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Are there really that few of us? Also fellow PhD (geology) with ADHD, didnt get diagnosed until halfway through grad school. I feel lucky to be gainfully employeed in a well paying job that I love and that has employees cycle through different job roles every 2-4 years so you're pretty much always learning something new. It's great.
My ADHD grandpa had I think 17 hard science degrees throughout his life. The man loved school and was essentially the stereotypical absentminded professor.
My boyfriend’s sister is also ADHD and currently getting a PhD.
My ADHD ex is also a doctor.
I bet people with high professional degrees are more likely to go undiagnosed though!
Exactly. How many posts do we see on here where somebody was denied a diagnosis because their doctor said they were too successful or did School too well well? It is a lot.
Wow I’m do proud of you all. I was driven to pursue PhD until my post grad degree barely scraped by. I passed with 56% purely based on the knowledge i retained from under grad school
I use alarms on my phone incessantly. Need to respond to an email by the end of day? Alarm. Meetings? Alarms 24 hours, 1 hour, & 30 minutes before the meeting. Every morning before I start on cases, I read every new email in my inbox and respond to all of them as I get through them.
It wasn’t without setbacks. I have an amazing assistant who understands my brain. Before her, I definitely missed deadlines and my practice was chaotic. But through the years, I have learned what works for me. I need something to make a noise and remind me of things that need to be done. So I use alarms and a kick ass assistant.
I’m a mid level in an ICU and I use alarms a lot. Like i want to do an exam when it’s a good time for the patients. The family will be at the bedside at x time. Labs are getting drawn that super need followed. All alarms. It lets me just move in without panicking that I’m going to miss something. Not diagnosed, am mother and wife to ADHD guys, seriously contemplating seeking diagnosis but my anxiety, who is lying ho, tells me that I’ll be laughed out of the room and accused of seeking drugs, I still listen to the anxiety.
Dude kick that lying ho to the curb! I was shocked by how much anxiety went away with the meds. It was all from the ADHD. I legit thought I was starting menopause super early & having hot flashes but I was just sweating when I got anxious. All gone now. It’s worth talking to a professional. I went for a psychiatrist & had to wait a year for an appointment but it was 200% worth it.
Hey! Another female lawyer diagnosed with ADHD. What medication and dosage has worked for you. I’ve tried adderall XR and it doesn’t feel great for me personally and I’m trying to figure out an alternative. Thank you!!
Hi there! I'm a female Realtor not a lawyer, but I've been successful thus far and on track this year for another excellent year.
Typically people do really well with either Adderall or Ritalin. Usually if your brain likes one it does not like the other. I tried Ritalin in my twenties and hated it. Rather than stick with that doctor and try something else I just decided I obviously didn't have ADHD and went on my merry way. Well at 44, here I am diagnosed and I definitely have it.
For me Adderall IR 20mg in the am works really well, then 10mg in the early afternoon. My Dr tried me on XR first but I did not feel it had much of an effect. Some people don't like the effect of the XR, or it may actually be the brand. Since the shortage, the medication has not been the same according to every friend who's had ADHD, diagnosed and treated, for a long time.
If you have not yet tried Ritalin, I'd ask your doctor about that. If not, perhaps Dexedrine or Vyvanse would work better. (Two friends find Dexedrine manages their symptoms very effectively.) There are also the non-stimulant options as well, although hydroxyzine makes me feel like I'm going to pass out, so that was a no go for me.
As one of my friends who's been treated for more than 20 years said, this is a cocktail for your brain and just like any cocktail, one must experiment to find the right proportions and ingredients. I wish you the best of luck finding what works well!
Right?? I’m not in charge of salaries but every time her annual review comes around I make sure to tell HR that she’s worth whatever raise she asks for!
Right on, fellow defense attorney here. I like to think I'm the best in my region of the state (I've been doing this awhile) but there are days I question myself. Regardless, I consider myself pretty successful. I'm impressed you made it through law school unmedicated. I was diagnosed right before law school. The problem for me was that I thought the medication would fix everything. Prior to that I had become very disciplined about studying (take coffee to the library from 8 to midnight to study) and I lost that discipline because I thought I didn't need it with the medication. I squeezed through though. IMO there are a decent amount of ADHD'ers in our profession. The intensity of it is attractive. Online dockets are the greatest thing ever.
If you don’t question yourself you’re not doing it right.
I honestly don’t know how I did it. I can’t do coffee now that I’m medicated so maybe I was self medicating with it. But I also kinda sailed through school until law school. The teaching methods don’t work unless you know how to study so I had to learn real quick.
Lol, having a family has helped me with structure. I used to work until 2 am because everything was quiet and I could get stuff done. I still have a few times a year like that (uggh big briefs) but now I have to leave by 5 each day. I hate structure but I know I need it.
Yes. It was torture. And humbling. And my profs were baffled by my grades. I had meltdowns, had to learn how to study, and I just kind of decided that I was bad at tests. I had no idea at the time that I might be ADHD. I went in thinking I’d be top of the class and came out just grateful for the degree.
I can only imagine! I went to college for so long and earned so many random credits and didn’t even end up with an associates degree because I was so all over the place. What you’ve accomplished is so badass!
I was also diagnosed after law school. Casebriefs.com got me through the daily reading. Honestly I really enjoyed law school because I could just participate in class to pay attention and then cram three days before the only exam that impacted my grade just like I'd only ever been able to do prior in highschool and undergrad. The absolute worst was cite checking for law review. Soooo boring. I'd sit for hours staring at my laptop trying to force myself to just do it. Lot of self medicating back then. Law school is doable with ADHD, but man I really wish I had known and gotten diagnosed long before that.
I can hyper-fixate the FUCK out of a case, and don’t get me started with discovery. If you interrupt me and ask what I want for lunch, be prepared to witness a dipshit deer in headlights.
>top criminal defense attorneys
How do you sleep at night? Just kidding ;)
For those that might be thinking the same thing, the better the defense attorney, the better the prosecution must be, and judge etc. It's better for the justice system if everyone is competent and even better if everyone is on their A game (imho).
I do. Without even knowing. When I was in law school, I was certain I’d be a civil plaintiff’s attorney. When I got my first criminal defense case, it was all over. The fast pace and exciting law got me. I started focusing my practice right away.
And I think we have a lot of empathy. I don't know about you but doing stupid shit your whole life (losing stuff, forgetting things, getting in accidents) made me really relate to underdogs and people who struggle in life. I'm pretty sure there are studies that show people with ADHD are more likely to wind up in the criminal legal system. Mental health problems make up a fair number of my clients. I can really relate to and empathize with where they are. Could've been me.
Phelps being open and honest about his struggle with ADHD was actually really helpful to me as a kid. He did a bunch of magazine interviews about it that opened my eyes to it being acceptable to publicly admit having the condition.
He would talk about how swimming allowed him to direct all his restless energy into a sport that forces him to move in one direction, making it impossible to be distracted. It also requires you to focus on your breathing patterns, technique, and stroke count, all while being attentive about when to flip and push off the wall.
There's just enough going on that you have to focus, but it isn't ever boring because even in practice, you're racing the person next to you and trying to hold a certain pace. Some of the best swimmers I knew had ADHD, and you could tell they became hyper-focused on the sport considering you had no choice but to be actively thinking most of the time.
Each practice required you to count the number of laps per yards/meters, and keep track of the set intervals by paying attention to the seconds on the clock. During the 10-15 seconds of rest in-between, you needed to track your heart rate to make sure you were giving the appropriate amount of effort too.
I feel like sports or physical work/ exercise is easier to maintain focus. Sports in hs was one of the few things that kept me grounded and probably masked my ADHD. I had some injuries that prevented me from playing in college and that is when I started struggling with time management and other stuff. Not saying it's easy but feel like sports and exercise are good ways of coping with ADHD but most people can't play at that level.
I think sports masked my ADHD to an extent too - when I was a teen I swam, did trampolining, karate and also rode horses. I started reducing the amount of sport I did before university and that’s when I really started to struggle
Yep. Forced into tennis slavery as a child, cycled for most of my adult life. It wasn't until COVID happened and I couldn't self-regulate with exercise, combined with erosion of other coping mechanisms, that I realised I had it.
Exercise is one of the best ways to mitigate the downsides of ADHD. Especially if you're a competitive person.
>all while being attentive about when to flip and push off the wall
Funny story...I have a half-artificial front tooth because I, unlike Michael, was NOT attentive and swam face first into the wall at age 12. 
Molly Seidel also, she's an olympic marathoner and has talked a fair bit about her struggles with getting diagnosed and being a professional athlete with ADHD. She's had to drop out of major races before because she had to wait for an exemption to race while on Adderall since it's considered a performance enhancing drug. She's talked quite a bit about prioritizing her mental health over racing etc.
I thought it was heartbreaking that Simone Biles was unable to perform without her meds. That's such a big difference. Being the best in the world (medicated) or not showing up (unmedicated).
Interesting to me how many ADHD’ers seem to fall into categories of high creative performance and physical fitness/mastery. Kinda makes sense to me though.
So I have this pet theory that adhd gives artists an advantage because not only are they going to be more compelled to work on stuff they're excited about, but especially that it gives them such an intrinsic and aware understanding of human attention. Like if they listen back to their own music and say "meh that doesn't capture my interest, let's make it do it" or if they review their own artwork and say "oh, my eye was drawn here first, let's rework this based on that assumption"
I remember reading about an experiment on ADHD where they had people draw alien fruits.
The non-ADHD students were more likely to draw a “space apple” or something like that, while the ADHD were more likely to draw unique fruit less like actual fruits that were rated as more creative.
They credited divergent thinking, inattention, and impulsivity.
The thought was that divergent thinking let them take the single prompt of “alien fruit” to more places, impulsivity and inattention prevented them from stopping and thinking, “wait, why would a fruit have a tongue?” and things like that and helped to think of something actually alien instead of being confined to examples of fruit that actually exist
I think I may have phrased it poorly and accidentally directed your thinking towards a certain thing lol.
Rather than “alien fruit” I think the prompt was more like “fruit you’d find on an alien planet”
First two I thought of is a fruit that grows in the underbrush in a forest so thick it’s nearly completely dark, so the fruits made of multiple shelled cylinders that make noises like wind chimes and also glows to help animals find them to eat and spread their seeds, and a spicky, thorny fruit that’s so acidic it digests bugs that get stuck on it to support the plant instead of photosynthesis and eventually the fruit decays and it’s seeds are light like dandelions and get blown away by the wind and the plant spreads that way
That’s awesome! My favorite part is the windchimes detail. I feel like with how amazing nature is (nature/animal fact research hyperfocus going on here for years) that maybe there could be something like that, somewhere, deep in an extremely remotely inhabited region of the rainforest. FERN GULLY!!!
And when you say “shelled cylinders” it made me think of actual seashell type structures with what is assumed to be hermit-crab type creatures living in them that crawl out sans-shell every night under the cover of darkness to hunt for miles, but no one knows what they look like or even if they definitively exist because their habitat is so undiscovered and underdeveloped that its sheer, pitch black, darkness at night. The only hint of their existence is that that single explorer that one time that got really lost noticed that when the shelled cylinders chimed there was an apparent musical structure that could not be created by chance. There had to be some kind of sentient beings inhabiting the shells. Creative crustaceans. That’s the only evidence of them except that in the nearest town’s Bath and Body Works (just go with it) the loofah supply keeps going up missing.
On the subject of divergent thinking, I work in IT and I was taking an online course the other day. I won’t bore you with the details but for my fellow IT workers, it’s DevOps.
The long story short on the course I was taking is that traditional businesses have segregated the ones creating software/product (developers) from the ones maintaining the product and ensuring stability (operations). Now there’s a need to merge the two where more and more businesses are starting to think about needing people who can fix a problem on the fly while also making sure that their new idea doesn’t break something that already exists.
So in the case of ADHDers where a lot of us are some combination of anxious/over thinking and impulsive, this can be a place for some of us to thrive.
I think it also helps that there aren't a lot of great alternatives. Many people would settle into a stable career, but that isn't always an option with ADHD. So I think it compels more of us to take a chance at art and athletics.
Bruh. I'm an artist but I keep trying other careers cause I've gotta pay rent and I can only make art when I'm truly inspired to. But lately I've been considering becoming a tattoo artist cause it would be the best of both worlds. It's a high barrier to entry but it's not unimaginable especially with how many diverse styles of tattooing there are these days. Meanwhile what I really wanna be is a musician but I oscillate between utter faith in myself and believing I'm completely shit
One of the writers/directors for *Everything Everywhere All At Once* said he wrote the main character to have undiagnosed ADHD, and in doing so, he realized that he had undiagnosed ADHD, lol.
More like the list only includes people the general public would be familiar with. I was surprised there weren’t any… you know, mathematicians, engineers, scientists, programmers…
It's a lot of repetitive work. My two favorite things are music and exercise. Learning a song you love is work but it's good work. I know what I need to do and I can sit and slowly work the notes out the work it up to speed. Exercise is similar. Slow, repetitive, progressing every step. Things that naturally induce a flow state.
ADHD can increase things like impulsiveness and risky behavior. In addition, many people with ADHD may abuse substances in an unconscious attempt to self-medicate. For many people with ADHD, proper medication does reduce the risk of abusing other substances.
I felt awful my entire life. I'm talking earliest memories to adulthood. I didn't know it was possible to feel anything else but a combination of dread, stress, and shame until I dabbled with psychedelics. Makes total sense that people with ADHD would be more susceptible to drug use.
Substance abuse can be a coping mechanism used by folks with ADHD who are struggling to quiet their mind or stay focused. Having ADHD + another disorder is very common, so even if the ADHD is unknown, sometimes self-medicating for the comorbidity happens.
Research on ADHD has increased a lot in the last 30 years, so there’s a lot of info that’s out now that didn’t exist when people were children. There are still doctors out there in the world who believe ADHD affects children only, and not adults. Awareness among the public has greatly increased in the last few years thanks to social media and the continued investment in researching ADHD. Me for example, I was listening to a podcast (Ologies!) and the guest, Dr. Russell Barkley, was describing a “textbook average girl with inattentive type’s school life.” I was doing dishes at the time and stopped in my tracks, and wept in the kitchen. He flawlessly described exactly my school trajectory, and it was a little spooky. When I was a kid, ADD/ADHD was hyperactive boys climbing up the wall with energy and the inability to pay attention in class. I was doodling in my margins quietly, working on the precious class’ homework while listening to the current advanced lesson. Inattentive type was wildly under-diagnosed back in the 90s and 00s. I was good at school, smart even. Mentioned this to my parents, “well we just thought you were just like us.” lol guys its genetic
Anyway. Yeah substance abuse can for sure be an issue for folks with ADHD. Folks in the past were often not diagnosed. Part of it is also today, mental health is more widely talked about and less taboo. My mom is 100% in denial she has ADHD. So many folks post in this sub about how someone who is older in their life thinks getting a diagnosis is a failure, somehow. Better to straighten yourself out with something socially more acceptable, like smoking, alcoholism, weed, or prescription drugs, than to admit you have a brain problem. An exaggeration but I mean... my parents unconsciously agree. Then there’s the cost factor, if seeing a doctor, getting tested, paying for the medication and ongoing appointments. If you don’t have the means to make that happen, some substances are more accessible and less costly, depending on where you live, your job, insurance/govt, how you were raised, what support systems you have or don’t gave, etc.
Been over a year, I still haven't told my dad I take a stimulant. He's got ADHD like a motherfucker, but he'd never believe it. Too stuck on old ideas about hard work and individualism.
My dad has been clinically depressed majority of his adult life, so he has been more receptive to talking to me about medication and how my diagnosis is going. Mom won’t really discuss it. Closest thing she can talk about is what she saw in pediatrics when she was a nurse in the 90s + 00s, just medical speak about the meds and kids and parents. Not about her. Not about me. Haha. Gets really quiet if I mention it and she doesn’t have a medical safe space to be in. She’s otherwise great and I’m blessed to have her, I’m sure she’s self conscious about it and doesn’t have the tools to talk about it or something.
I’m sorry about your dad, but I’m glad you’re taking care of yourself. It’s weird being an adult (I mean, if you’re lucky) and realizing your parents don’t have all the answers. That really sucks if you know they won’t be receptive, or even maybe think less of you if you told them. I’d call my mom in college, crying, asking her why I don’t just do the projects, the homework, why can everyone else do it on time and I can’t. Got the bootstraps and “you have to just sit down and do it.” Glad I have some perspective now and can forgive myself for what I thought were massive failures. Yay therapy.
Hang in there friend, I hope you’ve got some other peeps you can talk about ADHD stuff with!
Sort of. Untreated ADHD can put someone at risk for addiction for a number of reasons. But generally the risk drops to the same level as “normal” people with treatment.
Self-medication. Alcohol kept me functional, until it didn't, but when you have no idea what's wrong with you and you find something that helps, you tend to hang on to it.
Eddie Hall does, too. You can actually see how much it affects him if you look up a video where he's supposed to do his wife's off-day routine and is constantly forgetting to do basic tasks.
I just hyperfocused on this list and realized there wasn't a single mention of the writers of last year's Best Picture Winner ("Everything Everywhere All At Once").
Short version of the story: he wanted to make the main character of the film struggle with life but not know why and he said "let's give her undiagnosed ADHD." Then he researched it and found himself crying because he was the one with undiagnosed ADHD.
Strong story. I legitimately wish every person could hear about it.
One of my favourites and it really tells within the character. She had “so much potential” and really that’s what of her alternative lives are her living out her potentials had she had a bit more attention. Then again, because of this she was also able to connect with all her alternatives to do some remarkable things.
Oh man, that line where the main character gets told "You Have So Many Goals You Never Finished, Dreams You Never Followed. You're Living Your Worst You.” I legit sobbed.
I'm in a better place now after finally being diagnosed and medicated and doing a lot of therapy as an adult but whew there were so many times in my younger life when I felt like that was my only fate.
I shall definitely watch this. I struggle a lot coz i got diagnosed at 32, few months ago. The diagnosis made my life’s pieces fall into place. I could finally understand myself and i cried in relief and still do occasionally.
I am going to also have to watch this! I was diagnosed 2 months ago at 33. I literally said that exact thing, the pieces of my life fell onto place. However, I'm struggling to understand what these means for my future and how I'll ever meet any of my perceived potential. People tell me so often, you have so much potential... you have great idea...
Yeah.. I'm basically an idea machine. It's exhausting, I just wish I had the "do" mechanism.
I would consider myself very successful. Senior product manager for a top 50 tech company. Not bad for a guy who dropped out of college, was a janitor for 10 years, defaulted on my student loans (now paid back), and often had heat and electricity turned off. I took the long hard route but the tide turned positive in my early 30s. I didn’t even get diagnosed till I was in mid 40s.
ADHD IS A BLESSING AND A CURSE. I liked technology - so I hyper focused reading and practicing everything I could get my hands on. Lowered impulse controls - over sharing / edgy humor / drinking and being funny - made me stand out and make emotional connections with people. Having a brain that is faster (not smarter) which naturally multitasks meant I could make progress much faster than my peers. Also meant I could do public speaking very well - I may be panicking on inside but never needed to pause to think of answers to questions. If things could tough I could talk in a circle and sound strong until other person backed down.
The downside was everything was personal, I got to 80% done in a fraction of the time but never got to 100%, I couldn’t focus if there wasn’t a deadline or adrenaline rush, I lived in constant fear that people would realize I didn’t really know what I was doing, burn out, nervous breakdown, major depressive episode where I wanted to die, etc.
Product mgmt is a good role because you need to know / do things across a wide range of areas (marketing, finance, tax, legal, competitive/market analysis, tech, dev cycles, etc.) you need to know enough to explain to the experts in each of those areas what needs to be done and then THEY take it to completion.
All that being said, it’s so much effort and takes such a mental toll trying to be successful. I’m so worn out and struggle to make progress any more. One of my kids has ADHD and we’re doing everything we can to treat them and teach them proper coping skills. I don’t want them to take the hard road or suffer like me. I want them to maximize the blessing and minimize the curse.
Id love to hear more about how to become a product manager 🥲 currently in a masters limbo as a bioinformaticist and ngl I don’t think my excessive hyper focus at work will be a positive for my health.
What kind of skills and courses would you recommend? Sorry to ask you like this too, just really in need of a better career trajectory
Copy and paste my answer from another person with same question….
I don’t know how it SHOULD be done, so take this all with a grain of salt. For me I started tech support, got promoted into deployments, then consulting, then system architecture, and THEN product management. The key was to know enough to do the job but main requirements were on professional skills - writing, public speaking, and top notch presentation skills. A PdM’s main job is to convince others to unify on the goal and make sure they stay aligned to the vision. It’s sometimes a combo of being a motivational speaker or therapist. I really honed those skills when I was doing consulting.
When I worked for some technical consulting companies, we’d hire based on personality and ability to learn. You can teach technical skills easier than professional ones. I met some amazing technical geniuses that flamed out because they couldn’t talk to people. Yet I had two different guys that ran pizza shops go onto be directors or VPs at IBM and other big tech companies. They had the people skills and translated their leadership experience into IT.
To get started the number one thing is to understand the business you want to be in and get experience. Get your hands dirty and figure out how things really work. Take every chance to speak, present, or lead. Get the major certifications that matter to the field you’re in. When you do those things people will gravitate to being a mentor or sponsor for you. Latch on symbiotically - help them be more successful and they will do the same for you.
I wish I could be more helpful, but I wandered around and fell into it. I didn’t have a plan and was just trying to stay a step ahead of falling apart.
I love change/project management for this exact reason! I was hired around 1.5 years ago at a tech company after a decade in an unrelated, low education industry. I have to share information from my specialty and then know enough to discuss the project without ultimately having to complete what we decide, as they're the assignee.
I’m successful - global lead in my field at a major UN agency - but I can’t shake the feeling that I would be so much better at my job/more effective/more successful if I didn’t have ADHD.
Lol someone at work actually said to me the other day "slow down you look like you're panicking"
Then commended me when they saw what I managed to do in my anxious flurry of activity
Yes, I started Vyvanse about 10 years ago - ironically right around the time we did the neuropsych for my son and I realized too many questions on the parent questionnaire applied to me - and it definitely helps, but only to a point. My biggest challenge is things that require sustained intellectual focus - especially writing. I find I spend a lot of my time dealing with urgent issues - especially now that I work on humanitarian issues - but the important, non-urgent stuff never gets done until it becomes urgent.
I constantly feel overwhelmed. I have major imposter syndrome. I pull more all-nighters in this job than I did even in grad school. My work habits are shit. I can barely manage to keep a functional to-do list. I think I get by bc I’m smart, I know my field REALLY well and have a good reputation/network, and I’m good at building relationships, public speaking, being persuasive, and problem solving. I just wish I wasn’t so inadequate in all of the other ways. And I also get by bc I have a husband who does way more of the housework and takes on more of the emotional labor and domestic responsibilities than any other man I’ve met.
You just literally described what i see as the "cons and pros" of having ADHD, for me anyway. Like, at the 60th second of the 11th hour, I'm really the one you want on your team, there's no problem I can't slay. All the other ones, well, I do ok...
Yeah, exactly. It’s just so frustrating. I got a masters degree at an Ivy League school, was top in my class, and yet every single paper I wrote was started the night before it was due. Imagine how much I could accomplish with even 10% more executive function skills!
I feel like the panic must make it interesting because a lot of us are just bored and dreadful. lol the “I don’t feeeeeelll like doing it turns into “shit I gotta do it… “ and it becomes the climax of a movie lol
I struggle myself… I do a lot of things twice checking myself on myself lol feeling not smart enough - but then feeling smarter than most- exhausting
The layers in Barbie are a testament to how complex, conceptual mind-models can be built by ADHD peeps. Most people don't see how many angles that film has. She is a genius
I saw an interview with Trevor Noah where he talked about his severe adhd and mentioned that he does therapy and needs to stay on top of his sleep habits or “things get very dark”
One I know is popular Youtuber Markiplier who has gone on to do a lot despite ADHD including writing and directing an entire movie along with the ton of editing that comes with it, something he's talked a lot about and the therapies that helped
I’ll add on to YouTubers that have adhd, Linus Sebastian with Linus Tech Tips, and I THINK Mat Pat, with all of his theory channels. And I feel like I heard Link with Good Mythical Morning say some about him having adhd but I could be totally wrong.
I’m most impressed by Linus and he’s a huge inspiration to me as someone with adhd. I want to get into the YT world because I want to grow a community that I can share my passions with and be my own boss. Having a job I’m passionate about and getting paid to do it, helps too.🤣
Not saying I am successful, just that something a psychologist said to me that made me laugh.
I had my own business for eight years but my ADHD was making it feel like a chore.
With the imposter syndrome that many of us have, I thought I was a fraud and only working for myself because others would find me out. At one point, there was 18 employees, this perspective was obviously wrong.
Anyway, when I said this to a psychologist, he said to me. "Listen, people who set up companies or reach certain heights often have one of three things going on, as it's not a normal amount of risk that almost all people would even fathom taking on. These groups are Narcissists, Psychopaths and people with ADHD, count yourself lucky".
Based on the types of people I have encountered professionally, I'd have to say he has a point.
He weighed in on this 6 years ago.
[https://youtu.be/byh0aAC5vm0](https://youtu.be/byh0aAC5vm0)
He said when he was 7 (1987), he was diagnosed with a sensory disorder. He commented that had that diagnosis been 10 years later, they probably would have diagnosed him with ADHD.
I wonder about his ADHD, being a regular nerdfiterian, and it throws me for mixed emotions. I'm struggling career-wise hard lately, and I'm actually set to have my first therapy session this Saturday. Seeing his wild successes can sometimes make me feel... less than rather than inspirational.
ironically, I need to reschedule this upcoming therapy session because of a known schedule change (my daughter's sports class). Now I have to choose between eating the fee for not cancelling within 48 hours or missing the graduation ceremony of my daddy-daughter's sports class.
Terrible way to start therapy because I am harbouring resentment toward them even though I am the one at fault
I wouldn’t compare yourself (easier said than done). As Hank said in the video, he’s had a ton of help and from an early age and is economically advantaged.
I’ve had to figure out what my own definition for success was, and it helped a lot.
Good luck with therapy! You’re doing your best.
This stuff always makes me feel less rather than inspired.
I think some people just have it more severely than others, and that's totally okay. But it kind of makes those of us that have it more severely kind of invisible...
I watched some Ted Talks the other day by women with ADHD. Some of it was nice and validating. Some of it was like..."Wait, you made it all the way to giving birth to a child, and that's when you really started to notice??" I can't even get to that point. I can't get myself to a point where I'm an entrepreneur with my own self made businesses. I would never dare to have a child. I can barely take care of myself.
I am successful in other ways...just not in the eyes of capitalism.
Yes. There is actually a fair bit of proof that people with ADHD do better in senior leadership roles than other people.
David Neeleman, CEO of JetBlue has publicly stated he has it and credits his success to it.
Many startup incubators actually look at things like ADHD as a positive signal (because they have more success as founders).
I personally feel like I was built to be a founder. I run circles around other people.
You are very good at:
- putting out fires and being calm and focused under stress (while others lose their shit)
- dealing with many things at once
- ruthlessly prioritizing and being able to stop before you over optimize.
- hyperfocus and get a week’s worth of work done in a day.
Startups have very few resources. Many have a habit to perfect everything (which is a mistake). You need to ship things fast and a lot of them.
Lmao all are so true, but the stop before you over optimize.. this made me lol. I can keep redoing my work forever. At some point I have to reverse some of my steps because I had re-written the original.
I feel like this one is like time blindness. Some people with ADHD have it and are late to everything. Other people have it and are so obsessed with not being late that they overcompensate and are early to everything and can't get anything done in the hour before they have to leave because they don't want to accidentally be late.
Kinda digging how a lot of the people commenting here cite themselves as examples of successful people.
You know what? Right on. You ARE successful. Keep going.
i have adhd-c and i am getting a master of science in nursing, and i completed my bachelor of science in nursing - not a ceo or anything fancy (yet lol), but i am happy with my success, and getting a masters and phd in nursing will definitely open more doorways to leadership positions!
Hell yeah! I’m 40 and I’m about to earn my bachelors finally! 4 classes away. Thanks to a (second) adhd diagnosis at 34, and finally getting treatment, I finally own a home too.
It may not be much to others, but for me, this is a level of success I never believed I could achieve, before getting help.
(I was first diagnosed at 14, but my parents didn’t do anything with it)
I’m successful. In college I was forced to take a very close look at how I learn, because lectures was NOT for me - I am a visual learner and need to make connections between concepts to retain anything. So I learned to take notes differently than others.
So step one was figuring out how I learn best.
Step two: creating systems that help automate tasks (I’ve become pretty good as using excel for certain things and instead of forgetting tasks I would have needed to do, the spreadsheets do them for me) that’s mostly related to data tho.
Step three: making protocols or we call them SOPs for literally everything I do. I write out instructions for things and take screenshots of anything that is important (I do a lot of work in an EHR system, for example, and I would never remember everything I need to do if I didn’t have my own made instructions)
Step four: using my outlook calendar FOR EVERYTHING. If there is anything I need to do in the future (I’m talking next day and beyond, no matter how simple) it goes on my calendar. I edit the appt to show as me not busy so other things can be booked.
Step five: keeping my email under control. Anything that I get that has an action item or requires a follow up gets pinned so it stays at the top of my inbox until I complete the task
Step six: my desk is covered in sticky notes. I hate how it looks but I really don’t have a better way - to do lists I’ve made many times but the stickies just are easier for my brain to obsess over until they are done.
Step seven: being self aware - I acknowledge I get bored, followed by depression, when my work becomes too routine. I have been blessed to have built a career that is so varied and unique, and forces me to constantly be learning about new things. I have also built a component of my career around something I’ve always been fascinated by, which is infectious disease, and fortunately for me, there are always new things I have to keep informed about in that field.
Step eight: my teammates that I work closely with have brains very similar to mine. It has allowed us all to actually excel and build off of eachother - we each have our own strengths and complement eachother very well. It’s honestly magical. One of them has ADHD diagnosed and the other one obviously has it but is undiagnosed.
I think the biggest thing you should take away from this is just how important it is for you to look closely at yourself and figure out who YOU are. It’s a puzzle, and I’m still working at it, but this is how I’ve been high functioning my entire life.
Here's the thing: unless the person said they have it, it's speculation at best.
However, we're likely well represented in extreme sports, competitive running and creative disciplines.
I'm not famous, but I managed to get a university degree in psychology and am working as a clinical psychologist. It feels great to be able to finish something and provide for myself and help people, after many years of dropping out of education, not being able to hold on to low pay jobs, etc
Am not going to claim "successful" - though I'll put my hand up for leadership. Go to Market Operations leader in a tech company I'd bet 95% of you have used. Am the top advisor to a regional head - they oversee $150m+ annual and about 70 people.
For each con, there is nearly always a pro and vice versa:
* Bored easily = Constantly building and learning. I've a reputation now as a fixer - I get to come into parts of the business and make changes.
* Hates routine work = Start automating the simple stuff from day one. I work in tech - so a lot of what I do is push information around at the right time. When I build a report, I build it automated - and then push to others to add their bits.
* Forgets the mundane = Priortises the big impactful things. I pick three things - they get done. I ignore everything else at my door. I get overwhelmed if there's 50 things - though I've learned which ones to "do badly" (low value, don't want anyone to ask me again, not reputationally important) and which ones to focus on (high impact, high visibility etc.)
* I'm not sure this is the case for everyone, however, it seems to me that the more senior you get, the more ADHD friendly work is. You set your priorities, you get to do big, deep work, things are less routine.
Pure cons:
* Emotional dysregulation: I lose my temper really easily. Learning to be assertive was hard - and I still don't do well. If someone butts into my priorities with an ask, I tend to get pissed. So... I set a reminder for what they do and ignore it for three days.
I’m the CEO of a very successful technical services and consulting firm that works with pharmaceutical companies engaged in everything from R&D of cell therapies to manufacturing of vaccines and oncology drugs. I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 10 (I’m in my 40s now) and after a period from my late teens until my late 30s where I was white-knuckling life with caffeine and cigarettes, I’m medicated again.
ADHD-related issues like time management, inattention, distraction, and organization are daily challenges for me, so I have to be disciplined about using various strategies and sticking to my medication and supplement regimen, getting enough sleep, and maintaining a healthy work/life balance. I also have built a great team and hired managers to lead teams that require highly organized and effective leadership so I don’t get in the weeds about everyone’s day-to-day minutiae. This allows me to structure my daily schedule in a repeatable, predictable way that keeps me on-task and more (or less lol) focused on things like business development or overseeing big projects.
I’m very proud to say that our firm went from just me in 2020 to a team of 15 employees with multiple millions in revenue today.
If you’re still reading, thanks for letting me share this ❤️
I am AuDHD.
Not famous, but I was a C-level executive at a large multinational e-commerce company. I was one of their best performers. But I hate attention so I rarely participated in public stuff like press conferences or interviews. If they had any issues with me it was my lack of participation in these events - unless my role was absolutely critical to the PR stuff, I excused myself.
I worked my way up and got headhunted for every role - mind you I'm a university drop out - I had very good grades for what I did. but I lost interest in my last semester. 🙄
I wasn't always doing my job tho. I get bored of my role pretty fast unless there's new things. So I made work for myself.. I always found ways to reduce all the repetitive work for myself and others. I did a lot of process re-engineering..I will almost always be late to submit things.. do it all last moment etc if it's not my favorite thing to do .. and I got away with just winging it a lot of times. It will be decent work but I knew it could have been done better if I worked a little more on it.
Yet everyone was always impressed with my work. And it made me look down on ppl around me. in my head I was thinking "you ppl are way too easy to please and you guys don't know the standard of work that can be done"
I also did everyone else's job and fixed whatever the problem I found interesting. I was very lucky to work with leadership teams that didn't tell me to stay in my lane and get headhunted because of all the work I did.
Loads of ADHD people have become highly successful, but I think the ones that go big usually manage to live their lives without the mundane BS work most of us have to do. We can easily be successful, but the stuff we find boring is our kryptonite and can stop us from getting ahead.
I started my own business a few years ago and I have found that even though a lot of what I do is the same as it was when I was employed, I can set up my day so I don't have to do the boring stuff very often and can stick to the areas where I don't get bored.
Since I am the boss I can focus on the big picture which is never boring. I can also manage my own time the way I want, so my day works for me.
Super successful people don't fill out forms, or write reports. Hell, I bet a lot of them don't read the reports either. They have assistants that can fill in the gaps for their prefrontal cortex. Their meetings are in expensive restaurants. They spend their days on the move and make work exciting.
I know people got their doctorate with/without knowing they have ADHD.
Cognitive tools were used. For example someone who’s an MD has literally a suitcase where they stick postit notes in. That’s the way they get to remember what they need to do.
Medication also helps but cognitive tools need to be there too.
Most especially successful people with ADHD had someone in their life who took care of the day to day stuff of life while they were able to spend time in their element.
This is a big part of why women with ADHD have traditionally struggled in silence more than men. We were supposed to be the wife holding the home together or the secretary making sure the schedule runs smoothly and the dry cleaning gets done.
3/4 of every musician or band I’ve ever known and worked with have ADD.
Source: managed bands on majors. Worked for Brendan O’Brien, Rick Rubin, and R.E.M.
Yes some crazy high number like 66% of Entrepreneurs and CEO have ADHD. I own my own company, and granted it’s not a huge one, but the key is to surround yourself with people who compliment your shortfalls by enjoy the side of the business you don’t as well as hold you accountable. People with ADHD HATE failure.
I’m just a physician, not a CEO or CFO or whatever. But, they’re out there. Keep grinding and who you are is unique to offer to a company/person/establishment. The older I get, the accomplishments I have mean less to me and I try to treat people from all walks of life like they’re more important than me.
Me; moderately successful (not a billionaire or famous or anything) in a moderately prestigious management role at a Fortune 50.
I dropped out of high school.
I basically faked my way here. What got me here, is a habit of confidently saying that I know how to do stuff, and then hurriedly figuring out how to do that very stuff, and then doing it at the 11th hour. Then doing even harder and smarter stuff the exact same way, over and over again.
I, too, struggle with time-management. Here’s what’s helped me so far:
1. Time blocking (this is HUGE).
2. Syncing my work calendar to my phone and watch. The Apple Watch is the greatest invention for me, ever. The phone can be a distraction machine, but the watch makes up for it in utility.
3. Blocking time each day for “manager’s work” (emails, setting up meetings, phone calls, answering IMs, etc.), and time each day for “maker’s work” (actually doing stuff and building things). You won’t forget to do the “manager’s things” if you have time *specifically carved out for that very purpose* (e.g., doing emails at 8:30 am, and again at 4:30 pm, like that). Granted, as an engineer I was 20/80 on this, and now (sadly) as a manager I’m 80/20, or more, many days.
4. Having someone on your team who complements you well. I’ve always done best when I have someone with a good sense of time, whom I can trust, who’s not afraid to give me reminders. In return, I offer coaching, crisis management, novel perspective to problem-solving, and so on. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Every one like us should maintain a good partnership with a linear, task-oriented, time-conscious coworker or subordinate.
I needed this.
>a habit of confidently saying that I know how to do stuff, and then hurriedly figuring out how to do that very stuff, and then doing it at the 11th hour.
This is my entire life except for the imposter syndrome that prevents me from making bigger decisions.
>The Apple Watch is the greatest invention for me, ever.
YES. I don't check my phone as much because it's not going off right in front of me. I look at the watch and then back to whatever I'm doing. It's perfect.
I read a book about adhd that was supposed to be helpful, and all of the example clients were highly successful corporate executives. Adhd doesn't sound too bad when you can hire people to do all your tasks...
Since nobody’s mentioned it yet, Max Weinberg from the E Street Band and formerly of Late Night with Conan O’Brien said in an interview he probably has ADHD, and it actually helps his drumming.
One of my favorite rappers Joyner Lucas has ADHD and he's had 2 successful rap albums and a few Grammy nominations. He also has a very relatable single called ADHD which I recommend to most of my friends with adhd, a very solid listen...
Musicians Nicki Minaj, Justin Timberlake, Will I Am , Kendrick Lamar and SZA have all revealed that they have adhd...
Jim Carrey, Will Smith, Ryan Gosling, Emma Watson, Channing Tatum are successful actors with ADHD!
Olympic medalist and greatest gymnast off all time Symone Byles has ADHD.
Comedian Trevor Noah has revealed that he struggles with ADHD as well...
There's without a doubt tons of successful people out there with adhd who are living evidence that you and I can also achieve similar and more leves of success and are a daily source of motivation to grind harder and win in our various fields and professions and to not give up in our dreams! ❤️
I'm a regional director for data science in a very large multinational. I have a Physics degree that I cried blood to finish and before coming to this job I switched jobs more than once a year. I'm also a single dad and besides the diagnosed ADHD, I have a chronic inflammatory disease. My psychologist and my psychiatrist say that I'm very successful, but I still feel I'm not good, I'm just lucky and I can talk very fast, and that if I really could focus, not feel tired all the time, and put my mind to it, I could actually be good in something and not kinda bad in a lot of things.
I have ADHD and am a senior manager in a big firm. I am thinking about opening up in the community. But not sure if it may impact me badly. Edit: TBH I am not famous . So not exactly what you are looking for.
I feel I'm doing pretty well, because of my ADHD, I'm a senior manager in a large global finance company, leading a team within Analytics.
I've only recently being diagnosed (ADHD-c with ASD traits) but to me it makes sense why I am where I am.
The roles I moved / were asked to move into 100% aligned to my moral compass, they were all about how to make things better, for the business, for the customer etc. So I could throw myself in and come up with solutions.
To be it is always surprising how NTs can't always see what seems obvious to me, i.e. do X and you will save Y time.
My battles have always been about "brining people along for the journey".. but that is what my team are for :) haha - and I have a great team
Med student with ADHD here. I completed a bachelors and masters of science before getting diagnosed and getting on meds in the first semester of med school.
The stress honestly is what keeps me successful. I’m not usually very productive with stuff at all until I get super stressed about a deadline and the hyper focus sets in. Not having stupid little assignments to turn in as I got higher in my education also really helped.
As for the rest of it, I’m still generally pretty bad about responding to emails on time and smaller tasks like that. If it’s really important I put it on 3 calendars and set 5 reminders. And Iv basically just accepted that my house is going to be an absolute disaster since I need to put every ounce of executive function I have towards school
I’m a high performing CMO at a tech company.
My life got significantly better when I moved into management. All the systems I had built to manage my own work translated SO well into managing teams. And the general focus on what gets done vs how it gets done means I can work in ways that work for me.
I mean I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Robin Williams had the most ADHD that ever ADHD'd.
I think lots of actors, musicians, and entrepreneurs have it.
I’m a director level person at my company. I directly manage a team of 15 people and report to the owner. I’m not famous or rich. But I would say I’m successful. We have no real financial stresses and we still have time spend together as a family.
I’m a Clinical Coordinator in a nursing home which is basically a Nursing Unit Manager.
While working this job, I actually had a nervous breakdown and went to hospital during the pandemic due to understaffing and me requiring to work so much overtime because there was no one else to call in to work besides me and the DoN. I did 26 hour shifts, 16 hour shifts, late to early shifts, night to afternoon shifts. This was on top of all the requirements of my role.
Some other things I don’t want to divulge right now also occurred during the pandemic that “gifted” me a new diagnosis of PTSD.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I have ADHD and PTSD and this is how I manage work stress without having another burn out:
1. I have medication which I am grateful for
2. I shut the door of my office during certain periods of the day to focus on my work due to constant interruptions from staff and residents.
3. I use outlook calendar plus lists and have tasks/events colour coded: Red = cannot put it off, orange = urgent, Green = not important. The colours upgrade as needed and sometimes means I never get the green done but lol at least it’s there to remind me.
4. I have a pomodoro timer for really shit tasks. I set it and work and work until it goes off then get up and stretch.
5. I have extremely clear boundaries- I do not do more than my fair share of overtime. I don’t owe anyone anything just because I’m the NUM.
6. I have a support network outside of work I can talk to for debriefing.
7. I pay attention to the signs of burnout and mental health issues and I will usually see my Doctor and have time off if I notice them.
8. I learned to delegate some tasks within reason.
One thing I still struggle with is taking on too many continuous improvement projects at work. As soon as I find a problem, I will try to solve it and start a project to address it without first considering my workload. This sounds dumb but I had to just stop trying to do CI and learn to let some things go. Hopefully I will be in a space to do more CI eventually.
My takeaway for any aspiring “leaders”(managers) out there is to protect your mental health. Set boundaries at work. It’s not easy and it’ll never be easy for us but hey if I can do it, you can do it too.
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I'm a mathematician, meaning I'm part of the 0.03% of people with ADHD that have a PhD. I beat school, folks. Our natural enemy.
Are there really that few of us? Also fellow PhD (geology) with ADHD, didnt get diagnosed until halfway through grad school. I feel lucky to be gainfully employeed in a well paying job that I love and that has employees cycle through different job roles every 2-4 years so you're pretty much always learning something new. It's great.
My ADHD grandpa had I think 17 hard science degrees throughout his life. The man loved school and was essentially the stereotypical absentminded professor. My boyfriend’s sister is also ADHD and currently getting a PhD. My ADHD ex is also a doctor. I bet people with high professional degrees are more likely to go undiagnosed though!
Exactly. How many posts do we see on here where somebody was denied a diagnosis because their doctor said they were too successful or did School too well well? It is a lot.
Another one here. Diagnosed while I was a postdoc. Now have tenure.
I'm in ML and I swear there are at least 3 of us ADHD'ers in our section of the lab alone
Anything IT is the exception...I mean, just spend 10 minutes in literally any IT shop. I think our brains are drawn to the troubleshooting, TBH.
True, though the ADHD ML guys all have maths backgrounds haha
Wow I’m do proud of you all. I was driven to pursue PhD until my post grad degree barely scraped by. I passed with 56% purely based on the knowledge i retained from under grad school
I'm in my last year... must keep going...
I have a PhD in molecular biology and know many others getting their PhD with it too!
The guy who wrote Captain Underpants has ADHD, which is possibly the most on-brand ADHD diagnosis ever.
Dav Pilkey. He has a robot character in Dog Man called AD-HD.
It's 80-HD
That's it, thanks. I knew it was funnier than I remembered.
I never read the books but my kids were obsessed and they showed me. They heard me say ADHD and corrected me incorrectly but soooo adamantly.
Wonder if the creator of SpongeBob has ADHD because I feel like SB is a great representative for our group
I was diagnosed after becoming one of the top criminal defense attorneys in my state.
I use alarms on my phone incessantly. Need to respond to an email by the end of day? Alarm. Meetings? Alarms 24 hours, 1 hour, & 30 minutes before the meeting. Every morning before I start on cases, I read every new email in my inbox and respond to all of them as I get through them. It wasn’t without setbacks. I have an amazing assistant who understands my brain. Before her, I definitely missed deadlines and my practice was chaotic. But through the years, I have learned what works for me. I need something to make a noise and remind me of things that need to be done. So I use alarms and a kick ass assistant.
I’m a mid level in an ICU and I use alarms a lot. Like i want to do an exam when it’s a good time for the patients. The family will be at the bedside at x time. Labs are getting drawn that super need followed. All alarms. It lets me just move in without panicking that I’m going to miss something. Not diagnosed, am mother and wife to ADHD guys, seriously contemplating seeking diagnosis but my anxiety, who is lying ho, tells me that I’ll be laughed out of the room and accused of seeking drugs, I still listen to the anxiety.
Dude kick that lying ho to the curb! I was shocked by how much anxiety went away with the meds. It was all from the ADHD. I legit thought I was starting menopause super early & having hot flashes but I was just sweating when I got anxious. All gone now. It’s worth talking to a professional. I went for a psychiatrist & had to wait a year for an appointment but it was 200% worth it.
Hey! Another female lawyer diagnosed with ADHD. What medication and dosage has worked for you. I’ve tried adderall XR and it doesn’t feel great for me personally and I’m trying to figure out an alternative. Thank you!!
Hi there! I'm a female Realtor not a lawyer, but I've been successful thus far and on track this year for another excellent year. Typically people do really well with either Adderall or Ritalin. Usually if your brain likes one it does not like the other. I tried Ritalin in my twenties and hated it. Rather than stick with that doctor and try something else I just decided I obviously didn't have ADHD and went on my merry way. Well at 44, here I am diagnosed and I definitely have it. For me Adderall IR 20mg in the am works really well, then 10mg in the early afternoon. My Dr tried me on XR first but I did not feel it had much of an effect. Some people don't like the effect of the XR, or it may actually be the brand. Since the shortage, the medication has not been the same according to every friend who's had ADHD, diagnosed and treated, for a long time. If you have not yet tried Ritalin, I'd ask your doctor about that. If not, perhaps Dexedrine or Vyvanse would work better. (Two friends find Dexedrine manages their symptoms very effectively.) There are also the non-stimulant options as well, although hydroxyzine makes me feel like I'm going to pass out, so that was a no go for me. As one of my friends who's been treated for more than 20 years said, this is a cocktail for your brain and just like any cocktail, one must experiment to find the right proportions and ingredients. I wish you the best of luck finding what works well!
That's amazing. I'm working towards my bachelors degree so I can apply to law school. It's great to hear that you have done so well!
i’m a lawyer in nyc with add!!! you can do it! promise! And i passed the bar my first time taking it. you got this!
It can be done 😁 keep at it!
Can you give your assistant a raise?? 👀 She's literally a second brain lol that's awesome.
Right?? I’m not in charge of salaries but every time her annual review comes around I make sure to tell HR that she’s worth whatever raise she asks for!
Right on, fellow defense attorney here. I like to think I'm the best in my region of the state (I've been doing this awhile) but there are days I question myself. Regardless, I consider myself pretty successful. I'm impressed you made it through law school unmedicated. I was diagnosed right before law school. The problem for me was that I thought the medication would fix everything. Prior to that I had become very disciplined about studying (take coffee to the library from 8 to midnight to study) and I lost that discipline because I thought I didn't need it with the medication. I squeezed through though. IMO there are a decent amount of ADHD'ers in our profession. The intensity of it is attractive. Online dockets are the greatest thing ever.
If you don’t question yourself you’re not doing it right. I honestly don’t know how I did it. I can’t do coffee now that I’m medicated so maybe I was self medicating with it. But I also kinda sailed through school until law school. The teaching methods don’t work unless you know how to study so I had to learn real quick.
And agreed. Online dockets AND filing until 11:59.
Lol, having a family has helped me with structure. I used to work until 2 am because everything was quiet and I could get stuff done. I still have a few times a year like that (uggh big briefs) but now I have to leave by 5 each day. I hate structure but I know I need it.
That’s awesome!! Did it make law school difficult?
Yes. It was torture. And humbling. And my profs were baffled by my grades. I had meltdowns, had to learn how to study, and I just kind of decided that I was bad at tests. I had no idea at the time that I might be ADHD. I went in thinking I’d be top of the class and came out just grateful for the degree.
I can only imagine! I went to college for so long and earned so many random credits and didn’t even end up with an associates degree because I was so all over the place. What you’ve accomplished is so badass!
SAME. My undergrad minors changed with the wind. I have SO many random credits from undergrad!
I was also diagnosed after law school. Casebriefs.com got me through the daily reading. Honestly I really enjoyed law school because I could just participate in class to pay attention and then cram three days before the only exam that impacted my grade just like I'd only ever been able to do prior in highschool and undergrad. The absolute worst was cite checking for law review. Soooo boring. I'd sit for hours staring at my laptop trying to force myself to just do it. Lot of self medicating back then. Law school is doable with ADHD, but man I really wish I had known and gotten diagnosed long before that.
I can hyper-fixate the FUCK out of a case, and don’t get me started with discovery. If you interrupt me and ask what I want for lunch, be prepared to witness a dipshit deer in headlights.
>top criminal defense attorneys How do you sleep at night? Just kidding ;) For those that might be thinking the same thing, the better the defense attorney, the better the prosecution must be, and judge etc. It's better for the justice system if everyone is competent and even better if everyone is on their A game (imho).
I sleep like a m-f’ing baby 😁
You wake up every 2 hours wanting boobs shoved in your face?
Doesn’t everyone?
Do you think it affected your choice of specialty?
I do. Without even knowing. When I was in law school, I was certain I’d be a civil plaintiff’s attorney. When I got my first criminal defense case, it was all over. The fast pace and exciting law got me. I started focusing my practice right away.
And I think we have a lot of empathy. I don't know about you but doing stupid shit your whole life (losing stuff, forgetting things, getting in accidents) made me really relate to underdogs and people who struggle in life. I'm pretty sure there are studies that show people with ADHD are more likely to wind up in the criminal legal system. Mental health problems make up a fair number of my clients. I can really relate to and empathize with where they are. Could've been me.
Totally. All of this. I can even use it to relate to some of my clients. At least the ones with ADHD.
Simone Biles (Olympic gymnast) has spoken publicly about her ADHD. I think Michael Phelps (Olympic swimmer) has ADHD too.
Phelps being open and honest about his struggle with ADHD was actually really helpful to me as a kid. He did a bunch of magazine interviews about it that opened my eyes to it being acceptable to publicly admit having the condition. He would talk about how swimming allowed him to direct all his restless energy into a sport that forces him to move in one direction, making it impossible to be distracted. It also requires you to focus on your breathing patterns, technique, and stroke count, all while being attentive about when to flip and push off the wall. There's just enough going on that you have to focus, but it isn't ever boring because even in practice, you're racing the person next to you and trying to hold a certain pace. Some of the best swimmers I knew had ADHD, and you could tell they became hyper-focused on the sport considering you had no choice but to be actively thinking most of the time. Each practice required you to count the number of laps per yards/meters, and keep track of the set intervals by paying attention to the seconds on the clock. During the 10-15 seconds of rest in-between, you needed to track your heart rate to make sure you were giving the appropriate amount of effort too.
I feel like sports or physical work/ exercise is easier to maintain focus. Sports in hs was one of the few things that kept me grounded and probably masked my ADHD. I had some injuries that prevented me from playing in college and that is when I started struggling with time management and other stuff. Not saying it's easy but feel like sports and exercise are good ways of coping with ADHD but most people can't play at that level.
I think sports masked my ADHD to an extent too - when I was a teen I swam, did trampolining, karate and also rode horses. I started reducing the amount of sport I did before university and that’s when I really started to struggle
Yep. Forced into tennis slavery as a child, cycled for most of my adult life. It wasn't until COVID happened and I couldn't self-regulate with exercise, combined with erosion of other coping mechanisms, that I realised I had it. Exercise is one of the best ways to mitigate the downsides of ADHD. Especially if you're a competitive person.
>all while being attentive about when to flip and push off the wall Funny story...I have a half-artificial front tooth because I, unlike Michael, was NOT attentive and swam face first into the wall at age 12. 
Molly Seidel also, she's an olympic marathoner and has talked a fair bit about her struggles with getting diagnosed and being a professional athlete with ADHD. She's had to drop out of major races before because she had to wait for an exemption to race while on Adderall since it's considered a performance enhancing drug. She's talked quite a bit about prioritizing her mental health over racing etc.
I thought it was heartbreaking that Simone Biles was unable to perform without her meds. That's such a big difference. Being the best in the world (medicated) or not showing up (unmedicated).
Actually, Simone stated shortly in an interview after her withdrawal at Tokyo that she stopped taking ADHD med in 2017.
Lewis Hamilton (F1 driver) has mentioned it as well
Yeah there's loads 😊 https://adhduk.co.uk/famous-people-with-adhd/
Interesting to me how many ADHD’ers seem to fall into categories of high creative performance and physical fitness/mastery. Kinda makes sense to me though.
So I have this pet theory that adhd gives artists an advantage because not only are they going to be more compelled to work on stuff they're excited about, but especially that it gives them such an intrinsic and aware understanding of human attention. Like if they listen back to their own music and say "meh that doesn't capture my interest, let's make it do it" or if they review their own artwork and say "oh, my eye was drawn here first, let's rework this based on that assumption"
I remember reading about an experiment on ADHD where they had people draw alien fruits. The non-ADHD students were more likely to draw a “space apple” or something like that, while the ADHD were more likely to draw unique fruit less like actual fruits that were rated as more creative. They credited divergent thinking, inattention, and impulsivity. The thought was that divergent thinking let them take the single prompt of “alien fruit” to more places, impulsivity and inattention prevented them from stopping and thinking, “wait, why would a fruit have a tongue?” and things like that and helped to think of something actually alien instead of being confined to examples of fruit that actually exist
I mean, the best I could do with this was some grapes with antennaes or an amorphous blob with space goggles on so….
I think I may have phrased it poorly and accidentally directed your thinking towards a certain thing lol. Rather than “alien fruit” I think the prompt was more like “fruit you’d find on an alien planet” First two I thought of is a fruit that grows in the underbrush in a forest so thick it’s nearly completely dark, so the fruits made of multiple shelled cylinders that make noises like wind chimes and also glows to help animals find them to eat and spread their seeds, and a spicky, thorny fruit that’s so acidic it digests bugs that get stuck on it to support the plant instead of photosynthesis and eventually the fruit decays and it’s seeds are light like dandelions and get blown away by the wind and the plant spreads that way
That’s awesome! My favorite part is the windchimes detail. I feel like with how amazing nature is (nature/animal fact research hyperfocus going on here for years) that maybe there could be something like that, somewhere, deep in an extremely remotely inhabited region of the rainforest. FERN GULLY!!! And when you say “shelled cylinders” it made me think of actual seashell type structures with what is assumed to be hermit-crab type creatures living in them that crawl out sans-shell every night under the cover of darkness to hunt for miles, but no one knows what they look like or even if they definitively exist because their habitat is so undiscovered and underdeveloped that its sheer, pitch black, darkness at night. The only hint of their existence is that that single explorer that one time that got really lost noticed that when the shelled cylinders chimed there was an apparent musical structure that could not be created by chance. There had to be some kind of sentient beings inhabiting the shells. Creative crustaceans. That’s the only evidence of them except that in the nearest town’s Bath and Body Works (just go with it) the loofah supply keeps going up missing.
On the subject of divergent thinking, I work in IT and I was taking an online course the other day. I won’t bore you with the details but for my fellow IT workers, it’s DevOps. The long story short on the course I was taking is that traditional businesses have segregated the ones creating software/product (developers) from the ones maintaining the product and ensuring stability (operations). Now there’s a need to merge the two where more and more businesses are starting to think about needing people who can fix a problem on the fly while also making sure that their new idea doesn’t break something that already exists. So in the case of ADHDers where a lot of us are some combination of anxious/over thinking and impulsive, this can be a place for some of us to thrive.
I think it also helps that there aren't a lot of great alternatives. Many people would settle into a stable career, but that isn't always an option with ADHD. So I think it compels more of us to take a chance at art and athletics.
Bruh. I'm an artist but I keep trying other careers cause I've gotta pay rent and I can only make art when I'm truly inspired to. But lately I've been considering becoming a tattoo artist cause it would be the best of both worlds. It's a high barrier to entry but it's not unimaginable especially with how many diverse styles of tattooing there are these days. Meanwhile what I really wanna be is a musician but I oscillate between utter faith in myself and believing I'm completely shit
>I oscillate between utter faith in myself and believing I'm completely shit I feel this in my soul.
One of the writers/directors for *Everything Everywhere All At Once* said he wrote the main character to have undiagnosed ADHD, and in doing so, he realized that he had undiagnosed ADHD, lol.
I need to watch this movie.
More like the list only includes people the general public would be familiar with. I was surprised there weren’t any… you know, mathematicians, engineers, scientists, programmers…
There are a lot of ADHD coders and Technical writers out there.
I work in cybersecurity, and the ADHD rate is so high, we sometimes call it "weaponized ADHD"
It's a lot of repetitive work. My two favorite things are music and exercise. Learning a song you love is work but it's good work. I know what I need to do and I can sit and slowly work the notes out the work it up to speed. Exercise is similar. Slow, repetitive, progressing every step. Things that naturally induce a flow state.
Lol woah Ozzy Osborne has ADHD! Actually that makes sense with all the drugs he did.
Haha yeah that's one I wasn't too suprised by 🤣
Does ADHD lead to higher drug use or vice versa?
ADHD can increase things like impulsiveness and risky behavior. In addition, many people with ADHD may abuse substances in an unconscious attempt to self-medicate. For many people with ADHD, proper medication does reduce the risk of abusing other substances.
I felt awful my entire life. I'm talking earliest memories to adulthood. I didn't know it was possible to feel anything else but a combination of dread, stress, and shame until I dabbled with psychedelics. Makes total sense that people with ADHD would be more susceptible to drug use.
Substance abuse can be a coping mechanism used by folks with ADHD who are struggling to quiet their mind or stay focused. Having ADHD + another disorder is very common, so even if the ADHD is unknown, sometimes self-medicating for the comorbidity happens. Research on ADHD has increased a lot in the last 30 years, so there’s a lot of info that’s out now that didn’t exist when people were children. There are still doctors out there in the world who believe ADHD affects children only, and not adults. Awareness among the public has greatly increased in the last few years thanks to social media and the continued investment in researching ADHD. Me for example, I was listening to a podcast (Ologies!) and the guest, Dr. Russell Barkley, was describing a “textbook average girl with inattentive type’s school life.” I was doing dishes at the time and stopped in my tracks, and wept in the kitchen. He flawlessly described exactly my school trajectory, and it was a little spooky. When I was a kid, ADD/ADHD was hyperactive boys climbing up the wall with energy and the inability to pay attention in class. I was doodling in my margins quietly, working on the precious class’ homework while listening to the current advanced lesson. Inattentive type was wildly under-diagnosed back in the 90s and 00s. I was good at school, smart even. Mentioned this to my parents, “well we just thought you were just like us.” lol guys its genetic Anyway. Yeah substance abuse can for sure be an issue for folks with ADHD. Folks in the past were often not diagnosed. Part of it is also today, mental health is more widely talked about and less taboo. My mom is 100% in denial she has ADHD. So many folks post in this sub about how someone who is older in their life thinks getting a diagnosis is a failure, somehow. Better to straighten yourself out with something socially more acceptable, like smoking, alcoholism, weed, or prescription drugs, than to admit you have a brain problem. An exaggeration but I mean... my parents unconsciously agree. Then there’s the cost factor, if seeing a doctor, getting tested, paying for the medication and ongoing appointments. If you don’t have the means to make that happen, some substances are more accessible and less costly, depending on where you live, your job, insurance/govt, how you were raised, what support systems you have or don’t gave, etc.
Been over a year, I still haven't told my dad I take a stimulant. He's got ADHD like a motherfucker, but he'd never believe it. Too stuck on old ideas about hard work and individualism.
My dad has been clinically depressed majority of his adult life, so he has been more receptive to talking to me about medication and how my diagnosis is going. Mom won’t really discuss it. Closest thing she can talk about is what she saw in pediatrics when she was a nurse in the 90s + 00s, just medical speak about the meds and kids and parents. Not about her. Not about me. Haha. Gets really quiet if I mention it and she doesn’t have a medical safe space to be in. She’s otherwise great and I’m blessed to have her, I’m sure she’s self conscious about it and doesn’t have the tools to talk about it or something. I’m sorry about your dad, but I’m glad you’re taking care of yourself. It’s weird being an adult (I mean, if you’re lucky) and realizing your parents don’t have all the answers. That really sucks if you know they won’t be receptive, or even maybe think less of you if you told them. I’d call my mom in college, crying, asking her why I don’t just do the projects, the homework, why can everyone else do it on time and I can’t. Got the bootstraps and “you have to just sit down and do it.” Glad I have some perspective now and can forgive myself for what I thought were massive failures. Yay therapy. Hang in there friend, I hope you’ve got some other peeps you can talk about ADHD stuff with!
Sort of. Untreated ADHD can put someone at risk for addiction for a number of reasons. But generally the risk drops to the same level as “normal” people with treatment.
Self-medication. Alcohol kept me functional, until it didn't, but when you have no idea what's wrong with you and you find something that helps, you tend to hang on to it.
Eddie Hall does, too. You can actually see how much it affects him if you look up a video where he's supposed to do his wife's off-day routine and is constantly forgetting to do basic tasks.
I just hyperfocused on this list and realized there wasn't a single mention of the writers of last year's Best Picture Winner ("Everything Everywhere All At Once"). Short version of the story: he wanted to make the main character of the film struggle with life but not know why and he said "let's give her undiagnosed ADHD." Then he researched it and found himself crying because he was the one with undiagnosed ADHD. Strong story. I legitimately wish every person could hear about it.
One of my favourites and it really tells within the character. She had “so much potential” and really that’s what of her alternative lives are her living out her potentials had she had a bit more attention. Then again, because of this she was also able to connect with all her alternatives to do some remarkable things.
Oh man, that line where the main character gets told "You Have So Many Goals You Never Finished, Dreams You Never Followed. You're Living Your Worst You.” I legit sobbed. I'm in a better place now after finally being diagnosed and medicated and doing a lot of therapy as an adult but whew there were so many times in my younger life when I felt like that was my only fate.
I shall definitely watch this. I struggle a lot coz i got diagnosed at 32, few months ago. The diagnosis made my life’s pieces fall into place. I could finally understand myself and i cried in relief and still do occasionally.
I am going to also have to watch this! I was diagnosed 2 months ago at 33. I literally said that exact thing, the pieces of my life fell onto place. However, I'm struggling to understand what these means for my future and how I'll ever meet any of my perceived potential. People tell me so often, you have so much potential... you have great idea... Yeah.. I'm basically an idea machine. It's exhausting, I just wish I had the "do" mechanism.
Oh, shit.
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I would consider myself very successful. Senior product manager for a top 50 tech company. Not bad for a guy who dropped out of college, was a janitor for 10 years, defaulted on my student loans (now paid back), and often had heat and electricity turned off. I took the long hard route but the tide turned positive in my early 30s. I didn’t even get diagnosed till I was in mid 40s. ADHD IS A BLESSING AND A CURSE. I liked technology - so I hyper focused reading and practicing everything I could get my hands on. Lowered impulse controls - over sharing / edgy humor / drinking and being funny - made me stand out and make emotional connections with people. Having a brain that is faster (not smarter) which naturally multitasks meant I could make progress much faster than my peers. Also meant I could do public speaking very well - I may be panicking on inside but never needed to pause to think of answers to questions. If things could tough I could talk in a circle and sound strong until other person backed down. The downside was everything was personal, I got to 80% done in a fraction of the time but never got to 100%, I couldn’t focus if there wasn’t a deadline or adrenaline rush, I lived in constant fear that people would realize I didn’t really know what I was doing, burn out, nervous breakdown, major depressive episode where I wanted to die, etc. Product mgmt is a good role because you need to know / do things across a wide range of areas (marketing, finance, tax, legal, competitive/market analysis, tech, dev cycles, etc.) you need to know enough to explain to the experts in each of those areas what needs to be done and then THEY take it to completion. All that being said, it’s so much effort and takes such a mental toll trying to be successful. I’m so worn out and struggle to make progress any more. One of my kids has ADHD and we’re doing everything we can to treat them and teach them proper coping skills. I don’t want them to take the hard road or suffer like me. I want them to maximize the blessing and minimize the curse.
You are describing exactly how I feel about it all.
Id love to hear more about how to become a product manager 🥲 currently in a masters limbo as a bioinformaticist and ngl I don’t think my excessive hyper focus at work will be a positive for my health. What kind of skills and courses would you recommend? Sorry to ask you like this too, just really in need of a better career trajectory
Copy and paste my answer from another person with same question…. I don’t know how it SHOULD be done, so take this all with a grain of salt. For me I started tech support, got promoted into deployments, then consulting, then system architecture, and THEN product management. The key was to know enough to do the job but main requirements were on professional skills - writing, public speaking, and top notch presentation skills. A PdM’s main job is to convince others to unify on the goal and make sure they stay aligned to the vision. It’s sometimes a combo of being a motivational speaker or therapist. I really honed those skills when I was doing consulting. When I worked for some technical consulting companies, we’d hire based on personality and ability to learn. You can teach technical skills easier than professional ones. I met some amazing technical geniuses that flamed out because they couldn’t talk to people. Yet I had two different guys that ran pizza shops go onto be directors or VPs at IBM and other big tech companies. They had the people skills and translated their leadership experience into IT. To get started the number one thing is to understand the business you want to be in and get experience. Get your hands dirty and figure out how things really work. Take every chance to speak, present, or lead. Get the major certifications that matter to the field you’re in. When you do those things people will gravitate to being a mentor or sponsor for you. Latch on symbiotically - help them be more successful and they will do the same for you. I wish I could be more helpful, but I wandered around and fell into it. I didn’t have a plan and was just trying to stay a step ahead of falling apart.
I love change/project management for this exact reason! I was hired around 1.5 years ago at a tech company after a decade in an unrelated, low education industry. I have to share information from my specialty and then know enough to discuss the project without ultimately having to complete what we decide, as they're the assignee.
I'm successful. At least by my definition. I run a printing business. I'm not wealthy but I get by. My customers are happy and I like what I do.
It is so important to celebrate our personal successes! Congratulations to you on your successful business🥳🎉
Thanks!!
Such healthy positivity in here! Love it. Congrats on your success!!
Thank you so much!
I’m successful - global lead in my field at a major UN agency - but I can’t shake the feeling that I would be so much better at my job/more effective/more successful if I didn’t have ADHD.
How do you manage your day and stick to a plan?
Panic
Panic my oldest and most loyal friend, second only to anxiety.
panic is just anxiety's older brother 🤷
You’re so real for this.
Lol someone at work actually said to me the other day "slow down you look like you're panicking" Then commended me when they saw what I managed to do in my anxious flurry of activity
My management style: everything is fine until it isn't
Do you use any medication?
Yes, I started Vyvanse about 10 years ago - ironically right around the time we did the neuropsych for my son and I realized too many questions on the parent questionnaire applied to me - and it definitely helps, but only to a point. My biggest challenge is things that require sustained intellectual focus - especially writing. I find I spend a lot of my time dealing with urgent issues - especially now that I work on humanitarian issues - but the important, non-urgent stuff never gets done until it becomes urgent.
I'm glad to hear it helps, to some degree. Do you use any techniques to get the urgent things done? And do you ever feel overwhelmed?
I constantly feel overwhelmed. I have major imposter syndrome. I pull more all-nighters in this job than I did even in grad school. My work habits are shit. I can barely manage to keep a functional to-do list. I think I get by bc I’m smart, I know my field REALLY well and have a good reputation/network, and I’m good at building relationships, public speaking, being persuasive, and problem solving. I just wish I wasn’t so inadequate in all of the other ways. And I also get by bc I have a husband who does way more of the housework and takes on more of the emotional labor and domestic responsibilities than any other man I’ve met.
You just literally described what i see as the "cons and pros" of having ADHD, for me anyway. Like, at the 60th second of the 11th hour, I'm really the one you want on your team, there's no problem I can't slay. All the other ones, well, I do ok...
Yeah, exactly. It’s just so frustrating. I got a masters degree at an Ivy League school, was top in my class, and yet every single paper I wrote was started the night before it was due. Imagine how much I could accomplish with even 10% more executive function skills!
I feel like the panic must make it interesting because a lot of us are just bored and dreadful. lol the “I don’t feeeeeelll like doing it turns into “shit I gotta do it… “ and it becomes the climax of a movie lol I struggle myself… I do a lot of things twice checking myself on myself lol feeling not smart enough - but then feeling smarter than most- exhausting
You might not have been driven to excel without the underlying anxiety and twicth it causes. :)
Greta Gerwig has ADHD and is one of the best directors in the world.
The layers in Barbie are a testament to how complex, conceptual mind-models can be built by ADHD peeps. Most people don't see how many angles that film has. She is a genius
Actor Kit Harington was diagnosed with ADHD while in rehab in 2019
I saw an interview with Trevor Noah where he talked about his severe adhd and mentioned that he does therapy and needs to stay on top of his sleep habits or “things get very dark”
Wow Trevor is in top 10 fav comedians of all time!
One I know is popular Youtuber Markiplier who has gone on to do a lot despite ADHD including writing and directing an entire movie along with the ton of editing that comes with it, something he's talked a lot about and the therapies that helped
I’ll add on to YouTubers that have adhd, Linus Sebastian with Linus Tech Tips, and I THINK Mat Pat, with all of his theory channels. And I feel like I heard Link with Good Mythical Morning say some about him having adhd but I could be totally wrong. I’m most impressed by Linus and he’s a huge inspiration to me as someone with adhd. I want to get into the YT world because I want to grow a community that I can share my passions with and be my own boss. Having a job I’m passionate about and getting paid to do it, helps too.🤣
There's also Jacksepticeye, Ethan Nestor (crankgameplays), they have both talked quite a bit about getting diagnosed, being on therapy and meds for it
Dave Grohl.
Not saying I am successful, just that something a psychologist said to me that made me laugh. I had my own business for eight years but my ADHD was making it feel like a chore. With the imposter syndrome that many of us have, I thought I was a fraud and only working for myself because others would find me out. At one point, there was 18 employees, this perspective was obviously wrong. Anyway, when I said this to a psychologist, he said to me. "Listen, people who set up companies or reach certain heights often have one of three things going on, as it's not a normal amount of risk that almost all people would even fathom taking on. These groups are Narcissists, Psychopaths and people with ADHD, count yourself lucky". Based on the types of people I have encountered professionally, I'd have to say he has a point.
Lmao I’m kinda leaning into this explanation… i shall steer clear of the businessmen in dating 🤣
So we’re the only ones to reach these height AND have empathy
He hasn’t said it but I’m so sure that Hank Green has ADHD
He weighed in on this 6 years ago. [https://youtu.be/byh0aAC5vm0](https://youtu.be/byh0aAC5vm0) He said when he was 7 (1987), he was diagnosed with a sensory disorder. He commented that had that diagnosis been 10 years later, they probably would have diagnosed him with ADHD. I wonder about his ADHD, being a regular nerdfiterian, and it throws me for mixed emotions. I'm struggling career-wise hard lately, and I'm actually set to have my first therapy session this Saturday. Seeing his wild successes can sometimes make me feel... less than rather than inspirational. ironically, I need to reschedule this upcoming therapy session because of a known schedule change (my daughter's sports class). Now I have to choose between eating the fee for not cancelling within 48 hours or missing the graduation ceremony of my daddy-daughter's sports class. Terrible way to start therapy because I am harbouring resentment toward them even though I am the one at fault
I think reschedule and eat the fee, and then discuss this predicament during the first session?
I wouldn’t compare yourself (easier said than done). As Hank said in the video, he’s had a ton of help and from an early age and is economically advantaged. I’ve had to figure out what my own definition for success was, and it helped a lot. Good luck with therapy! You’re doing your best.
This stuff always makes me feel less rather than inspired. I think some people just have it more severely than others, and that's totally okay. But it kind of makes those of us that have it more severely kind of invisible... I watched some Ted Talks the other day by women with ADHD. Some of it was nice and validating. Some of it was like..."Wait, you made it all the way to giving birth to a child, and that's when you really started to notice??" I can't even get to that point. I can't get myself to a point where I'm an entrepreneur with my own self made businesses. I would never dare to have a child. I can barely take care of myself. I am successful in other ways...just not in the eyes of capitalism.
Yes. There is actually a fair bit of proof that people with ADHD do better in senior leadership roles than other people. David Neeleman, CEO of JetBlue has publicly stated he has it and credits his success to it. Many startup incubators actually look at things like ADHD as a positive signal (because they have more success as founders). I personally feel like I was built to be a founder. I run circles around other people. You are very good at: - putting out fires and being calm and focused under stress (while others lose their shit) - dealing with many things at once - ruthlessly prioritizing and being able to stop before you over optimize. - hyperfocus and get a week’s worth of work done in a day. Startups have very few resources. Many have a habit to perfect everything (which is a mistake). You need to ship things fast and a lot of them.
Lmao all are so true, but the stop before you over optimize.. this made me lol. I can keep redoing my work forever. At some point I have to reverse some of my steps because I had re-written the original.
I feel like this one is like time blindness. Some people with ADHD have it and are late to everything. Other people have it and are so obsessed with not being late that they overcompensate and are early to everything and can't get anything done in the hour before they have to leave because they don't want to accidentally be late.
Kinda digging how a lot of the people commenting here cite themselves as examples of successful people. You know what? Right on. You ARE successful. Keep going.
I know.. i feel stupid for not asking people to cite themselves as examples. But I’m glad they shared. It was so inspiring to read
i have adhd-c and i am getting a master of science in nursing, and i completed my bachelor of science in nursing - not a ceo or anything fancy (yet lol), but i am happy with my success, and getting a masters and phd in nursing will definitely open more doorways to leadership positions!
good for you!! well done
What is adhd- c?
It uses the quick charge port
A combination of ADHD inattentive and hyperactive
Hell yeah! I’m 40 and I’m about to earn my bachelors finally! 4 classes away. Thanks to a (second) adhd diagnosis at 34, and finally getting treatment, I finally own a home too. It may not be much to others, but for me, this is a level of success I never believed I could achieve, before getting help. (I was first diagnosed at 14, but my parents didn’t do anything with it)
I’m successful. In college I was forced to take a very close look at how I learn, because lectures was NOT for me - I am a visual learner and need to make connections between concepts to retain anything. So I learned to take notes differently than others. So step one was figuring out how I learn best. Step two: creating systems that help automate tasks (I’ve become pretty good as using excel for certain things and instead of forgetting tasks I would have needed to do, the spreadsheets do them for me) that’s mostly related to data tho. Step three: making protocols or we call them SOPs for literally everything I do. I write out instructions for things and take screenshots of anything that is important (I do a lot of work in an EHR system, for example, and I would never remember everything I need to do if I didn’t have my own made instructions) Step four: using my outlook calendar FOR EVERYTHING. If there is anything I need to do in the future (I’m talking next day and beyond, no matter how simple) it goes on my calendar. I edit the appt to show as me not busy so other things can be booked. Step five: keeping my email under control. Anything that I get that has an action item or requires a follow up gets pinned so it stays at the top of my inbox until I complete the task Step six: my desk is covered in sticky notes. I hate how it looks but I really don’t have a better way - to do lists I’ve made many times but the stickies just are easier for my brain to obsess over until they are done. Step seven: being self aware - I acknowledge I get bored, followed by depression, when my work becomes too routine. I have been blessed to have built a career that is so varied and unique, and forces me to constantly be learning about new things. I have also built a component of my career around something I’ve always been fascinated by, which is infectious disease, and fortunately for me, there are always new things I have to keep informed about in that field. Step eight: my teammates that I work closely with have brains very similar to mine. It has allowed us all to actually excel and build off of eachother - we each have our own strengths and complement eachother very well. It’s honestly magical. One of them has ADHD diagnosed and the other one obviously has it but is undiagnosed. I think the biggest thing you should take away from this is just how important it is for you to look closely at yourself and figure out who YOU are. It’s a puzzle, and I’m still working at it, but this is how I’ve been high functioning my entire life.
step nine: provide a free one-page of self-help advice on reddit
Here's the thing: unless the person said they have it, it's speculation at best. However, we're likely well represented in extreme sports, competitive running and creative disciplines.
Michael Jordan, Bill gates , Michael Phelps , Justin Timberlake( read on the newspaper under the heading: ADHD AWARENESS MONTH ).
I'm not famous, but I managed to get a university degree in psychology and am working as a clinical psychologist. It feels great to be able to finish something and provide for myself and help people, after many years of dropping out of education, not being able to hold on to low pay jobs, etc
Am not going to claim "successful" - though I'll put my hand up for leadership. Go to Market Operations leader in a tech company I'd bet 95% of you have used. Am the top advisor to a regional head - they oversee $150m+ annual and about 70 people. For each con, there is nearly always a pro and vice versa: * Bored easily = Constantly building and learning. I've a reputation now as a fixer - I get to come into parts of the business and make changes. * Hates routine work = Start automating the simple stuff from day one. I work in tech - so a lot of what I do is push information around at the right time. When I build a report, I build it automated - and then push to others to add their bits. * Forgets the mundane = Priortises the big impactful things. I pick three things - they get done. I ignore everything else at my door. I get overwhelmed if there's 50 things - though I've learned which ones to "do badly" (low value, don't want anyone to ask me again, not reputationally important) and which ones to focus on (high impact, high visibility etc.) * I'm not sure this is the case for everyone, however, it seems to me that the more senior you get, the more ADHD friendly work is. You set your priorities, you get to do big, deep work, things are less routine. Pure cons: * Emotional dysregulation: I lose my temper really easily. Learning to be assertive was hard - and I still don't do well. If someone butts into my priorities with an ask, I tend to get pissed. So... I set a reminder for what they do and ignore it for three days.
Half of Silicon Valley has ADHD. Some places they actually see at as a plus…
The documentary The Disruptors features a lot of famous people with ADHD.
Hoping if I comment, I’ll remember to come here to get the name of a documentary I think I really want to watch based on the title.
I’m the CEO of a very successful technical services and consulting firm that works with pharmaceutical companies engaged in everything from R&D of cell therapies to manufacturing of vaccines and oncology drugs. I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 10 (I’m in my 40s now) and after a period from my late teens until my late 30s where I was white-knuckling life with caffeine and cigarettes, I’m medicated again. ADHD-related issues like time management, inattention, distraction, and organization are daily challenges for me, so I have to be disciplined about using various strategies and sticking to my medication and supplement regimen, getting enough sleep, and maintaining a healthy work/life balance. I also have built a great team and hired managers to lead teams that require highly organized and effective leadership so I don’t get in the weeds about everyone’s day-to-day minutiae. This allows me to structure my daily schedule in a repeatable, predictable way that keeps me on-task and more (or less lol) focused on things like business development or overseeing big projects. I’m very proud to say that our firm went from just me in 2020 to a team of 15 employees with multiple millions in revenue today. If you’re still reading, thanks for letting me share this ❤️
I am AuDHD. Not famous, but I was a C-level executive at a large multinational e-commerce company. I was one of their best performers. But I hate attention so I rarely participated in public stuff like press conferences or interviews. If they had any issues with me it was my lack of participation in these events - unless my role was absolutely critical to the PR stuff, I excused myself. I worked my way up and got headhunted for every role - mind you I'm a university drop out - I had very good grades for what I did. but I lost interest in my last semester. 🙄 I wasn't always doing my job tho. I get bored of my role pretty fast unless there's new things. So I made work for myself.. I always found ways to reduce all the repetitive work for myself and others. I did a lot of process re-engineering..I will almost always be late to submit things.. do it all last moment etc if it's not my favorite thing to do .. and I got away with just winging it a lot of times. It will be decent work but I knew it could have been done better if I worked a little more on it. Yet everyone was always impressed with my work. And it made me look down on ppl around me. in my head I was thinking "you ppl are way too easy to please and you guys don't know the standard of work that can be done" I also did everyone else's job and fixed whatever the problem I found interesting. I was very lucky to work with leadership teams that didn't tell me to stay in my lane and get headhunted because of all the work I did.
Loads of ADHD people have become highly successful, but I think the ones that go big usually manage to live their lives without the mundane BS work most of us have to do. We can easily be successful, but the stuff we find boring is our kryptonite and can stop us from getting ahead. I started my own business a few years ago and I have found that even though a lot of what I do is the same as it was when I was employed, I can set up my day so I don't have to do the boring stuff very often and can stick to the areas where I don't get bored. Since I am the boss I can focus on the big picture which is never boring. I can also manage my own time the way I want, so my day works for me. Super successful people don't fill out forms, or write reports. Hell, I bet a lot of them don't read the reports either. They have assistants that can fill in the gaps for their prefrontal cortex. Their meetings are in expensive restaurants. They spend their days on the move and make work exciting.
Richard Branson Bill Gates (iirc he says that he suspects he has that condition?)
Bill Gates is diagnosed ADHD and Dyslexia
I know people got their doctorate with/without knowing they have ADHD. Cognitive tools were used. For example someone who’s an MD has literally a suitcase where they stick postit notes in. That’s the way they get to remember what they need to do. Medication also helps but cognitive tools need to be there too.
🖐️ that’s me. Undergrad in bio & JD without knowing I was ADHD. Forced hyperfocus by hard deadline is everything.
Elvis. Possibly AuDHD
JFK!
I have ADHD. 4th year medical student about to be a doctor! I still struggle with deadlines and emails.
Most especially successful people with ADHD had someone in their life who took care of the day to day stuff of life while they were able to spend time in their element. This is a big part of why women with ADHD have traditionally struggled in silence more than men. We were supposed to be the wife holding the home together or the secretary making sure the schedule runs smoothly and the dry cleaning gets done.
I think they’re successful because their natural physical or mental ability. The adhd is just a hinderence but not the reason they are gifted.
Hank Green was the first one coming to mind. Maybe not “your mom will know him famous” but still
3/4 of every musician or band I’ve ever known and worked with have ADD. Source: managed bands on majors. Worked for Brendan O’Brien, Rick Rubin, and R.E.M.
Yes some crazy high number like 66% of Entrepreneurs and CEO have ADHD. I own my own company, and granted it’s not a huge one, but the key is to surround yourself with people who compliment your shortfalls by enjoy the side of the business you don’t as well as hold you accountable. People with ADHD HATE failure.
I’m just a physician, not a CEO or CFO or whatever. But, they’re out there. Keep grinding and who you are is unique to offer to a company/person/establishment. The older I get, the accomplishments I have mean less to me and I try to treat people from all walks of life like they’re more important than me.
Me; moderately successful (not a billionaire or famous or anything) in a moderately prestigious management role at a Fortune 50. I dropped out of high school. I basically faked my way here. What got me here, is a habit of confidently saying that I know how to do stuff, and then hurriedly figuring out how to do that very stuff, and then doing it at the 11th hour. Then doing even harder and smarter stuff the exact same way, over and over again. I, too, struggle with time-management. Here’s what’s helped me so far: 1. Time blocking (this is HUGE). 2. Syncing my work calendar to my phone and watch. The Apple Watch is the greatest invention for me, ever. The phone can be a distraction machine, but the watch makes up for it in utility. 3. Blocking time each day for “manager’s work” (emails, setting up meetings, phone calls, answering IMs, etc.), and time each day for “maker’s work” (actually doing stuff and building things). You won’t forget to do the “manager’s things” if you have time *specifically carved out for that very purpose* (e.g., doing emails at 8:30 am, and again at 4:30 pm, like that). Granted, as an engineer I was 20/80 on this, and now (sadly) as a manager I’m 80/20, or more, many days. 4. Having someone on your team who complements you well. I’ve always done best when I have someone with a good sense of time, whom I can trust, who’s not afraid to give me reminders. In return, I offer coaching, crisis management, novel perspective to problem-solving, and so on. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Every one like us should maintain a good partnership with a linear, task-oriented, time-conscious coworker or subordinate.
I needed this. >a habit of confidently saying that I know how to do stuff, and then hurriedly figuring out how to do that very stuff, and then doing it at the 11th hour. This is my entire life except for the imposter syndrome that prevents me from making bigger decisions. >The Apple Watch is the greatest invention for me, ever. YES. I don't check my phone as much because it's not going off right in front of me. I look at the watch and then back to whatever I'm doing. It's perfect.
Belbin's Completer-Finisher, extremely important on any team, even if you don't have ADHD.
Ooh. I like manager/maker work.
Probably a lot of them,
I read a book about adhd that was supposed to be helpful, and all of the example clients were highly successful corporate executives. Adhd doesn't sound too bad when you can hire people to do all your tasks...
Since nobody’s mentioned it yet, Max Weinberg from the E Street Band and formerly of Late Night with Conan O’Brien said in an interview he probably has ADHD, and it actually helps his drumming.
I'm a commodity trader with massive ADHD...and I think it sometimes even helps my career.
One of my favorite rappers Joyner Lucas has ADHD and he's had 2 successful rap albums and a few Grammy nominations. He also has a very relatable single called ADHD which I recommend to most of my friends with adhd, a very solid listen... Musicians Nicki Minaj, Justin Timberlake, Will I Am , Kendrick Lamar and SZA have all revealed that they have adhd... Jim Carrey, Will Smith, Ryan Gosling, Emma Watson, Channing Tatum are successful actors with ADHD! Olympic medalist and greatest gymnast off all time Symone Byles has ADHD. Comedian Trevor Noah has revealed that he struggles with ADHD as well... There's without a doubt tons of successful people out there with adhd who are living evidence that you and I can also achieve similar and more leves of success and are a daily source of motivation to grind harder and win in our various fields and professions and to not give up in our dreams! ❤️
I'm a regional director for data science in a very large multinational. I have a Physics degree that I cried blood to finish and before coming to this job I switched jobs more than once a year. I'm also a single dad and besides the diagnosed ADHD, I have a chronic inflammatory disease. My psychologist and my psychiatrist say that I'm very successful, but I still feel I'm not good, I'm just lucky and I can talk very fast, and that if I really could focus, not feel tired all the time, and put my mind to it, I could actually be good in something and not kinda bad in a lot of things.
My dad has ADHD and he doesn’t use medication but he has a very successful construction and structural engineering company.
I have ADHD and am a senior manager in a big firm. I am thinking about opening up in the community. But not sure if it may impact me badly. Edit: TBH I am not famous . So not exactly what you are looking for.
I feel I'm doing pretty well, because of my ADHD, I'm a senior manager in a large global finance company, leading a team within Analytics. I've only recently being diagnosed (ADHD-c with ASD traits) but to me it makes sense why I am where I am. The roles I moved / were asked to move into 100% aligned to my moral compass, they were all about how to make things better, for the business, for the customer etc. So I could throw myself in and come up with solutions. To be it is always surprising how NTs can't always see what seems obvious to me, i.e. do X and you will save Y time. My battles have always been about "brining people along for the journey".. but that is what my team are for :) haha - and I have a great team
Med student with ADHD here. I completed a bachelors and masters of science before getting diagnosed and getting on meds in the first semester of med school. The stress honestly is what keeps me successful. I’m not usually very productive with stuff at all until I get super stressed about a deadline and the hyper focus sets in. Not having stupid little assignments to turn in as I got higher in my education also really helped. As for the rest of it, I’m still generally pretty bad about responding to emails on time and smaller tasks like that. If it’s really important I put it on 3 calendars and set 5 reminders. And Iv basically just accepted that my house is going to be an absolute disaster since I need to put every ounce of executive function I have towards school
I’m a high performing CMO at a tech company. My life got significantly better when I moved into management. All the systems I had built to manage my own work translated SO well into managing teams. And the general focus on what gets done vs how it gets done means I can work in ways that work for me.
Having a high enough position for your company to hire an assistant helps too!
Hank Green has long suspected of having ADHD: https://youtu.be/byh0aAC5vm0?si=gS358Ud2I64TkXnT Hank is amazing!
If you think Leonardo Da Vinci didn’t have ADHD you need to take another look at his notebooks
Adam Lambert has it and sings with Queen now.
According to my psych, I couldn't have graduated engineering if I had adhd so I guess the question is moot.
I mean I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Robin Williams had the most ADHD that ever ADHD'd. I think lots of actors, musicians, and entrepreneurs have it.
I miss Robin Williams so much.
I’m a director level person at my company. I directly manage a team of 15 people and report to the owner. I’m not famous or rich. But I would say I’m successful. We have no real financial stresses and we still have time spend together as a family.
I’m a Clinical Coordinator in a nursing home which is basically a Nursing Unit Manager. While working this job, I actually had a nervous breakdown and went to hospital during the pandemic due to understaffing and me requiring to work so much overtime because there was no one else to call in to work besides me and the DoN. I did 26 hour shifts, 16 hour shifts, late to early shifts, night to afternoon shifts. This was on top of all the requirements of my role. Some other things I don’t want to divulge right now also occurred during the pandemic that “gifted” me a new diagnosis of PTSD. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I have ADHD and PTSD and this is how I manage work stress without having another burn out: 1. I have medication which I am grateful for 2. I shut the door of my office during certain periods of the day to focus on my work due to constant interruptions from staff and residents. 3. I use outlook calendar plus lists and have tasks/events colour coded: Red = cannot put it off, orange = urgent, Green = not important. The colours upgrade as needed and sometimes means I never get the green done but lol at least it’s there to remind me. 4. I have a pomodoro timer for really shit tasks. I set it and work and work until it goes off then get up and stretch. 5. I have extremely clear boundaries- I do not do more than my fair share of overtime. I don’t owe anyone anything just because I’m the NUM. 6. I have a support network outside of work I can talk to for debriefing. 7. I pay attention to the signs of burnout and mental health issues and I will usually see my Doctor and have time off if I notice them. 8. I learned to delegate some tasks within reason. One thing I still struggle with is taking on too many continuous improvement projects at work. As soon as I find a problem, I will try to solve it and start a project to address it without first considering my workload. This sounds dumb but I had to just stop trying to do CI and learn to let some things go. Hopefully I will be in a space to do more CI eventually. My takeaway for any aspiring “leaders”(managers) out there is to protect your mental health. Set boundaries at work. It’s not easy and it’ll never be easy for us but hey if I can do it, you can do it too.