People who know me know that I am very open with the fact that I have Adult Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Not only do I not hide it, I go out of my way to make sure that I tell this to the people who I interact with frequently. It is an integral part of who I am as a person. In order to understand me, you first have to have a basic understanding of what ADD is and what it is not.

I learned that I have Adult ADD around 9-10 years ago. When I was finally clinically diagnosed with it by a Neurologist at the Marshfield Clinic, I did a good amount of reading on the subject. This was a real “A-HA!” moment for me. I finally had an explanation for many of my behaviors and my memories of my childhood. The daydreaming, the hyper-focusing (yes, sometimes it is not a deficit of attention, but a hyper-focus of attention. I think this helps explain my love of Chess), the forgetfulness, the constant unintentional multi-tasking, the inability to finish what I start, etc. I always tell people that ADD is not an excuse for certain behavior. Rather, it is an EXPLANATION of that behavior.

One of the first things that I did when Carrie and I started to seriously consider marriage was to tell her about my ADD and have her read a book called, “10 Simple Solutions to Adult ADD” by Stephanie Moulton Sarkis (ISBN #1-57224-434-8 if you are interested). ADD adults tend to have a higher divorce rate than the normal population, so I felt it was important for her to understand me better by reading this book.

One of my weaknesses as an ADD adult is having too many choices. I ask Carrie where she would like to go for dinner. Rather than deciding, she will turn it back on me and say that we could go to place A, place B, place C, place D, or place E. I tend to get frustrated with this, because too many choices confuses me and I have problems figuring it all out. I have asked her to give me 2 or, at the most, 3 choices. And once I choose, please do NOT continue to give me choices!

I see this as a microcosm of people in general. We as a society have been conditioned to “leave all your options open” and not to “burn bridges.” I think we live in a society of too many choices! For the most part, people do all right with this, but I believe there are times where we should close some of our options and burn some of our bridges! We can be our own worst enemy here, because by leaving all these choices open, we complicate our life. We want to study a double major in college and, oh yes, we also have a double minor, too! We want to specialize in one area of study, but we also want to get certified in this other area, too!

Enough, already!

When I was in college, I wanted to be a double major in Instrumental Music Education (band) and also Vocal Music Education (choir). I figured I was “more marketable” with a double major. So off I went, working at my double major when I hit a roadblock. I was not progressing in my piano skills. If you read my most recent blog post here, you know what happened. The piano faculty gave me a letter at the end of my piano jury stating that they did not think that I would ever reach the level of proficiency needed to teach choir.

Since I was not able to keep all my options open, the piano faculty closed one of them for me. It was one of the best things that could have happened to me. Now I could focus on my Instrumental Music major and not end up like my classmate Paul, who spent 8 years in college pursuing a degree that I earned in 4 years, and he never did get his degree. He was one math class short when he finally dropped out. Paul went on to a career in radio broadcasting and passed away in 2006.

There comes a time in life when you should burn bridges. There is no way that one person can do it all, be it all, have it all. Some options in life are limited by resources; time, finances, distance. Others are limited by others. As I get older in life, I am more convinced that sometimes it is better to burn bridges in your life. That may be certain people that you need to just cut off from your life. That may be some activities that you should cut off from your life. Sometimes it is possessions.

In our times today, we have too many options. I recently came across this idea recently when I was on Facebook. I had found a former colleague on there, and added him to my friends list. He was someone who, even though we were on opposite sides of the spectrum of beliefs, I still enjoyed knowing.

Big mistake.

Within days, an event occurred that he had very strong feelings about. I had made a statement on Facebook that elicited a significant amount of dissent from several people, which I had anticipated. For the most part, I just read what they had to say. But this former colleague was on a crusade. He commented over and over to my post. He sent me private messages justifying his opinions. For the most part, I understood his side of the discussion, but I was unwilling to debate him either privately or publicly  I had seen that people were becoming very personal about this issue, and I did not want to alienate friends and family simply over this issue.

I did respond to one of his private messages, limiting my thoughts to the initial post that I had made. He continued to argue with me on not just that issue, but multiple other issues that were all related to this event that had occurred. Finally, I saw him post on his page that he was very passionate about this issue. He had friends who said that they would just agree to disagree, but he said that he could not do that. He said that if anyone disagreed with him on this issue, that they should just de-friend him on Facebook.

So I did what he asked me to do. I de-friended him.

Burned a bridge.

Besides…I had had enough. Like I said, I was not willing to get in to a public debate about this, because I was not willing to risk severing other relationships over this issue. I did not feel the stakes were so high that entire relationships should be severed over it.

I also laid low for a while on Facebook, and hid myself from a few people until things calmed down. Someday I will un-hide, but for now…..

Sometimes I think that Facebook can be more harmful than helpful. There are reasons why I moved on in life from one place to another, and sometimes I just don’t want to maintain certain relationships for whatever reason. It’s nothing personal….just too much! I sometimes feel like I spend so much time seeing what people are posting on Facebook that I don’t really pay much attention to the people that I am with at that time!

We as a society have too many options. I am now convinced that it is necessary to narrow down these options so I can focus on quality choices instead of a large quantity of choices.

More another time,

~Tim

Who are you? How do you identify yourself? Do you give your name? Do you give your occupation? How do you see yourself?

How you see yourself is CRUCIAL to your success in life. And it is just as crucial that you give considerable thought to who you are as a person. You MUST know who you are…your Identity.

Consider this: Suppose you identify yourself as a model (ok, just pretend for a moment). If you see yourself as a model, what do you concern yourself with? How you look, how you dress, your height, weight, complexion, hair, and every part of how you look. If you put on some weight or lose some weight, even a couple of pounds, it can have a HUGE effect on your self esteem. If you see a blemish, you focus all of your thoughts and efforts on erasing this blemish.

Big problem…day after day, you slowly get older. There are some things you can’t control as you get older. And you know that younger models tend to get hired more than older models. Your self-esteem goes down the tubes.

Or how about this? You are a world-class athlete. You work out every day, making sure that you are in shape. You train every day at your sport. You compete regularly at perform at a top level.

And then, you tear your ACL. Or you break your leg/arm/hand/wrist/ankle (choose one). Suddenly, immediately, you are out of competition for a year. Where’s your self-esteem now? Are you discouraged? Perhaps.

Let’s take a different example. Let’s say that, ever since the 8th grade, you wanted to be a school teacher. You worked hard ever since you were 14 in one particular area of study, achieving excellence at every level. You received top grades, local and state awards and honors all the way through high school. You worked very hard towards your double major. Suddenly, 2 years into your persuit of a double major, you receive a letter from one of the two departments where you are majoring that states that the professors got together and they do not think you will ever succeed at earning your major in their field. Furthermore, they feel that you should focus all your efforts at pursuing your other major and forget about continuing on in their department.

How would you feel? What would you do? How’s your self-esteem now?

That last scenario actually happened to me in college. I was pursuing a double major in vocal and instrumental music education. 2 years into my coursework, I received a letter from the piano faculty stating that they don’t feel that I will EVER pass my piano proficiency, and that I should pursue my instrumental music education major.

I was crushed. Devastated. I moped around for a while. Depressed about it. Then I decided the faculty was doing me a favor by giving me this letter. I would be able to focus on what I COULD accomplish instead of what I would NEVER be able to accomplish. They were just helping me to see what was plain to them, and in doing so, saved me a lot of time, wasted effort, and money. I took their advice.

I know that there are people that would have told me to beat the odds and go for it…that I should redouble my efforts and take another run at it. I probably could have, but I honestly always saw myself being a band director (since the 8th grade) and that my burning desire didn’t include being both a band and choir director. What mattered is how I saw myself for who I thought I was.

How you see yourself helps determine so many things. If you see yourself as a successful person, your odds of becoming that person are great. As the late Earl Nightingale said so many times, “We become what we THINK about.” We have all heard people say things like “garbage in/garbage out” and “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” All of these concepts start in the mind as an idea, and then the mind tells the body to put it into action. So it is doubly important to know who you are as a person before all this begins. So I will ask you again….

Who are you?

How do you identify yourself? Do you identify yourself by which family you are in? By your occupation? By how many children you have? By who your spouse is? By how tall, short, skinny, fat, healthy, unhealthy, well dressed, rich, poor, athletic, smart you are? Be careful here, because how you see yourself has a strong influence in how you live your life.

•If you identify yourself by your abilities, and you suddenly lose those abilities, then what?

•If you identify yourself by your looks, and they suddenly change, then what?

•If you identify yourself by your line of work, and suddenly lose your job or your entire carreer, then what?

•If you identify yourself by how wealthy you are and suddenly lose it all, then what?

•If you identify yourself by who you are married to, and suddenly find yourself divorced, then what?

•If you have your legs cut off, are you still you?

•If you have your hands or arms cut off, are you still you?

•If you go bankrupt, are you still you?

•Is your value to your spouse, your kids, your family, your friends determined by your ability to “perform” for those people?

•If you can’t “perform” those duties, will they stop being your spouse, kids, familiy, or friends?

These are very hard questions to answer, but the answers to these questions matter! That is why it is critical to know who you are! Here are some of the ways in which I know who I am:

I am a Child of God. (John 1:12)

I have accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. I believe Jesus came to Earth to sacrifice his life so that my sins could be forgiven, and that he rose again 3 days later from the grave. All I had to do was accept his gift of forgiveness of my sins and his gift of eternal life with Him. By doing this, I became a Child of God. This fact will never change.

I am Carrie’s Husband.

On December 31st, 2008, I made a solemn vow to Carrie, God, and witnesses that, from this day forward, I will love, honor, and cherish Carrie until death do us part. I have this role for the rest of our life together. It is a daily pursuit and commitment of mine, and I take it very seriously. I have to fulfill this on a daily basis, as I have made a solemn vow and I will keep it. This fact will never change.

I am the Father of Elizabeth, Danielle, Joshua, Hannah, and Caleb.

It is my job to be a role model for my children regardless of my feelings. I set an example regularly for them, whether it be a good one or a bad one. Even though I do not live with them (they live with their mother and Elizabeth is on her own now), I need to remember that whatever I say or do needs to be worthy of that example. I know that I do not always give them a good example, but I need to continually strive to be the best example I can be. This fact will never change. I will always be their father forever.

Every day, I strive to live my life knowing these 3 things. I try to make my decisions with these facts in mind. Do I always succeed? No. But how I think, how I act, what my career is, all these things stem from how I see myself.

How do you see yourself? Do you know who you are?

More next time,

~Tim

Brett Favre is a Master at the game.  He plays with great skill, cunning, meticulous, well-planned-out game plan, and he plays with the end result in mind.

He knows that a well-timed move gets excellent results.  He knows how long to wait so that at just the right time…his play will have maximum effect.

He can look at the big picture and can see where his team is in relation to where the other team is and seems to make the right decision MOST of the time.

He ALSO is a pretty good football quarterback, too…..

I wasn’t referring to football, though.  I was referring to NEGOTIATING.  Brett Favre is a MASTER negotiator.  He understands a number of negotiating tactics and plays them well.  As I write this one, he is playing his favorite negotiating tactic.  It is one that he has practiced flawlessly to perfection.

You see, Brett Favre understands that people become more flexible in a negotiation when they are under time pressure.  He knows that training camp is going on, and that the time is short until the regular season will start.  The journalists are writing, debating, and discussing whether or not he will retire.  Yes, you can tell that it is the season for the NFL to get underway, because Brett’s texts are flying off to his teammates stating that he plans to retire, his agent can’t be found, and the Vikings are offering him more money to come back.

As Colin Cowherd stated on his radio show recently, it matters to the NFL if Brett Favre comes back.  Not just to the Vikings, but also to the Packers, Giants, Cowboys, Bears, Eagles, and every other team in the NFL.  And Brett Favre knows this.  He also knows what has worked for him in the past, and that is time pressure.  When people are bumped up against a deadline, they become more flexible in their negotiations as time goes on.  This even worked against him back in 2007 when he “retired” the first time.  He felt pressured to make a decision, and he did.  Then a few months later, he changed his mind and wanted to play, so he was traded to the New York Jets.

His latest episode, where his teammates were receiving text messages implying that he was calling it quits, netted him a reported offer of around $20 million for him to come back this year.  But if I remember right, he had a 2 year, $20 million deal that he signed last year.  So it seems to me that by him sending a few text messages to a few people, he basically gave himself a raise of several million dollars.  Those are pretty valuable text messages, if you ask me!  And all without doing any “formal” negotiating, too!  And yet, when asked on camera if this was about money, he stated that no, it wasn’t about money.  *wink wink* RIGHT!

I personally think that using time pressure to make the other side of a negotiation more flexible is not ethical.  However, you need to know that people do use this on you at times, and you need to be aware of it’s existance.  Children do this all the time, don’t they?  They’ll wait until the last possible minute (translation = ‘I forgot to tell you’) and then on a Monday morning as they are walking out the door to school, they tell you that they need money for school lunch, or a book order, or some kind of fee for an activity, and they tell you that they are late for school and “can I please just have it now?”

The Favre situation is a good example of this tactic.  While I really think that this is not ethical to use, I realize that others use it all the time.  Just being aware of it and planning for its use is the sign of a good negotiator.  And in a larger sense, we as humans are negotiating all the time in life.  The more you are aware of these types of things, the better you will handle them in life situations.

More next time,

Tim