Thriving with ADHD, with Shawn Smith, Me.D., CCC | EDB 244
Shawn Smith shares his tools for thriving with ADHD.
(VIDEO – 30 mins) Shawn Smith M.Ed., CCC is the proud founder and CEO of Don’t dis-my-ability consultation services Inc., an innovative, multifaceted company specializing in the emerging field of Neurodiversity located in Fredericton New Brunswick, Canada. Shawn’s story is unique in that he was diagnosed with ADHD Inattentive Type at age 30. Prior to his diagnosis, Shawn struggled at every level of the public education system. It took Shawn 4 years to complete 3 years of high school, 32 attempts to earn the 18 credits required to graduate including failing grade 10 math 4 times. Since being diagnosed and taking prescribed medication at age 30, Shawn has experienced a tremendous amount of self-growth in a relatively short period of time and has a unique understanding of his thought process. In 2010, Shawn was accepted to the Master of Education in Counseling Psychology program at the University of New Brunswick on Academic Probation and graduated in 2011 at the top of his class. Shawn is a self-advocate, entrepreneur, innovator, counsellor and psychotherapist specializing in the emerging field of Neurodiversity. Shawn’s work is being recognized internationally and he has been sought after to consult in various industries ranging from non-profit to the world of animation.
For more about Shawn’s work, visit: www.ddmacs.ca
AUDIO PODCAST VERSION:
Or look for us on your favorite podcast provider:
iTunes | Stitcher | SoundCloud
FULL TRANSCRIPTION
DR HACKIE REITMAN (HR):
Hi, I’m Dr. Hackie Reitman. Welcome to another episode of Exploring Different Brains. And today we have returning to us. My friend from up Canada way, the ADHD man, the man who named his company “Don’t Dis-my-ability”. Shawn Smith. Shawn, welcome back.
SHAWN SMITH (SS):
Thanks Hackie. Thanks for having me.
HR:
Why don’t you introduce yourself properly to the audience with me, it’s just I’m just seeing an old friend who has been a champion of ADHD we have a good time all the time. And you know, you’re a– football player you got diagnosed in adulthood. And I remember how tough you had it in your youth, but why don’t you introduce yourself properly.
SS:
Hi, I’m Shawn Smith. I’m the founder of disability. I am a counselor and psychotherapist by trade. I’m also a consultant and a guest lecture. But what I what I do isn’t nearly as exciting as how I got there. I like to say, I was diagnosed with ADHD inattentive type at the age of 30. Prior to my diagnosis, it took me four years to finish three years of high school, 32 attempts to earn 18 credits required to graduate including failing grade 10 math four times, I got snuck into college to play football, started playing football, my first year very 12. By my second year, I was an all star, got recruiting packages from every major Canadian university with a football team. Huge high and then a huge low because I didn’t have the grades to attend any of these schools. But a college snuck me in prep school, brought my grades up enough to attend university, managed to graduate and diagnosed with a 2.3 GPA. And then fast forward to being 30 having a ton of life experience in between and being prescribed Ritalin, which basically took my thought process from dial up to high speed. The pieces of the puzzle that were my life that never seem to fit, all of a sudden came together with relative ease, I realized that I wasn’t dumb, I was actually quite smart. I went back to upgrade as a mature student taking five courses in a GPA of 3.7. And then in 2010, I get into a Master’s of education and counseling psycho psychology program on academic probation, I graduated a year later at the top of my class, so a very unique lens through which to help people.
HR:
And what I love the best about the story is then you became a self advocate, you used all of your skill sets to help. Others tell us about your company.
SS:
Sure, so my company was created kind of out of a necessity, I was about to get laid off from a disability related nonprofit I was working for. And I saw kind of a niche to help people with a hidden tax credit in Canada for people with disabilities. And so I kind of brokered a deal to do some consulting for them, and help people access this, this hidden tax credit. You know, in the States, you have IRS in Canada, we have the CRA. And there are two things that are certain in this life Hackie as I’m sure you’re well aware that they are death and taxes. And so, Canada Revenue kept changing the rules of the game and making it harder and harder for people to access this, which meant for me, I only charged a fee of set if I was able to help the person get a return. So as it turned out, I ended up volunteering more of my time than actually earning money. So I had to pivot and switch gears and haphazardly fell into counseling and psychotherapy, which I mean, it was my education, a lot of my experience. But someone took a chance on me and hired me as a counselor for a community they were working in where they were looking for someone new to provide services for parents of kids with ADHD, and individuals with ADHD. And just within you know, a couple sessions kind of hit my groove and I knew that this was going to be what I was going to be doing part of a big part of what I was going to be doing for sure.
HR:
You know, something you and I have in common is that we’re interested in tools, tools that can help. Like when I wrote the “Aspertools” book about Asperger’s, and autism. Tell us some of the tools that you found helpful for ADHD?
SS:
Well, I’ll start off by saying Hackie any tool is only as good as the person who uses it. Right. So I think part of the challenge that a lot of us have is that we’re looking for that holy grail that that one thing that’s gonna make everything better and I just, you know, comms call people’s nerves that it’s not out there. It doesn’t exist yet. It really is about trying different things and sharing those amongst each other but I’m an apple person, I rely on Apple products to keep me organized. You know, I’ve got my my calendar, I can just color coded for different types of work that I do, which also helps me with invoicing. So stuff that’s in don’t display abilities and black you know, stuff I do with University of Connecticut is in Yukon blue. You know, just setting it up that way but I also that transfers into my personal life where you know, the calendar parts of the calendar shared with my wife. So for personal readings Sean, my wife is purple Anything family related is in green. And so whenever one of us put something into the calendar, it automatically pops up so the other one sees it. So that is one of the biggest tools that I use definitely, as I call it color coding my calendars. Another that I started using, probably about a year ago, is the note section in my iPhone as well, where I create a daily to do list. And so there are some things that are on there that are really quite basic things. But you know, again, with the psychology of lists, if we only put the big things on there, and we’re not really able to chip at them, then we kind of feel like we wasted our time in our day. So I have everything from brush my teeth, shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, take my enzymes, empty the dishwasher, refill the dishwasher, you know, you name it, because if I don’t put that stuff on there, the day will get away from me, and I’ll forget. So again, just kind of bringing things back to basic to make it really simple to do list for your daily tasks that you need to get done. And then you can kind of add on to that. The other things that you might need to do that maybe are work related or a little bit heavier. Those are the two big things for me. Definitely.
HR:
That’s great. Tell us a bit about your role at UConn. And with their include program, which is excellent.
SS:
Yeah, I was I mean, I just got goosebumps, I have to throw a shout out thank you to my friend, Dr. Jamie Barr, who, you know, contacted me, we’re old high school friends, we played hockey growing up, we went our separate ways he became a doctor and got his PhD in engineering. And, you know, similar to you found some stuff that I was posting on YouTube and Facebook and he he got in touch with me, instead of trying to do some really interesting stuff, I may have some folks who are interested in what you’re doing. And so I’m a guest lecturer. And because of COVID, things were a little bit wonky this year, so I wasn’t able to get down there in person. So we did a discussion series, a fall and spring discussion series on neurodiversity with different topics. I also consult. So I’ll look at some of the materials, some of the things that they’re doing, provide some feedback. And I’m also on the advisory board, which is also very exciting, because it really is innovative work. I mean, I don’t know of any other type of program going on right now in any type of post secondary institution where they’re actively recruiting neurodiverse students for their classes, but also, you know, allowing the students to come up, you know, giving them the freedom to, you know, pitch night idea to a prof that can show that they understand the content, but giving them creative access to show that in a way that, you know, allows them to follow, you know, not only follow their passion, but really put a piece of themselves into what they’re doing. And I mean, you and I both know this, this is the way the world’s going. So it’s it’s neat to be part of an innovative project that’s kind of at the forefront of all this.
HR:
Well, that whole program is excellent. And thank you for introducing us to it as well. But it just goes along with the way your brain has become wired, that you’re thinking in terms of solutions, you’re thinking in terms of everybody’s got a different brain. So you this is a tool you use, it doesn’t mean again that you’re dumb or you stupid or anything, it means your brain works a little bit differently. I like the name of Temple Grandin’s book “different, not less”.
SS:
Absolutely I would say that I’ve even taken a step further Hackie that, like when I when I can identify what someone’s gift is, then I will try to tap into my network to figure out who do I know that can really assess their competency level in this area. And it’s been, it’s been awesome. Like right now I’m brokering a book deal with a client with a publishing company. I have another young man who, you know, was out of high school for a couple years and I know I’m going to say this wrong, but he taught himself how to use cyber security. You know, he got back in high school and managed to graduate, get into college, but I had him meet with a friend of mine who has his PhD in computer science. And after an hour long meeting he said by the time this kids 20 he was 18 at the time He said he’ll he’ll be making 250k a year. You know, and he wasn’t you know, this is just being blunt and honest like this, this this kid is beyond what he’s going to learn in college. It’s just phenomenal. So, you know, kind of taking low risk, high reward chances on people just to figure out you know, how far we can take things it’s it’s pretty neat. I get another another guy I’m working with a young man in elementary school who has an interest in ventriloquism and so I have him working with guy Adam sites who I’ll introduce you to another ADHD or who’s been on the Chris Rock show the Dave Chappelle show, Dora the Explorer, go Diego go. He’s just he’s done all this voiceover work on all these different games and cartoons. And so I have them working together every other week. You know it. Nobody really asked a lot of these kids, you know, what are you good at? What do you want to do? You know, when we asked him if he beats you know, do you want to? Do you know, what you want to do when you grow up? Well, Jesus, actually, I think we’re still trying to figure it out. How do we expect these kids to know, for ages just, let’s let’s just try something. Let’s see if it sticks.
HR:
One of society’s big problem s is that we don’t expose the kids to different things. It’s like one size fits all. And then you’re now if you’re lucky, like I was, I knew when I was 12 years old, I was writing to the AMA from my parents gas station that I wanted to be a doctor because we had a great doctor. But I was just lucky like that, that I had a calling so to speak. What are interns here are 18 plus year old interns who are all neurodivergent in different ways. They get exposed to working behind the camera in front of the camera, video editing, audio editing, writing articles, three of them are writing books about what they’re self advocating about. One’s ADHD, one’s OCD ones tuberous sclerosis, and on and on the list goes on, because they’re just never ending variations. I’m on a bit of a campaign myself, Shawn, to kind of move away from the trying to make everything a diagnosis with just going with traits, like ADHD traits, OCD traits, autism traits, and matching up the tools to the individual traits, where it’s good. For instance, OCD should be obsessive compulsive difference, because on the one hand, at the one extreme, it’s a disorder, which is severely debilitating to some people. On the other hand, you and I know enough, just take, for example, any sport, no one’s ever been a champion at anything. without some OCD traits, you have to have them. Absolutely get away without them. And I’m finding ADHD, which I’ve not been officially diagnosed, but I’m finding more and more in the more I learned in the way I see how I’m all over the map, that I certainly have ADH traits, for sure. You know, and what do I do about them? Well, I learned from people like yourself, some of the tools to use and adapt them.
SS:
I think that’s the, that’s one of the biggest things is, you know, is the adaptability that we that we have, and for people to know, you know, when they’re looking for that one system, and it doesn’t seem to work. Like it’s not necessarily for us to adopt something, I think one of the gifts that we have is that we can look at something and see why it doesn’t work. But then also see what what little tweaks we could make to make it work for us. You know, and something else that I kind of come up with recently that may or may also help you happy, I’ve kind of figured out through my work that we kind of have three ages, we have our physical age, we have our emotional age, and we have our intellectual age. And so where we kind of missed the boat is that we talk to people at their physical age, which is just the age that they are, when really, I think the secret of my success and working with my clients is being able to connect with them at their emotional age, and figure out where they’re out there. Because somebody may be physically 18, but emotionally, they could be significantly younger, or significantly older. And so, you know, significantly younger, we might refer to them as somebody who might be a little more mature. For somebody who is emotionally significantly emotionally older, we would say they’re an old soul. Right? So kind of tapping into that area has really been helpful for me in working with my neurodivergent clients.
HR:
That’s very, very insightful, very insightful. And, and I might mention to our audience, what a great ally, you’ve been for so many different organizations for so many self advocates, how you’ve helped us at different brains in many way with the networking and your support. I just want to thank you publicly for that that’s not taken for granted. We really appreciate it.
SS:
Oh, I you know, I think that’s part of you know, my, my ADHD is that when when I see something or someone that I can connect together that that that is going to add value. I can’t not do that. So it’s, it’s just kind of an intrinsic thing that, you know, a little spark goes off, you know, it’s hard not to look and go that direction. So, you know, it all it also helps me and I mean, I really, I enjoyed being a resourceful person and get really getting to connect, you know, some some interesting people together to see what what they can create and come up with.
HR:
Now, would you like to just for our audience, for those out there who may think they might have some ADHD and they’re not sure, they’re not sure about getting assessed, they might be any age. What’s your advice to them?
SS:
Well, the first thing that I tell people when they disclose that they have ADHD, or they think they have ADHD is: Welcome to the world of the uniquely gifted. This isn’t what’s wrong with you, this is what’s right about you. And so when, when people are on the fence about getting assessed, you know, I encourage a lot of people to get assessed, you know, you’re gonna learn a lot about your thought process, you’re gonna learn about a lot about your strengths and some challenges. But I find that the biggest barrier really is trying to get that actual assessment. I don’t know what the process is like in the States. But in Canada, there’s a few different ways to go about it. One is to meet with a psychiatrist, which is three free through our public health system, although you’re going to wait a while, you can hire a private psychologist, which will usually cost between 15 120 $500, which is, again, is not cheap. So for people who are on social assistance, it makes it that much harder. One of the things that really burns me is that when I see kids with personalized learning plans, and their you know, coursework has been modified, but they don’t have an assessment to back that up. That’s one of the things that I find extremely discouraging and frustrating. But really, you know, I think the hardest part is trying to get people access to the services that they need in order to get that, that diagnosis so they can have that. You know, that that bit of insight about you know, whether or not they actually do have it if they suspect that I would say they likely do. But it’s just, you know, I think for a lot of people, it really is the the aha moment that helps provide a little clarity and validates a lot of their feelings and thoughts that they’ve had.
HR:
Tell us from your point of view something we’re our research pillar, which we’ve now started doing researcher with different brains. I kind of stay out of their way we have our director of research on a volunteer basis is wonderful is Dr. Marcia Ratner of Boston University. I wanted to get your opinion, because what they’ve chosen to do is the effect of the Coronavirus pandemic on those with ADHD. And I wanted to get your experience and your take on that.
SS:
Oh, well, it’s been. It’s it’s been a challenge. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s been a challenge for everybody. You know, I think one of the things that people have said around here is, you know, we’re waiting for the second wave of COVID-19 to come. My big thing is, you know, I think we’re still waiting for our mental health pandemic to come, I think we’re still waiting for the first wave of that to come out. That That hasn’t happened, a lot of people have been really living and suffering and silence. For, for me, personally, I had a, you know, I’ll call it a bit of a meltdown, my dog passed away, he was 13. You know, it’s just, there’s just all all this stuff happened around the same time. And I think there are a lot of us who really kind of suffered in silence and didn’t really have a huge support network of people we could talk to, and I think with a lot of the political turmoil in the states and, and things that have happened, it’s, it’s made it hard to, you know, communicate and find the right people to share with and feel like you could…
HR:
Particularly in our polarized society is absolutely,
SS:
Absolutely, you know, with, you know, certain certain things that are happening, sometimes it doesn’t feel right to say something and so, you know, not not that it doesn’t need to be said, but I think, you know, we need to be mindful to times know what’s happening in other areas with with other groups and be respectful and mindful. And it’s just, there’s just so much going on in so many different levels that it has been extremely challenging, but I think part of you know, having ADHD and being or diversion is that resilience piece of that that makes us stronger. So you know, and I think that’s a huge difference between a lot of us and let’s say, neurotypical people is that, you know, I think a lot of the neurotypical may plateau in their personal growth at a certain point, and not that they won’t, it won’t increase or expand, it will, but not to the rate we do, where we have these aha moments. And it’s like this moment of clarity. And it’s just like, all of a sudden, the last six months or the last year or two years, or whatever it may be all of a sudden come together, and one thought, you know, we have those, and then we just, we experience a little more self growth, and then it but it just, it keeps happening, right. And all this self reflection, I think, in some ways has been good. And other ways. I think that I’ve really found the depths of Netflix, I don’t think I can, I don’t think there’s anything on there that I haven’t tried to watch yet.
HR:
That’s funny. Tell me, Shawn, what are your goals for the rest of the year?
SS:
You know, I think a lot of that is going to be travel related, one of my goals is to get my second dose of the vaccine, that’ll that’ll be great. But, you know, I’m, as horrible as this has been for a lot of businesses, I’ve actually done pretty well, I got busier, I was able to get more work. So you know, one of my goals that I’m actually going to be able to do it for the first time, since I started my company six or seven years ago, I’m actually going to take a week of paid vacation, where I don’t, I don’t have to work. Because before I just, you know, money was sporadic work was sporadic. And so I’ve done well enough this year that I can actually take a week off and, and like, pay myself for it and not have to worry about seeing this client then or, you know, answering an email at this time. I, I don’t know how to set up my automatic email, but somebody is going to help me with that. But it’s Yeah, so that’s one of my big goals is to kind of be more present with, with my family. I think, you know, with the ADHD part and being an entrepreneur, it’s, it’s easy to justify things as work, sometimes a little too easy. So for me, my goal really is to kind of be able to take a step back and spend more meaningful time with my family and be more present in what I do.
HR:
Well, that’s great, your priorities are much appreciated. Something that in this era of where nothing has an end, you know, used to be like my folks that are rest in peace, they worked really hard if the family gas station and what they did, for Let me tell you, when when my father got out of work at, you know, 7:30, or whatever time it was, it was Milla time, you were done with work, and it didn’t start again until 6:30 the next day. Nowadays, your work and my work never ends. No one’s work does because emails, phone calls, cell phones, when I used to play stickball with my buddies from Jersey City, three hours without interruption, but then then your Mickey Mantle and the Yankees and just getting a breather? If you missed the Ed Sullivan Show at eight o’clock on a Sunday time, you got to say it, you know, now you can binge watch you can this you can that and I think that’s taking a toll on people too. And then the Coronavirus times put it on steroids, where you have to have the discipline to say what you just said, I’m taking a week off and I’m not gonna look at my emails and God bless you. I don’t know that I could not look at my emails.
SS:
Well, you know what, to go back to the the strategies hacky this, this is one of the things that I started doing on a Friday, I have a note set my calendar at 5pm that says turn email notifications off. And so I turn them off for the weekend. And then I have another note in my calendar Monday morning at nine o’clock turn on email notifications. So because I would get emails on the weekend that I would read, why did I read that and it would sandbag my weekend, right? I mean, I could be doing something, I could be with my life having a date or playing with my son or going for a bike ride or whatever. And then I see that email like oh, and it just it sets us back. And I think you know, the the whole concept of masking is something that’s kind of come to the forefront. And I think for a lot of us, we’re just so used to masking that stuff. And pretending like we’re present when we’re not our mind is somewhere else. Because we are easily distracted into a million different things. But, you know, I try to ask myself one of the driving questions for me is how does this move me forward? So you know, how does me having my checking this email move me forward right now and what I’m doing with my son or with my wife, or if I’m trying to do one of my hobbies or learn a new skill, it doesn’t So that’s that really is a driving question for a lot of the things I do now.
HR:
Well, you’ve just helped me a great deal. I feel like I’ve been in therapy with you. The bill, the bills in the mail hockey a lot. Shawn, it’s so great to see you all the time. Is there anything you’d like to talk about, that we have not covered?
SS:
Sure. Well, actually, there’s two things. There was a new grant that was awarded to the folks at UConn, which is just, it’s amazing. So the project that was submitted, the title of it is encouraging the participation of very diverse students in STEM graduate programs to radically enhance the creativity of the professional workforce. And so this was a to two grants total, I think, is just under a million dollars. So in this is also by I can’t remember his last name, Dr. Arash that you’d interview earlier, and a colleague of his a PhD student, so that’s very exciting. And I’m going to be on the advisory board for that as well. So that’s, that’s also really neat. And then the other thing I wanted to talk to you about Hackie was, you know, we talked about the executive function piece, and how that’s, that’s a challenge. And so, I’ve been working with a client of mine, and, you know, and the parents, you know, suddenly complained about the kid having a hard time cleaning the room. And I met some people in the virtual reality space, and I came up with an idea of creating a virtual reality experience, to teach kids how to clean the rooms. And because this is something I struggled with, personally, you know, I can remember my parents saying, you know, asked me to go clean your room, I go to my room, I wouldn’t know where to start. And then I would open my desk drawer, and there was just, you know, pencil shavings, and all this stuff. And so I would spend an hour cleaning that part of my, my room, my desk, and my parents are gonna be really frustrated, say, what the heck, you know, we, you’ve been in here for an hour, we asked you to clean your room, you haven’t picked anything up? And I would say, but look, this is there. Like, we don’t care about your pens and your pencils, look at all the stuff that’s all over your floor. Right? So for me, I kind of came up with the idea of creating an experience that although would be for neurodivergent. People, this is something like much like Siri, right? Like a lot of technologies actually, disability driven. Society just takes it for granted when it becomes mainstream. And so I really strongly feel that this is going to be one of those things where you know, more people who are not neurodivergent, we’ll also be using this, to teach them how to efficiently clean the rooms. And so it’ll give you an idea of you know, where to start and let you know, when you’re done. It’ll be a step by step process, right?
HR:
Well, you know, what you just said, step by step, I have a chapter in the asper tools book about chunking. In other words, if you tell someone with ADHD or autism of fit whatever label you want, or tell Hackie, whatever, you say, clean your room, or walk around in circles and get nothing done, for you chunk it out and say, make the bed and then come and get. And yeah, then like you say you do in your life, you make lists of everything to do. Those are the tools and the attitude toward instead of just, oh, you’re stupid, you can’t clean your room.
SS:
Absolutely. Yeah. So it’ll, it’ll, you know, they’ll learn how to do this in virtual reality, but then it will become a transferable skill, where they’ll actually be able to apply this into the real life. And so this will hopefully be one of many life skills, virtual reality experiences that we’ll develop, and I’ll be crowdfunding for later. But one thing, you know, as you’re talking that I wanted to mention to you, is that something that, you know, I had a realization a few weeks ago working with someone, you know, you said chunking. And so in chunking, I tried to put things in batches of two. Because when you add that third thing, so when you ask a kid to do three things, the likely they’ll get jumbled up, and we’ll forget. But if you give them two things, they’ll remember that, and then you can have the back and do two more things. But when you introduce that third, that that’s when things start to cycle and and go sideways. But when you can keep things two at a time, or then work on that into multiples of two things go much smoother. So again, not trying to get kids to fit into our world to give them that long list of things to do but us fitting into their world and recognizing that we give them two things at a time, then they’re going to be more likely to to complete what it is we’re asking them to do and then to come back.
HR:
Well, Shawn Smith, it’s always a pleasure to hang out with you. Thanks for teaching us so much. With don’t this my ability, ADHD is here, and you’re tackling it head on. Thanks for all you do.
SS:
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
