ADHD makes you interrupt because you're excited to share related thoughts, and people notice when you're already planning your response. Instead, listen like a journalist: focus fully on the speaker, treat them as the most interesting person in the room, and ask follow-up questions about what they actually care about.
You might have ADHD if people complain that you don't listen. One of the downsides to ADHD is that we can be very interested in what we're doing and it makes us only focused on that. And when somebody's saying something we think is really cool, we want to jump in. We want to share something that we think is similar and that's going to connect us. What really happens is that we interrupted them. They think we're rude and they get angry with us. So one of the best things you can do as a human, but especially with ADHD, is learn how to listen better. It's important to really study listening. And understand that if we are just performatively listening, people know. If we're busy thinking about what we're going to be saying next, they know. And if instead we kind of pretend to just be a journalist in our head and totally focus on them, make that person be the most amazing person you ever hope to interview. And so you just keep asking them more and more questions about what interests them and what they wanna share and what happens to them when they do these things that they really care about.
ADHD Coaching, Career Coaching, Leadership Coaching for Tech Professionals & Founders
