A presenter explains how intelligence differs from competence and unpacks five core executive functions and two neurotransmitters, illustrating task initiation and inhibitory control with a CTO's real-world detour example.
The speaker distinguishes intelligence from competence by highlighting cultural values like punctuality, consistency, and dependability. This chapter explains why being smart doesn’t automatically translate to being able to regulate behaviour in social and institutional contexts.
The presenter previews five core executive functions and two neurotransmitters to be discussed, then defines executive dysfunction and describes task initiation as the first key function. This section frames the questions people with ADHD often face, such as why starting tasks is so difficult.
This chapter covers inhibitory control as the flip side of task initiation, focusing on difficulties resisting distracting or interesting detours. It poses the common ADHD-era question about why resisting temptations or detours is so challenging.
A CTO named Davis describes working on high-priority tasks but taking one- to two-hour detours to add spontaneous features like time-stamped comments. This concrete example illustrates how executive-function challenges play out in professional practice.
I want to take a little detour here for a second to unpack this idea of intelligence and competency and we live in a world where, like we said, that values things like punctuality, consistency, dependability. I could take 24 credits in a given semester, double major, double minor, ace my tests, but I would almost invariably lose 10 to 15% of my grade, my final grade on time and attendance. And so we live in this world that expects you to do these things in these certain ways or to, and naturally, right?
We all have to work together. We have to be able to rely on each other. We have to be able to depend on each other. But just making you intelligent doesn't necessarily mean you can regulate your activity. And so that's where executive functions come in. So I want to unpack for a moment five key executive functions that I think that are useful for us to be considering as we go through these conversations. And then I want to talk about two of our core neurotransmitters, dopamine and norepinephrine.
And the first of these executive functions, so what does it mean to be impaired to have executive dysfunction. And so the course, five of the common executive functions that we talk about are things like task initiation, getting started on something. And for that person with ADD, ADHD, someone like myself, the big question in your life becomes, why can't I simply begin? Another one, kind of the flip side of that, is this idea of inhibitory control, inhibition, preventing yourself from doing something that you want to do, controlling that.
And for that person like myself, that big question is, why is it so difficult to resist the interesting detour, say? If I'm grinding away as my name is Davis. I'm the CTO of Cadre. If I'm grinding away on the Cadre system, there might be these things, these three or four things that are very, that are key priorities to the company and that are gaps currently missing from the app that I'm being expected to deliver on. And having done this for 15 years, I can deliver on that. I know I've learned these skills on how to get myself, make sure I'm getting those things done.
But in the course of that, I might take a one to two hour detour and based on just suddenly an idea I have in that moment, and I might suddenly drop an additional feature on top of that, say the time stamped comments that you can watch as you're replaying a live stream.
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