The pursuit of a lifelong goal, turning dreams into reality, and fulfilling ambitions depends on the challenges we’ve overcome and how we dealt with hardships. The path to success is littered with hurdles, and the journey is never straightforward for anyone, but for some like tech entrepreneur Michael Peres who suffers from ADHD, the chips are stacked unfavourably from the start.
Michael Peres, or Mikey Peres on social media, was different even before being diagnosed with ADHD. He had an inquisitive mind, and despite being raised in an orthodox Jewish community in Montreal, Canada, he became obsessed with science. He didn’t always have the words to express himself, but his mind was filled with questions. So while the kids his age were learning discipline and organisation, he was thinking beyond the traditional classroom learning. His inquisitive nature and willingness to discover more led him to start his own computer repair business from his bedroom at the age of 16. He soon added two nearby schools to his clientele, which was the start of his entrepreneurial journey.
Taking care of himself certainly wasn’t easy. He was on his prescribed medication most days, and the side effects were arguably even more of a nuisance than the issue itself. He often experienced depression, dizziness, loss of motivation, and a loss of appetite for the entire day. It took immense mental fortitude and an unbent desire to make it on his own that kept him going.
“Keep Striving, that’s the only way to survive,” he explains.
What do you do when you realise you are different? How do you cope with the reality that you don’t “fit in” with others? Many of us would try to find a solution, a remedy for our alienation. Others would just accept their limitations and let them hinder their career aspirations and their life in general. Michael thought differently, he wouldn’t let society’s standards stand in the way of his success. Instead, he turned his difference into his strength.
“Part of yourself that you think you need to annihilate might just be the key element you need to get ahead,” he says.
Today, he is the founder of multiple companies, including Peres Daily, Hexa Cloud Services, and Israel Now News. In addition to his entrepreneurial ventures, he’s a software engineer, a journalist, and a philanthropist. He is making a name for himself despite his limitations and is now ready to share his story with the world in an upcoming book. According to his own admission, the book is not a success story, nor is it a book about ADHD or even disability in general. It is a story of how he gained confidence, overcame limitations, and forged his own path to success. The aim of the book is to serve as a major lesson for those struggling to fit in and feel constrained by their limitations.
“You would be surprised by how often limitations are imposed on us not by the disability itself, but by our society, other people, and, most frequently, ourselves,” says Michael.
