6: Researching ADHD jobs to avoid? Forget that! Start your own business!

 

Forget researching ADHD jobs to avoid. Start your own business!

 

Are you really wanting to get out of your crappy job, but you're crippled by fear?

 

In this episode, I'm going to tell you, the ADHD entrepreneur, how you can shake off that 'Weenie' and get started with your own winning business.

 

So one of the biggest questions that I get from my clients, both ADHD and neurotypical, is how do you start a business when you're still working in a fulltime job? And this is one of the trickiest things that new business owners tackle, because there are so many fears that come up around starting this business, around juggling the two things, and it can really hold you back if you let it.

 

If you let that fear take over, it's going to prevent you from starting your business. And what do we say about not starting our business? Stop being a weenie. Just do it.

 

So let's talk about the fear first.

And we're going to talk about the fear specifically for my ADHD humans, I love you. That's what this is all about.

So when you are still fulltime employed, one of the biggest fears that you have around starting a business is going to be around this being just like all those other hobbies that you had before. All those other hobbies that you got super into for a while, bought all of the equipment, invested all the time, took all the classes, really super nerded out about, and then four months later, completely lost interest in.

 

Now at some point, I'm probably going to, like, do a little video showing everyone my yarn collection because I'm still convinced that I'm going to go back and become an avid knitter. Okay? But my hyper fixation on knitting ended a while ago, and I still have all of the equipment. I have thousands upon thousands of dollars of knitting equipment. In fact, if someone would like to break into my apartment and steal all of my knitting equipment, I'm not opposed to it because I could report that to my renters insurance. So hint, hintwink, wink, people. Come on, let's go.

 

Here's what I want you to remember is when you are full time employed and you're thinking about starting a business and you're concerned and fearful that this is going to be just like all your other hobbies, that's okay. If it is.

 

Do you get four months into starting this business and you realize that you've completely lost interest, that this hyper fixation has art and it is done and you're feeling stale about it, that's okay. You're allowed to complete it.

But what I don't want for you to do is to hold off from starting, because what if in four months, you realize you're even more passionate about this thing than you ever imagined? What if in four years, this side hustle business that you started while you were fulltime employed is now a multiple sixfigure business that allows for you to do the work that you love, helping the people that matter to you and make really good money doing it.

We want to bet on that outcome. It is absolutely okay for you to start a business, get a little bit into it and say, you know what, this just isn't the thing for me because here's what's going to happen in those first four months. You're going to figure out how to do this, all that, knowhow that you've gained from every single hobby that you've started and stopped. It's been valuable in its own way. Knowing how to start a business is no different.

In fact, it's far more valuable because once you start a business once, you can do it again and you can do it again. And you can do it again and you can do it again. One of the amazing outcomes for ADHD entrepreneurs is you can start a business and if you start it the right way instead of just dumping it and taking it as a loss, if you've set it up the correct way, you can actually sell it to someone else and make more money that way. Or you can outsource the doing of it to other people and still have like a 10% involvement but free up the rest of your time to do other things that you're more passionate about at that moment but not give up that income. So I hear you. I hear the fear of, oh no, like, I don't want to start this because I don't stick with things. There's a little bit of trauma that happens when we quit things, right? We get to forgive ourselves for that. Okay? You don't have to carry around this book of evidence that you do not stick with things all the time. It's not serving you. So please just stop being weenie and go do it already. Okay? So that's fear number one is we have this fear. I'm like, well, what if I don't stick with it? I'm going to waste all this time and energy and money and blah blah, blah. Get over yourself, you're fine. And here's the other thing. You're never going to know if you're going to stick with it until you actually sport it. So just go and start it already, okay? And report back.

 

Fear number two that comes up is this fear that your J O B is going to find out and that they're going to be super upset with you for starting a business. Now, it's a really simple tips that I have here are a, you want to go and check your employee handbook. If your employee handbook says that you're not allowed to work at any other business while you're employed, then legally you cannot do this. And I apologize and I hate to get you all riled up with that first thing. And raring to go and then get deflated realizing that legally you can't do this. It's not the end of the line for you, though. If you really want to start a business, my advice would be to quit this job and go to another job where you're allowed to start a business, where you're allowed to do outside work. So if it's not in your employee handbook, what we're going to do is we're going to plan on asking for forgiveness and not permission, okay?

Because there's no rule set in place already by your HR and legal team saying that you can't start a business, and if your manager gets upset that you're doing this on your own time outside of working hours, that's their problem.

And if they want to renegotiate your contract, this may actually be a way for you to negotiate a higher salary if you want to stay here. And let's just acknowledge that getting fired is not necessarily the worst thing that could happen if you're so passionate about starting this business.

There's this amazing thing that's called severance where they pay you several months after you have left a job, and you can live off that while you're getting this business up and running. You can also use that as a seed investment to get the support and help that you need to get this business up and running while you find another job as well.

So getting fired probably won't happen in my opinion, and in my experience with my clients, far more likely that you're going to start this business, start making money, and realize that you cannot stand working at your job anymore.

This has happened to countless clients of mine. One client in particular, Lauren, she started with me in January of 2021, and her goal was to have a full time coaching practice in like, three to five years. This is a long game for her.

She wanted to start a side hustle. She really enjoyed her job.

She was not going to leave. We got to, I think, late February, early March. And I'll never forget this call that we had, this session that we had. She's like, I can't do it. I can't stay in this job. I am so passionate about this work that I'm doing in my own business. I have to go and do that. So what was originally a three to five year plan very quickly became a five month plan to go full time in her business. And I want the same for you. And if you have enough drive to start this, I can pretty safely bet that you're going to have enough drive to see it through to full time. So let's talk about that voice in your head that tells you, well, what if you get fired? What if this, what if that. I love to call those voices the what if monsters. And we know them so well because they come at us in any situation. They come at us in social situations. Oh, you said that joke. Well, what if it offended someone. What if they no longer want to be your friend? Oh, you wore that tshirt. What if people think you're weird for wearing a t shirt that had that design on it.

Oh, well, you've started things in the past, and you haven't finished them. What if people just assume that you're not going to stick with this and don't want to sign up to be your client? What if the what if monsters range from the absolute ridiculous to big, scary fears that we carry around throughout our lives.

You are completely in choice here. You can choose to believe them and answer, oh my God, you're right. Like that's such a scary what if I don't want to go there? So let's just not act. Let's just keep it safe and not risk anything. Or you can tell them to go themselves. Because here's the thing about what if monsters. Their only job is to keep you safe and small. To the what if monsters, you staying small and in your safe little comfort zone where nothing exciting and nothing good ever really happens is their only goal. And while sure you're going to be alive, are you really going to live there? I don't think so. I don't think that's where life happens. I think life happens outside of that comfort zone. So I encourage you to tell them to go screw themselves and go do something else because they're not great at planning your best life. Another fear that can get in people's way is kind of tied to the first one. That fear of shiny object syndrome and following all the squirrels is that you're going to waste time, that you're going to start this. You're going to waste the time because you've wasted time before. And, you know, because we have a very weird relationship with time, you know that time is limited. We're very conscious of that. As people with ADHD time is limited because we always feel like we're running up against the clock. And so there's this fear that, okay, well if I do this and it doesn't work out, it's going to be a massive waste of time. And here's where I'm going to fight you. It's not a waste of time because I guarantee you that you are going to learn something.

You're going to learn something. You're going to learn about yourself. You're going to learn new skills. You're going to meet new people. That has never been a waste of time. So those are the fears that people typically come up with when they're thinking about starting their own business while they're still full time employed. Now let's talk about how time works when you're juggling a 40 plus hour a week job along with a side hustle. Now, I'm going to be talking about how you can manage your time as a fulltime employee and an ADHD printer. But if you want more tips on time management, I want you to go back to episode Two where we talked about how people with ADHD have very particular challenges with their time. And I gave some insight there. For those of you who are fulltime employed and who want to start this business, here are a few things that are going to be really critical to your success.

You're going to have to get really, really good at doing something that's going to feel really weird to you, that's saying no and setting really clear boundaries. Now, if you have been bad at this in the past, which a lot of people with ADHD have been, then it's going to take a little time for the people in your life to learn how to deal with this. So for my full time employed clients, I always advise them to go to their managers, to their coworkers, to anyone who is a direct report to them, and start preemptively asking them if there's anything that they'll need beyond a certain time of the day so that they can start working on it.

The reason for this is after the pandemic, our work times have gotten very fluffy, especially working from home, and people feel very comfortable these days dropping a new project on your desk at 430 and expecting you to just work late with it.

Okay, we cannot do that if we have a side hustle. If we're trying to build a business on the side we need to be able to clock out at 445 so we can start working in our side hustle at 05:00 p.m and so starting to design those conversations so you don't have any nasty surprises 15 minutes before you want to wrap up is going to be very important. Now, if you're afraid that people are going to find out that you have a side hustle and you don't want them to, you do not have to tell them that you have full permission to tell them that you're taking a class or that you are trying to prioritize your health and you want to go for a workout at that time.

You have full permission to set boundaries here. If you cannot set boundaries around your time and your job description, name certain hours that you should be working and the people in your job are not respecting that. Full permission to leave this job, goodbye. This is not the job for you. If you want to start a business and this job is going to get in the way of it, get another job and then start your business.

So repeat after me. If I cannot set boundaries around my time at this job, I have full permission to leave it and find a job where they respect time boundaries. Because here is the thing. You have a business in you. It is going to come out at some point and you are going to need to have consistent time to devote to it.

Okay? So let's talk about managing time around this new fledgling business. That you're doing as a side hustle.

Now the example I like to use here is say you got a part time job at an Applebee's, which is an American restaurant franchise. If you got a part time job there and you are say hosting so you're seeing people as they come in, it would be really weird if you came in on your days that you're not scheduled to help out and chip in and see people.

They would probably get really weirded out by you and fire you because you were not scheduled for those shifts. It could also be seen as you trying to steal money from the company because you're trying to get paid for time that you weren't scheduled. And also like if you're not expecting to be paid and you're just hanging out like that's just bizarre. No, they're not going to want you there. Also, if you do not show up for your shift, if you're a no show, if you just decide, you know what, I just don't feel like going in for my parttime job tonight, I'm just going to go do something else, guess what happens? You get fired.

Now your side hustle has to operate the same way.

This means you are going to set finite hours each week on regular days and regular times where you are going to do work in your business. Okay?

This does not mean that you're going to work every single hour that you have off from your full time job because when we do that, we burn ourselves out. And let me just describe how this usually works for my clients before they start working with me. So they'll have a fulltime job. They clock in around 08:00 a.m.. They clock out at 05:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Every single moment that they then have of downtime, they expect themselves to be productive in their side hustle business. Now this is not realistic because we are humans and not robots. So when you do this to yourself, when you have this expectation that every single moment of your life has to be productive for sope reason, you burn yourself out. You also lose all the mojo that you had for making this business super special. You also can't do the other extreme where you work full time and you get to the end of your day and you're like, wow, I'm just really tired. I'll work on my business next week. It's no big deal. It'll still be there next week. Like, I can get clients next week because what happens six months later? You're like, wow, I haven't made any progress in my business. How weird. This probably isn't going to work out.

And it's like, no silly, you haven't been working in your business. You keep putting it off. So you have to set hours for your side hustle. I personally recommend setting anywhere from eight to 13 hours a week because we don't want you to burn out. But we also need you to show up consistently and have enough time where you can actually do some marketing efforts, talk to potential clients, do some networking, and all that stuff counts in this time.

Okay, so repeat after me. We're going to set hours for our side hustles so we don't burn out and so that we actually work in the business deal.

And here's the big question that I get, is how am I going to know when it's time for me to jump to fulltime? And really, this depends on your circumstances. If you are fortunate enough to have a lot of savings, if you have a trust fund, if you have the privilege of some financial backing, you can go to full time a lot sooner than those who do not have that financial backing. What I always recommend for my clients who are working full time and starting their business as a side hustle is really do not treat this extra income that you're making from your side hustle as extra money. All the money you make in that business should be going into a savings account and building that buffer for you. So that when you are at the point where you have to take this full time because you can't stand working in your job anymore or because you've signed too many clients that you can't handle having a fulltime job anymore, you have something to make this a little less scary for yourself. And of course, this depends on where you live in the world, what your cost of living is, how fancy your lifestyle is, how simple your lifestyle is.

And it's one of the things that I customize with my 101 clients when they work with me. Regardless of how much of a financial buffer you have, going full time in your own business is always going to make you feel like you're about to vomit. It's just a scary thing. And so don't use your feelings of am I going to vomit? As the teller of should I go full time in this or not? Because it's always going to be like, yes, you're about to vomit.

This is really, really scary. And if you hold out until when you're not ready to vomit, then it's never going to happen. Now, a very particular thing that happens for folks with ADHD when they're trying to work full time in one job and they have this side hustle is that our brains are constantly wiring for both, right? They're constantly like, churning out ideas and content and, oh, I need to reach out to that person. And a really, really simple thing you can do because when you're working in your full time job, even if they have given permission and they don't care that you have a side hustle, it's not a good look to be caught at some point for working on your side hustle during working hours, right? So a really simple thing that you can do as a person with ADHD who has a side hustle is whenever you get an idea for something for your side hustle is create literally a separate email address for yourself for that business.

And so any time you have an idea of oh, you need to reach out to Darcy to ask her that question about that thing, you just shoot off a quick email to yourself and it's going to be a reminder for when you are working in your side hustle. You're going to open up that email inbox and you're going to look at all the emails. They're like, oh yeah, that's right, full time me and my job remembered that I needed to reach out to Darcy about that thing for that time.

Okay. Likewise, if you have an idea for content, just shoot off a quick email to yourself in that inbox so that you don't forget it and so that you don't spend the rest of your work day obsessing over not forgetting it. Because we know ourselves, right? You have an idea for a tik tok and you literally cannot focus on anything else until you get it out of you.

You have an idea for an offering and you literally cannot focus on anything else until you put pen to paper and just flush it out. Take 2 seconds.

Write this email to yourself. Give yourself the bare bones of the idea and get it off of your plate for right now. Because while you're fulltime employed you do need to be doing your full time employment stuff while you're in that job.

Likewise, when you're working on your side hustle and you have stress about your fulltime job, I don't want you going and just jumping right back into job work mode when you should be working on your side hustle. It's perfectly okay to send yourself emails during your side hustle time to your job email address so that you know what you need to dive into the first thing tomorrow. What ends up happening for people with ADHD is we're so used to just having so many random things that we have to do floating around our brains and they end up taxing us and make us burn out faster. Your biggest challenge here is actually not any of the fears that your what if monsters are coming up with. Your biggest challenge here is going to be preventing yourself from burning out. And also my email idea, make it your own.

Maybe really like analog journaling. Maybe you carry a journal around for your side hustle and for your job and you take notes of what you need to do there. Whatever I suggest in this podcast, I want you to really take and make your own. Here's the thing about people with ADHD. When people prescribe stuff to us and tell us here's the exact way to do it, we really love following the rules on it and oftentimes the way that they've prescribed it doesn't actually work for us.

So then we start doing it the way that they prescribed it doesn't work for us. We start panicking and thinking, oh my God, I'm even more up than I thought I was. And then it just turns into this vicious stifle until you throw everything out and you've just burned your bridge with this one tip that really could be useful to you if you figured out your own unique, helpful way of doing it.

And two more small tips for my ADHD people.

One, remember, you have a body. You're doing a lot of work if you're working a full time job and you have a side hustle. So make sure that you're eating and drinking enough water.

And two, do not neglect exercise. Exercise has been proven to make us more productive, even though it takes like 30 minutes out of our day to go and get our heart rate up and come back and shower and do all the things.

And actually, I say that and I know that that's longer than 30 minutes because showering takes a whole other amount of time, but that will actually make you better at focusing on the things that you need to do during your day.

And at this point, where you're working full time and you have a side hustle, efficiency is your most important asset. If you can set yourself up to be more efficient, you're going to be far more successful at the end of the day. Have I just described you? Are you really wanting to start your business? But even now you're still crippled by fear and you need a little bit more hand holding than just listening to a podcast? If so, then I invite you to join me in one of my free Brave Biz labs. I host it every Friday at 11:00 a.m. Eastern time, and the link to join and register is in the show notes.

 

© 2022 Katie McManus – Business Strategy (For Weenie ADHD-preneurs)