Today is May 1st, Beltane. What better time to review the status of my balcony garden?

As some of you know, I’ve blogged about my balcony garden since I first conceived of it. I’ve been looking at its progress (or lack thereof) as a metaphor for my life and in particular, for my ADHD symptoms.

Last year, the balcony was in dire need of repair. After having received numerous assurances from my former landlady that she would make the necessary repairs, she instead sold the property, as is, out from under my feet.

Marilyn Strong

I asked Marilyn Strong to assess my progress with implementing her Action Plan based on her book Getting Paid to Pay Attention.  Here’s what she said:

Zoë:

I’m so proud of you. I believe you did an amazing job this week. Good for you! Give yourself a high 5!

No one (except you) expects to get everything right, in the right order, the very first time you do anything. How many times did you fall off your bike before you figured out how to balance? Right. Once you learned how to balance you never forget how to ride a bike!

It’s the same with the using any tool or technique. There’s a learning curve. My job is to help you get through the learning curve in a very short period of time, not the 20+ years it took me!!!!

Zoë Kessler speaking at the ADHD Through the Lifespan Public Forum, with Dr. Timothy Bilkey, April 4, 2012, Barrie, Ontario, Canada

If I’m supposed to be getting paid to pay attention, I’m pretty sure my paycheck will be docked this week. Or at least that I’m on an apprentice’s salary because there’s no way I’m up and running just yet.

In this follow-up report to my April 3rd blog post, Solo Business Owner? Get Paid to Pay Attention!, I’m going to look for the positives in an effort to encourage myself to keep going.

Why? Because I’m still excited about Marilyn Strong’s approach, and I want to give it a fair shot. Quitting at this point would not only be premature, it would be unfair to me, to my business, and to Marilyn’s hard work.

Zoë Kessler speaking at ADHD Across the Lifespan, with Dr. Timothy Bilkey

Shhhh…. don’t tell Marilyn I said that!

I was supposed to have started her excellent program based on her book, Getting Paid to Pay Attention, this week. Hmmm…

Egads! What have I done? I’m thinking I picked the wrong week to start Marilyn Strong’s program for solo entrepreneurs.

I want to get organized and be more productive. Of course I do! But what was I thinking? I just don’t have a regular life right now. Ok, I’ve never had, and probably never will have, what you might call a “regular” life, but I was hoping that at least I could get a little structure going.

But no dice. Let’s take, for example, last night. According to my Action Planner schedule, the “Big Picture” includes a stop-work time of 6:00 p.m., lights out (to get my 8 hours of Zzzzzz’s) at 10 p.m.  Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha  ha…  Last night, I didn’t even get home until 11:30 p.m.

A month ago, a new resource for solo business owners with ADHD was launched. Heralded by both business and ADHD luminaries, including T. Harv Eker, author of #1 NY Times bestseller, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind; and Edward Hallowell, M.D., author of Driven to Distraction, and many others, Marilyn Strong’s book, Getting Paid to Pay Attention – Why Your Business Suffers from A.D.D. and How to Fix It is a slim volume that nonetheless packs a punch.

I especially appreciated Strong’s warm, personable, and encouraging tone, and her light-hearted sense of humor.

Diagnosed herself, Strong has experienced the unique and sometimes devastating challenges faced by an entrepreneur with ADHD. Like many (if not most) of us ADHDers, Strong is multi-talented, with a varied career path. Currently, she’s a solo entrepreneur, working as a marketing and business strategist and trainer (in addition to being the author of Getting Paid to Pay Attention).

Strong’s well-researched book gives a brief overview of ADHD, but focuses on the symptoms that most often plague our businesses: procrastination, distraction and hyperfocus. Her insight into these symptoms, and her ability to describe how they directly relate to our businesses, is a fresh new take on ADHD.

I was having a great day. Then, I sat down to fill out a form. It was a week overdue, but I called the company that was waiting for it, and bought myself more time.

Things were humming along grandly, then Whammo! I hit page two. Page two contained a line of legalese which meant nothing to me, yet I was supposed to check yes or no. Yes or no to a statement I understood about as well as I understood William Shatner in Incubus (shot entirely in Esperanto). It took three phone calls to find out that no one at the company wanting me to answer this question had any clue what it meant either.

“The writings and practices in The Now Effect don’t only come from my experience, but from the experience of thousands and thousands of people who have struggled with a whole host of life’s issues from stress and pain including anxiety, depression, ADHD, addiction and trauma.

Underlying the entire book is the aspiration to develop more playfulness with yourself and allow this to be a new adventure into your life.”

~ Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D.

Here at Psych Central we’re excited to congratulate fellow writer Elisha Goldstein, PhD, on the publication of his latest book, The Now Effect: How This Moment Can Change the Rest of Your Life (Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2012).

Dr. Goldstein, a clinical psychologist in private practice in West Los Angeles, writes a blog for Psych Central called Mindfulness & Psychotherapy.

As mindfulness meditation is seen to be an effective treatment for ADHD (when included in a multimodal approach), I decided to speak with Goldstein to find out if his latest book has something to offer those of us with ADHD.

Here’s our conversation (abridged for the purposes of this blog post).

I’ve written before about the work of Dr. Timothy Bilkey, a leading Canadian authority on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Bilkey has assessed over 3,400 patients for ADHD at his clinics.

This month, Bilkey has released his second full length documentary, Her Fast Mind. This film, useful to educators, families and physicians, as well as women with ADHD themselves, explores ADHD across the lifespan as it specifically presents in women. Bilkey debunks the myth of ADHD being a medical condition predominantly affecting males, and shows the important differences in ADHD in women and how these have led to women’s under-diagnosis.

The film includes interviews with special guests yours truly, and filmmaker Karen O’Donnell (A Mind Like Mine). It was produced by Six of One Productions.

If you’ve been following ADHD from A to Zoë, you know that my dog Sam has been a big part of my life. You’ll also know that she helped me with my ADHD, in many ways, not least of which by giving unconditional love, each and every day for 13 years. Who wouldn’t feel better with that in their lives?

The one time I try to plan!

I’m very sorry to say that last Friday (March 9, 2012) my sweet girl made her departure. Of course it didn’t happen the way I planned. It’s death, after all, who was I kidding? Trust someone who can’t plan her way out of a paper bag to think she can “plan” for something like this.

I’ve written a lot about how my dog Samantha is one of the best parts of my ADHD multimodal treatment. For those of you who don’t know, she’s diabetic. In a weird twist of fate we received our diagnoses (diabetes / ADHD) just months apart. I was still wrapping my head around not being able to maintain structure in my life when I was told that her life depended on structure.

Sam and I have managed, over the past six years, to maintain a regular routine of meals followed by insulin shots. About two years ago, she decided to up the ante by going blind. In response, I had to learn to focus. Big time.

If I didn’t, she’d walk right off the edge of the sidewalk while on a leash or careen into a tree, when running free. Either way, I’d end up feeling neglectful and guilty. What a great daily workout for developing my ability to pay attention!