Time to read: 1 min & 59 seconds — 397 words. Written by Joseph Pack.
A few years ago my wife worked with an Autism charity in Sheffield.
They support parents of autistic children.
I spoke with dozens of those parents. You know what their main complaint was?
They hated the clinical, dry, and overly-intellectual approach from so-called experts — mostly in the healthcare system
The founder of the charity told me that most parents know more about autism than any expert who learned everything they know from books.
Of course they do.
They live with it every single day.
She then told me that the parents lack confidence in their own knowledge and experiences. They’re not trained or academic so they defer to authority.
“Defer to authority”.
Let’s focus on that term.
We all defer to authority (but we shouldn’t)
Deferring to authority occurs when we quote, rely on, or (literally) defer to people we perceive as having more authority on a subject than we do.
But how do we know we can rely on the people we defer to?
Here’s why we never know the full story:
Ray Dalio is one of the richest men on earth. His book, Principles, is quoted ALL THE TIME in business conversations across the world. Heck, I’ve even quoted him.
Well, turns out he’s a quack.
His squeaky clean image was recently dismantled in The Fund, a book by Rob Copeland.
Dalio, another in a long line of people we defer our decision making to, ended up being ratted out as a baddie.
The point is this — we’re so quick to defer to authority (doctors, billionaires, scientists) yet so untrusting of our own experiences, knowledge, and understanding.
Direct experience trumps credentials.
The Drug Free ADHD Manifesto is designed to help you guys carve your own path and be the master of your destiny. But don’t take my knowledge, experience, and so called expertise, as gospel.
Be a skeptic.
Self-experiment.
Carve your own path.
I’ve managed ADHD without meds since I got diagnosed 7 years ago.
I’ve self-experimented with hundreds of things that failed. A few, those in my Drug Free ADHD Toolkit, worked very well.
So well, that I’ve been able to not only manage my ADHD without medication, but also teach others to do the same.
No credential, degree, or label after my name can replace living with and experiencing the daily struggles and benefits of ADHD.
We have lived in a society that once put academic success on a pedestal. But I think that society is dying.
And rightly so.
How on earth could a person without ADHD, who learned everything from a book, ever know as much about YOUR ADHD than you — someone living with it 24/7?
Tell me your thoughts. Reply or leave a comment.