How to Turn ADHD Into a Genius-Level Advantage

If you have ADHD and you're spending all your energy, time, resources, and money just trying to be normal, you're actually taking the biggest risk of your life. Not because being normal is bad, it's actually because you will never get there. And the longer you try, the more you will lose. Think about how much you're burning just to keep up. How many resources, how much willpower just to be average at things neurotypical people do on autopilot. You are trying so hard just to be mediocre or even maybe blow mediocre. You are trying to win a race. that was not designed for you. When you look at neurotypical people, you see them doing things effortlessly, paying bills on time, keeping their houses clean, following through on boring tasks without having a big crisis like you do. And you think this is what normal looks like. This is what I'm supposed to be. But why am I not able to do such normal things? Just trying to live a normal life is using all of your energy and willpower. And maybe on your absolute best day, After spending all the enormous amount of energy and willpower you have, you just become a mediocre neurotypical adult. So you develop this inner voice saying, why can I not do what everyone else does? Why am I failing at living a normal adult life? This should not be hard. There's something fundamentally lacking with me. Does this mean am I not going to be able to achieve something bigger than other people? Because I'm struggling with... just living a regular life. Okay, so I'm not going to give you a full neuroscience lecture, but you need to understand one thing about your brain, because it changes how you approach everything. ADHD is actually not a deficit of attention, even though the name suggests that. The real issue is that you cannot control where your focus goes. Your attention is either zero or a max. It's not that your attention doesn't exist. And normal people control their attention, and whenever they need to do this thing, they shift their attention to there, even though sometimes they struggle with it. And the thing is that... Even though everyone struggles with focus and procrastination, with ADHD, even when the consequences are so high, you still do struggle with it, or you do not even realize that your attention went somewhere else. It's not like, oops, I forget a deadline. But for example, for me, I put off renewing my ID and almost could not enter the country, and I was almost got banned. And I knew the consequences and I really wanted to do it. But for somehow, every single day, my attention drifted into somewhere else and I forgot to do that thing. So it's not really about wanting more. or having self-discipline. When something gives you dopamine, you lock in with a level of intensity that most people will never experience. When it does not, you are neurologically incapable of engaging zero or max. That is your operating system. That is what ADHD is. Once you accept the fact that you cannot control your attention, you stop asking, how do I fix myself? And start asking, how do I point this zero or max energy into the right direction? This is actually the trap trying to fit into a system that was not built for you. The world is designed for linear thinkers because they are the majority. Schools, jobs, institutions, they all reward consistency, routine, and predictability, which are all the things that you don't have. And they punish nonlinear thinking, chaos, and unpredictability. which means they punish you. So you spend your whole life trying to become someone you're not because the system tries to mold you, whether that's school, your parents, or the society. And the result is that burnout, mediocre adult who has never discovered what they're actually capable of. The biggest risk you can take in life is not pursuing an unconventional path if you have ADHD. The biggest risk... is spending your entire life trying to be normal, never discovering your potential and ending up at average or below average at something you were never designed for. So why should you listen to me? Why should you care about what I'm going to say, right? Because at the end of the day, I'm a random person on the Internet. The reason is quite simple because I built a successful life around my ADHD without fixing or turning myself into what society expects me to be. I built this YouTube channel from zero to almost 1.5 million subscribers after years and years and years of failure and everyone telling me to quit and actually I used this YouTube channel the money that I made when my uncle scanned my dad and we also went bankrupt to support my parents financially and retired them at 21 and To be honest, right now in life, I don't have anything to complain. I really love my life. And I did all of this not by fixing my ADHD or changing who I am, but building a life around it that maximizes my strengths. But when you look at all these external factors, you might think I'm such a successful person and I'm so good at life. But no, I actually suck at normal life. I'm a disaster. You know, like, for example, I forgot to apply to university two times in a row, even though I had that deadline on my calendar, like six months beforehand. And I had reminders. every single freaking day reminding me to apply that and I forgot two years in a row How is that even possible? And I also pay my taxes late every single year that the late fee, the fines are literally became my budget now. And my mom wrote on her blog about how disgustingly dirty my apartment was. So when I tell you that trying to live a normal life is the biggest risk, I am the living example of it. So let me explain in this video. So what do we need to do instead? How can we design our life to maximize on this ability? It's by accepting few truths about nobody actually wants to say out loud. The first thing is that accept your weaknesses, then stop fighting them. In this big book, where a Japanese psychiatrist talks about all the neurodevelopmental disorders that I read, is saying that there was a parent who had a child with ADHD who kept losing their erasers at school. And instead of punishing that kid, what parents did was accepting that erasers are something that gets lost. And instead of punishing the kid and getting angry towards that kid, they kept buying new erasers and they said it's fine. And that one shift removed all the stress, all the shame, all the confidence. conflict erasers gets lost that is the reality and that self-confidence of the kid started to skyrocket and that spilled into other areas of his life if your parents did not give you that understanding you can give it to yourself right now the first step is killing the concept of normal as you should be you are supposed to do this you are supposed to be able to do that no deny that there is such no such thing as normal if you keep doing things even though you try then that is your normal you will lose things you will be late You will forget. The food will rot in the fridge. You might forget your taxes. It is fine and they happen. okay stop treating these as character flaws or there's something fundamentally lacking with you if you are struggling with these then what we need to do is not internalize it as a failure but build systems and build methods that actually will prevent them not going deep inside and fighting with your self-value the first one is that double down on your strength and ignore all your weaknesses this is something that actually i heard elon musk talking about he is never like officially diagnosed but he claims he has asperger's which is now called autism a high high-functioning autism, which I read his book, and he definitely shows a lot of signs of it. And autism and ADHD oftentimes overlap because they are under the neurodevelopmental disorders. But anyway, he was talking about that he had obviously a lot of weaknesses with a lot of social issues and of his interests as well. But what he was trying to do, instead of treating his weaknesses and become an all-rounder of a mediocre or slightly below mediocre, it is way better to maximizing your strengths that you become exceptional. And the most important thing... with ADHD is abusing this and becoming exceptional at something else that you're interested in. Therefore, the rule two is finding your domain and excelling at it. You need to find something that you like or you're good at if you have ADHD. You should not only think about the conventional past that everyone suggests. You need to focus on the thing that you love that you cannot stop thinking about because I'm sure there is something. And following that career might be a high risk thing. Right, that's true. But this is the only way that we can succeed we cannot do a regular nine-to-five job that you do not care about and live a mediocre life because with adhd think about it it is the condition that you have our dopamine receptors are different the amount of dopamine that is in our brain is different there's something that what people call a normal life going to a job that they do not like does not work for us because if it worked then it would not be called adhd it would not be such a big issue that they would diagnose you so you have to find your domain and excel at it. For example, me, since I was a kid, I thought I'm going to be a doctor. I studied basically like as long as I can remember as a kid, because I was such a competitive kid that I did not want to lose towards anyone else, that studying became my dopamine source, that I got really good at it, that I got into the best high school in Turkey, right? And after that, even though I battled with depression and I battled with like a lot of mental issues, I still maintained pretty good grades. And after that, I got into medical schools multiple times because I could not pick. So I kept switching and I got into all medical schools that I applied. But I realized that medical school is not something that I'm actually passionate about. The only reason that I wanted it was it was the top. you know career choice that i could make that i could prove the world that i am intelligent and i'm capable i was that competitive i was toxic as hell but that was the environment that i grew up okay but even though i got into medical school i got actually into the university of rome medical school which is a good one i could not go i could not continue because i'm not interested even though i spent all the years of my life from childhood since i was five i was saying that i'm going to be a doctor i could not go because i'm not interested in the materials of the medical school. I'm not, I realize I'm not interested in becoming a doctor. I'm not interested in becoming a physician, right? Practicing every day, even though I'm interested in science and neuroscience and our body. I'm not necessarily interested in that structure. Therefore, no matter how hard I would try, I could not go. Because it's not my domain. It's not something that I want to excel at. It's not something that I'm interested in. But for example, this YouTube channel, since from the age 15, I tried for five years and I kept failing and failing and failing that everybody made fun of me in high school. But I was still obsessed every single day I was thinking about YouTube. Like for five years, who can do that? I've coached like hundreds of people. to grow their YouTube channel and nobody was able to do that except like few people that were really obsessed with it. If you're not obsessed at something, you're not going to get exceptional results because you are competing with other obsessed people. But with YouTube, because I was obsessed, even after five years of failing, I kept going that on the fifth year, we went from zero to 100k subscribers in only three months. And from there, within like two years, we reached to 1 million subscribers and now we are at almost 1.5 and I am... living my best life literally my whole goal was to become a youtuber and i became one it was because i was obsessed obviously my looks probably helped but during the five years that i failed i looked the same but it didn't it didn't really help but the only reason i was able to keep going was because i was obsessed with youtube and that is the only way that you can excel at something with adhd and the rule number three is that you have to be in an environment this is rewarded this obsession is not going to be rewarded in every single job scenario because traditional settings punish everything about how we work they want you to follow the process his consistent deadlines be predictable sit in meetings do the same tasks in the same way every day but we'd like to find a new ways we are we our head is you know my head there are like 200 ideas that i could right now give about video ideas and business ideas that i could give to you but traditional settings do not reward this and if you are in a career even when you're obsessed with it if it does not reward you then That life is not designed for you and you're not going to be able to be successful in societal terms. You need an environment where creativity is valued, where non-linear thinking is an advantage, and where chaos is acceptable. Where you are not measured by how well you follow the rules, but what you produce. This is why actually so many entrepreneurs have ADHD. Not because we are business geniuses, but because entrepreneurship is constant variation, constant novelty, constant ups and downs. It is never the same day. twice. It's high risk, high reward. It is never boring and we need that. Like Richard Branson has ADHD and built an empire of companies. The Spotify CEO has talked about how he works with total obsession on whatever he commits to. These people did not succeed despite ADHD. They succeed because they have ADHD. They succeeded because the environment they built rewarded exactly how their brain works. But it does not have to be an entrepreneurship. High pressure kitchens where every moment is different, for example. Journalism or creative work or research or any work with variety, autonomy and dopamine generating challenge. is for us. So if your work bores you, you will fail. Doesn't mean that every single second of your work is going to be exciting, no. But majority of the time, it has to be fun for you. You might think, oh, I mean, that is the common advice of all of your passion, right? it's not necessarily follow your passion it's more about follow your obsession and obviously it applies for most people but most people are not obsessed as we are that is the differentiation because when we are obsessed it's almost scary because when i was growing my youtube channel i was posting three times a week for one and a half years in a consecutive and during that time I did not see anyone. I did not hang out with anyone. I did not talk anything about anything other than YouTube. My mom was so concerned that she thought I went crazy. But that is the thing we need to succeed in this world. And normal people do not have that. And we do have it. Therefore, it's all about finding the thing and pointing out that energy there. And forgetting all about your weaknesses. Because the moments you succeed... everyone is going to accept that. So stop wasting your energy trying to eliminate things that are never going away. Because every drop of energy you spend fighting your weaknesses is energy you're not spending on your strengths. With ADHD, what we need to do is not covering our weaknesses and become mediocre or below mediocre, but maximize on our strengths so that we become exceptional. Because with ADHD, the thing is that you are never an all-rounder. Most of the ADHD people that I've seen in my life, and I have so many around, me because I'm an ADHD magnet for some reason is that a lot of people do suck. at majority of the things, but there is one thing that they are very good at. And the successful people are the people who maximize on that thing, maximize on their strength, that they are exceptional compared to other people. But when you look into their personal life, they suck at normal life. They can do their bills, they can do their taxes, they can do their dishes. Their normal life is chaos, but they're so exceptional at that one thing that society actually forgives them. And that is the truth number two that you need to know. Success is actually our ticket to freedom. This is the part that nobody wants to hear but this is the truth the only way to be accepted for us to being different is to be undeniably successful at something and serving the society look at the old historical figures when you look at leonardo da vinci or einstein they are all kind of like weirdos they had very weird traits or very weird preferences and the way that they lived and it was so chaotic but society accepted them because they were successful all successful historical figures are kind of extremes and weirdos and when i was a kid i literally could not like sit in the class you know i could just not like focus i would walk around the classroom while teacher was talking and you know what as long as my grades were good the teachers were fine with it they would say like oh really just like needs that she she does it and she doesn't bother anyone so let her walk but the moment my grades dropped it suddenly became a problem suddenly i need to get it together and i need to behave correctly and my mom told me this when i was a kid that stuck me with forever because you are weird you have to be successful already she explained that if you're a little bit weird people will always tell you to change your behaviors but if you're extremely weird so weird you're not even on the scale anymore and you're successful people accept it as a quirky part of you and that makes it unique from other people's perspective but as long as you are successful. If you're not successful and if you're a little bit weird, then you're going to be lonely. You're going to be pushed away from society and that is the reality in our life. Society operates on meritocracy whether we like it or not. When your ability is high, everything is tolerated. Your quirk becomes your genius traits, what makes you unique. Your chaos becomes a creative process. Your impulsivity becomes visionary leadership. But when your ability is low, nothing is tolerated. The same traits that would be celebrated get labeled as irresponsible, unreliable, scattered, difficult. And you will never fit in. You will always be an outlier. Because that is a definition of ADHD. If 2% and 3% of people of the population have it, then it means that 97-98% of the population do not have it. Therefore, they do not operate like you. Therefore, they do not think like you. So you are going to be weird because we are the minority. But success buys you the freedom to be yourselves without constantly justifying your existence. Because as long as you're successful, people are going to accept it and even cherish it this is not fair obviously but understanding is a power so my success three is that you're playing a different game not a worse game compared to other people but the life of the game that we play is a different one, which is a high risk, high reward game. The highs with ADHD are very high, but the lows are very, very low indeed. There's no peaceful middle ground because your brain does not do middle ground. It's either zero or max. I've never seen an ADHD person live a mediocre life. They're either very successful or doing very poorly, or even though they're doing well, they think they are doing very poorly because of that all or nothing attitude. And you cannot play the rules that were designed for neurotypical people. Their game is consistency, routine, slow and steady progress but our game It's obsession, intensity, and all or nothing. The sooner you accept this is your game, the sooner you can start playing with it instead of trying to play someone else's. If you're sitting here and thinking, this is great, but I have no idea what my thing is. I do not have a passion. I don't know what I'm good at, or I'm not really obsessed with anything. Probably because you haven't tried enough things. If you tried all the different things, you're going to be able to get good at finding your obsession. Because I actually tried every single thing that I can try to think of. Like, I literally played the... flute for a while, played the piano, played the Japanese, like, okoto, which is like a traditional kind of like an instrument. I did cheerleading dance, which I sucked at. I tried badminton, volleyball, I swam, I... You know, like tried every single thing that you can think of. And now I am obsessed with golf, by the way. But the more things you try, the more you will learn about yourself, your abilities, your weaknesses and your strengths. If you cannot right now tell me the three things that you're exceptionally good at and three things you're exceptionally bad at, it means that you don't know yourself enough, which means you need to explore more things. Because every new thing you try is another chance for your brain to say, this is this one that turns on the switch. Try creative work. Try building something. try a sport, try a skill, try starting a project online, try something that scares you. The thing about ADHD is that when you find it, you will know because zero will become max overnight. It will consume all the energy, all the attention that you have that it is going to be undeniable that you're going to be obsessed with it, that you're obsessed with it. And do not giving the research up, okay? The search itself is not a failure. Giving up on the search is a failure. So the moment that your energy shifts into something and your attention shifts to something, do not feel bad about it. It is exactly what you needed. Because if you have ADHD, I know you had 10 different hobbies that you tried and that you abandoned. But it is the search. That is what our life looks like. Do not feel bad about it. Our existence is only truly accepted through success. Okay, remember that. That sounds harsh, I know. And I think it is very sad sometimes that I sometimes think that if I'm not successful, I'm just going to be treated as an incapable adult being because I suck at everything else other than YouTube and business. I'm really bad at it, but that is the truth. But... it is also free because it means you're not chasing success for the same reason everyone else is they want the validation they want they want to flex but what we want is freedom what we want is to be accepted in society we want a peace in society the freedom to work the way your brain works the freedom to live life on your terms the freedom to stop pretending like who you are not because of people's expectations. And the best news is that we are living in the single best era for ADHD brains. The internet has democratized everything. Knowledge, opportunities, audiences, income. Like for example, English is not even my first language. I didn't even go to an international school, yet here I am communicating with you on my third language. I did not even live in the US. Yet you're watching this video and we're communicating. And remote work is normalizing different ways of working. The creator economy rewards exactly what we are good at. The gap between us and neurotypicals is actually shrinking because attention spans across the board are getting worse, which means our way of working, non-linear, creative, flexible intents, is becoming more valuable less because their attention span is shrinking, but they're not getting good at creativity. whereas ours is good and our attention span is bad. You need to stop playing their game and start playing yours. First, find what makes you hyper-focused. Find what makes you curious. Find what you can do for hours and lose track of time. That is your signal and chase it. Accept that you will forget things. You will be late. You will struggle with... basic tasks design around it i have many videos showing how you can design a life around it how you can manage your life how you can manage your to-do list how you can manage your organization etc more videos are coming right like get support my mom left japan 40 years ago because she knew society was not designed for her personality my mom also has adhd by the way and she married a foreigner my dad moved to a different country and built a completely different life think about it and it happened like 40 years ago where international marriage was not that common in japan neither turkey but she gave me the permission to be different from the moment that i was born because i was different and that is the greatest gift that she could give to me and if your parents didn't give that to you now it's your time to give it to yourself i know it is hard but you have to remember that we are built for obsession for pattern recognition for connecting dots others cannot see for hyper focus for all or nothing the biggest lie you have been told is that you need to fix yourself to succeed the truth is the opposite you need to stop fixing and start building the way you work that is how you get successful a life that works with your brain and not against it because when an adhd brain finds the right domain points it obsession in the right direction and goes to max there's almost nothing in the world that can compete with that so stop fixing and start building and if you want to learn how you can manage your life despite living with adhd and maximize your productivity and get more things done so that you can focus on that signal then watch this video next

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⏰ Time Stamps
00:00 - The Hidden Risk of Trying to Live a "Normal" Life with ADHD
01:17 - How the ADHD Brain Works: A 60-Second Overview
02:42 - Why Conformity Punishes the ADHD Mind
03:30 - My Credibility: Why You Should Listen to Me
05:08 - Step 1: Accept Your Weaknesses
05:50 - Step 2: Abandon the Concept of "Normal"
06:24 - Step 3: Double Down on Strengths, Ignore Weaknesses
07:15 - Step 4: Find Your Obsession and Commit Fully
10:45 - Step 5: Choose Environments That Reward Obsession
14:19 - How Success Unlocks Freedom in Society
16:46 - Understanding You're Playing a Different Game
17:34 - What If You Haven't Found Your Domain Yet?
20:08 - Why This Is the Best Era for ADHD Individuals
20:55 - Summary and Key Takeaways

Important: This content is based on my personal experience and is not intended as medical advice. ADHD affects everyone differently, and medication decisions should be made with a qualified healthcare professional. Please consult a psychiatrist specialized in ADHD for guidance specific to your situation.