ok friend - here goes.  First up: have you worked out what it is about cold calling that isn’t working for you?  Is there something about the quality of leads that sets you up for a lot of failure?  Sales can suit some of the hyperactive types of ADHD because the charm, creativity and dynamism are a good fit - but if you worked in a call centre calling random people out of the phone book- that would be lethal.  You don’t need a magic pill - work the other way round: work out what motivates you and find a job that fits.  To overcome the resistance to doing tasks you’ll need to develop a compassionate inner voice: beating yourself up with a critical parent voice will only upset and demotivate you -if you are compassionate with your inner self you’ll come to understand the resistance or difficulty and nurture a way forward.
You have been telling others you have ADHD but I wonder what you were hoping for in terms of a response.  As a general rule of thumb, don’t expect others to understand ADHD any more than people without dyslexia have any real idea of what it feels like.  ADHD is facing the kind of hostile prejudice and ignorance dyslexia faced 40 years ago.
I’d suggest that for you, this is probably a good time to find a decent therapist and or ADHD coach to help you build the strategies and self awareness suggested above.  Be patient - it might cause a certain amount of chaos but ya know, I wouldn’t trade my ADHD - I’d encourage you to work with it rather than against it.

Best of luck.

Ryan, I can relate. I was a stockbroker and made myself make 100 cold calls a day, for a year. It wasn’t me. I left the job and went back to teaching which I loved.  I can’t give you any advice, but there is a men’s ADHD support group started.  It is a free telephone conference call, no fee for the meeting, just a phone charge if you get charged for long distance.  If you are interested, e mail .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).  We are reading DELIVERED from Distraction by Edward Hollowell   The meeting is on Monday nights at 5 PM PACIFIC time zone.  The group will continue for as long as men show up.  You may join in anytime and will gain from it.
Hope to hear from you and you will join in the sharing that can help everyone.
Bob

Ryan,
I feel for you.  I tried selling Mary Kay and had the same issue.  I suck at commision sales too.  I like helping people find what they want/need but I *hate* pressure sales knowing my paycheck depends on the customer buying.  Would the perspective of setting the example of what you’d want your child(ren) to do when faced with a similar situation, help you feel better about this? Is this a career you’re passionate about?  Is this a reason to change directions? You know your situation best. There was an article ADDitude magazine put out in the last couple issues on the best jobs for ADHD, it had some excellent points.  I lost my job two years ago and have only had two interviews. There are times I cry and want to crawl in a hole. And I tell myself my kids are watching- they have ADHD as well, and I need to give them hope that they can succeed in their efforts too. Hang in there.  Your heart is in the right spot.

Ryan, I agree with grrlAlex; rather than try to motivate yourself to do something that doesn’t fit, find what motivates you. I tried some “inbound telemarketing” once and I was miserable. I lasted three weeks and am now disappointed I did not quit sooner. I have found that I am at least comfortable in many jobs and happy in some. In my case, I have taken my personal inventory and also explored various types of work via temporary work, which suits the restlessness in my spirit. I have discovered within the past three weeks that I enjoy trade shows. They seem to have the right mix of people and skills for me. The point is that any given person (not just us) will be unhappy in some jobs whether or not the outside world gives them status and/or money.

Ryan - I understand your pain. Although I don’t make cold calls, I resist making calls at all. I’m a writer and my biggest resistance is toward writing. I’ve learned that a lot of times, the solutions are in little tricks. And the tricks that work one day may not work the next. So I have to have a toolbox full of them.

Let me share a few ideas that you may not have tried, but may work for you:
- Try a Body Double (you can do a search for ADHD Body Double for more information). Get someone to sit with you while you make your needed calls. Sometimes just having another body in the same room to keep you accountable works wonders. Sometimes I can have a person on Skype or Instant Messenger that I’m telling what I’m about to do, what I’m doing, and then what I’ve just done.
- Meditation. Today I couldn’t get motivated to do some much-needed writing. I meditated for 20-minutes and I was fine for 2-hours afterward.
- Try a change of scenery. Go to a particular place to make your calls. This can be a different part of the office, a different part of your house if you work from home, a park, or even your car. I do this to motivate myself to exercise. It’s a 30-minute drive to where I like to hike. I have no resistance to driving, so once I get to the trails, it’s easy to make myself walk. Sometimes I’ll go to the hammock in the back yard just to read if I’m procrastinating on reading something in particular.
- Try an ADHD coach. He or she may help you with creating the needed structures.

Good luck! And remember, you just need a trick to get you through one call at a time. You can find another trick to get you through the next call.

Dear Ryan,

You are not unemployable and it doesn’t matter if you suck at cold calling because if there’s one thing that all the AD/HD literature repeats that is absolutely true from my personal experience and as a counselor of people with AD/HD, we cannot succeed at work that we dislike, hate, are bored by, doesn’t use our best skills (which may not be sales),  People with ADD succeed with enthusiasm and talent when doing something they like to do.  It’s the old Joseph Campbell, “Follow Your Bliss.”  The only way to successfully make a living is to get paid to do what you love.

Personally I could not make cold calls if my children were starving.  I’d beg in the streets first.  (For some reason I can do face-to-face asking, but I cannot do sales.  I put myself through college as a secretary.  I hated every day of it.  Then I found myself working as a writer for a local magazine and I knew what I could do well.  We all like to do what we do well.  Today I am a writer and artist.  I am on disability because I am also bipolar.  I got fired from many non-writing jobs because I wasn’t cut out to do sales or service, but I tried those jobs.  Today I accept that I must do something with writing, editing, and books and will never fit the 9-5 slots.  With ADD we feel like square pegs trying to fit into a round hole.

Start doing online personality, talents, skills, etc. tests and find out, if you don’t know, what you do best and what you like.  Then find a way to get a position, create one, or work for yourself doing what you love whether it’s woodworking, housecleaning (to me, better than making cold calls); painting (easel kind), basketweaving, consultant on what you know and can study—The sky is the limit.  It’s easy to lose faith in yourself and your talents when we are doing poorly because we hate what are doing.  Go to therapy if you have to in order to find out what your talent is and what you love to do.  We are all born with talents as great as Michaelangelo, Walt Whitman, Benjamin Franklin, Edison and the rest of who’s who (many of whom had AD/HD (Michaelangelo, Edison).  Unfortunately, our educational system, our parents, teachers, even peers teach us that it is only daydreaming to think of working at what you love and that we’d better get a “real job.”  Don’t settle for less than your passion.  What are you passionate about?  Follow those passions with your intuition and creative mind, not the logical brain that sweats making a living or tells you your dreams are too big. Read some of the motivational writers who encourage you to dream big and go for it.  Go to lectures, take workshops, go to weekend retreats, journal about everything that interests you.  Then brush up on achievable goal setting, post your goals where you can see them, and start taking baby steps or big steps working towards them every day.  Go back to school for a whole new career if you have to.  Many college and vocational and creative classes are now available online, on weekends and evenings, and crammed into weekends. 

“If you can dream it, you can achieve it,” Zig Ziglar always encourages.

I hope, btw, that you are getting professional help for your AD/HD.  A good shrink and the right medication, including stimulant drugs, has given me my life back.  You too are entitled to a life that brings you joy.  I believe that God wants us to be happy, joyous and free.  Don’t have nothing at the end of your life but regrets about the risks you didn’t take and the opportunities you passed up.

I believe in you and so does your family and friends. 

Peace & Joy,

Maryellen

Hi Ryan:  Check into hiring a coach.  You should work with an ADD coach who can help you focus on your strengths and work towards finding a career that will work for you.  I you go the the http://www.add.org website, you will find a listing of coaches.  Coaching doesn’t have to be face-to-face, and can be done by phone.

In the meantime, you could do a couple of online assessments that will help you determine what your strengths are:

Do the VIA Inventory of Strengths survey

https://viame.org/www/en-us/toolsandresources.aspx

Also helpful is the Myers Briggs Type Inventory, and there is a free online version at

http://www.humanmetrics.com

Start thinking about what types of jobs will be a good match for your strongest qualities.  It sounds like you have MANY positive qualities that jut need to connect to the right job.  Don’t think that because this job isn’t working out that you are not employable or a worthwhile person.  Sometimes you need to change jobs a few times before that good match materializes.

Hang in there!!

I am recently diagnosed late in life and am in gratitude for you folks who are willing to share your thoughts. I am not alone.
There have been many good thoughts in this thread. I am towards the end of my career and only discovered recently the power of my own thinking. Words like ¡Èmy stupid brain¡É and the prophecy ¡ÈI am probably going to lose my job¡É do not serve you. Stopping this alone will do wonders. It has for me.
In my quest to learn more about my ADHD I came across this.
“Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.”

Mohandas K. Gandhi
Hang in there

Hi everyone.  Thank you very much for the support and help!  There was some very good suggestions, and some that didn’t fit exactly right because you didn’t know everything about my background, but I understood what you were getting at.  As I mentioned from the outset, it was mostly a vent.  I know what I need to do…at least some of the time…it’s just hard to give up a good, well paying job.  But I’ve been trying to fit a square peg into a round hole for a while now.  I need something than plays to my strengths.  Now if I can just get paid to update my Facebook status every 20 minutes, I’ll be in great shape.   Thanks again!

I echo what others have said and the general hatred of cold calling. If you truly don’t gel with what you’re selling and you can’t stand doing what the company wants you to then move on.

The only ‘different’ thing I would say from an entrepreneurial ‘been there, done that’ POV is
Why on earth are you cold calling, anyway?! LOL That sales tactic is sooo last century and NOT the way most successful sales people get sales, no matter what management, etc. has been feeding you. I can contact you off this thread or else it’ll sound like a commercial but seriously. There is a much better way IF the only thing you hate about your job is strictly the phone thing.

Hi Ryan,

I hope you don’t mind me chiming in here.  I know this was more of a rant than a call for help (and I try not to give unsolicited help), but sometimes I just can’t stand not to! 

There are generally 3 reasons why adults with ADHD tend to get “stuck” and struggle with the Activation component of our Executive Functioning.  It seems to happen most when things are either:  too big, not well defined, or lack stimulation.  And what makes a task (or set of tasks) fit into any one or more of these categories is complete subjective and situational!  (Which makes it confusing for others).

Things like cold calls (or other phone calls), can fit into multiple of these three categories.  I hear clients complain often about these kinds of things!  Finding the best way to deal with them for a particular individual requires some exploration and coaching, but it’s honestly not that hard to do.  These are the kinds of things we ADD Coaches do best!

For most of us with ADHD (myself included), one of the simplest (but not always easy) ways to overcome the 3 causes of being stuck is to break things down into manageable, single action steps.  This is an over-simplistic generalization since I obviously don’t know you personally, but think about one tiny piece of what constitutes a “cold call” that you can easily act upon.  A cold call is actually a series of individual tasks/action items.  That would mean something different for different people in different industries, obviously. 

I believe very strongly that you can learn to be “proactive” in ways that work for you!  Sales is a skill, just like any other skill, and there are different ways to polish that skill that work for different kinds of personalities and brain wiring.  Having the right personality for the job is really important (maybe the most important part!), and you’ve got that part down.  You just need to find new ways of approaching the things you’re challenged with that take advantage of your strengths to minimize your challenges.

I’ve already gone on long enough, but finding a well-trained ADD Coach can do wonders with something like this.  I hate to disagree with the previous post, but because coaching is not a licensed profession, anybody can buy a professional membership to ADDA and many other organizations and advertise themselves as a coach. 

IMHO, the best place to find an appropriately trained ADD Coach is the ADHD Coaches Organization (ACO) at adhdcoaches.org or ADDCA (ADD Coach Training Academy) at ADDCA.org.  Both organizations require a certain level of coach training and ADD-specific training of their members.

Just a few thoughts.  I hope something in there is helpful to you (or somebody else out there!)

Best of luck, and keep us posted!

Lynne Edris, ACG
Life & ADD Coach
http://www.CoachingADDvantages.com

Chin up Ryan! I’ve tried cold calling too and I hated it so, so much! I love helping people but couldn’t convince myself on ANY level that these people actually wanted to hear from me like this…it was horrible, and every other area of my life felt better when I STOPPED forcing myself to do this thing I hated so much.

You know that smart, funny, creative, caring guy you mentioned? I would bet you ANYTHING he’s not un-proactive when he is doing something he totally and utterly loves.

Why shovel sh!1 for a living when you could do anything at all? Get your lovely wife on board, and MOVE FORWARD. Change! Grow into something else that fills you, not drains you. Imagine what that would feel like

I quit my miserable job and am studying to be a psychologist I wake up every morning equally terrified and thrilled to bits about the prospect! But I am HAPPY and motivated, like I simply NEVER was at my job that I couldn’t seem to do.
(And I would generally have labelled myself the queen of procrastinators, so this is no small thing!)

Follow Your Bliss.

Hey Ryan!  First of all, don’t EVER say that your brain is stupid; PLEASE!!  (Although I can totally relate to that).  O.K.??  Think of it as a car that just needs a little more work to keep it running better.  Maybe that work is meds, or maybe it’s an adjustment in a career for you.  Take care of yourself,  A.D.D. comrade.

Cold calling is not authentic, and being false and ADHD is nearly Impossible, if there was a problem with you, then there would not be 100 want ads every day for that kind of work. Get out and find something that lets you be what you are, and banish the negative mindtalk.  remember… Authentic.  be proud of who you are, because you are more, not less.

Yeah, cold calling bites. (lol). Been there, hated every minute of it!! My solution was to find another job.

The jobs that I have been the most successful at have been ones with a lot of variety and change, dealing with people I already know (i.e. not sales). I am also most productive in a fast paced environment.

Unfortunately one of my favorite things (and my current freelance occupation) is writing, which is solitary and self-managed. I have SO MUCH TROUBLE focusing and motivating myself.

So yes, add my voice to the chorus that’s saying… you’re not alone!! Good luck in your efforts - I wish you well

(Oh yes, and if Facebook and Twitter updates had cash value, I’d have my mortgage paid off ;p )

I can relate Ryan,....trying to do something I don’t want to do can be like trying to break through a brick wall with my bare hands.
45Mongoose57cool, I agree, but….I think of our minds as being a high-powered race car trying to run on low octane fuel.

Hi Ryan,

I’m jumping in too. Like you said, I realize it is a vent, but even in a vent, there is a call for help. Don’t worry, I am one for never asking for help, when, like many I desperately need it.

The coach/therapist route, we all really could use that. Mainly because it is hard to go it alone and with ADD being a problem with Executive Functioning, there are blind spots that surface, that are below our level of awareness, and frankly when most people are stressed they naturally don’t see ALL THE AVAILABLE options and ADDer’s see even less. I speak from experience here.

If you do take a personality test, and you feel the results are valid, that will give you good insight into your natural tendencies for one thing versus another. The Myers Briggs can be done online and it can give you some insight, it has for me, but I had it professionally administered, also, reading it I can see a good fit of about 90%. It’s not the holy grail, but it is a piece of the puzzle.

Cold calling is BS, but I know your job probably requires it. I suck at sales myself, but, I am good at negotiations. The difference is that sales relies more on persuasion and negotiation you have something they want and they have something you want. The power is essentially equal. As the ADD coach said, sales is an acquirable skill, but I am not really good at it myself AND it does not fit in my personality type.

Last thing is, I feel just like you, good person, blah blah blah, but then the employment thing has been a puzzle I’ve been unable to solve. But I admire your strength and your courage and your commitment to your children. That to me, defines being a man.

Stay STRONG