Learning To Code With ADHD

If you have ADHD and you're looking for strategies to be successful with your learning to code journey, this episode is for you.

Henry Lam (guest):
Website - https://www.adhdcoachingnearme.com

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Transcript

Don Hansen: 0:13

Welcome back to another WebTab podcast episode where we help aspiring developers get jobs and junior developers grow. In this episode, we're going to be helping out people who may have ADHD, who are trying to tackle the developer path, and we're going to tackle some of the challenges and how to use basically your strengths to excel in this path as well. But what I'd like to cover today is you know how to excel in your actual learning to code journey and we might even be able to touch on how you can be effective in the workplace with ADHD. So I think there are enough people out there with this condition and I don't think it's a blocker for becoming a developer. So I decided to bring on Henry. He's going to talk about it, he's going to share some tips with us. But, Henry, I really appreciate you coming on.

Henry Lam: 1:03

Thank you for having me on Don.

Don Hansen: 1:05

Happy to do it, so I'm just going to be candid. So who are you and why should people care what you have to say about this topic?

Henry Lam: 1:16

I'm an ADHD coach for professionals and entrepreneurs and why you should care about this topic. Well, ADHD is one of the most amazing things on earth.

Don Hansen: 1:28

If you have ADHD.

Henry Lam: 1:29

No matter if you're a programmer, entertainer, an entrepreneur, you have so much creativity, so much passion, so much drive in. Whatever you're good at doing and when you can unleash the full potential of that, you can, you know, create amazing stuff in the world that people are so wowed at, whether it's amazing movie, amazing program, amazing art. Because life is short and ADHD people can leave such a big impact and there's many ADHD folks that are stuck because they don't have realization of how they can create a system and environment to help them become whatever they want to be and create amazing things.

Don Hansen: 2:22

Cool, okay, I'm going to love to touch on that system a bit more later. So has you so interested in helping people out with ADHD?

Henry Lam: 2:34

Yeah, so I'm so interested in helping people have adhd because I also have adhd. So I was undiagnosed for many years until I was 22. I was lost for many years and I was that lazy, smart student who almost failed calculus because it wasn't interesting and it takes a lot of practice. And I was good at math for most of my life until I hit calculus and at the same time I was stuck in being addicted to video games and other distractions, which many folks with ADHD they usually face that one time in their life or another, and I wanted to create something for myself, but I didn't know what. And I was obsessed with learning, though towards closest diagnosis, and I was becoming more myself, which I'm still trying to get back in touch with that because, you know, a lot of times the asian folks, they, they don't get to be themselves, they they get pushed by family and society to do this or that and they can't be themselves. One of the part is creativity, since society values just being linear and not taking risk, except for entrepreneurs. And so when I was discovering more about ADHD after getting diagnosed and getting help myself, I like huh I, I like, I like helping people, I like learning about adhd and psychology and self-improvement and biology and all that stuff, and I and I can apply my strengths helping problem solving, connecting with people, being personable to help ADHD folks realize their dreams and whatever else is in the way.

Henry Lam: 4:47

And because I was like, oh, I could be a psychologist or but I was like, sorry, like for many ADHD folks, they don't want to.

Henry Lam: 4:53

Sorry, like for many ADC folks, they don't want to be stuck in a system or follow rules unless they have structure, good structure that supports them, and that's fine, like a video game has a good structure to support you to get where you want, and that's what ADC folks need. They need some sort of structure. So, me being, you know, helping them be their guide to wherever they want to go. And we're trying to create their own system and environment, like their own video game, to get where they want. And it takes time because it's just like one person trying to create something is already a lot and two person working it makes it easier. It just takes time. Everything's time, like programming takes time and figuring out your old habits that you're trying to break away from and whatever other challenges, whether it's sleep, eating, exercise, all that stuff it all takes time, so being being that you know light bringer to ADHD folks is such a good experience.

Don Hansen: 6:04

Okay, I appreciate you sharing that.

Don Hansen: 6:06

You sound very interested. You sound passionate about this. That's awesome. Let's break this down. You've kind of included a couple almost strategies, um, initially, which we'll, I'm sure we'll dive into.

Don Hansen: 6:21

But I want to dive into the idea of, like, okay, so I have ADHD and there are going to be challenges ahead of me with learning to code, right, so, um, I I'd like for both of us to kind of just have a conversation, right, I can bring some expertise of what it's like to learn to code. You can bring some expertise of what it's like to live with ADHD and learn with ADHD. So I'm really curious to learn from you when so let's kind of start, I guess, a little bit more generically when you have ADHD, what do people with ADHD struggle with? A lot more in terms of learning and kind of like. Just think about, like, different structures of learning and whether, like, maybe they should seek out a certain structure, they should create one, they should create a system for themselves and what they should avoid. I'm kind of just curious to learn about, like, what is the experience of someone with ADHD with learning and what should they try to strive for to make that experience even better?

Henry Lam: 7:18

And what should they try to strive for to make that experience even better? Yeah, so learning. So with ADHD folks, there's folks that are inattentive, combined or hyperactive. So programmers usually lean towards inattentive and then some combined. So usually it's the inattentive syndromes, in both combined and inattentive, that causes issues.

Henry Lam: 7:39

And so with learning, so that could be difficulties with memory being forgetful, attention to details and hyper focus, which meaning they can spend hours and hours on something and forget about everything else which can be good for programming.

Henry Lam: 7:58

Spend hours and hours on something and forget about everything else which can be good for programming, it's just when you may be doing the wrong thing or you got off doing something else you enjoy, because maybe some parts of programming you don't enjoy, because it's not like you enjoy all of it, but you enjoy a lot of it, which is important.

Henry Lam: 8:14

So finding ways so you can stop your specific tendencies to get distracted, be forgetful, be disorganized with handling learning, because with programming there's always so many languages and new languages coming about, and that's one of the reasons why AC folks love it, because there's so many languages to keep learning and keep improving and being open, and AC folks are more open too. So learning how you can create the system to stay focused, like one language at a time, one tab at a time, which can be difficult, etc. And finding out your learning style, whether you're a visual learner, whether you're an auditory learner, etc. So, of course, we're trying to make a custom system to you, because there's different things that you're more interested in doing, because there's like 100 million ways to pay attention better, but you're only going to be like interested in a few of them. So, figuring out what works for you and consistently, you know, using that or switching things up to help you continue learning better.

Don Hansen: 9:34

All right, do you mind if I give you a scenario?

Henry Lam: 9:38

Sure, all right. Do you mind if I give?

Don Hansen: 9:40

you a scenario, sure, so I I hear that, um, people with adhd are more open to learning and I I guess I want to understand this a little bit more before I give this scenario. But when you say open to learning, it sounds like you were implying that they are open to jump into a bunch of different languages. When and if they want to learn a single language and stick with it for a long time, they have to build a system. Is that true?

Henry Lam: 10:11

if it depends on the person, but generally yes, because if you get bored of it or it gets harder, then you want to jump or something becomes more interesting. Then you want to jump and you know having some strong restrictions or pressures and why you're doing it and reminders and um feedback. You know that you're you're feeling good about it to keep going because the yes, you can focus for hours, but sometimes it's like that's if there's like good pressure, whether it's a deadline of urgency and accountability, or that you really really like it or you really make solving so many problems but if you're not, then sticking with something can be really challenging. So so, like in video games, there's usually a lot of repetitive stuff, but there's always feedback and if you're not getting that, when you're doing something that with, especially with hd, then it's like I don't want to do it. It's like it's too much struggle, too much complexity.

Don Hansen: 11:11

I don't want to keep going and so that's the tricky thing where I see a lot of successful people that are trying to become developers. They learn to love that struggle, they learn to love that complexity. They and I've said this before you kind of have to be, you have to enjoy the pain, the mental pain that comes from, basically, you know, beating your head for two hours straight on the same bug that ends up being a typo or it ends up being like a weird small conditional thing, and then you have to kind of just feel victorious that you finally found this thing that has been eating at you for so long. You have to find some enjoyment, you have to find some aha moment with that, and I think a lot of developers they you know it's hard to suggest how they do it, but I think you have to develop some grit to just know this is going to be mentally painful for a little bit. You have to accept it, like you said, like you have to know why you're doing it right, like you really want to become a developer. You have to back yourself up with that reason.

Don Hansen: 12:25

But I think my concern with people with ADHD is they're not going to follow through long enough to be able to get to those aha moments, to be able to actually like overcome those challenges, because you can't just enjoy the frustration, you have to get to the victories and sometimes those victories are very far away. So I'm wondering how people with ADHD I guess like maybe we could talk about, I mean, any strategies you have on, like, let's say, you know you faced a bug for a day straight right, let's say three hours one day decide to pick it up the next day. You spend a couple hours and you just are still struggling through it. You feel like you're making a little bit of progress. But how can we get people with ADHD to like push through to that finish line, to get that little dopamine hit at the end?

Henry Lam: 13:22

yeah. So persistence is is a very, very big challenge. So ADHD folks can be very persistent. It's just everybody has their own level of persistence, and for what thing? And you know, some of the most famous AC folks, or also some of them Asperger's or high functioning autism, which probably Steve Wozniak is probably high functioning autism and probably also ADHD is. You know, having that persistence Can can be very good in your career and having a comfort zone expand over time so you can be resilient and a lot of times with life a lot of things are too comforting and you don't create stress and pressure and and and reward yourself.

Henry Lam: 14:21

Even just self-talking and plotting yourself gives you dopamine and helps, you know, alleviate the. You know the pain of going through not getting that dopamine to the end. So you just like in a video game, you got to figure out whether I play music that helps me focus, whether I exercise before, whether I find a way to fidget while programming, whether I sip something I enjoy, finding ways to get dopamine and to enjoy during the process and before. So you have dopamine in your brain so you feel better about doing it. That's a lot of things in life for AC folks. It's like you got to create dopamine before it's like an athlete. You got to warm up for the activity and then also recover after activity and repeat and rinse. So making sure you're in the right mindset before you get into the game and after game, analyze what you did well, what didn't go well, applauding yourself because you need more freaking. Applauding because video games are ridiculous. They just repeat like the five same phrases over and over again and expand of two, four hours. If you're playing two, four hours and it's like it sounds silly, but you got, if you do it yourself, even you listen a recording. You know a lot of programmers. You know they put on a headset and then go, go, go. If you just put some recordings of you applauding yourself every so often, you're going to feel better about doing it.

Henry Lam: 15:58

And self-talk is very important because you know programmers. They can, especially asian folks. They can get into negative self-talk like I'm not good enough or I'm lazy or etc. So having that feedback loop helps endure that pain better. So finding what ways to keep bringing that feedback loop so for me, I say to myself I'm resilient, capable, unstoppable, I'm getting better every day and day, and things of that nature to help keep you going, because if you don't visualize success or feel like I already won this interview, I'm successful, I already had the interview, you're already winning the game. So if you think you already achieved it, you're going to be more likely to feel better during it. So you can easily trick your mind to feel whatever you want to feel, because the mind is a magical thing and, just like computers and those, you know, it's like all this is magical.

Henry Lam: 17:10

So if you, you know take, you know use curiosity for yourself, you know about understanding yourself, how you can feel better about this, asking questions, you can start, you know creating bigger comfort zone and that you're not afraid to take on stress. And part of that is also getting away from bad addictions video games and junk food and all that stuff, because that decreases your will power and your stress, tolerance and comfort levels with dealing. You know the struggles. It's like three days of the same thing. I mean, for, like, example, one of the most famous inventors, thomas edison's, like how many times they had to go through to invent the light bulb.

Henry Lam: 17:57

It's like so many things and of course, there's different examples also in the programming world. And it's like you gotta start. You know building. You know stress tolerance every day if you want to be successful at anything. And just sometimes, you know, just taking you know a step back, know saying I did a great job, I showed up, I showed up Most AAC folks, you could go into a new language, you could be learning even Japanese or something. Instead of doing programming because it's more enjoyable, I mean you could record I'm wonderful in Japanese and this and that I mean that's better than nothing. And and then program, so making, making the situation better, what you can control, because you feel like it's out of your control, the, the bug. It's like, okay, I will get there or not get there. You know you can choose what you believe, and so yeah, Okay, I like the.

Don Hansen: 19:01

I mean, I like a lot of the advice that you're giving can be applied to everyone, which is cool, but it sounds like people with ADHD really could benefit from a lot of this advice. And so you'd mentioned self-talk. I like the idea of basically visualizing and you hear this a lot visualizing yourself as already being successful. You want to become this person, you are this person. You do that through mantras and I think they're effective. They've been effective for me, seeing them be effective for other people.

Don Hansen: 19:33

But essentially, you're right, there is a lot of negative self-talk and when we allow our emotions, when we attach emotions to that self-talk, that is negative. That's when it really gets bad and we convince ourselves to stop and not do this thing that we know is going to be good. But at the moment it doesn't feel like we should pursue this because that feeling of angst, that feeling of doubt is just strong in our emotions. I'm kind of curious. A few questions, but just a quick question. Do you feel like, because you're talking about self-doubt and people with ADHD can it sounds like frequently start talking themselves out of doing something and they'll stop that activity, they'll stop whatever they're pursuing right? Do you feel like like a mindfulness meditation is beneficial to people with adhd yeah.

Henry Lam: 20:27

So mindfulness meditation would be very helpful to help you settle down your, your mind and body. Gives you, gives you dopamine, and and then you can take a pause and reevaluate yourself. You know what's going on. You know self-reviews are very important. You know, did I eat? How am I doing? Am I doing the right thing? Did I forget the most urgent thing I planned, et cetera, is very important. The most urgent thing I planned, et cetera, is very important.

Henry Lam: 20:59

And making mindfulness meditation more you, or make it more physical and scheduling those frequently will help you tackle anything in life and especially with ADHD, because you can get easily frustrated.

Henry Lam: 21:13

Real quick, real quick and if you don't have enough dopamine and reminders to hey, just the cycle of in and out and just being, you know, more in touch with your body, just practicing that daily, just little things and little places where you can trigger yourself to breathe.

Henry Lam: 21:51

It doesn't even have to be, you know 10 minutes, 20 minutes, but you know, the more you do it for longer, the more you get in the period. Just, you know before you, you know you do that, you know, tackle that challenging bug again. You know you breathe one time, two times, three times, four times, five times. It's like I got this. I'm doing, I'm going to do a great job. I'm going to keep going, it doesn't matter if I don't get it, I'm going to breathe in positive. You can also, when you visualize, you can breathe in positive, so think about positive energy coming in. And then, when you breathe out, you can breathe out whatever negative self-talk or the struggles of struggles, of this bug, etc. And just having that cycle of breathing will really help them get through stuff okay, seems like self-talk is very important.

Don Hansen: 22:51

um, do you feel like so you had mentioned, mentioned kind of setting yourself up before you dive into this kind of activity? That's going to require a lot of focus and there's duration and they're going to have to sit there and focus on this thing for a while. Do you feel like like watching a motivational video of like what it's like to be a developer or something like that would be beneficial before you dive into the code?

Henry Lam: 23:17

Yeah, well if it, if you feel like it helps you. If, if it doesn't, then maybe not. So some things people might do instead. It's like quick exercise, a quick mario kart race. You know, putting on a timer, having accountability, buddy, whatever it is to help get you in the zone is important. Whether you know any of that can work. If it works for you and you can do it consistently, or you randomly pick things, depending on you. You know, of course you know some things. There's a variety.

Henry Lam: 23:55

So when you learn how to harness quickly the get in the zone mentality, which there's so many ways, even just squeezing your abs gets your eyes to start dilating and you get into focus mode. Or even turning off lights and opening your eyes gets them to dilate. So figuring out how you're going to consistently get into zone even throwing darts or throwing a basketball or even watching something move up and down, tracking things with your eyes can help you get in the zone. And using your body also along with it helps it even better to get in the zone, because if you don't prepare yourself, then you're're not going to program as well as you could. But you got to warm up the engine before driving to help it work much, much better. So you think of yourself the same way. You got to take care of this body and take care of this mind if you want to perform well in whatever you're doing for a long term, because a lot of programmers they can burn out from any stage because they're not taking care of themselves yeah, that's fair.

Don Hansen: 25:08

I think that's a message for programmers without adhd, just programmers in general. Um, a lot of programmers just live on caffeine and just they're desperate for it and yeah, that's a that's a problem for a lot of people.

Don Hansen: 25:24

So part of so I like this setup. So basically, you're talking about taking care of your um, taking care of your body, and you know that that can branch into a bunch of different things like eating healthy, getting sleep, a little meditation if it does help you, but, you know, just taking care of yourself and also prepping yourself. It's also a self-talk and it's kind of like prepping your mindset to just be successful and then go into that conference room and give this amazing speech, go and like, sit down in front of that computer and, like you know, make progress, hit your goals for that day. Like you know, make progress, hit your goals for that day. So I'd like the pep talk initially Because, again, like, a lot of this feedback is probably helpful for some people that are just struggling with motivation in general.

Don Hansen: 26:16

But there's a part of grit and resilience that's built up by accepting that this thing is going to suck and I'm going to do it anyways.

Don Hansen: 26:25

And I feel like people with ADHD are going to have a harder time pushing themselves through that phase to build that grit and that long-term focus which is going to eventually show them they can do it, because I think a lot of people with ADHD are more capable than what they think and it's about showing them that a lot of people with ADHD are more capable than what they think and it's about showing them that.

Don Hansen: 26:46

But what I mean like you can only do so much to boost dopamine and get, get you motivated Do you feel like? Do you feel like a lot of ADHD people are capable of just sitting down for two hours and experiencing frustration and a little mental pain to learn a bit and grow from that bug that they're facing? Do you feel like they have that without a system? Do you think people with a lot of or sorry, a lot of people with adh people are capable of that for hours without these little tricks beforehand? Or do you really think they should strive to lean on a system, to try to lean on setting themselves up for success?

Henry Lam: 27:39

yeah, so, yeah, so you know it's a tough question and it's, I guess it's why MMV, you know, depends on the person. His health you know, his conditioning in life you know, and their you know intelligence and different you know little things about them that, hey, how long will you stick with that and keep going? And you know, maybe they already have some coping mechanism, because Asian folks, no matter what, they, have some coping mechanism some good, some bad to help them get through whatever they're getting through. It's just, maybe it's not as good as it could be if they had someone help refine it to get where they want. And so you know, having feedback and watching, you know behavior is like driving. It's like, ok, after you learn driving, who watches you? Nobody, it's just you. Who watches you. Nobody, you're, it's just you. And it's like there's no feedback to fix any bad habits that you created. Um post, just you know, seeing a guy a couple hours to learn driving, or your parents, it's like no one. You know you develop bad habits and stuff. So it depends on the person. It's just in general, if you have a talented boxer, if he has a boxing coach, he's going to get farther and refinement and keep getting better and better. It's just when he's solo it's tough to keep persisting. Because A-Shi folks, they're even more motivated when they have urgency, accountability and deadlines. Those things really push people to do what they do. That's why the emergency doctors a lot of them have ADHD because they were passionate about becoming a doctor to save people and they get adrenaline rushes saving people. And there's this urgency, accountability and deadline and that's what people are looking for when they drink caffeine. It's stress.

Henry Lam: 29:50

Caffeine is giving stress, and Adderall and all the stimulants are giving you stress too. It's just even stronger than caffeine. It's just when you take that too much it really wrecks your sleep and and your in your sleep cycle and especially taking after 11 am and you're just, you know, relying on that with like hey, sometimes you can't keep going because you don't do as well. When you keep going and you're exhausting your system and your focus and your mood and all those things, it you know keep pushing the horse when it doesn't want to go anymore. It needs to relax so it can regenerate. So, you know, it depends on the person. It's just a lot of people. Yes, it's caffeine. For AC folks it's caffeine. Or constantly listening to some fast music or whatever it is to keep them going, which is just stress. It's just stress and you know it's too much, too much stress and you're gonna burn out.

Don Hansen: 30:50

And you know, have have other issues then, too, to deal with okay, um, let me, let me go ahead and give you kind of a scenario of just a bit of an effective strategy. As a developer, I kind of just want to hear with adhd, um will lean on taking stimulants that do increase stress and I I think a lot of them probably need to hear the message that, um, a lot of them do continue to push themselves extremely hard and this is not. This is for non-adhd people with caffeine's, for developers in general, where people need to listen to their body and you can stress your system and it has. It'll actually just slow you down long term. So I really liked that you said that.

Don Hansen: 31:54

But here's a bit of a strategy of trying to become a developer. Let's say you're going through like the self taught. You're going through courses, courses online. You're trying to learn how to code, but you are going to take a course that, um, hopefully, and I I would. I'm kind of just going to give a strategy and you're welcome to pick it apart, but you would probably, with adhd, want to find something like extremely gamified, entertaining um, and you're going to go through this course, but the, the strategy to reinforce this knowledge really needs to be like okay, I went through this module. I learned this, I learned these fundamental concepts. Now I need to step outside this course and maybe this is beneficial. You know, maybe you know you're just getting bored of going through that same course over and over. Maybe this is beneficial to switch it up. But you go through the course and then you learn some stuff and then you build something small with it, right, you get a little exercise to reinforce this concept. Then you jump back into the course, you do it again, you do it again, you do it again, and this building on the side takes your mind out of the context and it will kind of like you do switch contexts a little bit. What I usually recommend is like and I forgot to say this you go to the course module, then you articulate out loud what you just learned so it's another way to reinforce these concepts. Then you apply it, right, so basically you teach it.

Don Hansen: 33:11

We talk about this concept of a rubber duck. You put it on your desk Once you learn that concept. You teach this rubber duck what you just learned to the best of your ability, and then you code it out and you reinforce what you just learned and then you go through the module again and again and again, where people get stuck as they just go through 50 hours of courses thinking they're going to retain everything they're learning, and it gives you dopamine hits. But that's it Like that, you're just getting dopamine hits, you're not learning, you're not remembering the stuff, you have to apply it to remember it. So do you feel like, well, there's going to be?

Don Hansen: 33:44

I'll split this into two halves. The first half is learning, maybe teaching that rubber duck and then applying it to like a little mini challenge, a mini project, and then you cycle over and over and over again and slowly you start working in the code more often than you're going to the course. That's like the first half of a new developer's learning journey. They're going to the course, but they have to apply these concepts outside the course, do you? What do you think about that process of like someone with adhd going through that? Does that work for people with ADHD or do they need to just go straight through that course 20 hours straight?

Henry Lam: 34:27

Yeah, so what you just illustrated here is very good for ADHD. So we're trying to help you absorb the knowledge by helping you not just go through all of it, just having you do hands on, because because ht folks I mean programmers like to build, engineers like to build so you got to. You know make stuff if you want to, you know get dopamine and you want to see results and and so it's like it gives like instant gratification and of course, same time, ht folks, we can go hyper, focusing on 50 hours of the courses um, some of us yes, some of us no. It's just. Then you're like you don't have anything to show for it. So it's like going 50 chapters calculus and not practicing calculus. And it's like you're going to take calculus tests and you're going to fail because you didn't practice the problems. And then, when you bring up teaching, you know first to you know which is what humans did was teach others is the best way to learn in general, so it's like that helps reinforce it. And then making a project, you know somewhat, and so it's pretty much like the basic, like how humans learn is like teach other, start doing it, teach others, start doing it. It's like teach other start doing it, teach others start doing it.

Henry Lam: 35:59

So having that a system where the ADHD programmer can, you know, feel good about becoming a programmer and not just, oh, you went for the book and that's it so, and then, of course, adjusting it to whatever their specific tendencies is like. Do you teach it to. You know, say you like one piece, you teach it to luffy, how to uh, how to code or whatever it is you just learned. It's like making it more interesting to you and you know, with all this, you know make it the project, the teach, like break it down. It's like when you, when you, when you say, okay, week one, I go for the course, then you know, weekend I do the project, or whatever it is like you attach, you know, make it more interesting, instead of saying, you know, go for the course or teach a duck, make it more. However, that gets your brain to light up whatever your interests and hobbies outside of coding, etc. And then you're going to enjoy it more and rewarding yourself that you did that. And like keeping track all these projects, like it's like. It's like you have a portfolio of successes, all these little projects, which, which is great, so just going for the book. You got for the book, but that doesn't. You know, it's like.

Henry Lam: 37:08

It's like writing about, um, creating, uh, uh, you know an artwork. Instead of just doing the artwork and have something to show for it, it's like you're gonna get satisfaction when people look at your artwork you track. Well, look at all this artwork I did so. You could have just done nothing and just dreamed about artwork. Instead, you made the art and that's what you need to.

Henry Lam: 37:35

If you want to be a great programmer, great artist, you need to create work and having a system, like you said, combined with their specific tendencies and some more accountability or however it is to help them keep going with doing that. And you know revaluating. You know, am I doing the right thing? And and you know how can I, you know, make this better, and you know. And then you know hear other people and and you know feeling, you know, part of a group instead of just, of course, you know that's. One problem with the programming is that it's just like if it's a solo event, it feels not as satisfying as like in a group, small group, um, to, to, to be successful and and learning well, or etc yeah, you can really feed off the energy of a group and I like what you emphasized, um, like you gotta build and you're gonna see progress when you build.

Don Hansen: 38:41

You're gonna be able to compare old projects, you're gonna see, kind of like this variety of projects that you've built or how big this project has become, and you can look back at that. And it's very hard to. Well, I mean, the thing is, maybe with ADHD ADHD people this isn't the case, but with people without it, a lot of them will look at the courses and look at, look at. I've spent 60 hours and I've looked at all these green check marks of this course, but that's actually extremely misleading. It doesn't signify that they've made significant progress in becoming a developer. So I like the recommendation to just build. And you had mentioned rewards. You'd mentioned to reward yourself, whether it's with a video game or something like that, something that's a little bit more personable to you. When you've achieved your goals, when you've achieved what you wanted to achieve, reward yourself. So I like that's all this really good advice. Again, a lot of this advice applies to people without ADHD and I think people would benefit from it.

Don Hansen: 39:44

So, when you start building projects, here's the tricky part right Becoming a developer. Like growing your skills is part of becoming a developer. The other part is, you know, like, if you really want to stand out in today's market, it's building up your self-branding, it's building up your LinkedIn-branding, it's building up your linkedin profile, it's interacting with other people. You mentioned this idea of you know, like programming can be lonely, which is true, and another reason why you should meet up with people, another reason why, like, go to a meetup in your local area. Like participate in a hackathon or something like that. Like actually talk to other developers in a discord, or but like self-branding in terms of like just get involved in the developer world and just share what you're working on right, um. Like host your projects on linkedin, show your uh, what you've completed, um, but that takes time, you know, because, like, learning to program is a very different thing than marketing yourself as a developer.

Don Hansen: 40:46

So you have to manage. You know, building up your LinkedIn profile, your resume, your presentation, interacting with the developer community, and you got to juggle, like actually doing company research and applying for jobs that are tailored to your projects, and like there's a lot of if you want to really stand out, cause it's a rough market right now. There's a lot you have to do outside of programming. Do you think people with ADHD are going to have a challenging time learning to code, which they should be doing all the way till they get that job and they learn on the job and balancing applying for a job and all of what all of that entails is it's it's a lot for people without ADHD. So I'm wondering do you think they're going to have a challenge with managing a variety of things like that or do they have strengths to be able to to tackle that?

Henry Lam: 41:48

yeah. So those things are very challenging. So a lot of things handle at once. Now we've not just got programming, you got all the other things so you can get the job and keeping up with it. So and developing a system using your strengths over time can help you get wherever you want. And organizing it through whether it's Trello Kanban system or Todoist or even something like Amazing Marvin, which is a very nice behavioral task management system you know very good for asia folks, because procrastination can be huge and being overwhelmed is huge.

Henry Lam: 42:32

So figuring out, hey, it's, it's okay, it's going to take time. And then self-talk and rewarding yourself and you know, learning how to manage your time and energy so you can hyper focus even on things you don't want to do. That's outside of programming. And get it done. And and when, you know getting the social group and you know as soon as possible, or having somebody to help, you know get feedback and improve what you're doing so you don't overthink it or underthink it, and then you're going to feel much better because it's like, oh, I got all these things to do. Well, that's like saying pretty much, I'm telling you to play 100 video games at once. No one's going to play 100 video games at once and you're just going to pick it up and look at it and do nothing.

Henry Lam: 43:30

So figuring out how to you know delegate stuff, stuff, how to use, like ai to help you, how to have someone you know analyze your whole behavior and habits and you know your weak spots and you know and things that they know already to help you.

Henry Lam: 43:41

You know be strategic and you know it's like you know focusing on the things that specifically with it's like you know focusing on the things that specifically with those things that could get you a long way, like your. You know your strengths in particular and you know in any of those categories or specific people that could really help you. You know just heck, if you volunteer and you meet a lot of programmers, it's like that's, that's great. Or or you know you join the hackathon or whatever it is, and you know you get connected. It's like, um, you know to somebody and it's okay, that's easier than all the linkedin hoops or whatever it is. So, finding out what you know you're comfortable with and start moving towards that, and having you know a plan and having feedback to keep going, Okay, I used to do as personally.

Don Hansen: 44:30

I've used amazing Marvin Um, but I know there are different trackers and and it sounds like organization is huge, very huge for people with ADHD and you could probably find a tool that's probably going to be the best fit for you. But organization and feedback seem like the crucial things that you really emphasize there. Um, and yeah, I mean like again, these are things I can improve on, especially organization, and I get overwhelmed when I don't feel in control and I start forgetting things that I need to do and I'm not. I don't feel like I'm able to prioritize things. Well, it kind of just snowballs sometimes and that can be a really rough feeling. But I mean organization, I think that's huge.

Don Hansen: 45:20

Ok, I feel like we've really touched on a lot of not necessarily like very specific tools, but we touched on advice on how to kind of build out a system and get yourself a little bit more organized and how to look for feedback, how to give yourself feedback, how to prep yourself for some of the longer hauls of programming, how to overcome some of the blockers that might come up and distract you and derail you, and things to watch out for. I think we covered a lot of good stuff for the learning we got about a few more minutes, but I'm really curious if you have any tips about like, okay, I got hired, I have ADHD, I have these challenges, I also have these strengths. But I got hired at a dev position. Now I'm expected to be able to perform and I got to answer to different people and I have deadlines and you know, maybe some of this is beneficial, maybe it's not, but what are some tips for people with ADHD once they do get hired in the workplace?

Henry Lam: 46:30

Yeah. So when you get in the workplace, you know first, you know expectations, assumptions, make sure you know you're aligned with the company and the managers and colleagues. You know. So you know, you know don't have anxiety or you know you do the wrong thing or you you're a people pleaser and you say yes, yes, yes, and it's too much for you to handle too many things that you can't do by yourself. And you know because delegating is very important and you know communicating, you know them, your needs and being confident about that. And creating you know deadlines more near when you put on a calendar so you can get things done earlier on important things. And having you know strong reminders and notification systems and blocking out distractions so you can stay focused on whatever you need to do and that can be a tough part. And making sure you have a good layout for your computer and your screens. And if you're remote then it's even tougher because then you don't have the people and it's like people going to lunch and you stop or you take it a little easy and then you come back, etc. No water cooler, etc. So you got to find out your specific system and your tools to help create that. You know feedback loop and keep track of everything and make sure you, you know, take actual relaxing, helpful breaks taking a walk, breathing, write down the good things you did, reevaluate what you did, doing some exercise to help increase focus, etc. Doing some stretching, setting up maybe a time in the day that you could do something you really enjoy for a short period, whether that's the beginning of the day, end of the day or the middle of the day. Like you know, creating some dopamine is very important, you know, especially when you're, you know, stuck on something for days and you don't feel any success and you don't feel any success. So, and you know, using, you know think about using your creativity and problem solving and challenge um interests and novelty interests to help you, you know, tackle the problem and so you can feel better about tackling that bug. You know just learn how to activate your brain to to use it more so you can feel better.

Henry Lam: 49:12

And you know, of course, doing stuff beforehand can help too when you're doing a little creativity thing or problem solving thing. You know, warming up that engine before you do things so you can be in the zone to to do, because you know we all have like things that we, you know, happiest time in our life or the projects we're really proud of. It's like getting some of that will help you push through the struggles of whatever you're dealing with. And, of course, in the beginning of programming, when your first job, it feels overwhelming all the stuff handling the people, the programming, and you know, living on your own or whatever it is. So you know figuring out as soon as possible how you can leverage your strengths and have feedback and a system to take care of everything so you can succeed in the workplace and not get on remediation, because that's a lot of the people who get on like performance review or remediation at work. It's like a good portion of them are hd folks and it's like you know it's it sucks. You know that you get put on performance review because you just don't have the system to help support you to get there.

Henry Lam: 50:25

And yes, you know you don't have to say you have ADHD, but it's like you know requesting, you know reasonable accommodations or, like you know, quiet workplace or flexible work hours which, of course, a lot of times it is flexible work hours nowadays or, you know, three days in office and et cetera, or figuring out how to recreate that workplace environment at home Be like this is a work desk.

Henry Lam: 50:52

I'm not doing the play stuff right now With your computer. It should not have, you know, distractions on it. You know whether you're using freedom or et cetera to keep it out and you go over there to relax and you go over there to play so and you go so. It's like having you know designated areas for everything, just like in a video game or anywhere else in life, is what you need to. You know it's like you can't. You know just even the browser of using brave, you can put on work mode versus play mode or whatever. Or you just, you know, even use a crappy computer to program, which you could. It's like you can't do anything else on there, just program, you know. So you know figuring out how can you set it up to be successful.

Don Hansen: 51:42

I like that. A lot of this advice really focuses on building a system to help you adapt and when you're confident with that system, you can succeed very, very well. And it sounds like just understanding your motivation and your and how to kind of hack that in your focus and what causes you to defocus when, to analyze, when you are focused a little bit too hard on something, how to be able to break away and analyze that. Maybe that's self-reflection, but yeah, it sounds like a lot of the strategies really revolve around truly understanding what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are with ADHD, and building a system to just give you success, which, again, I keep saying this over and over. But this is also beneficial advice for a lot of people, including me, People in general.

Don Hansen: 52:43

Even if you don't think you work well in a system, it's because you haven't worked well enough long enough in a system. Systems work. A lot of people are really designed to succeed in a system with a schedule and understand what your distractions are and being able to self-analyze all of this and it does help.

Don Hansen: 53:01

very successful people continue to be successful. So this is awesome, but I do want to be conscientious of your time. Just realized we're about a minute over and seriously, henry, I appreciate you sharing your perspective, especially with you have an ADHD. I think you definitely gave a unique perspective. I got to poke around, ask questions, but I really think this is going to be helpful for people. So you know people want to after this episode. They'd get them watching um, and maybe they're still struggling, um, and they want to reach out to you. Um, what socials could you share with us? And you know, anything else you want to share with us?

Henry Lam: 53:37

Yeah, so they can reach me at wwwcoachhenrylamcom. That's like lamb without the letter B, so or you can just reach me at adhdcoachingnearmecom, which is easier to remember. And one thing I want to leave is hey, you guys are amazing wherever you are in your life and you know there's hope, there's possibility, and you know you got this love it, love the motivation.

Don Hansen: 54:12

Henry, again, thank you so much for coming on. Um, if you do have adhd and this is something that you're struggling with or you've found success in building a system or in implementing certain strategies, like, definitely leave it below. Enough. People have this, where you are even leaving comments, and what you figured out is going to benefit other people watching this video. So, henry, stick around for a couple minutes, but thank you so much for coming on.

Henry Lam: 54:37

Thank you for having me.