Peter Shankman

Anyhow, yesterday morning saw me getting up at my usual 4am time, but due to a cat who decided to throw up all over the apartment the night before, (including on my open suitcase) I had to spend a ton of time cleaning up and repacking, so I wasn’t able to get on my Peloton before leaving for the airport at 6am. But I know myself, and I know that if I don’t get the dopamine flowing before I get on the plane, I’ll pretty much be useless throughout the flight, and I had a ton of writing I wanted to get done. I found a small area of Terminal C at Newark Airport that wasn’t busy, and dropped for 100 pushups, and 10 minutes of planks. I told him that I have massive ADHD, and by doing pushups before my flight, I can substantially change my brain chemistry, allowing more dopamine, serotonin, and adrenaline into my brain, thus making me work harder, longer, and better, straight through my flight.

Unfortunately, it’s time to bring it up again, because in the past week, three of my friends and I have talked about depression, burnout, and the like, and so I know it’s not just me. It’s awesome to go after something you love, to work really, really hard at it, to learn from your mistakes and setbacks, and eventually to succeed. My ADHD, which allows me to run at a million miles an hour while doing 50 different things, is also the cause of some of my darkest moments, moments that in the past have involved too much alcohol, stupid decisions, a feeling of hopelessness, a feeling that things simply won’t ever get better. I know that things do get better, if you work at it, listen to those who are trained to help you, and allow people in.

Do you happen to know your mobile phone’s hotspot name? Let me put it another way: How much money has your phone’s mobile hotspot name made you in the past four years? Did you know that if you go into the “settings” section of your mobile phone, you can rename the mobile WiFi hotspot that’s built into your device? I’m talking about the thing that lets you get WiFi internet to your laptop from your phone.

Happy Friday morning from Boston, MA, where I gave the Stanley P. Stone Distinguished Lecture last night at my Alma Mater, Boston University. It was an insane honor, since, let’s face it, my undiagnosed ADHD throughout my college career kept me closer to “just barely passing my classes” than “dean’s list. I’m humbled to have been chosen to give the lecture last night, and I truly hope the stories I told resonated with students who might be teetering on the edge, like I was almost 30 years ago. That’s when I got the following text message from T-Mobile: