Integration Exercise: Spot the ADHD

In this episode, Cam explores the unglamorous but essential side of ADHD — management and regulation — and guides listeners through an exercise to spot their ADHD in action. He begins with a reminder that ADHD challenges live in the executive function networks responsible for starting, stopping, shifting, and regulating effort, memory, attention, motivation and emotion. While these processes are rarely exciting, they are where ADHD truly operates — in the mechanics of everyday functioning. Cam invites listeners to engage with something meaningful but not urgent to draw out their ADHD and observe it at work. Using the “stone in the pond” metaphor, he explains that ADHD’s real impact happens at causation, not in the emotional or behavioral ripples we usually notice later. The work is to trace those ripples backward and notice where ADHD begins. He introduces the idea of a Fundamental ADHD Dilemma (FAD) — a repeating pattern that consistently derails progress. His own FAD, the Big Idea Generator, illustrates how divergent ideation leads to too many projects and not enough pruning or follow-through. By identifying these patterns, listeners can better understand how their ADHD shows up in real time. To support this observation, Cam shares his MOPT framework: Mindset – Approach with curiosity, not judgment. Objective – Identify your FAD or predictable ADHD pattern. Practice – Keep the exercise light; separate emotion from data. Tool – Use metaphors and visuals to see executive function at work. The train yard metaphor serves as the episode’s tool — representing the brain’s management system and how ADHD disrupts sequencing, switching, organizing, prioritizing and above all activation on the non urgent but relevant stuff. The goal isn’t to fix the system immediately but to notice its rhythms and derailments with awareness. Through this exercise, listeners begin the work of integration — redirecting ADHD strengths like curiosity and pattern recognition toward the inner workings of management and regulation. The payoff is subtle but profound: seeing ADHD where it starts, not just where it lands.