Quick bit of 'housekeeping' - this episode includes a free worksheet - https://weeniecast.com/rule-worksheet-click-here
Now that's sorted...
I'm gonna tell you something surprising about ADHD business owners—it's not what you think.
Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach, and welcome to The Weeniecast.
This topic might hit home for you: the rule of thirds, and why being bad at stuff is something we, ADHD business owners, are notoriously terrible at.
And it's a much bigger deal than you might realize.
So stick around, because I'm going to break this down and give you practical advice on how to tackle this head-on, transforming your business along the way.
Let me give you a little teaser of what's in store.
First off, we'll explore why ADHD folks tend to give up at the first sign of failure.
Trust me, it comes from a deeper place than just a lack of patience.
We'll also talk about how our brains are wired to only hyperfocus on things we're naturally interested in, which makes us super talented right off the bat in those areas.
But here's the kicker - when it comes to running a business, there's a mountain of skills you need that you probably don't have that natural inclination for and that can throw you for a loop.
From copywriting to sales to accounting, these aren't exactly your dopamine-packed playgrounds, right?
But don't worry, there's hope.
Takeaways
- What ADHD business owners often struggle with that leads to frustration.
- What is the 'rule of thirds'?
- Why you need to consider hiring help.
- Impact on neurodivergent individuals.
- How to build resilience for personal and business growth with ADHD.
- How to avoid the pitfalls many business owners face.
Your next steps after listening
Want to come and experience a free monthly group session with me one Friday soon?
https://weeniecast.com/brave-biz-labs
Realizing it's time to work with me? Book your free initial strategy call with me - weeniecast.com/strategycall
Or hop straight into my BYOB program -
Get more support in your ADHD entrepreneur life by joining my hyperfocus community! - https://weeniecast.com/hyperfocus
Wanna get this content earlier, and totally unbleeped? Subscribe to the Apple Podcasts premium version of this show - https://weeniecast.com/winners
Want to just buy me a coffee in return for some helpful insight? Thank you! Here's where you can do that - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiethecoach
Mentioned in this episode:
The Hyperfocus group
We'd love it if you'd give us a review
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I'm going to tell you the thing that ADHD business owners are
00:01:01
really bad at, and it's not what
00:01:01
you think. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business
00:01:01
strategist and money mindset coach,
00:01:01
and welcome to the Weeniecast. The
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number one thing that people with
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ADHD are the worst at is not time
00:01:01
management. It's not overwhelm, it's
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not getting distracted. It's being
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bad at stuff. We're really, really
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bad at being bad at stuff. We're so bad
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at being bad at stuff that if we
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try something once and we're not
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perfect at it, we will just give
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it all up. We're also really bad at
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staying on task, but not as bad as
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we are at being bad at things. And
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I want to talk about, like, where
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this comes from and how it fucks
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us up in our business. So this comes
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from the fact that when we're interested
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in something, when we have a new
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hobby or a hyper focus and we have
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to try a new skill, we are miraculously,
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magically, really good at it. And
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it's not miraculous and it's not
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magic. It's the fact that, like,
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we've been interested in this thing
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for a while, so we don't realize
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how much we've been paying attention
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to the methodologies and the good ways to
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do it and the bad ways to do it.
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By the time we've gone out and gotten
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all the products that we need to do this
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hobby, we have subconsciously learned
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so much about it that once we start
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doing it, we're just good at it.
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Our brain has absorbed so much information
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on this topic and synthesized it
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into know how before we even consciously
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even try it. But unfortunately, when
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you start a business, there's a lot
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of stuff that you have to learn how
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to do, and usually none of it is
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stuff that you are naturally inclined
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to want to try. Most business owners
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don't realize how much writing goes
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into running a business. And chances
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are you didn't naturally want to
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be a copywriter before. No thanks.
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You didn't wake up one day and be like,
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oh, my God, you know what would be
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so much fun right now is to go write
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copy for a website. No thanks. Oh,
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my God. You know what would be so
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much fun right now? Is to go write
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a gazillion LinkedIn posts that are
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designed to get someone clients.
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No thanks. Chances are you did not have
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that hyper focus. You were busy building
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wood furniture that no one needed,
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knitting hats that no one wanted,
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and painting watercolors. Of fruit. Those
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were the things that you were really
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interested in. Maybe you were also
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researching World War Two, but nowhere
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in there where you're like, yeah,
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I really want to get good at creating
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content. That's marketing material.
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You also probably didn't think, you know,
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what would be really fun to learn
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and do right now is sales. Like, let
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me just learn how to sell stuff just
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for funsies. You maybe got into a
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role where you're in sales, but it
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probably wasn't your hyper focus
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doing your accounting. I don't know.
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A lot of people were like, receipts.
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I would love to take some receipts
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and put them in an excel spreadsheet. Oh,
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my God. They would just scratch the
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itch I have right now. That'd be
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so great. If you are this person,
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I would like to invite you to come
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hang out with me for a bit because
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I have a whole box full of receipts
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that, you know, I'm not going to input.
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We're just gonna have to play detective
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on me in a few months with my accountant,
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who is not a fan of my process of
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doing my taxes. She's actually very
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against it. So we take someone who's
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naturally really talented at being
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good at something that they're really
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interested in. So the things that
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they have naturally tried for, like,
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one time, they're usually pretty
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good at that one time. So what happens
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is they get that dopamine hit, and they
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get used to that because they're
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not trying stuff that they don't want
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to do, because we don't do that. That
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doesn't do anything for us. If there's
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something that we don't want to do,
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we generally are just really good
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at avoiding it and procrastinating.
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But when you start a business, that's not really
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an option. Unless you're independently
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wealthy and you can hire someone to do all
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of these things for you, you're gonna
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have to learn how to do them yourself
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to begin with. And how this goes is
00:01:01
you're starting a business and you're
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thinking, okay, cool, I need clients,
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so people need to know that I exist.
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Great. So I'm gonna post on LinkedIn.
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You write a post on LinkedIn, and it
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gets crickets and no comments and,
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like, one, like, from your mom. And
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then you feel really. And you're
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like, well, that didn't work. And then
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you give up, right? Because it's not
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something you wanna do anyway. You
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didn't get any dopamine from it,
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and it didn't get you any clients.
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The trifecta of this sucks. I quit. But
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then you're kind of forced into a
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corner because you go off and you
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try a bunch of other stuff that you
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don't want to do anyway, that you
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don't know how to do. And it also
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doesn't work. It also doesn't give
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you that dopamine hit. It also doesn't
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get you a client. It also doesn't
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give you any engagement from your audience.
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And you hold this whole paradigm
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of stuff that you have to do for your
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business up to that one time that
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you tried underwater basket weaving,
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and you were perfect at it from the very
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first start, and you think, oh, my
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God, I just suck at this. There's
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just no way I can do this, because that's
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been the story of our lives. We're
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raised in a world where pass fail
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is the ultimate test. We're raised in
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a world where most of us went to
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a school where the goal was to do perfectly
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on the exam, right? And if you didn't
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do perfectly on the exam, it's not
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like you got to keep taking the exam
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until you learned how to do it really
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well. It was just like, oh, God.
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Well, then you have to do perfectly
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on the next thing and then perfectly
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on the next thing and perfectly on the next
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thing so that you can make up for
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that bad grade. We've been socialized
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to hold ourselves to the standard that
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we have to do perfectly on the first
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try. We all know that saying, like,
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this isn't my first rodeo. That also,
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like, yeah, sure. But that also implies
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that by your second rodeo, you should
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be perfect at riding bowls, which
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I'll just, like, drop a fun fact
00:01:01
about my family. I have family members
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in Idaho who are involved in the
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rodeo scene. It's hard. It's really
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hard to ride a bull. Anyway, I digress.
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So it's not your first rodeo, and
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you're not going to be good by your
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second rodeo because you don't want
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to be in the rodeo. You don't want
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to ride the bull. You don't want
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to write copy for social media or for
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your website or for newsletters or
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for all these other things. You don't
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want to be on camera doing this and
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doing that and doing the other thing.
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You don't want to do sales. So the
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fact that you've never wanted to
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do these things means that your brain
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has never paid attention to how these
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things were done or badly, which
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means your brain has had no synthesis
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time to figure out how you would
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do it. Well, you're starting from square
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one, you're usually, without even
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realizing it, starting from like,
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square seven, it feels bad to you
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because you're usually an overnight
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success at anything that you try
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because you want to be good at it,
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because you've been paying attention
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to how to do it well all along without
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even realizing. And that's why it
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feels gross. That's why it feels
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like such a massive failure. Because we've
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both been indoctrinated into this
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mindset that, like, you have to be
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perfect at it the first time you
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try it. Any school project, any essay,
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any test, like, it has to be good,
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and you have to get the good grade
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immediately. There's no take backs,
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there's no try agains. And if you
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do fail once, you have to do even
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better the next time. Added to our
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whole life experience of being really,
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really good at something that we
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try for the first time, because we
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only try stuff that we're good at
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and we avoid the stuff that we're
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bad at, it feels awful. And when you
00:01:01
put yourself in the position of doing
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something that you're not naturally
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good at, that you haven't been paying
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attention to, that you kind of suck
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at for a really long time, and because
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you have this expectation of yourself
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that you should be good at it, you
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actually put yourself in this massive
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dopamine deficit. It takes a really
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long time to get to the point where
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you're good enough at the thing that
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you get the dopamine hit from doing
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it. And this is why it is so critically
00:01:01
important to hire help and guidance
00:01:01
for the things that you aren't interested
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in doing. Usually by the time someone
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gets on a strategy call with me to learn
00:01:01
about my programs, they're convinced
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that they suck at sales, that they're
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terrible at creating content, that
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they're just garbage at marketing
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in general and a whole bunch of other
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stuff. They started this business.
00:01:01
They tried it once on their own and it
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didn't go well. And maybe they tried
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it a couple more times and it kept
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not going well. For those of us with
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ADHD, we don't realize that's like
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normal. That's normal to try something
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and not be good at it and try it
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again and not be good at it and try
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it a few more times and still not
00:01:01
be good at it. That's generally how,
00:01:01
like neurotypicals, people without
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ADHD do things. We don't have the patience
00:01:01
for it. And this is why when my clients
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work with me, I train them on the
00:01:01
basic skills of these things in a
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way that feels aligned to their business,
00:01:01
their goals, their personality. Because
00:01:01
folks with ADHD don't need a cookie
00:01:01
cutter like one size fits all program
00:01:01
that tells them exactly every single,
00:01:01
exact step that they should do. Just
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like everyone else to have a successful
00:01:01
business. They can actually put that
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together pretty well on their own
00:01:01
with a little bit of guidance. But
00:01:01
they can only do that when they have
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the skillset of marketing, when they
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have the skillset of selling, when
00:01:01
they have the skillset of designing
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offers that people want to buy. That's
00:01:01
why when I work with clients in my
00:01:01
build your own business group programs,
00:01:01
I'm training on those aspects. I'm
00:01:01
not saying this is the exact same
00:01:01
way that you need to do it across
00:01:01
the board. I'm saying, here's the skillset
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now, run with it. Make it your own.
00:01:01
Because once we get good at something,
00:01:01
we can create so many incredible things
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from that one skill. But it's the
00:01:01
business owners who hold themselves
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to the standard that they have to be good
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on it on their own first, that they
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have to show themselves that they
00:01:01
can figure it out. Those are the
00:01:01
ones that actually never make it
00:01:01
off the ground. Because when you
00:01:01
don't have any training in something
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and then you try to figure it out and
00:01:01
you have failure when you've never
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experienced failure like that before,
00:01:01
and then you have to keep doing it
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without understanding what it is
00:01:01
that you need to be doing to be successful,
00:01:01
and you keep failing. For someone
00:01:01
with ADHD, that is just so crushing to
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our self esteem. And add on to that
00:01:01
the fact that you're doing this publicly.
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You're marketing, you're posting,
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you're inviting people to be your client,
00:01:01
and you're getting rejected because you
00:01:01
don't know how to do that in the
00:01:01
right way. Let's activate a little
00:01:01
bit of your rejection sensitivity dysphoria
00:01:01
as well. And it is soul crushing.
00:01:01
And this is why a lot of ADHD businesses
00:01:01
don't make it off the ground, because they
00:01:01
don't hire help, because they don't
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get the right training to give them
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the pieces of the puzzle that'll
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help them make the bigger picture real.
00:01:01
So there are two things that you can
00:01:01
do to get over this. Ooh, what am
00:01:01
I going to say next? Well, you'll
00:01:01
have to keep listening to find out. But
00:01:01
first, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel,
00:01:01
squirrel, squirrel. So there are
00:01:01
two things that you can do to get
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over this. Number one, if you're
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starting a business, you need to
00:01:01
hire help. You need to get trained
00:01:01
on how to do the things that you've
00:01:01
never been interested in doing before because
00:01:01
you're not naturally interested in
00:01:01
it. Your brain is not naturally going
00:01:01
to pay attention to it and absorb
00:01:01
all the things and synthesize it into,
00:01:01
oh, wow. Here's how we do it right?
00:01:01
And by the way, if you need help
00:01:01
with sales or marketing or social
00:01:01
media content or creating an offer,
00:01:01
figuring out your pricing and all
00:01:01
that stuff, that's what I do with
00:01:01
my clients. I invite you, nay, I urge
00:01:01
you, book a generate income strategy
00:01:01
call with me. Because you continuing
00:01:01
to try to figure this out on your own
00:01:01
without any guidance is actually
00:01:01
just being massively unkind and unfair
00:01:01
to yourself. Get help with this, whether
00:01:01
with me or with someone else. And
00:01:01
if you want to book that call, go
00:01:01
to weeniecast.com strategycall. The
00:01:01
second thing you want to do, and
00:01:01
we talked about this back in episode
00:01:01
95, you know, you have to get good at
00:01:01
being bad at stuff and, you know,
00:01:01
we have to build this resilience. We
00:01:01
have to build this thicker skin to
00:01:01
being mad at stuff. And that means
00:01:01
you have to try stuff that you're
00:01:01
going to be bad at if you have no
00:01:01
athletic ability. Go golfing. Golfing's
00:01:01
hard. I can't hit the ball in golf.
00:01:01
I mean, I can't hit the ball at most
00:01:01
places, but I wanted to build a resilience
00:01:01
to being bad at something great.
00:01:01
You know, for a while this summer, I
00:01:01
was playing tennis again. Again?
00:01:01
Like, this is classic ADHD. I'm gonna get
00:01:01
back into tennis. No, you're not.
00:01:01
Liar. No, I'm still convinced I'm
00:01:01
gonna get back into tennis. I've
00:01:01
kept my tennis racket in the car
00:01:01
all summer. That's probably really
00:01:01
bad for the tennis racket now that I
00:01:01
think of it. But I'm not that good
00:01:01
at tennis. I played tennis in high
00:01:01
school and I wasn't good then. Do
00:01:01
things consistently that you can
00:01:01
see in real time that you're not
00:01:01
very good at. Missing the ball on
00:01:01
tennis court where a bunch of people
00:01:01
are watching you. That's a great
00:01:01
immediate feedback loop. If you're
00:01:01
not artistic, try doing some arthem.
00:01:01
Try doing watercolors. Go get a banana
00:01:01
out of your kitchen and try to paint
00:01:01
it or draw it. Be bad at it. Accept
00:01:01
that you're bad at it. Do it again and
00:01:01
again and again and again and then
00:01:01
hold it all up and see if you improve.
00:01:01
Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you
00:01:01
don't improve at all. And we have
00:01:01
to get used to that. We have to understand
00:01:01
that the world doesn't end when we're
00:01:01
not good at something. Our worth
00:01:01
as a human being doesn't go down when
00:01:01
we're not good at something. I wish
00:01:01
I remember which Olympic athlete
00:01:01
said this, because this TikTok showed
00:01:01
up on my for you page so many times this
00:01:01
past summer, and it was, I think,
00:01:01
a gymnast who was sharing that right
00:01:01
before the Olympics, she had the
00:01:01
absolute worst practice, and it was
00:01:01
so bad. She went to her trainer and
00:01:01
was like, I think I should quit.
00:01:01
I don't think I should go to the Olympics.
00:01:01
That was so bad. What if I perform
00:01:01
like that at the Olympics? Her coach trainer
00:01:01
said, no, this is the rule of thirds.
00:01:01
Whenever you're doing something that
00:01:01
really matters to you, where you're
00:01:01
pushing yourself outside of your
00:01:01
comfort zone, where you're really
00:01:01
pushing your ability, where you're
00:01:01
learning and really always going
00:01:01
after that edge, there's always going
00:01:01
to be one third of the time where
00:01:01
you're average. It's fine. It's not
00:01:01
special. It's not terrible. It's
00:01:01
fine. There's no pizzazz in it. You're
00:01:01
just kind of phoning it in, but it's
00:01:01
fine. There's gonna be another third
00:01:01
of the time where you are excellent.
00:01:01
You are inspiring. Like, you make babies
00:01:01
cry. You're so good at this. I mean,
00:01:01
babies cry really easily, so maybe
00:01:01
that's not a good example, but you
00:01:01
know what I mean. You make grouchy
00:01:01
old men cry at the beauty of how good
00:01:01
you're at. And then there's gonna
00:01:01
be one third of the time where you massively
00:01:01
suck and you wanna quit. Her coach
00:01:01
goes on to tell her, if that third
00:01:01
where you suck is too big, if it's
00:01:01
more of, like, a half of the time,
00:01:01
then you need to dial back. You need
00:01:01
to stop pushing yourself too hard.
00:01:01
You need to bring it back to what
00:01:01
you're good at and build some more
00:01:01
skills, like what I do with my clients.
00:01:01
If you're too perfect all the time,
00:01:01
then you're not trying hard enough.
00:01:01
You're not pushing yourself to your
00:01:01
edge. This goes for sales as well.
00:01:01
I tell my clients this all the time,
00:01:01
especially new clients who come to
00:01:01
me, and they're so proud that 100%
00:01:01
of the people that they speak to
00:01:01
about their product and their service
00:01:01
say yes to working with them. They're
00:01:01
shocked when I'm not impressed when
00:01:01
I say, okay, cool. That's a really
00:01:01
bad sign. And what do you mean? They
00:01:01
love me. They give me their money.
00:01:01
It's like, cool, but how much money?
00:01:01
That's a sign that you're not charging
00:01:01
enough. That's a sign that you're
00:01:01
massively undervaluing the service
00:01:01
you provide. That's a sign that you need
00:01:01
to really tackle some money mindset
00:01:01
stuff and charge more, because people
00:01:01
are seeing you as a deal, and you
00:01:01
shouldn't be a deal. You should be
00:01:01
an investment. Only a quarter to
00:01:01
50% of the people you speak to should
00:01:01
say yes to working with you. That
00:01:01
tells you that your pricing strategy
00:01:01
is correct. Any less, you might be charging
00:01:01
too much, and any more, you're charging
00:01:01
too little.