Neurodiverse Leadership: Peter Shankman on Scaling HARO, Speed, and Human Connection

What if the very thing you were told was your weakness turned out to be your greatest advantage in business? Peter Shankman shares how ADHD became his superpower.

📌What’s Covered:

• How Peter built and sold a media platform (HARO) without outside funding—and what he’d do differently today.
• The surprising way ADHD became his greatest business asset—not a barrier.
• Why speed matters in entrepreneurship—and how to move fast without crashing.
• How to build authentic relationships that open doors—especially when you hate networking.
• Why your passion is your brand—and how to lead with it even before you have "results."

Peter Shankman is a six-time bestselling author, serial entrepreneur, and the founder of Help A Reporter Out (HARO), which changed the face of media outreach. 

Dubbed “the world’s most authentic marketing expert,” Peter specialises in helping entrepreneurs harness their strengths, build stronger personal brands, and scale faster in an attention-deficit world.

Peter shares how today's best entrepreneurs leverage speed, authenticity, and neurodiverse thinking to drive innovation—and why "different brains" are often the secret weapon behind major success stories. 

Join Source Of Sources https://sourceofsources.com/

📚Books mentioned: 

Faster Than Normal: Turbocharge Your Focus, Productivity, and Success with the Secrets of the ADHD Brain by Peter Shankman 

The Boy With The Faster Brain by Peter Shankman 

🤝Connect with Peter https://www.shankman.com/

Transcript

Peter: [00:00:00] When I sold HARO I spent a good year and a half trying to understand myself and just came up with the concept that, yeah, I am faster than normal. And it's a gift if you know how to use it, right? If you're given a really fast sports car and you're used to driving really slow regular cars and you drive this really fast car the same way you're gonna crash into a tree, but if you're taught how to drive it, if you learn how to use it, you can go faster than everyone else.

I started this concept that ADHD is a gift, not a curse, as long as you know how to use it.

It.

Priscilla: Welcome to The Entrepreneur's Kitchen. Today I've got an amazing guest, Peter Shankman, and he's a six time bestselling author, notably known for many things, but for founding Help a Reporter Out, which changed the landscape of media. Peter, I'm so excited to have you here because you're [00:01:00] gonna speak some things into some people who are thinking, what am I doing?

Am I lost? Am I on the right track? But I'll let you introduce yourself, Peter.

Peter: . If I have to give 'em directions, we're all gonna be lost together, but it'll be okay. Yeah, , my name is Peter Shankman. I am an entrepreneur. I have been for about 30 years. Never planned it, it's just things happen and you look back and wonder how you got here.

I've had a bunch of companies, I say I've gotten very lucky. Everyone else says, yeah, but you worked your ass off. So there's probably like a middle ground there somewhere. I did found a company called Help A Reporter Out, which changed how journalists and sources found each other.

Sold that 15 years ago, yesterday actually. And didn't like, after a while, the direction that the company sold to was taking it. And so I launched something better called Source of Sources, and that is totally free and people can. join@sourceofsources.com and get two emails a day from journalists around the world looking for sources.

And if you can answer the queries you reply directly to the journalist and you wind up getting free media.

Priscilla: Oh wow. I was following Help A  [00:02:00] Reporter Out (HARO), but now I know the source of sources. Thank you so much, Peter. You said you stumbled into entrepreneurship,

Peter: yeah, I wasn't supposed to be doing any of this. I was in graduate school for fashion photography and I wound up, I had financial aid for grad school and I wound up losing it. The government, sent me a letter, said, your parents make too much money. We're taking away your financial aid.

And I sent the government a letter that said, my parents do make too much money, but they keep it. And the government didn't find that funny. So I moved back. I was in Santa Barbara , in grad school. I moved back to New York and I was hanging out in a chat room on America online, like back in the beginning of, of the internet.

And someone in the chat room said, Hey. My company's trying to build a newsroom. Why don't you submit your resume? I said, sure. I have no experience. I have a journalism degree from Boston University, but that's it. I said, I'm sure that'll be fine. And they didn't get the sarcasm. And I was hired. I was , one of the three founding editors of the newsroom at America Online back in the day when AOL was the internet.

And it ruined me. 'cause I did that for like almost three [00:03:00] years and left. And my next job, . AOL, let us work any way we wanted as long as we got the job done. My next job, there's like an 8:00 AM meeting and a 9:00 AM meeting and a 10 30 meeting and 11 o'clock check-in. And I'm like, this is not, this is horrible.

And I said, okay, , I have all this internet knowledge I know how to talk about it. Maybe I can do PR for the.com. Boom. And yeah, I wound up starting to.com PR firm. Sold it after about three years, consulted started other companies, wrote some books, got diagnosed with ADHD, having fun.

Having a lot of fun, and I'm very fortunate that I've been able to do that for as long as I have.

Priscilla: that's amazing. You talk about A DHD as being a superpower. I'm wondering is there a point you thought it was a limitation, and how did you realize it was an advantage?

Peter: Yeah, it's a great question. My entire life I was told not by my parents. They were very they motivated me, they pushed me. They were very supportive. But teachers, friends, everyone. You're broken. You are. Why can't you just be quiet? Why do you constantly interrupt the class? Sit down and shut up constantly.

And , I just assumed that's who I [00:04:00] was and I wasn't normal. I wasn't like everyone else. And yeah it was really tough growing up. Very few friends, but as I started going on my own in the quote unquote real world, I realized that I could think faster than other people. I could implement stuff faster, right?

I, okay, I wanna try this. I'll go do it, and I'll go build that. And if it works, great. If it doesn't work, okay, I'll try something else. But As I started to realize that, I'm like, huh, maybe this isn't this limitation that everyone said it was. And when I sold HARO, I spent a good year and a half trying to understand myself and just came up with the concept that, yeah, I am faster than normal and .

It's a gift if you know how to use it, right? If you're given a really fast sports car and you're used to driving really slow, regular cars and you drive this really fast car the same way you're gonna crash into a tree. But if you're taught how to drive it, if you learn how to use it, you can go faster than everyone else.

I started this concept that A DHD is a gift, not a curse, as long as you know how to use it. And that led to me writing a [00:05:00] book. It's called Faster Than Normal, which I think it's fifth printing now or something like that. It came out about eight years ago. I've written a kid's book about A DHD and have a podcast called Faster Than Normal with about four or 500 episodes all people who also have ADHD or are some kind of neurodiverse and believe that it's a benefit and it's their gift.

Priscilla: I'm interested in that sort of understanding how to work with it and not against it. 'cause I'm sure a lot of the things people tell people is, you've got to calm down. Constantly trying to mold yourself. How do you manage to work with it and not against it?

Peter: So I've implemented what I call like life rules. Essentially things that I do that allow me to make my brain work for me. Yeah. 99% of the time I start my day with exercise, I have to, the exercise gives me that dopamine, hit , that, boost that sort of focus. That lets me go through the day.

I eliminate choice wherever possible. I have two sides to my closet and they're literally labeled office slash travel and it's t-shirt and jeans tv slash keynote and it's button down shirt, jackets and jeans, [00:06:00] my suits, my vest. All that stuff is in my daughter's closet. 'cause if I had a look every day in the morning, oh, what should I wear?

I remember that sweater. Michelle gave me that sweater. I wonder what happened to her. I should look her up now. It's three hours later. , I'm on the computer, I haven't left the house. So you find ways that work for you to put them in the process, exercise. Trying to avoid crappy foods.

I'm never gonna truly do that. I love pizza and, be damned. I'm eat pizza, but, I try to eat healthy, as healthy as possible. A Lot of carbs , will slow you down. And if you're slowing down, oh, maybe I'll just relax for a little bit and just, browse now it's a day later.

And then lastly, it's just taking care of yourself, right? I get to sleep early. Some people say way too early. I'm usually asleep by about eight 30. But I'm up at four 30 to, to work out. So , you find your balance. For some people, they're night owls

their ADHD best comes out at night and that works for them. It really is individual to everyone.

Priscilla: , thanks for sharing that. Please let us know again the name of your book. 'cause I think a lot of parents, we don't wanna be those parents who are trying to reshape someone because we don't know any better.

Peter: You gotta [00:07:00] realize that your kid is incredible just the way they are, even if they don't fit into what everyone thinks of the social norms the way they should.

When I was growing up, A DHD, like I said, didn't exist. The social norms were all that we had. And so that was hard, but the book is called Faster Than Normal And For Young Kids, there's a children's book I wrote called The Boy with the Faster Brain.

Priscilla: Thanks for sharing that Peter. And I know you've used speed as an advantage in creating ventures and creating business. I'm interested to know, 'cause people say, oh, money loves speed. And then a lot of us don't really quite understand what does that mean and what does that look like?

How do you make faster, better decisions without burning out.

Peter: it's a really good question. You have to pace yourself. You can go really fast, but have people, in my case, I have people around me who can slow me down. I. And to put it another way, I don't book anything on my calendar. I'm literally not allowed to. I don't have right access to my calendar because 15 years ago, the same assistant I still have today took it away from me, right?

I booked two dinners on the same night on [00:08:00] separate continents. And she said, if you want me to keep working for you, you no longer have access to your calendar. So for me, the key is to surround myself with people who are really good at the stuff that I might miss, or you know, it was too slow for me.

Give them , that job and let them do that. Not everyone has an assistant or whatever. So find ways that work for you. It's, Google Calendar Calendly, things , that allow you to automate all the stuff that tends to screw you up, right? The more you can automate that and the more you can get a system working for you that works really well, the better you do.

Priscilla: makes sense. Peter, tell us the backstory to help a reporter out. 'cause I'm thinking from idea to executing to exit. It's a lot, but if you can compress it down for maybe pivotal things or certain shifts that made that the success that it became.

Peter: Well, I talk to everyone. It's part of the ADHD If you're sitting on a plane next to me, unless you fake your death, I'm gonna know everything about you. I like to let people talk to me. And so I have a really big Rolodex and a really big collection of people I know and contacts and reporters [00:09:00] because I worked in pr.

Reporters know me and they would call me. It's Peter, you know everyone, I'm doing a story on whatever. Who do you know? You know anyone I need to source? And over time. Other reporters started telling other reporters, oh yeah call my friend Peter. I'm sure he knows someone. And it became like a full-time job.

I'm like, all right, I have a full-time job. Maybe what if I just sent these requests out to a few friends and let them send it out, and so on. So I started a little mailing list and within a week it had 5,000 people on it. That sort of led to the concept, okay, , maybe if everyone's opening these emails, maybe I could sell advertising on it and maybe there's something there.

And so I launched with the premise of if it works, great. If it doesn't work, I'll try something else. And it really worked. Three years later it was acquired.

Priscilla: so do you enter into your business venture thinking, let me create something that I can sell.

Peter: No I, let me create something that solves a problem

Priscilla: okay.

Peter: and that would be fun to run. find with people with ADHD a lot of it always comes down to, am I having fun doing this right? Because fun gives you those chemicals that your brain doesn't make normally when you're a ADHD.[00:10:00]

So I try to do things that I enjoy. That's why I'm a public speaker. All those things that I love doing are the things that give me , that high , that excitement.

Priscilla: , I'm thinking the moment is not fun. You are done?

Peter: it's not gonna be fun 24 7, but. If the trend trends toward fun, then it's great. I wouldn't expect anything I do to be perfect 24 hours a day, but as long as I'm having a good time in general, overall doing it, sure, keep it going. And if you're not, if you get to the point where you're like, wow, I'm really been miserable for the past three months, six months a year, ask yourself, is there something you can change?

And if not, maybe it's time for a bigger change. Heard a great quote once, if you can't change the people around you, change the people around you.

It takes about 10 seconds and then people are like, oh, I get that.

Priscilla: Peter, a lot of people struggle with making relationships, especially in this sort of like very transactional social media world. They wanna be behind the screen. They don't wanna actually talk to anyone. Something has just happened to society with, the level of being highly connected and not highly connected in a [00:11:00] way.

I don't know if that makes sense. I know you have a three minute rule for smarter networking, and maybe you can speak to how to build those relationships.

Peter: I think the key to building any relationship, whether it's professional or personal, is asking how you can help. We, you're right, we have become a transactional society, and more than that, we've become a society where the basic question is, what can you do for me and. That kind of isn't a good foundation for relationship.

A good foundation relationship is what can I do for you? Some of the best friends are made, some of the best jobs we've gotten, some of the best speaking gigs we've gotten have started with by saying, Hey, how can I help? The most underutilized words in the English language?

How can I help you? And so if you ask that question to people you meet, it doesn't have to be that direct, but, oh, what are you working on? Cool. What excites you about that? Do you know this person? Let me introduce you. Whatever it is, you're just doing these little things that seem perfectly normal but really aren't popular in the world.

For whatever reason, we've stopped wanting to help in a lot of ways, and so I [00:12:00] think the people that still go out and help, just simple things, right? Calling someone up, going through your contacts and calling a person you haven't spoken to in six months, not to sell them anything or sending 'em an email, not to sell 'em anything, but to ask how you been?

What are you working on? How can I help? I was raised that way. It's always been in my head and it seems to have worked.

Priscilla: It's interesting 'cause it's like all those principles have I don't know, maybe we're all doing this high tech thing that's missing that element of. Connection and

Peter: And I think a lot of it is also the fact that. I dunno, , People aren't as nice or friendly as they once were, in my opinion. And so as such, you don't really wanna go outta your way to meet people. I have a t-shirt that says during the pandemic I got, it says, when this pandemic is over, I'm still gonna need most of you to stay away from me.

So I think that if you go out of your comfort zone and try to connect with people. But honestly . Not. 'cause you want something like, at least once a week I'll get a LinkedIn request or something from someone who I haven't spoken to in 10 years or ever. And the first words outta the mouth, so I'm looking for [00:13:00] work or I'm doing this, can you help?

Good to hear from you. First thing you've said to me, not even, how are you? How's a kid? First thing you've said to me is, can you help me? And how about let's talk, if you had been connecting with me over the past several years just to say hi, I'd go outta my way to help you, but it feels forced.

When I haven't talked to you in 10 years, and , the first thing you do when you contact me in 10 years is an ask.

Priscilla: Yeah, definitely. Something, I think all of us, just the society in general to work on that sort of, human interaction and human connection and building relationships. I'm interested in marketing and branding we've got like early stage entrepreneurs who are listening and you wanna build a brand, you wanna build a personal brand, but you haven't got anything that's maybe no to worthy to put behind the brand.

How do you come across as authentic and what would you suggest to that person?

Peter: Think back to why you started your company, or your brand, or your startup or whatever. You did it because you believed in something. You believed you could do something better, or fix a problem or create a better whatever. That's your story. If you still have that same [00:14:00] passion, that's the story you wanna tell about that same passion that you have.

If you don't have that same passion, you might wanna ask yourself, is this what I should be doing? But if you still have that passion, that's the story. So like a half minute video on LinkedIn, or half minute video on Instagram or something like that where you're talking about a problem that you're solving or the fact that you had a bad day and how you got over it or during your really hard bike workout or swim workout, you came up with an idea and you know you're gonna, anything.

Again, you're not selling. You're offering advice. You're offering help. You're telling people how you do things and giving them sort of the opportunity to learn something from that, right? Or take something from that away. And the best people with the best brands are the ones who don't try to sell you.

They try to offer help. They try to give you advice, they try to ask how they can help you, and then when you need something, you go to them. Like when you have a client, when you have something you want, know, hire them or whatever, you go to them because they have been top of mind. They've been reaching out to you .

When they didn't want anything. And so I think the people with the best brands who create the best brands do that. They connect with [00:15:00] people with no motive other than to say, how are you? How's everything going? It's been a while.

the best CEOs are really good at that.

That's how they grow their businesses, how create these billion dollar deals and contracts because they connect with people.

Priscilla: Relationships. It all comes down to that. I'm wondering hindsight, what do you think has helped you to scale ventures? Or what do you think the skill sets or the strategic things a through line in the things that you've done?

Peter: there are a couple of commonalities. One of them is making sure you're never the smartest person in the room. Work with people who are smarter than you. Hire people that are smarter than you. Understand that you don't know everything, right? And, get advice, but then be careful whose advice you take.

Right? Listen to everything and make the decision after that. What else? I think that not being afraid to fail, I failed countless times. That's half the fun. If you're afraid to fail, you're never really gonna get out there and create something.

Anyone who's ever created something has failed, right? So you have to be okay with failure.

Priscilla: always work with people who are [00:16:00] smarter than you. And I'm thinking to the person who isn't in that world yet and who's thinking, if I work with someone who's smarter than me, how do I work with someone who's smarter than me?

Peter: , even if you just , have a mentor or reach out to someone you admire, who you follow , their threads account or whatever, and just send 'em a note. Hey. I'm doing something similar. I really appreciate your content. Just start that connection.

You never know what might happen. , He or she might take you under their wing, or they might invite you to lunch where you could pick their brain, whatever. But again, making those connections and reaching out to people who you admire, who you think are smarter than you, not enough people do it.

And it's so valuable. It's so useful.

Priscilla: And it's so much easier in today's

Peter: , totally. You used to have to write letters and mail them.

Priscilla: That's great. In terms of leadership something that you think is critical to leadership and to building loyalty as you create your venture.

Peter: If someone , believes in you enough to work for you, you have a [00:17:00] responsibility to help them. You have a responsibility to send the elevator back down. If you've had any level of success, you have a responsibility to help the people under you to achieve their success as well. I think that the best CEOs that I've ever met or worked with understand that.

If you ever want to really see what someone's like, take them to lunch and see how they interact with the wait staff. It's really about being a good human being. Right? And every leader I've ever met, that I've admired, cares about their employees and cares about their lives, it's not about work and then go home and, ignore it.

It's really about caring about the people who are with you because they're the ones who are gonna help you succeed.

I think the best CEOs are human and understand that.

Priscilla: I'm interested to know from, everything that you've done where you felt like in the early days where you had to skill up and certain things that you had to unlearn.

Peter: I still think I'm a terrible manager. I'm not great with management [00:18:00] because management requires. A lot of sitting down thinking, planning. I'm very good at the sort of fly by the seat of my pants thing the best thing I could do is find really good people and let them do their jobs right.

I'll never micromanage. I still need to work on being a better manager. I'll always need to work on that. Again, finding people are good at what they do and just letting 'em go to town. Not constantly. Oh, what'd you do today? What are you working on?

If they're good, they're gonna tell you and they're gonna get the job done. I learned that from Steve Case, the head of AOL he just let people work, he didn't breathe down their neck. And it's one of the best lessons I ever learned. A lot of leadership is trust, trusting the people who worked for you, right?

They're busting their butts to make your product, your thing, your company shine. You gotta trust them a bit.

Priscilla: Peter, are you a natural sales person or is it something that you learned .

Peter: I hate sales. I absolutely hate sales. I love speaking in front of tens of thousands of people from a stage, but in terms of having to sell myself or sell a product, I hate that. I've never been a good salesperson. . I know people, friends of mine who [00:19:00] can go out and sell you.

A million dollars is something you absolutely do not need because they're that good. I have never had that talent.

Priscilla: So how have you worked around that? Because I'm thinking, sometimes you think because you're not good at sales or because you don't really feel comfortable with. Selling, then how am I gonna make this a success? .

Peter: If you believe in the product and you have a good thing, whatever that thing is that you built the app or the company, whatever, the passion in your voice when you talk about it is your sales. You are so excited. And more importantly, the people who use your product, the people who work for you, they have to be excited about it as well.

Because at the end of the day, people believe you less if you are the one who has to tell 'em how great you are. But people who already use whatever it is you built or work for you or whatever, they're telling you why they're there and they're telling you how in love they're with this thing and how much they want to keep growing it.

That's more believable. So take care of your customers, you take care of every single customer, treat them like royalty and help them. And, customer [00:20:00] experience has to be top notch. And then they will do your sales and PR for you. They will tell everyone how great you are and it's much more believable when they do it.

Priscilla: , Peter, what are you excited about right now in terms of the future or the media landscape or marketplace? What excites you right now?

Peter: It's a good question. Personally I'm taking my daughter all around Asia for a month in July, so I'm very excited about that. But I'm excited about the fact that even in these crazy times in this weird world that we live in now all over the place, there are still brilliant ideas and there are still people bringing brilliant ideas to light, and these ideas are going to continue I've never seen, no matter how bad the economy, no matter how bad the world, I've never seen.

Brilliance completely stopped. It's still there. You have to look for it. Maybe a little harder. AI is gonna help. It's not gonna take our jobs. It's not gonna ruin the world. It's definitely gonna help. We're gonna see a massive shift in the next 10 years.

Stuff we haven't even thought about yet is gonna be on a daily occurrence. Think about, I got my first cell phone in 1993, which means that I lived. 21 years of my life without a [00:21:00] phone, right? It's amazing what the next, 10 years are going to bring, we're gonna have implants, we're gonna have other devices just gonna be a part of us.

There's a lot of tech happening. I've seen a lot of it in China. I was out with Huawei for a couple years, a while back, and the tech that's coming down the pike is gonna continue to astound us, but at the end of the day, it still needs to be used by humans. So it's all about how the humans. Choose to use that new technology.

Priscilla: What do you think in terms of media or the direction of media.

Peter: I'm not that impressed with the media lately here in the United States, unfortunately. I am hoping that we get back to the concept of great men and women telling trusted stories. That's what news was. That's what media was. We were informed by. Trusted great people, and a lot of that trust has gone away.

And so I'm hoping sometimes against hope that level of trust comes back and we start trusting the media again. That being said, I do believe [00:22:00] that every generation gets a little smarter , gen Alpha is much smarter than the boomers right now, right? And they understand Gen Alpha, my daughter's 12 and since she's, since she was eight, she'll see something that's incredible, whether it's real or not.

She goes, is that ai? She understands that. We have to be aware, right? You have, 60, 70-year-old people in this country right now who see something on a TV news program and they believe it, or they see something on Facebook and they have to share it regardless of how outrageously stupid it's right.

, Because they came from a world where everything that they saw was real. So I'm hopeful the next generation, alpha, beta, things like that, will have a heightened sense of awareness as to what's real and what's not. and that will help.

Priscilla: It's interesting that you say that because I had, some kids come over and play with my kids the other weekend and the boy kept saying, everything on Google is not true. And that struck me that. Awareness it's not something you expect to hear from someone my age or more, but to hear that from a young kid,

Peter: it's great because they're learning to be wary and to be aware of what's real and what's not. They're only to [00:23:00] question sources, which is exactly what they should be doing. , My kid had a project earlier this year in school where she had to write a report on something, but it was really about getting her to understand where her sources come from and, she's looking stuff up online.

Okay, let's understand why this outlet or this media outlet or whatever, wrote this fact the way they did. So I thought it was wonderful that she was really learning about sort of media bias and confirmation bias, all those things, to understand what to trust and whatnot.

I, that was awesome.

Priscilla: That's amazing. And I hope that is the future of media and people who want to lead in that space will know that's what you have to do. Thank you so much, Peter. It's been great speaking to you and I forgot to ask you right now, what are you working on? 

Peter: I am thinking like that's the problem when you're ADHD, you're working on 800 things at once. I'm working on source of sources, which you could sign up for@sourceofsources.com. I'm working on a Second Children's book which hopefully should come out by the end of the summer. I have a consulting company called Mental Capital Consulting, which I partnered with a doctor, a psychiatrist, and [00:24:00] together we help companies become more neuro inclusive.

And so those are my big three right now. And also being a single dad of a 12-year-old, that's about it between those four. That's pretty much my life.

Priscilla: Yeah. That's exciting. Thank you so much, Peter. Are you active online or somewhere where people can follow you?

Peter: Yep. I'm at Peter Shankman everywhere, but Twitter

Priscilla: Thank you so much, Peter. It's been a pleasure.

Peter: pleasure was mine. Priscilla So thank you so much for having me.