His name is my name too... kind of like John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.

This story doesn’t come with a neat little ADHD lesson at the end. No productivity takeaway. Just something I want to share with you.

This book would not exist without the man in the center of this photo, my father.

I quoted him briefly at the end of the book using a phrase he would often tell me. His words that I try to live up to: “Go be great.”

I want to tell you about the man behind that quote, and why his impact still echoes through my life, my daughters’ lives, and almost everyone who had the luck of knowing him, and why those three words (go be great) challenge me to be better every day.

One quick note: I love my mother with all my heart. Over our years together, we may have disagreed on plenty, but we both come from the same place of love, loyalty, and wanting the best for our family and friends. She is one of the kindest humans I know, a loving mother, caring mother-in-law, and devoted grandmother. I love her with all my heart. Trust me, I have a thousand stories about her.

This one belongs to my dad.

My father put his family first. Always. He showed up no matter the day, or how tired he was, or how easily it would have been to just stay home. Instead, he was present. He participated. I have never had a bigger supporter or fan than my dad, and I probably never will again.

Near the end of my high school athletic career, I was honored as the Most Valuable Player (MVP) for one of my school’s sports teams. I knew I had contributed much to our success that season, but so had several others. When my name was called, it took me by surprise. I humbly stood up and walked toward the podium at the front of the gym.

Just like every home game in that building, the athletes were on the floor, and the bleachers were full of parents, friends, and family. I had won championships in that gym, but the moment felt different. Bigger. Heavier. More personal.

My coach handed me the trophy, nodded toward the microphone, and I immediately realized a problem. I didn’t have a speech ready. I turned toward the podium, panicked quietly, and tried to quickly build a coherent sentence in real time.

I thanked my coaches and teammates. I thanked everyone in the stands for supporting us through the season. While I was talking, my eyes did what they always did during games. They scanned the crowd and found my dad.

...and there he was. Like always.

But this time, he didn’t have his typical stoic look on his face. He wasn’t giving me a thumbs-up or thumbs-down assessment about how I was playing. He was beaming in a way I had never seen.

I was fortunate to have a lot of athletic success, so I had seen pride on his face before. I knew that look. This…this look was different. It was so out of character, genuine, and so raw that it stopped me mid-sentence.

My eyes immediately began to swell with tears. I tried to gain control of the emotion I felt rising in my chest. I paused, took slow breaths, and swallowed hard.

When I started speaking again, my voice still trembled. I had no plan. No clever story. No smooth setup. I just knew this was the moment to show up and honor the man who had shown up for me my entire life.

I then did what we ADHD folks tend to do when we want to make a point: I started with a backstory.

In fourteen years of my sports career leading up to that day, my dad attended every game, every match, and even every scrimmage. In fact, during all that time, he only missed one game, one, about a month earlier, because he was twelve hours away at my sister’s college graduation.

That exception proved his rule. And it was not only for me. He showed up when and where he was needed the most for his family.

He went to every band concert, symphony performance, theater production, and choir event my sister was part of. Every doctor visit and trips to the hospital for my grandmother(s), and church every Sunday with my mom. If we were home for dinner, we sat together at the kitchen table. This was not optional. Dinner was time for us to connect.

It was his way of keeping us close, keeping us visible to each other, making sure nobody drifted to the edges (his version of object permanence… which I discuss in Chapter 8 of Trying Harder Won’t Work).

I gave you that backstory because there I was still at the podium, holding an MVP trophy, all of this running through my brain and trying to remember where I was going with all of that backstory when clarity struck, providing me with exactly what I had to say and do. This clarity was:

I may have earned that award on the court, but the values and work ethic that made it possible came from him.

That’s when my speech stopped being a speech. I told the audience that this award was bigger than me. I said it was his accomplishment too. At that moment, I tuned everyone else out and spoke directly to my father.

Holding up the trophy so he could see it, I pointed to the name on the plate. LARRY WORTH.

“Dad, we share the same name, which means this trophy doesn’t only have my name on it. It has yours too.”

I only saw my dad cry twice.

The second time was years later when my grandmother passed away. The first time was that day in that gym, while I stood at the podium.

When I saw him finally stop fighting his stoic nature and allow the tears to fall, I stopped talking. I stepped away from the microphone and walked up into the stands, trophy in hand, eyes locked onto my father.

My dad was not big on public attention. I usually tried to be mindful of that. But in this moment, I did not care. I handed him the trophy and said, “I love you, Dad. Thank you for being you. You are my MVP.”

I hugged him and went back to my seat next to my teammates.

Afterward, people told me there was not a dry eye in the building. That might be true. But that moment was not for the others in the building. It was for him.

It was my way of making visible what had been mostly unseen, the sacrifices of a father who always showed up for his family. To this day, when I see that trophy, which is now prominently displayed in my home office, I think of him. I think of what he gave me, and what he gave my family, even in his final days.

I wish I could have been for my children, half of whom he was to me. Our lives had different plans for us, including being over a thousand miles apart during most of the year, now that they live in Florida and I’m in Ohio, but I still try to find ways to show up for them in my own way. I know he would have done the same for me.

My dad passed away in April of 2021. I believe he held on longer than his body wanted to, trying to squeeze out a little more time with his family, especially his granddaughters.

I am grateful they had a real relationship with him. Not a vague “grandpa memory,” like I have of my grandfathers, but actual, real time together. They have loving memories of him that they will hold for the rest of their lives.

From the moment my girls were born, they became the center of his world. True to form, he never missed a birthday, went to all their games, recitals, and every school or social event he could physically attend. When he became too frail to be there in person, he made someone who went FaceTime him so he could still “be there” for them. Because that’s who he was.

Was he flawed? Of course. Everyone is. I am also convinced he had undiagnosed ADHD, which explains a few things and makes me smile a little when I think about it.

He loved to read, and this book would have been at the top of his list. I can see him reading it often and buying extras just so he could nonchalantly hand it to someone like, “You have to read this!” whether they asked about it or not.

My heart aches that I cannot physically put this book in his hands. But I can still honor him. I can still carry forward the lessons he gave me.

And in a way that feels almost poetic, this book is like that MVP trophy.

It doesn’t only have my name on it. It has his too.

My father with his granddaughters.