Tim Irr: Finding Your Strengths – ADHD (#006)

Betsy Furler 0:05
Welcome to for all abilities, the podcast. This is your host, Betsy furler. The aim of this podcast is to highlight the amazing things people with ADHD, dyslexia, learning differences and autism are doing to improve our world. Have a listen to for all abilities, the podcast, and please subscribe on whatever podcast app you’re listening to us on. Hi, welcome back to for all abilities. Today I have another very special guest who’s going to talk to us about ADHD and how it’s shaped his life. So welcome, Tim Irr to the for all abilities podcast.

Tim Irr 0:49
Well, thanks, Betsy. Thanks for having me. I’m honored to even be a part of this and to talk about this because obviously, it’s something that affects a lot of people.

Betsy Furler 0:58
Yes, yes, I started this podcast so I can let people with all different types of ways their brains work, whether it’s whether it has they have ADHD diagnosed or not, or dyslexia or learning difference or autism, I want them and their families to know how successful they can be and how this really can be a superpower rather than having to be a weakness as sometimes our society interprets it. So that’s true. I’m excited to have you. Will you please introduce yourself to the audience and tell us what you do and and then we can go a little bit into your background?

Tim Irr 1:35
Sure. My name is Tim Irr, and I am a news anchor and reporter at wsa Zee TV. It’s an NBC affiliate in the Huntington Charleston, West Virginia market. And I’ve been doing this now I’m 54. Soon to turn 55. And I’ve been I’ve been at the station for 25 years. And as, as is typical with somebody who has ADHD, I didn’t even realize that the Christmas party when they called me up and said, You’ve been here 25 years, I thought, Oh, I thought it was 24 this year, but I did the math in my head, which I’ve never been very good at. And I went oh, yeah, I have been here 25 years. So it’s gone by quickly. And it’s been a great situation. And I’ve been I work as the evening news anchor doing the For 536 10 and 11. So they’ve added newscasts. Wow. Yeah, it’s it’s a busy day.

Betsy Furler 2:32
That’s a long day. Yeah. We Well, my my family and I love West Virginia. That’s one of our favorite places to go on vacation, too. Yeah, it’s so beautiful. And we we really like it love the people. We’re just play friendly. And so you’ve had a long, successful career. Tell us a little bit about your childhood and what it was like with ADHD? What kind of student were you, you know, give us the good, the bad and the ugly.

Tim Irr 3:01
Okay. And there’s a lot of it. And I’ll you know, to give you the Reader’s Digest version, I grew up in Pittsburgh, born and raised in Pittsburgh, that’s where my family’s from. I was the youngest of six. And as my mom and dad said, every single child is different as any parent knows, whether you’ve had two children or 10 children, you know that every child is individual in their own unique way. And, you know, the thing that I remember most about my childhood and an education and ADHD was back then number one, we didn’t diagnose it, that there wasn’t there. Nobody discussed Oh, he must be a DD or ADHD. It was just that every parent teacher conference, My poor mom would go to down the St. Sebastian school in Pittsburgh. Every single one she would come home from that disgruntled shaking her head, having the same conversation with my dad, and with me about how it’s the same story with every semester with every teacher year after year. Timmy is a nice boy. He just doesn’t pay attention in class. And he’s, you know, he’s, he doesn’t pay attention. And he, especially in the classes, the thing that I had the most trouble with, were the classes that I didn’t really feel had an I had an interest in math class, I struggled mightily in math, any type of math subject anything that was analytical and problem solving, on that level on a mathematical level I really struggled with, and I tried, and I remember the thing I remember the most about that those post parent teacher conference meetings with my parents, is the next day, waking up and getting ready and going to school. And I remember clearly walking to the bus stop and thinking, it’s I’m going to be different. I’m going to change I’m going to pay attention. I can do this I really wanted to convince myself that I would be a different student. Now the classes I had an interest in social studies classes, English classes, I was fine, I had no problem, I could generally pay attention, although I would drift a little bit. But I could generally pay attention to the classes that I was really interested in and apply myself in those classes. It was the difficult classes, the math and the science, the analytical classes that I really struggled with, and, and I made a solemn vow to myself every every semester, every year after each parent teacher conference, I’m going to be different. And I wanted to be I really did, it wasn’t that I was like, I hate school, I don’t like this, you know, that teachers stupid, it wasn’t like that I really, in my mind, had a plan to go in and make things different, and really try to pay attention. And I tried. And then that breaks, my heart would start, and I’d go in there. And so I really did, I was in, you know, for the classes I liked, I would say I was in, I was a beat average B student. The classes I really liked that did really well in and I enjoyed. And I was engaged. And I was a participant in all the discussions and classes. And that continued through through school through grade school into high school, algebra, just geometry, same thing, just struggle tried, get a tutor, I’d work hard. I just couldn’t get over that. It was like a mountain to try to comprehend. And I couldn’t, I kept slipping down that mountain, it was like, my feet would fail. And I’d slip and I tried to get back up. And I just, I could never climb that mountain of information that seemed to be just impossible for me to learn. And I remember when that, you know, the drift would kick in, and I’d start to look out the window and and then I try to snap myself back in and pay attention. And then I start to be lost. And it was it was frustrating. But I didn’t know why. And there was no, I never saw a doctor about it. There was never much discussion other than boy, Tim, you better pay attention in school, you know, and

Betsy Furler 7:10
I have been hard on your self esteem.

Tim Irr 7:13
It was, you know, in those classes, you know, I remember and I’ll be very candid about it. I remember looking over during tests in those classes and trying to copy off somebody who was next to me to try to see what answers they had, because it was just, you know, and in the classes I liked. I never maybe people were copying off of me. I had read write classes. I love those classes. And those are the early grade school science classes that weren’t as analytical and weren’t informational. So I was able to process information and store it and repeat that information in testing and in classroom discussion. I just could not process the analytics. It was just difficult. It was always an always an issue with me all the way through college.

Betsy Furler 7:59
What did you major in in college?

Tim Irr 8:01
Majored in the subject at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh was media arts. And I started it I went to Duquesne because I got an internship and my senior year of high school. By by my final semester senior year, I only need three classes. So that’s what I mean I did I did find in school I write on the subjects I need. I got everything out of the way. Struggled, you know, and by then I knew and my parents knew that, you know, there wasn’t going to be a future career in anything having to do with doing any kind of forget it and you got a business degree now that was off the table. But I majored in media arts and senior year, got an internship, senior in high school, got an internship at a radio station, and it happened to be on the Duquesne University campus. And then they offered what amounted to basically like a scholarship or I would get a student in a job and be paid through the university to work at the radio station. So I started applying myself and communications right away and did did plays, you know, memorizing lines, again, no problem. I could do plays I could memorize and I was the lead in a number of plays in high school and college. So the memorization was not a problem. And the problem was, specifically those those analytics and that’s where that’s where it kicked in. And that’s where I really noticed that I had a problem paying attention. But it all it went to other levels of my life. And you know, as I look back on that, and it still affects me today as an adult. I’m on the autism services board, local autism services board, and the board of directors and in the board of directors meetings when we have the finance meetings, I’m literally biting. It’s kind of like funny when I think about it, but it’s kind of sad. I’m literally biting my lips or squeezing my fingers to pay attention to the Financial Report. work? Because, right, right, it’s like being back in math class is the same thing. And I’m, and I struggle, I pay attention, I drink coffee, I’m like, I’ve got to stay awake, I’d have to stay with this thing. We get through the financial report, and then the rest of the board meetings about things that I can comprehend. But it’s still to this day, and my wife will tell me the same thing. She’ll say, I told you that. And I’ll say, I’m sorry. You know, I, I guess I wasn’t, I didn’t hear I didn’t pay attention. It didn’t process properly in my brain. And that’s

Betsy Furler 10:31
interesting to you to think about the, the processing piece of it rather than that just not paying attention. Right? Yeah, it’s like your brain is turning off. Because it’s, you’re struggling so much to process that you kind of end up turning it off and not really getting the information at all.

Tim Irr 10:51
Right? It’s like the Charlie Brown teacher, in the old Charlie Brown cartoons, TV, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, that’s what I would hear with just like, Charlie Brown teacher at that stairs, it just kind of went right through me. And, you know, to borrow the phrase in one ear and out the other. That’s, that’s,

Betsy Furler 11:12
well, I how cool that somehow you got into a career that works perfectly for your brain because I, I’m not even sure I told you this information, Tim, but for all abilities is also a software. So we’ve developed software to help employers support their employees with ADHD, dyslexia, learning differences, and autism. And I’m really passionate about employers being able to support their employees, especially early on, you know, for instance, if you were, you know, doing a radio show when you were in, in college, and then they might want you to do the accounting for them on the side. Yeah, that would be a terrible use of your of your strengths. Right? It would be right, and you’ll probably would have failed at the job because of that add on, at that add on tasks, that’s has nothing to do with what you’re actually doing. Right. So so it sounds like you got you got into exactly the right thing you needed to be into and started, I’m sure started succeeding at that. And you were, you know, amazing at it. And that probably helped so much with self esteem and your purpose in life.

Tim Irr 12:30
I really think that’s true. And I learned a lesson in my 20s when I got out of the business. The job that I had, my first job in TV out of college was in Clarksburg, West Virginia has a TV reporter and anchor. And, and I seem to be you know, I did well, I think, you know, when I look back on it, and I, I took another job, moved to Charleston, West Virginia, worked at a TV station there right at the time I got married. And so my wife moved from Pittsburgh, where we both went to high school together. And she helped me by the way in classes sometimes. She was there for me in the final semester, senior year when we finally met. So we moved to Charleston, West Virginia, I took a job there at a TV station, then I had an opportunity to move back home to Pittsburgh and work at a station there WTA in Pittsburgh as an assignment editor. So I was off the air and doing assignments, didn’t really like the job because I liked storytelling, and I liked reporting and, and I liked what I really, I think, enjoyed and flourished in was the reporting aspects. Because in this job and the job that I currently have of anchoring, and reporting, at the end of each day, that day ends and you go home, and then you come in the next day, and everything’s new again. There’s like, I don’t need to the desk is wiped clean, everything’s gone and you start fresh the next day. So everything and it’s all new when I was when I got out of that job in Pittsburgh, because I really didn’t enjoy it. And I thought I tried public relations and I worked for a hospital in Pittsburgh. And it was more task oriented. And I again, I would have while I was sitting in my office working on what I consider to be kind of boring, menial tasks. Compared to what I was doing in reporting, I would have given anything for somebody to have run into my office and said, We need you to pick up a camera and run down drive two hours, there’s a huge fire at a warehouse. Because to do that means it’s a break in the day for me. I pick up a camera and I you know in that that rough description of a job, pick up a camera run to an event, whether it’s a planned event, or a breaking news event. Run to the event and record that event and tell the story. Now, that’s, that’s what I can do. And that’s what I enjoyed doing. won awards doing it. It’s, it’s, it’s what I really enjoyed doing. And when I got out of that business in my 20s, and tried public relations, I realized, this isn’t for me. And I kind of knew I had to get out. And my wife knew I wasn’t happy doing that job. More task oriented again, I wasn’t, you know, I wasn’t doing what I enjoyed doing. And an old boss of mine got in touch with me. And I got back into the business. And I ended up in this at this station. He hired me back. And within a short amount of time, I started anchoring the morning news. And then the evening news anchor job came open when there was a retire, retirement. And I got that, and I’ve been doing that for more than 20 years now.

Betsy Furler 15:51
Yeah, that’s amazing. So how has your ADHD superpower do your ability to do the job that you’re doing now as a news anchor?

Tim Irr 16:00
I think you were right, Betsy, it’s like the perfect job for me. And that’s what I was alluding to. It’s just that I found that superpower that ability to be able to, to get information, processed that information, and then tell the story. So being a storyteller, because that’s the bottom line with being a reporter, is you’re telling a story, if you walk outside, and you see your neighbor on the sidewalk, as a storyteller, you’re naturally listen to what somebody tells you, you process that story. And then you tell that story. And so you are storyteller. And that ability to process certain information, and then relay that story to another person, or in this case, to an entire audience. I’ve been able to do that, to a level that if somebody asked me to one of my kids asked me, for example, to help them with maths, I just defer to my wife, because even you know, took me back to those days of grade school. And I wasn’t able to do that very well. That really the story of telling the story of numbers is not something I’m strong at. But I found what I was able to do tapped into it. And, and I’ve been able to do it, I think to extraordinary measure. And and it’s been, it was really funny when I think back on it back to grade school, in seventh and eighth grade, we had something called the junior Academy of Science in Pennsylvania. And what you would do is you could create a project that would be either a visual project, like I’m going to make a volcano on a table and show how the volcano erupts, kind of like Peter Brady did in the Brady Bunch to do. Or you could prepare a subject you could research the subject, do your project on your own, and then report that project. And so then you would stand up in front of this, this group of judges, a roomful of judges, and you would report your findings. And I thought, well, that’s what I’ll do my I remember my teacher in seventh grade, Mr. Gesell, Bertie, encouraging me to do that. He said, You’re a good storyteller. You can you know, you get up in front of the class and you tell a good story. I think this would be good for you do this research to come up, come up with the project, do the research. And then basically what I was doing was reporting on it. So I, I came up with a plan to test the effects of companionship and sound essentially, on plants and how plants would grow night. So I had three test plans. One would be in a room that had loud music playing I used I think the kiss destroy your album. So I played loud music one, I played softer, classical music to another. And then I the other plant was in total silence. They are all received the same amount of light. But they were tested by this companionship, this music. The two plants that received the music did the best. The plant that was in total silence didn’t grow very well. So I reported my findings. I did research through the library at the time, there was no Internet back then. So I did library research on psychological effects of companionship and relationships to humans and to animals than to subjects that were left alone. And I realized that that it all kind of coincided with what I had learned about these plants. So I reported my findings and put together a I think five to 10 minute speech it was with cue cards and slides at the time. So I use presentations and my my presentation that I put together for these judges at one first place so on to the States. I went and then I won first place there. And wow kid who is probably getting a C or a D in that same science class back. Yeah. Sebastian’s and I won the state title he went state Yeah, because I was able to tap into some thing in an eye. It’s like I found myself.

Betsy Furler 20:04
Yeah, use your strength. Yeah. And imagine what. So imagine if same project, but you had to do a written report with all of the formulas and variables and all of that. I imagine the different outcome you would have had. Yeah, that’s a great story about strengths and how how, you know, I reports in school or projects in schools, as well as things in the workplace and things in adult life can be tweaked a bit, to allow that person’s strengths to really shine. And it doesn’t mean it’s unfair or less work, right, you probably actually do more work than a lot of work and report.

Tim Irr 20:53
Yeah, I put a lot of work into it. And I can only imagine the eggheads, the super Brainiacs. Super analytical brainiacs in school who were like, they were probably thinking, like, how did he win states? Can’t even barely pass this class? How did he do that? But you know, I found the strength and I, I tapped into it. And I found that’s what I was good at. And that’s what I did. And I won a science project that was chest, but it really wasn’t a science project. When it turned when it came right down to it. It was a reporting project. And I found I found the strength and, and tapped into it. And the little did I know that that that was kind of the foundation and formation of what would be success in life for me.

Betsy Furler 21:41
Yeah, that’s a that’s a great story. That really, that really shows the power of using someone’s strength. Yeah. So thanks for sharing all of that with us.

Tim Irr 21:52
You’re so thanks for asking. Yeah,

Betsy Furler 21:55
this is this has been great. How can my listeners connect with you further,

Tim Irr 22:01
they could find me on Twitter. I’m at ws AZ That’s the call letters of our station. WSAZ IRR is my it’s at ws AC IR R. And same thing on Facebook at ws ACR or just a Google search of my name which is six letters. T I M i RR. Most people just call me Timmy or they don’t even call me Tim. They call me all my kids. Friends. When I was little, I was like, Hey, Tim, you’re Hey, Tim here. It was like, people can find me through that and, and also through the station website through ws ACS website. And I, obviously I have no problem talking about it. So I’d be happy to share and help parents of children or family members of adults with ADHD who might be struggling to try to help them in whatever way I can. Whatever way I could, even through encouragement, I’d love to be able to help people.

Betsy Furler 23:00
That would be awesome. Yeah, I think it’s so important for people to hear these stories like yours, where you’ve been so successful. And I’m sure there were times when you were young, when your parents were like, oh, no, what are we going to do with this one? You guys are gonna be living with us for the rest of his life, or we were gonna get him out of school.

Tim Irr 23:20
Oh, I’m sure that probably was a real concern for the man it was, you know, if I would have gone if life would have gone in a different direction. And let’s say I would have followed in my dad’s footsteps and gone into the business world. I might have been a colossal and I hate to say it, but like, professionally, I could have been a colossal failure. I could have, you know, maybe made you know, and not not and the other thing is not have been happy doing it. When I had a chance to get back into this business. I was very fortunate. It was like getting a second chance at love when you’ve when you’ve lost that love. And I got back into it. And and it gave me now my best day, my worst day and on the job. And this job is better than my best day when I worked in private industry in an office. And so I’ve found what I want.

Betsy Furler 24:11
Yep. Well, and that’s so to me, it’s so important that everybody is feels valued, and is also happy and what they’re doing. And so that’s it’s I love hearing these stories. Well, Tim, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for the podcast. Yes, great. And to my listeners, please reach out to Tim if he can help you in any way and watch him on the news in West Virginia. And please subscribe to my podcast am on anything you listen to your podcasts on and contact me at Betsy at Horrell abilities.com If you’d like to get in touch, have a great day and I will see you all later. Thanks so much for listening to the for all abilities podcast. This is Betsy furler here or host and I really appreciate your time listening to the podcast. And please subscribe on any podcast app that you’re listening to us on. If you’d like to know more about what we do, and our software that helps employers support their employees with ADHD, dyslexia, learning differences in autism, please go to www dot for all abilities.com You can also follow us on Instagram. And you can follow me on LinkedIn at Betsy furler. It’s F as in Frank, you are le AR Have a great day and we will see you soon

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