ADHD is Awesome!
Is ADHD really a superpower hiding in plain sight? What if the qualities you thought were obstacles are actually your greatest business assets? How can understanding a different perspective—whether it’s ADHD, autism, or dyslexia—change the way you work with clients and partners? In this episode, I reflect on how embracing neurodiversity helps us all see hidden strengths in ourselves and those around us, from hyper-focus to creative problem-solving, and why “different” often means “awesome.”
Listen to this new 7-minute episode for insights on using our unique brains to our advantage and building better, more understanding business relationships.
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View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/
ADHD is awesome. Listen to this episode, see where I’m going. Hi, it’s Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. I just finished reading a book called ADHD is Awesome by Pen and Kim Holderness. And one of the reasons for reading this book is I had read a book just recently before. I think I’ve mentioned on another podcast called the Power of Potential. And the Power of Potential is about a family who has an autistic son and they wanted to create a job for him, like a real job that he could do and do well within his strengths and understanding the weaknesses.
And they ended up buying a car wash and he tells the whole story and now they have three car washes and almost every employee has autism. And it was really interesting because one of the things they said in the book was if you know one person with autism, you know one person with autism, you can’t assume and make assumptions that all people who have autism are like this one person, you know, and that really paralleled into the book with adhd, because I know a lot of people with adhd, they tell me that it’s not that I’m making a diagnosis, I am not a doctor, I do not make diagnoses like that. But people tell me I have adhd. I actually had somebody at a workshop one time. I did this all day workshop in Boston. And when somebody came up to me at the end of the day and said, I’ve been diagnosed with pretty severe adhd, how did you keep my attention all day? Which is incredible compliment for me. But I know that a lot of my DJ friends have ADHD and it is a superpower, much like if you heard me talk about. I had a guest a while back who said that dyslexia is a superpower and that NASA actively recruits people with dyslexia because they have a periphery.
The way they see the world in a periphery is better than people who are neurotypical like me. And I thought that was really interesting because what some people look at as, you know, a problem that could actually cause you problems in the real world, they’re actually recruiting for that because it’s a strength. And I believe for DJs, it’s also a strength. ADHD is a strength because there’s so much going on and the ability to bounce from one thing to another is a strength for you that other people, neurotypical people like me, might have trouble with. Right. So I thought it was really interesting in the book because they were talking about, you know, living with someone with ADHD being the. The care. I want to say caregiver, but being the partner.
Now maybe I have a child, so maybe is a caregiver, but understanding that they have strengths in their world. And one of them is actually hyper focus. And I’ve seen this with my friends, and I’ve seen this with family members where you, somebody with ADHD can, even though you can get distracted very easily, butterflies, rainbows and squirrels. Right. You can also get hyper focused and you can get so deep and so much done with something if you’re really interested in it, that’s actually a superpower as well. So the reason I read these, these different books about autism, about adhd, is to understand people better, understand people that I know better, understand people I meet in the world better, because we all have these inherent biases. Where we were born in a place to certain people, raised a certain way, and we’ve had certain jobs, and we’ve traveled in certain places, locally, nationally, internationally, and all of that shapes our view of the world very much. Like many of you have heard me talk about my two sons, one’s in finance, one’s in graphic design, they don’t see the world the same way.
I mean, literally, the two of them look at the same thing and they see different things, just like you and I do, because we come at this a different way. We come at this with different experience. So when I saw this, actually, I think I heard about this in the book the Power of Potential, which is about the family with the son with autism, with the car washes. I think they mentioned this one. ADHD is awesome. If not this book, it was another book. Somebody mentioned this book. And I said, I want to listen to that book.
I do audiobooks. You might have heard me talk about that as well. And it was really, really interesting. It was read by the couple. So Penn Holderness, he has adhd and he’s in his late fort. Then his wife Kim, and they have some other businesses. Apparently they actually won the Amazing Race, Won a million dollars, won the Amazing Race. And one of the reasons is his ability to look at different things and bounce around from different things actually was a superpower in that race.
And he was able to do things faster than other people that were in the race who did not have adhd. And it was really interesting. So here we talk about things as a disability, but really we have abilities every one of us that other people don’t have. And the family with the autistic son, you know, talked about there are certain things like following having a structure and following the rules was actually good for autistic people. And they can do it better than neurotypical people very often. And adhd, again, certain things. He’s a songwriter and writes jingles and stuff like that as well. And his wife said they’ll be in a meeting with the client and he’ll just zone out.
It appear to zone out, but he’s actually already writing the song and he’s already into that. But she needs to handle the business end of it because you still have to finish the rest and get the client and get the contract and all those kind of things. So is ADHD awesome? Yeah. Yeah, it is. Can it be a problem? I’m sure it can, but all of us, I think, have those things in our lives, right? I have things in my life that I think are awesome. And some of those things other people would look at and say, yeah, well, how can you do that? Or, you know, I couldn’t do that. Right. It’s all sides of this.
So why do I read them? I want to understand the world better. I want to understand how other people might see the world better. I want to understand maybe how to work. Because I’ve had ADHD clients and I had one of them whose ADHD was so bad, I told them, I said, I will not work with you anymore unless somebody else is on the call with us, somebody who is organized, somebody who is going to take notes, somebody who is going to take action on the things we spoke about. Because I know. And it happened a few times on calls, which is why I told them this. You hang up, the next thing, butterfly, squirrel, rainbow, whatever took your attention. And then you didn’t do anything with what we did.
So I will not take your money anymore unless there’s somebody else with us. Because I understood that’s how this is going to work better in a relationship. And I’m not going to take advantage of somebody. Just, you want to have a call with me, that’s great. But then you do nothing with it. You kind of wasted your time and you wasted mine because I could have been helping somebody else who will take action. So is ADHD awesome? Yeah, I think in certain ways it is. If you want to read more about it again, ADHD is Awesome by Penn and Kim Holderness.
That’s the book and the Power of Potential about the family with the autistic son, with the car washes. And go back and listen to an episode that I did about how neurodivergent people, specifically dyslexia is a superpower. I think that was really interesting, so thanks for listening.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected] or you can text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
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