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Faster Than Normal

By: Peter Shankman, Edward Hallowell - foreword
Narrated by: Peter Shankman, Bernie Wagenblast
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Publisher's Summary

A refreshingly practical and honest guide that rewrites the script on ADHD

Peter Shankman is a busy guy - a media entrepreneur who runs several businesses, gives keynote speeches around the world, hosts a popular podcast, runs marathons and Iron Mans, is a licensed skydiver, dabbles in angel investing, and is a loving father to his young daughter.

Simply put, he always seems to have more than 24 hours in a day. How does he do it? Peter attributes his unusually high energy level and extreme productivity to his ADHD.

In Faster Than Normal, Shankman shares his hard-won insights and daily hacks for making ADHD a secret weapon for living a full and deeply satisfying life. Both inspiring and practical, the book presents life rules, best practices, and simple but powerful ways to:

  • Harness your creative energy to generate and execute your ideas
  • Direct your hyperfocus to get things done
  • Identify your pitfalls - and avoid them
  • Streamline your daily routine to eliminate distractions
  • Use apps and other tech innovations to free up your time and energy

Filled with ingenious hacks and supportive self-care advice, this is the positive, practical book the ADHD community has long needed - and is also an invaluable handbook for anyone who's sick of feeling overwhelmed and wants to drive their faster-than-normal brain at maximum speed...without crashing.

©2017 Peter Shankman (P)2017 Penguin Audio

Critic Reviews

"Peter is a pioneer, an adventurer, an inventor and a seer. His advice is the best kind of advice. It is advice learned in the trenches, in the arena, on the fields of life." (Edward Hallowell, MD, from the foreword, best-selling author of Driven to Distraction)
"Peter Shankman is living proof that living outside the bell-shaped curve, combined with a drive to succeed, can produce amazing results." (Jordan D. Metzl, MD, author of The Exercise Cure)
"While ADHD may be considered a ‘deficit’ to some, Shankman positions it as an attribute within the context of our immediate future. ADHD is a unique gift of creative synthesis that makes sense only inside of the complex digital networks and hyper-stimulation that now defines us." (Amanda Steinberg, CEO, Worth Financial, and author of Worth It)

What listeners say about Faster Than Normal

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Denies the struggles of the disorder

This book may be good for those who were forced upon their diagnosis, for whom it has been vilified.
But for those that it was a blessing, an explanation, or a relief, this completely downplays every struggle that comes with this disorder. It also makes the reader feel guilty for not "hacking" ADHD, and for using medication even when it works really well for them. It assumes that everyone has the luxury to build a life that suits them perfectly, and removes all friction points in their life, as if there is someone else in their life that will pick up after them and a healthy bank account to afford the extravagant coping mechanisms. It even goes so far as to suggest that skydiving (and other adventure sports) is a suitable method to get the dopamine the ADHD brain craves.
It is also written for those without ADHD, to learn "tips and tricks which might help them too" which completely minimises the experience and further stigmatises ADHD into a minor inconvenience rather than the disorder that it is.
ADHD is not a life sentence, but it is also not a "superpower" to be lifehacked.

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13 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars

Painful

Painful to listen to. Mainly just anecdotes of the authors life with simple self-help style advice scattered throughout.

He takes far too long to get to the point in every chapter.

Author said he did research however no evidence or rationale is made regarding his claims except from observations made loosely in his own life.

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5 people found this helpful

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The best part of this book...

The best part of this book...
... I could listen at 1x speed instead of 2x 😂👏🏻

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4 people found this helpful

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Essential.

Have you ever experienced true magic? Try having someone describe your life and interactions with your partner almost exactly as you experienced them pumped straight into your ears. I feel exposed yet comforted and understood. Thank you Peter for a wonderful and insightful kick in the pants. For anyone on the fence about buying this book, if the only result you get from it is having a clean desk then that is worth the price of admission alone.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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good

experiences of writer are good to compare to one's self and validate experience of having ADHD, tools and hacks could be better and more concise

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2 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars

we aren't baddies, but not necessarily goodies

my only criticism (and it might be a strange one, considering the positive frame the book is meant to be in) is that it shone a light on people with ADHD as all good folk. It is true that a lot of us thrive in the industries such as the sciences and just want to "help out" etc, but there are those with ADHD that have commorbid issues, such as conduct disorder that may or may not be in prison. I kind of cringed when Peter said "we never mean to do the bad thing" because of this. I guess my main point is just that you should judge people case by case as always. Besides that mostly enjoyable and relatable.

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    4 out of 5 stars

great tips on being productive with ADHD

Great book similar to the podcasts. love how they called out squirrel when there was a change of topic. Listened to this for productivity tips and great to show that something that might be seen as a disability can be harnesses as a strength.

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    1 out of 5 stars

man rants about how great he is at keynote speechs

struggling with meeting a deadline? just book yourself a round trip to Japan and write on the plane, no need to even leave the airport!
have you realized that eating well is really important to functioning with adhd? he just points it out, doesn't offer any actual advice other than eat good. sleep is important too?! groundbreaking.
he does tell you where you can buy lightglobes to help you sleep better though.
I'm not sure how much I can put in a review before I'm giving away all the info in this book but it essentially boils down to this...

HIRE A MAID AND A PERSONAL ASSISTANT

seriously tone deaf, contains little to no actual information or strategies and whatever is there is buried under an hour of personal anecdotes that ramble with dated pop culture references.

some may think it's condescending to yell squirrel when something is actually important... it is... and it's rarely important.
more of a self congratulatory masturbation piece that's more about what a great entrepreneur he is than any sort of helpful advice.

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As a woman - this book made me cringe

The strange ramblings of a white male flexing his privilege, and congratulating himself on his success.
He struggles to put together a cohesive idea in any given chapter, majority of the content features either the author talking about himself, or spouting goofy anecdotes and narrow-minded opinions.

The negatives of ADHD are totally downplayed, and it basically sums up to "just do what I do, or you're bad at having ADHD".

I lost my patience when he rattled off a list of about 15 - in his opinion (I.e. non-factual) - influential people who probably had ADHD. And they were all men.

The actual advice in this book could likely be boiled down to a short list, which would ironically be much easier for a person with ADHD to digest.

I see the author now has some more diverse guests in their podcast, I'm glad to see that. Maybe it's time to re-release this book with up-to-date knowledge.

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    4 out of 5 stars

Only just started but...

This book seems useful so far, however I just wanted to make a point for potential new listeners... there has already been an odd choice of example for ADHD greatness in the “founders” of America. A good point in that they were breaking away from monarchy and trying to find a balance between order and freedom, but anything remotely colonial makes me want to vom. Hopefully there aren’t more examples of this kind of worldview. The “squirrel” prompt is a pretty tired joke and I’m personally over it as a misrepresentation of ADHD... but it is a genius idea to use a prompt for ADHD listeners.!

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