because of the “diagnosis”, not in spite of it
Ничего революционно нового, но очень приятная своим позитивным аспектом статья про СДВГ д-ра Дейла Арчера. Я ее даже скопирую и оставлю здесь под катом. Мне очень импонирует такой подход: изменить ничего нельзя и риталин (против симптомов, но не болезни) абсолютно не выход, особенно когда он прописывается всеми подряд всем подряд.
[прочитать статью]What do business mogul Sir Richard Branson, Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad, and JetBlue founder David Neeleman, have in common? Well, besides being monumentally successful, they all have ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), and, like other entrepreneurs and CEOs, some will even tell you that they are successful largely because of the “diagnosis”, not in spite of it.
They may well be onto something. At a time when health care professionals are over prescribing stimulants like Ritalin, medicating the so-called “symptoms” of ADHD out of existence, it’s worth noting that some of the trait’s most common characteristics - creativity, multi-tasking, risk-taking, high energy and even resilience- are, in fact, strengths when leveraged in the right way and in the right career. It’s why so many high profile achievers are beginning to publicly embrace their diagnoses of ADHD.
Of course in our over-diagnosed, over-medicated culture, we choose to only focus on the negative aspects of ADHD, which include procrastination, inability to concentrate, forgetfulness, disorganization and easily distracted. One easy way to think about ADHD is having a low boredom threshold (no, this is not the cause). Those with the trait become frustrated with routine, whether that includes sitting in a classroom for eight hours a day, or spending time chained to a desk at the office performing routine tasks. But there is so much more to this trait that can be leveraged to an advantage. ADHDers are often at their best in crisis mode, multi-tasking and free associating to intuitively reach a solution. And if they find something they truly love to do, they are able to focus for hours on end.
“If someone told me you could be normal or you could continue to have your ADD (the original name for what is now called ADHD), I would take ADD,” Neeleman told ADDitude Magazine, “I can distill complicated facts and come up with simple solutions. I can look out on an industry with all kinds of problems and say, ‘How can I do this better?’ My ADD brain naturally searches for better ways of doing things.”
Neeleman even went on to say that if there was a pill he could take to make it go away, he’d refuse to take it, because he wouldn’t be where he is today without it, and there is some science to back him on this point. Some research has suggested that a tendency to be self-employed and an entrepreneur is dominant in individuals with ADHD. One U.K. study of note found a genetic link between a dopamine receptor gene variation associated with ADHD and the tendency to be an entrepreneur. Sensation seeking, common in ADHD is more common among entrepreneurs than in the general population and anecdotal reports bolster this point, saying that people with ADHD are three times more likely to own their own business.
It makes sense. Besides being easily bored with routine and the status quo, those with the ADHD trait tend to thrive in times of crisis. Those with ADHD in pre-historic times were constantly looking for new hunting grounds, water supplies and sites for a new place to settle. Village life made them restless, so they felt the urge to keep moving. In fact the gene associated with ADHD is sometimes called the “explorer gene”.
It takes an adventurous spirit, to strike out on your own. Entrepreneurship fits perfectly with the ADHDer’s need for stimulation and a willingness to take risks. The greatest success stories in business took a leap based on what they saw in the marketplace at a particular moment in time. Rejecting solutions that seemed to be “normal”, they instead trusted their instincts and forged ahead with something new and unproven while their more risk-averse peers shook their heads and insisted it would never work.
These ADHD entrepreneurs are also creative, with high-energy and an ability to hyper-focus on something they find innately interesting. This gives them the ability to spend limitless amounts of time accomplishing any task necessary to take their business to the next level. They thrive under pressure or, as ADHD entrepreneur and career coach Laurie Dupar puts it, the ADHDer “eats chaos for breakfast”.
I would add one other thing to this list of traits: an ability and desire to multi-task. Interestingly, studies show that ADHDers are not that much better at multi-tasking than the general population but, in my experience, the difference is that they LOVE to multi-task, whereas for most this is perceived as stressful. This strength lends itself perfectly to entrepreneurship because that’s what owners of startups do: juggle many tasks at one time, from sales, to R&D, admin and payroll. When you start something from nothing, you have no choice but to dart from task to task, doing everything for yourself until you can afford enough extra staff and infrastructure to delegate. It’s a role tailor-made for those with ADHD.
The entrepreneurs I have mentioned here are all very different, but their ability to leverage their ADHD traits as strengths is the common thread. As Orfalea tells it, he couldn’t write letters or fix photocopy machines, but his wandering nature lent itself perfectly to moving from store to store, observing and interacting with customers and understanding the big picture of what he needed to do, and who he needed to hire to keep his service-based business competitive.
Alan Meckler, Chairman and CEO of WebMediaBrands , has a famously short attention span. But it enables him to listen only for the most important details in order to digest complex information, grasp the big picture and spot the most relevant trends before his competition. It’s a lightning-quick reaction time that’s typical of many in the IT industries leading innovators, including the likes of the late Steve Jobs whom I (and many others) speculate also had ADHD.
To be sure, the ADHD trait isn’t always a superpower. For those who haven’t managed to garner the right insight or support, especially early in life, it can lead to problems. A recent paper published by the Yale School of Public health found that children with ADHD are 10-14 percent less likely to be employed as adults, and those who are employed earn 33 percent less income than people who don’t have ADHD.
Of course, many do struggle and need treatment, and in certain cases medication is warranted, although nowhere near at the levels it is being prescribed now- for both children and adults. We need to understand that ADHD, isn’t just something that flicks on and off like a switch. It exists along a continuum, on a scale from one to 10, and very few with the diagnosis have symptoms that are severe enough to warrant a 9 or 10 and hence require medication. Unfortunately many in the 5-8 range are also receiving the diagnosis, and in today’s pop-a-pill culture, a diagnosis usually means a pill. For these, sometimes all it takes is awareness and a few simple adjustments to leverage this trait into your greatest strength. The real solutions aren’t that complicated, if you change your point of view.
I am currently working on a book for Penguin, titled, “The ADHD ADDvantage: What You Thought Was a Diagnosis May Be Your Greatest Strength,” to explode the myth that ADHD is an epidemic that needs to be medicated out of existence. We are trying to shove everyone into a box called “normal” all the while shrinking the box and using medication to accomplish the task. I am looking for ADHD entrepreneur and business leaders to tell me your story.
Consider this an official invitation to let the world know how it can benefit from an ADHD brain like yours, and offer encouragement to the next generation. Let them know that they, too, have something great to offer the world, and that the ADHD diagnosis is not always a curse, often a blessing.
Ксати, у автора и книга уже написана и ожидается в июле в продаже: The ADHD Advantage: What You Thought Was a Diagnosis May Be Your Greatest Strength
[прочитать статью]What do business mogul Sir Richard Branson, Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad, and JetBlue founder David Neeleman, have in common? Well, besides being monumentally successful, they all have ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), and, like other entrepreneurs and CEOs, some will even tell you that they are successful largely because of the “diagnosis”, not in spite of it.
They may well be onto something. At a time when health care professionals are over prescribing stimulants like Ritalin, medicating the so-called “symptoms” of ADHD out of existence, it’s worth noting that some of the trait’s most common characteristics - creativity, multi-tasking, risk-taking, high energy and even resilience- are, in fact, strengths when leveraged in the right way and in the right career. It’s why so many high profile achievers are beginning to publicly embrace their diagnoses of ADHD.
Of course in our over-diagnosed, over-medicated culture, we choose to only focus on the negative aspects of ADHD, which include procrastination, inability to concentrate, forgetfulness, disorganization and easily distracted. One easy way to think about ADHD is having a low boredom threshold (no, this is not the cause). Those with the trait become frustrated with routine, whether that includes sitting in a classroom for eight hours a day, or spending time chained to a desk at the office performing routine tasks. But there is so much more to this trait that can be leveraged to an advantage. ADHDers are often at their best in crisis mode, multi-tasking and free associating to intuitively reach a solution. And if they find something they truly love to do, they are able to focus for hours on end.
“If someone told me you could be normal or you could continue to have your ADD (the original name for what is now called ADHD), I would take ADD,” Neeleman told ADDitude Magazine, “I can distill complicated facts and come up with simple solutions. I can look out on an industry with all kinds of problems and say, ‘How can I do this better?’ My ADD brain naturally searches for better ways of doing things.”
Neeleman even went on to say that if there was a pill he could take to make it go away, he’d refuse to take it, because he wouldn’t be where he is today without it, and there is some science to back him on this point. Some research has suggested that a tendency to be self-employed and an entrepreneur is dominant in individuals with ADHD. One U.K. study of note found a genetic link between a dopamine receptor gene variation associated with ADHD and the tendency to be an entrepreneur. Sensation seeking, common in ADHD is more common among entrepreneurs than in the general population and anecdotal reports bolster this point, saying that people with ADHD are three times more likely to own their own business.
It makes sense. Besides being easily bored with routine and the status quo, those with the ADHD trait tend to thrive in times of crisis. Those with ADHD in pre-historic times were constantly looking for new hunting grounds, water supplies and sites for a new place to settle. Village life made them restless, so they felt the urge to keep moving. In fact the gene associated with ADHD is sometimes called the “explorer gene”.
It takes an adventurous spirit, to strike out on your own. Entrepreneurship fits perfectly with the ADHDer’s need for stimulation and a willingness to take risks. The greatest success stories in business took a leap based on what they saw in the marketplace at a particular moment in time. Rejecting solutions that seemed to be “normal”, they instead trusted their instincts and forged ahead with something new and unproven while their more risk-averse peers shook their heads and insisted it would never work.
These ADHD entrepreneurs are also creative, with high-energy and an ability to hyper-focus on something they find innately interesting. This gives them the ability to spend limitless amounts of time accomplishing any task necessary to take their business to the next level. They thrive under pressure or, as ADHD entrepreneur and career coach Laurie Dupar puts it, the ADHDer “eats chaos for breakfast”.
I would add one other thing to this list of traits: an ability and desire to multi-task. Interestingly, studies show that ADHDers are not that much better at multi-tasking than the general population but, in my experience, the difference is that they LOVE to multi-task, whereas for most this is perceived as stressful. This strength lends itself perfectly to entrepreneurship because that’s what owners of startups do: juggle many tasks at one time, from sales, to R&D, admin and payroll. When you start something from nothing, you have no choice but to dart from task to task, doing everything for yourself until you can afford enough extra staff and infrastructure to delegate. It’s a role tailor-made for those with ADHD.
The entrepreneurs I have mentioned here are all very different, but their ability to leverage their ADHD traits as strengths is the common thread. As Orfalea tells it, he couldn’t write letters or fix photocopy machines, but his wandering nature lent itself perfectly to moving from store to store, observing and interacting with customers and understanding the big picture of what he needed to do, and who he needed to hire to keep his service-based business competitive.
Alan Meckler, Chairman and CEO of WebMediaBrands , has a famously short attention span. But it enables him to listen only for the most important details in order to digest complex information, grasp the big picture and spot the most relevant trends before his competition. It’s a lightning-quick reaction time that’s typical of many in the IT industries leading innovators, including the likes of the late Steve Jobs whom I (and many others) speculate also had ADHD.
To be sure, the ADHD trait isn’t always a superpower. For those who haven’t managed to garner the right insight or support, especially early in life, it can lead to problems. A recent paper published by the Yale School of Public health found that children with ADHD are 10-14 percent less likely to be employed as adults, and those who are employed earn 33 percent less income than people who don’t have ADHD.
Of course, many do struggle and need treatment, and in certain cases medication is warranted, although nowhere near at the levels it is being prescribed now- for both children and adults. We need to understand that ADHD, isn’t just something that flicks on and off like a switch. It exists along a continuum, on a scale from one to 10, and very few with the diagnosis have symptoms that are severe enough to warrant a 9 or 10 and hence require medication. Unfortunately many in the 5-8 range are also receiving the diagnosis, and in today’s pop-a-pill culture, a diagnosis usually means a pill. For these, sometimes all it takes is awareness and a few simple adjustments to leverage this trait into your greatest strength. The real solutions aren’t that complicated, if you change your point of view.
I am currently working on a book for Penguin, titled, “The ADHD ADDvantage: What You Thought Was a Diagnosis May Be Your Greatest Strength,” to explode the myth that ADHD is an epidemic that needs to be medicated out of existence. We are trying to shove everyone into a box called “normal” all the while shrinking the box and using medication to accomplish the task. I am looking for ADHD entrepreneur and business leaders to tell me your story.
Consider this an official invitation to let the world know how it can benefit from an ADHD brain like yours, and offer encouragement to the next generation. Let them know that they, too, have something great to offer the world, and that the ADHD diagnosis is not always a curse, often a blessing.
Ксати, у автора и книга уже написана и ожидается в июле в продаже: The ADHD Advantage: What You Thought Was a Diagnosis May Be Your Greatest Strength