Episode 64: Damien Dicke

Episode 64

Welcome to episode #64. We’re thrilled to be joined by Damien Diecke today.

Damien is the founder of the School of Attraction and The Dangerous Man. He is the author of the award-winning book Sincere Seduction. He's been a coach and professional speaker in over 25 countries. He was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 10 and struggled until he started his company at the age of 25, which he’s still running today 15 years on. Damien has developed unique working styles to enable him to be productive. Many of his clients have ADD and he’s here today to share these working styles and how his work can help those with ADHD and ADD.

Welcome to the show Damien!

Questions

Can you tell us about your experience with neurodiversity?
1. When did you realise that you weren’t neurotypical?
  1. Other people realised long before I did - as a kid you don’t thnk about these things as much - except I never had friends in primary school which hurt a lot.
  2. I never ‘felt’ neurodivergent until I was an adult - even though I had been medicated as a kid
  3. Diagnosed at 10
2. What challenges did you face?
  1. Couldn’t keep focussed on university, dropped out of a double degree
  2. Couldn’t complete anything that I started - DJ work, courses, study, business ideas etc.
  3. When people knew I had ADHD they told me certain things I couldn’t do - I learned to be obsessed with finding a way to turn the ADHD into a strength, a way to use it to my advantage - this obsession has served me well I think.
  4. Feeling misunderstood
  5. Often had only one friend
  6. Struggled with homework
  7. Wondered what trouble he was going to get into
  8. Which knocked the love of learning out of him
  9. University was tough because the pressure to achieve was no longer there.
3. What is it like now?
  1. I suppose it’s a part of who I am - I live a life where it’s completely integrated and accounted for - I just live a little differently but don’t feel it’s a negative in any way
  2. I had to learn to adapt because most useful drugs are off the table for me - hormone disregulation issues.
  3. I default to logic when things get emotionally hard
  4. Loves learning again
  5. Still loses interest in things that are repetitive (e.g. some board games).
  6. Schoolofattraction was the only thing that he was able to see through
    1. The difference was that he was able to get a lot of praise (because everyone wants to get better at dating).
    2. Consistent progress: 5 minutes per day.
4. What neuroexceptional strengths are you leaning into now?
  1. Definitely hyper-focus… I can get amazing amounts of work done in short periods of time when I get into hyper-focus area.
  2. Knowing strengths:
    1. Great at designing and building websites. Not great at writing sales emails
    2. Now delegates work that he finds hard to hyperfocus on
  3. I also hyper focus on electronic toys (drones) - Why is this useful? I buy and sell toys on a profit - so it’s a side-hustle I can only pursue because I’m hyper focussed on the toys and the marketplace they live in - I see the trends and take advantage of playing with new electronic toys for a while.
  4. Because I had to learn to be hyper-structured - it’s useful in a business context - at least a lot of the time.
What "work" projects are you concentrating on?
1. Two parts:
  1. School of Attraction
    1. Dating coaching
      1. Goal is to be confident but not manipulative (not pickup artist style)
2. Men’s retreats
  1. Personal development work separate from dating coaching
    1. Hard to sell spirituality/self development - easier to sell dating coaching (but actually dating goes better if you do self development)
      1. Hel
        
        Published on 1 year, 2 months ago

Podcast Episode Details

Episode 64: Damien Dicke