ADHD is a hidden gift for entrepreneurs

[buckwild]

came across an interesting article that shows how how most entrepreneurs have ADHD characteristics. how has ADHD help you as an entrepreneur?

 

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[James Fake]

It has actually (stops; checks other open browser tab) helps me a lot, I'm not sure if it's ADHD, but maybe selective hearing..

(checks other tabs before hitting 'post)

 

[Anon3587x]

Ah, these so called "disorders" are funny.

My Self Diagnosis;

I have very bad hearing. When people are speaking I can not understand what they are saying unless I completely focus on them (it helps to watch their mouths)
Growing up I had A LOT of ear infections and my world is definitely noiseless compared to the average hearing people have.

What does this have to do with a mental "disorder?

Well growing up this way I tended to not listen when people spoke unless I was completely interested because it took a lot of effort to understand. This forced me to make my own decisions about everything, and during assignments I never would really know what was going on so I always had to figure everything out on the fly improving my problem solving abilities.

I never was "taught" in school since I could not pay attention well. I normally just read the books and always taught myself which is something I still do today. I've never scored below 95% on any reading comprehension test/exam I have taken. Quite often letters start spinning on me because I'm severely dyslexic.

I'm never really paying complete attention to anyone unless I'm VERY interested on the topic and due to my bad hearing my thoughts can easily be louder than words.

So if the assignment is to sell lemonade and a teacher is demonstrating how to do it. I'm staring at him/her with thoughts louder than she is speaking. Figuring out my own way to sell lemonade using my own methods improving my creativity at all times. (while more often than not never following directions as is wanted of me)

Now some people would say I can't concentrate on others because I have ADHD, but it's actually my hearing is just bad which has forced me to become an independent thinker for the reasons above.

 

[FDJustin]

Ahh, I too am part of the "What?" "What" ... "What?" "Talk louder." "... Sound is directional, look at me when you talk." *Finally just gives up and ignores them* club... It didn't get me ignoring the teachers, but it made the English subject pretty shitty.

I got in a lot of trouble in public school because I stopped repeating the same work. I'd do a task until I learned it, then stop. If I understood something, I'd do it in a different way, or just do something else entirely. As for homework? You would see doodles, a few answers done, a placeholder for other answers with arrows pointing to the ones that were done (to show it was the same thing), and I'd get a lovely failing mark.

My principle tried to convince my mother to get me ritaline since he thought I had ADD. She told him "Bullshit, he can focus on a videogame for hours. He absolutely refuses to do it since it bores him."

... That poor woman. I should give her a hug for having to deal with the faculty that just can't stand my personality type. Lazy, Stubborn, easily bored - and finding boredom to be physically painful. (Does boredom hurt other people? Did you know emotional pain activates the same part of the brain as physical pain?)

Anyway, I have seen this somewhere on here before.. It was a link to a video that talked about the traits of a CEO / Entrepreneur. They were ADD, Manic/Depressive... *Pauses. Grabs first link of google.* CEO's disease - manic depression and entrepreneurship | bluehackers.org

Unfortunately, I don't have the CEO disease. In contrast, I tend to be lethargic (with some manic like states, but those are brought on from very exciting things, like learning that they made a 'spider' nanobot out of DNA). I have enough focus that, if something is entertaining, I can stare at it for a long time. I sat there for ten minutes just this morning dipping my teabag into my cup, lifting it up, and watching the drops that fell into the tea... Most people wouldn't find that interesting. But I was enjoying the way the drops would hit the tea, keep their shape for a split second and move across the surface before collapsing.

I have actually experienced a bipolar moment before... Or maybe some other type of mental breakdown. It took massive mental stress and frustration to bring about. Glad it happened though, it taught me not to live in frustration and stress. That doesn't mean I'll never get frustrated and never feel stress, only that I choose not to let my life be surrounded by those things ever again.

Another testament of focus? The video in that link up there... I listened to the whole thing while otherwise staying in this window, typing and editing this post.

 

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[Darkside]

Ahh, I too am part of the "What?" "What" ... "What?" "Talk louder." "... Sound is directional, look at me when you talk." *Finally just gives up and ignores them* club... It didn't get me ignoring the teachers, but it made the English subject pretty shitty.

I got in a lot of trouble in public school because I stopped repeating the same work. I'd do a task until I learned it, then stop. If I understood something, I'd do it in a different way, or just do something else entirely. As for homework? You would see doodles, a few answers done, a placeholder for other answers with arrows pointing to the ones that were done (to show it was the same thing), and I'd get a lovely failing mark.

My principle tried to convince my mother to get me ritaline since he thought I had ADD. She told him "Bullshit, he can focus on a videogame for hours. He absolutely refuses to do it since it bores him."

... That poor woman. I should give her a hug for having to deal with the faculty that just can't stand my personality type. Lazy, Stubborn, easily bored - and finding boredom to be physically painful. (Does boredom hurt other people? Did you know emotional pain activates the same part of the brain as physical pain?)

Anyway, I have seen this somewhere on here before.. It was a link to a video that talked about the traits of a CEO / Entrepreneur. They were ADD, Manic/Depressive... *Pauses. Grabs first link of google.* CEO's disease - manic depression and entrepreneurship | bluehackers.org

Unfortunately, I don't have the CEO disease. In contrast, I tend to be lethargic (with some manic like states, but those are brought on from very exciting things, like learning that they made a 'spider' nanobot out of DNA). I have enough focus that, if something is entertaining, I can stare at it for a long time. I sat there for ten minutes just this morning dipping my teabag into my cup, lifting it up, and watching the drops that fell into the tea... Most people wouldn't find that interesting. But I was enjoying the way the drops would hit the tea, keep their shape for a split second and move across the surface before collapsing.

I have actually experienced a bipolar moment before... Or maybe some other type of mental breakdown. It took massive mental stress and frustration to bring about. Glad it happened though, it taught me not to live in frustration and stress. That doesn't mean I'll never get frustrated and never feel stress, only that I choose not to let my life be surrounded by those things ever again.

Another testament of focus? The video in that link up there... I listened to the whole thing while otherwise staying in this window, typing and editing this post.

Right off the bat, I would say that you are ADD, not ADHD. Most people don't know that ADD and ADHD are two different forms of the same disorder; they just group them into the same category and assume that all of those people have hyperactivity issues. I'm ADD, which is the primarily inattentive type. We are the ones who are daydreaming all the time; not the ones who can't sit still. Our restlessness is more of a restlessness of the mind; when we get bored we move onto something else; the moment a task becomes boring to us it's almost impossible for us to complete it. On the other hand, if a task is really interesting to us, we can focus on it for hours and completely ignore everything else; it's called hyperfocusing. That's why your mom was wrong when she thought that because you could focus on video games for hours that you don't have ADD.

That's why us inattentive types don't tend to get diagnosed in school; because we seem like we're well behaved as we tend to sit politely in class. The teachers don't realize though that almost all the time that we're in class our minds are elsewhere; we're the type that's always daydreaming as opposed to paying attention to the teacher speak unless what the teacher is talking about is interesting which is rare in most public schools. The hyperactive types are the ones who typically drop out of school early because they get into fights and lash out at teachers and other students in various ways which eventually gets them expelled or they choose to leave on their own due to feeling like they don't belong.

The hyperactive types tend to get diagnosed more often because their behavior is clearly noticeable whereas us inattentive types don't appear to have a problem. It's why I wasn't diagnosed until 21 years old; people thought I was just a quiet guy but they didn't realize I was daydreaming 90% of the time while I was in school. Both the inattentive and hyperactive types tend to have an advantage in business but for different reasons. The inattentive types are more creative since we're always daydreaming; when we see something we tend to think of other things and connect those ideas together to form a new idea for a great product or business. The hyperactive types tend to be fearless; they don't second guess their ideas; they just go ahead and start a business not realizing that they're likely to fail but then they go onto great success because the things they try are ideas which most people have but are too fearful to implement themselves.

Richard Branson is the hyperactive type aka ADHD. The founder of Kinkos on the other hand strikes me as the inattentive type. You can tell by watching interviews of them on youtube. Both of them have admitted to having attention deficit disorder and in Branson's case also dyslexia. I'd be willing to bet that the majority of self-made wealthy people have either ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, or a combination of two of those conditions. This doesn't mean that ordinary people can't start successful businesses; it just means that people with those conditions have a natural advantage.

 

[James Fake]

Nice breakdown Darkside; I am definitely self-diagnosing myself as ADD.

 

[Anon3587x]

Remember friends,
Diagnosis will feed the dragon in which is the "issue"

I try to avoid at all costs telling people I have bad hearing. It is so easy to say;

Oh I suck at this because I have :random personality disorder:

I always rant about being dyslexic when my posts start looking f*cked up. I wish I wasn't aware of any mental conditions I may or may not have. All it has done is given me a crutch to lean on should I fail.

A legitimate excuse so to say—but I hate excuses, therefore I hate myself when I make them.

 

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[Darkside]

Remember friends,
Self diagnosis will feed the dragon in which is the "issue"

I try to avoid at all costs telling people I have bad hearing. It is so easy to say;

Oh I suck at this because I have :random personality disorder:

I always rant about being dyslexic when my posts start looking f*cked up. I wish I never had that talk with the dam Army psychologist in the first place.

All it has done is given me a crutch to lean on when I can't do things right. A legitimate excuse so to say. I hate excuses, therefore I hate myself when I make them and a few minutes after I immediately love myself again.

ADD and ADHD are neurological disorders which won't go away by pretending you don't have those conditions. It would be like a person who is Autistic acting normal and somehow that will cure them; it won't as their condition is hard wired into their brain. ADD and ADHD are not as serious as autism but they are real conditions and they're present in roughly 2-4% of the population in every country as it's a genetic condition that goes back tens of thousands of years.

Having ADD or ADHD doesn't mean that a person is less intelligent. On average, people with those conditions are actually more intelligent than the rest of the population. They can understand practically anything they're asked to learn. Their problem is with perception of time and lack of inhibition. They have a tough time inhibiting their thoughts and actions.

So, if they're working on a boring assignment, they will find it almost impossible to complete because they will start doing other things that pop into their heads; this is especially difficult if they're doing a task on the computer since it's so easy to get distracted surfing the internet. They also show up late and tend to procrastinate because their internal sense of time is horrible compared to normal people.

That's part of the reason why ADD and ADHD people tend to find college difficult; they wait to study until the day before the test and end up doing horribly, whereas if they had started studying weeks earlier like the other students, they would have done well. The only way they would be motivated to do that however is if the subject is interesting enough to hold their attention for weeks and the vast majority of college courses are not that interesting. Sure, if your degree was in playing video games they would find it easy to "study" but that's not going to happen.

 

[Darkside]

Nice breakdown Darkside; I am definitely self-diagnosing myself as ADD.

If you ever want to take medications, you'll need to get diagnosed by a psychiatrist or a psychologist. The medications work; they really focus your attention on the task at hand. If you're an ADD or ADHD person and you take medications for the first time you'll feel like your brain has just undergone a dramatic transformation. The reaction I first had was, "This is how other people are all the time?" Wow! But then I stopped taking medication because I didn't like the side effects; namely the headaches which are due to the medication causing you brain to consume a lot more water so if you're not drinking water a lot you'll get headaches.

Other side effects include loss of appetite, inability to sleep until the medications wear off which can range from 4-10 hours depending on the dosage so you're not supposed to take them at night since that'll keep you up. But, to me the worst side effect was losing my creativity. My daydreaming all the time allowed me to think of new ideas far easier than other people whereas while I was on the medication I felt like normal people do; my thoughts focused on whatever task I was doing at the time; they wouldn't jump around like they usually do. So, I stopped taking the meds and now I have my creativity back. I'm going to need it at least until I establish a company then I can take the meds if I need to.

 

[FDJustin]

Right off the bat, I would say that you are ADD

Well, maybe. The description is fairly accurate. And I can't count the number of times this scenario has come up: "You're late!" 'Yeah, I can see that.' "Well what happened?" 'I had a shower.' "How could you -possibly- been in the shower for (insert time between one half, to an hour and some change)?!" 'Well, I get to thinking and only realize I should get out after I realize I don't know if I washed my hair... Or the water got cold.'

Incidentally I think schools are great at diagnosing kids with ADHD or ADD. Why, I bet they get three out of every one case right.

One interesting note is, I have almost no sense of time now. Yet, I remember when I was very young I felt every second. People would laugh or get annoyed when they say "We'll do that tomorrow/Saturday/next week." or the worse response of all, since I knew they wouldn't hold themselves accountable, "I'll tell you when you're older." and my response would be "That is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo long!" and it was true. When you live in every second, Tomorrow is just too far away.

Sometimes I wish I still perceive time that way. Who wants to put off their work until tomorrow if it means you have to wait forever to get the results?

 

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[Knightsman]

I have ADD, its a great tool, but I have to slow down and make sure my wife knows im listening. Luckily, she understands that if she says something..and I all of the sudden go..."Wait, What? Start over again" its not me being disrespectful, because I hate it for one thing, but she knows thats how my mind works. And I appreciate her for being understanding of that.

 

[Anon3587x]

I'd advise everybody to learn how to be a master of self. Once you figured that out, any diagnosis someone gives you really doesn't matter anymore. You now can conquer it.

I think people yearn to have a word and definition for every action someone takes, every thought someone has. These definitions which describe most of us do nothing but feed the beast increasing these acts of f*cked up ness.

P.S
NEW WORD!

F*ckEDUPNESS (f*cked up ness) - When you mess up, but have a legitimate reason for being messed up. F*ckEDUPNESS.

 

[Darkside]

I have ADD, its a great tool, but I have to slow down and make sure my wife knows im listening. Luckily, she understands that if she says something..and I all of the sudden go..."Wait, What? Start over again" its not me being disrespectful, because I hate it for one thing, but she knows thats how my mind works. And I appreciate her for being understanding of that.

That happens to me all the time! Either I was daydreaming already when someone starts talking and all of a sudden I snap back and realize they were talking and say, "What did you just say?" Or, I was listening from the start but then partway through the conversation I start daydreaming due to either something interesting they said triggering that daydream or just a random daydream and then I miss the rest of what they said causing them to become irritated and not repeat what they said.

Most people see it as disrespectful, especially since I've told only two other people that I have ADD; I'm not ashamed of it but I just don't like how ordinary people view ADD, as if we're retarded or need to be pitied. I'm an intelligent person, I don't need pity from anyone so I would rather have them pissed off at me than to pity me. Hopefully in the future society will come to understand the condition better so that people with ADD or ADHD can freely admit that they have it without being treated differently.

 

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[Forbes]

It can be a two edged sword.

According to a book I read, from good to great, great leaders are "hedghogs." that means he sticks to doing 1 thing does it over and over and just sticking with that for years till it's perfected

example: Reagan when he was president was all about ending communism in Russia. With persistence he prevailed over the years.

 

[Anon3587x]

Forbes
It can be a two edged sword.

According to a book I read, from good to great, great leaders are "hedghogs." that means he sticks to doing 1 thing does it over and over and just sticking with that for years till it's perfected

example: Reagan when he was president was all about ending communism in Russia. With persistence he prevailed over the years.

Bruce Lee once said something to the effect of

"I fear not the man who practiced 10,000 kicks 1 time,
But the man who practiced 1 kick 10,000 times."

 

[hakrjak]

My wife is a PHD of Pschology, and she says that ADD & ADHD are often associated with genius. Sometimes they'll bring in a kid who is doing poorly in school, and she'll test them and diagnose ADD -- and on a seperate test, that the kid will show an extremely high IQ. Parents are usually shocked.

Cheers,

- Hakrjak

 

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[Anon3587x]

My wife is a PHD of Pschology, and she says that ADD & ADHD are often associated with genius. Sometimes they'll bring in a kid who is doing poorly in school, and she'll test them and diagnose ADD -- and on a seperate test, that the kid will show an extremely high IQ. Parents are usually shocked.

Cheers,

- Hakrjak

I seen a autistic girl score 170+ on a IQ test.
but yet she could not even go to the bathroom by herself or hold a conversation.

IQ tests are not perfect. You can teach just about any kid 3-5 different languages if you start teaching when they are young and their brains are in over drive.

Does this make these children highly-intelligent, or rather just a child who was educated while their brain was a sponge.

Tesla

""If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. ... I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety percent of his labor."

I feel this is relevant

 

[Knightsman]

That happens to me all the time! Either I was daydreaming already when someone starts talking and all of a sudden I snap back and realize they were talking and say, "What did you just say?" Or, I was listening from the start but then partway through the conversation I start daydreaming due to either something interesting they said triggering that daydream or just a random daydream and then I miss the rest of what they said causing them to become irritated and not repeat what they said.

Most people see it as disrespectful, especially since I've told only two other people that I have ADD; I'm not ashamed of it but I just don't like how ordinary people view ADD, as if we're retarded or need to be pitied. I'm an intelligent person, I don't need pity from anyone so I would rather have them pissed off at me than to pity me. Hopefully in the future society will come to understand the condition better so that people with ADD or ADHD can freely admit that they have it without being treated differently.

YAY some just like me!!! I hate it when that happens in the middle of a conversation.

 

[FDJustin]

I seen a austistic girl score 170+ on a IQ test.
but yet she could not even go to the bathroom by herself or hold a conversation.

IQ tests are rubbish.

Aww, but IQ tests are a fun way to pretend you have a superior quality. As a bonus, you can always study the test itself and present a higher score than you would have gotten otherwise!

Being completely sincere, I do think IQ tests kind of trivialize people. They aren't things of merit; they don't prove character, achievement, or skill.

But are they entirely rubbish? Probably not entirely.. They show whether or not someone has a high capacity to be smart based on the metrics the test uses.

 

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[Anon3587x]

But are they entirely rubbish? Probably not entirely.. They show whether or not someone has a high capacity to be smart based on the metrics the test uses.

Consider rephrasing this.

They show rather or not you can identify which shape will come next in the pattern or not. If bill ate 5 burritos every hour, while eating 1 less burrito each hour. How many would he have ate on his 4th hour?

This determines how smart I am? They all have definite answers.
Some more right than others, some more wrong then right but still work.

Solving problems which have more than 1 answer or solution requires true intellect.

We all have a mind which is conscience of reality.
How wide and enlarged your conscience is determines how bright you may be.
If your conscience is as wide as a basketball you are prone to propaganda and have severe tunnel vision.

But when your mind opens up to the universe and the dark walls around you brighten things start to look different. Instead of focusing on just 1 thing as the basketball vision likes to do. Your thoughts float to all sorts of crazy places.

Those with ADD/ADHD have problems focusing because they are born without this tunnel vision or for some reason grew out of it at a early age. They have a huge mindly conscience.

(in my case it was bad hearing)
The bold text is my own speculation, but I feel it is rarely accurate.

That being said, I feel some degree of tunnel vision is required to be successful. There are those of us insanely genius. They create this tunnel vision only to use when needed, while going back to frolick in the enlightened conscience after.

This may sound like bull shit to some of you. But I assure you it is more than half correct at worst.

 

[FDJustin]

... I actually have trouble with that question though. It's more about comprehension than the answer. At first, I thought you were asking how many he would eat on the last hour, but that's not true. And if it were, I don't even know if the answer would be 1, or 2.
I mean, I would like to assume that on the first hour you count from, it's still five. Hmm.. The wording doesn't say he eats 1 less burrito each hour after the first, just each hour. And that's not even tallying it. So the actual answer would either be 14... Or 10.

 

[Anon3587x]

If bill ate 5 burritos every hour, while eating 1 less burrito each hour. How many would he have ate on his 4th hour?

5 burritos = 1 hour
4 burritos = 2 hours
3 burritos = 3 hours
2 burritos = 4 hours

On his 4th hour he would of ate 2 burritos.

If I would of added altogether at the end the answer would of been 14.

On those tests they like to word the question f*cked up in hopes of confusing.
But somebody who doesn't tunnel vision questions down and keeps a open mind with the answer (as you did). Will have troubles solving such a question due to the uncertainness of the problem.

I don't think less of you for not arriving at the 'correct response'.

You kept an open mind to creative thinking and maintained an optimistic view for each uncertain variable the problem did not provide you a definite answer for. You gave answers along with questions and that is great! To a sense this will help you more in life than giving a definite answer.

This goes back to the ol' Einstein quote;

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

 

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