well, yeah, he’s still an idiot, he kept stepping on my foot. But was he standing there going, “oh, this looks like somebody’s foot I could step on”? Of course not.

I’m sure that he has the best intentions, but that was my wake up call. That was the point when I said you know what, I got are so many things in life that I could be enjoying, that I’m not enjoying because I’m so overwhelmed all the time, you know? So that’s what it took for me.

PARTICIPANT: [unclear]

JK: You got to take care of you. You got to take care of you. And taking care of you means doing exactly what you’re doing. If he needs to go off and complain about things, let him. You don’t have to fuel a fire, you don’t have to get involved, you got to take care of you.

PARTICIPANT: [unclear]

JK: There always is. There’s always gonna be people like that. You know the other thing that I would say that unfortunately, what we have to remember sometimes is that not everybody has the tools or the resources that they need to express themselves effectively and that’s unfortunate. And sometimes it helps to remember that people generally do the best they can. Generally, they do -- and sometimes they don’t have in them what they need to do a better job.

PARTICIPANT: [comments about the presidential election, vote fraud, Michael Moore]

JK: It’s only 4 more years! He can’t be re-elected after that. I’ll tell you, I’m very upset about it, too. But in the end, what you have to say to yourself is if I spend time worrying about this, is it going to change anything? Is the fight going to change anything? Odds are, probably not ....

PARTICIPANT: I guess the thing to do is just to say like if this is how you feel politically just budget two hours a month on working on what you think might be effective ....

JK: I think that’s a good idea.

PARTICIPANT: [unclear]

JK: .... And the reason is that in your own home there’s a lot of things to distract you. There’s the TV, there’s the computer, there’s the phone, there’s the stereo, there’s the family.

PARTICIPANT: [unclear]

JK: You know that’s an interesting point as well, you know eastern philosophy has always said that the concept of energy, whether you call it qi, karma, energy, it needs room to flow, the energy needs room to flow in order for you to feel good and therefore if you got a lot of clutter, there’s no room for the energy to flow in order to feel good. I really believe in this because I know this is what happens to me if my place, if my apartment is cluttered, I don’t feel like getting very much done, you know. But when it is clean, it’s spring -- and the windows are open -- I feel great. It’s great to go out to a productive environment. Sometimes it’s Starbucks, great. Have a cup of coffee, there’s people around, you can bring your computer, you can do what you need to do. So I definitely think it helps to get out of your environment.

PARTICIPANT: [unclear]

JK: Well I can say two things, if it’s really bad, you might want to see somebody about it. You know brain chemistry is big part of how you live and if there’s a little piece of your brain chemistry off then that’s something that can be adjusted and that’s something a doctor can help you with you. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with medication and I really think the stigma is starting to go away. I would really look into that. And secondly, let yourself off the hook. You deserve to have fun. Everybody deserves to have fun. If you get out of the house, that to-do list is going to be there when you return, it’s not going anywhere.

PARTICIPANT: [unclear]

JK: But you know what? I understand what you’re saying, but I really really truly believe that people with ADD are wired to be big-picture thinkers or wired to be creative types. We’re not wired to take care of the small stuff. Maybe that means getting an assistant, maybe that means asking your boss for some help. Maybe that means budgeting, skipping dinners out, skipping nights out, so you can have a personal assistant come in to do your paperwork for you, you know, it’s about delegating and it’s not always easy to find the money to be able to hire people but it’s worth it, it’s worth the money.

PARTICIPANT: Can you tell your boss at work that you need an assistant?

JK: What’s wrong with that?

PARTICIPANT: You might get fired.

JK: You know what? Jobs are tricky because you can have a great boss or you can have a not-so-great boss. But first of all, if you do choose to tell your employer that you have ADD, they are required to make reasonable accommodations for you. So if you say, I need a little help with paperwork three hours a week, that’s not an unreasonable request.

[EDITOR: The Americans With Disabilities Act states that a "reasonable accommodation" must be granted an employee with a condition that meets the legal definition of "disability." One which must be shown, through medical reports, to create an impairment -- but not to the point where the employee can't do the job. The word "reasonable" is not defined, and the employer gets to determine what qualifies as acceptable work. Because of all this, asking for help can indeed pose a risk; see the story of Vivienne Sales (www.maaddsg.org/news_7_18_04.htm). Anyone thinking of taking this route might first wish to consult an attorney.]

I feel like I would be so much more effective and so much more productive in this job and I will make the company so much more money if I could just get a little help.

PARTICIPANT: What if you’re a secretary?

JK: Then find a new job. I mean really -- that’s what it comes down to.

PARTICIPANT: About that getting crazy over something you can’t find. I find that you always find it when you’re looking for something else .... if it’s a paper item and you know it’s in a pile someplace, just start doing something with that pile and it’ll turn up.

JK: Yes, it’s true.

PARTICIPANT: Before, the subject of politics was brought up, and the frustration over the result of the election. Two organizations which have always done well, and which have actually seen the membership grow in proportion to the frustration, are the ACLU -- and then there's one of the larger environmental organizations in the United States. So if you have concerns about the environment, if you’re concerned about the politics -- you don’t have to join the ACLU in terms of paying money -- just get the newsletter, find out what their petitions are and what they’re focusing on and what they’re advocating for. And those that you agree with, just join that group. So that’s something you can do to help with checks and balances.

JK: Very good.

PARTICIPANT: Where are you located?

JK: I’m running a program, there’s flyers over there. I run a coaching program that meets downtown on 22nd Street and 7th Avenue. So for in-person work, that’s what I offer. Otherwise, I do a little telephone coaching, but mostly I do 90-day coaching programs.

I think we have time for one more question.

PARTICIPANT: An insight that’s helped me a lot. You’re not able to accomplish things and this is one of the many things that affects our ability to sleep at night. When we get to bed, when you want to go to bed, there’s something nagging us, that we don’t feel we’ve accomplished enough during the day to allow ourselves to sleep .... [so] I started making a to-do list ... [consisting of] post-it notes on my wall .... All these things I had to do, as I got them done, I’d rip them off .... The problem that I have that I don’t keep track of the things I’ve done .... [so] instead of throwing it in the garbage [I now] leave it on the wall. On when I started doing that, when I started collecting this wall with all these things that I accomplished, it gave me this tremendous boost.

JK: And that’s why I suggest when you’re taking your 15 minutes, that’s one of the first things you do is review your accomplishments, so that you’re not always looking at things that you have to do and you do focus on the positive.

PARTICIPANT: I just don’t have the time to journal.

JK: Well I’m talking about 15 minutes to plan and review everyday and making sure you count your successes and accomplishments.

PARTICIPANT: It’s good if you’re not just checking off or throwing out. It’s good that you store it.

JK: Yeah, I think so. I think it’s a great idea.

END OF PRESENTATION.