Thom Hartmann - Adult ADHD: How to Succeed as a Hunter in a Farmer’s World

This book is dedicated to my perpetual partner in virtually
all my business enterprises, Louise Hartmann. I have
started many businesses that she has ended up managing,
always with skill and aplomb. From her
Ive learned the importance of patience, teamwork,
and even the value of boring meetings.

Adult
ADHD

As an empathetic native guide, Hartmann inspires hunters to revel in their evolutionary legacy. He provides empowering strategies for transforming ADHD challenges into tools for prospering in the farmers domain. The motivating success stories reveal a multitude of paths to self-acceptance and celebrate the triumph of neurodiversity over conformity.

ELLEN LITTMAN, PH.D., COAUTHOR OF
UNDERSTANDING GIRLS WITH ADHD

My therapy clients often compare ADHD to a radio that is on scanthey jump from station to station and get a lot of static. This book is like landing on The Thom Hartmann Program on your radioa rare voice of calm, clarity, and compassion that reminds us our so-called deficits can often reveal our greatest strengths.

RABBI HILLEL ZEITLIN, LCSW-C,
DIRECTOR OF THE MARYLAND INSTITUTE FOR
ERICKSONIAN HYPNOSIS & PSYCHOTHERAPY

Acknowledgments

S pecial thanks go to Wilson Harrell, whose enthusiasm inspired me to stop procrastinating and write this book now.

Other people deserving thanks are Edward Hallowell, M.D. and John Ratey, M.D. (authors of Driven to Distraction), who developed the suggested ADHD diagnostic criteria mentioned in this book; Dave deBronkart who helped in the creation of the core concepts; and those folks who offered encouragement and suggestions, principally Carla Nelson, Mark Powell, M.D., Wendy Hoechstetter, Dirk Huttenbach, M.D., Mark Stein, M.D., Bert Warren, M.D., Mark Oristano, Mary Fowler, Lisa Poast, Mary Jane Johnson, John Paddock, Ph.D., Janie Bowman, Cj Bowman, Dale Hammerschmidt, M.D., Hal Meyer, John and Nancy Roy, Kathy Daya, Carol LaRusso, Joan Lambert, and the many helpful people on the ADD Forum on CompuServe. This book came to fruition through the determined and competent efforts of my agent, Anita Diamant; editors Camille Cunningham and Julie Rubenstein.

My current business associates and friends have all been teachers and helped me form or validate the ideas in this book: Brad Walrod, Jeff Justice, Nigel Peacock, Kathleen Tinkel, David Vining, Don Haughey, Michael Kurland, Susan Barrows, Laura Haggarty, Jim Hart, Ann Linden, Randy Sizemore, Shinji Uehara, Vicki Howard, Todd Gailey, Lamar Waldron, Joe Pruitt, Rachel Ruckart, Deborah Carlen, Skye Lininger, John Cornicello, Don Arnoldy, Scott Cress, Greg Russell, Patrick Hogenbirk, Steve Zinn, Pat Phelps, Jim Hogan, Dave Eastburn, M. Duke Lane, Dianne Breen, Susan Burgess, Ken Kiyoshi, Rick Bogin, Elisa Davis, Glenda Serpa, Michael Hos, Heidi Waldmann, Nate Lenow, Paul Davis, Massanobu Tanighchi, Martha Swain, Kathy Carlysle, Robert Naddra, Louise Richards, Gerhard Lipfert, Gerda Lipfert, Georgia Griffith, Al Allen, Satya Dev, Tom Rogers, Rick Nash, Bob Koski, Doug Alexander, Ed Lindsey, Sam Olens, Bill Jennings, Michael Armstrong, John Knapp, Brad Doss, Dan ODea, Richard Rauh, Ed Brewer, John Hannabach, Gary Grooms, and Tondra Morley. And special thanks to Jennie Marx with Inner Traditions, who did such a brilliant job of line editing and helping with updates to this new and improved version of this book.

And particular thanks go to: Jerry Schneiderman, former business partner and Farmer extraordinaire, who helped me crystallize many of these concepts; my former mentor and business partner Terry OConnor, who taught me more about business and marketing than any six books could contain; my children, Kindra, Justin, and Kerith, who have taught me so much about life and given me my most important reasons for living; and Tim Underwood, who introduced me to the concept of the methodical Hunter.

To all, I extend my heartfelt gratitude.

Is It Called ADD or ADHD?

Previous editions of this book used the term ADD (attention deficit disorder). According to the organization of Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD), the national resource on ADHD, in recent years attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, has become the preferred term. The criteria for ADHD and its three different presentations (inattentive, hyperactive-impulsive, and combined) will be discussed in chapter 1.

Foreword

Michael Popkin, Ph.D.

M y mother has a favorite story she still tells friends about when I was a teenager. His room wasnt exactly messy, she would say, but he had things lying around everywhere. And when I asked him why, he would say, So I know where everything is. Then she shakes her head and laughs.

In chapter 11, Tracking the Prey: Heading for Success, Thom Hartmann makes the observation that for Hunters, out of sight is out of mind. Ah ha! I knew I had a good reason for my adolescent organizational system. Now I have a new way to understand why.

In Adult ADHD: How to Succeed as a Hunter in a Farmers World, Thom Hartmann builds on his fascinating theory of ADHDa theory that turns a so-called disorder into an understandable combination of weaknesses and strengths. Suddenly, ADHD children and adults are not innately defective, they are simply people with the right skills for the wrong timehunters in a farmers world. Hartmanns theory puts ADHD in a historical context that we can take pride in, even as it describes how this heritage can prove counterproductivesometimes fatalin the business world.

In the same chapter, Hartmann tells me that a Hunter is visually oriented and aware of everything at once. I flip back to my adolescent room and my visually oriented system. Aha! Another revelation, as my mind springs to my present business. As a child-and-family therapist in private practice in Atlanta, Georgia, I founded Active Parenting Publishers in 1983 to develop the first video-based parent education program. By 1989, my vision had become a successful company that was improving the lives of hundreds of thousands of parents and children. We were 243 on the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing companies, and already had innovative video-based programs for self-esteem education, loss education, and teacher training on the drawing boards. My visual orientation and need to see the big picturethose tendencies that my mother still jokes abouthad provided the edge to create a winning business.

My years as a therapist working with ADHD children and adults, as well as a host of others with their own weaknesses and strengths, have taught me one powerful lesson: Its not what you have in life that is important, its what you do with what you have. Thom Hartmann has applied solid principles of psychology and learning in this book to give readers useful tools for doing more with their Hunter strengths, and compensating for those tendencies that have become handicaps in our modern business world.

No one with even a mild set of Hunter genes will escape this book without the kind of Aha! experiences that give us the insight to change our lives. And if you dont find at least a dozen techniques for making you more successful in the business world, well... I guess you just werent paying attention. Fortunately, Thom kept the book brief, which is a good thing, because Im easily bored. Maybe thats why I make sure our videos are entertaining as well as educational... Aha!

Michael H. Popkin, Ph.D., is the author of over twenty-five books and video programs on parenting, including