hey everybody today I have a very
special guest mark sister is here to
talk about his experience with adult ATD
so like I said today I have a wonderful
and special guest Mark Suster has taken
time out of his very busy schedule to
sit down with us and talk about adult
ATD so mark tell my viewers a little bit
about yourself
sure my name is Mark Suster I'm a former
two-time entrepreneur before that I
worked in software for many years and
right now I run a venture capital fund
we invest in early stage technology
companies very cool
yeah and Mark has a wonderful blog if
any of you were in the tech space and
very curious about what he does it's
called both sides of the table I've been
following it for many years it's very
informational and it is not all just
tech talk sometimes it's just you
sharing stuff that's how I found out
that he had adult ATD so thank you I
think I had child a dd2 I just didn't
know it that's part of my nose yeah um
what made you even think of taking the
test or going to see someone to see if
you had it what was that like
aha moment so this is strange I think
for most people to know but I was 40 I'm
47 I was 40 when I found out I had a TD
and I found out in the simplest of way
my assistant at the time her name was
Laura Tryon
she said murky of a DD and I thought she
was kidding of course cuz everyone jokes
about having a TD she's like no you
really have a Reedy and I said where
it's not possible I did well in school I
have a good career I've run successful
businesses no I wasn't that kid and she
said read this book and she handed me a
book called delivered from distraction
and fine I'll read your damn book you
know she was kind of a new-agey if I
could say it that way on a microphone
she goes to Escalon and all that on my
final read your damn book and and I
couldn't put it down
and it gave you a checklist I'm going to
make it up and say there were 65
questions or whatever and I read through
it and everyone described me and then I
put it in front of my wife and she's
like this explains a lot she's like I
finally get it and that was when I
that's when I knew that I had it and I
started immersing myself and reading
more about it and wanting to understand
me better their realization was reading
about successful people like being able
to cast myself in the role of a
successful person with a didi the book
talks about the founder of JetBlue I
don't remember his name and he worked at
Southwest Airlines before that and he
was a member of the executive team and
they would be an executive team meetings
and people were just following process
following the rules talking about stuff
but not getting to important stuff and
he would have a moment where I describe
myself as sometimes like a Tourette's PC
like I can be in a meeting and I can be
totally fine and everything's rational
and it's just not moving along and then
all of a sudden blurts out something
like well Jesus can we just get to the
point and I'm like oh my god did I just
say that and that's how he was and
that's why he got fired from Southwest
because he couldn't work in the culture
and that's when he realized that he had
a didi or maybe he knew before but that
was the reason he couldn't work at
Southwest and the commonality is many
successful creative people particularly
entrepreneurs are people who have a didi
they have an urgency about them they
have lack of ability to focus on tasks
for a long period of time but can get
really immersed in stuff that they care
about and don't give up until they
complete those tasks so anyway so
reading about a successful protagonist
in a book was also mind-bending for me
yeah I think that's the thing that's
frustrating to me and why I wanted to
have you on is that I think as children
who get diagnosed you're almost labeled
as the problem child like you don't do
well in school like you said when she
told you like no but I did well in
school and things were okay
I'm successful and you know the two-time
entrepreneur and so I think we my hope
is to change that view because part of
it can almost be a gift and the fact
that you don't just rest on things you
won't just do the status quo and I can't
work in a big corporation just sit there
there's like four hour meetings that go
nowhere yeah you want change you want
things you know to be working quickly
and well and I think part of that is
what makes certain people with a V be
very successful
you