How Your AD/HD Affects Your Business:

This is the second in a series of articles about entrepreneurs who have AD/HD.

As I mentioned in the first article in this series, it seems that entrepreneurs are more likely than most people to have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or AD/HD. Unfortunately, many of these AD/HD entrepreneurs have no idea how their AD/HD is affecting their ability to do business. At my seminars about entrepreneurship and AD/HD, I get questions like "I've been very successful. Why do I need to come to you?" "So what if I have AD/HD?" is another popular question.

It's not a question of how successful you have been. It's a question of how much more successful you could be if you could understand how your own brain works. Entrepreneurs are not like other people in business, and the AD/HD brain is not like other brains. Studies have shown that the AD/HD brain even looks different when you examine it with an MRI or other magnetic imaging equipment. In fact, the more we learn about the brain, the more we understand that the AD/HD brain isn't defective. It's simply different.

Understanding that your brain is different is the first step towards moving ahead not only in business but in other areas of your life as well. If you have AD/HD, then you know that it takes extra effort to focus on a specific task for very long. It may be that your AD/HD forces you to spend so much energy focusing on your work that you end up neglecting other important areas of your life. Studies have shown that the divorce rate among people with AD/HD is much higher than normal. People with AD/HD are also more likely to have problems with alcohol or substance abuse. They're even more likely to get speeding tickets!

Of course, those things are hard to notice if you've been living that way all your life. There is a certain form of relativity at work here, as if you had an especially mean older sister who strapped something around your ankles when you were just learning how to walk. If you've always walked around with weights on your ankles, then you probably don't notice the weights are even there. But imagine how much faster you could run if suddenly the weights were removed! That's how many adults who have been diagnosed with AD/HD describe their experience, as if the weights that were holding them back had been suddenly taken away.

Having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD) is like having a high-powered sports car with an out of sync transmission. The motor – your mind – runs just fine. It's speeding along with all kinds of new ideas and revving up for more. Unfortunately, the car – your brain – doesn't always move like it should. Sometimes the gears slip and you lose ground despite the fact that your motor is running about as fast as it can. At other times, everything clicks and you can do amazing things. That's what happens when things get out of sync. This kind of inconsistent performance is one of the hallmarks of AD/HD.

AD/HD means that you're inconsistent. It does not mean you are stupid. Many, perhaps even most, people with AD/HD have IQ's that are well above average. Dr. Paul Elliot, a physician from Dallas, Texas who has worked with adults and children with the disorder for over twenty years believes there is a strong connection betwee
AD/HD and intelligence. "At IQ's over 160" (which is well above the 140 required for the designation of "genius"), " virtually all people have AD/HD," says Elliott. One popular AD/HD writer and self-avowed computer geek describes it as having "the mind of a Pentium with the memory of a 286."

Having AD/HD means that there is a big gap between your ability and your actual performance, between what you could do and what you actually end up accomplishing. If you are going to reach your full potential, then you have to learn to close that gap.

Next: Coaching the Entrepreneur with AD/HD: