Jeannie Mai Leaned In To 'Impulsivity' Of ADHD To Advance Her Career

Jeannie Maihas revealed that ADHD prevented her from graduating high school and still affects all aspects of her life today.

The TV host shared the personal story how not graduating from high school and contributing it to a learning disability on her YouTube vlog. She got emotional as she struggled to let the word slip past her lips.

She claims that it wasn’t all bad and her career in education started out well for her as a child but it increasingly got worse and that lack of confidence and support got to her. “In elementary school, I got amazing grades. In middle school, I got okay grades. High school it got really, really bad. The crazy thing people don’t know is I didn’t graduate high school.”

However, the 43-year-old admits that she didn’t allow the learning disability to shun her from a career and being able to provide for herself.

Mai rose to fame as a tv host on various programs, something that she doubted would be her future due to her struggles. But the mom of one learned to embrace her learning disability and work with the perceived negatives of it.

“There’s no accident why I became a talk show host. My very first job was criticizing people on How Do I Look? What I see is what you’re gonna hear. That has put me in a career where I am hosting makeover shows, I’m on the red carpet talking to celebrities, a talk show called The Real,” she says.

She noted that for her, being hyper and impulsive behavior was present. “Thankfully leaning into the impulsivity instead of like shying away from it and being ashamed of it has helped me to find a career where I thrive.”

Mai also notes that now she is able to look back at her life and the struggles she hated herself for make more sense now. “Now that I know what ADHD is, I go back to the parts of my childhood where I felt so ashamed about things and I’m like, ‘oh, I’m okay like, this is what I had I just didn’t know it yet.”

Reliving the moment made Mai tear up a bit. She spoke through tears, “I was told you can’t, there’s no way you can graduate,” the Emmy-winning producer recalls. It sounds like it wasn’t for a lack of trying on her part. It’s a known fact that having uncontrolled ADHD can put one into a spin and focus on all the wrong things if one is focused at all.

Mai steps out of the dark side of the story and reflects on how she used her natural skills mixed with a little ADHD to move forward. “I always have described myself as the person who thinks with their mouth it just goes whoosh,” she says of the words escaping her lips before she can even reflect on them.

“It doesn’t even, like process, when most have a great filter and can…” she goes on to say that “when you know this about yourself, put yourself in situations where your impulsivities thrive,” Mai did just that.

Look at her now!