Of Course I Can, One Note at a Time

By Judy Brenis

“Once you stop looking at what you can’t do because of your ADHD, and start focusing on what you can do, you can make your dreams come true,” says Josh Greenfield, a 27-year-old musician an up-and-coming food show star.

“I used to think I wasn’t good at anything, but once I began to question that belief, I realized I had only convinced myself I wasn’t good enough,” Greenfield says. “I’m actually good at music and cooking and as soon as I gave myself permission to believe that, and follow my passion, everything began to fall into place.”

Today Greenfield performs with a band, The Canon Logic, and runs a personal chef company with his younger brother, Mike. The two brothers also host their own cooking show called The Brothers Green, that can be found on the Hungry Channel.

Follow Your Passion

“Both music and food help us connect with people,” says Greenfield, who felt very isolated growing up. Diagnosed with ADHD in elementary school, Greenfield began taking Ritalin in third grade and while it helped him focus, he worried that he had lost his personality. He felt as if he was in a bubble, only concerned with getting his homework done and focusing on school. “Teachers thought I was this golden child until last period when the meds began to wear off.”

College started out the same way, until Greenfield decided to stop taking medication. Before long, he was focusing on his music more than his studies. “I got good grades to appease my parents since they were paying for college, but I would rather be home writing songs. At the end of the day, nothing makes me feel the way playing music does.”

“Growing up, I was always told I had a learning disability. I didn’t know what that meant, but I was in special classes. My mom was trying to figure out what to do with me. That puts up a lot of walls. It really isolates you from the rest of the world,” Greenfield explains.

Don’t Accept Others’ Limits

“I wasn’t sure if I was stupid, if I would ever be able to focus, to read a book. I thought I couldn’t pay attention to anything, but when I started playing guitar, I was practicing eight hours a day and it was great I thought, ‘Wait a minute, I can focus on this!’ Suddenly, I didn’t feel like I had a learning disability, and I realized I was never told that I could succeed.”

In fact, Greenfield’s music career almost never got off the ground because he lacked confidence. In high school, Greenfield attended a party with his parents and remembers being mesmerized by the band playing there. “I was just really intrigued by it,” Greenfield says. He remembers the bass player handing him his guitar and “when I hit the strings I was just amazed. I thought, ‘This is incredible!’” But when Greenfield asked his parents for a guitar and began taking lessons he was surprised by how difficult it was to play and immediately quit.

Pursue What You Love

Greenfield didn’t pick up a guitar again until one summer when he left home to take a college course in Michigan and met a guy staying in the dorm room next to his who could play every single Dave Matthews Band song. “This was the perfect opportunity to really learn a catalogue of great songs my girlfriend would appreciate, since she was a huge Dave Matthews fan. “For six straight weeks, all I did was play the guitar.”’

And the Rest, As They Say, Is History

In 2005, the band was born. “At the time, we were just two guys writing music, recording on a small machine and putting out music for free on the Internet,” Greenfield said. “Anyone who liked the music could download all of it for nothing, and if they wrote to us, we would either write a song about them or let them help us design artwork. We were very hands-on with the few fans we had and formed close connections to some great people from all around the country. Over the years, through the Internet mostly, we found other band mates who enjoyed the music we were making and wanted to be a part of what we were doing.”

Today, Canon Logic plays all over the East Coast, and recently Shutterfly began using a song the band recorded a few years ago for their holiday commercial.

A Wise Man Once Said…

An interest in Buddhism taught Greenfield a very important lesson about the path to enlightenment. According to Greenfield, the Buddha advised his followers to use his teachings as a raft to get you from one side of the river to the other. “But once you have made it across, do not carry the raft on your back for it will only weigh you down. Release the raft and live your life.”

“So that’s what I began to do,” Greenfield says. “That’s when I began to focus on all I could do. I realized that I see my true abilities when I’m excited about things. Often, when people are searching for truth and inner peace they get caught up in the head games, in the teachings, in the knowledge that exists outside of them, outside of that very moment. They think too much about lessons and teachings; at some point, if they really want to feel free, they have to simply let go.”

Baby Steps

“It’s not about overnight success. It’s about working slowly and confidently. Sure, you may fail once, twice, three or four times, but eventually you create positive change.” Greenfield says he knows what it’s like to wonder if you are up for the challenge, but after taking the leap, he doesn’t really think about his ADHD other than as a way to help him understand himself and to use what he has learned from it to his advantage. “Now I have no trouble focusing,” Greenfield says. “I work all the time and have learned so many different things. Now it’s very rare that I think I can’t do something, and that feeling only lasts a minute, because I quickly realize, ‘Of course I can!’”