Fourth annual conference focuses on finding the benefits of ADHD
Kimberly Bojorquez | Senior Staff Writer
Photo credit: Gabi Campbell | Photo Editor | @gabicampbellphotos
Living with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is challenging, but it’s also a great gift, successful entrepreneur Mark Patey told an audience at the fourth annual Conference on ADHD Oct. 2.
According to Patey, who was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder in the fifth grade, authors who write books on ADHD often express two main viewpoints on the matter. One is that ADHD is a disorder that is caused from damage in the frontal lobe, and the other viewpoint is that there are benefits from having ADHD.
“The challenge is there are so many experts with so many messages that are conflicting. It’s a gift and a curse. You don’t get one without the other,” Patey said, “ADHD is the beauty of chaos.”
Patey explained that people with ADHD are distractible, and that every idea he has had, including business plans and marketing strategies, were distractions from what he should have been doing. He likened ADHD to multiple ping-pong balls and mousetraps going off at the same time.
“The ADHD brain is so hyperactive that if you don’t give it something to do, it gets bored and then it gets depressed,” Patey said. He explained there is a high suicide rate of people who have ADHD.
When Cayson, Patey’s son, had trouble in school, the school demanded him to take medication for his ADHD or they’d remove him from the school. Patey put Cayson in a school that was more accommodating to his needs. Patey did not tell the new school his son was diagnosed with ADHD because he did not want to put a label on him. Instead he told the new school his son was a genius and that public school did not challenge him enough. His new school was surprised at what a genius his son turned out to be and challenged him to the point where he always had something to do and could not get distracted.
“Different is not a disorder,” Patey said.
UVU decided to spotlight ADHD because faculty members and the community expressed interest on the matter. According to Assistant Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Toni Harris, the conference can help shed light on ADHD for people who want to better understand what people with ADHD go through, as well as those living with ADHD.
“UVU has programs through accessibility services that will help them succeed academically,” Harris said.
The plenary speaker of the conference was productivity coach and host of Crush TV, Alan Brown. Brown suggested five things to keep ADHD from getting worse.
“Let your mind shut the heck up for a few minutes. What you find is solutions start to come to you,” Brown said emphasizing on letting yourself get distracted.
The five points of advice were to eat healthy, stop multitasking, get enough sleep, stop worrying, and to let yourself get distracted.
After Brown’s diagnosis of ADHD, he uncovered what he calls “brain hacks” to help him deal with his ADHD in his work life.
“Once I had these brain hacks work for me, in a period of two years, I went from being a lowly account executive to six figures, vice-president and employee of the year at the largest ad agency in New York at the time,” Brown said.
Unlike Patey, Brown was diagnosed with ADHD well into his late 20s. Brown struggled with addiction and years of drug abuse, which is common in people who have ADHD.
