Find Your Entrepreneurial Superpowers with ADHD  (3 Min Read)

Our thoughts and prayers are with the people and businesses who have been devastated by Hurricane Helene. KW Cares, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is dedicated to serving Keller Williams professionals impacted by this natural disaster. If you feel so moved, please visit donate.kwcares.org to make a donation.

“ADHD isn’t a bad thing, it’s a different way of thinking.” – David Neeleman

Find Your Entrepreneurial Superpowers with ADHD

A lot of the talk about ADHD centers on its disadvantages. Let’s flip the conversation. As the parent of two ADHD young adults and someone who comes from a family steeped in it, I like to think of ADHD as a different ability instead of a disability. 

There is no shortage of superachievers who are believed to have ADHD. From Einstein to Edison and Da Vinci to Disney, individuals with ADHD have transformed our world. ADHD is also prevalent among successful entrepreneurs. Maybe that includes you. 

Here’s the truth. Everyone with a superpower has an equally large gap in their game. The ones who rise up, focus their work around their special abilities and surround themselves with a team that covers their gaps. Maybe the same principle applies to so-called disabilities. Every gap comes with a unique ability you just need to tap into. 

Edward M. Hallowell points this out in his book ADHD 2.0: 

“It helps to think of ADHD as a complex set of contradictory or paradoxical tendencies: a lack of focus combined with an ability to superfocus; a lack of direction combined with highly directed entrepreneurialism; a tendency to procrastinate combined with a knack for getting a week’s worth of work done in two hours; impulsive, wrongheaded decision making combined with inventive, out-of-the-blue problem solving; interpersonal cluelessness combined with uncanny intuition and empathy; the list goes on.”

I recently interviewed an entrepreneur who had been diagnosed with ADHD. He shared that his ability to focus was just 6% of the average. Then how has he been so successful for so long? “The ONE Thing is my Adderall,” he declared. By building some simple habits, he was amplifying his ADHD superpowers and curbing its disadvantages. His number one was the simple act of identifying his ONE Thing daily and time-blocking it. 

What’s my ONE Thing today? When you know what’s really important and why, even mundane tasks can take on new importance. How much can I do in the next hour? The time blocks allowed him to focus on the daily sprint, like a kind of gamification. I love this hack. 

A hack is the thing you do to trick yourself into doing the things you need to do. It’s a simple model for action. As we wrote in SHIFT, having a disadvantage can actually be an advantage. When you’re below average at something important, you’re more motivated to find and adopt a model. And by following the model, you often leapfrog average performers who wing it with their natural abilities. 

NOTE:  I’ll unpack these learnings on ADHD and entrepreneurship and more in a free webinar in December. In the meantime, you can sign up for this month’s free webinar on Navigating Uncertainty here. 

One question to ponder in your thinking time: How can I harness the advantages in my “disadvantages”?

Make an Impact!
Jay Papasan
Co-author of The ONE Thing & The Millionaire Real Estate Agent