# How Distraction Almost Killed My Career

### **Why can’t I focus? Why am I so easily distracted?**

#### Most of us are drowning in meetings, zoom calls, emails, pings, and texts. With interruption lurking around every corner, it’s easy to wonder, “Do I have ADHD or am I just distracted?” For me, the answer is both. Not only do I live and work in today’s frenzied, overworked, constantly connected society, I also have an ADHD diagnosis.

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**_Me with Peyton Manning — yes, that’s actually him and no, I’m not really that short._**

As a child with ADHD I got good grades, had good behavior, and my teachers liked me. My parents chose to not medicate me, and for the most part, **I flew under the radar.**

For most of my early years, I compensated by being outgoing and social. But, ADHD was still there — I tapped constantly and I talked all the time. I was also tired, a lot. And, I could not make myself focus on tasks I wasn’t interested in (like piano practice — sorry, Mom).

It wasn’t until I had graduated college and started my own business that I came face to face with my diagnosis. As a young entrepreneur, I was doing what I loved most in the world: helping people discover, craft, and share their message with the world. Every day, I worked with NFL players, TV personalities, and Olympians to help them communicate better to their audiences. **It was my dream job. It should have been the best time of my life. Instead, I was miserable**.

There were so many tasks that daunted me. And when you’re a business owner, not being productive costs _you_. I felt it. When you're on your own, there's no hiding what the bottom line says.

The work itself wasn’t the challenge. In fact, I loved it. The problem was that I'd look up and see 43 different emails that I had started, two text threads going, four G Chat conversations (this was 2007 after-all), and meanwhile, I didn’t have a clue whether my checkbook was even balanced. I could not focus on the things that were critical to actually creating and managing a successful business.

**_The third “just checking in” email sent from NFL hall-of-fame client (I completely ignored the first two)._**

Communication was my passion, my entire life’s work. And now it was also destroying my business.

**Eventually, I hit a breaking point.** I was two weeks late on a major deliverable that I had promised a client — an NFL hall-of-famer, no less. What’s worse, the hall-of-famer was my grandfather’s favorite football player of all time. What’s _even worse_, is that same hall-of-famer had, at my request, just _recorded a personal video for my grandmother on her 90th birthday._ And here I was ghosting him. This is the _third_“just checking in” email he sent me — the previous two I completely ignored. He used a friendly tone — but it was a clear indictment.

**What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I get the work done?** I knew I needed to either get a grip on things, or move back home with my parents. Something had to change.

ADHD comes with some advantages, like the ability to hyper-focus. After this breaking point, I hyper-focused on figuring out what was going on with _me_, and what I could do to remedy it. Most recommendations that I found for self management did not work for me though. They actually made me feel further from where I knew I should be. After really diving into neuroscience and the ADHD brain, I learned some things about myself:

- **I’m affected by my environment**— I do well associating specific tasks to specific places. A clean desk and office make me feel more organized. I like background noise.

- **Motion is a great way for me to focus**— yes, I’ve even made a few work calls while I’m out running.

- **I’m good at focusing on what I like**— such as complex problems and strategic ideas.

- **I have a low threshold for what I find uninteresting** — sitting through boring meetings or trainings is excruciating.

- **I need sleep**— when I’m tired, my brain jumps around a lot more.

### **Our Entire Workforce Has ADD**

It turns out, I’m not the only one struggling. We all have a difficult time focusing on certain tasks. And, we all hate boring meetings. While not everyone has a diagnosis, some experts believe that our constantly-distracted, stressed-out, consumer-driven lives can trigger ADHD. Here are few stats that reveal just how [pervasive and costly distraction is](/content/cost-of-distraction-infographic/index.html):

- **Workplace distractions cost cost $600B per year**  
- **31 hours per office, per month, are spent in unproductive meetings**  
- **The average person checks their phone 150 times per day (that’s about once every six waking minutes)**  
- **20% of workers spend over an hour per day on social media while at work**

The effects reach into our personal lives too. We spend 60% more time connected to digital media than we do in conversation with our significant other. A study on workplace stress found that the more pressure we feel to be available, the more likely we are to take sick days.

### **The Way Out**

Since those early days of my career, I’ve been on a journey to answer the question: **_what does it look like to thrive in an age of constant distraction?_**

Using myself as the lab rat, I have experimented constantly with new approaches to manage and focus my own attention. I have spent thousands of hours researching and interviewing CEOs, managers, and employees. I have partnered with experts way smarter than me. I wrote a [book](https://amzn.to/3HwSCH1). I travel throughout the US and Canada [speaking](/content/speaking/index.html) to organizations about how they can improve their companies by creating habits and environments that protect focus. And in my role of Head of People and Culture at [Venus Aerospace](https://www.venusaero.com/), I get to implement what I’ve learned to help create a culture that prioritizes undistracted work.

There is no easy answer to overcoming distraction. But realizing that we’ve lost the ability to control where we put our attention is a start. Here are a few of my favorite resources to help individuals and organizations get started on the path to regaining that control and harnessing the power of human attention:

- [**Drowning in Meetings and Messages**](https://www.forbes.com/sites/curtsteinhorst/2022/09/30/drowning-in-meeting-and-messages-3-ways-to-improve-your-work-equation/?sh=765c7467760d) **— Forbes article**  
- [**7 Tips for More Effective Meetings**](/content/tips-for-effective-meetings/index.html) **— Infographic**  
- [**FocusFit Challenge**](/content/focusfit-challenge/index.html) **— Our signature professional development program teaches the focus skills necessary for more engagement, productivity, and satisfaction at work**  
- [**How to Enjoy Work Again (No, Seriously)**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVe8CNWRDZk) **— My debut TEDxTalk**