ADHD as a SuperPower: The Series

The last letter in ADHD stands for Disorder. I understand the clinical term and I agree with the reasons behind it. I chose to focus on the other side of the coin, the side effects that turn out to be super powers, and to feed those instead.

This series is an education journey I am going on with you, my audience. I share the lessons of decades of living as a high functioning team member and leader in cooperation with ADHD, sprinkled with brain research sourced elsewhere, so the definition is complete. Most of all it is about what you can do to unlock your own superpower potential.

It is not only for people with ADHD. If you live with, work with, lead or follow someone who has it, you can gain your own superpower by learning to leverage theirs. That is why most lessons in this series come in two parts: one for ADHD, one for Others.

We start with the fundamentals: energy (high and low), confidence (high and low), memory (always low) and activity (almost always high). Each post stands on its own, but if you are new here, start with post 1. It is the definition every other post links back to.

🎓 Lesson

• ADHD: The disorder is real, and so is the other side of the coin. Feed the side that is a superpower, and start with the fundamentals: energy, confidence, memory, activity.
• Others: You do not need ADHD to gain from it. Learn to leverage the superpower of the people in your life who have it, and you gain one of your own.

🎉 Tip: You can develop your superpowers once you know how, and you are closer than you think. The energy, the focus, the ideas are already in you; this series shows you how to point them where you want them to go. Start with post 1 today. By the end of it you will see your own brain differently, and that is the moment the superpower starts to grow.

The posts, in order

1. What Is ADHD? How the ADHD Brain Works, and How I Developed It Into a Superpower (coming) — the definition post. What ADHD is, what the research says about the ADHD brain and RSD, and how I turned it into an advantage.
2. How Do I Remember Tasks With ADHD? — memory is always low. What I do now to capture a thought before it is lost, and the thirty years of tools that got me here.
3. What Systems Actually Work for How ADHD Attention Operates? — three things: a single capture point, structure you can read off a wall, and a ten-minute timer that starts before motivation shows up.
4. The Superpower I Didn't Choose — split attention costs me more than most people, and hidden state disappears. The gap was not in my brain, it was in the tools, and that changed how I design them.

More posts in the series are on the way, on energy, confidence and activity. This page is the index; when a new post publishes it appears here.

How to read a post in this series

• Each post ends its teaching sections with a Lesson, in two parts where both apply: what to do if you have ADHD, and what to do if you work or live with someone who does.
• Each post carries a few Tips: short words of encouragement written to you, for the spot you just read.
• Where I state research, the source is named. Where I call ADHD a superpower, or an advantage for everyone once everyone learns how to take advantage of it, that is my framing, from my experience.