¶ Intro / Opening
give yourself that time to learn how to win. Because once you learn how to win, then you can create that extended life of value contribution that leaves a legacy that's memorable and can serve as a case study for others. And if people are in way too much of a hurry to try to get to someplace too quick, and that puts them in a place where the ambition may be correct, but what they're doing to get there may be premature. And then they mistakenly think they're the problem when it's really not.
It's just too much too fast. But that's really fear based. So I would say that don't make your decisions out of fear. Make your decisions out of what history and what we know to be true tells us
¶ I introduce Dr. Spencer, highlighting his background and exceptional contribution to the field of peak performance.
welcome to successful with ADHD. I'm Brooke Shipman. Let's get started. Come back to successful with ADHD today I have Dr. Jeff Spencer in the house in his house, we are dealing with a ton of distractions and trying to get this episode out there because we got into a flow state and Dr. Spencer knows a lot about flow. So just to give you a little bit of background on Dr. Jeff Spencer, he's not just
any flow guy. He actually has spent over 300,000 hours amassing his capacity to find what's missing in the lives of established founders, visionaries and creatives perform at their full potential anytime, anyplace under any
circumstance. So, anywhere. His depth of understanding pinpoint accuracy and surreal outcomes come from his experience as an Olympic cyclist, author, hot glass artist, sports scientists, doctor, husband, father, and help some of the most accomplished individuals, teams and organizations of our error become iconic brands. He has helped athletes win over 40 gold medals. Executives dominate their industries. And artists become household names. His recipe to make winning big than
normal is simple. And he's found the missing pieces he plugs, the holes and the genius to make it all flow. So He is no stranger to the ADHD community. Some of his most notable clients include Tiger Woods, YouTube, Nike, Hitachi, bulletproof his proudest achievement is the raising of his adopted daughter Ken and his wife, Christina. Warm Welcome, Jeff. Well, thank you. Great to be here. Yes, yes.
So we were talking a little bit before we have done here, there is so much that crosses over between being an elite performer getting into your flow state having ADHD. So what before we go there, what to you defines an elite performer and lay performer as someone that has
¶ Dr. Spencer discusses the attributes of an elite performer and the potential within everyone.
a set of attributes and traits that allow them to do extraordinary things. I think we all have that in some way, shape, or form some cognitive others physical. To me, it really doesn't matter. You know, there's only one of us in all of creation and that kind of love to send to all having that level of potential. It's just a matter of how we're able to access that and how we're able to cultivate and grow it over the course of a lifetime.
Okay, fair enough. So you, as I mentioned, have had and have some big name clients who have ADHD. We mentioned Tiger Woods, Richard Branson, Dave Asprey, how do you keep someone motivated? Or can you? What is your strategy in working with people with ADHD or just in general elite performers to keep them consistent and motivated?
¶ Strategies for motivating people with ADHD and the importance of goal selection and structure.
Well, I think that the motivation issue is not that they don't have the energy or the enthusiasm to do it. I think it's a matter of which choice do they make, when, and how do I start next year? And what's this going to look like? And it's evolution moving forward. And there's all sorts of crosstalk happening in their head. About too many options or going this direction as too many variables. They start to become
overwhelmed with details. So really, it's a matter of pruning back and identify to have the right goal. There's all sorts of goals. There's big, hairy, audacious goals, there's moonshots there's underwhelming goals. If we have the right goals, then we need to create a structure and a pacing and a framework that allows us to be appropriately aware of what the pace should be? What are our objectives? What are the things that we're thinking about where we should be that maybe are
correct? What's the methodology that we're listening to that the experts tell us to do that can't get us to where we want to get to? What are the fears that we may have about X, Y, and Z. And those are all the factors that I look at. And then there's going to be a priority of how we address those that is very specific to the individual. And the key thing here is that you want to have an engagement point where you decide to do something to produce a certain outcome. And when you do that, then you
get the trust. And as they gain trust in something, then they start to relax. And as they start to relax, then the possibilities and spiraling out of the mind chasing every shiny lower and disco ball starts to recede and making focus on the one or two things that have to be right to be able to move forward, which is a basic tenet of all prolific achievers is that if you're not looking at the options, and everything that could go wrong, what are the one
or two things out? Right, then you've automatically eliminated a massive amount of distraction. And those are the things that I look at, in the clients that I work with.
¶ Dr. Spencer talks about the balance between underwhelm and overwhelm in ADHD.
Yeah, that's wonderful. You You hit on a bunch of really important points, one of them being underwhelmed. I think when you have ADHD, and I talked about this in my upcoming book, activate your ADHD potential, there's the underwhelm and the overwhelm. So when you have an underwhelming idea, you don't want to do anything. You're paralyzed, right, it's not exciting enough to you, you don't have enough dopamine, you know, you know, so you don't want to act. If it's too overwhelming, then you don't
know how to break it down. And then you feel like a failure, like you've said, all these shiny new things, and how do I pick one or two items. So I love how you share that it's not just overwhelmed. It's underwhelm, and really getting intentional about what your goal is. And you help them to choose and build on that choice. So they feel more confident.
They got to strip the ambiguity out of it, because the ambiguity is what creates the uncertainty because the uncertainty is the fight or flight. Maybe it's not that but certainly it's a response like that, we should be very cautious about because small things can spook an ADHD person into paralysis in a certain sense, because they can take one little thing that happens, it's insignificant. But if they take that and they blow it up, in their own mind, it could be catastrophic in their mind, but
not really be catastrophic. So you know, there's all sorts so they see themselves in the winner's circle. And they're already acting as if they're already there, where they haven't even got started. You know, there's all sorts of things that we need to kind of frame things and always be pulling things back to a reality that can share with them. We are here. And because we're here,
this is what we do. And as long as they're kind of anchored in something that can be named, and they see it within a sequence of things, then we have an anchor that they can start to trust. That's been my experience with this.
Yeah, and that anchor with the name. So they know that it's not them just feeling a certain way they can name it to tame it, right or name exactly the action item that they're doing, and then build upon that, is that what you're sharing? Well,
any level of confidence doesn't come from what you think it comes from what you saw happen based on what you did. And anytime we can project an outcome that is realized from a predetermined, deliberate set of actions. That's where confidence comes from. And confidence drops anxiety, anxiety, drop means ongoing ability to stay with task to move it forward and stay out of hyperfocus or unrestricted focus and panoramic view through a kaleidoscope, you know. Now
¶ The myth of hyperfocus as a superpower and the importance of balanced focus.
some people think that hyper focus is a superpower. What are your thoughts about that?
I don't agree. I think it's your enemy, quite honestly. Because hyper focus. Cohen focuses on one thing, and maybe that's true in a certain sense for completing a cycle of action in front of you. But outside the cone of focus, we still have another 120 degrees of peripheral vision, where things are happening and in the peripheral vision outside the cone focus. That's where better opportunities and ideas show up.
That's where previews of catastrophe are starting to show up and starting to grow where we can see the minute answering avoid preventable problems. So I think it's complete pathology. And a lot of times that hyperfocus causes us to obsess, and we don't see the pothole in the road. So I'm not, I'm not buying that as a prescription, I
get what they're saying. But I think simultaneously, you have to kind of chameleon eyes on this one eye on the task in front, the other eye and the peripheral gaze, to see opportunity and to to avoid preventable problems. Because again, we got to get the anxiety down so that we don't have in the neuroanatomy, that's not my specialty. But if it's a neuro cortex override, then we start to become too analytical, we start to paralyze or timing gets
off. So again, I'm not a big fan of that I'm a big fan of standing of receivership. To see and sense and take action, based upon what we see is in front of us and not believe well, actually, I think that hyper focus is also based on fear sometimes, because if I don't get this right, then catastrophe is on the other side of this. So we go in there, we make some way too important. And then we botch
the simplest thing. Whereas during the week, if you didn't care about it, you could probably execute it with your eyes closed. So, you know, we have to desensitize the anticipation of of things to have a chance of reality, to actually demonstrate our best capacity as relates to achieving tasks that are part of perhaps even a larger goal. That's the way I see it.
¶ Understanding the neuroscience behind flow and its impact on performance.
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, you can definitely burn out from hyperfocus catastrophize, like you mentioned, and then get that rejection feeling because you are totally dopamine deficient at that point, you've just totally burned out, and then you you're overwhelmed. Again,
focusing with clarity on something that has to go right. While maintaining poise. People could say that that's hyper focus, I do agree that if you're doing eyes surgery on somebody, you better be present. But you also better be really relaxed, because you're not going to get a second
chance of doing it. Yep, correctly the second time, then, particularly in terms of performance, as well that initiating a process is the security that someone needs to be confident that you can carry the process out to its desired conclusion. And sometimes we are too tight mentally, and we placed way too much emphasis.
And when you start thinking, you can't think fast enough to integrate all the processes that have to go right to seamlessly execute a single action that's required to keep the process moving forward. So that would be my definition of what some people would consider hyperfocus to be. But the idea of riveting your eyes on something, as I said earlier, that's not been my experience that is proven to be useful almost at any time, quite honestly. Gotcha.
So talk to me, because I know that you've coached the king of flow, Steven Kotler, talk to me about the difference between flow, King and focus?
¶ Differentiating between flow and focus, and the concept of holistic body harmony.
Well, there's two different things. I mean, one could be neurologic through the classic nervous system, you know, and everybody thinks the nervous system was everything that controls and coordinates every structure and function in the body. But that's not true. Because the nervous system doesn't go everywhere. It's not attached to everything. And yeah, it does give us a certain level of conscious awareness. And it does support a control of muscle interactions, cooperations and other things
like that. But, you know, there's other kind of elusive sides to this, that science has clearly informed us up, but it's not part of the neural doctrine. So again, you know, the idea of flow is really more of a harmony between all the cells in the body, essentially, if we kind of reduce it to the cellular level, where all the cells in the body are talking to each other simultaneously and there, they have agreed to work together so that all the systems can work as a single unit, not as
independent entities. And when we come from that place of unity, then performing greater than the sum of the parts as possible, okay? It's really the same biology of spontaneous healing because when all the parts of the body are in synchronicity, then you get an exponential result. That's an emergent property of the harmony of all the parts there. So they're, they're distinctly
different. And when we talk about flow, again, we're talking about whole body and There's a whole other level of science, I mean, one of the ways it's been very well established is that the way that all the cells talk to each other simultaneously is to light. Because every cell generates light, 634 nanometers. That's kind of universal cell, little laser light that's in the visible light spectrum that carries information that allows the cells to talk to each other.
So, you know, if we get too much into the cognition side of it, then we kind of shut down that other channel. And I think everybody knows that one of the tenants of flow is that you got to get out of your head thinking, well, here's here's a really important part of that. Because what we're thinking and what we're doing don't happen in
real time. Like, when I'm looking at you, I'm seeing you as you were a quarter of a second ago, because the science has been done that when an image shows up, and it takes a quarter second, that's a lot of time for us to kind of register that through the optic nerve, when my foot hits the ground. If you time it, it really happens in a half a second, but somehow I experience it in real time where the nervous system is kind of
rearranged things in time. It's called like, retrograde assembly of time to make it seem like it's now in it's not. And that's the reason why we try to calculate control time consciously, through our will. We can't sometimes even do the simplest task up to speed figure skater that in practice, when they're not caring about anything, and they're executing to do a quadruple, whatever. And then when they get into competition, man, I got to do
this really well. Now I got to control this man, they got to make sure everything happens, perfect timing, anxiety turns, yeah. And they try to think their way through it. But the neurologic time is not real time. And so the timing is completely off. And that you know, and they fall in everybody looks well, why did that happen? Well, because you know, flow and neural time are like two different things, quite
honestly. And that's what you got to train because it's hard for people to give up their idea of control, if I don't control this, and how's it going to happen? Well, that's why your preparation matters, because to the extent at which you're prepared, and you structure preparation will determine the flow or the integration of all the body parts to create a movement that represents the capacity of the entire body. So
you are talking to the scientists out there. I know that for the layman people who are listening for the ADHD layman people, hopefully you got that look it up if you don't understand what Dr. Spencer's talking about. But it's really it is important to understand the neuroscience behind flow.
¶ Recognizing signs of flow fatigue and the importance of timely disengagement.
Steven Kotler wrote a great book, The Rise of Superman. And that would be a really good book to read to get some insight into that. Steve was a wonderful human being. And it's a beautiful book that he put together.
I've taken his course. So I am a hard charger. And I also get flow from starting my mornings just relaxed, and doing something that's constantly, you know, reading a book or nothing that is chaotic. I think that a lot of us ADHD are our hard chargers, where we need intensity to get us into a flow step flow state. And I'm just curious, because sometimes it's not good to overtrain how does that syncope? Well, overtraining.
Kind of what that really means, though, is that you're inducing neuro fatigue, and muscle fatigue, you know, they're not the same thing, neural fatigue, because nerves are finite, and they have a structure, they have synapses, excetera, they're subject to fatigue as well, neurotransmitters, etc. So, again, you can have neuro fatigue, and if you continue to train when you're have neuro fatigue, your nervous system is actually learning to go slow, because it's going to remember
what you which actually last digit, it's always better to walk away is the first sign that you're starting to slow down a little bit. Because you don't want the body to slow. Like in athletics, or in life itself. A split second could be life or death, quite honestly, in a car. I mean, how fast to turn away from a guy that runs a red light, if you're tired, while your reaction times may not be
there. So I feel that there is that component that we should at least be mindful of as it relates to that.
Yeah, I appreciate that. So for someone who gets into flow state, if you're in flow for a long period of time, from what I understand from Stephen, it can when you get out of it be exhausting, so you need to do Do things to, like 15 minute walking or whatever, so you don't burn out? Can you explain because in hyperfocus, too, and I know we're talking Brain Body and separating the two, and hyperfocus, you can burn out
also. So what are some strategies that you would suggest for people after they're coming down from a flow state?
¶ Strategies for recovering from intense flow states to avoid burnout.
Well, I, first off, say that when you're in a flow state, that is probably the highest state of euphoria, a human being could be on. And you don't want to give it up. So you stay in it as long as you can. And as it starts to deteriorate, you stay with it. And you can put yourself in a significant deficit by trying to hang on way too long. So you have a prolonged recovery, that may take twice as long to get back to where you could have been had
you just walked away. But why would anybody, especially an ADHD person want to walk away when they're in euphoria? You know, so exactly feel like advice I gave to an athlete once you can win the Olympic gold medal because he was favored to win the gold Olympic gold medal. But I said, The problem is, is that your fitness today is where it needs to be in two weeks. You're too early on this. And I said, Tonight, I think you could break the RECORD WORLD RECORD
tonight. I said that. I'm going to suggest though, that you take your shoes off and go home, because you're too early. And I know what you're going to be thinking you're gonna go there and say, Wow, if I broke the world record tonight, just imagine what it's going to be in two weeks. And I'm telling you, you're not going to be able to do this because these moments of extraordinary peak performance are a rare, that's not that we can't have regular flow, regular
flow. And the sublime peak performance events are slightly different. But what I do know is that what it takes to do it, the body and mind have to be fresh. You cannot generate freshness. If you're in the non recovery Hurt Locker. And if we're not recovering day to day, then we're creating a low grade deficit over time. And that can end an illness and injury, decreased performance, where we may not trust ourselves, or we may think that Well, you know, my ability to get into flow was
a one off thing. I just lucked into it. That's not really me. So the confidence drops and our ability to duplicate that. And the hardest thing ever is to ask somebody to walk away. That's like having a piece of chalk. Okay. It's almost in the mouth and telling you put it down, put it I've been smelling literary, you asked me to put them chocolate cake down? Well, in a certain sense, we just need to be mindful of these things that, you know, because we live in a physical universe, of space,
time, and energy. Those are all items that are stored in a tank that have only so much capacity to perform at any point in time before they need to be like replenished. And it's important that we replenish it before we need to replenish it. Because if we don't do it regularly and periodically, then I mean, it's you could have adrenal burnout, all sorts of things that would require a force layoff of significance, we only get it back. So you're
sharing how detrimental it can be. If you don't stop yourself, when you're starting to slow down with flow. How does someone recognize, you know, physiologically, that their flow is slowing down, the reaction
¶ Dr. Spencer emphasizes the importance of preparation and restraint in high performance.
time is sluggish, you're thinking slightly less clearly. You're hungry or thirsty, performance, subtle performance decline, you're having to work a little bit harder to do what should become, you should be able to do from your experience, that it's taking a lot more time and
effort to do it. Baby this is another thing I want to add here with this is that high performers are also very superstitious, that they need a lot of assurance that I can perform at my best, which means that they're always testing themselves with the limit. And if you test yourself the limit all the time, then you're not really paying back the debt. Because you need that reassurance that everything's okay. So, it doesn't work like
that. There has to be a deliberate restraint built into the recovery before you need to recover or before you're aware of it. because if you get to the point where you got to do it, because you're forced to do it, then it's going to take 10 times as long. And why would it want to stop? If everything's so good? You know, it's a hard thing to reconcile. Right? Honestly, it's
almost like an addiction. Yes. I mean, it is. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, I know one of your clients is addicted to flow and to excite excitement. And I would, I would challenge our conversation by saying that so many individuals with ADHD are risk takers, and they push themselves to the extremity, and some of them are very, very successful because of it in certain areas.
Yeah. That's why I went like this.
They might be addicts. They might be billionaires, they might. But you're right, like family wise, they might be not doing well. So all their buckets are not filled. But they're obsessed with this one thing, and they become the most accessible person in that area. So what do you suggest to someone like that? Well,
¶ The risks of extreme risk-taking in ADHD and finding balance.
it depends on what the end game is. This the end game? Who has the most toys wins? Or is the tranquility of being there has to be a determination that which is always changing throughout a lifetime, too, by the way? Of what's the endgame here? What's the why behind all this? What's the payoff? And if we can identify that, then it's okay, well, then what do we need to do to get there? And what's the cost to risk cost of benefit? And let's take a look at it.
Depending upon your age and your history, you'll kind of determine exactly like what that is. But most people don't learn anything from history until they've had a personal experience. They're going to do it their way. But honestly, and I think that what's important though, is I tell my daughter, her name is Kim K, and our adopted daughter, great kid, man, we love this person. She's next to kin. She has an extra camera, that was the perfect
name. And I said, Look, you know, Daddy's talking about some, you're not gonna understand what I'm saying, I don't expect you to, I'm not telling you how to be hot Haven, I'm not giving you a lecture. I just want to put this out there so that when these circumstances arise, we need to come back and visit the topic. So I just kind of lay out like, what it is. And so hopefully, when they get to that place, oh, yeah, well, this is what dad said, I need to go
back and talk to doubt. Well, that's where we can then have the conversation about the choice. You know, like LANSA, tiger, they both have black eyes for different reasons. You know, so we're the conversations that need to be had early enough in life, to have a sense of what the tolerance and risks are to everything, maybe, my guess is probably not with most people. I mean, you may get yelled out by your parents do this, do that, I
get that. But at a deeper level, are we talking about outcomes early enough in a person's life where it becomes part of the culture and their exposure early? And I'm not saying crying wolf and avoiding every catastrophe are not what we're talking about? How do we embrace the best possibilities, to create a rich life of experience and leave a legacy of meaning and value. And, you know, the cost of a bad decision can be a
couple of decades. But honestly, and what I see like I've seen this a lot, I see this, I mean, people they blow themselves up by pushing too hard, too long, not enough sleep, thinking they can outrun the Boogeyman. And then somewhere between 38 and 42, it's either a heart attack or a stroke. It's a health event or a catastrophic relationship failure, or financial ruin. That puts them 20 years back, because
of what they lost. By thinking they could outrun the inevitable, and feeling like they were exempt from what history tells us to be true. And so I feel quite honestly, many of these conversations. They don't happen early enough in life, but it can't be done in the lecture style. And you as a parent, you better be a great example of what you're talking about, you know, to make it to
make it real. Life is an ongoing evolution, then there are two really important things that are really valuable that I think people need to know about in today's world that puts them at choice in a way that represents what life and life reality really does. You know, I'm not a scientist, I guess I sort of am
No, no my own way. But my job is as an empirical investigator of human potential that's vetted, trusted by many top achievers to craft the path for them forward, to manifest their best, but also to perpetuate that over time to create a legacy of value and contribution. History tells us a lot in history doesn't lie, but our mind and our emotions do play tricks on us, you know, through bias. And so my approach is really more from What does
history tell us about this? And what can we learn and apply proactively to seize the best opportunities, curate a momentum forward with flow and avoid preventable problems?
¶ Learning from failures and history to guide future decisions.
Yeah, what are the lessons learned from the failures that you've experienced?
Yes. Except, well, like, this is the reason why this guy succeeded. Because he decided not to do this, at this time where most people would do this, you know, that's the difference. Another way of looking at it,
what would be one thing that would, you would just say, live and die by this for people who want to be an elite performer?
¶ Dr. Spencer's crucial advice for aspiring elite performers.
The one thing that I would say? Well, there's a couple things that I would say. But if I only had one thing to say, I would say, give yourself the time to learn how to win. Because once you learn how to win, then you can create that extended life of value contribution that leaves a legacy that's memorable, and can serve as a case study for others. I think people are in way too much of a hurry to try to get to someplace too quick.
And that puts them in a place where the ambition may be correct, but what they're doing to get there may be premature. And then they mistakenly think they're the problem. When it's really not. It's just too much too fast. Patience. Yeah. But that's really fear based. So I would say that don't make your decisions out of fear. Make your decisions out of what history.
And what we know to be true tells us and play the longer game, not the shorter game, because again, I see this all the time people blow themselves up. They're their two biggest risks here. Actually, Mark Twain said that he said, it's not what you know, that gets you into trouble. It's what you know, for
sure. That just ain't so. And I see people, they just think because they think that it's real, I think it's really a good idea to confirm what you're thinking has a historical track record we could look at, and then we could decide from that. Most people feel again, I feel it, I think it therefore it does. And unfortunately, those people are the ones that have to repeat things a million times, expecting the outcome to be different. When it's not going to be different. We can take
whatever we want. But if it doesn't kind of match the reality what it is, it's still not what else.
Sure. And our friend, Dr. Ayman talks about that with a lot of negative thoughts. Great guy. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on successful with ADHD? Where can people find you if they're looking for strategies to become an elite performer?
¶ Where to find Dr. Jeff Spencer and his work.
Well, the best place to do it is to go to my website, www. Dr. Jeff spencer.com, the RJDFF, SP ncr.com. And if anybody's interested in having a conversation about where they are, and how to move forward, and I'll gotta say this, that My practice is dedicated to established founders, visionaries, and creatives that are looking to play their biggest game and to create a significant legacy based on that, and would love to hear what people have to say, and I might be able to support them. So
you're saying that it's not for people who want to live in a box?
Yeah, I'm sorry, you know, being an Olympian and calibrated towards goal. I can't get myself to say silver bronze medal. I'm not just getting the value of that. But it's just, it's not like calibration, you know, my best capacity is to be able to help people that have capacity, that want to make a difference, that are open to doing things in a way that will get them to where they want to get to appropriately in a way that leads to an expansive future and serving time, energy and
resources. That's really what I'm all about. Love it.
Well, thank you for your energy, your knowledge, your years of experience. I know this will touch a lot of ADHD years and people who don't have ADHD who just want to maximize their potential. Well,
thank you, Brooke has just really been a pleasure and just everybody remember, there's only one of you and all of creation you count. Build your life. Life based upon those things that you know that enrich your soul and spirit and you contribute to humanity. Thanks again. It's just a really wonderful conversation. Thank you, bro.
Thanks for listening to this episode of successful with ADHD. I hope it helps you on your journey. And if you need any additional support for you or a loved one with ADHD, feel free to reach out to us at coaching with brooke.com and all social media platforms at coaching with Brooke and remember, it's Brooke with Annie. Thanks again for listening. See you next time.