"AD/HD/LD Learn How to Be” is our slogan and represents many years of accumulated understanding about what it takes to be successful with a brain like ours (yours?). Is this mythology or is it simply meaningful? Some of the concepts and descriptions related to AD/HD/LD in Ortando's Way may seem closer to myth than scientific description, and if that is your impression, you are technically correct. The AD/HD/LD perspective as explained here requires language that conveys subjective experience rather than measurable objective reality. In a cognitive behavioral defense of this explanatory approach, if these conceptualizations about AD/HD/LD people result in improvement in the lives of those individuals, then it is rational to do so. The essence of these ideas are to offer a way, Ortando’s Way, to understand one’s self emotionally, and recognize “tribal” commonality with other AD/HD/LD individuals, leading to rational acceptance, and life success. Ortando's Way is also for those families, friends, teachers, coworkers, and supervisors who do not experience AD/HD/LD but, wish to relate, empathize, and then resonate with those who do in mutual enlightened self interest. (“Doing well by doing good”, see Philosophers John Stewart Mill, Adam Smith.)
For many years I, like many AD/HD/LD people, struggled with poor classroom performance and enjoyed few meaningful human relationships. Often, I was told I might be intelligent but, “Lazy, Crazy, or Stupid” (the three classic negative evaluations). In my therapy practice with individuals who also experience AD/HD/LD (or some components thereof) a commonality about a “different unique” way of thinking began to emerge and became discernible. For example, many people understand the pathology, or what is wrong, included in the definition of these brain configurations. AD/HD individuals can be: forgetful, scattered, talk too much, hyper, inattentive, poorly regulated, and distracted. LD individuals may not read well, do math properly, can be clumsy, get mixed up about left and right, and don’t seem to understand by conventional teaching methods. Ortando’s Way acknowledges those “deficits” to whatever degree the individual experiences them, but focuses also on often hidden talents and strengths. Examples of AD/HD/LD luminaries are cited as a strategy and further evidence of talent and competence that might encourage the AD/HD/LD person to remain positive about their prospects. People such as Thomas Edison, John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill, Tom Cruise, Leonardo da Vinci, George Patton, Walt Disney, Albert Einstein, Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams, Suzanne Summers, George C. Scott, Cher, and Magic Johnson remind us that intelligence and talent can be positively associated with the presence of AD/HD/LD brains.
As another example of a way to capitalize on hidden talents - AD/HD people are reminded that they tend to be great problem solvers … for other people that is – their friends perhaps. However, they tend to have great difficulty solving their own problems, and this is often pointed out to them. What the AD/HD person can learn is a technique where he/she imagines that, “they are the friend asking themselves for help” and using the words, “I need help solving this problem” (perhaps utilizing the Mirror Mirror tool). This tends, with rehearsal and feedback, to enable the AD/HD person to see his/her own problem as that of someone else, and frees them to use their natural creativity.

For LD individuals, they frequently possess areas of talent and excellence, such as pattern recognition, thinking out of the box, spatial or interpersonal intelligence, creativity, and intuition. The LD person can learn that although he/she cannot read well they can generate creative, even elegant solutions that it is okay to have the courage to say these creative ideas out loud. The LD person can at times FEEL like his/her being/soul is at stake if they present their ideas. They truly do not want to make a mistake, be embarrassed, or feel humiliated (as they often feel this way when they cannot read like the other children in the classroom, for example). It is said that LD people would rather die than look stupid, a very emotional statement, but attention getting and emotionally compelling nonetheless. That sentiment is often what keeps LD individuals from sharing their good ideas until they learn “Ortando’s Way.”
Another example is that AD/HD/LD individuals often are gifted with extraordinary intuition and “knowing.” Speculation about this might suggest that these people, who are different and are seen as different, have to learn creative ways of being, getting along, and understanding (without attention or without having read about it). As such, they develop an enhanced capacity to do so. I always ask my AD/HD/LD clients if they believe they have good intuition. Not only does the vast majority say yes, but most elaborate about how important this talent is in understanding a world where they view themselves as different and out of sync with Normals (non-AD/HD/LD people).
The reader will have to judge for themselves at what point the ability to discern patterns and project probabilities turns into some mystical “6th sense.” It is my opinion that this is irrelevant to the health of the AD/HD/LD person. Cognitive Behavioral principles (see Albert Ellis, Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy, and CBT) ask individuals to consider a basic question: "Is what I’m about to do going to help me or hurt me?" Included of course, is that barring some physical threat, this takes for granted helping or hurting others as part of the formula for decisions. The good Dr. Ellis would likely say that whether intuition exists or not, if a person believes it does and achieves some good outcome for themselves or others by acting on that, then the practice of utilizing intuition serves a useful function.

In other words, AD/HD/LD people benefit when they are trained to intelligently trust their intuition. However, caution is necessary since intuition is, at best, an imperfect instrument. It should be exercised with caveat and attributed to oneself (not to be taken as how the universe actually is, but how I/you think it may be), followed by ethical inquiry as to its specific merits. In other words, if Ortandos sense some important aspect of an event or interaction by intuition, they are wise to investigate further before rendering judgment or making decisions. Nevertheless, one might learn that insight discerned by intuition often has legitimacy, and may lead to deep discovery otherwise hidden from those inclined toward brutal rationality.
CBT offers many other ways to understand and regulate thoughts, behaviors and emotions in service of one’s reasonable goals and is a foundation of Ortando’s Way. For example, individuals learn that they choose their emotions based on the meaning that they assign to an event or interaction. If emotions and subsequent responses prove to be counter productive for the person, he/she can choose to change their mind, thereby choosing to feel differently in their own, enlightened self interest. "Our life is what our thoughts make it," Marcus Aurelius the Roman emperor, philosopher, and a logical predecessor to Cognitive Behavioral Thinking proclaimed this long ago. In Ortando's Way, "Change your thinking, change your life" is one of our fundamental principles.