You’re Not Broken—You’re Built for This

How Young Adults with ADHD Can Thrive Using Big Ideas from Naval Ravikant and Dan Sullivan

Introduction: School Wasn’t Built for You—But the Future Can Be

If you’re a young adult with ADHD, you may have grown up feeling like school was a battlefield. You were always told to sit still, follow the rules, stop daydreaming, and ‘just focus.’ You might’ve heard that you were lazy, scattered, or not living up to your potential. But what if we told you that those same traits—the ones that got you in trouble—are actually signs of potential greatness? In fact, some of the most creative, successful, and fulfilled entrepreneurs of the last 50 years had ADHD. One of the world’s top business coaches, Dan Sullivan, says more than half of the entrepreneurs he’s coached over the past four decades had ADHD. Why? Because the world of entrepreneurship, innovation, and creativity rewards the exact things school tried to suppress in you.

Naval Ravikant, a wildly successful investor and entrepreneur, shares a mindset that pairs beautifully with Sullivan’s coaching for ADHD-driven achievers. Together, their insights offer a new lens on what success looks like for people like you. This article will show you how to use four key principles to build a thriving life outside the classroom: 1) Leverage, 2) Specific Knowledge, 3) Long-Term Games, and 4) Systems for Clarity. These aren’t just ideas—they are blueprints for building a life full of meaning, impact, and freedom.

1. Leverage: Build Things That Work While You Sleep

Naval Ravikant teaches that real freedom and wealth come from leverage—not from working harder or longer hours. If you’ve got ADHD, this idea is gold. Why? Because ADHD minds are fast, creative, and burst-driven. You may struggle with repetitive tasks, paperwork, or traditional jobs—but you can thrive by building systems, products, or content that scale beyond your time. This is the beauty of leverage. It means building something once that can keep working for you over and over again, without your constant involvement.

There are three types of leverage Naval highlights: labor (other people working for you), capital (money working for you), and code/media (products that scale with zero marginal cost). For someone with ADHD, code and media are especially powerful. Creating a podcast, a blog, a YouTube channel, or an online course means you’re using your unique energy and creativity to create something that continues to grow without burning you out. It’s the antidote to burnout—and a huge unlock for ADHD minds.

Imagine building a short video series about ADHD tips or creating digital art or music that sells passively. This is not only possible—it’s increasingly common in the creator economy. ADHD gives you a unique voice, and leverage lets that voice echo across the world without demanding constant energy.

**Practical Tip:** Think about what excites you the most. Is it talking? Recording? Drawing? Explaining things? Start with that. Then think: how can I record, package, or automate this so others can benefit—even when I’m off doing something else? Use tools like YouTube, Substack, Teachable, or Shopify to build once, use many.

2. Specific Knowledge: What Feels Like Play to You, Looks Like Work to Others

Naval Ravikant emphasizes the idea of ‘specific knowledge’—a unique combination of skills, experiences, and interests that can’t be taught in school or easily replicated by others. It’s the thing you naturally do well without even realizing it. And for many people with ADHD, that specific knowledge is hiding in plain sight.

Dan Sullivan calls this your ‘Unique Ability,’ and it’s closely tied to joy, energy, and natural talent. When you operate within your Unique Ability, you feel fully alive. You don’t procrastinate. You lose track of time. Your ADHD doesn’t feel like a burden—it feels like an engine. And that’s the point. ADHD brains aren’t wired for conformity—they’re wired for innovation.

Specific knowledge could look like your ability to explain complex things in simple language, your instinct for making people laugh, your knack for design, your obsession with optimizing games, or your love of making videos. It’s not something you can discover from a textbook. It’s something you *notice* by paying attention to what energizes you and what other people constantly ask you for.

The modern world rewards those who specialize—not generalists who try to be everything to everyone. The good news is, your ADHD brain *loves* specialization when it’s driven by curiosity. Follow your curiosity and find the intersection of what you love, what you’re great at, and what people need—that’s where your power lies.

**Practical Tip:** Make a list of activities where time flies for you. Ask your close friends: ‘What do I do better than anyone you know?’ Then experiment by creating something in that domain. Try sharing it online, teaching others, or building a small product around it. You don’t need to have it all figured out—just start.

3. Long-Term Games with Long-Term People

ADHD can make consistency difficult. You start things strong but get bored fast. You shift gears midstream. You abandon good ideas because something shinier comes along. That doesn’t mean you’re broken—it means you need the right kind of game to play.

Naval advises: ‘Play long-term games with long-term people.’ Why? Because the most valuable rewards—trust, reputation, and mastery—only compound over time. This is especially important for ADHD minds. The key isn’t to force yourself to be consistent out of willpower—it’s to build a system where your *interests pull you forward.*

Dan Sullivan’s answer to this challenge is genius: he teaches entrepreneurs to think in **90-day cycles**. That’s short enough to hold your attention and long enough to get results. Each 90 days, you set a new goal. Each week, you measure momentum. And before long, you’re stacking victories, building confidence, and actually finishing what you start.

This is the ADHD secret to long-term success—short sprints, clear rewards, and structured resets. Whether you’re launching a business, creating content, or building a brand, treat each quarter like a fresh mission. Then repeat what works, ditch what doesn’t, and enjoy the ride.

**Practical Tip:** Write down one bold goal for the next 90 days. Something that excites and challenges you. Then break it into 12 small weekly steps. Tell a friend or mentor about it. Track your wins. Reward yourself every week.

4. Systems Create Freedom

Dan Sullivan is famous for saying, ‘Structure creates freedom.’ For people with ADHD, this idea might feel counterintuitive. Structure? Isn’t that what made school so hard? Rigid schedules, repetitive homework, and daily rules might have felt like a trap. But real structure—the kind that’s designed *by you and for you*—can be life-changing.

ADHD brains crave stimulation and clarity. Without structure, you live in a fog of forgotten ideas, last-minute scrambles, and mental clutter. But with structure—customized to your brain—you unlock flow. You make better decisions. You stop feeling overwhelmed.

Naval encourages people to use tools, teams, and systems to free their minds. Your brain is for ideas, not remembering what time your Zoom meeting is. Offload your brain. Write it down. Speak it into your phone. Put it on a whiteboard. Use systems that match your mind.

This doesn’t mean rigid routines. It means flexible frameworks. Use colorful planners. Track goals in gamified apps. Break big tasks into micro-steps. Use reminders, alarms, accountability buddies. Every system that clears mental space increases your clarity—and clarity is the doorway to confidence.

And remember, ADHD isn’t a time management problem. It’s a **self-regulation** challenge. Systems help you regulate your energy, not just your schedule. So make your environment work for you—set up cues, rituals, and supports that keep you moving, even when motivation dips.

**Practical Tip:** Use visual task boards like Trello or Notion. Try time-blocking with breaks for creativity. Use alarms for transitions. Keep a single ‘capture tool’ for ideas (voice note, sticky pad, digital note). And remember: the best system is the one you’ll actually use.

You’re Built for This: A Final Word

If you’ve spent most of your life feeling like you’re behind, broken, or just barely holding it together—hear this: **you are not broken.** You’re built for something different. Something better. The future isn’t just about compliance—it’s about creativity, curiosity, and connection. And guess what? Those are your superpowers.

ADHD may have made school hard. It may make some parts of adult life tricky too. But in the world we live in now—a world of ideas, innovation, and leverage—your brain is a competitive advantage. You are the kind of person who sees what others miss. Who builds what others fear. Who questions what others accept. That’s not a disorder. That’s leadership.

Naval Ravikant’s philosophy gives you a modern, tech-driven roadmap for building freedom and wealth through leverage, authenticity, and smart thinking. Dan Sullivan’s coaching brings structure and encouragement to ADHD entrepreneurs who want to turn chaos into clarity and create a future they love.

So take the next step. Find your specific knowledge. Start a long-term game. Build a system that frees your brain. And most of all—trust that your journey matters. The world doesn’t need you to be average. It needs you to be exactly who you are.