Activate Your ADHD Potential

There’s something beautifully chaotic about the ADHD brain. It’s like a high-speed roller coaster—thrilling, unpredictable, and occasionally terrifying. But what if, instead of gripping the safety bar white-knuckled, you could learn to steer the ride? That’s exactly what Brooke Schnittman offers in her empowering and refreshingly practical book, Activate Your ADHD Potential: A 12-Step Journey from Chaos to Confidence for Adults With ADHD.

As someone who works peripherally in the ADHD field and lives with ADHD himself, I’ve seen a lot of books that try to corral the ADHD mind into neat, linear boxes. It doesn’t work. Brooke knows this, too, and instead of forcing conformity, she hands readers the tools to embrace their ADHD quirks and turn them into strengths. It’s like hiring a personal trainer, but for your brain—someone who simultaneously cheers you on and calls you out when you’re making excuses. And she does it all with a mix of wisdom, warmth, and a dash of humor.

Brooke’s mission in this book appears to be thus: help people with ADHD stop fighting their brains and start working in partnership with them. She knows the struggle—the messy desks, missed deadlines, and the constant feeling that you’re running a race with untied shoelaces. But instead of focusing on what’s wrong with ADHD, she flips the script. Her message is simple: ADHD isn’t a flaw; it’s a feature. And in the right context, it’s an incredibly powerful one.

One of the things I love most about this book is how Brooke makes science and strategy feel…well, fun. She takes concepts like executive functioning and energy management—things that sound like they belong in a corporate seminar—and makes them relatable and actionable. For instance, her idea of identifying “energy leaks” is pure gold. It’s not just about fixing time management (because let’s be real, ADHD brains laugh in the face of planners); it’s about figuring out where your focus and motivation are slipping away and plugging the holes. It’s ADHD coaching disguised as life-hacking brilliance.

What really sets this book apart, though, is Brooke’s tone. She gets it. She’s not some distant expert wagging her finger at you for forgetting to pay your electric bill (again). She’s the coach who’s right there in the trenches with you, helping you sort through the chaos with equal parts empathy and accountability. She doesn’t let you off the hook—there’s no magical cure for ADHD—but she makes the journey to self-discovery feel doable, even exciting. It’s like she’s saying, “Yes, it’s messy. But look at all the amazing things you can build with this mess.”

Brooke’s strengths-based approach to ADHD addresses a key shortcoming for many people with ADHD who are too often told to suppress traits like impulsivity or hyperfocus. Brooke challenges readers to lean into these so-called flaws and reframe them as strengths. Your impulsivity? It’s the spark of creativity. Your hyperfocus? An engine powering inertia for accomplishing big projects—when you aim it in the right direction. She doesn’t hand you a to-do list. She hands you permission to see yourself in a new light. It’s this kind of compassionate realism that makes the book feel like a conversation with a trusted friend rather than a lecture.

Her step-by-step strategies are rooted in both research and real-world experience. Whether it’s creating systems to support your executive functioning, tackling emotional regulation, or learning how to advocate for yourself in a world that doesn’t always “get” ADHD, Brooke breaks it all down into manageable chunks. She knows you’re not going to read this book cover to cover in one sitting (again, ADHD), so she’s designed it to be approachable and easy to dip in and out of as needed.

I can’t overstate how valuable this book is—not just for people with ADHD, but for anyone who works with them. Teachers, coaches, clinicians, even that one friend who’s always late to brunch—it’s a must-read. Brooke has managed to create something that’s equal parts science, strategy, and soul. It’s a lovely contribution to the body of knowledge supporting all of us in living fully and—if I may say so—unapologetically as your ADHD self.