Hands up (again) all our favourite “I think I might have ADHD” people 🙋‍♂️🙋‍♀️

For a lot of us, finding an explanation for things we’ve struggled with can be a huge relief. But a diagnosis doesn’t neatly absolve responsibility.

In last years Fink Tank about ADHD, we talked about the subtle difference between an explanation and an excuse.

It prompted more conversation, in the comments and real life, than perhaps any other episode last year. Clearly it’s a distinction people grapple with.

In today’s chat, Col opens with two magnificently simple questions he heard from Michael Port.

Do you know what to do?

Are you doing it?

For those of us who were “gifted” children who now struggle to maintain focus or see things through, this is a disarmingly simple provocation.

Because often, ADHD or not, we know what to do.

We’re just not doing it.

Enter parts theory.

I play the appropriately uninformed sounding board while Col talks us through a mental model which explains a lot of very human experience.

“Mate, I’m not here to be f*cken reasonable!”

- Some well-dressed guy at the football.

Being a parochial sports fan is one thing. Objecting to basic facts is another.

The guy next to us was so one-eyed I eventually said something. His response was perfect.

Because in that moment he wasn’t trying to be fair. Or even coherent.

He was being a rabid sports fan, and he was in exactly the right place. In his eyes, I was the unreasonable one. And he had a point!

We get to choose who we are depending on the context.

If we’re grounded in our values, we can match our behaviour to the moment.

You don’t need to be the same person everywhere. You just need to not be a fraud anywhere.

As Walt Whitman put it:

“I contain multitudes.”

PS. The guy at the end commentating on my shithouse plays is Dom Bareford. He’s a decent frisbee player and a LITERAL WORLD CHAMPION HOT AIR BALLOON PILOT.

“Cam, you’re smart enough to always be ‘right’, and I can’t be bothered anymore.”

Oof.

In our twenties, Col stopped talking to me for a few years. Fair enough.

Smart people aren’t less biased. They’re just better at explaining why they’re “right”.

That was me, and I was insufferable.

There’s a poster of fallacies and biases in Col’s toilet, and it prompted some terrible jokes and useful reflection:

If you’re always right, you’re definitely not.

I expressed my exasperation to Col’s 6-year-old son Deakin. His response was so funny it completely dissolved the tension.

Being funny is a great quality. Even if you’re not exactly sure what’s funny or why. In this Fink Tank, Col and I laugh about the nature of humour and why it matters in life and work.

Being stand-up-comedian level funny is beyond most people, for effort and talent reasons. But we think everyone is capable of adding a bit of humour to their repertoire.

Skip to 6:25 for some terrible jokes. Better yet, put your shit go-to jokes in the comments!

When I was 15, I stole an esky full of drinks from a random campsite.

Not exactly the heist of the century, but it felt huge in the context of my teenage attempts at rebellion.

I was fingered as the perp the next morning. I feared the worst, but the poor bastard whose beers I nicked had other ideas.

In this Friday Fink Tank I share a story Col had never heard. I definitely never told mum or dad!

My selfish teenage idiocy had wronged a good man. I was expecting humiliation and punishment.

Instead, he chose grace and forgiveness.

I don’t even know his name, but I’ve never forgotten him.

I came home to human poo in the driveway. Our fridge broke the same day.

Life will always have problems. Are they actually problems though?

In this Fink Tank Col Fink and I laugh about the human audacity to complain about things that were luxuries unavailable to even kings or queens only a hundred years ago.

In a great 2024 article about the quality of problems, Alicia McKay wrote:

Most of the problems I complain about are:

a) Entirely the result of my own choices

b) Actually a sign of progress and privilege.

Yours probably are too.

If you don't like your problems, get better ones.

If you already have good ones, but you forgot, this is your gentle reminder.

Well said Alicia, as usual.

What’s the poo in your driveway right now??

I rented an e-bike and shot myself in the foot.

By making life “easier” I accidentally made it less rewarding.If you run a business, it’s quite likely you love some parts more than others. In this Friday Fink tank Col Fink and I talk about the bits we love in our work, and the bits we like considerably less. And the difficulty of maintaining touch with the parts that light you up.

We admire the audacity of successful operators like Dr. Jason Fox (wizard) 𓃦, who stopped doing email, and Alicia McKay, who stopped taking meetings.

How's the balance in your work?

Did it hurt?

When you read something so profound it left you reeling. A book that laid your soul bare. An article that prised open your brain. A quote distilling the human condition to its essence. An idea so poignant it simply MUST be shared with your bestie. You buy them the book. You email the article. You forward the meme.

You anticipate deep connection, gratitude, shared metamorphosis.

Instead you get… meh.

Yeah. That hurt.

Sometimes the meh person is yourself, a few days or months later.

The Fink Tank is back! And we’re here to see the world not as it is, but as we transiently foolishly are.