David A. Greenwood - Overcoming Distractions: Thriving with Adult ADD/ADHD

Why does a book like this need to be written? Ill give you several reasons. First, take a few minutes and Google the phrase What is ADHD? Heres the answer: Its Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. But as you scroll down, youll find one of the first reasons this book needs to be written: Many of the initial search results speak about children. They describe ADHD as a childhood disorder or childhood illness. The word illness gets to me, but more on that later. Even the National Institute of Mental Health calls ADHD a childhood disorder and barely mentions the word adult.

Pages and pages of many credible websites speak to the condition as being a childhood issue and not so much something that adults experience. It may be much more noticeable in children than in adults. And I get why many of these entries, articles, websites, books, and other publications focus on childhood ADHD. Its difficult to watch your child struggle with behavior, schoolwork, getting along with others, and all the casualties that go along with being a kid with ADHD, including bullying.

Its estimated that 10 percent of school-aged children show some of the most recognized traits of ADHD, including focus and behavioral issues, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. Or, as I like to say, they have no filter.

Raising a child with ADHD is not easy. Its stressful, exhausting, and turbulent all at the same time. I know because Im raising a child with his own challenges. My wife likes to say that my mother is looking down on me from heaven now and giving me just a little bit of a payback for everything I put her through when I was a kid. Some days I do feel that Im reliving my childhood, and not always in a good way.

Now Im an adult, running a small business and raising a child with extreme focus issues. Youd probably love to be a fly on the wall in our house.

Over the years Ive had my good days and bad days, but overall I was always, as an adult, driven to succeed. As a teenager I probably could not have cared less about being successful. I was only concerned about hanging out at the corner store with friends and driving my red Trans Am down to the beach. But something finally clicked in my early twenties, and I was suddenly determined to be successful in some way, making up for the complete disaster that was my formal education. I didnt go to crappy schoolsI was just a crappy student.

Guess what? Kids with ADHD grow up to be adults with ADHD. Stunning, I know. Maybe we learn to deal with it, but how do we thrive with ADHD? That was my question when I finally decided to get my act together.

As adults, many of us can either mask the symptoms of ADHD or, as we get older, hide them in certain situations. But the fact remains that many kids who have ADHD grow up with it and struggle with it on a daily basis. And many decide to kick a little ass with it and become successful adults.

One of those kids is me. Although, when I was growing up, it wasnt called ADHD. Kids like me were classified as simply hyperactive. In my case, hyperactive would be more than an accurate description. And the schools had absolutely no idea what to do with us. As youll read in these pages, some of the people I interviewed for this book were even thrown out of school. In my case, Im quite confident that I inadvertently tortured my mother, my teachers, and others with my behavior. And Im not quite sure my grandparents understood me at all.

But I think I made up for it. Before my mother passed away, I owned and grew two successful businesses and took on a high-profile role at a well-known charity, often acting as a spokesperson for national and international events.

I knew that there were people out there just like me, and even those with symptoms like mine who far exceeded my success. And I wanted to get to know them. I wanted to tell their stories, and I wanted to show the world that the kid in your classroom you thought was a complete screwup now runs a very successful business and might even be making much more money than you are. He may have also invented something that changed an industry, the world, and even your life. As one person puts it in this book, it may be juvenile, but many of us have something to prove.

But the deeper issue is this: How can we learn from these successful people? What drives them? What gets them out of bed in the morning, and what keeps them motivated to go for it every day? I wanted to know, and so do many of my fellow ADHDers who are looking for ways not only to make it through the day, but also to rise above their ADHD and make it work in their favor. We have to fight to figure out what to do with ourselves after our feet hit the floor in the morning, getting our brains and body into a zone that gets us through the day.

In writing this book, I talked to many people, including successful business owners, those who are successful in their respective careers, as well as ADHD coaches and a handful of highly regarded medical professionals in the field of ADHD. Overcoming Distractions is meant to be a street-smart approach to managing and thriving with ADHD. Its not meant to be a medical book or to offer doctors advice. Since I went to a vocational school for welding, Im far from a medical doctor. And while ADHD is formally classified as a medical condition of the brain, I dont believe the answers to living a great life lie solely in medical solutions.

Successful people learn how to manage their environment and adapt, and that is no different than what someone with ADHD does to succeed. We cant go to school and learn how to be a successful businessperson with ADHD. We need to learn from screwing up, and from those who have done it, and we need to create techniques that allow us to thrive. And thats what this book offers.