If you had met me this time two years ago you would never have believed that I the person you see today was completely crippled by ADHD.

When do you think of AD/HD what comes to mind? Is it the little boy in the class who won't sit still, cracking jokes and often found in the back of the yearbook listed as "the class clown"? Would you have ever guessed that actually I'm a female and in high school, I finished 2nd in my class with a grade point average of 3.8?

ADD inattentive type presents totally different than the hyperactive type we often associate with ADHD.

The fact is, I was naturally bright and didn't need to pay attention in class. Though I didn't recognize this at the time, I could daydream all day long and still make the grades. Nobody ever suspected I had issues with attention. Not even me.

Two years ago I was fired from my job as a social media marketer. It seemed like the perfect fit. I love to write. My hobby is photography, and I seemed to have a knack at grabbing attention. When I started my job in social media, I thought I nailed it. Several of my posts in the first week went viral and their business was steadily getting more and more visibility. That's when my mind started to wonder, and the very thing I thought I was good at got out of hand.

For individuals with ADD inattentive type, being online can often be more like getting sucked into a rabbit hole. One after another until I found myself in a tunnel, lost and unable to clim

myself back out. My social media content creation was looking more like a social media addiction as I would go for hours without coming up with a single piece of content. Can you relate? I was eventually asked to "go find a new passion." Which let's face it means I was fired from my job.

The problem was that I wasn't free to embrace my passion. My ADHD was there and I was unable to focus. For the first time in my life, my attention issues were actually affecting my livelihood.

My quick fix solution was prescription medication. While it worked for a few months, I quickly noticed my mood and other areas of my life that were filled with joy were no longer there. I started to feel really depressed. That's when my friend recommended meditation. It was not long- actually, it was about three days before I noticed that by learning to stay in the moment, I was learning to stay on task. That's when I began to search for "meditation for business" and found this great article on how meditation leads to business success.

Fast forward to a year ago, and I took a position as a project manager in a small startup here in Austin, Texas. Part of the company's vision means steering clear of social media (a sigh of relief from me) with a focus on people and how humans and humanity generate raw creativity. Every day we spend some time team building and engaging in personal creative time. My new-found love of meditation has made me a better listener so during my creative time I usually listen to a podcast on project management for inspiration but sometimes I actually just sit and meditate.

Project management is great for my ADD because it's not so open-ended. Yes, I learn my processes, but at the end of the week or month, the project is done and I can start on something fresh and new-- bringing in my creative side and still honoring my need to vary my day. As someone with ADD inattentive type will tell you. It's not that we can't focus, it's that we tend to have too many things that we want to focus on at once. Project management and meditation have helped me to focus for longer, stay in the moment, and ultimately execute a task with a phenomenal team.