Work your balls off without burning out
My Great Grandad lost a leg in WW2. Then worked until he retired at 65.
He never complained. Just got on with it.
Inspired, and by the relentless work ethic of my Grandad (who's forever reminding me of this story), I worked my balls off from 21 to build a successful marketing agency with global clients including adidas, The North Face, and Patagonia.
But, as I'm evidently not made of the same stuff as my Great Grandad, I burned out catastrophically in 2016.
For five or six years after, I was afraid to work hard. I believed hard work had put me in hospital.
But it hadn't.
What had was not understanding how my unique brain works.
A brain with ADHD is very different to one without it. We require more stimulation, more variation, more excitement.
From 2011 to 2016 I forced myself to work the 'proper' way. 9 til late. Sat at my desk. Repetitive tasks. All that shyt.
Which worked, I guess. The business made great money. But I paid for it in the end.
Then a couple of years ago I learned how to work with this ADHD brain – a Ferrari with Bicycle brakes (as Dr. Ned Hallowell says).
Here's how:
The trick is to regulate the nervous system early in the day (breathing, ice baths, meditation, yoga all work). Write a list of tasks immediately after. Fly through them as quickly as possible without predicting how long each will take. Then race yourself to see how early you can finish.
Fuck sitting from 9 til late.
Limit the number of tasks you need to get done in a day. Smash them out. Then stop. Get up from your desk, go outside, ride a bike, run, write poetry, play guitar, meet friends, read Homer or Harry Potter or comic books. Just get up and do something that fills your cup.
This way you'll finish work before your batteries die. You'll refill them after work. Then you'll start work the next day fully charged and ready to go.
You possess the ability to work hard. There's nothing wrong with that. It's a great and noble thing to do.
But don't do it at the expense of your health.