API Evangelist Conversation with Ian Mai, Executive ADHD & Impulse Control Coach

Hey Ken, thanks for having me. Uh, Ian May here, uh, currently acting and operating as an ADHD and impulse control coach, but how you and I know each other as, uh, a former customer success manager and enterprise tech sales manager. Executive from Postman and essentially former techie in the world of API development, software lifecycle, all the buzzy buzzwords in the cloud architecture web app development.

Yeah. So, uh, just kind of a historical background for me. I have spent the last 12 years solely focused on, uh, tech software specifically in the software development life cycle space. So we have a lot of overlap in that, um, and all the buzzy buzzwords when it comes to tech, uh, being able to help build innovative solutions and kind of getting into that startup ecosystem was really something I was motivated by at a very young age, right out of college. And essentially having built a career in that space. However, in the last couple of years, uh, a good majority of my focus had actually been more of my own internal software, being able to understand how I’m wired, why I do the things that I do, and inevitably, like how I ended up finding myself kind of stuck in, uh, ritual habits of addiction. Whether that was alcohol, whether that was pornography, whether that was even like addiction to exercise and all sorts of things that just weren’t serving me. And it got to a point where all of a sudden, all of the things that I had built, these outward, external, uh, signals of success were kind of crumbling around or down around me that, uh, my addiction and addictive patterns were starting to make it to where I couldn’t focus. Well, I wasn’t doing my job as well as I could have, uh, it’s almost sort of bastardizing my career. And so almost like during this process of working at Postman and digging in with API Lifecycle and building a brand for myself, I was still on the side of kind of having to navigate that internal journey in understanding impulsive behavior, understanding addiction, and then kind of uncovering that I had adult ADHD and that there was a lot of comorbidity in My depressive symptoms, my addiction habits, and all sorts of these other components that now in moving out of tech and moving away from it, that’s been my focus is being able to help other people who are like me, highly successful individuals who are now finding themselves not able to continue. To have that external vector of success because of these internal issues, depression, uh, anxiety, and then on top of all of that, obviously addiction components that really are deleterious to any levels and trajectory of success that you might have.

Yeah. So, I mean, one tech didn’t create any of these issues for me, right? And I think that’s one of the things that, like, I’m not blaming tech and giving the middle finger to the corporate world of tech on my way out the door, although the reasons could very well be there when it comes to industry. But the advice that I would give to that Gen Z person just out of college is. Being able to pay attention to what you’re assessing about. And, you know, when I talk about ADHD, even the nomenclature of ADHD is, is a misnomer because the first component of that attention deficit. Um, that’s actually not the issue for most people with ADHD. It’s that they actually have hyper attention. They just don’t know how to take all of the attention from all the things and focus it on anyone, or at least the things that most matter to them. And so for me, what would end up happening is I would sort of be this Professional at a thousand different things at once. So if you hear me talk about, you know, my new hobby that I just picked up, it’s Rubik’s cubes and then it’s fitness. And then I’m going to take fitness all the way to the highest level and have become a professional bodybuilder while also still in tech and also still an account executive. And yes, there’s definitely health benefits for the ADHD brain when it comes to fitness, which is true, which is definitely useful. Um, but being able to recognize that inevitably, As more of the addictive patterns started to arise, the obsessions were now lack of focus on the important things and obsessing about all of the addictive patterns of things.

Yeah. So I don’t hesitate to use the word addiction. I think, you know, from a clinical psychologist standpoint, they care a lot about wording and phrasing. Uh, the bottom line is, is this, is that all impulsive behavior comes down to very high dysregulation of dopamine. So dopamine is this, uh, neurotransmitter. It reinforces behavior. It signals potential for pleasurable or safety like experiences. And so when you talk about addictions, it’s essentially things that can cause significant spikes in dopamine. So what’s interesting though, when it comes to us talking about the ADHD brain, is that typically what happens for the ADHD brain is that parts of the brain aren’t actually getting enough dopamine. And so there’s like a dam between all of the emotional centers of the brain, which where there’s plenty of dopamine happening. So that’s why a lot of the impulsive behavior is very emotionally driven, strong emotional responses. And so emotional behavior can also be emotional escape, which that might drive you to the types of things that you might use as emotional escape, the alcohol, the drugs and pornography, like whatever those things are. The other aspect of it is that when you have high dopamine response activities, usually what happens is that there’s a big rush of dopamine. Anytime you imbibe in those particular behaviors or, um, again, drugs and alcohol and so on, that now all of a sudden there’s dopamine on the sides of the brain that have been starving for it. And so for a lot of people who do have ADHD, Now all of a sudden my brain is finally functioning because it’s getting the dopamine in that part of the brain that was starving for it. And so I can start to justify my behavior for using that thing as sort of like the self medication mindset that we can all kind of come into patterns and habits around. But how addicted our addictions actually form is that the amount of that stimulus that I need to continue to have that amount of dopamine response in that frontal lobe of the brain continues to decrease over time, which requires more of that substance, more of that. Experience to generate it. And all of that, if those things are directed towards unhealthy means and unhealthy gains, then yeah, it’s only going to lead to very, very deleterious responses.

Yeah. I mean, the bottom line is I spent 12 years really learning how to make, uh, software websites, mobile applications, draw your attention in. So there’s some aspect of, I’m very well aware of the nature of how those things work. And then in the other aspect of it is now like knowing fully well how to kind of combat that, how to control my attention, how to do what I call kind of a dopamine audit, where I can say, understand where all my dopamine is coming from. And is it reinforcing the things that I care the most about? And that are the highest value to me personally. So the social media, the mobile applications, those inherently aren’t the problem it’s, am I using those things to escape the things that are really important to me, or am I using those to connect me with people around the world, like technology is amazing. I I’m speaking to and working with people. All around the world, some places in South Africa. And it’s amazing how we can create community in those large scopes. But if I’m doing that in lieu of connecting more deeply with my two children, my wife at home, my immediate world around me, then no, I’m actually reinforcing solitude and isolation. Which is partially why, like, again, taboo subject, but why pornography is potentially so deleterious is that you’re actually just reinforcing isolation type activities rather than commutal connection, fireside chat conversations that elicit more deep, deep connection, uh, and removing of that shame and isolation.

Yeah, I think I think scalability is always hard. Anytime you try to move from being highly digital, sort of removed, meet you where you are, is then how do I then scale it in a way to increase the likelihood of meeting in person communal engagements, right? Like this conversation would likely be different. If you even could be in the same room as me, we’re sharing atoms, you’re sensing my posture and body language and excitement and energy in which I’m applying these things, like you’re probably going to feel a different response. Then even just you and I, you and I aren’t even making eye contact right now. I’m looking at your eyes, looking at my eyes on a screen versus like, okay, I’m, you perceive I’m making eye contact with you now, even though I’m staring at a webcam, right? Like completely different emotional response that you and I are going to have to these conversations because of just that deep connection that we’re creating with each other. Socially, that is kind of lost in the current tech. And I do believe that there will be companies that will build tech in a way that makes engagement more sustainable, more healthy, uh, and whether that’s chemically healthy or not, whether, I mean, there’s always going to be things that if you have a high dopamine response to any behavior that there’s room for abuse. And so we can’t constantly shame every single thing for the abuse that it causes, right? Like just because I have my phone, I’m black and white to make it really boring and lame. So I’m not constantly checking it every other sentence. Like, yeah, that’s a utility to me, but it doesn’t mean that we all need to go to black and white screens in order to counteract the addictive patterns that these devices have.

Yeah. So I actually just finished a pretty intense, uh, we’ll call it a sprint cycle. Uh, in, in fitness, they call it a mezzo cycle, which is silly, but, uh, recent 12 weeks sprint, I actually lost 30 pounds in the last 12 weeks. Uh, which is more aggressive than I would suggest and encourage anybody else to do. Um, but I was actually doing it more for like the emotional journaling and processing, like when you’re sitting with that level of hunger, there’s a lot of emotional turmoil that’ll arise. And it fueled a good amount of my journaling and meditation. And even for that matter, like committing to quitting a job that is. Sustainable and paying a good salary and has a huge amount of upside when it comes to, uh, you know, monetary value. So, uh, now my current routine though, yeah, I still get up at five o’clock in the morning. I still journal for about 30 minutes. I get to the gym by anywhere between five and five 30 and then it’s right now it’s only about an hour in the gym, which an hour in the gym four days a week is really not that I think anybody can sustain that. Uh, but if you were to try to come do that with me without. experience. Um, yeah, you might, you might find mechanical muscular failure might not be your jam for how you want