7: ADHD entrepreneurs finding balance between darkness and light. Celebration or shame?

Does it trigger you when you're on social media and you see this weird cheerleading around an ADHD diagnosis and you think, well, that's not really my story? This episode is for you if you need to get your head around the balance between the darkness and the light of being an ADHD entrepreneur.
I've had more one on one clients than I can count come to me and say, Katie, I just got diagnosed with ADHD.
I wasn't always a coach that specialized in ADHD.
It's something that actually happened accidentally.
After I started sharing about having ADHD myself and being okay with it, I found that once I started sharing about it and normalizing it and also kind of recognizing it in other people, I started attracting clients that either have had ADHD their whole lives or were recently diagnosed or who didn't even realize that they were in the ADHD world.
But all the things that I was describing pinpointed exactly what was going on in their life. And during our work together, they actually realized, oh my gosh, if all this stuff is ADHD relevant, I should go and get a diagnosis. And they ended up getting diagnosed with ADHD.
It's so easy to fall into this one category of talking about ADHD, and I think it's important that we go there. But also, it's not the full story.
So there's one side of the ADHD conversation, and it's kind of a cheerleader world, right?
It's this very positive spin on something that is actually a learning disability.
It's looking at all of the ADHD traits as superpowers. It's looking at the magic of it. It's saying how creative you are and also kind of just laughing off some of the more inconvenient things that happen with people with ADHD. The fact that we lose our keys, and the fact that we have very, very specific memories of, like where that one rubber band is that we put in a drawer, like seven years ago is, but we can't remember where we put our shoes.
So it's charming, it's fun, it's light, but there's also the dark underbelly of ADHD. And I really want to spend some time today talking about that side because it gets glossed over a lot, and there's still a crap ton of shame that comes along with being diagnosed with ADHD or having ADHD negatively impact your experience humaning with other humans.
And there are actual mental health implications for having ADHD. So when we are super sensitive to perceived rejection, that actually sets us up for a higher level of depression, rates of suicide. You also have this whole book of *bleep* that you carry around with you proving that you're bad at showing up on time, that you're not good at getting work on time, that you forget things, and all of a sudden it's attributed to something that is, quote unquote wrong with your brain.
That's hard. There's a lot of shame and a lot of stigma that comes along with all that. And today I really want to spend some time talking about that stuff because yes, absolutely. There are parts of being an ADHD entrepreneur that are amazing.
We have greater capacity for creativity. We get incredible ideas. We can connect not just from A to B to C, but from A to N to Z to D, three double X, something. I don't know. We also come up with really weird metaphors sometimes, which I think is kind of fun.
But it's important for us to also tend to the darker underbelly of ADHD and check in with ourselves that we're not falling into depression, that we are taking care of our mental health, that we are dealing with the anxiety that comes up often, and that we have support systems around us that will help us do so.
First, let's talk about your relationship with yourself here.
And let's talk about that book of evidence that you carry around and that you add to about how you're so shitty at a bunch of stuff. And when I talk about this book, I mean all the times that you relate to pick someone up. I mean the times that you forgot birthday presents or wedding presents to bring to people. I personally remember my dear friend Erin got married to his wife Maria. I went to their wedding and I forgot their wedding card with the money I was gifting them in my suitcase. And I kept telling myself for over a year that I was going to send it. By the time I sent it, they had had a baby. So I included it in the package for the baby. But I still kind of carry around this evidence that I'm bad at giving gifts to people because of that one instance.
I also one time in high school, completely forgot about a massive project that I had to do for science class. Just forgot about it. It dropped off my awareness and I completely lost it. And it really fed into this story I had about myself that I wasn't smart, that I wasn't responsible, that I couldn't handle things, all things that are not necessarily true.
It's just that I didn't have the right system set up for myself to support myself in those moments. Now, this can show up very differently for other people. So it's very common for women with ADHD, especially those who get diagnosed later in life, that they actually come from being a straight A student.
They're hyper overachievers in all the ways, and oftentimes their achievements are what they use as evidence of their own selfworth. And if there's ever a moment in their life where they can't achieve at the level that they have in the past, they take an incredible hit to their self confidence and their belief in their own self-worth. Now, that was not me. I was not hyperachieving straight A student in high school or college.
It just wasn't on the cards for me. But I've had several clients who come from that background, and it's just as hard. It's just as hard as coming from a background where you thought you weren't good enough, where you weren't smart enough.
The first step here is both forgiveness and not forgiveness.
There's forgiveness for all the things that you've done up until now that, like, wasn't perfect. That was because of your ADHD. But also there is acknowledging that there is nothing to forgive. Just you being here, just you humaning. The way you've been humaning makes you deserving and worthy and lovable and someone worth celebrating.
Just you existing right here as you are. Any missteps you've ever had, that doesn't take away from it. How much you've achieved. That doesn't add to it. You are perfect in all the ways that you could be perfect, just being who you are right here, right now, in this moment.
So forgive yourself and also tell yourself to go *bleep* yourself and say, you know what?
I don't need to be forgiven for any of this because it's just who I am, and it's okay. And of course, as humans who are human and with other humans, whenever we do make a mistake that impacts someone else negatively, say we relate to pick someone up or we forgot to give them their wedding present or whatever, we get to make that up. We get to apologize.
We get to own the impact. We get to make it right. And if we have the right relationships in our lives, those people are going to be understanding. They're going to allow for us to make it right with them. They're not going to punish us for getting it wrong.
It's funny I'm talking about this, and I remember there was also a class in college, intro to Religious Studies. It was a compliment to my philosophy major in college. And there was this book report we all had to do. So we had to pick a religion, and we had to read a very specific book about it, and we had to talk about it. It was a project that we literally decided on in the first lesson of the class. And I, at this point, was very organized in how I got my work done. You know, there's like those teachers planners that they have where teachers get to plan out all of their lesson plans, and they have, like, grading things. I had learned throughout my school years that I actually needed those to be able to manage all of my own school work for my classes.
And so I mapped out how much time I needed to work on this. I did all the things. For some reason, when I looked at that book, when I looked at my calendar, I was just blind to that one project. So it got to the day before the project was due and I realized I hadn't started it. I hadn't even borrowed the book from the library. I had no time because I was working a job pretty much full time at the same time.
And it was one of the most gracious moments I've ever had in dealing with a professor or a teacher, because I called my teacher and I told him I didn't know what had happened, but I had completely forgotten to do this work. And it was due tomorrow. And the class was actually designed around me giving this talk and presenting my report. And this teacher said, you know what, thank you for being honest. Thank you for owning this. So what you're going to do is you're going to print out this information. I just need you to introduce this bit of information tomorrow, and you're going to go through it, and you're going to get me that report next week. And he didn't make a fuss and he didn't make me wrong for it. And I'm actually kind of tearing up even talking about it. I don't know that this professor I actually can't remember his name even. I don't know that he knew how much of an impact him doing that with me was. Because every teacher, every professor I'd ever had up until that point would have made me feel like I was such a massive failure, for it would have made me feel like I was less than that there was something wrong with me. This person saw me as another human who just made a mistake.
And let me tell you, if you don't have those people around you who treat you like that professor treated me, you're hanging with the wrong crowd. So there's this internal forgiveness and not forgiveness for how we are, how we are, but there's also choosing relationships that not only support you for where you're at, but also celebrate you for where you're at. So this professor didn't change my grade or anything based on the report I gave him the next week. Actually, I think I've got an A minus on it. He didn't penalize me. He didn't make me wrong. The people in your life also shouldn't make you wrong. ADHD shows up for all of us in different ways, some people tend to be really late. I know I have traumatized myself too many times and being late to things that I'm now, like, awkwardly on time. Like, if you invite me to a party and it starts at 06:00 P.m., I will be outside the door, like at 2 minutes of waiting to knock on the door. And I will knock on the door at 06:00 p.m.. If I am meeting people for dinner, I will show up either earlier, I'll circle the block because I have to be there exactly on time.
Now, there are some folks at ADHD who haven't had that trauma of showing up late enough times to make them act this way. And so they do end up late. And one of the things that can trigger a lot of shame is when they find out how their family members and their friends change the invitation to make sure they show up on time. I have a dear friend, dear, dear friend I won't name him who always shows up to things 45 minutes late. And there was a period of time where he and I and a few other people were studying for a big exam together. It was over several, several months. And so we'd have these study groups, and we used to tell him that we were meeting 45 minutes ahead of time, and he found out after the fact. And he was so funny. He's like, oh, well, thank you. Thank you. That's really nice. You made sure that I got to have my best showing, that I got to give a good impression to everyone in the group. That's one way that can show up. I've also had a client who also is late for everything, who, when told what his family did to make sure that he showed up on time, also lying about when things started, felt a great deal of shame that people had to do this. The thing that's so striking to me is that I got diagnosed with ADHD when I was a kid, and my doctors recommended that I go and work with a therapist and all this stuff. And I don't remember that therapist telling me anything that was useful to me that normalized what I was going through that gave me any useful freaking strategies for how I could be better in class, for how I could communicate better, for how I could handle my emotions better. It was incredible. Going in to see a therapist, there was this impression that was given that there was something wrong with me that had to be fixed. And one of the ways they wanted to fix it was with Ritalin. And sure, the Ritalin helped me kind of stay focused in class and all stuff. It, quote, unquote, fixed the problem that was me. But there was no acknowledgement for how I just operate in the world differently. And then this is I share this because I hear this so often from people with ADHD who, like me, have also discovered TikTok. Now, TikTok where other people with ADHD are just saying the things that we all go through and normalizing it. And there's a reason why ADHD TikTok is
the wormhole that it is. Because we fall into it and we see a TikTok, and we're like, yeah, that's me. Oh, my God. Yeah, that's me. Oh, my God. I do that.
There was a TikTok that went around, and it was about the bowls that people with ADHD and neurodivergent have if you have ADHD, I guarantee within sight of wherever you are in your home. If you're listening to this, in your home, there is a bowl of random crap. And if it's not a bowl, it's a drawer. It's a drawer of random crap that doesn't have a home anywhere else, but it lives in that one little container.
Whenever I stumble upon, like, an art festival or an art fair, I always find the Potter who has the big, beautiful bowl, because I feel like my random junk, random cords and change and I don't know, like, my favorite pen or the instructions to use my remote control. I feel like it'll all be better in a pretty bowl. And it was incredible.
I shared this out to my friends who all have ADHD, and it's amazing, this group chat. We all shared pictures of our respective bulls. When your brain naturally operates different, it's so easy to fall into this belief that I'm different, I'm a weirdo, I'm a freak. There's no one else like me. Especially if you're only getting information from people in a clinical setting who aren't doing a good job of recognizing who you are and how you operate in your own unique way. It is so critical for people with ADHD to connect with other people with ADHD just for the relief of, oh, I'm not the only one who does this. Like, other people do this too. Oh, I'm not a freak. Oh, this is kind of normal for people like us. It's such a weight off of our shoulders even talking about this. I'm feeling like this weight off my shoulders after talking about all the things that I went through as a child.
It's a really common occurrence also for folks with ADHD to remember an adult in our childhood who showed us that we were good at something. There is a librarian at one of my early elementary schools before my parents got frustrated with the public school system and switched me to private school. Mrs. Nishioka, I think I'm pronouncing her. I'm remembering her name correctly. She was our librarian, and on rainy days, she was Japanese. And so on rainy days, if you couldn't be outside because the weather was *bleep*, she would actually set up origami sessions in the library so kids could have a break from class, but, like, not get soaking wet and get sick in the rain, but do something that's a little different.
And I will never forget her in my entire life because folding pieces of paper into weird shapes, it was such a simple thing. But she was one of the few adults at that school who made me feel like I was good at something. And as I'm talking about this, I'm almost wondering if this is why we fall into these, like, hyperfixation hobbies. Because we're fast learners. We pick things up quickly. We can see how less string can be knitted into a sweater really easily. Because our brains make the connections really fast. We can see how a square piece of paper can turn into a crane. And the adults who introduce those things to us and give us that positive feedback, I almost wonder if that's, like, our first addiction is, okay, cool. I'm going to do this craft, and I'm going to do this hobby, and I'm going to get the positive feedback, and it's going to feel really good. And that's how I can sub in for the dopamine I'm not getting in other areas that I don't enjoy spending time in.
So, all my stories aside, there are a couple of things that people with ADHD really need to focus on to make sure that they're tending to the mental health aspects of having ADHD.
We need to get enough sleep. Our brains work very hard throughout the day making all of these random creative connections throughout the day. And for us to really show up as our optimum selves and be able to focus in the way that we focus and to do the things and show up as who we want to be and also manage our stress, we need like honestly eight to 9 hours of sleep a night. It's really hard for us to function and be our best when we're getting less than that.
Another thing is we need to have practices to manage our anxiety.
Now I'm a big fan personally of meditation, tapping, exercise. Exercise is a huge one for me both to help me focus better later in the day and also to relieve anxiety.
I also have to spend a certain amount of time each week with friends who I know are safe with my ADHD who support me and see how I work uniquely.
Now, your needs are going to be different depending on what kind of work that you do. So if you work for yourself, like what I'm talking about could be enough. But if you work with other people, it's also learning how to describe how you operate differently and the things that support you. Being of optimum use to that job in a way that doesn't make you feel like you're broken and having to explain yourself and also gives people very clear instructions how to support you because we can think that we're being very clear about, okay, well this doesn't help me, but this does. Neurotypicals don't see the world the way we do. And oftentimes when we try to explain something, it's kind of like trying to explain the different shades of blue to someone who's colorblind they just don't understand. It's different shades of gray. It's not different shades of blue. What are you talking about? And so finding some very simple ways to communicate how they can best support you, how they can set you up to just be in the blue is going to be really helpful.
When I worked at Equinox, equinox is a gym for those of you who don't know. I was one of the people who like I was really bad at clocking in in the morning. And it's not that hard. It's clocking in. And we did it on our computers. And I was working in a presale office because the club that we were opening was still under construction. So we were literally selling memberships to a club that wasn't even open yet. And I kept getting in trouble because I got to clock in to like a half hour later and corporate was like, why is this girl always late? And I wasn't late. I was on time or early for most of my shifts. However, I would open up my computer because we were given these laptops. I'd open up my computer and I'd load. And then the website that they had me go to, to clock in, it always took like an extra like 4 seconds to load. So in those 4 seconds I'd be like, well let me check my email. And then for my email I'll be like, well let me check Facebook. Oh, well let me do this, oh, let me do that. And then all of a sudden it would be like a half hour later. I'd have made like one and a half sales but I wasn't clocked in yet and I'd get in trouble.
I remember trying to explain to my manager how all that happened and how my brain just jumped there and I really don't have any control over it. And it was before I had realized how I could communicate my needs and my own unique way of opening a computer to my people.
And I remember seeing the like a wide eyed bewilderment on her face of oh my God, is this person nuts? I'm not nuts. My brain just works really fast and makes associations and gets reminded of oh yeah, that's right. Someone posted about something that I think would be really useful to me today. I need to go and check it after going through 17 different tabs of different things already. So it would have been so much more helpful to my manager and my co workers who are trying to support me and trying to figure out how they can help me clock in on time. If I had just said, hey, listen, can we set up a separate computer that only has that the clock in thing? Can we make it a step that as I walk into the office there's just a thing that we go to to clock in that would have been far more kind to them and far more helpful to me. It also would have alleviated a lot of anxiety for everyone.
And I want to point to something that it's often the minority who has to come up with the solution to the problem. And this is not just with ADHD. This is minorities across the experience of humaning. If you're a minority and things are different for you in any way, shape or form, it's often on you to have to
figure out, well, what's the problem? How can I present the problem to other people so they understand that it's a problem? And then also what is a viable solution for everyone involved? And I know this is an extra lift, I know this is extra mental and emotional work. But let me tell you, if we can do some of this work and help people see how they can support us better and understand how we operate differently and how our lived experiences are different, we can start trusting more and more the empathy of other people. We can start trusting them as partners in coming up with solutions for us.
But until we do that initial lift, it's going to be really hard for them to even understand that we need something different. So everything that I'm talking about here is that dark underbelly of ADHD. Now, we don't have to live in just one area. There's still also that side that is the cheerleader that is acknowledging the superpowers that people with ADHD actually do have. It's the magic of our creativity. You do not have to choose one side over the other. Both can coexist. You can exist in both worlds. You can have a *bleep* day and also create something that's magnificent and creative and completely due to your ADHD. You can be late for something and also still have superpowers. Along with that book of all the things that you've screwed up on in the past because of your ADHD, you can also have a book of all the incredible things that you've manifested into the world through the way that you see things differently. This is not a dichotomy of like, good and evil. One is definitively bad and one is definitively good. They really do blend together. It's all gray or all blue, depending on what shade of color you see. And as such, one of the things that I would invite you to do is go to weeniecast.com and send us a voice memo of what your primary superpower is, your primary ADHD superpower is, and what your biggest struggle is. They get to exist together and one does not negate the other. If you are struggling with the dichotomy of the darkness and the light of ADHD, then I invite you to come and get some clarity around your diagnosis at Brave Biz Labs, my free call that I host every week on Friday at 11:00 a.m. Eastern time. The link to register is in the show notes.