Faster Than Normal Summary

A plane feels calmest when it is moving fastest, which is a useful way to enter Peter Shankman's world.

Shankman is an entrepreneur, speaker, and founder of Help A Reporter Out, the service better known as HARO. His angle in Faster Than Normal is personal and practical: he has ADHD, and he treats it less like a tragic label than like a loud cockpit with very sensitive controls.

The book's strongest claim is simple. An ADHD brain often runs on speed, novelty, and pressure, so the answer is not to become a slower person. The answer is to build systems that make speed useful before it turns into wreckage.

That is the payload here. Shame is bad fuel. A fast mind needs checklists, clean runways, and people who know when the pilot is flying too low.

In 2008, Shankman started HARO as a Facebook group that helped journalists find sources quickly. By 2010, he had sold it to Vocus, after turning a twitch of social energy into a real business.

That story carries the book's main reframe. ADHD is often described by what fails: sitting still, waiting, tracking dull tasks, finishing paperwork before chasing the shiny thing. Shankman asks a sharper question. What if the same nervous energy becomes an edge when the work rewards speed, connection, and fast pattern spotting?

A fast mind becomes a problem when life keeps handing it slow work with no steering wheel.

This does not mean ADHD is fake, cute, or always useful. It means the label should not end the conversation. A diagnosis can explain why ordinary advice fails, but it can also point toward better design. The cockpit is noisy because the instruments are sensitive, not because the pilot is lazy.

The consequence is bigger than self-esteem. When people treat ADHD as a character flaw, they prescribe guilt. Guilt is a cheap tool with terrible build quality.

Shankman's practical move is to shift from moral language to operating language. Do not ask, “Why can't I just focus?” Ask, “Under what conditions do I focus without begging myself?” For many ADHD brains, those conditions include urgency, movement, interest, public promise, and a clear finish line.

This matters because identity changes behavior faster than lectures do. A person who thinks, “I am broken,” hides the mess. A person who thinks, “I need better controls,” starts moving objects, calendars, and people around.